A Government of all the talents.

The (for the moment) Prime Minister set out to achieve many things. One of these was a government of the rainbow. So he appointed a conservative MP, since resigned, Sir Digby Jones and Admiral West. A Government of all the Talents would amaze us.

I suspect that the (for the moment) Prime Minister is disappointed at what he has received for (our) money. Sir Digby has refused to submit to the Labour whip, and has been otherwise unwilling to conform. The admiral has shown moments of independence, and we question how much longer he will be prepared to suffer the Prime Minister.

The problem is that the Prime Minister is not a team player himself, unless you regard him as being a team of one. He needs a sounding board, and has surrounded himself with a team of young, inexperienced, "Yes-men". They have inherited cabinet responsibilities which he exercises. They are little known and one or two may emerge with some credit eventually. So far, those exposed to scrutiny have done little to suggest ability - the hapless Darling and the pale and out-of-depth Jacqui Smith.

In cutting himself off from the traditional civil service and its expertise, in relying on political advisers, above all in having only his young and eager-to-please acolytes to check and comment on his thoughts, Brown is risking himself and us. Finally, in trying to run everything from Number 10, he seems to be implying that he can run an economy and society and has all the information required. The real world, Prime Minister, is much more complicated than your pride and ideology will admit, and certainly too much for a single mind to comprehend, even one as brilliant as yours! We fear for our country!

A genetic time bomb?

At the week-end we learned that a woman had won the legal right to keep the birth of her child a secret from its father. The baby was apparently the result of a "one night stand" with a working colleague. He is, and will remain, blissfully ignorant of his paternity unless the mother changes her mind.

This follows a recent decision that two lesbian "mothers"may procreate a fatherless baby - without using any male genetic input except that of one or both fathers of the two women via the womens' material.

What the long-term implications are for this sex-less procreation we must leave to experts to predict. What may be of concern is the kind of society we are creating immediately, with large numbers of children born out of marriage or from sperm by donors. Illegitimacy has been ever with us, and does not seem to have caused a large number of problems, but we may be entering a new situation. It is conceivable, especially with earlier sexual activity, for a father to mate with his daughter, a mother with her son or involving siblings. With fewer details declared in birth certificates, and so many unknown fathers, and now with fatherless conception, there appears to be less control on problems of consanguinity.

The "aberrant" few in days gone by did not wreck society because they were relatively few, and their effects were partly mitigated by over-bearing parish Overseers/Guardians. Now the trickle is becoming more of a stream and all have the shelter of the Human Rights Act...

Troubles (for the Government) never come singly

Tomorrow will see the publication by the National Audit Office of its report into the privatisation of the defence company QinetiQ. It is expected to be very critical of the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence for allowing a process which created multi-million-pound windfalls for ex civil servants and huge profits for the American firm Carlyle. Vince Cable, acting leader of the LibDems, at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, described the report as the "next financial time bomb" to hit the Government.

The Goverment does remain a shareholder, and claimed to have raised £800m from the sale. The fact remains, however, that most independent observers feel that the company was considerably undervalued, and enabled Carlyle to increase the value of its holding from £42m to £300m in just three years. Gordon Brown, of course, was Chancellor then, as he was when we sold foreign exchange gold reserves at a price beyond which they subsequently soared.

He was also the Chancellor who devised the confused 3-way control for the banking system, which led to the confusion and delay surrounding Northern Rock. His successor, Alastair Darling, did not help the situation, but the architect was Gordon Brown.

He was also the chancellor who, against advice, forced through the merger of Inland Revenue with Customs, and compelled it to take on the unfamiliar role of benefit payments. At about the same time, he demanded sweeping staff changes, in fact 20,000 posts shed, approaching a quarter of the labour force. There is no surprise that morale at HMRC is very low! In 2004 the Treasury Select Committee found that no cost-benefit analysis had been done before the merger, and no efficiency savings had been calculated. The whole process was as the result of a man with his whim!

The man is arrogant, in apologising for the lost benefit information computer disks, but despite suggestions from David Cameron not accepting any responsibility. His finger prints are all over the three mistakes - QinetiQ, FSA etc, and the HMCR merger.

How many more times can he evade responsibility?

Squeezing many pegs into few holes?

21-11-07

The Government seems belatedly trying to get to grips with the problem of large numbers of potential workers who are idle because of one sort of disability or another. Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has promised a new disability test aimed at getting more people back to work. The new Work Capability Assessment will be on demonstrating what claimants can achieve, rather than what they cannot. If they can sit at a desk and move their hands, then.. computing?

2,000 people currently are on incapacity benefit because they are obese, costing the Treasury £4.4 million. Laura Clout reported this finding fin the Dail Telegraph rom a Freedom of Information request. She also indicated 50,00 unwilling to work because of stress, 15,600 because of malaise and fatigue and 380 because of haemorrhoids. In addition 50 who collected £100,000 were suffering from acne! Alcoholics, numbering 50,000, received £85million and 48,000 drug addicts received £45million.

This situation may have arisen partly to massage the unemployment figures to keep them lower. Friendly doctors probably colluded because of an unwillingness to upset their patients. Claimants without skills can probably achieve more from benefit than from working, and would be willing collaborators.

All in all these Incapacity Benefit claimants, numbering about 2.7. million, receive about £7.5 billion annually, or about 3 pence in the pound on standard rate income tax. This figure has been high for a few years. When all disability and injury benefits are included, the figure rises to £26 billion a year.

The admirable Frank Field, M.P. is very aware of the situation. He writes, “It is a racket which governments have allowed to exist for far too long. I do not blame people for working the system. It is the job of politicians to stop them doing it. The big change over the last decade has been into illnesses which largely defy a clear medical classification: depression, dizziness and such. It is a move from the tangible to the intangible.”

The Government seems to accept that there are about one million people claiming this benefit who would be capable of work, or at least this was the reduced number of claimants the Government in 2005 hoped to achieve.

The Government is currently employing private sector contractors to help claimants find work. The overspending in the recent past, which included indulgence towards the large sum on Incapacity Benefit, has now ended. The name of the game now is to save money, even if it means denying troops in one way or another, or cutting the staff at Revenue and Customs by nearly a third very quickly.

We could perhaps offer faint congratulation – “Welcome to the real world”, but it is very late, and with the economy moving towards “turbulence” it is very late in the day. The former benefit claimants will be competing for jobs when there is increased unemployment, not a good prospect!

Skills for all

It now emerges that the Prime Minister was wrong not only in claiming that he could somehow restrict British jobs to British workers, but also in thinking that training places to make British workers more competitive could be restricted to British nationals. How could he forget about the European Union.

All that is left, perhaps, is the attempt to persuade (younger) British “workers”, at present languishing on some sort of benefit, to become more active in job seeking. Given that some of them are lacking in qualifications and demonstrable skills, as well as in motivation in many cases, the training places scheme could be a life-line for them.

Unfortunately, many of the posts occupied by British workers currently are temporary – a feature used by many employers faced with enthusiastic immigrant workers willing to work on this basis. No-one can predict what will happen if the economy undergoes some turbulence early in 2008, but temporary workers are likely to feel the effect, as their jobs can end with fewer complications for employers.

The newly trained workers may be looking for jobs at a time when they are disappearing, and when displaced temporary workers are also looking for work.

Lost benefit records

I presume that this means that the ID cards are now dead?

If this Government is so riddled with security problems (-remember the illegal immigrants given jobs in security without a check?), how can they look after the records of 60 million people, assuming that the system ever gets off the ground and works?

As somebody said on another site today, this lot could not run a bath!

Posted by Diamond

Don't blame the puppet, blame the puppeteer!

The Chancellor, Alastair Darling, must be regretting accepting the poisoned chalice. At the moment he is facing two big issues, and can expect a grilling when he stands up in the Commons.

The problem of Northern Rock will not go away, and a firm decision must be made soon to end the uncertainty. The share price this morning has been like a yo-yo. None of the choices in front of him is pleasant, and he stands to lose "friends" whatever he decides - shareholder anger, depositor disfavour or large amounts of taxpayers' money.

On top of this the chief of Revenue and Customs has honorably resigned because his department has lost computer discs containing child benefit details on 15 million children. The possibilities for fraud and identity theft are enormous.

These things happened on Darling's watch, and although he has made the Northern Rock fiasco worse by his dithering, there is a large sense that decisions by Gordon Brown have been very instrumental. It was Bottler who merged the two huge departments of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, and immediately required from them huge savings in manpower. The merged department was a disaster waiting to happen. It was Bottler, also, who interfered with the banking supervision arrangements. Previously The Bank of England had supervised the banking system, at the behest of the Chancellor. Brown's revision created a three-way division, involving the Bank, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority. If the designer himself understood the demarcations of responsibility, clearly the Bank and FSA did not, or found the situation difficult to operate.

Sop far the Chancellor has been singularly unimpressive, but the two cases with which he now struggles are partly the fault of the Prime Minister.

Can a leopard change its spots?

Having been defeated in referendum and thwarted in its ambition to install regional government with powers removed from more local councils the Government has, as posted earlier, given vast new powers to Quangos.

This is to be reinforced through the new Local Government Act, by the possibility of Multi Area Agreements (MAAAs). Thirteen of these sub-regions are drawing up plans to exercise new powers to boost jobs, transport,investment and housing by extended cooperation. These will cover many parts of the country, from Tyne and Wear in the north to South Hampshire in the south.Among them, and why are we not surprised, is the Birmingham, C0ventry and Black Country area which includes Telford and Wrekin. The Government it touting for further areas.

Among other things, these areas will enable councils to "transcend traditional administrative and structural boundaries and deliver solutions that cover entire commuter routes, housing and employment markets." (Communities and Local Government Network)

The end result is to transfer power from local communities and councillors to more regional bureaucracies, with arguably little improvements for ordinary citizens. It is difficult to see what improvement for outlying Telford is likely to emerge from a metropolitan domination centred in Birmingham. In a word, power is becoming remote.

Better late than never...

The news that George Osborne has set up a New Enterprise Council is very welcome. The fact that the membership includes a few who have demonstrated enterprise in recently building up small companies into highly successful units is also good news.

It may be that it has taken the recent changes in company taxation, and especially capital gains tax, to prompt Mr. Osborne into action, but it is all the more welcome. It may even lead the confused and hapless Chancellor into revision and improvement.

The fact remains that for too long the Blair smile and Brown luck had deceived "captains of industry"into believing the mantra "Labour is good for business". Many of them still believe this and are willing to enter the big tent or visit "number 10" socially, but proprietors of small companies and would-be entrepreneurs have complained for several years that the burden of regulation and taxation higher than in other countries have been making their hopes unrealisable or very difficult.

Too many good ideas have escaped elsewhere, or have died for want of a conducive climate. We are no longer held back by trade union practices and attitudes, except in the public sector, but we are no longer the largest recipient of inward international investment and small businesses suffer from centralised government.

So, well done, Mr. Osborne! We shall probably not have a situation which fully encourages entrepreneurs, despite Mr. Brown's utterances, until Mr. Brown goes, but perhaps the Tories in opposition can improve the present situation.

Incompetent but very creative....

The present Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, continues to defend herself in insisting that she was not covering up the latest blunder at the Home Office - licensing illegal immigrants to be used in security positions. She was, she claims, merely delaying ( for 5 months), the publication while she gathered in the illegal immigrants. How long does she need to gather them in, and when had she intended to reveal the information - perhaps over Christmas, a good time to bury bad news?

John Reid before her insisted, after a series of blunders in a not-fit-for-purpose Home Office, that he should be allowed to continue in Office as he alone could clear up the mess.

Both of them used the age-old get-out, "I appeal to time". It should be admitted that in both cases the blunders were the result of their predecessors' actions or inactions, but it still remains true that if these people had been competent they would have sized up the situation and done something quickly, instead of merely covering up.

We may have had at least two not-fit-for-purpose Home Secretaries, but they were both very creative in finding excuses why their failures should not cause their resignation. Perhaps their problems were that they are in the wrong profession and with the wrong bosses!

Just like the rest of us, really

I received an e-mail from a friend today which contained the following:

"Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following statistics?

29 have been accused of spouse abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 19 have been accused of writing bad cheques, 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses, 3 have done time for assault, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit, 4 have been arrested on drug-related charges, 8 have been arrested for shoplifting, 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits, 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year.

Which organization is this?

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line."

This is not to mention the bed-hopping, lying, cheating, etc.

I have no way of knowing if the figures I received are true, - I'm not sure that anyone will know all this. I mention them as possibly true, for a bunch of people we all know to be greedy, ambitious and not above lying through their teeth.

My point is simply this, that although they often put themselves on a pedestal, there is no need for us to do the same, and that if they had a little more honour and less arrogance we would respect them more.

British jobs for British workers?

The Prime Minister must be regretting that he ever made that pledge. He is now trying to pretend that the words do not mean what he was trying to say!!

Official figures show that over the three months to September the number of people in work in the UK increased by 69,000, to reach 29.2 million. We have not had the usual fanfare yet, but if it is true than it is an achievement for the UK economy.

Unfortunately over the same period, the number claiming unemployment benefit also increased , by 6,000 to 1.67 million.

It is possible that some recipients of incapacity benefit were enticed to the lower paying unemployment benefit or other benefit, either directly or after temporary employment. It is highly likely, however, that what we are seeing is jobs being taken by immigrants.

Given that most immigrants do not have English as their first language and are thus at a disadvantage, it suggests that the immigrants are better qualified generally or better motivated than their English unemployed competitors. It is also true that if there is a down-turn in the economy, with jobs lost and vacancies disappearing the immigrants will in many cases merely return home. What will happen to our own unemployed?

Somehow, it is a terrible reflection and indictment on a "successful" 10 year chancellor and a government who believed in "education, education, education".

Well done Coventry Tory Councillors - almost

Ken Taylor, the leader of the Conservative Group which controls Coventry Council, was quoted in the press yesterday as saying that he is urging his colleagues not to accept the pay increase recommended by an independent panel.

The award would give "backbench"councillors an increase of 10% annually to £13,320. For cabinet members the increase would be 17% to £25, 405, and for members of scrutiny boards 13% to £20,571. The largest proposed increase was for the Labour opposition leader, an increase of 38% to ££21,780. (Councillor Taylor's own proposed increase, which he wishes to reject, would take his income up 10% to £37,490.)

Mr Taylor feels that he and his colleagues should have an increase no larger than that to be received by all council workers - about 2.5%, especially in view of the fact that the Council will struggle with its budget next year. He didn't mention, but I am sure that he has not forgotten, the many who will have to pay council taxes risingmore than their pensions for about the fifth year running. Increases of the order above seem very steep.

The independent panel doubtless felt that councillors' earnings had not kept pace with other earnings, but to make them up in one year.......

It is to be hoped that Mr. Taylor manages to persuade his colleagues to reject the recommendations, and to accept an increase more in line with rate-payers, like the 2.5% which council workers will receive.

The Home Office strikes again!

Thank goodness we have the investigative press to uncover what they are up to, and the Home Office itself to provide us with a series of unbelievable blunders!

It beggars belief that they should have allowed illegal immigrants, who clearly had not been vetted on security, to work in positions of security!

You can understand why so soon after the last revelations of incompetence they sought to cover everything up this time. Now, when found out, they claim that the delay in coming clean was really for the common good. You have to admire their creativity!

All this from the Government voted the most competent (- they did the voting of course!)

The animal is the same everywhere?

The front page editorial of the New Zealand Herald recently asked the question, "When is the Government going to get this message: democracy is not a device to keep the Labour Party in power?"

Last year the Labour Government there distributed electoral pledge cards, financed out of public funds. Eventually they backed down in the face of protest from all directions, and refunded the money. This year there are bills to restrict politics largely to registered parties, who will be able to use parliamentary funds for election campaigns. The bills also make law the provision of public funds for election purposes - something ruled improper by the Auditor General after the last election.

Do you see a parallel here in the UK? Daily attacks by the Guardian on Lord Ashcroft, today for allowing friends to use his aircraft, - duly and properly recorded in "members' interests", and the partisan intention to seek to hamper other parties financially while retaining their Trade Union finance intact and above question, seem to suggest that the animal is everywhere the same.

The Labour Party membership is at something of an all- time low, and wealthy backers are more reluctant to "invest" after the honours scandal. With fewer activist foot-soldiers ands wealthy backers, the name of the game seems to be to "hobble the others".

NICE social engineering

According to the N.I.C.E website, they are proposing to add to their role of judgement on drugs the role of changing our habits. In other words in addition to deciding which drugs we may have, and how long we may live, they are now going to change our life-styles.

We can only assume that "auntie" G. Brown and his friends have decided on this, as there are resource implications, and NICE is one of their poodle quangos. Clearly they do not trust parents to inculcate good habits, and schools are not up to it (- sorry, Jamie Oliver), so it now means that a bunch of scientists are going to develop programes for instructors, and for us, "taking into account the local and national context", whatever that means.

The earlier posting was that planning is to become centralised. It seems that this is to be reinforced by this centralised initiative to affect us at a very personal level. We seem to be encountering the onset of totalitarianism!

Further and yet further

We are growing accustomed to our lives being dominated by Brussels, and for important decisions about education and health to be taken by quangos and Whitehall, but at least we have had men and women locally who can be relied upon to stop developments which nobody locally wants.

Not any more! In the Queen's Speech was proposed the Planning Reform Bill. Having failed to impose local planning control by the ill-proposed Regional assemblies, and undaunted, the Government now proposes to take away local power over planning and dictate it from London.

There is a sop, if you want to extend your kitchen or build a garage the application process should be speeded up. On large issue, like the siting of major housing developments, wind farms, new airport runways, road schemes, nuclear power stations and the like, local examination and discussion will be at best advisory and often no more than filling in questionnaires. Worse, an Independent Planning Commission ( - yet another quango) will effectively make the decision.

Of course, ministers in the past have exercised judgment finally when applications have gone to appeal, but this is effectively being by-passed, with only a brief consideration locally. The Government also claims that findings of the the new commission (unaccountable to local communities) will be scrutinised by Parliament. It will be no good shouting "N.I.M.B.Y" unless, presumably, you have a Labour MP or are in a marginal constituency? The official Conservative view is that these new arrangements will effectively permit the Government to "dump developments on local communities".

This is to speed up the process, but the effect is to reduce time for debate locally and to make the decisions opaquely in an accountable, centrally controlled commission.

And the Government wonders why so many people do not bother to vote? In a recent by-election here the turn-out was under 30%, and of the 20% of votes sent out in response to postal voting only about half of these were actually returned.)

From "Alert"

And throw away the key?

The Home Secretary says she doesn't know how long (-perhaps they're waiting to see what they can get away with?), but the Government wants to lengthen the time accused may be held without trial. And with the support of Sir Ian Blair.....

If the police and security services really feel that counter terrorism requires us to adopt the longest remand period in the civilised world, something for which they have as yet offered no evidence, there must surely be other facilities to help them that would not erode our historical freedoms so savagely.

At last they seem to be countenancing allowing questioning after charge, something they have consistently rejected. The objection is made that the accused may simply refuse to answer. But this is true before charge, and any refusal is noted and may be mentioned in court, I believe. And there will be more scope for the "prisoner's dilemma" ( - "Shall I spill the beans and get a lighter sentence, before the others drop me in it first?")

There is also the admissibility of intercept evidence. The security services have always claimed that if they used "phone-tap" evidence somehow their job would become harder. Do they really want us to believe that terrorists are stupid, don't realise that their telephone conversations are being listened to and would alter their behaviour accordingly?

The argument is that terrorism is increasingly a global matter with greater complexity, and that enquiries take longer. If so, electronic communications with other cooperative governments should be able to cope. The complexity should make international cooperation more motivated.

Two final points are of concern.
1) There already exists provision for an extension of 30 days, in situations of national emergency - hedged about with protections and qualifications. We are being told that since 28 days of detention without trial so far has been sufficient, and that extension is for exceptional cases only. Does this extra 30 days not offer what is wanted for exceptional cases?

2) There is incremental creep in all this. Originally the maximum detention was 7 days, then 14, and then 28. Now were talking about 56 days. If this is granted, who would bet against the demand soon for something like the 90 days sought by President Blair?

Unprecedented

The fact that the Governor of the Bank of England gave an interview on the radio suggests that his job is under serious threat, and that he is putting his understanding of events in the public domain before "they" get rid of him.

What emerged in the "File on Four" revelation is that the Chancellor was aware of the difficulties of Northern Rock at an early stage, that it was his decision not to help Lloyds TSB take over the ailing mortgage lender, and that he endorsed the decision not to make money available to financial markets over the summer.

Mr. Darling, of course, is new to the job, and he could argue that such a "run on the bank" had not happened for 140 years. He may be new, but does anyone doubt that he is merely the puppet, while the thoughts, words and deeds are those of the puppeteer, - Mr. G. Brown?

Brown's reputation is ultimately at stake, so he will be smearing and blaming everyone but himself. Expect the Governor to be replaced (- he has committed the ultimate sin by revealing the ineptitude of the Treasury)! But if the Governor has full evidence to back up his allegations, to overcome lies which may be cast at him, then the new Chancellor may soon become the ex-chancellor.

Who would want to take the poisoned chalice next, - the fighting Mr. Balls? There is no obvious candidate of stature, although the chancellor under this government needs be no more than a mouthpiece or a puppet.

The admirable Frank Field

Whatever new things are revealed in the Queen's Speech (-most items have surely been trailed at least once before,) one notable absence will be reform of Welfare. Since Frank Field was set the task of "thinking the unthinkable" by President Blair early on, and then ignored, what we have seen from Bottler has been greater and greater complexity, more and more waste and more and more people in servile dependence on the state. I would be very surprised if welfare reform figures in the Queen's Speech, although it ought to.

Meanwhile the Conservatives are giving much thought to the matter. I suspect that they will rely heavily on the thinking of Frank Field. Nearly a year ago he expressed his views in the Times newspaper. His views may be summarised under four headings:

1) Welfare benefits should be time limited - when Bill Clinton proposed this there was uproar and protest from all sorts of people on high horses, including bishops. Benefits were limited to five years. The scare stories all proved false - there was a massive exodus from benefit to work, which none of the skeptics could argue away.

2) Authority over welfare should be localised - decisions by local officers, not remote "one size fits all" bureaucratic decisions. The officers, rather than doctors should decide.

3) Benefits should continue for one year after after finding paid work. (This is to ease the problem that many can receive more by staying at home than by working.)

4) Immigration should be tightly controlled - more jobs can then go to current welfare recipients already here.

This would be a kind but firm policy, and in the British case would mean that a high proportion of the over 5 million working age claimants would recover some self respect, rather than languishing for many years on benefit dependency.
A further consequence is that there would be fewer jobs available for potential immigrants, and this "flood of people" would be diminished.

The Conservatives could do a lot worse for the country than adopting these proposals.

How do you discipline the unwilling?

The latest wheeze to emanate from this desperate government is the idea for compulsory education to continue until a young person is 18.

The fact that they expect resistance is shown from their intention to punish any nonconformists firstly with large fines which they may be ill able to afford, and then with ASBOs (- yes, that's right make them antisocial!), and finally put them on the criminal register for life to make getting a job more difficult.

If they are determined the bring in this draconian social engineering, why don't they withhold benefits and/or offer benefits in the way they have bribed poorer students to stay on for the sixth form?

The most worrying thing is how they propose to maintain discipline, given that many youngsters are reluctant, but can at least see an end when they are 16, and given also that there is already disruption in schools now with head teachers hampered by not being able to exclude trouble makers. Some children already have their education up to 16 disrupted by the attitudes of class members. Now, it seems, many children are likely to suffer from fairly constant disruption until they are 18!

It depends how you say it...

So Nigel Hastilow has "resigned", whether he jumped or was pushed.

His fault was to be slightly journalistic - mentioning the name Enoch Powell, and thus driving the New Labour smear machine into full speed, and committing the cardinal sin of stating that Enoch Powell was right.

What he said was not incompatible with what David Cameron had said earlier in the week, but whereas DC had talked about the problems in infrastructure which had arisen from uncontrolled immigration over the last decade or two, Hastilow was unwise enough to declare Powell correct.

Did the candidate miscalculate, and think that as his leader's comments had been well received he could comment in different ones? The trouble is that he has had "form", apparently once rubbishing William Hague. His loose cannon reputation was enough to send the Party establishment into frenzies.

He might have made a good MP, if he could have thought before he spoke. We shall probably never know. Meanwhile Hain and Harman have demonstrated that the smear machine can still quickly rise with self-righteous political correctness.

Should Sir Ian Blair resign?

It may be open to debate - has trust in the police been harmed, what of all his other gaffes, isn't he ultimately responsible? Was he party to the decision to prosecute his own force with Health and Safety breaches rather criminal offences?

What I find more difficult to take is the sheer hypocrisy of the Labour Cabinet - responsible for introducing the concept of Corporate Manslaughter and gnashing their teeth when the Board of Railtrack were not prosecuted after the railway disaster. I would argue that Sir Ian, in picking his subordinates, in tolerating ineffective communication equipment, setting up command structures and training programmes and being in overall command was no less guilty that the very senior management of Railtrack. Is there one law/code for the public sector, and for those who rub shoulders with New Labour especially, and another for the private sector? Is the establishment protecting those who are between them and criticism out of sheer self-interest, and because Sir. Ian is one of their own? Whatever the reason, there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

God rest you, merry gentlemen....

The multiculturalists are at it again. Just when we thought that every sane person had agreed that the belief was causing separation and ghettos, rather than solving the problem, up they pop again. This time it is the Institute of Public Policy Research.

Now the target is Christmas - all religions, no matter how many adherents must be equally recognised - public holidays to celebrate all the religions. But is there to be a threshold for being granted one, or can any join - druidism, vegetarians, naturalists, flat-earthers, and even crankier? Are we to have a ministry for religion to decide which qualify, in which case Big Brother is among us?

They tried to subvert Christmas - renaming it as "Winterfest" or "Wintermas." This was laughed out of court. Now all others have to be (equally?) considered.

It should be said that for most people, sadly or gladly according to your faith, Christmas has virtually returned to the pagan excesses it replaced. Members of other faith communities have no difficulty in sending good wishes at Christmas to others in their communities. They also have little difficulty in celebrating their own festivals and high days.

This country may be only nominally Christian now, but you cannot understand much of our tradition and culture if we downgrade this annual recollection of its long influence. If the vast majority of the population, celebrating "Christian" tradition before our newer citizens reached this country - something presumably accepted by the newcomers when they made the decision, why should other things be foisted on them.

If, as seems demographically likely, the other ethnic groups come to have a much larger part of the total population than now, at this point there may be an argument to recognise their religions by public holidays, but then we run up against the problem of which others, or we could have few working days left amidst the endless public holidays.