Scotland's shame?

Has Iain Macwhirter gone over the top in The Herald? This seems a bit harsh:

Forget Sandi Thom's expenses, the real scandal is how Scotland is now forever branded as home of the world's worst bankers - Scottish Government approved.
These motley fools have largely destroyed Scotland's economy and now our biggest building society. The Dunfermline executives do not deserve to be bailed out and rewarded for this failure.
Every one of them should have had the decency to have resigned by now. They deluded themselves into thinking that if they played the FSA long enough, and enlisted the political support of the Scottish Government, that they would be bailed out like the big retail banks.

I do not know enough to say whether the loans package under earlier consideration would have enabled the Dunfermline to have survived as an independent entity. I checked its accounts and noted that the after-tax profits in recent years were as follows:

2007 £2.0m
2006 £5.1m
2005 £4.4m
2004 £4.7m

How does a building society earning these kind of profits face a loss of £26m for 2008 (and who knows what other horrors hidden in the balance sheets), without taking on massive loan commitments that it would inevitably have serious trouble in servicing?

Even if Mr Macwhirter is perhaps intemperate in his language, I fear that the Nationwide takeover may be the least worst solution.

Drp, drip, drip - why are we being screwed?

When I was a bureaucrat - a minor bureaucrat, but a bureaucrat nonetheless - from time to time I would have to claim expenses from my public sector employer. The process invariably involved my signature to certify that the claim was legitimate, that the expenses claimed for were properly incurred within the rules. I have no reason to believe that the House of Commons operates differently in demanding an element of self-certification.

In this context, what is one to make of the latest expenses scandal to hit the Home Secretary, allegedly one of the most senior officers of state? The Telegraph reports:

Ms Smith apologised and promised to pay back money after admitting she "mistakenly" claimed for the television package while submitting a bill for her internet connection.
The £67 bill was submitted last June as part of Ms Smith's expenses, it was claimed.
...
In a statement, Ms Smith said: "I am sorry that in claiming for my internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it. "As soon as the matter was brought to my attention, I took immediate steps to contact the relevant parliamentary authorities and rectify the situation. "All money claimed for the television package will be paid back in full."

The amounts are trivial. And leave aside the tawdry nature of the movies' subject matter. But it is really not good enough. Did she not check her claim before it was submitted? To say sorry after she's been found out is frankly pathetic. The scandal of MPs' expenses has surely gone on long enough. Heads must roll.

Pressing issues

Yes, I've had one for years:

"Whatever the day holds, travelling, working or simply relaxing, trousers always crumple. The original crease fades and wrinkles appear, particularly behind the knees. The Corby press gently smoothes wrinkled trousers back into shape and refreshes a smart crease. It is appreciated by people who value both their time and appearance."

I like a crease in my pyjamas. Doesn't everyone?

Cri de coeur - obsolescence sucks

It began with vinyl, Well, actually, it began with 78s - for younger readers, in the good old days, records (of different sizes) were played on a turntable at 33 (LPs), 45 (singles) or 78 revolutions per minute. I understand that at a price you can still acquire the requisite players, while vinyl LPs are treasured in certain quarters. But for ordinary punters records are been and gone. And all those LPs cluttering up my bookcase are just that - so much clutter.

Much the same applies to cassette tapes. Have you tried to find a tape player in the shops recently? All those tapes, so lovingly recorded in the 1970s and 1980s, that marked out my life if not in coffee spoons then in memories.

In addition, I have a fine (well, I think so) collection of videotapes. But that fancy flatscreen telly I bought recently does not seem to have a suitable slot for video cassettes. So they sit there on the shelf, loved but unplayed.

How long before my DVDs become redundant? Life moves too fast; I suppose that I am getting old ...

Today New York, tomorrow Brazil

The Prime Minister is investing an awful lot of time and effort into next week's G20 Summit. Let us hope that it brings him (and us) commensurate reward.

But some kind of co-ordinated stimulus seems further away than ever, now that President Obama has jumped the gun while Frau Merkel and M Sarkozy seem firmly opposed. Even the Governor of the Bank of England has deserted the sinking ship.

So what does that leave? Putting the boot into tax havens is long overdue (and, as many of them seem to be British possessions, whose fault is that?); but it is unlikely to be of short-term assistance in the current crisis. Similarly, a new system of global banking regulation would be desirable but it will not be the product of a one day summit of government leaders.

And a few platitudes on avoiding a descent into protectionism would be more convincing if the Doha Round did not languish on the sidelines while the US, the UK, France and Germany are pumping subsidies into their domestic industries as if there were no tomorrow.

But G20 will no doubt be hailed as a great success, as that is the way of these things. Lots of food will be eaten and wine drunk (as international diplomats seem to march upon their stomachs); lots of police overtime will be incurred; and vast quantities of ink will be spilled in reporting all the goings-on. While we petty men walk under the huge legs and peep about.

Quote of the day

Tom Harris MP, writing yesterday on his blog:

SINCE being elected in 2001, I have never, until today, voted against my party on a three-line whip. That is something I’m extremely proud of.

Is that really something of which he should be proud? I appreciate that MPs are elected under a party banner and that they should therefore be expected to follow the party line.

But there is a difference between allegiance to the Labour Party and allegiance to the Labour Government. And I rather doubt if voters expect slavish obedience to either. Perhaps the general lack of respect for MPs is partly attributable to an attitude of 'my government/party right or wrong'.

Is it a virtue for an MP, constantly and unthinkingly, to do what he is told? Is the Government always in the right? Should we not expect our politicians, at least occasionally, to weigh the issues on their merits and exercise an element of independent judgement?

But, now that Mr Harris has popped his cherry, we can welcome him to that small group of widely respected, rebellious backbenchers.

Quote of the day

The Times again:

Yet sitting in the attic is a valuable antique - a family heirloom, inherited from another age - that is worth tens of billions of pounds. It's never used and costs a fortune to maintain. How long before Gordon Brown or Mr Cameron proposes that the Trident nuclear missile replacement should be scrapped?

Not bloody soon enough!

C'est pas grave ...

The Times reports:

"Molière must be turning in his grave,” said le Parisien newspaper, reporting on the latest Sarkozysmes, as his syntactical abuses are called.
Fanny Capel, the head of a campaign group called Sauvez les Lettres (Save Letters), told The Times: “We have un beauf at the head of the state.” Un beauf, or brother-in-law, is shorthand for uneducated and ignorant.
Mr Sarkozy jangles nerves with colloquial tics such as dropping the “ne” between pronoun and verb in negative sentences. “J'écoute mais je tiens pas compte,” he said the other day. (I listen but I don't take notice). He often uses the slangy “ch'ais pas” for “je ne sais pas” and “ch'uis” instead of “je suis”.

Moi, je m'en fiche.

The blind leading the blind

From The Times (here):

Some of the world’s most powerful banking executives will meet Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling tomorrow to discuss how the global financial system can be repaired.
Among those at the meeting at No 10 will be Bill Winters, the co-head of investment banking at JP Morgan Chase, and either Josef Ackermann, the chairman of Deutsche Bank,or his chief operating officer, Hermann-Josef Lamberti.
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will show the bankers detailed drafts of proposals that the Government will present at the G20 meeting in London on April 2.

Banking misdemeanours

I wouldn't get over-excited - it's only Lord Foulkes after all. The Observer reports:

The scandal engulfing the Royal Bank of Scotland reaches new heights today with serious allegations from a senior Labour politician that at least three of its former non-executive directors may have been intimidated and threatened with the sack for asking searching questions about its financial affairs.
The Observer can reveal that a former government minister, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, who has been extensively briefed by former bank insiders, has written to the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, asking it to pursue the claims which, if true, could trigger a criminal investigation.
The intervention by Foulkes, who is also a member of the Scottish parliament and sits on the Commons security and intelligence committee, comes amid fears that the bank will be exposed as the UK's equivalent of Enron - the US trader that collapsed amid systemic fraud.

I rather doubt that the sophisticates of the RBS would openly seek to intimidate or threaten its non-exec directors - or even that they would need to. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind man; and this is not The Sopranos.

Rather worrying, however, that Foulkes remains on the Commons (?) Security and Intelligence Committee.

Those with a taste for Scottish Labour politicians getting into raunchier hot water may wish to direct their attentions here.

Don't they check these things?

From a profile of Hazel Blears by The Independent:

Another popular work inspired by post-war Salford was the song "Dirty Old Town", made famous in the 1980s by the Pogues, though it was written in the 1940s. I thought I'd test her knowledge of Salford cultural references by asking if she knew "that song by Ewan MacColl". Like a true Salford girl, she comes straight out with the opening line: "I met my love by the gas works wall". I dare say she would have sung all three verses, if asked.

Actually, the opening line of the original (MacColl) version was "I met my love by the gasworks croft". So the "true Salford girl" seems more taken with the version by the Irish Pogues.

Petty of me, I know. But it's one of the great anthems of modern folk music which deserves respect.

Quote of the day

Ms Treneman, on excellent form (as ever):

The most surreal moment of Alistair Darling’s session in front of the Commons Treasury Select Committee came when the soft-spoken Labour MP Jim Cousins said: “Chancellor, if you are going to lead us into this Temple of Doom I think the British people will be looking to you to behave a little bit more like Indiana Jones.”
Mr Darling’s mouth opened and then closed. His eyebrows, which have been trimmed but still look like giant black caterpillars, just ones with recent haircuts, shot up. The room tittered.
I tried to imagine Mr Darling, hat askew, shirt open, racing across a rope bridge. Simply not possible. I could only see him as Edinburgh Jones, wearing a suit (trouser legs rolled up), creeping along, each eyebrow fastened to the bridge by bungee jump cables. Behind him crawled an army of aides, with binders.

Do caterpillars have haircuts?

Slopping out

I have no particular wish to see prisoners and ex-prisoners receiving public funds in compensation for slopping out, at least no more than strictly necessary. But I do see some problems with the actions proposed by Westminster and Holyrood in this case. The BBC reports:

A deal has been struck between the UK and Scottish governments which will stop criminals receiving compensation for slopping out.
Thousands of prisoners have made backdated claims that their human rights were breached by being denied proper toilet facilities in jail.
Emergency laws are to be rushed through Westminster and Holyrood to introduce a one-year time bar for such claims.

If human rights legislation means anything at all, then it must apply in relation to those who are - arguably - the least deserving. In this case, the governments concerned appear to be proposing a restriction on the human rights of a certain class of individuals by denying them legal redress. In particular, prisoners and ex-prisoners who might be in a position to seek compensation as a result of having endured slopping out more than a year ago and who have not yet submitted a claim should be banned from doing so. The alleged justification for taking such action is to save public money.

There are three aspects to what is proposed that give rise to concern. The first is the question of retrospection. In effect, the governments appear to be saying to the prisoners concerned that at least one element of the human rights they thought they had under the Scotland Act (and confirmed by the House of Lords) has (magically) disappeared. Is it fair and reasonable to deprive - after the event - individuals of a right they quite legitimately possessed?

Secondly, does rushing bills through Holyrood and Westminster, presumably without allowing adequate time for consultation with the legal and prison authorities as well as with those representing the interests of prisoners and ex-prisoners, constitute a sensible way to proceed? I appreciate that, from the point of view of the governments, there is a certain amount of urgency involved but previous precedents of rushed legislation are not encouraging. And individuals who will be disadvantaged by legislation are surely entitled to be fully consulted in advance about it.

Thirdly, I understand that the proposed legislation will not apply to those prisoners and ex-prisoners who have already made claims (or will have made claims by a certain date). This is essentially unfair - it cannot be right that those who have made claims are allowed to proceed while those that have yet to do so - for whatever reason - may not.

I appreciate that many of my readers will ask "who cares about a bunch of criminals?" And I have some sympathy with such views. But criminals do not relinquish their human status when they commit a crime or enter prison (however much some parts of society may wish it were so). And if the proposed legislation is in due course struck down by British or ECHR courts, then we will all be crying in our beer. Furthermore the fact that equivalent English prisoners are already time-barred is irrelevant, as they never had the open-ended right to seek compensation in the first place.

It's all very difficult. You can go back into the history of the issue but, like it or not, we are where we are. Like Ministers, I do not like the situation into which they have been thrust - but I am far from sure that the magic wand they propose to wave at the problem will make it go away.

Quote of the day

The Prime Minister, at PMQs yesterday:

"Any person who loses their job or is in fear of losing their job is a matter of personal regret for me and the whole Government. I do not regard unemployment as a statistic; I regard it as one person, a second person and a third person who needs our help."

Despite bearing the hallmarks of a pre-prepared statement, does this clumsy ungrammatical locution actually mean anything? Could the Prime Minister not have found a better way to express his sympathy with the unemployed?

Deeper and deeper into the hole

What happened to all that money the government threw at the banks? I don't know and, if the government knows, it's not telling us.

For the moment, set aside Sir Fred's pension arrangements and those AIG bonuses. This has all the makings of an even bigger scandal. Simon Jenkins in The Guardian reports:

It is clear that nobody has any idea what happened to some £100bn of public money pumped into the banking system since last October. It was meant to stop banks going bankrupt and "in the hope" that credit would flow again, without the drastic step of nationalisation. This hope has proved forlorn.
Brown pleaded in January for his rescued bankers to "come clean" with what they had done with the money. They declined to say. It is inconceivable that public money could be spent so casually to any other purpose or entrusted so recklessly to any other profession.
In January the Guardian reported that City experts had concluded that as much as 80% of the £50bn in the October package could have gone offshore. Last week a former Bank of England official, Danny Gabay, queried as "just not sensible" the £10bn of "quantitative easing" initiated by the Bank of England to reflate the economy (out of some £150bn promised). Probably two-thirds of the bonds had been bought by overseas institutions.
The suspicion that money intended to boost the domestic economy had gone abroad was supported by yesterday's startling news from the US Federal Reserve. Its biggest bailout, of the insurance giant AIG, for a staggering $85bn, had also gone to overseas beneficiaries. This behemoth has enraged Barack Obama by allocating $165m of the rescue funds to staff bonuses, including staff in London. This was apart from $11.9bn to France's Société Générale, $11.8bn to Germany's Deutsche Bank, $5bn to the Swiss bank UBS and $8.5bn to Barclays and thus presumably to the Gulf.
In other words, America's hard-earned tax dollars - like Britain's tax pounds - were not going to rescue car-makers, drugstores or mortgage-holders. They were covering exposed positions in a global debt market reckoned to be in excess of $100tn. There is no way such sums can be fully covered. The world debt mountain is not just toxic, it is bankrupt.

In an earlier post on this blog, I wondered if our supposed masters knew what they were doing. The answer is becoming clear.

Don't be a meanie!

£12.29. That's the taxpayer subsidy for every meal that an MSP (or a journo) takes in the parliament's restaurant, at least according to The Sunday Mail (here).

Do I grudge this? Well, some of our MSPs (and all of the journos) are a bit on the porky side. And, what with their expenses and salaries, they could probably afford to pay for a fish supper from their own pockets.

But I'm more or less sure that they work hard, I think ... and it would be churlish to deny them their little perks.

The wood and the trees

What is the point of the SNP Government? If there was ever a programme for government, it seems to be disintegrating.

The abandonment of the forestry leasing plan is probably sensible (particularly as there are other means of securing private sector investment in the forestry industry), but it does raise the question: what is the Salmond administration for? Local income tax is postponed sine die; smaller school classes look undeliverable; ditto those 1000 extra rozzers. There are problems with the already watered-down booze restrictions. Direct elections to health boards have survived for now, but their inherent contradictions are bound to emerge sooner or later. There is of course the credit crunch - which unfortunately exposes the administration's inability to make much of a difference. (Sure, they have powers over infrastructure but, until they get the capital programme in order, it's not going to have an immediate effect.) Which leaves the independence referendum, again unlikely to go anywhere, judging from last week's vote in parliament.

If I were Mr Salmond I might be worried - but then, with the possible exception of the Greens, no other Scottish political party has much of a programme either.

My head hurts

I tried - honest, I tried to get through Alf Young's article in The Herald about Sir Fred's pension. I followed this bit:

It appears the ex-group chief executive of RBS will gain instant access to a very large slice of his pension pot (overall transfer value £16.63m, as of the end of December 2008) without paying one brass penny in tax.
Not only will he receive his pension largely tax-free, it has also become clear that the additional millions pumped into his pension pot last October in return for him retiring early, have been handed over by the bank in ways that simply would not have been available to most pension scheme members without them incurring significant tax charges. Given that RBS is currently loss-making, taxpayers have had to stump up for a deal that was always out of the question for them.

But this was when my eyes glazed over and my brain furred up:

This is a story of earnings caps and annual/lifetime allowances. A saga of FURBS and its post A-day equivalent, EFRBS. My apologies for dragging you into the impenetrable undergrowth of pension tax planning. But if you want to know just how costly this deal might prove for all of us and how absurdly generous it already is to him, that is where you must go to try and quantify the sheer, breathtaking scale of it.

Nevertheless, it is encouraging that at least one journalist is making the effort to understand the extent to which we are being screwed.

What was wrong with the previous version?

No, I will not be rushing out to acquire the new away kit for the Scottish football team. A bit too, dare I say it, English for my taste.

Why am I not surprised?

Now I know why my websaver account with HBOS is now paying a measly 0.16% pa compared with over 5% a few months ago. The Times reports:

Lloyds Banking Group is set to distribute about £80 million in cash bonuses to staff today despite receiving a multibillion-pound bailout funded by British taxpayers.

Music of the week

For Wire fans:

It'll drive you to drink

Have they learned any lessons from the local (!) income tax fiasco? Obviously not. The Scotsman reports:

SERIOUS concerns have been raised in Whitehall over the legality of plans by the Scottish Government to introduce a minimum price for alcohol.
The Scotsman has learned UK ministers have been briefed that the proposal announced by the SNP on Monday breaks European competition laws.

The SNP administration has had long enough to think about their proposals. You might have thought that they had time to run it by their solicitors. And why did the civil servants not stop Ministers from making idiots of themselves?

Passing strange

This evening, ITV viewers in England will be able to watch an attractive live FA cup-tie between Manchester Utd and Fulham (kick-off at 5.15 pm). Unfortunately, the equivalent viewers of STV will be fobbed off with a re-run of an old episode of Inspector Morse.

I do not know why this should be. As far as I am aware, there are no Scottish football matches due to be played at that time this evening, so the question of competition should not arise. I assume that STV wants to keep in with the Scottish football authorities, even although STV is not allowed to show live matches from either the Scottish Cup or the Scottish Leagues. And why would the Scottish footballing authorities object anyway?

There is, however, nothing to stop the football fan from watching the match - free of charge and live - on the ITV website (here). The picture will not be quite as good as if it were on the telly but, if it replicates previous ITV football netcasts, it will certainly be better than Morse.

Oh and the Coventry-Chelsea match can be seen at the same website (kick-off at 12.30 pm).

Excuse for an old joke

It's a bit late for me - my time in my 50s is coming to a close. But The Guardian reports:

Men in their 50s who increase their exercise regime live more than two years longer than couch potatoes of the same age, a new study shows.
Males in their middle years who do a lot of physical activity, equivalent to three hours a week of sport or heavy gardening, can outlive their sedentary peers by 2.3 years and moderate exercisers by just over a year, researchers found.

Anyway, it's not true that exercise prolongs life - it just feels that way.

Honest, officer, it was unintentional

You might want to try this excuse the next time you get stopped for speeding:

Caroline Spelman apologises for error after unintentionally breaching Commons rules.

An apology

I'm sorry. But there are some political developments which utterly defy rational analysis.

Today has seen the announcement that the UK Ministers are to lend £2bn of public money to private firms building schools and other projects under the Private Finance Initiative, as the firms concerned face difficulties in raising finance due to the credit crunch.

In the words of The Kinks, "It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world". And getting worse every day ...

Sensible timidity?

I suppose that it's a bit of a weak answer to strong drink.

Sure, a minimum price per unit might have an impact but that depends upon what the minimum price will be. Meanwhile there will be no blanket ban of off-sales to those of less than 21 years, with decisons devolved to the wisdom (!) of local licensing boards and chief constables. Add in a rather ill-defined ban on cut-price offers and loss leaders, unspecified reductions in displays and marketing in off-licences and further consultations on social responsibility fees "for some retailers".

And this took them all those months? Overall, it's a bit thin, but hey I'll drink to that.

A rather pointless dispute

I would have thought that the government had more important battles to fight. The Observer reports:

Peter Mandelson came out fighting last night in the growing row over the Royal Mail sell-off, slapping down protests from Labour ministers and MPs, and accusing the postal union of dishonest "scare tactics" that could cost workers their pensions and even their jobs.

But Peter does so love to be the centre of attention.

Quote of the day

Larry Elliott in The Guardian (here):

Public fury at Goodwin and the other failed bank chiefs is inevitable, but a diversion from the big issue: that policymakers are rapidly running out of road in their attempts to pull the global economy out of its nosedive. There is little agreement on what marks the difference between a recession and a depression, but the one put forward by Stephen Lewis of Monument Securities is as good as any. A recession is where policy works; a depression is where it doesn't.

You think policy is working? Here or anywhere else? That poiticians or bankers know what they're doing?

Thought not.

Pedantry can be fun

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. At FMQs today, young Mr Gray rather blotted his copybook:

"It was him who defended short selling ..."

and then compounded his error by repeating "it was him" four times.

Is that the kind of education you get nowadays at Watson's?


Update (8.50 am, Friday):

Interesting to note that the Official Report of the parliament's proceedings has corrected Mr Gray's grammar by replacing "it was him" with "it was he" on each occasion it appears.

String him up?

A £650,000 pension every year for the rest of your life may seem a lot, but I suppose that it is not necessarily out of proportion for a man who, while working, earned £1.3 million in basic salary plus £2.7 million as bonus. One might also wonder who it was that approved this pension arrangement.

But, look, we need a villain and Sir Fred fits the bill rather neatly. So where is the nearest lamp-post?

Referendum conundrum

Much talk this morning in the public prints (here in The Scotsman and here in The Times) of three question referendums.

How does that work then? If you have three options, what happens if option A attracts 37% support, option B attracts 33% and option C 30%?

I suppose that you could rank them in logical fashion. If not A, then B or C; if not B, then A or C; if not C then A or B. Alternatively, you could rank them by preference - vote 1, 2 or 3 to each option and the recast the votes of the bottom-scoring option on the basis of second preferences.

But, in terms of identifying the option commanding the whole-hearted support of the people, it all seems rather unsatisfactory ...

Quote of the day

For all our sakes, let us hope that this report in The Independent is an exaggeration:

According to reports from No. 10, the atmosphere is sulphurous. There are a lot of difficult decisions to be taken. For the key civil servants, this means endless, gruelling, stamina-sapping days of hard thinking on little sleep. Even under the calmest PM, that would be a stressful business, and there is nothing calm about Mr Brown. His constant foul temper makes everything much harder than it need be. Junior officials are afraid to speak their minds. Vital stocks of nervous energy are diverted, to the task of hating the boss. Meanwhile the boss micromanages and dithers. Mr Brown lays claim to morality. During the gravest crisis in modern peacetime history, he is running his government in a profoundly immoral fashion. There is a further problem. As the risible 100 per cent mortgage pledge revealed, Mr Brown’s main priorities are not economic. They are electoral. He is determined to exploit the G20 summit in April to enhance his prestige.

The bank bail-out goes on ...

... and will this bout of throwing money at the banks be any more successful than on previous occasions? The Sunday Times reports:

A further £500 billion of taxpayers’ money is to be pumped into the banks through a slew of initiatives to be announced this week.
The Bank of England will launch its so-called “quantitative-easing” plan, in which at least £100 billion will be spent on buying bonds and gilts from Britain’s banks. The final figure could climb much higher, according to economists.
The government will also launch its controversial asset-protection scheme, which is expected to protect at least £400 billion of “toxic” loans with a taxpayers’ guarantee.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister is thinking about banning 100% mortgages. Nothing like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. And, anyway, where could you get a 100% mortgage these days?

The trams

We might as well face it: some things are just not meant to be. The Scotsman reports on the latest controversy to hit the trams:

FAILURE to resolve quickly this latest controversy in Edinburgh's £512 million tram project could break up the construction consortium, send costs spiralling and plunge the city council into a financial crisis.
Out-of-the-blue demands for between £50 million and £80 million from the consortium comprising German giant Bilfinger Berger, Siemens and CAF could hardly have come at a worse time – two days before final arrangements were made to close Princes Street from today. The precise reasons for the demand – and its costing – are unclear. But sources familiar with the situation say that Siemens is furious at the potential delay and could pull out if there is no early resolution.

Would a pull-out be the end of the world? If the tram project never came to fruition, would anyone be really upset? OK, oodles of money have already been spent but why throw good money after bad?

Quote of the day

From The Sunday Independent (here):

"So," said Alice to the Mad Banker, "let me get this right. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which lost £28bn and is kept from bankruptcy by taxpayers' money, will pay staff £1bn in bonuses; people at the organisation that looks after government cash in bailed-out banks will get bonuses; so will staff at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the very people charged with reining in bonus culture; and Merrill Lynch, which lost $27bn (£19bn) last year, will pay $3.6bn in bonuses and make instant millionaires of no fewer than 700 staff?" The Mad Banker puffed out his chest. "Correct," he said. "More tea?"

It's a mad, mad world out there.

Probably just as well ...

Are you a wallflower? Never get invited anywhere? Then look at all those senior Whitehall civil servants with their noses in the trough. The Times reports:

Senior civil servants responsible for contracts worth billions of pounds accepted tickets to Wimbledon, the Chelsea Flower Show and the opera from firms carrying out government work. It is the first time that the scale of hospitality accepted by senior officials has been revealed.
Fujitsu, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers – IT, consulting and auditing firms with contracts across Whitehall – top the hospitality league. The entertainment, sanctioned under Civil Service rules, reveals the close relations between departments and the companies they employ. Defence officials accepted 221 dinners and invitations in a year, many from arms companies and subcontractors.

The full list is here.

There is, however, one Whitehall department that seems to have resisted the blandishments. I refer of course to our own dear Scotland Office. I would like to say that this reflects Scottish prudence; but it seems more likely that no-one bothered to invite them anywhere.

A long-suffering fan writes ...

How long do we have to put up with this? Nobody expects the Scottish rugby team to win a grand slam every year - or even every other year. But is it unreasonable to want the lads to play with a bit of conviction, to put on a show for the long-suffering fans in their expensive Murrayfield seats?

Mr Hadden talks a lot but makes little sense. Players (such as Strokosch) are consigned to the outer darkness (for the match against Wales) and then suddenly recalled (for the match against France); after his own recall against Wales, Hogg is the latest to feel the weight of official opprobrium. Lamont, one of the few to inspire the crowd in recent years, is rejected after one game where he did not shine. Paterson, our best player (arguably) and our best place-kicker (certainly), is left on the bench. Players are played out of position (Dickinson, Hogg, White). And we have a stand-off who has yet to convince anybody that he is international material.

The proven coaches (Robinson and Lineen) seem to have been disappeared off the scene, while the new backs' coach (Townsend) has no coaching experience.

Mr Hadden has been the head bottle-washer for a number of years now. Initially, his reign benefited from comparisons with his predecessor, a mad antipodean with most peculiar ideas of coaching. But, in recent years, Mr Hadden seems to have lost it - whatever it is. He no longer seems to know what his best team is, he seems in thrall to the media pundits and he has lost any capacity to inspire the team he chooses. And the results have been mediocre.

Time for a change?

On not flogging a dead horse

Is the SNP becoming sensible? Local Income Tax might be a proposition for the longer term but, in present circumstances and for all the reasons adduced here and elsewhere, it was a non-starter. So credit to the Scottish administration for abandoning a hopeless cause, at least for the next couple of years.

But I hope that they do not simply throw it in a drawer, with a view to resurrection after the next election. Everyone - from all political quarters - recognises that the present council tax system is far from perfect. On the other hand, LIT needs a lot of work before becoming acceptable.

And Labour need not relax either. Before the next election, they have to come up with some sort of credible proposals for reform of local government finance, involving rather more than fiddling about with council tax bands. The Burt Report might be a good starting point ...

It's a rough old world

The First Minister's night of the sgian dubh is a reminder of the sheer brutality of political life.

It is understandable that, in circumstances of egregious error or malfeasance, a Minister may be obliged to fall on his sword. But that does not appear to be the case for today's three sackings.

Not that we will ever have a full explanation - are they carrying the can for wider difficulties? or not really up to the job? Or is it simply that their faces don't fit? And did they truly deserve such public defenestration?

So, regardless of political allegiances, my sympathies to Ms Fabiani, Ms Watt and Mr Maxwell.

The merry-go-round

Don't cry for Chelsea's Big Phil:

The Brazilian will be paid the remaining 18 months of his contract, totalling about £7.5m ...

Source: here

Bankers wonder why the rest of us are annoyed

Do you feel appeased? The Sunday Telegraph spells it out:

In an attempt to appease ministers, RBS has indicated that no individual banker will receive a bonus with a cash element of more than £25,000 under its plans.
The remainder of the bonuses, to be paid next month, will be in RBS shares, with a large proportion of them deferred or not paid at all if an employee leaves RBS within an agreed period, or if their area of the bank makes significant losses in the following two years.
The bank has decided it will not pay any bonuses to employees who work in loss-making areas of the business. UKFI, which is led by John Kingman, a senior Treasury official, is considering the proposals.
About half of the bank’s “bonus pool” will consist of payments that RBS believes it is contractually obliged to pay. Much of this sum will be paid to employees of ABN Amro, the Dutch banking group for which RBS is now acknowledged to have overpaid at the height of the banking boom. The proposed remaining bonus pool, worth about £500 million, is discretionary.

Procrastination

President Obama decides that the remuneration of bankers helped by the US Government should be capped at $500,000 per year.

President Sarkozy decides that bankers helped by the French Government should not get bonuses.

PM Brown and Chancellor Darling decide to set up a review of bank management, including their remuneration arrangements, which will report sometime ... Which, when you come to think about it, is not really a decision at all.

Mamma mia!

We all have our dirty little secrets, things we know we shouldn't do but nevertheless like to do when no-one else is watching. Some of them are more shameful than others but, provided they do no harm to other people, that is not necessarily a matter for guilt. Me, I have a passion for ... - well, if I told you, it would no longer be a secret.

Anyway, the point is that, if Vladi has a thing for Agnetha and Anni-Frid, that's OK. I quite like them too. And it's less offensive than invading Georgia.

Doing religion

There is no point in getting upset. The man has form, after all. You may find it nauseating in the extreme but, let's face it, God loves him. The Independent reports:

Tony Blair gave an extraordinary speech about the global importance of religion yesterday, telling an audience which included the newly-inaugurated President, Barack Obama, that faith should be restored "to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future."
The former prime minister also said he believed the 21st century would be "poorer in spirit" and "meaner in ambition" if it was not "under the guardianship of faith in God." He had been invited by President Obama to lead the prestigious US National Prayer Breakfast, a spectacular event in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel.
Mr Blair also managed to rain on Gordon Brown's parade, meeting the President before any European leader. He dashed ahead of the Prime Minister and other political heavyweights, including Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Vladimir Putin, to lay on the hands and tell the President: "It is fitting at this extraordinary moment in your country's history that we hear that call to action; and we pray that in acting we do God's work and follow God's will."

Sucking up to US presidents and bleating about God - it's what Blair does.

Quote of the day

President Obama, as reported by the BBC:

But in his TV interviews Mr Obama said he regretted the way he had handled the case.
"I've got to own up to my mistake which is that ultimately it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules," he told NBC news.
"You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes."
"I think I screwed up," he told CNN. "And, you know, I take responsibility for it and we're going to make sure we fix it so it doesn't happen again."

Speedy, unequivocal, personal.

How unlike our own dear leader, who never apologises for anything, whether it's boom and bust or being best-placed to weather the economic storms.

Bait and switch

Are we expected to be satisfied with this outcome? The Sunday Times reports:

PEERS who avoid tax or have criminal convictions - such as Lord Archer and Lord Black - are to be expelled from the House of Lords in the wake of the lords for hire scandal.
The reforms are being drawn up by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, in an attempt to restore the Lords’ battered reputation after last weekend’s revelations in The Sunday Times. He plans to enact the legislation necessary to expel them before the general election, which has to be held by May next year.
Peers who are “non-domiciled” or “non-resident” for tax purposes - there are thought to be at least seven - will lose their seats, as will those who have been convicted of a serious criminal offence.

All very good and not before time, some might say. But what about influence-peddling, the sin which has most recently battered the Lords' reputation? Or the contibutory habit of governments of all stripes of appointing political hacks to the upper house regardless of merit?

The dog that didn't bark

Curious. He's not usually considered as bashful.

Here we have an industrial dispute, with wildcat strikes spreading throughout the country. The Prime Minister has responded, if rather inadequately:

"I understand people's worries about their jobs."

But where is the Secretary of State for Business, the Prince of Darkness, the otherwise ubiquitous headline hogger? What thoughts does he offer on the decision by an Italian oil company to contract with its compatriots to the exclusion of British workers? Perfectly legal, we are told, in line with EU rules. While, justifiably, the Prime Minister is excoriated for his stupidity in promising British jobs for British workers.

And, all the while, Peter keeps his head down. After all, now is not really the time to be preaching the virtues of the European Single Market.

Oh, and we haven't heard much from Employment Minister Purnell* either.



* Who he? Ed

On and on and on

The Times has obviously been doing its homework on the House of Lords. This morning's paper reports upon yet another Labour peer (and a member of our own wee parliament to boot) who is doing absolutely nothing that is against the rules:

A peer and former Labour minister is being paid to “effect introductions” for one of the largest law firms in the world, The Times has learnt.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is paid £36,000 a year as a parliamentary consultant to Eversheds LLP for services that include introducing clients to select committee chairmen in the Lords and Commons. Although the arrangement is disclosed in the register of members’ interests, the disclosure that he is being paid specifically for his Westminster connections will deepen the row over the “cash for amendments” allegations.
The politician, who is also a member of the Scottish Parliament, is one of a handful of peers who has lodged written details of such work with the House of Lords, as their Code of Conduct requires.

There is apparently no end to the list of noble Lords making a bit on the side. And it would presumably be unreasonable to expect Lord George to struggle by on his parliamentary salary and Lords expenses.

Was that all?

Is that it then? The Scottish budget is voted down. I watched it on Holyrood TV.

But nobody seemed terribly fussed. Mr Swinney promised that there would be another budget along in a moment.

It would seem to be fairly serious that the government has failed to secure its budget. But the sky has not fallen in. No sign of a confidence vote. So do things just go on as per usual?

Thus what was meant to be a climactic firework display has become a rather damp squib. No doubt the pundits will explain it all later.

Our noble Friends again

The Baroness Royall, Leader of the House of Lords, is perhaps carried away by her eloquence in a Guardian article:

The House of Lords is an honourable and hard-working place. Peers are honourable and hard-working men and women.

Hard-working? Of the 735 members, the average attendance is 408.

Honourable? (Presumably not intended in the sense that Mark Anthony described Brutus.) No doubt some are, but the accusations made last weekend suggest that there may be others who are letting the side down. Oh look, there is another one outed in The Times today. And then we have the ex-cons, Lords Archer and Watson, who still get to perch upon the red benches from time to time.

But I must not be snarky ...

Quote of the week

By our esteemed and ever truthful First Minister at a Burns Supper last week (from here):

“I'm able ... to announce tonight what I think is something quite special, because I have a letter from Kofi Annan in which he requests, if it would be appropriate, that he could come and deliver a lecture during the Year of Homecoming in tribute to Robert Burns.
“It's an offer which we have been delighted to accept but it's a sign, a symbol, of the power of Robert Burns that the former Secretary-General of the United Nations actually writes to offer a lecture as a contribution to our Year of Homecoming.
“We should accept, and will accept, Kofi Annan's offer with alacrity but it's a tribute not just to Kofi Annan's grace but also to Robert Burns.”

How unfortunate (which is one way of putting it) that The Times reports today:

Alex Salmond was embroiled in an extraordinary diplomatic row yesterday with Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary-General, over claims by the First Minister that Mr Annan will visit Scotland as part of the year of Homecoming to give a lecture on Robert Burns.
The Times was told by Mr Annan's representatives in Britain that he has not made such a promise and that, while he will travel to Scotland this year, it will be to deliver a lecture on the economist Adam Smith at the invitation of Gordon Brown.

Oh dear. Perhaps honest Alex will need to spend some time on the naughty step?

It makes a change from the usual burglaries

Ms Grahame obviously has more faith in Lothian & Borders' finest than I do. The BBC reports:

Nationalist MSP Christine Grahame has asked Lothian and Borders Police to investigate RBS.
The bank, now under nearly 70% ownership by the UK Government, recently revealed it was expected to report a deficit before write-downs of between £7bn and £8bn for 2008.
Ms Grahame, a South of Scotland MSP, argued the state of the bank's finances should have known at the time it made a £12bn rights issue last April.

Somewhere in the depths of its Fettes HQ, some poor Mr Plod is studying all the paperwork associated with the rights issue. Never mind that this paperwork is routinely crawled over by batteries of expensive lawyers in order to ensure that it complies with stock exchange rules - we are talking £12 billion here. And, OK, this rights issue stuff can be complicated - we are talking massive volumes of paper. Admittedly, the experts in the form of the FSA have a rather doubtful record in terms of brining anyone to book for financial misdemeanours. And, even though the local rozzers are less than experienced in matters of high finance, Ms Grahame must think that they can get a result.

Still, there should some overtime in it.

Our noble Friends

It is not against the rules for members of the House of Lords to accept remuneration for the provision of consultancy/advice to domestic or foreign businessmen - although perhaps it should be.

Nor do I see an allegation that any of the four alleged miscreants offered to table a legislative amendment (as opposed to arranging for an amendment to be tabled). A fine distinction, perhaps, but nevertheless.

Thirdly, none of the discussions appears to have progressed beyond preliminary assessments of what might be possible. No agreements were finalised, no money appears to have changed hands and there is presumably nothing in writing.

That being so, and disappointing as it may be to those of us who care about the morality (or lack of it) in the Mother of Parliaments, I fail to detect a smoking gun. And I can't see that the various promised investigations will lead anywhere.

Tennis

Big Andy is about to start his second round match. If you can't access BBC2, this is a second best.

Quote of the day

From a serious commentator in, of all things, The Daily Telegraph (here):

On the first, as a free-marketeer what I am about to say pains me. But there had best be a full nationalisation of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds/TSB/HBOS. The former is regarded by the market as broken and we own 70 per cent of it, anyway. The latter is in nearly as much trouble. Let us stop pretending they operate as independent institutions.

Who'd a thunk? And where next?

You youngsters will find this hard to believe but banking was once a respectable profession

I do wish that The Guardian would desist from posing questions to which it clearly does not know the answer:

What happens if bank share prices keep falling?
The authorities will be concerned that confidence in the banking system has been eroded and that savers will be spooked enough to start withdrawing their deposits. This was one of the anxieties in relation to HBOS in September when a rescue takeover by Lloyds TSB was orchestrated by Gordon Brown, and Bradford & Bingley which was rescued at the end of September. This time, savers should have less to worry about as the government has moved to guarantee deposits of less than £50,000 and the banks are insisting they are not seeing outflows of funds.

And your point is?

Never mind, we may be about to find out exactly what happens if bank share prices continue to fall ...

Depressing fact of the day

From The Times (here):

RBS, worth £75 billion only two years ago, is now valued at £4.5 billion, even though it received £32 billion from taxpayers and shareholders less than three months ago.

Casino capitalism rules ...

Will we get a BOGOF?

I see that RBS has appointed a grocer as its new chairman. I suppose he can't be any worse than a banker ...

The green shoots didn't last very long

Do you think they know what they're doing? The Times reports:

A package of radical measures to get British banks lending more is due to be hammered out at the weekend in an attempt to prevent the recession souring into an even more serious downturn.
Amid a growing sense of urgency, ministers are working on proposals paving the way for fresh capital injections into banks, for relaxation of rules on balance-sheet strength and for government guarantees of toxic assets on bank balance sheets.
Treasury and Bank of England officials are bracing themselves for a hectic weekend as Alistair Darling tries to finalise measures in time for an announcement early next week.
The latest push came as bank shares slumped to lows not seen since the 1980s and as a warning was given by Capital Economics that UK banks would be forced to cut lending to householders and businesses by £400 billion in the next few years unless action was taken.

No, nor do I. Just flailing about - because being seen to do something, anything, is better than not.

Yes I remember Suzi Kettles ...

... and, if Emma Thompson is opposed to another runway at Heathrow, that's good enough for me.

Get some culture down you

You have 15 days left to pop in to the RSA Turner Exhibition. The RSA is the building at the foot of the Mound.

And, yes, it's free.

Seems a bit sneaky ...

... even actually downright immoral. What have they got to hide? The Guardian website reports:

You could not make this up. On the day the nation was convulsed by the row over the building of the third runway at Heathrow, the government slipped into parliament one of the most self-serving pieces of legislation in modern times.
Harriet Harman, the leader of the house, got Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to table a parliamentary order that will exempt all MPs and peers from having to release detailed expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.
The order, which will come into force 24 hours after being debated next week in parliament, will stop in its tracks all the victories won by campaigners and journalists to bring full transparency to individual MPs' expenditure on travel, equipping their second or constituency homes, staffing, office details and individual travel receipts by air, rail and car.

And thus another glorious chapter is written in the history of the willingness of our elected representatives to play fast and loose when it comes to their expenses.

A world of his own

I never gave much credence to the proposition that the Prime Minister was subject to "psychological flaws" (at least no more than any other politician). But I have to admit that there is something weird about his first substantive answer at yesterday's PMQs:

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been a great supporter of business in her constituency. This is real help for business now. It is targeted and focused, it is funded and it is additional to what has been done before. It is real help to small businesses that are looking for help with their overdrafts or looking to invest in the future. It is real help for businesses that are looking for working capital over the next year, and will increase the supply of that by £10 billion. It is real help for high-technology firms that want their debt replaced by equity. We will buy shares in those companies, and there will be real help with credit insurance. This is real help now, to deal with specific problems—real help that is funded by Government.

Source: here

At that stage, no-one had suggested that the proposed business support package did not constitute "real help". So why did the PM need to re-emphasise the real help point by mentioning it seven times? And the question - a soft one from an MP on his own side - looked to have been "planted".

Bizarre.

Oscars - who cares

So farewell, Claude Berri.

You were the director of two of the greatest ever films - Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources.

The stars were great - of course. Gerard Depardieu, Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil. But I loved the bit players - the local mayor, the priest, the old lady who told Yves Montand the truth about his son. The language, the countryside, Manon and her goats, the flowers, unblocking the spring.

Adieu, maitre.

Shome mistake surely?

I see that the government has appointed Mervyn Davies as a minister in the Business Department.

I remember when he played for Wales. One of the greatest ever No 8s.

How to be a pedant

You know that Tory baby who owes £17,000. I would suggest that the Tories are over-egging the pudding.

If you assume that the UK population amounts to 60 million souls, then the overall UK capital debt would amount to £1.020 trillion (£17,000 x 60 million).

But according to the National Statistics Office, the most recent figure for net overall UK debt amounts to only £563 billion (as at September 2008) or rather less than £10,000 per head. To be fair, this excludes the recent interventions in the financial services industry but these are likely to be repaid (possibly with a profit) before Tory baby gets much older.

Furthermore, as public debt is less than 50% of annual GDP, perhaps the position is not so disastrous. If your mortgage debt (plus what you're carrying on your credit card) was less than half your annual income, you wouldn't regard it as a problem, would you? Especially at today's rates of interest.

I'm not getting paid for this - honest

As someone who disapproves of Rupert Murdoch, I have taken the regrettable step of signing up to the Sky Player. This means that, for the princely sum of £34 per month, I can watch live on my computer Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Xtra. In a time when we are all pulling in our financial horns, you may well consider this an extravagance - and I would not disagree. But hey - I can probably afford it.

I reside in a flat in central Edinburgh whose protected status disinclines me to favour the erection of a Sky dish (even although I keep reading about how planning rules are soon to be relaxed). Like other residents, however, I have no particular wish to see my urban landscape disfigured. Accordingly, securing the programmes in which I am interested via computer broadband is a welcome prospect. (Cable is a non-starter as they have yet to find a way of getting it into the building without pulling the place apart - which would definitely upset the New Town conservationists.)

The sign-up procedure is relatively straightforward. The picture on the screen is reasonably good - at least comparable with the BBC i-player - though much depends upon the quality of your local broadband.

Yesterday, I watched the Hibs-Hearts match (yeugghh) and the Man U-Chelsea match (splendid), as well as on Saturday the Northampton-Leicester rugby match. I look forward to the Ashes series and the Lions tour.

My only concern is where I will find the time for all this viewing.

Maybe Yvette has a point ...

Oh puh-lease! Would you really trust this Scottish government (or the previous one) to behave responsibly if they were given borrowing powers? Is £33 billion a year not enough for them? Can you not see the temptations which would lie in wait for Scottish Ministers? Mr Swinney seems a fairly sensible chap but, once Mr Salmon gets his pudgy hands on the Scottish Government credit card, we are bound to end up in queer street. And I don't think Messrs McConnell and Gray (or indeed Ms Alexander) would be any more trustworthy.

And yes, I know that local councils have power to borrow but their capital expenditure is strictly controlled (ironically by the Scottish Government). Even from Mr Salmond's point of view, there would be no advantage in having borrowing powers if they are strictly controlled on the capital expenditure side.

See bankers ...

Is that it then? Nobody gets the blame. Nobody wants to find out why. The Observer reports:

Lloyds TSB has agreed to pay $350m (£230m) to the US authorities in connection with charges that it faked records so clients from Iran, Sudan and Libya could do business with the US banking system. The settlement is embarrassing for Lloyds, which is taking over HBOS as part of last year's government-inspired rescue of British banks that have been hammered by the credit crunch.
Lloyds' actions violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the US president to block commerce with countries deemed a threat to the United States.
"Lloyds' criminal conduct was designed to assist its clients in avoiding detection by filters employed by US banks because of United States economic sanctions against Libya, Sudan and Iran," according to documents filed in the case.
The UK bank said: "[We] have undertaken significant steps to further enhance our compliance programmes. We are committed to running our business with the highest levels of integrity."

It's just 'embarrassing'? As for 'the highest levels of integrity', would Lloyds TSB know what morality was if it was slapped in the eye with a £230m fine (as it has just been)?

And don't get me started about the sheer stupidity ...

Labour Ministers do not understand working class pastimes

Something of a misunderstanding here. Regular darts players don't do maths; they do memory. But The Times reports:

For years debate has raged over whether darts is really a sport. But there is no doubt in the Government’s mind that it is, at least, a branch of applied mathematics.
...
Darts players may be better known for their waistlines and drinking habits than their maths skills. No one, however, can reach the top echelons of the game without being able to work out — as they prepare to throw — that with 73 points on the chalkboard a treble 19 and a double eight will see them home.
“You can’t play darts without maths,” Sion Simon, the Minister for Further Education, told The Times. “We’re using the example of darts where mathematical competence is really important to success and hopefully inspire adults who don’t have the maths skills.”

Darts players do not 'work out' what they need to complete the game. They know - from long experience - exactly what is needed to end with a double for any particular score.

The view of the borrower

Sean O'Grady in The Independent (here):

Whatever their past hesitations, Mervyn King and Gordon Brown are turning into proper little action men in their bustling encouragements to get us to go out and spend. The last thing on their minds should be the fate of savers, as David Cameron eccentrically suggests, or sterling, which has already seen one of the sharpest depreciations in its history. For we will never achieve an economic recovery without an extraordinary boost from exports.

Aye well. Alright for him as a borrower to say. Those of us who rely on income from savings may be less sanguine. And what is it, anyway, that we manufacture that we can sell as exports? Even if those abroad had the finance to buy?

Just a gigolo

Why sex doesn't pay. Especially when Scottish Ministers act as pimps.

Quote of the day

From The Scotsman (here):

TOM Cruise says Scientology helped him beat dyslexia. The actor was "labelled" with the learning disability aged seven, he said, and wondered if he was "an idiot".

Wonder no more, Tom.

Another fine mess ...

Financing the new Forth road crossing? It's a bit of a mystery.

Why would Scottish Ministers write to the Treasury, asking the latter to do them a favour (by allowing the Scottish administration to draw on future financial allocations in order to finance the new bridge)? Did they not anticipate that UK Ministers would take a certain amount of pleasure in pointing out the unprecedented nature of such a request and giving it the old heave-ho?

Furthermore, is this not the kind of case where Scottish officials make quiet contact with their Treasury counterparts in advance of any Ministerial approach in order to see how the land lies? Or were Scottish Ministers so desperate to avoid a whacking great hole in their transport announcement that they jumped the gun regardless?

Ideally, the financing should have been sorted out before the announcement. The prospect of bouncing the Treasury into agreement was never going to be realised.

Now we have a mess. Either all sorts of other capital investment is postponed or the SNP swallows its pride over PPP.

That old-time religion

Unlike smoking, drinking and eating too much - which are bad for you - our government apparently believes that gambling should be encouraged.

Where's your moral compass now, Gordon?

Music of the week

The Roseburn Incident

Terribly convenient, don't you think? That of all the people in the world, it should be Joan Burnie of The Daily Record who comes across the secret plans of Holyrood Palace. Just lying around near a footpath, apparently. And Joan's dog picked them up, allegedly. What a clever little doggie, to pick up the important papers, while (presumably) ignoring all the unimportant papers which lie around near Edinburgh footpaths.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Oh Tommy, that it should have come to this. Down on Celebrity Big Brother with the fading pop stars and the topless models.

The Telegraph says that Ulrika is getting £175,000; I don't suppose that you will be getting as much. But no doubt every penny will be needed for the impending court case.

Reasons to be cheerful

Look on the bright side - holiday makers in euroland no longer face complicated sums when trying to work out how much they are paying for their gluhwein. Just replace the euro sign with a pound sign and there you are. That will be close enough ...

You know

Perhaps Caroline Kennedy, y'know, was once a footballer?

Kicking a man when he's down

I am not usually to be found in a position of cheerleader for Fred the Shred but this seems excessively harsh on the part of Will Hutton in The Observer:

Could there be a greater corporate disaster in British history than the humbling of the Royal Bank of Scotland? Without £20bn of taxpayer support, the bank, with assets of £1.7 trillion, more than Britain's GDP, would now be bankrupt. Its mutation from bank to de facto giant hedge fund, cheerleader for casino capitalism with a portfolio of £500bn in derivatives and £100bn of takeovers in its wake, perfectly sums up our times.
The financial wreckage it has induced explains why the wider economy is in such trouble. There were many other asinine banks, but RBS was leader of the pack. News that it had lent the hedge funds of the now disgraced American fraudster Bernie Madoff £400m with insufficient due diligence was symptomatic of the failure of every aspect of RBS's corporate strategy.
Sir Fred Goodwin, the now deposed CEO, and his team should be asked hard questions by both shareholders and the police. So should the outgoing management at sister Scottish bank HBOS, whose incompetence rivals Goodwin's. The former RBS chief has rightly been dubbed the world's worst banker by Slate magazine's Daniel Gross.

Blaming RBS for failure to perform due diligence on Madoff's ponzi scheme is perhaps unfair, as RBS inherited involvement with Madoff when it acquired ABN Amro (see here). It is the latter which failed to undertake the due diligence test.

(You may nevertheless wish to blame Sir Fred for the (arguably much greater) sin of proceeding - at the top of the market - with the acquisition of ABN Amro. But that is a different argument.)

Quote of the day

Pesto from last night's Panorama on the banking crisis:

"We've got into this mess because we had too little saving, too few people saving enough. And now we're punishing those savers by cutting interest rates.
There is a lot of unfairness in a way about the measures that are being taken to get us out of this mess. A lot of people who behaved more prudently are being penalised to bail out the feckless."

The programme is worth a look if you missed it. You can catch it here.

Pirates of the Gulf of Aden

It's going to make a great movie. The Times reports:

The pirates abandoned their attempt to take the ship when a multilateral force, including a warship and two helicopters, arrived after the crew locked themselves in their cabins and radioed for help.
"Seven of the nine pirates landed on our ship, all with weapons," Peng Weiyuan, the captain of Zhenhua 4, said in a telephone interview with China Central Television.
"Our crew, who had been well trained and prepared, used water cannon, self-made incendiary bombs, beer bottles and anything else that could be used to battle with them. Thirty minutes later, the pirates gestured to us for a ceasefire.
"Then the helicopter from the joint fleet came to help us."

Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, I suggest.

The watchdog that didn't bite ...

... nor even bark a little. The BBC reports:

The SEC chairman said he was "gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures" of SEC staff to look into claims about Mr Madoff.
Mr Cox said: "Credible and specific allegations regarding Mr Madoff's financial wrongdoing, going back to at least 1999, were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff, but were never recommended to the commission for action."

Quote of the day

Isn't it amazing how the noble Lord Mandelson can put forward (in the same paragraph) two utterly irreconcilable propositions?

'We will fulfil our manifesto commitment to,

“a publicly owned Royal Mail fully restored to good health, providing customers with an excellent service and its employees with rewarding employment”.

Bringing in a partner through a minority stake in the Royal Mail’s postal business will help us to deliver that goal.'

Source: here

Sadism

Is there not some kind of law against torturing fish? The Scotsman reports:

SCIENTISTS are to test whether sharks enjoy listening to Christmas pop songs, it was revealed yesterday.
They will also find out whether the fish prefer Slade's Merry Christmas Everyone to Cliff Richard's Mistletoe and Wine.The songs and other festive hits will be played to the sharks and rays at Loch Lomond Sea Life Centre in Balloch, Dunbartonshire.
The tests were devised after US research showed fish could recognise melody. Chris Brown, senior marine biologist at the Loch Lomond aquarium, said seasonal chartbusters would be piped through walkthrough underwater tunnels where they can be heard by dozens of nurse sharks, black-tip reef sharks, and ray species.

Stamps

I know I'm a bit on the late side but today I finally got round to doing my Christmas cards. I was less than impressed by the Christmas stamps. I'm not that fussed about the lack of a religious motif but it would have been pleasant to see something traditional - trees or snow or reindeer, perhaps even Santa. Two middle-aged men dressed as women does not really appeal:

Disgraceful

No, I do not approve. How dare they take the work of the master and prostitute it in such a way. The Times reports:

And the X Factor winner is . . . Leonard Cohen. The mordant songwriter is set for a £1 million windfall after his classic song Hallelujah was chosen as the debut single by tonight’s winner.
The biblical epic, composed in 1984, has survived more than a hundred interpretations from artists including Bob Dylan, k. d. lang and Rufus Wainwright.
The ITV1 show’s three finalists have each recorded their own version of the song, which is expected to become the Christmas No 1, selling one million CDs and downloads.

Here is a version from The Man himself:

Recommended

If you have the time (and if you missed it on Channel 4), you might want to have a look at Professor Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money. You can catch it here.

OK, it is guilty of over-simplification and I confess that it veers a bit too far to the right for my political taste, but nevertheless it is so seldom that we see intelligent television that it is to be welcomed.

A special kind of hypocrisy?

Is this what was meant by an ethical foreign policy?

A plane deporting 49 rejected asylum seekers was forced to return to Britain when it was refused permission to land in Kurdistan.
Two passengers on the charter flight from Stansted had been removed before take-off after wounding themselves in their seats, the Guardian has learned.
The drama comes after reports that a 19-year-old deported to Kurdistan on November 27 killed himself soon after landing.

Or this:

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has warned the cabinet of a possible mass influx of Zimbabweans to the UK amid the country's cholera outbreak.
She said some people were obtaining fake passports from neighbouring countries where, unlike Zimbabwe, citizens do not need UK entry visas.

Or this:

Britain is refusing to take part in a proposed European armed intervention in eastern Congo despite a growing clamour for an EU force to help avoid a bigger humanitarian disaster.
At a summit of European leaders in Brussels last night, foreign ministers from the 27 countries discussed proposals to dispatch a force of up to 1,500 to North Kivu in eastern Congo.

But never mind. Our world-saving Prime Minister is still permitted to offer this kind of self-serving crap:

"Freedom, if it means anything, means the supremacy of human rights everywhere and we must not waver in our support for those across the world whose human rights are threatened or denied," Brown said in his speech.
Addressing the oppressed, including the "women and girls of Kivu", the prime minister said: "The world will not abandon you. We must not, and will not, turn our backs and walk away."

Pass me the sick-bag.

Quote of the day

Gordon Brown on the EU summit (here):

"Europe has agreed unanimously and in a united way to take coordinated action that is substantial. That means that Europe and America will be working together to create jobs and growth."

Except that

However, it is understood that individual countries will be able to opt out of measures, such as specific tax cuts, that they don't agree with.

Not quite so united then? And, if opt-outs are permitted, is unanimous agreement worth anything at all?

Christmas presents for the taxpayer

Not only do we, the taxpayers, own banks but we may shortly find ourselves manufacturing motor vehicles.

Where will it all end?

Crime and police

It seems to have become something of a habit that, at the conclusion of a criminal trial, the senior policeman involved delivers to the waiting world his thoughts on the case, such as this. I cannot identify when this practice began but I rather wish it would cease.

Incidentally, does "pure evil" add anything to our understanding of the case? Other than revealing the medieval cast of police thought?

The buck does not stop here

How to hang out to dry a member of your staff (from here):

"At 7am on Thursday, police called upon the Serjeant-at-Arms and explained the background to the case, and disclosed to the Serjeant the identity of the Member. The Serjeant-at-Arms called me, told me the Member's name and said that a search might take place of his offices in the House. I was not told that the police did not have a warrant. I have been told that the police did not explain, as they are required to do, that the Serjeant was not obliged to consent, or that a warrant could have been insisted upon. I regret that a consent form was then signed by the Serjeant-at-Arms, without consulting the Clerk of the House."

Unedifying.

Has it come to this?

Oh dear. The Scotsman apparently feels that there is a need to explain what a milkman was:

THE milkman – a man who delivers bottles or cartons of milk directly to the door – is a phenomenon dying out in modern Britain. Milkmen have served communities for more than 100 years, delivering morning milk by cart or, more recently, electric float. Traditionally, the milkman would also supply other dairy products, such as cream, cheese, yoghurt, butter and eggs, and sometimes soft drinks, too. Originally, milk needed to be delivered to houses daily, since poor refrigeration meant it would quickly go off. The rise in the use of home refrigerators was the first issue to hit milkmen, and then the coming of supermarkets cut the need for milk to be delivered daily.

As a lad, I used to deliver milk, carrying the bottles up stairs and collecting the tokens. In winter, the milk would freeze and, in summer, the birds would peck holes in the milk bottle tops. And the cream in the milk would rise to the top of the bottle, a minor bonus for whoever got to pour it on their corn flakes. All gone, nowadays.

She's not Helen Mirren

Aye well, don't look at me:

Britney Spears hasn't given up on love. The former Mrs. Kevin Federline says she'd like another walk down the aisle.
"In five years I would like to be married and have a father figure for my kids, someone who is a provider and can be really stable," Spears says in the new issue of Glamour magazine.

I'm sorted - I've learned to iron my shirts just so; and I doubt if the lass could make mince'n'tatties to suit my standards. So, sorry, girl, you're just too young ...

Away in the clouds

Typical - they put out a press release to tell us that Nicola performed the draw for the next round of the Scottish Cup. But do they tell us who's playing whom? Not a ...

But you can get the details here.

Daytime telly

I have watched four press conferences this afternoon (all on the telly, of course).

The first (here) featured Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children and whatever. I confess that I have not been following Mr Balls' career as closely as I might have, but I had assumed that as a close confidante of the Prime Minister and a Labour Party rising star he would display a command and a confidence justified by his position. Instead, he seemed barely capable of reading his statement, stumbling over his words. Worse, it was desperately prosaic stuff. No sense that he understood the seriousness of the case of Baby P or the emotions to which it has given rise. And no sense that he was firmly committed to improving the way in which future cases are dealt with. Perhaps I am being unfair, but the man is a bureaucratic robot.

Next up, President-Elect Obama. Smooth, polished, cultured. Senator Clinton - ditto. The kind of people you would want to be in charge in a crisis. (Here)

Then the lawyer for the poor sodding civil servant who leaked the material to Mr Green. Articulate, in command, some questions he refuses to answer, clearly knows what he is doing (here).

Finally, the car crash: three Haringey councillors and the council chief executive. These are not people you would trust with the running of an inner city local authority, never mind the welfare of children. I know that it's not their fault - local government has been so stripped of its authority over the past thirty years that they no longer attract the kind of councillors they need, while the senior staff have become automatons. But even so, the chief exec is getting paid good money and one might expect better than what we got.

I will put up links when and if they become available.

The constitutional proprieties

When the entire British commentariat is fulminating over the iniquities of the police, the Home Office and the House of Commons authorities, it takes courage to express a contrary opinion. So even if this guy has got it wrong (and I'm not sure he has), well done to the professor. From yesterday's Observer here:

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University where one of his undergraduates was David Cameron, dismissed claims from Labour backbenchers who said the Metropolitan Police had breached parliamentary privilege by raiding Green's office in the House of Commons.
Bogdanor said that parliamentary privilege extended only to what an MP said in the Commons and that the Yard had a responsibility to arrest individuals over allegations of illegality regardless of whether they were an MP or not.
'MPs are subject to criminal law as much as the rest of us,' he said. 'Their parliamentary privilege only extends to speeches in the chamber, not their offices.
'If an MP were accused of theft and keeping stolen goods in his office at the House of Commons, should he be exempt from a police investigation?'