Gloom descends

I really do not understand. This flotilla had humanitarian cargoes. Those on board were unarmed. Would it have cost the Israelis to let them through? Was stopping the flotilla worth killing people?

There are times when I despair ...

Silly boy

Just because he's a millionaire ex-banker who appears a bit smug sometimes, he should not be barred from claiming legitimate expenses. And £900 per month is a lot of money (although he probably receives more than that in interest every month). And if he wanted to keep his sexuality under wraps, perhaps he would have been better off by not claiming at all for his accommodation arrangements. Especially as those arrangements looked a bit dodgy even before the rules were clarified.

Furthermore, the expenses row over the past year provided him with the opportunity to sort matters out, relatively quietly. An opportunity which he chose not to take.

But, hey, we all make mistakes, though not often to the extent of putting the career at risk. So move along, nothing to see here. But it's going to end in tears, isn't it?

To wear the ermine

So there you go. Jack McConnell, Helen Liddell, John Reid, Des Browne to grace the House of Lords.

Somehow, sticks in the throat ...

Talk is cheap

Is our new Prime Minister getting carried away by his own rhetoric? Here he is, quoted in The Independent:

Mr Cameron will insist that economic power can be spread across the regions and new hope brought to the unemployed: "Can we inject new life into the private sector, so that enterprise can drive not just our recovery but the re-building beyond it?
"Can we go from an economy built on debt and borrowing to one built on saving and investment? Can we re-open Britain for business? My answer is an unequivocal, emphatic yes."

Unequivocal? Emphatic? Aye well maybe. Difficult to see how it could be done without lots of additional government spending. Or perhaps, like Tony Blair before him, he is confusing the announcement of an intention with the reality of achievement.

Flogging dead horses

I see that the new Government intends to reform the welfare benefits system.

Of course, each year, the previous government (and the one before that, ad nauseam) promised much the same thing- and failed. But this time it will be different. And Iain Duncan Smith is such an inspiring and competent administrator. We must believe that he will succeed, must we not?

Music of the week

As they are re-assembling for one last gig this summer, I thought I should show the younger readers this lot from 39 years ago:




Apparently, Rod Stewart is to be replaced by Mick Hucknall - bad mistake.

I'm getting too old for this ...

Gerry Hassan of The Scotsman gives you the complicated version:

Scottish Secretary Danny Alexander and David Mundell, his deputy, have made it clear where they stand on the Calman tax powers. They have gone out of their way to give no clear "commitment" to implement the powers, while also saying that it was their eventual "intention" to do so if everything goes according to plan. They underlined as pivotal in this, discussions with the Treasury and Scottish Government. It is no coincidence that these are two of the biggest opponents of the Calman tax powers for opposing reasons: the Treasury because they see them as a threat and too radical, and the SNP because they don't think they go far enough.
The Calman tax powers are arguably the most ill-conceived proposals ever put together in modern Scotland. They would damage Scotland's finances and economy, not increase fiscal autonomy; undermine fairness and not in any way advance transparency. Importantly, for a pro-Unionist document, they would exasperate [exacerbate?] potential conflict between the Scots and UK governments over assessing the Scots tax take, crucial in how you estimate how much of the block grant the UK government withholds.

Me, I'm a more simple soul. I have never been convinced that HM Revenue and Customs have the practical means to collect differential rates of income tax according to geographical residency. (I appreciate that the Scotland Act provides, within limits, for just such differential rates, but has the Treasury ever done anything to amend its systems to provide for this?) Calman would open the door to even greater differentiation. And, even if HMRC were able to deliver, would the systems of the larger cross-border companies such as Tesco or M&S be able to make differential deductions from staff salary payments? My pension is paid from Newcastle under a UK scheme; I pay a certain amount of income tax every month. But I very much doubt if the payer has a system which can tolerate making a different percentage deduction from my pension than from my counterparts down south.

Nothing is impossible, so they say. But it would not be easy and it would probably be expensive. In the meantime, I have yet to see any appreciation of the practical problems of implementing Calman. But let us wait and see.

Caja not so Sur

Further to my post on Monday about the travails of my bank, I decided that I had better check out the position. So yesterday morning I visited my branch of CajaSur.

Still standing; doors still open; Carmen, the attractive young lady behind the counter, handed over my euros in the usual way.

I confess that I was not aware that it was run by the Catholic Church. (It's not as though the manager dressed as a nun, with bowls of holy water at the door.) As an atheist, especially a protestant atheist, I would prefer my euros to avoid falling into the clutches of those with an overt religious persuasion. Not that it matters now; the previous bank directors have been replaced by nominees from Spain's central bank (although they're probably also Catholic).

Oh well, this minor spasm of excitement appears to be over (at least for me, though the rest of the world seems to be taking it seriously). For which, much thanks; I can't cope with excessive excitement. Had to go to the pub yesterday lunchtime to restore my equilibrium.

Keeping red boxes safe

Perhaps it's my twisted mind but I rather enjoyed this story in The Guardian:

Now ministers are being told they must travel to their constituencies by second class public transport, but for security reasons their red boxes must travel to the constituency separately in a private car. So when one minister, who cannot be named but whose identity is known to the Guardian, asked his private office in the past 24 hours if he could accompany his red box in the car to do some work, he was told this was not allowed under the latest rules on ministerial travel. As a result, he will be travelling several hundred miles by train to his constituency, where he will greet his red box.

Thus certain types of papers (for that is all a red box contains, apart from an occasional sandwich) require a greater degree of security than the poor human beings who have to read them and presumably absorb their contents. So Al-Qaeda is welcome to capture and torture the ministers but God forbid that they get their hands on the papers.

Strange how priorities evolve, isn't it?

Quote of the day

Rachel Sylvester in The Times (here):

The problem is that this is only the start. Yesterday the Chancellor and Chief Secretary sliced delicately through IT budgets and consultancy contracts with a scalpel. Before long they will be running down Whitehall politically naked, with blood dripping from their axes. There is a big difference between £6 billion and £156 billion, the overall size of the deficit. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that yesterday’s announcement represented “less than a tenth of the fiscal repair job that will be needed over the next few years”. The really difficult decisions will come in the Budget next month and the autumn spending review. A Government that started out looking like a Richard Curtis rom-com will end up looking as gory as a Quentin Tarantino movie with bodies all over the floor. This is going to end up as Four Weddings and an Awful Lot of Funerals.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

The boy done good

Ok, it took him five sets but he made it. Young Murray vanquished an awkward opponent in Gasquet. Lots of mistakes, and he'll need to improve enormously to make an impact in the later stages. Nevertheless, no shortage of stamina.

But, hey, a Scottish sporting success. Rejoice!

The Labour leadership battle

Miliband 1, Miliband 2, Balls and that irritating guy Andy whatever. It's not an inspiring lineup.

I have had my suspicions for some time. And now I can reveal the truth. They are not human; they are xylons from the planet Tharg, a form of artificial life brewed up in the vats and the laboratories of that benighted planet. Sleeper agents for the Dark Lord, awoken at last by Gordon Brown's demise.

You doubt it? Look at the evidence. Those funny little haircuts, for a start. And consider the way in which they occasionally relapse into trotting out gibberish (aka nulabourspeak) when put under pressure. They're supposed to be in their early 40s; problem is that they've always been that age. (Who recalls seeing a young Miliband apart from obviously photoshopped pictures?) If they ever went into a pub (which they never do), they would order campari or dry white wine; it is only at election time that you will see them with a pint (but you never see them drinking it). No, we have to accept that the aliens are taking over the Labour Party.

Of course, Abbot and McDonnell are real human beings, but unfortunately neither of them is going to win.

My outstanding financial acumen

Would you care to guess the Spanish bank in which I keep my pennies? The Guardian reports:

The Bank of Spain intervened after CajaSur, a local lender hit by the collapse of the country's property sector, failed to merge with a rival bank.
...
CajaSur is one of 43 not-for-profit regional lenders and while it is unlikely to strain the Bank of Spain's finances, bond markets will view the move as a further signal of the country's difficulties. Spain has already struggled to borrow from the international money markets and further turmoil is likely to spook investors.
...
The Cordoba-based CajaSur was controlled by the Catholic church until the Spanish regulator removed the managers over the weekend, appointing administrators.

Oh shit ...

Quote of the day

Charlie Brooker in The Guardian on the creation of artificial life:

Here's what happened: the scientists created a computer simulation of the goat bug thingy, then fed the code into a genetic synthesizer. You know, a genetic synthesizer. It looks like a George Foreman grill, but in white, and with twice as many winking lights on the top. They fed it into that. Probably using a USB stick. Anyway, the DNA grill heated up and went beep and "produced short strands of the bug's DNA", which I imagine were an absolute bugger to pick up with tweezers. Said strands were then "stitched together" by some bits of yeast and E coli, which eventually knitted the strand into a complete million-letter-long DNA sequence, which you're probably incorrectly picturing right now.
So far, so baffling. Then it gets weirder. To "watermark" their artificial bug, the geneticists spliced a James Joyce quotation into the DNA sequence. The unsuspecting genome now has the phrase "to live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life" written through it like letters in a stick of rock. In other words, it's the world's most pretentious bacterium. After Quentin Letts.

I hope that the process is now understood.

That's the way it goes

Peter Housden then, as a replacement for Sir John Elvidge? (Who he?)

No previous connection with Scotland as far as I can gather. A teacher, turned educationalist, not a civil servant before 2000. (Not a real civil servant therefore; no grounding in drafting GF answers or PQs or submissions,)

Was none of my ex-colleagues in the Scottish Office worthy of a step up?

Or is Whitehall seeking to re-establish its dominion over the Scottsih Civil Service?


Historical Note: Within living history, the only previous incomer as Scottish Permanent Secretary was Nicholas Morrison in the 1970s. And he was brought in as a clean pair of hands following the Pottinger affair.

Straight out of 'Yes Minister'

When Ministers don't know what to do about a particular subject, they set up a committee (or a commission as they are now more fashionably known). When Ministers know what they want to do but fear it may upset some of their supporters, they set up a committee. When Ministers disagree among themselves about what they should do, they set up a committee.

The purpose of these committees/commissions is to postpone the evil day when Ministers have to make decisions. Such a postponement may amount to many months, even years. And in the end nothing may happen. Cynical? You bet.

Unbelievably, the Cameron/Clegg regime, in its brief existence, is proposing to establish nine such commissions.

Reform of the House of Lords? It will not take place within the foreseeable future. Dealing with the West Lothian Question? Ditto. Sorting out the banks? Ditto with knobs on.

Bring back Gordon Brown: he only set up three or four commissions per year. And he knew what he wanted to do; he just needed some intellectual underpinning.

Update: The Guardian suggests that there are actually 27 reviews about to get under way.

Naked shorting

It's not as much fun as it sounds. Basically, it involves selling assets you don't have so that you can buy them back later when the price falls. Simple, really.

No, I don't understand it either (and I'm not sure that these guys do).

Anway, Angie does not approve of the practice, and that's good enough for me.

Music of the week

Dunno: sometimes it makes me feel happy, sometimes sad. Always worth a listen:

A question of process

Once upon a time, the newspapers used to quote what politicians had said. Nowadays they quote what politicians are about to say. Hence this quote from Nick Clegg in The Independent:

Raising the coalition's sights, the Deputy Prime Minister will say: "I have spent my whole political life fighting to open up politics. So let me make one thing very clear: this government is going to be unlike any other.
"This government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state. This government is going to break up concentrations of power and hand power back to people, because that is how we build a society that is fair. This government is going to persuade you to put your faith in politics once again."

Aye well. Treating parliament with disrespect by telling reporters in advance what you are going to say is hardly likely to persuade me to put my faith in politics once again. Government announcements should be made first of all to parliament. To do otherwise is not only an abuse of process but it demeans parliament itself. Why bother to pay attention to a parliamentary announcement when you can read it in advance?

Georgie and David - the odd couple

The matching body language says it all: