HOW NOT TO RUN A COUNTRY, BY THE UK GOVERNMENT

I opened the Telegraph to discover that there are ministers, including the Welsh Secretary, a Cabinet Minister, who have pledged to vote against the high-speed railway, the route of which is due to run through some of England’s finest countryside. (Scotland isn’t getting a high speed railway; we have to manage with diesel trains, so no need for any Scottish Tory MP (Mr Muddle) to worry about our countryside.

Cameron has said that the route between London and Birmingham hasn’t been finalized yet, but it is known that, because they expect to have trains that will travel about twice or three times the speed that the UK is used to, the lines will have to be quite straight, and the gradients quite low. (I’ve been on TGVs in France that went up through the mountains and round corners, but that is France and this will be in England.)

The great laugh is that the work is not due to begin until 2017, by which time the rest of the continent will doubtless be travelling at 350 mph, and this government will be in opposition, so their resignations won’t matter diddly! The price tag at present is some £17 billion , so you can just imagine what it will be by the time they get around to doing it... I’ll take offers over 40 billion, and 5 years late.

One of the great problems is that they intend to run up to 18 trains an hour on the line (that should be a laugh), through the back gardens of rich people who live in that area, and that is causing some Tories consternation. Strangely the Speaker has also said that he will campaign against it. I wouldn’t have thought Sally Bercow would be in the least interested in rich people’s woes. (As an aside, did anyone see the stupid woman on “Have I got News for You?” What a fool they made of her.)

Anyway, I turn to the Observer and I discover that there’s a split in the Cabinet over the fact that that silly little man Gove, who has yet to get a single thing right since he was appointed, has slashed £160+ million from schools sports spending in England, just as England is about to hold the Olympics, and one of the conditions on which that was won was that there would be a sporting legacy for the population. And in the same week that Cameron is flying out to Zurich to put his weight (!) behind England’s bid to get the World Cup in 2018. The word that comes to mind here is “Duh”.

The Observer says: “Gove's decision to end all ring-fenced funding for sport – which would threaten most after-school clubs and severely reduce the number of trained PE teachers and sports coaches – has also caused dismay among MPs, leading athletes and the teaching establishment. Many sports co-ordinators have already been told they will not have a job after the end of the financial year in March.

Well, that makes sense. Sport is their priority, but they’re getting rid of most of their sports co-ordinators.

Clegg seems to feel that the liberals haven’t been consulted over this, particularly as it seems the Tories are intending carry on with Labour's policy and sell off school sports facilities. Lunitics and Asylum are the words tend to come to mind here.

Thank heavens have our own government and are spared a fair percentage of the incompetence of this bunch of amateurs.

Pics: Top, (1) Cheryl Gillan, the Welsh Secretary with a constituency in England; (2) What trains in other countries look like; (3) The high speed rail link route, even with binoculars you won't be able to see Scotland, still we have horses and carts, what more should we expect?

Bottom: (1) The towering intellect that is Michael Gove (pause for laughter); (2) A sight that will soon be as rare as spinsters cycling to church on Sunday mornings, or the sound of cork on willow (oh sorry, got carried away and misty eyed about John Major there), yes, lads having a kick around after school. (They'll probably still do it, but it will be other lads that they will kick around instead of a ball!)

...

THINGS CAN ONLY GET...WORSE

Oh dear.

Best get it over before Niko does a power of gloating... It was a hellish night. I'm eating crow Niko!

Oh yes, the share of SNP votes in some seats many have gone up, but under the system of voting that the London parliament uses that doesn’t mean diddly.

In Dundee East I was gratified to see Stewart Hosie returned with an increased majority, but in Dundee West they re-elected Jim McGovern for Labour: almost unbelievable when you consider the man’s track record.

All over Scotland they re-elected Labour, and in the seats they lost in by-elections, they elected Labour and overturned SNP and Liberal by-election gains. The result in effect looks like it is unchanged from 2005 except that Labour will have the seat that was Michael Martin’s as Speaker.
So, all the expenses fiddles, all the do-nothing MPs, secure in the seat for life; all the incompetence in London that resulted in the financial mess that we are in... it all means nothing. The Scottish public went out and voted in 41 Labour MPs. Oh well. That’s what they wanted; that’s what they have got. Red rosettes and cabbages come to mind.

What happened to the Liberals? The Clegg bounce? Clearly it evaporated in the last week as Brown and Cameron scare mongered that British politicians were either too stupid or too lazy to cope with a balanced parliament (I venture both), and in Scotland that largely meant reverting to Labour. The economy is in safe hands with Labour. We must have strong government. If we had a hung parliament the markets might not like it. We might have a recession. ...... sheeeesh! That seems to have worked in the UK too, with a reduced number of Libdems seats on approximately the same vote as 2005.

Overall in the London parliament, at time of writing (8 am), there appears to be a majority of Tories and the prediction is there will be more. But where are the Tories in Scotland? Same one seat. David Mundell will be delighted. After his massive TV coverage he has increased his majority. I thought he was appalling in the debates, but there is no accounting for taste.

Who will form the London government? Well Brown says that under the constitution he has the right to stay and try to cobble together some sad acts that will support him. Cameron says that Brown has lost the moral right to form a government (I wonder if he ever had it, being there on Buggin’s turn).

The only parties who can join a formal coalition are the Liberals and the one Green MP. The Celtic parties have no mandate to coalesce on matters that do not affect their countries. I wouldn’t want to be Nick Clegg this morning. Whomever he does a deal with is going to have to do horrific things, and in a few months or a couple of years at the most, a new election will have to be called. The public will be mindful of who supported whom at that point.

One thing is clear either Scotland or England is going to be unhappy with this outcome. In England they have pretty solidly voted Conservative. In Scotland, whether I like it or not, we have voted overwhelmingly for Labour. Whichever party emerges victorious one country will blame the other for inflicting government on them. What does that tell you?

I imagine that in the end it will be the Tories who form the government. So the slogan for Scotland would be: Vote Labour, Get Tory.

When will we learn?

OFF TO THE STATES FOR EASTER TO LEARN ABOUT SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT

I’ve always wondered why it is that people need to fly all over the world to talk about man-made climate change, and whether or not you believe in it, people are doing that all the time.

It doesn’t particularly interest me normally, but this time it is the Scottish parliament which is sending 4 MSPs and 2 officials to America, in fact to Boston, New York and Washington DC to “highlight” the dangers of climate change, whatever that means. This is a non party thing. The presiding officer is going, along with members from the SNP, the Labour Party and the Tories. Whether the Liberals didn’t want to go, or just weren’t asked remains to be answered.

The total cost of this exercise, supposedly connected with tartan week in the USA, is thought to be in the region of £30,000, given that the MSPs, officials are travelling club class.

According to the Scotsman they ‘will focus on the three key areas of climate change, sustainable transport and opportunities around the green economy’. What expertise in these matters any of the visitors had is also not known.

MSP Robin Harper (Greens) said: "For this cross-party Holyrood delegation to be jetting off on a jolly to multiple US cities in order to fact-find on issues relating to sustainability and the environment is ever so slightly ridiculous and largely unnecessary.” He also pointed out, not unreasonably, that if sustainability was the name of the game then the USA was perhaps not the best place to go to learn more.

I agree. We already have three ministers going to America for Tartan week, that’s fair enough. We need to make a good impression there. Trade and tourism depends upon it. But there is no need to have other members of parliament there. The rest of us are belt tightening, and parliament should be too. Easter jollies should be a thing of the past.


Pictures: Transport in Boston and Washington not looking overly sustainable to me.