Running out

Once upon a time, many many moons ago, there was a sugar shortage. And, for years thereafter, I always made sure that I had an extra bag or two hidden at the back of the cupboard. (I still do, as it happens.)

The next shortage - after the current shortage of petrol - will be rice. The Independent reports:

Major American food stores have begun rationing sales of rice to prevent stockpiling by customers who are worried by the soaring price of staple foods.
The global price of rice has risen 68 per cent since the start of 2008 and, in some American shops, has recently doubled.
There was little evidence of panic-buying by individuals but restaurants and small shopkeepers were stacking up on supplies in case costs rose further.
In response to what it called "recent supply and demand trends", Wal-Mart's cash-and-carry division Sam's Club is limiting customers to four 9kg bags each to prevent a run on stock.

How long before the UK goes rice-crazy? As always, the advice from the authorities will be "Don't panic!" See today's Scotsman:

The AA, Britain's largest motoring organisation, said motorists should not panic. Paul Watters, the AA's head of public affairs, said: "I don't suppose this news has come as a massive surprise as it has been quite a public airing of the issues and the positions of both sides were quite strong in terms of taking a hard line. There still is no reason for people to panic. We have to put our trust in the petroleum industry to keep Scotland's pumps filled."

IMHO, panicking is the most rational thing to do in these circumstances. Of course the authorities would prefer us to carry on as normal but if that means running out of petrol or rice when we need it ...

But it is all comfortably reminiscent of the good old days.

Education in the third world...

... or any excuse to put up a picture of Shakira. Don't know who the guy is.

Pricking the house price bubble

I'm a simple soul really. I get easily confused. The Times sets out the latest cunning plan by the Bank of England:

The Bank of England (BoE) launched an unprecedented £50 billion scheme today to bail out Britain’s ailing banking system and help to ease the tightening mortgage market.
The BoE confirmed this morning that it would allow lenders to swap assets for government-backed bonds in an attempt to restore confidence and ease the effects of the credit crunch.
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is set provide further information to MPs at 3.30pm.
The BoE will allow banks to swap UK and European mortgage-backed assets in exchange for "safer" government bonds, which banks can then use to raise money.
It is hoped that the rate that banks charge each other will fall, and, as a consequence, homeowners and first-time buyers can secure better and cheaper mortgage deals.

So the plan will have been successful if the mortgage position is freed up and house prices resume their dizzy spiral upwards to the stars. That may benefit the banks and building societies in the short-term, as well as existing home-owners; but I find it hard to see why the taxpayer - through the Bank of England - should wish to engineer a return to an unstable and unsustainable status quo ante. House prices cannot simply go on rising forever - can they?

It will end in tears.

Gift idea

Just what you've always wanted - a Conservative Party baseball cap. For just £3.99 from here, you too can give yourself all the street cred of a middle-aged Scottish Tory.

I try to keep up, but ...

I admit it - I didn't know about the 2005 change in ownership of what used to be the BP Grangemouth oil refinery. In fact, until yesterday, I had never heard of Ineos.

How come such a strategic asset as the Grangemouth refinery ends up in the hands of a privately-owned company based in Hampshire? And how did a company set up ten years ago grow to become the third biggest chemicals company in the world with a turnover of $45 billion?

Well, given this morning's news, we may expect to find out a lot more about Ineos over the next few weeks.

Don't hold your breath

Nice to see council housing given the attention it deserves. The BBC reports:

Scots local authorities will be given a £25m package to build new council houses over the next three years.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement as she addressed the SNP spring conference.
...
She told a packed conference hall in Edinburgh that the Scottish Government's goal to build 35,000 new houses every year by 2015 would need "all hands on deck" to be met.

But when it comes to building houses, £25 million over three years does not go very far. I would estimate that it might deliver some 250 to 300 houses (averaging less than 10 per local authority) - well short of the goal of 35,000 every year.

Quote of the day

I don't know about you, but I find it rather demeaning for a British Prime Minister to deploy such gushing terms (here):

Mr. Brown opened up with praise for his host: “The world owes President George Bush a huge debt of gratitude for leading the world in our determination to root out terrorism.”

Do we really owe Mr President a huge debt of gratitude? Does Mr Brown truly believe what he has said? Is it worse to be fawningly cynical or hopelessly naive?

For once, some real news

I am reliably advised that Ms Kate Moss was in the Bow Bar in Victoria Street yesterday.

I have rebuked my informant - there is no point in telling me the day after. And so, another prospective romance has to be written off.

My guilty secret - one of them, anyway

I have a confession to make. I am an aficionado of certain programmes on Radio 2. Even worse, I particularly enjoy Wogan and Sarah Kennedy, deeply unfashionable though they may be. (Ken Bruce is tolerable.) Perhaps it is because they play the music of my era; perhaps it is because they do not take themselves too seriously; perhaps it is because we are all growing old together.

So it is, therefore, that during the later parts of the day when I wish to listen to music on the radio, I will deploy the admirable Listen Again feature of the Radio 2 website to hear the Wogan and Kennedy programmes I missed earlier in the morning. For I cannot bear to put up with the execrable Jeremy Vine and his fondness for trawling the tabloid depths of phone-in radio; while Steve Wright would make anyone want to barf.

It was therefore with sorrow that I read of the latest travails of Ms Kennedy, a sorrow compounded by her absence from this morning's airwaves. We dawn patrollers know that Sarah occasionally loses the place or talks over the music - just as Terry is prone to crashing the pips (and he is not as witty as he thinks). SO BLOODY WHAT, BBC? Whose BBC is it anyway?

Bringing light into the statistical darkness

Back in the dim and distant past when I learned to do arithmetic at one of the more august Edinburgh educational establishments, an average was known as something that a hen laid eggs on. Mr Swinney obviously kept his nose closer to the grindstone. The Scotsman reports:

JOHN Swinney, the finance secretary, hit back yesterday at opposition claims that average couples would be hundreds of pounds a year worse off under his local income tax plans.
The Tories claimed at the weekend that a household with two people working full-time and earning the average wage – giving them a joint income of £53,290 – would be £289 a year worse off under the local income tax than they were under the council tax.But Mr Swinney said the Tories were wrong to use the mean (average) figure for income and should have used the median (middle) figures, because this was more accurate.

Oh yes - the mean and the median. How many of us remember the difference? Or ever knew it in the first place? And, in this instance, which is the correct one to use? Does anyone care?

Making you think

The price of a cup of tea. The BBC's From Our Own Correspondent sums it up:

As I sat in the coffee shop in the airport fiddling with my bill, I reflected on the extraordinary state of affairs in Zimbabwe.
I had just bought two cups of tea and two glasses of water and, reaching into my bag, I took out a massive wad of Zimbabwean dollars.
New and crispy Z$10m notes. Clean and sleek.
Then I looked at the bill. The charge was Z$204m. That would make a serious dent in my brick of notes.
The Zimbabwean dollar is one of the most worthless currencies in the world so any notions of being a millionaire, or even a billionaire, lasted all of a few seconds.

The Emperor's clothes

Could Matthew Parris be correct?

... for all I care, Mr Brown can be a bean-counting, flak-ducking, procrastinating, tunnel-visioned, trainspotting monster. These are human qualities. I like human qualities. It's vacuums I despise. What is unforgivable is the empty space in Mr Brown's head where an idea ought to be. One big idea, one bold, brave, all-consuming purpose, one gripping sense of political direction, would outweigh all the carping criticisms we may have of Brown the man.
But where there should be thought, there is only calculation.

From bad to worse

So the Treasury thinks that the Scottish Government's proposals for a "local" income tax amount to a "national" income tax and are therefore a reserved matter under the Scotland Act. Well, they may have a point. On the other hand, and not unsurprisingly, SNP Ministers beg to differ - and they may also have a point.

But don't look to the Scotland Act for clarification. All the Act does in this area is to set out (in Part II of Schedule 5) the following reserved (to the UK Government) matter:

A1. Fiscal, economic and monetary policy

Fiscal, economic and monetary policy, including the issue and circulation of money, taxes and excise duties, government borrowing and lending, control over United Kingdom public expenditure, the exchange rate and the Bank of England.

and the following exception to that provision:

Local taxes to fund local authority expenditure (for example, council tax and non-domestic rates).

None of which is enormously helpful. There is no further definition of local taxes. Accordingly, the only way to settle the matter would be through the courts.

Ultimately, it's just another problem with local income tax to add to the rest: the obvious unwillingness of HMRC to collect it, the council tax benefit black hole, the costs to employers in having to deduct it from payrolls, the unfairness of excluding unearned income from tax assessment, the financial burden to be added to families with more than one earner. It becomes increasingly difficult to see how local income tax as envisaged by the SNP can be implemented. I presume that at some stage Mr Swinney and Mr Salmond will wish to walk away from their proposals (or at least to kick them into the longer grass), preferably while blaming the UK Government. It won't be that easy, however, if the source of all or most of the troubles proves to be inadequate preparation on the part of the Scottish administration.

Funny money

The IMF is a miserabilist organisation. Always has been (remember the 1976 crisis); always will be.

Now it estimates that the worldwide losses of the financial institutions as a result of the credit crunch will amount to nearly $1 trillion. That is $1,000,000,000,000. If it makes it any easier to comprehend, convert it to sterling: £500,000,000,000.

That's a lot of money, by the way.

Past praying for

Little wonder that we have Chinese paramilitaries manhandling protestors on the streets of London. What would Baron de Coubertin have made of the following report in The Times?

Great Britain team members are facing a tough choice in the build-up to this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing. Should they wear the Speedo LZR Racer and risk losing valuable contracts with other suit-makers, or wear the brands that they are financially tied to and lose a 2 per cent advantage on the clock that could mean the difference between winning medals and not reaching finals?

A tough choice indeed. But whatever happened to the Olympian spirit?

Snafu

It's not getting any better. An editorial in The New York Times portrays the American authorities at something of a loose end:

Americans this week get another chance to take stock of President Bush’s war-without-end in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander in Baghdad, has already signaled his bottom line: there should be a pause in the withdrawal of American troops.
We’re not sure which specific argument the general will make: there is too much progress for American troops to leave now — or not enough. Either way, it is clear that neither he nor Mr. Bush have a strategy for ending America’s disastrous involvement in Iraq.

Meanwhile The (London) Times concludes that none of the Presidential candidates has such a strategy:

The next US president will inherit 140,000 troops in Iraq and no clear plan of what to do with them. That is the bottom line of the report that General David Petraeus is likely to present to Congress today.
He is expected to recommend a drawdown of about 20,000 troops to the level before the “surge”, and then a pause. But then what? He and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will have the same tale to tell: a year of some military success, undermined by paralysis in the Iraqi Government, which has brought Iraq no closer to a political settlement. None of the factors that has calmed the violence, such as the support of Sunni tribes or the “ceasefire” of Shia militias, can be assumed to be permanent.
And none of the “battleplans” of the three candidates gets to grips with this portrait ...

But surely Gordon and Des, the trusty men in charge of the strategy for the 4,000 British troops sitting in their airbase near Basra, know what they are doing (or what they are planning to do)? OK, they haven't yet told us, but they are not simply waiting for the Americans to make up their mind for them, are they?

What a mess.

Did Alex forget his long spoon?

Is this really the kind of support the SNP is looking for? The Scotsman reports:

THE veteran American politician who helped to dream up Tartan Week has backed Alex Salmond's calls for a referendum on independence.
Former Mississippi senator Trent Lott has said the people of Scotland should be given the chance to decide their own future ...
A source close to the First Minister said the SNP was delighted to receive Mr Lott's backing.

After all, it does not take much googling to find the cloven hoof.

A wee lull

One of my anonymous interlocutors (see comment on previous post) has suggested that in recent days I have been drifting off-message. I have to confess that there are times when Scottish politics appears less than scintillating.

Alf Young noted in this morning's Herald that the First Minister's visit to the USA had gone unnoticed by the American media - to which one can only respond: 'twas ever thus. If it was not for the fact that the politicians get a trip to the Big Apple at public expense, I doubt if they'd bother.

Meanwhile, in London, we have Boris and his coke, Ken and his children and John Prescott with his £80 per week grocery bill. It's trivial stuff, I know, but marginally more interesting than Mr Swinney on Aberdeen Council's financial travails. (Bon Accord baths have had to close.)

What was it Scarlett said about tomorrow?

Period blues

OK, I admit it - I use it occasionally. But, for goodness' sake, there's no need to get over-excited. It doesn't make me a bad person; at least, I don't think so.

As you might expect, The Guardian wants to make a big deal out of it. Does anyone care? I think not.

Would it matter if it were banned? Would it cause riots in the streets? And the frogs want to save it? What for?

No, let me continue to deploy my solitary vice; it is after all only a punctuation mark.

More money than sense

What exactly was the point of the BBC sending George Alagiah (and no doubt a cameraman and a producer) to southern Africa to present the 6 o'clock news? As they keep telling us, the BBC has been banned from Zimbabwe and, as a result, George did what he does from a spot on the South Africa/Zimbabwe border. If this was supposed to add drama to the news, it failed.

This profligacy comes less than a week after we learned that the BBC team to be sent to Beijing for the Olympics will amount to a mere 437 people, rather more than the number of British competitors.

I like and admire the BBC as an institution but it becomes increasing difficult to defend its carefree ways with the licence fee income.

Prescription charges

I feel slightly guilty. From tomorrow, the cost of a prescription is reduced from £6.85 to £5.00. "Great!" you say. Socialists everywhere rejoice.

I still feel slightly guilty. You see, prescription charges are only payable by those who can afford them (and in some cases not even by them). If you are over 60, if you are under 16 or in full time education, you are exempt. If you (or your partner) are on benefits, you are exempt. If you are pregnant or have had a child in the last 12 months, you are exempt. 92% of precriptions in Scotland are issued free of charge.

So, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, could Ms Sturgeon not have found something more deserving to spend the health budget on?

Incidentally, for those like me who actually pay regular prescription charges, the big savings will arise not on the 37% reduction in the single prescription charge quoted above but on the 50% plus reductions in the pre-payment certificates (PPCs). A 4 month PPC is reduced from £35.85 to £17.00, while the 12 month PPC is reduced from £98.70 to £48.00. Thus, whereas at present you need to consume more than 5 prescriptions in 4 months to justify buying a 4 month PPC, in future you will only need to consume more than 3. The equivalent figures for a 12 month PPC are more than 14 prescriptions at present and more than 9 prescriptions in future.

Poverty of ambition

I can think of lots of good reasons why successfully learning to read is important. Neither of these would have occurred to me. The Herald reports:

Ms Brankin told the Scottish Labour conference in Aviemore: "If children cannot read, they cannot do modern studies, or read a manual on how to operate a lathe.

Is that the best that Labour can offer children with reading difficulties? Modern studies or lathe operation?

Quote of the day

... well, of last Thursday actually.

From The Sunday Herald (here), Simon Pia (Wendy's spin doctor) on Alex Fergusson (Presiding Officer):

"Some say he's a big, thick Tory toff teuchter, but I don't think so."

"Big"?

Quelle horreur!

Lundi

I am a new woman. Avant, je was la petite friend of many, many rock stars, et renowned across la France as le vélo du village. But now, je suis la demure First Lady...

Carla's diary - well worth a read.

Red flag or white flag?

Resignation on the part of No 10? What happened to the fighting spirit? The Times reports:

Boris Johnson is on course to win the London mayoral election and run the capital in the four years of preparation before it hosts the next Games. Ken Livingstone, who lays claim to a share of the credit in helping London to secure the 2012 Olympics, looks likely to be among those watching and wondering how he lost.
The race is far from over but in Downing Street there is a weary anticipation that the incumbent will lose. “We know all the press cares about is London,” a close ally of Gordon Brown said last week of the local and mayoral elections on May 1. “And we know either we are going to lose or, at best, it is going to be very tight.”

To lose Scotland was careless; to lose Scotland and London would be unforgiveable. And what is it that McConnell and Livingstone have in common? Gordon Brown doesn't care for either.

Credit where credit's due

This blog has never been a fan of Nicol Stephen, but I have to admit that he has developed an effective ability to skewer the First Minister at question time. He was at it again yesterday, this time on the matter of young offender escorts. You can watch it here.

Whereas Mr Salmond appears to shrug off attacks by Ms Alexander and Ms Goldie, it is increasingly apparent that Mr Stephen really gets under his skin - which only adds to the enjoyment of the uncommitted viewer.

No-one would pretend that a series of minor victories at question time would necessarily have a significant impact on the political terms of trade, but it is nice to see the First Minister being kebabbed occasionally.

No, I don't understand it either

Overwatch : noun (military); manoeuvre whereby a well-equipped professional army of 4,000 troops sits on a fortified air-base while, in the city four miles down the road, its allies (which it had previously trained) are engaged in a bitter battle with an assortment of militias which that army had apparently left in charge of the city.

Strategic and tactical considerations underlying overwatch : beats me ... they might as well be sitting in the UK.

What's with the mother-in-law?

I appreciate that it's not intended to be a romantic mini-break, but why bring the wife's mother?

Under sniper fire

To mis-speak : verb, intransitive; to tell lies but somehow to convey the impression that the lies were totally inadvertent, while offering confirmation that the lie-teller is a human being.

Mince

Hmmmph! It's all very well that young Macdonnell should complain in The Scotsman about the latest Euro-attack on Scottish mince but he rather spoils the purity of his argument:

There were fresh reports yesterday that the European Commission wants to drive through plans to restrict the hanging of Scotch beef that is then turned into mince.
This tale of Eurocrats challenging "our mince and tatties" goes back 18 years. The issue was first raised in 1990, then shelved, then resurrected two years ago, and now it seems to have surfaced again with reports that Europe does really mean to push it through this time.
At this point, I should declare an interest, having spent at least some of the Easter weekend enjoying a home-made lasagne that I lovingly prepared around a pound of prime Scottish beef mince.

Look, the meat sauce prepared for lasagne is not mince. The ragu contains all sorts of filthy foreign ingredients, like garlic, tomatoes, wine and herbs. You wouldn't put such things into proper mince. And the same applies to the ingredients for bolognese sauce or moussaka.

I sometimes worry that it falls to me alone to maintain Scottish cooking standards. The middle classes wish to subvert honest Scottish mince by dressing it up in Italianate clothing. Enough, I say: mince shall always be mince.

An Easter wish

I wish ...

... that, the next time the big five banks seek to persuade the Governor of the Bank of England that they should be allowed to dip their greedy snouts into what is effectively the public purse, big Merv should attach the following conditions to any Bank of England support:

1. that it should be accompanied by a significant contribution from their combined profits (which, after all, amount to many £ billions);

2. that the banks should show a more caring attitude to their customers, particularly when it comes to charges for missed credit card repayments or occasional unauthorised overdrafts and that they cease ripping off their customers over the time taken to process cheques or bank transfers; and

3. that bank directors, employees and personal contractors should receive no more than £500,000 per year by way of salaries, bonuses, stock options and any other form of beneficial advantage.

Is that so unreasonable?

Footballing headline of the day

From The Guardian (here):

Grant praises Cole for his maturity as criticism mounts

It's a bit like praising Alex Salmond for his humility.

Anyway, where will they park their trident submarines?

From The Scotsman (here):

THE Scotland Office minister, David Cairns, warned last night that independence would "decimate" the country's defence industry. He told The Scotsman that the Westminster government would not be prepared to award lucrative contracts for military hardware to a "foreign country" if Scotland left the United Kingdom.
... Mr Cairns's warning came after he met defence industry leaders in Edinburgh and heard their concerns about the possible impact of independence. He had told a meeting of the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) Scotland that 40,000 defence jobs north of the Border depended on the Westminster government and that the Ministry of Defence spent £950 million a year in Scotland.
... Yesterday's meeting involved about 15 senior industry figures from companies such as Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Thales and Goodridge.

Mr Cairns may wish to note that Thales is a French company, while I rather suspect that Goodridge is American.

How to make money on a falling stock exchange

Selling short. Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? The Scotsman explains how to sell shares that you don't actually have:

TAKE this example. A trader makes a contract to sell 100,000 shares of HBOS at Tuesday's closing price of 480.25p, with a view to buying them back at a lower price at a later date. The amount he stands to receive from the sale is £480,250. He then circulates rumours about the health of the company in a bid to drive down the price. In today's scary conditions – particularly in the wake of the collapse of US investment bank Bear Stearns – even the barest rumours without any supporting evidence can come to be believed. The price then falls – in the case of HBOS yesterday – to 398p. The trader then buys 100,000 shares at this price, for an outlay of £398,000. His profit is therefore £480,250 (the proceeds of sale) minus £398,000 (his purchase cost), which equals £82,250.
Short-selling – making money from shares whose value is falling – is legal in the stock market. What is a criminal offence is spreading rumours in a bid to drive down the price.

The stock exchange is different from a giant casino. Isn't it?

Seeking attention

If he were a child, you might regard him as hyper-active. The BBC reports:

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for a "global environment revolution" to tackle climate change.
Mr Blair is on a visit to Japan to discuss global greenhouse gas targets.
...
During his visit, organised by Climate Group, Mr Blair is due to meet climate change experts from China, Japan, Europe and the US.
He is attempting to guide attempts to secure a deal involving China and the US to slash emissions by 50% by 2050, on the first part of a trip that will also take him to China and India.

It is not enough to be a peace envoy to the Middle East. Flirting with the EU Presidency job was only fun for a while. And, clearly, commercial liaisons with Zurich Insurance and J P Morgan do not attract the limelight, while seminars at Yale University on faith and globalisation command only a little media attention.

This constant search for the spotlight does seem a bit needy, however, and perhaps a little desperate?

An ulterior motive?

The Scotsman reports:

IRAN sought to ally itself with Scotland last night, praising Alex Salmond's administration for its anti-war stance and suggesting Tehran has more in common with Holyrood than Westminster.
Rasoul Movahedian, the ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran, told The Scotsman that Scotland and Iran shared "similar views" on many issues, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and nuclear non-proliferation.And he said there was "fertile ground" for a stronger relationship with the controversial government of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."I think that Iran and Scotland enjoy similar views on many regional and international topics and issues," he said. "The views and the position of this present government of Scotland pleased many people in Iran and enabled us to make a distinction between Scotland and England.

Hey guys, no need to lay it on quite so thickly. We know that what you really really want is a game with our football team. Well, you better understand that Mr Salmond has no control over the mullahs at the SFA.

Humble is as humble does

As resignation statements go, this one seems a little on the pompous side:

I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that as a public servant I, and the remarkable people with whom I worked, have accomplished a great deal. There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor ...
I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family. Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children ...

In the circumstances, perhaps a little more humility might have been in order?

Compare and contrast

Westminster:

MPs will have to submit receipts when they claim office expenses worth more than £25 per item, it was announced today.
...
The new rule will not cover food, where the system currently allows MPs to claim up to £400 a month without providing receipts to spend on food while they are away from home.

Holyrood:

THE controversial scheme which helps some MSPs buy homes in the Scottish capital at the public's expense should be scrapped, a review body said yesterday.
MSPs from far-flung areas of the country should continue to be able to claim for renting flats or staying in hotels in Edinburgh – but not for paying mortgage interest. The recommendation came in the report of an independent review body set up to scrutinise MSPs' allowances. Several MSPs have bought houses using the scheme under current rules.
But Sir Alan Langlands, who led the review, said: "What's wrong with it is that I don't think it's a proper use of public money."

Has Nelson Mandela not suffered enough?

From The Times (here):

An all-star concert will be held in Hyde Park, Central London, to mark the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela. Stevie Wonder, Sir Paul McCartney, Queen and
Bono are expected to perform at the event on June 27.

Just because Mr Mandela is getting on a bit, is that sufficient excuse to trot out a bunch of tired retreads?

We're not all hardworking, you know

I do not consider myself to be a fatcat. I do not live in a mansion in leafy Barnton (although I admit that my modest New Town flat offers a more than comfortable existence). Nevertheless, through diligence and good fortune, I have saved enough of a nest egg that I will never have to work again. As a result, I do not earn any income and therefore I pay no income tax.

At present, I contribute some £1400 per year to the City of Edinburgh Council by way of council tax. Under Mr Swinney's proposals for a local income tax, I would pay precisely nothing. I would therefore be better off to the tune of £1400 per year.

Is this fair? Of course not.

Here we go again

If I were a Liberal Democrat, I would wish to be rather cautious about accepting this SNP proposition (as outlined in The Sunday Herald):

The SNP administration will this week publish a consultation on replacing council tax with a local charge based on ability to pay. Salmond will lay out plans for a nationally set 3p rate on all earned taxable income. But the LibDems, whose support Salmond needs to push through his scheme, want the rate to be set by councils rather than government Salmond and his finance minister John Swinney met LibDem leader Nicol Stephen and his deputy Tavish Scott on Thursday to discuss a compromise. The talks will continue tomorrow.
The SNP-LibDem summit discussed an idea whereby a centrally imposed 3p tax could be introduced in the short-term, after which councils would be given the power to vary the charge.

There is a big difference between a standard, across-the-board increase in income tax rates and a variable increase according to local authority area, particularly in terms of implementation. Nothing is simple when it comes to the administration of a local income tax. But imagine that you are a big employer based in Edinburgh: you should be able to cope with an instruction from the Inland Revenue to deduct an extra three pence in the £ from all employees residing in Scotland, and between them the Inland Revenue and the Scottish Executive should be able to work out how this can be distributed fairly to the local authorities. On the other hand, our big employer might find it rather more difficult to deal with an instruction that those of their employees residing in Edinburgh have to pay an extra 3 pence in the £, while those who commute from Fife have to pay an extra 2.8 pence in the £ and those from East Lothian an extra 2.5 pence in the £. Indeed, our big employer might find it impossible, not least because payroll systems are simply not set up to identify the local authority areas of those on the payroll. Meanwhile, the Inland Revenue might balk at attempting to keep track of the sums due to each local authority. (Of course, you could leave all the administration to the local authorities, but the problems do not go away.)

Accordingly, a two stage approach to the introduction of a local income tax might take rather longer than one might think.

Pleased with itself?

The Scotsman almost desists from boasting that it brought down an Obama aide:

A SENIOR aide to Barack Obama resigned yesterday after an interview in The Scotsman in which she described Hillary Clinton as a "monster".
Mr Obama's campaign team apologised for the comments, which have given a boost to the former first lady in the bitter fight for the Democratic nomination for the White House. Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who made the remark, said: "With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an adviser to the Obama campaign. I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor and purpose of the Obama campaign. And I extend my deepest apologies to Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and the remarkable team I have worked with over these long 14 months." Earlier in the day, she had apologised after the Scotsman interview was picked up by American news networks and became the top item on websites, including the Drudge Report.

Meanies

Well, big deal! The BBC reports:

The Highlands and Islands are to get a louder voice on a body which helps shape Scotland's economic future, First Minister Alex Salmond has said.
Mr Salmond was announcing moves to strengthen the region's representation by creating two more seats on the National Economic Forum.
He announced the move when the Convention of the Highlands and Islands held its latest meeting in Shetland.

At least when Labour and the Libdems were running the show, Ministers were prepared to put their hands in their pockets and pull out some cash.

British values

Once upon a time, the Labour Party would have bitterly attacked this kind of rip-off. Now, it just stands by, meekly muttering that nothing should be done to upset its pals in the city. The Guardian reports:

Billions of pounds of private finance initiative projects approved by Gordon Brown, including the refurbished Treasury headquarters in Whitehall and the new Home Office, have been moved offshore by their City owners to avoid paying tax on their profits.
More than 50 PFI schemes have now been included in portfolios held in Channel Islands tax havens by three major PFI investment companies, HSBC Infrastructure, 3i Infrastructure and Babcock and Brown Public Partnerships.
Once the buildings have been completed, up to 90% of the ownership of the UK-registered company running the PFI is transferred to the companies which are based in the tax havens. This means that the income and profits from running the PFIs will be free of UK tax for up to 40 years, depending on the duration of the PFI.

The government should be ashamed of themselves.

Quote of the day

Some welcome common sense from Jackie Ashley in The Guardian on the subject of forcing the non-doms to flee to their tax-free boltholes outside the UK:

"Actually I doubt that Britain would be worse off if the Porsche dealers, £500-a-bottle restaurants and decorators of modernist palazzos had a harder time for a while. The swaggering of the super-rich has hit the morale and self-belief of more essential people, not just at the bottom of the heap, but the public-sector professionals we rely on. They used to say nothing was certain bar death and taxes. Now you know that for one self-important group, it's no longer so. If they really want to sit bored out of their skulls in a tax haven, let them."

Order of the Brown Nose

From yesterday's Commons Hansard:

John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): What a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, and to know that we have as our Speaker somebody who is simply not prepared to be pushed around, either by snobs or by bullies.
...
Ms Harman: ...
May I take the opportunity to associate myself with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about you, Mr. Speaker, and to remind the House of what we all know—that we, as Members of Parliament, choose the Speaker of this House? It is our choice, not that of the newspapers.

Every little bit helps?

I fear that this is the same organisation that, every Tuesday morning, cheerfully (despite my residence in a tenement top flat) and efficiently delivers my groceries. The Guardian reports:

Tesco has created an elaborate corporate structure involving offshore tax havens which enables it to avoid paying what could be up to £1bn of tax on profits from the sale of its UK properties.
The complex new structures uncovered by a six-month Guardian investigation include a string of Cayman Island companies, each named after a different colour, from aqua to violet. These are being used by the supermarket giant as it proceeds with its announced programme to sell and lease back £6bn worth of its UK stores.
The stores are being sold to external investors providing Tesco with a big one-off gain which, ordinarily, would be liable to tax, while allowing it to remain in the stores and pay rent to the new owners.

And thus another corporation confirms its place among the bad guys. Not that I really had any prior illusions, but I thought that maybe they were trying a bit harder.

Oh aye, and Prince Alois need not expect any sympathy from me.

People in glass houses ...

This blog seldom indulges in fashion comment. As a middle-aged scruff, I do not really possess the expertise. No such timidity on the part of at least one of our MSPs, however. The Herald reports:

It was an opinion that dared not speak its name - until now. The worlds of fashion and politics have collided after an MSP branded Scottish youngsters the worst-dressed in Europe.
Last night fashion experts defended the country's youth after Christopher Harvie, a 63-year-old politician and history professor, accused them of wearing "what must be the ugliest clothes" in the "entire continent".

Here is a picture of the eminent MSP, historian and fashion expert:

How elegant! Sartorially, of course, it is daring to mix a check jacket with striped shirt, particularly when one is brown and the other is blue, but perhaps it is intended to display an academic nonchalance. And, if one were being hyper-critical, one might gently hint that the curling shirt collar indicated that it had seen better days. But it is not for me to criticise a fashion expert of Professor Harvie's calibre. So let us just note that the guy is a plonker.

Things we learned today

According to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, it is apparently OK for an MP to use air miles gained as a result of official travel for his private benefit. There is no necessity to deploy such air miles to reduce the costs of official travel.

Quote of the day

Jackie Ashley in The Guardian (here):

"I don't think Michael Martin should resign this week, or next: you can't begin a campaign to restore the dignity of parliament by letting press attacks hound the Speaker out. He should be allowed to make his decision and announce it in his own time. But it's now clear what that decision should be. When a Speaker is part of the problem, he owes it to parliament to step aside."

Is this a press attack seeking to hound the Speaker out? Or is it not? Would Ms Ashley understand the difference?

The incomparable Grace Slick

Here.

Between a rock and a hard place

Few in the media (and in Parliament) appear to understand the implications of the relationship between Granite and Northern Rock for the nationalisation of the latter. See here, here and here. It is certainly well above my pay grade.

But I presume that the position was fully explained in the advice prepared for the government by the clever clogs and vastly expensive Goldman Sachs. That being so, I am bound to wonder why the government have left it so late to explain themselves. Or did they hope to get away with the nationalisation legislation without anyone noticing the link to Granite?

As so often, they now seem to have made a rod for their own backs.

The real domestic goddess

For those who have not yet acquired the book, The Telegraph publishes four of Delia's new recipes.

Who? Me? Of course I have. Messrs Tesco assure me that the book will be delivered any day now.

Delia's Complete Cookery Course has always been my bible (although Katharine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter comes a close second).

Outrage

It's really not good for my blood pressure. And it's likely to give that woman, the Scottish health minister, ideas. The Guardian reports:

A ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone who does not pay for a government smoking permit has been proposed by Health England, a ministerial advisory board.
The idea is the brainchild of the board's chairman, Julian Le Grand, who is a professor at the London School of Economics and was Tony Blair's senior health adviser. In a paper being studied by Lord Darzi, the health minister appointed to oversee NHS reform, he says many smokers would be helped to break the habit if they had to make a decision whether to "opt in".
The permit might cost as little as £10, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night.
His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."

And don't think they'll stop there. First, they'll come for the smokers, then the drinkers, then the hamburger eaters.

It's enough to drive you to a fag and a drink ...

It's the non-doms, Darling

Just occasionally, you read things in the newspapers that surprise you. For example, these figures in The Independent:

The furore over non-doms has highlighted an issue in fiscal policy as old as the hills, which is the extreme difficulty of taxing the super-rich in any meaningful way without having the opposite effect to the one intended and making the public purse poorer, rather than richer.
A few figures neatly illustrate the nature of the problem. Back in 1978, with still ruinously high marginal rates of tax for those on high incomes, the top 1 per cent of earners paid 11 per cent of the total income-tax take, and the top 10 per cent some 35 per cent.
With much lower rates of tax for high earners, these figures had by 2001/2 dramatically changed. The top 1 per cent of income earners were paying 23 per cent of total income tax, with the top 10 per cent accounting for more than half. These proportions will almost certainly have grown further since then.

I find these figures hard to believe, but I have no way of disproving them. My own inclination is to squeeze the greedy bastards until the pips squeak - so it's probably just as well that I'm not the Chancellor of the Exchequer.


Btw, and not for the first time, poor old Alistair seems to be making a right horlicks of it. But what can you expect from someone who went to Loretto?

Loss of discipline

The Evening News re-cycles this morning's interview from The Herald (without accreditation, needless to say):

SCOTTISH Labour leader Wendy Alexander today appeared to be on a collision course with her Westminster colleagues after a Scotland Office minister spoke out against the creation of more powers for Holyrood.
David Cairns said he did not believe Labour had lost last year's election to the SNP because people were crying out for fresh powers to be handed over to the Scottish Parliament – and he dismissed calls for more tax powers for Holyrood as a concern of the "McChattering classes". His comments came as Ms Alexander continues to pursue plans for a cross-party Scottish Constitutional Commission to look at the question of further devolution. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory leaders are co-operating on the scheme, which would come up with proposals to give the parliament more powers as an alternative strategy to the SNP's aim of independence.

Some questions for Mr Cairns:

What do you think you are doing? Was it really necessary at this stage to undercut Ms Alexander? Even if you don't approve of the constitutional commission, could you not have kept your mouth shut for the moment? At this moment, do Labour supporters need an outbreak of in-fighting between the Westminster and Holyrood high heid-yins? How will that help the Labour Party in Scotland? What do you think Mr Salmond will do (apart from rub his hands) with your intervention?

I despair ...

Whatever happened to ...

... round sliced sausage? There is plenty of square sausage on the supermarket and butchers' shelves, but round sliced sausage seems to have disappeared. Can anyone steer me in the direction of an Edinburgh butcher who retains a sense of tradition?

Civil Service shame

This may appear to be a relatively obscure issue but, for the sake of all those (not excluding me)who suffered under the regime of these people, I am recording this extract from The Herald:

Taxpayers are facing a compensation bill of nearly £30,000 after a tribunal ruled yesterday that two former senior civil servants, one of whom was later suspended amid allegations of bullying, fabricated evidence in the case of an executive who quit over the way they handled her grievance.
The Scottish Government has been ordered to pay the compensation to Leanne Gardner who went off sick with work-related stress after only 42 days in a new job. She was responsible for supervising staff handling planning appeals at the Inquiries Reporters Unit in Falkirk.
She never returned and eventually resigned over the handling of her complaints.
A Glasgow employment tribunal said that correspondence had been fabricated by Susan Beevers, then head of human resources, and Sally Carruthers, director of change in corporate services, who had pretended she had reviewed Ms Beevers' actions.

Ms Beevers and Ms Carruthers were in charge of personnel issues for the entire Scottish Executive. Both were directly appointed imports. A humble apology from the senior management of the Scottish Executive would not be out of place - they appointed these people and never had the guts to sack them. Does Sir John Elvidge have anything to say?

Quote of the day

From yesterday's FMQs (here):

Ms Alexander: We have all learned that defence is usually the First Minister's best form of attack.

I think I know what she means ... but who can tell?

Wendy

Well what did you expect? Did you really think that the Electoral Commission would throw her to the wolves?

If you read the Commission's actual judgement (here), you will see that reporting the alleged offence of accepting an ineligible donation to the procurator fiscal is deemed to be not in the public interest. As for the other possible offence of cover-up, the Commission takes the view that there is insufficient evidence. Not unreasonable on the part of the Commission, I would have thought.

Does this amount to exoneration? Well, hardly.

Can we move on? I hope so, but I rather doubt it.

Budget thoughts

It's probably my fault. I'm just not bright enough to understand. I mean, Scottish Labour is led by these great intellects - Wendy, Iain Gray, Andy Kerr. They know what they're doing, don't they? They must have had a strategy to guide them through the budget process.

A policy of non-cooperation with the other parties was part of the plan, right? And if they did not achieve any changes to the budget in the initial stages, well who am I to question the grand design? Eventually, they got an amendment accepted, even if it does not seem to mean very much in terms of actual cash.

They voted against the budget two weeks ago, then yesterday they abstained. What was that all about? Beats me.

OK, the SNP Government is banging on about a great triumph, and the Scottish Labour leadership looks a bit clueless. Hell, even the Tories seem to have won a victory of sorts.

Look, I'm sure that, after mature reflection, Iain and Wendy will be able to explain it to us. Won't they? Won't they?

Quote of the day

Benedict Brogan in his blog:

"Gordon Brown has written to Michael Martin urging him to press MPs for greater transparency. Noble, I'm sure, but isn't it a bit like asking the brothelkeeper to keep the noise down?"

In praise of Radio 4

During a recent period of enforced idleness, confined to my flat, I have had the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with Radio 4. I cannot praise it enough. I have spent hours absorbed in radio programmes of the highest quality. And the 'Listen Again' feature, whereby any programmes missed can be retrieved and listened to, must be one of the great boons of the BBC website.

I offer the following recommendations for happy listening:

The Week at Westminster - essential listening for a Saturday morning, especially as it is followed by

From Our Own Correspondent - where the great Kate Adie allows the foreign corrs to introduce some humanity into world affairs.

The News Quiz - still the funniest programme on the radio, even if the demise of Linda Smith and Alan Coren means that it is not quite as good as it used to be.

Start the Week - Andrew Marr guides an extraordinarily eclectic series of 10 minute discussions.

Midnight News - the calmest and most authoritative round-up of the day's events.

Pick of the Week - Sunday evening's finest.

In our Time - the much mocked Melvyn Bragg desperately tries to keep a grip of unabashed, if frequently incomprehensible, intellectualism.

I have this morning been listening to Inside Stories, a splendid analysis of the media reaction to particular stories, today on bird flu, last week a tour de force on the death of Jean-Charles de Menezes.

Radio 4 is far from perfect. The witless Just a Minute, for example. is well past its sell-by date, while the insufferably smug Quote, Unquote should have been strangled at birth. But overall a radio station to cherish.

Maybe the dog ate the missing letter?

This is interesting, if only because it is difficult to envisage circumstances in which both No 10 and Mr Davis can be telling the truth. The BBC reports:

Downing Street says Gordon Brown was unaware that one of his MPs may have been bugged by police as he visited a constituent in prison.
A government inquiry is under way into claims that Sadiq Khan's meetings with Babar Ahmad at Woodhill Prison were listened to by anti-terror officers.
Shadow home secretary David Davis says he wrote to the PM in December to warn him a Labour MP may have been bugged.
But No 10 said they could find no record of Mr Davis' letter.

The Tories have even published a copy of the letter (here).

So what happened to it? Downing Street is notoriously efficient at recording and distributing the vast quantities of incoming correspondence, so it is difficult to believe that the letter got lost in the bureaucracy. And a letter from a prominent member of the shadow cabinet would automatically be marked for the Prime Minister to see personally.

But, hey, perhaps the postie dropped it in one of the darker corners of Whitehall. No 10 does not - as far as I am aware - have a dog which might have inadvertently eaten it. Maybe,it just disappeared by magic.

We may expect to hear more about this mystery ...

Hue and cry

In the good old days, a hue and cry was a process by which bystanders were summoned to assist in the apprehension of a criminal who had been witnessed in the act of committing a crime. According to Wikipedia:

By the statute of Winchester, 13 Edw. I cc. 1 and 4, (1285) it was provided that anyone, either a constable or a private citizen, who witnessed a felony shall make hue and cry, and that the hue and cry must be kept up against the fleeing felon from town to town and from county to county, until the felon is apprehended and delivered to the sheriff. All able bodied men, upon hearing the shouts, were obliged to assist in the pursuit of the criminal.

This morning, the Sunday Herald has raised a full hue and cry:

WENDY ALEXANDER has been reported to the procurator fiscal for failing to register her leadership campaign donations. Dr Jim Dyer, the standards commissioner, has sent a report to the area fiscal in Lothian and Borders after concluding there was evidence the Labour leader broke the rules on declaring gifts.
She now faces a police investigation and possible charges if the fiscal concludes the offence warrants a criminal sanction.
The dramatic development will increase the intense pressure on Alexander to resign as Labour leader and comes as she awaits the verdict of the Electoral Commission's investigation into her campaign team's acceptance of an illegal £950 donation from Jersey tycoon Paul Green.

Presumably it remains open to the Procurator Fiscal to decide that Ms Alexander's alleged offence is trivial and that prosecution would not be in the public interest - not that that you would know it from Ian Macwhirter's hysterical response:

THIS MUST be end of the road for Wendy Alexander, her short reign as Scottish Labour leader is almost certainly over. Her credibility was damaged enough by the dodgy donations affair. But for parliamentary standards commissioner Dr Jim Dyer to refer her to the procurator fiscal's office for apparently breaking the law takes this controversy to a new level. It is the most extraordinary and dramatic development.

Aye, well. Given the current atmosphere, it would be a brave fiscal who opted for anything short of chucking the book at Ms Alexander. But let us hope that judicial process is not entirely subject to media pressure.

Meanwhile, let every able-bodied newspaper hack scream his head off. Sometimes, Scottish politics is a dirty business.

A certain irony?

I'm sure - at least I think I'm sure - that they know what they are doing. It's just that last night:

The leaders of Europe's biggest economies have called on financial institutions to improve transparency in all their activities.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown met his French, German and Italian counterparts at Downing Street to discuss the recent global market turmoil.

Transparency - that's just the ticket.

But then this morning:

Chancellor Alistair Darling is to give new powers to the Bank of England to mount secret rescue operations for banks requiring emergency funds.
The plan will be unveiled today as part of sweeping regulatory reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the Northern Rock debacle, the BBC has learned.

I understand of course - secrecy is what's needed.

Nothing like a bit of transparent secrecy ...

Paragons of virtue

Doncha feel sorry for the poor man? Persecuted for some administrative shortcomings and misjudgements? The BBC reports:

Derek Conway, who is facing another investigation into his expenses, is being targeted by a "witch-hunt", a fellow Conservative MP claims.
Mr Conway, who has been reprimanded for overpaying his younger son from parliamentary money, could face more scrutiny over his elder son.

Of course, if I -as a mere mortal - misused public funds in such a manner, I might be happy to get off with a rap over the knuckles, repaying a small proportion of the funds allegedly misused and being given a ten day holiday. (Fat chance, you may say.) But you cannot expect MPs, even serial offenders, to be subject to the same penalties as the rest of us. For they are all honourable men.

How dreams turn sour

All those years ago, in the early 1970s, when Gordon and I were students at the University of Edinburgh and when Gordon was a bit of a socialist revolutionary, I'll bet that neither of us thought that it would ever come to this: that he would be openly offering aid and succour to someone who is nothing less and nothing more than a military dictator.

"For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?"

Masters of the universe

Last word (well maybe) on le rogue trader, from Charlie Brooker in The Guardian (here):

If it's hard to imagine what £3.7bn looks like, it's even harder to picture an absence of £3.7bn. Presumably it resembles a dark, swirling vortex, like a portal to another dimension in a supernatural thriller. All the money got sucked into it, and emerged ... um ... where? Where's it gone? Is it lodged away somewhere to the side of the stock market, slightly to the left of the screen, where computers can't get to it?

Do the merchant bankers, the futures traders, the private equity specialists, the fund managers, the whole damn crew of over-paid pillocks swanning around the city, know what they are doing? Or are they just blundering around in a fog, like the rest of us?

Depressing news of the day

According to The Guardian (here):

"If you're a normal weight and eat one chocolate biscuit more than your energy needs every day, then in 10 years' time you will be obese."

Scottish Labour - a tactical vacuum

So the SNP secured parliamentary approval - at least in its initial stages - for its budget, with the active support of the Tories (and the blessed Margo) and the benign neutrality of the Greens. But how do we rate the Labour Party's contribution so far to the budgetary process?

Were any of Labour's proposed amendments to the budget accepted? No.

Did Labour nevertheless secure any concessions fom the Government? No.

Did Labour manage to peel the Tories away from supporting the Government? No.

Did Labour even make a serious attempt to peel the Tories away from supporting the Government? Not as far as anyone could see.

Did Labour engage constructively with the Greens and the Independent in the budgetary process? No.

In general, did Labour exhibit the kind of flexibility and respect for the proposals of other parties needed in a situation where they would be dependent upon the votes of others? You must be joking.

Scottish Labour - pure dead inept.

It's not like muesli, is it?

Now I enjoy a fry-up as much as the next man but this Scottish Government press release claims that it is nutritious:

A healthy, nutritious Scottish breakfast gets the day off to a great start as well as boosting the economy and helping the environment, Environment Minister Mike Russell said today.
Breakfasting with Donald Biggar, Chairman of Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), to mark Farmhouse Breakfast Week, Mr Russell said:
"It's a well-worn maxim but it really is true: breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
...
Mr Russell and Mr Biggar tucked into a plate of sausage, bacon, egg and tomatoes/mushrooms on wholegrain bread, all produced in Scotland and sourced from Scottish food companies.

And, judging from the photograph, there's some black pudding in there, as well as (oh dear!) baked beans. Mr Russell may be in trouble with the health police ...

Good for Mrs B

The Times reports:

On a trip to China and India with Gordon Brown, she waited until the final day to step out in an elegant outfit commissioned for the occasion from a British-Indian designer. She wore a kurta, a traditional long Indian tunic, with an embroidered design in pastel green and white, with pale green pyjama trousers and a light purple pashmina thrown over one shoulder...
Mrs Brown, usually a byword for the type of smart but understated wardrobe favoured by Middle England women of her background, drew approving glances from her Indian hosts as she accompanied her husband to the presidential palace in Delhi for a formal welcoming reception, and afterwards to lay a wreath at a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi.

Quote of the day

William Hague (always good for a laugh) on Gordon Brown's contemplation of the prospect of Tony Blair as the new European President:

"We can all picture the scene at a European Council sometime next year. Picture the face of our poor Prime Minister as the name “Blair” is nominated by one President and Prime Minister after another: the look of utter gloom on his face at the nauseating, glutinous praise oozing from every Head of Government, the rapid revelation of a majority view, agreed behind closed doors when he, as usual, was excluded. Never would he more regret no longer being in possession of a veto: the famous dropped jaw almost hitting the table, as he realises there is no option but to join in. And then the awful moment when the motorcade of the President of Europe sweeps into Downing street. The gritted teeth and bitten nails: the Prime Minister emerges from his door with a smile of intolerable anguish; the choking sensation as the words, “Mr President”, are forced from his mouth. And then, once in the Cabinet room, the melodrama of, “When will you hand over to me?” all over again.

Source: House of Commons Official Report, 21 January, col 1262

The man in the shadows

Sometimes a news story makes you think. This story in The Herald about the MacTerminator is a good example, not because of what was said in a six-year-old e-mail but for what it reveals about the shadowy life of a special adviser, rising and falling with the fortunes of his political masters.

Here is a man who was the head of strategy and special adviser to Henry McLeish when the latter was First Minister in 2001. Prior to that period, he had been a special adviser to Harriet Harman in the Department of Social Security. After Mr McLeish's downfall, he finds himself in 2002 working as a consultant on a short-term assignment for the Scottish Arts Council.

I have yet to establish what he was up to in 2003 and 2004, but in 2005 he hits the political jackpot and becomes Tony Blair's Director of Political Operations, where in due course he gets mixed up in the cash for honours affair, before being despatched north of the border to assist Labour with last May's general election. And now, once again, he pops up as special adviser to Des Browne at the Ministry of Defence (and/or the Scotland Office?).

What an extraordinary career. I wonder if he has kept a diary?

Phwoarr!

The sultry lady in this advert is Ms Carla Bruni, the latest squeeze of French president, M Nicolas Sarkozy.

It's only words

For anoraks only.

If you care to click on this link, and then on First Minister's Questions (the frst item on the list of items), you can view yesterday's FMQs in all its tawdry glory. If you do so, you will see that Ms Alexander has yet to come to grips with the parliamentary convention that when, referring to other members in the chamber, you do so in the third person. In other words, if you are Ms Alexander, you address your remarks to the Presiding Officer and refer to the First Minister as the First Minister or 'he', rather than 'you'. Although Ms Alexander starts off correctly, there are at least five occasions during FMQs when she slips into addressing the First Minister directly (twice in her first supplementary, twice in her second supplementary and once in her fourth supplementary). One would have thought that, by this time, she would have learned to get the matter right but that is not my main point.

If you click on this link, you can read the official (written) report of the session. Intriguingly, all of Ms Alexander's slips and errors have been corrected, so that the text now reads as if her questioning was properly addressed in its entirety. So the official report, the official record of what was said in parliament, is not always wholly accurate.

Does it matter? Probably not. Nobody minds the correction of the odd linguistic mistake, provided it does not alter the meaning of what was said. But whoever is transcribing the official record needs to be careful ...

Quote of the day

Nicol Stephen at FMQs (Official Report, col 5194):

"Who does the First Minister think the people of Scotland trust more on sport: Dougie Donnelly or Stewart Maxwell?"

Whereupon, with one voice, the great Scottish public responded "Stewart who?", followed by "And who is this Nicol guy anyway?"

On the other hand, we should remember that Mr Donnelly is not actually a sportsman of any note. He has never thrilled the terraces as he jinked his way down the by-line; his struggle to lower his golf handicap has been a private matter rather than subject to comment in the public prints; and when he visits Hampden, Wimbledon or Aintree he is not entitled to use the tradesman's entrance. No, Mr Donnelly is a commentator, an ancient mariner doomed to roam the tv schedules, importuning casual channel-surfers to tune in to the bowls at East Kilbride (or to visit a certain central Scotland furniture store). Nevertheless, despite a somewhat dated taste in sweaters and some continued speculation about the colour of his hair, Mr Donnelly has the invaluable ability to state the bleeding obvious in a manner which is not excessively irritating. Just why this qualifies him to chair a public sector company concerned with supporting Scotland's elite athletes remains a minor mystery - but then life is so often like that.

All very confusing

There is something strange going on. Consider this piece in The Times by Anatole Kaletsky, a commentator who is not usually seen as a Trotskyite attack dog:

If banks are to continue receiving implicit government guarantees then regulatory steps will have to be taken to ensure that these guarantees are reflected in their financial management, remuneration policies and risk controls. How exactly this can be done is a complex subject which economists, financiers and politicians will need to debate and to which different countries will probably find different answers.
But something clearly must be done to ensure that banks, their employees and their shareholders pay an adequate price for the implicit insurance they enjoy from governments and taxpayers - whether those governments are in America and Europe or in Asia and the Middle East. In the case of Britain, ensuring that the shareholders of Northern Rock lose every penny of their investment would be a good place to start.

[My emphasis]

What is a decent socialist supposed to do when the capitalist hyenas start tearing lumps out of their own kind?

Taking the long view

I sometimes think that our Scottish politicians live in a vacuum. So few of them seem to have any sense of what happened before their arrival on the political scene. Take, for instance, this latest row about specific grants to local authorities, the current (and apparently recurrent) obsession of Ms Alexander. Does she understand what she is advocating? On the other hand, did Mr Swinney appreciate what he was offering COSLA in return for their compliance over council tax rises?

It has long been the case that the more enlightened Ministers and civil servants in the Executive (and in the Scottish Office before them) have sought to minimise the extent of spedific grants to local authorities. There are sound reasons of principle amd practice for this. In particular, there is no point in having elected local authorities if all the spending decisions are to be made centrally. The centre has more than enough to do without intervening in decisions which - on the grounds of the famous subsidiarity - are better made locally. Furthermore, if resources for local purposes are to be allocated centrally through specific grants, it becomes incumbent on the centre to ensure that these resources are used for the purposes intended and that they deliver what they are intended to deliver; which leads of course to the panoply of monitoring, targeting and evaluating. (This is why the elimination of specific grants frequently forms part of the periodic efficiency initiatives that occasionally convulse the centre.) No, much better to allow local authorities to decide their own spending priorities and let them get on with it.

On the other hand, Ministers like to be seen to be doing things. And if a problem arises about the absence of homeless or educational or social provision for a particularly needy (and deserving) poulation group, it is difficult for Ministers to take the line of 'Nothing to do with us, mate - this is a matter for the local authority'. As these kind of problems arise frequently and as there are whole industries devoted to bringing them to the attention of the public, so Ministers are under more or less constant pressure to establish specific grants which have the effect of requiring local authorities to address the problems.

This means that the centre remains in a constant state of tension, with some parts of the Executive seeking to intervene and other parts (sometimes even the same parts) seeking to resist intervention. This tension manifests itself in a reform process which, as this year, sweeps away a host of specific grants in an effort to restore, as far as possible, the apparent purity of local government's ability to determine its own spending priorities. This 'wiping of the slate' is then followed over the next few years by the gradual restoration of specific grants as Ministers give in to demands for intervention. It all becomes excessive of course and in due time another reform process again sweeps away many of the specific grants. Thus does the cycle repeat itself. (None of which prevents politicians from hailing each stage in the cycle as entirely unprecedented.)

It is also worth noting that there is little ideological content here. Notwithstanding Ms Alexander's protestations about Labour's commitment to the most vulnerable groups, all the political parties pay at least lip-service to local authority independence from the centre and all of them have their own favoured priorities for specific grants. The cycle continues, therefore, regardless of who is in power. And all politicians at the centre know in their heart of hearts that it would be totally impractical to give in to every demand for central intervention. Some of the more grown-up politicians actually understand what is going on.

In these circumstances, I hear you ask - why is Ms Alexander abandoning the voice of reason and lining up with the heidbangers? That is a question only she can answer, but I fear that it is an error of strategic proportions.

Tennis - a bit of a disappointment

Well, that didn't last long.

Dodgy donations

It was like Linus and his comfort blanket. Interviewed by Jon Sopel on the BBC's Politics Show this lunchtime, Wendy Alexander invoked her mantra three times:

"I'm confident that I will be exonerated of any wrongdoing."

Was it my imagination, or did she become more flushed with every repetition?

Her mea non culpa may of course be true in a strictly legal sense. But "wrongdoing" covers a broader category of sins. And the bottom line is that she accepted an illegal donation.

She can - and probably will - call on the "Ah didnae ken" defence. She didn't fully understand the rules; or her campaign team didn't tell her what was going on. But try that out when you are next stopped by the police: "I'm sorry, officer, I didn't realise that this was an area with a 30 mph limit." And if she is not responsible for the conduct of her campaign, then who is? And, please, let us not pretend that all this is a technicality.

But to revert to the "wrongdoing", consider these two actions by Ms Alexander:

1. she authorised - or at least allowed - a certain MSP to solicit donations on her behalf, an MSP who was either ignorant of the rules or who chose to ignore them; and

2. she put no backstop (or at least no effective backstop) in place to check that all donations were above board, a somewhat elementary precaution (one would have thought) given the prevailing circumstances.

Neither of these is in itself a crime. But nor are they examples of best practice. Do they amount to wrongdoing?

Let us see what the Electoral Commission will say later this week.

Quote of the day

Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times (here):

"Blair has always been to money what Nicolas Sarkozy is to sex."

English football has more money than sense

You can see why they call it a merrygoround. The Guardian reports:

Allardyce departed with compensation reported to be worth £6m and has already been linked with the vacant Republic of Ireland manager's job. He was in magnanimous mood yesterday, reflecting: "There's no point being bitter and twisted about it because it will only affect you, not the people you have left behind."

Yeah, £6 million in compensation can ease a lot of pain.

The perma-tanned one

Would you trust this man to be in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions? The Guardian reports:

Peter Hain, the work and pensions secretary, admitted in an interview with the Guardian yesterday that he had solicited most of the 17 donations totalling £103,155 which his deputy leadership campaign had failed to register with the Electoral Commission. He said he knew about the controversial donations, but not the precise point at which they came in.
He added that no one in his campaign team was able to explain why they had not been declared before.
He was speaking to the Guardian after providing the Electoral Commission with a new list of his donations. The extra donations mean he spent £185,000 on his campaign, and not the £82,000 he had declared previously.
He issued an apology to his party and to the prime minister, but rejected the view he should resign from the government, saying he had made a mistake "inadvertently and not wilfully".

Oh well, as it was inadvertent, that's all right then.

Incidentally, how does one go about making a wilful mistake? If it is wilful, can it be a mistake?

None so blind ...

Iain Macwhirter, writing in The Guardian, lays it on a bit thickly:

In another significant development in 2007, the Conservative leader David Cameron endorsed the plan for an English grand committee in Westminster, composed of English MPs. The idea is that this body would handle England-only bills under the rubric "English votes for English laws". But it would rapidly evolve into a de facto English parliament. If such a body is set up - perhaps after a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats, who also support an English Parliament - federalism is inevitable. There is unstoppable momentum now behind the disaggregation of the UK, and time is running out for the political establishment in Westminster to respond. This country is changing - and, it has to be said, largely for the better, as the old centralised apparatus disintegrates before regional democracy. Now that the unionist parties in Scotland have all but given up, the UK faces a choice: adopt some form of federal solution, or prepare for political disintegration, on the lines of Czechoslovakia's "velvet divorce" in 1993. It is as serious as that. While Brown launches fatuous "Britishness" campaigns, the very fabric of the country he claims to love is being torn up and stitched anew.

"Unstoppable momentum"? Unionist parties in Scotland "have all but given up"? Federalism or bust? Well, maybe, maybe not. Perhaps Mr Macwhirter's desire to send shockwaves through Westminster has led him to over-egg the pudding. After all, the SNP remains a minority party at Holyrood; it may have its hands on the levers of power but these are not always connected to the engine.

Thoughts for today

1. Not all Tory politicians are complete plonkers.

As long as Michael Gove can write this in The Times:

In his Books section column before Christmas, David Baddiel asked who settles down at the end of Christmas Day to relax with a new biography of John Stuart Mill. Mind you, that was before the TV schedules were public.
Well I am that sad, sad man who did round off his Christmas with a life of the Victorian sage. I haven’t got much beyond the bit where the 13-year-old JSM takes a “complete course in political economy”. But at least, as wallows in the past go, it has more suspense and laughs than To The Manor Born.

he can still be regarded as a human being.


2. Don't get carried away with Barack Obama.

Unlike the vast majority of the political commentariat, David Aaronovitch in The Times remains sceptical. No need to repeat the inconsistencies here but his article is well worth reading. The worry is that the problems with Obama will not be exposed until he has seen off Hillary and it is too late to prevent the Republicans sweeping into office again. If I were a betting man, I would take a punt on Bloomberg coming up the middle as an independent.


3. The banks are out to screw their customers.

Maybe they always were ... but their rapacity seems to be increasing. The Indie reports:

Some of Britain's biggest banks have unscrupulously exploited last month's base rate cut by failing to pass on the benefits to mortgage holders, yet at the same time imposing even bigger cuts on interest accruing to savings accounts.
The double whammy means banks are squeezing their customers tighter than ever this winter, as they fight to protect their dwindling profits from the credit crunch and potential legal action over bank charges.
New figures from the financial advisers Chase de Vere reveal that 18 banks and building societies – including high street names such as Alliance & Leicester, Halifax, Lloyds TSB and NatWest – have within the past month cut the rate on one or more of their savings accounts by more than December's 0.25 per cent cut in the Bank of England base rate. Over the same period, 14 lenders also failed to reduce their standard variable mortgage rates by the full 0.25 per cent, according to comparison service Moneyfacts, including Egg and, once again, Alliance & Leicester.
Meanwhile, banks have been busy raising their charges and fees, as they desperately try to recoup the income they are losing as a result of the credit crunch. Most of the big banks have restructured their overdraft charges in the past few months, introducing an ever-more complex web of fees designed to catch out consumers.

Worth noting that HBOS (via Halifax) and RBS (via NatWest), Scotland's biggest banks, are involved.

On the subject of dinosaurs ...

I see that Councillor Terry Kelly has hit the mainstream media. The Herald reports:

Wendy Alexander's election agent, Paisley councillor Terry Kelly, was under fire yesterday following an exchange on his website in which he dubbed women "thick".
Councillor Kelly maintains his own personal website which included a recent exchange with a female visitor who asked: "Why are no women allowed to comment here? You've mentioned one being banned, you've called a black woman a liar for talking about racism but then no others have been allowed to comment. Councillor, are you a sexist?"
Councillor Kelly responded: "You have just perfectly demonstrated why, it's because they are thick."
The fact that Councillor Kelly has been Ms Alexander's election agent has prompted criticism from opponents.

Councillor Kelly has long been infamous throughout the Scottish blogosphere. Because of its excesses, I refuse to link to his blog but those who wish to wallow in the mire will have no difficulty in finding it via Google.

If Ms Alexander had any sense, she would long ago have severed any remaining links with Councillor Kelly.

Still on holiday?

It's not outright opposition, but nor is it even grudging acceptance. And it's not as if they haven't had months to think about it. The Herald reports on Labour's apparent inability to make its mind up:

Rival parties are preparing to leave Labour isolated at Holyrood this week as MSPs debate the Gould report on last May's election fiasco.
The fact that the SNP, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greens all support the key recommendation - that Holyrood should take responsibility for running elections north of the border from Westminster - will make for a difficult return to action for Wendy Alexander as she awaits her fate in the Electoral Commission inquiry into donations.
...
Shadow secretary for public services Andy Kerr stressed: "We are happy to consider all of the recommendations made by Mr Gould but we should allow the parliament and its committees to examine the matter fully and make subsequent recommendations. Indeed, the local government committee is taking evidence and will report soon.
"Mr Gould identified that some of the problems arose by having the STV (single transferable vote) local government elections on the same day as the Scottish parliamentary elections. Scottish Labour believes that one of the solutions is to ensure that council elections are on a different cycle but we will consider the consultation undertaken by the Scotland Office carefully."

Does Labour have no views of its own? Do they really want to defend a position where Westminster is responsible for the administration of Scottish elections? And where is Wendy?

Instead, Scottish Labour continues to give the impression that the strings are being pulled from London. They are letting their supporters down.

They're at it again

Early January is sufficiently depressing in itself. I can do without being harangued by Scottish Ministers about my so-called lifestyle:

Getting a 'new you' in the new year can be as easy as a walk in the park, Ministers said today.
With many people wanting to get back into shape following the Christmas and New Year period, Scots are being advised that they didn't need to think drastic diets or pricey gyms were the only answer.
Minister for Public Health Shona Robison said:
"Many of us will have been relaxing over the festive season and perhaps eating and drinking more than we would normally.
"The start of a new year is a good opportunity to take a look at your diet and exercise routine, because small changes can have a big impact on your health.
"The Scottish Government is making tackling obesity, particularly among children, a top priority, but we can't achieve this alone - everyone has a part to play.
"If everyone makes one small resolution to improve their lifestyle, we will all be able to enjoy a happier, healthier 2008."

I don't want a new me, ta very much. The old one fits satisfactorily. And if I fail to see how looking at my 'diet and exercise routine' would have any impact on tackling obesity, least of all among children. So you know what you can do with your 'one small resolution'.

When will it stop?

Source: BBC (here)

The graph above shows the pound sterling sinking like a stone against the euro. Good for those who export from the UK, but expect to pay more for your imported Merc and for your holidays in Spain, Italy, Greece and now Cyprus.

I suppose that somebody in the UK Treasury is monitoring this, aren't they?