The picture I see in my study window changes every day, and frequently several times a day. When the sky suddenly clears and the sun-light picks out the Chesil Beach the summit of Stonebarrow Hill. Mostly it is nature who rings the changes. But in the last few days the famer has been showing an artistic capacity worthy of a talent contest. It is not exactly Vincent Van Gogh.
But, could you do better if your paint brush was a tractor?
In the middle of the heat wave work on my bungalow on Lyme Bay has been going on apace. Until a week last Friday, when the man who was reconstructing the shed decking to take a summer house came charging down to the house, chased by a swarm of bees. He would come back next week, he said, after I had removed the offending nest thereby making my garden a safe place to work for today’s health and safety regs. Which required a lot more work by me than I had bargained for.
My next door neighbour gave me a can of spray to kill them off, but the family insisted that insisted on a more ecological appoach. The web provided a welter of helpful suggestions. All I needed to do was to get an old shoe box, go into the garden in the middle of night, finding my way with red light, which apparently does not wake bees up, scoop up the nest and put it in a suitable hedge. This proved not a viable option, because this bee nest was buried in the earth.
But I did find on the web the telephone number of a Dorchester bee-keeper, who said I must first establish what kind of bee I was dealing with. It is the white tailed bumble bee, which does not normally sting, but could not be relied upon not to fight if the nest was under threat. It needed an expert with the right protective gear. He could not do the job himself. Nor could he recommend anyone, because most of the people on the council list killed them off.
I would have rung the council then, had I not be writing all those blogs urging more ethical behaviour by our MP’s. How could I go on complaining about them bumping up their expenses if I was prepared to bump off an endangered species?
So I did another trawl of the neighbours and got the telephone number of another local bee keeper, who had dealt with a sudden swarm of bees at Forde Abbey, the local stately home. He agreed to come over and investigate. His verdict was that moving the nest was not practical, so they would have to be killed.
So I told him to go ahead.
But ethically does that not make me just as bad as all those MPs who are telling us that everything they claimed on expenses was sanctioned by ‘experts’ from the fees office, accountants, advisers, etc?
Probably not. But at least I am spending my own money. And am once again doing my bit to fight the recession by spending my money on British labour, not stashing it away in a tax haven.
Today’s Drippygate revelations in the Daily Telegraph bring the hilarious news that the taxpayer has paid for two teddy bears for the former Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy. But the paper also has a second go at Alastair Darling, who along with other members of the Labour cabinet was front-paged and photographed on Day One of the saga for the serial flipping of his second home. Today, the Telegraph reveals that Darling was claiming for expenses on his second home at the same time that that he was charging up the expenses of the grace and favour home he moved into on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.
As I wrote after Day One it would be a shame if a decent Chancellor, doing a good job in dealing with the financial crisis, had to resign over such a trivial matter. Both Darling and his boss, Gordon Brown, are saying he has done nothing wrong. although, like Jack Straw before him, he is paying back a few hundred pounds. But what they did is exactly the same kind of thing for which back-benchers of both parties have been hounded out for.
We should expect a higher, not a lower level of behaviour, from our ministers. And Darling, with his financial expertise, must have known exactly what he was doing over the flipping. Using to system to maximise his own financial gain.
It is now clear to everyone except the cabinet, that the electorate has lost trust in Gordon Brown and several of his cabinet. In my view, Gordon Brown has made the situation worse, by taking prime television time in the Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning and the BBC Radio Four Today Programme this morning, to ask the nation to trust him to bring in the far-reaching political reforms he now thinks are necessary.
It’s not only the opinion polls that are telling Brown he has lost the confidence of the electorate. It is his own 10 Downing street website. The leading e-petititon on that site is the one calling for Brown’s resignation. That now has 64,088 signatures, twice as many as the next most popular petition, which is about the speed limit.
(While I was editing this post, Gordon Brown was talking to the people yet again, this time on Channel Four. Reportedly he is now saying that Darling has to be investigated by the new Labour process. The way things are going it looks as if Brown will have to pull in the Liberal Democrats if he is going to find enough squeaky clean ministers for his promised cabinet re-shuffle.
How about two-teddy-bears Charles Kennedy for Children’s minister? )
Today’s Daily Telegraph revelations add yet another irony to trial by media. Eleanor Laing, the Conservative shadown justice minister, is exposed for not paying capital gains tax on the profit of over a million on the sale of her second home, which she refurbished with the help of more than £80,000 of our money, claimed on expenses. Jack Straw, the present justice secretary, was exposed in the first blast from the stolen computer disc, for cheating on his council tax.
Now, we know that the David Cameron’s woman, as befit’s the party of the capitalists, used the system to make far more money than the man from the people’s party.
But for those of who are becoming a little bored with these drip, drip revelations, now is the time for gettting MP’s expenses in perspective. The effect of the media frenzy can be seen in the Populus poll, reported exclusively in The Times today.
Labour is down to 21 per cent, it’s lowest rating since polling began. Quite right too, because Labour has been in government while this MP’s expenses mess has accumulated. The New Labour of Blair, elected by an over-whelming popular vote, and Brown, his loyal side-kick, who has yet not yet asked the electorate whether they want him to be their PM.
But, and this is a very big but, indeed, the Populus poll shows the Liberal Democrat vote has fallen from 20 per cent to 12 per cent. Despite the fact, that the Daily Telegraph revelations, broadcast to the whole world by all the other newspapers and radio, television and the internet, demonstrate that the LibDems are squeaky clean.
This fact has been lost in the last two weeks. The majority who answered the Populus poll were not reading the Daily Telegraph, or any of the heavy newspapers. They were taking their news mostly from the television, which has focussed on the ‘headlines’, namely the ‘crimes’ of Labour MP’s and Conservative MPs, who comprise the only likely next government.
But in the media frenzy of the last two weeks the public distrusts the LibDems as well.
This is not justified by any of the facts. Indeed, the opposite is true. But Chris Huhne, who was a candidate for LibDem leader, has been attacked for claiming a trouser press on his expenses.o
Most of the outraged electorate, who are in serious trouble because of the recession, have never owned a trouser press, nor felt the need for it. But many of them do like their MP’s to have creases in their trousers.
So let’s get this in perspective.
MP’s have abused the expenses system. Bad. And should be stopped.
But in this, they are like all the media, which has been exposing them.
Journalists, for all my lifetime, have been cooking their expenses. Innocents like me, who came into journalism for idealistic reasons, have been repeatedly told by news editors, that my expenses are too low. You must charge everything possible up, otherwise you are harming the rest of us.
In the Blairite/Brownite years, policians were encouraged to act like journalists, or like the businessmen, Blair and Brown made friends with. Demanding salaries of many millions of pounds, and pensions as well, even if they bankrupted their companies.
Unlike them, many MPs, while insisting, quite accurately, that they have not breached the law, have voluntarily paid back money.
Paid back peanuts, compared with the million pound pensions, which chaps like Fred the Shed are still clininging to.
Chaps like Fred the Shed have no conscience. They got their millions by doing nothing illegal. And they they see no reason to listen the rest of us.
MPs, by contrast, are paying back money. They now see that they were caught in the atmosphere of Thatcherite un-regulated capitalism, and Blair, ‘making Labour electable by being buddy-buddy with the capitalists’.
Thanks to the media frenzy of the last two weeks, the electorate, according to the Populus poll, is putting UKIP above Labour and the LibDems.
No UKIP members are on the hit-list on the Daily Telegraph disc. Not because they are incorruptible, but because they don’t have any MPs. Because, however much Brits hate Brussels, they don’t want a little England ruled by out-of-date zealots.
It’s only about forty years ago since Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, said, ‘A week is a long time in politics.’ But there was Conservative MP, Julie Kirkbride, telling us all at our breakfast tables, via the national media, that she had done nothing wrong, and was determined to fight on. Despite the brick thrown through the window of her constituency office and and petition there asking her to go, which has, reportedly, now got 6,000 signatures.
But by the time I started to prepare my lunch, BBC Radio Four was leading on the story that she had decided to throw in the towel.
Here’s a summary of Kirkbride’s crimes, in Daily Mail speak:
It emerged this morning that she paid the local Tory chairman’s wife to be her secretary and also employed the couple’s daughter as a full-time nanny.
Earlier today, she had admitted using taxpayers’ money to help fund a £50,000 extension to her second home.
She is the seventh Tory to step down and follows her husband, fellow MP Andrew MacKay, who resigned last week after he was branded a ‘thieving toad’.
This, of course, came on top of the headlines that she had paid her brother to look after her son and live rent free in her second home.
Lower down in the story there is classic Daily Mail killer paragraph:
Miss Kirkbride employed sister Karen Leadley as a £12,000-a-year secretary, even though she works from her home 140 miles from Miss Kirkbride’s constituency office.
The Daily Mail coverage, and in this it not much worse than any of the other newspapers, mixes up serious abuse of the MP’s expenses’ rules with what is common practice and desirable practice.
There is nothing corrupt or wrong with MP’s employing their own wives, brothers and sisters, and relatives of loyal constituency workers, like the local constituency chairman. And there is nothing wrong in employing a sister as secretary, even if she lives 140 miles away, in these days of the internet when the help lines are manned by people living in India, paid less than the minimum wage. And secretaries these days can access and answer all their bosses emails even if they live in the Great Australian Desert.
Before I go on, I must make it plain that I think both members of this husband and wife team, who were very close to the new Conservative leader, David Cameron, deserve to be thrown out.
Kirkbride’s worse fault, in my view, was NOT keeping in touch with her constituents over the last two weeks. Which, after all was the main purpose of the system which allowed MPs to claim expenses so they could have a second home to do just that. Even in the current highly charged atmosphere those interviewed in the street included several who thought she had been a good constituency MP. She made a serious tactical error in not going back to talk to her party workers, and people on the streets, to explain herself to them, the people who voted for her to represent them.
That’s why I am in favour of an autumn general election, rather than a June or July election. Because, as all party leaders, as well as the rest of us, now are saying, we need to address necessary reform in our constitution which goes far beyond MP’s expenses.
The key thing is are whether they are doing the work
Drippygate is trial by media, even though the facts it reveals are those which come from Parliamentary records.
According to the Daily Mail, Kirkbride’s husband, Andrew Mackay, has been ‘branded as theiving toad’. Not by a court of law. But by who?
I checked. Mackay was first called a ‘thieving toad’ by a heckler when he faced his constituents after the expenses scandal broke. This was reported in a long article in The Independent that day.
Since then the only references to ‘thieving toad’ have been in the Daily Mail. So Mackay has been branded as a ‘thieving toad’ by none other than the newspaper of middle England, owned by the same family that got journalism should a bad name in the 1930s.
Power without responsibility.
Drippygate, which has got rid of more British MPs in two weeks than any other newspaper expose has done in a lifetime, is fuelled in part by Daily Mail style journalism. Too much hatchet stuff. Too much heat. Not enough enlightenment.
For this I must share some of the blame, because I encouraged Will Lewis, when he was my student, to do his first placement, and take his first job, on the Mail on Sunday. But I also made it plain to him that what passed for serious journalism in the Mail would not get him his Diploma in Periodical Journalism at City U.
He was not a bad student. And Will Lewis’s Telegraph is not branding Mackay as a ‘thieving toad’. It has used the phrase once, in an article by one of its political staff, reporting it accurately as the protest by one heckler.
(Photo from The Guardian)
Peter Mandelson, once again a powerful member of the New Labour cabinet, is just as open to criticism as Hazel Blears, who Brown has publicly condemned.
Mandelson has attracted little press comment. Because he is now a member of the House of Lords, so unlike his colleagues in the House of Commons he does not have to face his constituents. And even if he is convicted of a crime he cannot be stripped of his peerage, nor his right to sit in the House of Lords.
But the computer disc, sold to the Telegraph by the fearless man from the SAS, reveals that he claimed nearly £3,000 for money spent on his Hartlepool constituency home, soon after he had announced that he was resigning as an MP. He later sold this house at a profit of £136,000. The rules, lax as they were, allowed to MPs to claim for necessary maintenance of their homes, but not for things which would improve the value of the property.
In practice it is difficult to differentiate between these two. Which affects many of the ’scandalous’ stories we have been reading in the papers. And it makes me worder whether history will judge the last two weeks rather differently than the media is viewing it at the moment.
Douglas Hogg has been publicly shamed for claiming over £2,000 on dredging his moat, as a result of which he has paid the money back and retired from politics. But that is clearly maintenance. If you have a moat, it needs dredging.
Mandelson, it appears bought a dilapidated house, did it up, and sold it for a nice profit. Blears also used the system to make capital profits.
All three of them say they have not broken any rules. And they may well be speaking truth. But they were both using tax-payers’ money to fund their spending.
And Mandelson was doing so when not having to make do on the too-low MP’s salary. He was on a ministerial salary.
So who is the least deserving of our trust?
Hogg, started out richer than the other two, as the scion of Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham, the bell-ringing Tory Party chairman who revived the party in the 1950s. Or Blears who came from a humble background. Or Mandelson who was reared in that Labour heartland, the Hampstead Garden Suburb, by his father, the advertising manager of the Jewish Chronicle, and his mother, who was the daughter of Herbert Morrison, the number two man in Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour Government.
Declaration of interest. Hogg, I think I have met once, but his wife, Sarah Hogg was a valued colleague when I was working at The Economist in 1975. Mandy, I chatted to regularly at Sunday afternoon teas in the Garden Suburb in the 1950s. He was then in short trousers, a very nice well behaved boy. I would never have guessed he would grow up to be ‘The Prince of Darkness’.
Gordon Brown goes into the bank holiday weekend dithering once again. Back-tracking on his stern denunciation of Hazel Blears for her ‘un-acceptable’ behaviour. He was going to fire her, after the revelations about her ‘flipping’ of her second homes. But now her friends in the cabinet are arguing that she has been made a scape-goat. And that other heavy-weights in the cabinet, like Geoff Hoon and James Purnell are equally guilty.
No mention has yet been made of Alastair Darling, who is also accused of ‘flipping’. But even the Tories don’t want Gordon to fire him. Since he is proving a good Chancellor of the Exchequer, and we are in the worst recession since the 1930s. It might be bad for all of us if Darling got replaced by some upstart who would have to learn the job in a few days.
These are only a few of the worries Brown will have to think about during the break.
Peter Mandelson, now my Lord Mandelson, the twice fired Blairite Labour Minister, is up to his tricks yet again. Brown brought him back into his cabinet as Business Secretary. Because he felt he needed to have support from the Blairites. But over the last few days stories have been appearing in the press suggesting that in his post-European election reshuffle, Brown was going to appoint Mandelson to the even more prestigious post as Foreign Secretary. Which, of course, is a job he is qualified to do, after all his experience with the European Commission in Brussels.
But, as it happens there is already a Foreign Secretary, David Milibrand, who has done a decent job and is well below retiring age. (He is about 40.) Today, according to The Times chats with Downing Street, Milibrand has been assured that he is not going to be fired. (He cannot be promoted because the only job higher than Foreign Secretary is Prime Minister, a post that is not yet vacant.)
But, of course, it soon will be. Because quite clearly Gordon Brown has lost his authority in cabinet and even more amungst the electorate at large.
So when he considers his reshuffle this weekend, Gordon Brown, needs to see the obvious. That the only way he can deal with the anger of the electorate and of many of his own ministers and MP’s is to fire himself.
Not because he has acted immorally or un-ethically. But because he has made a pig’s ear of his main job as Prime Minister, having failed to deal with the festering sore of MP’s expenses, which is now threatening the authority of Parliament and the fabric of our democracy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has jumped into the debate on MP’s expenses. He could not wait until his sermon on Sunday, so he did his preaching via the media. According to Williams, MPs are being subjected to ’systematic humiliation’ by the media, which is threatening our democracy. And THIS MUST STOP.
He was speaking the day after the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Roman Catholics in UK, Vincent Nichols, had done his preaching on this subject. He took the opposite line, arguing that MP’s should be guided by their own moral sense. Not seeking to justify their behaviour by saying it did not breach the expenses’ rules. So Nichols was arguing that it was MPs who needed to search their consciences, and pray for forgiveness, not the wicked Daily Telegraph.
Historically, of course, the Roman Catholics claim to have had a direct line to God since the fourth century. They still claim to have the only direct line, and they regard the Church of England as mis-guided heretics who were misled by Henry the VIII, who found another God, who told him it was quite OK to have six wives, so long as he did it serially.
But in 2009 the theological differences between Williams and Nichols are minor.
Their opposite stances on MP’s expenses cannot be explained by theology. They are dictated by politics.
The Church of England is the established church, supported by the landed gentry, who have indeed been humiliated by complaints that they have been charging the tax-payer for maintaining the moats around their castles.
By contrast, the still huge number of regular church-goers amongst the Roman Catholics, are working class, poorish and even Irish immigrants! They are appalled because MPs seem to have been feathering their own nest at a time when many people are being thrown out of work by the recession.
Last night the great British public were able to sleep soundly, for the first time for two weeks. The day had brought two more sensational revelations in the Daily Telegraph’s Drippygate saga. Two senior ministers, Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary, and James Purnell, his counterpart in in culture, were exposed for doing what the already dis-credited Hazel Blears, the Communities minister had done - using the MP’s expenses system for making capital profits on the sale of ’second’ homes. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, got his knickers in a twist yet again, by claiming that they had not done anything wrong. And by failing to explain why Blears, whose behaviour he has publicly declared to be ‘un-acceptable’, is still a leading member of his government. He toughed it out, arguing that not only was there no need to call an immediate general election, but that an election now would cause ‘chaos’.
But, fear not, readers, though ministers and MP’s are drowning in sleaze, the fourth estate of our democracy is in robust health. Our biggest media organisation is in touch with the public mood. The BBC put on a special edition of Question Time on BBC One to let the people have their say. Presided over by David Dimbleby, one of two sons of Richard Dimbleby, whose family is the nearest thing to a ruling dynasty that the BBC has.
The format comprises a panel, which is a mixture of politicans and people who have distinguished themselves in other walks of life, with Dimbelby acting as the impartial chairman of the debate, ensuring that the members of the public, not only have a chance to ask questions, but to express their views, and challenge what the panel members are saying. Last night’s panel consisted of four policians and two members of the media, three if Dimbleby himself, which he should be, because inevitably he is a powerful influence on what issues are discussed and who has the biggest say. For instance, at one time he took four very thoughtful questions from the floor, then immediately asked a question himself about Hazel Blears, bringing the panel back to personalities and expenses, and away from the more fundamental wider issues which some panel members, along with several in the audience were raising.
So, at one level, this Question Time, was a straight forward contest, between the politcians, and the media which is riding high after two weeks in which it has been printing pages and pages of really important news telling us how some of our ministers and MPs have not only been fiddling their expenses but seeking to cover up what they are doing. On this occasion it was the politicians who won the arguments, or rather two of them, William Hague and Vince Cable, both former leaders of their parties.
Both of them argued clearly and effectively that MP’s expenses were part of the much wider problem of the erosion of the power of MP’s by Prime Ministers, acting Presidentially, by making their decisions, using the whips to bring their members line, and announcing new policies via the media, instead of to Parliament. Both of them urged the case for fundamental reform too many ministers, and too many MP’s were behaving like a priviledged elite. They demonstrated by the way they listened to the views and questions of the audience, and answered their concerns, that two of the major parties had MPs the country can be proud of.
Ben Bradshaw, the health minister, by contrast, kept telling the audience that his leader Gordon Brown’s new reforms would solve the problem. Again and again and again. Trust us, when it was evident from what this audience was saying, let alone the opinion polls, that the electorate do not trust him.
The fourth politician, Marta Andreasen of UKIP harangued the audience. She kept pushing her own party’s main (only?) that the fault was not in Westminster but in Brussels. She urged the electorate to throw out all the major parties and vote in a UKIP government. She was so bad that one member of the audience seemed to think that even the BNP might do better than UKIP.
Martin Bell, appearing in his emblematic white suit, was oddly ineffective. He should have had something interesting to say. He was, after all, a very good BBC foreign correspondent, who changed his trade and made a very effective stand against Conservative sleaze. By standing as an Independent MP, and beating Neil Hamilton on his own territory in Cheshire.
Yasmin Alabi Brown of The Independent, other journalist and the only woman on the panel was not at her best. She too often sounded shrill, reminding me that our politics and this political programme, is still pretty male dominated, and women do have more difficult time than men in making their voices heard.
But the best thing about the programme, which really did help me sleep soundly, was the behaviour of the audience. Clearly this cross section of the audience is not panicing, they want reform, but they are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about which MP’s are guilty of such serious fiddling that they do not deserve to be re-elected. So, even if we had a general election in six week’s time, I doubt whether UKIP or the BNP would win any Westminster seats at all.
But, of course, there won’t be an election in six week’s time. Because of one of the major flaws in our constitution, which was discussed last night. The Prime Minister has the power to effective power to call an election now, or delay it until the end of his five term next year. The case for changing our constitution to a fixed four-year term now looks overwhelming. Because now, as in at so many similar times in recent history, it is not in the Prime Minister’s interests to call an election at a time when he is certain to lose heavily. And it is difficult for his party to replace him by a new leader without a bloody struggle, creating a real risk that any new Labour leader might do even worse in an election in a month or two than Brown.
But there is a way out. There are some flexibilies in our constitution, which have been demonstrated in the last few days. Gordon Brown stuck by the unwritten rule about the independence of the Speaker’s role, so he did condemn him. But he did call him in for a fatherly chat, which was enough to bring Martin to his senses, so he resigned.
And, our constitution gives the Queen the power to call in Gordon Brown for a motherly chat. And, if she did, it is just possible that Brown might decide to resign voluntarily and call an election for the autumn, giving Labour a elect a new leader who might be more successful in winning back those hundred of thousands of Labour voters, who would rather not vote at all than vote for a party led by Brown.
(Incidently Vince Cable announced during last night’s programme that he is not going to apply for the Speaker’s job. But, who knows, he might change his mind, if no other candidate of high calibre emerges in the next week or two.)
Today’s Times has backgammon free casino money free craps game play free black jack craps video poker strategy play black jack online how to win video poker casino game online uk best casino online casino secure online gambling jackpot casino online casino black jack learn to play craps how to win at video poker craps online blackjack casino game online casino betting free on line video poker casino games no download casino online gambling casino play free casino slots video poker machine bonus video poker free on line slots double bonus video poker free video poker games free casinos roulette online craps rules free on line casino rules of craps online casino free money blackjack 21 internet casino how to play craps free casino game download fortunelounge online casino free casino download free casino card game free roulette game free casino play no deposit free money casino internet casino online a leading article urging Vince Cable to stand for the now vacant post of Speaker of the House of Commons. They list the many qualities he has which makes him the ideal candidate to restore public confidence in Parliament and to keep MP’s in order.
They fail to mention his sense of humour, which makes him a far better candidate than any who have been mentioned so far.
Frank Field, for instance, has the integrity and independence to do the job. But he has a tendency to lecture. Whereas Cable has the gift of being able to puncture pomposity with one witty sentence.
Let’s hope he listens to the summons of the Thunderer.