Quote of the day

From Caroline Flint's resignation letter to the Prime Minister (which might have been a little more convincing if she had not engaged in the photoshoot exemplified above):

You have a two tier Government. Your inner circle and then the remainder of Cabinet.
I have the greatest respect for the women who have served as full members of Cabinet and for those who attend as and when required.
However, few are allowed into your inner circle.
Several of the women attending Cabinet - myself included - have been treated by you as little more than female window dressing.

Incidentally, Hoon, Beckett and Paul Murphy have also jumped (or been pushed).

Swine flu

Should we be worried? If that were the case, do you think that they would tell us?

Goodbye Mr Hutton

It's not just Balls you know. Here's another one with mad staring eyes:

Oh dear, he's resigned as well ...

Maybe I'm going soft in my old age

It is a measure of my increasing cynicism about the political process that the resignation of Mr Purnell has me casting about for an ulterior motive. I ask myself, what's in it for him?

Unlike mesdames Smith and Blears, he was not facing the prospect of defenestration from the cabinet. Indeed, if you believe the gossip, he had been offered Balls' post as children's secretary, arguably a promotion of sorts. Furthermore, the Prime Minister had gone out of his way to dismiss the speculation about his alleged dodging of capital gains tax on the sale of his London flat.

Nor has there been any pretence about wanting to spend more time with his family or reconnecting with his labour roots. No, it was a straightforward 'Gordon, you're not up to the job' (I paraphrase, but only slightly).

Furthermore, while the Prime Minister may be wounded, he is still the biggest beast in the jungle and well capable of wreaking a terrible revenge. And the Party still retains more than a vestigial attachment to loyalty, which may make Mr Purnell's life in his constituency or on the back benches less than entirely comfortable.

Finally, as the assassin who wielded the knife, Mr P must be aware that his chances of succeeding to the leadership of whoever replaces Mr Brown must have diminished to almost non-existent.

Could it possibly be - just possibly - that Mr P acted as he did because he thought he was doing the Right Thing?

It's a bit of a mess, actually

Remember the Lisbon Treaty? The lovely Tamzin explains the Tory position:

Mr Hague has gone to exhaustive lengths to explain what he means when he says he can’t say whether or not he will say what he means when he says he can’t say what we will do if the Lisbon Treaty passes into law before we get into government, or not. To recap from the briefing notes: ‘“We will not let matters rest there” is a hypothetical holding answer to the hypothetical question of whether or not we will do something about a situation in the future we want to prevent happening in the first place and as such we can only answer a question pertaining to the opposite turning out to be the case because to do otherwise would be to elaborate on the unknowable.

Oh Sir Humphrey, thou shouldst be living at this hour ...

Polling day

Yes, thank you, I've done my duty.

And I can report - for what it's worth - that, as at 10 am, polling in Stockeree is holding up well.

Slightly surprised by the length of the ballot paper; who are all these people who want to become MEPs? And somewhat nonplussed by the request of the polling clerk that the paper be folded lengthwise.

Not a canvasser in sight.

Healthy eating?

Apparently, he has yet to reach 20 stone, but he does like his snacks. The Telegraph reports:

While other politicians billed for flat screen televisions and moat clearing, Mark Francois, the shadow minister for Europe, claimed for a wide variety of on-the-go snacks through his expenses.
His claims included Mars bars, Snickers, Kit Kats, wine gums, Twiglets, Jaffa Cakes, chocolate biscuits, Pringles crisps and "bags of sweets".
The Conservative MP for Rayleigh in Essex also claimed for Häagen-Dazs ice cream, lemon sorbet, choc ices, crisps, Starburst, Bourneville dark chocolate and Trebor mints. Among his purchases were several Peperami "hot" 5 packs. The spicy pork snack is marketed with the slogan: "Peperami: It's a Bit of an Animal".
Under the second home allowance MPs were allowed to claim a food allowance of up to £400 per month without receipts. But, unlike many of his colleagues, Mr Francois was scrupulous about claiming exact amounts for his food purchases and submitting receipts for them.
A typical receipt from a trip to his local Tesco showed that he spent £7.87 on ice cream, £4.36 on bags of sweets, £3.24 on Kit Kats, £2.68 on Mars bars, £1.28 on Snickers bars, and 96p on wine gums.
On another visit he spent £5.04 on Mars bars, £3.24 on Kit Kats and £2.42 on a Pot Noodle. A separate grocery trip saw him picking up two Peperami "hot" 5 packs for £2.18 each, and spending £14.26 on biscuits, and another £3.26 on "bags of sweets".

I don't mind buying the fat boy an occasional ice-cream cone but this seems an excessive burden on the taxpayer.

Revenge of the monstrous regiment

Sisters are doing the reshuffle for themselves. First Jacqui, then Beverley and now wee Hazel. It's beginning to look orchestrated ...

No signs of urgency

One might argue that some of our MPs appear to be corrupt; some may simply be greedy. But they would also appear to be spectacularly incompetent. The Times reports:

The official release of MPs’ expenses could be delayed until the last day of June because of a stand-off between MPs and House of Commons officials.
MPs on the committee that oversees the running of Parliament are desperate to end the drip-drip release of expenses data by publishing it in a redacted form on the internet.
Others, though, are arguing with the Parliamentary Fees Office over what should be redacted, suggesting that they are trying to prevent publication of some entries which could seen as embarrassing.

How long have they been talking about this? How much longer do they need? Would anything ever have happened if The Telegraph had not published what it has?

Even worse:

... it emerged that the external body promised by Gordon Brown to go through every MP’s claims will not be created until January at the earliest. It will be voted through Parliament in the autumn.

So until some time after next January, there will be no authoritative examination of MPs' expenses claims. (I do not regard either the Labour Party's star chamber or the Tory equivalent as being remotely comparable to an independent, qualified assessor; indeed, in the absence of an independent qualified assessment, it is difficult to see how these party bodies can reach reliable conclusions.)

A conspiracy to delay matters? More likely, it reflects a spectacular lack of awareness that, outside the Westminster bubble, the whole issue is viewed with rather more seriousness.

A brief note of explanation

The more perspicacious of my readers will notice that my sign-off below has been changed from the rather cryptic 'HW' to a more prosaic appellation, which is in fact my first name.

When I first started this blog, a little more than four years ago, I was concerned to remain anonymous for two reasons. First, it might have been a load of crap (and I accept that some might think it still is); and, second, I had no wish to embarrass my previous employers.

But calling myself HW always seemed a bit precious. And now that time has placed a cordon sanitaire between what I do now (not a lot, to be honest) and what I did then, I can cheerfully revert to a simpler style.

Look, he's probably got a lot of books ...

So why is The Herald picking on Jim Devine MP?

OK, so he put 66 metres of shelving on his office expenses and asked his pal, the local publican, to carry out the work (also on expenses) at a total cost of £2,300. Just because the shelving is not immediately apparent from a brief inspection of his office, it does not necessarily mean that the shelving does not exist, does it?

And all right, so he claimed against the £2,000 cost of rewiring his second home. Just because the electrician was recommended by a guy in a pub and now seems to have gone missing, to have traded from a mythical address and to have had a mythical VAT registration, does not make Mr Devine a bad person.

These kind of things could happen to anybody, right?

Quote of the day

The Prime Minister on MPs' expenses (here):

"To be honest, what I've seen offends my Presbyterian conscience. What I've seen is something that is appalling," he said.

A bit rich, coming from a man who asked the public to pay for his Sky Sports subscription. What did your Presbyterian conscience have to say about that?

What's going on? Not a lot, it seems

Ah yes, the Labour Party's Star Chamber, sorting the chaff from the wheat in terms of Labour MPs and their expenses.

But only four MPs have been referred to it: Elliot Morley, Margaret Moran, David Chaytor and Ian Gibson. And the first two have already announced that they will stand down at the next election.

So what's the matter? Why the delays? They cannot be running out of potential candidates ...

It's the mad, staring eyes

Would you trust this man as Chancellor of the Exchequer? According to The Sunday Times, our Prime Minister would.

Big mistake ...

Devotion to duty

Nigel Griffiths MP: the man who so loved BBC Scotland and STV that he was prepared to ask the taxpayer for more than £3,600 to buy tv and radio equipment for his London flat. I'm amazed that he also found time for discussions on Ugandan affairs.

Quote of the day

She who must be obeyed:



If Dame Joanna says it, it must be right (from here)

"I urge you to cast a positive vote for a better future by voting Green in the European elections."

Who am I to argue?

Simply complicated

Sounds easy, does it not? A referendum to coincide with the next general election and Bob's your uncle. The BBC set it out a couple of days ago:

The new system Mr Johnson favours is known as Alternative Vote Plus and was first suggested by the Independent Commission on Electoral Reform, led by Lord Jenkins, in 1998.
Under AV Plus, voters would have two ballot papers: one for their constituency representative and a second for their favoured political party.
Most seats in the Commons would be filled with locally elected MPs, but the remainder would be allocated by proportional representation according to the number of votes cast for each party.
Calling this an "elegant" option, Mr Johnson said: "This is a genuinely radical alternative that only Labour in government can facilitate."

Well it's not that simple. What follows is (grossly) over-simplified.

First of all, you (we, they?) need to decide the overall number of MPs. There is a case for a reduction from the current number of 646 MPs; it would be much more difficult to argue for an increase. But let us settle for retaining the current number of 646, at least for the purposes of illustration.

Next, how many MPs should be voted in by individual constituencies and how many by the party list system? Too few list MPs (less than 100, 150?) and the exercise kind of loses its point; too many (more than 200, 250?) and the constituency MPs are swamped. Again, let us settle - for illustration purposes - on 150 list MPs against 400 (in round numbers) constituency MPs.

Oh dear, if we are to have only 400 constituency MPs, then we need a wholesale revision of constituency boundaries. (Dismissing a few MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would not be nearly enough to get down to 400.) I suppose that means bringing in the Electoral Commission to do the donkey work, which would take a year or two. And whatever they come up with is bound to be wildly controversial.

Oh, and by the way, are we content to retain for constituency MPs the current first-past-the-post arrangements? Or should we opt for a system of elimination whereby the voters indicate preferences and the lowest-scoring candidates are dismissed, with their votes redistributed to other candidates until somebody gets above the magic level of 50%?

As for the party list elections, are these based on relatively small groupings of constituencies, say a dozen or so? Or on big regions, as in next week's euro-elections? And are we content with the arrangements established for next week's euro elections, whereby the voter has to choose the party rather than the individual candidates on the lists, thus enabling the parties to dictate who is likely to elected by putting them at the top of the list. Thus if you happen to like candidate no 4 on such-and-such a party's list, then tough (unless of course the three candidates above No 4 are elected as well).

I suppose that Mr Johnson is entitled to call this an elegant option, although it seems a bit of a dog's breakfast to me. But that does not mean we should not embrace some version of proportional representation, as it cannot be more anomalous than the present system. But let us not pretend that moving from one system to the other would be straightforward.

The kiss of death

Once Lord Foulkes takes your side, you know that you are in deep doo-doo. The Scotsman reports on Mr Darling:

Friends have said that he is one of the least likely figures in the Cabinet to get caught up in the recent expenses scandal."Alistair has always been so modest and safe," said Lord George Foulkes, a former ministerial colleague and ex-fellow Labour MP.

Alistair, you might as well resign now.

Will they never learn?

They think we're stupid (part umpteen). The Times reports:

Hundreds of donations to political parties are to be kept secret under plans being slipped through the House of Lords.
Labour and the Conservatives have been accused of collusion over plans to raise the threshold above which parties must report donations from £5,000 to £7,500. The move is opposed by heavyweight figures such as Lord Neill of Bladen, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, who said that there was no real justification for the increase.
The Electoral Commission has said: “An increase of this level has the potential to reduce public confidence in the transparency and integrity of political funding.”

What happened to the transparency that Brown and Cameron keep banging on about?

Decisions, decisions ...

Imagine you're the Prime Minister. You don't like taking decisions at the best of times, which is why you are known as something of a ditherer. Nor do you like open rows with your Cabinet colleagues (although you have absolutely no qualms about your acolytes silently wielding the knife); thus, wee Hazel is alternately condemned for her "unacceptable behaviour" and praised for doing a good job.

But now you're faced with the need for a Cabinet re-shuffle in the days following the Euro elections in two weeks' time. Everyone (the media, the party, the opposition) is expecting it; if you funk it now, you will be in even worse trouble. But it's not that easy.

Take wee Hazel, aka the Dead Chipmunk Walking (copyright Benedict Brogan of the Daily Telegraph). She has now paid the equivalent of CGT on that second home she sold, admittedly only after she was found out and although there remains some doubt as to whether the Inland Revenue can or will accept it. And she did still profit from capital gains on a property acquired with assistance from public funds. Besides, you said yourself that her behaviour was "totally unacceptable". Can you possibly retain her in Cabinet, while throwing the occasional backbencher to the wolves, arguably for lesser offences? (And what about her cheeky chum Caroline?) On the other hand, if she were sacked or demoted, would you not have to do something similar to Hoon and Purnell who are arguably - at least in the eyes of the public and the party - equally guilty in terms of CGT avoidance? And that pair of miscreants appear to have been joined in the dock this morning by Andy Burnham whose complicated saga is exposed in The Sunday Times. Furthermore, Mr Darling and his serial flipping cannot be regarded as entirely out of the wood.

Then there is the problem of Peter (whose second home claims after he had resigned as an MP means that his hands are not entirely clean either). The real problem is that Peter is insisting on proceeding with the partial privatisation of the Royal Mail, even if it means relying on the Tories to ram it through the Commons. You are desperate to move him to somewhere less controversial but the only job he will accept is Foreign Secretary. But that would upset David who would turn his nose up at being Home Secretary (as, thankfully, Jacqui has "agreed" to step down).

And all this would have to be sorted out before you got to the level of the Ministers of State wherein lie some equally messy problems.

Life as Prime Minister can sometimes be a bed of thorns.

Not really hobnobbing with royalty

I went to a Royal Garden Party once, admittedly more than 30 years ago. In those days, you were allowed to take your spouse and any unmarried dsughters of a certain age. Needless to say, the former had to have a new dress (and hat) and we never had any of the latter.

Because of the crowds (mainly but not exclusively senior Scottish Office civil servants) and the traffic restrictions, I had to park the car miles away. The gardens of Holyrood House were mobbed; not a snowball's chance of getting near Her Maj or any of the other royals - you had to be specially invited to form part of the exclusive circles which enveloped the principals.

Because of the crowds and the queues, you could either have a cup of tea or a wee cake; to have both demanded exceedingly sharp elbows. And there was no booze. (Who else would have an afternoon party in their garden without the offer of a glass of vino?)

So I don't envy the BNP's Nick Griffin; he is most unlikely to enjoy the occasion.

Quote of the day

He must think we're stupid. According to The Times (here):

The Prime Minister vowed yesterday to do whatever it took to clean up the system.
“I pledge to you that the country will be proud of the Labour candidates that stand at the next general election,” he said. “We will show that everything possible has been done to ensure that the public is satisfied about our political system and we will not shrink from any action that is necessary to achieve that.”

Really? How many MPs is he going to sack in order to achieve candidates of which we can be proud? 60%, 70%, 8o%? It's not very likely, is it? Some of us might settle for candidates that we did not actively despise ...

Cushioning the blow

Did you wonder why so many of these Tories seem (relatively) content to stand down at the next election? Well this (from The Independent) may have something to do with it:

All MPs who step down, or are defeated, at an election are paid a "resettlement grant" designed to compensate for loss of salary. It ranges between six months' and one year's pay depending on age and length of service in the Commons.
An MP aged between 55 and 64 who has been in Parliament for 15 years will be paid a year's salary – £64,766 at current rates. The first £30,000 is tax-free. In addition, all MPs can claim a maximum of £40,799 for "winding-up costs" to pay off staff and end office leases. Politicians also benefit from a generous final salary pension scheme heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

But perhaps I am excessively cynical.

Getting your ducks in a row

That duck house:

More here.

Quote of the day

Simon Carr in The Independent (here):

Who's that Labour MP who supports the Speaker. Tommy Sheridan, is it? Someone Sheridan. He wants sketch writers banned from Parliament for making "personal and racist attacks" on MPs. What rot. The fat Scots git.

That wake-up call

Q. Why did the Scottish Labour MP spend £250 of taxpayers' money on an alarm clock?

A. Probably because it had lots of bells and whistles.

And another Labour seat will fail to be retained at the general election.

Cooking with gas

The Herald revels in gloom and doom:

Six in 10 Scots children do not know how to boil an egg.

Look on the bright side - nearly four in 10 Scots kids do know how to boil an egg.

Baron not particularly hard-up of Springburn

It could be a lot worse. And he will certainly be better off than the bulk of his constituents. A comfortable pension of over £80,000 a year (index-linked of course) - not in the Fred Goodwin class but not to be sneezed at - and a seat in the House of Lords.

Plenty of wiggle room

At the risk of boring everyone to tears, I would like to pontificate a little more on the subject of MPs' expenses.

All the political players seem to be agreed that the present system of rules is inadequate and needs to be replaced. There would not appear to be the same level of agreement on what the features of the new system should be. I may return to this in future posts.

The other aspect of the matter concerns what should be done about those who have 'abused' the existing or previous system. Having watched the Prime Minister's press conference earlier this evening, I remain confused. Mr Brown suggested that MPs who 'defied the rules' should be not be allowed to stand in the next general election. He pointed out that the Labour Party had suspended two MPs (because of imaginary mortgages) and that a minister had been asked to stand down (arguably not because of his expenses but for failing to declare a rental subsidy on his main home). On the other hand, despite suggesting that Ms Blears' behaviour had been 'unacceptable', he argued that she had not broken the law nor the rules of the House of Commons. So does Ms Blears escape further punishment?

And what about the Home Secretary? Listing the boxroom in her sister's house as her primary residence thus enabling her to claim thousands of pounds on her second home where her husband and family live may be within the rules technically but I doubt if anyone would cite it as exemplary practice. So is she OK as well then? And while we're on the subject of Ms Smith, she certainly broke the rules in claiming for her husband's porn films; but she has now repaid the money. Does that mean that it's all right to defy the rules provided you say sorry and repay the money? Or does that only apply to Cabinet Members?

Of course, a strict interpretation of the rules (even the old rules), particularly with the need for expenses to be justified with reference to parliamentary duties (see paragraph 2.1.1 here), might bring all sorts of sins into play. The Prime Minister ducked the issue at this evening's press conference, but was his claim for his Sky Sports subscription necessary for the performance of his parliamentary duties? Defying the rules?

It is too early to draw firm conclusions, but if Mr Brown thinks that he can get away with throwing half a dozen minnows to the wolves he may have to revise his thinking.

The problem with surveys

The Scotsman reports:

THE truth has been revealed about lying. From fabricating chunks of their CV, trimming a few inches off their waistline, or rounding down the number of notches on their bedpost, it seems many people shun honesty in order to impress and get on in the world.
A poll of 2,000 people across Britain has uncovered a litany of untruths commonly told by people about their lifestyle and employment history.

But what if the people polled are telling lies about telling lies?

An awful lot of mince

I think that the Labour Chief Whip should investigate this MP who claimed £18,800 in unreceipted expenses for food over four years.

Oh, it is the Labour Chief Whip ...

Music of the week

Some Steely Dan for you:

Why parliament is disappearing up its own fundament

Ah yes, the Speaker and that no-confidence motion. The Guardian explains:

What is happening to the motion?
It will be printed on the Commons order paper tomorrow. Carswell is tabling it under "future business", which means that it is set down theoretically for debate that day (ie tomorrow), but that it is not expected to be debated that day. In other words, it is for debate on a "named day". That is not the same as an "early day motion" (EDM), which is a motion down for debate on an "early day" (in practice never). Carswell had been planning to table his motion as an EDM. But EDMs have no practical effect whatsoever.
Will it be debated?
Not necessarily. It is not unusual for backbench MPs to table motions for debate on a "named day".

Are you any the wiser? There was a time, about 30 years ago, when I spent hours sitting around in the House of Commons, trying to get to grips with this kind of stuff. Nowadays, I merely smile and pour myself another glass of pinot grigio.

I'm trying hard to be sympathetic, but ...

More than slightly embarrassing. All those MSPs sitting on potential profits earned by virtue of the soon-to-be-defunct Holyrood accommodation allowance. I rather sense that they were hoping that we might just forget about the matter. Then that LibDem leader had to go and say that his Westminster MPs would hand back any profits from selling their second homes down south. But did he think about Tavish the Viking with a potential profit of £100,000 on his property transactions?

And, of course, the profits won't be realised before the house concerned is sold. I don't imagine that Tavish could cough up £100,000 just like that. The same goes for the Presiding Officer (£125,000) or John Swinney (£95,000). But, assuming house prices resume their upward movement shortly, the longer they leave it, the more the profits (and the potential cash payback) will grow.

Furthermore, is it fair that wee Hazel gets away with only having to repay the equivalent of capital gains tax (rather than the entire profit)? Hugh Henry (£92,400) would no doubt have a view.

But, if one of then caves in to the demand for hand-back, then the rest of them might have to follow suit. It will all end in tears, I fear.

Helpfully, The Herald lists the MSPs who are crying into their beer.

Pedantry

How nice to see - here in The Sunday Times - the correct use of the subjunctive:

The voters are entitled to one great expectation: that the prime minister of this country show leadership in a crisis.

Shades of grey

I usually admire the writing of Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. But this kind of stuff is just playing to the gallery:

David Cameron can instruct his new scrutiny committee to remove the Tory spivs and scam merchants. The committee can be empowered to strike off the approved candidates list any Tory MP found guilty of making unethical claims. On the Labour side, the party's national executive committee will this week discuss a proposal to conduct a clean-out. Gordon Brown should support this at once and ensure that there is a tough mechanism for imposing deselection on the fiddlers and fraudsters on his benches.

The problem is deciding which of the miscreants is an outright cad worthy of being cast into the outer darkness and which is an idiot who has made a simple mistake or two in compiling his or her expenses claim. We could all agree (perhaps) that Messrs Morley and Chaytor should be compelled to spend more time with their imaginary mortgages, while Ms Blears should pay a severe penalty for her capital gains tax avoidance (and for being extremely irritating). But do Mr Darling's flipping, Mr Straw's excessive claim for council tax, Mr Willetts' light bulbs, Mr Letwin's leaky pipe under his tennis court and Mr Salmond's gluttony constitute sins of an equal magnitude? Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

I realise that it is tempting to opt for a 'when in doubt, chuck them out' policy. But I really think that we need to draw some sort of dividing line between the villains and the clowns. Drawing such a line would require the wisdom of Solomon, however. Mr Rawnsley's pat solution is no real solution at all.

Will it never end?

It is rather sad to be reduced to highlighting those MPs that have not done anything wrong, but The Independent reports:

A few MPs have emerged as the good guys. Some from all three main parties do not claim a second homes allowance, even though they are entitled to do so. Labour MPs Martin Salter, Celia Barlow and Geoffrey Robinson do not claim the allowance. From the Conservatives, Adam Afriyie, Richard Benyon, Philip Dunne, Anne Milton and Rob Wilson turned down the money. On the Liberal Democrat benches, only one member from outside London, Cambridge MP David Howarth, has turned it down. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn claimed only £147.78 a year on food. Ed Miliband claimed only £6,300 to rent a terraced house.

That's it.

Meanwhile, quote of the week belongs to Diane Abbott (here):

Diane Abbott, the Labour MP, raised fears over public anger. "Saying sorry isn't enough. Giving money isn't enough. The public ... want to see dead MPs hanging from lamp-posts," she said.

Not a lot of people know this (part 14)

Synecdoche. According to The Guardian:

But what does synecdoche mean? It's one of the great vexed issues of English grammar, up there with "what is a zeugma?", "are my litotes straight?" and "are semi-colons functionally worthless?". A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which part is responsible for the whole. Examples: in "20 head of cattle", the word for part of a cow (its head) has been substituted for the whole; "All hands on deck!" is not a call for mass mutilation. Instead, "hands" here stands for all the sailors on a ship.

Now, if I only knew how to pronounce it properly, I could drop it (casually like) into the conversation ...

Swimming pools, chandeliers, bath plugs and glittery loo seats

Here is the rollcall of shame.*

That a whiff of petty greed should from time to time emanate from the green benches is not altogether surprising; there were bound to be a few rotten apples in the barrel.

What was not expected was the widespread prevalence of dubious activity among the more senior MPs. The number of MPs who can truthfully be described as honourable (and despite everything there are more than a few) seems nevertheless to diminish by the day.

* so far

Oh Gordon

Why does he carry on? Despised and ridiculed by the media, by the Opposition and even by members of his own Cabinet. Former cheerleaders like Polly and Jackie are pointing him towards the door. Outmanoeuvred by a fading actress. His staff cannot even keep private his make-up routine.

What's the point in clinging on to office? Why put yourself through the hurt, unrelieved by throwing about mobile phones and printers? How can you get up every morning as if everything was normal? And it's not going to get any better when the June election results come through.

You're 58 and reasonably well off, with a decent pension to look forward to. You could have a pleasant life without all the hassle. If nothing else, why not think of your family? Is retirement such an unthinkable option? Anything must be better than the present situation.

Quote of the day

From The Telegraph (here):

David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, claimed more than £100 for workmen to replace 25 light bulbs at his home.

There has to be a joke somewhere here. (And it's on us, the taxpayers.)

Snout in the trough?

I suppose it was inevitable. Other MPs may build up property portfolios or invest in attractive kitchen and bathroom facilities. But our Alex thinks of only one thing. The Telegraph reports:

MPs can claim a maximum of £400 per month for food, without having to produce receipts, but questions will be asked why the First Minister spent so much. Commons records show Mr Salmond claimed the maximum allowance for eight months in 2005/6, a total of £3,200.
However, included in Mr Salmond's claim was £800 for the months of August and September 2005, when the Commons was on its summer recess. Mr Salmond voted on July 12, 2005 but was not required to take part in another division until October 12.
The SNP's victory in the 2007 Holyrood election curtailed his appearances at Westminster, but the food claims did not stop.
In the 2007/08 financial year, which covers the period between the end of March 2007 and the start of April 2008, he voted on only six days in the Commons.
However, he still claimed £1,751.50 for food, or more than a third of the maximum allowed for the entire 12 months.

I confess that I do not really understand why I should be expected to subsidise the First Minister's grocery bills when he is on a parliamentary recess ... But yes, you guessed it - it was within the rules.

Mr Moral Compass

If you are feeling sorry for Gordon Brown, well stop it. Here is Littlejohn in The Mail:

When he was Chancellor, he had a grace-and-favour apartment in Downing Street and a bolt-hole flat nearby, which he bought in a fire sale from the estate of the late crook Robert Maxwell - appropriately, you may think, given that Gordon appears to have modelled his pensions policy on Captain Bob's.
Until shortly before he became Prime Minister, Brown designated his bolt-hole as his 'second' home for the purposes of claiming allowances, which included paying his brother six grand for 'cleaning services' - as you do.
With all the accounting acumen for which he is legendary, he even spread the cost of a £9,000 new kitchen from Ikea over two financial years, which allowed him to stay just within the maximum second home allowance limit.
When he inherited No 10, he followed the example of any shrewd businessmen looking to keep as much of his own hard-earned as possible - he put the flat in his wife's name.
This left him free to switch his house in Scotland to his 'second' home. Consequently it, too, has now been extensively renovated at the expense of taxpayers, who also pick up the tab for his gardener and cleaner.
Another bonus is that if he sells the flat when he's kicked out of office next year, he won't be liable for capital gains tax - which he would have been had it remained his 'second' home.
Cute, eh? No loopholes, exemptions, avoidance or special allowances there, then. But given that he's lived pretty much cost-free in Downing Street for the past 12 years, we might ask why Gordon has charged anything on his expenses. After all, just because he can, it doesn't mean he's obliged to.
He's not short of a bawbee or two and is famously parsimonious. And as Prime Minister he's paid £194,250 year and rarely has to put his hand in his own pocket. He's got a six-figure, index-linked pension to look forward, too, and no doubt a few directorships in the pipeline.
So why does he stoop to charging taxpayers for tarting up his house in Scotland and paying his gardener and cleaner, let alone picking up the tab for his lightbulbs and Sky Sports subscription?

Having a good crisis

Unexpected tribute to Ms Sturgeon in - of all things - The New Statesman:

The star of the swine flu outbreak has surely been Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s deputy first minister and health secretary. There is something reassuring about that soft Scottish accent – I suppose it has to do with memories of Dr Finlay’s Casebook on television – and one feels that, thanks to her charm, good sense and calm but brisk manner, we shall all be safe from this new terror. Can we put her in charge south of the border as well?
Unfortunately, she belongs to the Scottish National Party but, since outsourcing is in fashion, I see no reason why our health arrangements couldn’t be delegated to the SNP. I would rather trust Sturgeon than Boots, Tesco, Richard Branson or any of the other figures proposed to run the exciting polyclinics planned by New Labour in place of GPs’ surgeries.

Incidentally, did you catch the SNP party political broadcast last night (see here)? Our esteemed First Minister looked distinctly, well, tubby ...

In a hole and still digging

Me, I blame that Lord Mandelson. He's the one who's pushing it. The Times reports:

Downing Street and ministers gave short shrift to a proposal from the Compass think-tank to turn Royal Mail into a not-for-profit company, under a similar model to Network Rail, rather than selling off at least a third to an overseas competitor, arguing that there were better ways to modernise the organisation.
Pat McFadden, the Postal Affairs Minister, immediately turned down the idea, saying that Downing Street had dismissed the suggestion as “unworkable and not under consideration”. The minister said that the Royal Mail needed “transforming”, partly because of its huge pensions deficit, not a “political fix”.

And how exactly is selling off one-third of Royal Mail to a Dutch competitor likely to contribute to the necessary transforming?

And, if your party offers what at least appears to be a compromise, would it not be sensible to treat it seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand? OK, it might not work, but give it an even break.

Stop swine flu

This is mildly compulsive, if in dubious taste.

It's not getting any better ...

Hmm, it must be worse than I thought. On this morning's Today, Ms Harman unequivocally (well, as unequivocally as you can get) ruled herself out as a candidate for the Labour leadership.

What is the point?

No disrespect to Ms Duffy - who seems as worthy a candidate as any other - but do we really need a poet laureate? Especially as the appointment seems to have been more influenced by the government than the sovereign. Can anyone remember any decent poetry produced by a poet laureate as part of his official duties?

I suppose that it's cheap - butts of sack are not particularly expensive - and adds to the gaiety of the nation. But, for me, poetry is a personal thing rather than an exercise in prostituting one's ability in order to celebrate national occasions.

Swine flu

I might feel inclined to panic if the media, the authorities and the telly's talking heads were not already well capable of making a drama out of a crisis without my assistance. (incidentally, does Professor Pennington ever worry about over-exposure?)

Nobody seems able to explain why the poor sodding Mexicans are getting the short end of the stick with over 100 fatalities, while elsewhere the symptoms appear relatively mild.

But here is a rather splendid map of the spread of the disease - if you're into that kind of thing.

In view of the fact that there is now a confirmed case in Spain, I wonder if they will let me back into the UK later this week? As usual on my trips to Spain, I have something of a snuffle (I blame the aeroplane which brings me out) and the old hay fever is rather acting up. And I don't suppose regular doses of San Miguel are likely to be much of a cure.

Hullo, hullo, hullo

Remember that "very big terrorist plot" (source: G Brown)? Turns out it wasn't so big after all. The Guardian reports:

Britain tonight moved to deport nine men arrested earlier this month following one of the country's biggest anti-terror operations since the July 7 attacks in 2005.
The men have not been charged with any offences nearly two weeks after being arrested in raids across Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire.

Buckets and spades at the ready

Look, it's only 82 days. Our MPs have been working hard, holding the government to account and filling in their expenses forms. They deserve a decent holiday.

Besides, it's not as though anyone would notice their absence ...

Salami slicing

Here we go again. The BBC website reports:

Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to announce some £15bn of spending cuts over the next few years when he delivers his Budget statement.
He will say the money can be found by making Whitehall more efficient.

This is ducking the issues. For politicians to suggest that you can deliver the same services or achieve the same results with substantially fewer resource inputs is no longer credible. What happens in practice is that when staff leave they are not replaced. Service levels crumble in an unplanned way and morale hits bottom.

If politicians want to make savings, they really have to face up to the difficult business of stating what tasks and what policies they are prepared to dispense with, instead of pretending that they can wave a magic wand to dispel inefficiencies.

Anomie

It's been light blogging this week, I know. I could offer excuses. Parliament is in recess (when is it not?). I'm on holiday (when am I not?). Essentially, I lack inspiration. I've been flogging this dead horse for four years.

But hey, Scarlett had it right - tomorrow is another day.

Livres de poche

So farewell Maurice Druon. The Telegraph only remembers your role in the Academie Française:

He became famous for his angry tirades against the invasion of English into French.
He spent decades trying to rid his language of hundreds of foreign words – everything from "supermodel" and "takeaway" to "low-cost airline" and email" – which he claimed destroyed the purity of his mother tongue.

But some of us admired your splendid series of historical novels Les Rois Maudits, still worth reading and re-reading.

Foreign footie

I guess I'm a European. Here I am in Spain, watching Man Utd play Porto on a German TV channel. I still find it strange. It is like that night in Prague watching Taggart dubbed into Polish - somehow they managed to retain the Glasgow accents.

Man U are one up - Ronaldo of course.

Quote of the day

From The Telegraph (here):

Until the downfall of Damian McBride, it was still, just about, possible to argue that political blogging was an essentially marginal activity suited to obsessives and insomniacs.

Ta very much ... (No mention of pyjamas?)

Another brick out of the wall

A certain Mr McBride, a special adviser to the Prime Minister, based in No 10, has resigned.

No, I'm not going to explain all the sordid details - you can read them in the more lurid Sundays tomorrow.

Westminster politics has become a soap opera.

Recommended

A reminder that the BBC may just - from time to time - make decent television programmes, even if it chooses to hide them away by broadcasting them on Good Friday afternoon.

Anyway, I enjoyed Hallelujah! The Story of Handel's Messiah. Howard Goodall, the presenter, like anyone who knows his stuff, is always worth a listen, even if he does look uncomfortably like Rory Bremner.

You will be able to see the programme here, at least until next Thursday.

Cause for despair

What bright spark in the CPS dreamt this one up? And what idiot approved it? The Daily Mail reports:

Hundreds of public sector workers have been handed £250 each simply for turning up to work after heavy snow.
At a cost of £56,000 to the taxpayer, Crown Prosecution staff were rewarded for making it into the office on February 2 when London and the South East were paralysed by the Big Freeze.

Straws in the wind

Just a thought but I do hope that the police and security services have a firm basis for this security alert.

The Times (here):

A desperate search was under way last night for the terrorist bomb factory from which a suspected al-Qaeda cell planned to launch a devastating attack in Manchester.

The Independent (here):

Raids to foil an alleged al-Qa'ida bomb plot, hurriedly brought forward after a blunder by a senior police officer, are yet to uncover any explosives or firearms, according to senior security sources.

The Guardian (here):

Counterterrorist sources admitted that despite intensive surveillance they had uncovered no definite targets for an alleged plot, and described reports citing a shopping centre and nightclub in Manchester as targets as "wide of the mark".

So, despite covert surveillance for up to a month, there are apparently no explosives, no firearms, no bomb factory and no known targets? What evidence have they got?

Jumping the gun?

Political Betting highlights the odds on the outcome of an independence referendum (2 to 1 on in favour of a no; 3 to 1 in favour of yes, if you're interested). I would be looking for much longer odds in favour of a yes to get me interested.

The more pertinent question is whether a referendum is at all on the cards (at least in the foreseeable future). The current betting must be against - but we'll see.

Another useless factoid

Imagine that. From The Guardian (here):

Last year Royal Mail bought 872m red rubber bands at a cost of more than £1m.

Music of the week

Cos I'm an old romantic:

Statistical clutter

Sounds bad, doesn't it? The Herald reports:

Scotland's coastline is the messiest in the UK with an average of one piece of litter for every 15 inches of beach, according to new figures.

Wait a minute, though. If the average depth of beach were 100 feet (and I have no idea whether this is accurate but it would not seem unreasonable), then the above might be expressed as an average of one piece of litter per 125 square feet. Now that does not sound good but it's not as appalling as one piece of litter per 15 inches.

A rented top

I have been critical - perhaps excessively critical - of MPs' expenses and allowances. But not all the animals in the Westminster jungle are baddies, as this story in The Times demonstrates:

I heard a story this week that made me think about the extra costs and pressures that we pile on to our political families. I realise that the climate is not right to ask for sympathy for them, but have a think. There was an article in The Times during the G20 summit, applauding Sarah Brown for wearing a “£9,000 top”. Idly I wondered how she could afford to pay for that.
It turns out that she couldn't. She has no income of her own, having given up all paid work when her husband was Chancellor to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. She is not allowed to receive gifts, nor to borrow clothing, not even for a summit.
So to look the part for Britain, Mrs Brown has to rent these outfits, the ones that we all scrutinise so brutally, paying a tenth of their value (excluding shop mark-ups) each time. She paid hundreds of pounds of her own money to rent that top, and returned it afterwards.

OK, there are many women in a much poorer financial position. But it would be wrong to define all politicians and their partners as money-grubbing ne'er-do-wells.

Tennis maths

Sports journalists who understand the associated mathematics are rarer than politicians without their hands in the till. But The Independent provides a comprehensible explanation of how young Master Murray might shoot up the world rankings:

In his sights: How Murray can catch Federer
The world rankings, updated after each tournament, are based on a rolling total accumulated over the previous 12 months. Players therefore have to "defend", or try to improve on, the points they won at tournaments the previous year. In the coming weeks Andy Murray could catch Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, who both have significant points to defend in the clay-court season.

Current rankings
1. Rafael Nadal 14,470 pts
2. Roger Federer 11,020
3. Novak Djokovic 9,010
4. Andy Murray 8,840

Monte Carlo Masters (12-19 April)
Murray would replace Djokovic as world No 3 if, for example, the Scot was knocked out in the last 16 and the Serb lost in the quarters. In choosing to miss the event Federer will lose the 700 points he earned last year.
Points to defend: Nadal 1,000, Federer 700, Djokovic 450, Murray 150.

Rome Masters (27 April-3 May)
Djokovic's victory at the Foro Italico last year leaves him particularly vulnerable to progress by Murray.
Points to defend: Nadal 10, Federer 250, Djokovic 1,000, Murray 70.

Madrid Masters (10-17 May)
Federer, who will have lost the 350 points he earned last year through winning Estoril (which he misses this time around), also has runner-up points to defend in Madrid, which replaces Hamburg in the clay-court schedule.
Points to defend: Nadal 1,000, Federer 700, Djokovic 450, Murray 150.

French Open (24 May-7 June)
The top three all have big points totals to defend, whereas Murray needs only to reach the fourth round to improve his tally.
Points to defend: Nadal 2,000, Federer 1,400, Djokovic 900, Murray 150.

Incidentally, I managed to catch the second set of his Miami victory - extremely impressive, thoughtful tennis on his part.

Something to look forward to?

Jackie Ashley in The Guardian (here):

You might think that after the Jacqui Smith pay-movie story and multi-homed minister Geoff Hoon we must have plumbed the depths of "politicians on the take" stories. You'd be wrong. Tens or hundreds of thousands of claims by MPs are shortly to be released publicly. Most are unexceptional and within the rules. But according to plugged-in government sources, some are "awful, just worse than you can imagine" and likely to destroy careers.

Same old, same old ...

Sometimes, Sunday mornings can be so depressing. The Independent reports:

Tony Blair has emerged as the leading candidate to become the first permanent president of the European Union after Gordon Brown gave his grudging blessing to the plan. The former prime minister has stepped up his campaign for the job, which he wants to use to build a bridge between Europe and the new Obama administration.

Was counting his money not enough? It's not as though his Middle East role has been conspicuously successful.

Improbable factoid of the week

... or perhaps it's a three days late April fool (here):

Cheap beer in union bars is one of the few perks left for students struggling to survive during the recession. Now this, too, could disappear, thanks to their own leaders who want a minimum price on alcohol.
The new edict threatens the practice of all-day sessions in the bar — a longstanding tradition for generations of students.
The National Union of Students (NUS) has decided to campaign for alcohol prices to be raised because of concerns about binge drinking. At its annual conference in Blackpool, delegates voted to start consultations to set a minimum price on alcohol in students’ unions.

What is wrong with students today? I bet they even attend lectures. It would not have happened in my day.

Quote of the day

From the Prime Minister's statement at the end of G20 (here):

We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to: restore confidence, growth, and jobs; repair the financial system to restore lending; strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust; fund and reform our international financial institutions to overcome this crisis and prevent future ones; promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism, to underpin prosperity; and build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery. By acting together to fulfil these pledges we will bring the world economy out of recession and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future.

So you will prevent the recurrence of a crisis like this in the future? How does this differ from promising to abolish boom and bust? And why should it be any more believable?

As usual, limping along behind the curve

It can't be any less interesting than the economics. The Guardian reports on what really matters:

Essex, Tuesday evening
Stansted airport has its very first fashion moment. Michelle Obama will forever be to Stansted Harrods Terminal what Anita Ekberg is to the Trevi Fountain. This is the Brand Michelle we know and love: the lady owns chartreuse right now. After showcasing her mastery of bright-on-bright colour blocking, a top story from the spring/summer 2009 catwalks, with her daughters' inaugural coat-and-hat combinations, Michelle here shows she has moved on with impressive speed to acid brights with black, which will be autumn's big trend. The black coat and yellow dress - by Jason Wu, who shot to fame when Michelle chose his one-shouldered ivory gown for the inauguration ball - was cinched with her favourite Azzedine Alaia belt. Barack, we know, doesn't get this belt: he calls it "the Star Trek belt".

Do I understand it? No, haven't a clue. But then I don't understand the economics either.

Everything, including the kitchen sink

From The Daily Mail (here):

Documents handed to national newspapers show the extent to which Miss Smith, who is paid £141,866 a year, has kitted out her family home using her additional costs allowance.
She has claimed for virtually every household item over the past five years - including a £550 kitchen sink and even an 88p bath plug.

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.