All talk and no trousers

I see that, once again, our Prime Minister has been banging on about tax evasion.  (In Switzerland of all places!)  The Guardian reports:

"Companies need to wake up and smell the coffee, because the customers who buy from them have had enough," the prime minister told business leaders (video) at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Protesters targeted Starbucks branches late last year after it admitted it had paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in the UK over the past 14 years. The firm subsequently promised to pay £20m over two years, amid fears of a consumer boycott.

Cameron's speech attracted strong criticism from the body that represents Britain's accountants, but the PM insisted he was the most "pro-business leader" you could find. He said it was not just NGOs that had been lobbying him to crack down on tax-dodging firms, but the upper echelons of the City too. "It's a world where some companies navigate around legitimate tax systems – and even low tax rates – with an army of clever accountants."

Cameron said there was nothing wrong with sensible tax planning, but "some forms of avoidance have become so aggressive that I think it's time to call for more responsibility and for governments to act accordingly". He said: "In the UK we've already committed hundreds of millions into this effort – but acting alone has its limits. Clamp down in one country and the travelling caravan of lawyers, accountants and financial gurus just moves on elsewhere. We need to act together at the G8."

Do you suppose that this means that the UK government will crack down of those of its dependencies, such as the Caymans, whose principal function appears to be acting as tax havens?  Or that they will reverse the cuts in HMRC staff numbers?  No, nor do I ...

Quote of the day

David Cameron (here):

"It is time for the British people to have their say."

Um, well no, not now.  The British people will have their say when I say they can have their say.  Probably late 2017.

     

There's a bad smell

If I were Frau Merkel or Monsieur Hollande, I would tell him to get on his bike.  The Guardian reports:

David Cameron will on Wednesday set a deadline to hold an in-out referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union by the end of 2017 as he hardens his position on the issue that has bedevilled Tory leaders for a quarter of a century.

To the delight of Eurosceptics, the prime minister will throw down the gauntlet to his fellow EU leaders to agree to a revision of Britain's membership terms within two and a half years of the next general election or risk triggering a British exit.

But Cameron is not Andy Murray, able to despatch Frenchmen without breaking sweat.  (Murray is 2 sets to love up at the moment.)  If our European partners disagree to a revision of the UK's membership terms, what then?  Aye well, there's the question:

Cameron will say: "Some argue that the solution is...to hold a straight in-out referendum now. I understand the impatience of wanting to make that choice immediately.

"But I don't believe that to make a decision at this moment is the right way forward, either for Britain or for Europe as a whole. A vote today between the status quo and leaving would be an entirely false choice."

All very complicated.  Meanwhile, for the next five years (at least), the shadow of Brexit hangs over the economy.  In these circumstances, why would Nissan or LandRover Jaguar invest in this country?

It appears that Le Pong does not emanate solely from Rouen ...

 

General Cameron

Yesterday evening, I was reading a rather splendid novel (The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie) and came across this passage.  It reminded me sharply of a certain politician:

"I think you would have made an excellent lieutenant, a passable captain, a mediocre major and a dismal colonel, but as a general you are a liability.  I think you know this, and have no confidence, which makes you behave, paradoxically, as if you have far too much.  I think you make decisions with little thought, abandon some with none and stick furiously to others against all argument, thinking that to change your mind would be to show weakness.  I think you fuss with details better left to subordinates, fearing to tackle the larger issues, and that makes your subordinates smother you with decisions on every trifle, which you then bungle.  I think you are a decent, honest, courageous man.  And I think you are a fool."

 

Conversation of the week

From The Guardian (here):

Cameron: Can someone tell me what's going on?

Osborne: Sorry Cams, old boy. There's no one from the civil service in Downing Street at the moment, so I don't have a clue either. You could look in the diary.

Cameron: I've done that, but it wasn't much help. Just something about making a very important speech about Europe on Monday.

Civil service: Actually, we've decided it's going to be on Friday instead.

Cameron: I knew that really. Can we rehearse what it is exactly I believe in?

Civil service: This may take a while …

Cameron: I believe … No, make that I firmly believe, that the European Union is both vital and entirely irrelevant to Britain's interests. So it is absolutely right that we should use this opportunity to place ourselves at the centre of Europe by trying to distance ourselves as far from it as possible …

Osborne: Total masterpiece ...

Cameron: And, in conclusion, it is right that the people of Britain should be allowed to have a referendum on our membership sometime long after the next election, by when I will be out of a job so I'm not too bothered one way or the other …

Counting the cost

The Independent is getting over-excited about the RBS:

British taxpayers are set to pay $800m (£500m) in fines as a result of Royal Bank of Scotland traders’ involvement in the Libor interest rate fixing scandal - with nearly all of the money going to the United States.

American watchdogs are set to hit RBS with as much as four-fifths of the total penalty as it becomes the third bank to settle over its traders’ role in the scandal.

...

RBS is 81 per cent-owned by the Government, which means the taxpayer will effectively foot the bill for its fine, although the bank is expected to attempt to head off protests by cutting its investment bankers’ bonus pool. 

Well yes, in a way.  The taxpayer will in theory have to meet four-fifths of four-fifths of the fine.  But only if you regard a loss on every transaction made by the bank as falling to be met by the taxpayer, while ignoring every element of transactional profit which might equally be said to fall to the benefit of the taxpayer.

Furthermore, as the value of the taxpayer's shares has risen by about 75% in the last six months (from about 200 pence per share to about 350 pence per share), it might be considered that the taxpayer is not doing too badly, even if the current value of the shares remains below the original cost of their acquisition.

So although the £500 million fine involves a lot of money (as well as substantial wrong-doing on the part of the Bank's traders), it is arguably misleading to consider it in isolation as a charge to be met by taxpayers.

The scorpion and the frog

I don't blame Goldman Sachs - or at least not wholly.  It's in its nature after all:

The great vampire squid’s move to even consider delaying bonus payments to some of its staff just to save them a few quid in tax indicates that it continues to live in a separate world to the rest of us.

More than that, it lives in a world beyond even most other powerful banks. Early reports on the matter said that other large finance firms had wondered whether they should wait for the tax rate to drop from 50% to 45% before paying out bonuses and quickly decided that it would look bad.

No, it's Slasher Osborne who deserves the opprobrium.  First, for reducing income tax for the very rich; and second for giving the world a year's notice before putting it into effect.

Foreign adventures

You may be interested to see this satellite photo of Mali (lifted from Wikipedia):

Mali is a huge country in West Africa, occupying 478,000 sq miles.  (By comparison, France is about half this size.)  Its population amounts to some 14.5 million, while gdp is less than $18 billion (cf French gdp of more than $2.2 trillion).  All of which has military implications.

I rather doubt if France (and the UK) will be able to get out of Mali as quickly as they got in.  Accordingly, we may hear a lot more about this poor country over the next five years or so ...

Ageism?

I am struggling to come to grips with the government's proposed new arrangements for old age pensions.

As far as I can tell, people who have already qualified for the pension or, like me, will do so before 2017 will not benefit from the new flat rate pension of £144 per week.  Instead, we will continue to get the existing pension of £107 per week.  (Both these figures will be uprated to reflect inflation.)  It is not yet clear to me whether the additional pension credit (payable to pensioners with very low incomes) which will be abolished when the new flat rate pension becomes payable will be retained for those having to live with the existing pension.

It is nevertheless obvious that the effect of the proposed arrangements will be to create two classes of pensioner: those who were already receiving a pension before 2017 and who will be stuck on a lower rate and those who will benefit from the new flat rate.  The former will of course be older than the latter.  This seems a strange way to introduce greater fairness into the system.

I need hardly add that what is proposed is unlikely to be welcomed by those of us wrinklies stuck on the lower rate.

Garment of the week

It has to be Nick Clegg's "onesie".

A bit inconvenient, I would have thought, when nature calls in the middle of the night.  But perhaps Nick is young enough not to be troubled by such matters as yet ...

   

The danger of being sarcastic ...

... is that people take you seriously.

What Sir Jeremy Heywood actually said was:

"We accepted there were unanswered questions including the possibility of a gigantic conspiracy or a small conspiracy. Those were unanswered questions. But we decided, on balance, to let matters rest as they were, decide to stick by Andrew Mitchell, keep him in post and move on."

Now you may consider that the reference to "a gigantic conspiracy" constituted mockery of the possibility.  But the press are more literally minded.  Thus The Guardian reports:

Britain's top civil servant believes Andrew Mitchell, the former chief whip unseated by the "plebgate" row, could have been the victim of a "gigantic conspiracy" involving members of the diplomatic protection group that guards Downing Street.

while The Independent takes a similar line:

Britain’s most senior civil servant was aware that the Government’s former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell may have been the victim of a “gigantic conspiracy” when he was fighting to save his job - but did not raise his concerns with the police, it emerged today.

Perhaps this will teach Sir Jeremy that in future he should avoid being a smartarse.

   

When will they ever learn?

I am prepared to accept that public sector bureaucracies are not always terribly efficient, although I suspect that the alleged lack of efficiency has more to do with under-resourcing than with anything else.  But on the ideological principle of private sector good, public sector bad, this government seems determined to strike down long-established public institutions.  Here is the latest:

The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, is to outline plans for the wholesale outsourcing of the probation service with private companies and voluntary sector organisations to take over the rehabilitation of the majority of offenders by 2015.

The public probation service is to be scaled back and "refocused" to specialise in dealing only with the most dangerous and high-risk offenders and public protection cases. The majority of services will be contracted out on a payment-by -result basis.

You may discount the reference to voluntary sector organsisations; experience has shown that they are seldom big enough to act other than as sub-contractors to the Sercos, Capitas, A4Es and G4S's of the business, while cash-flow problems eventually drive the voluntary organisations into the ground.  And so another allegedly inefficient but well-meaning bureaucracy will be replaced by profit-driven private sector bureaucracies whose track record in terms of efficiency is at best patchy.  And all for what?  Does anybody, even in government, really think that a private sector probation service will deliver better results in terms of probation than the existing system?

Hot and bothered?

It's a tough old life, being a gas chief.  The Guardian reports:

The managing director of British Gas is set to leave the business with a pension pot, shares and basic salary worth more than £10m, amid public and political disquiet over soaring household bills.

Phil Bentley, who oversaw a 6% increase in bills this winter, is expected to confirm that he is stepping down this year. He is believed to harbour ambitions to become a company chief executive in his own right.

According to the annual report of Centrica, the parent of British Gas, Bentley has an interest in just under 2m Centrica shares, worth £6.65m at closing share price. The 53-year-old executive is also expected to depart with a year's basic salary, which came to £635,000 in 2011, along with his £3.6m pension pot.

...

Bentley joined Centrica as finance director in 2000 and was handed his British Gas role in 2007. Centrica declined to comment on Bentley's imminent departure.

At least, he won't have to worry about paying his fuel bills ...

   

Cooking the books?

Well, there's a surprise.  The Independent reports:

Pension savers face a serious blow to their retirement prospects with confirmation this week on changes in how the retail price index (RPI) is calculated.

The Office for National Statistics' reform of the RPI is expected to lead to rates of the key inflation benchmark coming into line with the traditionally lower consumer price index (CPI).

Is it not passing strange that reforms of the methods of calculating inflation always seem to have the effect of reducing inflation?


 

Talk is cheap

Do you believe that he'll actually do anything?  The Telegraph reports:

Foreign companies like Starbucks and Amazon which have avoided paying large corporation tax bills in Britain lack "moral scruples", David Cameron has said.

The Prime Minister said he was going to make “damn sure” that foreign companies like Starbucks and Amazon which have been found to avoid legally paying a large corporation tax in the UK paid their fair share.

We'll see ...  But don't get your hopes up.

Obélix among the Russians

Incroyable!  C'est pas vrai!

Impending chaos?

So.  A lot of middle class families may be upset.  But Slasher Osborne likes to kick his potential supporters in the teeth.  The New Statesman explains:

...  the first test for the government will come next Monday when the withdrawal of child benefit from higher earners begins. From 7 January, payments will be tapered away from individuals earning over £50,000 and completely withdrawn at £60,000 (however, as Labour is keen to point out, a household with two earners each on £50,000 will keep the benefit in full). Those households affected will either need to stop claiming the benefit or pay a new tax (known as the High Income Child Benefit Tax Charge) to cover the cost of the payments. Families will lose £1,055.60 a year for a first child and a further £696.80 a year for each additional child, meaning that a family with three children stands to lose £2,449.20 - the equivalent of a £3,500 pay cut (since child benefit is untaxed).

With the changes announced as long ago as the 2010 Conservative conference, the government has had no shortage of time in which to inform those who will lose out. But as today's Telegraph reports, almost a third of the families affected have still not been formally warned that they will no longer be eligible for all or part of the benefit. Of the 1.1 million households due to be affected by the change, 316,000 have not yet been contacted by the tax authorities. As a result, having missed the opportunity to opt out of the new system (as 160,000 have done), they will have to fill in self-assessment forms or face fines running into hundreds of pounds.

A spokesman for HMRC insists that "extensive advertising, media and online activity" means those affected will know about the changes. However, it's not hard to imagine that some families will get a nasty surprise when they discover that they owe hundreds of pounds in additional tax.

Aye, and don't expect HMRC to cope - even half adequately - with all those additional self assessment forms.  As usual, it will end in tears ...

 
 

Music for Hogmanay

And a good new year to all

A pneumatic bird-brain?

Michael Buerk thinks so ...

Will they? Won't they?

I suppose that many of them are about my age.  When we were kids, we watched flicks like Flash Gordon where, at the end of each episode, the hero would find himself in an impossibly dangerous situation (sometimes literally hanging from a cliff), only to retrieve his position at the start of the next episode.  But I can't see that happening with these guys:

US Congressional leaders have one more day to stop the threat of steep tax rises and spending cuts, known as the "fiscal cliff", after talks ended with no deal.

Senators will continue to seek a compromise deal on Monday to send to the House of Representatives.

Failure to reach agreement by 1 January could push the US back into recession.

Hey and not only the US.  I am tempted to wonder how Congress gets itself into these situations.  But that way lies madness ...

Best Christmas tv

It has to be the fabulous Lady and The Tramp on Christmas Eve.  Still available on the I-Player, if you missed it.  Just to remind you:

The British spirit

No, the world didn't come to an end.  The Guardian reports from Bugarach where aliens were expected to save the favoured few:

Ian Napp, a British former chef, had been photographed with an inflatable dingy in a field "just in case" there was a tsunami. Then he had gone home to get some clean underpants for the end of the world, but never made it back.

Obviously a man with the right priorities.

 

Woof, woof, George

So the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards is taking a tough line on ringfencing domestic banking from its casino equivalent.  This leaves Slasher George with a wee problem:

Mr Osborne stocked the commission with people like Lord Lawson, the former chancellor, Lord Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary, and Justin Welby, a former oil executive before rejecting mammon in favour of a career in the church that has led to him becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. And he put Andrew Tyrie, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, in charge. If he's surprised that this lot has gone off and done something he didn't expect he's really rather naive.

The proposals are actually sensible, and likely to be supported by people such as Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England. But the real problem for Mr Osborne is that the people who have made them have a great deal of credibility.

If he ignores their recommendations, or tries to "game" them himself by watering them down, he runs the risk of being seen as the bankers' poodle. That's not a happy place to be.

Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow ...

   

We're all in this together?

You would not want him to stay in a hovel, would you?

Fresh details of the lucrative financial package required to lure the Bank of England’s first foreign Governor across the Atlantic show that Mark Carney, a Canadian, has landed a housing allowance worth £1.25m over his five-year term.

The £250,000-a-year agreement – signed off by the Bank of England’s non-executive directors – underlined the desperation of Chancellor George Osborne to get his man, leaving the Bank of Canada Governor with a total package worth £874,000 a year.

I suppose that we need to provide him with a sufficient housing allowance to enable him to become accustomed to living in a style that the rest of us can only dream of.  At least, I assume that's the rationale ...

Paddling in dangerous waters?

Plebgate rumbles on.  Rather surprised to see the Prime Minister come out so forcefully here:

Cameron said: "A police officer posing as a member of the public and sending an email potentially to blacken the name of a cabinet minister is a very serious issue. It does need to be seriously investigated."

Given that the officer concerned has been arrested, it seems to me that the PM is treading dangerously close to contempt of court.  Bearing in mind Cameron's expostulations, how can the officer be given a fair trial?

 

Chrissie prezzie

"Ooh!  How exciting!  60 placemats ...  Just what one's always wanted.  How imaginative!"

(Thoughts:  do these clowns not realise that Buck House is absolutely stowed out with placemats?  And of rather better quality than these offerings.  You just can't rely on the Tories these days.  Whatever happened to that nice Mr Douglas-Home?)

Daft as a brush

When I read the first sentence of this report, I thought that the proposed fine was somewhat excessive:

Manchester City are taking a substantial risk by going outside of disciplinary guidelines to fine Mario Balotelli £340,000, resulting in a legal case which could drag on into next year. 

Then, when I read the second sentence, I realised that it was just the crazy finances of football:

The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) is surprised that City have charged the Italian with misconduct and fined him two weeks' wages, because guidelines they have put in place with all clubs and the Premier League do not entitle sides to fine players for a general accumulation of yellow and red cards – as the Premier League champions are doing in Balotelli's case.

So Balotelli is getting £170,000 per week.  For that kind of money, he should do precisely whatever the club tells him to do, even if it involves him standing on his head and singing "Just One Cornetto".

Bagehot re-visited

No, I don't like it.  Our ancestors spent centuries seeking to divorce the monarch from political influence and only partially succeeding.  Then this cabinet, with absolutely no sense of political history, think that it's a good idea to invite the Queen to attend cabinet as an observer.  Her Maj has an undeniable role in government, from opening parliament to signing off legislation.  But, for my lifetime at least, that role has been ostensibly decorative rather than practical.  By inviting her to attend cabinet, Cameron and co are messing up fine distinctions and long traditions.

Furthermore, it creates an unwelcome precedent.  As far as we know, the present queen has been admirably punctilious in observing the constitutional proprieties (at least until now).  But what of her successor?  Could we trust him to keep his mouth shut during a cabinet discussion?  Could he be relied upon to keep his distance from political decisions?

He's having a laugh

So what attracted you to Silvio, the short fat plastic 76-year-old hair-restored billionnaire?

Ridiculous

Reacher is 6 ft 5ins and weighs 16 stone.  How can he be played by someone of diminished stature, especially when that someone's acting ability is limited to three facial expressions?

Utterly disgraceful.  Russell Crowe would have been a much better choice.

 

Paying for Mummy and Daddy

Once upon a time, Tory MPs only became involved in sex scandals; financial misdemeanors were left to the Labour Party.  Alas, no longer - even Tory cabinet ministers appear unable to keep their accounts on the straight and narrow:

John Lyons, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, launched an inquiry after The Telegraph published details about the Mrs Miller's expenses this week.

Between 2005 and 2009, the Culture Secretary claimed the cost of the mortgage and other expenses associated with a South London property, which has been her parents’ home for “nearly two decades”.

Mrs Miller insists her expenses are "absolutely in order" but the watchdog has decided to look at whether there is a case to answer.

...

Mrs Miller today hit back at her critics in an interview with The Evening Standard, saying her expenses have been "audited twice independently" in a review of MPs by Sir Thomas Legg and another by the Conservative Party.

However, when asked whether those auditors knew that her parents lived in the property, she did not give a clear answer.

“I obviously spoke to the Fees Office about my claims and they were happy that everything was in order,” she said.

She also struggled to explain why she abruptly stopped claiming expenses for the second home in 2009, shortly before The Daily Telegraph broke the MPs’ expenses scandal.

“Because I think there was a lot of concern about the rules and, a lot of concern about, you know, the whole issue, and it’s something I felt that I didn’t want to be, sort of, mixed up in, the fact that I," she said, before adding: “I just made that decision.”

It's a bit weak, to say the least   Would it be unfair to describe the lady as a scrounger on the public purse?


   

Going against the flow

I can't help feeling that, regardless of the merits of their case, those politicians opposed to same sex marriage are finding themselves on the wrong side of history.

I know opinion polls are not everything but these seem comclusive:

A new Ipsos-MORI poll for Freedom to Marry has found that three-quarters of voters support same-sex marriage. The most popular choice – 45% – was that gay people should be allowed to get married to each other but religious organisations should not be required to provide wedding ceremonies to gay people.

But a further 28% of voters thought that gay people should be allowed to get married to each other and religious organisations should be required to provide wedding ceremonies to gay people.

This means nearly three quarters of voters – 73% – want to allow gay marriage while less than a quarter – 24% – do not. Only one in six voters – 17% - thought that gay people should not be allowed to get married but should be allowed to form a civil partnership.

And I was intrigued to see that, in England at least, those of us who are not married now constitute a majority of households.  But if those who are gay seek to join the diminishing tribe of married couples, why put barriers in their way?  I'm one of the growing minority, however, who are godless heathens, so I cannot be expected to understand.

   

Mounting up

June 2012 -  Barclays fined £290 million for Libor manipulation

Dec 2012 -  Standard Chartered fined £415 million for breaching Iran sanctions

Dec 2012 -  HSBC fined £1.2 billion for laundering Mexican drug money among other transgressions

And there's more on the way ...

The life of a jetsetter

It's not all foie gras canapes and campari cocktails on the terrace, you know.

In preparation for my return to sunny Spain this afternoon, I've had to submit electricity and gas meter readings, empty the fridge of perishables, sort out the money for the stair cleaners, post my Christmas cards and, essentially, ensure that the kindle is fully charged.  The call-up for jury service remains a bit of a problem, but we'll have to wait and see ...

I see the temperature in Spain is 16 degrees (C), so a slight uplift from here.  Now if only Ryanair can transport me without too much hassle, life will be back to normal.

   

Leggings for men

Don't know what all the fuss is about.  In my day, we knew them as long johns.  Very convenient they were when Jack Frost came to call.

 

How to win friends and influence people

Probably not a good idea to throw out insults:

Celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh was yesterday branded "a complete muppet" by a Cabinet minister, for criticising the Government's policies on the countryside.

Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, issued the colourful rebuke after the television presenter and author questioned the response to ash dieback disease and warned that the Conservative Party had lost its roots in rural areas.

By all means, argue your corner with facts and policies (if there are such), but calling people names is just childish.

 

Straws, camels and all that

I think that I am beginning to understand how Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is failing to catch the tax dodgers.  The Independent explains:

More than half a million families will be made to prove to tax inspectors how much they are spending on childcare or whether their children are in full-time education under new rules buried in the small print of George Osborne's Autumn Statement.

Some 80,000 households which claim child tax credits for pre-school children will have to send evidence to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) of the amount they are paying a nursery, child-minder or nanny over a 10-week period. A further 500,000 families with youngsters aged between 16 and 19 who are in full-time education and are therefore eligible for child tax credits will have to send proof, in the form of letters from schools or colleges, to HMRC, rather than "self-certify" as they do now.

The Chancellor estimates the new rules will recoup £315m in overpayments in tax credits in the year 2014-15, a further £185m in 2015-16 and £85m the following year. Fraud and error in the tax credits system last year cost the Treasury more than £2.2bn, and Treasury sources said there needed to be tougher measures to claw back taxpayers' money.

Yet there were warnings last night that the new rules would deter some parents – who are at the lower end of the income scale – from claiming tax credits because of the onerous and complex paperwork.

The new rules follow measures imposed on higher earners to provide paperwork to tax inspectors on child benefit. From next month, parents who earn more than £50,000 will lose most of their child benefit and must send payslips or bank statements to HMRC in order to claim back some of the money. Child benefit is being axed altogether from households where one earner is on a salary of more than £60,000.

And all this at a time when Slasher Osborne is hacking away at staff numbers in HMRC.  Little wonder that the department is dysfunctional, with more and more tasks loaded on the backs of fewer and fewer staff.

Schools

Is this what education has come to?  The Independent reports:

The Education Secretary Michael Gove today announced plans to send former soldiers into classrooms to pass on the “military ethos” to troubled children.

The £1.9 million initiative is aimed at children who have been excluded from schools. Ex-servicemen will visit schools to help instil teamwork, discipline and leadership skills through tailor-made exercises.

Mr Gove said: “Every child can benefit from the values of a military ethos.” He added: “Exclusion from school should never mean exclusion from education.”

And what will soldiers teach the little brats?  How to march in a straight line?  How to obey orders, however stupid?  How to submerge identity in a uniform?  How to wear a chestful of medals?  How to shoot weapons?  How to kill?

Conversation of the week

Here:

Osborne: Er … You remember when I said that I had a cunning plan to reduce the deficit and increase growth?

 Cameron: Y-e-e-e-s?

Osborne: Well, it turns out I got my sums a wee bit wrong and the economy is actually going to carry on tanking until 2018 and we're borrowing a lot more than I imagined.

Cameron: And what does this mean in practice, Ozzy?

Osborne: To put it bluntly, Cams, we're up shit creek without a paddle.

Cameron: But we must do something.

Duncan Smith: How about we make more welfare cuts for the poor and the old? That way they will start to die of malnutrition and other poverty-related conditions. We could call it a cull.

Osborne: I so like the sound of that.

Heremy Junt: Just so long as we're seen to be putting more money into the NHS.

Institute of Fiscal Studies: But you're not.

Junt: Yes we are. Look at the graph.

IFS: Um, you're holding it the wrong way up.

  

Running uphill

Sometimes, it's just no fun to be Chancellor.  There you are, in charge of the signal box, glorying in your determination to direct the economy towards a brighter future.  You pull the levers but nothing seems to work.  The Guardian reports:

Only a fraction of the billions of pounds of new capital spending that George Osborne announced in last year's autumn statement has been spent so far, research by the Guardian has established.

Less than half of the public investment trumpeted by the chancellor last November has been paid out, and none of the £21bn in private investment promised has yet been spent.

Of the key public investment schemes announced last autumn, work has not yet begun on a single one of the half dozen major road schemes published by George Osborne, and £1bn of regional growth fund money has been "allocated" but is now being studied by lawyers before it is actually handed out to help businesses in more deprived areas.

Up to £21bn of new private sector investment was announced, but there is no word on £1bn earmarked for the regulated industries and of £20bn that had been expected to be raised or leveraged by pension funds, just £700m has been committed and not a penny has yet been spent.

Expect more fruitless lever-pulling in today's Autumn Statement.

Babytalk

Even The Guardian gets caught up in the speculation:

Whether the royal couple will have the freedom to wheel a pram down Kensington High Street remains to be seen.

Even an old misanthrope like I am knows that prams are something of a rarity these days. Young parents appear to prefer enormous baby buggies so that they can block supermarket aisles and force reluctant pavement pedestrians into the gutter.

Brrrr! Home

I thought Andalucia was on the chilly side, but ...

Flew to Edinburgh last night.  Plane diverted to Gatwick due to ill passenger.   At Gatwick, aircraft wings iced up and pilot couldn't find credit card for extra fuel.  Three hour flight turned into six hours.  Ryanair offered us a glass of water in recompense.  (Yes. really.)  Six hours without a cigarette ...

Arrived home to a cold, cold flat at 2.30 am.  Even now, I'm blogging with a scarf and bunnet.  Just as well  I'm returning to the delights of Southern Spain next week.

 

The vision thing

Are you bored already?  Vainly fighting the old ennui?  It all got so complicated and you can no longer distinguish the goodies from the baddies?  Yeah well, regulation of the press sometimes has that effect.

But at least Simon Hoggart has had a vision:

The whole event was a manic melange of mixed metaphors. The last chance saloon was teeming. Cameron said repeatedly that he didn't want to "cross the Rubicon". Everyone talked about "statutory underpinning" apparently unaware that "underpinnings" is an old euphemism for ladies' underwear.

I had a vision of a grizzled old prospector bursting into the last chance saloon, his corset dripping from crossing the Rubicon. "You want the carrot, stranger, or you want the stick?" asks the barman.

As the poem puts it:

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;

But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

And, thus, Lord Leveson/Dangerous Dan, underwear dripping and loaded for bear, moves on into history ...

 

Conversation of the week

As ever, from The Guardian (here):

Osborne: Before you go, Cams. I need to tell you I've just chosen the next governor of the Bank of England.

Cameron: Who is it?

Osborne: Can't remember. Some Canadian bloke. He's definitely the best man for the job.

Cameron: How would you know, Ozzy?

Osborne: Well he can't be any worse than that fool King.

Cameron: I thought you were going to give the job to that bloke Tucker.

Osborne: I was, but then I saw him on The Thick of It and I thought he might swear too much.

 

Impertinence and the socratic dialogue

They really really don't like each other ...

Flogging a dead horse

You thought the problem had gone away, didn't you?  Well it hasn't!  The EU, the IMF and the ECB (and, no doubt, other assorted acronyms) continue to wrestle with the Greek economy.

The Guardian reports the latest state of play:

European governments and the IMF sought to bury months of feuding over Greek debt levels in a tentative agreement that should see the release of up to €44bn in bailout funds needed to rescue Athens from insolvency.

But after almost 12 hours of talks for the third time in a fortnight between eurozone finance ministers, leaders of the IMF, the European central bank and the European commission struggled to reach a consensus, suggesting a lack of confidence that the effort to resurrect the Greek economy will bear fruit or that three years of European bailout policy was working.The meeting agreed to shave projected Greek debt to allow it to level at 124% of GDP by 2020, entailing a 20% cut in Greek debt by the deadline.

With the IMF demanding a writedown of Greece's debt by its official eurozone creditors and Germany leading the resistance to such a move, declaring it illegal, the meeting agreed on a mixture of measures involving debt buybacks, lower interest rates on loans, longer maturity periods on borrowing, and ECB returns to Greece of profits on its holdings of Greek bonds.

In an increasingly arcane dispute entailing sophisticated number-crunching over recent weeks, the IMF had stuck to a bottom line of getting the Greek debt level to 120% by 2020, far below what eurozone and IMF inspectors concluded was possible.

A debt sustainability analysis last week said the debt level would be 144% without eurozone action to write much of it off.

Nobody really believes that this agreement (if it may be so described) will resolve the Greek problems, but there is a smidgeon of hope that it will keep the lid on the problem for the next few months.

 

Toupee or not toupee

Mildly amused by the re-emergence of Michael Fabricant, an MP whose 15 minutes of fame had hitherto rested entirely on his wig.  He now deserves a footnote in history in that his suggestion of a pact with UKIP has been thoroughly stamped on by every Tory bigwig (sorry!) available.

Anyway, here is Simon Hoggart from 2003 to remind us of Mickey's real claim to fame:

Forget Iraq and the euro. A single topic dominated the Commons yesterday: what on earth had happened to Michael Fabricant's wig?

It used to be roughly normal length, finishing round about the level of his ear lobes.

Yesterday the thing had reached his shoulders, a great lustrous cascade of tresses curling over and even caressing the collar of his jacket.

MPs on both sides of the chamber were transfixed with curiosity and awe. How could a wig not only grow but grow so fast to such a length?

In the press gallery one of my colleagues sat gazing at the sight, murmuring "gorgeous, quite gorgeous," to himself, for these were locks that would not have disgraced Michael Heseltine or even the original Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller.

How many My Little Ponies, we asked, were slaughtered to make such a creation?

 

Signs of uncommon sense?

Could it be?  Is it possible?  Is the Tory leadership beginning to grasp the fact that British membership of the EU is not necessarily a Bad Thing?  BoJo, although an unlikely pathfinder towards the dawn of political intelligence, appears to have twigged that life is too complicated for in/out referendums:

Boris Johnson has spoken out against holding a referendum on whether the UK should remain part of the European Union as it currently exists, in an intervention that will help the prime minister, David Cameron, as he faces concerted pressure from hardline Tory backbenchers for an in/out vote.

The mayor of London, seen by many Conservatives as a potential future leader and alternative to Cameron, and who has channelled strident Eurosceptic sentiment in the party, said that any further fiscal integration of the EU should trigger a referendum but that a single question on whether the UK should remain a member state was unnecessary.

Johnson made his intervention from India, where he is leading a trade mission, telling BBC Radio Five Live: "I certainly think that if there was to be a new treaty, for instance on a fiscal union or on a banking union or whatever, then it would be absolutely right to put that to the people.

"Whether you have an in/out referendum now, I can't quite see why it would be necessary."

Now then, Cameron's flank has been temporarily shored up.  Will this give him the room to manoeuvre his way towards a more intelligent approach to matters European?  Or will he revert to little England type?  Mrs Marr doubts if he has the nous to see the better way, even though Angie has mapped it out for him.


   .

How to undermine your own Law Officer

You might have thought that the Attorney General had made the position abundantly clear:

After Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, said on Tuesday that he could not get involved in the case of Sgt Danny Nightingale, No 10 said the Prime Minister had “sympathy” for the soldier.

Mr Grieve made his decision after Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, asked him to examine Sgt Nightingale’s case.

The soldier is currently serving an 18-month term in a military prison having pleaded guilty to possessing an automatic pistol and more than 300 rounds of ammunition without permission.

...

His lawyers are expected to lodge an appeal on Wednesday over his detention.

Mr Hammond asked Mr Grieve to consider reviewing the original decision to prosecute Sgt Nightingale over the weapons and ammunition. Within an hour of receiving the Defence Secretary’s request, Mr Grieve’s office made clear that the attorney believed he had no scope to intervene.

“It would be inappropriate for the Attorney General to review either the decision to prosecute or comment on the appropriateness of the sentence,” a spokesman said.  “That is a matter for the Court Martial Appeal Court, in due course.”

But No 10 cannot resist pandering to public opinion, thus putting not only the Attorney General in a difficult spot but also the Court Martial Appeal Court.

Photo of the day

LoL

Too much time on their hands

These American generals are really romantic, at least when it comes to e-mails  It amazes me how they find the time.  The Guardian reports:

The leading US commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, is under investigation for alleged inappropriate communications with a woman at the centre of the scandal involving former CIA director David Petraeus, a senior US defence official said on Tuesday.

The revelation threatens to fell another of the US military's biggest names and suggests that the scandal involving Petraeus – a former four-star general who had Allen's job in Afghanistan before moving to the CIA last year – could widen further than previously imagined.

The American official said the FBI uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communications – mostly emails spanning from 2010 to 2012 – between Allen and Jill Kelley, who has been identified as a long-time friend of the Petraeus family and volunteer social liaison in Tampa, Florida, with military families at MacDill air force base.

It was Kelley's complaints about harassing emails from the woman with whom Petraeus had had an affair, Paula Broadwell, that prompted an FBI investigation, ultimately alerting authorities to Petraeus's involvement with Broadwell. Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Imagine!  20,000 pages of communications in 3 years!  That's about 20 a day.

What a boring love-life I have ...

Covered both ways

Much fuss about the payoff to the BBC Director General amounting to double the amount specified in his contract.  The Guardian reports:

In a letter to the Commons culture select committee chairman, John Whittingdale, Patten said the payout was "justified and necessary." 

He wrote: "The alternative was long drawn-out discussions and continuing uncertainty at a time when the BBC needs all of its focus to be on resolving fundamental issues of trust in BBC journalism."

He accepted that Entwistle's contract entitled him to only six months' payout if he resigned, but that he had been paid the equivalent of 12 months' salary.

Lots of argument about whether this was justified or not.  Me, I can't get past the earlier stage of wondering what kind of employment contract awards a payoff in return for resignation?  I can understand why a payoff might be necessary where an organisation decided to let someone go.  But I had always understood that if someone chose to resign, then he or she was on his own.

When I resigned from the civil service after 32+ years, I neither expected nor received any kind of payoff.  But maybe employment contracts have changed since then ...

Smoke and mirrors

Let us see if I have understood this.

When the government borrows money, it sells what are known as gilts (essentially IOUs), to banks and other financial institutions.  Like anyone else, when it borrows money, it has to pay interest on the loan.

In order to ease the UK.s economic problems, the Bank of England has been creating money which it then uses to buy up government IOUs, mainly from banks which it hopes will use the money to lend out to businesses and individuals.  Because the Bank of England has bought up these loans, it now receives interest from the government.

It is now proposed that the Bank of England should return all that interest to the government which will use it to pay back (some of) its borrowing.  Conveniently, this will enable Chancellor Osborne to meet his target that by 2015-2016 the overall national debt will be falling.

It's just as well that I am not a financial genius - otherwise, I might think that there was something fishy going on here ...

 

It's that time of year

Nothing ever happens

When I hear, once again, that the government is going to do something about tax avoidance and evasion, I can only metaphorically shrug my shoulders.  It's not as if transfer pricing is a new concept.  If the government really wanted to do something about it, they could have taken effective action decades ago.

Furthermore, the UK's hands are dirtier than most.  Why, do you suppose, the big British multi-national companies - from oil companies to banks to grocers - have subsidiaries located in the Caymans or the Bahamas?  And who is it that protects the offshore tax status of crown dependencies in the West Indies, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and so on?  Meanwhile, Slasher Osborne and his chums systematically destroy the resources of HMRC through so-called efficiency gains, job cuts and office closures.

I refer you to the Del Amitri song, Nothing Ever Happens:

Bill hoardings advertise products that nobody needs 
While angry from Manchester writes to complain about 
All the repeats on T.V. 
And computer terminals report some gains 
On the values of copper and tin 
While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs 
For the price of a hospital wing 

Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all 
The needle returns to the start of the song 
And we all sing along like before 
Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all 
They'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock 
And we'll all go along like before 

   

Vox pop

I've had enough.  I am not going to listen to the radio until we start getting actual results tomorrow morning.

America appears to be stuffed full of BBC presenters, asking valueless questions of men and women in the street, providing nil analysis other than noting that it's too close to call.  How many times do we have to listen to Obama and Romney shouting slogans at crowds?

It is with relief that I turn to the great Alistair Cooke, a man who can convey more information about the US in 15 minutes than the entire BBC coverage for the past two weeks.  What's more, he does it with elegance and ease.

 

What has he got to hide?

Secret arms sales?  To middle eastern potentates?  The Guardian reports:

David Cameron will embark on a low-key arms trip to the Gulf on Monday in an attempt to persuade regional powers upset by Britain's response to the Arab spring to buy more than 100 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. The deals could be worth more than £6bn to Britain.

The prime minister will fly to a major UAE military airbase on a mission to patch up relations with leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where major British businesses such as BP and BAE have important interests.

...

Cameron will be accompanied by only a small pool of two newswire reporters, a broadcast camera person, a broadcast producer and a photographer. Other journalists, making their own travel arrangements, are invited to attend a limited number of events, though it is impossible for those outside the pool to report on any aspect of Cameron's short visit to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

I suppose an ethical foreign policy is out of the question?


 

Wearing white stilettoes?

Are e-mail addresses subject to the dictates of fashion?  The Observer thinks so:

The most astonishing thing about the news that Gmail, Google's email service, has finally overtaken Microsoft's equivalent, Hotmail, is that anybody still uses Hotmail. It's about as fashionable as Bros or white stilettoes. Gmail has been the go-to email address for years now. Who would bother with Hotmail?

Apart from me, of course. I was gobsmacked to discover that, according to official figures, 286.2 million people use Hotmail (as opposed to 287.9 million who now use Gmail). I thought I was the last person in the world to have a Hotmail address.

Oh dear.  My principal e-mail address is the even more antiquated yahoo.com.  I guess that whatever street cred I once possessed has vanished into the internet ether.

On the other hand, it's only an e-mail address.  It functions - and who needs all the more fashionable bells and whistles?  Furthermore, it's somewhat similar to your current account at the bank; why go through the hassle of changing it?


 

Music of the week

Class:

Quote of the day

From Her Majesty's UK Government (here):

"This government has confirmed it does hold legal advice on this issue. Based on the overwhelming weight of international precedent, it is the government's view that the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise the UK's existing international rights and obligations and Scotland would form a new state.

"The most likely scenario is that the rest of the UK would be recognised as the continuing state and an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU as a new state, involving negotiation with the rest of the UK and other member states, the outcome of which cannot be predicted."

Well they would say that, wouldn't they?  Although it does rather turn down Mr Salmond's gas to a peep.

But will the UK still be a member of the EU for much longer?  No real answer here.

     

US political campaign ad of the year

Homophones

Chris Christie, Republican Governor of New Jersey and potential presidential candidate for 2016:

Kris Kringle, star of Miracle on 34th Street:

 

Another fine mess

Bit of a predicament for Mr Cameron.  Does he comply with the stated will of the House of Commons and insist on a real terms cut in the EU budget, even though that would be comprehensively unacceptable to most of the other member states?  Does he veto any alternative outcome, even though his original starting point (of a budget increase equivalent to inflation was one such alternative outcome?  And what would a veto achieve anyway, other than kicking the can down the road to another summit later on?  And if he were to accept an outcome other than a real terms budget cut, what would the Tory Party do?

I might even feel some sympathy for the poor sod, were it not for the fact that his current predicament is at least in part due to his previous (and continuing) equivocations about an EU referendum, his previous pointless veto on the fiscal compact, his utter failure to build alliances with other member states and - above all - his inability to make up his mind about his policy with regard to the future of the EU.

And that does not excuse the shameless opportunism of the Labour Party.