The crime of Berlusconi

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the British newspapers and broadcast media are getting hysterical about Silvio Berlusconi and that this hysteria stems from having nothing concrete to say.

The first problem is that they assume Berlusconi’s constituency is White Anglo Saxon Protestant. It is not. It is Italians, who think in a rather different way.

For the second half of the twentieth century any reference to Italian politics was that it was a joke. No one could resist mentioning the corruption, or that Italy had had 48 governments since the fall of Mussolini. No one blamed the insane proportional representation system for causing that; it was simply Italian madness. When Berlusconi tried to change it, towards a British-style First Past the Post ballot, they all said he was fiddling the system, cheating.

Now we have had a period of some stability, with only one Prime Minister in six of the last eight years, and they complain he is a dictator.

There was a perfectly absurd claim that Berlusconi controlled the media, without anyone investigating exactly what influence a Prime Minister has on the state channels, which, if people could face watching them, are often openly critical of him. The British government appoints the Director General of the BBC but no one claims Gordon Brown is in control of the media (he wishes!). And it is hard to claim that Berlusconi controls the newspapers and then claim that he might be forced out of office by a campaign run by La Reppublica (the Guardian’s equivalent, but without that organ’s self-righteousness) and followed up by the Corriere della Sera (Independent but less of a rant), La Stampa, l’Osservatore romano and God knows what else.

Berlusconi will not be forced out of office by the Noemi Letizia story: whereas British newspapers would lead with ‘Berlusconi: my shame!’, most Italians think ‘Complimenti! Forza!’. Discussion in my local agricultural wholesalers was whether at 72 he had the energy to satisfy the girl properly, ‘whereas I......’. But ‘good luck to him’ they say.

They say his party contains former fascists, without saying that the opposition contains former communists who accepted money from Russia during the cold war. The President, Giorgio Napolitano, is one of them.

Nor are Berlusconi’s brushes with the law a huge point of interest. Italians have had years of this and believe, not inaccurately, that most individual politicians and most governments since 1948 have been for sale. ‘But how could you bribe Berlu....? He’s the richest man in Italy!’ And everyone knows the judicial system is politicised: prosecuting magistrates and defence attorneys are openly of the left or the right, so if you are attacked by a left wing magistrate you hire a right wing avvocato and vice versa.

I am not saying Berlusconi is innocent of the accusations against him, nor denying that his relationship with an 18 year old (the age of consent is 14 here) has been inappropriate. I am just saying how it plays in Italy. And how it plays is that he has a 75% popularity rating. Remember a British politician who achieved that?

Compare Berlusconi’s open hiring of some big breasted starlet to advertise the ‘Clean Naples’ campaign with the weaselly spinning of Mandelson and Campbell, or Ed Balls’ declaration that the Tories would fire 45,000 teachers, without mentioning that their figures for cuts were taken from Alasdair Darling’s budget. The British people have been fed a diet of lies from cunning plotters behind the scenes, paid with the people's money. If the Italians have got a clown who wears his faults on his sleeve, who is the luckier?

But let me give the outraged lefties a steer. Berlusconi’s crime is to have let this stuff be the story, to act diligently when there was popularity at stake (and his handling of Naples and Alitalia has been little short of brilliant) but not to take the long term decisions necessary. Before long Europe will emerge from recession but to get going again it will need not inflationary stimulus but tax cuts financed by spending cuts. Berlusconi knows that he should cut the size of the State but knows it will be unpopular. He has failed to prepare the political ground for it, while Italy needs 70 billion euros each year to service its debts. A mature statesman (and he wants to be President) would now be seeking cross party agreement on which areas the State could leave, and on freeing up the labour market so that employment will grow without barriers.

Berlusconi’s crime does not stem from his actions. It is his inaction.

MP gets it right

I know we hear too much about the parliamentary scandal thing but you should read an excellent article in the Times by Chris Mullin, who would make an excellent Speaker. He understands that this is not just about bathplugs.

PR raises its head again

Incredibly Alan Johnson, one of several undeclared candidates to be leader of the Labour Party, has declared Proportional Representation to be the solution to the nation’s ills.

I really had thought this nonsense had been laid to rest. It is only ever raised by people or parties staring defeat in the face. Now we are going to have to put up with months of fallacious drivel as the proponents talk about change (as usual) and ‘fair votes’ (Ha!).

Each time you argue with someone proposing PR they say ‘Ah, but that’s not the system I would have used. Let’s just agree the principle of ‘fair votes’ and we’ll work out the rest later.’

This time, however, Johnson has made a specific proposal: the system wanted by the Jenkins Commission in 1998. You will remember that Tony Blair, not confident of winning a majority, made overtures to the Liberal Democrats who named this as their price and Blair agreed to a commission headed by Lord (Woy) Jenkins, a clarety old windbag who, alone in the country, took himself seriously. Woy’s and now Johnson’s, suggestion was called AV Plus.

Under AV Plus 80% of MPs would be elected on the alternative vote system and 20% on a party list. Let us take the position of the parties at the moment and extrapolate to a general election in a single constituency: Cons 40%, Lab 30% LibDem 20% others 10%. No one would have an outright majority so we proceed to second preferences, Others (such as UKIP and Greens) being eliminated. The likelihood is that both Conservative and Labour voters would put LibDem as their second vote, whereas LibDem voters would put 50/50 Lab and Con. So the LibDem soars into a commanding lead. No wonder they liked it. But the result is that the party that only 20% thought the best to be elected wins.

Now let’s look at the other 20% of MPs. These would be party placemen. And to whom are they accountable? The Party. Not the people.

PR entrenches the party system, institutionalises the cosy corruption which we are trying to get rid of. Remember Helmut Kohl in Germany. He was caught with his hand in the till and his constituents, rightly, threw him out. But he turns up in parliament the following day as one of the Party List. His party had raised two fingers to the electorate and appointed him. Is that what we want? That some odious sleazebag gets to run the country even though his electorate rejected him?

No. PR is exactly what we don’t want.

Tattoos

I am not attracted to women who try to look like merchant seamen, and never having wanted to look like one myself I have been critical of the modern passion for tattoos. And they are very painful to remove.

I now read that starlet of the moment Hayden Panettiere (I don't know if that is her real name; the surname means 'baker' and she appears to have been named after an Australian cricketer) wanted a tattoo on her back of 'living without regrets' in Italian in large letters (vivere senza rimpianti). But they spelled it wrong. And now she is stuck with it. Daft cow.

The people speak

'the public are scenting blood', I wrote a week ago, 'and demanding it'. Douglas Hogg will stand down at the next election (I don't know if he has done a deal to become Lord Hogg of the Moat) and now the Speaker has said he will go on 21st June, the first to be slung out of office since 1695. As Voltaire observed of the execution of Admiral Byng, it is good to kill a Speaker from time to time, in order to encourage the others.

There's something about popular uprising. It starts off as an unalloyed good thing: 'A bas les aristos' is the popular talk, wrongs are righted and the balance of society gets fairer. But the problem is the public never nows when to stop. Suddenly the leaders of the revolt are perceived as not being tough enough and it's 'à la lanterne' everyone who is suspected of wavering.

I wonder how we will look back on this time: 'Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven' ? (sorry about the french leitmotiv) Certainly a wrong is being righted and certainly a few of the sinners will be for the chop, but is it going to get silly? 'They're all just in it for themselves, let's get rid of the lot of them', you can hear it in pubs and on radio 'phone-ins.

The first sign of silliness is that Esther Rantzen is thinking of standing. Perhaps we should mark this point as where the nonsense is beginning and leave the overpaid self-publicising old trout to advertising for ambulance chasing solicitors.

The BBC

So. 70% of British people profess themselves to be Christian, and a lot more were brought up as Christians and do not profess any other religion; unlike almost all other western nations we have an established, constitutionalised religion (Christianity) and the BBC have got a new head of religious broadcasting, Aaquil Ahmed, a muslim.

At a time when we are despairing that our politicians are out of touch with the zeitgeist, we really should spare a thought for the BBC, who do zeitgeist-free policy as a regular gig. This organisation is paid for by virtually the entire population, and yet is run by, and for the benefit of, the leftie chattering classes, the sort of people who think it is clever clever to have a muslim head of religious broadcasting in a Christian country, who think it is their job to give religion a bit of a shake-up; people who have no connection whatsoever with the ordinary Briton (and would hate to do so).

Someone needs to give Mark Damazer a sharp kick up the backside and remind him who he is working for. Indeed perhaps I should - his holiday home (these people are never knowingly underpaid) is down the road.

I criticise the BBC a lot, but as I said recently to a friend who works for it, it is because I feel it is partly mine. The people who run it, however, think it is exclusively theirs.

Corruption (2)

I must say I thought the MPs' expenses thing would eventually just go away, the public's opinion of their politicians much the same as it always was (low). But this has dragged on for such a long time (one commentator said he was a bit surprised when reminded that it was only Day 5 of the revelations - it felt like Day 27) that the public are scenting blood, and demanding it.

Douglas Hogg, whose father and grandfather were distinguished Tory Lord Chancellors, has claimed for cleaning the moat round his castle, and it just won't do. the public won't have it. Nor is it enough that he repay it: if a burglar gives the goods back he is still a criminal.

Anther has claimed for trimming the grass round his helipad (he claims it isn't really a helipad but that makes his arrogance even worse). These, and other appalling examples, should result in David Cameron withdrawing the whip. They knew that the allowances were for things directly needed for them to function as MPs, and they were taking the mickey. Now they have been caught with their hands in the till and there can only be one outcome.

I don't expect any such action from the Labour Party, but it would be welcome. Bagehot in the Economist reports 'Public paid the Chancellor's stamp duty' is his favourite headline.

Good grief.

Corruption

While the nation shows its inexhaustible appetite for stories about the venality of our politicians we should cast a thought towards areas where it is even worse. This from the excellent Berlaymonster blog.

The EU Joint research centre (no, I've no clue what it does, researching marijuana for all I know) based in the Northern Italian town of Ispra, employs a little over 1,000 people. Of these around a fifth, 230, have claimed injury benefit, and between 1996 and 2002 some 5.7 million euros was handed out.

An audit discovered 46 members of staff collected 35 000 euros on average, 23 more than 50 000, eight claimed more than 80 000 and one or two cashed in almost 300 000 euros from the injury benefit system accorded to those on the European Commission's payroll.

76 of the 230 even had the misfortune to suffer a second accident, increasing their claims.But 42 of them - 42 members of staff out of little over 1000 - declared AT LEAST NINE ACCIDENTS EACH between January 1986 and July 2003.

Details were sent to the Italian police of 14 cases (why not the whole lot we shall never know) but the suspects claimed that they hadn't been informed and so their rights were breached.

The 14 have now been awarded 3,000 euros each in compensation.

Just think about this as you go in to vote.

The Royal Mail

It is reported that the Government's plans to sell a minority stake in the Royal Mail may collapse because of the political and union opposition to it.

I think we should have a good look at what is going on in this service. It loses a fortune and seems unable to compete with its European competitors.

Of course governments are largely to blame, keeping it out of modern communications and insisting on a single price for all deliveries, as if it were some inalienable right. People in remote Scottish islands pay more for their cornflakes, their electrical equipment and more for their clothing so why the hell shouldn't they pay more for their letters? But here's a solution.

Old Dear Without A Computer A wants to send a letter to ODWACB. She writes the addressee's name and postcode in big letters at the top of the paper and takes it to the Post Office where it is scanned in and address recognition software, such as is already used, sends the scan to the nearest office to the recipient where it is printed and automatically folded into an envelope. The delivery would now be only a couple of miles, no vans and planes travelling expensively over the country and causing pollution. Most of the unnecessary staff could be laid off and the thing might even turn a profit. Because it costs no more to send a scan from Surrey to Benbecula than to Hampshire they could keep the single price system.

Europe Day

Oooops, nearly forgot. I expect all my readers will be half way through their celebrations already, popping the champagne corks and brushing up their Belgian folk dancing. Today is Europe Day, when we celebrate the EU.

In fact 9th May is the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration in 1950, which gave rise to the European Coal and Steel Community and all the bossy, self-perpetuating elitist apparat that has gone on since.

In fact Schuman received the declaration drafted for him at the railway station as he went off to his country estate and signed it, as he was told to, on his return. It had been written by Jean Monnet, a bureaucrat who had all his life believed in supranational bodies. During the First World War Monnet proposed, in order to facilitate the movement of weaponry across borders, that a supranational body be set up which would tell individual nations what to do, when and how. Naturally the Americans told him to go boil his head, although they seem in favour of it now (that is a body to rule over others, not over them).

It has been clear for many years that we would be better off without all this baggage, better off democratically and financially. It is now clear that even the free trade provisions come hedged around with so much bureaucracy and regulation that we would be better off out of it completely. Furthermore it is clear that the British people think that, too. But our politicians are never going to get rid of a self appointed elite. As the shark said, when he ignored the investment banker who had fallen off his yacht, professional etiquette.

We are therefore stuck in a mire of having to belong to an anti-democratic, impoverishing system, knowing we would be better off out, but without the balls to leave it.

In the absence of Mr Cameron being able to specify from which areas of Europe he would repatriate powers to parliament, we must, regrettably, presume it was just talk. This blog therefore supports UKIP for the European Elections.

Happy Europe Day.

Hattie and Gord

I just wonder, with Harriet Harman's statement that she would not contend the leadership, whether there is one thing that has gone unmentioned. If Brown were to resign she, as deputy leader, might try to persuade the palace that she should be permitted to carry on (don't forget that she, unlike Brown, has been elected by her colleagues). She might then try to fight the election as the incumbent.

Does she know something we don't?

Mrs Thatcher

I didn't feel I could add much to the 30th anniversary tributes paid to Mrs Thatcher so I'll just say today, 4th May, is the 30th anniversary of the worst hangover I ever had.

Prescott

Patrick Henessy has an excellent appraisal of John Prescott's massacre of the English language for Radio 4 on http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/patrick__hennessy_/blog/2009/05/02/john_prescott_the_bruiser_is_back

including 'I undressed 450 students yesterday with Ed Miliband and Eddie Izzard' although my favourite is when he got off a plane from Tokyo and announced 'It's great to be back on terra cotta'. Now we don't have the embarrassment of him holding a senior office of state he has become a national treasure.

The whisky and the revolver

Those who talk about Gordon Brown being edged out before the next election seem to me to be missing one important point. HM the Queen has to appoint Prime Ministers and I can't see she would have any choice but to say 'No, the Labour Party was alllowed the chance to appoint its own Prime Minister last time (without even an election in the party!) and I cannot allow a small cabal to force another person on the people without facing the electorate. It is not as if the Labour Party was the only choice to form a government - indeed they are miles behind in the polls.'

Even if Gordon were to resign through ill health this same issue has to be faced. HM Queen has a constitutional position and she would effectively be abrogating it if she allowed such an abuse of democracy to occur. If that were to happen there would sarcely be any constitutional relevance to the monarchy.

Poet Laureate

The new Poet Laureate is a Glaswegian lesbian with a daughter by a man she has never lived with. Tony Blair apparently found her too politically risky to get the job 10 years ago.

I have nothing against a colourful private life for a poet (I think we know more than enough about Ted Hughes) but Glaswegian?

Well, nobody reads the poems anyway.

Iraq

The military, political and international relations disaster that has been Britain's combat mission in Iraq has come to an end. Our engagement lasted longer than the Second World War. At the closing ceremony they read out the list of the dead. It took 25 minutes.

Tony Blair realised the potential of the superb British Army to help him along internationally. He committed more troops into more places than anyone since Churchill. Blair is a hero in Sierra Leone. The dead corporals and sergeants are not. It is Blair who makes a fortune from speaking engagements in America, where his actions have often been described as 'brave'.

In future, when British troops are committed abroad a cabinet member and a junior minister should be present when the coffins come back. They should meet the soldiers' families, just to know what it is like when you send troops into battle.

Look at your watch. 25 minutes.

Affording Lisbon

The Conservative position on the Lisbon Treaty, which William Hague failed to make completely clear in his recent interview with the Times, seems to be that if it is not ratified by the time of the next election they would put it to a referendum, whereas if it were already ratified they might and they might not. In neither circumstance are they able to say whether the referendum result would be binding on the government.

It is not just Parliament’s loss of control over foreign affairs and other areas, as if that weren’t bad enough; this Treaty creates new layers of bureaucracy and cost which we simply cannot afford. There must be cost cutting in Britain and that must start with Brussels, and reduction of the EU budget must begin with not increasing it due to the Lisbon Treaty.

It used to be that the Conservatives pledged to repatriate powers from Brussels, I suppose that has gone out of the window.

Climate Change

The Independent reports about what is happening on the Sun (the star, not the newspaper). ‘But now the speculation has grown louder because of what is happening to our Sun. No living scientist has seen it behave this way. There are no sunspots.’

You will recall that not so long ago if you referred to the climate and solar activity in the same breath you were a heretic. Not now, it seems. ‘solar scientists have been reticent about it because of its connections with those who those who deny climate change’; yes indeed.

‘When the Sun has gone quiet like this before, it coincided with the earth cooling slightly and there is speculation that a similar thing could happen now. If so, it could alter all our predictions of climate change, and show that our understanding of climate change might not be anywhere near as good as we thought.’

Don’t you get impatient with these people? A new term, ‘climate change denier’ is coined to make it sound like holocaust denier, and the coterie of self-selected experts froth at the mouth when anyone even questions their orthodoxy, whilst quietly, in the background, the whole thing is being reappraised.

If this turns out to be correct, and we are in for a mini ice-age, I should like to see the whole damned lot of them rounded up and fed to the supposedly extinct polar bears.

Climate Change

The Independent reports about what is happening on the Sun (the star, not the newspaper). ‘But now the speculation has grown louder because of what is happening to our Sun. No living scientist has seen it behave this way. There are no sunspots.’

You will recall that not so long ago if you referred to the climate and solar activity in the same breath you were a heretic. Not now, it seems. ‘solar scientists have been reticent about it because of its connections with those who those who deny climate change’; yes indeed.

‘When the Sun has gone quiet like this before, it coincided with the earth cooling slightly and there is speculation that a similar thing could happen now. If so, it could alter all our predictions of climate change, and show that our understanding of climate change might not be anywhere near as good as we thought.’

Don’t you get impatient with these people? A new term, ‘climate change denier’ is coined to make it sound like holocaust denier, and the coterie of self-selected experts froth at the mouth when anyone even questions their orthodoxy, whilst quietly, in the background, the whole thing is being reappraised.

If this turns out to be correct, and we are in for a mini ice-age, I should like to see the whole damned lot of them rounded up and put in a large fridge.

The Gurkhas

The tightening of the rules to exclude the Gurkhas (or almost all of them) from settling in the UK is a disgrace, which brings shame on us all.

Our immigration policy at the moment allows evey Greek Cypriot swindler, every Maltese road sweeper, every Hungarian pimp to come to the UK to live and work, while their governments trudge the corridors of Brussesls demanding more subsidies, while the Gurkhas, who were not just on our side (which would be a pleasant change) but actually fought in our army, in our wars, are excluded.

It is a disgrace for which we are responsible: don't imagine this government has any guiding moral prnciples, much less something against the Gurkhas, they just wanted to save money and thought they could get away with this. Let's show them they can't.- See http://www.gurkhajustice.org.uk/

The UK Budget

I think there's only one thing that needs to be said about yesterday's budget. The whole thing is predicated on the willingness of markets to finance the debt. The 240 billion available from the IMF (we are being gently softened up for this, aren't we?) isn't enough to finance a 170 billion a year borrowing habit for very long. So it's credibility in the markets, or the whole pack of cards comes tumbling down.

Now, you don't need to be any kind of financial expert to understand this: lenders expect borrowers to pursue policies such that their loans are going to be repaid.

And Mr Darling is not pursuing such policies. He's still playing politics, hoping to trick the Tories into complaining about a 50% tax band which will raise no new revenue.

Cameron and Osborne now need to look as if they've got a plan, because if they haven't, the jitters will start.

St George's Day

St George’s Day today, and as usual people are asking why, if the Scots get St Andrew’s Day off, there shouldn’t be an English holiday.

The reason is that the patriotism hating bien pensant lefties who run New Labour and the BBC say that it will encourage the Far Right; but when International Labour Day was made a holiday I don’t recall anyone complaining that it would encourage the Far Left.

Boris Johnson the Mayor of London is trying to drum up some enthusiasm on the basis that it is William Shakespeare’s birthday. But he won’t succeed.

If you want to celebrate St George, go to one of these places where he is also patron saint: Beirut, Ethiopia, Genova, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Milan, Palestine and Portugal.

To cheer you up on this auspicious day, perhaps I can offer you what I believe to be the two worst Shakespeare jokes.

A man goes into a bookshop and asks for a play by Shakespeare.

‘Which one?’ says the proprietor

‘William’.


A man goes into a bar dressed as Shakespeare. The Landlord says ‘You’re Bard’.

OK- I’ll get my coat.

The UN - what was going on?

The UN has a High Commissioner for human rights, a lady by the name of Navi Pillay, and whatever her merits as an individual I think we can agree, looking round the world, that her office, at least, has not been much of a success. So what is the latest brouhaha all about?

It goes back to Durban in 2001 – perhaps earlier than that because Durban was chosen due to its history under apartheid. Anyway the UN decided to hold a conference there about racism. And a moment’s reflection will tell you that such a conference was going to be a failure from the start: I discriminate against you because you are a horrid bastard, you discriminate against me because you are a racist. But it is pointless trying to tell an international bureaucrat not to have a shindig at the world’s expense, and Durban is as good a place for a shindig as you can imagine.

Durban 2001 of course got hijacked by the noisy, who in my experience are rarely the most guilt free. The first attempt at a resolution was that there should be reparations for slavery. Colin Powell, then Secretary of State and a black man, famously asked whether he should expect to pay or to be paid. The next attempt was to try to resurrect the old UN chestnut that Zionism is racism. America, Israel and a few others walked out.

I mention all this because it was happening at the end of August 2001 and by 9th September the world had other things to think about and the fiasco had been largely forgotten.

Now Durban II has started up and you wouldn’t have needed a doctorate in international politics to guess what would happen. A few countries, including America, Canada, Italy refused to attend although Britain did (why?). The usual Zionism is racism stuff overwhelmed any attempt at serious discussion, attempting to make Israel a pariah state as South Africa was, and they added in that attacks on religions (and they mean the Danish cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed) should be declared a breach of human rights. I watched Ahmadinejad’s speech on Al-Jazeerah (which is not what most people suppose it to be) and it was a shocker.

So that’s over until the next time, unless we have the sense to realise that this is not the forum for a discussion on racism, or indeed on the Israel/Palestine question. It was a clear case of the UN not resolving conflict but promoting it. The winners have been Iran and those states (well done, Italy) who boycotted. The losers have been Britain for attending and the UN itself. Ban Ki-moon, who looks next to useless, and Ms Pillay should seriously consider their positions (they won't, though).

The First Dog (2)

More about Bo. It's disturbing news, I'm afraid. Look away now if you are shocked by mental cruelty to innocent animals.

First, Bo was a gift from Sen. Edward Kennedy, who, I imagine, knew the value of a dog that could swim when you needed it to and then say nothing to the press.

Second, my correspondent Cheech tells me that the flower garland round our friend's neck, which I described as a lei in honour of the President, is in fact 'a "Rainbow Coalition" Collar provided by either the Gay lobby or Jessie Jackson.'

This dog needs our help.

We need to get someone inside the White House as a Dog Trainer, but training Bo to do the things that dogs do, like dig up flower beds, pee on the Oval Office carpet and quietly puke in front of visiting sycophants like Gordon Brown.

Euro bears

Congratulations to Open Europe for this:

"Apparently, Guenther Lischka, who is financial officer for the European Commission Enlargement Directorate General, was previously employed organising foreign excursions... for teddy bears. We kid you not. Having set up the 'Teddy Tours' company Guenther took clients’ teddy bears around Vienna taking photos with famous monuments and charging between 99-149 euros, depending on where the bear originated. According to El Mundo, the company only had around twenty clients during its year of existence and yet, to occupy his current position at the Commission he had to demonstrate “experience in accounting and finance”."

What disturbs me the most is price discrimination according to where the bears were from. Not exactly esprit communautaire, is it?

Memo to First Dog

Bad start: Bo as in Diddly rather than Beau as in Geste. OK, you've been cruelly uprooted from your native cork forests (I assume Portuguese water dogs come from Portugal, unlike Yorkshire terriers which come from London and German Shepherds which come from Essex), cruelly uprooted, I say, but that is no reason to allow yourself to be photographed wearing a Hawaiian lei and being patronised by all and sundry.

Any dog worth his salt would have eaten those flowers, in front of the cameras, dug a hole in the White House lawn and bitten a security guard.

Go to it, Bo.

McBridegate

The political smear campaign, for which the Prime Minister's political adviser has resigned, was filth. I can scarcely think of another word for suggesting that the wife of a politician has mental health problems, to say nothing of the other proposed allegations.

The Prime Minister is directly associated with this and should supply us with an explanation of how it happened. In any walk of life you have to take responsibility for the actions of people who report to you, and his relationship with McBride and Tom Watson, about whom I think we shall hear more, was very close.

The other thing that should come out of this is why McBride was paid by the taxpayer. He was a civil servant when his role was clarly not a civil service one: it was entirely party political. We ought to emerge from this with all-party agreement that political workers are paid by their political party.

Political hand to hand fighting

This blog is not a tattle-sheet but something quite significant is brewing in Westminster. It will be in the Sunday papers, and I advise you to read them.

The story so far:
(1) the Prime Minister's political adviser (a civil servant, paid by you and me) is Damian McBride. McBride plays dirty.
(2) the Labour Party is extremely worried about the right-wing nature of most blogs (and of course about the likelihood of its getting elected).

McBride produces some insinuations, some of them sexual, about some senior figures in the Conservative Party and the blogosphere. He knows, and is apparently on record as saying, that they are untrue. No matter.

MacBride emails the tittle tattle to a Labour Party blog and to several other people. Apparently a government minister, Tom Watson, is involved. These emails suggest publication details in a new blog Red Rag, which the government denied having been set up but which has been proven to have been established.

Lastly, someone in the Labour Party has leaked all this to the Sunday Newspapers.

Looks like fun.

Subsidy

The gin bottle on the table is nearly empty, perhaps enough for two modest G & Ts left.

But if I take what remains in the bottle down to the off licence, the government will give me £5 towards a new, full bottle. This subsidy is not available to whisky or vodka drinkers, or of course teetotallers, but maintains jobs in the gin industry and its suppliers (American juniper growers, for example).

Seems like sound economic sense?

No. And it isn't when applied to cars, either.

Earthquake (3)

250 dead, tens of thousands homeless, 26 villages and upwards of 10,000 buildings destroyed.

The hospital is working (and others are helping), the search for survivors continues despite the aftershocks, one of which, itself the magnitude of a serious earthquake, was felt in Rome and as far north as Emilia Romagna. The water is operating, most places seem to have electricity and there are tents for 14,500 people.

Despite the Italians' reputation for inefficiency, so far my impression is that they have done really well.

Data Retention and Snooping

As from last Monday, Internet Service Providers and others will be keeping a record of all emails, websites visited, as well as 'phone calls and text messages, such information to be used against you by Government, local authorities and the like.

This was not debated in Parliament, having been imposed under the EU Data Retention Directive.

The Government will say it has something to do with the fight against terrorism but it has the added little bonus that they know what you've been doing, doesn't it?

MPs' pay

Guido reports that Irish politicians have taken a 10% reduction in pay on the government side, 5% on the opposition side, a 10% reduction in expenses and cancelled all pensions.

British MPs have just awarded themselves a 2.3% pay rise.

Earthquake (2)

For those who wish to help, donations can be made to Caritas Italia direct to their account at UNICREDIT BANCA DI ROMA S.P.A. IBAN IT38 K03002 05206 000401120727 with the heading 'Terremoto Abruzzo'

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L'Aquila's earthquake.

It now seems that 150 people have died and something like 50,000 are homeless after a dramatic earthquake with its epicentre just outside l'Aquila struck at 3.30am on Monday. L'Aquila is a city of about 70,000 people, about the size of Bath, with a university and several schools. The town in its present form was laid out in the 13th century and many of the buildings are just rubble covered over with stucco.

I spoke on a local BBC Radio programme and the presenter said it was hard for the British, who generally do not suffer from earthquakes, to understand the threat, the fear and the reactions. Whilst it is the fourth serious earthquake in 30 years no one can ever get used to it; there are no predictors of the event and no way of estimating what the effects will be. This time there were cracks in walls 50 miles away. The mountain village of Onna was left without a single building standing.

The death tolls in similar strength earthquakes make interesting reading:

1908 86,000 dead
1915 33,000
1968 236
1976 976
1980 2,570
1997 11
2002 28
We are better at getting the wounded out and at treating them. As to the rest we are subject to nature and its incomprehensible forces.

Berlusconi, conscious perhaps of the mistakes Bush made after Katrina, has cancelled a trip to Russia and is throwing resources at this. The area needs its water supply repaired and tens of thousands of temporary homes. Then it needs to rebuild. We shall see how effective the Government is.

The Grand National

A 100-1 outsider winning the National is great news for the bookies, the worst damage reportedly being a £100 each way bet. It is the least fancied winner since Foinavon in 1967.

I used to live near Foinavon's stables and an amusing little tale is told of the background. The horse was owned by a wealthy lady who, the day before the race, turned up and treated all the workers to a bet on her horse, £1 here, £5 for the senior lads, which was serious money in the 1960s. They of course all knew that Foinavon was a hopeless nag and put the money on the favourite.

As we know at one of the last fences, now called Foinavon, almost the entire field fell, unnerved by some riderless horses, and Foinavon, well to the back, had enough time to pick a safe part of the fence and sail over while the rest were trying to remount.

One of the stable lads said the worst thing wasn't missing out on all that money, it was having to thank the lady for her gift the following day as she arrived in triumph.

Business and politicians

'According to the government, GM's Rick Wagoner was forced to resign because of poor performance. That’s embarrassing. You run an organization that loses billions of dollars and then get fired by a guy who heads up an organization that loses trillions of dollars.'
Jay Leno

Jade Goody's Funeral

'As the cortege makes its way through Bermondsey market...' What? Bermondsey?

Yes, friends, Our Jade's funeral has done a sort of lap of honour through the streets of Sarf London, which were lined with sobbing keeners. I remember watching Churchill's funeral forty odd years ago and I swear they made less fuss.

I just want to ask this: what sort of a nation have we become?

Berlusconi shouts

Her Majesty the Queen apparently asked why Silvio Berlusconi made so much noise at the summit. The answer might be that the world's decision making body, the G8, of which he is currently Chairman, has been hijacked by Gordon Brown, but I think it's more simple.

He's Italian.

Royal Marriage

Charles Moore in the Spectator points out that although Prince William is unable to marry a Catholic girl, he could have a civil partnership with a Catholic man.

That'd brighten things up a bit.

G20

I suppose it is inherent to the ageing process that I find increasingly fewer innovations pleasing, or even satisfactory.

But I do like the idea of starting international conferences on The Feast of All Fools. If it doesn't teach the participants some modesty, it may at least remind us how they should be treated.

Jacqui Smith

I don't know if it's spin; if it is the whole of the media seems to be complicit. Every time you hear about the Home Secretary's claim for adult movies as expenses they make it clear that they were not watched by her, but by her husband, who is employed by her and trousers £40,000 a year.

The veracity of this might be a job for an investigative journalist, although she might claim that, whilst in the same house at the time the movies were being played, she herself was not watching but working on some new scheme for restricting our individual freedom, with more ID cards or CCTV or whatever.

But the point is, I don't care. She does not need a subscription to Sky Movies for her job (Mr. Speaker, has the Home Secretary seen the latest movie with Jennifer Aniston?) and I don't want to pay for any of her family viewing, regardless of taste and of who was watching at the time.

Lastly, and it should scarcely be necessary to say this, she it was who applied for this to be paid for by the taxpayer. She it is who must take responsibility for her employee (in this case her husband) who has been flagrantly abusing a position of trust.

It really, really isn't enough to say she didn't see the movie.

The Act of Settlement

I am in no doubt whatsoever that Gordon Brown has tried to engineer a debate on the rights of succession to the throne for his own narrow political interest - he wants to draw our attention away from the lamentable state his stewardship of the economy has left us in.

But this is a subject always worth giving a bit of thought to.

Firstly we must dispel the mystique to it all. Parliament has decreed that the heir to the throne should be male if possible, a descendant of George II and not a Roman Catholic. If Parliament has decreed this then Parliament can change its decree.

I have no objections to pure primogeniture - that is to say the eldest child inherits the throne regardless of sex. But allowing Roman Catholics to become monarch is a proposal of a different sort. The Monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Thus such a change would involve the disestablishment of the Church.

There are plenty of good reasons for disestablishment, some of them in the interests of the Church itself. But we must not go off at half-cock on this, as Labour did over hereditary peers: destroying something that works, because you don't like the look of it, then finding it too difficult to decide what to replace it with.

This has to be thought through over a period of years and should have nothing to do with the next General Election, or Mr Brown's electoral plight, which is entirely of his own making.

The Tories and Europe

I have often said that I feel I could vote Conservative again if Mr Cameron repeated the pledge he once made to repatriate powers from Europe.

Now Stuart Wheeler, the biggest donor to the Tory party, has left them and joined the UK Independence Party (with his chequebook). He says that Cameron is merely hoping that he doesn't have to say anything on Europe, that he wants the subject to go away.

Mr Wheeler has lost patience. Come on, Mr Cameron, say it and stop the rot.

Treated like idiots

The clocks have changed again under the Government's bogus 'Daylight Saving Scheme' (not one nanosecond of daylight will be 'saved' - there will be exactly the same as there would otherwise have been).

Sometimes they express it in terms of having 'one less hour in bed'. Ignore them. Spend as long as you like. On Monday if you go into an office you will be going in an hour earlier. Why not just say that as from Monday the office starts at 8am not 9am (because that's what's happening)? You have the intellectual ability to handle that.

I have no objection to things starting earlier and finishing earlier, it's being treated like a bloody idiot that I can't stand, and by people I'm paying to do it.

Tibet

Light blogging because I have been getting my book together (in the unlikely event of it ever being published I shall not hesitate to give myself a free plug).

There is a story going round that China plans to celebrate the 50th aniversary of its illegal invasion of Tibet with a 'Freedom from Serfdom' day. If this is true it is the most disgracefully cynical act imaginable. China has taken over the government and poured money into illegal Chinese settlements, leaving the Tibetans unrepresented and alone.

It used to be that we held off criticising China because of its importance as a trading partner. Now we are no longer buying its plastic shoes, Christmas tree decorations and non-working computer parts perhaps someone in some western government will have the gumption to stand up and denounce China for the aggressive totalitarian dictatorship it is.

Jade Goody

The short life of Jade Goody – I am already getting tired of the ‘tragic’ cliché – seems to me to tell us a lot about ourselves.

Reality TV may be said to have its roots in John Osborne’s ‘Look back in Anger’ of 1956. Until then, and indeed since Aristotle, drama had been about the aristocratic or at least the slightly posh. An ancient dramatist would have been amazed that the poor might want to see something about themselves – surely they got that sort of thing every day?

In a straight line through Coronation Street we seem to have demanded more and more of this stuff and Reality TV has been, so far, the latest development. You live with, and interact with, ordinary people, then go home, turn on the TV and see...ordinary people. The concept has always seemed bizarre to me.

Jade Goody, as one of the ‘star’ protagonists of this genre, seemed to me an almost extreme example of what the creators were trying to achieve. Ignorant and foul mouthed, she dumped the worst element of modern society right into our TV dinners. But, for the creators and producers of Reality TV, the ghastly people who felt we needed or deserved this, Jade Goody had a surprise. She made, as is more common with ordinary people than the bien pensant imagine, a racist remark. There were tens of thousands of complaints: ‘we paid to see ordinary people behaving in an ordinary way. How can it be that one of them said something the politically correct disapprove of? Surely she should be stupid, uneducated and like coloured people?’

Now, amongst the chattering classes who run the BBC, a racist remark puts you down at the level of Josef Fritzl. Perhaps worse: he only abused people of his own family. The calamity was so bad that the Prime Minister, holder of an office which hitherto had been regarded as deserving some respect, felt he had to meet the insulted party, an Indian actress.

So how is it that Jade Goody is now anointed with the spikenard of public sympathy? The short answer is that she employed Max Cliffiord. The even shorter answer is that she died. Max was on a no-brainer here: a consultancy with an end date.

Jade Goody decided to end her days in the spotlight and paid a consultant to make sure she did. She did it, she admitted, for money, so that whilst she was ignorant her sons would not be. Creditable, if not quite saintly. The press, the investors in this ghastly drama (one magazine brought out its Jade Goody Tribute edition while she was still alive), are now trying to make out that she was conducting some cancer awareness campaign, and that she was ‘brave’. And of course our cynical, self-serving Prime Minister was immediately back in on the act with an oleaginous statement.

‘Brave’ means understanding the risks and freely deciding to take those risks. It applies, for example, to servicemen who risk their lives for comrades. Inoperable cancer, by contrast, is a fait accompli. Facing it, for money for your children, does not make you brave.

I am sympathetic to Jade Goody. The million or two earned will comfortably achieve, if her children have the right guardian, the aim of letting them make what they can of themselves. I condemn only the press and the readership. There is talk of breaking a taboo, and I can’t help thinking that some things should remain taboo. It has been an unsightly business.

If we’re lucky, the public mawkishness which began with the death of the Princess of Wales at the beginning of the boom over a decade ago, will end with this and the recession.

Spring

The first signs of spring are with us: almond blossom, crocuses, the occasional house fly and the warning that the weather, having got warmer, is about to get colder again. Hey-ho.

The first braod beans are here. The Italians eat them raw, with slivers of pecorino (sheep's cheese).

Fritzl

Josef Fritzl has been sentenced to life.

I often wonder what to think about these things: the Brady/Hindley case in Britain in the '60s is relevant here. Is there a crime which is so horrible that by definition the perpetrator must be mad and therefore not guilty? I, and I expect you, can magine myself committing many crimes, but this?

But is such a feeling relevant? Lord Denning said that the sentence must reflect Society's revulsion of the crime. Is that right? Even if he's mad?

It is now being said that Fritzl pleaded guilty because he heard his daughter's testimony. The BBC have got a trick-cyclist to say that he pleaded guilty because he realised he was no longer in control. I heard he had offered to plead guilty if he got agreement to be sent to the right (most comfortable) prison. Some say that in Austria life means 20 years. Surely it isn't possible he could be released in his lifetime?

The reason I express all these doubts is that what society, and in particular Austrian society, needs is certainty, now. It has all been rushed through to prevent a debate on whether there is something in Austria that permitted this to happen behind closed doors. In my view that debate would have been beneficial. Sometimes you have to let the wound bleed a bit to cleanse it.

Health Fascism

Sir Liam Donaldson is, of course, the crazed fascist who stopped smoking in public places, abandoning all science to tell us that passive smoking - all passive smoking, even if there is a ventilator and you are leaning out of the window - was dangerous, while at the same time pretending to be a scientist. This outrage has had little or no effect on the public health but has virtually closed the pubs down, thus wrecking a very British way of life which has subsisted for centuries. Donaldson, you see, didn't like the idea of you smoking.

Now he is on to alcohol. Many people warned alcohol would be next. He wants to double the price with a minimum per 'unit'. Interestingly both he and his colleague in Scotland, which is making the running on this particular piece of nanny stating, admit that in Mediterranean countries alcohol costs a lot less and yet there is a lower incidence of drunkenness and of liver disease. They may even accept that in Scandiavian countries alcohol costs more than in Britain but the incidence of alcoholism is greater. Facts won't stop these bogus scientists. They want to stop you behaving in a way they disapprove of. The only reason Donaldson isn't getting his way now is that there is an election coming up and even Gordon Brown, not normally a chap to worry himself about what might affect the ordinary man, can see it isn't exactly a vote winner. In fact, like his removal of the 10p tax band it would penalise the poor. Chateau Lafite has the same alcohol content as cheap Argentinian Malbec, Lowenbrau the same as Fosters.

Sinisterly, Donaldson says he is in this for the long term and feels that, like the smoking ban, he will get his way in the end.

It doesn't affect me because I shall live out my days with decent wine at around €1 a litre, plonk a bit less, but I really do think that these people need to be exposed - 'scientists' who don't let evidence get in the way of their opinions - and that the State should be firmly told the limits of its power.

Otherwise what's to come of Britain?

Bank Regulation

I was just talking to my partner over dinner last night about renewing the Glass-Steagall Act, you know, the way people do, when up pops Nigel Lawson in today's FT suggesting the same thing. Perhaps he was hiding under the table - he certainly doesn't look as if he eats much.

It's quite interesting actually. It's about how we regulate banks in the future - more, or better. Glass Steagall was brought in in the 1930s after the last major recession. Quite simply it said that commercial banks shouldn't be allowed to own investment banks. Bill Clinton repealed it in the 1990s.

When last year the whole pack of cards looked as if it were tumbling, the government thought it had to rescue the banks, or the economy would grind to a halt. But in fact all it needed to do was rescue the commercial banks, the ones which we hold our accounts with and which do the banking for small and medium sized businesses, make credit card payments and so on.

What I propose is that in the future the government guarantees 100% of customer deposits and tells banks accounting for, say, 80% of UK commercial banking business, that they will bail them out but in return they must be tightly regulated, as to their leverage (how much they lend and borrow in relation to their capital) their bad debts and so on. Unlike with the Glass Steagall Act they would be welcome to indulge in investment banking but this business would be kept separate and allwed to go bust.

Simpler and better than the needlessly complicated Gordon Brown scheme of 1997. In fact rather similar to what we had before the clueless rogue came on the scene.

Quantitative Easing

The new money 'printed' by the Bank of England is going towards buying back the gilts it issued. Official figures show that more than a third of gilts are owned by foreigners. So much of this new money, perhaps even all, will leave Britain. It will not serve as a stimulus to the economy because the foreign holders, aware that we are printing new money, will want to be out of sterling and into gold or the dollar. The move is likely to depress sterling even further.

So why are we doing it? It is whispered that the only effect will be to firm up the price of gilts, thus perhaps putting off the day when the government can no longer finance the massive debts it has committed us to. Gordon Brown is using our money to improve his credit rating and let him continue his policy of spending, perhaps until he is re-elected and can put up taxes.

The way to use quantitative easing is to send a cheque to each family in the country. Send them John Lewis vouchers. Get them spending.

A better alternative would have been to cut government expenditure on all but essential items and reduce taxes, but you can't see Gordon doing that.

Sudan

Pete Hoskin has a piece in the Spectator blog criticising the Muslim Association of Britain’s statement on Sudan and Darfur, which said that it opposed the ICC arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan, on the grounds that similar prosecutions haven't been launched against war crimes in "Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya". Hoskin points out, rightly, that Bashir is about as nasty a piece of work as you are likely to find and that many of his victims were Muslims.

I’m afraid, however, that in one sense the MAB, normally a safe haven of unargued nonsense and racist cant, are right. Just as our war against Saddam Hussein lost legitimacy because there was nothing he had done that China hadn’t (invaded a neighbouring country, acquired WMD, ethnic cleansing, persecution of its own political dissidents) – and we weren’t going to invade China, were we? – so the lack of investigation other suspected ‘crimes’ by the ICC – and I don’t necessarily agree with the MAB’s list – makes this look as if it were a whim of the Western nations, self-righteous posing.

The UN scarcely lifted a finger to help Bashir’s victims. It is a little late now to enter judgment.

Computers

Posting has been a little light due to computer iffyness. It turned out after a lot of hard work and expense that despite being set for automatic updates - essential for Vista users since Microsoft are still fixing the faults - it did not receive 3 of the updates but didn't tell me it hadn't got them. Anyone else experienced this?

Apparently the new version is going to be better. I'm just trying to remember where I've heard that before... oh yes...

Economists

Can't resist lifting this from Danny Finkelstein


An economist friend has just told me a wonderful story about a professional colleague of his. The colleague was waiting at the airport for his flight to be called when a man ran into his section of the lounge, slightly out of breath. "Is there an economist in here?" he called out.

My friend's friend was delighted. He has always wanted to help out in an emergency. He puffed out his chest, stood up and in a clear voice called out. "Yes. I am an economist."

The man looked back at him with a mixture of contempt and bewildered surprise. "The magazine," he said slowly.

Telegraph hacked

If you subscribe online to any of the Daily Telegraph services it is possible your password is compromised and you should change it. The Telegraph has been informed of this but hasn't told subscribers. More if I learn anything

Your guide to quantitative easing

In order to bail out the banks the Bank of England borrowed money by issuing gilts. Now, under quantitative easing it is putting money into the economy by..er..buying them back.

Easy, this economics stuff.

We the people

The BBC's Mark Mardell reports that the EU is planning to put booths in city squares all over the European Union's 27 countries so citizens can "send a message to Brussels".

Oh, please...please do this.

Mardell says "I am sure those leaving London's pubs and clubs in the early hours of Saturday mornings will be forming queues to have their say. Or at least thinking of ways to put the booths to good use."

Sudan: an international shambles

So the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for war crimes (not for genocide, as had been requested by the prosecution). Mr al-Bashir was not present at the deliberations of this court, nor did he recognise its authority.

In retaliation Sudan has expelled aid agencies, putting at further risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

One can't help thinking that a little less idealism and a little more realpolitik would have been useful here.

But I have grave doubts about this court. Supposing you were to be told, having done what you imagined to be the right thing, and as far as you were concerned perfectly legally, that it was in fact illegal, under laws made thousands of miles away in different language and under a different historical, political and philosophical background. Supposing the International Muslim Court sentenced you to death for adultery some years ago?

That it is of zero or negative use is amply demonstrated above. Is any African leader, about to attack his enemies as they have done for thousands of years, suddenly going to say 'Oooh! I might be indicted by the ICC and my name would be mud in Europe' ? I don't think so.

But also I don't think we, who emerged from barbarism just a few hundred years ago, have the moral right to condemn people who haven't yet.

Mr Brown goes to America

Thanks to Sky's Jonathan Levy for noticing that CNN's US news round-up, as you would expect, featured high on the list a British Politician talking in Washington. Unfortunately it was Tony Blair addressing the Climate Change Conference.

I do not have it in me to feel sorry for Gordon Brown, but I nearly did.

Ted Kennedy

'Senator Kennedy, you cheated at school, you panicked at Chappaquiddick, what makes you think you're fit to be President?' was the opening line of a somewhat tough (but fair) interview of this ambitious member of the American Royal Family.

This is a man who is famous for having a famous father and two famous brothers. He is distinguished for nothing else except his political longevity (he became a senator on the back of his brother's presidency in 1962).

Now we learn that Her Majesty the Queen is pleased to grant this person a knighthood, and that Gordon Brown will announce (perhaps even confer?) it on his visit to Washington. I suppose Ceaucescu and Mugabe got them but it really is time this nonsense stopped.

Mark my words, it'll be Des O'Connor next.

The dying days of Labour

So, Mr Brown wants to sack Harriet Harman, despite the fact that she has been elected to her post.

And Harriet Harman wants to reduce Sir Fred Goodwin's pension, despite the fact that he is contractualy entitled to it and that it was agreed by a Government Minister.

What has happened to these people? Their minds have gone, like crazed emperors in the dying days of Rome. They think that everything they say will be seen as true just because they have said it, and that for something to be accomplished they only need to give the word.

Now Brown is going to lecture Congress and return clutching a part of Obama's clothing expecting to be hailed as the saviour of the world. And none of his aides has the courage to whisper those few words into his ear....

Truly, Britain hasn't got a government at the moment.

Iceland: music for geysers

We hear a lot these days of the disastrous collapse of Iceland’s banking and business sectors but little or nothing about that nation’s cultural heritage. After my first sample I am here to tell you that it is right up there with Icelandic liquidity management.

The audience at the Borromini Sacristy of Sant’Agnese in Agone, Rome, were treated last night to a recital by Nina Margrét Grìmsdòttìr featuring works by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson and Pàll Isòlfsson. These are composers whose work has largely, and rightly, been overlooked.

The nearest I can get to describing the work of Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson (so good they named him twice!) is that it seemed like a random selection of the national anthems of West African nations, one moment grandiloquent, at times sonorous, at times jocular, as if three Olympic athletes had come joint first and the band had a go at playing the various themes concurrently.

Pàll Isòlfsson was along the same lines but for my money seemed to offer a new layer of randomness, almost Maoist in its insistence that you never get used to one theme, that you are projected into a new layer of horror before you have understood what’s going on. Grìmsdòttìr pounded the keyboard valiantly but you had the feeling she had abandoned all hope.

I recommend Icelandic music to you: an experience on a par with a visit to their frozen food shop.

Cameron and the NHS

Right at the start of Tony Blair's premiership we had a clue of the empty vessel we had elected. A nutcase, you may recall, had burst into a school in Dunblane and slaughtered a number of children. It was an horrific, shocking event, leaving the country numb. It was a time for strong leadership.

A group of bereaved mothers wanted the law changed, as a memorial to their lost children. They were called, if I remember, the Snowdrop Campaign. Blair, more interested in headlines than governance, acceded to their wants and 'handguns' (pistols to you and me) were banned. Apart from the idiotic incidence of the British Olympic Shooting Team having to train in France (for ownership of a pistol, deemed so dreadful by these bereaved mothers was part of a sport, subsidised by the taxpayer) there has been no beneficial effect of this law. It used to be that the bad guys, and a very small number of good guys, had guns, now it is only the bad guys. You can buy a pistol in a pub in many cities, for about £50.

The lesson of all this is that the bereaved are not in a position to make laws. They are too emotionally connected.

Following the tragic loss of his son Ivan, it is being said that David Cameron's politics have been shaped by the experience, and the poor boy's tragic life and death will influence the country. Here is Cameron quoted in the Times: "When your family relies on the NHS all the time – day after day, night after night – you really know just how precious it is.” The Telegraph says: "He revealed the treatment of his son at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, where he died was one of the prime reasons why the NHS had become such a campaign priority for his Conservative Party. "

I recently heard of a man who entered hospital without anything that much wrong with him and contracted, in the hospital, MRSA, C-difficile and E-Coli. There is an increasing number of reports of unnecessary deaths in hospitals. Doctors earn £100,000 a year and people can't get treated. Such is the rationing of healthcare that older people have to be deemed less deserving of treatment than the young. There is talk of not treating the overweight in order to save cash.

What the NHS needs is a good kick up the backside; I wonder now if David Cameron is equipped to administer it.

Directors' Disqualification

When a small company goes bust, if the directors are seen to have acted rashly and in particular wasted government money (not paid the VAT) they can be disqualified, under the Company Directors' Disqualification Act.

RBS and HBOS anyone?

Italian News Lenten Edition

The Villa Borghese Gallery in Rome, which has works by Bellini and Caravaggio and includes Raphael’s Deposition, now boasts an exhibition of photographs of Sarah Palin. The show runs for several weeks and you can get a taxi from the airport.

A series of rape cases has alarmed the public and engendered an anti-immigrant feeling. The Justice Ministry has confirmed that whilst the rapes in large cities had been committed largely by immigrants, overall in Italy most rapists were Italian.

Tests in the waters around Sicily are showing that an anti barnacle paint applied to the hulls of ships may be causing molluscs to change sex.

The San Remo festival, Italy’s private Eurovision Song contest (Italy, to its credit, does not belong to Eurovision) had been threatened with closure unless its audience ratings improved, and to the delight of all, pulled 50% of prime time viewing, against 18% for its nearest rival. The winner was Marco Carta with a forgettable song.

The largely charisma-free Walter Veltroni has resigned as head of the centre left Partito Deomcratico after disastrous losses to Berlusconi’s PdL, most recently in Sardegna. The new leader will be Dario Franceschini

18,500 people descended on Venice for Carnival, adding to more than 10,000 already there. The annual festival seems to be losing popularity, with nearly half of all Milanese, Florentines and Palermitans ready to cancel it. Carnival is most popular in Naples.

This past week has not only been the coldest of the winter in Rome but also the coldest in the past 100 years. However the coldest day so far this winter was said to have been on January 14, when it was fractionally below zero.

There is new excitement that work might begin this year on the Messina Bridge. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Mills no boon

News that tax lawyer David Mills had been sentenced to 4 years 6 months in prison came as a bit of a surprise - the prosecution had requested 4 years and I thought that was a bit tongue in cheek - but we shouldn't read too much into it. The sentence will only be confirmed once the appeal procedure has been gone through (2 separate appeals) and this moves so slowly it will certainly come up against the statute of limitations. This is what happens to 70% of crime here. White collar crime hardly ever ends in prison. One British newspaper archly suggested that this might bring down Berlusconi, which made me chuckle (him too, I expect).

I still think we have not heard enough about the British end. The way Mills washed the money was to take out a mortgage on his house (jointly owned with wife Tessa Jowell, the minister) and repay it with the ..er.. less clean stuff. Jowell, at the time a cabinet minister and now Paymaster General, if you will believe it, had to sign the appropriate forms on borrowing and repayment but claimed that it was just something her husband asked her to do for his business. Mills, and apparently this is not the first time it had happened, said to a Cabinet Minister with three University degrees 'Don't bother your pretty little head about this' and she didn't.

I'm afraid this beggars belief and really does need to be properly investigated. At the time the cabinet office said it was a matter for the Prime Minister (Blair) who simply absolved her. Not good enough for me.

Health Fascism and the Left

'Heavy drinkers are receiving nearly one in four of the UK's liver transplants, it was revealed last night, igniting a furious row .....' thus shrieks the Observer.

Actually, I'm a little surprised we tipplers don't make up for a higher proportion. What have the three quarters who haven't damaged their livers with drink done to need a transplant? They can't all have got Hepatitis exploring up the Amazon, surely?

According to the rant, Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the British Medical Association's medical ethics committee 'acknowledges' that this is raising new questions for surgeons, who 'are within their rights to refuse transplants to anyone with alcohol-related liver disease if they do not demonstrate a genuine desire to stop drinking.'

And I bet you were expecting this: 'Liberal Democrat shadow culture, media and sport secretary Don Foster, who obtained the new transplant figures, said only by increasing the cost of alcohol could the nation's health be saved from Britain's binge-drinking culture.' As with most Lib Dem MPs, I've never heard of him, but I bet he's a smug, sober bastard, hmm?

So, under the new fascism, when you are ill, before you are treated some godly soul is going to decide whether you have contracted your illness in a suitable way, and perhaps withhold treatment if you do not show remorse for your sins.

Now, I don't mind limiting healthcare provision for people who have brought their troubles on themselves, as long as we have a level playing field. Promiscuous homosexual who has contracted AIDS? No drugs or liver transplant for you! Respiratory complaint when you live in a town? Suffer and die, towny! Mountain climber? Cyclist? Nope, brought it on yourself.

Alternatively we could revert to the system of treating people who need help.

Lamb

An Italian, who these days runs a good restaurant in Tuscany, married an English girl and lived for a while near London. Asked if he enjoyed his time in England he replied that he just could not tolerate the English attitude to lamb and returned to Tuscany with his bride.

I disagree. Apart from the fact that there are other and better reasons for leaving England, the separate treatment of Spring lamb, shearling (which has overwintered), hoggett (another year) and mutton (caper sauce) seems to me a triumph.

For Italians, and particularly for Romans, however, it is now that lamb should be eaten. They know nothing of mutton. Such is the heat in central Italy in summer that lamb is the only creature that spends its entire life out of doors. Pigs, ewes and cattle are brought in before the middle of spring. The lambs eat the early grass and are very good.

For fresh spring lamb the Roman way, which they call abbacchio, get the butcher to hack at the bones to break them, ensuring quicker cooking. Don't plug it with rosemary and garlic, just sprinkle with salt, heat the oven until it is exploding and cook for the shortest time possible. Serve with lemon. And turnips.

The tiny lamb chops are picked up by hand. The Romans call it scottadito - 'burn your fingers'.

Germany: The Aristocracy strikes back

The name of the new German Economics Minister is Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.

Love it.

Lincoln

Oddly, I have heard nothing of it from my American friends, nor does it seem to have got much coverage in the press, but today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

What I like about Lincoln was that he was a far from perfect figure. He seems to me a man of contradictions, and a man of doubts, which is healthy for a politician.

President Obama makes much of comparisons with Lincoln (they both began their politics in Illinois) but he will do well if he comes up with something as good as this:

'.....that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'

Proportional Representation

Every time I hear one more crank go on about proportional representation (often ludicrously referred to, unchallenged by the media, as 'fair votes') I think of Israel.

Israel's insane system regularly delivers two parties with similar support and a host of tiny parties, some of whom are raging nutcases. As with most systems of PR, after the people have voted, the political class gets together and decides what sort of government they are going to get, often having little correlation with the wishes of the electorate. So the parties find that they can only govern with the support of some nutcases; which nutcases to choose?

In this instance, there are the usual deeply religious parties, some of whom believe they should nuke the Arabs, but one nutcase, Avigdor Liebermann, has a healthy vote. Either party could govern with his support. He is rabidly anti-Arab so it would more likely be Netanyahu who would form a coalition with him. So the people, having voted for Livni as the largest party, will likely get something very different.

It probably won't matter because Hamas wouldn't recognise Israel if it had Father Abraham in charge, so there won't be peace anyway.

Free Trade

Emma Marcegaglia, the Chairman of Confindustria, the Italian equivalent of the CBI, who runs a steel company in her free time, has written an article in the FT today, critcising the protesters at the Lindsey refinery and laying into Gordon Brown for being foolish enough to say 'British jobs for British workers'. She mentions that her company, Marcegalia Industries, is about to make an investment in Britain and that such cross border movements of people and capital are to the benefit of us all.

She is right, of course, but the reason I mention it is this: when the Italians start criticisng you for protectionism you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

Eluana

Just as the debate was reaching new heights of self-righteous pomposity, Eluana, the girl in the coma for 16 years whose feeding tube was removed last week, has stolen a march on them all. By dying.

I am not sure we British, or anyone else, would have managed this much better, but it has been a period from which neither the politicians nor the girl's family nor indeed the press have come out well. Even those, like me, who are against the legalisation of euthanasia will find it hard to resist a feeling of relief that it is all over.

One change which could be introduced would be to enforce the privacy of the patient, whether the relatives want it or not.

City Bonuses

A lot has been said recently about City bonuses, and I feel it may be time to put the thing into perspective. There are essentially three types of bonus. When I joined the City in the 1970s, I received just a monthly salary but my friends in what were then called stockbrokers earned a lot less as a basic salary but had a bonus. With an average bonus we all earned about the same, but when times were bad they scarcely earned enough to cover their rent or mortgage. This bonus didn’t apply to personal performance but to the company performance: dealers and secretaries were on the same deal. In the present unhappy times it seems obvious that these bonuses should be zero: the banks aren’t making any money.

In the post Big Bang City the bonus idea was applied to a lot more people, on more of a personal incentive basis. If salesmen sold a lot they earned a lot of money. I have no problems with that. Picture a vacuum cleaner salesman: he was told to sell vacuum cleaners and he sold shed loads of them. He should get his bonus because it is not his responsibility if the vacuum cleaners are no good. Several junior bankers earn a lot more than their senior counterparts: we learn that the highest paid employee in RBS earned four times what the Chairman earned. Good for him. But let’s not blame the sergeants; it’s the officers that make the decisions.

It is with the senior management that we (the people as shareholders) have to get tough. It is the managing directors and directors who have allowed a lot of this to happen. They it was who subcontracted out the credit analysis function to ratings agencies. They it was who got their banks into the stage where they didn’t know what they had invested in; couldn’t say how much was tied up in property or what the exposure to Icelandic shares was. They it was who told the traders to pile these assets on to the books.

The City – and this should come from the shareholders, not the government, needs a new form of remuneration. Bonus should mean bonus, and you get none when times are bad, even if it’s not your fault. For the senior men the shareholders should be able to claw the money back up to five years later. This would instil a sense of responsibility into investment and lending which will be sorely needed in this part of the cycle.

If a junior guy has got a huge bonus for selling something he wasn’t to know was toxic, let him keep it. He’ll need the money when he is laid off.

Obama

Hear the words of Charles Krauthammer following Obama's emergency stimulus bill, not just a continuation, but an exaggeration of pork-barrel politics:

'Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.'

Some of us, unpopularly, suspected this. As the French, in their unsurpassed idiom put it: 'Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose'

Depressing

Euthanasia in Italy

Italy is floundering in the waters of a familiarly intractable problem. Euthanasia.

This is something every country has difficulty with, but here it is being played out in a peculiarly Italian fashion. The case concerns Eluana Englaro, a strikingly attractive girl who, 16 years ago was involved in a near fatal car accident. I say near fatal because she has been in a persistent vegetative state all that time. Her father wants the feeding plug pulled.

The lower court agreed, but the minister said this could not happen in a state run hospital. Yesterday Eluana was moved to a private hospital. The government, some say under pressure from the Vatican, others say sensing the mood in the more religious South from where it draws much of its support, rushed through a measure banning the removal of the feeding tube. The President, Giorgio Napolitano, a former communist, refused to sign the decree. The government threatens to return the measure to Parliament.

This is not the time to rehearse the arguments in favour and against. The attractiveness of Eluana has tilted the balance – pictures of her laughing face make you think it incredible that such a being could have its life terminated. One doctor, in favour of pulling the plug, reflected that public reaction might be different if they saw her now. Initially I thought it would have been best if the father quietly removed the tube, she died and then they just didn’t prosecute him. Certainly if there were any evidence that the girl were suffering that is what I like to think I would have done myself.

But there is no evidence that Eluana is suffering. And there is a further complication: removal of the feeding tube means it would take her 10 days to die. It cannot be done clandestinely, so the story is played out in the media on a daily basis, and on balance they have handled it sympathetically.

Loss of dignity? Sanctity of human life? I don’t know. What I do know is that if it were me I would be very unhappy about my daughter’s life being played out in public, without her ever knowing.

Clarkson - Brown

The issue of what I don't suppose will come to be called Clarksongate could have been resolved easily by Brown's going to law. He could then have persuaded the court that
a he wasn't one-eyed or
b he wasn't Scottish or
c he wasn't an idiot.

Er.... perhaps his mother was Welsh?

Longleat in the snow

Photo by Robert Tilleard, who has recently completed a portrait of the Marquess of Bath, which hangs in the reception area at Longleat.

Tilleard also paints portraits of adults, children, animals as well as cherished objects and landscapes for the more proletarian amongst us, myself included. See http://www.tilleard.co.uk/

Another shameful disaster?

My reactions to the news that we are sending a team to bid for the 2018 Football World Cup alternated between humour and horror.

Could we please come back down to earth? It is going to be bad enough with the Olympics. Britain has a shameful record for bringing these grands projets in anything like on time or within budget. We have a transport system the quality of which would embarrass Cairo. The standard of the hotels is abysmal, it is near impossible to get a decent meal except at fantastic expense and, most important of all, listen to me, WE HAVEN'T GOT ANY MONEY.

Stop it! Lord love us!

A bit of Bob

Andrew Stuttaford quoted in Samizdata after Michael Phelps the swimmer had been caught smoking pot

'Look, I don't blame Michael Phelps for apologizing. He has a living to earn, so he did what he had to do.

In the meantime, I merely note that this broken wreck of a man's failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone's health - and a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.'

Quite

Foreigners

I am heartily fed up with the recent range of strikes in the oil industry. The unions are saying (wink to the knowing) that it is all unofficial, as if they have had nothing to do with it.

There is one fact to be considered here. The Treaty of Rome requires free movement of labour across the union, and subsequent treaties require free access to contract bidding by European members. Total (why did no one complain when a French company was investing in England, creating jobs for British workers?) has accepted a bid for some new building from an Italian firm which uses Italian and Portuguese labour. From within the EU. EU membership requires us to regard these workers not as foreign but as the same as us.

We now need the head of the TUC, and of the union, Unite, and the Chairman of the Labour Party, to confirm that it is the policy of all these bodies that we should belong to the EU (it is, isn't it?) and that we should conform with the treaties. And that they therefore regard these strikes as nothing other than racist.

For myself I do not believe it is in our interest to remain in the EU, but I still wouldn't stop Total employing whomever they want. I have a strong feeling that our chaps didn't get the contract because they were charging too much.

Racist is a word brought out rather too often for my taste but it will serve here.

Bearders

The BBC has had two cricket scorers since 1934 and to the great regret of Test Match Special listeners they are now looking for another. Bill Frindall, who has been in the job since 1966, has died from Legionnaires Disease, caught during a recent cricket tour to Dubai where he was both playing and scoring. He was 69.

I always wanted to ask him which batsman was most often out during the break for the shipping forecast (my own guess is Graham Hick).

I hope Frindall has bequeathed his detailed records to the BBC, or the nation. He is all but irreplaceable.

More on global warming

From the Corriere della Sera: the CTMA Vacancier, a ship with 300 passengers on board, is stuck in thick ice at the mouth of the St Lawrence river. Even an icebreaker from the Canadian coastguard failed to cut a passage through to the stranded people. Also the steamer Georges-Alexander-Lebel is stuck outside the port of Matane, 600km east of Montreal, which is completely iced in.

‘We’ve not seen a layer of ice this thick at the start of the year for a long time’ commented the general manager of one of the shipowners.

Burns Night

Today is the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. We are informed that it will be a celebration of Scottish culture.

Scottish WHAT?

Although seemingly thought by much of the British press to be Jewish, ‘Rabbi’ Burns was in fact a Lowland tax inspector, ratting on his countrymen to glean more money for the English.

My late mother claimed to be Scottish (as Lou Reed said, ‘you can’t always trust your mother’), but there will be no celebration here in Umbria for this turncoat, with morose, self-indulgent Scot-mongrels like me cross dressing, eating lamentable food, drinking spirits during dinner and reciting third rate poetry in a cod Lowland accent. The whole damn thing really ought to stop and be replaced by a celebration of James Watt who at least did something useful.

‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us’

And real men eat offal unadulterated by oatmeal.

Zsa Zsa Gabor

I read that Zsa Zsa Gabor had lost US$ 7m in the Bernie Madoff business. If I hadn't been already impoverished by another conman (Gordon Brown) I'd hold a whip round for the old trout, if only for this:

Q: What do you think of the male contraceptive?

ZZ: Depends what's in it for me, darlink.

Not watching Big Brother

Yesterday’s Alitalia flight AZ784 Rome/Tokyo was missing an air hostess and they took off without her (history does not, alas! record when they took off but we can assume it was as normal, within 2 or 3 hours of the scheduled time). The lady, Daniela Martani, had been in the Big Brother House since 12th January.

Alitalia says that missing her flight could result in her job being at risk.

Amazing.

Schoolboy in India

The prattish behaviour in India of the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, reminds me of one of his predecessors, the late Robin Cook. He was accompanying HM Queen on her visit to the country and also gave an unsolicited lecture on how he could solve the Kashmir problem. Aside from how we would have acted if an Indian Foreign Minister had arrived and lectured us on Northern Ireland, there is the added problem that in their view we are, at least in part, the cause of the problem.

What must they think of us? Apparently Mandelson has been sent out to repair the damage but the Indian PM is refusing to see him.

Cooky compounded his error by leaving the Queen in the lurch while he flew back to London to see his mistress, while Milly made things worse by calling the venerable Indian Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, by his first name. Manners are better in India.

Where, where do we get these people?

But granted that we have a schoolboy as Foreign Secretary, where was our Rolls Royce of a civil service to guide him through his trip? I have said it before and I am sure it won't be the last time, the British Foreign Office should be closed down in the public interest, the work contracted out to Switzerland and the enormous cost savings given to the poor.

Quote of the month

Apologies if you have already heard it. From Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary

"David Cameron's task is to turn the Conservative party from a party of Old Etonians and closet homosexuals into a party of homosexuals and closet Old Etonians."

Wow!

I have been at lunch parties in Wiltshire where you expected a couple of people to pass out, but to achieve this at your inaugural luncheon shows a determined start from the new President, after the long, dry Bush administration.

This is what Americans call 'hitting the sidewalk running'.