Just above estate agents....

Politicians (itself nowadays a term of abuse almost) have a poor reputation, as one of them said, just above that of estate agents!

The latest dent to their reputation is, of course, the many cases where the taxpayer has been ripped off by expense claims. Their personal expenses have risen from £83 million to £93 million over the year. The vast majority ask the absolute limit for housing expenses, or within a few pounds of it.

The food is heavily subsidised, their transport costs refunded and....

The worst thing of all is that many of them feel justified in claiming everything because their salaries should be higher. It now emerges that many of them arrive on Monday from their constituencies, and are gone again by Thursday lunchtime. They are working little more than a three day week, and this year they will spend fewer days in London than for many years.

All this claiming despite the fact that many of things formerly done in London are now done in devolved assemblies, - more passengers on the gravy train, and much more is now decided by foreigners in Brussels, and merely rubber-stamped in London.

Perhaps their reputation is lowest of all, however, because they are vote-lobby-fodder, and on a government side not being to ready to challenge the government but meekly following whips, or muted in opposition through lack of opportunity to hold the government to account.

I accept that many do good work in their constituencies, fighting causes and helping individuals with problems, but the vast expenditure on what is done in London suggests that for that part at least these part-time, voting-fodder, expense-claiming so called elected representatives, are surely overpaid. The suggestion that they should be able to avoid the rip-off of expenses by transmuting these expenses into even large salaries seems something approaching an insult to those who work hard in the real world, or who have lost their jobs or homes.

The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

The website Biased BBC over the past few days has been offering the opportunity to vote on which of the forms of bias readers think the BBC is most prone to reveal.

That it is biased emerges all in sorts of ways - its prejudice against the state of Israel and for the Palestinians, shown in the insistence to call terrorists militants, for example,or its evident bias against Christians, even to the extent of removing them from the supervisory board over a period of months and reducing religious broadcasting generally. Its coverage and tenor in the US elections indicated a strong preference for the Democrats and Obama. They favour Labour and the LibDems, and grant the latter significance out of all proportion to their size.

I first became aware of what looked like bias during the dog days of the Major government in the order in which opposing politicians were interviewed. This is important in that the last to be interviewed is always able to have an opportunity to criticise opponents without fear of come-back. I noticed that virtually without exception Conservative ministers would be interviewed first, often on the telephone, and then a Labour spokesman in the studio replied and had the last word. In my naivety I expected the reverse to happen when Blair and company came into power, but the "batting order remained the same, and it still remains the same.

In fact there are so few exceptions that I can only conclude that it is a policy decision.

The Biased BBC site offers four categories of bias
1)Bias by omission - things not mentioned, or not mentioned prominently (Obama gaffes overlooked, for instance.)

2) Bias my misrepresentation, fastening on emphasising successes of favoured groups or problems of others.

3) Bias through prejudice - violently opposed to BNP, but much more kindly disposed to ultra left activities, for instance.

4) Bias through manipulation - method of introudcing speakers or interviewees, order of interviews, as I noticed, etc.

It is possible that the bias is partly subconscious - they feel drawn to support those "who are like us", or who behave like us or believe the same as us. That is, that the bias is not entirely deliberate, but just happens.

I suspect that in the Biased BBCsite invitation to choose which form of bias best describes the BBC, many will choose "all those above".

Where Cuba leads.......

The latest Hansard contains the report of a question by John Bercow, M.P. and the Foreign Office answer.

His question was to ask about any reports received of the number of people held prisoner in Cuba without being convicted or tried, except that they were found guilty of being socially dangerous, that is, likely to create a crime in the future.

The answer, surrounded by caveats that Cuba does not count numbers officially, is that between 3,000 and 5,000 are convicted of pre-criminal social dangerousness.

It couldn't happen here, could it?

Well, be careful, some people already have a (disputed) criminal record for being arrested for doing no more than pointing a camera in the direction of a policeman.

And if you see a number of young children, in a swimming pool (-what were you doing there?), or at school, avert your eyes or the thought police could already start a file on you. Or if you take a photograph of your own children in the bath, be careful who finds out.

Or if you tell a joke about a member of a minority community, you are warned that you are taking your freedom into your own hands.

This government has criminalised all sorts of activities, such as self-defence and protecting your own property, that it's difficult to keep up. Some of the above cases are not yet offences, but give them time.

The government is seeking in some areas not only to control our actions but to control our thoughts.

You have been warned!

Education in 2009 - regressing?

Michael Gove, in taking Ed Balls to task in the Daily Mail for pointless tinkering with education, reminds us of the true picture.

Among youngsters leaving junior school, 40% lack the ability to read and add up properly.

As a consequence, 205 of children later leave secondary school without a single proper pass at GCSE, despite as we have heard recently a GCSE paper in Science asking what an astronomer uses to study the heavens, a microscope, a telescope, an ex-ray tube or a synchroniser?


Of the 26,000 students who achieved three A grade 'A' levels last year, only 65 were from the poorest levels of society.

His evidence goes on. He doesn't include recent worrying statistics about our more able students at 'A' level.

So what does Mr. Balls do? He suggests twittering classes - see my last posting. He attacks church and Jewish schools, which are among our best schools in terms of results and discipline, - the two are surely related. He is slowly killing off the flagship Academies, one of the few NuLabour policies which offered hope of freedom and high standards in the public sector of education.

The progressives, as they like to call themselves, are really regressives. Children may have more to learn than in a less scientific age last century, but the education they receive is often inferior and certainly equips them less to enter the working world.

Cut out the ideological claptrap, cut out the administrative demands on schools and free education for its real task, - to prepare young people according to their ability for work in the real world. Or is this too much to ask?

Education in 2009 - a child's future is secured

Michael Gove, the shadow minister for education, etc. has revealed in the Daily Mail that after trying many possible solutions to improve education in this country, - virtually all failures since education is still declining, the government has at last come up with a winner!

The solution? They intend to add into the crowded syllabuses, time for teachers to train pupils to "Twitter".

A high proportion of our young people leave school barely literate, or completely illiterate. What contribution teaching them to twitter will make to remedying this situation is quite beyond me.

They will reach 16 or 18 unable to appreciate the great classics of English literature, or even less worthy literature. They will reach school leaving age unable to understand simple instructions, or leaflets offering help. So what possible contribution will be made by one of the most banal forms of communication yet developed.

If they wish to twitter, they will discover how, just as they understand texting and e-mailing without any formal help. Let them do this, but do not dilute real education any further.

Education in 2009 - you can't be serious!!

The Daily Mail has apparently reported (see James Forsyth's blog on Coffee House) that the National Union of Teachers is apparently making negotiation demands which include:

A increase in pay of 10% and,

A cut in the working week to four days.

A maximum working week of 35 hours.

So simultaneously they are demanding an income increase of 10% and a working week reduction of 20%, which is represents a daily increase of 32%, I believe.

What planet are they from? When I read this I assumed that it was some kind of hoax or joke.

In more normal times an increase of 32% would seem ridiculous, but in the recession when people are losing houses and jobs and when savings are being decimated, when we are plunging deeper and deeper into debt, it beggars belief.

Perhaps they have had extra work in all the paperwork they have to do, as many people are, but why should they have any sort of increase when others are having their wages cut to try to ensure the very survival of businesses.

They work in a protected public sector with gold plated pensions. The leadership seem to be playing politics, and flexing their muscles in a grotesque way. What other explanation can there be?

How to demolish what you can't answer

You belittle it.

The main media took the best part of 48 hours to comment on that speech, by Dan Hannan in Brussels. By which time people around the world in their hundreds of thousands had seen it. Hannan and others are right to say that the Internet is a real challenge to state media like the BBC who want to broadcast what the government of the day wishes to make known and conceal everything else.

Even if the BBC had been quick off the mark, they would have found it difficult to counteract what spread like a virus. In the end they and channel four had decided that belittlement and disparagement was the tactic to employ. This was the speech of an unknown and therefore not worthy of consideration, on the Politics Show. As Hannan himself pointed out he has been writing articles for the Daily Telegraph for 14 years! Channel 4 news later had a non-meeting of minds between Derek Draper (- can't Labour find anyone better?) and Dan Hannan. The latter seemed to be ready to discuss what had happened, but Draper tried to dismiss it as schoolboy, and full of errors which he did not list or illustrate.

Sneering and smearing seem to be a fault of the left, in which I include the BBC, and I had hoped that Channel 4 was different.

Hannan comes out of this with much credit, and Fox News in the US is clearly impressed. while the BBC and Draper reveal how difficult it is for the left establishment to control the Internet.

Several people have said recently that the Internet is a real challenge to establishments, who control broadcasting and even a so-called free press with various carrots and sticks, but while they are unable to control what is published on the Internet their attempts at propaganda, spin, and concealment will fail. Democracy has acquired a new influence, an unbiased source of information, or at least an alternative source.

Even Dr. Goebels would have struggled to peddle his lies if he had confronted the Internet!

Brown's latest ploy...

The subject of constitutional reform, of the monarchy, has been raised again in a private member's bill. G.Brown has indicated interest, either to curry favour with Roman Catholics whom he has disturbed by policies on abortion, marriage and contraception, etc., or else to create his legacy before he leaves office.

The implications of some of the proposals, such as eldest child of whichever sex becoming monarch, do not present great problems. The present Queen is the sixth, of England, since and including "Bloody Mary", who has ruled by descent in her own right.

The other, to remove the bar facing Roman Catholics who wish to marry into the Royal family, needs much more time to work out the implications, not least its implications for the establishment of the Church of England. At this stage in a parliament it must seem a little late to begin on this process, knowing that after the election there could be a considerable change in the make up of the Commons.

As a non-Anglican Christian I understand any grievance the Romans may feel, but we have had so much half-baked and unfinished constitutional reform over the past 12 years that we really must not do this in haste, but calmly and considering all the implications.

Fighting talk

George Osborne today, in an interview with the Sun newspaper, reveals that immediately he is in office he will review the proposed increase in national insurance on all earning more than £19,000 a year. Reversal of this will be a number one priority.

The half percent increase seems little as such, but someone earning £26,123 (- a nurse in his example) will have to pay £207 a year more in tax.

He also promised to rein in salaries paid "public servant fat cats", who, with a few exceptions will not be allowed to earn more than the Prime Minister, - currently £190,000. The estimate is that this will affect 68 heads of government bodies and 23 NHS managers.

The sun gives examples of current pay received by the 5 best paid quango executives, - Ofcom at £417,581 being the highest and the lowest being the Learning and Skills Council at £284,000. So the reductions would vary from £227,000 to £94,000.

The savings in total would be roughly £650,000, and there would be smaller saving in the cases of the other 86 executives. The overall total could be approaching £1 million.

(This is oversimplified- the chief executives are on contracts, and there would be a need to "buy out" the remainder, which could be protracted, before they or others could be appointed at lower salaries.) There is the other question that some of the quangos are on many "lists and never would be missed", which could could save many millions, but Osborne did not mention these.

The other proposal will raise more tax

People are working themselves into a later over the 45p tax rate for those earning over £150k per year. Experts have told us that it will raise comparatively little. Darling himself estimated last November that it would raise £670 million in 2011/12.

On today's Conservative Home website William Norton, a solicitor and adviser on taxation policy to the Conservatives, assures us that about 500,000 people will be liable, so on average they will pay £1,340 each more tax. (It implies that their average income is £176,800 per annum, implying that the distribution of income is skewed very much to the 150,00-200,000 range of incomes.

Norton's article is worth reading if only because another increased tax proposal had been slipped in with less fanfare and debate. This is for everyone earning in excess of £100,00. Their personal tax allowances will be reduced by £1 for every £2 earned, until half of the allowance is lost. For those earning over £140,000 taxpayers will lose a further £1 in allowances for every £2 earned until the allowance has fully gone. In general all allowances will probably have been deleted by the time an income reaches £150,000, when the increased tax rate kicks in.

Less attention has been given to this second stealth tax, partly because it is more complicated - a typical Brownian wheeze. A rise of 5p in the pound from 40p or 12% increase in tax per taxable pound. This will obviously appeal to his left wingers, who have to be fed some raw meat from time to time.

In fact as Norton suggests there are legal loopholes which allow a tax payer to avoid all the depredation, if his benefits are otherwise than salary for anything over £100,000. He gives examples and notes that details are even published on the website of HMRC.

If the proposal comes into force, expect frantic complicated attempts to close loopholes!

The G20 non-meeting

When you consider the programme for the G20 summit the thing that strikes is a programme which allows only 4 hours and 35 minutes for discussion, (or less than 14 minutes per member country.) The remainder of the time is the usual junketing/banqueting, Gordo prancing around and photo opportunities. (Of course in private, where no outsider can hear the false promises and horse-trading, there will be a chance to try to browbeat non-believers into agreeing a vacuous statement that all will do "everything possible" to restore the world economy, install international regulation and bear down upon off-shore tax havens.)

Considering the cost and the carbon burned to get them all together, never mind the opportunity for the mindless anti-capitalists to cause great damage to property in London, what is the point?

It is now obvious that some countries not so deep in debt as us will be keen to spend in a desperate hope of reviving their flagging economies and their leader's reputations. There is surely strong and growing opposition within countries and between countries that the most likely outcome is an anodyne platitude called a communique.

The black hole gets larger

The Governor of the Bank of England feels that further fiscal stimulus is unwise in the present situation. He has said so.

Daniel Hannan in Brussels told G.Brown to his face that there is no more of our money for him to spend and debt will be ruinous.

On the next day the Treasury failed to sell all the government bonds at its weekly auction. Was this a fluke, or was it a sign of dangerous development, that international investors have less taste for further UK government debt, as Hannan would say, they too have summed up the situation.

On the same day Christ Giles, Economics Editor of the Financial Times, added more food for thought. In 2009-10 and 2010-11, on present estimates, the government will have to raise £350 billion from borrowing to fill the budget deficits. Whoever takes over as chancellor after the election next year will face a debt larger than the accumulated government debt of all UK governments from 1691 to 1997 added together.

If potential lenders to Brown & Co were hesitant yesterday, when they read this may well require a much bigger return on their lending, that is those who lend at all.

Much of this debt is the result of the "built in stabiliser" which operates towards budget deficit as soon as government tax takes fall and government out-payments rise, as the result of recession.

Surely G.Brown will take all this to heart? He may be arrogant and obstinate but he is intelligent.
He would not want his time in power to go down to posterity as one in which the UK went from wealth to penury and a bail-out from the IMF?

He has seen the danger of his position. Having called for all countries to give a fiscal boost when the G20 meets, he is now denying what he said by claiming that he was talking about past fiscal easing, as the G20 compares notes. As someone once said, "If you believe that you'll believe anything."

So where does Brown go now? Quantitative Easing seems to be ruled out, given the statement of the Governor of the Bank, or will Brown overrule him? Treasury spokesmen are talking about G.Brown having other possibilities, and will pull something out of the bag in Darling's budget in late April. We may have all sorts of magic and sleight of hand,- in this he is a wizard. Whatever he does, there is this enormous debt hanging over him and us, and he dare not spook international creditors.

Education is also failing the brightest children

I reported recently that our educational system is failing to produce SATS qualification for children from poorest families on a par with those from the rest of society.

Recently (22nd May) The Daily Telegraph also revealed that our brightest children are also being failed. The problem is that "coasting schools" by virtue of able intakes have been able to avoid scrutiny because they produced average or better than average examination results. Projecting the results of answers given by a sample of Education authorities to all schools leads the Telegraph to conclude that there could be as many as 130 coasting schools in England.

These (secondary) schools suggest a lack of progress among their students who early on (in SATS) show considerable promise but who achieve GCSE results which are very ordinary. Results through the schools show a static level of achievement, and the schools themselves receive disappointing Ofsted results and reveal unsatisfactory pupil tracking records or a lack of attempt to pick up problems and try to correct them.

This is an indictment of the system, especially in view of the huge sums pumped into Education by G.Brown.

It is possible to speculate on the reasons, - the ethos which frowns on superior performance and competition and excellence, the huge demands on teachers in meeting targets and enduring frequent changes, the time and resources devoted to dealing with disruptive and underperforming students and inadequate leadership and staff deficiencies, etc. These are dangers facing all schools, but there may be concentrations of problems in particular areas and schools.

What's an odd £50 million among all the rest?

Several qualified people have estimated the cost to this country of holding the G20summit in London at about £50 million. This assumes that the massive police and security presence will actually prevent the idiot anti-capitalist protesters and terrorists doing significant damage, or the total cost could be much higher.

There will also be disruption in the capital, there will be injuries among the police, and there will be a ban on all police leave. What is the point of it all? The "G" stands for Group, but it could equally stand for "Gordo", our world-saving hero.

G.Brown lobbied for the meeting, so that he could be centre-stage, and bask in adulation as world saviour. His policies would be adopted world-wide, and his proposals for regulating every bank in the world would be received with acclaim. President Obama would be present, to learn from the brilliant prime mentalist.

The only problem is that his policies have already been largely rejected. See the attack on him yesterday by Daniel Hannan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs), which summarises,- the IMF are opposed, and the EU. Hannan didn't know that Mervin King, Governor of the Bank of England, would effectively discredit the central plank of G.Brown's policy, when he appeared before the Treasury Select Committee on the same day. Even the nominal chancellor, Mr. Darling, seems to have doubts about scattering more money about wildly, and many others who saw a possible resurgence of inflation in yesterday's released figures have food for thought.

Hannan suggested that Brown is entirely isolated. This is not absolutely true, as Obama seems to be supporting the kind of policies suggested by Brown, but there are many concerned about America are doing, and Obama is showing traces of impatience as he battles to fulfil quickly so many promises he made to so many people.

Unless G.Brown can change the minds of virtually all G20 participants, we have to ask what is the point of the spending of £50 million, except to increase Brown's chances of returning as PM in 2010. If he does succeed in changing minds, heaven help us!

So what do they try next?

Recently released government statistics show that poorer pupils in primary education are still under-performing, when compared with pupils from more affluent families.

Of children in receipt of free school meals, (FSM) 63% achieved a level 4 in their Maths SATS, - the level expected of 11-year-olds. This compares with 81% of those not in receipt of FSM.

In English there was a similar result, among FSM children 65% achieved level 4, compared with 84% among their richer counterparts. In science FSM children 77% achieved level four, while in the non-FSM children the achievement level was 90%.

Worst achievement of all was among white boys from poor homes, except for the children from "traveller" families. White boys achieved 57% success, compared with the overall average across all groups of 81%. The white boys seem to drag down the average for FSM children generally.

The difference in attainment may reflect a difference in natural ability, but a more predominant cause seems to be home circumstances other than income. Higher income and professional parents seem to understand the need for them to read to their children and encourage them to read as well. There are books at home which stimulate an enquiring mind. Parents give their time to talking to their children, and go on visits with them.

It is hard to be a single parent, living on benefit or low income and limited energy. It is hard for children to reinforce lessons in reading, Maths and Science, when there is little time or interest at home, and where their parents may have "flunked" education themselves.

It is difficult to see how the disadvantaged children can develop their potential until our broken society is fixed. In any Tory government it is to be hoped that the work of Ian Duncan Smith will illuminate policy in all areas but especially in welfare and education.

He can't see it, can he?

Last week G. Brown gave an interview to the Guardian, the blind talking to the blind.

In it he said that the economic crisis had taken place on his watch (wow, almost a "sorry", but not quite), but it demonstrates the failure of laissez faire capitalism.

Where do you start?

If we ever had laissez faire, we have not had it for at least 60 years. Our society and economy have been regulated and controlled by all sorts of bodies, and suffered constant nudges and forces by no less than G. Brown himself. There are commissions for this and that, there are anti-democratic quangos, a large part of the economy is in direct control of the government.

Above all, G. Brown had taken more and more control of private industry, and draped it with red tape, regulation and scrutiny. The failure we are suffering from is the result of interference by governments and a failure by regulators. "Capitalists" do what they always do, respond to their gain to the signals and opportunities thrown up.

He was famously quiet in the period of uninterrupted economic growth which began with the Tories, and strutted about as if he performed the miracle. Either it was capitalism, or it was him.

We can only assume that to ingratiate himself with another leftie at the Guardian, he did not mean what he said. His problem is that he is running out of scape goats. He has blamed the Americans, the banks and the world for his failures. Who else is there?

Later in the interview he claimed that "progressive forces alone have the answers to the challenges we face", so capitalism somehow overcame the supposed effective controls of socialism in a matter of months, presumably having been dormant for the previous 15 years, and that it "is essential we win the next election for the sake of the country." The hubris, the blindness and arrogance are staggering.

It's similar to Nazi Germany's arguments for invading several of its soon to be conquered countries. Cause trouble, and then you use that as a pretext for greater control than before, until your control is absolute, and we all live in reduced circumstances.

The man is blind and arrogant.

Borrowing is easy, but you must pay for it

The CBI, in a plea to G. Brown, have urged him to hold back on further borrowing.

The annual budget deficit is rising rapidly, and could rise to £180 billion in 2009-2010. Even if it then falls back in recovery during 2010-2011, it would seem possible that by 2012 the national debt will have risen by £300 billion more than the Chancellor forecast last November, and the accumulated national debt will become larger than the level of national output in a year.

Such a debt has to be serviced. The CBI estimate that at the peak size before efforts are suffered to reduce it, the annual interest cost could rise to £60 billion per annum. In a fully employed economy, whenever and if ever we reach that, standard rate tax would have to rise by 15 pence in the pound, or nearly double, just to pay the interest on the debt.

This is merely to service the debt. If we wish to reduce the debt significantly*, and most economists would suggest that we must for all sorts of reason, then we could think of about £100 billion annually to pay interest and reduce the debt. This would be equivalent to raising standard rate by over 20p in pound and effectively doubling it.

No government, of whatever colour, would seriously expect the people to suffer this kind of reduction in their net income, and we could well have the social unrest suggested by Frank Field in an interview with the BBC. There would also be mass emigration of talent, and further impoverishment.

There must therefore be a large reduction in government expenditure. This is inescapable. In the medium term waste could be massively trimmed, perhaps as much as £40 billion a year, and a reform of public services will help, but immediately there must be a reduction in planned expenditure. There is no alternative, sacred cows or not.

* If debt rises alarmingly in relation to GDP, then our Tripple AAA credit rating could be lost, lenders will look less kindly on us as borrowers, and we shall then have to pay yet more interest to entice them.

Inheritance Tax

Mandelson is trying to stir things, and so are the newspapers which still support labour, - there are one or two, believe or not.

Kenneth Clarke, digressing from his area in an interview on Sunday, declared that raising the level at which inheritance tax begins was an aspiration but not likely to happen early if the Conservatives win a general election this year or next.

He is right to sound a caution. The public finances are in such a mess, but could even get worse, that tax concessions or increases in government spending are difficult to envisage. Later, when there has been some recovery, the reduction in tax could be realistic. Significantly, we have heard very little from Labour recently how they propose to fund the budget deficit gap. Even the 45% tax on those earning over £150,000 will produce very little, especially if many professions decide to emigrate.

No-one knows what the government accounts will look like in 2010, however. Last November Chancellor Darling forecast a budget deficit for the tax year 2009/2010 of £118 billion. Already, after a sharp deterioration in the economy, respected forecasters are saying that the figure will be much higher, and a figure of £180 billion has been mentioned.

The party leadership have reiterated their determination to press ahead with the tax reduction.

In support they could argue:
- It is already costed and allowed for.

- The burden on the exchequer is very small - of the order of two or three billion, (compared with £20 billion reduction in VAT, £60 billion in "easing"), and it is declining as house and other assets values have fallen, and savings have been savaged by Brown and the recession. Many people will now find that they are lifted out of tax because their assets are below the starting point.

- the people most affected are those who will die in the next five years, and their families, and these are precisely the people who have suffered during the past few years - higher inflation, lower interest rates, poor pension increases, and they will not be able to claim anything back if the tax reduction is delayed for, say, 5 years.

-principles are important. If it is wrong that millionaires escape much of the tax by well-advised schemes, and that people on very average incomes and smaller estates are paying the bulk, then it is wrong!

Their's for life, or half anyway

There is a recommendation that dentists, because they have been trained at state expense, must work for the state for half their time. The New Local Government Network has made this suggestion recently. "Half their life"apparently means half of the working week.

Is this serious? You must spend your whole life, say forty years, bound to the state? Admittedly consultants work for ninety percent of their time for the state, if they wish to engage in private practice.

The question should be asked why dentists have been leaving the public service in droves. It is apparently not a matter of incomes. Is it a matter of conditions of service in some other respect?
Is it that they are leaving because of the stultifying regulations they must endure in the bureaucratic public service? Is it that they feel that they cannot co the best they would wish for their NHS patients because they are severely restricted in what they can do?

It seems a regularly encountered problem in socialised medicine, until Brown threw money at GPs. An inflexible decision is made in one aspect which causes problems elsewhere. A politically imposed decision at other than what the economist would call a "market-clearing equilibrium " will result in problems elsewhere. This is compounded currently by the vain attempt by Brown to save money.

So what happens to a dentist who resigns from the NHS? Is he or she to be pursued to claim back some of the training costs? If so, are we to pursue vets, or lawyers, or architects, or anyone else who chooses to change his method of working? What if he goes abroad, which is what many disillusioned practitioners have done, or retires early?

Does this not represent a partial form of slavery?

The solution would be to give consumers a voucher, to a certain value, and let them shop around.
This would produce an efficient outcome and overcome this bureaucratic nonsense.

The 45p tax

Some, even moderate, Tories are annoyed at George Osborne's unwillingness to rule out the income tax hike on those earning more than £150,000, when and if the Tories come to power.

What do they expect?

The finances will be so much in the red that there is no way that slashing expenditure will be enough, soon enough, without causing mayhem. The next government will need to save something like £100 billion a year, and if they save less than the debt will mount by the interest that has to be met. In other words, abolish NHS spending or alternatively get rid of the army, navy and air force three times over. This is the order of savings to be made.

It is to be hoped that something approaching perhaps half that figure could be saved by cancelling ID cards and other wasteful projects, abolishing many quangos and increasing efficiency in all government departments, and perhaps by a freezing of all civil service vacancies, but this will all take time, as will getting people off benefit and back to work.

In the short run there seems little alternative to raising taxes, even if relatively briefly. The savings, and possible reductions in taxes, will come when upturn is well on the way and incomes are higher and taxes collected are higher. Raising tax on the very well paid may not be popular, but there are arguably more deserving cases at the bottom end. It is a national disgrace that people working at the national minimum level should have to pay about 10% of their income in income tax.

It is never easy to tax highly paid staff, because with their skills and experience they can very easily decamp overseas, but this is the quandary which Brown and his debt financed boom has landed us in.

A name to summarise....

What name should we give the past 12 years, dominated by Brown and Blair?

Could we call it Brown/Blair or Blair/Brown? This sounds like a mathematical model, or the name of an American Bank.

Could we combine the names, - Brair, for instance. Even better is Blown!

The period which had everything going for it - a massive majority and public support, a benign and growing economy, cheap goods flooding into the country to keep prices down without having to raise interest rates, etc.

But it has been Blown - half finished constitutional changes, a failure to deal with immigration or crime, a plethora or ill-thought-out laws which have reduced privacy and freedom, a huge debt bubble, falling educational standards, huge welfare dependency, wasteful promotion of public sector projects, incompetent ministers, spinning and deceit, and even sleaze.

A major opportunity to create a new society has been Blown. Blown seems to be the word to summarise the period which began with such high hopes and has disintegrated

Some excuse....

The Daily Mail today publishes figures on the presence in junior school education of pupils whose first language is not English.

The number who normally speak a foreign language at home rose last year to 565,888, or 14.8% of the total number, that is one in seven. In 2004 the number was 452,388.

In some areas the percentage can be as high as 70%, and there are ten schools without a single pupil who has English as a first language.

These relate to primary schools, with ages 4 to 11. In secondary schools, the proportion of students who do not have English as a first language rose from 8.8% in 2004, to 10.6 last year. The situation has prompted Damien Green, shadow immigration minister, to suggests to suggest that there are probably close to to one million pupils in all schools for whom English is a second language.

(These figures reflect, whatever your view on the level of immigration, the rise in immigration from 48,000 in 1997 to 237 in 2007. Immigrants tend to be younger than the average UK population, and so more likely to have children.)

It is a great problem for schools where such pupils are, and is complicated even further when there are many foreign languages represented by the pupils. Nelson Primary School in East London, one of the largest in the country, with 900 pupils, currently has a quarter of its pupils native English speakers, while the reminder speak any of 56 foreign languages!

While it is accepted that younger children very quickly acquire significant amounts of English, perhaps helped by watching television at home, it clearly is a major problem for some schools. Basic teaching may be held up, different methods may be necessary and misunderstandings may take time to resolve.

Does this excuse the failings of primary schools to give an adequate grounding in literacy and numeracy? There is clearly a more widespread failure, with relatively few areas performing adequately.

What the figures do suggest is that the areas with high incidence of foreign language should have greater resources to support measures to deal with the problem, whether in specialised support staff or in printed materials, etc. They also suggest that the problem was caused by a failure to control immigration, and this problem must be effectively faced as well.

Between a rock and a hard place?

Cameron and company have a difficult task. They have assiduously built a party image as very much a centrist party.

Now they are confronted with a situation quite different from that expected. The next government will have to emphasise austerity. There will have to be cuts and tax increases. So far G.Brown and company have not laid out how they would "square the circle", but Cameron as challenger is repeatedly asked for details.

A Times leader today suggests that it talking about a freeze on funds to the BBC Cameron could be giving the impression that he is moving to the right. This is staggering, - stand still is still a cut in real terms if there is any inflation, but while the competitors of the BBC are making massive cuts in many directions it would not be unfair for the BBC to do a little belt-tightening.

The Times is right in one respect. There are already signs in poll ratings and by-elections that disaffected labour voters are turning to their natural alternatives, the LibDems, although they too are keeping mum about how they would deal with the recession/depression.

So what does Cameron believe. He was asked the question by Fraser Nelson at yesterday's press conference, "Give me five good reasons to vote Tory." (This was itself the winning entry in a "Coffee House" competition.) Cameron's answer was:

"1) Get rid of the exhausted Labour government.
2) Tories would give people more power over their lives, and devolve power to people and local authorities.
3) Move away from an economy built on debt to one built on saving.
4) Mend the broken society.
5) Radical school reform."

Fraser gives his own comments on the answer, generally favourable. As far as Tories generally are concerned, I suspect that most would be happy, but see it as a long haul.

If he can expand a little more on 2,3 and 4, - we already know some detail on 5, thanks to Michael Gove, then it could convince others, but don't ignore the power of Labour to spin and smear nor the Libdems to be all things to all men.

The cost of the recession

There are all sorts of costs, some very personal such as losing your job and some very difficult to quantify, like future income or pensions prospects.

This morning PricewaterhouseCooper's calculations on asset value losses were published by the Independent. They make grim reading:

Since 2007
- the total value of shares and homes owned by British households has fallen by 28%, from £6.8. trillion to £4.9 trillion.

During the credit crunch
- houses have lost 20% of the value, or £800 billion, and equities 40%, or £1.2 trillion.

On average each adult has lost £17,000 from the property slump and £23,000 in the shares, whether held directly or indirectly in a pension fund. These are averages, and while some will have lost little in one or both categories others will have lost much more.


These are sobering statistics. Recent figures suggest that families are still massively in debt. The total personal debt on credit cards, overdrafts, mortgages, etc, is still of the order of £1.1 trillion.
It is this last figure which may persuade many , if they come by extra income from the Brown splurge, decide to reduce their debt rather than increase their spending as he wants. This may drag out the recovery phase, when it comes.

G20 - an example of wasted money?

The finance ministers met over the week-end in their smoke-filled rooms (for some reason able to smoke in public space) and delivered the promise that they will do whatever it takes to end the recession.

No policies were announced, and it is known that Germany and France at least are not dancing to Gordo's tune, to pump more and more money in a reckless gamble. The problem is that although the recession may be global, it is not even in incidence nor manifesting itself in the same way, Each country has different needs.

Never mind, in less than a month the real men and women of power will meet in a summit in London and the saviour of the world as well as the saviour of America will both be there.


There are likely to be differences on protectionism, regulation and on massive spending. The betting seems to be that all the strutting of G. Brown will produce only a vague consensus once again. Perhaps over the months something more may emerge, but the world is sinking further into recession/depression.

Put more tax on booze?

The Chief Medical Officer has suggested that alcohol should have a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, which would put about 50p on a £4 bottle of wine.

There has been a predictable protest from moderate drinkers and also from sellers of alcoholic drinks. It's unfair, swingeing, you're punishing the innocent, it's not so high in France were they have no binge drinking, etc, etc. At a time when pubs are closing in great numbers, this could be the last straw for others.

The policy is suggested to dry to encourage heavy and binge drinkers to drink less. They are imposing costs for hospital treatment and for policing on the rest of us, they are creating disturbance and no-go areas for the rest of us.

Moderate drinkers point out that it is supermarkets with loss-leader cheap drinks, and special offers in pubs of 2 for 1, etc, not the actual price of the drink, but if you are going to set a minimum price, why not set it at 50p per unit, rather than trying to cover all sorts of prohibitions in complicated laws which would have to be enforced at cost.

Since the binge drinkers cause the problems why not let them pay more than moderate drinkers.

It might seems a seep increase, perhaps the heavy drinkers need a shock, and drink is still in real terms very cheap. It used to take a working man the best part of a week's work to find the money to buy a bottle of whisky. It's much cheaper now, in terms of work.

No-one likes to pay more tax, although with our

Education, Education, Education?

There is much that is wrong with education in this country, and despite the massive spending under Gordon Brown many people feel that the quality of education is going down.

Yesterday the Daily Telegraph published two items which must raise disquiet.

1) School playing fields are being sold off at a rate of almost one a day. Sport England has revealed that in 2006-07, the most recent for which figures are available, no fewer than 360 school playing fields were sold by councils in England.

Despite promising in their manifesto in 1997 that the practice would be ended, something like 2,000 playing fields and 2,000 smaller fields have been sold.

You may blame local councils which are desperately trying to balance their books, in order to meet central government imposed tasks and standards and with inadequate finances, but the blame ultimately rests with central government. Of the sales in 2006-07, in 21 the ministers overrruled objections from Sport England in confirming planning permission to sell. The government has not brought the sale to an end, and seems unconcerned at the problems facing local councils.

2) A former head of one of the government's flagship academies has claimed that indulgent attention to misfit students has often deprived able students of the attention they need. The schools are becoming more and more under the domination of Whitehall and losing what little independence they had. He sees the Department for Cchildren, Schools and Families as imposing too many policies of a social nature on schools.

We were familiar with the idea that disruptive students, who have behavioural problems, reduce opportunities for other pupils. Now we see that the cloying hand of Whitehall, requiring schools to act more like social workers, is also part of the problem.

The uncertain hand of the regulator

As our political betters meet to agree still more strict and worldwide regulation, it is instructive to ask why it has failed in the past that we should need more of it. The conclusion of world saviours such as G.Brown is that there was not enough.

I beg to differ.

Much depends on the design of regulation. Most now agree that our tripartite system was badly designed, among other things because it meant that the Bank of England with natural and regular contacts with banks was removed from oversight. The Bank was unsure how far it could intervene, and the SFA had their own problems. In the case of childcare regulation, it is clear that in many cases regulation had the effect that everything was seen as the success in ticking boxes, and that responsibility for actual children was secondary to ticking boxes.

Much depends on the willingness of the regulator to report and if necessary protest against government action. The Glass-Steagall conditions, which controlled how far orthodox banking and mortgage lending could be intertwined, was relaxed in 1999 in the U.S. Here, and in the U.S. lenders lent to borrowers who were never going to be able to repay. The result was sub-prime mortgages. Did any regulators protests at what the US and UK governments were doing? Yes George W. did try to change things, but was defeated by his oppnents in Congress.

Perversely, as is now appearing from the Madoff case, the fact that an operator was supposedly being supervised by an official regulator could actually add falsely to the reliability of the operator. Unfortunately the regulators were not up to standard. When eight or so years ago other financial bodies reported their concerns and suspicions about Madoff to the regulator appropriate action was not followed up. The result was devastating losses for many people, which could have been reduced by early action.

Regulators may become so overbearing and demanding of those that they supervise that they actually reduce ethical businesses to withdraw and even to fail. Larger operators, however, who are part of the network and look for posts in regulation in due course can perhaps better conceal their activities.

There may be other reasons, but there surely must be a better way to avoid the huge costs involved, in both supervision and compliance, than the ineffective bureaucratic methods we have now. These methods often involve the regulators becoming too involved with politics and with those they supervise. In many case full disclosure and competitive pressures will do better than government meddling in regulatory regimes. Competitive markets work very well, and the government would do much better promoting competition rather than interfering in an ad hoc way.

When the party's over

On fairly reasonable assumptions, one forecaster recently calculated that even when we have recovered from the recession, and have the same level of income again, (which could be some years hence), there will then be the problem of paying interest on the huge public debt and also reducing that debt. It would not be unreasonable to expect to pay £100 billion annually on this.

To put this into context, it would mean the standard rate of income tax rising to about 60p in the pound, or a collection of taxes rising to produce this.

Is there another way of paying for the debt piled up by G. Brown?

I can suggest three:

Freeing up the civil service from political duties to function more efficiently. We cannot afford the situation recently revealed - of trying to collect vast millions from people who are dead but have received benefits by maladministration. Have a policy of not replacing civil servants from outside when they retire. There is a vast army of people on the expensive payroll, and their skills ought to be put to more productive use.

Cancel all the expensive and badly mounted IT projects which are vastly over budget, running very late and likely to be not very useful. This would include especially the ID card system, but there are many others.

Abolish, and take off the payroll, sundry quangos and other bodies. The others would include the regional assemblies who have never been elected, and the recent regional select committees. The quangos would include especially the regional planning bodies and the regional housing bodies.


These could realise sums fairly quickly, although perhaps not enough. Other medium term changes could be used, such as devolving real power and money raising to local authorities. They would then be free of endless targets and requirements set by central government, and they would be accountable to their electors for their spending.

In addition, the scrutiny body to watch over government expenditure, - fiscal responsibility, could be made to publish fully , to hold future governments accountable for every penny they spend. Expenses of MPs would also have to be fully revealed. It would be intolerable that when everyone else is tightening their belts they should be giving themselves even more perks.

When you pass a drain grating, avert your eyes..

Especially in Manchester.

Stephen Clarke was arrested in Manchester during the Labour Party Conference last year.

His crime? He was arrested for taking a photograph on his mobile phone, - a photograph of a sealed drain grating.

Except that he hadn't! When the police looked at his mobile, there was no photograph of the drain.

This didn't deter them. They locked him up for two days while they searched his house, his telephone records and his computer. He was held on the very broad "suspicion of planning an act of terror".

When they couldn't find anything suspicious, they let him go without charge, after taking his DNA and fingerprints, as they would of anyone accused of planning an act of terrorism.

He is thinking of taking legal action to have his DNA and finger print record destroyed, confident that the recent ruling in Europe that keeping his details contravened the Human Rights Act. He has had to wait for three months.

Did the police not think that the absence of image on his mobile was indication enough that he was not photographing the drain grating? Or are they now so paranoid and so power crazy that their judgement is clouded?

If your hobby is looking at, photographing or even painting views with bridges, television or power masts or even High Streets, then make sure you are not observed.

Even more worrying, make sure that you don't film a policeman or even give the impression that you are, and especially if the policeman is behaving badly. We have not yet (quite) reached the level of the Stasi or other police state functionaries, but we are getting nearer!

Then find out!

Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, today revealed an amazing written exchange between him and the schools minister.

Philip had asked, "....how many pupils dropped out of school before the age of 16 in (a) Northamptonshire and (b) England in the last 12 months?"

The reply came, "Information on pupils dropping out of schools is not collected, nor can it be accurately derived from the data currently collected on pupils."

Leaving aside the possibility that this was a answer which effectively means, "We're not telling you", it raises two very big questions:

1) When you are collecting so much how much more would it cost to answer these important questions? Are they not at all concerned, which they should be, or do they think that it will give a lie to their claim that everything is rosy in education?

2) At a time when they are preparing to raise the school leaving age to 18, did it not occur to them that the past experience at under 16 might just have been relevant?

It would be very difficult to answer Philip's question without looking failures or incompetents. Perhaps this was why they claim to have no idea or interest?

Parliament means a place for talking

They do talk, our MPs, and at length. The problem is that the most important things are decided outside the House of Commons.

Much is decided in Brussels, of course, and we make the pretence of agreeing what our betters hand down by pretending that we have some power.

Much is decided in number 11 Downing Street, -I suspect I mean number 10, and the Treasury. All the policy to deal with the recession/repression is conducted behind closed doors, and is seldom debated fully. If there is a debate, it will be effectively nodded through because of the power of the government whips.

At the moment "quantitative easing is being conducted by the Bank of England, - let us preserve the fiction that it acts independently of government. The Tories have called for a proper debate on what is arguably the most important issue outside war for perhaps a century, and they have been denied. An opposition day is coming soon, and they can choose the subject for debate, but they have been told that MaCavity will not be available that day.

It is frustrating being in opposition, and it is dismaying believing in representative democracy!

Ban the bankers!?

Nick Clegg, leader of the LibDems, has proposed today in the Times that Directors in charge of the various failing banks when they had to be rescued by the taxpayer should be disqualified from sitting on company boards.

There is a certain attraction in this. After all, we bar bankrupts from certain rights until they have made good. The directors of the banks concerned, - Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland, HBos and B & B, have hurt thousands, if not millions, in their profligacy, and some have walked away with huge golden handshakes and pensions.

But while this may appeal to the anger within us, and the sense of injustice, there are problems:
- should the ban also apply to other future income sources, such as sinecures with Quangos or with the government?
- what about guilty parties who escaped before the rescues were necessary, but who were involved early in the practices which led to failure?

The EU as we know it....2

Open Europe tell us that the European Commission has decided to back the banking and monetary reforms proposed by Jacques de Larosiere, the former Governor of the Bank of France, although they have rejected his proposal to implement the reforms gradually and are pressing ahead to complete them by June.

The reforms are far reaching and will apply across Europe, or at least that large part they control. They are proposing to make supervision complete and effective, and will require transparency in derivatives markets and penalise banks whose remuneration policies encourage excessive risk taking (as judged by supervisors?)

With details still to be worked out, two pan-European authorities will be set up. One, under the European Central Bank, will warn national regulators about threats to stability emerging in the financial services industry. The other will monitor day-to-day supervision of banks, insurers and markets.

I suppose it was to be expected that, with G.Brown attempting to lead global regulation, the EU would have to flex its muscles and interfere everywhere even more than it does now.

It will mean the purchase of still more properties in London. It will mean supervisors falling over each other in banks, duplicating and disagreeing. It could mean outside political interference to the advantage of other financial centres wanting to take over from London. It will be very expensive and inhibit innovation.

It will be rushed, with ill thought-out mechanisms to unite competing authorities. If we are concerned about the tripartite system here already, consider what could happen if two further sorts of regulators throw confusion!

Our own apparent chancellor, Mr. Darling, is reported to be opposed to much of what is proposed. I hope that he persuades the effective chancellor to resist this nonsense.

The EU as we know it....1

Open Europe, which monitors what the EU is up to and often reveals what our masters in Brussels want to conceal, confirmed what others had commented on.

The EU has apparently purchased the former Conservative headquarters in central London for the sum of £24 million. The eight floors are to be renovated and developed at a cost above £5 million to accommodate their less than 70 employees. The cost will be at least £400,00 per employee. This is capital cost, obviously. We have no idea what the operating costs will be, given the location.

The worrying thing is that this is being repeated in every centre where the EU feels it must have an expensive presence, and goes some way to explaining why we get so little back for our enormous contribution/subscription/tax.

...the battle was lost

Douglas Carswell, in a message on his blog today, raises the questions of helicopters available to our troops in the battle fields. I blogged on this a few month ago, but it seems that little has changed.

It is bad enough that Apache helicopters are regularly grounded because of the need for repairs and servicing, and front line troops regularly lack the cover these excellent machines provide. They also lack small machine like Gazelles which can take small supplies rapidly to where they are needed, or scout problems ahead.

The greatest scandal is the eight Chinook helicopters, procurement for which began in 1995, and which are still sitting unused in a hangar. The MOD wanted customised features, and demands changed from time to time, so the machines were delivered without being able to incorporate some. The result is that the machines have to be grounded in certain flying conditions.

In the recent report of the Public Accounts Committee the £422 million project, which has provided 8 machines with such limited use that they are still sitting on the ground, there is a damning indictment of the procurement process.

I wonder if the people concerned will receive their usual bonuses, as they have since 1995?

Paying for medicine

There has been a discussion today on the Toady programme about paying for prescription medicines.

It seems that because various groups are exempt for age, chronic conditions, and so on, only 11% of all patients actually make a payment contribution to the cost of their medications. This seems unfair on the 11% per cent who are paying, although presumably they are in receipt of working wages and having prescriptions on only an occasional basis.

Someone interviewed suggested that all should pay a figure of something like £1.50 per item, with no exemptions. This would seem to be unfair on those who are not working and who have regular prescriptions involving possibly many items.

I can think of only two advantages generally, - simplifying administration, and discouraging wasteful prescriptions. When anything is free, it tends to be undervalued and wasted, with many drugs thrown away. In addition, there are clearly doctors who prescribe things that arguably should not be on prescription. While in the pharmacy recently, I saw the pharmacist open and display the items, and there were many, of someone whose package was being collected by a neighbour. I noticed aspirins, cheap laxative and, I think, toothpaste.

Surely the better solution would be to make all prescriptions entirely free, as they are or will be in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. At the same time doctors should have to be more accountable for what they prescribe, and some things such as aspirins should not be in the list.
It is a disgrace that in England there are still some payments for prescriptions.

You have to spend (more) to save (less)

The Daily Telegraph today quotes official figures which reveal that local health bodies have increased their spending on temporary and administrative staff from £45 million in 2003/4 to £115 million in 2008. That is an increase of 114 percent in just five years.

This may be small beer compared with the billions which are being thrown about now, but as has been pointed out such the spending would now pay for about 4,000 extra nurses! (Last year the number of managers in the NHS was increasing twice as fast as the number of nurses.)

Why should there be need for such temporary spending? (The government has been trying, unsuccessfully, to cut management costs. This was why two years ago they halved the number of primary care trusts.)

The expansion is almost certainly for a mixture of reasons, but probably arises from similar problems which afflict education.

Health provision is based on a target- led culture, where the targets are finely tuned from Whitehall, and is subject to regular change and reorganisation. Administrators need to make regular local changes, which requires a continuing army of pen pushers.

Whatever the cause, it is a shocking indictment of the service, and may go some way to explaining why we have European levels of spending but much poorer results, especially in areas like cancer treatment.

The victims opf the recession

The real victims of the recession/depression are not those made unemployed, or those losing their homes, catastrophic though these are. They have a hope of restoring their incomes when the economy eventually recovers.

The real victims are those who have recently retired as employees in the private sector or will soon retire.

Their pensions are no longer the final-salary-based indexed pensions, and their pensions have been reduced by the annual raid on them by G. Brown. Ironically much of what they are suffering is to guarantee gold plated final pensions in a swollen public sector.

Their savings have crumbled, both by the reduction in capital value, if they have investments involving shares, and by the reduction in interest rates. Some had hoped to maintain their capital, in order to have an income stream to supplement a poor old age pension, and also as a cushion if they survive long enough to need retirement or nursing home care later. Many of them are already having to dip into their capital, because their income from savings has dropped from almost £50 per thousand invested to as low as £20 per thousand invested.

Pensioners have faced a much higher effective inflation rate than the general public for several years, because of the contents of their "shopping baskets". The things they spend their money on - energy, food and housing in particular, have risen more rapidly in price. Their old age pension has been increased at a miserly rate for several years, based on the national inflation rate, so in real terms many have had a reduction in incomes. As an example, the Alliance Trust Research Centre has calculated than in January the inflation rate facing the over 75s was 5.4%, while the national inflation rate is approaching zero. Of course, there are always benefits to be claimed, but these benefits are not going to convey the level of comfort they anticipated as they saved hard all their lives.

The pensioners have little prospect of seeing a recovery in their fortunes. A new government will have to pay off huge debts, (- the government started the brouhaha over Fred the Shred's pension to conceal the fact that RSB debt requires another handout of £25 billion.) It is difficult to see how it will find much to restore the fortunes of the retired.

It is hard on those who have lost their jobs and/or their homes, but unless they are near to retirement, there is at least hope that a stable economic recovery, like that under Kenneth Clarke in the 1990s, will restore their incomes and prospects. They may have to be very patient, as our economy is in a real mess.

Votes equal power? - not any more

Is Britain, the "mother of democracies" very democratic?

Recent events have thrown this into question.

Take, for instance, the pressure of lobbying. A friend of Lord Mandelson is employed to lobby for BAA in their application to build another runway at Heathrow. Coincidentally he has a series of meetings with ministers and others at Westminster in the weeks during which the proposal was first postponed and than announced in his favour.

Or, take the case of the banks brought into virtual total nationalisation. Sir Fred is now being attacked for negotiating a very large pension, in return for waiving his right to severance pay and leaving immediately. In this case the government has been either incompetent or dishonest, or both sequentially. Or, take the Lloyds/HBOS marriage. The Lloyds Board, dazzled by the prospect of becoming number one bank in the UK, rushed into it. But the prime minister urged them on, and even suspended the Merger Commission to permit it.

What these cases have in common, apart from the banking elements, is that they were rushed through at the time of the by-election in Scotland which Labour had to win, and both cases involved badly failing Scottish banks and Scottish jobs.

Perhaps the banks had to be saved, and perhaps they had even to be saved at precipitate haste, but the solutions were rushed and ill thought-out.

If local party politics and private commercial considerations can dictate massive changes to the country, and the knowledge that lobbyists can subvert members of the House of Lords to seek to change policies of the government, does the same process of non-democratic pressure subvert democracy elsewhere, - in the European Commission, in local councils? There seems good reason to believe that it does.

The current method of operation at Westminster also raises other questions - of the elective dictatorship which makes decisions decided in Number 10, imposed on the cabinet and rammed through the Commons by the force of whips, guillotined to prevent full discussion and agreed by the Lords full of placemens appointed by this government.

Some decisions have been delegated to unelected, unaccountable and crony-filled quangos.

Is anyone surprised that there is little incentive to vote, and that the BNP are picking up protest votes rapidly?

There needs to be a major reform, which will have to wait until the economy is in calmer water.

It will have to ensure that parliament more fairly represents all constituencies and voters, that MPs have more power to challenge the executive, and that the Lords are elected and given greater power.

Most of all, to defeat the secrecy of government, and to reduce of the power of lobbyists, requires a large devolution of power - to schools, hospitals and local voters, etc. Let Westminster do less and do it rather better and with proper consideration and debate.

Whatever happened to the rule of law?

Yesterday we had the spectacle of Harriet Harman revealing that whatever else she is it is difficult to imagine calling her a democrat.

On the Andrew Marr show, she said of the "Fred the Shred" affair, “The prime minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted. And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it’s not enforceable in the court of
public opinion and that’s where the government steps in.”

In other words, whatever the rights of the proposed pension of the former chief of RBS, what matters is what the Prime Minister personally thinks, and if he can find no legal way to reduce the pension other means will be used.

I was brought up to believe that a contract has legal force, so long as it has been entered freely by both parties without coercion, and that it is legal in itself.

Now it seems that that the prime minister can annul such contracts by fiat. Worse, that he can do it on behalf of the people. An individual thus has no rights, even if he has acted perfectly legally in full compliance with the law when he acted, if the "mob" shout loudly enough.

I admit that I think that he is receiving an obscene amount of pension, and that having ruined so many people's savings he barely deserves any pension at all.

I have no revulsion with that principle. I am alarmed at the posturing of Harman. (She is seeking to create an image to enable her to succeed Brown in any leadership election, - which on its own should question her sanity, - about wanting to inherit the mess of party and economy.)

Democracy has come to assume a frightening appearance in attacking individuals outside the law for acting lawfully, if not in a way pleasing to others. (I am not very impressed by the way "The Speaker" has behaved, favouring the executive and milking the taxpayer, nor other bankers, and especially those who have done me harm, but I thought that I was in a society where legal acts are tolerated and where the executive does not use its power to attack individuals who reveal its own incompetence.)

What are fathers for?

The announcement that unmarried mothers must declare a father's name on a birth certificate has been extended with the provision that soon for IVF births the father can be anyone, - even a woman, and not necessarily in any way the the biological father. In the last case a female "father", she will be called "second parent".

There seem to be two motives for such official deception:

1) to make a second person financially responsible for the child, that is that child support officials will have a second person from whom to demand money to save the state paying maintenance for the child. Given the recent requirement for a father's name to be recorded for all births, this would seem to be a major motive.

2) to remove any stigma attaching to non-families over the parenthood issue, and to pretend that all "family" units are of equal value, even if both parents are of the same sex, and even if a second parent never again has any contact with the child.

Apart from the damage this does in reducing the significance of the family which ALL studies have shown to be the best for nurturing all aspects of developing children, there is the added problem that if the actual biological father is not identified there is the perennial problem that eventually two people who have the same father will mate, with unpredictable results. (Incest is frowned upon in most civilisations because of the possible side effects.)