The cost of children

Wow! I hadn't realised. The Herald has publicised the cost of school fees for 2010-11. Heriot's, Watson's, Mary Erskine, Stew-Mel: all over £9,000. Edinburgh Academy over £11,000.

Are there that many parents in Edinburgh that can afford to send their kids to fee-paying schools?

A lesson to be learned

Above is a graph of the price of shares in Lloyds Bank Group over the last 12 months. As a taxpayer, I am appalled; the original Government stake was valued at over 70 pence per share; if those shares were sold today they would be worth less than 44 pence per share.

Worse. Foolish virgin that I am, I bought Lloyds' shares last October when they had declined to 70 pence. It could only get better, I thought. Doh ...

Of course, they could go up again? But when and by how much?

Betting is a mug's game. (And, this time, guess who is the mug ...)

Bureaucracy - a history lesson

When, in the early 1970s, I first secured a paid job in the wonderful bureaucracy that is the civil service, desktop computers had yet to be invented. If you had a policy thought that needed to be preserved for posterity, it had to be typed manually. This was effected by women located in typing pools. In a building like St Andrew’s House, there was a pool on each floor. A minor official - as I was - had to send the hand-written text to the pool and specify how many copies were required, so that the typist knew how many sheets of carbon paper to use. (Carbon paper was a miraculous substance that conveyed the force of the striking typewriter keys onto a sheet of paper beneath it, albeit increasingly imperfectly, depending upon how many copies were required.) This required accuracy from the typist in transmuting the ill-scribed text into typescript. And it required care in the original drafting; the typists would not be happy if they subsequently had to redo the whole thing, just because there were a few drafting errors.

(I should record that I was not a complete novice at the typing, having typed all my university essays. But the idea that an admnistrator, even a trainee, would do his own typing was far beyond the pale.)

Of course there were occasions when material had to be produced in multiple copies, for example, in servicing committees. In the absence of photocopiers, special arrangements had to be made. The typist had to type what was known as a stencil, whereby the letters would be punched through a special kind of cloth paper; this would be fed through a machine which - essentially - sprayed ink through the holes in the stencil onto normal paper. You could run off multiple copies at a rate of three or four per minute. Again this set a premium on the accuracy of the typist. And due to the chemicals involved it was a smelly business.

The boss class of course had their own typists, called secretaries. Yes, I know they had other duties to do, but their main task in life was to be a typist. (I should know - I married one.) The boss’s secretary was a key member of the division; in an emergency, if you had kept on her right side, she might just be persuaded to type that urgent memo. If you upset her, then you would be told that she had more urgent stuff than your petty considerations. And, as she oversaw the written material going into her boss, she knew who was competent and who was not. Who knew what she told the boss?

There was of course a means of making the priority clear to the typing pool: you could attach a red ‘Immediate’ tag or a (useless) green ‘Urgent’ tag, a rather pointless square inch of paper, which you pinned to the folder in which you sent your manuscript to the pool. That meant it took two days to come back rather than three. In order to ensure a speedier turn around, you had to wheedle the pool supervisor, a task which could be more pleasant or less, depending on the lady concerned.

It amazes me that we ever got anything done on time, given that just about everything had to be inscribed on paper. But somehow we managed, and I rather doubt that we were less efficient than today’s service with all its computers and e-mail. Some day, I’ll tell you about the introduction of photocopiers, and why the annual fisheries statistics were produced four weeks earlier in the 1890s than they are today …

Music of the week

Hey, you know me. Not really interested in nowadays' music, right? But just occasionally you catch something rather cool:

Quote of the day

Told you so. The Guardian reports:

... a third Greek bailout looks like only a matter of time. Get ready for more bitter rows over how the pain should be distributed between holders of Greek bonds and the taxpayers of other eurozone countries. That is no way to encourage companies to invest or consumers to spend – but it is the way to try the patience of German taxpayers.

The second problem is the design of the European financial stability facility – the rescue fund that is to be the first line of defence against speculative attacks. But how would Italy and Spain be defended in practice? The EFSF has been handed powers to intervene but no new cash. A fighting fund would have to be raised by passing the hat round member states – a challenge that looks a tall order today.

Eurozone leaders, one assumes, believed they were buying themselves some space to address this defect. To judge by yesterday's bond prices, they have less time than they thought.

A pedant writes (once again)

I do wish they would get it right.

Here is the BBC:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 0.2% in the second quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics.

And The Telegraph:

So the economists were right – GDP grew just 0.2pc in the second quarter of this year.

And The Guardian:

The UK economy grew by 0.2% in the last quarter.

And The Independent is even worse:

Britain's economy slowed between April and June after new figures today showed the UK grew by 0.2% in the quarter.

What has actually happened is that GDP for the second quarter is 0.2% up on GDP for the first quarter, which is not the same thing at all.

In praise of Stornoway Black Pudding

Wonderful stuff.

Many years ago, I had occasion to visit the Western Isles regularly, on official business, and I developed a taste for it. Freezes beautifully and you can buy it online here.

This is an entirely gratuitous recommendation, for which - alas - I will receive no recompense in either cash or kind. My only consolation is that it really is the food of the gods.

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date"

What? Football? Oh yeah, it's back. The start of the SPL season seems to come around earlier each year. We've yet to reach the end of July but it's already occupying the back pages and the tv schedules.

How the baddies got their come-uppance

Surprising as it may appear to my usual readership, there are those who insist that I am in possession of a twisted mind. That may be the reason I take such pleasure from a story in The Independent about the News International settlement with Mr Gordon Taylor (whose enormous quantum - to use a Murdochism - may or may not have young James in the doo-doo).

The paper's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck ... had called on Mr Taylor inquiring whether he was having an extra-marital affair with his legal adviser Jo Armstrong. He was not.

The mistake arose because Ms Armstrong had left Mr Taylor a message thanking him for the previous day. The sleazy NOTW hacks thought that Ms Armstrong was thanking him for bedding her; she was actually thanking him for speaking at her father's funeral.

And so the filthy minds of those at the News of the Screws not only led them ultimately into a pay-off of over £600,000 but also failed to provide them with a story they could publish in their comic. There's a certain justice in that.

Bucking the market

In case you hadn't noticed, The Independent reports:

So that went well. A month ago tomorrow, President Obama surprised world markets by persuading the International Energy Agency to release some of its oil reserves for only the third time in its 37-year history. The oil price immediately slipped back from about $113 a barrel to about $103.

Job done? Well, not really – we were back to $118 or so yesterday, when the IEA announced it would not extend the initiative, which was initially slated to last a month. If the aim of the US-led release was to bring down oil prices, it was successful for all of a fortnight.

Hey, things could be worse. (But not much worse.) Meanwhile don't expect a reduction in the price of petrol.

Entropy: how things fall apart

You think that you’ve reached a satisfactory conclusion. Then people keep tugging at the loose ends.

Thus the Murdochs after their parliamentary appearance: all questions answered, more or less satisfactorily. Time to move on, they must have thought. Then it emerges that young James - allegedly - did not get one of the answers quite right. Two of those said not to have done something now claim that they had indeed done that something. Then there is the mysterious computer left in the car-park; where exactly are the police going with that?

Similarly, after his parliamentary tour de force, Cameron must have breathed a sigh of relief. Matter dealt with, at least for the couple of months of the parliamentary recess. But new questions keep emerging; he is now under pressure on the issue of Coulson’s security vetting.

Then we have the entirely different issue of the EU’s apparent agreement on what to do about Greece and the wider problems of sovereign debt. A complicated issue and a complicated response. But how long before it starts to unravel (like all the previous agreements on this matter)?

We should not be surprised: entropy is an entirely natural process. Those afflicted with scandal simply need to keep on keeping on, in the hope that eventually we will grow tired of the story and all its ramifications. But in the case of phone-hacking, as in the case of the Eurozone sovereign debt problem, there is a long way to go before the stories get put to bed.

Quote of the day

Norman Tebbit (of all people) writing in The Guardian (of all newspapers) on Cameron's decision to appoint Coulson:

... it was a decent thing to accept Coulson's word – which has not yet been disproved – and to give him what Cameron called a second chance. But, as one of my senior colleagues in the Lords observed: "He's the prime minister, not a bloody probation officer."

The non-denial denial

Clever but sneaky.

Did Cameron discuss the News International bid to acquire BSkyB with News International bosses? Cameron answered that he had never had any “inappropriate conversation” with News International people. This of course leaves open the possibility that he might have had appropriate conversations. And the definition of “inappropriate conversation”? Well, that would have been a conversation which might have influenced the government’s decision on the bid. And as Cameron had ruled himself out of the government’s consideration of the bid, any conversation he did have could be deemed “appropriate”.

Another example. An MP claims that senior figures at Buckingham Palace warned Cameron about the appointment of Coulson. Buck House responds that “On no occasion did any officials from Buckingham Palace raise concerns to Downing Street”. This leaves open the possibility that the warning came from one of the royals themselves (or indeed that the warning came from royal officials based in one of the other royal households).

No smoking gun

Are we any clearer about who knew what and when? Or how it mattered? Probably not. But hey it was gratifying to see the old man and the robot put through their paces, even if the chronology and the lines of responsibility have become hopelessly blurred (which was no doubt the intention on the part of the Murdochs). But no-one can doubt that there was dirty work at the crossroads.

And our MPs didn’t let us down, although only Mr Watson seemed to have a firm grip of what was going on. (Thankfully, we were spared the potential embarrassment of a contribution from Cathy Jamieson.) As for Keith Vaz, one can only marvel at his sheer sleekitness.

Freedland in The Guardian summed it up quite well:

Most dramatists would be happy with a plot that unmasked skulduggery inside the world's most powerful media organisation. That would be plenty. But this one has taken in the Metropolitan police, felling the commissioner and one of his most senior lieutenants, and seems to be getting ever closer to Downing Street. Resignations that, if they had come singly would have dominated the news for a week, have come in clusters, with three of the biggest last weekend. The pace has been dizzying.

And what are we to make of the e-mail from Cameron’s chief of staff and Etonian pal, Ed Llewellyn (yet another Ed in the saga), to Yates of the Yard, in which he said:

"On the other matters that have caught your attention this week, assuming we are thinking of the same thing, I am sure you will understand that we will want to be able to be entirely clear, for your sake and ours, that we have not been in contact with you about this subject.
"So I don't think it would really be appropriate for the PM, or anyone else at No 10, to discuss this issue with you, and would be grateful if it were not raised, please.

Too damn clever for his own good, that lad.

Then we have all these policemen resigning with their intact integrities, even though like modern-day Macavities, they were never quite at the scene of the crimes. I wonder what DI Regan would have made of it.

Today the focus will move on to the House of Commons, where the beleaguered Mr Cameron will attempt to repel boarders once again. But who knows what twists and turns lie in wait?

The big day arrives

The Home Affairs Select Committee meets at 12 noon to interview the policemen, including Sir Paul Stephenson and Mr Yates. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee meets at 2.30 pm to interview the Murdochs and Ms Brooks.

They will no doubt be broadcast live on the parliamentary and news channels.

Music of the week

They don't make them like this any more:

Another domino falls

Nick Robinson at 9.36 am this morning:

Yates, I'm told, has no intention of resigning and would only do so if his judgement is found wanting by the official inquiry led by Judge Leveson (sic).

Nick Robinson at 2.36 pm this afternoon:

John Yates' defiance didn't last long.

He has resigned, I am told, after being informed that he would be suspended pending an inquiry into his relationship with Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World.

Where will it all end?

Here for the beer

All right, I'm a punk. (Tell us something we didn't know - Ed)

No, I'm a brewdog punk, having invested in the company first time round and having now added to my shareholding. (Moi, a capitalist?)

The story is explained in The Scotsman.

There is still time to buy shares, if you are so inclined. Go here, but remember shares can go down as well as up.

Hackgate the movie

No peace. I'm trying to watch the Tour.

Anyway, here is the movie trailer:

Oh dear

I can't keep up. Now Rebekah has been arrested, at noon on Sunday in a London police station.

Does nobody go to church any more?

It's a tough job, being a top copper

To describe it as a £12,000 freebie, while apparently accurate, is a bit over the top. OK, so the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and his wife accepted (as you do) the gift of a 20 night stay at a luxury health resort; that doesn't mean he was corrupt.

And just because the Commissioner's chum, the Wolfman, was also associated with the administration of the resort should not be taken as an indication of anything untoward, even if the latter has now been arrested in connection with the hacking investigation.

It is possible that the Commissioner has perhaps been slightly careless in his choice of dining and drinking companions, but hey it's a high pressure job being the UK's top rozzer and he should be permitted to relax from time to time in company of his own choosing.

I am utterly confident (well almost) that Sir Paul will be able to explain things to everyone's satisfaction and that he will be able to continue running the Met as effectively and efficiently as he has heretofore.

Diary of Larry, the Downing Street cat

A momentous week in No 10. A major crisis. I need to concentrate on forward planning; the task requires serious consideration. I need to establish a strategic plan of campaign.

I’m not helped by the air of panic around the place. The atmosphere in Downing Street has been getting steadily worse over the past fortnight. For example, on Monday I was sitting quietly with the Boss, minding my own business, as we cats are wont to do, when Sam suddenly went off the deep end. She told the Boss that she’d had enough of “that bloody woman”; it was bad enough that being forced to socialise with the bitch had ruined Christmas, but now the Boss’s refusal to dump her was making him a laughing stock. Did he not realise that she was just another social-climbing parvenue? And, as for that little creep, James … Worried that she might start throwing things, I took myself off and found a convenient bolt-hole under Hilts’ desk. He’s usually a laid-back character (bare feet and jeans, unlike the other flunkies) and, surprisingly, he’s been particularly cheerful this week.

A day later, I heard the Boss on the phone: “Look Beks, it’s only temporary. In time, we’ll be able to get back together ... I’m sorry you feel like that about it ... No, it’s not the end of the world … Honest, babes, there’s nothing else I can do … Beks, Beks, try to understand …” The phone call ended abruptly.

I ask you, how is a cat supposed to concentrate with all this foolishness going on? Anyway, to get back to my problem. I’ve got to find a way to get into Osborne’s office and deal with his newly acquired budgie. I’m a conservative cat, after all - it is my role in life to destroy the lower orders.

Media love

Wow! Like anyone else, I knew that Mr Cameron had occasional meetings with press bosses, but this seems excessive. The Independent reports:

The document [produced by No 10] reveals that since May 2011 [I think they mean May 2010] Mr Cameron had 15 private meetings with News International executives and editors.

In addition he attended three parties held by News International in the past 14 months and attended five events organised by the company. In contrast he met executives from Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail, only four times, Guardian Newspapers twice, and The Independent and Standard three times. One of those meetings was with the proprietor of The Independent, Evgeny Lebedev.

After News International, the most meetings took place with the Telegraph group, who met Mr Cameron seven times since May.

This is an obsession. Maybe it explains why government has frequently appeared to blunder along, not thinking things through then u-turning when trouble arose.

It's not the high hurdles

Mmm. Those banking stress tests. So all the banks in Italy, France, Portugal and Ireland, as well as those in Germany, the UK and Belgium, are hunky-dory.

Aye well, I wouldn't bet my shirt on it. But we'll see ...

The wicked witch of Wapping

So farewell flame-haired Rebekah, friend of prime ministers (albeit only one at a time) and daughter presumptive of the Dirty Digger (not quite family though when it came down to brass tacks).

You came far from humble beginnings but perhaps you pushed the envelope a little too far. What the hell, I imagine that we will read about you again.

Their hand in our pocket

Surprise, surprise! As The Independent reports:

Britain's banks have lined up to oppose reforms proposed by the Government's Independent Commission on Banking (ICB).

In submissions to the ICB, the "big four" banks – Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group – raised objections or tried to buy time on the ICB's proposals.

The key bone of contention is the ICB's call for ring-fencing of retail and investment banking to protect economically vital functions from trading and other volatile activities.

Well they would object, wouldn't they. They prefer the present regime, where the government (and the taxpayer) is obliged to step in and bail them out when they get into trouble. Casino banking might not be as much fun if the casino banks had to face the consequences of their gambling.

Aw diddums

Oh Mummy, those MPs were nasty to me. They treated me "like a bit of dirt".

Hey, son, if the cap fits, ...

Let there be light

All is not well in the United States. The debt ceiling approaches, with Congress apparently deadlocked as to how to resolve the issue. Unemployment remains high and the feared double dip remains on the near horizon.

But the House of Representatives remains focused on the important issue of light bulbs. The Guardian reports:

A Republican campaign to defend America against a sweeping assault on personal freedoms – or energy-saving lightbulbs as they are more commonly known – went down in defeat on Tuesday night.

The result is a rejection of one of the great causes of the conservative Tea Party movement: the repeal of a 2007 law promoting environmentally efficient lighting.

And they wonder why there is a darkness across the land ...

Quote of the day

You thought the euro crisis had gone away? Think again. Now Italy is in the firing line. This, from The Telegraph:

"The government ceased to exist months ago," wrote Massimo Giannini in La Repubblica.

"What other country would allow itself the suicidal luxury of offering cynical markets such a spectacle of political disintegration and institutional decay at a time when Europe is destabilized by Greece's sovereign debt and haunted by contagion? We have a band of poltroons dancing under the volcano, and the volcano is about to erupt."

Oh dear ...

Deeper and deeper

For the Murdochs, the case just became even more serious. The Independent reports:

It was also reported today that victims of the 9/11 attacks in New York could also be among those targeted by phone hackers from the News of the World. The Daily Mirror cites an unnamed source claiming that a former police officer, working as a private investigator, was asked by News of the World journalists to retrieve the private phone records of those killed in the attack.

The American people, Congress, media will not be pleased. And if the FBI begins to investigate, then who knows where it might lead ...

Music of the week

OK, so it's not necessarily the most accessible clip that I've played. But, hey, live a little; open yourself to a new experience:

Does Rupert get it?

From The Observer (here):

Rupert Murdoch has thrown his weight behind his beleaguered management team as he prepared to fly to Britain to deal with the crisis engulfing News International (NI). Expressing his "total" support for NI's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, he said: "I'm not throwing innocent people under the bus."

Unless of course those innocent people are the hapless employees of the News of the World, in which case under the bus is precisely where they'll go ...

Deep in the doo-doo

"He’s a real nowhere man
Living in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans
For nobody"

David Cameron. No more glad morning. Not any more.

Forced by political expediency to get rid of his chum, Coulson. And worse, to assign him the black spot. Now worrying about what Coulson will tell the police or worse the media; what has Coulson to lose, after all?

Forced to deny his dining companion, Rebekah. Fun while it lasted, but she’ll never forgive him his betrayal.

Who can he turn to? His cabinet? He’s hung too many out on the line to expect loyalty. Clarke, Hague, Hunt, Fox, Lansley - they don’t owe him anything. Osborne? His eyes are on the succession.

His media pals? Even The Telegraph and The Daily Mail are putting the boot in. And he can no longer expect favours from Murdoch.

He meant to do well. He tried, oh so hard, to be the leader people could respect, even admire.

They say that all political careers end in failure. Cameron is no exception …

We're all in this together (part 23)

In case you missed it, here we go:

British Gas has stunned households across the UK by announcing a rise in gas and electricity prices of 18% and 16%, just eight months after it raised its prices by 7%.

British Gas is part of Centrica. According to its annual accounts for 2010, Centrica made a profit of £1,942 million, up from £856 million in 2009.

Quote of the day

By Simon Carr in The Independent (here):

As Tom Watson said, the chairman of the board, James Murdoch, personally authorised payments to cover up criminal behaviour – possibly committed by the police. So the police kick down his door and try to arrest Murdoch – but he resists and tries a citizen's arrest on the police, for the same thing they were arresting him for. They careen down the road to the Old Bailey, and all end up in the same cells. Hopelessly romantic, I agree.

The tangled web unspun

So ta ta to the News of the Screws. I can't say that the toxic mixture of prurience and dubious morality ever appealed to me.

Some have suggested that this comic simply died of shame. Seems improbable: a sense of shame implies having a conscience, not a feeling with which the NotW is usually associated.

Others have suggested that News International hoped to clear the way for the Murdochs' takeover of BSkyB. If so, it has failed, at least for now - the Government is using the excuse of the multitude of representations to defer the decision until autumn.

Or perhaps the NotW has been sacrificed in order to protect the flame-haired Rebekah, whose continued presence helpfully prevents the searchlight being focused upon the Murdoch family.

Of course, it may simply be a ploy, whereby the NotW will be replaced by the Sun-on-Sunday and everything will settle back to normal.

Maybe a combination of all of these? Watch this space. The story has legs ...

Told you so

It is only a couple of weeks since I suggested that euro-style bail-outs would not be limited to one-offs (or twice-offs in the case of Greece) and that they would become a regular occurrence. Now read this in The Guardian:

Moody's downgraded Portugal's long-term bonds to junk status Ba2 from Baa1, on grounds that the eurozone bailout in May was unlikely to succeed, that Lisbon would not be fit to return to the markets to fund itself by 2013, and would need a second bailout then, that it was unlikely to meet the austerity targets of the current bailout, and that private creditors would be under pressure from eurozone governments to take a "haircut" or substantial losses on their investments.

Moody's analysis replicated for Portugal almost exactly what has happened in Greece over the past six weeks, suggesting that without decisive action from the big European players, of which there is scant sign, the euro's woes were multiplying.

Case proved? Or at least strengthened? (Ireland is likely to be next ...unless the whole shooting match goes up in flames.)

Quote of the day

From Robert Peston's BBC blog:

Rebekah Brooks has confirmed she is not stepping down as chief executive of News International.

In a statement to News International staff she said: "I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened. Not just because I was Editor of the News of the World at the time, but if the accusations are true, the devastating effect on Milly Dowlers family is unforgivable."

She added: "It is almost too horrific to believe that a professional journalist or even a freelance inquiry agent working on behalf of a member of the News of the World staff could behave in this way.

"If the allegations are proved to be true then I can promise the strongest possible action will be taken as this company will not tolerate such disgraceful behaviour.

"I hope that you all realise it is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations."

Does a competent newspaper editor have no idea of what her reporters are up to? Does she not ask about the source of the stories that appear in her newspaper? Is it "inconceivable" that she knew what was going on?

And, anyway, where does the buck stop?

Hypocrisy?

The Guardian reports:

Pressure is growing on News International after the prime minister joined in condemnation of the News of the World over the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

David Cameron said it was a "truly dreadful act" ...

Mmm... Not so dreadful, it would appear, that Mr Cameron would block Rupert Murdoch's bid to gain full control of BSkyB.

Schadenfreude

Sometimes, just occasionally, I feel sorry for journalists.

The Independent has a "best of" feature in which it identifies the 10 (or the 50) best examples of a particular product, such as cameras, fish and chip shops, fountain pens, handbags and so on.

This morning, it has surpassed itself. The topic of this morning's "best of" is - believe it or not - men's washbags. How unexciting can you get?

And some poor sod of a journo has had to trail through the internet selecting appropriate examples. What a glamorous occupation!

Music of the week

Havana, many years ago. I checked into the Ambos Mundos Hotel (yeah, yeah, Hemingway and all that). Dumped my gear in the room and went down to the bar on the ground floor and ordered a mojito. About 7 pm, early for Cuban nightlife. Relaxed for the first time that day and admired the classy decor of the bar and the high windows. A slim, elegant, Cuban beauty - dark hair, dark eyes, honey-coloured skin - was playing the piano, a mixture of jazz and modern classics. I motioned the bartender to provide the lady with a drink, inevitably a mojito. She offered me a shy smile, a smile I will remember until I die.

She was not playing this kind of music, but it nevertheless brings back the memories of Cuba. They say you can never recapture the good times and Cuba will change, and not necessarily for the better. But I will always be grateful for the privilege of visiting a wonderful country which if far from perfect had much to admire, not least the Cuban people.

(Jeez, what a poseur ! - Ed)

What's in a name?

Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene. Doesn't sound right, does it?

Just as well Prince Billy chose a Kate. Queen Senga wouldn't sound right either.

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

Cameron: I despair of this country, sometimes, I really do. People seem to have this misconception that we're trying to divide the country. It seems self-evidently fair that if hardworking mums and dads in the private sector have had their pensions buggered by financial mismanagement, then it's only right to screw the public sector pensions even if they are affordable.

Osborne: Not ours, I hope, Cams.

Cameron: Good Lord, no, Ozzy. We can't go around U-turning on everything . . .

...

Clegg: We've got to stop all this confrontation. I need to explain to the public sector why it's in their interest to die poor. People trust me, so they will listen. I promise.

Cameron: Did the Cleggster speak?

Osborne: I don't think so.

Milidee: We in the Labour party also want to make it clear that we really hate striking trade unionists and anyone who doesn't read the Daily Mail.

Wen Jiabao: You British politicians all look the same to me.

Britain: They do to us, too.