HOW NOT TO RUN A COUNTRY, BY THE UK GOVERNMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

QUEEN CAMILLA OR NOT?

Charles Wales, Duke of Rothsay, Duke of Kernow, (and a dozen or so other trinkets) is a man who is used to getting his own way. He always has. Raised largely by nannies under the watchful eye of his Edwardian grandmother, a woman for whom, in many ways, the realities of post war Britain had never happened, Charles is reputed to be far more “royal” than the Queen, demanding all manner of correctness in his company. He prefers people to bow to him, long after most royals have given that up, and demands that everyone, even his friends, call him Sir.

When he was married to Diana he was equally 'Edwardian' in his attitude. From day 2 of his honeymoon he was talking sweet nothings with his mistress Mrs Parker-Bowles, as if he were old King Edward, obliged to marry Princess Alexandra of Denmark for the sake of the succession.

Well, we all know what happened to that marriage, possibly because unlike Alexandra, Diana was a woman of the late 20th century who didn’t expect to overhear her husband arranging trysts with his paramour on their honeymoon. Needless to say Charlie boy was not about to give up having his own way and Diana could like it or lump it. With the rest of the royals on Charlie’s side, what could she do?

When she died Charlie was able to openly resume his relationship with the now conveniently divorced Mrs Parker-Bowles, and eventually, with rather too much haste for some people’s taste after the death of his grandmother, who would never have approved of one marrying one’s mistress (and her without a title), Mrs Parker-Bowles became Duchess Parker–Bowles.

In marrying in a registry office Charles broke all the rules of the church that he may one day head, but it seems that the rules about marrying of divorcees with a spouse still alive (Mr P-B is up and doing) is only for unimportant little people, and God allows royals to make their own rules, because the Archbishop of Canterbury, although he could not conduct the wedding, did come along and bless it, which surely is exactly the same thing.... but different.

So, because Mrs Parker-Bowles, sorry Duchess Parker-Bowles, was not overly popular with “the people”, it was announced (I imagine on the advice of Tony Blair to his mother) that when Charles became king, or rather IF he became king, the duchess should be known as Princess Consort.

It’s no great secret that Charles was reluctant to agree to this, but in order to get his way, he did. Now in an interview for American television, he has dithered about whether or not she will be known as, and presumably crowned, as Queen Parker-Bowles, despite not REALLY being married to him under the rules of the church of which, by that time, he will be head.

Now, frankly I don’t give a flying whatsit whether she is Queen Camilla, or Duchess Camilla or whether he divorces her and marries Peter Mandelson (that would serve Voldermort right), but I thought it would be interesting to find out what other people think, hence the new poll, our first for a long time...

What do you think?

Pics: (1). Ha ha ha! You’re all paying for this, oh yes, and I’ll have another million a year for Dartmoor Prison. (2) Bow damn you, you stupid plants; don’t you know who I am? (3) Yes, we know our necklace is squint, but our maid has gone to get us another refill. What are we expected to do? (4) Yes, I know my barnet is a bit of a mess, but now that I’ve got old Big Ears to pay for it, I’ll just get it done again. Anyway, I have to rush. My next holiday is due. Corfu with my friends I think, with Charles (well you) paying. Wicked!!

SALMOND CORRECTS MICHAEL MOORE ON TAX VARYING POWERS

There has been much comment over the apparent failure of the SNP government to renew the facility with HMRC whereby the Scottish Government can vary income tax.

The First Minister has written to the Scottish Secretary laying out the situation, and correcting the mistakes in his letter. As Mr Moore decided to make his letter to the FM public, Alex has done the same thing with his.

I reproduce it in full here for those who are interested.

(Hat tip to Cynical Highlander)




Your letter of 18 November about the Scottish variable rate of income tax (SVR) is a travesty of the position. The reality is as follows:


The then Scottish Executive paid the UK Government £12 million in 2000 to add SVR functionality to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax collection systems. Thereafter, an annual fee of £50,000 was paid.


HMRC said in 2007 that additional work was needed to maintain the readiness of the IT system, and in summer 2008 made clear that they would be installing a new IT platform. Scottish Government officials attempted to elicit information on what this meant for Scotland and the functionality of the 3p tax power.


We were finally asked on 28 July this year to pay over the sum of £7 million to HMRC for this purpose. Why nowhere in your letter did you mention this demand?


Anyone proposing paying this £7 million to HMRC would need to explain where the equivalent cuts would be made in Scottish public spending.


And even if we had paid it - at a time when Scotland is on the receiving end of massive cuts to our budget from your government - the SVR under the new system could not have been implemented until 2012/13: another key point which you failed to mention.


In any case, at that stage it seemed an academic debate because the SVR itelf is set to be replaced under any version of the legislation which you intend to introduce in the next few weeks.


On 20 August, Scottish Government officials offered talks with HMRC on the issue of the SVR - an offer which has not been responded to. The first we have heard from the UK government on the matter since 20 August is your letter of yesterday.


It is clearly unacceptable that Scotland should be asked to pay, again, for something which millions of pounds have previously been paid for. If HMRC choose to replace their IT systems, that is clearly a matter for them. However, anyone would expect them in specifying their new systems to replicate the functionality of the old.


No Scottish administration has used the 3p tax power, none of the main parties in Scotland advocate using it now, and it is intended to be overtaken by the Tory/Lib Dem Calman financial proposals - flawed measures which, had they been established for the start of the current spending review, would have resulted in the Scottish Budget being £900 million lower in 2009/10.


The real issue, therefore, would appear to be about the future.


You stated - as did Danny Alexander in his letter to me of 20 October this year about the Spending Review settlement - that: "it is an established principle that the costs of devolution should be met from the Scottish Budget."


This is not the case - in fact, the opposite is true.


HM Treasury's recently-updated Statement of Funding Policy states at paragraph 3.2.8 that:


"Where decisions of United Kingdom departments or agencies lead to additional costs for any of the devolved administrations, where other arrangements do not exist automatically to adjust for such extra costs, the body whose decision leads to the additional cost will meet that cost."


The clear impression can only be that your letter was not about the cost of financial powers that are going to be superseded, but rather about establishing a precedent for the Scottish Government paying to instal and administer the Calman tax proposals - which unlike the SVR will require to be used every year.


Given the huge pressures on the Scottish public purse because of your government's spending cuts - and the further threat to our budget from the Calman proposals themselves - we need answers to these key questions as a matter of urgency:


How much is the UK Government intending to ask the Scottish Government to pay for the Calman tax powers - measures which could reduce Scotland's budget, as indicated above?


When do you propose asking the Scottish Government, and therefore the Scottish people, to pay?


Exactly when would these financial powers be capable of being implemented?


A copy of this letter goes like yours to Annabel Goldie MSP, Iain Gray MSP, Margo MacDonald MSP, Tavish Scott MSP and Patrick Harvie MSP, and David Gauke MP, and also to the leaders of the Scottish parties at Westminster: Angus Robertson MP, Ann McKechin MP, and David Mundell MP. I am also sending copies to John Swinney and Fiona Hyslop.


Given that you released your letter to the media, I am also releasing this.


ALEX SALMOND

RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION?

Lord Young showed yesterday what the people at the top of the Government really feel about the recession and the cuts which they are imposing. “Oh stuff and nonsense. What cuts, what recession?” OK, he didn’t say these words but he might as well have. That is what they think. It hasn’t hit them, so it hasn’t happened.

Oh yes, there are people who have had a not bad time, up to now at least. Those in government jobs with steady incomes and mortgages have found that their mortgage cost have fallen dramatically whilst the bargains that desperate retailers are creating have reduced the cost of the weekly shop, But of course those in the private sector have had to put up with reduced hours, pay freezes and in some cases pay reductions or unpaid holidays, and of course redundancies.

Many who have lost good, well paid work have found part time, badly paid work to replace it. They haven’t had a good recession Mr Young. Oh no.

And now the public sector is in for huge redundancies, which will spill into the private sector, and they will start to suffer as their jobs go. Their recession won’t feel so good for them then Mr Young!

And as for the old, and the poor, they have found that their housing benefits are about to be reduced, because “We must reduce the amount of money which is spent on Housing Benefits”.

Yes, regardless of how much it hurts the very poorest, the people sitting with coats, scarves and gloves on in their own houses, too old and sick to go out, and too poor to eat and heat properly, we must cut the cost of Housing Benefit.

In countries where they pay a living retirement pension they don’t have to subsidise people’s rents and council tax. Clearly that’s not the case in Britain.

How out of touch are people like David Bow Tie Young? Millionaires may have lost some money, but I don’t see David Young, like some others at 78, sitting with his coat on to keep warm.

And while we are on the subject of incompetences from the Coalition, what on Earth was David Cameron doing yesterday when he told the chairmen of the Common’s committees that he thought it would be a good idea to have a bank holiday on the day of the wedding of William and Kate, then hurriedly said that of course it was a matter for the royal family.

Well, talk about boxing someone into a corner. So the Queen, whose decision it is, can’t really say no now, can she? I wouldn’t like to be Cameron at the next audience.



Pics: Lord Bowtie, Mr Botox (nah, it's just airbrushed by his own personal photographer: doesn't he look odd, a bit like Cher really), and some posh bloke everyone's talking about.

CLOSING TIME AT THE OLD BANK BAR, OR FIRST MINISTER'S QUESTIONS

Well... it was like Saturday night at pub closing time in parliament today. Even the Presiding Officer who is well known for his tolerance, lost the cool with the noisy and unruly drunks, I mean MSPs. “Sit down Mr Gray”, said he. “When I say Order, I mean order.” I was waiting for “Time gentlemen please”.

Elmer was his usual dreary self today, tearing the budget, which he appeared to have only skimmed, apart. He had one good line though when he was complaining that the FM had spent half a million on speech writers. “I’ve heard the first minister’s speeches, could we have our money back? “said our brave boy. I was thinking that perhaps Alex could lend him just one of them, for the man is tedious in the extreme.

I can’t see what he had to complain about in John’s budget. You freeze the pay of the better off, reduce the pay of the best off and give the least well off a pay rise... What could be fairer, but no, the SNP did it and someone once told Elmer his job was to oppose, so he opposes. Duh.

Alex pointed out to him that, on radio, he had admitted that pay freezes were necessary; then he had been seen outside parliament demonstrating under a banner which said “no pay freeze” . He was, Eck reckoned, the only leader to join a demonstration against his own policies.

Of course they were all showing off because there was a delegation of distinguished visitors from Japan in the gallery. Lord only knows what they though. I’m surprised they weren’t throwing nuts of the people down below in the chamber.

And so to Annabel: As so often Ms Goldie concerned herself with Higher Education. A worthy cause. She said that the Conservatives had a plan to give more money to Universities and to students in need, as opposed to the opposite from the SNP, and she quoted part of what Professor Bernard King had said about it “not being sustainable for any longer than 1 year”. Eck of course was able to finish the quote which thanked the government for not delivering “deeper and more damaging cuts”. And he added a little praise from Professor Muscatelli (one of Annabel’s heroes, whom she quotes when giving the First Minister his Latin lessons) saying that he was happy that research funding had not been reduced. The Condem coalition’s way of dealing with student funding was not the way Scotland, with its proud tradition of higher education, should go.

And so to Tavish, who wanted to know if the FM agreed with a criticism made by SNP councillors in Glasgow of pay rises for people on over £80,000. Eck sidestepped it neatly saying that he agreed with what John Swinney had set out in his budget, and told Tavish what that was, in case he’d been dozing off when it was read out yesterday.
There was a pile of statistics from Eck about how they would reduce the top salaries. Mike Rumbles was overheard by the FM, asking how they (the government) knew they could meet these reductions. That gave him the opportunity to point out that they had met or exceeded every target they had set themselves in 3 ½ years of government. Silly Mike. Never give Eck a chance to boast for he will surely take it.

And so to the others: Anne McLaughlin, Robert Brown: Good questions on asylum seekers in Glasgow, and excellent answer from the FM. Questions on low carbon electricity generation, fishing, and fishing policies, in particular discards. (We really must have our own representation in Europe.)

And so, once again, to lunch, the best part of the day.

ONLY IN AMERICA...

Sarah Palin, vice presidential candidate in the 2008 election that brought Barack Obama to the presidency, has indicated she very seriously considering seeking the Republican nomination for 2012.

In an interview with the New York Times she said that she was discussing the matter with her family and “engaging in the internal deliberations candidly”, whatever that might mean.

However, already she is whining about the fact that what she calls (perhaps in a joke, perhaps because she doesn’t know the correct term, you can never tell with her) the "lamestream media" for concentrating on her personal life. Other candidates haven’t had that she reckons.

I’ve never understood why John McCain, an otherwise reasonably sensible man, chose Palin who was the unknown governor of Alaska and former mayor of Wasilla (population 10,256) to be his running mate. She seemed to me to damage his campaign more every time she opened her silly mouth.

She demonstrated an incredible lack of political knowledge, of geography, and of even the names of newspapers and periodicals, never mind their content. She was lampooned by every non rightwing publication and tv channel, and at times made the Republican campaign look like a monstrous joke.

She has, nonetheless, boosted her popularity by becoming a leading light in the right wing Tea Party movement and, as something of a celebrity (in many eyes for all the wrong reasons) has had a measured success endorsing dozens of successful Republican candidates in the recent mid-term elections.

Palin is recruiting extra staff for her office. (Having become something of a personality, and made a pot of money from after dinner speaking, she has a staff.) This is taken as a sign that a bid for the nomination is on the cards. She will have to make her intentions clear by early next year.

If she decides to run, she is likely to face competition from people like Mitt Romney, ex-governor of Massachusetts, Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, and Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House.

From a Scottish, UK or European point of view, it seems incredible that a person of her intellect could even possibly become the President of the United States of America. She makes Hazel Blears look halfway reasonable. But then you look at Ronald Regan, Bush the elder, and most especially George W Bush, and you think... yep it is possible.

As ‘Letter from America’ Danny often says to me... ‘Only in America’.

MARRIAGES ARE MADE IN HEAVEN..

Or at least, that's what they say.

(Not that I see much evidence for it I have to say, but that’s another matter. )

But this one has surely been made in David Cameron’s little bit of heaven for there is nothing like a wedding to cheer people up and nothing like a royal wedding to cheer up the masses.

It won’t of course do much for me, but many, if not most, people will forget how awful everything is and they will feel very British and there will be loads of Union flags flying and at least for a while all will be well with the world...

It’s already had the undoubted plus of pushing off the front page and away for the kind of rage that we would have expected from the rags that Cameron has authorised the payment of millions to prisoners in Guantanamo, as compensation for our Secret Services being complicit in their torture, despite the fact that at least some of them have been released without any charge. State kidnap and torture, but Prince Wills and Kate have managed to push it into the “also happened today” bit of the paper.

Likewise the fact that (English) legal aid is going to be drastically reduced, with the possibility that, at least in some matters, redress to law will become the preserve of the rich. (The upside is that there will be a lot of lawyers who have been living off the fat of the land, who’ll have to go take on proper work now.) You might have expected that to come in for some stick, at least in the Labour supporting papers.

Between now and next year, when it is expected that the wedding will be held, there will be millions of words written for the media about dresses, menus, hymns, who’ll be best man and flower girls and, what the Queen will wear, where they will go on honeymoon.... and who will be coming to the huge bash that will have to be held, doubtless distracting us from the financial problems to come. Cameron will probably be hoping that no one will ask how much it will cost.

One can’t help but draw comparisons with the wedding of Charlie to Diana, which at least partially distracted the masses from the discomfort of the Thatcher revolution of the early 80s.

I can honestly say that I wish them a happier time together than the bungled mess that that was, whoever was behind it.

EARTH CALLING MR ANDY KERR...

Mr Andy Kerr, who is apparently the Finance Spokesman for the Labour group in parliament has accused the SNP of implementing Tory cuts following the announcement that the salaries of public sector workers earning over £21,000 a year will be frozen for a year.

Now, I have no idea what the London government has done about public sector workers in England who earn more than £21,000, but surely Mr Andy Kerr realises that the grant that Scotland receives from London has been reduced by something in the region of £1.2 billion. (The Treasury says that it is only £900 million, but who would trust the Treasury?)

Surely Mr Kerr doesn’t believe that this reduction can simply be ignored. John Swinney has calculated that by adhering to a pay freeze for a year for those on over £21,000, £300 million, or around 10,000 jobs can be saved. Mr Kerr can’t be thinking that it would be better to lose the jobs so that the better off public servants can have a pay rise, can he?

Mr Kerr accepted that tough decisions had to be made and in particular (and this is the bit you have to love), there would have to be pay restraint in the public sector...... OK, Mr Andy Kerr, would you not say that accepting that better off public sector workers agreeing to forego a pay rise at the moment would be the restraint which you appear to call for?

Apparently not. Because he continued that it was not the Scottish Government’s job to implement Tory cuts for them. Actually, strictly speaking it probably is. They set the amount of money Scotland gets, and if it is less than before, the Scottish Government has to implement cuts. It’s a system set up by Mr Andy Kerr’s party when in government; he should be able to understand it, at least a little bit.

Mr Kerr said that a Labour Government (ah, they are calling it a government now) in Scotland would use this budget to provide low-paid workers with a living wage.

Wait a minute Mr Kerr. Is that not what John Swinney is proposing? He’s going to be allowing pay rises for the lower paid...at the expense of the better off.

Mr Kerr further added that the SNP needed to decide whose side they were on.

Oh they know which side they are on. They are on the side of Scotland, which is a lot more than “Scottish” Labour can ever say.

Mr Kerr ended his disjointed and somewhat lacklustre rant with: “John Swinney’s talk of a ‘social contract’ is nothing more than a smokescreen for cuts that will hit children and pensioners hardest.”

Erm what? Council tax will be frozen for another year. If Labour hadn’t stood in the way of local income tax, most pensioners wouldn’t be paying any local tax at all, making many of them around £1,000 a year better off! And yes, children, like everyone except the very rich, will suffer. Mr Kerr would do well to reflect that the catastrophic financial situation in which we now find ourselves was overseen by his dear friend Gordon Bloody Brown.

I’m afraid that Mr Andy Kerr appears to live in La La Land, where Labour are in power and money pours out of the permanently blue sky full of chirping birds, and life is like a great big box of chocolates.

JOYEAUX ANNIVERSAIRE Mme PÉTULA CLARK

As I did last year, I’d like to take the opportunity of wishing a happy birthday to my idol Pétula Clark.

This has been a busy year for Pet during which she has toured Australia and New Zealand, America and ended up on Saturday with a massive bilingual concert in Montreal at the Théàtre St Denis. She is heading off now for France where she is to be the special guest of “Vivement Dimanche”, a sort of French “This is your Life”, then off to Megève for a well earned rest with her family.

She has also recorded several new songs in French and English and has proudly become President of the Hastings Music Festival in her native England.

She is currently considering offers to recreate Norma Desmond (a part she played for longer than any other actress), on stage in Paris, and an another offer from Broadway...

And all this at 78 years young. I’ll have a pint of whatever you’re on Pet.

I hope you had a great day Petula.

PENSION CRISIS SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE

The Daily Mail seems to be surprised by the fact that research has reveal that one in three people in their 50s has saved nothing for their future. This means that millions of people will spend an old age of financial misery living on only a state pension. Frankly I find it less surprising. The Daily Mail, it seems, is out of touch with how ordinary people live.

The failure to put something away has been put down to a “spend rather than save” culture over the last few decades. But I would suggest that it could be put down to the fact that at the bottom of the income scale there is simply no money left at the end of the week/month for savings. There is always something to use the money on.

And it isn’t going to get any better. With many people taking pay freezes whilst inflation (real inflation, not the government’s invented figure) is soaring. Electricity, gas, petrol, food and clothes are all increasing in price at a rate far above the “official” inflation figures, and bus and rail fares are set to increase, along with a hike in VAT.

This will leave working people with even less disposable income.

It is all very well for the government to say that they need to increase the amount that people save for retirement, but with all the demands that there are for the meagre incomes that some people have, together with the fact that interest rates in banks mean that money deposited is actually reduced in value over the year, it is a tall order to ask people to save.

Company final salary pension schemes which used to take care of people’s needs in retirement have all but disappeared and, many have failed and people no longer trust them. It’s hard to believe that we once had the best pensions in the world...until Gordon Brown got his hands on them!

Private pensions, it seems to me, are hardly worth having. They depend entirely upon the value of the stock market at the time of retrial, and if you have no choice about when you are going to retire, you can end up with a terrible deal.

And, at the bottom end of the market, if you can only save a small amount, you are better off having nothing and taking advantage of the safety net which will take you from £5000 a year state pension, to £7,000 (still less than half what is regarded as the poverty rate in the UK). In other words, if you are likely to have private pension of around £40 a week, you would be better not to bother saving, because you will receive this amount in benefits.

The current government hopes to scrap this system by the end of the parliament, and replace it with a pension of around £140 a week for everyone, which will take away one of the disincentives for the poorest to save. However, this is an aspiration rather than a concrete policy, and I have doubts whether they will be able to do it.

They also want to force companies to enrol employees on to a pension scheme, although who will fund this is not clear at present.

One thing for sure, there are many people looking forward to the bleakest of futures on a miserable pittance.

HARD TIMES COMING FOR THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Liberal Democrat candidates who want the party to distance itself from Tory policies have enjoyed success in internal elections for its ruling bodies this weekend.

Nick Clegg has said that the Lib Dem leadership supports all coalition government policies, but ex-MP Evan Harris topped the poll, asking the party to "distance ourselves from Conservative policies that have been imposed on our ministers".

Mr Harris said that if the Liberals went into another coalition in the future, it didn’t have to be with the Tories. He pointed out that it was a question of arithmetic and of policy overlap. Policy should remain, however, an individual party matter and not be developed in partnership. He made the point that his election showed that the party wanted Nick Clegg to resist those Tory policies which go against Liberal policies.

David Rendel who was the only person to vote against the formation of the coalition was also returned, coming second in the election to the federal executive, which deals with management and strategy for the party.

Bad news for the leadership then.

But there is more to come. The National Union of Students (NUS) are about to launch a “get rid of the Liberals” campaign. The strategy aims to unseat Nick Clegg and other top Lib Dems in protest at the party's U-turn on student fees.

It will mobilise students to campaign against any Lib Dem MP who votes for the rise in tuition fees, against which they campaigned so ferociously round the campuses to buy student votes in the run up to the election.

Efforts will be concentrated on four seats: Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam, Simon Wright in Norwich South, Stephen Williams in Bristol West and Don Foster in Bath.

What they hope to do is use the "right to recall" idea which Clegg pledged to make a policy. The idea is that a by-election would be called if 10% of constituents believed their MP had done something so bad as to warrant being removed.

The NUS hopes to get enough of Clegg's constituents to sign a petition for his removal if the idea actually becomes policy. It won’t work of course, because you can’t remove an MP for going back on his word even doing a 180 degree turn, or you’d have to remove a hell of a lot of them, however it will be very bad publicity for Clegg.

Well, Nick has to learn that there are consequences for going into coalition and leaving most of your policies at the cloakroom on the way in. The up side is that people call you ‘Minister’ and defer to you; you get a car and a driver on the taxpayer, you get noticed and you may even feel important. The downside is that you earn the disrespect of your party and its supporters, and end up being ditched.

Can you just imagine being a Liberal Democrat activist and going out and knocking on doors at the next election...? No, nor me.

IT'S NOT MUCH, BUT IN FAIRNESS, IT'S A START...

According to reports in the Independent, Britain is entering into talks with three tax havens which could help raise £10 billion for the Treasury by 2015.

And George Osborne said that the UK was discussing tax arrangements with Switzerland which could mean that their government would help to tax British citizens' assets in the infamous Swiss bank accounts.

Switzerland may introduce a withholding tax on new deposits without giving up its banking secrecy laws.

Meanwhile an arrangement for banking transparency which was recently agreed with Liechtenstein may be out performing the £1 billion predicted in the Budget.

Now a further three unnamed tax havens are reported to be going into talks with Britain to discuss the same sort of arrangements. The Treasury anticipates that over £10 billion could be pulled back if the three new countries, get on board along with Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

So credit where it is due, this is a small move in the right direction. So well done for that Mr Osborne.

It is nothing like the vast amount of money which is fiddled every year one way and another by selfish greedy thieves, every bit as guilty as the benefit cheats we have heard so much about this week. So let’s be as patronizing about them as we were about the dole scroungers. We aren’t persecuting them, we’re just helping them to lead a more community oriented life... It’s for their own good. And if they don’t pay up then we’ll maybe have to insist on them doing community service along with the terminally lazy ... oh and the criminals we can’t afford to put in jail any more.

Needless to say when asked about it George, like a wee parrot, said: "We are all in this together."

Of course we are George, of course we are....

I’m sure he’ll learn some new slogans soon. This one has already bitten him on the butt.

Pics: The Princely Palace above Vaduz, and a glass of water with George Osborne

FALSE ACCUSATION OF RAPE DAMAGES THE CASES OF REAL VICTIMS

The cases of Rebecca Wood from Methil, Fife, and Amanda Bradley, Bolton, England, both of whom accused their boyfriends of raping them, is a chilling reminder of how dangerous and damaging a little bit of teenage spite and immaturity can be especially when mixed with alcohol and stupidity.

Wood and her friend Johanna Low, phoned the police (for no particular reason) and accused Wood’s boyfriend of trying to rape both of them at his home in East Wemyss, but when police arrived at the house they found the boy and his mother at home alone.

When Wood and Low were traced they admitted making the story up. They were, predictably, drunk, at the time they made the call. It was fortunate that they two were not only drunk and spiteful, but also monumentally stupid. The boyfriend was never in any danger of being arrested because the story was so paper thin.

The other case was more frightening. Barry had already started a relationship with another boy and texted him that he had been raped by her existing boyfriend. He called the police and the boyfriend, who had just had consensual sex with her, was arrested whilst still in her bedroom. He was held in police cells for 17 hours, subjected to an intimate search, and had the case hanging over him for three months before Barry owned up and told the truth.

In the case of Wood and Low, there seems to have been no other reason for the accusation, than that they were drunk and stupid. The defence seems to rest on that. They had been drinking and hadn’t considered the consequences of their actions. But of course they will have been counselled to say that, so who knows what the truth is. Bradley appears to have thought that this was a convenient way of getting rid of the boyfriend who was standing in the way of the new relationship. When asked why she had done it she replied: “Because I’d just had enough of him. Because every time I got a boyfriend he still wanted sex with me and everything like that.”

Rape is a dreadful crime. Most men (me included) cannot begin to imagine the effect that it has on a woman. It is a crime, the memory of which can stay with the victim for a life time, and in some cases, damage or even ruin the rest of her life. People who do it, whether they are drunk or not, hurt or not, stupid or not, have to be dealt with in a most severe way.

By the same token false accusers of rape are an equally low form of human life. Not only do they subject their victims to untold anguish, possible vigilante reprisals and in some cases a lasting revulsion for women, but they also do a gross disservice to other women, the real victims of the crime. By making it less likely that they will be believed.

Remarkably, and wrongly in my view, Wood and Low were given community service. The Sheriff indicated that had more time been wasted on the case, then custodial sentences would have been given. Now I approve of community service for petty crime, but I don’t consider this to be petty crime, and I think it sends out the wrong message. Clearly too, the Sheriff appears to think that wasting police time is a more severe crime than false accusation of rape. Wrong!

A more appropriate sentence, in my opinion, was the one handed down to Wood. She was jailed for 12 months.

Pic: Bradley. (There are no pictures available of the Fife girls.)

Quiet Man has a good post on the government's broken promise for today

WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY

Ever wondered why, when it isn’t reflected in the quality of the bulk of the programming, the television licence fee is so steep?

Well, here’s the answer. (Not all of it of course, but the stupid things that the BBC wastes money on are evidence of a culture of devil-may-care spending with our money.)

The corporation has so far spent £76,000 in legal fees trying to keep secret the identity of the crash-helmeted test driver in the popular “Top Gear” programme, who has been known only by the name “Stig”.

Last month it lost a case against Harper Collins which planned to publish Stig’s autobiography in which, of course, he reveals his identity.

It appears that there had originally been an agreement between Stig, who turns out to be racing driver Ben Collins, and the Beeb to keep his identity secret, but the judge had ruled that in fact it was the worst kept secret, and most people already knew who he was.

Exactly what benefit keeping his name secret would ever have been I’m at a loss to know, but certainly once it was in the public domain there seems to me to have been little point in spending that much money on the case.

I’m not particularly au fait with English legal systems but they do seem to have to brief the most amazing number of people, solicitors and barristers and QCs... it’s all complex and incredibly expensive compared with our system. And in this case one of the ‘briefed’ was charging £250 for an hour of his time. Nice work if you can get it I say.

I hope that “Top Gear’s” budget for next year is reduced by whatever the total bill comes to and the manager who took this forward finds himself among the first of the newly “free to explore other avenues” as I’m sure these people will be referred to. Couldn’t be having a lovie being just plain sacked, could we?

MAKING THE POINT FOR LOSSIEMOUTH

Angus Robertson MP (Moray) has met with Defence Secretary Liam Fox in London to press the case for RAF Lossiemouth, as the campaign to secure the future of the Tornado base, supported by the major parties in Scotland, gathers pace.


Mr Robertson, the SNP Westminster leader and Defence spokesperson, pressed the Mr Fox on the strategic military arguments which support Lossiemouth as the best place to base the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, both in terms of cost and location. Mr Robertson also raised concerns over the economic and social cost of closure.


Mr Robertson reported:

“Liam Fox confirmed that the timescale for decisions on the future of Lossiemouth will be made in New Year. On one hand this will prolong the uncertainty for the families of service personnel, but on the other allows the Moray taskforce and campaigners more time to build the case for retention of the base.


“It is clear that no plan has been agreed to mitigate the economic and social impact of base closures by the UK Government, which is regrettable and irresponsible, and UK Ministers, including the Defence Secretary, need to understand their responsibilities.


“RAF Kinloss and Lossiemouth make an enormous contribution to the local economy, and the closure of both bases would be the equivalent of 700,000 job losses in the Greater London area.


“Liam Fox has just returned from Norway, as have I, after discussing the opportunities for defence cooperation and this again reinforces the case to maintain and utilise RAF Lossiemouth as a northerly home for the Joint Combat Aircraft. This would allow easy and cost effective transit to and from Norway and a capability commitment able to address the challenges facing the Arctic and the High North.


“There is no doubt that the successful future of RAF Lossiemouth can be secured through cooperation with our Nordic neighbours if the right military facilities are maintained and vital capabilities such as maritime reconnaissance and fast-jet capability located in the best strategic location.


“The national significance of the RAF's role in Scotland is demonstrated by the endorsement from each of Scotland's political leaders, including the Scottish Tories and Liberal Democrats, is that RAF basing should remain in Moray.”


What good common sense. It seems reasonable to me that we should look at co-operation with other countries in matters of defence. For far too long the British taxpayer has punched well above his or her weight in these matters. Now we simply cannot afford that ”luxury”.

Mr Robertson’s point that the economic impact of the job losses would equate to the effects of 700,000 redundancies in the London area was a point well made. The government would never consider such a move.

Let’s hope that the MoD can see sense as far as this is concerned.

GOVERNMENT MINISTERS 'ART' ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

It’s nice to know that while we’re all in it together with bills going up and wages going down (the average wage in the UK has fallen by £2,500 in the last year) that government ministers are suffering too.

So it was surprising to find that they had charged the country £20,000 for artworks to adorn their offices.

Yes, in these times of austerity, when the national debt is estimated to be as much as £4.8 trillion, our government ministers have changed all the artwork in their offices, replacing the New Labour taste for Cool Britannia with historic portraits and battle scenes from a time when Britain was great...if your definition of great is spending more money on armies than anything else and fighting almost everybody, almost everywhere.

Of course they didn’t actually buy any new art. All they did was to borrow different pieces from the reserves in the government art collection. (Why does the government need an art collection? Isn’t its function to govern, rather than to be art critics? Why can’t ministers be like everyone else and bring in a painting from home?) The money was spent on transporting and hanging the paintings. Clearly ministers can’t just bang a nail in the wall, like I do, and hang their pictures themselves. What hopeless creatures.

The most amusing thing I think is that Eric Pickles, who has, quite properly, been waging a war on waste in England’s local government, has himself spent £256.64 of taxpayers’ money hanging a new print of a photo of the Queen in his office reception.

Government Ministers. Don’t you just love them?

Pics: (none of them borrowed at taxpayers' expense)Joshua Ross Junior's Battle of Blenheim, which hangs in Iain Duncan Smith's office; the Queen and Eric Pickles

First Minister's Questions, with a good few jokes.. and a great line from Ms Goldie, is over at Subrosa's place... Go read it now....OK?

HOORAY! WE'LL NEVER BE POOR AGAIN...

Let me say at the outset that I am a strong believer that people who can work, should work, and that those who cannot, should be supported at a decent standard of living.

Whether people are unable to work because of advancing years or because of illness, pain, disability physical or mental, we, as a decent society, one which helps people of other countries and advises them on human rights and decency, should look after them to a high standard.

This makes me sound like I’m Mr Iain Duncan Smith in the flesh, but of course that is where we part company.

IDS has said that his reforms will make it always pay to take a job. And because, of course, he would not be willing to insist on a liveable minimum wage, that means reducing benefits. This is roughly what Mrs Thatcher did in the 1980s, removing the earnings related supplement and then reducing benefit entitlement based on National Insurance payments to 6 months instead of a year. Then when she had managed to reduce the level of benefits, she abandoned the wages councils and allowed companies to pay as little as they liked. (The state of course had to take up the slack with housing benefits and supplementary benefit, but that’s another story.)

Mr Duncan Smith said a new Universal Benefit would lift 350,000 children and 500,000 working age adults out of poverty, while the number of “workless households” would be cut by 300,000.

Super. Let’s just make this very clear. At minimum wage of £5.93 per hour, working a full week of 37.5 hours, this brings in a top line income of £222.38. That is an annual salary of £11,563.

An internationally recognized way of calculating poverty is to mark it at 66.6% of the average wage. (Yes, I know it’s flawed, but it’s the best we have, and poverty can be described as comparative.) The average wage has dropped by £2,500 over the last year to £25,543. That would make the point below which one drops into poverty by UK standards (on which I assume Mr DS is working) at £17,011.

To take people out of poverty, without recourse to benefits, Mr Duncan Smith will need to provide full-time jobs at somewhere in the region of £9 per hour. Is that going to happen?

IDS insists that he will be able to cut £1 billion from the amount that is taken, either fraudulently or in error, which is marvellous, and I commend him for this. But I think that without any doubt he has exaggerated the anticipated results of his policies in order to overshadow the downside of all of this which is that, in the hands of target driven, under trained, underpaid clerks on the front line, and managers with precious little idea of how to manage, this will bring untold misery to many totally innocent, poor people struggling to survive. A downside which is seen by some on his own side, including the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Let’s also remember that the DWP is currently being investigated for falsifying statistics and that Duncan Smith’s assistant Chris Graying seems to have a habit for exaggeration (going back over many years) of that which he sees in his mind’s eye and wishes to be.

Nonetheless, I wish Mr Duncan Smith every success in his quest to find work for people. I’ve been engaged in this pursuit for quite a while now, and it’s not an easy one, but it truly is a satisfying one..

Photographs: IDS, who has genuinely made an effort to learn the problems of the Benefits System (whether this has been successful or not, I'm not sure); Boris johnson, who just looks bored with the whole thing (who could blame him?); and Chris Grayling demonstrating his talent for exaggeration (!!!!!).

A CONVERT TO MORRISON'S

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while now and as I’m fed up commenting on bad news and gloom on the Republic, I thought now would be a good time to do it.

I’ve always shopped wherever was closest. I instinctively dislike Tesco and so tended to try to avoid it, although I ended up using it more often that I would have liked because it was everywhere... you can hardly miss Tesco.

I was happy to take advantage of the low prices and high quality of Lidl and Aldi and Sainsbury’s was a welcome addition to the town. (I wish Waitrose would open a branch here).

However, when Morrison’s opened a huge superstore in Dundee I never went near it. I’ve no idea why. I had nothing in particular against Morrison’s. My brother had said the quality was high and the prices much lower than Tesco, and my mum had been saying the same thing...so eventually I gave it a bash.

It was certainly the best shopping move I ever made. In more and more difficult times with prices rising and incomes going nowhere but down; with interest on savings so low that it makes saving an expensive business, and with house prices more likely to drop rather than rise, a bargain is a bargain.

Morrison’s is clean, well stocked and seems to have attracted some of the best staff in town. The prices are way lower than Sainsbury’s and Tesco and probably a bit lower than ASDA. The range of items on sale is fantastic and all in all what the PR people would call the “shopping experience” is AAA.

OK... I was won over to the shop, but when someone suggested having a meal there I was definitely dubious. I’m a bit fussy about food quality, so a supermarket cafeteria is not my idea of where to eat out.

Well, I was wrong. Once again the service is excellent, the staff are (by and large) superb, the food is unbelievable for a shop café, and the prices are almost too good to be true.

On a fairly regular basis I go there with a mate and with a ‘meal deal’ we can eat a substantial and satisfying meal for two for less than £8. it's not haute cuisine by any means, but it's good canteen food.

It sounds a bit like "Munguin’s Republic sponsored by Morrison’s Stores", but of course it’s not. It's just me passing on a tip.

I don’t know if every Morrison’s is as good as ours; maybe we’re lucky and our store has good management, but I’m inclined to believe that it’s the culture of the company that created this kind of atmosphere.... and value for money.