IS THIS MAN REALLY IN CHARGE?

I’m somewhat concerned about the amateur way that Cameron has gone about dealing with England’s riots.

(And yes, Tom Harris, I say England’s riots, because that is where they happened. There were riots in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Gloucester, etc... and according to my map, all of these places are in England. It’s about geography, Tom. You know, the subject at school with maps and countries and rivers and stuff.)

Anyway, back to the topic. Cameron has used the whole thing as some massive PR exercise. First of all he didn’t budge from the villa in Tuscany. Then when he saw that that was going down like a lead balloon in the Daily Mail, he flew back “in the middle of the night”, I remember hearing to save the nation...(‘struth, he was only in Italy, a couple of hours away max, so can the drama already).

Only HE didn’t really save it. He just talked big about retribution and said all the things the hurting people in London and Salford and Manchester, etc, wanted to hear; he appeased the right wing of his party, who think he's a bit soft lefty, by ditching all this “hug a hoodie” nonsense he spouted when he was vote hunting, and got to talking tough... and even the Daily Mail seemed less hostile.

Then someone must have told him that “the people”, that amorphous mass out there somewhere, were unhappy with the police, so he took advantage of that, fired broadsides at them and took the credit for ending the riots (when of course the real reasons were more police and more rain. Rioting is OK, but not if you’re going to get wet doing it, it seems).

The police, in the form of Hugh Ord, returned fire on the prime minister and, despite their seeming incompetence, and in the case of the Met dubious leadership, everyone I’ve talked to (or read) seems to come down on the side of the police.

So then, having seen that that was a mistake, he turned 180° and started telling us how the bobbies were brave on Saturday and on Sunday and...yawn... you get the picture. Another PR damage limitation exercise.

But if he’s been pretty crap so far (and he has), today’s announcements have filled the more sentient of us with a sense of wonderment.

Those people who have committed crimes that caused Cameron to come back from his holiday, and who live in social housing, regardless of whether they are the tenant or not, will, along with the rest of their family, be thrown out on to the street.

OK, fair enough, some might think. And in a pub argument it would probably win the day. But government has to think a bit more deeply than if it were in a bar room verbal brawl. Consequences, Dave!

Some questions that immediately sprang to my mind were: What if there’s a baby in the household, a cancer patient, a person of 97? What if they die? What if uninvolved household members lose jobs because they’re homeless? What if someone commits a crime that had nothing to do with David’s holiday being interrupted...rape, murder, child abuse, robbery, assault, carrying a knife, driving dangerously, speeding, parking on a double yellow line, dropping litter, forgetting to return library books?

Poor families in social housing, it seems, are to be punished twice for an offence, while millionaires’ families are punished once only?

Hmmmm, Dave, don’t you think that’s the sort of thing that at least some of the people were rioting over in the first place? You know where this is going, doncha? No? Oh dear.

I see Harris has tied himself up in knots across at the nauseatingly named Labour Hame. He has a complained that people are annoyed that the first minister described the riots as English rather than UK. He makes some rather bizarre comparison with the Norwegian slaughter of a few weeks ago, forgetting that Norway is, in fact, all one country and the UK is not. For Tom though, these riots must be British, for we must all pull together.

Well, quite apart from the fact that we ARE all pulling together (and Scottish riot police have been sent to England), he seems to have forgotten how he recently wrote this:

“It’s called “Scotland’s shame” for a reason: sectarianism makes you feel embarrassed to be Scottish. I hate it when the subject is even raised when I’m with English friends because I imagine they must look at us as a backward nation. That is, after all, a logical conclusion: what kind of people still think it’s remotely acceptable even to care about what religion other people follow, never mind object to that religion? What kind of nation still tolerates this kind of mindset?”

Oops.

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When is it going to stop raining?

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Hugh Ord said this today:

"One of the greatest strengths of British policing is that operational decision-making is conducted not by politicians, but by professional chief police officers who have spent their whole career in policing. While David Cameron today referred to some of the more extreme measures available to us, they are not new, and responsibility for their deployment remains entirely a matter for chief officers. There can be no confusion here at all; it is a fact that we cannot be ordered to police in a certain way but we will be held robustly accountable for what we choose to do or not do.

"As one of only two officers in the country to have ordered the use of water cannon and baton rounds in public-order policing, my professional judgment is it would be the wrong tactic, in the wrong circumstances at this moment."

My current opinion of the police is pretty low, given the Murdoch scandal, and the fact that at least the Met has seemed utterly rudderless over the days of the riots, but I'm in agreement with Ord here. Heaven alone knows what will happen if people start using water canon and plastic bullets. They have only ever been used in North Ireland in the past. And that worked, didn't it?

These decisions must never be in the hands of 'here today, gone tomorrow politicians' with no knowledge or experience of policing. God save us from Tessy may with a water canon!!

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A year ago the economy was recovering and the public sector deficit shrinking.

Then Gideon introduced policies to suit the Conservative party’s political funders (banks and multinationals). So has this done any good?

Silly Question. No. Osborne’s plans are a total failure. Public sector debt is increasing (contrary to what Hague told us last week), there are lower tax revenues and higher costs in benefits. Growth forecasts have just been re-adjusted down (to 1.5% this year...they’ll be lucky), there is higher un- or under- employment (ie people working part time and claiming top up benefits), and thus lower living standards.

Brilliant? No? Time for a new chancellor, maybe?

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I got the demand for car tax today. Can you believe that it has increased by £10, around a 7% increase. A government agency putting up prices by more than the official lie, sorry, I mean the official inflation figure? What an odd thing for a government to do. What an odd government. But it's another thing to cause people anxiety. Another cost added to people's already expensive lives. I wonder if people like Cameron know that you have to tax the car, or do they have a little man to do that sort of thing for them?