RANDOM THOUGHTS ...

Blairite, Tristram Hunt has told Cambridge student Labour supporters that they can best serve Labour by leading a campaign of dissent against leader Jeremy Corbyn.

He said to them that they were the top 1% and needed to show leadership in the party.

And there was me thinking that Labour wasn't all about what school and university you went to... but, it seems that unless you went to Cambridge, which probably means you went to a public school, you're one of the bottom 99%.

Hunt, who supported loser, fellow Blairite, Liz Kendal (remember her brief appearance in the news) in the English leadership contest, had thought about standing himself, but reputedly had difficulty getting  the 35 nominations required to put his name forward.

I can't help but wonder if Tristram isn't in the wrong party. He doesn't sound in the least like he belongs in an organisation in which 70% of the membership voted from Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
**********

I'm delighted, but bamboozled, by the Labour party's stance on Trident. 

Again that magic figure of 70% of the Scottish membership voted to get rid of it, despite known support for the weapons system from Kezia Dugdale and a rousing speech by Jackie Baillie demanding that it be maintained until all the nuclear countries agree to give their weapons up. 

Given that there is no point in spending £167 billion that you don't have and can't afford on weapons that you will never use (and her leader says he will never use them), hasn't she somewhat lost the plot?

The main plank of her argument for a weapons system that is capable of killing millions of people, is that she reckons that 13,000 jobs would go if they scrapped Trident, which is up from her last estimate of 11,000 made during the referendum campaign. MoD figures suggest that the number is nearer 600. 

But you know, for £167 billion surely we could create alternative jobs for the workers, whatever the number is: jobs that didn't involve murdering millions of innocent men, women, children and animals... and, let's face it, bringing about the end of the world as we know it. 

Maybe that's beyond Ms Baillie's imagination. It's not, however, beyond the imagination of Mr Corbyn.
**********

I am also delighted to hear that Labour in Scotland will restore the Tax Credits, they claimed their aristocratic colleagues had already restored when they all but caused a constitutional crisis and incurred the wrath of Gideon the Grim last week.

My take on working tax credits is that if a country cannot ensure that working full time pays enough money to afford modest accommodation, and basic costs of living...heat, light, food, clothing for you and your family... then that government must necessarily ensure that at least those with children are compensated through the tax or social security system.

It is basically corporate welfare...subsidising companies too mean to pay a living wage, and landlords too greedy to charge an affordable rent. But, wrong though it is, rather that any day than people who work all week having to go hungry, sitting in the cold, or being made homeless.

So well done to Kezia and her team for that. We realise that no one in the Scottish parliament can affect the minimum wage, so I'm happy that Scotland will do something to help those so unfairly treated by the UK.

Of course it is probably impossible to 'restore' something that Westminster has taken away. The power to do that does not exist.

However, as the bedroom tax in Scotland proved, the Scottish government can (at the moment with permission from Westminster, but by 2017 of its own volition) made substitute payments where it feels London has been wrong and unjust.

In the case of the bedroom tax, administered by local authorities (within the Scottish government's remit) it must have been relatively simple, and not too costly, to put in a system which would override the new demands from London, and substitute Scottish government money.

Tax Credits, administered by the DWP and HMCR will, I imagine, be a rather different, more complex and infinitely more expensive matter. How to pay for this will be a problem.

The SNP intend to reduce and eventually scrap Air Passenger Duty in an effort to make travelling to and from Scotland more affordable. The idea, presumably, to encourage tourism, and business, by improving communications. I imagine that John Swinney has identified how he will deal with the loss of the estimated £250 million a year that will be removed from the Scottish grant as a result of that. 

Labour intends to maintain that tax, but presumably still cut whatever it was that Mr Swinney was going to cut, in order to pay for the tax credit substitute.

I wonder if that will be enough.

I suspect, too,  that the Scottish government can look forward to a deal of awkwardness and a lack of co-operation from London. Nonetheless, if we can;t be independent of London, at least we can make every effort to have systems within the UK that suit OUR needs.
**********

I was in Paris in the weeks before the Iraq war. Every single person I talked to (or overheard in cafés, bars and restaurants) were totally opposed to France taking part in it and, although he was not the most popular of people, President Jacques Chirac was roundly praised when he announced to the country on French television that France would veto military action in Iraq at least until Dr Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector, was ready to report on the question of WMDs, estimated to be within the month. 

Chirac's speech was measured, clear and logical, as he set out calmly the reasons for his decision.

I remember hearing from somewhere that Mr Goldsmith, the English Attorney General, had advised the UK Cabinet, that to take military action without express UN clearance (and France had made it clear that that could not happen), would be illegal.

It was also rumoured that, having given that advice at a Cabinet Meeting, Goldsmith was pinned against the wall in the corridor outside the Cabinet room by one of Blair's enforcers and told to think again. I had no idea how much truth there was in that, but it was an amusing image.

Now it seems, it may not have been so far from the truth, according to an article in the Telegraph.

You know, maybe, just maybe, we will get to see Blair facing charges in the Hague. Just let's hope that he is accompanied by the rest of the weasels that backed him and Bush to the hilt and in doing so murdered and maimed so many people, ruined a country, opened the door to ISIS and the utter chaos of the Middle East and acted as a recruiting sergeant for militant Islam.