HUHNE VERSUS THE BIG SIX ENERGY COMPANIES

Mr Cameron, ahead of crucial talks between Buffoon Huhne , Offgas (as in let off) Offgem and the big 6 energy suppliers, has said something must be done about energy prices.


Maybe he has heard that people are worried that they will freeze to death this winter, particularly, if as forecast, it's another very long, very cold one.

NPower and British Gas have generously pledged not to hike prices again this year. Since, however, we are half way through October and there are only about 11 weeks left in the year, this is not a huge comfort to people who have seen their bills rise by up to 19% (Scottish Power) in the last few days. SSE has promised that prices will not rise again until August 2012, which is at least a relief.

Phil Bently , managing director of British Gas... (more appropriately named Laughing Gas), said that because Britain had to import 50% of its gas on an international market, prices would continue to go up, as there was more and more competition for the gas supplied by Russia and the Middle East. Our friends in the Middle East, whom we seem to 'help' at the drop of a hat, are selling vast amounts to Japan....That's gas that used to come to Britain. Maybe the Yen is preferable to the Pound.


Of course there are vast amounts of gas in the North Sea, but not nearly enough is produced for the whole of the UK (although far more than enough for Scotland).

What can the government do?  Well, it's hampered a little by the fact that some oil and gas people contribute handsomely to the Tory coffers, and no one bites the hand that feeds it. (Having said that Danny, the bright boy of the London Treasury, put a massive tax on oil exploration in Scotland, presumably in order that they would be discouraged from making more vast finds, thus giving even stronger wings to aspirations of an independent Scotland .)


They might like to start by appointing an Energy Minister who lived on the same planet as we do. 


Huhne recently lectured us that all we had to do was change supplier and hey presto all our problems would be solved. That is until someone from Earth pointed out to him that it wasn't that easy to do; that companies put all sorts of difficulties in your path; that finding a tariff to suit you was a job for MENSA members, and that once you had managed to surmount all that you would still probably receive demands from the last company and threats to cut off your supply, despite all protestations that you no longer dealt with them, until (as my mother did) you get a solicitor's letter to demand that they cease and desist!



Mr Cameron has said that the best way to reduce bills is to simplify the means of changing supplier and to encourage people to waste less power. So, it's your fault, consumer, for heating rooms in a wing of your stately pile that you only use when you are hosting a shooting party or having people down for the weekend!

People who don't have both electricity and gas lose out by having to pay bigger bills because they don't get a duel fuel discount, surely something could be done to stop that situation. Many deals are only available on line, putting at a disadvantage people who don't have internet access. Maybe Mr Huhne doesn't know that such people exist. That should be outlawed while there are still vast numbers of poorer and older people who have no internet access.


People who prepay their electricity pay over the odds for it (again the poorest) and those who cannot set up a direct debit (simplest bank accounts for the poor) also pay more. Wrong, wrong, wrong!


What they really need to do is strengthen the powers of the useless Offgen, to take on the almost cartel situation of the big 6 energy suppliers, some of which are owned by companies based outside the UK. 

They need to ensure that the sick and the elderly are protected against these rises which in that one case was 4 times the rate of inflation (and thus of benefit increases). 


They need to restore the winter fuel payment to old people.


THAT'S THE ONE THAT, PRIOR TO THE ELECTION, THEY PROMISED, ABSOLUTELY PROMISED,  THEY WOULD NOT REDUCE 


And why can't the British Government simply do what the French government (or the French President who is looking for another 5 years in the Elysée) has done. Just tell them 'NO' or in their case 'NON'.


No more rises for a year, no questions, no arguments. 'End of' (or 'fin de'), as some people irritatingly say.


Every winter in the UK thousands of people die of cold related illness. Unless this winter is very mild, sub tropical, that figure will  increase. There is no excuse. Comparable figures in far colder countries put the UK to shame.


Get it sorted, Huhne. Do something about it now before you have deaths on your hands.


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

A year of energy price rises
Month 2010-11	Company	Price rise
SOURCE: COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENTS
November	Scottish Power	Gas: 2% Elec: 8.9%
December	Scottish & Southern	Gas: 9.4%
	British Gas	Gas: 7% Elec:7%
January	Npower	Gas & Elec: 5.1%
February	E.On	Gas: 3% Elec: 9%
March	EDF	Gas: 6.5% Elec: 7.5%
August	Scottish Power	Gas: 19% Elec: 10%
	British Gas	Gas: 18% Elec: 16%
September	Scottish & Southern	Gas: 18% Elec: 11%
	E.On	Gas: 18% Elec: 11%
October	Npower	Gas: 15.7% Elec: 7.2%
November	EDF	Gas: 15.4% Elec: 4.5%

(Table from the BBC page linked in first paragraph above)

AT LONG LAST BROWNLIE'S GOT HIS BLOG UP AND RUNNING

Some things come if you wait long enough... Things like independence, old age and John Brownlie's new blog which can be accessed at http://jrbrownlie.blogspot.com/ and which you can find in the side bar somewhere over ....=============>


John's been a great contributor to Munguin's Republic and I've enjoyed his sharp sense of humour and our sparring enormously. His first post is howler.


I remember when we started up this blog, Spook, AMW, Omar, call him what you will, wrote a bit about it on his very popular blog and suddenly we had load s of hits...


It made a big difference for me, so I am happy to do the same for john.


Good luck with the blog, John. And get Munguin's Republic on your list!
**********


PS: That photo on your profile is my idea of heaven. Is that where you live?

A DEAR JOHN... NO, DEAR DAVID LETTER

This is the full text of Liam's letter to David. Have a bucket handy. It drips with insincerity.

Dear David,

As you know, I have always placed a great deal of importance on accountability and responsibility. As I said in the House of Commons on Monday, I mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my Government activities to become blurred. The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days. I am very sorry for this.

I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest. I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great sadness, to resign from my post as Secretary of State for Defence—a position which I have been immensely proud and honoured to have held.

I am particularly proud to have overseen the long overdue reforms to the Ministry of Defence and to our Armed Forces, which will shape them to meet the challenges of the future and keep this country safe.

I am proud also to have played a part in helping to liberate the people of Libya, and I regret that I will not see through to its conclusion Britain’s role in Afghanistan, where so much progress has been made.

Above all, I am honoured and humbled to have worked with the superb men and women in our Armed Forces. Their bravery, dedication and professionalism are second to none.

I appreciate all the support you have given me – and will continue to support the vital work of this Government, above all in controlling the enormous budget deficit we inherited, which is a threat not just to this country’s economic prosperity but also to its national security.

I look forward to continuing to represent my constituents in North Somerset.

Yours ever,

Liam


See...told ya so.

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

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


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


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


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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OLIVER PICKED THE RIGHT DAY TO GET CAUGHT

Oliver Letwin is a lucky man. 


A government minister caught, not just once, but on 5 occasions (ie habitually), dropping important papers into bins in St James's Park, could reasonably expect to make the headlines on every  news bulletin and in most newspapers.


But by the most amazing stroke of good fortune (at least for our Olly), the only legal fox hunt in England came to an end today with the result that pictures of the bloodied animal and stories of his inevitable fate have taken precedence in all media, even the 'Daily Mirror', which was responsible for breaking the Letwin scandal.


Mirror photographers caught the hapless Cabinet Office Minister of State glancing at papers and dropping them into public waste bins. According to a Cabinet Office spokesman, the papers contained no classified or secret information. According to the journalists who found them on the other hand, they included, amongst other things, briefings and correspondence on terrorism and national security and government planning.

The newspaper backs this up with details of some of the correspondence, which includes letters between members of a committee that scrutinises the work of MI5 and MI6. That's pretty classified, you would think. Another piece of paper details links between Al-Qaeda and Pakistan; so, not just a note about getting more milk from the office tea fund!


Additionally of course, he is a constituency MP and constituents' letters, with addresses, telephone numbers, and, of course, details of their problem(s) were among the papers left for all to see.


I thought that constituents' letters were supposed to be retained for follow ups, and I know that I would be unhappy to put it mildly, if any of my letters to an MP were left in a park for anyone to read.


I know Cameron has his hands full with Fox, and he may have them even more full if the Cabinet Secretary's inquiry, (or the press) comes up with more information  proving criminality rather than stupidity and lack of judgement on the part of the ex-Defence Secretary. It has even been suggested that Fox may be guilty of Treason.


However, surely Cameron can't simply accept an apology from Letwin and let that be the end of the matter? 


Hard though it may be for David to lose 2 ministers in one week, Letwin should also stand down. Further, in view of the disrespect he has shown to his constituents, I'd suggest the Chiltern Hundreds or the Manor of Northstead and a return to the academic life to which he is much better suited.


At the same time Letwin is far too clever and far too stupid to be in government.

Picture thanks to Cynical Highlander

ATOS DON'T GIVE A TOSS

The organisation which has smeared thousands of ­disabled people in the UK by declaring them to be incorrectly claiming Incapacity Benefits is, would you credit it, sponsoring next year’s London Paralympics. 

As you know, the French firm, Atos ­Healthcare, has assessed 1.3million people on IB and concluded that 150,000 of them were capable of working. However, on appeal, vast numbers of decisions have been overturned because of incompetence and target hunting by the company. A Commons select committee has said that Atos Healthcare's “unacceptable” errors had cost the country over £30million.

Quite rightly disabled campaigners are threatening to boycott of the Paralympic Games because of Atos's involvment in them. Clearly a company which causes so much distress to so many sick people is not appropriate for this kind of deal. The very notion that they are pouring money they have taken from us as taxpayers for making a mess of disabled people's rights, and putting it back into the games in the expectation of some sort of kudos, is sickening.

Atos , of course, seemingly living in some parallel universe where costing the UK £30 million because of ineptitude is of no import, and making disabled people's lives hell as they struggle through appeals for money which was always there's by right is a small operational matter, say that they are proud of their work conducting "objective assessments" and proud of their role as a sponsor for the Games. Well, they must be the only ones.

Worse than just being a sponsor is the fact that the man who, until recently oversaw this shambles, 

was last month appointed to the board of the International Paralympic Committee. The IPC said Monsieur Bernard Bourigeaud was a long-time supporter of the Paralympic movement and that his knowledge and experience would be of great benefit to them "going forward". Not going back then, that's a start.  Stupid expression!

John McArdle, a well known disablement campaigner, has  called Atos’s involvement an “insult” and I couldn't agree more. Yet another nail in the coffin of this ill-judged vanity project that is the London Olympic Games and Paralympics.

s uncceptable.”

WHO'S GOT A RECRUITMENT CONSULTANCY?

You'll have heard that the UK government is sacking thousands of troops, ditching aircraft carriers, planes, sharing equipment with the traditional enemy of the English, the French, and all because we are too broke to pay for armed forces, yeah?


Well, how's this for an idea? Suppose we were to hire a civilian recruitment company to recruit military personnel at the rate of 7,500 a year, over the next ten years, and pay them, wait for it ............... £1 billion?


What do you think?


Over the next 3 years the UK will get rid of 12,000 personnel, and a further 8,000 will go in the year 2020. So why would there be a need to do much in the way of recruiting you might ask. Surely it would be better to hang on to the ones you already have?


The government clearly thinks not, and who are we to argue?


Now there are a few pitfalls. For example, they tried to use civilians before and it didn't work. And most officers would agree with Richard Kemp, a past commander of troops in Afghanistan, that the best recruiting officer is a man who has served.


However, this government thinks that the new scheme will cut down on wastage whereby 17,000 troops a year go through training but only around 9,000 pass out. 
The MoD also thinks that it will save them money, and of course it will release troops who are currently involved in recruitment, for front-line duties. They somewhat spoil that argument by saying that troops WILL still play the major role in recruitment. In other words we are paying out a billion for the company to play a minor role. 


Expensive minor role, don't you think.


I suggest that Air Commodore Andrew Lambert, UK National Defence Association, may be a little closer to the truth when he suggests that the company could recruit the redundant personnel at a reduced rate to do their old jobs. That's maybe what the MoD means by "saving money". 


I wonder which one of the cabinet ministers' "young friends" is a consultant in a recruitment company...


Any takers?
*******************************************************************************
PS: Bad luck in Spain, Scotland. Well, more like outplayed. But I was still surprised to see that the Daily Telegraph sports section leads with Ireland's win over Armenia. Scotland's match is very much an also ran.

GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT JENNY...

This is a video made by Jenny Marra, Labour MSP for North East Scotland. You might not want to watch the whole thing as she has clearly never heard Polonius's advice about being brief.


That said, the meat and bones of the video are that Ms Marra is complaining about the cutting of a bus route, by, she alleges, Dundee City Council. 


The bus route in question is the 4S, which used to take pupils directly from the West End of the town to St Johns RC Academy. That bus has been withdrawn because the company which runs the bus network says that it was not profitable. A separate bus, the 26, is available, however, it makes a more circuitous route and takes approximately 10-15 minutes longer. 


Now apart from the fact that some of the pupils seemed to need to get up relatively earlier than others because of the bus change, that there was a measure of dubiety about how many times pupils had to be late before they were put in detention, and that there only seem to be about 5 or 6 pupils in the video and thus on the bus, I was surprised that Ms Marra appears to be unaware of the arrangements for running buses in Dundee.


Since Mrs Thatcher deregulated the buses in the UK in 1986s, councils have not had direct control over the services provided. At this point public transport ceased to be run for the convenience of passengers, and became profit making organisations, run for the benefit of their shareholders, who probably never used them.  The current situation is that the buses in Dundee are run by National Express, a company which is based in Birmingham, England. It wouldn't be unreasonable at this point to say that during 13 years of UK Labour government and 8 years of Scotland Labour government, no one ventured to re-regulate the transport system.


Ms Marra is, however, calling upon Dundee City Council (an SNP administration) to "reinstate" the bus. Simply put, they can't. Ms Marra would be better employed petitioning National Express. They can. 


Perhaps a subsidy is being sought? But these are hard times; we are all having to do without. Even pensioners can't expect buses to take them exactly where they want to go, directly. Why should school pupils' buses be subsidised when there is alternative transport available? And in any case, if that is what Marra is looking for, why does she not say so instead of demanding something that she must know cannot be done? 


And she knows it cannot be done because various people from the council have told her, including Cllr Will Dawson, the Convenor of City Development. However, it's clearly not her practice to allow the truth to get in the way of a good story.


What is wrong with kids that they can't get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning, or maybe walk, at least part of the way? The pupils on the video looked to me to be around 14 or 15 years old. Marra says that they have PE kit or musical instruments to carry... not that I saw any... but what does she think we used to do with our PE kit and musical instruments?


Really, I can't help feeling that this is just a cheap shot by a Labour politician at an SNP council, which she must know full well is not in a position to do what she is asking.

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

If there's a lesson that stares us in the face from every episode of ministerial misadventure, it is that, when you are in a hole, you should throw away your spade and cough up the truth.


It's fair to say that probably 95% of misadventures go unnoticed, but, for the other 5%, once it's out.... it's out, and the press (rather than the pathetic opposition) will not rest until it has unearthed every last salacious detail. Not, you understand, in the interests of goodness, truth and beauty... but because it sells papers.


The Right Honourable Mr Liam Fox should probably have heeded that advice. It wouldn't have looked good for him, but at least he wouldn't have warranted the appellation LiaR LiaM.


Because, while he has been assuring us that absolutely nothing untoward has gone on between him and his young friend, Adam Werritty, details of the convergence of their careers has emerged; the press has, bit by bit unearthed the all sorts of juicy morsels. For example, when Fox was shadowing Health, Werritty ran a health consultancy and when Fox moved to Defence, yes, you guessed it, Werritty opened a defence consultancy. Now why, I wonder, was that?


Amazingly, Werritty ran a right wing "charity" Atlantic Bridge, from the taxpayer funded parliamentary office of his friend, in parliament, at a salary over over £90,000. The aim of the "charity" was to foster the Thatcher-Reagan relationship between the UK and US. Mrs Thatcher was a patron and Gove, Osborne and Hague were directors. It has since had its charitable status removed because it was too political, endorsing David Cameron in the last election.  Werritty also lived rent free at a flat which was being paid for out of  Fox's Additional Costs Allowances. You'd have thought that on £90,000 he could have paid something towards the rent.


And now bit by bit we are learning that Mr Werritty's many visits to the MoD were not two old mates having a cuppa and a natter, as had been suggested, but that Mr Werritty was indeed involved, through his consultancy, in setting up meetings for Mr Fox, presumably at a fee, and then attending these meetings himself, on occasions without the previously obligatory Defence staff.


Meetings in Dubai, meetings in Sri Lanka; accompanying the SoS on four foreign visits, echoes of Mr Haig's adventures with his young friend, Chris Myers. Fox has also stayed with Mr Werritty, during at least one of these foreign visits, in a luxury hotel  (unchecked for security), instead of using the Embassy, which would have been cheaper.


If Fox had only been a bit more up-front at the beginning, this would be over by now, one way or another; the prime minister would have dealt with it as he saw fit, and the press would have moved on to pick on Philip Hammond, Chris Huhne or Ken Clarke.


As it is, it will run and run and it looks increasingly likely that Mr Fox will have to leave the government... 

Cat Gate...Cat Flap would be better... runs and runs... like The Mousetrap (ouch)

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You really ... (and I'm not making this up)... couldn't make this up, if you get my drift

Theresa May made a fool of herself when, at the Tory's annual get together, she told a story of a South American* student who was saved by a judge from repatriation by virtue of the fact that he had a cat. It was very quickly revealed that in fact the reason that the man was not repatriated was that he was in a stable relationship of over four years with an English woman. The judge had simply added that the couple had a cat. And Ken Clarke quite reasonably in my opinion chastised her over her accusations. He is after all Justice Secretary in England and she had cited (and she wasn't making it up) something that was simply not true, relating to his department. She wouldn't have liked it if he'd made up something about the Home Office (although most of what you could make up about the Home Office is probably, in reality, much less damaging than the truth). 


So much has been made of the tale (not the tail) of the cat, Clarke's reaction, Cameron's anger at Ken for dissing Tess of the Horribles in public and all that.


But worse was still to come.


Today the Guardian has revealed that, not only did the awful Tess make it up...yes, you did Tess... she also plagiarised it. Yes, the famous cat featured in the speech of another politician, also, it would seem a liar.


Still worse to come. It was UKIP's Nigel Farage from whom it was plagiarised!! Laugh? I nearly....,  oh never mind!

Yes, back in July, Nigel, talking to Eastleigh's Railway Society, told the exact same story, using the same words and even using the same pause at "...and I'm not making this up..." (He was.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfKHr4pW2SY&feature=player_embedded


Anyway, busy people like May will not have done all the work on her speech herself. It takes ages to write a good speech, as most of us know.  And May is off Home Secretarying for a good part of the week, so she will have relied heavily upon speech writers. Clearly one of them has been attending Nigel Farage's functions. I expect by now the offending writer will have a good deal more time to follow Farage around England picking up more little gems of made up wisdom.


In the meantime, to keep his right wing Tessy lovers on board, it looks like Ken, the Lord Chancellor, and the most experienced member of the government, will be sacrificed. Oh well, it just makes it easier to dislike them.


* The student was Bolivian, although Farage mistakenly says Peruvian. Peru, Bolivia, Nepal, Botswana....it's all just 'Foreign' to him if it ain't England.

THE CAT WAS THE STAR OF THE SHOW.

I noted that journalists have started calling Kate Middleton and Samantha Cameron, 'queens of recycled fashion'. What this actually means of course is that, despite being as rich as Croesus, they have both worn some of their clothes more than once. Probably as an example to us lower orders that such things are quite permissible (phew, thank goodness). Why exactly it matters Cameroness wears, I'm not sure, but it may to some extent have taken people's minds off the crap that her husband was talking in his speech.

Talking of what people wear taking people's minds off what they say, old Tessy Kinky-Boots, was wearing leopard skin shoes for her blethers about immigrants and their CATS. How appropriate! I heard that Ken has been hauled over the coals by Dave for making a fool of the daft old biddy's haverings. Dave should be careful taking on Ken. Mr Clarke has more intellect in his little finger than Dave has in his entire body. BTW, what was she doing using Primal Scream's song, "Rocks" as her theme? Has she listened to the lyrics, about drug dealing and having sex? Is her image consultant as inept as her speech writer? 

George's speech wasn't much better. What a load of guff. He warbled on about the economy and the mess they inherited from Labour without mentioning that when Labour demitted office the economy was starting to improve and that since the Tories took over it has gone back downhill. He talked about the banks but failed to explain why the government is now going to be doing the bank's jobs for them, by lending to companies that the banks don't consider good risks. Goodbye to some more of our money. Still, as the banks and the City provide more than half of Tory funding, I suppose we can't expect much more. The self congratulatory stuff about the Euro was pretty revolting. It wasn't even a Tory government which decided that Britain should not join the currency. It was Gordon Brown who made that decision. Presumably one that George would like to congratulate him for. As for his assertion that he will find the tax withholders and make them pay up, well,  he won't have very far to look for his first victims.


It appears that Ramsay Jones, the Tory's Spin Manager in Scotland, has been suspended for allegedly helping Ruth Davidson with her campaign. Both Annabel Goldie and Cameron are supposedly behind her, but all Tory staff are supposed to be neutral, for obvious reasons. However, Mr Jones appears to have been a little less so than was expected of him. Do these guys ever get it right?

Making volunteering and the Big Society a political issue was a massive mistake. Immediately a section of society decided that if it was a direction from the government, then they wouldn't do it. David Cameron said it would be his legacy; Francis Maude made a fool of himself when he couldn't remember one thing HE did voluntarily and Nat Wei, who was the Big Society Czar, and did the work unpaid, (apart from the seat in the HoL, worth £300+ a day) resigned  because he could no longer afford to work for nothing. All have all been embarrassments to the government. Now we are told by Nick Hurd (a junior minister, related to Douglas Hurd) that people moving into retirement should volunteer instead of playing golf all day. Well, Eton, Oxford and Bullingdon, with DC...what else would you expect? He's not even semi-detached. He lives in another universe. 


Pics: Sam Cam, the clothes horse; Tess of the Horrible's CAT-skin shoes; George looking superior with his tie squint; and Nick Hurd getting a handful.