WHATEVER IT IS THAT THEY ARE ALL IN TOGETHER, CAN WE BE IN IT TOO??

I think David Cameron made another mistake tonight by telling Sayeeda Warsi that she can keep her job and seat in the Cabinet, despite her having been found guilty of breaking the ministerial code. He gave as the reason for this decision the fact that she had not benefited personally from an official  trip she made to Pakistan accompanied by her business partner and friend, and neither had he.


So this sends a message to people that it is OK to break the law as long as you don't benefit personally. If I break into a house but don't steal anything, does that mean that the courts won't punish me?


I presume Cameron means benefited financially (because that's as far as his mind is likely to go, but if she, and/or Mr Hussain, did not benefit in any way at all, then why did she take him? And why did she not inform her officials that she was taking him? She obviously intended to deceive. Why?


It was reported that Mrs Warsi's office was stretched when it came to making arrangements for foreign travel. This might be because Mrs Warsi is joint chairman of the Conservative party with special responsibility for communications with the grass root membership, a task which should, I would have thought, kept her  firmly in the United Kingdom... mainly in England, where there is or are some grass roots. Just how many of the Conservative Party's grass roots live in Pakistan?


Mrs Warsi also faces a further inquiry, apparently this time by the House of Lords (not the police) for claiming for overnight expenses from the public purse, when in fact none had been incurred, as she had stayed at the home of a supporter who charged her nothing.

It's a mistake on Cameron's part because once again he has demonstrated that if you are an ordinary student, and you take a bottle of water from a shop that has been looted, you can expect 6 months in prison, but if you sit in the House of Lords, for no particular reason, and you knowingly break the ministerial code, you can carry on as if nothing has happened.


House of Lords' enquires are convoluted and designed to keep the police (who are employed to menace  unimportant little criminals, and protect the aristocrats in their Lordships' House) at bay. I'd be surprised if they find her guilty of anything. 


There is a list as long as your arm, of Lords and Ladies, who fiddled like Nero, and about whom we have heard no more.


They are all in one thing together... and we are all in something entirely different.

SOME OF MY

ON THE UK GOVERNMENT AND CAMERON'S STATE VISIT TO EDINBURGH

A few weeks ago the UK government warned that if Scotland were to break away from the UK, Spain would veto its membership of the European Union.  It provoked a furious rebuttal from the Spanish foreign ministry. (The argument about whether Scotland would want to join the EU, or indeed would NEED to join the EU aside.)


And now the UK government has managed to leave Cardinal Keith O'Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, off the list of invitees to be part of a delegation to the Vatican, whilst inviting the senior Cardinal in England, Vincent Nichols. 


When asked about what was a slight, both to Cardinal O'Brien and Scotland, the response of the UK government was to blame the Vatican, which was, they said, responsible for the invitations. 


The response from the Vatican was that this was untrue; it was the UK responsibility to decide upon the members of their delegation. Sayeeda Warsi who led the British, English group clearly forgot to tell Michael Moore, our man in England, that it was a British delegation. 


Warsi might not have known that there was a separate management structure for the Church  in Scotland, but the FCO, under whose auspices the trip to a foreign state comes, should have known.


Why do they lie about these things?


So much for all that sob story sentimental twaddle from the prime minister about Scotland being sooooo important to the UK.

Talking of which, Cameron came up to Edinburgh, and after his visit to a porridge factory... (I mean, talk about patronising. You can just see his English audience in the Home Counties laughing at that one; "It's all they make, darling, that and whisky. It's their staple diet, don't you know"...) he went to  a room with a view of the Castle... which was also a bit twee, and made a speech, during which he stood behind a lectern (presumably his), which sported the coat of arms of the Queen: The Queen of England that is. The Queen of Scots maybe the same person, but the coat of arms is different, as it would have to be, and as a PM or as an ex-PR, he should have known.


Sloppy, innit?


There are some great articles analysing the visit of his prime ministerness to our shores. If you want a cleverer analysis that you can hope to get from me, can I suggest James's article at Scot Goes Pop, Stephens's at SNmr, and for a good laugh and some serious stuff, Auldaquaintance.

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHO'S THE UGLIEST OF ALL?

I was having a titter this morning about yet another, albeit much less important, embarrassment for poor old Cameron.


I refer to the cat fight between Mary Portas, and the women of the cabinet, whom she referred to, not unreasonably in my opinion, as ugly.


Portas, who is Mr Cameron's advisor on regeneration of the High Street (and a fine job she's making of it, not surprisingly perhaps considering that her company, Yellow Door, promotes shopping centres such as Stratford's recently opened Westfield, said to be the biggest in the EU) is  also making a tv programme called "Mary, Queen of Frocks", which I assume is about women's fashion. This may be considered to make her an "expert".


So she had a go at the then four female Cabinet members Tessy May (Home), Cheryl Gillan (Wales), Caroline Spelman (Environment) and Sayeeda Warsi (Nothing). Enough said!


However, after a fuss being made by Warsi, who, with no portfolio seems to have time to rise to the bait, Portas has backed down saying that it was just her" naughty sense of humour" and that, in fact, she didn't even know who the women in the Cabinet were!!!!

So, if she makes that kind of comment about people she doesn't know, how useful and unbiased will her report on retail and the dying high street actually be, and is it worth what she has cost the taxpayer?


Warsi, however, makes rather a fool of herself too, in her indignation:

"In politics you expect people to scrutinise every aspect of your life. And I don't blame Ms Portas for chipping in. But what gets me is the double standards.

"You would never get the same kind of sniping about men in politics."

Well, that's just not true. Much has been written over the years about how ugly Robin Cook was, that Frank Dobson was fat and beardy, that Boris Johnson had hair like a haystack, that Tony Blair had (and I repeat had) a nice bum, and how wrinkled and old he had become, that Gordon Brown always looked like a corpse, and that Alex Salmond got fatter by the day; it must be all these curries... 

"No-one would have dreamt of giving fashion advice to any of the great men who led our country. Just imagine if someone had told Churchill what suits to wear.

"It's ridiculous to judge them [female politicians] on what they do or don't wear. "

What I would admit is that no one talks much about what men in politics wear, because they only wear dark suits, light shirts and ties. Even the most poisonous journo can't really make much of that. For all his money I've only ever seen David Cameron in a dark blue suit whilst at work.

As for Winston, I imagine his butler or maybe his wife laid out for him what he was to wear and helped him on with it. I find it difficult to imagine that he was preoccupied with clothes.
If women want to avoid comments about their clothes it might be an idea to apply the same standards that men in senior positions do. In short, a dark suit with a light shirt/blouse. That would leave the journalists little to criticise.

But if they insist on wearing clothes that would be more appropriate for a day's spring cleaning, a garden party, or in the case of Theresa May, some dubious nightclub, then they must expect to be ridiculed.

Incidentally, the £1.4 billion Westfield Centre was opened by Boris Johnson is a flurry of publicity. Embarrassingly a glass ceiling tile crashed to the floor only feet from where the mayor was standing during the ceremony. Doesn't sound too safe to me.