IN THE 21st CENTURY RELIGION AND POLITICS SHOULD BE COMPLETELY SEPARATE

The ramifications of the situation at Bideford have started to be felt all over England, as councils and other organisations reflect on the ruling of the High Court that it is illegal to include prayers in the official business of the meetings of local councils.

In this case, the first item on the agenda was a CofE Christian prayer. If you were not a Christian, or didn’t want to take part for any other reason (there are lots of different kinds of Christians, some pretty much at war with others) then you had a choice: put up with it, or turn up late for the meeting.

Now it is reported that in the Commons, where the chaplain (presumably a functionary paid for out of taxes) says prayers before the start of each session, Speaker Bercow (both left), has said that the ruling will not affect them, as they are covered by the English Bill of Rights.

However, some parliamentarians are questioning this. They say that although they are not obliged to attend for the prayers... in short they, unlike the councillors, are not marked “late” if they are not in place at the session’s start, if they want a seat, they have to turn up early to guarantee that they will be able to sit. (This is one of the problems of having a chamber which is too small for the number of MPs sent to it: a problem that I for one would be happy to solve for them, by stopping sending any MPs from Scotland!)

Some MPs make a protest by taking their seats and remaining seated during the prayers when the Christians stand to pray. They urge that prayers be moved to somewhere they think more appropriate, like for example the parliamentary Chapel: not an unreasonable place given that that is what it is for, and it might as well get some use, seeing as we pay for it out of tax money.

Somewhat surprisingly one of the champions of Church of England prayers is Nadine Dorries (right).  That’s the Nadine with the dubious record on expenses, and who fiddled her money on a tvprogramme about living on the dole, and who later ran off with a married man... her friend's husband, actually.

I suspect that the good lord might have been just as happy if Mad Nad were on the other side of this particular argument.

It seems only sensible to me that no one should be expected, on a regular basis, to take part in religious observances with which they have no sympathy. It should not be a part of their job.  Christians themselves have taken strong stands on this very matter. Was not James McKay (below left) expelled from the Free Church of Scotland, after attending the Roman Catholic funerals of two colleagues? And did not the Rev Iain Paisley not scream “Antichrist” as the Pope was saying a few words of prayer in the European parliament?

Religion has for too long been a part of the state. It should not be. States cannot have religion. Religion is an intensely personal thing. It is a faith; a belief. It has to be interpreted by the individual.  By what it says to him or her, how it informs and directs his or her life. And it can only ever be respected if it is not forced upon people.

The UK state religion is Church of England, with a concession that in Scotland it is the Church of Scotland.  What nonsense that is. How can the Queen and her family be members of both? And why do politicians like Jim Murphy feel that before they even start, they have no chance of prime ministership because they are Catholic?  Why can’t any of the royals marry a catholic?

This is the 21^st century. Religion should now be put back where it belongs: in the personal life of the individual. To do otherwise is to mock religion; to use god as a tool of the state.

  

COME DINE WITH US...

Sickened as I am by the quality of debate on the independence question, I have looked elsewhere for a subject to post on... and I didn't have to look far.


As each and every one of us "ordinary, decent, hard working families up and down the land" (don't they realise how patronising that is) cuts and trims their budgets, it appears that, despite calls for them to, and their promises that they will, cut the cost of bars and restaurants in Westminster, the subsidy we pay these 650 members has, according to the Telegraph, risen to an unbelievable £5.8 million. (£8,923.08 per person per year.) For every £10 an MP spends on lunch now, the public contributes £7.60; last year the sum was £6.90.

 The menus are mouth watering, I warn you in advance, so be prepared:

Artichoke and tomato salad with truffle dressing: £2.05;

Seared breast of pigeon with aubergine purée and spiced couscous: £4.15;

Spinach, ricotta and sundried tomato pizza with a rocket salad: £2.75;

Roasted half spring chicken with stuffing: £2.95;

Risotto of pea and broad bean with goat’s cheese: £2.40;

Char-grilled rib-eye steak with hand-cut chips and béarnaise sauce: £7.80;

Green tea and white chocolate brûlée: £2.05;

Cheese board: £3.10.

And Pugin Room bar prices include a glass of malt whisky, Cointreau liqueur or Grand Marnier: £2.55; Glasses of 2009 Sauvignon Blanc or 2010 Merlot: £2.35.

And at these prices, our brave representatives do a power of drinking. They spent £1.33 million in the last financial year in the bars (£2.046.15 each). Given the subsidy, imagine what that would have been in real prices. 

But Holyrood cannot claim much superiority here. The Edinburgh parliament restaurant was subsidised by £80,000 in the last year (£620 per member).

The meal prices are equally mind blowing with smoked salmon and beetroot lax with potato blini, herb cream cheese capers and spring onions at £1.40.

and seared salmon with herb crème fraiche potatoes, braised celery and soy cucumber relish a mere £4.80.

Any restaurant on the Royal Mile would laugh at these prices. And with bar prices at less than £3 for a malt whisky, the bar is being subsidised at around £130 per member.

On average MPs are paid around £66,000 and MSPs around £52,000 per annum. With average salaries around the £25,000 mark, no one could say that they are not reasonably well paid. Surely it is unnecessary for the public to subsidise their eating, and absolutely unnecessary to subsidise their drinking! Something to think about if we are really "all in it together".

However, the laugh of the week has to be our favourite nut job, the Sarah Palin of English politics, Nadine Dorries, who tweeted about the state of the Westminster restaurants:

"Mice running all over dining room..disgusting been that way for six years I have been here.*shudders* shld be paying us to eat here"

Erm, we are, you silly old sausage!

NAD GETS MAD AT BIG BAD DAVE

Nadine Dorries has written an article for the Mail on Sunday entitled: "The PM publicly humiliated me in front of the entire nation, [sic] what did I do to deserve that? "

Hmmm... well, Nadine, the dodgy punctuation (which may be the fault of the Mail subs) apart, I doubt the entire nation tunes in to Prime Minister's Question, or indeed to the news. In fact, a fair percentage of the nation doesn't know who David Cameron is, and almost the entire nation hasn't a clue who or what you are.

So I wouldn't worry too much about the humiliation.

Secondly, you must accept that this is the kind of thing that David Cameron and his sort do. They have never really left the Bullingdon and grown up. They are, and will always remain, as drunken rich boys, with daddies to sort everything with their cheque books. George Gideon Osborne and his "wanker" speech is a perfect example of junior common room humour in the wrong place. Your put down, and that of Labour front bencher Angela "calm down dear" Eagle (with Gideon sitting at his side convulsed with laugh

ter) is typical of their boyish humour.

You must also realise this type forms a sizeable minority of your party and a disproportionate number of the Cabinet, and you need to decide for yourself if you really are in the right place.

On the other hand you need to take into consideration that, on a few occasions, you have caused Cameron a fair amount of embarrassment, so it's not all one way traffic.

Your situation vis a vis expenses was far from exemplary. You accused the Telegraph of McCarthyism! You claimed that MPs were threatening suicide and that they were all telephoning each other to check up that each was still alive! You'll remember your blog being taken down by the service providers because the Telegraph was threatening to sue them! Cameron was acutely embarrassed by all that, at a time when he was trying to show a shocked nation that he was a responsible party leader.

Then there was the time you campaigned against a motion at a TUC Conference calling on employers to stop forcing women to wear high heels at work as part of uniforms. You, presumably without reading the motion properly, thought that they were asking for a ban on high heels being allowed... What a twerp you looked.

Then there was your public criticism of the Speaker and your insinuations that he was mentally unstable... I can say Bercow's as mad as a wee March hare, but Mr Cameron's not my boss, and, unless you do it in the Chamber, officially, with the aim of removing him, Nad, you are supposed to show respect for him, no matter how hard that might be.

What else? Oh yes, there was your taking part in the tv programme where you had to see if you could live on state benefits. But you were caught with a £50 note in your bra. Not only did it run counter to the spirit and the point of the programme, it was also incredibly insulting to claimants.

And what about the fuss you made over benefit claimants who Tweet too much? Report them, to the DWP for Tweeting? "You should be out looking under tones for jobs; not tweeting." Next you'll be wanting to report them for spending too much time in the bathroom! Are you sure it's Bercow that's mad?

Of course your marriage is your business and it can't be easy to be married to someone who is suffering from a degenerative disease, but it was hardly good publicity that you left him. Nor was it good publicity that you have been having an affair with one of your married family friends.

Finally, I've seen you arrive for work in the Chamber looking like you were off for afternoon tea, or about to do a days washing. You really could try to smarten up a bit. Mr Cameron always has a smart blue suit on. You could try that.

All in all, you're not a shining example of what Dave is looking for in an MP, are you, Nad?

So, there you have it. You seem to be happy to dish it out, but you're not so good at taking it. I think you'd better toughen up dear.

Or, as I say, consider if you want to be part of the London branch of elderly Bullingdon Boys.

CAN WE PLEASE START TREATING SERIOUS MATTERS SERIOUSLY

Last week, on a radio show hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, a Sue McGregor or Sarah Montague wannabe, the English Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, said (and I paraphrase) that there are no rapes that aren’t bad and no rapes that aren’t wrong, but that some are worse than others.

It caused an outrage which has persisted through the week and into the weekend.

I forced myself to listen to the interview and I could find nothing actually wrong with what he was saying. Even if Ken Clarke’s delivery was a little laid back and clinical, rather than emotional, it was not offensive in its content. And what he was saying was surely correct.

People, quite rightly, feel very strongly about the subject, but, politically correct to say it, or not, there are some rapes that are far worse than others.

This is because rape is defined as all sexual activity where consent has not been given by both adult parties. It ranges from frenzied sexual attacks to consensual sex with a person who, because of age, is not LEGALLY competent to give consent, and all the statistics include both extremes, and all those in between.

Given that the age of consent varies within Europe from country to country, we have the ridiculous situation that, if a Frenchman of 18 and his 15 year old wife, on honeymoon in England, indulge in intercourse, then according to English law, (and Scottish for that matter) he will have raped her, because she was not old enough to give her consent. It may be offensive to English sensibilities, and wrong under their law, but it is surely very different from a rape which involves a violent attack in a dark alley by a complete stranger.

It is right that this, and pleading guilty, thus sparing the victim the further violation of reliving the event, should be reflected in sentencing. This is the general sense of the argument that Ken was trying to get over. It was not offensive. It was common sense.

As a result of the interview there have been calls for Clarke’s resignation from government, led by the opportunistic Ed Miliband.

Worse still Jack Straw, who never apologised for anything when in office, said that he would have apologised and that he would have been moved to another job (not sacked, just moved to another job) had he been in that situation. Presumably if you cock up one job in Labour, you are sent to another department so you can do it there too.

Meanwhile, it has gone almost completely unnoticed that on May 16, Nadine Dorries said in an interview with another daytime interviewer, that child abuse could be reduced if the victims had been taught to say “no”.

Now I’ll admit that I haven’t seen Dorries’ interview (nothing on Earth could persuade me watch Vanessa ‘does my bum look big in this’ Phelps), but it seems to me that her comments (if reported correctly) were very much more offensive than those of her senior colleague.

Maybe it’s just that everyone ignores or laughs at anything Dorries says, as a matter of course.

I don't make a habit of supporting Conservative English cabinet secretaries, but I do so in this case, and I deplore Labour for jumping on a “populist” bandwagon.

Rape is far too serious a crime for this petty politicking and point scoring political correctness. It might help if we could talk about it like adults.

MORE SLIPS THIS WEEK THAN THE BLACK RUN AT KLOSTERS

For a long time the Tories have been waging war on the number of Quangos that the British state appears to need, and so before the election, and indeed since the election, much has been made of the plan to have yet another ‘bonfire of quangos’.

The strange thing about this is that they used pretty much the same words as the Labour government used when they came to power 14 years ago.

I wonder if the Tories stopped for even a second to ask themselves why it was that Labour had made no progress whatsoever in the matter...

Well, either they didn’t or they thought that they were simply cleverer than Labour (an easy mistake to make), for, on taking up his post as a minister at the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude set about the quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations with his hatchet and dust pan and shovel.

No planning, no preparation, just right in there with the axe...

So it must have come as a bit of a blow to the poor old fella when he read the report of a parliamentary committee, with a predominance of Conservatives and chaired by Conservative Bernard Jenkins, which said that the whole thing had been botched and badly managed, and that rather than saving money (Call Me had promised savings of a billion a year), the whole thing was likely to cost money.

The truth is that most of what is done by quangos, is done so because it needs to be done, and it is best not done by Whitehall, directly under the control of politicians. So, in setting light to them, it is necessary to ensure that the essential parts of their work be taken over by others. Effectively many of the changes made by Maudie, amalgamated quangos, or took them back under the wing of a government department (which a few months down the line will mean calls of unfairness, partiality and political interference). Even his own side thing he’s a pratt. Ooooops. Liam Byrne, his shadow, said: "I like a plate of soup at lunchtime", as if anyone cared.

Now, on the subject of pratts, I seem to recall that the then shadow chancellor, Porgy Georgie Osborne was outraged at the bonuses given to bankers under the last regime, after the banks brought the country to its knees. Indeed the deputy prime minister reiterated Mr Osborne’s sentiments as recently as last week.

So it must be pretty embarrassing for both of them that Robert Peston is reporting that the banks will make SMALL reductions in the payments this year, and that much of the bonuses will be paid in shares which cannot be immediately cashed. (This is to encourage longer term strategies where trading is concerned: bankers will, it is hoped be encouraged to think long term, because their shares can go up or down). However, the cunning old sausages have got round that little problem by giving themselves 50% increases in fixed pay... so if the banks do crash again because of their stupidity, the bankers will have most of it stashed in salary. Even less reason to think about the future. "They are looking for some words from us that prove that the negotiations have achieved something," said a senior banker. "I fear however that there may be more spin than substance to what we say."

Well Gideon... remind us, what was it you were going to do? Ooooops

PS... then there's daft Nadine! Oooooops.

Pics: (1) Maudie, in a government of knobs, he stands out as a real knob. (2) Georgie is getting to be a chunky wee thing now he’s got all the Treasury money as well as his own. (3) Now this is what Dave does best, dressing up in clothes the rest of us just don’t have. (4) Laim Byrne (no spelling error) He’s not relevant to this story, but boy is he spooky. (5) Mr Peston. Do you think he was a singing teacher in another life? (6) When the words disaster and Tories are in a story you can bet that Mad Nad won’t be far away. The poor old thing’s having another yet fling, now that she’s not got her expenses to keep her warm. Well, she's a bit chav isn't she?

NADINE WOULD RATHER DIE....

Lordy, oh Lordy. Nadine Dorries ^^ is a corker.

At a fringe meeting at the Tory conference she announced that she would rather die than fight the next election with the Liberals, whom apparently the dear old soul has been fighting all her life.

She went on to describe her latest Liberal opponent as being like a Japanese prisoner of war...still fighting the war. I thought that prisoners of war didn’t actually fight any more, but it’s a small point.

She said that there was no future after the next election for a Liberal-Conservative alliance, however, I suspect that she may change her mind if the Tories require the Liberals, once again, to keep them from opposition or minority government and continual defeats.

Still Nadine is a bit of an old drama queen. You’ll remember she promised us suicides over the expenses scandals.

Suicides? Nah, I should say not. They might have been miffed that they had been caught out and even angrier that the gravy train had been temporarily halted, but most of them had loads of lovely lolly to spend... ours... They weren’t about to top themselves!!

Known variously as "Mad Nad" and the Conservatives' answer to Heather Mills or Sarah Palin, Nadine doesn't like Cameron as party leader: "He represents everything that through my life I'd been suspicious of." she said of her new leader.

Ew er... I'm sure not "everything" Nads. Most people are suspicious of second hand car salesmen, and people trying to sell double glazing on the phone.

Dorries's somewhat inventive interpretation of "facts" undermines causes supported by Cameron. In her fight against late-term abortion, she propagated an internet rumour that a 21-week-old foetus could punch through an incision in a womb.

And boy does she hate John Bercow, which is pretty much at odds with the Tory leader's recent support for him.



So maybe Cameron is hoping that this time she actually means it.... and he and Nick are plotting a long term relationship.

SO IT'S GOODNIGHT FROM HIM..........AT LAST

Well. He’s gone. In my opinion one of the most awful prime ministers ever; on a par with Thatcher, and that's saying something!

I’m not happy I feel that way.

My politics fall to the left of centre. I don’t care much for the rich. Mind, they don’t need me to care about them; they are rather good at caring for themselves. I do care about people who for some reason or another are disadvantaged in the dog eat dog world that Thatcher encouraged and Blair and Brown, in their desperate bid to appeal to the middle classes of southern England, embraced with gusto.

I am at a loss to understand, given all that Brown and Blair did to this country’s poor and dispossessed, that all over Scotland in the deprived housing estates where people are living third world lives, they trotted out and voted for the party that dropped bricks on them from a great height. “Our party; the party of the working man”. Aye! When your granddad was a lad, maybe.

People say that Cameron doesn’t understand common people, and they are bang on right. Of course he doesn’t. He went to Eton and Oxford. He was a member of a dining club whose raison d’être was, possibly still is, to smash up restaurants and get daddy to pay the next day. His daddy clearly had enough money to do this, and didn’t mind parting with it.

What does Cameron know about council houses with rooms so small you can’t get more than four people in, or about paper thin walls so you can hear when the next door neighbour turns on a tap, used the toilet, plays a cd? What does he know of joblessness and being treated like dirt by the Jobcentre? What does he know about making a wage last all week, knowing that it won’t, and you’ll be hungry? What about being scared to go outside your door for fear of knife wielding thugs who need money for drugs?

Nothing.

Oh yes, he’s been on the estates. He’s taken his tie off; he’s met a few black kids. And Nadine Dorries doubtless told him what it was like to live in a tower block on the dole money, plus the £50 she had stuffed in her bra (thereby doubling it).

But what did Brown know of that life? He’s a middle class lad, who lived in the manse, went to uni, did a doctorate. That wasn’t ordinary working class in the ‘60s.

He certainly didn’t know much about it firsthand. And after all these years on an MP’s salary; all these years with Downing Street and Chequers to live in, with cars and planes to take him where he wanted to go... (I note he flew to the “family home” for one day over the weekend, with his family!! No second class trains for Oor Gordo!), he knew even less, which is why he was so ill equipped to cope with that woman who wondered where the Eastern Europeans were coming from and why they were taking all the jobs so there wouldn’t be any for her grandchildren. He hadn’t a clue what this “ordinary” rather dowdy working class woman who got her grammar wrong was. He’s not seen one for 20 years. He waves out of his car at them but he doesn’t look. Everyone he meets dresses from Saville Row; their suits cost more than a pensioner lives on for a year. And if they know about Eastern Europeans, it’s because they have them as live in staff!!

So Cameron won’t be any less in touch that Brown was, but he won’t be any more in touch either.

Heaven help us.



Pic: Gordon Brown after the bigot moment and Members of the Bullingdon (known as "Bullers" to those in the know) and including our esteemed prime minister.

THAT'S LIFE NADINE, THAT'S LIFE!

That Nadine Dorries is a complete fruit cake, no-one would dispute. She was the one who told us that MPs had been instructed to use their £24,000 allowance as salary in lieu of a pay increase, without it occurring to her that, should that have been the case they might well have been expected, like us ordinary mortals, to pay income tax on it!!!! Then she compared the completely reasonable investigation by the Daily Telegraph into MPs’ expenses, with the McCarthy Witch Hunts, saying that MPs were being driven to breakdowns and suicide because of it. (What a joke! The stupid woman should have known nearly everyone would get off scot free.)

In January this year, it was announced that she was being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over her second home expenses and that there were a number of her neighbours queuing up to give evidence against her.

She recently took part in a reality tv show, despite having a full time job as an MP, where she was supposed to live in a council estate with only dole money to get her through, but was found to have secreted a £50 note in her undergarments, thus completely defeating the point of the show, and demonstrating horrific disrespect both to the project and to unemployed people in general.

We now, the bam pot has got stuck into Esther Rantzen who is standing as a clean up politics independent in Luton South. Dorries’ friend, Stephen Rhodes is standing against Ms Rantzen in the constituency, and she has pitched in calling Ms Rantzen a self publicist who has a scant understanding of politics.

Jeez, sometimes you think you’ve heard it all, then Nadine Dorries pops up again to brighten the day.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Dorries said: “I am afraid that Esther’s bid at politics is a rather transparent attempt to eject [sic] herself into the public eye once again, and probably to get some work on the back of it. Politics isn’t showbiz, it’s life.”

Ha ha. “That’s Life” Dorries you twerp. I wonder if she realized what she said. Somehow I doubt it. She strikes me as terminally dim.

Right. I’m no fan of Esther Rantzen, but whatever you say about her she has worked in consumer rights for many years with “That’s Life”, and over the last 20 years she has been closely associated with Child Line, a charity which takes calls from and aims to help children who have been bullied, or abused. Additionally she has campaigned for the recognition of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and work for people suffering deafness.

I suspect, therefore, that Esther Rantzen has forgotten more about the issues that ordinary people care about than the idiot Dorries, who seems to be a self publicist of the worst sort and not particularly in touch with the world outside her own head.

I dare say that Ms Rantzen will survive attacks from the likes of Nadine Dorries from whom criticism is a joke. But it’s the poor people of Luton South I feel sorry for. It is currently represented by Margaret Moran, a Labour MP forced to stand down at the next election over her expense claims despite her original intention to sue the backside off the Telegraph for the monstrous allegations leveled against her. Hum... I wonder what happened there then.....

The likelihood is that the arrival of Ms Dorries’ friend will split the independent vote leaving the way open for a Labour or Tory MP. I think that for all Nadine’s caterwauling Esther Rantzen would have made a good MP, as did Martin Bell. Once again it’s the people who lose out.


Picured: Nadine Dorries (top left) in the House of Commons but dressed for an afternoon’s shopping and (bottom right) Esther Rantzen.

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

NADINE DORRIES PROVES THAT THE UNEMPLOYED NEED £114 A WEEK TO LIVE

I'VE ALWAYS had mixed feelings about politicians who take part in experiments involving living like ordinary people do.

In a way it does no harm for them to see the dilapidated housing, the poor public transport and the rotting infrastructure that is so much a part of millions of Britons’ lives. On the other hand, it can’t possibly give a real feeling of what it is like to live like that.

Sure, it will be unpleasant having to cope with living in a tower block for a week, of having to listen to next door’s music competing with downstairs’ telly blaring and upstairs’ baby screaming. It will be a real hardship going to the shops knowing that the £64.30 that you have in your pocket is going to have to last 7 days, and buying the very cheapest of everything from food to washing powder, from toothpaste to toilet paper. If it runs out before the next payment... you go without.

However, the “experimenter” can only get a taste of the misery and hopelessness that the real “job-seeker” lives with all the time. He or she knows that come the end of the experiment there is a comfortable centrally-heated house in a nice part of town, a first class meal in a nice restaurant, and possibly a couple of weeks in the sun to wash away all discomfort.

So I was less than impressed when I read about the Channel Four reality television show where 5 MPs live with families on a council estate. This is even less realistic than other attempts. They are surrounded all day by film crew....

But, after all that we have heard about MPs’ dishonesty over the last year, I would have thought that at least they would have learned a lesson and have tried not to cheat.

Wrong!

Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, after spending only one night on the project, broke the rules by hiding a £50 note down her bra. Of course she maintains, as we would expect, “no wrong doing”.

"I did have money in my bra," she admitted to the Telegraph. However, she added: "I was staying with children, and it being two weeks before Christmas, I wasn't going to leave my family without leaving some Christmas presents behind for the children, so I popped £50 where any self respecting female who knows how to get what she wants would – down my top.”

I don’t know how long she was going to be staying with the family, but I suspect that she would have left by Christmas. So, if she wanted to get something for the kids she could have done it after filming had finished.

Additionally, Mrs Norris, £50 between four kids and the mother equals fairly niggardly gifts from someone on your salary, if you don’t mind my saying so...No. I don’t believe you. You couldn’t face being in the situation of an unemployed person for one week without back up. You insulted the experiment; you insulted the poor people you were supposedly trying to find out about, and you cheated.

Well, you’re an MP so we shouldn’t be surprised about that. Your party leader might be interested to know that, as well as being a cheat, you have just admitted that you think that it is impossible to live on the money that the government pays the unemployed, of which there are rather a lot. I wonder if he will be happy to know that you think that they require an extra £50 a week to live on.

Stupid woman.