DISASTROUS YEAR FOR THE COMMONS, ACCORDING TO BERCOW

In an interview with the BBC’s Radio 4 flagship news programme, "Today", Speaker Bercow admitted that it had been a disastrous year for the reputations of politicians. Using words like cataclysmic to describe the situation, he said that he wanted to see reforms that would put MPs above reproach. He indicated that he didn’t see the situation as irreversible, but said that without any “payback” there would be no “comeback”.

I agree with him. It has been a terrible year for the reputations of our politicians and BOTH houses of parliament. They have made themselves the laughing stock of the world, and to some extent dragged us down with them.

The system has had to take a lot of the blame and in all fairness so it should. Who among us is capable of total self regulation? They should never have been left to decide their own terms and conditions. It was also irresponsible to refuse proper salary increases to MPs in order to appear “prudent” but to turn a blind eye to the use of “allowances” to top up salaries.

Drastic changes to the way that the Commons and the Lords are run are required. Allowances and expenses need to be brought into the 21st century and MPs and Peers must be treated like other government employees. That is, after all, what they are. We need to remember that, but above all, THEY need to remember it.

Many of them are fond of telling us how hard they work, for very little money and that is why they took the expenses system which they set up and they policed, to the limit, and then some more. Those that think that they could get more money in the City or the Law Courts or private industry, and care more about the money than the job, should resign immediately and make way for people who wish to serve.

The incoming government should promise to continue the work of modernising the Lords into a 21st century senate, without all the titles and flimflammery. It’s maybe pretty but it serves no purpose and it’s expensive and classist.

MPs’ and Senators’ salaries should reflect their job descriptions, and their expenses should reflect the fact that they may require temporary accommodation in the English capital, but should also be mindful that they are public servants of a hard up little country. They need to remember that they work for us. They are not our rulers. They do not require to travel First Class, to live in large prestigious London apartments, or to furnish these places from John Lewis, at prices 3 or 4 or 10 times the cost that the average person would pay.

All over the country, what they like to call “ordinary” people are losing their jobs, taking reductions in salary or hours, working extra for nothing. MPs and Peers, many of whom are held in contempt by us “ordinary” people, must be seen to do the same sort of thing. They should do so with humility. They’ve had it good for a long time, now when they are asked for pay back they should show some dignity.

RELAX, KICK BACK, AND ENJOY A WEE LAUGH AT DUBYA

Danny, 1st Earl of the Ozarks’ great post on this blog yesterday reminded me that a couple of years ago, while George W Bush was President of the United States, I bought a calendar with a countdown to the end of his reign. On each of the days there was a quote from the man himself, a lesson on how to mangle English, sometimes to such an extent that it is rendered completely meaningless. England has John Prescott, the USA has DubYa.

From time to time I’ll share a quote or two with you, especially when I can’t find anything interesting to post on, or when I’m too busy (or too lazy) to do any research. I hope you’ll enjoy them.


Washington D.C.: September 19, 2005: “If it were to rain a lot, there is concern from the Army Corps of Engineers that the levees might break. And so, therefore, we’re cautious about encouraging people to return at this moment in history.”

Aboard Air Force One: June 4, 2003. “I’m the master of low expectations.”

Washington D.C.: May 31, 2001: (Remarks to the University of Nebraska Women’s Volleyball Team. National Champions 2001) “It’s important for young men and women who look at the Nebraska champs to understand that the quality of life is more than just blocking shots.”

Des Moines, Iowa: August 21, 2000: “I don’t know whether I’m going to win or not. I think I am. I do know I’m ready for the job. And, if not, that’s just the way it goes.”

Washington D.C.: December 11, 2002: “There’s only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids, upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but, having committed the troops, I’ve got an additional responsibility to hug and that’s me and I know what it’s like.”

HILLARY MAY NOT BE PRESIDENT, BUT SHE'S THE STAR OF THE OBAMA CABINET

I recently read an interesting piece on New Right blog about Hillary Clinton. I commented there that I had an American friend with a strong interest in politics, and that I would ask him for his point of view on Mrs Clinton’s current position, and her future. I speculated whether I could prevail upon my friend to write something on the subject. I did, and he agreed to write a guest article. My grateful thanks then to Danny, 1st Earl of the Ozarks.

Hillary Clinton’s emergence as the star of the Obama administration cabinet is full of personal and political irony. As Secretary of State, she has indeed shown the world that new “tone,” if not hugely altered substance, of American foreign policy. Of course, with her unparalleled name and face recognition, and the message that George W. Bush is no longer in charge, she was sure to be well received on the world stage. But her personal popularity at home, even as the president’s approval ratings have plummeted, was less predictable and perhaps more gratifying.


Hillary was awarded the prize position in the cabinet. It is after all the seat once occupied by Thomas Jefferson. But for Hillary, it was a consolation prize. After all, she had been considered a shoo-in to be the 44th President of the United States, until eclipsed by the rock star popularity of the junior senator from Illinois. But she might well have been chosen to run for Vice President on the Democratic ticket. This could have been a shrewd political calculus on Obama’s part to unite his eternally fractious party for the general election, after the bitter and hard fought primary campaign for the Democratic nomination. But having Hillary down the hall from the Oval Office might have absorbed some of the presidential glory. More importantly perhaps, she would have brought some negative Clinton era political baggage to the ticket. And her supporters were likely to vote the Democratic ticket anyway.


So Senator Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, got the nomination instead. In fact he had been offered his choice of the Vice Presidency OR Secretary of State. Hillary received no such choice. But she’s been loyal to Obama and has attacked the job at State with enthusiasm. She’s shown the flag abroad and made few missteps while clearly setting the new tone for American policy. At some point Hillary may be expected to show some tangible progress on the intractable problems of Iran, North Korea, the Palestinians, and of course the enduring Bush legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan. But that time is not yet.


Hillary has been a team player and professes no future ambitions except retirement. But time will tell. With a continuing unemployment rate over ten percent, and a history of losses in mid-term elections by the party of the president in power, the Democrats face tough congressional elections in 2010. They could even lose control of the House of Representatives. This would be a disaster for Obama’s future legislative program. And what the political landscape will look like for Obama’s second term bid in 2012 is anybody’s guess. Perhaps a newly popular and reenergized Hillary could play a part in reviving Democratic fortunes.


Historically, presidents have shuffled vice presidents for political convenience. FDR had three different VP’s in his four terms. But more recently, this hasn’t been the pattern. A move to elbow Biden aside in favor of Hillary, with an eye to a Clinton run in 2016, would carry its own dangers within the factions of the Democratic Party. And Hillary will be 69 years old in 2016, an advanced age for a physically taxing presidential run. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan did it in 1980, at the same age.


As for a possible Supreme Court appointment for Hillary, this seems less likely than a presidential run. An individual who serves on the Supreme Court has life tenure, and can nullify the actions of presidents and congresses with the stroke of a pen. Consequently, the Senate confirmation process is the very next thing to a political blood sport. Distinguished jurists emerge from the process bruised and bloodied. Her degree from Yale Law notwithstanding, she is fundamentally a politician, not a jurist. FDR could and did make such appointments, but it’s hard to imagine a modern president doing so.


So, a future for Hillary beyond her leadership at State seems problematical. Maybe, at the age of 69, she really will be ready for retirement. But, I wouldn’t wager big money on it either. She’s a tough lady, and might not be ready for the rocking chair.

KALAALLIT NUNAAT, THE LAND OF THE PEOPLE

I thought I’d post something entirely different tonight. Something which I came about by accident, but is, at least for me, fascinating.

I was doing a little research whilst on the phone to my mum tonight about how you pronounce the Danish capital city’s name. (It turns out to be Kopen-Hay-Gen... and not Kopen-Ha-Gen, as both my mum and I had thought, but that is beside the point of this post.) A little more research about Denmark brought me to Kalaallit Nunaat, or Greenland, and its recent semi-independence from Denmark.

Internationally, on June 21, 2009, Greenland assumed self-determination with responsibility for self-government of judicial affairs, policing, and natural resources. Also, Greenlanders were recognized as a separate people under unofficial international law. Denmark maintains control of finances, foreign affairs, and defence. It is a step towards full independence from rule from Denmark. The sole official language of Greenland became Greenlandic. I thought that it would be nice if this was happening to Scotland. (Well obviously without Greenlandic becoming our national language.)

The long history of the island can be read in various places on the net, but there is a relatively good article on Wikipedia, but a couple of things were of immense interest to me. Firstly, that the United States of America wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark in 1947. It seems that the States were interested in the position of the country during the cold war. The sum offered was $100,000,000, a fair old amount of money in these days.

The second thing was the photographs I was seeing on the Wiki site and associated pages. I have included a few of them here for your delectation. Of course I had seen pictures of Greenland before, and I was aware of the fact that the Greenlanders did not live in igloos, but my memory is of scattered communities with brightly coloured houses built on rocky slopes. However, the centre of the capital city (the most northern in the world) Nuuk (previously Gothab) was a bit of a surprise to me.

It looks like a lovely place. Seems to me that it would be fun to go there on holiday sometime.

IRELAND OUT OF RECESSION, UNLIKE, ERM, THE UK

Gordon Brown faced further embarrassment today over Britain’s recovery after it emerged that Ireland's beleaguered economy has emerged from recession.

Irish economic output rose by 0.3 per cent between July and September compared to the second quarter, official figures showed today, leaving the UK as one of the few Western economies still mired in an economic downturn.

The technical definition of a recession is two or more consecutive quarters of falling gross domestic product. A number of countries emerged from recession in the third quarter, including America, Japan, China, Germany and France.
However, Britain’s economy continued to shrink, falling by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter according to the most recent estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Perhaps Mr Murphy would like to address his apologies to the Irish President and the people of Ireland. A letter from Dover House maybe, or a television appearance?

If there are any Irish readers here, I’d like to apologise on behalf of Scotland. On the several occasions when Murphy came out with his ill-thought-out, rude, rubbish about how backward looking and sad Ireland was, I cringed. Please believe me, we’re not all like him.

WHY IS THIS MAN STILL FREE TO WALK OUR STREETS?

Sion Simon, a Culture minister, told Parliamentary officials that a rented north London property was his “second home” for expenses purposes. The flat was owned by his sister Ceri Erskine, a management consultant.

Oh dear! MPs have been explicitly banned since April 2006 from renting properties from family members at taxpayers’ expense and the practice is now considered to have been unacceptable since 2004. However, Mr Simon continued to improperly make claims of £1,000 a month until 2008.

Last night, after being confronted by the Daily Telegraph, Mr Simon admitted that he had inadvertently broken the rules and agreed to repay more than £20,000 – one of the biggest repayments made by a minister during the expenses scandal. He apologized “unreservedly”.

How jolly decent of him.

Inadvertently? For all these years?

Between 2004 and 2008, Mr Simon claimed £81,000 in allowances for the flat, including £44,000 in rent and another £37,000 to pay for household bills and food. Mr Simon’s “main home”, which he funds himself, is a modest £135,000 terraced house in his constituency.

From April 2004, Mr Simon claimed £1,000 a month in rent for his sister’s London flat. She lives with her husband in Hampshire. He also claimed £150 a month for cleaning, £100 a month for council tax, £50 a month for telephone bills and the maximum £400 a month for groceries. He also claimed up to £250 a month for other utility bills. Most MPs submitted copies of mortgage or rent agreements and invoices to support their claims. But Mr Simon’s expenses files suggest he did not submit a single receipt for any living cost between April 2004 and April 2008, when he moved out.

Mr Simon also used his office allowances to pay more than £8,000 to a media consultant for “strategic communications advice”. MPs are banned from using office allowances to pay for “advice for individual members on self promotion or PR for individuals or political parties”. He also claimed more than £9,000 for four laptop computers and accessories, including top-of-the-range products from Apple.

Mr Simon, whose questionable claims were not uncovered by Sir Thomas or the Labour leadership, is now expected to face calls to repay more than the £21,000 he agreed to hand back last night.

WHAT?

Why is he still a minister?

No, like it says in the title, why is he still a free man?

Australian State ditches Queen

Rob Hulls, Acting State Premier of Victoria

The Telegraph reports today that the Australian state of Victoria is to dump the Queen from legal proceedings.

From the 1st January 2010 all criminal court cases in the State of Victoria will be brought in the name of the Director of Public Prosecutions instead of in the name of Elizabeth II as has hitherto been the case.

The State’s Attorney General and Acting Premier, Rob Hulls, said: “Having cases presented in the name of the Queen of England is an outdated colonial tradition that has really passed its use-by date”. He went on to say that "substituting the Director of Public Prosecutions for the Queen, or Regina, reflects the legal and political independence from the United Kingdom and its monarch that has been achieved by Australia".

Mr Hulls of the Australian Labour Party, who is an avowed republican, said: "This is all about making our laws and legal procedures relevant. It's no more or less than that".

The move follows two previous controversial changes to Victoria's legal system, scrapping the title Queen's Counsel and ending a requirement for new lawyers to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen.

Professor David Flint, the Convener of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, said: "It's yet another example of creeping republicanism. The people in 1999 took a decision in which they affirmed that we should remain a federal commonwealth under the crown. It's completely wrong for governments to remove all reference to the crown as a gradual sort of thing."

The controversy is due to overshadow a three day visit by Prince William which will include a keynote speech at a reception in Melbourne to mark Australia Day. This has incensed Australian republicans. David Donovan, of the Australian Republican Movement, said: "We would find it unbelievable that Prince William, who hasn't been to Australia since he was in nappies - and who as President of the England Football Association has strongly promoted its bid for the 2018 World Cup, in direct opposition to Australia's bid - would be able to speak to Australians on our own national day. You would think that just showing a little bit of subtlety with regards to this very important day in Australia's calendar would be the way to go."

Philip Benwell, chairman of the Australian Monarchist League, defended the invitation to the Prince saying: “Prince William will be King of Australia in the future and it's therefore appropriate that he's invited to speak".

Mr Hulls, however, denied that the legal change was a snub to Prince William, who arrives in Victoria on January 21 during a visit that has been described as “an opportunity to better acquaint himself with Australia”.

Good for Mr Hulls and the State of Victoria. So refreshing to see a Labour Party that has not gone soft in the head and weak at the knee where royalty is concerned. Such a huge pity that our own has sold its working class principles down the river for a few extra years in number 10 Downing Street, a few seats on the august red benches and a few of the tarnished baubles left over from the British Empire. The fact is that monarchy has had its day and monarchy by proxy like they have in Australia, Canada and New Zealand must have had it doubly so.

SHOULD ADVERTISERS BE ALLOWED TO APPEAR TO PROMISE US WHAT THEY CAN'T DELIVER

I’ve been pondering over this a lot today. Not that I’m a huge fan of Twiggy. Indeed I don’t really know what Twiggy does, except advertising M&S, but on investigation I have discovered that, in her youth she was a model, and later she became an actress and singer.

Of course this post isn’t at all about Twiggy. She is but a bit player in it. The post is about advertising, and the power it has over us, and how far we should let advertisers bend reality in their effort to sell us what they want us to buy.

Twiggy comes into it only because she has been advertising Oil of Olay beauty treatments, one of which is a moisturiser of sorts which they claim, or rather she claims on their behalf, is the secret to her brighter looking eyes. This claim is accompanied by a photograph of Twiggy with wrinkleless eyes, sparkling out at us. However, the reality is that, pretty and youthful though the 60 year old looks, she has bags under her eyes, crows’ feet and a double chin, as seen in another picture of her taken recently.

As I say, I’m not having a go at Twiggy. She looks great for 60. And we all know that show business personalities, male and female, make themselves look younger in publicity shots, album covers, film posters, etc, by the smart use of soft focus, good lighting and special angles, not to mention all manner of technical things that can be done with computers.

What I wonder is, when a personality is advertising a product designed to reduce the signs of aging, should her, or his, photograph be so doctored? Is it fair to potential customers of the product? How many people looking at that photograph of the incredibly youthful, smooth visage would seriously believe that, with the use of this product, they could look like that?

Men and women in the UK spend an unseemly amount on cosmetic, age defying, moisturising creams of some sort or another. (I couldn’t find a figure for women, but men alone apparently spend £1.3 billion a year). How much of this money is spent as a result of misleading advertising.... and what can we do about it?

Today the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the advertisement could be misleading, but they thought that most people would realise that a woman of Twiggy’s age could not have achieved this kind of complexion by using this product alone. To be fair Proctor and Gamble, the manufacturers of the product have apparently replaced the photograph with one which is more realistic.

But no one has banned the use of misleading photographs in cosmetics advertising. I think it’s big business fleecing men and women who are vulnerable to the pressures to remain young forever. What do you think?

Is Dan Hannan right?

The Church of St Andrew Undershaft (1532) with the Swiss Re Building (the Gherkin) (2003) behind in St Mary Axe in the City of London

I was interested by this interview with Daniel Hannan. I thought it would be good to link to it here from Calling England’s blog.

Dan Hannan is an interesting man, with a formidable brain and I have respect for what he says. I particularly enjoyed his speech in the European Parliament when, in front of the Prime Minister, he told him like it was, or at least like he saw it with no holds barred. Can you imagine how angry and humiliated Brown must have been at that?

But, I would have to say first off that I think he was wrong in his first assertion that socialist government always ends up like this. It’s only in Britain it always ends like that. Social Democracy has been pretty successful elsewhere in Europe.

He’s right, of course, about the bankers in that they have us over a barrel. They can do whatever they want and we can't do a damned thing. If they break the banks again next year, then we will have to bail them out again. These banks are far too big to go bust, and we need the money that they generate. If we tax them they can go to Singapore, Tokyo, Switzerland or wherever, lock stock and barrel. They can, and according to some, they will. The City will be left with a load of very desirable property, heading for dereliction. And we have built an economy with huge dependence on Financial Services.

So, here we are over this barrel. I’m interested in how we pay off the money we had to borrow to bail them out the first times. I accept that my understanding of economics is as meagre and naive as was Mrs Thatcher’s when she told us that she would run the country like she ran her household. So, I’m just asking how we do it. The next government will have to face this problem, and I imagine that they will not be in favour of a massive tax on wealth earners.

The people who have none of this global freedom of movement are the poor and the moderately off.... They haven’t got us over a barrel. Are we going to tax them more, reduce their pensions? They are nice easy targets, and in apathetic Britain they will probably put up with it, turn their heating down, eat less, and stop buying treats and moan a lot.

If we cut public spending, then we will have more unemployment, a lot of the moderately off will join the poor. The “economically inactive” figure is already at around 8 million. That’s costing a huge amount in welfare benefits, but it also causes considerable social problems: drugs, drunkenness, crime, prostitution, derelict shopping and town centres. Look at what happened in the industrial belt of Scotland when heavy industry was closed down in the 80s. Where will we find 8 million plus private sector jobs?

STRUTTING YOUR STUFF ON THE WORLD STAGE WHILE AT HOME THE COUNTRY IS FALLING APART

According to The Times Mr Brown (clearly preparing for a meeting with his disgruntled constituents in the attached picture), is intending to be the first leader to arrive in Copenhagen, as talks there start to lose their momentum and developing nations stage a walk out.

Mr Climate Change Miliband (as opposed to Mr Foreign Miliband), says that it is a sign of how seriously he takes the subject of climate change. Right! So naturally, as we all believe everything Mr C C Miliband says, that must be it.

On the other hand, it could just be that, with an election in the offing, Mr Brown wants to show us “ordinary people” that he is leading the world through yet another catastrophe, thus cementing his status as not just “a” world leader, but “the” world leader.

With speculation rife that he will call a snap election early in the new year (which frankly I doubt), Downing Street might be hoping to use the Copenhagen summit to burnish the Prime Minister's image as a world statesman, especially if he can help to engineer a meaningful accord to tackle global warming, reports The Times.

It may have escaped Mr Brown’s attention, but the great bulk of the British population is suffering badly from the last disaster through which he “led” the world. Many of us don’t really have much time for a conference that has involved thousands of delegates from all over the world flying to Denmark (where the temperatures for this week range between 2 C and -8 C, so not much global warming there). Some of us aren't convinced of the 'man made global change' stuff, and even those who are may be wishing that Mr Brown would commit just some of that great leadership skill that he is determined to show, to sorting out some of the problems that exist in the United Kingdom.

Unemployment is soaring; soldiers are being killed and maimed in an unwinnable war using substandard equipment; postal and travel strikes loom; the national debt is soaring out of control; penioners, the low paid, sick and unemployed people are having to choose between heat and food; the country remains in recession after all the other G20 countries have moved out of it (except Spain, which isn’t in the G20, despite Mr Brown’s protestations to the contrary), etc, etc.

Why don’t politicians see that most of us don’t give a stuff about world statesmen and their prancing around acting like they matter, especially when they don’t?

Clearly Presidents Obama and Hu are the people who can make this thing work, or not. With their massive economies and huge political clout they can influence change. A broke and broken little island of the coast of Europe can’t. My message to Mr Brown is: Get back home and start tackling OUR problems and leave the big boys to sort out real or imagined world issues.

A bit of this and a bit of that, and another greedy MP

At the risk of becoming a crashing bore on the subject of MPs and their odious propensity to believe that their entitlements know no bounds, but mainly because I’ve read through the press and there’s not a lot to interest me there, I thought I’d recount this little story about the Shadow Defence Secretary...

When I say there’s nothing much going on, of course I suppose I could talk a bit about Berlusconi catching a left hook with a model of the Duomo in Milan, but frankly, apart from a wee bit of concern about whether it will spoil his good looks (snigger) and the temptation to suspect that his wife was behind it, it didn’t really interest me that much. There is the speculation in The Times that the UK Election will be earlier than had been anticipated, but we all know that Labour can’t afford two election campaigns, and with the May campaign for English councils being a fixture, it seems unlikely to me that Brown will authorise (or rather the Labour Party’s bankers will authorise) the spending involved in two campaigns.

Tony Blair who seems to poke his nose into everything these days has advised that even if the science is a bit faulty we should move forward with climate change measure. Shades of “even if he doesn’t have WMDs we should do what Mr Cheney says”. I wonder who’s paying him to say this. He sure as hell won’t be saying it because he believes it.

The Times also carries a story about Mr Cameron saying that he will make all Lords and MPs pay taxes in Britain. Now, I’ve heard the principle ‘no taxation without representation’, which as any 16 or 17 year old who works will tell you is a bit of a joke here, but it just makes you wonder what kind of country we are that has legislators who do not pay tax in the country over which they legislate. "You people can pay tax at 50%, I'm off to Belize where the rate is erm 1%. Bye." So not much to write about there....

So, back to this wee snippet which I thought I might just retell. It appears in Dominic Lawson’s column, again from The Times. As I said earlier it’s about Gerald Howarth , shadow Defence Spokesman. Lawson says.....

“I don’t imagine [he] enjoyed the publication of this plaintive memo that he sent to the Commons fees office: “I have received a letter ... challenging my entitlement to claim £25 per month for a Sky Sports subscription. I submit that as I already pay for that service at my principal home, I see no reason why I should have to pay twice when I snatch a few moments from constituency engagements to watch rugby or other sports not available on terrestrial TV.”

Hum.... as a mate of mine would say..... wee shame.

I have real problems understanding exactly how this subscription which so many of his constituents would like, but can’t afford, could be described as wholly, necessarily and exclusively incurred to enable Mr Howarth to perform his parliamentary duties.

Well, Mr Howarth doesn’t sound like my cup of tea at all. He took part in a protest in 1968 (at the age of 21) in favour of the American war in Vietnam, although he was careful to position himself close to a line of policemen. He is a committed Thatcherite. He was “gutted” when she resigned and admits that he remains and will always remain devoted to her. He has a record of voting that would make Norman Tebbit look left wing, and has said that when his party is elected he would like to be “Minister for War”. Mr Howarth was implicated in last year’s expenses scandal having over-claimed for furniture and a wall. Why on earth has Cameron still got this man on his team?

So... it’s not a big story tonight, but just another one of these little tales that demonstrates that our MPs consider themselves to be entitled to live in quite another world from the rest of us.

Can Charles possibly be the future?

This blog is, as we’ve said before, Republican in nature and was gratified the other day to find in our poll a pretty hefty support for a republican future for Scotland...

However, I have no gripe with the Queen personally. She’s an old woman who has done a job for us for nearly 60 years. She’s actually 83 and like most people of that age she’s starting to slow down. It’s not the personality of the Queen, but the nature of monarchy that I have a problem with, and I’ve always hoped that the independent Scotland that I feel will someday come, would opt for a more modern and democratic form of government.

With monarchy you get what you get, instead of what you choose.

So, whilst the Queen has done her job pretty steadfastly, sometimes even with a smile, and kept the crown out of politics, her successor has poked his nose in to all and sundry, fired off letter to ministers demanding meetings, involved himself in all manner of things including, most recently, planning permissions and generally ‘got political’. Furthermore, it has been reported that he would hope to carry this political involvement into the future and his kingship. Now Charles may sometimes be right, at least in the opinion of some people, but that doesn’t matter at all. In that the present situation has worked at all, it has worked on the basis of complete neutrality from the palace. Rather like the civil service, the monarch has to work with whatever government the people choose with no bias, and as far as we know the Queen has done that.

Both the Queen and Prince Philip have toured the world many times. In fairness to them they have never shied away from the work, even in recent years when they are both into their 80s.

Prince Charles insisted that he be allowed to marry Mrs Parker–Bowles, despite the fact that the Church of which he will one day be titular head could not approve this marriage, Mrs Parker-Bowles being a divorcée with a living spouse. He has also indicated that he wants her to be crowned Queen, when he becomes King. This will put the Church in a position where they will have to recognise their marriage, although it goes against their teachings. However Charles does not like to tbe thwarted and will probably have his way.

At the same time it appears that Mrs Parker-Bowles does not care for touring around the world on official duties. She recently pulled out of the final leg of a tour of the Far East and looked very far from happy on a recent tour of Canada. A palace source apparently said that the last thing that she wants is to have her calendar packed with foreign tours. There’s nothing she likes better than having her kids and grandchildren over for Sunday lunch. She finds the heat in the tropics unbearable and just wants to spend time with her grandchildren.

It might be as well for her to remember that she is in receipt of a large sum of our cash.... and has several homes at our expense.

I respect the views of the monarchists in our midst who wish to maintain Elizabeth on the throne, and personally, I’d be the last to throw an old lady out of her home, but I do feel that, when the Queen finally dies, we may need to consider whether or not we want a non-executive hereditary head of state who insists on being executive, and who insists on his wife being crowned Queen despite the fact that this will be contrary to the teachings of the church of which by that time he will be the head, especially when all she really wants to do is stay and home and have meals with her grandchildren.

Maybe Prince Charles has chosen the wrong woman for a wife, again. She seems rather badly suited for the work. The photograph above certainly suggests it.


Source for much of the information here can be read by clicking on title.

HERO ROBERT KEY RECOGNISED BY THE FRENCH, IF NOT BY THE MOD

Doesn’t officialdom sometimes make you sick?

There is an amazing story in the Mail about a World War II soldier. Just an ordinary guy, Bombardier Robert Key was blown up by a grenade in a field by a little French village. (Link in the title.)

Apparently he was on patrol and saw some children playing with the grenade. As he approached he saw that one little boy had pulled the pin and Mr Key grabbed it from him and cradled it in his coat as he made away as far as he could get from the children. The grenade exploded and he was blown to pieces.

Investigators sent to discover what had happened did not speak French and misunderstood the gestures that the villagers, who could not speak English, made to describe what had happened. So the investigators reported that he had been showing off in front of the children and had been killed as a result, and this was the information that was sent to his family. He was disgraced.

Meanwhile in the village of Annezin, Mr Key was considered a hero who had saved the lives of the children and in doing so sacrificed his own life. They had no idea that the Army had picked up a completely wrong version of the events.

This year the Mayor of the tiny village employed an English genealogist to trace Mr Key’s relatives to invite them to a ceremony naming a street in a new development after him. Fortunately he was successful and many of Mr Key’s relatives will be able to attend the event.

The family, who had been deeply ashamed of the reported behaviour, are overjoyed to find that he was in fact a hero. They have asked the Ministry of Defence to change his service record. His niece, Gill Mills said that the news transformed him from a villain to a hero.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that they could not change the service record retrospectively, but if a member of Bombardier Kay’s family wished to write to the Ministry of Defence with the details, the letter would be included in his file.

Not nearly good enough in my opinion. The MoD needs to investigate this case with the authorities in Annezin and make a proper report, preferably conducted by someone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of French. A letter from relatives just isn't good enough.

Time, I would say, for a letter to Secretary of State Mr Ainsworth, and if he won’t or can't do anything about this brave man’s memory and the mistake made by slipshod investigators, then a letter to the Queen! In the days when honours are handed out to all and sundry, a medal for a young man who gave up his life so that some children would live would not be out of place

Go to jail; do not pass Go; collect your passport and go straight to Gambia

John Brown was convicted of murder at the High Court in Glasgow in 1976. He served time and, like most lifers, was released on parole. When he reoffended his parole was revoked and he was sent back to jail. Just weeks away from his second release, 6 months ago, and whilst on a routine “home visit” from Castle Huntly Prison (right), he escaped, causing considerable embarrassment to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and provoking calls for his resignation.

Now Brown has been found hanged in the small West African republic of The Gambia, a destination popular with Scottish holidaymakers.

So questions are being asked about how an inmate in one of our prisons could possibly manage to pick up his passport and flee the country. A spokesman for the Borders Agency, that much vaunted organisation supported so valiantly only the other day by Mr Woolas, when he allowed its management to award themselves bonuses of around £10,000 a piece for what he called “dangerous work” said: “If you are a prisoner, you are allowed to have a passport. When you become a prisoner, there is nothing that says ‘your ID’ has to be taken away. The only way that a passport would be stopped would be if that was asked for by the courts. And, if you are allowed to hold a passport as a prisoner, you are allowed to apply for a passport from prison.”

I’m not against the principle of home visits for prisoners close to their release date. It’s a sensible way for a long-term prisoner to re-integrate into life on the outside; a life that may well have changed immeasurably in the time that he or she has been locked away. But I have to disagree with the Border Agency spokesman when he says that the passport should not be taken away. A passport is not “your identity”. It’s a means of fleeing the country. Erm, you’d have thought that a Borders Agency manager might have grasped the significance of that.

I think that the Scottish Prison authorities might want to reflect before they let other prisoners out on licence or for home visits of any kind that it would be a good idea to confiscate passports. Surely with the electronic equipment available to them by now the Borders Agency could ensure that a prisoner's passport be confiscated electronically, if not for the entirety of their sentence, at least as soon as they are on licence and before they go missing.

If they don’t have a system for doing that, perhaps they should contribute that £300,000 that they took in bonuses for doing a wonderful job, and put that towards the installation costs.

A wonderful job my Woolas!

EXPENSES, EXPENSES, EXPENSES

There are so many things to discuss in the newly-released expenses papers. I suppose that there is enough material for seriously cutting up the ruling classes for the next 6 weeks.

They are still at it. You’d have thought that they would have been scared off by all the fuss that was made by the Daily Telegraph in the summer, but I suppose many of them are past caring now. They are only here for the next few months. They may as well go out with a bang. So, less than 24 hours after Darling announced tax increases on people earning as little as £20,000 a year, documents showing a complete lack of repentance on the MPs’ and Lords’ parts was sure to rock the expenses scandal back on to the front pages.

Among the things that amused me most were:

• Quentin Davies (Labour) (pictured), claiming £20,000 for the repairs on his bell tower at his country mansion. Well worth every halfpenny of tax payers’ money Quentin old thing. We can’t have his bell tower falling on the serfs and crushing them. OK, he was refused, but he had the nerve to ask and he did get over £5,000 for roof repairs.

• Gordon Brown (Labour) got his downstairs toilet done up, at an amazing cost of £2,700. If that’s what it cost to redo his toilet, imagine the cost of redecorating his living room! Prudence obviously doesn’t stint himself when we're paying. Apparently he offered to pay back £500 for the painting of his summerhouse, admitting it could be “questionable”. Yup, remembering the maxum that expenses must be vital to doing the job, I think I can imagine somehow being able to be an MP without having my summerhouse painted...

• Jackie Smith (Labour) managed to get a new TV, DVD player and a double bed for the price of only £1,400. I’m seeing a connection here to some of her older claims...... wink wink.

• Peter Viggers (Duck House) (Conservative) (You’re going to love this). £8,000 for lawn feed and gardening (he must have a massive lawn, there are OAP couples that live for a whole year on less than that), and £669 for shutters (well, you can’t help your constituents if you don’t have shutters now, can you?)

The whole nasty, embarrassing mess is spread over a wide range of newspapers, but I got my information mainly from the Daily Mail. (Always good for a bit of pursed lip, shaking head and tutting disapproval is the Mail).


A lovely additional piece of information picked up on a comment on Lobbydog’s blog was the cleaning bills for a certain Graham Allen, Nottingham North:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/graham-allen/Graham_Allen_0809_ACA.pdf

It appears that Mr Allen among other things gets his shirts dry cleaned, rather than bother with the nasty nonsense that the rest of us have to put up with, you know, washing them, drying them and ironing them and then hanging them up. Maybe something about the delicate skin of a member of the ruling classes that just couldn’t be doing with that nasty soap and conditioner that the rest of us ordinary people have to put up with. But apparently, according to the receipts, we also have the honour of pay for his, or his wife’s, or... whoever’s blouses! Well, don’t that beat all!

It’s nice to see in this world of rapid change that there are still some things that you can count on....

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN: A REPUBLIC IT IS

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who took part in the poll on the head of state for an independent Scotland.

It was an interesting result. Let’s be honest though, we’re not causing Yougov any sleepless nights here. With a sample of 43 on a blog with the word “republic” in its title we’re not going to change the world and I haven’t had the Palace of Holyrood House or Bute House on the phone.... yet!

So, here’s the way our 43 readers voted.....:

Republic the non executive President 30 (69%);

Republic with an executive President 3 (6%);

Monarchy with Elizabeth I as head of state 4 (9%);

Monarchy with another member of the House of Windsor as King/Queen 2 (4%);

Monarchy with invited King/Queen from another royal house 4 (9%).

There were 33 votes (75%) for a republic, and 10 votes (22%) for a monarchy. (Yes, I know, these things never add up properly; that’s only 97 %. It’s the rounding up/down.)

Was I surprised? No. Not much. I think I expected a few fewer votes for the Republic, and a few more for Elizabeth, but the percentages are not far off what I expected. Now, should this feeling be mirrored over the country, I wonder how we would elect, or appoint our President?

Given that (s)he is, according to our poll, to be non-executive and therefore more of an ambassador for our country on state visits, and as a host to other leaders in Edinburgh, does anyone have any ideas about who he or she might be?

Thanks again for taking part.

The Wonder of Woolas

If Mr Brown had had anyone at all that he could have used as a replacement minister responsible for immigration, it would have been a good idea to have sacked the present incumbent pretty soon after he was made to look like a complete and utter muppet by Joanna Lumley over his ridiculous misreading of the “court of public opinion” concerning the Ghurkhas’ case.

Clearly, having trawled the back benches in the Commons and the Lords, and looked around anywhere and everywhere, under park benches for all I know, looking for someone, anyone, from anywhere, that could take the job, he has failed (again).

And that is why we were all entreated yesterday to listening to the unlovely Phil Woolas (OK, I’ve heard all the jokes... probably?), rumble on about how perfectly reasonable it was, in the current economic climate, for him to pay out bonuses of around £10,000 each to the senior executives of his Border Controls Agency.

He claimed that they were very brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us.

WHAT?

Firstly, I don’t want to put down the work that some of the members of that department do. There are hands-on people working undercover trying to find traffickers, indeed people who probably do risk life and limb in the pursuance of a good result. But we’re not giving them bonuses. The people who are getting the ten grand extra of our money are senior management.

Mr Woolas told the Today Programme “We’ve got a superb management team that is getting on top of what is probably the most difficult public policy area in political life. There are 285 million people who visit the United Kingdom every year, and organising that mass movement of people to protect our borders from the people who have bad intent is a huge job.”

He indicated that to do that job of protecting our borders from all these people with bad intent he needed to get the best people. Apparently, unless you pay massive bonuses to managers they just won’t do a hand’s turn. I’ve often wondered why governments of all political shades seem to find it necessary to pay vast amounts to get good managers (otherwise you just get rubbish), but seem content to have one of the lowest minimum wages in the EU for ordinary workers.

(In any case, it seems that all that extra money hasn’t really made any difference at all. We all know that the government’s immigration policy and practice went off the rails years ago. We have no idea how many immigrants are here; we have no idea how many released from prison are not deported... indeed, we have no idea......... of anything. Oh, and another thing, whilst it is relatively important to guard the borders, I'd think it was a bit of an exaggeration to think that it was the "most difficult public policy area in politics". Hmmm, talk about being up your own Woolas!)

Anyway, he added insult to injury by making the remarks on the day that the 100th death of a British soldier in Afghanistan this year was reported. Of course, I don’t make any distinction between the 100th and the 99th or the 3rd, but there is for some at least a symbolic importance to the number 100.

These front line troops are entitled to a bonus after 6 month tour of duty. It amounts to somewhere in the region of £3,500 for a normal infantryman out there fighting the Taliban. Now I wonder if Mr Woolas would like to compare and contrast the various dangers that a soldier in Afghanistan, on the front line faces with those of a typical manager in the Borders Agency moving his desk to that side of the room, or arranging his flowers on the coffee table we provide him with....

Like I said at the beginning, surely, surely in the whole country (coz Brown has long since given up trying to appoint ministers from the Commons) there must be someone with just a little more savvy that this dim-witted placeman, whose foot seems to reside permanently in close proximity to his mouth. He’s not even likeable; he comes across as a smug, self satisfied, supercilious moron. Phil Woolhead would be every bit as appropriate a name for him.

BROWN MAKES A DECISION FOR ME

When it comes to climate change most people don't have the foggiest (get it?)idea. Actually, whether it's climate change or the Lisbon Treaty or whatever, we can't be bothered to read all the stuff, and if we could be we wouldn't understand it.

The weather in Dundee doesn’t seem to have changed THAT much, so empirical observation hasn't done me any good.

For serious consideration then, I would have to read quite a few papers; papers for and papers against, then I would have to weight up the scientific evidence and make a decision based on what I had understood, which would be very little, because I’m not a climatologist or a meteorologist or a geographer or.... well anything like that at all.

So here’s what we do. We rely on other people to tell us how it is. People who are meteorologists or whatever, or maybe even their political “masters”. We still don't really understand it after they explain, but we know that there are some people you trust and some you don't, and some can put forward a convincing argument and some you wouldn’t believe if they correctly told you your name.

Life's too short. I could be burnt to death by the time I've worked it out.

So, I think, I don’t really believe any of them. They all have an agenda and I can’t be bothered to try to analyse the information filtered through their agenda, so I don’t care, and I’m changing nothing.

I mean, if you are not that well off you don’t waste fuel; you don’t sit with the heating full blast and the windows open; you don’t drive around for hours just to waste some petrol at £1.10 a litre. But to be honest, I’m not sifting through my bottles to make sure that only white glass goes in there and green glass here. What if it’s all for nothing? Life’s too short. I could be drowned by the time I get it done.

So, you look around and say, who can I believe? Who knows about this stuff that can advise? And you hear Ed Miliband’s glottal stops on the radio telling you how important it is that Copenhagen succeeds, and you think... Doesn’t he sound just like Tony Blair? Then, just as you stopped feeling nauseous you hear Brown calling doubters “flat earthers”, and that does it!

So clearly Brown is a passionate believer in global warming caused by man and anyone who doesn't agree with him is a "flat earther". So, who do you trust to make a right call? Brown? ....

Well, that’s me decided.

THIS IS CHRISTMAS

No point in having a blog if you can’t go off topic every so often and do a little bit of advertising for a friend. So the lovely and beautiful Petula Clark, pictured recently after a performance in Canada, and looking about half as old as she should be, has her first ever Christmas album out in the USA. It’s a mixture of traditional Christmas songs, carols and new stuff, some of which she wrote herself.

I’m not much of a Christmas person. I’ve seen how the commercialisation of the festival has changed it from being a warm, bright and cheery time in the middle of the winter, when families and friends got together, exchanged gifts and spent a day together, into a mad frenzy of money spending, gluttony and drunkenness. We now all know far more about how disastrous it will be for the “High Street”, if we don’t all dig deep, or rather put it all on our credit cards, and fill up their tills, than we do about why we are celebrating in the first place. And, although I’m not a Christian, I think that’s a bit sad. I can’t imagine any other religion that would allow itself to be so hijacked.

Working in some of the poorer parts of the city here, I’ve often seen people in real misery, having not yet paid off last Christmas’s excesses, and still taking on more debt to ensure that their kids aren’t left out... and at the same time, I’ve listened to colleagues boast about how much money they have spent on their children, the lucky ones whose parents have a job. So, you’ll not find me raving much about the joys of Christmas. I’ve seen too many of the miseries.

But, back to our Pet. I’ve been a fan ever since I was a little lad, and I think I have every single thing that she has ever recorded in a multitude of languages and formats from 78 rpm records to laser discs.

The album is of course just plain magic, what else would you expect? My favourite tracks are a soulful version of “Silent Night” as sung at the Icelandic Frost Roses Gala a couple of years ago in Reykjavík. A beautiful recording of “Il est ne, le devin enfant”, a fabulous new song written by Petula “Butterfly in the Snow” and an amazing “Away in a Manger”, where she first sings the version that is sung here in the Europe, then the one that is sung in the States, then joins them together, hands across the sea.... and finally both French and English versions of the “Little Drummer Boy”

Well, of course if it’s not your cup of tea then you won’t want it, but if you are looking for some Christmas music, you could do a lot worse than "This is Christmas". Unfortunately it is not released in Scotland, so it has to be bought online. You can find it on http://www.petulaclark.net/ .... where you'll hear a bit of “Butterfly in the Snow” as a wee bonus.

.....and no, she’s not paying me for this. I wish!...:¬)

CHERIE BLAIR WORRIES ABOUT BEING POOR... OH DEAR

Cherie Blair has given an interview to Tatler magazine in which she says that she worries all the time about not having enough money. The wife of the ex-prime minister, herself a high earning barrister, and a multi-millionaire, says that she is conditioned by her upbringing, which was poor working class. Her grandmother apparently was obsessed about not having a pauper’s funeral. It was all about being “respectable poor”.

Mrs Blair has always been a hate figure, perhaps because she was the first prime minister’s wife to really have a working career, and, quite a high profile and confrontational one, which she continued to pursue whilst they lived in Downing Street. Her work as a barrister, specialising in human rights often involved her working on cases against the government. I must admit I was ready to dislike her intensely as much as I disked her husband, but, on the few occasions I heard her talk, she came over as reasonably sensible.

But without any doubt she has always had a reputation, and I can’t see that it could be unfounded, so entrenched is it, for being a money grabber. If she is, then short of marrying Tiger Woods or David Beckham, she chose the right guy. Tony Blair is estimated to have earned around £12 million since he left Downing Street two and a half years ago, with another £4.5 million on the way for advance on his soon to be published memoirs.

Blair seems to have a collection of jobs, in a world of unemployment, none of which he seems to spend very much time at, nor, for that matter, is any good at. But it is public speaking which earns him the bulk of his money. It is reckoned that he may be the most highly paid public speaker in the world, so I guess he must be good at that.

Amazing!

Despite what is being revealed in the inquiry into the Iraq war, it astonishes me that people can still bear to be in the same room with this man, let alone listen to his voice.

Amazing!

Getting back to Mrs Blair, one of the most astounding things that she says in the interview is that she thinks that MPs have been pilloried over their expenses. She says “They saw it as an allowance, which is not the same thing”. Oh well, that’s alright then. If they saw it as an allowance that is total justification for telling the Commons authorities that they lived at one address in order to extract maximum expenses, whilst telling the tax authorities that they lived at another address in order to maximise tax avoidance. Perfectly alright. A totally different thing. Right! Bampot!

She's certainly wasn't conditioned by her childhood to that particular piece of thinking. I suspect her granny wouldn't be too proud of it.

It goes down as a “let them eat cake” moment from my point of view.

WHO ON EARTH IS THAT ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SUNDAY POST?

One of the problems that the Leader of the Labour Group in the Scottish Parliament has is the fact that he is not Labour Leader in Scotland. Gordon Brown has insisted that, despite Gray being elected by the whole Labour movement in Scotland including MSPs, MPs, MEPs, Trades Unionists and members, it is Mr Brown himself and only Mr Brown who is leader of Labour in Scotland, or North Britain as he would have it. (Short pause for maniacal laugh.)

Anyway, that’s a story for another day. Today’s story is more about the other problem he has. One that a lot of bloggers have had a bit of fun with over the months. The fact that no one really knows who he is. The results of a survey some months ago suggested that he was recognised by about 12% of the population if I remember rightly. Overshadowed by the much more charismatic leader of Scottish Conservatives (who actually is the Scottish Conservatives' leader) and overshadowed by Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Murphy, Mr Gray had people scratching their heads, wondering where they’d seen him before... and deciding they probably hadn’t.

Well now all that will change. For Mr Gray has made the front page of “The Sunday Post”. For non Scottish readers this may mean almost as little as Mr Gray does to Scottish readers, but you should know that the Sunday Post is one of our finest organs. In its heyday it had a circulation that suggested that most people in Scotland bought at least 2 copies. It still probably finds its way into the bulk of Scottish households.

So what is he doing on the front page you might ask? Some magnificent policy statement? A huge breakthrough? A coup de grace, de foudre....d’etat?

Nope, none of these things! Much more predictably, Mr Gray, rather like his predecessor as leader of the Labour ... blah blah blah, has got himself involved in an expenses scandal. It seems that his campaign for the said leadership of the.... (well, you know) was partly funded by the taxpayer. Now there’s value for money! NOT.

According to The Sunday Post... and I quote...

It’s claimed local tax payers in East Lothian unknowingly subsidised Labour fund-raising events in Prestonpans.

Both Prestonpans Labour Party and Prestonpans Labour Club gave donations to Mr Gray’s leadership campaign and he launched his leadership bid in the club.

The local Labour club’s annual fund-raising barbecue in Prestonpans has been funded by the council for at least the past 14 years, at a cost of £6700 to council taxpayers.

So the local Labour club and party seem to have been getting money from the council tax payer, and, both then gave money to Mr Gray’s leadership bid. The Labour club to the tune of £1500 and the local party to the tune of £800.

Local councillor Paul McLennan has challenged the Labour party to reveal how much money they have received from council-backed events and to repay it.

A Labour Party spokesman claimed Iain Gray had accepted the donation from the branch in good faith.

“The matter needs to be sorted out between the Prestonpans Labour Party Branch and the council,” he said. "When that matter is dealt with, if any action needs to be taken on this donation, it will be taken.”

It seems to me that when politicians (of any party) are making a bid for leadership, they must be totally sure that there is nothing at all dubious about the funds with which they are doing it. There are too many instances of poor administration, bad accounting or lack of understanding of the law in the recent cases of Peter Hain and of Wendy Alexander.

It is all very well to complain about how busy they were being MPs or MSPs , or how they left it to other people to check. For some jobs that might be acceptable. But these people were standing for high office. Hain was standing as Deputy Leader of the UK Labour Party (some might have reasonably thought Deputy Prime Minister). Ms Alexander was standing in a position where she might one day be the First Minister of Scotland! If you can’t manage a leadership campaign and the money that that involves at the same time as doing your constituency work, how can you run the country?

As for what’s going on in Prestonpans, it’s up to them, I guess. But I don’t think that the taxpayer should be subsidising the Labour Party or the Labour Club, any more than it should be doing it for any other political party.


Hat tip to Madame Subrosa for pointing me in the direction of this story. This is one of the few households that doesn't take the Sunday Post.

WELL, WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT: A NOBLE LORD APPEARS TO HAVE MISLED THE HOUSE AS TO HIS ADDRESS

Goodness, doesn’t time fly when the blogosphere is falling down around you. It hardly seems seven days since we outed another little piggy peer with his snout deep in the trough that we have to keep refilling from our taxes.

This week I’d like to present to you His Nobleness, The Baron Taylor of Warwick, who has been caught using someone else’s home address to claim thousands of pounds in expenses. The Noble Lord told the House of Lords that his main home was a terraced house in Oxford in which he did not actually live (well, he didn’t tell them that bit, obviously). He also neglected to tell them that he didn’t own it either.

Worse still, he never bothered to mention his “arrangement” to the person who actually owns the house. Right, I know it’s complicated but I’ll try to explain. Watch out for the tricky bit... there’s a Mr Taylor and a Lord Taylor; they are not one and the same:

The house belongs to a certain Tristram Wyatt who is an academic at the university. Mr Wyatt’s companion, Mr Robert Taylor, is the step-nephew of the Noble Lord. Mr Taylor has said that Lord Taylor does not live there and has never lived there. Mr Wyatt was not aware that his address was being used. The neighbours have confirmed that the only people who live there are Mr Wyatt and Mr Taylor.

Lord Taylor, on the other hand, lives in Ealing with his family. However, but telling the House of Lords that his main residence was outside of the capital he has been able to claim expenses to the tune of £70,000, between 2001 and 2007. Expenses to which, needless to say, he was not entitled.

When confronted with this earlier in the year Lord Taylor said that he lived with his mother in the Midlands (of England). His Lordship seemingly has a short memory, for his mother died in 2001. Presumably he knew about this, but it slipped his mind.

Sometimes you wonder at the arrogance of these people. First the man uses his dead mother’s address and then his step-nephew’s address, and it never occurs to him that he will be caught. The worst of it is that Lord Taylor is a barrister (not just noble, but learned as well). In short, you'd think he'd know better

One a week... sometimes more, and yet, I heard someone on the radio this morning telling us that there were just a few bad apples in the barrel.

I wonder when it will occur to them that it might be an idea to drop all this nonsense about Rt Hon and Noble when they address each other. They are not honourable, they are dishonourable; they are not noble, they are ignoble. In turns we laugh at them or are spitting mad at them. They have disgraced our parliament. They are making us a laughing stock.

I do not wish to defame Baron Taylor, but from the evidence presented in The Times, it does seem that the man is both a liar and a thief. Why he is not locked up?

TAX PAYERS' ALLIANCE PUBLIC SECTOR RICH LIST

I received an email today from the Taxpayers’ Alliance informing me that their Rich List has been published. I thought that some of the facts were of interest and so, with a head nod to the TPA, I reprint some of their mail here.

Today sees the release of our hotly anticipated Public Sector Rich List, the fourth annual list in the series. Every year since we produced the first Rich List in 2006, the number of public sector staff earning over £150,000 has risen, and their average pay and perks has jumped. And of course this year the list features a golden dusting of bankers, to join the quangocrats, senior public executives and other fat cats.


With the recession still hammering ordinary people, and a crisis in the public finances, the Public Sector Rich List is even more relevant than before. Encouragingly, our campaign against excessive pay and perks is starting to produce some results. All political parties are now publicly committed to tackling the problem of excessive pay for senior public sector staff. Harriet Harman recently blocked a £185,000 salary for the new Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. George Osborne has said that “anyone who wishes to pay a public servant more than the Prime Minister will have to put it before the Chancellor”. Vince Cable has said that “pay restraint should start at the top”. We are going continuing to press for this rhetoric to be matched with a serious crack down on inflated pay at the top of the public sector and rewards for failure. We are demanding a new era of transparency, accountability and restraint, and we can achieve that if we keep up the pressure.


Here are some of the key findings:


• At least 806 people receiving remuneration packages of £150,000 or more a year in 2008-09 across 358 government departments, quangos, public corporations, other public bodies and nationalised industries.

• Executive pay in the public sector has risen so much that Gordon Brown as Prime Minister is only the 324th best paid person in the public sector.

• Senior staff at the bailed out banks feature for the first time in the Rich List. The most highly paid person in the public sector this year is Mark Fisher of the Royal Bank of Scotland, whose remuneration was £1,388,000, and there are 30 bankers who appear in the list in total.

• Adam Crozier of Royal Mail is the highest paid non-bank employee in the public sector, earning £1,309,000.

• The average total remuneration of the 806 people on the list is almost £225,990 per annum. This works out at over £4,700 per week. Even without the bankers, the average remuneration package on our list is £209,151.

• The BBC has at least 53 people on £150,000 or over. Transport for London has 50 members of staff on or above £150,000. In comparison, the Treasury, the main Government department responsible for tackling the recession, has a modest 3 people in the Rich List.

• There are 8 people in the public sector who earn more than £1 million a year, compared with 4 people last year. There are 35 people in the public sector earning above £500,000 a year compared with 21 last year. There are 120 people earning above £250,000 a year compared with 88 last year.

• The average pay rise of the people with remuneration for 2007-08 and 2008-09 is 5.4 per cent. This is compared to a pay rise of 2.7 per cent for a nurse and 2.3 per cent for a teacher.


John O’Connell, Policy Analyst at the Tax Payers’ Alliance and author of the new Public Sector Rich List, said:


“Executive pay in the public sector is completely divorced from the reality of Britain’s fiscal crisis. Ordinary families, struggling to make ends meet in the recession, don’t pay their taxes to fund gold-plated deals for public sector fat cats. All parties now agree that excessive pay packages must be tackled but the time for action is now, not next year. Taxpayers want genuine transparency, accountability and restraint in setting top public sector pay.”


I think that Mr O'Connel hit the nail on the head when he said that the executive pay in the public sector is completely divorced from the reality of Britain's financial crisis. The party goes on for these people while life is tumbling down for so many of the rest of us. I'd be interested in other people's opinions. (The full report can be seen by clicking on the title of this piece.)

TO ADD A LITTLE DIGNITY AND GRAVITAS, WE PRESENT MRS BERCOW

Any hopes that replacing disgraced Speaker Michael Martin with John Bercow was going to add a little much needed dignity to the House of Commons were dashed today when Mrs Bercow launched her attempt to become a Labour councillor with a Press Conference where she decided to get rid of all the baggage.

It seems that Mrs Bercow was a bit of a party girl and a “ladette” in her time at Oxford, where her drinking got a bit out of hand. She reckons that she slept around a bit and enjoyed life to the full and that, although she got a grip on her drinking, she resumed her behaviour in the mid 90s when she was working in advertising.

She became teetotal in 2000 after realizing that she had put herself in danger. “I was an argumentative, stroppy drunk, picking arguments with my bosses over stupid things. Plus I’d lose my judgment and put myself in danger. I’d fall asleep on the Tube and end up in Epping or Heathrow. And I’d get into unlicensed minicabs in the early hours. All the things we’d tell our daughters not to do.”

According to an article in The Times, she decided to get it all out in the open before she starts her bid for a political career as a Labour Councillor in Pimlico. But residents of the London borough shouldn’t get too used to her. She says that she wants to be an MP at the next election. (I’m sure, however, that she must mean the one after the next.....)


Some MPs wonder if her living at the taxpayers’ expense in Speakers House in the Palace of Westminster, whilst being a councillor or an MP might compromise the Speaker’s independence.

Actually, she doesn’t sound that bright to me. I respect her right to a job doing what she believes in regardless of her husband’s job, and admire her openness. It would all have come out anyway, but she was right to be open and up front from day one.

It’s her judgement I have problems with... This is a corker of a quote from the article: Asked how it might work if she was an MP while her husband was Speaker, she said: “He’d be so tough on me though. I’d never get a question when he was in the chair. I’d have to wait till the deputy speaker was in.”

Well, that would hardly be fair to your constituents Mrs Bercow, would it?

More Blogs Hit the Buffers

So it seems one by one my blog mates close down their sites.

The other day it was AMW, last night Niko, and today Subrosa. Further I learn that Scunnert has it planned to stop blogging on the anniversary of his blog: December 17.

Niko quite rightly stated that so much of the fun has gone out of blogging since the sad business with Wardog, a brilliant blog that should never have been closed down. The demise of Monty Burton’s blog the week after was also sad. Until his last few posts it was an intelligent, funny, well written blog.

Of course AMW just found that his busy life, a new job with ever more responsibilities, a new home life situation, and huge demands on his time for his beloved football, and the kids he trains, was no longer conducive to running a busy and popular blog.

Subrosa has been forced to close down her blog by some saddo who seems to have done a power of research and has her full name and her address. What on earth for I have no idea; she’s not been subversive. She has stood up for the rights of troops, as I hope have we all. If there’s something underhand about that then I’d like to know what kind of Scotland we are living in. Of course it has made criticism of the Defence Secretary rather necessary, but the last time I looked that wasn’t YET an offence. However this person has made enough of a nuisance of himself for her to be persuaded by professionals that this is the best and safest thing to do for the sake of both her and her family.

The trouble with the internet is that you can find yourself in contact with strange, no, weird people; people whom you have never met, and would never want to. Some of them are less than savoury; some you would cross entire continents to avoid. You know what I mean?

Scunnert has simply decided that he’s given a year of his life to blogging and that that’s enough. And, of course, that’s fair dos. Blogging is time consuming and you do have to always be trying to think of something interesting to say and good pictures or videos to go with it. There is research and reading behind most of the posts as you all know. If you are like any of the above named people, you also then have to watch for posts so that you can reply to them. That takes up valuable living time.

Well, as I said the other day, all good things come to an end, and even though I didn’t agree with everything any of my mates wrote, I respected them and their views and I enjoyed reading them. I’ll miss them very much and it will be strange without them around.

As for Munguin’s Republic, well, we’ll stick at it for a little longer and see how it goes. If we think we’re doing some good and/or entertaining a little then we will continue. The MSM needs to be balanced with good news stories from the independence camp. If we relied on the Herald, the Scotsman and the Daily Record for our news, then we should surely believe that Iain Gray was the best sing since well before sliced bread and that Gordon Brown was indeed the saviour that had led the world out of recession (albeit from behind.... far behind). {Did Spain recently join the G20 nations then Prime Minister, or was that just in some wee dream you were having?} We would also, doubtless, be persuaded to believe that the First Minister was the devil incarnate and that he was leading us down the road to hell. Can’t have that can we?

So, we’ll be here to bother you for a bit longer, as long as there are hits and comments......

Bye bye to my mates. Hope you’ll stay in touch by posting on this blog... or at least in some way.

PAY IT BACK OR WE'LL TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR WAGES

It appears that MPs who feel that they have been harshly dealt with by the Legge Inquiry and told to pay back expenses fraudulently or mistakenly claimed are going to be given an appeal procedure. I don’t think that this is unreasonable; as long as it is scrupulously fair and open in its dealings, and that Thomas Legge has the right of re-appeal should he think that his findings have been swept under the mat unreasonably.


According to an article in The Times the MPs that wish to contest must do so in writing by December 14, stating the “special reasons” why they should not pay. The appeals will be heard (or rather read, as there will be no appearance before the arbiter), by a former Lord Justice of Appeal, Paul Kennedy, who is, of course, a barrister.

The decision to do this has been taken by the Members’ Estimates Committee, but will face a Commons vote before it can come into being.

The MEC also agreed that members who refuse to pay will have the money that Legge has designated overpayment deducted from salary or future allowances/expenses. So, the MPs who were flatly refusing to pay on the basis that they thought they had been harshly treated and were in any case going to stand down at the next election, have found that avenue of escape cut off.

The Times reports as follows:

“The MEC expects that Members will voluntarily repay any sums found to have been over claimed but it will propose that, if necessary, the money be recovered by setting off sums owed against future payments of allowances and/or salary,” it said.
“Before this happens, however, the Committee believes MPs should be given an opportunity to show in an independent process any special reasons why it would not be fair or equitable in their particular case to require them to make the repayments.
“This process is designed to reflect the opportunity an individual would have in legal proceedings to show why he or she should not be required to make restitution.
“That opportunity is not available to Members in this case because of parliamentary privilege.”

Well it all seems fair enough to me. Someone accused of incorrectly underpaying taxes has the right of appeal, but if they lose the appeal they have to make restitution. The same can be said about a person who has been overpaid benefit through no fault of their own.


Of course, people who deliberately fiddle their taxes or their benefits are treated entirely differently. They do not pass "Go". They just head straight for jail.


Still, it’s better than nothing.

END OF THE ROAD FOR AMW

All good things come to an end.

Well so they say, and I suppose, as everything comes to an end, it must be true.

I learned that Advanced Media Watch will be closing today. So, you may say, another blog disappears, so what? Well maybe nothing much in the great scheme of things, but for me this is a little personal.


I have read Spook’s blog for quite a while, gravitating there from the pages of the Scotsman and his lively and interesting posts there as “Spook of Leith”. I enjoyed the atmosphere on the blog; light hearted but serious; pro SNP but open minded. I loved the way that he always took time to respond to every post and that he had a way of disagreeing without being confrontational, particularly with his readers from other parties. I also admired the way that he analysed some of the trash being printed in the Scottish Press, and debunked what were probably Labour Party Press Releases, uncovering the truth behind the statistics, which, as we know can be manipulated to say what we want them to say.

But Spook was a bit more than that for me. In a personal email about some facts I was checking up on and thought he might be able to use for his blog, I mentioned that I had been ill. (In fact I had had a collapsed lung which wouldn’t ‘uncollapse’ and ended up having a bullectomy and pleural abrasion.... very painful.) I was a bit down, and Spook started sending me daily cheer up emails, even though we’d never met and we didn’t know each other at all. Through these emails I got to know him a bit better and I’m pleased and proud now to call him a friend. It was Spook who encouraged me to blog myself and although because I wasn’t well enough to take on the whole responsibility for a blog, I did take his advice and team up with Munguin for this one. And I could always guarantee that one of the first people to post on any topic would be Spook.

So now, because Spook has moved on in his career, and is getting busier by the day and because of other changes in his personal life, he is closing down his blog.

Well. I’ll miss you Spook. Of course we’ll keep in touch, but your blog was one of the first things I looked at when I logged on and it will seem funny not to do that anymore. Along with the most amazing mother in the world and an absolutely fantastic best mate, a supportive brother and a few other friends, including dear Subrosa, you have helped me through a horrible year in my life, where for the first time hospitals, and operations and morphine became a reality, instead of something you see on the telly. Thanks for that, and thanks for the encouragement with the blog.

I wish you all the best in your job, in your work with the football team, and the great stuff you do at the academy with the youngsters, and with your life with your other half.

Thank you Spook.


PS. I hope you don't mind that I pinched your picture.....

WHAT A BRILLIANT POST

I just got in and whilst supping on some excellent homemade soup, a gift from a friend (thanks Anya), I had a wee read through some of my bookmarked blogs.

Vox Populi, Vox Scoti is one of my favourites. Math Campbell doesn’t post every day, but when he does it is always good, well thought out, solid common sense.


Today, however, there was more to it. It started off a bit poetic, talking about the “heavy frost on the ground. The cold icy blast of winter, long promised on the winds.” I read on, intrigued.

What followed was stirring and heart warming stuff. Maybe it’s just me of course, but by the end of the piece I too could smell the changes on the wind.

I feel better after reading it. I hope you will too. Thanks Math.