IF WE CAN'T HAVE OUR OWN POLICIES, I'D RATHER WE APED ICELAND'S REGIME THAN AMERICA'S

Just like America, huh?

Not one single banker went to jail; they didn't even have the decency this time round to throw themselves off high buildings. 

And when the MPs and the Lords were found to be fiddling their expenses, how many went to jail, how long for, and in what kind of jails? Few, for a short time and in the holiday home kind of jails that people can nip out for a drink, or down to the village, and get home for a birthday party.

And when a Cabinet Minister lied and lied and then lied again about his driving offenses, he spent a few weeks in an easy going regime and came out to a new job... 

What a bloody country. Why don't we have the nerve to be like Iceland?

Oh that will be because we have clout... everywhere. 

Corrupt clout, but clout none the less. 

Oh no, wait, we don't even have clout. Cameron just made that up, along with all his other lies. Because when the Syrians took other nationalities prisoner, their governments got them released.  But when they took a Brit, Wee Willie couldn't even get consular contact. Clout my backside. (And if anyone makes the obvious joke about that, Munguin will be round to see them...with his sharp teeth!)

BARRIER TO INDEPENDENCE? THE PAPERWORK WOULD BE A HASSLE

BUT WHAT CAN YOU DAE?

This guy pretty much defies description. 

I've been pondering over what kind of Liberal Democrat actually thinks its a good idea for a badly off couple who for reasons, perhaps of ill health or age, need to sleep in separate bedrooms, to be hit with a 25% increase in their housing costs.

I wondered what kind of Liberal Democrat takes the notion that it's fair for the parents  of a disabled child who for various reasons cannot share a bedroom with his brother (or her sister), to be hit with this burden.

And I wonder if Mr Rennie had given any consideration to the couples with two children of different genders only a couple of years below the age at which they are required by law to have separate sleeping accommodation, who didn't want the financial (and school) upheaval of moving in 2 years' time and who took a house with an extra bedroom, or indeed the fact that the depleted pubic housing stock often has an insufficiency of single bedroom accommodation.

The Tory line, of course, as in all these "welfare" reforms is to grandly inform us that this is being done for the peasants' own good. Noblesse Oblige, as it were, says that they throw non swimmers in at the deep end of the pool in the hope that they will swim... if they sink, well, what can ye dae?

This may work in the Tory shires, but, I think, Mr Rennie, it will go down like a lead balloon here.

So too, among those with a little bit of brain and the ability to use it, will the latest rant about how the SNP hasn't thought about how difficult it will be to  arrange the unpicking of the Treaty of Union if and when a YES vote comes in 2014.

He has a list of the number of things that will have to be done, double counting as he goes and adding in some that don't exist. 

Why does he think that Scots and English, or the British, if you prefer, are so  incompetent that they can't manage to negotiate the split in 16 months. Other countries have managed perfectly well. 

Of course, with his connections in London, he may be aware of the kind of barriers they are planning to put up to the dotting of every"i" or "j" and the crossing of every "t".

Sorry Willie. If you don't have anything sensible to say, it's better to say nothing. John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon  and Alex Salmond have proved over again their level of competence. It is, I think, highly unlikely that they have worked out how to get this far, but failed to take into consideration the job that lies ahead, don't you? Even if there is a lot of paperwork, they are up for it. You can't give up on independence because  "the paperwork will be a hassle"!

And finally.... on the subject of the Liberals....

Congratulations to the Right Honourable Chris Huhne for lying his way through the last few years. Right up to the end he maintained innocence, and tried to get the case dismissed. 

Congratulations too, to Vicky Pryce. Goodness me, the poor little timid international economist, was coerced into lying her backside off so that Huhne could get to the top of the greasy pole. When indeed he did, and far farther than either of them had ever dreamed, he dropped her for someone else, and left her to fall into the arms of the equally despicable cheat, Dennis McShane, and she suddenly felt less coerced, a new and liberated, educated, upper middle class, wealthy woman, so she dobbed him in. 

I hope they both go to prison for as long as is possible, and that they are made to pay the costs of this case, which must be enormous. I fail to see why the English taxpayer should be lumbered with it.

I feel nothing but pity for Peter Huhne. These texts, sent over months and years show a loathing of his selfish bastard of a father that will almost certainly affect him all his life. 

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER WHEN IT COMES TO PAY OFFS...WELL, ALL EXCEPT GOVERNMENT MINISTERS

Ex-energy secretary, Chris Huhne,  is if he wishes to accept it,  entitled under current legislation, to a severance payment of more than £17,000.

Under the terms of  the 1991 Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries Act, Mr Huhne is allowed three months-worth of his £68,827 annual ministerial pay (or  £17,207).

This is, presumably, like other redundancy payments made to "ordinary, decent, hard-working families up and down the country" to compensate them for being dismissed from their posts through no fault of their own, and to help them to come to terms with life on the generous £67 a week that the government decrees sufficient for said "ordinary, decent, ex-hard-working  people up and down the country" to live on.

Of course, these "ordinary, decent,  ...well, you know how it goes by now" would have to have been working for over 2 years in the post; they would only get (at Huhne's age) 1.5 weeks' money for every full year they had worked there (so 1 week's money or around £2,000), and it wouldn't apply if they had only lost a part of their job, and still had a salary of £66,000 to fall back on... or if they had resigned. So actually he wouldn't get squat.

However, we all know only too well that Secretaries of State and "ordinary, decent, hard-working families up and down the country"  have about as much in common as  'the Big Society' and oh, I dunno, ...a  prime ministerial legacy?

Mr Huhne may not accept the money. But whether or not he does, should not the conditions for ministers more accurately mirror those for all these people that they happily use as examples when they want to make a point, and should they not also reflect the times that we live in. 

After all, although we rarely hear anything of it these days, we are all in this together, aren't we?

HUHNE VERSUS THE BIG SIX ENERGY COMPANIES

Mr Cameron, ahead of crucial talks between Buffoon Huhne , Offgas (as in let off) Offgem and the big 6 energy suppliers, has said something must be done about energy prices.


Maybe he has heard that people are worried that they will freeze to death this winter, particularly, if as forecast, it's another very long, very cold one.

NPower and British Gas have generously pledged not to hike prices again this year. Since, however, we are half way through October and there are only about 11 weeks left in the year, this is not a huge comfort to people who have seen their bills rise by up to 19% (Scottish Power) in the last few days. SSE has promised that prices will not rise again until August 2012, which is at least a relief.

Phil Bently , managing director of British Gas... (more appropriately named Laughing Gas), said that because Britain had to import 50% of its gas on an international market, prices would continue to go up, as there was more and more competition for the gas supplied by Russia and the Middle East. Our friends in the Middle East, whom we seem to 'help' at the drop of a hat, are selling vast amounts to Japan....That's gas that used to come to Britain. Maybe the Yen is preferable to the Pound.


Of course there are vast amounts of gas in the North Sea, but not nearly enough is produced for the whole of the UK (although far more than enough for Scotland).

What can the government do?  Well, it's hampered a little by the fact that some oil and gas people contribute handsomely to the Tory coffers, and no one bites the hand that feeds it. (Having said that Danny, the bright boy of the London Treasury, put a massive tax on oil exploration in Scotland, presumably in order that they would be discouraged from making more vast finds, thus giving even stronger wings to aspirations of an independent Scotland .)


They might like to start by appointing an Energy Minister who lived on the same planet as we do. 


Huhne recently lectured us that all we had to do was change supplier and hey presto all our problems would be solved. That is until someone from Earth pointed out to him that it wasn't that easy to do; that companies put all sorts of difficulties in your path; that finding a tariff to suit you was a job for MENSA members, and that once you had managed to surmount all that you would still probably receive demands from the last company and threats to cut off your supply, despite all protestations that you no longer dealt with them, until (as my mother did) you get a solicitor's letter to demand that they cease and desist!



Mr Cameron has said that the best way to reduce bills is to simplify the means of changing supplier and to encourage people to waste less power. So, it's your fault, consumer, for heating rooms in a wing of your stately pile that you only use when you are hosting a shooting party or having people down for the weekend!

People who don't have both electricity and gas lose out by having to pay bigger bills because they don't get a duel fuel discount, surely something could be done to stop that situation. Many deals are only available on line, putting at a disadvantage people who don't have internet access. Maybe Mr Huhne doesn't know that such people exist. That should be outlawed while there are still vast numbers of poorer and older people who have no internet access.


People who prepay their electricity pay over the odds for it (again the poorest) and those who cannot set up a direct debit (simplest bank accounts for the poor) also pay more. Wrong, wrong, wrong!


What they really need to do is strengthen the powers of the useless Offgen, to take on the almost cartel situation of the big 6 energy suppliers, some of which are owned by companies based outside the UK. 

They need to ensure that the sick and the elderly are protected against these rises which in that one case was 4 times the rate of inflation (and thus of benefit increases). 


They need to restore the winter fuel payment to old people.


THAT'S THE ONE THAT, PRIOR TO THE ELECTION, THEY PROMISED, ABSOLUTELY PROMISED,  THEY WOULD NOT REDUCE 


And why can't the British Government simply do what the French government (or the French President who is looking for another 5 years in the Elysée) has done. Just tell them 'NO' or in their case 'NON'.


No more rises for a year, no questions, no arguments. 'End of' (or 'fin de'), as some people irritatingly say.


Every winter in the UK thousands of people die of cold related illness. Unless this winter is very mild, sub tropical, that figure will  increase. There is no excuse. Comparable figures in far colder countries put the UK to shame.


Get it sorted, Huhne. Do something about it now before you have deaths on your hands.


........................................

A year of energy price rises
Month 2010-11	Company	Price rise
SOURCE: COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENTS
November	Scottish Power	Gas: 2% Elec: 8.9%
December	Scottish & Southern	Gas: 9.4%
	British Gas	Gas: 7% Elec:7%
January	Npower	Gas & Elec: 5.1%
February	E.On	Gas: 3% Elec: 9%
March	EDF	Gas: 6.5% Elec: 7.5%
August	Scottish Power	Gas: 19% Elec: 10%
	British Gas	Gas: 18% Elec: 16%
September	Scottish & Southern	Gas: 18% Elec: 11%
	E.On	Gas: 18% Elec: 11%
October	Npower	Gas: 15.7% Elec: 7.2%
November	EDF	Gas: 15.4% Elec: 4.5%

(Table from the BBC page linked in first paragraph above)

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON A SATURDAY MORNING

A Barbecue cloud is blowing over from Britain

As I look out of the window at grey skies and a wet garden, I am intrigued to read that this October temperature is the highest on record and that Britain is sweltering in a barbeque autumn.. . Oh well, must be another Britain!

Can anyone tell me why half of last night’s news was about Michael Jackson and his doctor, as if there was no news in the world. Maybe overnight Supercam sorted all the wars, famines, recessions and currency crises. Yes?

Talking of Supercam, I heard the other day that, when he (and the Cabinet) come to Scotland to make war with our elected government over independence (that's a government elected with a majority, and on a PR system, unlike his own!!), that he should make much of his name. Cameron: a guid Scot’s haunnel. Just how dim do they think we are? Next they’ll be advising him to say that during the long vacs, his family used to come north for the haggis shooting.

Actually, with a Scots family name a Welsh name (David), a German name (William), and a Scots/Irish name (Donald), there's not much that's English about old Supercam! Just a thought.

Recently the unlovely Chris Huhne castigated us all for moaning about the price of power but not being bothered to change our electricity and gas suppliers. He might like to note that the Telegraph highlights that some of the companies are charging people to make a change. The toothless joke of a watchdog, Ofgem, suggested that there was ‘clear confusion by suppliers’. (A tad oxymoronic that!). I would suggest that they strike out the word “confusion” and replace it with “greed”. If the power company directors can’t understand and apply the regulations there should be personal liability, as in Health and Safety. A personal fine of no less than half a million pounds, I’d suggest.

England 16, Scotland 12. Well, it was foreseen by no less an authority than the Palace. In the hectic schedule for the Queen’s tour of Australia, a day was left so that if England made it through to the final, HM the Q could relax and watch the match. I suppose it never occurred to the palace that Scotland might make it through to the final. Or did the palace know that Scotland was playing.

In an article about the failure of “free schools” in Sweden to improve educational standards, the Telegraph referred to Michael Gove as the Education Secretary. Like the Palace, maybe the Telegraph requires someone to point out that little piece of land to the north of England isn’t actually a part of it. Not only do we have a rugby team; we also have an Education Secretary (and a bloody site better one than England has).

Sometimes I wonder if the Met is some sort of satire dreamed up by the BBC or other media to give us all a laugh; sometimes I think it must have been set up as a retirement home for people who always wanted to play cops and robbers; sometimes it appears to exist to collude with Rupert Murdoch and his team of crooks in the business of running a phone hacking organisation. The ongoing story of Ali Dizaei does nothing to persuade me that I got it wrong and that it is actually a crime fighting organization.

There's a wee poll at the top right hand side. I just wondered who you guys thought would be likely to take over the mantel of leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Scottish Opposition. As Dubbieside said, I should probably have offered a "who cares" option!

Niko: I'm sorry, I couldn't answer your last comment on the story yesterday. The blog won't let me comment... true. So, my response is: I've offered you a way to get rid of the English Conservative Party in Scotland, forever, but you don't seem to want to take it...

And finally, yes, I have been reading a lot of the Telegraph. And No, I've not turned into a Tory... Silly! The cartoon illustration also comes from the Telegraph, without which, it seems, Munguin would just be a burnt out shell. No comment!

EVEN MORE

Well Elliot Morley is doing 16 months for being a thief. The irony is that his crime was fiddling his Housing Benefit and living at our expense; so not much has changed then, except he doesn't have to fiddle it any more.

The Olympics will fail to provide a lasting legacy for sport in the United Kingdom, one of the commitments the London Committee gave to the IOC. Well, there’s a surprise. Who would have thunk it.

And talking of London’s Olympics, weren’t you completely nauseated by the excited tones of the BBC Olympics Co-ordinator person as he explained how the torch was coming to a place near you. Woop-de-bloody-do. I can hardly wait. Now I really can join in the fun and frolics that is London’s Olympics. Just as well considering how much I paid towards the bloody things.

Congratulations to my own MSP, Shona Robison, whom, in a tiny way, I had the pleasure of helping back to an incredible victory in Dundee. She has been appointed Minister for Sport and the Commonwealth Games. Now there’s an event a bit closer to home that will benefit my country and that I can support. Good luck to Shona in getting it right. I’m sure with her steady hand on the tiller we can avoid the laughable ticketing fiasco that London has turned out to be. I trust too that it would be a liftable offence, within a three mile radius of the games, to wear a t-shirt that doesn’t bear the name of a sponsor in our Games.

Chris Huhne, it seems, has changed his story. He just might have been driving after all. And moreover his wife has intimated that getting someone to take the rap for his speeding offences has happened before... all that at a time when they are launching an investigation into his election expenses. Just when you think it couldn’t go ‘wronger’ eh Mr H? Still, if you go down you'll have mates there. It will soon be more like the Commons than the Commons.

Don’t you think that all these super injunctions are going a bit too far? Overpaid, spoilt brat footballers who play away from home, and think that they can buy press silence because they get paid more in a week than some people earn in a lifetime, need to learn to keep their trousers around their waists. And the girls that sleep with them, knowing full well that they are married, are no better. Maybe it’s time that marriage meant marriage. But then, look at the example they got from people right at the top... Charlie, Andy, Fergie, Margaret, Mrs Parker Bowles, Fergie...... yawn.

Britain is one of the worst countries in Europe for families, according to a study by the Relationships Foundation. High levels of debt and poverty and long and unsocial working hours are among the causes. Cameron pledged to make Britain the "most family-friendly" nation in the world, but it turned out to be yet another empty promise as British families are only ahead of Bulgarian and Romanian ones. More on this tomorrow, I think.

SOME MORE OF MY .............

It appears that Monsieur Strauss-Kahn’s alleged victim lives in an apartment block where property is rented to people who are HIV+ or have AIDS. If he did have sexual relations with her, his term in a New York jail may be the least of his worries. How the mighty CAN fall within a very short period in the USA. One minute this man holds a very senior position in a worldwide organisation, and is likely to contest the next election for President of France; the next he is in the pokey with the possibility of AIDS hanging over him. Just shows you, doesn’t it.

Talking of perverts (this time not sexual), old Chris Huhne is helping Kent police with their inquiries into an alleged attempt to pervert the course of justice, over the matter of who was driving a car when it was clocked speeding. Whose coat’s on a shoogly peg?

Pegs don’t get too much more shoogly than the one that David Laws’ coat is currently on. Labour’s Tom Docherty has complained to the Metropolitan Police that if one of his constituents wrongly claimed £56,000 in housing allowance, he would be expecting more than a 7 day suspension from his work and a request to pay it back. No matter what the reason for the fraud. Right with you there Mr Docherty. I'm very happy to see that someone had the guts to make a complaint. The government or Commons authorities weren't about to.

I’m also very happy that two men have been charged with the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Filthy scum that can murder a young man only because of the colour of his skin, a man worth 100 of them, should rot in hell, never mind go to prison. If they are guilty I hope they find themselves n a cell block almost entirely populated by BIG black men. That would be such a comfort to me. The murder and the incompetence of the Met ruined the lives of the Lawrences and, despite their difficulties they have acted with decency and decorum. Let’s hope that this trial will bring some sort of peace to them. It's the very best of news.

So of course is the fact that Big Eck is officially First Minister Elect and only awaiting the Queen’s nod, which, unless she has a soft spot for Iain Gray (as if) she is bound to give. Tomorrow the Cabinet will be announced. I wondering what he can change, or should change and frankly I’m not seeing anything. They have all performed exceptionally well. They will, I suppose, need a Constitutional Affairs minister, given the changes they are hoping to achieve, and maybe that should be at Cabinet level to give it gravitas. He has consistently promised that he will govern with as much consensus as possible and today’s speech suggested the same. However, a government with a majority can and sometimes will have to vote its business through. That’s what the people wanted.

Talking of which, Willie Rennie seems to have understood very little of what the people said to the Liberals at the election. He is right in there behind Clegg, his ex-boss, and Michael Moore, another old boss. The drubbing that you got, Willie, was about the fact that you are in bed with David Cameron. Sticking with the coalition now is really rather like finding something that makes you vomit, and ordering another helping. Plain daft.

ARE MORE CRACKS APPEARINGIN THE ILL-FITTING COALITION?

The Observer has reported that civil servants have been told to stop working on the next edition of the FCO Annual Report on Human Rights, which details incidents of torture and oppression, use of the death penalty and illegal arms trading.

The report is supposedly also a guide to MPs and businesses over which countries it is ethical to trade with, which may or may not have an effect on whether we trade with them or not.

Well, some things have to go, you might say, and why not this? After all, the idea of ethical foreign policy was only something Robin Cook dreamt about for a few weeks before the FCO pointed out what life was like in the real world.

Businesses exist to make money not pass moral judgments, and, in any case, no one much cares what Britain thinks about anything, unless America thinks it too. The CIA’s report is important; this is a “fur coat” exercise.

Last year’s report highlighted atrocities in countries like Russia, China, Gaza and Saudi Arabia among the usual suspects of Zimbabwe, Sudan, Burma, DRC, and Sri Lanka. And what did we do about that?

Of course Milipede the elder, the comic one with the banana, acting opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs, was trying to insist that Britain leads the world in Human Rights... Sheeesh. You really do wonder sometimes if these people ever even visit Britain, much less spend any time here. Don’t you? I mean, have we banned Chinese goods? Is there no further arms trading with Saudi? Have we stopped speaking to the US because of Guantanamo? Thought not.

Of course it is well known that Cameron didn’t want to slash the 25-40%, that was ordered for elsewhere, from the budget for Embassies. Firstly that would reduce the standing of Britain on the party circuit. People would talk about one over the canapés. “I say, did you see Britain has closed its embassies in Baku and Ulan Bator? Must be in a bad way.”

And of course, a lot of these Ambassadors, who live like kings at our expense, went to Eton or Oxford with David. So that was never going to happen. One doesn’t do that kind of thing to people one was at school with. It’s just not on.

No, instead, in return for the big house, the Rolls Royce, the fat salary and great pension, along with as many servants as you can shake a stick at, ambassadors have been told that they must concentrate on trade. It is feared that ministers are now "blindly" pursuing commercial interests in countries where atrocities are taking place. (As if they didn’t before!!)

So why am I interested in it? Well, it seems that Ming Campbell, one of the Liberal’s ex-leaders, and therefore a man with considerable influence in the party, has said that downgrading the importance of Human Rights would be met with "fierce resistance".

I wonder what that means.

No Dean, this is not Tory bashing. It's Britain bashing. Labour didn't do anything either!

I appreciate that it must be difficult to discipline ministers across two parties, especially when policies ride roughshod across what one of the parties stands for: in this case the Liberals (but in other cases it will be Tories). There are people who embrace the discipline, like Huhne and Clegg, Osborne and Cameron.

The trouble is that on both sides it’s pretty influential people: Ming and Charlie, David Davies and Norman Tebbit who are against. And they matter.

Pics are Ming and Norman...

ITS NICE TO SEE A LITTLE RESPECT COMING NORTH OF THE BORDER

Thank goodness that at least the Liberal-Tory Government in London is going to be more co-operative with the SNP government in Edinburgh over attendance at meetings. A clear signal of this is that Stewart Stevenson, the Scottish environment minister, will be part of a UK delegation to climate change talks in Luxembourg. Now whether or not you believe that climate change is happening you have to accept that the world, including Mr Obama and Mr Hu, is talking about it. So it’s important in that it is being discussed at top level.

It is less the subject for discussion, and much more that any discussion takes account of the Edinburgh government.

The Scottish Government has made repeated attempts to get ministers on British delegations but when Labour was in charge at Westminster it was met with a big fat NO, based I’m sure on the last prime minister’s passionate and paranoid hatred of the SNP and indeed of Scotland as a country. He preferred to refer to the area north of England as North Britain.

Madman!

According to the Caledonian Mercury, Labour even turned down requests for Scottish ministers to represent British interests during the election campaign, when the relevant UK minister was busy campaigning at home and had no time to travel abroad. On each occasion Labour refused the Scottish Government’s requests, almost certainly because it did not want to give the SNP extra kudos and status internationally.

Pathetic!

Possibly to make Labour ministers appear churlish and mean-spirited (not hard to do) the Liberal-Tory coalition has invited Mr Stevenson to Luxembourg as part of the British delegation.

Mr Stevenson asked to be part of the British team because of the Scottish Government’s commitment to tough new climate change targets and its experience in reducing carbon emissions. There’s going to be a lot of work in the green economy, and whether we believe in it or not, it can bring Scotland a lot of jobs, and manufacturing ones, which we all agree we need desperately.

Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has agreed to Mr Stevenson’s request whilst pointing out, reasonably, that the UK was the sovereign member state in the EU and would maintain a single negotiating line.

Michael Moore (SoS) said: “The First Minister has said his government will measure our agenda in deeds rather than words and the inclusion of the Scottish Environment Minister is just the latest practical sign we take a constructive relationship with the Scottish Government seriously.

“There is no doubt we have a common agenda when it comes to tackling climate change and there is much we can do together to work towards reducing the UK’s emissions.”

It’s a start. Scottish ministers regularly took part in these events when Labour was in power in both London and Edinburgh, but when the SNP took over, Scotland was seen as the enemy and had to be put down. The Tories respect agenda including Scotland in EU talks is a start.

Now we need some power to deal with the Fisheries problem. The one that Scotland is best placed to do something about... and the one that Labour was determined to keep us away from.