Horrific Earthquake Hits Some of World's Poorest People

“But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”

That was the phrase that came to me when I heard this morning about the horrific earthquake in one of the world’s poorest countries. Thousands are feared dead after a massive quake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit Haiti. The US Geological Survey said that the epicentre of the earthquake was 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, which has a population of 2.5 million. A tsunami alert for the Caribbean region was issued immediately after the earthquake struck at 9.53 pm GMT. Minutes after the initial tremor, there were two aftershocks, measuring 5.9 and 5.5.

Communications were widely disrupted, making it difficult to get a clear picture of the damage as violent aftershocks shook the country, destroying the flimsy buildings. The United Nations headquarters and the World Bank were among scores of buildings that were toppled, including the presidential palace, government buildings and a cathedral. An hotel popular with tourists collapsed burying up to 200 people, while roads and bridges also lay in ruins.

The international relief charity Food for the Poor reported that the whole city was in darkness and that thousands of people were sitting in the streets with nowhere to go.

An earthquake expert at the University of Southern California said that the earthquake’s size and proximity to the capital had probably caused widespread casualties.

I heard on the news this morning that the UK has a team of fire fighters ready to fly out to Haiti as soon as it can be arranged, but with communications wrecked, it is difficult to know when that will be.

Many British Charities have launched appeals for money to help: Save the Children has made £50,000 available immediately from its funds. The Red Cross has set up an appeal at http://www.redcross.org.uk/donatesection.asp?id=102168 or telephone 08450 535353. It’s good that we feel that we can help people far less fortunate than ourselves.

I was interested in some of the comments on the Daily Mail’s story. Louise in Mid Glamorgan said: “Yes, that’s very interesting but we’re a bit tied up with our own problems at the moment”. Tom, MKUK replied: “A bit of world news not your cup of tea Louise? I hope you can overcome your terrible plight and make it through the snow to Waitrose for supplies soon. I’m sure the people of Haiti will be praying for you in your hour of need.”


If you want to see examples of the good and the bad in us, a visit there is worthwhile.

Update:

Donations can be made on the High Street, by calling into any bank or post office and quoting Freepay 1449, or at branches of any of the DEC's member charities. The DEC is composed of 13 major UK aid agencies: Action Aid, British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.

BOUNDARY CHANGES IN SCOTLAND MAY GIVE LABOUR EVEN MORE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE

Plans to alter boundaries of Scottish Parliament seats could assist Labour to win the next Holyrood election even if it gets fewer votes than the SNP. John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, said that the proposals which were announced last week could make the bias towards Labour in the Scottish electoral system even greater (according to an article in today's Times).

Support for Labour being more geographically concentrated than the SNP’s, the party has more success in first-past-the-post seats, 73 of the 129 at Holyrood. To redress this balance there is an additional 56 regional list seats, allocated using a method of proportional representation in each of eight regional clusters of constituencies. However, Labour still gains because in some regions there are insufficient list seats to correct fully the disproportionate constituency outcomes.

The professor suggests that changes proposed by the Boundary Commission for Scotland, a UK government quango (wouldn’t you know?), will worsen the situation. For example Kilmarnock, one of only two SNP-held constituencies in Central Scotland, is to be moved to the South of Scotland. However, there are insufficient list seats to compensate the Nationalists for this loss. Meanwhile, Cunningham South, which is held by Labour, is moved out of the South of Scotland into the West of Scotland. Labour, though, is not reliant on winning list seats in the West, so that gain will not be corrected.

Professor Curtice said: “This loss for the SNP is unlikely to be compensated for on the list allocation. So the Nationalists will be down one. If these changes had been in force at the 2007 election, then Labour could have won more seats than the SNP with fewer votes. The redistribution runs the risk of making the existing pro-Lab bias in the system even worse, and this is arguably not good for democracy either.”

The UK Parliament is expected to make a decision on the proposals later this year. However, the SNP wants Westminster to transfer its powers over Holyrood elections to the Scottish Parliament. The SNP played down the implications of the changes planned for the next Holyrood election in 2011. Its spokesman said that it would fight hard to win as many seats as possible.

Admirable as that is, should we not be working towards a fairer and more representative parliament, regardless of who the winners would be. We have already heard much of how the Tories have to have a 10% advantage over Labour in the UK to break even in seats, and surely the Liberal’s representation is Westminster is lamentably small in relation to the numbers of votes that they poll.

On the basis that Labour has made a complete mess of running elections in Scotland should not the whole business of democracy be devolved to Holyrood, where for all its faults our system is far fairer than in London?

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WATCH WHO YOU PICK UP IN BARS GUYS

Thirty year old Jessica Davies showed no emotion as she was jailed for 15 years for unpremeditated "voluntary homicide" of Olivier Mugnier, 24, after having picked him up in a bar in St Germain-en-Laye, Paris in November 2007. She was high on what the prosecutor called a "destructive cocktail" of alcohol and drugs. The pair returned to her first floor flat and started to make love. When he failed to "perform", she went to the kitchen and returned with a knife, sinking it almost five inches into the victim's thorax all the way to his spine.

Describing her as a "sulphurous seductress", solicitor for Monsieur Mugnier’s family accused Davies of having a "selective memory" about the killing and shifting her version of how much she remembered. The lawyer referred to a psychiatric report on Miss Davies which described her "ambivalent feelings of desire and hatred towards men", which she often saw as "pure sexual objects".

Miss Davies’ lawyer said her act was the result of displaced self-harm, born out of unbearable psychological distress: "This was not the crime of a thief, or a pervert, or a sexual crime. It was a suicidal act". (Erm, no, it was a murderous act, she killed the lad, not herself!)

The nine-man jury heard expert opinion that she was in an "altered state" when she committed the crime. They accepted that she was sincere about a claim of a total blackout during the killing except "the sensation of the knife going in."

Davies said before the verdict: "I want to express the extent of my remorse and just say that I assume my responsibility and the consequences. ”What I did terrifies me. I dare not even ask for forgiveness from Olivier's family. I can assure you that it will never happen again," she said. However, minutes after the verdict, she could be seen smiling and joking with police minders, which is more than poor Olivier can hope to be able to do.

We hear a lot about women being warned to take great care over who they go home with, but not so much about lads. So let that be a serious warning to you guys. Be very careful who you pick up in bars....

CAMERON PROMISES BRIBES TO GET MARRIED AND MORE RESPECT AND DEFERENCE

There is no doubt in my mind that there is something wrong with some of the parenting in Scotland, or indeed in Britain, and I look forward to a challenging debate on how, in a new parliament, with a new government in London, we can make changes that will help children to have a happier and better start in life. Today David Cameron set out his stall on this matter.

In a departure from previous Tory administrations, Mr Cameron said that as Prime Minister he would promote active intervention in families to build a “responsible” society. The institution of marriage, the best environment in which to raise children, would be supported by tax breaks, and schools (a devolved issue here) would see a return to traditional values of respect and deference.

He called on the entire community to ensure that children picked up responsible messages, and warned businesses and advertisers that unless they stopped “sexualisation and excessive commercialisation” of young people, legislation could follow.

Mr Cameron pointed out: "What matters most to a child's life chances is not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting. Of course there's a link between material poverty and poor life chances, but the full picture is that that link also runs through the style of parenting that children in poor households receive.”

He also set out a new policy on Sure Start Centres for parents with young children. He said he wanted Sure Start to focus on the most “disadvantaged and dysfunctional” families, with staff paid by results.

Well... that’s enough to be going on with. A mixed bag of good, bad and indifferent here.

His warning to business and to advertisers is good. Stop treating children like adults. They are not. They have been exploited and sexualized for too long and it is a relief to hear someone, not so much in the pockets of big business as the current government, promise action.

I worry about a return to “respect and deference” though. Both of these things are good of course, and I’d love to see more of them, but before you encourage people to demonstrate them, there has to be something worthy of that respect and deference. I wouldn’t want to encourage kids to show respect to, for example, our lying, cheating politicians, just because they think themselves up there and us down here. Too much deference is the reason that they managed to steal so much from us without fear of being found out.


And I have a real worry about the mixed message Mr Cameron is sending. Children don’t necessarily thrive where there is more money, he tells us, but he proposes to pay couples to get married (children or no). Is this to please the Daily Mail?

Finally I note that after years of “paid by results” organisations, usually private sector ones, it still hasn’t got through to the people at the “top” that TARGETS DON’T WORK. I know. I’ve been there. Guess what Dave... Everyone, and I mean everyone, CHEATS. The people who really need help are ignored because it can take months, maybe even years, to tick just one box with them. The easy to help are helped, because within a week, all their boxes are ticked. Simples!

More thought required..... please!

SILLY COUP

It was all silliness, this coup......

......At least that was how Brown dismissed it in an interview with The News of the World. Amazingly, obviously unaware of his lack of drawing power, he also promised to serve a full term as leader if Labour was re-elected.

He told the paper (somewhat disjointedly and incoherently): "I can't answer for the feelings of one or two people. But politics is full of...you know, large numbers of people are involved and they have to make their own decisions. They have got to be free to make the choices they want. I'm sorry it happened. I think it was a form of silliness."

Then the signs of delusion started to show: "I am the Prime Minister and am determined to remain so. I am determined, I am resolute" he said.

Brown revealed too that he had been turning to Tony Blair for advice. "Tony and I talk a lot," he said. "We have kept in touch and I have been drawing on his advice, as I always do. Tony Blair is one of the greatest British Prime Ministers. He served the country with huge distinction and is, to give him credit, responsible for a large number of reforms that we made. He is a very good friend of mine and always will be."

Here we have to be mindful of the publication Brown chose for his post coup interview... TNOTW, it continues: Glamorous Sarah will be thrust into the election limelight after Labour chiefs identified her as the PM's greatest asset. She has redrawn her diary so she can be constantly at her husband's side during the hectic four-week run-in to polling day. Sarah says: "I will support Gordon and the party, the same way I always have."

Still the same old nut job then. He thinks that telling the public that he will be there for another 5 years will be some sort of incentive to vote Labour; he expects us to believe that he and Tony are good friends; and he, who promised that he would never use his family in politics, will be thrusting his wife into the limelight.

It’s a woeful state of affairs when you biggest asset is not in fact your leadership, your intellect, or any of your policies, but your ...erm "glamorous" wife.

LEAKED LETTERS SHOW BROWN REFUSED TO SPEND MONEY ON VITAL HELICOPTERS

Former defence secretary, Geoff Hoon who was behind last week’s attempted leadership coup and now has nothing much to lose (there’s never going to be a Lord Hoon), looks set to do further damage to Gordon Brown with the disclosure that he (Brown) vetoed the purchase of vital military helicopters.

Leaked letters show that, when chancellor, Brown prevented Hoon from ordering life-saving battlefield equipment for Afghanistan and Iraq. Hoon, who was dismissed as an embittered traitor by Brown’s allies (?) for the failed email plot, has the potential to further undermine his leadership in the run-up to the general election.


According to the Sunday Times, the leaked letters show Brown personally overturned earlier Treasury assurances that the Ministry of Defence would be free to spend extra cash on troop-carrying helicopters. Hoon had warned that, if Brown refused to back down, “We would have to scale back on major equipment programmes.” He went on to claim that the helicopter programme in particular would suffer.


Last night, Hoon refused to comment on the letters, passed to The Sunday Times by Royal Air Force sources, but this is hardly important now, as the Sunday Times has it splashed over its front page. It is likely that Hoon, who is due to give information to the Chilcot inquiry, will now be asked in detail about the letters.

The leaked letters show how Brown’s actions from 2002 to 2004 meant that the military were unable to buy new helicopters which could now be in service in Afghanistan. The lack of air support has forced British troops to take dangerous journeys by road, exposing them to deadly Taliban bombs.

Military chiefs have long complained that the Treasury under Brown starved them of resources.

The revelations will be personally embarrassing to Brown, and damaging to the image of a Prime Minister who has waved the union flag and lectured us at length about showing support for the troops who are fighting (so he says) to keep the Taliban off the streets of England (by which he really means is London).

A WEE COUP FOLLOWED BY A BIG COUP

So suddenly, after months of 'Tory Cuts' v 'Labour Investment' propaganda from the figure of fun that is currently resident in Downing Street, it appears to be that it is ‘Tory Cuts’ v ‘Labour Cuts’, as Darling and Mandleson seem to have triumphed over Balls as the guiding hands on Brown's rudder.

The Chancellor, indicating a dramatic shift in his party’s election strategy, tells The Times in an exclusive (kindly shared with Munguin’s Republic) that severe spending restraints are “non-negotiable” if he is to bring down the £178 billion budget deficit.

So all that twaddle we were told about having to spend our way out of recession was just erm.... twaddle? When Ken Livingstone was on the Politics Show the other day saying that the cuts would mean a descent back into recession, and when he said that Brown was right to keep public spending levels high, he was misspeaking?

Darling told The Times: “The next spending review will be the toughest we have had for 20 years. Cutting the borrowing was never negotiable. Gordon accepts that, he knows that.”

Mandelson said: “We have got to win people back to our side. We are a national party, a party that represents people in every part of the United Kingdom, and we are going to offer policies that will benefit people in every part of the United Kingdom.”

Their remarks reinforce the impression that ministers used Brown’s temporary weakness on Wednesday afternoon to warn him that he had to be more collegiate to retain their support and to ensure that the party again fights the election as “New Labour”. The Chancellor’s language about cuts in his interview would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago.

So the real coup was not the seriously hapless joke launched by the two wannbe has beens, Hoon and Hewitt, but a much more serious and deadly one run by Mandleson and Darling.

How humiliating for Brown and his little poodle Balls. All the class warfare will go out the window. Appealing to the core vote is decidedly passé. In short, Brown has been reminded that, unless he can persuade the middle class voter with 2 cars, 2 holidays, and a daughter with a pony, living in a nice detached villa somewhere in the South East of England that they will be better off under Labour, then they are sunk.

Tough luck on all the people in the North of England, in Wales and in Scotland who thought that just maybe it might be their turn. Yeah! Like that was ever going to happen.

The new question has to be, now that he is totally humiliated and powerless, just how long can Brown last?

BANG.... OUCH....... I'M HARRIET HARMAN, YOU KNOW WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME

Well, it had to happen. Harry the Harridan, better known to us as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Minister for Women and Equality (not sure how that works), more or less got off at court today. The beak fined her a mere £350 and gave her a 3 point endorsement on her licence (she already has 6 from previous offenses), despite the fact that he had it in his power to ban her, or give her 9 points and fine her up to £3000. So, that will be a lesson to us all then.

The minor collision took place at around 10 pm on July 3 last year. The owner of the other vehicle was watching the incident from the window of her nearby flat. After the accident Harman is alleged to have said: “I’m Harriet Harman. You know where you can get hold of me.”

According to The Times Michael Jennings, for the prosecution, told the court: “She got into her car whilst using her handheld telephone. She then started the engine of her car again whilst using a mobile telephone, which then drove forward and she then drove backwards. It was when she moved backwards again that she then hit the car which was parked behind her. Throughout this entire incident she was using her handheld telephone.”

The charge of using a telephone was withdrawn, as was the charge of leaving the scene of an accident. It seems that if you are powerful and rich you have charges thrown out as long as you own up to the least serious charge. Then you get a very light sentence.

The fine of £300, £70 costs and a £15 Victim Supplement will hardly make a huge hole in Ms Harperson’s bank account. The audacity of shouting out your name and assuming everyone will know who you are, is breathtaking. But it’s a useful tip if you are ever involved in an accident.

Politicians who have faced prosecutions in recent years have all stood down before they were charged. It seems that our Harry has a harder neck than that. Just as well it wasn't her famous court of public opinion that was in session there... but then it will in a few months Harriet!

....AND (you wouldn't believe it, but) THERE'S MORE........

I normally wouldn’t post twice on the same subject on consecutive days, but events have left yesterday’s post so far behind that I feel obliged, in the interests of accuracy, to add to what I said in the post about Mrs Robinson.

A BBC programme “Spotlight” has come up with more details about Iris Robinson and her husband Peter, and how between them they have broken the law and the code of conduct for councillors, MPs, MLAs and Ministers.

In short they have broken more or less every code that there is, and the law to boot.

Mrs Robinson’s lover, in some sort of grotesque re-enactment of her namesake in the film 'The Graduate', was a 19 year old boy. Just for once in the Robinson story there's nothing actually illegal about that, but it's pretty weird for a religious fanatic given to quoting selectively from the Bible on morality, to have a ‘boy’ friend 40 years her junior. The details of their business transactions et al can be read here on the BBC website. They are rather complex so I won't repeat them here, but, as I said seem to have broken every code in the book, including the legal one.

Apart from the revelation that this pensioner had a sexual relationship with a teenage lad young enough to be her grandson, and that she later asked the boy for £5,000 for herself (the sex wasn't enough apparently, she needed cash too), we learn from the programme that her husband, the First Minister of the Province of Northern Ireland, knowlingly concealed information about her illegal financial activities from the authorities. A silly thing for a First Minister to do.

His position is now totally untenable. He has brought his party and the Northern Ireland Assembly into disrepute. He must resign immediately. She has made such an almighty fool of herself that whatever dignity she might once have had has been swept away. She has become a comic figure.

She has brought shame on her party, on her council, on the Assembly, on Parliament, on her family, on the boy she used, and on her religion and her church. This evil, nasty, hypocritical little tart really is finished.

Update: Despite the fact that the Northern Irish Assembly and the UK Parliament are both in session, Mrs Robinson is reported by the Belfast Irish News newspaper this morning to be heading for a week’s holiday in the ski resort of Chamonix in the next few days. Last night Spotlight said that Mrs Robinson was too unwell to respond to its questions, according to her solicitor.

Nice work if you can get it.

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HERE'S TO YOU MRS ROBINSON, JESUS LOVES YOU MORE THAT YOU WILL KNOW. HO HO HO

Iris Robinson MP, MLA, and wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister, has admitted that she tried to kill herself after confessing that she had had an affair. Mr Robinson said he was determined to save his marriage and insisted that he would stay on as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Nine days ago Mrs Robinson declared that she was quitting politics because of a battle with depression. Speculation has been rife since then about further revelations. Mr Robinson has not been at his office since Christmas, sparking anger when he failed to comment on the death of Cardinal Daly and failed to attend his funeral.

During a period of mental illness Mrs Robinson said that she lost control of her life and did the worst thing that she had ever done. She said that the affair had no emotional or lasting meaning. She said: “Psychiatrists may suggest that my mental illness was a significant factor explaining my irrational behaviour. I do not in any way question or doubt their judgment. But in order to master my life I do not want to dilute the blame or resist taking full responsibility for my actions. I am completely ashamed and deeply embarrassed.”

She disclosed how at midnight on March 1 last year she tried to take her own life when she confessed to the affair because of the guilt that she felt. Hours later her husband was at the dispatch box answering questions at the Northern Ireland Assembly.

In 2008 Mrs Robinson courted controversy when she claimed in the House of Commons, that homosexuality was an abomination and it made her feel sick and nauseous. In a subsequent interview she defended her views saying that "just as a murderer can be redeemed by the blood of Christ, so can a homosexual.... If anyone takes issue, they're taking issue with the word of God.” She added: “There can be no viler act, (apart from homosexuality and sodomy) than sexually abusing innocent children.”* So, she said that homosexuality was worse than paedophilia? That’s some statement to make.

In June 2009 Mrs Robinson and her husband were criticised when it became known that they had between them salaries and expenses of £571,939.41 with a further £150,000 going in salaries to members of their families.

Now I respect people’s religious views and I even respect the right of an MP to express these personal views in a public way, although it must have been a pretty embarrassing moment for her husband. However, as Mrs Robinson’s life is so clearly directed by the teachings of the Bible, could I remind her that adultery is a sin. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is, if I remember aright, the seventh commandment. And aren’t there numerous referenced in the Bible to riches and their incompatibility with godliness? For example, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Matthew 19:24. Further could I just remind her that attempted suicide is against the "natural order" and thus interferes with God's master plan for the world? Those who succeed in killing themselves can not be buried in consecrated ground.

I wonder if Mrs Robinson has a clear idea of what the word hypocrite means?

* Information from Wikipedia

CACK-HANDED COUP BY HAS BEENS

I suppose that the story of the day, apart from the weather of course, is the cack handed coup disorganised by the lovely Patricia Hewitt and the even lovelier Geoff Hoon. (The Daily Mail referred to them as Labour's big guns!*!*!)

They have written to all Labour MPs proposing that the issue of Brown’s leadership be sorted for once and all. Mr Hoon and Mrs Hewitt said the party was "deeply divided" over the leadership. "The continued speculation and uncertainty is allowing our opponents to portray us as dispirited and disunited......... We hope that you will support this proposal [for a secret ballot]."

Brown, who was told of the challenge minutes before he arrived in the Commons, had to wait two and a half hours before any members of his Cabinet came out publicly in his support. It was 3 pm before Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, condemned the move as "a huge distraction that nobody wants". Fifteen minutes later Mandelson, released a statement urging colleagues not to overreact but to carry on with the business of government. Alistair Darling, Alan Johnson and Jack Straw, tonight backed Brown. David Miliband and Harriet Harman have yet to make any comment.

Both Hoon and Hewitt are arch Blairites. Hewitt left Cabinet on Brown’s appointment as Prime Minister citing personal reasons; however Hoon was Chief Whip for a time under Brown.

Philip Webster, political editor of The Times writes that this coup may join the lengthening list of failed attempts to remove Gordon Brown. If the first reactions of Labour MPs are taken as a guide, it appears that Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt may be the wrong people delivering their message at precisely the wrong time. Labour's polling position has improved in recent weeks and there was genuine anger among MPs this lunchtime that the leadership question had been reopened in such a devastating way. It was timed to coincide with the first Prime Minister's Question Time of the new year. Brown knew all about it before he entered the chamber but that did not stop him producing one of his best recent Commons performances against David Cameron.

There was no immediate sign that the coup was gaining traction. That does not mean it will inevitably falter. If the two senior MPs have made their move knowing that a Cabinet minister, or ministers, are ready to join the revolt, then Brown is indeed in severe trouble, possibly fatally so.

Let us hope that the coup fails dismally. Labour’s only chance of success lies with the removal of Gordon Brown.

(I'm having difficulty imagining what they are discussing in the picture above. Fishing stories? looks like whatever it is old Pat's is bigger than Geoff's.)

WILL MARRIAGE TAX BREAK BE THE ANSWER TO BROKEN BRITAIN OR A SOCIAL ENGINEERING SUBSIDY

The Tories today appeared to wobble on their commitment to subsidise marriage. Mr Cameron was forced to guarantee tax breaks for married people if he wins the election, having previously downgraded his pledge to an aspiration because of the parlous state of the economy. It is unclear what he will do, the cost, or how he will fund it. The original plans were estimated to cost £5 billion a year.

First of all, let me say I am a believer in the family. In my opinion there is no more stable or better way for children to be raised than in a family unit: Mum, Dad, and 2 children, a dog and goldfish, living in a nice house with a garden, with enough space that when they start to grow up there will be room to entertain their friends, situated in a pleasant area with good schools and so on. Ideally of course, neither of the parents should drink to excess, nor should they smoke, do drugs, have affairs, or rows, or leave the kids unattended, etc. Whilst many of these things may not be available to the average family in Scotland, of them all, the family is the most important. I’d love it if every kid could have that start in life.

I believe too that the state has a role in our society. It should provide absolutely necessary services to our communities: health, water, power, education, housing for those who need it, etc. I also think that we should pay for some of these services through the tax system. I’m not, however, keen on the state interfering in the day to day life of individuals. I imagined the Tories would have been equally sceptical of this.

I understand that the family represents tradition: the “back to basics” that Mr Major was so fond of. But I worry about this method of encouraging us into it. Today marriage, tomorrow church services, to make us better citizens?

The truth is that, unless a couple has children, what on earth has it to do with the state how they chose to live as long as it does not break the law? Unless Cameron has been imposed upon by Daily Mail readers I can’t see why he proposes to use our taxes to do this.

I can of course understand that the ideal life for kids described above may have to be subsidised by taxpayers, but not, for example, two people working in high power jobs, who have no time, and no inclination to have children or to interrupt their careers. Why would we subsidise that?

Of course, some people may well decide to pop down to the registrars and get themselves a certificate worth a subsidy of £500 - £1,000 a year. Who cares if they stay together for more than a year; who cares if they even live together at all? How will we know?

MoD REJECTS CALL FOR INQUIRY INTO SUBSTANDARD DANGEROUS EQUIPMENT

Sometimes I wonder if the Ministry of Defence is on our side and working for us, or indeed what planet they come from.

According to a report in The Times the MOD has rejected calls to reopen the inquiry into the deaths of 25 British intelligence officials killed when an RAF Chinook crashed into the Mull of Kintyre in 1994. New documents uncovered by Radio 4’s Today programme revealed that the MoD’s own aircraft testing specialists had warned that the computer software in the doomed Chinook Mark 2 was “positively dangerous”. (So, why were Chinooks not immediately grounded?)

After a board of inquiry found no evidence of mechanical failure, two senior RAF commanders decided that there was no explanation other than gross negligence by the two pilots. Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook were officially blamed for the crash for flying too low, and despite numerous calls for the judgment to be lifted, the charge against the two dead pilots has remained. (Could this be a case of it being easy to blame people no longer able to answer for themselves?)

A spokesman for the MoD said that the documents referred to by the Today programme had been seen by the members of the RAF board of inquiry and that there was no reason to reopen the case based on the documents referred to by the BBC.

Malcolm Rifkind, who was the Defence Secretary at the time of the crash, said he had not been made aware of any warnings. The latest revelations meant that finding that the pilots were guilty of gross negligence was “unsustainable”, Rifkind told Today. He added: “The original problem for the RAF was that it was a matter of huge embarrassment that a Chinook should have crashed with the loss of 29 lives, including senior intelligence personnel." (Personally, I don’t see that the rank of the personnel would have made any difference Malcolm. A life is a life no matter how junior the person is.)

David Davis, the former Shadow Home Secretary who chaired a Commons inquiry into the disaster, said: “Under the circumstances of this crash, the finding of gross negligence amounts to a conviction for manslaughter on the basis of very little evidence at all, and in defiance of their own documentary evidence. I would ask the Ministry of Defence to quash this finding which smears the reputation and honour of two brave, young, and very capable pilots who served in the RAF Special Forces Squadron.”

Given that two senior Tories have criticised the finding of “gross negligence” and ask for it to be overturned, will David Cameron or Liam Fox undertake to do just that if and when they take over?

Furthermore, will the Tories undertake to have inquiries which tell the truth about equipment rather than cover up for cheap substandard and shoddy kit that put the lives of our servicemen, and others at risk?

LABOUR’S CENTRALISED CONTROL AND TARGET SETTING REMINISCENT OF THE USSR

Jenni Russell has an excellent article in today’s Times in which she points out the sadness and irony of the prime minister’s attempt to sell Labour as the party of optimism in his New Year message, particularly in light of Labour’s fundamental lack of optimism about human beings and what they are capable of. She points out the party’s controlling, centralising, mistrustful approach which has let down large numbers of former supporters. Particularly, I imagine those in England who are natural Tory supporters but who moved to Labour when Blair came along.

She talks of people from various walks of life disillusioned by the way that the Brown administration micromanages: a consultant who has resigned from the health service because his policy of seeing every patient in need within 24 hours broke all his targets for clinic numbers and readmission rates, and his hospital managers ordered him not to continue; an experienced teacher who gave up her job because she saw bewildered children fall behind, yet the straitjacket of the national curriculum left her no time to help them; a woman in Devon who saw the old-age home where her mother lives closee because its Grade-II listing means it can’t meet new regulations on space and access.

She points out that the disenchantment goes beyond Brown’s feeble leadership and people’s anxieties about the economy. It comes from the experience of living with Labour’s ideas about how society should be organised, and finding them mean and thin.

Mrs Thatcher tried to run the country like she ran her household, not realising that a household and a country are not the same. Russell maintains that Labour’s fundamental mistake has been to manage the country, its people and its institutions as if it were running nothing more than a collection of factories and businesses. But it has trusted no one to do the job correctly and so, to manage everything, has instituted a series of targets and checks so that nothing individualistic can ever be done. No one can fit the job to the needs of the consumer. It reminds me of reading of the USSR in days gone by. They have been obsessed with delivering efficiency and accountability measured in numbers. But there’s more to delivery of services than that.

I’ve said before here that when the target becomes the job, the customer goes by the wayside. You can see it in education where pupils who cannot deliver good results for the school are pushed aside while those who can are factory farmed to bring in a table topping place for the Head. In hospitals patients’ needs are secondary to throughput. And not only do pupils/patient/customers suffer. Those members of staff who pride themselves in giving value resign (if they can afford to) or work through miserably until they make themselves ill from stress.

Whatever the next government brings, may someone preserve us from another bunch of stupid target setters.

I borrowed the excellent cartoon for the site at :

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/t/the_labour_party.asp

which is well worth a visit.

BILL OF RIGHTS (1689) MAY PROTECT MPs FROM PROSECUTION

According to The Times three Labour MPs being investigated for expenses fraud are arguing that they should not be prosecuted because their suspect claims are covered by parliamentary privilege. The MPs have hired legal experts to assert that the 1689 Bill of Rights protects them from prosecution. They contest that the House of Commons rulebook on expenses is “privileged” and cannot be subject to scrutiny by the courts.

So, not only have they “allegedly” stolen money from us, they also think that under some 17th Century law, they are excused from facing the courts because they are above the law. The legal manoeuvre raises the prospect of the case against the MPs being thrown out before it reaches trial or being bogged down for months in legal argument.

Elliot Morley and David Chaytor, are being investigated by police over allegations they received taxpayers’ money for nonexistent mortgages on second homes. Jim Devine is alleged to have submitted a claim for £2,157 for rewiring his London flat using a receipt bearing a bogus VAT number.

Apparently they hope that the tactic will keep the case out of the courts for long enough that it will not be headline news in the run up to the election.

You couldn’t make this up could you? Just how deluded are these people? The issue isn’t the small sums that they and their colleagues fiddled. Even added all together, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. What matters to us is that people placed by us in a unique position of responsibility and trust have taken money that was ours because they could. And now they are going to say.... “Nah nah nah nah nah... you can’t touch us...we’re special, we’re above the law...”

The MPs’ lawyers have advised them that because of the legal questions hanging over the inquiry, they are within their rights not to co-operate with the police.

WHAT? Now the law states that MPs don’t have to co-operate with the police?

Liberal Democrat MP anti sleaze campaigner, Norman Baker, said: “Parliamentary privilege exists to safeguard democracy not to subvert it. It certainly does not exist to allow MPs to rip off the taxpayer with impunity. Whether or not these MPs have committed a crime, they should not be allowed to subvert the court process with arcane technicalities that threaten further to undermine the standing of parliament.”

Mr Baker is 100% right. This nonsense needs stamping on NOW. MPs in the Duck House Parliament have made the UK a laughing stock all over the world. To try to wriggle out of their responsibilities on the basis of an ancient piece of legislation that puts them above the law is beyond belief. Labour needs to understand that this will do far more harm than good to them in the run up to the election.

A DISMAL CHOICE.... BUT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SCOTS TO SHOW THEM HOW LITTLE WE TRUST THEM

The latest Yougov poll, the last of 2009, shows the Tories with a 10% lead over Labour, and the Conhome Poll of Polls suggest a possible Conservative majority of 48 in the new parliament according to Conservative Home.

But this is not a good result. With the last years of disastrous government; the catastrophic wars; the complete collapse of the UK economy (despite all the rubbish that Brown has spouted about leading the world out of recession and saving all the banks, not to mention climate change), why on Earth aren’t the Tories 20 or 30 points in the lead? Why is there even the slightest chance that either there will be a hung parliament (heard all the lamp-post jokes thanks) or worse still a Labour majority after May?

Is it because despite the fact that almost no one has a single good word for Brown and his hapless bunch of second raters, no one has that much confidence in Dave either?

If you look at what Labour has done, how much different would it have been if the Tories had been in government? Would they have reigned in the greedy speculating banks? Would they have stopped the bonus by results? Would they have seen the danger of the Housing Bubble? Would they have warned us that it would burst sooner one day?

Did they not vote wholeheartedly for both the wars, despite being allowed access to secret information on a Privy Council ‘need to know’ basis? Would they have succeeded where Brown failed miserably at Copenhagen? What would they have done differently about terrorism? Were they not equally culpable in the expenses scandals? Would the really have tackled tax evasion and non-doms?What, in fact, is different about them?

Oh yes, when they get in they will slash public spending. That’s not a lot different from what Labour will do in reality, but the Tories have been honest about their intent. The truth is of course that, just like Thatcher, Cameron will not be able to slash public spending by nearly enough to make a difference, because if he does he will bring public services to a standstill, everyone will be out on strike and the UK will continue its downward spiral. Everyone knows that a Tory government will bring hard times for all (except the super rich) because they told us they would. Labour will bring pretty much the same thing, it was just that Brown was smart enough to lie and tell us he wouldn’t.

It is possible that even if the Tories do get in with a small majority, they will wreak such havoc that after 5 years Labour will be back. Remember Thatcher only got back after her first assault on us because “she” won a war. The only wars that we shall have in the future we shall almost certainly lose because they will be against terrorists, and they never surrender.

There is a solution for Scots though.... Let's show them without any doubt that we have no trust in either of their parties. Let's make sure we have at least 20 members in Westminster come June this year and get another foot on the ladder of independence.

DRINK: WHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP SCENES LIKE THIS

It was a dream that just wasn’t going to come true. After decades of repressive drinking laws, which were often blamed for the British malady of drunkenness, both Conservative and Labour governments have relaxed drinking laws so that they match those of our continental neighbours.

Laws have always been different in Scotland and England, but the principles behind them have been the same. Both Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair felt that if the restrictive hours allowed for selling alcohol (introduced during the First World War) could be relaxed a little, then British people would not feel obliged to throw drink down their necks with such abandon, and a café style society would develop along the lines of that in France or Belgium.

It was a reasonable suggestion I suppose in fairness to both leaders. Why would British people be less capable of controlling their drinking urges than the French or Spanish?

However, for some reason it didn’t work. Official figures reported in today’s newspapers suggest that the cost to the NHS of dealing with drunkenness has doubled over the last 6 years. However, It is not clear whether that is UK wide or England only.

So.... what to do? The government in Edinburgh has put forward suggestions on minimum pricing for alcohol in an effort to stop the sale of alcohol that is sometimes cheaper than the water on their shelves. Loss leader alcohol deals are a way of pulling customers in. However opposition parties disagree that this would be effective.

Among other suggestions is one which on the face of it sounds good, but on analysis is filled with holes. It is that of charging people who are found drunk and incapable with the cost of their treatment. Good idea...sounds reasonable, you might think. They are draining the NHS, let them pay up. But of course you are left with the question of where you draw the line, and why a person who gets drunk and falls over at a certain cost to the public purse is any more culpable than someone who goes mountain climbing and needs to be rescued by helicopter. Both made the choice to do it and both cost us money. It’s also true to say that the tax take from alcohol (£13 billion in 2005/6)* is far larger than the amount spent on treating drunkenness currently £2.7 billion. It could reasonable be argued that drinkers have already paid handsomely to be rescued.

The government probably has no right to be nannying people to look after their health, although there is probably an obligation on them to ensure that people are aware of the dangers of over imbibing. The misery of cirrhosis of the liver should not be underestimated. We also need to take into consideration the right of those of us who prefer not to have to pick our way through last night’s vomit on our way to wherever we are going.

Perhaps we need to try to ensure that people who get into the state where they are lying half naked in the snow, understand just how disgusting they look. We turned around the culture of drink driving in this country from where almost everyone did it, to where almost no one does, by a series of hard hitting advertising campaigns. Can we do the same thing with this?


* The last fingures I could find.

Pictures from the Daily Mail.

P D JAMES GIVES BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL A GRILLING ON HIS OWN NEWS SHOW

Yesterday P D James, the 89-year-old crime writer, attempted to bring some of the order she applies to her plots to BBC finances by giving its Director General a grilling on his own flagship news programme “Today”. Lady James, who is actually a Conservative peer and a one time member of the BBC Board of Governors, was a guest editor on the Radio 4 morning news magazine. She interviewed Mark Thompson in a way that perhaps no one employed by him would have dared.

She started by criticising the huge salaries that some BBC executives get. 375 employees earn over £100,000 per annum, a tenth of these earning more than the Prime Minister.

Mr Thompson insisted that high salaries were essential to prevent defections to the private sector. He said that the controller of BBC One had a £1 billion annual budget, underlining the importance of getting “the very best person doing that job”. However Lady James was having none of that. Where, she asked, in the private sector would these people get better money? When Mr Thompson said that they might go to ITV she laughed at the suggestion, pointing out that ITV was cutting both positions and salaries.

Well done P D James. How many times have highly paid people defended their immense salaries by saying that they could earn more if they worked in the private sector? Please! If someone cares about money and could earn more in the public sector then that is where they would be. Not one of these BBC managers is doing us a huge favour by working for a pittance with the public service broadcaster.

The other matter in which Lady James went for the jugular was the duplication of managers’ tasks: “You have a director of marketing, communications and audiences who gets over £300,000, then there is a director of communications. One wonders what actually is going on here.”

Mr Thompson said that bureaucracy was a “real issue”, adding: “One of the things we’re looking at is whether we can make an auditable commitment to how much of the licence fee we can spend on content.”

Describing the corporation as a “large unwieldy ship” that was “bringing more and more cargo”, Lady James said that the BBC had changed for the worse since its inception in the 1920s. She told Mr Thompson that some BBC programming was indistinguishable from commercial equivalents.

Again I couldn’t agree more. The people in higher middle management in the BBC seem to have the most amazing jobs with fantastic conditions, salaries and pensions of unbelievable size, all of which they get from us, the public. Hopefully Mark Thompson will be as good as his word with regard to this.

P D James has risen immeasurably in my book. I rarely heard so much good solid common sense spoken in such a short time.

(Just an interesting little afterthought: P D James is one of the country’s best known, and much loved mystery writers, and sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. Ruth Rendell is of equal rank in the murder mystery stakes, also much loved, and sits as a Labour peer.)

RAILWAY LINK TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD FOR SECRET KINGDOM

Since ever I can remember I have been told that Scotland is too small to run its own affairs. Perhaps as a result of this I have always been interested in small countries that do manage to make their own way in the world. Add to that that I’m a great fan of railways.... (I love travelling by train...I’m not a train spotter!!!), and you'll see why I couldn’t resist this story which I found in The Times.



Bhutan is to have its first railway after the King agreed a plan with India to build an 11-mile link between the two countries. It will mark the country’s boldest step yet into the modern world. The Buddhist kingdom had no roads or telephones until 1960 and no television until 1999. The new track will offer one of the most breathtaking rail journeys in the world across the foot of the Himalayas.

An agreement was signed last weekend when Bhutan’s 29-year-old monarch Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, visited India on his first official trip abroad since he formally assumed the crown last year.

King Jigme, who was educated at Eton and Oxford, is keen to expand trade links with India, which accounts for 98% of Bhutan’s imports and about 90% of its exports — mostly hydropower.

Bhutan held its first parliamentary election last year, transforming itself from an absolute monarchy into the world’s youngest democracy. The new Government is under pressure to develop the fledgling economy. India, on the other hand, is trying to stop China challenging its status as the dominant economic and military power in the region. Bhutan has close cultural ties to Tibet, but its relations with India are underpinned by a 60-year-old friendship treaty that grants Delhi a say in Bhutanese foreign and defence policy in exchange for financial aid.

The new railway will use the same broad gauge as most others on the Indian sub-continent, as opposed to the narrower standard gauge used in China. India also offered to build new railway links to Nepal this year after China was reported to have proposed extending its new trans-Tibet railway to the Nepalese border and building an entire domestic rail network for its impoverished neighbour.

Bhutan has a population of 635,000, 60 per cent of whom survive on subsistence farming; 15,000 to 20,000 of them are monks. Archery is the national sport. Smoking is illegal, as is felling a tree or killing a fish. Bhutan caps its number of tourists at 10,000 a year — fewer than Antarctica. Every house is built in traditional style and most people wear national costume: for men, a wraparound robe worn with knee-length socks; for women, an ankle-length dress with jacket.


Despite, or maybe because of its isolated situation in the world, it is the eighth-happiest country in the world, according to a 2006 survey conducted by the University of Leicester.

There may be a lesson for Scotland there......

CHARLES CLARKE DOES A BIT OF STRAIGHT TALKING

Over at http://www.charlesclarke.org.uk/ (Finding the Killer Instinct) the ex-Home Secretary lays out his views on the dilemma that Labour finds itself in today with regard to both policies and personlaities. I’ve never been a fan of Clarke’s but I found myself nodding at a large number of the comments he made.

Of course, as an English MP and an Englishman, he made no comment about the situation in Scotland, or for that matter in Wales, which I thought was a trifle remiss if he was indeed committed to an analysis of the overall situation. But Englishmen do see the situation in terms of England, and that is why we seek to have our own country, so there was no great surprise there.

Additionally at no time did he address himself to the inbuilt majority that Labour has. We know that around 10% lead to the Tories will give them a small majority, whereas a 6 or 7% lead to the Tories will bring in a hung parliament. A 3-4% Tory lead would probably still mean a Labour government.

These failings apart it is a good article and worth the read. He certainly says it like it like he sees it!!

BLAIR USES COMPANY LAW LOOP HOLE TO KEEP HIS BUSINESS SECRET

A little-known loophole in UK company law is being used by Tony Blair to keep his finances secret, according to the Guardian. Blair would normally have to publish company accounts detailing the millions flowing into his various commercial ventures since he stepped down from office in 2007. But he has set up a complicated artificial structure which avoids the normal rule. In effect, he is getting the benefits of running a British company without the drawbacks of unwelcome publicity.

He is using something called Windrush Ventures No3 LP, a so called limited partnership. Thanks to a gap in the Whitehall regulations, this entity is not required to publish any accounts. Such partnerships must normally disclose figures, or face criminal penalties. Blair sidestepped the rules by inserting a second partnership as one of the notional partners, in a way the regulations do not cover. This second partnership, Windrush Ventures No 2 LLP, is a so-called limited liability partnership, a type of entity only invented in 2000, which, conveniently, the rules have not been updated to mention.

There is nothing illegal in what Blair has done, but he has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid having to publish accounts, and in doing so to keep his business arrangements private. What, we might ask, is he trying to hide, and can we trust him to be paying the correct amount of tax?

Given that while he is making all this money which he is so eager to hide from us, he is costing the taxpayer around £6 million a year in security in his role as one of the world's most hated men, I can’t help thinking that it is time that Mr Mandleson, as Business Secretary, or Mr Darling, as Finance Secretary, closed this loophole. I’m pretty certain it will be high on the list of the incoming cabinet!

BRITON EXECUTED IN CHINA DESPITE PERSONAL INTERVENTION OF GORDON BROWN

According to The Times, China’s Ambassador in London, Fu Ying, was summoned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office today to hear Britain’s “strong condemnation” of her country’s execution of Akmal Shaikh.

Mr Shaikh, a convicted British drug smuggler who is believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder, was killed by lethal injection early today, despite the personal intervention of Gordon Brown in a telephone call to Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier.

I’m not a supporter of the Death Penalty anywhere at any time. Not that I don’t think that some people don’t deserve to die for what they have done but because when the courts get it wrong, and they do all over the world, it's too late. So whether in China or Texas it doesn’t get my vote.

On the other hand, if you’re going to do a crime abroad, it might be sensible to check up what the penalty is likely to be. Just because you’d only get 5 years in the pokey here, does not mean that that is what you will get abroad. Where the death penalty exists, it exists. Because you are British it doesn’t mean you should expect to avoid it despite Prime Ministerial pleas.

A junior minister Ivan Lewis saw the Ambassador and told her that the execution of Mr Shaikh was totally unacceptable and that China had failed in its basic human rights responsibilities in this case, in particular that China’s court had not considered the representations made about Mr Shaikh’s bipolar condition which is treated by medication. Mr Lewis who said it (the execution) made him “sick to the stomach” neglected at this point to mention the extradition of Gary McKinnon, another person with mental health issues, to the USA, which the same FCO could halt but won’t.

In reply the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “No one has the right to comment on China’s judicial sovereignty. It is the common wish of people around the world to strike against the crime of drug trafficking. We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British Government’s unreasonable criticism of the case. We urge the British to correct their mistake in order to avoid harming China-UK relations.”

I suggest that only the first part of that statement was unreasonable and totally incorrect. We must have every right to comment on the way that China dealt with this situation.

Ayo Gorkhali, Ayo Joanna Lumley

The government of Gordon Brown has been inept, pathetic, incompetent, and laughable in turn since about 2-3 weeks after he was elevated to Prime Minister in his ‘Buggin’s Turn’ promotion in 2007.

Although there may have been more far reaching muddles and incompetence in the last two and a half years, no other situation has quite tugged at the nation’s heartstrings like the story of the Gurkhas.

We all know the story. Most people felt that if you were good enough to risk your life fighting for Britain, not as a mercenary, but in a constituted part of the British Army, then the least the British Government could do would be to offer you a home here in retirement. Labour felt differently; it would cost a great deal of money. And, being a government with a solid majority, that was that, despite opposition from both Nick Clegg and David Cameron.

But the Government reckoned without Joanna Lumley.

The daughter of an officer in the 6th Gurkha Rifles whose life was saved during the war by one of his men, Tul Bahadur Pun, Lumley was brought up in Malaya. Her acting career in Britain started in the 60s as a “dolly bird” secret agent type in “The New Avengers” and she went on to play similar roles including in “Sapphire and Steel” with "Man from Uncle" star David McCallum. In the 90s she became the beloved drunken druggie patsy in Absolutely Fabulous (the star of the show for me). Clearly, however, there is a deal more to Ms Lumley than that.

When you followed it on tv and in the papers, it was obvious from the start that Woolas and Brown didn't stand a chance. Brown told the Commons that the Government was looking into the case of the five Gurkhas who wanted to come to Britain “as a matter of urgency”, only for the five men to receive letters of rejection the next day. (Way to go Brown... How much more incompetent can you get?)

Lumley and her fellow campaigners were set to denounce the Government at an impromptu press conference when she chanced upon Mr Woolas. Negotiations were held and the two of them addressed the cameras. “I think we are all agreed that we are going to be able to help in the formulation of new guidelines,” Lumley announced, daring Mr Woolas to contradict her. “So that will be wonderful.” The minister blathered about “proper processes”, his face a mixture of fear and wonderment at this creature who seemed to have taken every ounce of any power he ever had. Victory was inevitable.

Since then Joanna Lumley has visited Nepal where she was feted as a national hero and had a mountain named after her. Today she was named The Times’s Briton of the Year.

Congratulations Joanna. Job done!

THE GREAT GORDON BROWN GREAT BRITISHNESS ROADSHOW FLOP

Way back in 2007 when the Labour party, without a vote, wished Gordon Brown upon us because it was his turn, his first address to parliament laid out his Britishness. It was a word he was to use over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Every speech had British and Britishness in it more times than it had words like “and” and “the”. He even told an American interviewer that he came from “North Britain” in an obvious attempt to be acceptable to the English, and without thinking just how incredibly insulting it was to Scots.

He set up a programme, complete with road show, to promote Britishness, and discuss with the public, whether there should be a British Bill of Rights and Written Constitution. Of course, like everything else Gordon touches, it fell apart before you got it out of the box.

The first road show took place in Leicester, England, in December 2007 and was hosted by Jack Straw. It cost £37,000, and was attended by 10 members of the public! After that embarrassment, the Ministry of Justice restricted attendance at Governance of Britain events to people selected, and even paid, by the ministry. (Details about payments in Subrosa's article here.) According to the Conservatives, however, even that appears to have misfired, because in subsequent events, even those invited to and paid to attend failed to do so in bigger and bigger numbers, until at an event in Newcastle on 21st November, no one turned up.

English Justice Minister Michael Wills criticised the Conservatives for their attitude saying: “It’s disappointing that they (the Conservatives) have such little regard for what it means to be British and the importance of this identity in a challenging world.”

On the basis that only 10 members of the public out of a population of 60 million turned up to these events without being paid to do so, it seems the Tories got it right on this one. I think that says a great deal about being British.

We just don’t care.

Incidentally, the overall cost for the road show is expected to be less that £1 million. Very economical until you work out that that is £100,000 per member of the public that was interested enough to turn out.....

I wonder what conclusions the study will reach and when they will be published.

TAXPAYER SUBSIDY TO BLAIR & WIFE LIMITED

It’s another one of these “I just don’t believe it” moments.

It has been revealed in the Daily Telegraph that it costs the taxpayer around £6 million a year to protect Tony Blair from the vast array of enemies he has managed to collect over the years. Since leaving Downing Street Blair has taken a number of posts, for which he has to travel abroad regularly. He also is involved in 'charity' (or profile-raising) work in Africa, and of course the hugely lucrative 'personal appearance' work which he undertakes regularly. He is said to have earned in the region of £18 million in the last 2 years from this work.

Each time he goes abroad Scotland Yard has to send an advance team to carry out risk assessment, and he has to be accompanied by teams of police officers for round the clock protection. Apparently there is a team of some 20 officers assigned to Blair at a cost of £115,000 a week. Additionally members of his family receive protection. (The current Prime Minister has only 10 protection officers.)

Most of the foreign travel is undertaken for personal commercial gain. Apparently, like the bottom rungs of royalty, he rents himself out to open things and say a few words. It seems that Scotland Yard is not allowed to advise Mr Blair on what he should and should not do on the basis of cost; they are obliged to suck it up and pay out regardless of the bill to the British taxpayer. The only criteria for advice on whether to travel or not must be security based.

Not unreasonably the Metropolitan Police Authority have issues with how much this drains their budgets, particularly as Blair is out there making a vast amount of money, all for himself. The feeling is that he should be making a contribution to his security costs. It is feared that, after he has given evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry next year, the costs will rise again. When people discover more about how this man sent people to their deaths with little protection on the basis that God had told Mr Bush that it was the right thing to do, the hatred for Blair which makes him such a target, may well increase.

My view is that, when the ex-Prime Minster travels for the UK, or when he is operating on state business within the UK, he should be afforded the standard protection at our expense. However, if he decides to feather his own nest by travelling all over the world, he should be paying for that protection at commercial rates and from commercial protection organisations. We are not here to subsidise his family business.

In these hard times for our broke country, wished upon us largely by the likes of Blair, we all have to learn to live with less. Why is it that the people at the top seem to avoid any of the pain? The bankers, the other great cause of our misery, have us over a barrel. Pay us obscenely, or we leave and you’ll be even more broke. What’s Blair’s bargaining chip?

Stop forcing children to grow up too quickly, says Archbishop of Canterbury

It’s a rarity for me to agree with an Archbishop. In fact I’m not sure it has ever happened before. But I was amazed to find as I read this article in The Times that my head was nodding involuntarily at what Rowan Williams was saying.

The main thrust of his piece seemed to be that we are making children grow up far too fast. In his Christmas sermon at Canterbury Cathedral he said: “The message being sent out to children today was: ‘We shall test you relentlessly in schools, we shall bombard you with advertising, often highly sexualised advertising, we shall worry you about your prospects and skills from the word go. We shall do all we can to make childhood a brief and rather regrettable stage on the way to the real thing, which is , turning you into a useful cog in the social machine that won’t need too much maintenance.’ "

And it’s true. The whole childhood experience seems to have disappeared over recent years. Everyone from about 8 or 9 is classed as a mini-adult. Education is less about fitting you for life, and more about fitting you for a job; kids are tested relentlessly (in England in particular) in order to provide the Department of Schools or whatever they call it, with figures, figures, figures to show that targets are being achieved... for the advantage of Ed Balls and his team, and the disadvantage of the children, who are, in any case, now called students.

He went on: “Parents should learn to enjoy their children’s dependence on them, instead of forcing them prematurely into independence.”

Of course that takes a lot more effort on the parents' part, and maybe that is what is wrong. More and more kids are mini adults, dressed in fashion clothes with fashion accessories, hairstyles, and accompanying electronic gadgetry: in fact mini-consumers forced to grapple with problems and aspects of life for which they are not prepared.

Every stage of life only comes once, and when it's gone, it's gone. Childhood should be one of the best times. Yes, above all it's a time to learn, but a time to enjoy, to play, to get muddy, to skin your knee, to fall off your bike, to run to your mum and cry, ......and to relish lack of responsibility; to be free from the big worries and decisions of life.

I suspect that children who have never had a childhood, at least not past 8 or 9 years, who have never really had that innocence that leaves you blissfully unaware and unworried about certain things, will have lost something very special from their lives. There’s time enough to worry about teenage things when you are a teenager, and when maybe you can cope with them. To force them on our children too early is a cruelty.

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS . . .

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE


HOPE THAT YOUR DAY WILL BE PEACEFUL AND FULL OF FUN

TRIS AND MUNGUIN

ANOTHER WHITEHALL FARCE

Times are hard. Many people who were working this time last year in shops, factories, warehouses, even banks and insurance offices, and who are now on the dole know this. Many people being asked to reduce their hours or take unpaid leave just to keep their company afloat know this, and goodness knows poor soldiers out in Afghanistan on around £20,000 a year for risking life and limb on our behalf know this.

Why then is it that the Daily Telegraph is reporting that £130 million in bonuses has been paid out to Civil Servants in the last year? Some senior civil servants are getting as much as £50,000 in bonus payouts - twice as much as the threshold of the bankers’ bonus tax that Alistair Darling announced recently that he was levying on the City.

The new bonus figures will come as an embarrassment to Gordon Brown who recently talked about a “culture of excess” in some parts of the public sector and promised to bring about a new era of pay restraint in public bodies. He vowed to cut £100 million a year from the salaries of senior civil servants. Another Gordon Brown promise gone west?

The Cabinet Office confirmed that the bonuses relate, in the main, to the senior levels of the civil service, the “upper-middle management and above”. Well, I’d never have guessed, the people who make the decisions about bonuses are the ones that get them. The highest-spending department was the Ministry of Defence, while the Department for Work and Pensions paid out more than £23 million with a further £6 million allocated for in-year rewards. The Department for Transport set aside £12 million for bonus payments and the Foreign Office spent £7.6 million rewarding staff. One senior civil servant at the Department of Health received a payment of £49,004.

The bonuses are officially termed "non-consolidated performance payments". Ministers have sought to justify them by saying they were to reward "exceptional" performance and link pay to delivery across the year.

You wouldn’t mind so terribly much if any of these departments was working well, or even slightly efficiently. The Ministry of Defence has been criticized over and over again for deficiencies in the way it handles procurement and logistics among other things, for the troops in Afghanistan; the Dept of Work and Pensions seems almost totally incapable of getting people back to work; the Dept of Transport falls apart at the mere mention of snow. Excellent performance my posterior!

How much longer can we tolerate this nonsense?

.

SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR BROWN AND CABINET

It has been announced that the Chilcot inquiry in to the invasion of Iraq will not now call Mr Brown or his ministers to give evidence until after the General Election.

The plan to summon Mr Brown to give evidence was revealed in a statement from the inquiry team working for Sir John Chilcot.

The statement listed witnesses who will be called to give evidence to the inquiry next year, who include Tony Blair, the former prime minister, and Alastair Campbell, his former spokesman.

Sir John’s committee will hold new evidence sessions in January and February, before pausing during the general election campaign that is expected to start in March.

The statement also explained that witnesses who are currently serving as ministers will not be called until after the election. It said the decision has been taken to ensure that the inquiry's work cannot be used for political purposes.

It seems to me that, before we make our choices about who should govern the country for the next up to 5 years, we should really be appraised of the part of these people in the war that killed and maimed so many of our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. There would be no reason not to call the members of the opposition parties who were also involved in decisions on a Privy Council basis, in order that no political advantage or disadvantage could be seen to fall to any party.

And there were we rather naively thinking that the Chilcot Inquiry was to be open, fair and independent of government.... silly old us.

PLEASE GOD, DON'T LET THERE BE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

Health care in America has been a thorn in the side of the parties, the people, and the country’s worldwide reputation for as long as I can remember, and probably a lot longer. The most advanced, most civilised, most modern, and probably most Christian country in the world has an employer based system of private medical insurance which leaves tens of millions without access to even the most basic medical care.

Thanks to the leadership of Lyndon Johnson (pictured) there is a government run programme whereby Americans over 65 years of age have medical coverage through the Medicare system, and the very poorest have some sort of coverage through Medicaid, but that still leaves some 40-50 million Americans with no healthcare insurance at all. And then those who do have medical insurance, paid for by their employers, can find that this insurance doesn’t actually cover the medical services that they need it to cover. We’ve all heard horror tales of someone being diagnosed with an expensive illness only to find that somewhere in the small print of their contract there is a get out clause, or that unfortunately they neglected to disclose (although they weren’t asked about) the fact that they once fell off their bike when they were 8, thus rendering their insurance invalid.

In order to get a bill through the Senate, over a minority filibuster, there is a need for the “for” vote to be 60 or more. The present situation is that the Democrats, who are sponsoring this bill, have 58 members and there are two Independent Liberals. All had to vote in the wee small hours of Monday morning in order to close off the Republican filibuster and move the bill to final debate.

What follows is almost beyond belief. I quote from an email sent to me by Danny, 1st Earl of the Ozarks:

So, during the past week, the Republicans had turned to prayer as a last resort. Only God himself could halt the awful prospect of health care for all (well, almost all) Americans. Oh GOD....save us from the Democrats by your mighty hand. Republican Senators hosted televised prayer vigils.

The vote would come in the early morning hours Monday.

It was the last chance......so Senator Tom Coburn (Republican of Oklahoma) took the floor Sunday afternoon and said:

"What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

They wanted God to ensure that someone couldn’t turn up and vote for health care for the poor? Can that be real? What did it mean? Did they want God to arrange for a Senator to die, maybe the elderly and ailing Senator Byrd (93) from West Virginia?

Well.... the time of the vote came, and 60 Senators, including poor old Senator Byrd, in his wheelchair, did in fact vote to close off the filibuster and move the bill forward.

So it appears that God wasn’t listening, or was listening and didn’t much care for the prayers of his faithful American Republican Senators. Maybe God was remembering that He was about caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, loving children, the old and people in general, black and white, rich and poor.....even Republican Senators.

I wonder if the Senators will be taking the fact that the Lord didn’t see fit to kill off one of their number in order to kill off this bill, as a little sign from Him.

I think He wants this bill to go through, don't you?