Rogues’ gallery, allegedly

February 5, 2010 — admin

…Not that I am suggesting for an instant that they are guilty, of course, as it seems finally a court of law will get to decide on the MPs’ expenses scandal. While I remain sceptical about the moral posturing conducted about MPs by some of the equally morally dubious press, I have always said that cases where there was evidence of criminal behaviour should be dealt with.

Now we know four people will face criminal charges over misuse of public money. And each of their circumstances helps us paint a picture of what was going on with the Fees Office and MPs’ claims.

So as not to be biased, I’ll start with the Conservative member of the quartet, Lord Hanningfield. It is said that between March 2006 and May 2009, he submitted claims for overnight stays in London when he was actually driven home to Chelmsford. Earlier versions of the story in the media contained information that has subsequently been removed for Contempt of Court reasons. Suffice it to say that it appears from earlier quotes that Fees Office staff were informing those that they oversaw that charging for overnight stays and then sloping off back home – or staying the night with friends instead - was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Well it isn’t – and those alleged to have made such claims should clearly have known better. But it also serves to illustrate the catastrophic failure of the Fees Office to do its job – it has been seeking to run things for the benefit of MPs and peers rather than for the taxpayers that are its real masters.

Elliot Morley is charged with claiming mortage expenses during a three-year period on either a false basis or when the loan had already been paid off. He claims that he didn’t realise that mortgage had been paid off and he has repaid the money. It is also worth noting that the Fees Offices clearly didn’t see fit to check his claim over this long period of time. In my view, it is totally correct that these charges should be heard by a court. This is not the same as charging for a duck house or trouser press; the allegations – and they are only allegations – amount to something else entirely.

David Chaytor is charged with submitting false invoices and coming up with an ingenious scheme whereby a flat that he actually owned was “rented” from his daughter and mother in order to claim expenses on it. Again, these are only charges, but it seems to me that if MPs put half as much energy into lawmaking as they appear to have put into finding ways of maximising their expense claims, the country might not be in such a dire situation. And once again, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that somewhere along the line, the Fees Office knew of this arrangement and were happy to accommodate it. And if they didn’t, they should have.

Jim Devine took Robin Cook’s seat after the latter died in 2005 and is charged with using false invoices. His case is interesting because he became an MP only four years before the story broke. I refuse to believe that a man of previously good character - and who has been through a rigorous selection process – suddenly decides to come up with false invoices after only three years in the House of Commons.

I think that somewhere in all of this there were people assuring MPs that it was fine to claim for bathplugs, fine to claim for overnight stays and then go home, okay to put through a “replacement” invoice for one that was lost and no problem to use a variety of tricks to keep the expense payments as high as possible.

That doesn’t excuse the MPs, all of whom are guilty of poor judgement and avarice. But it does ask questions about the officials involved in this discredited process and whose names are not plastered all over the papers at the moment.

Posted in Law, news, politics. Tags: . No Comments »

Fiddling the system

February 3, 2010 — admin

Tony Blair talked about it after his win in 1997 but soon kicked it into the long grass when civil servants pointed out the advantage that it could potentially give him during the next 10 years. I am of course talking about the first-past-the-post voting system, which has served the country well for 150 years by delivering strong governments in a two-party system.

Yes, it tends to flatter the winning party – enabling them to get legislation through that would otherwise be compromised by protracted negotiations with coalition partners. We haven’t had a hung parliament in this country since 1974 and you have to go back to 1929 for the one before that. In that time, the country has undergone radical economic and social change and the fact that we’ve had governments able to push through their legislation – both popular and unpopular – has been one of the factors that still allows us to be competitive nearly a century after the onset of post-Imperial decline.

Now Gordon Brown wants to change all that.  Isn’t it interesting that having thought about it in 1997 as Chancellor only now is he coming to realise that perhaps it might be a good idea after all? Or, more likely, isn’t he just after a chance to gerrymander the electoral system? He knows that if he wins the election in May, he’s very unlikely to deliver a fifth term for Labour in 2015 because governments just don’t stay popular for that long. So, he reasons, let’s change the system to make it tougher for the Tories, if they don’t win in 2010, to get in at a later point.

And it’s interesting that a graphic in the Guardian today shows how the House of Commons would have looked if the AV system had been in place already. We can see that while it appears to bolster the interests of the largest and smallest parties at the expense of the one in between, that isn’t really what happens. What happens is that Conservative voters are far more likely to vote Lib Dem as their second choice, Lib Dem voters far more likely to put Labour as theirs and Labour voters also likely to vote Lib Dem as a second preference. So with Conservative shorn of the majority of second choices, they have to win on the first preference votes alone, whereas the other two parties are more likely to win on second choices.

It, in effect, seals an unofficial electoral pact between the Lib Dems and Labour – even though a good many people who vote Lib Dem do so because they don’t want to vote Labour or Conservative and have little idea what they are voting for – except they “think that Vince Cable is ever such a nice chap”.

There is an issue with the first-past-the-post system in how it works in a three-party, not two-party system. The largest party is inflated, the smallest party negated. But the Lib Dems have always called for proportional voting out of self-interest and not because they believe it enhances democracy. I don’t remember it being quite so far up their list of priorities 100 years ago when they were forming governments on the back of the FPTP system.

Thankfully, not everyone is taken in by the PM’s Saulian conversion to the cause of electoral reform. I’m heartened to see that the BBC reports (I’ll quote becuase it’s a long way down):

“Campaigners for democratic reform give a mixed reaction on Mr Brown’s proposals, with some, such as Power 2010 saying it did not go far enough: “Without troubling the public for their views, ministers hand-picked the voting system they favour in a cynical exercise aimed at wrong-footing the Tories ahead of a likely election defeat.

“The future of our democracy is far too important to be decided by empty gestures such as this.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Posted in Labour, elections. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »

Cadbury cremed by bad law

February 2, 2010 — admin

I’ve always been partial to Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and for the past two weeks, I’ve been buying boxes and bringing them into the office, exhorting my colleagues to “eat them while they are still British”. Alas, no more. At 1pm today, the iconic British company became the plaything of an American conglomerate whose trademark cheese products are, astonishingly, even less related to actual cheese than Creme Eggs are to eggs.

PM has been busy lately, launching a attempted decapitation strategy on DC yesterday in a speech filled with more chutzpah than a New York second-hand car dealership. Now he’s been to meet the Kraft CEO, who’s not averse to audacity herself on the evidence of this takeover, he is sagely warning that he’ll be looking for more detailed assurances in the coming months. I don’t think that’s going to worry Irene Rosenfeld much – she’s only 4% short of the shares she needs to take Cadburyoff the stock exchange altogether.

And what PM is less keen to let you know is that it was Labour, through the Companies Act 2006 that effectively removed the right of government to protect our long-established businesses from takeover. The act implemented the EU’s Takeover and Transparency Obligations Directives, which harmonise takeover law throughout the EU and prevent company boards from doing anything to frustrate takeover bids. But surprisingly, it’s not the EU’s fault.

Despite the obvious agenda of EU member states to fix takeover legislation to favour their own subsidised corporate environment (ever wondered why so many German, French and Spanish firms can afford to buy British companies and infrastructure?) the directive did leave EU governments free to restrict takeoever law in their states. Labour didn’t take that opportunity and so the government is now in a very weak position to do anything about Kraft or dictate terms to it once Cadbury is bought.

There’s nothing intrisically bad about large British companies getting taken over. It puts money into shareholders’ pockets and since many shareholders are pension schemes, it helps to boost flagging pension values. Certainly Kraft has chosen to pay well over the odds for Cadbury. But it is important that we have British companies continuing to develop and emerge on the global market as players.

And with little or no protection from foreign predators, that is less, not more, likely to happen.

Posted in Economy, Europe, Labour, Law. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Food waste muck-raking

February 2, 2010 — admin

Enough information to fill a blue bin

A couple of days ago I received among the more dubious of Lib Dem leaflets, which was masquerading as a National and Local issues survey. Actually, there was only one short and very general question on national issues and the rest of it was dedicated to stirring up local matters, which the Lib Dems usually achieve with some skill. None of the issues probed about was particularly surprising.

The one thing that did catch my eye though was question six, which asked people “Do you have all the information you need about the new food waste collections (starting January 2010)”? Apart from inviting the answer “no” and provoking a small degree of antipathy among voters, I’m left wondering what all this is about. In case the Lib Dems hadn’t noticed, a whole section of the Woking Borough Council website is dedicated to answering a myriad of questions on the service and it is also linked to on the homepage.

In addition, I had my caddies delivered today and there is included in the package an eight-page booklet that describes in more detail than you could ever need why the scheme is being introduced, how to use it, what can go in the bins and includes a tear-out calendar of collection dates. As a PR officer, I’m fairly certain that this covers most bases.

Anyone who still doesn’t have enough information on the scheme after that either has an unhealthy interest in the mechanics of waste collection or simply isn’t listening. To me, question six demonstrates that the Lib Dems suffer from one of these afflictions. Answers on a postcard.

Posted in Environment, Lib Dem lies, Woking Borough Council. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

Ten good things about the BBC

January 28, 2010 — admin

I’ve done two things today. Firstly, following a discussion on Twitter with @PaulTwinn, who took issue with my last posts and comments about Nick Robinson, I’ve added Biased BBC to my blogroll because it is a decent blog that has some insight into the very subtle way BBC bias manifests itself.

I accept totally that people within the organisation don’t detect bias or believe that they are on anything other than the middle ground. I’ve never worked for the BBC, but I do have a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Media Theory, five years in the industry and am studying for a Postgraduate diploma in Public Relations after three years in that industry. So I know how the system works. And it isn’t just me claiming there is bias in the corporation – they admit it themselves.

Anyway, enough of the BBC bashing, I think it’s important to remember that the BBC’s coverage of politics is staffed by many good journalists who are earnestly seeking to present the truth to people in the best way that they can. Taking it a stage further, the BBC is also graced with many very courageous and skilled reporters who risk their lives in war zones and undercover investigations to bring the news into people’s front rooms. It is not without reason that the BBC commands respect across the globe.

I am one of the few people I know who believe that the BBC’s investment in BBC3 and BBC4 and digital technology is money well spent – the corporation cannot afford to rest on its channels complacent in the knowledge the licence fee exempts it from having to make progress. It doesn’t and the BBC has been prepared to make risky decisions to stay with its commercial rivals.

So the second thing I am doing today is enforcing a bit of impartiality upon myself by listing 10 reasons why I am happy to pay a licence fee – even if I believe it could be cheaper!

1) The BBC carries British values and standards throughout the world and will remain the most trusted and respected trans-global broadcaster well into the 21st century. Such regard is not built up for no reason.

2) There exists a tradition of quality wildlife and natural world programming at the BBC that the corporation has maintained and even improved (the Planet Earth series was the best recent example). I hope this will continue even when Sir David Attenborough cannot.

3) The BBC has made a substantial proportion of its back catalogue available to the public first on VHS and then on DVD. Okay, this helps bolster its income but means that people born after Fawlty Towers was originally broadcast are able to enjoy it, along with other classics such as Yes, Minister and The Office.

4) iPlayer – the corporation has displayed a high degree of acumen and foresight by pioneering this technology and making it available on platforms such as Virgin, BT and even the iPhone as it doesn’t require Flash Player.

5) The BBC has one of the most accessed and wide-ranging websites in the UK, not to mention one that is fully customisable and has content from cookery to history. It is certainly a lot better than Sky’s and ITN’s and of the online newspapers, only the Grauniad runs it close.

6) Jeremy Clarkson. It’s fair to say that he is the antithesis of everything that the liberal BBC stands for. It’s not just that he’s there – ITV could have done that – it’s that an organisation with such a loud exponent of its collective political anathema gives him a platform that its instincts tell it should be denied. Long may it continue.  

7) BBC Parliament. Hardly anyone can receive it and of those that can, hardly anyone watches it. But as Sir Humphrey said of Radio 3, the countryside, the opera and the universities “It’s vital to know that they’re there!” Televising parliament was a huge turning point in our political culture and the BBC covers it well. It’s not its fault that no-one’s interested.

8 ) Local radio. In many places, it has been marginalised by commercial competitors but it still serves a small but significant part of the population who if it wasn’t there, would have little or no access to local news. Local radio plays a part in helping communities define themselves.

9) The Reith Lectures, which have been commissioned by the BBC since 1948 and most recently broadcast on Radio 4. The 2008 lectures on China were particularly fascinating – it’s a shame that they are not put out on TV; BBC2 is an obvious home for them.

10) Charitable events, notable Comic Relief and Children in Need. The corporation has helped raise more than £1bn since the 1980s with these two charities and that is something to be very satisfied by. Some may think it’s all got a bit too much but in this case I believe the end justifies the means.

So there we are – ten very good things about the BBC. I don’t oppose it, I don’t want to see it privatised, it has an important place in the nation’s fabric. I accept that it will always be an organisation with a culture that prefers a particular way of presenting things. But I won’t just ignore that fact.

Posted in Mundane occurances, Other blogs. Tags: , . No Comments »

BBC – Broadly Bashing Cameron

January 27, 2010 — admin

In the dark - Broadcasting House seems to have its own view on economics

Apparently two separate blog entries in lightning succession trying to make hay out of the Hatfield House meetings clearly wasn’t enough for Nick Robinson, who surely won’t still be BBC Political Editor by the end of the year. The fact that no other media saw fit to run with this story in a big way shows how isolated he is, how drawn into the Labour spin trap.

We now have another blog post on Tory cuts that tries to have it all ways – saying the Conservatives will cut and if they don’t painting that as a U-turn and another slight on DC. He then helps perpetuate the myth that government spending boosts growth and will therefore aid a recovery. Government spending doesn’t boost growth - it creates its own growth, which then disappears once the subsidy is withdrawn. The UK would still be in recession without the Car Scrappage Scheme – with that scheme over, the car industry can expect a significant downturn in the months ahead.

Today, the Labour group on the LGA announced it would push for a 1% pay increase for the least well paid rather than exercise restraint. Again, the money that goes into propping up more and more public sector wages is a massive ongoing subsidy and one that cannot be withdrawn now it has been enacted without devastating unemployment. The reduction of the public sector headcount must be a target of a Conservative government because it is not healthy for our economy, society or democracy for such a large proportion of the population to be employed by the government.

But now so many are, reducing that number is a hugely painful and expensive thing to do. We mustn’t make the same mistake with the economy by using more government money to prop it up – it needs to be nurtured and kicked into a recovery of its own and the only way to do that is to reduce our debt. Yesterday Bill Gross told investors across the world to avoid the UK because of our huge debts, weak currency and fragile recovery. Like George Osborne, he sees that debt reduction – preferably quickly – is the only way to restore confidence, maintain our credit rating and keep interest rates down.

It’s all very well pumping money into the economy – even if it doesn’t actually promote sustainable growth. But if people’s mortgage rates go from 2.5% up to 6% within 12 months, it isn’t going to leave them with much money to aid the recovery; in fact, many of them will be worse off than they were while we were in recession.

So the BBC needs to stop chucking the last dice all over the place in support of Labour and start understanding that more borrowing and spending in the short-term is going to make the problem far, far worse. If they leave everything as it is, we will fingernail into a slow and drawn out recovery process during which many people will be worse off than they have been for the past two years.

Only by committing to reduce the deficit can we carry the confidence of the markets, which are the real force behind recovery. We need to cut public spending while keeping as many people as possible employed, to raise taxes for those that can afford it most and keep interest rates down while selling on as much of our debt as we can. It’s not going to be easy.

Posted in Economy, news. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Economy’s off the scale

January 26, 2010 — admin

Well, don’t you feel better now? The UK is officially out of recession (link to The Times because the BBC’s coverage reads like a Treasury press release), so we can all get back in our cars, go back to shopping in Waitrose and start thinking about re-mortgaging the house. Not quite. Because the government has been pumping so, so much money into our economy during the past 12 months that anything other than growth – however pitifully small – would have been utter humiliation. It’s also worth pointing out that we still have January and February’s figures to come before Q4 2009 growth is confirmed.

I believe that 0.1% is rather convenient for Gordon Brown and will be revised downwards in a few weeks when the fuss has died down. But there is a fundamental distinction between the two parties on how to maintain recovery – and remember that a second “after-slump” in the face of first recovery is something that has characterised nearly all the post-war recession. Labour wants to continue to prop up the economy with taxpayers’ money and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that in such dire circumstances.

The BBC's graph is stastically nonsense

But at some point, the props have to be taken away – and at the moment, the whole thing would come crashing down if that were the case. This is the graph that the Treasury and the BBC wants people in Britain to see. It looks like we are out of the woods. With another 18 months of quantative easing and borrowing, the figure could quite easily be pushed up to 2 or 3 percent and the government given credit for not just a full recovery but a new boom.

The Guardian's graph not only shows us where we actually are but compares with other recessions

This, though, is the Grauniad’s somewhat more realistic assessment of the situation that shows the recession has wiped out all the growth in the British economy since 2005. I have heard both George Osborne and Phillip Hammond in the media today say that the only thing that will keep us out of recession is the private sector’s profits, jobs and tax revenues and that interest rates must stay low to stimulate that growth. We need to cut the defecit to bolster our credit rating and boost our floundering currency.

A rise in interest rates, which would have an adverse affect on people’s spending power, is the most serious threat to our sustained economic recovery – apart from a fourth term for Labour. More borrowing could mean a softening of Britain’s credit rating and devaluing of the pound, which would make government guilts and bonds less attractive to investors. The government desperately needs to harden these investments to pass Britain’s debt onto those with the money to buy it; cuts in spending alone coupled with tax increases will not be enough to pay off our borrowings.

I want to see Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond blast through Labour bluster about recovery and remind people that whatever Labour has done to bring us out of recession – and you can argue about the effectiveness vs cost of that – it’s nothing compared to the damage they have done to British business and trade, as well as landing us with a huge debt to pay off. I want to see people reminded about this until Gordon Brown doesn’t want to talk about the economy anymore. Brown’s plans to continue to spend his way out of recession and worry about the economic consequences later should convince that he can’t be trusted on this.

He’s been saying for ages that the Conservatives have made the wrong call on the economy every time. It’s not true and it’s time we hit back. He wants to continue to mollycoddle the nation and extend the pain for longer. The Conservative approach is not just a self-flagellating short, sharp shock; it makes absolute economic sense and it’s about time we said so.

Posted in Economy, elections. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »

Lurch to the right

January 25, 2010 — admin

DC has plenty to think about - but voters still don't want Gordon Brown as PM

There’s no mystery as to why the Conservative lead in the polls has narrowed. In fact, reading PR Week this morning, it was quite refreshing to see Alex Hilton spelling it out for any reading Conservatives who may not have realised yet. And if we look at the polls, we don’t really see any massive increase in Labour’s polling – they are steady at just under 30% – but a decline in support for the Conservatives.

The tipping point was the Lisbon Treaty being ratified by President Klaus of the Czech Republic. For the first time, DC and his team looked like they’d been caught out – like they had thought that the wily old Klaus would hold out for them and they didn’t look as though they had really thought through what would happen next. Or perhaps they underestimated the level of opinion within the Tory grass roots and had expected them just to swallow the whole debate being kicked into the long grass.

In reality, there wasn’t much alternative, as I argued at the time. A referendum on the treaty is a totally pointless waste of time and the activists’ posturing on it just that. But the question of whether to put Tory grass roots ahead of country as a whole was a particularly poignant one for him because voters see that question as the benchmark as to what kind of PM he will be. In the end, he chose neither and pleased neither.

Since then, we’ve had some cracking grass roots-pleasing policies. Punishing people for not being married is one. For goodness’ sake, we’ve had 13 long years of a government telling us how to live – from the beef we can eat to detention without trial, people want a Conservative government that will leave them alone, not tell them they’ve got to march to the Register Office or else. Marriage doesn’t automatically equal childhood bliss as we’ve seen in Edlington; please DC, just let it go.

Next we’ve had the Tories arguing about strengthening the law to allow people to defend their homes. The simply fact is that we have to have some kind of trust in the rule of law and the police to distinguish us from the animals. You are already entitled to use reasonable force – which may include deadly force – to defend yourself and your loved ones in your own home; there is no for any further “clarification” of this fact. By banging on about it, Chris Grayling and everyone risk succinct exposure by the legal profession.

Then DC had a pop at teachers and told them that they would need to be cleverer in future. I happen to agree with his view on this but saying such a thing was never likely to endear him to the NUT, BBC, or the many parents who are potential Tory voters that have a healthy respect for the teachers at their childrens’ school. There is an issue with teaching standards in this country but he’d have been better leaving it to Michael Gove to say so.

He’s also playing a risky game engaging the government over the raising of the UK Terror Threat to “severe”. The public do not like to see politicians making political capital of national security. Yes, DC means well but he needs to engage his PR brain a bit more to see how these things may be perceived. Is Andy Coulson on holiday?

DC’s greatest political achievement has been to drag a tired old party kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I and many others waited 10 years for someone to do it and it remains a great achievement – but it’s only a starting point. And with Lisbon, he has been a victim of circumstances trying to do the right thing – but hey, that’s politics. Now is the time for DC to be fitfully stubborn and stand his ground – the centre ground.

He must, must not allow the party to do what many of its activists want and move back to the right. He needs to focus back onto the left of politics – to talk the language of inclusion, of accessibility and of aspiration. He must ignore the threats of UKIPper defections – he needs to stay focussed on the mainstream of society, the probables, the Liberal waiverers, the people who are looking for him to uphold their vision of a small-c conservative society that celebrates success and achievement but makes this possible for everyone. I’ll fight and fight for the party forever – but I’ll feel a lot better about it if I hear more of this and less Monday Club rhetoric.

Labour won’t make it easy – they are focussing on Gordon Brown the statesman with the War on Terror, the Northern Ireland process, they are talking about banking bonuses again and tax will be an issue too. There are probably brighter economic figures to come. DC needs to stay strong, to regain confidence in his ability to be the Prime Minister of everyone, not just his own party.

The time for him to become PM is approaching fast and his margin of error is narrowing. It’s now or never and he needs to get a grip once more.

Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, elections. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Bernays source

January 24, 2010 — admin

I spent yesterday at the University of Nottingham starting out on my PR diploma, which if I pass it will allow to become a full member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. It was a fairly intense day of discussion and critical analysis of what has always been to me an entirely practical pursuit- I have no formal PR qualifications or training at all having gained degrees in music and then journalism.

As part of the opening session, we watched a short segment from a TV programme called The Century of the Self, which first aired in 2002 and for reasons of copyright hasn’t seen any further broadcast since then. It is the story of how the theories of Sigmund Freud were taken up by later members of his family, including his daughter Anna Freud and nephew Edward Bernays and used to control the masses in a new way that defined 20th century history.

In particular, Eddie Bernays used the idea that we all have dangerous and primal instincts contained within ourselves than can be exploited to control thinking, break taboos and change behaviour. He became a key member of the American administration in the First World War as the champion of pro-war propaganda and after the war took the very same ideas and launched a new venture, which he called “counsel in public relations“.

It’s all on YouTube and it is really is gripping viewing for anyone interested in how democracy and consumerism has developed during the past 100 years. Matthew Freud, the great-grandson of Sigmund, PR guru and wife of Elisabeth Murdoch, was also involved in the production. Some of the commentary slightly over-states the accepted academic view of the importance some of the featured individuals had – but that only serves to demonstrate what good self-publicists they were!

Posted in Mundane occurances, history. Tags: , . No Comments »

Carthouse Lane Allotments part II

January 22, 2010 — admin

I did say that I would return to the subject of the Carthouse Lane Allotments, although the target date for this application is not until the middle of February. It won’t be heard at the planning meeting on Tuesday – the agenda for that is now published.

Horsell Residents Association met on Wednesday evening and briefly discussed the application. There were concerns about how allotments and warehouses could be built in close proximity to the Special Protection Area when homes themselves were restricted. This all stems to a useless EU directive that is designed to protect nightjars and Dartford Warblers in southern Spain but has wrecked the housing plans of local authorities throughout the Thames Valley.

Put simply, people keep pets and walk them near where they live. It is those dogs and cats that cause a potential hazard to the habitat of ground-nesting birds and the birds themselves. By comparison, a warehouse or industrial unit creates no similar threat. It’s a completely ridiculous directive but there we go.

The general consensus at HRA was that the application itself is no bad thing, even if it did highlight the silliness of the EU law.

Posted in Community, news, planning. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »
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