PLEASE NOTE: ANDREW LANSLEY IS THE ENGLISH HEALTH SECRETARY

Andrew Lansley has been in the news today, in the morning because he was going to the Royal College of Nursing conference this afternoon to talk to a select few nurses, and there was to be a motion of no confidence.

Later in the day he was news because he’d been to the conference, there had been a motion of no confidence which was carried by a margin of 99-1, and he’d met some nurses, and told them he regretted that the message he had for them had failed to communicate itself (whatever that means).

Now it’s a given that Lansley is a toast in the making, shortly to be hung out to dry along with his policies (to mix my metaphors). That he was patronising to the nurses also goes without saying. He probably doesn’t know how NOT to be patronising.

But surprisingly it is not with him that I have an issue. No. Rather it is with the media.

The BBC this morning, STV at 6.30 and Channel 4 at 7 pm all made the same mistake. They talked of Lansley as The Health Secretary, and of the NHS as if the UK only had one.

Now, of course, we are all used to the fact that national news programmes treat Scotland as if it isn’t there most of the time.

That’s a given. But I beg of the tv and radio stations, not to mention newspapers to take heed of my plea..

This is election time in Scotland, I SAY THIS IS ELECTION TIME IN SCOTLAND... and we are electing a GOVERNMENT, just like you did last year, which will run our internal affairs.

Among these affairs is health. Your current misleading coverage may mean that some Scottish folk watching you programmes will think that our health service is just about to be semi privatised by a man so out of tune with everyone’s feelings you wonder that he’s not from Mars.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable if they did given today’s coverage. And come to that, the front page of yesterday’s SCOTTISH edition of the Daily Telegraph, which led with a story about the ENGLISH health service.

The truth is that under Nicola Sturgeon (Cabinet Secretary for Health) the Scottish Heath Service is getting better all the time.

Now the Daily Telegraph has no obligation to be fair and even handed so it’s just irritating that it’s not. The BBC, STV and Channel Four, however, have fairness as a contractual obligation. Perhaps at election times (even in far off, unimportant, little Scotlandshire) they might make a little more effort to ensure that their stories are as near the truth as they can reasonably be.

JUST IGNORE THE AUTHORITIES: HAVE A PARTY

The minute that the wedding of William and Kate Middleton was announced to be taking place around the time that the de facto income tax increase and reduction in tax credits would be felt in pay packets “up and down the country” (why is it always “up and down, why not “down and up” which is what it would be if you lived “up north”?), I suspected that this was a cunning plan to distract the distractible from the start of the painful truth that “things are only getting...erm.... worse”.

I can see the planning process in my mind’s eye, as if I were there...

“Now Gideon, old thing, when all this bites there’s going to be the most frightful stink. What can we do to distract the masses?”

“What about a royal wedding David, erm, I mean prime minister. You know how the terminally sloppy can easily be distracted by a handsome young man in uniform and a beautiful bride in white with loads of kings and queens and trumpets, plus we’ll all be invited... How jolly."

“Spot on Gids old bean. I mean it worked for Mrs Thatcher when she hitched Charles to Diana. Just the job. Best it were done soon anyway; he’s starting to look like his uncle Edward. And we can give the proles a day off work. Industry will kick off a bit but we can hint at a few knighthoods and that will shut them up. Splendid fellow, Gideon. I knew you’d come in useful one day.”

So, I suppose it was not terribly surprising that Cameron ventured “up north” to Manchester, (18 hours south of here by Virginrail, but up north to those who count anyways) to promote the wedding.

Yes, the UK prime minister was promoting the wedding (good use of his time) and telling people who were having trouble with planning permission that “families should ignore the bureaucracy and push on with their celebrations”. (Only “families” note, so if you're single, beware!)

He is apparently angry that some local authorities have created obstacles limiting the “fun” on the bank holiday. This is the reason, he thinks, that relatively few parties have been organised so far. (On the other hand it could be that few can afford them, or that few care, or that local authorities don't have the money).

Cameron is holding a party in Downing Street on the day of the wedding, so that should be jolly... all the neighbours can come and have jolly fun... imagine how much fun that will be. Lots of "jolly" and lots of "fun". Golly Gosh!

A “senior source” (makes it sound like elderly bottled water) said: “What we are basically saying is ignore your council if they try to put you off.

The only permission you need is to close the road and then you can have your party.

OK, so apart from the dodgy grammar, which we might have expected to avoid given the expensive education that ''senior sources'' have undoubtedly had, it appears that the advice Downing Street is giving to people is that, as long as there can be a road closure, ignore anything else.

Never mind that the neighbours don’t want it; never mind the hazards or the noise or rubbish or anything else. Just defy the local authority, party and most of all, forget the tax rises.

Ewwwww dangerous ground Mr Cameron....Who is it that cleans up the mess and takes all the rubbish away? Ah yes.

NB. If you live in Scotland, before you decide to take him at his word and break the law, it might be well to remember that Mr Cameron’s remit does not extend to undermining the police or local authorities in this country.

GET A GRIP MAN: WE NEED A PRIME MINISTER, NOT A CLOWN

The prime minister has accused his alma mater of having a "terrible record" of enrolling students from state schools and upset a lot of people. He further accused them of having enrolled only one black student last year.

The university said that the figure was "highly misleading" relating as it did only to British students who described themselves as black Caribbean. Oxford had in fact admitted another 27 students who were black African and another 14 who described themselves as mixed race.

Across the UK, it emerged after some research, only 452 black students had achieved the Higher or A-level results that Oxford demand. In total Oxford had taken 42 of these, or a little under 10%. Remembering that there are many other top flight universities in the UK; Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, London, Durham, Cambridge... amongst many more, it seems not unreasonable to me that Oxford would take only around 10% of them.

Mr Cameron’s assertions were described as "ignorant", "absurd" and "mind boggling" by MPs and academics alike.

It seems that controversy follows Cameron wherever he goes, mainly because of his irritating habit of opening his mouth and letting his lack of knowledge show. And considering he got the very best education that money can buy, that seems rather sad to say the least.

Last week Cameron's claimed that Britain was responsible for many of the world's problems, specifically relating to the on-going conflict between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. He then unleashed a foul mouthed outburst at the journalist who had written a critical article about it.

On one of his early trips to pay homage to Mr Obama at the White House, he conceded that Britain was a junior partner, and stated plainly the US stood beside Britain in 1940...which of course they had not. It was on that visit that he was also critical of the Scottish Government’s position on the Lockerbie bomber in bizarre attempt to curry favour. None of these things should be said or done when a prime minister is out of the country... and as a history graduate from Oxford himself, he might have known the date on which the Americans joined the Second World War.

The Conservative chairman of the Commons Education Select Committee, Graham Stewart, said the government was wrong. If minorities don't get into the best universities it is because they don't receive a sufficiently good education in the first place. He suggested that the way to deal with the low intake of minority ethnics by top universities was to provide that education, rather than demand that the universities reduce their standards to meet some lind of politically correct target. A pretty damming indictment from his own party.

Anthony Smith ex-president of Magdalen College said: "It does seem to me that these politicians don't know anything about the country they are governing. Do they not know what the condition of schools is like in areas where many black children are brought up? Do they not read the newspapers and see what goes on there, how difficult it is for a child from one of these communities to get into any university?”

A waffling spokesman for the prime minister said Mr Cameron was trying to make a wider point about the unacceptability of top universities having so few students from minority ethnic groups. If he was, he was doing it rather ineptly.

In fact, as the most recent figures showed that 2% of the population was black, and that 1.5% of the Oxford student body was black in the last academic year, the figures are not as bad as they at first appear.

But why let the truth get in the way of a good rant for no particular reason...eh Dave?

NOWHERE TO RUN TO BABY; NOWHERE TO HIDE

Poor old Iain Gray. He might have anticipated that the nice people from Citizens United Against Public Sector Cuts, who had hijacked Annabel and Tavish, would also want to ask how Labour were going to deal with London's Tory cuts.

Obviously, however, that didn't occur to the Labour Party machine. So poor old Gray turned up without a crib sheet.

With no answers to offer them, he took flight and hid in a Subway... the restaurant, not the metro. But they followed him. (If I'd been eating in that restaurant I'd have asked for my money back. The cabaret was bouffing [Scottish word for awful]).

Someone managed to get a black cab and get them out and away...

Later, despite having been described by witnesses of the run-in as looking shaken, Gray laughed it off. On no, said he, it didn't bother him. He'd worked in Mozambique during a civil war, walked the killing fields of Cambodia, arrived in Chile just after Pinochet 'demitted' office (he likes posh words does our Iain), and he'd been in Rwanda just after the genocide.

Maybe upon reflection he will consider that comparing, in any way, the Rwandan genocide with facing nine protesters, who potentially were on his side, in Glasgow, with minders and police present, a little on the insensitive side.

Here we have it a potential First Minister whose plan of action is to fold his tent and run for the cover of a sandwich shop.

Don't sleep in the Subway Iain, as Petula might be persuaded to sing!

AT LEAST THE LORDS CAN'T STEAL REDUNDANCY MONEY FROM US: THEY'VE GOT THE JOB FOR LIFE!

It’s taken nearly a year for the authorities to accede to the Freedom of Information request, but finally we have the figures to show that every single MP chose to accept their Golden Goodbyes, worth up to £65,000. Even those who had been guilty of theft took the money and ran.

Even the chiselling little bitch like Moran, who you will remember stole tens of thousands of pounds from us getting her boyfriend’s house (not anywhere near either London, or her constituency), done up, got half of what she would otherwise have been due, despite being the subject of a police inquiry.

Moran went into hiding after the affair, claiming that she was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Claiming to be sick, and being paid full wages in good faith, the silly cow got herself caught on camera touting for another job in PR because she had good contacts within the Labour party.

Other greedy fat cats, who had absolutely no need whatsoever of a payout to help them resettle to life again, but none the less got their grasping greedy trotters on our money yet again included: Douglas Hogg, Conservative, who is an Earl and who claimed for cleaning the moat on his castle; Conman Conway, who was thrown out of the Tories after overpaying his sons on his taxpayer-funded allowances to work as a parliamentary researcher, when in fact he had done zip all; Stephen Byers, Geoff Buffon Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, who were nabbed in the same cash for access scandal that Moran the moron was caught out in, all got the top whack as did Des Browne (imagine that... after being as useless as he was) and John Reid.

Then there was Andrew MacKay, who fiddled by registering his MP wife’s second home as his main address, thereby having 2 second homes in the family, and the unlovely David Heathcoat-Amory, who claimed for horse manure on his expenses. I wonder he would want to buy that stuff given the fact he spouts it every time he opens his mouth. All of the above claimed £65,000 on top of the money they are all given (£40,000) to wind up their offices and pay off their staff.

Lib Dem Julia Goldsworthy, who lost her seat at the tender age of 31 after five years after she claimed for a £1,200 rocking chair (she must think very highly of her posterior) and who went straight to work as advisor to Danny Alexander at an amazing £74,000-a-year, claimed her share of resettlement money. Greedy bitch.

The money to close down offices (pay rent till end of lease, give staff a small package, pay electricity, gas, etc) is not unreasonable. Money handed to MPs who wanted to go on but were flung out by their constituents, is perhaps permissible, although anyone else wouldn’t get anything like that kind of pay out. However, those who were standing down voluntarily, some over 70, should have got not a penny. Odious Nick Winterton (leaving because he’d be obliged to travel second class with plebs on trains if he stayed) and his unlovely wife, Anne (renowned for her racist jokes about dead Chinese cockle pickers) would have picked up about £130,000 despite the fact that they are in their dotage and planned to go anyway. (Redundancy payments are not normally made to people over the age of 64.)

It’s just another big fat slap in the face for us “ordinary people”. We hardly notice it; we’re used to being treated like David Heathcoat Amery’s estate...covered in manure...all 550 sacks of it.

HOW MANY KINDS OF GAFFES CAN YOU HAVE IN AN ENGLISH TORY CABINET?

The afternoon I was involved in a discussion on the current state of the UK government. This came about because of two major fluffies in one day.

Firstly the prime minister, forced to go to Pakistan after causing a diplomatic incident with his rather unfortunate “looking two ways” comment when he was in India, took with him aid worth £650 million and a promise of security information regarding roadside bombs, which in the wrong hands could prove disastrous to UK troops... and then he told the Pakistani ministers that they must not avoid paying their taxes, otherwise this aid would not sit well with the British people. (Yes he did, he really did!) Ewwwwwwww!

Then of course Boris decided to let it out that he was disgusted that a minister had told him that he didn’t want 'people from Sheffield flying away on foreign cheap foreign holidays’! It seems that the miscreant was none other than millionaire Old Etonian, Oliver Letwin, who clearly has very little time for people who take cheap holidays... (and well, that’s most of us Olly!)

I remarked that this was a bumper day with two gaffes, little knowing that our Nick had ventured forth with a third (if you follow me). Yes, it seems that the DPM wants to stop people with sharp elbows getting their kids into an internship, like...., well, like Nick Clegg’s dad did. And unpaid internships were also now to be banned in the Liberal Party, as it’s only the very privileged that can afford to take jobs that pay nothing... like the people who worked for Nick Clegg in opposition, and didn’t even get expenses!

So much for the launch of an Equalities programme! Opportunities for all (ish)

So anyway, it got us thinking about all the unfortunate pickles (no, not that one) that this amateur UK government has overseen.

Off the top of our collective head (and now my memory):

Planes that broke down before they took off on a rescue mission;

Planes that went to rescue people from Yemen, but were charging twice the price of local air operators and flew home empty; Gaddafi in Venezuela (so says Twitter);

SAS in Libya (oooops);

The complete changes in detention orders that were the same with different names;

English forests debacle (still unclear of what’s happening);

English NHS’s break in legislation for consultation..eh, or something;

English school rebuilding mess: the House Elf couldn't wait to show off how clever he was (n't);

Selling off of English school playing fields, just before the Olympics a condition of which was to encourage sport and the subsequent sudden change of heart when reminded of contract;

Cabinet Office minister i/c Big Society who,in a Sarah Palin moment, couldn’t name one thing he did for free, “Golly Gosh Francis”;

English student fees u-turns from the Libs...and now they don’t have the funds to pay for the loans up front, so fewer students will go to university and the universities will still be starved of cash, bravo lads, smart move;

Chancellor who didn’t know how much he took from a £1.30 litre of petrol (that was last week and ancient history; it’s £1.33 already);

Reduction in pensioners’ winter payments (which they will have to reverse soon, otherwise every single one who dies next winter will be headlines in the Daily Mail);

Sudden finding of funds to pay housing benefits at full rates after 1 year (on the basis that Boris pointed out that 2 million homeless in the English capital while the Olympics were on would be bad publicity);

Cameron’s insistence against advice, on employing Andy Coulson, who then had to resign;

Cameron employing personal photographers and imagine consultant at the taxpayers’ expense;

Jobcentres being set targets to trick people off JSA now that there are no jobs;

IDS saying that we all WANTED to work past retirement age, when we don’t;

Threats of Cabinet resignations over high speed railway in England, going through rich people’s back gardens (their constituencies);

Oil company tax hitting 40,000 jobs in Scotland.... Is that enough?

Well, I’m sure there are more. Let me know what I’ve missed.

PLEASE SIR, CAN I WORK A LITTLE LONGER?

Well, I bet you didn’t know it, but I’ll pass on a message from Mr Duncan-Smith.

Most people want to work past 65!

There! Just like 30 years ago when Mrs Thatcher told people that they wanted to pay for their eye tests. No one but the government actually knows what we are thinking, least of all us.

Anyway, Duncan-Smith is launching a major overhaul of the pensions system, which is aimed at encouraging people to save for their old age. Yep, you read that right: some of the lowest incomes, the highest priced housing, ditto transport, petrol, cars, supermarkets, etc. Mortgages that break us till we are 60, and for the English student, fees that rival mortgages in size....and Mr Duncan-Smith thinks we should be saving more.

What a plonker this bloke is.

The biggest joke is that inflation is, in reality at around 10-12% (at least for the poorer people), interest rates are around 1-3%, so every pound you save loses about 10p in value every year, meaning that if you save hard enough for long enough you will be left with enough for a cup of tea.

And don’t think for a second that the answer is to put the money in a pension fund. Ask the investors in Equitable Life about that! There's new government scheme designed to force employers to enroll people in saving schemes (by any other name, a tax increase).

So first National Insurance goes up, and now forced saving for a pension! How many ways can you put up income tax without saying you are putting up income tax?

How does Mr Duncan-Smith know that we want to go on working longer than we have to? Is it because he asked us? Bwa ha ha!

It’s because his friends at the top of government and business in England don’t have any desire to stop work. And why would they? Excellent pay, great conditions, people fawning all over you, chauffeur driven cars (forget all that nonsense that Cameron spouted about ministers using public transport. Like most of the rest of his pronouncements it was garbage). But go ask someone who has done a manual job and is worn out by the time they are 55; ask someone who stacks shelves in Tesco, or teaches in a badly disciplined, underfunded, inner city school, whose nerves are frayed by the time they are 40; ask a postman who gets up at 4 every morning, or a nurse who works shifts; ask a care worker in a retirement home who’s been making beds and lifting patients for 30 years.

In fact, ask most people who have to cope with rat race unreachable targets for greedy bosses with the management style of Pol Pot.

Go on Mr Duncan-Smith. Ask them.

Yes people are living longer, and yes people of your class are living active lives for much longer. You’ve been pampered all your days: the best of everything. But not everyone has been so fortunate. Some sleep in damp rooms, with no central heating or no double glazing; some have been injured at work and never got better; some lived on substandard food...yes and smoked and drank... so what?

By 55 some are finished. They may live to 90, but it’s no life.

Go away and think again. I don’t know one single person from my circle of acquaintances and friends: teachers, doctors, civil servants, shop workers, taxi drivers, lecturers, chefs, painters, joiners... and so on, that wants to work a day past the current retirement.

And I don’t know one single retired person who wishes themselves back in the rat race.

Oh, and stop blaming the EU for the fact that men and women will have to retire at the same age. It’s nothing to do with them; it’s to do with equality laws which we have had since 1975. And since you brought it up, why does the UK have the lowest pensions by comparison to wages in the EU? What do you people do with the money?

.....

THE SCOTPULSE POLL GIVES THE NIGHT TO ALEX

There was an STV poll following the first of the three televised debates of leaders for the General Election. It was conducted by the tv company’s own online polling system ScotPulse. Its results make frightening reading for Iain Gray.

991 people were polled:

87% thought Alex Salmond won the debate;

7% thought it was Annabel Goldie;

5% thought Iain Gray was the winner;

and 1% thought Tavish Scott.

Over half the respondents (53%) found their view of Alex Salmond became more positive during the debate, but nearly three-quarters (74%) found their perception of Iain Gray changed negatively.

Annabel may have done herself no favours over university tuition fees, but despite that, she was seen to be the next best thing to Alex for FM.

Mr Scott has been stabbed in the back by London Liberals. Not only has the windfall tax on oil companies cost Scotland billions in investment, there is an estimated loss of 40,000 jobs to take into consideration. Maybe not all at once, but that’s a lot of employment and a lot of salaries to be spent!

It was, of course, the decision of George Osborne to levy this tax, but in some mad lemming like bid for notoriety, or to curry favour with Mr Cameron so that he may progress in the ranks of Cabinet ministers and get his own department (they may be looking around for a new Foreign Secretary soon), Danny (ginger rodent*) Alexander has claimed full responsibility for dreaming up the tax.

This may have been a tad foolish given that the biggest losses will be felt in the town of Aberdeen, where there is one now very vulnerable Liberal Democrat seat for the taking.

Iain Gray: read ths and weep.

Hey ho, isn’t politics interesting?

*allegedly (if in doubt refer to Harry Hardwoman)

PS: Top marks to Annabel for wearing a dark inobtrusive suit, like all the men necessarily had to wear. Whatever people say about her, and the Tories' policies, Annabel still strikes me as a decent sort.

DO WE NEED TO OFFER DEGREES IN CIRCUS SKILLS?

The leaders’ debate the other night saw Tavish Scott, Iain Gray and the First Minister in agreement that Scottish education would remain free at tertiary level.

That’s good, and indeed it indicates that unless the parties do a massive U-turn along the lines of Nick Clegg and his bunch of chancers in England, education will remain free in this country.

We heard from the Tories that it is wrong for people who will earn more because of their degrees, to be subsidised by those who will earn less because they have no degrees. That presupposes that people always earn more when they have a degree but I can think of several organisations where under the average wage is the norm and degrees are a prerequisite of the job. It's true too that we ALL benefit from having a well educated, and appropriately educated workforce.

I think Tavish made a good point about there being alternatives to university. Not everyone, and not every job, requires a degree. Many jobs require technical and craft skills that can be obtained on courses at technical or commercial colleges although these too must be funded.

We need somehow to get away from the notion that the only jobs worthy of respect are those which require university degrees. It’s just not true, as you might reflect when your central heating goes on the blink, your car won’t start, your pipes are frozen or your computer goes BANG!.

And it should be remembered that a good plumber can earn an awful lot more than a teacher or social worker...and why not? There are many good jobs which pay excellent money and don’t need a university education.

Perhaps reflecting on whether or not it is necessary to take degrees in sports science or horse psychology, pop music or hairdressing management, cruise management, circus skills or surf science... all of which can be taken at universities in the UK is something that our funders might want to consider.

Surely all these courses could be covered at HNC/D level or as SVQs (NVQs in England)?

It’s estimated that now virtually every university in England and Wales will charge over the £6,000 which Cameron promised would be the norm, with many of them opting for the £9,000 without having shown a valid reason for it. In the meantime the salaries and costs of the management will doubtless continue to rise.

The government in London will be obliged to find a great deal more money, probably around a billion a year, to fund these costs up front, with their degree having cost some students nearly £90,000 by the time they make the last payment (The Independent).

Now that is a situation to be very much avoided. Why does the London government not think out their policies before putting them into practice?

DEVINE JIM JOINS THE FEW SCAPEGOATS THAT KEPT THE BIG GUNS SAFE

Jim Devine has been sent to the pokey for 16 months, which means 8 months in real money.

He stole thousands of pounds from us to fund his drinking habits, having been advised by another unnamed Scottish MP that it was the done thing. (In my opinion he should have been told that it was 10 years if he did not spill the MP’s name. There were only 58 other Scottish MPs and his allegation casts a slur on all of them, most particularly the Labour ones.)

We should also remember that when he was caught out the slimy wee toad tried to blame his administrator, Marion Kinley, for stealing £5,000 from him and then he sacked her. Interestingly, when she took him to an industrial tribunal she was found to be innocent, and was awarded £35,000, which had not paid by the court's deadline. Ms Kinley now plans to send the bailiffs into the House of Commons to sieze £30,000 from his resettlement grant which had been frozen by Bercow, pending the outcome of his trial.

Just how despicable is Jim Devine? On a scale of 1 to 10, my opinion is around 6, remembering that we would have to rank murderers, rapists and paedophiles higher, and Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, Joe Stalin and other genocidal maniacs even higher.

But thanks to the Telegraph's investigations it has been shown that over half our MPs had stolen money on expenses. And more than 300 were allowed to 'repay' their false expenses claims, including David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg. So why is it that little, fat, sad, drunken, losers are the only ones that were taken to court and prosecuted.

Surely no one believed that the grander beasts actually made mistakes and didn’t mean to steal; I certainly never did, especially when it was revealed that all the paperwork relating to Tony Blair’s expenses were shredded before he left Downing Street!

IF WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER CAN I HAVE AN ORDER OF CHIVALRY TOO?

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Prince Andrew, some might feel, has had a pretty hard time recently. The company he keeps has come under close scrutiny from the press. People have wanted to know why the government’s ambassador for trade spends his time with gun runners, sex offenders and super rich women.

There have been questions about why some of these people have been paying off debts of Andrew’s ex-wife Duchess Sarah Ferguson, or paying millions over the odds for his house and then leaving it lying derelict. It couldn’t surely, people are whispering, be anything to do with buying favours, could it?

Further questions have been asked about the behaviour of his nightclubbing daughters and their requirements for royal security while they fall about drunk or take gap years and travel like “ordinary people” around the world.

And his propensity to allow his friends to use nearby, and convenient RAF bases to land their private jets has been called into question, along with his liking for a royal flight to go play golf.

That his ex-wife has been inclined to try to sell a meeting with him, because, as usual, she’s been living well beyond her means and needs the dosh, has done him no good; neither have his rants directed at the French, or his hosts, or the people who tried to stop corrupt practices between BAA and Saudi princes, at lunches where too much of the fare has been of the liquid variety.

His considered opinion that the bankers’ bonuses were peanuts and we’re all making far too much of them, has also caused what Mr Gove would have been pleased to describe as “disquiet”.

So, over the few weeks prior to David Cameron taking us into yet another war over oil, the pages of newspapers from the Independent to the Record were full of stories of government disapproval, of Andrew being invited to meetings with the FCO to review his progress and of speculation that his career as a somewhat dodgy diplomat was as good as over.

But, lucky for him, his boss thought different. And his boss is far more important that the FCO or the prime minister. And it seems that she has been pleased, instead of disciplining him, to install him with one of the highest honours of chivalry that it is within her power to give.

And so it was that on his 51st birthday (it must be the good living) he was installed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in an investiture held at Windsor Castle. (Well, at least he didn’t have too far to travel.)

His boss of course is the Queen, his mummy.

And the reason given for this somewhat bizarre behavior on her part was that HM thought it was ‘the right time to do it’... and who is there to argue with her?

Most people, given a track record like the one Andrew has, would be down the jobcentre in double quick time, but clearly it’s not what you know but who you know that matters in the diplomatic and trade worlds.

More seriously, as the world many people have known all their lives, particularly in England, falls around their heads, the people at the top demonstrate once again their complete detatchment from all that is real as they continue to live their lives like nothing has happened.

Thank goodness we are all in this together.

Pics: (1)Andrew, erm, at work, diplomatting all over the place; (2) Some drunked trollop? No, wait a minute, it's princess of the blood royal. Easy mistake to make; (3) Da boss lady in her work overalls.

THE THINGS PEOPLE PUT ON T-SHIRTS

Due to budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either.

I love deadlines. I especially like the Whooshing sound as they go flying by.

I Refuse To Have A Battle Of Wits With An Unarmed Person.

I Haven't Lost My Mind. It's Backed Up On Disk Somewhere.

Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.

If We Quit Voting, Will They All Go Away?

Too many freaks. Not enough circuses.

Chaos. Panic. Disorder. My work is done here.

I thought I wanted a career. It turns out I just wanted a pay check.

I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.

You're Just Jealous Because The Voices Are Talking To Me.

On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.

I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier.

Everyone needs to believe in something. I believe in chocolate.

Never be afraid to try something new.

Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals, on the other hand, built the Titanic.

I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.

Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

Don't worry about the world ending today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.

THERE ARE BAD THINGS JUST AROUND THE CORNER

Blog member, reader, friend (and Englishman) Mr_TMG suggested that this would be a perfect video for Munguin’s Republic. I’d never heard the song, but I thought it was bang, smack right for 2011 and hilarious!! Thanks Mr_TMG

OH DEAR, THE END IS NIGH....AGAIN

Oh they make you laugh, don’t they?

What does Tris, I hear you ask....

Well American evangelical preachers of course, silly...

I mean take this one. This dude called Harold Camping, who is 89 years old, is predicting that the world will end on May 21st. 2% of us will be “raptured” to heaven, and the rest of us will be going to hell. (Can you imagine what the crush will be like down there?)

Mr Camping isn’t just telling his congregation from the pulpit that this is going to be their fate. Oh no, and this is the bit that actually makes me laugh. Mr Camping is a radio evangelical preacher who speaks to his “parishioners” through the Family Radio Network, funded entirely by donations from listeners. There must be quite a few of them because the assets of the radio station are around $120m and the network now owns 66 stations in the US.

Mr Camping, who makes programmes in 48 languages (well not him personally, but his network), has tens of thousands of followers across the world. He also owns stations in South Africa, Russia and Turkey.

Camping, a baptist, started his Family Radio around 60 years ago. He does not believe in evolution and is against all abortion, not unusual beliefs in the Sarah Palinesque world of America's religious right.

He has convinced some disciples of the veracity of his predictions enough for them to give up their jobs and travel around America warning people of the fate that awaits. One of these men a 32 year old good ole boy from Kansas called Adam Larsen, said that this was an important task. He went on to say that his favorite pastime was hunting raccoons... but that this was more important. Tells you all you need to know. I wonder if they’ll give Adam his job back...

Of course the obscenely rich Mr Camping is belting and bracing and so has also paid for a massive billboard advertising campaign. I’m not entirely sure what advertising it will do. I mean you can’t really be “out of town” for the big event. I guess he may be thinking that if a few spend more of the time left to them praying and atoning, there will be a little less of a crush down there.

Oh well, by the sounds of it there’s a money making racket at the back of it somewhere... or maybe Mr Camping is getting mixed up between the end of THE world and the end of HIS world... Well, he doesn’t look too good, despite the money, does he?

UNTIL WE CLOSE THE INCOME GAP WE WILL NEVER PROGRESS

I was reading an excellent article yesterday on Newsnet Scotland about the state of the Scottish branch of Labour (or is it still New Labour?). It’s well worth the read for the warning that it gives about how the media can shield Labour from the worst excesses of its incompetence, and how the SNP’s faults are highlighted and its achievements ignored or belittled.

However, I digress.

In the comments beneath the article a contributor highlights an article on universities, their financial problems and the Vice Chancellors’ snouts in trough situation from the Daily Mail...(yes, I know, and the writer, “Spagen” describes the article’s style as the Mail’s “usual shock and awe” style). However, he in his turn, sites a reader’s response to THAT article:

"I teach at a small Swedish university, similar in size to Gloucestershire University. Here, everyone's pay is a matter of public record, and I know that our very eminent "rektor" (vice chancellor) is paid roughly £80,000 a year. Conversely, our neighbour's teenage daughter works as a waitress in a coffee bar and her basic pay is a respectable £18,500 a year. Pay differentials in the UK are verging on the obscene and I can only conclude that the British establishment is intent upon reverting to some kind of feudal society in which the vast majority have to live on the edge of poverty with minimum wage levels, terrible pensions, massive student debts, unaffordable housing etc, while ruled by a tiny, and very affluent and all-powerful elite. Are you prepared to accept this?"- Stu, Laholm, Sweden, 25/3/2011 07:

I hope that neither “Spagen” nor “Stu” will object to my using their contributions. I have long said that the differential in pay from bottom to top in this country is one of the reasons that we are so desperately far behind our competitors.

It produces a widely divided society, one which got markedly worse during 13 years of Labour rule and which is not going to do much narrowing under the Tories.

Our wage differentials say a great deal about us. We appear to value bankers, whom we all detest, about 100 times more favourably than we value our surgeons, who save our lives. We have no problem with the likes of Wayne Rooney or bruce Forsyth earning telephone directory wages while workers in shops and offices subsist.

Stu asks: are you prepared to accept this? I don’t think that what we are prepared to do counts. The people at the top are wont give up anything easily and the people at the bottom have no power. If the unions try to take action, they have been warned that new laws will be brought in to stop them. I'm not sure what else we can reasonably, or at least peacefully, do.

But it almost certainly is our problem, and for sure, no matter what the politicians promise us at election time, life in this country won’t get better until we tackle it.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS... THAT'S ASDA PRICE

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

You’ve all seen these offers in shops, right?

“If you can get you shopping any cheaper anywhere else, we’ll not only give you the difference, we’ll, blah, blah, blah...”

So the latest to try this out is Tesco who claimed in their “Double the Difference” (nice bit of alliteration there guys) that they would do just that...pay twice the difference if you could buy items more cheaply elsewhere.

Clearly the idea is to inspire confidence in shoppers. There surely aren't that many people with the time and energy to find the cheaper item and make the claim. Nope, its all the old ‘they wouldn’t make that kind of offer if they thought they would have to actually pay out on it’ ploy.

Now it’s plain daft of Tesco to try that lark, because you’d have to be all kinds of dumbass if you couldn’t find things cheaper than in Tesco. I’ll grant you if you’d only ever shopped in Waitrose you’d probably think Tesco prices weren’t bad, but they hardly rank in the “cheap” stakes. So it’s not really surprising that people have been taking the daft eejits up on their offer with such regularity that they have been forced to modify it.

One man bought £126 worth of shopping in Tesco that would have cost £91 in ASDA and claimed a £90 voucher. Another claimed to have made £600. Some were even going online to use price comparison sites to find the cheapest supermarket for a range of good, buy them up and presenting Tesco with the bill for twice the difference.

As a result Tesco have had to limit the deal to a £20 limit per person.

ASDA are actually running a similar scheme at present (I noticed it the other night and started to read the details, but lost the will to live half way through). I thought what their spokesman had to say was hilarious: ''If you claim to be the cheapest, call me old-fashioned, but it helps to really be the cheapest.''

Don’t you just love it when a plan falls off the rails and you get to watch smart boys trying to find a way out of it, with enough egg on their faces to keep the Army in omelet’s for a month.

TAKE, TAKE, TAKE, IN THE BUDGET; GIVE, GIVE, GIVE TO MPS

There are good things and bad things in life, some very closely associated. For example, it is good that ice cream is so delicious, and bad that it makes us fat; it is good that a glass of wine with dinner after a hard day’s work is a relaxant, and it is bad that some people, having had one glass, can’t stop till the glass crashes to the floor as they fall off their chair.

And so it is with our Westminster MPs. It’s good that we can always count on them to be generous. Unfortunately, the pity is that we can only count on them to be generous to themselves.

So it was with sadness but little surprise that I heard of the decision, after months of whining and moaning and gnashing of teeth, along with horror stories about the £66,000 salary not being enough, and these poor people forced to travel second class on public transport and not have their children up to London (it’s always “up” to London, Oxford and Cambridge, have you noticed?), that it has been announced that the rules on MPs’ expenses are to be relaxed. (Didn't take that long, did it?)

The subject was little mentioned in the run up to the election, except by the party leaders who, to a man, were adamant that the end to greed had come upon Westminster. But within weeks of MPs securing their almost triple average national wage salaries for a job that largely involves being rowdy and nodding their heads, they were back to demanding a better deal for themselves.

And so the day after they announced that despite the fact that last winter 9 elderly people died every hour in the UK due to cold related illness, they were going to reduce the allowance given to the old for heating, it was announced that MP would receive more generous expenses. Well, thank goodness none of them will die of the cold next winter, for what would we do without them? Hmm

Under the reforms, MPs with families will be able to claim up to £2,500 extra for each child under 18 to cover the additional costs of a larger second home to accommodate them. I wonder what an extra £2,500 would mean to a pensioner on £6,000 a year... 1/11 of an MP’s salary!

Also MPs who live within what would normally be considered reasonable commuting distance for "ordinary people" (a woman on the Richard Wilson documentary on British trains commuted from Reading at a cost of £4,000 a year), will now be allowed to have second homes in Westminster. So back to how it was before, because we can’t have VIPs standing around on stations waiting for 2nd class carriages on trains that are regularly late, cancelled or at best either overcrowded or dangerous.

Everyone is tightening their belts; everyone is hurting, apart from the royals, the lords and the bankers, everyone is feeling the pain of the financial sector’s excesses. We are all in this together, but at the same time, to make MPs' precious wee lives easier, and so an unspecified amount of what we have saved by making it more difficult for MPs to thieve from us, is to be given back to them.

One of these days the worm will turn. We just can’t go on and on getting slapped in the face...

******

In fairness to Dundee MPs, when the pay rise was announced last year Jim McGovern said that we would refuse it and Stewart Hosie said that he would take it and give the money he received to a local charity. Both were commendable (although the latter meant that the money came to Dundee, whereas the former left the money in the UK exchequer to be spent 9/10 in England). I trust they will continue to take a decent attitude and won’t be claiming a penny more in expenses because the party leaders and that ridiculous little fop of a speaker have folded their tents to demands by MPs for more more more. For certain I’ll vote for no one who shows greed in this matter while “ordinary people” are going without.

LIAR: THIS PLUMBS NEW DEPTHS FOR THE TORIES

It was a “watch my lips” moment when the prime minister was asked about winter fuel payments for the elderly.

In the run up to last year’s election he was asked about the benefits given to pensioners; bus passes, winter fuel allowance, free tv licence.

Labour had been putting out leaflets suggesting that these benefits would be cut and David Cameron, saying that he felt very strongly about this said that these Labour leaflets were COMPLETE AND UTTER LIES.

He added that if the (then) prime minister had amoral compass then he should “dig it out”... The Tories would keep the benefits in the way in which he inherited them and it was wrong for Labout to be scaremongering.

He said that he didn’t use the word “lie” very often, but he would on this occasion. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been quite so vociferous, because yesterday pensioners were told that their winter fuel allowance of £400 for over 80s, and £250 for over 65s, would be reduced to £300 and £200 respectively. This despite double inflation rate rises in gas and electricity and who knows how much more before the winter. After all the government seems disinclined to take the steps that the French government took over their power suppliers and insist on inflation only rises.

So now, I don’t use the word liar very often either, but I’m afraid I’m going to use it about Mr Cameron. In the clip linked here, he repeats this over and over again in a way that makes one think that it REALLY matters to him. That was electioneering of the worst sort, because it doesn't.

So he’s a liar and he has no moral compass to dig out at all. His mother won’t be cold this winter though, so that’s alright. The rest of you can freeze.

Iain Duncan Smith has given notice that he will be looking at other benefit like free bus passes and tv licences in an effort to save money. Just when you thought they couldn’t get any lower, along comes Iain Duncan Smith

I know we’re in a mess, but we have enough money to go to war in Libya, so why don’t we have enough money for at least our poorer pensioners.

This is an inexcusable and despicable attack on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country. It would have been a low thing to do in any case, but after that denial, which I have would say was repeated over and over again in interviews... it’s plumbed new depths.

Pics:(1) Fortunately not every pensioner is cold and uncomfortable all winter. (2) This man is visiting an old lady who most certainly won’t be cold. (3) Clearly this lady is not so fortunate; and will be even less fortunate this winter. Sickeningly over 20,000 old people die from cold related illness every winter.

I JUST DON'T BELIEVE IT!

I’ve just watched Richard Wilson’s investigation into what was billed as the “British” rail system, but turned out to be the “English” system. Nonetheless, it was interesting and, as much of the system crosses the Border, appropriate for the blog.

The programme contains far too many facts and examples to record here, but the title sums up my overall impression.

We have the most expensive rail fares in Europe, and, despite having a largely private railway, we also have the biggest government subsidies in Europe.

Rail travel has become far more popular over the last decade with passenger numbers increasing by some 40%, but with seats increasing by only 10%, giving rise to overcrowding of the kind seen in Mumbai.

The pricing system is described as Kafkaesque.

It’s certainly expensive. A season ticket between London and Reading cost £4000!! When “Which” surveyed fares its was given the wrong fare in 50% of enquiries. Despite this the companies adopt “zero tolerance” to passengers with wrong tickets with on the spot fines.

Complex details of when and how to use various tickets leave tourists and irregular users lost. Amazingly if you get out of the train at an earlier stop than you bought the ticket for, you will be charged the full fare at the ticket barriers! Wilson himself had the right ticket, but not his Pensioners’ Railcard. As a result he was charged £273 full fare (Manchester to London). He could have gone to New York for that! Fortunately he wasn’t going from Manchester to Kyle of Lochalsh (£500+).

There is no logic to the fares. Bath-London is £159; Bath-Paris is £120. Go figure. And the wondrous deals that are advertised are often almost impossible to get. As an example Wilson picks a deal of £8 single Portsmouth-London. In fact the only fare he can find is £30.

Network Rail cost has spiralled within the last decade from £1billion-£5 billion and the company is £24 billion in debt, so £1 billion of the £5 billion goes to the banks (where else!). But no wonder the subsidy has grown. Repair costs are between 30% and 50% more expensive here than in mainland Europe.

Ticket bookings by phone are run by an automated voice recognition system. Now Richard Wilson has a very clear speaking voice, albeit with a Scottish accent, but his attempt to use the service was more of a comedy than “One foot in the grave”.

The bulk of the money is being spent in the South East of England with £800 million each on St Pancras and Kings Cross. Stations in England’s poorer North, are left falling down.

The overall situation is nothing less than a farce. If the government needed just one reason to keep its nose out of foreign affairs and concentrate on domestic ones, the forth world rail service could well be it.

Fur coat and no knickers Britain.

Pics: (1)Over funded, under performing, overcrowded, most expensive in Europe, dirty, late... some adjectives to describe British trains, many of which date to the mid 1970s. (2) SNCF, French Railways by comparison are cheaper and faster and a joy to travel on. (3) The St Pancras Station and Hotel had an £800 million face lift at our expense. No such finding for Edinburgh Waverley or Haymarket though. (4) Theresa Villiers, the minister responsible for trains in England, has had a positive experience of the railway system. Probably she was in Japan at the time. A little of this smug woman would go a long way.

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