Divorce: who gets the CD collection?

The Guardian reports:

The culture secretary has told Scots that they will lose the BBC if they vote for independence in September. Maria Miller said a vote for Scottish independence would be a vote to leave the institutions of the UK, and that included the BBC.

The culture secretary said in a Q&A session after her speech at the Oxford Media Convention on Wednesday that the BBC was "part of our crown jewels", and was too important for the debate about its charter renewal to become embroiled in party politics.

"We have to think what the [independence] vote is about. It's about whether or not Scotland wants to remain as part of the UK," said Miller.

"If the vote is no, they don't want to do that, then it's a vote to leave the institutions of the UK and the BBC is one of those institutions."

SamCam and the Scottish Experience

Mrs Cameron tries valiantly to get into the spirit of Dave's Scottish adventure:

I said to Dave, babes it is easy for you channelling Robert the Bruce & Emeli the Sande but that is your actual heritage, we cannot all be descended from Macbeth, he's like Hamlet actually, I'm like, whatevs, NO dressing up :( He's like please babes, imagine some "bonny" jeggings in Clan Tilda Swinton, even Theresa wears that tartan suit, I'm like, my POINT? So he's like fine, your call, but Shapps changed his name to Grant Shortbread without even being asked & honest Phil has got everyone in Dhaka working 24/7 on a bespoke kilt for Picklesy, McGovey is putting Lulu at the heart of the music curriculum, plus even Kate Moss said Scotland stay with us the other night which is basically 25% of everything she has ever said, I got Danny to work it out?

I'm like seriously, you are saying a no vote is like, super on trend, God who knew, he's like aye didnae you hear me screaming in ecstasy, I'm like, oh please, you do that all the time on Candy Crush, wait, let me check with Alexa, Dave's like, we already did, hen, 'twas yon wee lassie's idea tae hold a cabinet in, I think, Cawdor, unless it was Motherwell, och whatevs, there was this like majorly braw oil rig, ye ken, all the Scotch types LOVED? I'm like God, I totally ken, haud on there babes while I gang order some breeks on net-a-porter :)

   

A rose by any other name ...

CityAM reports:

THE CONSERVATIVE MP calling for an end to National Insurance payments has won the backing of business leaders at the Institute of Directors.

Backbench MP Ben Gummer will set out his argument to rename National Insurance the “Earnings Tax” in parliament today, and has admitted that this is the first step in a plan to remove NI altogether.

“If it’s a tax we should call it a tax,” Gummer said. “I want to see National Insurance and Income Tax merged, as they are essentially the same thing.”

They are not the same thing if you are a retired pensioner.  Pension payments attract income tax, but are exempt from NI contributions.


 

Desperate Dan wears a tie and collar

 

The Workers' Party?

Memo from David Cameron to Lynton Crosby

I say, Lynton old boy, jolly good wheeze, what?  I mean describing us as the workers’ party takes the veritable biscuit (although it may not go down terribly well with the backwoodsmen - workers are the oiks they call upon when the moat needs cleaning).  Nevertheless, if it convinces the plebs that we have their interests at heart, all well and good.

Problem is, dear chap, that the UK is not like the land of Oz.  To suggest that it doesn’t matter who your parents are and that you can go as far as your talents and hard work will take you is patently not true.  And nobody, neither peer of the realm nor peasant in a benighted housing scheme, will believe it is.

Nor should we be suggesting that they do believe it.  There are already far too many working class toerags who have found a place in decent society.  Our actual policy - though we need not state it openly - is to pull up the drawbridge:  those of us patricians from proper breeding stock must continue to dominate, while the little people content themselves with the panem et circenses provided by the authorities.

But don’t worry about it.  This latest hoo-ha will be over soon and then you can get back to smearing the Labour Party.  So be a good fellow and stick to the plot, eh?

That explains it

Look, the Scottish rugby team does win many matches, least of all away matches.  So Saturday's glorious victory was something of a surprise, albeit an entirely welcome surprise.  But now we know that they had some help:

Scotland may have received help from an unexpected corner in its dramatic win against Italy in the Six Nations on Saturday: JK Rowling has revealed in a new story why "it is considered infra dig for wizards to support any rugby team other than Scotland".

Ever since the 19th century, writes Rowling on her website Pottermore, the worldwide wizarding community has thrown its support behind the Scottish rugby team, even though they are forbidden to take part in "Muggle" sports themselves. In a rare appearance on Twitter, Rowling also urged her nearly three million followers to "help keep this noble tradition alive by tweeting #wizards4scotlandrugbyteam before #6nations Scotland v Italy", adding: "Wizards worldwide support the Scottish rugby team. It's an old magical tradition."

So, Gerry Guscott, Andrew Cottar, and co, stick that in your pipe and smoke it!


 

Surprise, surprise

I think that we are supposed to feel sympathy with rich Londoners.  CityAM reports:

LONDON and the south east of England are forking out 50 per cent of Britain’s inheritance tax bills, fuelling fears that the levy has turned into yet another tax on the capital.

Londoners alone shell out as much inheritance tax as the north east, north west, east midlands and west midlands, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together.

London and the south east contributed half of the country’s £2.6bn in the 2010-2011 financial year, paying £1.3bn to the Treasury, according to figures revealed this morning by analysis of official tax data by Prudential.

Well, who would have thunk it?  A wealth tax hits hardest on the wealthy ...

Quote of the day

So Facebook spends $19 billion on WhatsApp.  It won't make a lot of difference to me but I liked this description of the deal:

Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, said: “Facebook’s technology deals are often not hinged on cash flows but more on controlling a competitor that could ultimately pose a great threat to Facebook’s dominance and market value.

“In essence, it’s a paranoid defence play in the spirit of Intel that pursued the same strategy back in the old days to fend off new competitors. But only the paranoid survive right? Investors are not entirely impressed by the acquisition.”

A paranoid defence play?  Let's run that one up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it ...


   

Just a thought

Should our future king be so pally with the Saudis? And is waving a sword around an appropriate activity?

 

Surprising facts

It is little more than a passing reference in a Guardian article about Marks & Spencer's website:

Items ordered online for collection in store, meanwhile, will be delivered from the warehouse, even if that item is already on the shop floor. Although it is more costly for M&S, the retailer's outdated IT systems do not have an accurate enough picture of stock levels in stores to cope with the demands of online shoppers. The system is due to be updated later this year.

To say the least, I find it surprising that the company is unable to keep close tabs on the levels of stock in its stores.  I would have thought that this was a fairly basic requirement of a retail operation.  Little wonder that the stores are filled with unwanted items, while best-sellers are prominent by their absence.  Lord Sieff must be birling about in his grave.

 

Sauce for the goose ...

From the BBC (here):

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union.

…

In his interview with Andrew Marr, Mr Barroso said: "In [the] case [that] there is a new country, a new state, coming out of a current member state it will have to apply."

He said it was important that "accession to the European Union will have to be approved by all other member states of the European Union."

He went on: "Of course it will be extremely difficult to get the approval of all the other member states to have a new member coming from one member state."

If Scotland were to become a new state, why would not also the rest of the UK?  Splitting legal hairs, I know, but that’s what the arguments come down to.  After Scottish independence, the rest of the UK would manifestly not be the same state it was before independence.  If the Barroso doctrine is correct for Scotland, why would it not also be correct for the rest of the UK?   Thus leading to the intriguing prospect of both the former parts of the UK having to apply …

It is not of course for Barroso to decide these matters.  Nor indeed the ECJ, as nothing in the Treaties sets out what should happen in the event of the disintegration of an existing Member State.  The one aspect where Barroso is correct is that it will require to be sorted out - politically - in the Council of Member States.

The perils of making lentil soup in a foreign language

Spain being the home of Iberian jamon, it should be far from impossible to russle up the odd hambone or two.  Alas, the task has proved beyond me; so I've settled for a couple of gammon stock cubes.  Cumin and coriander were no problem, but I'm slightly worried about having used a red onion - at least the soup will be colourful.

The main difficulty was the lentils themselves.  The little shop where I used to buy the traditional orange type has closed down.  So I have been forced to use yellow lentils.  As my old boss used to say, when in need improvise.

Don't know how it will turn out, but as always let us hope for the best.

Worth a look

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/feb/14/steve-bell-scotland-keeping-pound

 

The pound or groat in your pocket

Anent yesterday's post, and strictly for those obsessed with the minutiae of currency connsiderations, here is the take of Larry Elliott of The Guardian on some of the options open to a Scottish Government on the currency question:

Option one is to do nothing. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's deputy first minister, says the joint pledge by Osborne, Balls and Alexander amounts to bullying on the part of a campaign panicked by the narrowing of the no camp's opinion poll lead. The SNP could assume that London is bluffing, aware that the rest of the UK would suffer significant collateral damage in the event of a messy divorce that left Scotland scrabbling around for a new currency. In the short term, that is likely to be the response.

Option number two is to assume that the three main Westminster parties mean what they say and quietly agree to accept whatever terms the Treasury and the Bank of England demand. There will be a high-stakes poker game if Scotland votes yes to independence: while London does not hold all the cards, it has most of the good ones. Put simply, an independent Scotland would need a monetary union with the rest of the UK more than the rest of the UK would need a monetary union with Scotland.

Option number three would involve Scotland continuing to use the pound even if London said it couldn't. This sounds far-fetched, but the free-market Adam Smith Institute says it is both feasible and sensible. The institute's research director Sam Bowman said Panama, Ecuador and El Salvador all used the US dollar without permission, so there was no reason Scotland could not use the pound without Westminster's permission. What it would mean is that the Bank of England would not act as the lender of last resort for Scottish banks or as a guarantor for an Edinburgh government, but according to Bowman this would be no bad thing as it would deter irresponsible lending. "An independent Scotland that used the pound as its base currency without the English government's permission, with banks continuing to issue notes privately and private citizens free to choose any currency they wanted, would probably have a more stable financial system and economy than England itself".

   

They're all agin us ...

So the major UK political parties are united in their efforts to deny an independent Scotland the use of the pound sterling.  The Guardian reports:

Britain's main political parties are drawing up plans to deliver a powerful message to the Scottish people that the remainder of the UK will refuse to form a currency union with Scotland if voters endorse independence in the referendum in September.

Amid strong polling evidence that financial matters have become the decisive factor in voters' minds, George Osborne, Danny Alexander and Ed Balls are each planning to deliver an unequivocal warning that an independent Scotland could not keep the pound.

Of course, if and when Scotland were to become independent, the UK authorities could not actually prevent the pound circulating in Scotland, much as it does at present (whether or not Scotland introduced an alternative currency).  But, in such circumstances, the new Scottish government and its monetary authorities would have no influence over matters such as the level of interest rates.  Would this matter much in the short term?  There are plenty of examples of countries using foreign currencies as their principal means of exchange - such as the use of the dollar in much of central America or the use of the euro in eastern Europe.  Even now, it is still possible to have a UK bank account in euros (I have one myself).  And the larger shops in the touristy areas of London and Edinburgh will accept euros in payment for goods.  So the existence of parallel currencies is not impossible.  Indeed, whatever happens with the introduction of a separate currency and regardless of the UK authorities’ attempts to quash a sterling currency union, it is impossible to imagine a situation where the pound would not continue to circulate freely in Scotland.

Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that - if push came to shove - London politicians would actively seek to insist that Scotland should introduce a separate currency/  In such a deeply integrated UK economy, what would be the value to any of the parties in forcing cross border companies to set up parallel currency operations and introduce exchange transaction costs?

So, yes. a currency union has its own problems.  But they are not insuperable.  And perhaps the politicians might be prepared to give a little and take a little.

 

Hillary and me

It's no big deal.  The Guardian reports:

"One of the regrets I have about my public life is that I can't drive any more,"Hillary Clinton told a car dealers' conference on Monday. Among her most painful memories, you suspect this doesn't rank all that high. Yet the remark is a reminder of how wealth and power tend to separate people from normal life, and how they don't always like it. Clinton has not driven a car since 1996, on the instructions of the secret service, and it is something that her husband pines for too. "Whenever I'm on the golf course I always make them let me drive the golf cart," Bill Clinton has said.

I know the feeling.  I sold my last car in 2001 when I took a job in Brussels.  Both there and subsequently back in Edinburgh, I lived close enough to my office to walk to work.  After retirement, I never felt the need for a car, particularly in view of parking restrictions.  Besides, a car seemed like a bottomless pit into which to throw money, given depreciation, insurance and petrol costs.  Accordingly, it did not seem worthwhile to renew my driving licence when it expired.

So, unlike Hillary, I have no regrets,

On yer bike!

Some of us pedestrians would argue that far too many cyclists are already using the pavement.  Not all of us are as mobile as we used to be.  But this transport minister has no obvious qualms about putting us in danger:

Cyclists should be free to go on to a pavement to avoid hazardous stretches of road, Transport Minister Robert Goodwill has told police.

Mr Goodwill said that the police should use their discretion “where a cyclist is using the pavement alongside a dangerous section of road out of fear of the traffic”, The Daily Telegraph reported.

However he also said cyclists must “be mindful to not put pedestrians at risk”.

If cyclists want to use the pavement, let them get off their bikes and wheel them along.

Does he know what he is doing?

The Guardian reports:

George Osborne will today deliver a stark warning to Britain's European partners that the UK will leave the EU unless it embarks on whole-scale economic and political reform.

The chancellor's comments come as the Tory leadership tries to regain the initiative on Europe, after 95 MPs signed a letter calling for the dismantling of the core principles of the EU.

If I were Angie Merkel, I would be sorely tempted to reply "Here's your hat, Georgie boy.  The exit door is over there."

A Parisian fairy tale

Frankie and Val have been shacked up together for three or four years.  But Frankie has been a naughty boy, sneaking off to have a thing with Jools.  Apparently, Val never noticed when, after dinner, Frankie would take his toothbrush and disappear for the night, not re-appearing until after breakfast the next day.  But Val found out last week about Frankie and Jools and went off the deep end.  She was so stressed out (or perhaps she was mentally exhausted, or maybe just a case of the blues) that she had to go into hospital where she remains to this day.

Meanwhile Frankie is saying nuffink.  He does not deny that one of his pals took him to his nights of passion on a scooter, nor that the same pal would bring the couple croissants in the morning.  

Incidentally, Frankie is in the habit of dying his hair, if rather unconvincingly.

Where will it all end?  Probably in tears on the part of both Val and Jools.  On the other hand, they will certainly be better off without serial love-rat Frankie.

Stick or twist?

There is an economic argument going on in the background.

Some pundits cannot wait to plunge us into trouble.  Like this one:

The Bank should be putting up rates now, in a gentle and gradual manner. The money supply is growing at a reasonable rate; nominal GDP is expanding  nicely; employment is soaring; wages of some professions (including brickies and architects) are shooting up; there are already some skill shortages; and the current account deficit is huge, suggesting that aggregate demand is too large compared to supply. Monetary policy should be forward-looking: decisions today have an effect with long and variable lags, so waiting until there is a problem is always too late. Sure, the UK economy remains smaller than at peak; but that will change before the year is up. It is a mistake to look merely at the macro effect of interest rates: the impact on big aggregates such as consumer prices, output or employment. The micro effect also matters hugely – the allocation of credit, capital and labour between different companies and all the myriad decisions that make up an economy are being hugely distorted by artificially low official interest rates. The economy is normalising – monetary policy must follow suit.

On the other hand, some take what appears to me to be a more sensible line:

Chris Giles at the Financial Times has argued that the Bank of England will have to raise rates soon, because recent job growth has been accompanied by low productivity -- a situation that could produce inflation unless the bank acts. The informal Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, which meets at a free-market think tank, has been calling for an interest-rate increase since February last year, when there was no recovery in sight.

What the policy hawks fail to recognize is how damaging a premature tightening could be. As Oxford Professor Simon Wren Lewis has noted, debt-service payments still occupy a large portion of households' budgets. In the absence of an adequate increase in income, even a small increase in interest rates could trigger defaults and foreclosures on a grand scale. Why would anyone intentionally precipitate such a crisis unless coerced by the prospect of rampant inflation?

Why indeed?

SNAFU

There once was a period of time, perhaps a brief period of time, but nevertheless there was indeed a time when a Minister of the Crown took responsibility for the actions of his department whether or not he was personally involved in those actions.  In the Crichel Down affair, Sir Thomas Dugdale resigned when the Ministry of Agriculture made a mess.

It is unlikely to happen nowadays, least of all as a result of the incompetence of the Department of Work and Pensions:

Thousands of people have been wrongly identified as liable for the bedroom tax, including some who now face eviction or have been forced to move to a smaller property, as a result of an error by Department of Work and Pensions.

Housing experts believe as many as 40,000 people could be affected by the mistake. The DWP says it believes only a "small number" of tenants are affected, which it estimates number 5,000.

All could be eligible for refunds worth on average at least £640 per claimant and millions in aggregate.

The error affects working age tenants in social housing who have occupied the same home continuously since 1996. An oversight by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) when drafting the legislation means that the housing benefit regulations dating from 1996 were not updated when the coalition legislated for the bedroom tax.

And so, another scandal sticks to the wall, with nobody accepting responsibility.

How not to do it

The Government's development of the universal credit system will become a case study to be examined in future decades as a classic example of systems development getting deeper and deeper into the mire, while its project sponsors maintain a wilful blindness to the absence of progress.  The Guardian charts the latest inanity:

Despite a scathing NAO report in September, Duncan Smith has been insistent that the project remained on time and on budget. In December he revealed a new plan for delivering the project.

Sources indicate that tensions between government departments spiked after Duncan Smith refused to restart the embattled project afresh – a move that would have incurred massive write-off costs and political embarrassment.

Duncan Smith is understood to have insisted on a "twin track" approach – keeping current universal credit development going to prove that claimants could use the service before the 2015 election – while ordering money and time to be ploughed into a web-based system that did not rely heavily on jobcentre staff to fill in claimant benefit details.

According to the newly approved plans, hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants will then be transferred from one design of universal credit programme to the other once the digital design is ready some time after the general election.

Plan A won't work, Plan B won't work, and transferring data from Plan A to Plan B will be nightmarish.  It would be laughable if it were not so serious.


 

On the one hand ...

The size of the state pension will be maintained:

The prime minister has vowed to guarantee annual increases in the state pension until 2020, and marked them out as the only welfare spending to be exempt from the forthcoming cap if the Conservatives win the next election.

On the other hand, don't expect any cheer on other old age benefits:

David Cameron's pledge aims to reassure older voters that their payouts will continue to rise in line with inflation despite a squeeze on other benefits such as winter fuel payments, TV licences, and free bus passes and prescriptions.

Somehow, I don't believe that pensioners will be terribly pleased ...

In memory of John Fortune

It's far from cheap to feed your habit

Here are the Colorado prices for the newly legalised sale of pot:

Below are some of the options provided by licensed sellers (all prices are subject to an additional 21% sales tax).

• Pre-rolled joints, $10 each. A typical joint contains less than 1 gramme of marijuana.

• 1 oz Indica or Sativa buds: “best”, $179; “better”, $169; “good”, $159.

• Glass pipes: $15-$30.

• Marijuana-infused pomegranate “elixir” drink (75mg): $14.

• Marijuana spearmint dew drops (100mg): $20.

• Marijuana truffles (50mg): $10.

• Marijuana chai mints (100mg): $11.

• Marijuana massage oil (100mg): $14

• Marijuana pain relief lotion (100mg): $18.

• Marijuana bath soak (100mg): $18.

    (And no, you cannot get them by mail order.)

 

Power corrupts

I do not know if the Labour Party is correct when it argues that the energy companies are over-charging consumers.  The miasma engendered by claim and counter-claim makes it difficult to see what is going on,  The Guardian reports:

Households may have paid £150 over the odds for their electricity over the past three years because energy companies bought their power for almost £4bn more than the average market rate, Labour has claimed.

In a new analysis of official figures, the Labour party, which has pledged to freeze prices for 20 months if it wins the general election in 2015, said the big six energy suppliers appear either to be inflating their prices to make extra profits for their own power plants, or striking very expensive deals to the detriment of consumers.

Caroline Flint, the shadow energy secretary, said she could demonstrate that the energy giants – which supply 98% of households in Britain – have been buying electricity at a far higher price than they could get on the open market. This amounts to about £50 a year per household for the last three years for which data is available, she said.

But at least the Labour Party is questioning the practice of the energy companies.  Does anyone believe that the Government would have done anything if Miliband had not raised the matter of a price freeze last autumn?  And would it be unfair to ask what Ofgem, the supposed regulator, has been doing?

Too much Christmas pudding?

Some people might be surprised that Chloe Smith MP thinks she has the answer to political disengagement:

Responding to fears about disengagement by young people from politics, the Tory MP Chloe Smith, a former minister at 31, told the Guardian there was a danger of a political disconnect between young and old, with "generations far apart and not talking to each other". One of her ministerial briefs included improving voter engagement.

"I think there is an existential problem coming for traditional forms of British democracy, which it is in everyone's interests, all of us as democrats, to respond to," she said. "We have to demonstrate what politics is for, why a young person's individual action in voting matters."

But it gives me the opportunity to show again her famous Newsnight interview in which she demonstrates her personal commitment to openness and transparency:

It's not swings and roundabouts

It's going to happen sooner or later.  The Independent reports:

More people believe they would be helped than harmed by a rise in interest rates, according to a new survey.

A leading pollster said the finding suggested that a pre-election rate hike could actually improve David Cameron's chances of staying in Downing Street, rather than damaging them, as is widely thought.

Some 31 per cent of those questioned by YouGov for The Times said that a rise in interest rates would leave them personally better-off, against 23 per cent who said they would be better off with lower rates and 32 per cent who thought it would make little difference either way.

...

A rise in interest rates would hit mortgage-holders, making it more difficult for home-owners to pay back loans. But it would be good for savers, particularly pensioners who have suffered from poor rates of return on their nest-eggs over the period since the crash of 2008.

I can readily believe that the banks would hike mortgage rates in an instant.  I am a lot more sanguine, however, about the proposition that interest rates for savers would go up as quickly  

The Ebenezer Scrooge de nos jours

According to Wikipedia, Scrooge is 'a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas. Dickens describes him thus: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ..."'.  He is 'a coldhearted miser with nothing but contempt for the poor, and who despises Christmas as a "humbug"'.

In this season of goodwill to all men, there is one politician who appears to be making a deliberate attempt to adopt Scrooge's mantle.  The Observer reports:

Iain Duncan Smith, the embattled work and pensions secretary, is refusing to meet leaders of the rapidly expanding Christian charity that has set up more than 400 food banks across the UK, claiming it is "scaremongering" and has a clear political agenda.

...

Duncan Smith began his reply by criticising the "political messaging of your organisation", which "despite claiming to be nonpartisan" had "repeatedly sought to link the growth in your network to welfare reform". He said his department's record in processing benefit claims had improved and should do so further with the introduction of universal credit.

He rejected any suggestion that the government was to blame. "I strongly refute this claim and would politely ask you to stop scaremongering in this way. I understand that a feature of your business model must require you to continuously achieve publicity, but I'm concerned that you are now seeking to do this by making your political opposition to welfare reform overtly clear."

The standoff will further anger church leaders who were incensed by reports last week that the government had turned down a potential pot of £22m of EU funding for food banks, on the grounds that the UK did not want to be told by Brussels how to spend money for European structural funds.

In Dickens' novel, Scrooge eventually sees the error of his ways, persuaded by the three Ghosts of Christmas.  I regret to say that Duncan Smith is unlikely to be amenable to ghostly intervention.

     

Some you win, some you lose

It's just that I always seem to lose more than I win:

Top 5 FTSE 100 performing shares 2013

Intl Consolidated AI +106.439%

EasyJet plc +96.21%

Hargreaves Lansdown +90.495%

Sports Direct International +86.417%

ITV plc +79.761%

Nope.   Didn't pick any of them.

Bottom 5 FTSE 100 performing shares 2013

Fresnillo plc -60.030%

Antofagasta plc -37.643%

Randgold Resources -33.92%

Tullow Oil -33.902%

Anglo American plc -32.682%

Yes, I spent money on three of them.

That'll teach me some humility.

 

What was all that about?

Procrastination.  Prevarication.  Why make a decision today when you can leave it until tomorrow?  If it's that important, it can wait.

There are still three possible sites for new London airport runways: at Heathrow, Gatwick or the Thames estuary. The news is at least a quarter of a century old. Connoisseurs of British indecision will greet Sir Howard Davies's announcement on Tuesday as an all-time, blue-chip, 24-carat masterpiece of the genre. We are back where we started.

...

Half a century of inquiry has sought new runways for London, while Birmingham, Manchester and other airports have quietly expanded. Each new outburst of London airport hysteria sends politicians running for the hills of indecision. After Tuesday, those hills are more crowded than ever.

As Phil Ochs put it:

Oh, the shadows of doubt are in many a mind

Lookin' for an answer they're never gonna find

But they'd better decide 'cause they're runnin' out of time

For these are the days of decision

Or not, as the case may be.

Panicked xenophobia

A bit late, perhaps?  And would it not be illegal to impose separate rules discriminating against EU migrants, compared with domestic claimants?  The Guardian reports:

David Cameron is rushing through a block on European Union migrants' access to benefits from 1 January, the politically fraught date when the remaining work restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians will be lifted in the UK.

From New Year's Day all jobseekers from the EU will have to wait for three months from their arrival in the UK before they can apply to claim any out of work benefits, Downing Street announced.

The scrambled clampdown betrays the extreme nervousness in Downing Street at the possible reaction of potential Tory voters – and increasingly restive Tory backbenchers – if the public decide ministers have failed to take every measure possible to prevent Romanians and Bulgarians travelling to Britain en masse.

David Cameron said he believed the restrictions would "make the UK a less attractive place for EU migrants who want to come here and try to live off the state".The prime minister added that he wanted to "send the clear message that whilst Britain is very much open for business, we will not welcome people who don't want to contribute".

Is there any evidence that Bulgarians and Romanians will come to the UK in order to claim benefits?

This lady deserves whatever success comes her way

The Guardian reports:

Celebrity chefs are off the menu for a supermarket which has chosen one of the faces of austerity Britain as its new advertising star.

Jack Monroe, a 25-year-old single mother whose stories of struggling to feed her son for £10 a week while on benefits have propelled her to national fame, will front Sainsbury's new campaign from next month.

Her splendid blog is here.

   

It's a flea-bite

The Guardian reports:

Lloyds Banking Group has been fined £28m for putting branch staff under such pressure to sell products in order to claim bonuses or avoid being demoted that they may have mis-sold them to customers.

£28 million may sound like a lot of money, but it is peanuts to Lloyds.  With annual revenues of over £34 billion and a net loss of £1.43 billion, the odd £28 million is neither here nor there.  Even with the additional bill for compensation, Lloyds admits the effect will not be material.

Lloyds says it expects to spend up to £200m settling the fine and other issues involved. It says this won't have a "material impact on the group", but it is likely to hit the bank's profitability and as part owners that means taxpayers will take a hit.

Hummph.  As the taxpayers have yet to see any dividend returns on their investment, any "hit" that they suffer is entirely notional.  In any case, as part owners of the bank, they or their representatives (are you listening Treasury?) should have been aware of what was going on, and put a stop to it.

So will the fine deter them from repeating their alleged crimes?  Do pigs fly?


 

The Scottish health police would be appalled

I went down to the tobacco shop yesterday to buy stamps.  In Spain, cigarettes and stamps are sold, more or less exclusively, in special shops, rather than in supermarkets or post offices.

It is my habit to visit the local tobacco shop once a month where I buy three cartons of ciggies (at a price considerably below that in the UK).  The cigarette packets are much the same as in the UK, although the admonitions (Fumar Mata) are of course in Spanish.

For most of this year, my preferred brand has been on special offer, which means that - as the prices are set by central government - my three cartons comes with a half-bottle of Smirnoff vodka at no extra charge.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), vodka is not one of my favourite tipples,  So my drinks cabinet now sits proudly in the corner, displaying eight half-bottles of vodka.  Now I need only find someone to whom I can give them away.

I suppose the authorities in Scotland would look askance at any proposals to give away free booze with ciggies.  Shame really ...

 

Quote of the day

Samantha Cameron, allegedly (here):

"Well RIP Mr Madeeber which is what Dave and me have always called President Mandela since we became bffs, it is hard to put into words for people who never met him but Melanie Brown summed it up, he was sooo amazing, also like Naomi says, incredibly kind to models & do not even get Alexa started on his loincloths #inspirational #styleicon? Plus the way he was so uber-forgiving, eg if you accidentally asked him what Mary Seacole was like he would be like, happens all the time :) & basically this total wound-healing role model? Dave is right, anyone who says Madeeber did not totes forgive him for that fact-finding tour everyone keeps going on about needs to go seriously high on the shit list, I know, why would you expect Labourites to understand that major South African lolz = the path to reconciliation but basically there are limits, as in if anyone says another WORD about our Christmas card *shakes fist* I will literally explode?"

There's austerity and austerity

Does your heart not bleed for the poor lamb?

Princess Michael of Kent has explained how she and her husband have been hit by austerity; meaning they can no longer dine out as it's "too extravagant".

The Princess, who is an interior designer and author, told The Times in an interview to promote her debut novel: "I am in very austere economic times too, thank you very much!"

"We’ve cut back dramatically. I mean we never go out to dinner unless we go to somebody’s house. We never go to restaurants. That’s too extravagant."

The Princess, who lives with her husband at Kensington Palace, added: "We invite people here [Kensington Palace]. I cook. Well, if I’m giving a dinner party I get in help."

She also told the interviewer of her love for budget carrier easyJet saying: "it’s the only direct route to Biarritz."

"We always fly tourist-class anyway in Europe. For long-haul we go club,” she added

   

.

Nice anecdote

From The Independent (here):

Gordon Brown, whose famously rare visits to the Commons make it easy to forget his power to hold the chamber when he is on form, eloquently declared the former South African President as true to Churchill’s mantra that courage is the greatest virtue of all. He quoted the passage Mandela had marked from Julius Caesar in the complete works of Shakespeare so treasured on Robben Island: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant taste of death but once.”

And on Mandela’s fight against Aids he had been “an activist who became a President and a President who became an activist”. But Brown also got laughs across the House for describing how, when Prime Minister, he had been told by Mandela that he wanted the Queen to invite an African rain princess from his tribe to a reception at Buckingham Palace and had got nowhere via the diplomatic channels. “So he decided to telephone her personally,” said Brown. “The story goes that the conversation – words that only Mandela could use, began: ‘Hello, Elizabeth. How’s the Duke?’ And while the official minutes say that the Queen was non-committal, he got his way.”

   

Wig and gown

Does this remind you of King Canute seeking to hold back the waves?  Or do lawyers just want to keep modern reality out of their rule-driven little world?  The Guardian reports:

Jurors should face up to two years in prison if they search the internet for information about cases beyond the facts revealed in court, the Law Commission has recommended.

Judges should also be given powers to remove jurors' mobile phones, and all internet-enabled devices must be confiscated during jury room deliberations, according to the commission's proposals for reforming contempt of court regulations.

The report suggests that the attorney general ought to take on responsibility for ordering the media to remove previously published stories from websites if they are deemed to jeopardise a fair trial.

...

Responding to the recommendations, the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, said: "Juror contempt is a serious risk to justice but people are often not aware of the consequences."The Law Commission's proposal to make it an offence for jurors to search for information about their case on the internet or by other means would make the position absolutely clear and would, I hope, reduce the need for future prosecutions.

"[The law Commission has] attempted to strike a very careful balance between freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial. I will now need to discuss the recommendations carefully with my government colleagues before we respond formally."

I can see the problem, but I rather doubt that it would be desirable to restrict a citizen's access to information which is in the public domain.  Furthermore, judges - especially those sitting unassisted by juries - will be under no such restrictions, presumably on the basis that they are sensible enough to judge cases on the basis of the evidence heard in court,  Would it be impossible to ask juries to do the same, regardless of what they might have found out on the internet?

    

How to back yourself into a corner?

First, you establish an independent authority to determine the level of your pay and expenses and you make sure that it is truly independent, to the extent that you are unable to reject its recommendations.  But when it comes up with recommendations of which you do not approve, you are stuck with the options of either accepting those recommendations (and being utterly condemned by the public as greedy grasping bloodsuckers on the public purse) or abolishing the independent authority which you set up in the first place.

Perhaps you might have thought more carefully about what you were doing before you did it?


 

Mixed messages ...

... from The Guardian.

Here:

If the unionists cannot articulate a new sense of British values and purpose, with which all the people of these islands can identify, the Scots may well vote for their auld country back again. It may be small. But it will be Scottish, and probably rather civilised and successful.

Chris Huhne displays an unexpected sympathy.

And here:

Scotland would immediately be ejected from the European Union were it to vote for independence in the forthcoming referendum, according to the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, in comments clearly directed at Catalan nationalists who want the right to hold their own vote on secession from Spain."This is a fact, it's neither a value judgment nor an opinion, it's simply a fact. If part of a country integrated into the European Union leaves that country, then logically it would be outside the European Union, not because I say so, but because that's what the treaties say," said Rajoy, in an interview with theGuardian and partner newspapers from Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

Not unexpected, given Madrid's difficulties with Catalonia.  But what is alleged to be a simple fact is far from it.  The Treaties do not in fact specify what Rajoy says they do.  That is not to say the Treaties necessarily allow for an independent Scotland to remain part of the EU, but they do not obviously exclude the possibility.

    

How not to do a Scottish accent?