Once we had spent our usual couple of hours scraping up muck and shouting angrily at both the hens and each other, we settled in the shed for a brew. First topic up was the Olympics and the fact that there are still thousands of unsold tickets, that annoys somewhat those of the gang who devoted yonks to placing unsuccessful bids. However we quickly tired of Lord Coe, and all his works, and turned to Britain’s number one soap opera, the Royal family.

We were prompted by a new opinion poll carried out by Ipsos MORI. It shows that the anti-monarchists, who get so much press coverage, are in a very small minority. Only 13 per cent were in favour of a republic, the lowest proportion for 20 years. A whopping 80 per cent want to remain subjects of the Queen. Support for the monarchy was highest among the over-55s, at 88 per cent, but even in the 18-24 age group 73 per cent favoured the present system.

The poll also showed that the Midlands was the most loyal part of the country, with 89 per cent preferring the monarchy to a republic, compared with 77 per cent in the North and 76 per cent in the South.

A spokesman for Ipsos MORI said; “Since the Royal wedding the publicity the Royal family has received has been phenomenal, particularly for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The resulting jump in support of five percentage points since the royal wedding is very pronounced”. And therein lies part of the explanation for the seemingly endless support for the monarchy. For vast numbers the Royals are the most revered soap opera of them all, and we Brits adore soaps, the perfect escapism, a way to live ones life through the supposed lives of others. How else does one explain the mass hysteria at the death of Princess Di or the equally hysterical obsession with Kate Middleton’s bum? 

There is of course another factor. In a constantly changing, and often insecure world, even those who espouse soaps treasure continuity. And the Queen has provided this in great measure. Over 60 years of great change she has provided a constant background, a reminder that at its heart our society doesn’t change, is always there for us. And the us is important, there is no question of political allegiances. We hear a lot about the ‘posh boys’ at the top, but in a strange way the Royals, the poshest of them all, are seen as of the people.

When I was a boy my Gran was typical of most of her generation in seeing the King as an earthly version of God. She once stood within yards of him and for the rest of her days treasured that moment above all others. Few now interpret the monarchy in that way, but only this week when the Queen and the Duke visited the Burnley area thousands jostled for just a glimpse.

We codgers like to think of ourselves as rational beings. Logic tells us that revering an unelected head is irrational, that the Royals are merely hman like the rest of us, albeit a somewhat more privileged version. But we are totally in support of the concept of a monarchy. Why? Because, as the Duke of Edinburgh once pointed out, their great value lies in what they prevent. The alternative would be a President and people such as Blair and Cameron on the balcony of Buck House!

Not a pleasant thought is it? Both prime ministerss have proved to be secretly coorupt in their dealings with the Murdochs. Both have used the honours system as a means of boosting party funding. Both have lied to the nation, or failed to reveal what they should have revealed. That is how politicians are now, and they have lost the trust of the people. If they, or any other politician, were head of state the nation would more easily flounder and split asunder.

Had I written this just days ago I would have added that the Queen has never put a foot wrong in sixty long years. Sadly she did just that this week by including some extremely dodgy characters in her Jubilee reception for monarchs from across the world. But doubtless she was advised by the hopeless Foreign Office, and in any case who amongst us has not erred more than she has?

So forgive us if we don’t dress up in cardboard crowns or applaud Lords in ermine, but condemn us not for we are just as fervently in support of Her Majesty, albeit for slightly different reasons!

                         OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

THE WORLD OF FOOTBALL;   “He has won six million dollars in as many years”…Rob Lee, Sky Sports 2    “Bilbao have a corner in a very good position here”….Stan Collymore, Channel 5      ” He ( John Terry) wears his shirt on his sleeve”……Ray Parlour, Sky Sports News   “It could easily end up a goalless draw if neither side scores”…..Phil Brown, Radfio 5 Live

                  OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Our dear leader has also been busy lecturing the rest of Europe on the art of austerity. Hopefully the audiences will not look too closely at what it has achieved here. Absolutely nothing. The national debt continues to climb and there is little sign of any serious effort to stimulate growth without which stagnation is the very best we can hope for. Vast amounts have been poured into quantitative easing which has simply served to make the banks rich enough to start speculating again. Healthy banks in a sick society: a bad mix.

Frankly even sensible projects would attract at best lukewarm support from a society now deeply divided. Yes, much tighter monetary controls were needed but time and again the coalition has messed up the detail. Worse still it has attempted to sell cuts via demonisation. A classic example are benefit cuts. In reality only 3.4 per cent of families in receipt of long-term benefits have four or more children, yet people like Jeremy Hunt have constantly banged on about the state no longer funding “large workless families”. Benefit recipients at large have been portrayed as feckless, workshy scroungers, living in opulence funded by taxpayers. The appalling mass murder of the Philpott children last Friday may well be related to this for they were featured extensively during the election as evidence that the welfare system is out of control. 

In fact every section of our society that has so much as raised a protest at the cuts affecting them has been villified. The police spend too much time in the backroom, nurses waste time gossiping to patients, blind people fail to use their mobility, teachers are sub-standard. Step by step the government has alienated millions. And to rub salt into the wounds it has failed to do more than raise an eyebrow at the tax avoidance and obscene salaries of the top banks, businesses and tycoons.

Austerity on its own is a dubious tool at best, without a total commitment by everyone it is doomed to failure. But the good news is that we are now to have a chance to judge the alternative. The election of Francois Hollande as President of France on an anti-austerity ticket will provide an interesting contrast with what our dear leader, and his cronies, have done here.

Members of Hollande’s new governmnet took up their post yesterday. The new President pledged “dignity, simplicity and sobriety”, and made what many will see as a positive move by appointing 34 women as ministers, exactly half of the total. The new ‘cabinet’ then voted in a 30% wage reduction for all ministers and the president. Ministers were told they will be expected to adhere to a strict code of conduct. The code rules out presents and private invitations and expects ministers to travel by train. Ministers were told to stay in constant touch with the public, to use the internet extensively. Above all there must be “transparency in government”.

All of which sounds promising. Had our crowd worked to such a code the entanglement with the Murdochs would not have happened, and a better fist would have been made of getting detail right. The arrogance of people like Lansley would have been tempered by real and open communication.

Hollande has also made clear his attitude to the bankers and the very wealthy. Tax is to be raised significantly. We are constantly told that such action would lead to a mass exodus. Hollande shrugs and says it is “their choice”. He is no fool and clearly believes that no one is indispensible, particularly if by their example of greed they poison morale.

Time will tell, but there has to be another way to achieve recovery than the chaotic one we are pursuing. History tells us that unity is strength, and that is only possible if everyone feels that we are all sharing the pain. Hollande is by nature a socialist. Many years have passed since we had such an animal here and the idea will worry those who confuse the creed with communism. But it just may be the answer.

The new minister for equality and housing is Cecile Duflot, the former head of the Green Party. She said that, after the first meeting, she felt “deep emotion and enthusiasm”. The justice minister is Delphine Batho. She said that she was “extremely happy, and really enchanted”.

Can’t remember any of our lot saying such things!

           OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

DEBATE ABOUT HONOURS RATTLES ON

The suggestion by a group of Lord Lieutenants that the word Empire should be deleted from our honours system has clearly rattled many of the old buffs who rejoice in being seen to be a member of something that no longer exists.

Suggestions for a change are pouring in, one that caught the eye focusses on the OBE. It should, says a petition, now stand for Order of the Brussels Empire. 

Nick Clegg will doubtless agree!

                 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO    

Assuming that the yelling suits are the leaders of our business community one could only feel total confidence that we will pull out of recession any day now. I jest, but the ever gloomier economic situation is in fact worrying. Today our dear leader is to lecture EU leaders on the need for “successful austerity” threatened only by the impact of the Jubilee holiday break. Being now removed from the world of finance and business I had assumed that our version was proving rather less than successful, but who am I to doubt so great a mind?

In fact so besotted have I become with our dear leader that I tuned in yesterday to Prime Minister’s Question Time. I haven’t watched this for yonks and expected to receive carefully thought through explanantions for the burning issues such as our police shouting down the Home Secretary, the decision to take away disablement benefits from the blind, the massive tax avoidance practices of all our leading companies and other topical mysteries. I was disappointed.

If yesterday’s performance is any guide PMQT has become a modern version of Punch and Judy. The slashing of police numbers at a time of potential civil unrest was first up. Our dear leader turned into his beetroot mode and had to be urged by Ed Balls, of all people, to calm down dear. Since that was a reference to an embarrassing indiscretion by the raging Cameron, he raged even louder.

But he insisted that he was “extremely calm”. However he said it like Herbert Lom as Inspector Clouseau’s boss. You may recall the scene in which, very calmly, he slices off his finger with a cigar-cutter. Ed Miliband spotted the incipient rage. “I know you are going to have extensive training before you go before Leveson. I have a suggestion – it should include anger management”.

Our dear leader’s temper didn’t improve when he was asked about any discussions he had held with the new French president. Unfortunately our hero refused to see him when he recently visited these shores. And then came the not unexpected Miliband punch-line. Why not, he asked, send him a message and sign it LOL. The dear leader’s reply was puzzling. “Perhaps I have been overusing my mobile phone”, he said, “but at least I haven’t been throwing it at the people who work for me”. Does the meek Miliband Junior do such things or was this a reference to the long-gone Grumpy Gordon? Or even Nick Clegg? We shall never know.

Neither it seems shall we know much else about the nation’s zillion crises, for the impression gained was that the dear leader is now totally absorbed with the Murdoch threat gathering around his noble head. Miliband did make one more attempt to elicit a view about the police and NHS but this was, it seemed, the last straw.

Our dear leader flew into a rage of Prescott-like proportions. His only intelligible response of the whole show was; “I often wonder whether your problem is that you are too weak, or that you are leftwing -your problem is that you are both”. And there we had it. All this time we have been speculating as to what the dear leader was devoting his giant brain as the nation heads for the cliff. It appears that it has been exclusively devoted to little Ed.

Had the mythical little green man from Zog popped into the public gallery he would have concluded that the affairs of our country are so much in order that the leaders have time for an audition for a new comedy show.

Pointless really since the only broadcaster that would have used it now has problems of its own, the Cameron/Murdoch/ Hunt bid has failed and future shows are likely to be of a more serious nature! 

                      OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A WARM WELCOME FROM KNACKER!

Just two of the many tributes paid to Home Secretary Theresa May when she addressed the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth yesterday;

“Home Secretary, I believe that you are a disgrace”…Dave Bennett.  “You may not like this Home Secretary, but we no longer trust you in the police service”….Simon Payne, another officer.

                    OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

THE NEW COALITION ACADEMY (with thanks to Private Eye).

Headmaster David Cameron MA; “There is a perfectly good alternative to the Austerity word – Efficiency. We are not making ‘cuts’ in teaching staff, the sanatorium, the CCF, the Art department, the building programme or indeed anything else. We are making “savings” in these areas which may, in the course of time, lead to them disappearing altogether – and what a saving that would be. I would like to thank and say goodbye to all the members of staff, too numerous to mention, who have just discovered that they are moving on to fresh opportunities and exciting new challenges at the local job centre“.

                     OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

In the split second before they join Mickey in the sky, the mice must be astounded at the transformation of an ambling clucker into Jekyll. Much like our reaction this morning when we learned that Jon Cruddas, appointed yesterday as Ed Miliband’s new policy chief, used his first public comment to demand a referendum on EU membership. Up until now the Labour Party has firmly supported Britain’s continued membership of the EU, a stance that has caused great frustration to many who share the view of a majority of Conservative MPs that membership is a one-way deal, with the UK giving much and gaining nothing other than a good deal of interference and bureaucracy.

Mr Cruddas said; “This is about democracy. At certain stages the political classes should invite the people into the discussion that effects their everyday lives; none more important than Europe”. How other leading lights in the opposition will respond is going to be interesting. David Cameron is coming under increasing pressure from his backbenchers to call a referendum at a time when the whole federalist European dream is going up in smoke. Only the Lib Dems are preventing this, they seem to believe that being ruled from Brussels is the only way to a future Utopia. And up to now they have rested content in the belief that the massed ranks of Labour MPs would join them in blocking anything as outrageous as allowing the people to voice an opinion.

Before yesterday few of us had even heard of Jon Cruddas. But he has struck a chord with many, not least because he talked of “stopping this thing festering” and stressed that irrespective of where people stand on Europe, it is the right of every citizen to participate on an issue that “affects material everyday life and our culture”. Perhaps the new policy bigwig is also a shrewd politician for this looks the one issue on which the Conservative Party can save itself in the public eye.

Certain it is that it is hard to think of any other. Yesterday Rebekah Brooks came out fighting after being charged with perverting the course of justice. Her husband, Charlie Brooks, spoke of a witch hunt. Without doubt Knacker seems to have veered from doing absolutely nothing to proceeding with what are very serious charges indeed. It guarantees that the whole Brooks saga will be rearing its head in court this winter. In fact given that there may be many other charges in the pipeline, there can be little doubt that the albatross will follow our dear leader for most of the rest of this parliament. At the very least he is increasingly seen as guilty of crass misjudgement in maintaining an intimate friendship with people keen to influence the government to wave through a bid of enormous commercial and cultural significance.

But the interested spectator would be ill-advised to focus on the Rebekah Brooks aspect of the affair too closely for the real danger to David Cameron lies in the Jeremy Hunt story. Here we have clear evidence that someone in Hunt’s department was passing sensitive information to News Corp at a time when the culture secretary was supposedly acting in a quasi-judicial role following the mysterious dismissal of Vince Cable. Up until now Hunt has refused to resign and Cameron has joined hands with him. The question is did Hunt and Cameron know what was happening.

Suddenly this becomes a huge threat. Lord Leveson has decided to call both Smith and Michel, the two aides for Hunt and James Murdoch respectively, and to question them in advance of seeing Hunt. The two may attempt to argue that neither of their masters knew of the information- passing, but will anyone really believe that they were a couple of Walter Mittys overseeing, off their own bats, a multimillion takeover bid? At best it sounds fantastical.

Of course Hunt is culpable anyay given that a minister is responsible for the actions of his minions. But if he was party to it we have Watergate revisited. And that takes us to the biggest question of all, did Cameron know?

The next few weeks will be very revealing. The Labour Party will have to come clean over a referendum, and our dear leader may have to come clean on his protegee Hunt.

Watch this space!

                OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

THEY CANNOT BE SERIOUS!

Government plans that could reduce, or even eliminate, state benefits paid to thousands of blind people have sparked a revolt by Lib Dem MPs in the latest sign of tension inside the coalition over some spending cuts.

Although Nick Clegg is supporting the plan rebels are demanding a U-turn after it emerged that many blind or partially sighted people who receive Disability Living Allowance will lose out . Mike Hancock, MP for Portsmouth South, attacked both Clegg and Cameron yesterday. He said; “It is manifestly unfair that blind people should be subjected to this additional strain and worry”.

It seems that under new assessment rules blindness will not qualify as a serious disability. To quote a certain tennis star, they cannot be serious!

               OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Being sympathetic souls we had contemplated suggesting to David Cameron that he takes the Chiltern Hundreds and joins us, but his distinct contempt for anyone reaching the venerable age of Dennis Skinner makes it unlikely that he would accept. But after the past 24 hours who knows, he may well be thinking that things couldn’t be worse.

The news that his friend Rebekah Brooks and her husband are to face serious charges will have sent shivers down whatever Old Etonians have by way of a spine. During her testimony to the Leveson Inquiry, Mr Cameron’s fellow member of the Chipping Norton set managed to drop a few bombs on the beleagured pairing of Hunt and his master. Heaven knows what will happen now!

Meantime the former head of the civil service, Lord Gus O’Donnell was demonstrating that it takes more than the gift of a peerage to silence a latter day Sir Humphrey. Lord O’Donnell was appearing before the Leveson Inquiry and was asked about the Jeremy Hunt claim that he knew nothing of his assistant’s feeding of vital information to the Murdoch camp during the BSkyB bid. The chance of Gus remaining on our dear leader’s Christmas Card list probably vanished when he said that Hunt should have known if his special adviser was giving feedback. In other words he believes that ignorance of what underlings are doing in your name is no defence.

For good measure Lord O’Donnell made damaging comment on the fact that Andy Coulson was not subjected to the usual high level of vetting at the time that Cameron appointed him. There should have been a high level of vetting, every previous incumbant of a similar post endured just that. And O’Donnell also revealed that forms disclosing any shareholdings that could lead to conflict of interests were signed but “didn’t disclose Coulson’s £40,000 of shares in News Corp”. And they should have, said the man who should know.

So the noose continued to tighten around the neck of our dear leader. And as if that wasn’t enough for one day the infamous Lansley NHS reforms resurfaced. This morning’s headlines echo the cries of liar that poured forth when the Royal College of Nursing received Lansley at its annual congress. Frankly I don’t believe that the man lies, I simply believe that he is as daft as a Basil Brush.

At  a time like this it was not a good idea to tell the nurses that staffing levels are up. Neither was it wise to use the defence that should this not be the case it is the fault of individual Trust boards. Neither was it too bright to claim that NHS funding has not been cut. Someone who knows the real facts should take brother Lansley into a darkened room and explain what is really happening.

‘Efficiency savings’ of £20 billion have been imposed on the NHS and every hospital is faced with reducing its budget by many millions. Despite what the media says, staffing levels at our leading hospitals are already very low considering the ever rising number of elderly patients. But Trusts have no alternative than to cut them further or face the bully-boys of Monitor’s board, which doesn’t number a single senior doctor amongst its number. And whilst all this mayhem is proceeding the so-called reforms are kicking in. Supposedly GPs will take over allocation of the NHS budget. Most of them refuse to get involved and commissioning consortia are emerging in their stead. In effect they are the former Health Authorities in a new coat.

One could rattle on all day about the chaos now reigning in the NHS. Frankly the plan is unworkable and really amounts to very damaging sleight of hand aimed at transferring services to the private sector. At this moment David Cameron probably sees this as of minor note compared to the developing Murdoch saga. But by the time of the next election, if he survives Murdoch, he will find that Basil Brush has lit a fire under his feet.

As if all this wasn’t enough Iain Duncan Smith held forth about the number of people who are about to lose disability allowances. Everyone is to be reassessed, he said, which sounded fair enough. But he went on to say how much will be saved expressed in very precise amounts which sounded very much as though the ‘assessments’ are pre-ordained.

Oh yes, and the William Hague and Eric Pickles demand that we all work harder drew a fierce attack from the CBI’s normally supportive John Cridland, Sainsbury’s Justin King and other leading companies. Austerity, they cry, is not working.

Come and join us dear leader. You can spin your tales to the hens with impunity, they are dafter than Andrew Lansley and do not get to vote.

                                 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

QUOTE OF THE DAY!

“A sense of something bigger and more important is crucial for the health of our society. I think that essential obligation of humility for humanity is deeply important. It keeps us from treating human beings as if they are secondary to some political purpose”… Tony Blair at yesterday’s conference in London organised by the Holy Trinity Brompton Church

          OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

With Man Utd having won, and only added time available and City 1-2 down to QPR, it looked as though the Tommy Trinders of football had blown it again. But thanks to five minutes added, to cover Joey Barton’s latest lunacy, the men in blue scored twice. Drama. Pandemonium. Disbelief. It had happened, Man City had ended 44 years of being second best. All things are possible given oil-based fortunes.

I suppose the political equivalent right now is the plight of the Lib Dems who have a very short time in which to redeem themselves. At the general election almost a quarter of the electorate voted for what they saw as a unique chance to change the jaded face of British politics. Clegg’s lust for power at any price has lined them up as certain relegation material. There is, say the pundits, no escape. In the public mind they are locked into the Conservative Party whose economic strategy is failing utterly, and which is now being rejected right across Europe. Austerity without growth cannot succeed and inevitably leads to alienation. But now things have become a good deal worse for the Tory bedfellows. The government is heading into the UK equivalent to Watergate, and this morning there is much talk about the actions of Hunt, Osborne and our dear leader actually being criminal.

If the government is now torn apart by scandal the Lib Dems will be smeared horrendously. They deserve most of the condemnation that is heading their way, but not this. Vince Cable made clear his feelings about the Murdoch bid for BSkyB but he was tricked by mysterious reporters into making his feelings known. When Cameron leapt to replace him with Hunt, leaders wiser than Nick Clegg would have pulled out. But it isn’t too late.

There is a popular misconceeption about what would happen if the Lib Dems pulled out of the coalition. Time and again the pundits tell us that they would be decimated in the resulting general election. But they miss the key point which is that there wouldn’t be an election!

The new Fixed-Term Parliaments Act precludes snap elections. An early election can only be called if there is a two-thirds majority of MPs voting for dissolution. And turkeys never vote for Christmas. Were the Lib Dems to leave the coalition tomorrow, Cameron would be obliged to continue as the prime minister of a minority government. Were he to be defeated in a confdence vote , he would still be unable to dissolve. He would have to tresign and the Queen would have to summon Ed Miliband. Then, only if Miliband were unable to form a government would there be an election.

Assuming that Clegg continues to sit on his friend’s right hand there can only be one conclusion, the elimination of the Lib Dem party. They face the dilemma of a third party in a political system made for two. In 2015 voterts will be asked for their verdict on Osborne’s austerity measures. If they approve they will vote Conservative; if not they will vote Labour. If the Lib Dems are still part of the coalition they will be perceived as a party of the right, barely distinguishable from the Conservatives. Yet most of the Lib Dem vote is seen in Scotland and other places as anti-Tory. Will voters on the left be willing to endorse a coalition of the right, particularly one by then tainted with findings of corruption in the Murdoch affair?

We know the answer to that, a YouGov poll conducted recently revealed that almost 60 per cent of those who voted Lib Dem last time say they will vote Labour next time. So Nick Clegg and company are in the last-chance saloon. They have to do so for commonsense political reasons (the last two coalitions in this country led to the decimation and ultimate destruction of the Liberals), and they have to do so to demonstrate that Vince Cable was right about the Murdoch bid.

If as a seperate party outside of a coalition the Lib Dems demonstrated that they could hold a minority government to account, they just might have a chance of renewing the affection of the electorate. The problem is that Clegg has created so much bad blood with Labour that, should that party be asked to form a government right now it would simply refuse to work with him. Vince Cable would be the right choice.

Whether a collapse of the coalition will come to pass is still open to doubt. But if the Murdoch affair takes the widely expected further, and even more sinister, twist Clegg will lose support of his MPs and Party. At least we can watch events with interest in the knowledge that even he will have to stop playing the ‘we would be routed in an election’ card.

All those who still harbour a desire to see a real alternative to the Tory/Labour rotation will hope that someone will force the issue before it is too late. And both in terms of the economy and News Corp time is running out at an alarming rate!

                           OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

THE THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN BORIS!

For the benefit of those filling a little red book with the thoughts of our Boris, here is today’s gem as given by him to readers of the Daily Telegraph;  “The next director-general of the BBC must be a Tory who understands the depths of the problems this country faces. The new man must know about the work ethic, and cutting costs. We need a Tory and no mucking about“

                 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

For some reason we find Hague rather patronising. The same goes for his mate, the ‘poison dwarf, Michael Gove. He specialises in insulting teachers, an art in which he would merit an Oscar if such things existed. A poll published today reports that more than 50 per cent of the profession are considering quitting. Morale is at rock bottom. As in any walk of life there are low-achievers, but the vast majority of our teachers do a difficult job very well. Their reward is an ever-increasingly Gestapo-like surveillance by Ofsted, continual and often conflicting instructions about the syllabus, and a plan to relate their pay to local overall averages rather than the profession as a national entity.

But the irritating behaviour of Messrs Hague and Gove are right now merely sideshows to the big event. Each day brings fresh revelations about the highly improper conduct of ministers during the period when Murdoch was on the verge of gaining approval for his BSkyB bid. Even Baldrick, had there been a minister for Turnips, would have known that he had to stand well back from such a profound proposal. But we have already learned that Cameron and Hunt were involved in intrigue with the Murdoch clan. In fact they even appear to have been seeking their advice as to how they could avoid an inquiry into phone hacking.

Today there is another name to add to the list of ministers who were in cahoots with an organisation of dubious reputation. It has emerged that George Osborne entertained Rebekah Brooks for a weekend at his country residence at the height of Murdoch’s bid. At a time when the government was supposed to be considering the pros and cons of a very controversial bid for control of most of the British media, the Chancellor of all people entertained the key members of the Murdoch team for a whole weekend at Dorneywood, the Chancellor’s grace and favour residence in Buckinghamshire.

Those wined, dined and accomodated at the taxpayer’s expense included not just Mrs Brooks but Andy Coulson also. There is no direct reference to the weekend in the meetings declared by Osborne but a spokesman said yesterday that it was probably covered by the mention of a “social” event with Brooks in September 2010. He hastened to add that the BSkyB issue was not discussed. As claims go that most rank amongst the most implausible of all time.

At her appearance before the Leveson Inquiry Mrs Brooks made no mention of Dorneywood and contented herself with the claim that Osborne had expressed “total bafflement” at the regulator Ofcom’s response to the bid. Now we are all baffled, not at Ofcom but at a Chancellor who considered it appropriate to entertain for a whole weekend the proponents of what would have not only been a huge aquisition in terms of media control but a huge financial investment also. 

Slowly but surely the jigsaw is coming togther. There appears to have been a single clan comprising two wings. In the political wing were Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Hunt. In the media wing were Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch and Andy Coulson. The media wing is seeking power via influence, the political lot seem to have been completely blind to the ethical considerations and to have forgotten that in government they are there for the whole country and not just for the clan. One of the reasons that most folk now abhor politicians is that they appear to be standing up for the wrong people.

As each day passes the feeling grows that this government is rotten to the core, every bit as bad as the Blair regime in its dying years. William Hague demands we work harder, perhaps we should work harder at ridding ourselves of them once and for all!

                           OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ever since the coalition cuts led to the closure of a local village library we have wondered what happened to the librarian. She had long red hair and always sported dresses with high white collars. She was quietly spoken, very shy, the sort of lady who would blush if a borrower asked for a book covering the habits of birds and bees. She was like a character from Emma, someone who knew her place, someone to whom the absolute truth was all she knew or spoke in a near whisper. Her one failing was a poor memory, ask to reserve a book and be sure that by the time you had left the building she had forgotten the title. 

And that explains our fascination with Bill’s laptop production. For there was our lovely missing librarian masquerading as Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of Murdoch’s tabloids. It couldn’t actually be Rebekah of whose rages and deeds we have so often read. But it soon became apparent that it was indeed that very person, for our shy librarian certainly didn’t have endless dinners with the Camerons, Blairs and Osbornes of this world. But they do have something in common, acute memory loss.

As the long session ground on that became more and more evident. Rebekah has, it seems, lived a life with a memory so bad that she couldn’t possibly have passed even a GCSE, let alone managed a business. “I can’t remember” is the defence of a person who wasn’t really concentrating on what was happening all around her. At one point she couldn’t even remember whether the Camerons were at the second of the parties thrown over Christmas 2010.

The questionning was inevitably narrow in scope since Mrs Brooks has been arrested on charges of phone hacking, bribing police officers, and conspiring to pervert the course of justice. But Robert Jay, QC, did elicit enough to create a picture of an elite gang of politicians and media bigwigs who seem to have lived in their own private world, a group for whom the mass of the people scarcely qualify as pawns.

Back in 2008 Mrs Brooks went on holiday to Santorini with the Murdochs. The Camerons joined them, having been flown out in Murdoch’s son-in-law Matthew Freud’s private plane. Perhaps understandably her memory of what was discussed has faded with time, but she was rather more forthcoming about later events both during the election campaign and the subsequent bid for BSkyB.

Many a happy hour was spent with the prime mimister, many an email or text message was exchanged. Mrs Brooks seemed pleased to remember that our dear leader’s messages usually ended with LOL, which he believed was the in abbreviation for lots of love. She also recalled dining with George Osborne at which the bid was discussed. But most damaging of all was her production of an email suggesting that Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, asked News Corp to “privately advise” and “guide his and No 10′s positioning” on the unfolding hacking scandal.

It was on Hunt that the day’s questionning proved most damaging. The suggestion to emerge was that News Corp had a secret channel to what Hunt ws planning to do whilst supposedly making an independent decision on the BSkyB bid. Hunt has denied this but are we serioisly expected to believe that he knew nothing of what his aide was doing? Either way Hunt must go.

To be fair to the present government it is clear that the Blair administration was also in thrall to the Murdochs. When Mrs Brooks was obliged to resign she received comforting messages not only from Cameron (who apologised for backing off because “Miliband is after me”), and Osborne but also from the former Labour prime minister. In fact almost every leading poiltical figure joined in, the only exception being Grumpy Gordon who, Mrs Brooks said, “probably hung out the bunting”. Small wonder given that he claims that the tabloid revelations about his son were the result of hacking rather than, as Mrs Brooks claims, based on information provided by the family.

This is only another stage in the revelations, one senses that there is far more to emerge. But we know enough to realise that Hunt is a mortal danger to Cameron if he continues to defend him. We also know that Vince Cable was right, and we learn with astonishment that Cameron discussed his ‘dismissal ‘ with News Corp. But what of our dear leader?

Nothing to emerge so far will lead to his departure, but he is seriously damaged in the eyes of most people. At the very least he has proved to be naive, daft and incapable of good judgement. He really carried on where Blair left off, he is Blair again in so many ways.

It will certainly take all his undoubted PR skills to talk himself out of this. But he will try. At least we can draw some consolation from this tawdry affair. Never again will a government be so inane as to become a central part of the secret world of the posh and powerful!

                    OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BIG CLIMAX FOR PREMIERSHIP!

Like it or loathe it you have to admit that this year’s Premiership has been pure theatre. There have been 370 games, 1034 goals and 64 red cards. And we still don’t know who the champions are!

Of course the odds are on Man City tomorrow but I wouldn’t stake my house on it. With the two Manchester clubs kicking off at the same time a final day of theatre beckons!

                 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

But enough of moaning about the weather, we are more concrned about what the idiots supposedly running the country are doing to the police. Many communities have, like us, lost their beat bobby and the sense of involvement between protectors and protected that the system engendered. Now even more cuts are biting. Local police stations are closing, police are unable to respond to all calls for help and anti-social behaviour is being downgraded in priority. Bad news for elderly and vulnerable people!

A few days ago one of our number noticed that his neighbour’s curtains were still drawn at midday. He could only call the police who came quickly and gained entry. What they found led to an urgent visit from the paramedics. Perhaps the Old Etonians imagine that everyone has staff who deal with emergencies as they happen. But the reality for most of us is that on many occasions the police are all that we have.

The coalition has already slashed 16,000 front line officers and the cull goes on. Yesterday over 30,000 off-duty coppers marched through central London. As you would expect their behaviour was exemplary, but many were very angry indeed at what they see as the destruction of the British policing structure. Scott Jeffreys, a veteran from Derbyshire, said; “It’s not just about pay and pensions. We are here because we’re concerned about stealth privatisation of the police service”. Andy Springthorpe, a sergeant in the West Midlands, said; “We’re losing some of our most experienced officers, and not getting new ones, we are in meltdown”. Almost every officer in the demo wore a cap proclaiming that “Cuts are criminal”.

The problem here is that the case of the police is being mixed up with that of every other public sector employee. All have grievances that should have been the subject of proper negotiation, but the police case is a special one. On last night’s David Bumblebee’s ‘Question Time’ Conservative and Lib Dem spokesmen made play of the fact that police officers retire early yet we are all living longer. True, but can you imagine 65 year-olds physically handling many of the violent situations that occur constantly in town-centres and many other situations?

Quite often the constraint and arrest crises require effort akin, in physical terms, to that of a rugby scrum-half. Can you imagine men or women over the age of 50 playing thus? And the determination to introduce private security firms is ludicrous. They are primarily concerned with profit and invariably employ people available on the lowest pay rates. Are ministers seriously considering bestowing police powers on people whose own record is not beyond reproach and whose commitment is minimal?

It is not a question of favouring the police, it is a question of recognising just how important police are in a democratic society. The present lot let themselves down occasionally, heaven knows what will happen if maintenance of law and order rests on a skeleton force supplemented by the equivalent of parking attendents and night-club bouncers.

All of this may prompt one of two responses. Firstly we will be told that ministers do not take decisions without good evidence and advice. Like the decision to reverse the previous government’s decision in regard to buying jump jets? Now they have seen the error of their ways and wasted £250 million of taxpayer’s money in the process. Secondly, we will be reminded that times are hard and there is simply no money to fund adequate policing.

Perhaps someone should remind the Old Etonians that their wealthy pals are stepping up their tax evasion. Every day brings new evidence. The Beeb’s Panorama programme is about to reveal that GSK and Northern and Shell exploit tax loopholes to dramatically reduce the amount of tax they pay. The firms have set up off-shore subsidiaries in Luxembourg, which then loan money back to their UK operations. This allows them to off-set the loans against corporate tax in the UK whilst paying corporation tax in Luxembourg. This amounts to half a per cent. In recent days we have heard similar reports in regard to Amazon, Vodaphone and a host of others.

So we have a situation in which the only safeguard we have against public disorder and crime prevention is being emasculated to save money whilst most of our biggest companies are being allowed to rob the treasury of billions of pounds. Someone has their priorities wrong.

Perhaps the last word should go to another serving police officer. Paul Crompton, of Greater Manchester Police, said yesterday that “our thin blue line is being stretched to breaking point”, and added that the cuts are damaging not only individual officers’ lives but also “the infrastructure of policing”.

When that blue line finally snaps, and anarchy rules, we will all have reason to regret it!

                           OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

GOVE GETS SOMETHING RIGHT AT LAST!

The so-called poison-dwarf, Education Secretary Michael Gove, surprised a lot of people yesterday. He said that the scale of private school dominance of top jobs in Britain is “morally indefensible”. He went on to mention the dominance of Etonians in particular.

Who can he possibly have in mind?  

                            OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO             

This was the Queen’s 59th appearance to read out the blather prepared by politicians, and it was easy to imagine what Philip had to say about it when they returned to the palace. The Queen remained seemingly neutral as always, in fact her demeanor was unchanged from all those previous performances. She looks a little more elderly these days, and walks with that slight caution you would have if you were carrying a large bag of spuds on your head. Or a crown as we call it. 

Just watching the event prompted the thought that had a little green man from Zog attended he would have found it hard to believe that we are in a new age of austerity, or efficeincy as our dear leader now prefers to call it. Before it started the cameras showed us the arrival of the Queen and a seperate coach containing the crown. Yes, the crown has a coach of its own. It was lifted from its coach by the Lord Great Chamberlain, who bore it like an elderly waiter in the Tour d’Argent. He was joined by the Lord Speaker, Lady DSouza, dressed in black and gold, her long train being held up by a train-bearer. This office was only created in 2006, so the tradition of flummery is alive and well.

Then came Ken Clarke, the Lord High Chancellor of England, who was carrying what looked like the cushion cover your aunty Ethel spent months embroidering. On it rested the words of our dear leader, which Ken handed to the Queen. For her part the Queen was covered in diamonds. It looked as though she had been rolled in jewellery like a chicken nugget in breadcrumbs, and even her slightest movement caused her ensemble to flash like a disco ball. But Her Majesty was eclipsed by the riot of scarlet, gold and ermine of the zillion peers ushered to appear after a geezer called Black Rod had hammered on the door. This was a spectacular scene and our little green man would have concluded that he had called in on the wealthiest society on the planet, and then some.

The contents of the speech proved to be an anti-climax. Clearly rattled by recent polls suggesting that the only priority is the economy, our beaming prime minister decided to forsake all other policies. To keep Master Clegg quiet he did slip in references to his various ideas, but it was done in such a way that one concluded that the chance of them ever seeing the light of day are akin to our having more reservoirs.

Greater business minds than mine have taken no time to declare that in the absence of any plans for growth the government’s plans are as useful as a one-handed juggler. ‘Lacklustre’ is about the kindest headline in this morning’s papers.

Not far away from all this joyois extravagenc lies the borough of Newham. Its Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, had this to say; “Landlords here make big money. You get a few breeze blocks, sling-up some crappy old shed in your back garden, and trade in human misery”. He went on to tell of one house containing 38 people, of whom 16 were children, and of people being forced to live in “squalor and misery”. Cuts in almost all services and benefits have created a nightmare world scarcely different from scenes from the third-world that used to have we Brits recoiling in horror.

Sir Robin even found one family paying rent to live in a disused walk-in freezer. Perhaps he should have obtained them a ticket for yesterday’s big show. It would surely have come as a shock to the masses of the good and powerful who are probably unaware that such people exist.

Perhaps we could have another new top title. Lord and Lady Freezer of Newham?

                         OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

QUOTES OF THE DAY!

“This squandered speech tells a story of uncertainty”….Martin Kettle, The Guardian    “The Queen’s speech suggests that there’s little sign of the leopard changing its spots”…Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium    “We still await the government’s bold reforms”….John Cridlan, CBI    “The cost of Cameron’s Coalition is growing ever more expensive”…Peter Oborne, Daily Telegraph   “Why was there no plan for growth?”….Robert Winnett, Political Editor, Daily Telegraph

                  OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO