RULE BRITANNIA... BRITANNIA RULES THE WORLD

Gordon Brown in some sort of mistaken notion that he was the Chinese or American President, or some other sort of world statesman ordered the Pakistani President to kill Osama bin Laden.

Apparently the President was not happy at his tone.

Yesterday Mr Cameron, equally deluded, was minded to employ his 9 whole months of experience of government, by lecturing the Egyptian President about what he should be doing with his little bit of trouble.

Where on Earth do these people get off?

Firstly I can’t help but think that if Messers Brown and Cameron were in the habit of addressing themselves to issues in the UK, then perhaps we wouldn’t find ourselves in the parlous state that we do, and secondly, what is it about British Prime Ministers that make them think that they know best about things that are happening on the other side of the world.

How would Brown or Cameron like it if they got a call from the Chinese president, giving them instructions about how to have a successful Olympics or from the Qataris, pointing out that it was barbaric to pepper spray protesting students?

The days of London running the world are over. Live with it. Get your heads down and try to find a sensible way of sorting out the mess that is Britain. See if you can find a way to employ all the people for whom there are no jobs; see if you can find a way of dealing with the worst crime rates and highest prison population in Western Europe; and while you’re at the tackle the drugs issues, teenage pregnancies, education that sees people with degrees but unable to spell simple words and punctuate a paragraph. Deal with issues like the woman who testified yesterday that the hospital (in England) where she went for a small operation, was so dirty that she went in for a week’s stay and ended up being there for 18 months, suffering from C Diff, E-Coli and MRSA.

Do something about the joke that is the British Railways system, where the prices are around double and the service around half the European average, and where believe it or not, they are putting up prices by 3 times inflation in order to discourage people from using the service, because they simply cannot cope.

Sort the bloody pot holes in the roads. We pay between £120 and £250 a year in road tax, not to mention the most expensive petrol in the world, and our roads are like Yak tracks in Nepal. Cars are shaken to bit and springs are broken on a daily basis.

Do something about building affordable rented houses so that we stop this ideologically driven nonsense that even the poorest can own their own homes. Home ownership is for rich people who can afford to deal with the re-roofing, or damp coursing that comes along from time to time. Not poor people who struggle to get by to have enough money for food by the end of the month.

And do something about the crap you expect our pensioners to live with. No surprises that Britain has the lowest pension as a proportion of average wage, in all of Europe, and many live in penury.

That’s what running a country is about. Not lecturing Egyptians about how to deal with riots or telling Pakistan who to assassinate.

Oh and if your reason for thinking that you have the right to do any of that is (as mine is for lecturing you) that Britain gives aid to these countries (as I pay my taxes to you)...then stop giving them aid. It is us that needs aid. Our pensioners, our hospitals, our roads.

Shape up or ship out.

Pics: Fresh faced and busy tailed as ever, the sleeping ugly; Hosni, looking well Browned off at being lectured by Cameron; Osama, Osama, where for art thou Osama? (Ok, I know it doesn't mean where!); Don't you think that Egypian riots have a golden glow compared with the grey ones we have here? Birl on it Hosni, I is de boss, because I is British, innit.

韋鳴恩. POOR MAN THOUGHT HE WAS TO BE PAID, BUT HE'S WORKING FOR FREE AS A GOOD EXAMPLE TO US ALL

When he was offered the job of “Big Society Tsar” for 3 days a week, Nat Wie thought he was to get a salary. (Apparently it’s revoltingly common to talk money, so no one mentioned it at all, until the day before he started the job, when he was told it was a voluntary post.)

He had a desk in the Cabinet Office, and a peerage, but no salary. Part of the Big Society. That'll teach him to go around trusting government ministers.

So the noble lord has had to reduce his commitment to the Big Society to two days a week instead of three, because he needs to earn some money to feed his kids, pay his mortgage and...stay alive.

Much of Mr Wei's work involves how to free “ordinary” people (that’s like you and me) from the daily grind, so that they can devote more of their time to charity or voluntary work and get involved in their communities under David Cameron’s "Big Society" plans.

But no one much in the ranks of us “ordinary people” has heard of him, and it seems that he has not actually made much headway in the job of selling the idea of the “Big Society” to the public. After all who really knows what it is about? The scheme is, it is said, facing Whitehall resistance and the stretched capacities of local authorities.

One of the problems that strikes me is that by and large “hard working British families” are very busy working hard, bringing up their kids, digging their gardens, keeping warm, trying to find enough money to get by, without starting some new voluntary activity. People with jobs are trying hard to hang on to them in an atmosphere of overwhelming “presentism”, and those who don’t are working hard to find one.

There are people, of course, who already do get involved in the local community. Community councillors “up and down this country" are working for nothing; and many people very quietly go about the business of looking after elderly neighbours, doing a bit of shopping, visiting with them, taking them out for a run in the car...

And in the leafy villages of the counties and in the suburbs there are ladies and possibly some gentlemen who serve on the bench (in England), organize the girl guides, the gymkhana, the dog show, the village fête and the local hunt ball, and join the RSVS or work for the church or for a charity shop.

Most people who have the time to do something, do something.

But not everyone has the luxury of that time. Working families (especially the HARD working ones so beloved of the politicians) have little spare time.

I hold out very little hope of success for the “Big Society” because of this. But as this is David Cameron’s own vision of Britain based, I suppose, on what he has known all his life; people with enough money to leave the drab tasks of daily living to servants, and enjoy organizing local events.

Given that I read somewhere (Daily Telegraph columnist Heffer, I think) that David Cameron had appointed around 25 personal staff to the civil service (including one for his wife, if you please), you would have thought that he could have managed a full time post and salary for the man who is supposed to make his one actual idea in government actually work.

Pics: 韋鳴恩 in his robes; How the Big Society works; For the thick ones, another explanation of how the Big Society works; Call me Big Dave Society; Nat Wie, out of fancy dress, who is, I'm told, actually a nice bloke despite the company he keeps in the Cabinet office.

"THIS IS A MATTER ENTIRELY FOR THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE", LIED DAVID MILIBAND AND JACK STRAW

The UK government, pssinly aided by a member of their royal family, advised the Libyan government on how to deal with the Scottish government over the release of Mr Al Megrahi. Then they were economical with the truth about it so that their “friends”, the Americans (the ones that think they are pathetic), wouldn’t be cross with THEM, but with Alex Salmond instead.

Documents released by Wikileaks show how desperate Western governments were to do business with the massive oil economy of Libya. They illustrate in detail how Brit ministers and officials were determined not to let Libyan anger over Megrahi’s imprisonment get in the way of money that was there to be made from a business relationship between the countries.

Blair even went to Libya and met with Gaddafi in his desert tent, all huggy and kissy, and signed a prisoner transfer agreement, although, as the only Libyan prisoner in the UK was in Scotland, and the responsibility of the Scottish government, it’s doubtful that he had the right to do this . But why would Tony Blair ever bother with what the law said when there was money to be made?

However, in October 2008 Megrahi was diagnosed as suffering from cancer and within a week Bill Rammell, a junior Foreign Office minister, had written to his Libyan counterpart advising him on how this could be used as the grounds of securing al-Megrahi’s compassionate release from prison. You have to admit it, Labour can move pretty sharpish when there’s a buck to be made, and good taste goes right out the window when there's a sniff of cash.

The FCO immediately wrote to the Deputy First Minister of Libya giving details of the process for requesting compassionate release from a Scottish prison. The Scottish government knew about this as the FCO had had to check the details with them.

The leaked document, from the Americans says that: “Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told Jack Straw that he will make the final decision in this case. Salmond told Straw that he would make the decision based on humanitarian grounds, not foreign policy grounds.

The Qatari government was also involved in making representations to Edinburgh, and Washington was said to be concerned that they (the Qataris), as one of the richest nations in the world, were offering financial incentives. The Qatari response was: 'That is ridiculous; it was not necessary to offer money. It was all done within Scottish law. We offered no money, investment, or payment of any kind’.

Did the Senators not have this information when they, somewhat imperiously, summond our First Minister to appear before them?

Another American document shows that Prince Andrew and even the Queen may have played a role. It reports: “He, Gaddafi went on to thank his 'friend Brown’, the British Prime Minister, his government, Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew, who 'against all odds encouraged this brave decision’. Gaddafi noted that the UK efforts would positively affect 'exchange’ between the two countries.

So, all the released papers square with what Alex Salmond has said all along (except that Salmond told Straw that HE would make the decision, whilst he told everyone else that it was Kenny MacAskill who would take it).

A comment from Iain Gray would, at this point, be interesting, if not (almost undoubtedly not) helpful. Doubtless, however, if asked, Mr Gray would simply mention that it sounded like another SNP broken promise and a personal humiliation for Alex Salmond. Yawn.


Pics: Mwa mwa dahling, Gaddafi and Blair’s love in in the desert; First Minister’s story is borne out by Wikileaks; Qatari money, the cash that really talks, but we didn’t need any of it. The law was enough; Blinky Straw, the man with the moral rectitude of a tape worm.

GEORGE OSBORNE: TIME FOR A CHANGE?

Mr Osborne has called unions the "forces of stagnation" and blamed them for holding back Britain's economic recovery. Gideon has also said that he will change union law if his deficit-reduction timetable was disrupted by strikes. Nice one. The hard fought for rights that we have to withdraw our labour will finally be nailed by George Osborne.

This has doubtless been brought on by the fact that Osborne fears that union leaders are planning strikes against public spending cuts. The TUC has already organized a protest in London on 26 March, three days after the budget. It hopes that the protest will attract a million demonstrators.

"I completely understand” said our George, “that trade unions want to represent the interests of their members” ...and then went on to tell them what the interests of their members were.

Well, it’s good to know that someone as high and important as Mr Osborne knows all about the needs and aspirations of the ordinary working person of this country. It had worried me that, being as rich as Croesus, Mr Osborne might have difficulty in understanding what it was like to live on a couple of hundred quid a week. But no. He knows what we need and want.

Osborne showed this understanding by saying that he hoped growth would come from debt reduction, cutting corporate tax rates and reforms to English health and English education. Right, well that’s going to help Mrs McTavish put food on the table when inflation on necessaries is running at around 10% and pay rises at about 0.5% (except for bankers, MPs and the Queen). And as many English doctors are predicting utter chaos as they are removed from doctoring and put in charge of vast budgets; and almost no schools, teachers or parents support Gove’s muppet ideas on education, I’m having some difficulty in understanding how this will put food on tables.

Osborne said he felt a "huge responsibility" to make the right decisions for Britain. He said that he was fulfilling this responsibility to the best of his ability. Perhaps a comment from me there would be unhelpful. He said he realized things were not easy for families. There we go again. It’s only families that are having it tough, not just under this government; the last one was just as bad; single OAPs are having the time of their lives. And the 20+% of young people that are unemployed are thoroughly enjoying it.

George was asked on yesterday’s “Politics Show” why he did not modify the deficit-reduction timetable and he replied: "If I went to parliament and got up at the dispatch box in the House of Commons and said, 'I am abandoning the deficit-reduction plan that Britain set out last year.' What do you think the reaction would be? Within minutes Britain would be in financial turmoil. I'm not prepared to let that happen.

Actually he was asked why he didn’t modify it, not abandon it. But his answer shows that, no matter how wrong it is, and it doesn’t look good at the moment, he can’t go back, because he thinks that financial turmoil would follow. What exactly does he think we are suffering at the moment?

Oh for the courage of the Egyptians.

Pics: Gideon George Osborne: All at sea; very smug; catching flies and asleep at the helm. All dedicated to Somepapfaedundee, who loves pictures of our Chancellor. (Weird bloke.)

AND TODAY'S U-TURN IS... TPIMS

We believe that the best way to combat terrorism is to prosecute terrorists, not give away hard won British freedoms. That is why we will: scrap control orders, which can use secret evidence to place people under house arrest (Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010, page 94.)

Yet another U-turn today that leaves the Lib Dems looking stupid. Hello TPIMs. That’s what the Tories are having instead of Control Orders, those nasty Labour things that the coalition (and the Lib Dems in particular) promised to abolish. But they ended up only abolishing the title. Well, at least they got rid of the curfew and replaced it with a ROS... a Required Overnight Stay, which is a kind of curfew with a warm cuddly, liberal, politically correct name.

And that is today’s U-Turn!

Sneaky Tories, though (today was clearly a good day to bury U-turns) they sneaked another U-turn out more or less on the same day. That’s the one where Caroline Spelman wanted to rake in some money for DEFRA by selling off all England’s forests and getting a cool £100 million for them. But she reckoned without the intervention of Boris Johnson’s sister, Rachel {and 85% of the population of England}. It seems that Clan Johnson are very active catalysts for U-turns, after he himself precipitated one over the changes to Housing Benefit. Anyway they are not now going to just flog off the trees to the highest bidder but are now going to have a consultation after which they will only sell the wood off the highest “nice” bidder.

So waiting for the favourite media catchphrase the U-turn is rather like waiting for a bus. You wait 13 years and then loads come along all at once, sometimes twice in one day.

FMQ: IN WHICH ELMER LOOKS EVEN STUPIDER THAN USUAL AND ANNABEL GETS A PRIVATE MEETING WITH YOU KNOW WHO

The First Minister announced that he would be having meetings about the *dualling of the A9 during the afternoon. He knew that the whole chamber would be delighted! He was wrong. No one much, except the SNP members, even smiled.

Elmer, aptly nicknamed “the snarl” by blogger James Kelly at Scot Goes Pop, was suddenly very worried about redundancies in Aberdeen Council: 900 of them, including teachers, who, even in Thatcher’s day, snarled Elmer, had been safe from cuts (something to do with fewer children, you half wit?). He was, apparently, concerned that Aberdeen had been let down by the SNP.

Of course as usual he had only half the facts. Eck pointed out that under a local government funding formula initiated by the Labour/Liberal “Executive” Aberdeen had received only an average of 84% of the funding per capita of Glasgow. When the SNP had tried to correct this, one Glasgow politician (a certain Steven Purnell), had publically called it a bribe! Seems you can’t please Labour.

The encounter took 11 minutes, and somewhat unfairly I thought, before the last answer, the Presiding Officer asked the FM to be brief, although he had neglected to ask Snarly Fudd to be brief in his question.

And so to Annabel, and although I may disagree with her politics I have to say she is a professional politician. She asked about the lack of availability of cancer drugs in Scotland, which are available in England. The issue, as Alex pointed out, is incredibly sensitive. Decisions are made independently by the SMC... doctors, who have to balance effectiveness against limited resources, despite the NHS budget being maintained. You could see that she listened carefully while Alex gave the answer, and then asked if he would meet with her to discuss the matter further. Alex agreed.

That’s the way to handle FMQs Gray, you idiot.

Poor wee Tavish asked about bonuses in the public sector and got an answer to his last week’s question about salary increases... It seems that the Liberals thought they had found a £50 million saving that could be made, but Alex was able to point out that to achieve this they would have to sack 450 consultants. It was a bit weird if you hadn’t seen last week’s questions. The FM pointed out that on bonuses, they were obliged to honour contracts which had been instigated by the Lib/Lab Executive, but that teh Health Secretary had asked for voluntary restraint from bosses.

Joe Fitzpatrick asked the FM about the Digital Network report, and whether it brought a “Scottish Six” closer. (A question close to my own heart as I tire of seeing English regional news on the BBC’s main news, and then a magazine programme of insultingly puerile nonsense which is offered as the BBC’s best efforts on Scottish news.

Alex agreed with Joe that it indeed did bring a Scottish 6 closer, and pointed out that it was a cross party desire to see a proper news programme on a channel funded by the licence fee in Scotland. He also paid tribute to Ted Brocklebank, the Tory Broadcasting spokesman (who used to be a tv presenter), for his assistance and expertise. In response to concern from Labour’s Pauline McNeill that money for existing BBC Scotland could be reduced, Alex suggested that BBC’s spend on Scotland ran short of the per capita equivalent in the UK.

Richard Baker (Labour), Robert Brown, who the FM acknowledged had been helpful in assisting the government to pass laws helping reduce crime to a 30 year low, and Sandra White, asked about domestic violence. The FM told them that it was totally unacceptable and that there had been a 40% increase in the budget to tackle it, with more help going to a wide range of agencies.

And so to lunch.

Pics:

Alex, who agreed to meet Annabel behind the bike sheds. Snarky Elmer, who nobody wants to meet. Annabel, who could show him how to make friends and influence people. Joe, who represents Dundee West as a superb constituency MSP. Richard who doesn’t know the difference between the EU and the Council of Europe...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xzm59/Politics_Scotland_27_01_2011/


* Greatful thanks to my proof reader (on minumum wage) for pointing out the difference between dualling and duelling... Touché!!

JUST WHEN THE ECONOMY WAS DOING FINE, IT HAD TO GO AND SNOW...

The economy shrank last quarter, but according to Mr Osborne it was because of bad weather. So that will be fine, you’d think. When the warmer weather gets here everything will be back to normal.

But you’d be wrong, according to Mr King, the governor of the Bank of Britain (or that part of Britain that counts). This is going to be a hard year, says he. Inflation will raise and wages will fall again (except for bankers, MPs and the royal family), unemployment will soar, apart from the aforementioned people, who appear to get a by on that too.

We need to tighten our belt and support the government on this, says Mr King (why has he not yet got a title?), because he thinks both they, and he, are right in these matters.

I, of course prefer the theory illustrated so effectively by his own people in the banking industry. When they were worried that there would be no bonuses for them, they arranged for pay rises of up to 50% to compensate; then when they found that the government had only been joking about the bonuses, they kept the pay rises and the bonuses as well.

So with higher fuel, higher taxes, higher domestic fuel, higher food prices, higher clothing prices, higher prices on imported good (almost everything) because the pound is falling faster that the snow that so upset the economy, and lower wages, life in looks like a real holiday (and even they will become more expensive as the pound plummets) as the warmer weather comes our way. A spokesman for the government said that we all have to buy into this because we are all in it together.

You could not make this up.

Pic: Poor wee Georgie can't even afford a hair cut.

MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

It now costs around £70 to fill an average family car with petrol, and that this is worrying for a “hard working British family”, who may only have around £250 disposable income, and with rent of £80 and council tax of a further £60 this can make life difficult. You could see the pain in the prime minister’s face. He really feels for us “hard-working British families”. He hasn’t said how he feels about spinster ladies and single people. I wonder how he feels about pensioners whose only way of getting shopping is to use their car. How does he think they manage with the most expensive fuel in the world in this oil rich nation? Indeed how does the poor man manage himself?

Mr Richard Baker is starting to campaign for re-election by bringing up the case of Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al Megrahi. He wanted to know how many letters and emails were received (and has been told) then he wanted them broken down into how many were for and how many against, and then he wanted to know how many civil servants were on the “Lockerbie team”, and then he wanted to know how many man hours had gone into dealing with the matter, and then he wanted to know how much it cost. (He’s very inquisitive, isn’t he?) He appears to be very concerned about how much this particular item has cost the Scottish taxpayer. I wonder if he’s considered how much time it would take and money it would cost to provide him with all this information so that he can go electioneering on it?

Mr Gray has started his election campaign, 100 days before the election, by highlighting (predictably) 100 SNP broken promises. They included promises which the SNP had not made. He also misquoted the SNP manifesto at least 20 times and mentioned items which are the responsibility of other parliaments. Moreover he included things that the SNP had brought forward and had been voted down by parliament. So as usual Mr Gray got his facts all wrong and mixed up promises broken with policies voted out by parliament. God help us if he is ever First Minister, but if he is, he will be able to rely on me to point out every single promise he breaks.

Our senior police officers were given bonuses amounting to more than £400,000 across the country last year, at a time when police forces are having to slash money from their budgets. Colin McKerracher, CBE, QPM, LlB, Chief Constable of Grampian Police, has suggested that part of the money confiscated as proceeds of crime could be used to subsidise the police in future. Could this be because he was one of only two Chief Constables that accepted his bonus? It seems to me that, like in every other walk of life, those at the top will always look after themselves, regardless of the effects on other people. Me me me me me is the motto of the senior people.

John Taylor has been found guilty of stealing over £11,000 of public money. As a barrister surely he must have been bright enough to realise that the “advice” given by fellow peers that “any family connection with an address” was enough to justify claiming that it was a first residence for the purposes of claiming expenses, especially as if he had never even been to the house, never mind lived there. I hope his lordship will have time in the pokey to reflect on his limited understanding of the legal system, and perhaps do some revision. He is safe in the knowledge, however, that even if he gets more than a year’s sentence he will still be able to resume his seat in the House upon release, and restart his expenses business.

Some random thoughts that flitted through my mind....

On average, figures suggest that there are around 120 murders a year in Scotland. Why then have our newspapers and news channels been so full of one murder in Bristol? It is likely that, in the time that this has been being reported, 10 people have been killed in Scotland, and apart from the one at the bottom of my street, which I only heard about because I have very nosey neighbours, there’s been no mention of them. Strange!

Isn’t it wonderful what money and a title can do? His Nobleness Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords, looks like something you would see in the ring at a cattle market. No one in their right minds would call him aesthetically appealing, and yet he managed to arrange a series of sexual liaisons with Brigit Cunningham, who is a bit dishy, even if she is 48. Of course she has been round the block a few times, but even so. Someone with Strathclyde’s looks would have, without £10 million found it difficult to pull a dead rhinoceros!

Richard Lochhead, our Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, is working hard to get America to lift a 40 year old import ban on Haggis. US import laws ban any product which contains sheep’s lungs (I didn’t know that!), but with the vast number of Americans who have Scottish ancestry, a huge market could open up for Haggis manufacturers if he is successful. Good work Richard. Another example of the government of Scotland working for Scotland.

Didn’t Her Nobilityness Warsi make a bit of a twerp of herself with her rant about Islamaphobia? She has embarrassed the government for the second time in a few days. Dave was forced to distance himself from the comments she made on dinner party conversations about Islam, and of course she put him in another difficult situation when she put the boot into the right wing of the Tory party for not making much of an effort in Oldham and Saddleworth. One of the pitfalls, perhaps, of appointing inept ministers because they tick boxes as representing a couple of minorities?

When Alex Salmond appointed his first cabinet in 2007, he reduced the number of Cabinet Minister (and therefore the cost thereof) to 6, including himself. By contrast the Labour shadow cabinet contains 10 members plus a parliamentary business manager and chief of staff, and a chief whip, who also attend shadow cabinets. Should Labour win the General Election in May, can we look forward to a doubling in the cost of the top level of government?

Gordon Brown apparently fears that journalists may have hacked his phone. The number of times it was flying across the room and smashing to pieces against a door, wall or fireplace, I should imagine no one much left him any messages. Who’d want to speak to him anyway? How incredibly dull that would have been.

Pope Benedict must lack an irony gene as he called upon the Italian government to show a strong moral example to the public following on the scandal of Sylvio Berlusconi and the underage prostitute. Who was it again that said “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Oh yes, Jesus wasn’t it? Have you heard of him Papa?


Pics: Tubs to his friends (and lovers) Strathclyde, the answer to a maiden's prayer, specially a maiden that's short of a few bob. Richard Lochhead, our man down on the farm, being force fed carrots. Baroness Warsi two steps behind her beloved leader. A Nokia after Gordon discovered that Tony had beaten him to see Obama in the White House!

WILL MR GRAYLING SHOW AN EXAMPLE AND WORK FOR DOLE MONEY?

Chris Grayling, a minister with the London coalition, is going to “rescue” the “lost generation” by taking them off the dole figures and putting them into work, so says the Telegraph.

I am delighted, of course, that the government is to focus on the 16-25 year olds in the jobs market. I have advocated that several times on this blog. Years of experience in the employment business has reinforced in my reckoning that there is little point in perusing the Thatcher lost generation for work. They have been unemployed too long, settled into their world of poverty, mostly with an acceptance that that is how it will be till they die, probably long before their time. On the other hand, unless we want to ruin the lives of yet another generation of Scots we have to do something to provide work for the under 25s. Even if this costs money, it will be an investment worth making.

The numbers of this age group who are without employment, further or higher education has risen dramatically. It is not just in Scotland where this is a problem. All over the world the issue is the burning one for governments and for young people alike. It is disingenuous therefore of the coalition to try to blame this all on the Labour Party (although their input was substantial).

The figures in Spain are far worse than in Scotland, and even in Germany, there is a 10% youth unemployment rate. In Tunisia youth unemployment was one of the causes of the riots which overthrew the government. This is now spreading to other countries. Although Scottish Youth is unlikely to be so vociferous in expressing its displeasure at idleness being thrust upon it, London is right to be afraid of this possibility.

Mr Grayling’s solution is to offer work in private companies to young people most likely to end up joining the ranks of the long term unemployed (LTUs). Unfortunately Mr Grayling’s plans come unstuck at the first obstacle because neither he, nor the private companies can actually afford to pay for this work, so this new workforce will rely on benefits.

The laudable aim is, of course, to give young people the experience of work, the absence of which is so often a barrier to their being employed. Unfortunately some rather hapless coalition spokesman said that they would be focussing on the needs of employers...which would appear to be for free labour!

I’d be the first to agree that the needs of business must be one of the primary concerns in the rebuilding of the economy, wrecked by bankers and the incompetence of the bank of England, the regulatory bodies, the last government and the last opposition. But free labour is taking this a bit too far.
For employment to work, it must be a partnership between employers and employees. And whilst job experience can have a role to play, it is usual in this relationship for money to change hands.

The full plans are to be announced in the next few days. I look forward with interest to reading them. I hope that the issues of payment will be dealt with, and that the massive problem of drink and drugs addiction will which is one of the barriers to work and the treatment of which is so sadly underfunded will not be neglected.

The problem of unemployment is one which has dogged the London governments for a long time. It has always been handled ineptly. Perhaps London would consider devolving the issue to Edinburgh where it might be dealt with effectively.

Pics: (1) Chris Grayling, a controversial Tory who was destined to be Home Secretary until he made a series of embarrassing statements about youth, Liverpool and gays, whereupon he was demoted to minister of state under the safer IDS and his job given to Kinky Boots May (or ''Matron', as she is known in certain parts!!) (2) Tunisian youth demonstrating that a mixture of unemployment and rising prices don’t make the best cake. Take note David Cameron. (3) Still, look on the bright side, there’s a job for a plasterer there. (4) Chris looks at a wall of achievement and wonders where he went wrong. Want a wee hint, Chris? Two extremities, “feet” and “mouth”.

GORGEOUS GEORGE GRACES US WITH HIS CANDIDACY

So George Galloway... you know... the gorgeous one (some say), who thought that our politicians were “verbal stumblebums, who would regard the term ‘nonentity’ as a compliment”, and who compared Iain Gray and Alex Salmond in debate, to the Krankies, has decided that he would bring “a touch of class” to Holyrood.

Well, talking of Kranks, or cranks, George, how would it be if we pointed out that at least neither Mr Salmond nor Mr Gray have ever appeared on television, at least to my knowledge, in a pink leotard. (And, may I say, I fervently hope that they maintain that happy record.)

George Galloway has always been a tad on the weird side, but he is well educated and erudite and so he easily progressed from humble beginnings on Dundee’s council to be the youngest ever chairman of the Dundee Labour Party, General Secretary of War on Want, grace the floor of the Commons for Hillhead and later Kelvin and even later Bethnal Green in England.

He’s done some good stuff (pretty much sticking it to Tony Blair, which will always get a vote in my book, calling Bush and Blair liars and suggesting that troops should refuse to obey illegal orders in an illegal war), although there is no doubt that, along the way, he has become more and more strange, to the point where one wonders about madness of some sort.

The long and flowery speeches which at the same time impressed and caused amusement, especially when he let a Senate Committee have it in the neck, have become ridiculously pompous and overblown and, particularly following his appearance in the Big Brother House, he has become more of a figure of fun than anything else.

The thing I admire most about George is that he simply refuses to let authority beat him into submission. He uses his freedom to speak his mind to full effect and to the evident embarrassment of people who expect lesser beings to fold tents and be compliant. Indeed on an occasion when he was suspended from parliament for 18 days his response was: "To be deprived of the company for 18 days of the honourable ladies and gentleman behind me [in parliament] will be painful ... but I'm intending to struggle on regardless... What really upset them [the committee] is that I always defend myself... I am not a punch bag. If you aim low blows at me, I'll fight back". Would that some of the rest of the spineless morons who inhabit the green benches had half as much pluck... but most of them are looking for the main chance.

So now, and only because he has been thrown out of his seat in London, coming third behind the Labour and Tory candidates, George has decided to add a bit of class to the Scottish parliament. Aye well, that’s what HE thinks. Perhaps the Scottish people will have a different idea.

As far as I’m concerned it’s not a bad thing. His candidature will be likely to take votes from Labour without him having a hope of winning. This can only be to the SNP’s advantage.

Much of the information in this article was gleaned for this article by Ruth Wishart, whom I always had down as a bit of a feminist. I was surprised then to read her sneering at the idea that George had dyed his beard. I wonder if she has ever referred to any female MPs pointing out that their hair colouring owed much to 4 hours with “Raymonde”.

ANDY IS SAYING GOODBYE ...GOODBYE

Andy Coulson has resigned as David Cameron’s media chief in the light of revelations of illegal phone tapping at the News of the World when he was the editor.

He, somewhat belatedly in my opinion, decided that his position has become untenable. Apparently however, he will stay in post for a few weeks, presumably to show that he was not a wrong doer and has not been sacked.

The problem with Mr Coulson’s situation was that, if he knew that illegal phone tapping was the chosen method for the exposés that the News of the World was getting, then he was complicit in it, and therefore, as the boss, overall responsible for law breaking.

If, on the other hand, as he repeatedly claimed he had no knowledge of the hacking, it makes you wonder how such an incredibly incompetent and irresponsible journalist would make it as an editor of a national newspaper.

Tabloid newspapers make their money out of sensation. Their readers are interested in who Jordan is married to this week; how mad Cheryl Cole is and what therapy she is undergoing; what Prince Charles was saying on the phone, late at night, to Mrs Parker-Bowles from his four poster; whether David Beckham has been having an affair (thinking that his wife had left him... and unaware that her latest diet had left her invisible to the human eye). In order to keep a supply of these ever more salacious stories coming, reporters have to find more and more outlandish and possibly illegal ways of investigating the lives of the rich and infamous.

Either Mr Coulson neglected to ask how his reporters were getting the big exclusives they kept turning up for him, or he was naive enough to believe that the reporter’s next door neighbour’s sister was a close friend of the woman who cleaned for the neighbour of whichever prince or “star” they were investigating.

Either way he was a poor choice as close confidant of the prime minister.

Of course, in fairness to Mr Cameron, is it not possible that the choice was made by Rupert Murdoch as a quid pro quo for him swapping horses, and dedicating his all-powerful British news machine, including The Sun, The Times, The News of the World, and BskyB to the Conservative cause in the run up to the UK general election.

Cameron was said to be "very sorry" that Mr Coulson had felt "compelled" to resign due to continuing pressure. Well, whatever Dave, but no one believes anything you say now.

Pics: Andy Coulson, who will not get any unemployment benefit, because he left a job of his own free will. Rupert the shar pie, and Cameron looking happy, must have been before he got the job.

HOW CAN YOU SIT IN THE PLACE AND BE DEBARRED FROM VOTING FOR IT?

Just a quick question here...

...Without going into the contentious matter of the rights and wrongs of human rights: whether we should have any, whether we should share them with Europeans, whether indeed we should share them with the English, who have a very different view from us on most things.

What on earth makes Jack Straw and the Tory right think that it is unacceptable for a prisoner, inside for a relatively minor crime, to lose his right to vote in an election, when it is perfectly legal UNDER ENGLISH LAW...(nothing forced on us by Europe), for an MP to go to prison and remain an MP, on full salary and benefits?



Is there not an irony that whilst he remains a paid member of the House of Commons, he is unable to vote for its composition?

And what of our dear and much loved Upper House? Of course they don’t vote in London parliamentary elections, but they can be released from the Scrubs, get on the first bus, and go straight back into their Noble Members’ House, pop on their ermine and, after a hearty luncheon subsidised by us, can slip into the House and sleep it off, passing go and collecting £350 as they do.

Are we all mad? Is Jack Straw mad? (OK silly question). Is he well suited to the Tory right? (OK another silly question).

Hello, is there anyone there?

************

PS: Something else to think about. If the ruling from the ECHR was given in 2005 and Jack Straw sat on it for 5 years, leaving it to the Tories to sort out the mess, then why does Elmer think that he’s got something really clever to say about the fact that the decision on students’ payments, or not, for University, will not be made until after May?

And I looking for an answer more detailed that the simple and plainly obvious fact that he is criminally stupid.

Pics: (1) Jack Straw and an unknown woman. Don't you wish they could swap clothes? (2) A pretty average member of the House of Lords. (3) Do these two still have the right to vote despite killing hundreds of thousands of people?

.................

DOES THE GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON?

Yesterday the inflation figures were released. It surprised me to find that with the price of electricity going up by 6%, gas by 9%, with petrol galloping out of control, food prices going through the roof, transport costs up by 10%+, clothing up by 6%... the inflation figure managed to stay under 4%.

Odd you might think, but who am I to argue? I'm, er, sure the Treasury knows what it is doing...

So as surprised as I was to see such a low inflation figure given the pressures on my wallet, I was even more surprised to hear that the figures came as a shock to the government. Not because they were so low, but because they were so high!

Apart from wondering how the shops where Mr Osborne’s servants shop keep their prices down when “ordinary people’s” shops are putting prices up at a fair wallop, I was also a bit worried that the government was so unprepared for this. No one else is.

Then today I listened with amazement to a news item saying that the government was once again shocked at the rise in the unemployment figures, and I wondered if Mr Duncan-Smith had perhaps taken a longer than normal holiday in the past month. Every day I hear about companies shutting down or paying off. So why, I wonder, would it surprise the government that all these redundancies would result in more people being out of work? Am I missing something here, or don’t the two normally go hand in hand?

I do hear that manufacturing industry is soaring and I take great comfort in that. Mrs Thatcher seemed, for some reason, to despise manufacturing. Perhaps it was because that was where lay the industrial trades unions, comprising working class people who wanted their share of the pie, and whom she had pledged to obliterate.

If one didn’t have manufacturing, it followed that one wouldn’t have manufacturing trades unions. So she shut it all down so she could claim to have achieved her goal. 'Twas a bit tough on the rest of society, but Mrs Thatcher could be guaranteed to see only her own selfish ends.

Of course it could be that she, now mixing in circles of financial elite, had the upper working class – lower middle class snobbery about factory workers and dirty hands and decided that a country she “led” would have none of it. Or maybe a mixture.

We've seen some of the consequences of that "white collar" revolution over the years with mass unemployment, disintegration of society and the growing of a permanent underclass. Recently of course the lid blew off that side of the economy too. Given freedom to do what they wanted, it seems that financiers, people of Margaret's own circle, are every bit as irresponsible as the trades unionists from another time, just luckier in their outcomes.

Manufacturing's recovery, welcome though it may be, is based mainly on the fact that with interest rates at an historic all time low of 0.5%, the pound is worth very little (even against the Euro with all its problems), which makes our products cheap, if nothing else.

Unfortunately, of course, that only benefits those companies which are exporting. So those manufacturing for the domestic market are not benefiting.

Additionally, with inflation taking off, it will not be long before interest rates rise, probably quite steeply and rapidly, and this benefit will be lost...along with much else.

In the meantime, it would be nice if next time there is announcement of some figure or another, the government wasn’t 'gobsmacked' to hear it. Given the momentous proposals for change they are trying to push through, it might give us a little more confidence if we thought that they had some idea of what was going on on their watch.

Pics: (1) Don’t jump... oh well OK go on. (2) I’m just popping out for a paper. (3) The nightmare from hell. A visit to the uncaring, target driven, sneering, dirty, understaffed, unpleasant, smelly Jobcentre “plus”, although plus what exactly is a mystery to most. (4) Manufacturing: what the country needs; what it has always needed and always will and what some silly old woman got rid of.