LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE ENGLISH STUDENTS: YOU'RE SUBSIDIZING OVERSEAS STUDENTS

Well, now we know the reason for the student fees increase in England

Mr Cameron admitted that the increase would mean that fees for foreign students wouldn’t rise so much. So, that should be a comfort to all the English students who are considering whether they care to leave university with debts of perhaps as much as £45,000 or £50,000.

Not all students just follow the 3 year degree course. Teachers, for example, have to go on after university to study for a further year for their PGD which allows them to teach, and doctors may be at university for 7 years before being qualified (£63,000 + living expenses. I’d expect they'll have to import doctors from abroad in the future.)

Doubtless this news cheered up the 50,000 or so students and lecturers who protested in London today with disastrous consequences when it all got out of control. Injuries were sustained by both protesters and police in what was described by the Commissioner of the Met (why can’t they have a chief constable like everyone else?) as embarrassing, and badly managed. Why does that not surprise me? Oh because everything they do is embarrassing and badly managed. Who on earth runs that organization? Oh yes SIR Paul Stephenson. That’s right, they get the Knighthood before they start the job and the seat in the Lords after they finish it, no matter what a cock up they make of it.

And in parliament Nick Clegg, standing in for David Cameron admitted that he and his party had broken their pledge on students’ fees. Never suspecting that they might be called upon to uphold it, they had argued in opposition for no increases. Harriet (nobody loves me) Harman accused him of hawking his way round campuses soliciting votes ahead of the election and then being led astray by the Tories. Hatty joked that we all knew what it was like in Freshers’ Week. “You meet a dodgy man and do things you regret.”

Er no Hatts old thing. You may, but we don’t.

Cleggy had to own up that because of the financial situation (which he, of course knew nothing about before the election?) and because of compromises in the coalition agreement (ie the Liberals folding their tents), they had had to put forward different policies (one diametrically opposed to the previous ones). Despite being quite sure that he was doing the right thing he declined an invitation to meet students’ representatives.

Back in China, having put the Chinese students’ minds at rest about English students subsidizing their degrees, Mr Cameron went on to explain that the way to economic success was by granting freedom and democracy. He seemed to miss the irony of his words: the prime minister of a country which will be lucky to see a growth rate of 0.3% this year, lecturing a country which is likely to see 10% growth.

I sure that Hu Jintao will be grateful for his advice, even if he is somewhat mystified by it... and for the subsidy to his students.

SIMON HEFFER SAYS WHAT HE REALLY THINKS ABOUT DAVE

Cynical Highlander pointed out this article and indeed linked to it in another post on here, but I think it is worth a post in itself to ensure that it reaches a wider audience. I wrote last week about his appointment of two of his private staff to the Civil Service. I didn’t realise that, in fact that was the tip of the iceberg: It seems he has appointed no fewer than 26 people to the public payroll, on short-term contracts, without advertising their posts. Each one a vanity post.. and this is particularly galling given that he criticized the last government for all their special advisors and promised to do away with that kind of government..

In this comment piece Simon Heffer, in his own highly amusing style, has torn David Cameron to pieces for being as shallow as I have always thought him to be.

I feared when he was elected over David Davis that the Tories had made a huge mistake. Yes he was shiny; yes he was younger than Davies and despite his modernising tone he was more of what the Tories used to be before Heath, Thatcher and major (I nearly said and Blair!) lowered the tone, as it were. (David Davis is a working class Tory who had come up the hard way from an estate, raised, I seem to remember, by a single mum.)

But with Dave, it seemed to me that there was nothing underneath the gloss; the shiny exterior groomed by Eton and oxford for a place at someone’s top table.

But what, I wondered, did Dave stand for? Modernisation of course, but, what did that mean? In opposition it seemed to mean “hug and hoodie” and “call me Dave” (just like he was an ‘ordinary’ person. He even took his tie off sometimes.

But Dave hadn’t been passionate about politics all his life; he was no William Hague, deciding he wanted to be prime minister when he was 6 ... or thereby. At Oxford he eschewed political organisations and chose instead to play tennis for Brasenose and to join the Octagon and Bullingdon clubs, organizations for the well heeled. He appears not even to have been a member of the Oxford Union.

His only real job outside politics was as Director of Corporate Affairs (whatever that is, it’s at director level and seems to have involved PR and spin) for a tv company.

I’m not sure if anyone has much of a clue what motivates David Cameron, beyond his ambition.

One thing seems self evident. He lacks any kind of conviction; he has no founding principles underpinning his politics, and this lack of foundation is made up for by an overload of....yes that thing he so criticised in the appalling Labour governments of Blair and Brown: Spin.

The piece is relatively long, at some 1500 words, but it well worth a read. It seems to encapsulate what David Cameron is about... and I had wondered, as I’m sure you did... added to which it is extremely funny.

ARE WE SERIOUS ABOUT TAX FRAUD AND AVOIDANCE?

The country is broke because of a collapse in our national income, which was caused by the collapse of the banking sector.

Although the income of the government collapsed and they had to lend the banks unimaginable amounts of money, the government carried on spending money elsewhere pretty much as it had planned. Of course unemployment has risen and that has meant a bigger bill in JSA and Housing Benefits and the bill for interest of government debt has gone up.

We are not taking in enough money in tax to pay for our outgoings including interest on our loans. There is a tax gap.

What is the tax gap? Well, it has three parts. The first part comprises tax avoidance, which has been estimated at around £25bn a year. Tax avoidance is the exploitation of loopholes in UK tax law and the careful use of tax havens which we have talked about before on Munguin’s Republic. There is absolutely nothing at all that is illegal about using tax havens. They are inefficiencies in the tax law of the country which have been allowed to continue by successive governments who wish to stay friendly with rich people, and in some cases which actually consist of rich people. Several Cabinet Ministers in the present government are reputed to have large amounts of money in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands (pic rt), including George Osborne (below with David Cameron), none other than the Finance Minister, the International Aid Minister and the English Transport Minister.

The second part is tax evasion. That is the one that is a criminal offence. This has been estimated to be in the region of £70bn a year. That's a lot of money.

HM Revenue & Customs claims it is much less, but they use what many would describe as dubious methods for estimating unpaid tax.

The third part is unpaid and late-paid tax which, for this year may be in the order of £26bn.

If the government is even half way serious about collecting any of this tax, they are going about it in a weird way. Labour has cut and cut and cut again the number of staff in HMRC. 26,000 jobs have gone since 2005 including 5000 last year. This government intends to carry on sacking. This is utter madness. It is estimated that each front line member of staff can bring in as much as 30 times what it costs to pay them, so why, of all the departments to lose staff in, would they choose this one? The result is that tax that is so badly needed to keep services going is being given away.

The coalition keep banging a drum about benefit fraud, which is estimated at somewhere over £1 bn a year. A frightening amount without any doubt. Much more too, is lost because of inefficiencies in the system and staff or systems which make too many mistakes in their calculations.

But still week in week out we hear about ways to reduce this, and the iniquities of benefit thieves. This of course goes down very well with the Daily Mail and the Sun, which big the figures up and fail to point out when the government put the above two together and describe it all as fraud. Nothing like bashing the layabouts!!

The Tory manifesto did not include anything about tax fraud, but as the Liberals’ did, the coalition is promising to “make every effort to tackle tax avoidance, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals and a review of the taxation of non-domiciled individuals.

In other words ... nothing.

I agree with the efforts being made to ensure that we do not lose more than £1 bn a year in benefit fraud, I’d just be very happy to see the same level of effort going into fraud at a higher level.

Maybe if that happened, we could hope to live for the next 10 years in a little less discomfort than we appear to have coming to us.

Figures estimated by Richard Murphy, director of Tax Research LLP

SPEAKER BERCOW LIVES IN LA LA LAND

John Bercow was supposed to be the reforming Speaker. He was going to sort out parliament, make it accountable to the people (erm, which it was supposed to be all along) and deal with the scandal of expenses.

But he obviously, like so many other people in Westminster, seems to think that what’s good for other people is not necessarily good for him.

It seems that Mr Speaker Bercow has never heard of trains. He has, however, heard of chauffeur driven limos, and uses them to great effect.

Mr Bercow has used cars for 111 journeys, including 21 within the SW1 postcode, where he could have walked.

A trip to Oxford cost us £833 (you can do it for around £10 on the bus), whilst his visit to Canterbury cost £558; Gloucester cost £632 as did a visit to the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.

Amazingly a journey to South Kensington no more than 3 miles from the Commons, cost £151.

Additionally, as if there were no financial crisis in the country he has spent £15,600 on business class flights for himself, his wife and his staff, employed a spin doctor at £107,000 a year and spent £45,000 on altering and redecorating the Speaker’s House, his grace and favour home in the Palace of Westminster to make it nicer for his children.

Hello Bercow, could you try to live in the same world as the rest of us. You’re an MP for heaven’s sake, not some deity.

You can maintain the dignity of the office perfectly well on the train. It is how YOU BEHAVE that marks your chairmanship of the commons, not how you travel, or the style in which you live.

Rats start to desert SS Cleggmania

Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have been dealt another blow by one of their up and coming young parliamentary candidate's decision to defect to Labour in protest at his leader's sell out to the Conservative’s policies and the abandonment of his party's programme.

Andrew Lewin, (23, the youngest Lib Dem candidate in England at the May election, pictured above) urged the party's MPs to oppose the controversial cuts to benefits in a Commons vote tomorrow. He claimed hardly any Lib Dem MPs support them, saying the party was being forced to swallow "a virtually unreformed Conservative agenda". Ooops now we are getting what we all knew anyway from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Although several councillors have left the party in protest at the Coalition's policies, Mr Lewin is the first parliamentary candidate to walk out, but he probably wont be the last!

Mr Lewin, who came second to the Tories in Hertford and Stortford in May, said he wanted to play an active role in the Labour Party and had not ruled out standing for it at the next election. "I have a passion for politics. I am joining Labour because of Ed Miliband's leadership. He has set a direction of travel that can appeal across the spectrum, particularly to young people."

Of course this is just the latest in a litany of disasters for our erstwhile third party (well actually in Scotland they are the fourth). In fact it’s so bad it is difficult to know where to begin!

• Rats deserting the sinking ship (see above);
• Support for AV trailing 11 points in the polls;
• Support UK wide wavering at 10%;
• Support in Scotland down to 7%;
• Support in Wales down to 8%;
• Predicted to be obliterated at the Oldham by-election.

Oh dear it seems that Nick Clegg’s decision to make the Lib Dems an fully owned adjunct of the Conservative Party may not be paying off. Seems that “Cleggmania” need not have been taken into the Collins English dictionary after all. I suppose at least that will be in the Guinness Book of World records for a word with the shortest shelf life ever!

THE HORROR OF THE DRUGGED MOTHER WHO PUT HER DAUGHTER IN THE WASHING MACHINE

I’ve just read an horrific account of the death of a baby in Oklahoma.

It appears that the mother, Lesley Fiddler in a drugged state put her 10 day old daughter into the washing machine with a pile of laundry, and then fell asleep.

A relative who called into to see if she was coping found her passed out and the washing machine out of balance. She went over to it to try to steady it and made the gruesome discovery. Of course she phoned the emergency services, but the baby was already dead.

The family had tried to get parental rights removed from her for this baby (she has two other children, boys of 3 and 4), but were unsuccessful with this tragic result. Fiddler has a list of other convictions, and a drug habit. She is believed to have taken Chrystal Meth on the day of the tragedy. I suspect that there will be some investigation into why the baby was left with her in view of these circumstances.

The baby’s father said that he didn’t believe that Fiddler had killed the baby deliberately. It’s not clear whether he is resident with the mother or not.

I can’t imagine what kind of horror it would be for the family, including the father and the two little boys who are now in care, and for the ambulance and police personnel who have had to deal with this.

What dreadful lives some people live in depression and poverty in one of the richest countries in the world.

OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER STORY WON'T GO AWAY

Further to my recent post about David Cameron’s personal photographer being put on to the Civil Service payroll, ie being paid by you and me to take flattering publicity pictures of the prime minister, I came across a letter from Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich, to Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, in which he poses some very valid questions. Hat tip here to Labour Uncut.

Here’s the letter:

Sir Gus O’Donnell
Cabinet Secretary
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS
2 November 2010


Dear Gus,

You will no doubt be aware of today’s report in the Mirror newspaper that the Prime Minister has taken the decision to appoint Mr Andrew Parsons as his official photographer.

Given the current financial climate, and the severe pressure on the public finances, you will be aware that this appointment is the subject of some controversy.

I would be grateful, therefore, if you could answer the following questions:

a) Can you confirm Mr Parsons’ appointment was made personally by the Prime Minister himself, rather than you or any of your officials?

b) Can you advise me how long the post of “Official Photographer to the Prime Minister” has been in existence?

c) Can you advise me what consultation there has been between the Prime Minister, yourself and other officials prior to this appointment?

d) Can you advise me whether interviews for the post conformed to the requirements of the Civil Service code? How many people applied for the job? Where was it advertised and how many people were interviewed? Are you satisfied that there was open competition for the position?

e) Who will own the copyright to the photographs taken by Mr Parsons? Will they be the property of Mr Parsons, the Prime Minister or the Crown?

f) Will the Prime Minister have copy approval before the publication of any photographs taken by Mr Parsons?

g) The Mirror’s report quotes a Downing Street “source” saying that Mr Parsons will also be attached to the Cabinet Office. Can you confirm this, and advise me how often, and on what occasions, you or your staff have received requests for reportage photographs of current Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude?

h) Can you advise me what political restrictions will be placed upon Mr Parsons, and the dissemination of his work?

Yours sincerely
Tom Watson
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich East

It will be interesting to see if Mr Watson gets an answer that actually means something

In the same blog article, I complained about a Gardening Leave package for the Northern Rock Chairman, which meant that his fabulous salary, together with pension rights and car, would continue to May 1, 2011, when he starts his new job. This was to be funded by the bank which is a nationalised company. I'm pleased to report that the furore over this matter has persuaded Mr Hoffman to waive the payments. Well done to him for belatedly coming to his senses... I doubt (modestly) if Munguin's Republic can take all of the credit for this....

ANDREW EMBARRASSES HIS MUM AND THE PRIME MINISTER, BUT MAYBE NOW WE WILL GET ACTION

It’s not that often that you’ll find this blog to be overly sympathetic to members of the royal family. However, credit where credit is due. We may be republicans, and disapprove of position as of birthright rather than by ability and hard graft, but I hope we’ll always be fair to people who have little choice in the matter.

I would say that I respect the fact that the Queen has kept out of party politics as much as she possibly could during her reign. Par contre I have deplored the fact that Charles has poked his nose in and wasted ministers’ time by sending for them and demanding this that and the next, in line with his particular interests.

I therefore instinctively disapprove of Andrew’s excursion into political waters the other day when he was visiting Universal Engineering in Weymouth, Dorset, who make armoured vehicles.

He blasted the MoD for not ordering the vehicles which Andrew reckons would have saved British soldiers’ lives. His exact words were: “ I would say to you that regrettably they will not get off their fat backsides. The MoD are completely hopeless at these kind (sic) of things.”

He was speaking in his capacity as Ambassador for British Trade and Industry. (The Dorset based company is presumably hoping to exprt these vehicles to other countries.) However, the MoD has been swithering (Scottish word meaning being indecisive) over whether or not to order them for our own troops in Afghanistan. Indeed, Ainsworth went to inspect them when he was Secretary of State for Defence and that’s undoubtedly well over 6 months ago. Still we have no decision.

OK. Andrew shouldn’t have said what he did, but in his defence his office says that he thought that he was talking to a private meeting of the directors. He did not know there was a journalist present. Well, of course he should have known. He should have been advised, and regardless, he shouldn’t have criticised his mother’s government.

He has embarrassed her.

But, on this occasion, even if he was wrong to do it, I’m glad he has brought the matter to the fore. This is more important that Charles and his interference in building plans. This is a matter of the lives of people we send to fight.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If we can’t afford to fight a war, which we can’t, because we can’t afford to house and feed the poor, then we should not be at war.

Vehicles that can withstand twice the blast of any Taliban bomb would have saved lives. We didn’t buy them, even from British manufacturers... It’s shameful, particularly when the MoD is top heavy, full of high rankers on extremely comfortable salaries with fabulous expense accounts and awesome pensions, and a book deal when they retire.

So Andrew was in the wrong and by now I daresay the Queen has hauled him over the royal coals for embarrassing the prime minister and the defence secretary, but if this does make them get off their fat backsides and do something well, I can forgive Andrew. Just this once.

I’m sure he’ll be extremely relieved to read that!

MORE LABOUR SLEAZE FROM IRENE ADAMS

Irene Adams, known to oinks like you and me as The Noble Baroness Adams of Craigielea, is the most expensive peer in the House of Lords. She also appears to be amongst the least useful. It was disclosed that she had picked up more than £60,000 a year in allowances since 2006, but spoken in just one debate.

I hope what she had to say was worth it. £200,000+ for one speech is more than Blair gets!!

But it looks like when this one gets her hands on some of our dosh she isn’t about to let it go any time soon. It appears that the good Irene is among 6 former Labour MPs who have yet to repay a total of £50,000 which they owe following the audit of Commons allowances.

The Noble Baroness (pictured above; lovely isn’t she?) complained that the inquiry team would not accept the evidence she had to show that her £4,100 claim was a valid one and vowed to fight the demand intimating that they could take her to court for the money if they wanted.

Not too worried what people think of her then.

Sir Thomas Legg (right), who was responsible for the audit of MPs leaving hundreds of them, including some high profile ones like Liam Fox, owing a staggering total of £1.3 million, ruled that Adams should repay the money. She could provide no evidence for her mortgage payments to support her claims for her second home while she was MP for Paisley North.

Another shameful Scottish Labour MP with her fingers in the till, Irene was at one time the secretary of the MP Allen Adams, whom she married. When he died in 1990 she stood and was elected for the constituency. She paid her daughter and former son-in-law, both Labour councillors, to work in her constituency office. Nice little family business. In fact... The Adams Family business.

When in 2005 her constituency was absorbed into the neighboring one she was bought off with a seat in the House of Lords. An “honour” she has clearly taken advantage of to the full. She continues to live in Paisley, in a luxury flat in a converted mill, charging £11,916 last year to travel between Scotland and Westminster.

The trouble with the corrupt system of handing out honours to people to persuade them to do political favours (in her case to go away) is you are lumbered with them for life...

We have this parasitical woman leaching off us to the tune of £60,000 a year for absolutely no return whatsoever until she dies. If she refuses to pay, I hope that they will take her to court so the world will know what a cheesy little scrounger she is.

Please, when are we going to do something about this House of Horrors? Her £60,000 a year would pay a couple of worthwhile people to do some good somewhere.

REJOICE AT THAT NEWS: A MODICUM OF JUSTICE AT LAST FOR ONE OF OUR (NOW EX) MPS

The Liberal Democrats are, I suspect, about to find out that success can be a double edge sword.

Phil “Lumley” Woolas, a former Labour minister has lost the case brought against him by his Liberal opponent in the last UK General Election.

He is to be barred from the Commons for three years and the election contest for his Oldham East and Saddleworth seat re-run. Woolas, however has said that he will fight the ruling and will seek a judicial review.

The judgement says that he broke electoral law with a "toxic" dirty tricks campaign against Elywn Watkins. Basically he lied through his teeth about Watkins and his association with and funding by Muslim fanatics. Lying to the public becomes such a habit that he must have imagined he could get away with whoppers like this. His team hoped to bring out the white Sun-reading vote by exploiting the racial divide in Oldham.

His win, by 103 votes, has been declared void. He was ordered to pay £5,000 to Mr Watkins, whose costs he will also have to pay.

Woolas apparently feared that he would lose his seat following disclosures about his expense claims which included submitting receipts for items including tampons and women's clothing.

He had also bought himself a deal of derision with his mishandling of Gurkha resettlement rights and was lampooned over his hapless confrontation with Joanna Lumley who tanked him despite her complete lack of political experience.

However, whilst, if Woolas hadn’t lied and cheated his way to his seat the Liberal Democrat would now be sitting in parliament, the situation for Liberals all over the country has changed dramatically since last May.

Recently clocking an amazing 9% in a YouGov poll, the Liberals are not half, or even a third of the party they were only 7 short months ago when they were polling 29-32% following poster boy Nick Clegg’s appearance in the leaders’ (or a least “some” leaders’) debates. They may find, therefore, that they face a very different situation on the streets today.

I wonder by how much Labour will win the seat now...

Interesting irony here that the Shadow Immigration Minister played a race card to cheat his way into his seat. A racist ex-Immigration Minister, now ex-Shadow Immigration Minister...tsk tsk....

THE BANK CHAIRMAN WHO WILL BE PAID HALF A MILLION TO DO NOTHING... AND DAVE'S STYLE GURU IS NOW A CIVIL SERVANT

WHAT A STRANGE PLACE WE LIVE IN


It’s almost ... no not almost, it IS unbelievable.

Gary Hoffman (right), who was brought in by the government to run the Northern Rock Bank, is leaving to set up a new bank, and, although he leaves with immediate effect, he will have the next six months on “garden leave” at taxpayers’ expense.

The man is paid £83,000 A MONTH!

Not only that but he will continue to enjoy all the benefits of his job whilst sitting with his feet up waiting for May 1, when he starts his new job:

He will earn £350,000 in that time; additionally he will accrue £140,000 in pension contributions and he will continue to enjoy his company car and free fuel worth an estimated £6,000.

It’s all down to a clause in his contract, drawn up, you would have thought, at the very highest level, when he was appointed by the government (which own the bank on our behalf). So maybe the Noble Lord Myners (left), who was advising the then government on this matter, had a hand in it. After all it was he who agreed the termination contract of Fred the Shred. (When I say termination contract, I don’t of course mean.... well, you know that, Right?) But Fred went away a very happy man, you’ll recall, his pockets bulging with cash and a beaming smile on his greedy little coupon.

So what kind of contract exactly contains a clause that says: “If I leave of my own free will to go and do something that I want to do, I will be paid my full salary and my other benefits for 6 months”? One drawn up by a moron. That’s what kind of contract! So even if it wasn’t Myners, there are plenty of others to choose from on the last government’s financial benches.

And on the same day I hear that Mr Cameron has transferred his style consultant, presumably previously paid for by the Tory Party, to the Civil Service, thus saving the Tories an nice packet of money. "Brand Dave", it seems will continue to be overseen by Anna-Marren Ashford, but we’ll pay her to do it. And there’s more. She will be joined by Andy Parsons, Mr Cameron’s personal photographer, if you please. Personal photographer Dave....? Ewww get you sweetie!!

But it’s good to know that after just a few days of George Osborne’s new tighter financial controls we have saved enough money to put all of Team Dave’s personal flunkies on the state’s payroll.

How many useful people did we sack to afford that?

I don’t know what your game is Cameron, but it seems that you’ve forgotten that when we said that we were all in it together, that was supposed to mean you too. Why not? You've forgotten everything else you promised.

NOW LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY: I WILL REPEAT THIS OVER AND OVER

Oh Lord, it’s like spending half an hour in the remedial class.

The first 10 minutes were given over to Elmer’s weekly drubbing at the hands of the First Minister. Mr Fudd had decided that last week’s embarrassment over schools was not enough for him. No. More education embarrassment for our favourite cartoon character. When, he wondered, would Alex Salmond come up with a solution to the university funding issue. Of course he knows perfectly well what the timetable is. He knows that, when the consequential of England reducing its tertiary education funding comes about in 2012, the Scottish system will be ready. Once again, instead of seeing when he was beaten and moving on, he did his party piece of repeating the same question (laboriously) and getting beaten by the same stick over again. Listen carefully Elmer: The SNP has spent far more on education than Labour did; Labour in England, thanks to Lord Voldermort, was cutting the budget months before the Tories got in; And Labour’s great answer was? To have a review. Excellent!

Just one wee jarring note Elmer. If you are going to ask questions about further and higher education, a little more attention to correct grammar might be in order.

What a relief it was when the wee man sat down and we moved on.

But not for long. Usually Annabel Goldie asks sensible questions to which she gets sensible answers. Not so today. She chose to ask in a very very longwinded way about the ECHR ruling that some categories of prisoners should be able to vote whilst in the pokey. As this is matter of electoral law, and as such a reserved matter to England, it seemed a bit of a waste of time. Alex answered sensibly that it was a Tory government which had agreed to bring this into UK electoral law. Annabel went for him again, at least this time much more amusingly, attacking him for the policy of getting prisoners to serve sentences for less serious crimes in the community. This was odd, pointed out the First Minister, since it was exactly this SNP policy that had been adopted by the Lord Chancellor Ken Clarke, supported by his coalition partners, and recently commended by Ed Miliband. Ms Goldie it seemed was out of the loop.

It was a bit of a relief when she sat down too.

And so to Tavish. Always a joy.

This time it was ferry services to Dunoon, and the apparent lack of action from the government. Alex pointed out that there had been a large increase in the budget for ferries under the SNP, but suggested that the liberal Leader’s habit of asking for more money for everything might be a little less apposite now that his party was heavily involved in reducing the amount of money to be spent.

Well, unionists, if you insist on giving us pocket money to run the government of Scotland, dependent always on a consequential from London, you really can’t complain when we use it to beat you about the head.

In Supplementary Questions I was particularly stunned by David McLetchie’s question. Did the First Minister not understand that the reason that there was such a reduction in crime was that all the bad guys were locked up? I listened to this on radio, but I can just see the look on Mr Salmond’s face as he realized that he was going to have to explain the Ken Clarke, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband connection one more time for the slow boy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00vkppz/First_Ministers_Question_Time_04_11_2010


Pics: Super Eck, explaining it once again; Elmer, posing for Niko as the look of the future; the slow boy Mcletchie; Auntie Bella biting her lip and turning purple and Tavish, bless him, learning to fly.

UK SAVINGS DOWN AND PRICES SET TO HEAD UP

More than a third of Britons drew money from their savings account to pay for household bills, 31% used savings for holiday expenses and 11% for ‘back to school’ costs, according to the latest savings monitor from ING Direct.

The research also shows that Britons are using savings to reduce debt and personal loans, with 20% saying that they use their reserves to cover payments.

What this means on a statistical average is that Britons are depleting their savings by £100 a month. And this is the scary thing. The average savings per person during the quarter from July to September was £1,771. This is down £279 on the previous quarter.

Now of course this is a statistical notion. We cannot draw the conclusion that at around £300 reduction per quarter everyone will be out of money completely in 18 months, but it is reasonable to assume that people are living beyond their means and on a very narrow shelf.

One small disaster, a new boiler, a big car repair, a dental crisis, and the whole thing goes belly up.

And that is before we get into the feast of spending and general greed that is Christmas.

People are facing hard times. With job security on such a shoogly nail Britons have only 40 days worth of pay in accessible cash at a time when it takes typically 6 months to get back into work after job loss. And it’s worse for young people between 16 and 24, who have on average just £348 in savings.

Frighteningly, it has been reported that one of the things that the Chinese government has been looking at is the need to start increasing the wages of the lower paid in order to try to bridge the gap between the poor and the wealthy. This is a smart move in a country that is walking a tightrope between free capitalism and authoritarian “communist” government: always a dangerous mixture. They realize that you can only push the poor so far, especially when there are vast numbers of them.

It is thought that the “single child” policy may be lifted and that wages will be increased. They can afford it. After a couple of years of annual growth dipped to 8%, China’s economy is growing at between 10 and 11%. But higher wages mean higher prices.

...And given that almost everything that ‘ordinary’ people buy in the UK originates in China (we know that the rich can buy German and Italian goods), and that these people’s savings are disappearing, what does the future hold?

My notes on First Minister's Questions are being delayed due to the fact that the cuts in funding (or rather the lack of increase in funding) seems to have affected the BBC's efficiency. Under FMQs for November 4, 2010, on the BBC iplayer, they are giving us "another opportunity to hear" last week's programme.

How kind!

I will write up my notes tonight, when, or rather if, Politics Scotland comes on line.

JAPANESE DESIGN FOR DUNDEE'S WATERFRONT V & A

The competition for the design of the new V & A museum in Dundee has been won by the Japanese Kengo Kuma design. My impression, however, when I visited the exhibition (discussions with other people there, and with people on the blog... and reading the comments pinned on the wall of the exhibition room), along with the impressions I got from friends who also visited, was that the first choice of the public was the Rex (New York) design.

A panel of seven “experts”, however, unanimously judged the Japanese design to be the best. Lesley Knox, who chaired the panel, said that it would be one of the continent’s great buildings. Whilst I have to say I doubt that, it was probably my second favourite building of the contenders and it will look impressive in situ, as long as the surrounding architecture is sympathetic..

The winner is a twin footed building stretching out into the river from the quayside with a distinctive slatted stone and glass design. (see pic above)

The building has been costed at around £47 million and will bring much needed building work to Dundee in its initial stages, and on completion, many visitors from all over the country, the UK and the world.

It is an amazing achievement to have such an important museum in our town. It will bring prestige as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

So, although I’m disappointed that my choice (also pictured, right) didn’t make it, I’m glad that it was this one that did, and not some of the others!

I’d be interesed if anyone is particularly happy, or disappointed at the result.

A TEA PARTY FOR THE GRAND OLD PARTY

Congressional and State Gubernatorial elections in the USA are a complex mixture, made even more interesting this time because of the “Tea Party” candidates of the righ. It can mean only one thing for Munguin’s Republic. Yes, I bottled out of writing anything myself and asked Danny to do a "Letter from America".

The Republicans had a party Tuesday night, and the Democrats just tried to put a brave face on things, as the votes were counted in the American midterm election. Voters went to the polls to elect the 112th US Congress, along with many state offices. With a few close races remaining to be decided, the Republicans will take majority control of the 435 member House of Representatives by a sizeable margin of approximately 242/193, a swing of 64 seats away from the Democrats. With three races left to be decided among the 37 contested Senate seats, the Republicans will take five to eight seats from the Democrats, leaving a thin Democratic majority as close as 51/49, if all three remaining seats go Republican. Republicans also took key state Governorships.

By any reckoning, this spells big trouble for Barack Obama’s legislative agenda as he enters the second half of his term and looks to the presidential election of 2012. He came to the presidency with a large reservoir of personal popularity, but with the wreckage of the George W. Bush administration all about him, and the immediate crisis of an economic crash looming. Not the least of his problems was the historically fractious nature of his own Democratic Party, which made large majorities in both houses of the 111th Congress somewhat illusory. Less obvious, but just as real, was his own relative political inexperience, and what would prove to be a largely ineffective White House political operation in dealing with a resurgent Republican Party, especially its so-called “Tea Party” faction determined to drive the party to the political right.

Nevertheless, Obama and the Congressional Democrats achieved the passage of major legislation to shore up the weakened economy and re-regulate Wall Street. Most important of all was the passage of his landmark health care reform bill, the signature political issue of his 2008 campaign, and a fitting contribution to the historic legacy of progressive Democratic social legislation stretching back to FDR.

All of this was accomplished in the face of implacable Republican opposition. Facing White House political ineptitude and divisions in the Democratic Congressional caucuses, the Republicans only had to become the “party of ‘No’” to achieve success. Their political tactic was as effective as it was transparently obvious. They would oppose everything, put forward no alternatives, watch things go to hell in a hand basket, and then blame Obama when the next election came around. This cynical political tactic was rewarded in spades with the counting of the votes Tuesday night.

A major political subtext of the midterm campaign was the success of many Tea Party-backed candidates over mainstream Republicans in the party primaries. But the general election results were more mixed for the Tea Party faction. Tea Party Republicans won high profile Senate races in Florida, Kentucky, and at least eight other states. The three Senate races left to be decided involve Tea Party candidates in Alaska, Colorado, and Washington State. On the other hand, the disastrous candidacy of Tea Party Republican Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware Senate race cost the Republicans an almost certain Senate seat, as did the candidacy of Sharron Angle in Nevada, which saved the seat of Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader. The Senate race in Alaska remains to be decided, but involves the candidacy of popular incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski who mounted a write-in campaign after losing the Republican primary to a Tea Party insurgent backed by former Governor Sarah Palin. On balance, Tea Party Republicans made a creditable showing in the midterms, and they should be able to play a significant role in Republican politics going forward.

With the end of the midterms, the 2012 presidential campaign effectively begins with speeches and fundraising in 2011, in advance of the state primaries which begin early in 2012. Their midterm successes may have positioned Tea Party Republicans to advance one of their own to run against Obama. The most prominent “unannounced” Tea Party candidate is Sarah Palin, the current media darling who ran for Vice President on John McCain’s Republican ticket in 2008. Famously, it was then discovered that she doesn’t read newspapers, and frankly seems not to be all that bright. She does have a cutesy wink and a few political punch lines that are catnip to the right wing nut cases of the Tea Party. If she receives the Republican nomination, Obama should be able to make mincemeat of her. Surely she’s unlikely to be elected president. But then strange things do happen “only in America.”

AND THAT WILL BRING US BACK TO "DOH"

Perhaps the most bizarre of all the stories in today’s news is that the Metropolitan Police in London are investigating whether an officer, giving evidence at the inquest into the death of London Solicitor Mark Saunders spoke his way through a list of songs.

When I heard it this morning, I rubbed my eyes and wondered if it was April 1. The officer known only as AZ8, has been suspended from firearms duties.

It seems that someone listening to the evidence, and a bit of a musician with pretty eclectic tastes, worked out that in his hour of evidence AZ8 had used eight song titles. This was reported to the officer’s management and the man was given a reprimand.

However, somehow it got to the attention of senior officers who decided that a reprimand was not enough. So they decided to refer the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m looking at this list of song titles, and I’m thinking that many of them...actually all of them, would have been perfectly appropriate phrases to use in the situation that the officer found himself in. I mean, he wasn’t saying things like “A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine go Down”, or “I Don't Know How to Love Him" or “Well Here it is Merry Christmas”.

See what you think of the phrases/titles used... 'Point Of No Return'; 'Enough's Enough'; 'Self Preservation'; 'Blinding Light'; 'Quiet Moments'; 'I'm Kicking Myself'; 'Any Other Way'. All of them could quite innocently have been said in an hour long testimony.

I’m a bit dubious about how he managed to get this one in though: 'F*** My Old Boots' (I wonder what that could be about actually.)

I’m just wondering, given the lamentable quality of management at the Met (remember Cressida Dick?) if this isn’t a huge mistake.

Don’t get me wrong, to poke fun at an inquest is an horrific thing to do if it is done by a member of the public. If it is done by a member of the firearms squad that shot the man, it is bad beyond belief and the guy should be sacked.

But it would be incredibly difficult to get eight song titles into evidence unless you had rehearsed it carefully, and I think it’s possible that it’s coincidence and some sad sack is making trouble.

As an afterthought I hope that the Met don’t employ people to go to inquests to check up on things like this....

Prizes for anyone who can give the artistes (or the show/film from which the pieces were taken). And remember prizes mean points!

ONEN HAG OLL, KERNOW BYS VICKAN!

One and All, Cornwall Forever

The Coalition last night voted down an amendment to protect the integrity of Cornwall as far as parliamentary seats are concerned in the so called Devonwall controversy, whereby parliamentary constituencies will cross the border between Devon and Cornwall. The vote was 315 to 257, a coalition majority of 58.

There are 6 Cornish MPs, 3 Liberals and 3 Tories. As far as I can make out all of them voted against the Government, but it seems that very few of their colleagues followed.

It seems very strange that if all the Cornish MPs were prepared to vote against their party whips on the subject, the feeling in Cornwall must be very very strong.

I would suggest that, given that the extreme North of Scotland is to be given exemption to the equal sized constituencies, the same might have been allowed in Cornwall. As has been pointed out, cross border constituencies would never be considered on the Scotland-England border, nor on the Wales-England border. Cornwall may not technically be a separate country in the UK, but it certainly is a separate nation with its own customs and language: a language which, although nearly dead some years ago, has found new life and popularity and whose daily use is spreading across Kernow rapidly.

By not being prepared to make this exception the government will have poured oil on the fire of Cornish nationalism.

This is a bad night for Kernow and a bad night for the Tory-Liberal Coalition Government. It's certainly the wrong decision. I hope that it comes back to bite them.

THE BIG SOCIETY--WITH NECTAR POINTS

So, I have to admit that although the idea of the Big Society is something which I, something which most people would agree was a good thing, I wondered how on Earth people would have the time to actually do anything much about it.

Where would the average “hard-working British Family” member manage to fit in some volunteering, what with presenteeism and flexibility to work late or take work home, kids activities, housework, shopping, gardening, the few hours at the second job to pay for the holiday, friends, family duties, DIY, children’s homework, school runs, sports and hobbies, evening classes to improve job prospects... and time for each other...

Life has always been busy, but today with two parents working, it is difficult to find so much time for volunteering... (and yet people do, particularly retired people, but happily many young people). In David Cameron’s youth it may have been different. Certainly within his class, at that time, it would have been unusual for the mother to work after marriage. Mrs Cameron, for example, was a Justice of the Peace, and sat on the bench. It’s likely that other cabinet members’ mothers may have done the same sort of thing: meals on wheels, WRVSS, charity shop work, sick visiting, prison visiting, etc.....

Now one of the flagship councils for Cameron’s big idea, the Big Society, where volunteers provide the services that the government used to, has come up with an idea to encourage people to take part. Financial recompense. Not in the form of actual cash which would obviously defeat the whole purpose, but in the form of tokens which can be redeemed at local supermarkets and restaurants which will presumably agree to foot some of the expense for free advertising. Windsor and Maidenhead authority is currently working out the details, but hopes to join forces with an loyalty card organisation like Nectar.

Additionally the government recently floated the idea that tokens should be paid for good works with elderly people, and they could be redeemed for care when the volunteer reached old age him/herself. The rather sinister inference being that, unless you do volunteer to help now, you needn’t expect any more than the barest essentials of care when you get old!

The “rewards” aspect of the Big Society was never mentioned in the early days, prior to or just after, the election.
It is, without doubt, going to be an uphill task to get this moving now , much more so than it would have been in the 1950s and 60s. Along with the undoubted truth that we live in a very much faster world, it seems that the money, money, money culture of the Thatcher era is going to be very hard to shift.

Interesting post here on the BS.