Music of the week

As it's Friday afternoon, and I'm feeling nostalgic, let's go back in time. Sandy Denny and Fairport sing Dylan; 40 years old and still one of the best tracks ever:

The pronunciation problem

Last night, the BBC World Service was sticking with Van Rompoy (to rhyme with toy), whereas this morning BBC2 favoured Van Rompow (to rhyme with cow).

I rather think I would be inclined to Van Rompwee but it's awfully difficult to tell with Flemish names.

What do you mean, does it matter?

Defend our square sausage!

Here is the latest episode in the international battle to maintain the purity and quality of one of our more esoteric food products. I bow to no-one in my admiration for the gourmet attractions of the Lorne sausage, although I confess to a preference for the more humdrum round sliced sausage. And if the Scottish Government in all its majesty sees fit to issue a series of press releases on the matter, well it keeps the boys and girls in what used to be known as the agriculture department in a job.

Nevertheless I do occasionally wonder exactly from whom we are protecting our sausage. As far as I am aware, there are no Bavarian or Andalucian butchers trying to pass off some of their inferior local products as Lorne sausage. Furthermore, even if we won the longed-for Protected Geographical Indication, I rather doubt that this would deliver thriving export markets in Paris or Milan.

But I look forward to a time 20 years hence when people will ask me what the SNP administration of 2007 to 2011 actually achieved. Ah well, I will answer, they saved the Lorne sausage ...

Van Rompuy-Pompuy still the favourite, ...

... not that it means very much at this stage.

As a committed europhile and as someone who, when working in the EU, did his fair share of eating and drinking for the greater European glory, even I would find the EU Council's idea of democracy - ie the leaders have a nice meal behind closed doors in order to select il presidente - laughable, were it not so utterly disgraceful.

Makes me proud to be a blogger

This heart-warming story reveals that there are stll gentlemen in this world:

When Belle de Jour, the famous call girl turned blogger and publishing sensation outed herself as a Bristol-based research scientist last weekend, one man was less surprised than the rest of us.
In an intriguing twist to a story which has already had more than its fair share of them, it emerged today that a British blogger solved the hotly debated mystery of Belle's identity soon after Dr Brooke Magnanti began writing her diary of an escort in 2003 – then resolved to help keep her secret.

Well done Darren!

Gutter politics

All very well to produce a Queen's Speech of 13 measures, few of which can be expected to pass into law in the limited parliamentary time available before the general election. But would it be excessively cynical to suggest that, even in the unlikely event of Labour being returned to government, few of these measures would be resurrected? Instead, the public spending crisis will simply overwhelm care for the elderly, new moves on equality and so on.

Which makes the process simply another election gimmick.

Messing about with boats

What would Lord Nelson have thought? The Royal Navy blots its copybook once again. The Guardian reports:

The crew of a Royal Navy vessel watched a British couple being kidnapped by Somali pirates, but were ordered not to open fire in case they endangered the couple's lives, it emerged last night.
...
A spokesman said: "Significant efforts were made by Royal Navy vessels and international maritime forces to locate the Lynn Rival. Everything possible was done without further endangering the lives of Paul and Rachel Chandler."

Which might have been a little more convincing if the Navy had not conspired to cover up the truth at the time:

An official account of the kidnap released last month said only that a Royal Navy vessel found the empty yacht, without disclosing that its crew saw the action unfolding. The full picture emerged when an anonymous crew member leaked the details to the press.

So the Navy watches a kidnap without doing anything and then fails to tell the whole truth. Heads will roll? I doubt it.

Keeping everyone in suspense

I appreciate that it's a difficult decision but endless discussion will not make it any easier. The Independent reports:

Mr Brown told MPs yesterday that he expected an announcement from President Barack Obama in the next few days about the number of extra US troops being deployed to Afghanistan. But his forecast was played down by a White House spokesman, who said the decision on the the request for 40,000 more troops from General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, was still "weeks and not days" away.
Mr Obama yesterday met members of his war council to discuss the forward strategy in Afghanistan, the eighth such session with the national security team in recent weeks.

Unless he wants to be identified as a dithering procrastinator, now is surely the time to do the business or get off the pot.

It's all pants really

And you thought we were in the midst of a recession. The Guardian reports:

...a new survey from Debenhams ... claims (though not always convincingly) to shed some light on men's underwear-buying habits. While the average 23-year-old allegedly buys up to 31 pairs a year "of all styles, tightness and colours", and even 40-year-olds manage a dozen pairs in as many months, once you reach 44 (I'm 46) Debenhams reckons you give up the habit for life. Not because by then you have bought 284 pairs (based on the survey's figures) and never need to fork out for Y-fronts or tangas ever again, but because a woman is doing it for you.

Wow, 31 pairs a year! Who has the drawer space?*


* No pun intended

They prefer doom and gloom

Is it my imagination or do I detect a note of disappointment on the part of the press with regard to the suspension of the Royal Mail strikes? Here is The Guardian for example:

The postal workers union has called off a third round of strikes due to start tomorrow after reaching an "interim" peace deal with Royal Mail management.
Leaders of the Communication Workers Union agreed unanimously to postpone further action until the new year at least while talks take place, overseen by the arbitration service Acas and the Trades Union Congress.
The Christmas post is now secure, much to the relief of Royal Mail, which doubled annual profits to £321m last year but has been haemorrhaging customers.

Not exactly welcoming, is it?

Open letter

Dear Monsieur Lellouche

It may surprise you to know that many of us Brits, perhaps most of us, know very well that the Tories' stance on Europe is pathetic, that they are doing untold damage to Britain's reputation in the EU and that the decision of their MEPs to abandon their natural allies and throw in their lot with assorted East European nasties will seriously reduce their influence in the European Parliament.

We also know that Cameron's pledge for referendums on future treaties is unlikely to be realised in the foreseeable future (unless he really wants to deprive Iceland and Croatia of the opportunity for EU membership). As for his fantasy of re-patriating the social chapter, even if the other Member States were to agree (which seems improbable), the prospect of working longer hours with fewer holidays is unlikely to appeal to the average British worker.

But M Lellouche, we rather dislike the idea of French politicians telling us so. Cameron may be an idiot but he's our idiot. You have enough idiots of your own without pointing the finger at ours. So, as our American cousins say, butt out!

Be assured of my distinguished sentiments.

Dave

It wiznae my fault, honest ...

Lord Martin (the former Commons Speaker) is obviously unfamiliar with the concept that the boss is responsible for the failures of his underlings. The BBC reports:

Lord Martin told the committee on policing and Parliament he had been "let down" by Serjeant at Arms Jill Pay who failed to require a warrant for the search.
But he said when he asked her to explain her conduct, her boss Malcolm Jack, the Commons Clerk and chief executive, had stepped in and suggested she had been influenced by the police.

Equally unattractive is his propensity to spread blame among his subordinates. As for defending those officials who worked for him, forget it.

Motto - the buck doesn't stop anywhere near my desk.

Quote of the day

Simon Tisdall in The Guardian (here):

In Afghanistan's disreputable 2009 presidential election, everyone's a loser. Hamid Karzai's "victory", achieved by fraud and now by default, has left him a tarnished, diminished figure. The US administration that orchestrated the whole process still lacks the credible partner in Kabul it says is essential for success.
The UN's reputation for probity lies critically wounded in the gutter, a victim of inaction and bitter infighting among officials. Nato's mission looks even more rudderless and ill-defined than before. The cause of the Afghan people, bemused and terrorised by turns, is no further forward and may in truth have been set back.

A right snafu. Where to go from here? Who knows? Obviously not the Americans, nor the UN, nor NATO ...

Does Labour dare?

The point about this new poll, showing Labour in the lead over the SNP in the battle for Holyrood, is that Labour need no longer fear the sudden onset of a Holyrood election. It should not be difficult to bring down a minority government, especially as the Tories, LibDems and Greens all seem to be doing reasonably well.

And the SNP will need to be even more careful with the budget (and with the referendum bill); parliamentary defeats will provide an excuse for the other parties to bring about a general election.

Interesting times ahead!

Resurrection

If all this comes about as planned (which is a fairly big if), then my reading of what is proposed could be seen as the resurrection of the Scottish Trustee Savings Bank, taken over by Lloyds in the 1990s. All those who fought so bitterly to maintain the independence of the Scottish TSB in the 1970s and the 1990s must smile at the twists of financial fate.

Of course, it would not have the community ethos of the old TSB, still less its devotion to the interests of depositors. But older citizens who remember the TSB fondly might still be persuaded to switch allegiance from the cold-hearted, bonus-grabbing, big five commercial banks. Much would depend upon the new owner.

This pre-supposes of course that Richard Branson is kept well out of the picture.

A Spanish Don writes ...

One of the pleasures of living in Spain is that the old world courtesies continue to persist.

Yesterday morning I received a letter addressed to Don David Xxxxx. I have to admit that it was only an electricity bill. I have no doubt that the electricity company is just as rapacious as Scottish Power but how nice to be ripped off with a modicum of style and politesse.

Anyhow, enough of this hedonistic, lotus-eating existence. Tomorrow it's back to the snell feel of the Edinburgh winter. (About damn time, I hear you say,)

Thinking the unthinkable

I'm not unsympathetic; I could probably live with eating less meat. But going totally veggie is a step too far. The Times reports:

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

The new puritans always push their case a little too far. If the message was eat less meat we would nod our heads in sympathy. But never again to savour the delights of a bacon sandwich, or of sausages and mash, or of roast chicken and the trimmings, would lead to a world that was grey and unappetising, a world as much devoid of joy as of pies.

God save us from central bankers and economists

Remember quantitative easing? The Independent gives the game away:

Quantitative easing is very imprecise. Knowing whether or not it is proving successful is tricky: its effectiveness depends on faith as much as pure economic reason. Earlier in the year, for example, it was widely thought that QE's success would be reflected in faster money supply growth. Yet there has been little evidence of any acceleration. If it is working, another explanation has to be found.
For me, there are three possibilities. First, QE works merely by boosting people's expectations. Given that interest rates are more or less at zero, it is important for the Bank to demonstrate that all is not lost on the monetary front: QE seems to fit the bill even if no one understands how it works (central bankers, like God, work in mysterious ways). Its introduction may have helped to lift asset prices, consistent with a new wave of economic optimism.

So we - or rather the Bank of England - are spending billions of pounds on a policy but we and they cannot tell if it is working or how it is supposed to work. Not very comforting ...

Missing a trick?

Remember this story from a couple of days ago? This is the BBC's version:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has published budget proposals for the devolution [to Northern Ireland] of policing and justice.
...
He said he had written to the party leaders outlining the budget, believed to be in the region of £800m-1bn. Mr Brown said he had made arrangements for the cost of dealing with security emergencies in Northern Ireland to be met from Treasury reserves.
There had been concerns at Stormont that future security problems could have swallowed up devolved budgets for services such as education, housing and health.

I rather expected the Scottish press and/or the SNP to jump on this story but no bites so far. Why does it matter to Scotland? The answer is because it drives a coach and horses through the Barnett Formula arrangements. Under the present arrangements, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are supposed to be content with their allocated share of public spending under that formula; there is some minor scope for fiddling about at the margins, but essentially no additional sums will be made available (even for new Forth Bridges).

But now, at a stroke, along comes Big Gordon to say that an extra £8oo million plus is to be made available, presumably on top of Northern Ireland's share allocated through Barnett.

Will Scotland and Wales have their shares boosted to match? (Fat chance.) But the next time the Chancellor of the Exchequer rules out any increase in Scotland's funding, the episode constitutes a convenient precedent for the SNP to quote.

What would Lord Reith have said?

Why do I have the impression that the BBC is enjoying (even revelling in) the controversy it has generated over the Question Time programme tonight? All those hours of newstime devoted to analysing itself, all those interviews with BBC bigwigs and, of course, the prospect of higher than ever ratings for the programme itself.

On the substantive question of whether the BNP should be given airtime on Question Time, I cannot decide one way or another. On the one hand, I favour freedom of speech (provided of course that Mr Griffin keeps himself firmly within the legal requirements to do with hate speech and so on); and perhaps his exposure might acquaint the viewers with the reality of the BNP's policies. On the other hand, there is a strong case to be made for ostracising such a loathsome bunch as the BNP and as far as possible denying them the opportunity to preach their evil doctrines.

But I do wish that the BBC would not take such delight in being yet again the centre of attention.

A silver (well grey-flecked) surfer writes ...

It was Margaret Thatcher who was alleged to have said:

A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.

I qualify for my bus-pass today but I don't feel a failure.

All talk and no action

For how many months have the Government been telling us that they mean to do something about bankers' bonuses? And what, exactly, have they done? Well zip actually - nothing at all.

And today The Times reports:

The Government has backed away in the face of speculation that it will impose a windfall tax on banks to punish them for paying excessive bonuses.

They're all mouth and no trousers.

Quote of the day

Gordon Brown (here):

The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.
Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the "impasse".
He told the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, there was "no plan B".

This from a man who cannot decide upon his favourite biscuit.

I tell you, we're all doomed.

Flogging a dead horse

Down through the ages, from Caesar in Gaul to Westmoreland in Vietnam, it has been the cry of every struggling general: "give me more troops and I'll finish the job". Sometimes it works; mostly it doesn't.

Now Mr Brown has agreed - conditiomally - to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan. Does he really think that 500 extra troops (or 5000 come to that) will make a difference? President Obama is considering a request for 40,000 extra troops (and Brown will look a right eejit if Obama decides against). Would that make a difference? I doubt it. Afghanistan is just not that kind of place. You can make a punitive raid. You can bomb the living daylights out of this or that township. But no-one can build an Afghan nation in the image of a Western democracy. I doubt if we could even maintain a pro-Western dictatorship for any length of time. The less said about President Karzai and his corrupt chums the better.

And Mr Brown's justification? To "protect the streets of Britain". Oh please. Terrorism in the UK, where it does not stem from indigenous sources, is linked to Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

Those conditions. Suppose that the extra troops could not be adequately equipped or that the rest of NATO chooses not to participate (neither of which would come as a surprise). What happens then? Do we just stick with the existing number of troops, even though today's announcement implies that it is not enough? It's a mess.

Oh, and incidentally, reading out the names of dead soldiers in the House of Commons does not earn the Prime Minister any brownie points in my book.

British justice

All very well, but someone should be asking a different question. The Guardian reports:

The law firm at the centre of the an unprecedented attempt by a British oil trading firm to prevent the Guardian reporting parliamentary proceedings is to be reported to the Law Society, it emerged today.

But what about the court that granted the injunction? What was the judge (or judges) thinking of?

Quote of the day

Nick Robinson (here):

Unemployment is rising slower than many economists and, indeed, the government feared.

Oh dear, don't they teach them how to write grmmatical English any more?