Lisbon 2

Actually it might be Lisbon 3, because who can forget the excellent Lisbon Agenda of 2000, which aimed to make the EU 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion', by 2010. Of course by the start of this year the EU had slipped down the international competitiveness list not up. It was the habit of Tony Blair to think you just had to announce the policy - no need actually to do anything about it - and the EU seems to have caught a bad dose of Blairitis.

No, what I am referring to is the possibilty of an amendment to the Lisbon Treaty. The German and French leaders, Merkel and Sarkozy, have met in Deauville (no need to worry about the small countries) and agreed to create a system of penalties for countries which have over-large budget deficits. This requires a change to the Treaty, and that requires unanimity. Which means that Britain has to vote for it.

I think this is a good time to remind everyone, including the man himself, that David Cameron has repeatedly promised to repatriate powers from Europe. This may be the only opportunity he ever has. At present there is talk that he will insist on the EU budget not increasing next year (the Eurocrats have asked for a 6% uplift) but this is nowhere near enough. They would have zero this year and 12% next year.

The first thing Cameron has to do is reinstate Britain's rebate, which is necessary because the design of the Common Agricultural Policy favours countries with small, inefficient farms and we lose out by being efficient. It's a crazy world. Tony Blair allowed the rebate to be greatly reduced in return for, not a promise, but a hint that the agricultural budget would be reviewed.

Next we must withdraw from the Working Time Directive. As we are coming out of recession and desperately need growth it is absurd that the European Union should be able to stop people working overtime. This is simply a means of stopping lazy countries getting uncompetitive - by preventing the others which want to work from doing so.

Last we must have a definite commitment to the end of the insane system of regional subsidy, where countries pay money to Europe and get some back only if they spend it on what the Eurocrats want it spent on. It is a gross infringement of our national sovereignty that we can't decide where our money goes

This, I repeat, will most likely be Cameron's one and only chance to do something about the iniquity of the EU. Suspending the year on year budget increase doesn't even come close to being enough. I don't want to prejudge the man but his record to date has not been encouraging. Let's see.

Public Corruption

Transparency International, an international anti-corruption organisation, has published its annual Corruption Perception Index, based on a number of international surveys covering 178 countries. Italy has not done well. 55th in 2008, 63rd last year, it is now 67th, with, amongst European countries, only Romania, Bulgaria and Greece rated lower.

Italy ranks as more corrupt than Rwanda.

Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada were at the top of the list, Germany 15th, UK 20th, USA 22nd and France 25th.

Italy's growth and the standard of living of its people are held back by corruption. Unproductive jobs are handed out to the wrong people; useless university professors are kept on into their 70s, denying a decent education to the promising young students; vast amounts of money go missing from public contracts. This is something Berlusconi might have turned his mind to, but hasn't; it is is something the oposition might have turned their minds to, but they haven't either; it is something the people should be rioting in the streets about, but they never know if they might be a beneficiary of the system.

Corruption costs a good 1% in annual growth.

And it will be just as bad next year.

Electoral Deception

There is very disturbing news from the Spectator's Coffee House blog and from the surprisingly independent Conservative Home blog to the effect that David Cameron intends, even if he wins the next election, to govern as a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

What this would mean is that the two parties would campaign separately of each other, with different policies, but then after you have voted might decide to adopt some of this party's policies, some of the other's, to govern on a programme which was never put to the electorate. You'll vote, and even if you vote decisively for a Conservative government, the political class will decide what's good for you (or rather for them).

If they cobbled together coalition policies before the vote, and told you about them, that would be OK. But Mr Cameron needs to be reminded continually over the next few years that this course, of deciding on the policies after the vote, is deeply undemocratic.

And may I ask in passsing what is the point of having the Queen as guardian of the constitution if she lets them get away with this kind of electoral deception?

Common naughtiness

A study by the Italian association of matrimonial lawyers suggests that 55% of Italian men betray their wives, whilst 45% of wives betray their husbands.

It seems frightfully high, although I recall that soon after arrival in Italy I was told accusingly that British husbands are the most unfaithful in the world, so Heaven knows what we Brits get up to.

Interestingly, we are told that 60% of infidelities occur in the lunch break. In France, by contrast, the hanky-panky is supposed to take place immediately after work - the famous 'cinq à sept'.

Again strange to our ears, it is men in their fifties who are most likely to betray.

British lunch breaks, at around 40 minutes, are far too short to get past mere flirtation. British 50 year olds are too tired to get past mere flirtation.

It must be going on among the unemployed.

Culture Report

The town of Castellammare di Stabia, on the bay of Naples, is to ban miniskirts, under devolved legislation designed to maintain public order.

The town authorities are going to find this unpopular and embarrassing. Presumably some hard working public servant will be required to measure the young ladies' hemlines.

Equally difficult to maintain are proposed bans on sunbathing and playing football in public places.

You will recall that the town of Furore, just down the coast near Amalfi, this year banned garden gnomes.

What are we coming to?

Your money in their hands

The European Parliament has voted for an increase in maternity leave on full pay to 20 weeks.

At present it is 14 weeks. That is to say that now, if you get pregnant, your employer has to pay for more than three months' holiday. Not your government, your employer, which might be struggling and thinking of making other people redundant (not a pregnant woman, of course, that would be illegal). You could get back on your first day and resign, simply trousering the money. The new vote is that this should now be 5 months.

No such conditions are available in the Far East, and that is where the jobs will go. Bad luck you unemployed people.

Of course if you are there among the comfortable restaurants of Brussels, simply collecting a decent salary, looking forward to a fantastic pension, the easiest thing to do is to vote for more nice things without having to consider the costs. This happens because the Euro MPs are not really accountable: in most European countries a party list means that the most important aparatchiks get the seats and get the jobs. Why vote against anything that hands out more money? Just stick to the party. Many people want the same thing for Britain.

We are all of us Europeans in, and in for, a bad recession, where costs need to be cut, things which you might have liked being no longer possible. These Brussels insiders have lost, if they ever had it, any connection  with the outside world.

This is another step in the case for leaving the EU.

aux armes, citoyens!

To British eyes, and I am sure to those of many other nations, the French pensions debacle seems strange. There have now been seven days of strikes and protests against Sarkozy's plan to raise the pensionable age from 60 to 62.

In Britain it has been 65 since the war, at a time when the life expectancy at birth was 65. Now a Frenchman can expect to live to nearly 80.

And France cannot afford its pension system, that is clear. So why all the fuss? What some are saying is that there is a political movement to oppose Sarkozy, and pensions are simply the chosen vehicle. This is in part due to the failure of the left to make any kind of serious opposition, and partly due to the French constitution which gives the French President the sort of powers you expect of an African dictator.

I must say Sarkozy seems a loathesome little man and one can quite understand why the French want rid of him. His most likely opponent at the next election would seem to be Dominic Strauss-Kahn, currently head of the IMF, but the neo-communist Martine Aubry is leader of the Socialists and doesn't look ready to stand aside.

The strikes and demos cannot last until the 2012 election so something has to give. Sixty-one and a half?

Defence Cuts

The whole point of a strategic defence review is that it should cover what we are actualy going to want from our armed services over the medium-term. I should have thought the most obvious criterion was that the public are no longer going to permit one of these insane international frolics like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Accordingly, when the Daily Telegraph wails that Britain can not independently fight a major war again, we should rejoice.

Let's just have minor ones. Or none.

In fact, service personnel will be cut from 175,000 to 158,000. Whereas we sent 45,000 soldiers to Iraq in 2003, we could now only send 30,000. I don't find that too shocking.

We really have to rid ourselves of the sentiment in all this - it is a shame if soldiers lose their jobs, but a lot of people are losing their jobs; it is a shame if we are not an international superpower, but then we were anyway so far behind America that it wasn't really relevant; it is a shame if we can't invade someone on the other side of the world: nor can France, Germany, Italy, Japan or Canada. That's why we belong to NATO, where we have been more than pulling our weight while others haven't.

We'll live.

Those aircraft crriers

I am indebted to Guido for reminding me of this.

It is from some time ago (the carriers now cost much more) so quite prescient

Your money in their hands

You will scarcely believe this, but it is true.


All the Satellite Navigation we have at the moment is courtesy of America. The US developed the GPS system which handles everything from the accurate positioning of shipping to getting you home from the restaurant on Friday night. It is given away free, but a more sophisticated system exists which can pinpoint you down to your little toenail; it is used for military purposes.

Some time ago the European Union decided it must have its own GPS, and it is called Galileo. Incidentally it is one of the most disturbing features of the EU recently that it feels it must copy America: President Rumpy goes everywhere in an Obama style motorcade, and we are spending €280 million on a White House style palace for him.

Anyway, Galileo, as you can imagine with a project run by bureaucrats who have never had any connection with the outside world, is running 10 years late and at a cost of €22 billion against its original budget of €2.6 billion. According to Open Europe, ‘The German government has admitted that "All in all, it is assumed, based on the currently available estimates, that the operating costs will exceed direct revenues, even in the long term."’

The project has been abandoned by industry, which sees no future in it, and abandoned by its Chinese partners, who have set up their own system, on the wavelengths which Galileo wanted to use, so Europe will now have to ask China’s permission to establish Galileo. Russia, India and Japan have also set up their own systems.

In fact the only people who want this are the Eurocrats: self-aggrandising functionaries who see no limit to the amount of your money they can spend.

Amanda Knox

An Italian MP, Rocco Girlanda, is to publish a book about Amanda Knox, the young American woman serving a sentence in Italy for the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia.

Girlanda is expected to say that Knox is very different to the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ image portrayed by the media.

Well, that may be true and it may not. What is certain is that a large amount of information, true or false, about Knox’s private life was released by police and court officials before the trial. This was in large part irrelevant to the trial but must have had an effect on the verdict. In any other civilised country the release of such material would be a serious contempt of court.

In Italy, by contrast, such activity is normal. Carabinieri and prosecution officials sell information to press, who are allowed to publish it.

When Berlusconi tried to pass a law to stop this corrupt practice he was shouted down for trying to conceal vital information, on the grounds that the Italian legal process is so long that information on, say, public figures should be available to the press otherwise it is years until it is known.

Whatever Berlusconi’s motives, this is nonsense. Reform of the trial system would be easy if there were the will to do it. Release of irrelevant information about the accused, as happened to Amanda Knox, is unforgiveable.

Knox's appeal is scheduled for next month.

Tea for Silvio

Following the success in America of the TEA Party candidates, Silvio Berlusconi has said that Italy needs the same sort of movement for the centre right.

It is easy to see why this wouldn’t work. The American acronym is for ‘Taxed Enough Already’ and whilst this is certainly true of Italy, and certainly true that a large percentage of voters are concerned about it, taxation is in the hands of the government which is in the hands..er.. of Silvio. He’s been in long enough that if there’s something wrong it is his fault.

Where Silvio is right is that his party has been finding it difficult getting its message across. In part this is because the story always seems to be Silvio himself, but in part it has got used to defining itself as ‘not the socialists’. This has worked OK electorally but can’t work forever.

What is the centre right for? A proposed Partito di Tè figurehead was Daniela Santanche, an authoritarian anti immigrant politician. That isn’t going to win many votes. Maybe the Right is for economic reform, but again it merely seems to be emphasising ‘not as little reform as the other lot’. Why hasn’t Silvio reduced taxes? That would involve upsetting some people. Cutting waste would upset others. But that is what successful reformers do: Thatcher, Reagan, even Sarah Palin upset people. It is what Silvio should have done and may now be his only hope if the Left were to find a popular champion.

A movement, a defined direction of travel, could keep the Centre Right in power in Italy for a long time. It wouldn’t just have to be about cuts (although there is plenty of low hanging fruit there): properly collecting taxes from those who should be paying them, fighting corruption and nepotism, these would open the eyes of voters who are currently not really involved.

Umberto Bossi’s Northern League is opening branches in southern Umbria, 100km from Rome. If Silvio doesn’t do something he may find himself squeezed from both sides.

News from the confused

The sale of Liverpool Football Club appears to have gone ahead, happening, conveniently for the British media, just as its last obsession, with the Chilean miners, has got less interesting (nobody died). This news from the world of sport has created more column inches of hysteria than if BP had been sold to the French.

The story is simply told. The club had been owned, or at least controlled, by two Americans, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. It had been doing very badly of late, facing the possibility of being demoted from the Premier League (although the football season runs from August to May so there is plenty of time to go). The fans were upset: one wrote on a sports blog: ‘looking out of my office window I saw four Liverpool fans playing football with a hedgehog. I was disgusted and about to ‘phone the animal welfare when the hedgehog went 1-0 up.’

Anyway, back to the Americans (why Americans? That, and the position of the fans, is what I want to address here). Gillett defaulted on a loan and his shares were in the hands of the bank, which decided to accept an offer from an American company called NESV and that meant, within the complex structure of ownership, that Hicks was outvoted and had to accept the money.

Mr Hicks said ‘I’m shocked, devastated and frustrated. I’m very disappointed’ showing that during his time in English Football he had at least mastered the strange, hyperbolic argot in which the proceedings are described.

Now, football is an odd business. The customers (fans) feel they own the business, even though it is clear they don’t (I remember during a similar battle at Manchester United posters saying ‘Man. Utd. Is not for sale’, when it manifestly was). You get this a little in the business world, with some branded products having vocal supporters, but nowhere near to the extent you see in football.

The fans’ wishes are easily explained: they want to win, win the Premier League, win the European Cup, win everything. Which is why Liverpool’s new controlling figure, John W Henry, was keen to make this his statement: ‘We want to win!’

But does he? Is winning his only goal (apologies for that)? The way this whole thing works is that Liverpool, or Manchester or Chelsea, is a brand and a brand has to be developed to make money. Winning is important for TV income and sponsorship, but the first four teams qualify for the major competitions so Mr Henry won’t at all mind coming fourth. He knows the score (sorry). A football club borrows to buy players and that debt is serviced by the income, which comes in large part from the fans, going to see the matches, buying the shirts and other memorabilia, watching the captive TV channel with its advertising etc. Mr Henry also owns the Boston Red Sox, a baseball team, but his home market is saturated: the fans and the TV won’t pay any more and no one wants to pile up too much debt in this climate. He is rubbing his hands as he lands at Heathrow, because this new market is run by some of the most stupid, outdated people in the world of sport. Businessmen like suckers.

At nearby Manchester City and at Chelsea, fabulously rich individuals have bought the clubs, perhaps for their amusement. Not Mr Henry. He is a businessman and wants a return. The supporters shouldn’t celebrate too early: it is they who will be milked to produce that return.

Education in Britain

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's report 'How fair is Britain' has some shocking information. Much of it is concerned with regional health figures and death rates in different parts of the country (don't live in Scotland) but amongst other statistics it states that only two thirds of people in lower social economic categories achieved functional literacy, and only one third of them achieved functional numeracy.

These are figures which should have shocked a third world country. They are the result of decades of incompetence and socialist meddling.

I am in favour of the current government's Free Schools initiative, but it is clear that we should consider any new educational policy as long as it isn't more of what we already have.

Those figures again: a third of people in working class households are illiterate and two thirds of them innumerate.

Good Grief.

Disaster in Germany

This blog works hard to keep its readers updated about important international developments and it regrettably has to report a lamentable decision by a German Court.

According to Der Spiegel, the Duesseldorf Court has banned the Bierbike. For those of you not in the know, a Bierbike is a pedal driven device capable of seating sixteen and equipped with a bar. Good, eh?

The Bierbike represents all that is best of clever German engineering, capable of travelling through the main streets of the city at 6 km/h and keeping its occupants refreshed.

The court has declined to issue a permit on the grounds that people might fall off.

Too bloated to know how much it's got

The Telegraph reports that the Office for National Statistics estimates that government property is worth something like £370bn. However, there is no comprehensive register of the entire portfolio and some City experts believe the estate could be worth £500bn.

The figure of £370 billion means £6,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It is a clear indication of how grotesquely we have allowed the State to grow. And there is no comprehensive register: they don't even know how much property they own.

With Sir Philip Green's statement that he can save billions without firing a single State employee I am wondering whether we can make the required cuts without too much effort.

The big threat of such a big state is to our democracy. The fact that it can own hundreds of billions of pounds worth of property without knowing exactly how much or what precisely it is, is an indication that it has accreted in power without reference to the people who theoretically own it and to whom it owes its fealty.

Time to start cutting.

Sachin

I had an amusing discussion with an Italian friend about who was the world's most famous sports star. Most Italians can remember the World Cup winning team of 2006, and know of Valentino Rossi the former world motorbike champion, but of course the answer is Sachin Tendulkar, treated almost as a god by a billion Indians.

I wrote a couple of years ago that he had passed 12,000 test runs, and now he has passed 14,000. His nearest challenger, Ricky Ponting of Australia, had to sweat in the field as he made 191 not out yesterday and finished on 214 today. Ponting is 2,000 runs behind.

This is Sachin's 49th Test century. His test average this year is 84. He seems to be getting better and better.

Joan Sutherland

Strange thing. After my article a couple of days ago about the appalling Nigella Lawson, which mentioned Joan Sutherland, I wrote to a friend that I had automatically written 'the late Joan Sutherland' and on checking found that she was still alive.

Now, alas, she is dead, aged 83. She sang her first leading role at the Royal Opera House in 1952 and received her title 'La Stupenda' from the audience at La Fenice in 1960.

I am now bending my thoughts on the late Jonathan Ross.

Well, quite

Matthew d'Ancona in the Telegraph: 'You know the type: the kind of small-government Tory who would happily see the entire machinery of the state reduced to Her Majesty the Queen, a single nuclear missile, and subsidised radio coverage of all Test matches.'

Come to Libya!

Today's Sunday Telegraph carries a surprise interview with Aisha Gaddafi, the great Colonel's daughter.

She is described as 'defender of Saddam, supporter of the IRA and UN Goodwill Ambassador', three accolades you don't often see together.

'Come to Libya, you are all most welcome' she says.

In fact on a visit to London 10 years ago Aisha stood up at Speaker's Corner and gave a long tirade in favour of the IRA. She does not say whether those of us who accept her offer to visit Libya will be allowed to stand up in central Tripoli and speak in support of terrorist groups trying to overthrow the Libyan Government. Well, it's worth a try, I suppose.

Speculation that Aisha might succeed her father (who is 68) is apparently inaccurate: the favourite is her brother Mutassim.

Norman Wisdom

I didn't post an obituary for Norman Wisdom, largely because I didn't like his work. Nothing wrong with portraying the ingénu, but he always seemed to be trying too hard for his laughs, erring on the side of mocking disability and misfortune.

I now learn that someone posted on Wikipedia that he wrote the song 'There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover'.

Of course he didn't.

The Guardian and the Mirror duly printed the story. I know newspapers are having to cut costs but just a little bit of checking.....

UK Defence

Whenever costs are being squeezed the departmental PR machine goes into overdrive. None do this better than the ministry of defence which alternates from mawkish support of our 'brave boys' to warnings of the massed hordes of foreign invaders threatening the channel ports.

Something has to give, somewhere, of course. An article in the Telegraph by retired General Sir Richard Dannatt probably shows the way things are going. Dannatt is well connected in Tory circles and would hardly have been allowed to write the article if it weren't what the Government were trying to project.

The article suggests that one of the two new aircraft carriers, which is already half built and paid for, should be kept on, but in mothballs. The saving on the other one and the reduction in the number of aircraft needed would pay for more frigates. We would pull out of Germany and those soldiers could be based at the airbases which would no longer be needed. Apart from scrapping some tanks and heavy artillery the army and the Royal Marines would be kept roughly as they are.

There is a lot of imprecise mumbling about the nuclear deterrent, some saying it would be Trident based, others going out of their way to avoid mentioning Trident at all. Whatever, the decision will be delayed as long as possible. For myself I have always wondered whether we couldn't replace it with something which made a smaller - but still substantial - bang, and cost half as much. Say big enough to bust an Iranian subterranean silo but not big enough to destroy every Iranian city at the same time. A smaller bomb could be delivered from a variety of different platforms, which would surprise Johnny Foreigner just as much as it coming from a secret submarine.

Probably wrong.

The Conservatives

I have watched a little of the Conservative Conference. George Osborne did quite well, Theresa May did well under the circumstances (the Home Office brief is the toughest one at Conservative conferences, where most of the attendees will be satisfied with little less than the reintroduction of capital and corporal punishment).

It seemed that each speaker had been ordered to use the words 'in the national interest' at least twice. Some said almost nothing else.

The problem with political parties espousing the national interest is that our traditional way of expressing it is through the ballot box and nobody voted for the coalition, for the simple reason it wasn't on the ballot paper.

The coalition's policies are concocted in the political classes' interests, and we shall see in due course if they conform with the national one.

Geert Wilders

The trial of Geert Wilders, the leader of the third party in Holland, on five charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims, has been halted. Just one of the problems of this sort of legislation is that people can't help displaying their anti-racial views to jump on the bandwagon. In this case, when Wilders, quite legally, I think, exercised his right to remain silent the judge seemed to accuse him of avoiding argument, suggesting that he often had.

The judge will probably have to be replaced and the trial abandoned or started again. Every minute this goes on is wonderful publicity for Wilders.

Most of the accusations stem from his film Fitna. I have seen it, and you can too if this link works

http://www.wildersontrial.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38:fitna&catid=6:content

I have not posted it because it shows some pretty violent stuff, including one scene I rather wish I hadn't seen. But it did not seem to me to incite racial hatred. Most of it showed scenes of Muslims exciting their own kind to racial hatred against Christians and Jews and homosexuals, with several which were clear incitement to murder. I'm afraid if this is what the Dutch prosecution service is going after they are making asses of themselves.

The film does compare parts of the Koran with Mein Kampf but to be honest as regards the bits about slaughtering Jews the Koran is much stronger stuff (and of course better written).

Geert Wilders may be all right, he may be a nasty piece of work, but this film merely purports to show that Holland is too tolerant of an intolerant minority which is trying to change its way of life. That's not incitement, it's politics. Given that, we can only regard his prosecution as an attack on his freedom of speech.

'I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it' as Voltaire never said (it was one of his mates). I'm afraid we have to defend him.

Universal Benefits

Here is where we are in British politics. Everyone, or rather most people, understand that there must be reductions in spending budgets (as I have mentioned before there will not be public expenditure cuts, public expenditure will rise in each of the next five years, each year more than the previous) but as soon as the Chancellor outlines a reduction everyone complains it is too horrid.

It is perfectly ridiculous that we pay child benefit to people who are comfortably off, and it is perfectly ridiculous that we should give them free TV licences, free bus passes and a winter fuel allowance (which they even receive in their flats in Marbella).

Poor people are paying taxes to give money to the rich. Surely, recession or no recession, the age of universal benefits must be finished with.

Nigeria

Yesterday was of course the 50th anniversary of independence for Nigeria. It has a population of 155 million, equally divided between two religions and three main tribes, none of whom get on with each other. Corruption is rife. It is the world's 8th largest exporter of oil, but fails to meet optimum production levels due to terrorism.

It is hard to know where to start, but we wish them well. The President is called Goodluck Jonathan.

Alles gute zum Geburtstag

Germany today celebrates 20 years of East and West being united. Of course they were united between 1871 and 1945 so you could say the country was only separated for 45 years.


But in those 45 years the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle made the West rich and the East poor. When monetary reunification was achieved the then Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, insisted that it should be at 1 Deutsche Mark = 1 Ostmark, many times the black market rate, but despite this nominal transfer of wealth the East remains poor, with high unemployment and low investment. Not as bad as it was, but still poor.

Despite Angela Merkel having grown up in the East, none of her ministers has and no one of any importance in the business world has either.

Still, the Germans are to be congratulated on making a good fist of a near impossible task. It may just be that it takes 20 years longer than they expected.

The BBC: this is what you pay for

A strange article by William Langley in the Telegraph is an encomium to Nigella Lawson: ‘La Stupenda of the blender’. I don’t know if it also supposed to be some sort of insult to Dame Joan Sutherland.

Incidentally what do you think about a man called Nigel naming his daughter Nigella? Just a little bit...um...Still, it is the name for the flower Love-in-a-mist which is nice if cheesy.

Which brings me on to the programme, which by a miracle of modern technology I managed to watch, Nigella’s ‘You know it makes sense’.

Ms Lawson enters her Belgravia kitchen wearing a denim jacket, a garment so preposterously unsuited to her image and figure as to make you sure it was some sort of statement, without knowing of what. The kitchen is a mixture of the old and the modern, with endless rows of fairy lights, as if Marguerite Patten were sharing a flat with Liberace. Perhaps that is what is going on here. There is an element of the 1950s ‘hostess with the mostest’ about her act.

Ms Lawson is larger than life, and at times, with some deft camera work, of which there is an unnecessary amount, larger than you would have thought possible. I remember that when she tried unsuccessfully to make a success in America a critic warned that it was impossible in that country to be successful with such a big bottom. It is not however her bottom that we have forced on us: the camera is fixed on, one might say fixated by, her substantial bosom. Some might like it, some might not, but in a culture obsessed by slimness it looks odd. Again, you might feel – I did – that it is regrettable that it looks odd; a tubby male cook looks cheery: ‘let me have men about me that are fat’. Then you realise it is not her size, it's the way she dresses. A 1950s negligé suitable for the seaside landlady chatting up the gentleman in Room 3. Whatever, odd is what it looks.

Not as odd, however as her facial and verbal expression. In between awful clichéd homilies – ‘I love the kitchen’, ‘I believe in life you take your pleasures where you can’ her full lips and perfect teeth form a welcome-to-my-world smile so patronising that you want to cough up ‘my short pasta and salami stew’. ‘I love thinking about food’ (huge soupy smile) ‘I love cooking food’ (h.s.s.), ‘I rather like eating food’ (h.s.s.). You should be as lucky as Nigella.

I watched the programme aghast at its awfulness. It is a commonplace to criticise Italian television but Berlusconi at his worst would be quite incapable of producing this bilge.

It could happen to anyone

The cyclist, Alberto Contador, found to have the banned substance clenbuterol in his system, has said that it came from contaminated food.

Have you eaten contaminated food? Containing performance enhancing drugs?  Good Lord, have I?

If my friends report me hurtling round the Umbrian hills on a bicycle, you will know the answer.

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis, the actor, has died aged 85.

His line in some forgettable Mediaeval drama 'Yarnder lies der Cassel of my Fadder' epitomised the contribution of Hollywood to the arts.

Berlusconi Redux

Sometimes I think of European politics in the way of a weather forecast: Germany stable with slight rumblings of thunder, France serious thunder, depression, Holland and Belgium (see below) no one has a clue what is going on, Greece – well, you can guess.

But what of Italy? To recap quickly, Berlusconi’s governing People of Liberty coalition (PdL) had essentially three elements: his own Forza Italia grouping, Gianfranco Fini’s former ex-fascist National Alliance (AN) and Umberto Bossi’s Northern League.

Fini, as the natural successor of a 73 year old leader, might have chosen to keep his head down, but he said he could not tolerate Berlusconi making laws to keep himself out of prison and led a breakaway group.

Berlusconi enunciated 5 principles on which he would govern. It was the fifth (shorter trials) which contained the Get out of Jail card. Fini said he would support only those policies contained in the manifesto.

Bossi wanted an election (his party is doing very well in the polls) but Berlusconi went for a vote of no confidence, which he won last night. Out of 620 present, 342 voted for Berlusca, 275 against.

Silvio says that this means his government is stable. Cynics point to the fact that he can only rely on 303 core votes. For the rest he is dependent on Fini’s group.

My guess is that Berlusconi will be able to battle on – what can Fini achieve by calling an election? The future depends on how the economy goes, and it could go either way.

Genius

The European Union, in a brilliant response to the problem of countries running excessive deficits proposes to...er.. fine them. Countries which haven't got any money will have money taken away from them. So their deficits will be worse.

Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the Commission, said this would be "a sea change in the way economic governance is dealt with in the European Union".

It seems to be a sea change from common sense.

The commission insists that 3% is the maximum level of deficit which can be permitted.

Current deficits are: Germany 3.3%, Italy 5.3%, France 7.5%,  Spain 11.2%

Great to have such clever people in charge.

A result!

Finally there is some sort of government in the Netherlands. After nearly four months of negotiations, a government has been formed with the tacit approval of Geert Wilders' PVV party.

Mr Wilders, a noted Islamophobe, is currently on trial, charged with incitement to hatred.

Neighbouring Belgium still doesn't have a proper government.

Another couple of triumphs for proportional representation

Anyone will do

I think we all feel sorry for David Miliband, who having gained the support of both MPs and the membership was narrowly beaten by the Unions' placeman, his brother Ed.

However there are rumours that he will give up politics and become Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

Hold on there.

This is an important job, affecting the lives of billions of people. Miliband may be a worthy individual but he is not a banker and clearly does not have a sound grasp of economics.

We cannot have crucial roles like this being handed out to failed politicians because they need some sort of compensation, an income even. Dominic Strauss-Kahn was bad enough. The banana man would be even worse, an insult to the third world as well as to the developed world.

No.

Gaza again

The Economist says that the Crazy Water park in Gaza has been torched by heavies from the Qassam Brigades, the militant wing of Hamas, the regional government in Gaza.

Supposedly to stiffen Gazans’ resolve, the Qassam Brigades have begun to suppress the emerging good life in the strip. A squad of heavies torched Crazy Water, a new resort, in which Mr Haniyeh’s economics adviser has a stake. Mr Meshal was said to have fumed at the sight of a video that showed girls and boys cavorting in the resort’s pools, a far cry from the “resistance culture” he would like to foster.

The Beach restaurant, a favourite for secular types, including foreign aid workers, was closed for three days after police nabbed a woman smoking a water-pipe.

As I reported, Gaza has a higher literacy rate and a lower infant mortality rate than Turkey, with a similar GDP per head. Now the lunatics who run it are determined to reduce everyone to penury and hunger, to make their political point.

The EU is a massive 'aid' donor to Gaza, which receives far more per head than is given to Africa. It ought to stop.

Confusion in France

The former French cabinet minister and, some say, rival to Carla Bruni Sarkozy, Rachida Dati, seems to have confused in a statement inflation (l'inflation) with oral sex (la fellation).




Oral sex is a manufactured thrill highly enjoyable for a time until reality dawns.

This is an insight the current finance minister, Christine Lagarde, may never have had. Her replacement is now obvious.

Bryan Ferry

Bryan Ferry collects his pension today. God I feel old

Habemus papam

So, after 150 days of nail biting tension, when sometimes the excitement (I'm stopping you there, Ed.) the Labour Party has chosen a new leader. It's..er.. a bloke called Miliband.

I believe they have chosen the wrong one; easy with two identical surnames on the ballot. Ed is the younger and more old labour of the two. His first problem, given that David Miliband won more votes from the MPs and the members, is that he will be seen as the candidate imposed by the unions, and the unions are about to become very unpopular, with a series of strikes which, they barely conceal, are political in nature.

Ed's second problem is that he has evinced a belief that his party can win using its core vote. I do not believe that to be the case. Brother David would have reached out to other voters.

All Ed can now do is moan about the cuts, while there are signs that the people believe them to be necessary.

Lastly, I think this is a good race in which to have come second. Unless the next few years are a disaster, the voters will be giving another chance to Mr Cameron. If Ed loses narrowly in 2015 he will be allowed to stay on. If he loses badly his career will be over almost before it has begun.

I hope Ed enjoyed the celebrations last night. They look to be his last bit of fun for a while.

La vendemmia

A difficult year: it was wet when it should have been dry, cool when it should have been warm and sometimes hot when it should have been only warm.


We picked early because the weather is deteriorating, which is a risk.  However we have an acceptable quantity of acceptable looking must, and it now remains for the winemaker to screw it up turn it into something drinkable.

Vince Cable

I have just been listening to the conference speech of John 'Vince' Cable and have been left with the impression that the Tories have got into bed with some very strange people indeed.

Perhaps I could just say something about bank bonuses. Britain had, essentially, four large banks. Two of them, Lloyds and Natwest, have been bailed out by the taxpayer while the other two, HSBC and Barclays, have not.The government has no business telling the independent banks what to pay their staff, so if there are two jobs for a dealer and Barclays is offering £1 million whereas Natwest is constrained to offer £25,000 plus luncheon vouchers, it is pretty obvious where the talented staff are going to go. But we need talented staff in these temporarily nationalised banks to make top profits to improve the valuation of the bank to let us get our money back.

There is public concern at bankers but it is being misdirected. The recession didn't happen because of bankers' bonuses and Vince Cable knows it. The dealers (these are the people who get the big bonuses)were encouraged by the senior management to take risks. Why? Because Gordon Brown had made money too loose, interest rates too low. The banks were over-leveraged. Why, you might ask, didn't the Bank of England have a quiet word with some of them, as it has always done in the past, and just warn them to behave rationally? Because Gordon Brown took the job away from the Bank of England and gave it to some other people who didn't have a clue what they were doing.

Lastly it would have been easy to make the banks ringfence the capital of their traditional businesses (the bits you and I see) and when what Cable regards as the casino bit got into trouble we could have let them go under. Simples.

It is no good Cable railing that capitalism is sometimes horrid. It is, but it has made us rich.

Must be the olive oil

A true story from hereabouts.

Giuseppe (not his real name) likes to dance. At the local celebrations where there is accordion music he has the habit of pulling some lady on to the dance floor for a jig.

At a recent one the lady, an American, complained that his behaviour on the dance floor was 'inappropriate'.

Giuseppe, who receives my warmest compliments, is 91.

Nick Clegg

'Nick Clegg says it's up to athletes about Delhi' ran the headline. The Delhi Commonwealth games look a complete shambles but the big news is that finally a British politician, asked to put his nose in where it really wasn't wanted, declined.

Congratulations, Mr.Clegg.

The minimum wage

The Government has announced increases to the minimum wage to take effect from October. The basic minimum wage will increase from £5.80 to £5.93, an increase of just over 2% and the starting age will be 21, not 22. There are similar increases to the rates for younger workers and a new apprenticeship rate.

OK, I know it's not much, but I still think it's a mistake. The minimum wage keeps people who could and would work for less out of the jobs market. Minimum wage earners are disproportionally likely to work for small companies, which is where we are expecting our growth to come from.

A lot of political bullets are going to have to be bitten during the austerity measures and this should have been one of them.

Si forent Christiani

A mean spirited and ignorant little letter in the Guardian the other day, signed by the great and lefty good, including Stephen Fry, has got me thinking about spirituality in Britain.

On the last ‘Any Questions’ on BBC Radio someone asked whether there is ‘an aggressive new atheism’ in Britain. The first respondent said that he didn’t recognise such a thing and the others dutifully and leftily followed suit.

I am afraid I recognise it only too well. It is not just the ubiquitous Richard Dawkins, whose aggressive atheism is paraded almost daily in the Press. Dawkins is beginning to look a fool, or at the very least a bore. His fellow anti-spiritualists – fifty signed the letter to the Guardian – would have you believe that they are providing a balance to an already established religious perspective, but it goes further than that. The thrust of the letter was that whilst the Pope should be allowed to come here and talk quietly to his flock (Oh! Thanks, Stephen) it should not be accorded the level of State visit. Now the Vatican is of course a State, recognised by our Government as such, and plenty of other states are against contraception and abortion and doubtful about allowing equal status to homosexuals in matters such as marriage and adoption. And we never heard Fry and his cronies complain about their visits.

No, this is a specific hatred of the Roman Catholic Church. And these lefties hate it so because it has a billion followers (each Sunday, despite being very much a minority in Britain, there are more Roman Catholics in Church than Anglicans). It is credible, is their problem, not only believable but believed.

And their answer? To prevent it from being heard. This is the new intellectual* fascism: they don’t even want you free to think about things they don’t approve of. They want the other side of the debate banned.

I’m afraid, however, that the new ‘aggressive atheism’ in Britain is in part also assisted by our terror of Muslims. No one pretends that if the BA stewardess had been wearing some sort of Islamic symbol she would have been forced to take it off. Nor do we pretend that she had to remove her crucifix for any other reason than that a Muslim might have been offended. When a bus travelled round London plastered with the message ‘There is no such thing as God’, several people suggested that for equality’s sake other buses should be festooned with ‘There is no such thing as Allah’. Fat chance. An executive from the BBC admitted that whilst he thought it would be permissible to burn a bible on screen, he would not allow the burning of a Koran. We welcome people from other faiths into our country and then pay Danegeld so they are not upset.

So any burgeoning spirituality in Britain is squeezed by the atheist left on one side and by the Muslims on the other.

This is Pope Benedict’s task (I think we have already given up on Rowan Williams who wouldn’t say boo to a goose). Si forent Christiani.

*I once heard Stephen Fry described as 'a stupid person's opinion of what an intellectual is like'

Still here!

Silly me. At the time of writing der Vater is still in Britain, having completed his State Visit thing and now gone to Birmingham to beatify John Henry Newman, local boy made good.

I have always been mildly curious about Newman, without having done any particular research about him, and so I was surprised to read this in the Financial Times.

The thrust of the article (and it is worth reading in full) is that McRatzinger was a Newmanite until the late '60s when he was lecturing in Tubingen and a number of protesters broke in, disrupting his lesson. From then on he went away from Newman's teaching and became more authoritarian. Newman, you see, had taught that the plurality of the church, ie most catholics, should believe something for it to be accepted as dogma. Translated into contraception (almost certainly) and abortion (possibly) this might make for dogma which the Pope, and his predecessor, and almost all the Popes before that, disagreed. So why is he beatifying him?

Interesting stuff.

Non Angli sed Angeli

The Pope has left Britain, with a smile on his face and to an extent a smile on the country's face. The quote above, from Gregory the Great, on discovering some English slaves and declaring them to be Angels rather than Angles, in fact continues 'si forent Christiani': they should be made Christians.

Perhaps that's what McRatzinger has in mind. An uphill struggle, as I shall be commenting in a later post.

Jimi

Jimi Hendrix died 40 years ago today

It's hard to believe

Annabel and the Chookie

It seems a new tartan has been created for the Pope’s visit to Scotland. The carefully designed pattern blends white and yellow (the colours of the Vatican), white and blue (the colours of Scotland), white and red (the colours of the arms of John Henry Newman, who will be beatified by Pope Benedict XVI during the visit), and green for the lichens growing on the stones at Whithorn, site of St. Ninian's church (the Pope arrived in Scotland on St Ninian’s day).

The plaid will be an heirloom of the McRatzinger clan for generations (surely he hasn’t got any children? Ed.)

Prince Philip, known in those parts as Chookie Enbra, was among the jamboree, having been sent to collect the Pope from the airport. We have heard little from this wonderful man for a bit, but he seemed to be on prime form. Noticing several of the great and good were wearing ties of the material, His Royal Highness zoomed unerringly on to the leader of the Scottish Tories, Annabel Goldie, and asked, in view of the fact she wasn’t wearing a tie, whether she was wearing knickers made of the tartan. The 60 year old spinster’s stuffed frog reply, that she couldn’t discuss the matter and in any case it would be inappropriate to show them, just made it one of those classic moments.

McRatzinger has now come down to meet the agressive new atheism south of the border.

Kasper bows out

As a businessman I would always hesitate to tell a line manager where he was going wrong with his staff, but if the proposed summit between this blog and the Holy See goes ahead, I shall have to tell Christ’s Vicar on Earth that Cardinal Walter Kasper, whose job title is to promote Christian unity around the world, is scarcely pulling his weight.


In an interview with the German magazine Focus the cardinal, said to be an expert on ecumenical language, appears to have said that “When you arrive at Heathrow you think at times that you’ve landed in a Third World country”, and that Christians in Britain were discriminated against “above all by an aggressive new atheism. If you wear a cross on British Airways, you are discriminated against.”

Of course we all rather think the same on arrival at Heathrow. With its polyglot thousands milling around, often pushing mattresses or carpets in shopping trolleys, its inadequate and poorly cleaned lavatories and its disgraceful bars and restaurants your first thought might have been Delhi.

And there is no doubt that Britain is governed by an aggressive new atheism. It is evident not so much in British Airways as in the BBC, the Government and among the scientists. Perhaps it is better that these things are finally aired but I think it a mistake for an expert n ecumenical language charged with pushing Christian Unity to be the bloke airing them.

The Vatican says that Cardinal Kasper, who looks a jolly soul, has been suffering from gout, and I know myself that this illness can easily make you grumpy. The key is to expect it, and carry your medicine with you at all times. My rule was that if I wanted to say that Britain was a third world country I would instantly take a pill, whereas if I found myself promoting an auto-da-fe of women priests in Hyde Park I would take two.

You couldn't make it up

It seems that Gordon Brown will be a visiting fellow at Harvard, lecturing on good government.

I can only say that Americans must think Obama is truly, truly dreadful.

Next scoop: Princeton's Applied Economics Department recruits Fidel Castro

The Browns are seen here modelling clothes from their latest range.

Bomb at the tower

The Eiffel Tower has had to be evacuated after a bomb scare. I am surprised this hasn't happened before: it is the most visited monument in the world for which you have to pay to get in.



Guy de Maupassant once said he always had lunch there because it was the the only place in Paris you couldn't see the thing.

Wilkommen der Pope

I am not uncritical of the Pope, or of the Vatican, and in my urbi et orbi message on the Feast of All Fools suggested they smother the old boy.

However I have been increasingly supportive of his visit to the UK, in part because of the flood of feminists and lefties complaining that he doesn't approve of abortion or women priests, just like all his predecessors (He's the Pope, for God's sake). I don't see why we should only invite people to this country that we agree with, or rather that the bien pensant army of right-on lefties agrees with.

Two little snippets of information caught my fancy: The ANSA news agency says that British bookies are taking bets on the possibility of the Popemobile having a puncture or being involved in an accident (currently 26-1 and 67-1). I don't know: it's a Mercedes, not a 1956 FIAT 500. I hope these odds aren't based on inside knowledge: this is a spiritual visit, not a Pakistani cricket match.

The second, reported in the Telegraph, is that at 2pm on the day of the Holy Father's visit, all the bars in the Palace of Westminster will be closed. Why? They don't close for the State Opening, attended by the only other person in Europe who is Head of State and Head of a Church. Are they worried the old boy will join the line for the early evening G & T and stay a bit too long?

That must be it.

Turkey

Turkey has had a referendum on its constitution which the governing party, led by Mr Erdogan, has won.

The changes will weaken the position of the army, and make it impossible to ban political parties, which seem to be good things. That’s not what it is really about, though.

The constitution which Ataturk instituted after the First World War provided for a secular state, and the army was sworn to uphold it. Mr Erdogan’s AK party has strong Muslim leanings, and the changes to the constitution will make it a lot easier for Turkey to become an Islamic state now, rather than a secular country with lots of Muslims in it..

So when the referendum result was welcomed by Britain and America, they weren’t really telling the unvarnished truth. This could turn out to be rather bad in the medium term.

I have said it before and it is worth repeating: in the end we shall greatly regret not welcoming Turkey into the EU.

9/11

I wasn’t going to write anything about the assault on the twin towers – the ninth anniversary of anything isn’t terribly interesting – and the event looks as if it is going to be more famous for what the West did in response to it than for what actually happened. Billions of dollars spent and scores of thousands dead.

In passing, I am rather surprised that there is still nothing there, after nine years. You would have thought the traditionally industrious Americans would have thrown up a skyscraper in a matter of months. They obviously need more Chinese.

One typically daft anniversary celebration has been from the Evangelist minister who was going to burn the Koran, or several of them. Obama has predictably gone over the top, the Secretary General of the UN felt unable to remain silent, and even the normally level headed General Petraeus has said the act could endanger American troops.

I must say if I were an Afghan or Iraqi, with an occupying force in my country, and it had descended almost into lawlessness, I wouldn’t be too worried if some nutcase in their country were burning books. Other preoccupations, you see.

The minister, or pastor, is called Terry Jones, like the 1970s comedian, and is the spiritual sustenance of a congregation of about 50 in the Dove Outreach Centre of Gainesville, Florida. Jones now claims he has done a deal with a New York imam that he will not burn the Korans if they don’t set up a proposed mosque and Muslim centre near ‘Ground Zero’.

The Dove Outreach Centre doesn’t look in much better shape than Ground Zero. Part of the cross on the wall seems to have fallen off. I should have thought this an important part of the fabric of the building, and suppose it is what comes of spending all your money on Islamic literature.

Anyway, I have friends who live in the Ground Zero area and they say that the proposed site for the mosque is in a deserted alley nobody ever goes down, and that no one local gives a stuff whether there will be a mosque or a Dove Outreach Centre.

I spend a fair bit of time advising people to forget their grievances over the second world war and I now think Americans should lighten up a bit about 9/11. Let's let them have their cultural centre, and let's not spoil the valuable work of reaching out to Gainesville's doves with the smell of burning books. That smell has assocations, Terry, and they are the wrong ones for you.

More WWII madness

Erika Steinbach has had to resign her post in Chancellor Merkel's government for a statement she made about the beginnings of World War II. She said, and I am not joking here, that Poland shared some responsibility for the start of the war because it had mobilised its army in March 1939, six months before the Germans invaded.

It is not just the stupidity of this remark that concerns me, it is why it was made. Are people in Germany searching for some new theory about the war's origins? The vast majority would rather the matter were not mentioned. So why is it a preoccupation for a woman born after the events took place?

It's got to stop. It really has to.

Get your shoes off

It is reported that a man has thrown a shoe at George Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece. In this case it was apparently for allowing Greek sovereignty to be pooled into Europe, a little ironic since the Greeks (Mr Papandreou's uncle, I think) lied over their economic performance in order to get in, and the rest of us have been paying the price ever since.

But it was the busniess of shoe throwing I wanted to air. Long a practice in the Middle East, you will remember that a chap threw his shoe at George Bush not so long ago; and just the other day someone threw a shoe at Tony Blair. I am greatly in favour of it, and believe it should be encouraged among right-thinking people. I like it for its sheer symbolism, saying 'you are the sort of thing I tread in', and I like it for its wide opportunity for expression. Someone might throw a wooden clog in protest at unemployment (the French for clog, sabot, is the origin of the word 'saboteur'). Imagine protesters against George Osborne's withdrawal of middle class benefits throwing their Manolo Blahniks in his direction; protesters against cuts in the military throwing their Wellingtons.

What would you throw at Gordon Brown? I don't think it would be a clean shoe, and would perhaps have a hole in it. And at José Manuel Barroso, after his bogus 'State of the Union' speech? A brightly coloured Mandarin's slipper.

EU Referendum

A new campaign has started for a referendum on whether we chould stay in the EU or leave it.

The people behind it are competent and experienced and this blog supports the campaign. I have some concerns about the timing, is all. Nevertheless I shall be making my own contribution soon.

Blair. Again?

The Corriere della Sera carries an interview with Tony Blair in which he says the British public has not turned its back on him and he would be ready to return.

Bethink you of that, Messrs. Milliband.

Losing our sovereignty

The European Union has demanded the creation of new regulatory supervisors for banking, insurance and securities. Naturally this won't be just three people, there will be lots of high salaried staff, lots of offices, lots of international travel and lunches. Indeed the agreement paves the way for a European Systemic Risk Board, with even more of the above.

Incredibly, the British Government has gone along with it, giving up the power to regulate the City of London.

You will remember that David Cameron promised us a referendum if any powers were given up to Brussels.

So can we have it, then?

Quote of the day

Michael O'Leary of RyanAir on anthropogenic Global Warming

"I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that the people who can't tell us what the ******* weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the ******* global temperatures will be in 100 years' time. It's horse ****."

The AA

Not the estimable organisation for helping alcoholics but the rather shoddy motoring organisation of the same name.

I must admit to a little bias here. Long ago, touring in Europe in my Morris Minor Traveller, I had an accident in Germany. I had taken out the maximum Five Star Insurance and tried to get lodging, medical bills, travel paid with the AA's vouchers. No one would accept them, saying they were never honoured, so I was left with no option but to sue the AA in court in Stuttgart. I won, and have studiously advised people not to have anything to do with the organisation ever since.

A curiosity in London is that you can often see AA trucks towing away illegally parked cars. How does this help the motorist?

Now the AA has written to the Transport Secretary, who you would have thought had better things to do than read their drivel, to the effect that removing speed cameras from the roads 'will put lives at risk'. From the Press Association: 'A recent switch-off of cameras in the Thames Valley area alarmed residents and there now appeared to be a "road safety policy void", the motoring group said.'

Of course this 'motoring group' is nothing of the sort: it is promoting the views of residents, non-motorists, against the interests of the driver. The AA has turned into another busybody pressure group trying to advance its right-on poitically correct opinions at the expense of its members.

Take no notice of it, is my advice.

The Coulson affair

The great news manipulator Alastair Campbell once said that a story was serious if it was in the news for eleven days. This is what the Labour party are doing with the Andy Coulson affair and, so far, succeeding.

People who know more about this than I say that it is not about 'phone tapping, or 'phone hacking which are aparently, different things.

What the News of the World scandal gathering operation was doing is calling famous people's mobiles at times they would be talking or have them turned off. You get put through to the voicemail or secretarial sevice, and inserting a code allows the owner, remotely, to access his messages. Most people, apprently, don't bother to change the '0000' which is the default setting, so the reporter hears the messages.

If you are burgled and you tell the police (should they express any interest) that you left the house unlocked, you get a stern talking to. But despite the fact that a certain amount of negligence has taken place, intruding on your private messages, like burglary, is a crime. Two reporters went to prison for it. Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World but says he knew nothing about it at the time and therefore the police can't charge him.

All this may be true but some people will be asking whether Mr. Cameron, knowing this, wasn't a little rash to employ Mr Coulson.

My guess is that this story will die out, but not quite yet.

Ian Cameron dies

With the passing away of his father, in France on holiday, David Cameron has experienced in a remarkably short time the death of a child, the birth of another and the death of a parent.

Sometimes we chug along without realising how easy life's progress is; at other times we wonder if there is anything more that can be thrown at us.

Utmost sympathy from this blog.

She speaks (of course)

We shall never know if Wayne Rooney was one of the footballers who obtained a super injunction against revelations of his private life, because we are not allowed to know; but today, by whatever means, his story is out. It seems that he saw a prostitute while his wife was pregnant and the hooker has of course sold her story to the tabloid press.


But the public embarrassment, followed by what must have been a difficult interview with his wife, is not all that was in store for Rooney. The tart says that the sex ‘felt seedy and became a bit samey. Wayne was really quite plain in his routine (routine!). He wanted straight sex with a little bit of naughty thrown in, but not too naughty’.

Plain in his routine. The great putdown. You can almost feel sorry for Rooney, one of the most tabloid-followed men in the world, who thought this would be a secret. He must have the practical intelligence of a wilted lettuce.

It's the barrel that's rotten

The Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police is Brian Moore who earns £126,400 a year, between a minister and a cabinet Minister.


On the night of 3rd July 2008, Pamela Somerville decided to spend the night in her car after a row with her boyfriend. The following morning the car didn’t start, because she had left the heater on, and the police arrived. She asked them for a jump start. They took her to Melksham Police Station and charged her with refusing to give a breath test, a charge she denies and which was later withdrawn.

Sergeant Mark Andrews, seemingly exasperated by Ms Somerville’s repeated requests to know why she was being held, grabbed her and threw her into a cell. She was injured when she was thrown on the floor and was bleeding. For a while she was unconscious. All this is on film, the officer has been convicted of assault and will be sentenced, almost certainly thrown out of the force.

So far so good. But we need to ask ourselves why the officer behaved like this. It is certain that he knew there was CCTV in the police station and yet, in front of the cameras, committed what can only be described as an act of serious violence on an innocent member of the public..

The answer is that Ms Somerville was suspected of the worst crime in the police manual: drinking and driving. It will not have occurred to Sergeant Andrews that she might have been innocent, and he felt he was able to treat her like a violent terrorist suspect. Such is the culture n the Wiltshire Police Force (I have been stopped, quite near Melksham, stone cold sober at 2am by the only 2 officers on duty, and we discussed my car’s tax disc while people were being raped and burgled). It is the culture of many British Police Forces.

This is not a case of a rotten apple in the barrel, it's a case of a rotten barrel.

Which is what brings me back to Chief Constable Brian Moore. He is responsible for the attitude of his officers. He is responsible for finding out what sort of policing the people of Wiltshire want and delivering it (I assure you it isn’t arresting sober people in their cars).

Mr Moore has failed in his job and has failed in his duty to the public. He must resign.

The US and the EU

Open Europe has the best quote yet from Tony Blair's memoirs. It concerns the G8 summit in 2001, where George Bush meets federalist loony Guy Verhofstadt

“He didn’t know or recognise Guy, whose advice he listened to with considerable astonishment,” Mr Blair writes.

“He then turned to me and whispered, ‘Who is this guy?’

‘He is the prime minister of Belgium,’ I said.

“Belgium? George said, clearly aghast at the possible full extent of his stupidity. ‘Belgium is not part of the G8’.”

Mr Blair explained to Mr Bush that Mr Verhofstadt was there as “president of Europe”. Belgium held the presidency of the EU council at the time.

Mr Bush responded: “You got the Belgians running Europe?” before shaking his head, “now aghast at our stupidity”, Mr Blair writes.

The BBC and bias

In an interview with the New Staatesman BBC Director General Mark Thompson has admitted the left wing bias on the BBC, something that even the most insensitive lefty has known for years. But he implies it is in the past:

"In the BBC I joined 30 years ago [as a production trainee, in 1979], there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left. The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher.

“Now it is a completely different generation. There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC."

Nice to have it acknowledged, I suppose, but there is still a wide spectrum of bias in the BBC, encompassing not just straightforward party political leanings (although that still occurs) but on a wide range of subjects. It is vehemently against Euroscepticism, for example, portraying it as 'right wing'. It is against religion, it is against climate change scepticism, these two receiving the same opprobrium, as if the protagonists were swivel eyed colonels in Gloucestershire. Anyone who is against abortion or immigration is given the same treatment.

Read this article in the Telegraph  here on how they treat opponents of the Pope's visit and those opposing the ground zero mosque.

I'm afraid, Mr Thompson, there is still a lot of work to do on this subject, and in my view the BBC cannot continue as a publicly funded broadcaster until it is done.

France bashing

It is reported that the French national rail company, SNCF, bidding to run a railway line across Florida, is subject to complaints by Jewish groups because it transported prisoners to the concentration camps in World War II.

That war ended 65 years ago.

Lighten up, I say; this nonsense really has to stop.

The reason for not employing SNCF is that they are incompetent and the staff are rude.

We know what's good for you

NASA have flown a doctor to the Atacama desert in Chile to take charge of the 33 miners trapped 700 metres below the surface of a mine.

The doctor has refused the men alcohol and cigarettes.

Bad for them, apparently

Misunderstood

Chris Myers, the Foreign Secretary's Special Adviser, has stepped down complaining about the press innuendo. I feel sorry for the guy, but not sorry that the story has been followed.

I repeat: what Mr Hague is accused of is, having been told by the Prime Minister to employ only two Special Advisers, employing a third who was less qualified for the job than several others. It doesn't matter a jot if Mr Myers was employed because he was gay, because he made Mr Hague laugh or because he was good at Scrabble.

Hague has made a buttock-clenchingly awful statement about how he is not gay and how his poor wife has had miscarriages, but I am afraid he still has some explaining to do.

The demon drink

Apparently Tony Blair says Gordon Brown drove him to drink.

You and me both, Tony, but if I could have got through the news of Brown wrecking the British pension system on just a gin and tonic and half a bottle of wine a day I'd have been quite pleased.

Oh, of course you were First Lord of the Treasury then, weren't you Tony?

I am looking forward to reading this book.

After the watershed

Something which might not make the BBC news too often: according to the reliable ANSA news agency, in his book Tony Blair has expressed his admiration for Silvio Berlusconi.

William Hague

Allegations in the blogworld and in a couple of newspapers that the Foreign Secretary spent at least one night during the election capaign with his driver, and that the driver has now been appointed as Special Adviser, must be deeply upsetting to Hague's wife Ffion.

The investigation must not stop, however. It is important to recognise that what Mr Hague is being accused of is not homosexuality but of putting the seemingly unqualified man on the public payroll.