Readers of this site will remember we last left the two ex public school boy ex MEP candidiates reminding us that they shared the same policies - more green taxes, local income tax, more power to Europe, more regional government.

At last there is a breathtaking breakthrough - Nick Clegg has announced he would break the law when Labour bring in their ghastly ID cards.

So now I say to those who have a vote VOTE CLEGG - it would be a great laugh to see media opinion swing from loving him to condemning him for breaking the law. I would live in hope that he would be the first serving Lib Dem leader to have a criminal record for refusing to establish his identity in the legal manner! You can see why the media want him, as it would be so much more exciting. Even better if the punishment for ID offences becomes a time in prison.

It is suprising that someone said to be so savvy and intelligent has not yet worked out that MPs uphold Parliamenatary democracy where the rules are simple. We can and should kick up every kind of democratic fuss about bad laws, but accept that like everyone else we are beneath the law and have to follow it once passed.

Ex public school girl and six figure salary Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly has come up with answer to the transport chaos and congestion Labour has presided over - charges for motorists wanting to travel in cities or on busy motorways.

Building on the success of Prescott’s bus lane on the M4 used by the previous Prime Minister in a hurry, and the much admired Zil lane Olympics transport plans, Ms Kelly now proposes making people pay more to travel between London, Manchester and Birmingham on the motorways, and recommends congestion charging to more towns and cities.

I look forward to seeing her contribution to the next Labour manifesto. Coming from the Marie Antoinette school of politics, it will presumably say “The poor should take the bus or stay at home”. It will make its bid to get the votes of the better off by recommending ” You know you can afford it - try one of our motorways now we persuaded those on low incomes to stay off the road. You know you’re worth it.”

You can share the road with Ministers enjoying their chauffeured vehicles, paid for by these new road charges. You must be pleased the money is going to such a good cause.

When I last asked questions of Ministers to tell me how often they used public transport as opposed to the car I was told they did not keep records! I wonder why?

Today we hear there are two government initiatives briefed to the media - and of course no Parliament once again to press and probe government Ministers on what they are up to.

The first is Hazel Blears offering

Last Thursday (25th) John Redwood intervened in the Commons debate on its modernisation, urging that the Commons’ relevancy could be improved if Ministers simply answered the questions put to them. Mr Redwood welcomed the Government’s modernisation proposals, but stressed that the continual evasions of Ministers when asked difficult questions are frustrating for electors and compromise the Government’s accountability.

Here is the full intervention and response from the Leader of the House, Harriet Harman (taken from Hansard):

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I favour the Leader of the House’s proposals for more topical debates and questions. But before we get muddled up about regional accountability

It came as no surprise to learn today the government had failed to add up all the different categories of migrant worker who have joined the workforce in the last decade. Just as they greatly underestimated the numbers coming from the newer member states of the EU, so they have understated the total numbers of new migrant workers. Finding more workers will make the productivity and income per head figures worse again if they also excluded these from the relevant calculation.

The government has reduced labour flexibility by their employment legislation, but have offset some of the consequences of that by allowing large numbers of new workers to come in from overseas, in some cases ignoring the rules. Any cursory examination of the workforce in large areas of the economy from hospitality and catering through building to casual labour for agriculture shows just what a contribution recently arrived migrant labour makes to our economy.

The big problem for the government is why they have allowed 5.4 million people of working age legally settled here and usually born here to remain on benefits, whilst inviting in so many people from overseas to fill the many jobs being created in the lower pay ranges of the labour market. Mr Brown now says he believes in “British jobs for British workers”, but must know this is a fiction or fantasy. Under the open borders policy within the EU - which this government signed up to - it is EU jobs for EU workers not British jobs for British workers. Under Mr Blair and Mr Brown this has been supplemented by substantial inward migration from outside the EU.

Inward migration has prevented the inflexibility generated by too much regulation and the system of benefits from doing as much damage as they might have done unaided. The challenge now, if the government is serious about EU jobs for EU workers, must be to limit non EU migration and to change the benefit system to offer greater incentives for people to take the jobs that are available. If he really wants “British jobs for British workers” then he needs to negotiate an opt out from the common borders and employment policy of the EU so that he can limit inward migration from the rest of the EU. The government should look at the success the Clinton administration had with their back to work policies in the USA and see how they can adapt them here to start to get some results.

I assume the government will extend the transition arrangements for Roumania and Bulgaria. They say the Conservatives do not have a policy. That’s strange, as I have heard Damian Green and David Cameron articulate a very clear policy, favouring ways of gaining control of our borders,and reducing the numbers of migrant workers allowed in each year from outside the EU. The Conservatives had an opt out from the EU system of common borders which this government surrendered.

The government has lurched from claiming inward migration is beneficial and essential to saying they want “British jobs for British workers”. What we need from the government is some honesty about the figures,and more constructive thoughts on how to get many more people back into work off benefits. What matters is income per head and output per head, not total output. Looking at the poorer parts of the UK it is quite clear incomes are still too low, and the main reason is there are not enough people settled here in jobs.

I was phoned yesterday by Scottish journalists aware of the growing disquiet in England about the more favourable financial settlement they receive north of the border. I was asked if the Conservatives would change the formula.

I see this as a more urgent question than that. It cannot be delayed until after the next election. The anger is real now. The present government has brought this row on, by its botched devolution proposals, and by losing control of the Scottish Parliament. The issue is not what will the Conservatives do tomorrow, but what will Labour have to do today?

The Labour government - and the original architect of the formula- see the need to review it. Labour Ministers are finding it galling to watch as Alex Salmond uses the extra money to spend on eye catching and popular proposals like free prescriptions, free care and less expensive higher education. They realise that to stay in office they need to win the bulk of their seats in England where the bulk of the population lives. English voters are getting sick and tired of paying so much tax, with little in return by way of better public services in their own areas. They find it especially irritating to see Scotland flaunt its better deal.

The main reason Scotland gets so much more per head than England is that the Scottish economy has performed so much worse than London’s economy. More people are on benefit proportionately, there are more people in need of NHS treatment, and the public sector is so much more dominant than it is in southern England.

The government will be looking to find a way of reforming the financial settlement which allows Scotland to meet its legitimate bills brought on by more social need, without giving it such a better deal than England to allow Salmond to claim credit for extra spending. Ministers are well aware that all this just serves to make Alex Salmond more popular, and places them in a tight corner. If they do not find a more convincing answer soon, English anger will translate into a movement away from supporting Labour. If they find the wrong answer it will enable Alex Salmond to twist the knife further in Scotland, threatening Westminster seats Labour need to hold.

I thought it very funny to read Labour’s protestations that the Conservatives were damaging the Union by demanding some justice for England. Surely the people who started to split the Union were those Labour MPs who thought lop sided devolution would work? They are now being hoist by their own petard.

Mr Malik has complained today that as a visiting Minister discussing tacking terrorism he had his hand luggage inspected in the USA.
I agree with him that he should not be on a suspects list, but he should understand that the “security” systems put in on both sides of the Atlantic by Ministers and senior officials mean imposing many unnecessary checks on people who have no connections with terrorism whatsoever and are never going to .
I am glad Mr Malik was inconvenienced like many of my constituents on a daily basis. He should now come home and ask himself how he can improve our security systems at airports, public buildings and conferences, to target the searches on those where there is some ground to be suspicious.
Why, for example, do people who have been given clearance and a pass to attend a party conference or to enter a public building which is their place of work have to to go through luggage and clothing checks every time they go in and out of the office, conference hall or hotel?
It means wasting a great deal of police time on tedious and fruitless searches when a targetted approach - maybe backed up with a random check system - would be more effective and free the vast majority from needless checks or from double and treble checking.

Some of you have written in with warnings about the way politicians can use science. How right you are.
This government sometimes shields itself behind science when it wishes to make a difficult or unpopular decision.

For example, this government has ordered the death of many farm animals during its time in office. Ministers always state that the science demands this, and prefer to let an official answer the questions on the media.

They use NICE to ration pharmaceuticals available on the NHS. They try to imply this is a set of “independent” judgements by experts which has nothing to do with Ministers. Yet in practise it is rationing based on an assessment of cost effectiveness so the NHS can try to stay within Ministerial budgets.

They tell us the scientific argument concerning the pace and origins of global warming is over - the science is settled. Yet what we are interested in is Ministerial decisions about what action the Uk should take in the light of the scientific opinions, which requires interpretation of the scientific evidence and predictions.

Ministers are there to assess all kinds of professional advice - legal, economic, scientific, military, diplomatic - and to make decisions based on it. They are not there to say that some kinds of advice are above their judgements. Their task is to seek to understand the thrust of professional opinions, deal with conflicts within it and between different types of professional opinion, come to judgements and then explain and defend them to the public. No one said it is an easy task but nor is it a task that can be ducked because some of the advice is “scientific”.

Many of us were taught about the intolerance of the Church when faced with inconvenient scientific theories, from Galileo’s ground breaking work on the place of the Earth in the solar system to Darwin’s Origin of the Species. We were instructed that true scientific method was the way to reach closer to the truth, depending as it does on the construction of hypotheses which can be tested to destruction or to near perfection. Science advances by people challenging the conventional wisdom and seeking to substitute a better theory with greater predictive qualities.

Today it is worrying that those in government and the establishment who claim to believe most strongly in science often now seem to be intolerant of sceptical discussion, questioning or alternative theories themselves. If a scientific theory is strong and widely accepted by most scientists they should be happy to propose and defend it patiently and wisely, winning others over to their view. It is counter productive to seek to shut down debate, or to vilify their critics in the way the original Galileans and Darwinists were attacked.

A recent Radio 4 Moral Maze started to highlight this issue with their discussion of scientific work on intelligence amongst different people based on the recent controversy about whether this work is racist. There are three other cases which I think illustrate rather better a foolish intolerance on the part of some seeking to uphold scientific method and the primacy of a scientific approach to truth.

The first is the theory of evolution itself. When Darwin eventually released his theory contemporaries were shocked by the idea that man descended from the apes. Most of us are now relaxed about the idea that we are all a more successful (but not all necessarily nicer) kind of monkey. When I was discussing education with some clever and well educated sixth formers the other day who were condemning Creationist teaching,I decided to see how far I could get running the views of the Creationists. The first impact of doing this was of course to worry my audience about my grasp of science, but the second impact was to worry them about a fundamental scientific truth they accepted which turned out to have an element of belief rather than proof in it. They were unable to establish how the first primitive life forms emerged from the primordial slime. The assumption appears to be that some combination of naturally occurring materials and energy came together to produce a simple living organism. It would be too dificult to believe inert matter and energy could produce a sophisticated life form, but science is unable to say exactly how this took place and is unable to replicate the process. Everyone should still share some wonder at the unexplained magic of life and accept that science does not yet have all the answers.

The second is climate change theory. All too often the scientific establishment declines to set out its evidence for believing that this period of global warming, unlike the others that preceeded it, is driven by human generation of CO2. The large sums of research money are spent on developing and supporting the theory, which allows sceptics to doubt and to wonder what would happen if more money were spent on trying to disprove it. It is this refusal of the believers to seek to persuade the sceptics and unbelievers which underlies the reluctance of many to pay higher taxes for CO2 reducing causes - in addition to the normal dislike of higher taxes generally.

The third was the treatment of the case of the MMR injection. The medical establishment claims good evidence to support the good this injection does, and to deny that it can do harm. Some parents need more reassurance, which means meeting the critics in debate and dealing with their doubts with evidence.

Alex Salmond has reason to feel pleased with his work. He has found a series of issues where Scotland can be given better treatment than England, based on the more favourable financial settlement. His intention is to use these issues to make English voters angry about the injustice of the Union settlement, so there is pressure for English - and therefore by definition for Scottish - independence from south of the border. It is beginning to have an impact.

It takes a certain kind of swagger to go further and claim that the current Scottish financial settlement is unfair to Scotland, based on some curious figures about the tax take on “Scotland’s oil”. There is the issue over whether the English/Scottish border in the North Sea should follow the line of the land border or not. If it did it goes out into the oil and gas fields in a north easterly direction, leaving more of the hydrocarbon on the English side. There is the more important issue of how we tax oil. Most of the tax paid on “Scottish” oil is paid by English consumers when they buy the final products.

The truth is a Labour government which believes it can buy votes by spending taxpayers money has no wish for Scotland to have a favourable settlement now that many issues are under the day to day control of the SNP. That is why Labour sources are beginning to question the wisdom of the Barnet formula which allows Scotland to spend more per head than England, and why there are no tears being shed in Downing Street that Alex Salmond thinks he is short of money.

The problem for Downing Street, needing the Union to keep both the PM and the Chancellor in office, is that none of this helps either the Union or their popularity in their native Scotland. Alex Salmond has a strong hand and so far he has played it skillfully. Gordon Brown has a weak hand, and so far has played it poorly. The more the question of England becomes central to debate south of the border, the more Alex Salmond will fuel it, and the weaker Gordon Brown will become.

The more higher taxes bite into English incomes, the more there will be resentment of both waste and unfair direction of the cash. Gordon Brown needs to come up with an answer to the problem of England quickly. As some of us warned at the time, one sided devolution was always going to weaken the Union, not strengthen it. Linking one sided devolution to more EU control, and to more unelected regional government in England, makes the position far worse.

England is angry about the imposition of unelected regional government. It is furious that Gordon Brown ignored the result of the North East referendum, by carrying on with unelected regional government there . England is angry about the absence of the promised referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty. Now England is angry about the threat of Parliamentary mechanisms to try to sell regionalism to the English, when we want an answer to the problems created by unfair and one sided devolution.

Gordon Brown has form taking ever larger sums of tax money from people using cars, vans and lorries. His latest increase is ill judged, coming at a time of a large increase in the price of crude oil which is increasing the tax take still further.

Once before a large hike in petrol tax caused a taxpayers revolt, a difficult period for the government, and a climb down by the Chancellor. It seems he has not learned from this bitter experience.

Many people have already faced big increases in stealth taxes of all kinds, and a substantial increase in their mortgage payments. They now face petrol at

Alistair Darling’s performance before the Tresury Committee confirmed

1. He knew all about Northern Rock well in advance of the crisis.
2. The regulatory system is tripartite with him at its head.
3. He did not understand how short of cash the markets were and what damage that was going to do
4. He did not query why the Fed and the ECB made their markets more liquid whilst the Bank of England stood by and watched the credit crunch become severe.
5. GHe was unable or unwilling to help a private sector rescue of Northern Rock.

His testimony demonstared that he has to take the blame for the Northern Rock crisis. He was the most senior regulator on duty.
He did not take sensible action to prevent a run on a bank in the UK, and still seems to have a very hazy understanding of how the money markets work.
It would be a good idea if someone parachuted into such a role without the proper experience had to receive some training or demonstrate he was taking sensible advice - that after all is what he expects as top regulator for people working throughout the financial markets.

The big question now is Who regulates the Regulator? When Parliament is away on long summer holidays, the answer is no-one.

Yesterday Darling had the brass neck to tell the banks they had to stop hiding debts off balance sheet. This comes from the man who refuses to put PFI/PPP debt on the government’s balance sheet, and refuses to include the government’s great pensions black hole on it either - when all banks have to put their pension deficit on their balance sheets. Sometime it is difficult to believe that Ministers can behave in such a manner.

When Gordon Brown arrived as PM we were told a new era had dawned. Parliament would be given a central place again in our island story. Spinning and briefings would be banned. Parliament would be told first and would make the decisions.

The first 100 days did not work out like that. For most of the time the doors of the Commons Chamber were closed to argumentative MPs, as Parliament stayed on holiday. After a brief “clear up” session we are about the be dismissed for another week long break before the new session.

If Parliament does not meet enough it is difficult to hold the government to account. The summer’s events - floods, terrorism, bank run, mortgage pain and EU sell out all carried on with no opportuntiy for MPs to cross examine Ministers or to debate the issues. it is frustrating to see the government’s majority used to minimise the time Minsiters are exposed to quesitoning.

Now we are told that Parliament will be revitalised by a series of measures announced and debated yesterday:

1. Parliament will have the right to vote before any war. It always did have - and did so whenever a war was contentious.
2. Parliament will have the right to vote on Treaties. Again it always had that right, although it would help if a convention or requirement were established ensuring it was part of the regular process to ensure proper discussion of these events which can bind Parliaments for a long time.
3. There will be topical debates each week. This would have more credibility if backbenchers rather than the government chose the subjects.
4. There will be topical questions to departments each day. That is a good idea.

This does not amount to an earth moving agenda to transform Parliament into the centre of our governing system. All too many things will remain out of Parliament’s control, run by Brussels, by quangoes or by Ministers reluctant to let Parliament see much of what they get up to.

Worse still is the government’s threat of a further assault on England. Whilst they are dealying and struggling to work out the detail, Harman yesterday confirmed that they want to establish “regional accountability” around the artificial EU regions proposed for England.

I explained to the Leader of the House that there is an English problem, which will be made worse if the government persists in trying to split England up into a series of competing regions. We do not wish to be balkanised. A region like the “South East” is entirely artificial. I have never heard anyone expressing loyalty to or enthusiaism for the “South East”, especially as the region leaves out its most important city, London.

There are several possible models for such “regional accountability”. The government could set up a series of Select Committees, which would have Labour majorities for regions like the South East and South West where Labour is the minority. This would be an insult to electors. It could allow all MPs for each region to form a regional “Grand Committee”. This would mean the anti Labour majority in some regions could then take a different view to the government’s. Or it could form new regional scrutiny committees with a membership to be decided.

The truth is it cannot work, given the hostility to regionalisation shared by Oppositon MPs and many of the voters who have to pay for it. If Labour allowed South eastern MPs to have some influence over the quangoes of our part of the UK we would want to abolish regional bodies which Labour has set up or strengthened. The government does not want this to happen as it is wedded to all this unelected bureaucracy. If Labour creates artificial labour majorities for parts of the country where they do not have natural ones people will just see this as another stunt by a bunch of cotnrol freaks who cannot accept their brand of bureaucracy is not universally popular.

This incompetent government has done so much to destroy belief and trust in monopoly public services. One of their worst areas has been the provision of road space.

For the first few years of this government’s reign they cancelled all new road projects and lectured everyone that we had to abandon our cars, vans and lorries and take the train. They were unable to grasp the fact that there was insufficient train capacity to absorb much extra traffic.

They went further, encouraging Councils and acting directly on the trunk and motorway network to cut the capacity of what roads we do have. Bus lanes. chicanes, bollards, lower speed restrictions, rephased traffic lights, lane removal, road closure and a variety of other traffic management

On 21st October 1805 at lunch time two columns of English ships of the line made their way slowly in a light breeze towards the combined fleet of Spain and France off Cape Trafalgar. The French and Spanish fleets comprised 33 ships of the line to England’s 27. They also had the three largest warships in the world, one 130 gun vessel and two 115 gun vessels. The two largest English ships mustered just 100 cannon each. The English 27 included more small 64 gun double deckers than their opponents.

This attack broke all the usual rules of engagement. The inferior force was attacking the superior force. The Admiral in charge of the English ships ordered them into action as soon as they arrived at the enemy line, meaning that a few leading ships engaged against greatly superior firepower sometime before reinforcements could arrive. Nelson swept away the traditional Admiralty instructions to go in in a line of battle so each ship reached its opponent at about the same time. What was remarkable was that every officer and man who has left a record reveals that all were quite sure they were not just going to win, but they would annihilate their opponents. Some of the other side also shared this view, and were worried sick that at last they had to stand and engage an enemy they had spent months evading at sea or by accepting blockade in home ports.

I was asked to talk to a Trafalgar night dinner again this year. I felt it was an opportunity to discuss the qualities that make for great leadership. Nelson must go down in the annals as one of the greatest leaders of men our country has ever bred. He made sure his ships outsailed their opponents, outgunned them, outmanoeuvred them and dominated them. His reputation went before him, making many an enemy Commander feel he had lost before battle began.
The historical record leaves us clues on how he did this. It seems he combined a strong sense of high standards and discipline on the one hand, with a strong interest in the well being of all his men and an understanding of what they were looking for in a Leader on the other.

He was fortunate to receive his final command from Barham, the recently created Head of the Admiralty and a seasoned naval professional himself. Barham had been given the difficult task of sorting out the mess at the Admiralty during one of the most dangerous years of the long Napoleonic wars.

All that summer of 1805 Napoleon was threatening to take his huge army on barges across the Channel to conquer England. That year Nelson lost touch with the French Mediteranean fleet when it managed to elude his blockade and headed west to the Atlantic. Nelson spent the following weeks dashing to the West Indies and back trying to track his quarry. England did not have enough serviceable warships at sea to protect the Eastern Med, blockade the French and Spanish fleets, protect the West Indian islands and make sure they could defend the western approaches to the Channel to keep the barges in port at the same time.

Barham set about making more ships of the line seaworthy and finding captains and crews worthy of them. When he wanted an Admiral to destroy Villeneuve’s fleet, following Robert Calder’s failure to do this on a rare occasion when the English and French fleets met at sea, he decided to look again at Nelson. Some reading and a meeting persuaded him to take the risk. Once he had decided, he showed he too was a great Leader, by telling Nelson he could chose which Captains he wanted with him in his band of brothers to make up the attacking fleet.

Nelson took Captains he knew and ones he did not, but told them all the same. He was looking for men of resolve, who would make their own decisions in the thick of the battle when they might not be able to see the signals from the flag ship. He wanted men who would bravely put their ships against the enemy and not give up until they had forced surrender. He also briefed them on his novel method of attack, persuading them all this his new strategy would work best. (It had been tried occasionally before by unorthodox commanders and there were some writings Nelson may have read about how it worked)

Nelson expected the highest standards of cleanliness, maintenance, gunnery and discipline. He managed to persuade men that their lives depended on achieving this excellence. The fleet was painted out in his characteristic yellow and black colours. His tour of the Victory before the battle began displayed his concern for the meanest powder monkey or gun crew member, and led to a spontaneous outbreak of cheering. The men expected to win, they thought they had a good chance of surviving, and a better chance of prize money from capture of enemy ships. They were highly motivated.

When Nelson lay dying in the cockpit of the Victory he was told 15 enemy ships had surrendered. He murmured he was expecting 20, and was glad no English ship had succumbed. By the end of the day 19 enemy ships had been captured or destroyed. Most English ships were in a bad way but not one had given in. Whilst the loss of 1663 men was a tragic and high death toll, it compared very favourably with the 7000 reported dead on the other side. Victory’s complement alone was 850 personnel.

I tell this story because it tells us all something about heroic leadership. The great Leader has doubts Nelson was worried that he was going to miss the French fleet again. He assessed every fact and snippet of information. He made intelligent guesses and took measurable risks. He inspired those who worked for him, getting them to believe that they could achieve something magnificent if they followed his example. He was concerned about the welfare of all, and by taking big but intelligible risks he cut the risk of capture, death or failure.

Months of practising quick fire of the guns meant the English could fire 5 broadsides for every two the enemy managed. Constant practising of seamanship in difficult seas, especially when on patrol and blockade, meant the English could manoeuvre their ships so much better. The ships in the French van were out of the battle and tried to put about by seeking to pull their ships round through the efforts of rowboats linked to them.
Constant attention to detail ensured all worked well. Communicating the vision that England had justice on her side and could win was vital to the success of this extraordinary battle. If only we could get public sector leaders with this combination of dedication, skill and vision today to run our NHS wouldn’t things be better?

Let me end with a word about an Essex MP who even in those days had a second job. He was one of Nelson’s Trafalgar Captains. Captain Harvey took the great fighting Temeraire into battle. He spent some time trying to overtake his Admiral so he could be the first to feel the weight of enemy fire, only to be hailed by his Admiral to hold back. That day the Temeraire did sterling service, capturing two French ships and helping the Victory in a tight corner. The Temeraire is almost as famous as the Victory,for she was recorded for posterity in one of England’s greatest paintings by Turner, when in 1838 she was towed up the Thames by a steam tug at the end of her life.

On today’s daily climate change show we were told that there have been three “greenhouse” periods in a 500 million year period of earth time. A study has revealed that in each of these 3 periods more species became extinct than in periods when the earth experienced global cooling.

At no point did the BBC interviewer ask the obvious question - what caused these three previous periods of global warming, which predated motor cars and planes? Climate change scpetics - who seem to be multiplying because the BBC and other media are so relentless in their insistence on climate change theory - want to know how we can be sure previous periods of global wamring were caused by natural phenomena whilst the present one is caused by man.

Nor did the BBC interviewer seem to understand what the interviewee was saying on numbers of species. I think he was trying to say that the numbers of species expanded during periods of global warming - the numbers of new species created exceeded the numbers lost. This was clearly an inconvenient truith which the BBC did not wish to explore. Although they did not say so, the inference seemed to be that people who go on holiday by plane and insist on driving the car are knowingly signing the death warrants of much cherished flora and fauna.

Come on - try harder. Climate change theory like all others has to stand up to some tough questioning, otherwise you will persuade people against it, the opposite of your intention.

A Prime Minister who sold so much of our gold at such a low price might well think abolishing the gold standard of our educational system, the A level, is a suitable encore. The government is right to realise they have a major problem in the way they examine young people, but it is one which needs careful change lest they make it worse.

The first point to grasp is there are too many external exams. These are also given too much prominence, as schools are assessed and ranked on the basis of the results they achieve. There are external tests at 7, 11, 14, 16, 17 and 18. It would simplify life - and create more time within each child’s school career for a wider education - if we got rid of the 7,14 and 17 year old external tests.

There is a case for having an 11 year old test so the secondary school knows more about the achieivement of the pupils it receives from primaries, and so we know what the result of 6 years of primary education has been. It would also enable us to target remedial work in the summer vacation for those who have not reached a satisfactory level in the basics prior to attending a secondary school.
The case for having a 16 year old test is based on 16 still being the school leaving age. Even under this government’s proposals to effectively raise the school leaving age to 18, it should still be a decision point where many might opt for vocational training at an FE College or opt to attend a Sixth Form College for a more academic course. This justifies a serious external exam.
The 18 year old exam should be a higher level test of knowledge and skill, worth having in its own right for those who wish to go into work and academically challenging enough so that it demonstrates a good foundation for degree level study at a University.

I see no need for an external exam at 17, removing the 17 year old’s summer term from serious study as it will be occupied by revision and exams, nor for external exams at 7 and 14. Of course schools will use internal tests on a regular basis to ensure children are mastering material and are ready to move on to the next stage.

The presence of so many exams, and the fixation of schools with the league tables, conspire to produce a culture where students concentrate on learning just those things they need to pass the exam. There is a utilitarian approach to knowledge - do I need to know this to pass, and for how long do I need to remember it? More teaching time is taken up with explaining exam technique, marking patterns and the like, and less on the wider ramifications of the subject.

I have just put myself through a modern professional qualification in Investment Management to see what this system is like. It was a Level 3 course, covering Economics, Statistics, Accountancy, Taxation, Investment Theory, Investment Instruments and Regulation. Because they decided it has to be marked by computer, every question had to be reduced to a choice between four possible answers like an edition of the Millionaire quiz. I had to adjust to a world where there are always correct answers, and learn to guess how the examiners would judge an answer to be correct in areas of Economics where it is often a matter of opinion and argument. The Examiners rightly strove to ask questions where factual answers were possible in most cases, at the expense of a candidate being able to demonstrate an understanding of the uncertainties of investment markets and the limitations of the many quantified means of analysing and monitoring those markets. Successful candidates needed a good memory more than the ability to think about problems or to write persuasive opinions.

Doing this exercise enabled me to think myself into the mindset of so much modern education - how many facts did I need to learn to pass? Had I memorised how the examiners thought about these issues? Could I pass without reading anything other than the course materials supplied by the professional body? It is a different world from the world where candidates are asked to set out their views on a complex subject, marshalling evidence and engaging in a dialogue with the current state of opinion. There was no encouragement to read more widely, think of some new way of considering a question or to consider more than one possible approach.

To recover the gold standard of the A level, or whatever the government will want to call its new 18 year old exam, we need to recreate a sense of enquiry, and reward for the best candidates who go beyond the memorising and box ticking approach. The government is cutting the amount of course work in the system, which has only served to reinforce the utilitarian approach. That is a good idea. It now needs to make sure the final test allows the best students to distinguish themselves, and have a marking scheme sensitive enough to capture the very different levels of effort and achievement students reach at A level.
If they must create an A Star rather than limit the numbers gaining a grade A, then so be it. If they do, the A Star should require the candidate to go beyond the confines of the course. In an arts subject they should show they have read more widely than the set texts or text books, and demonstrate an ability to handle a wide range of complex material. A Star students should be ready to undertake degree level study in a top university with little supervision, knowing how to use a good library to pit their wits against the best brains of the past and to inform themselvs from the treasury of collected knowledge.

I was asked to speak at a Trafalgar night dinner on 21st October. I decided to remind myself of some of the details of that comprehensive victory. The more I read about it, the more extraordinary it seemed.

A British force of 27 ships of the line and four frigates sailed slowly and purposefully into the middle of the huge allied Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 battleships and five frigates. The enemy fleet carried around 550 more cannons than the attackers, and included the three largest warships in the world in its midst. Despite this Nelson’s men never doubted they would win. Within a few hours they had captured or destroyed 19 enemy ships, with no ship losses on the British side. Britain was rescued from the threat of French invasion and controlled the oceans for the remaining 10 long years of war.

There were two crucial decisions at the Admiralty that underlay this success. Barham, the new First Lord, personally supervised getting many more ships afloat and prepared for action in England’s hour of need. He also decided to recall Admiral Sir Robert Calder who had failed to destroy the French fleet in his two day engagement with it, and went for the controversial option of appointing Nelson, who had allowed the French Mediteranean fleet to escape from his blockade of Toulon and had lost them in the aftermath. We now know what brilliant judgements these were. Nelson himself inspired loyalty, courage and inventiveness in the Captains who served under him: none more so than Eliab Harvey, MP for Essex and Captain of the Temeraire. This ship, immortalised in Turner’s great painting of the end of her life, was second in the windward column into battle after Victory and soon had forced the surrender of two French ships that she took on simultaneously.

There are lessons for our own day in these heroic deeds. Braham kept things simple at the Admiralty, personally writing as well as signing the orders and attending to all the detail necessary to make sure ships could be refitted and put to sea. When he decided to trust Nelson, he gave him full delegated power to choose his ships and Captains and order his battle as he saw fit.

Modern public service leaders could learn from the combination of attention to detail and the use of delegated power to motivate and mobilise a public service. Fortunately our challenges today are different from those facing Barham and Nelson, but the principles of great leadership are the same. A leader needs to take responsibility, decide what he has to do for himself, and delegate the rest to people he can trust, who will themselves take responsibility. Too many of our modern public services are dogged by too many layers of management, by senior managers who look surprised when something goes wrong below and seek to distance themselves from the problem, and by junior managers who feel demotivated by the bureaucracy and decide to do things by the book, however inappropriate that may be.

We need to sweep away many of the targets, government guidance and consultancies that swarm like bluebottles around a dustbin, and give real power to schools, hospitals, Councils to get on and run the services they need to provide. Each one needs an inspirational Head or Senior medical consultant or Council Leader to communicate the vision of success, and give people beneath them the breathing space and the rewards so they deliver.

The decision to delay a decision to build Crossrail until 2010 owing to the leisurely timetable for the Bill and the design work guarantees this one new highly spun rail line will not be available for 2012.

Yesterday we learned that the government is increasing the restrictions available under Drought Orders for the next occasion when we have light rainfall. If such a period coincides with the Olympics, then it will be “Welcome to London and the dirty games” as people are told to reduce their baths and showers, and cars, windows and buildings have to go uncleaned. Instead of drafting new drought orders the government should crack on at a faster pace with installing more water capacity to ensure we have no such embarrassment over the Olympics. They can always draft Orders if drought hits again before they have sorted out the underlying problem, a shortage of good reservoirs and leakfree pipes.

Today we read in the papers that no-one will be allowed to go to the games by car, unless they are an athlete or a government Minister. London is to become like Moscow at the height of the communist empire, with Zil lanes for the rulers and train queues for the rest. The originally envisaged park and ride schemes are being dumped. Instead people will have to wrestle with several changes of train and bus if they want to reach the games venue for their choice.

This is a huge misjudgement, based on a misunderstanding of how inadequate train capacity is at the best of times, let alone when there is a potentially large surge in demand for travel. I have found when I want to go somewhere popular by tube they may close the tube station closest to the attraction on the grounds that too many people would otherwise use it! How come they can avoid doing this for the Olympics? Or will that be the ultimate little joke at the public’s expense, that when they near journey’s end they will be told they cannot get out where they want to owing to overdemand? This morning trying to use the District/Circle line system as always it was standing room only on trains delayed by the inability to get enough through the tunnels quickly enough. A fitful journey of stops, starts and delays fortunately did not harm people as we were frequently shoved around by the suddenness of the braking because we were too closely packed together to be able to fall far. How can we put Olympic travellers on as well?

We are going to need provision for cars to allow people from outside London to reach the games. Extending good park and ride facilities might well help, and this would be a good excuse to put some in. We also need to use all the road space available in London. It would be a good opportunity to rephase the all red traffic light sets, and to remove many of the needless humps, bumps, chicanes and bollards that resrict flows on main carriageways. People who use cars are not wicked. It often represents the only sensible way for them to carry out the whole journey. They will as taxpayers be paying for the games, so shouldn’t they be allowed to get to them and enjoy them?

Led by Wall Street world share markets have fallen recently as investors have worried about how the “repricing of risk” will be completed and what kind of a deal the US has in mind to sort out the poor performing loans.

On October 15th I wrote about the dangers of trying to repackage sub prime loans if it revealed big losses for banks and coincided with more liquidity difficulties in the market. The idea of trying to quantify the risks and find more stable owners of the loans has in the short term caused more worry than relief, as it has highlighted the scale of the problem without yet enabling analysts to decide which banks have lost what sums. It will only work if it can be completed in a credible way, and establish a new level for the value of the debt which enables a market to operate and leaves banks with strong enough balance sheets.

We are still in a tricky transitional period when markets will be very volatile as bulls and bears fight over the fate of sub prime lending.

Gordon Brown spent an hour recently telling Parliament about his deal on the Constitutional treaty. He told us Parliament would have sufficient time to scrutinise this measure, but I and several other MPs were not called to ask our questions, which got the whole notion of adequate time off to a bad start.

He decided to go back to an old and false defence, that 3 million jobs depend on the EU so we should stop arguing and accept gratefully the latest EU take-away.

These famous 3 million jobs are an old estimate of the jobs that create exports for the EU market. It is ludicrous to suggest these jobs are at risk if we demand a better deal or a different relationship with the EU. There are three home truths Brown ignores:

1. The EU sells us more than we sell them. Germany does not want to stop selling us BMWs just because we might demand a better deal over EU governemntal issues. They will not wish to threaten our trade. If they did try to break international trade rules it would mean a boost to activity to replace imports.

2. Our exports to the EU are anyway protected by world trade rules. Is Brown suggesting EU member governemnts would break WTO rules and refuse to accept fines and other enforcement action?

3. Exports mainly depend on willing buyers in the private sectors of EU states. They are not in the gift of the EU or its member governments to welcome or refuse. The big myth of the single market is that it rests on the EU. It rests on willing buyers and willing sellers. The trade from non EU countries has been growing faster with EU member states than internal trade.

So Gordon, if you want to argue an unpopular case in favour of more European government, at least be a bit more imaginative. This old chestnut has long since been burned to a ashes by democratic debate.

Most people know that large sums of money spent by the government are wasted. Even the government has been forced to admit it, by setting itself mutli billion pound targets for savings out of increased efficiency. Yet still government Ministers parrot that public services are better because they are spending so much extra money on them.

The useless BBC rarely asks Ministers what they are spending the extra money on that makes the services better, allowing them to get away with the nonsense that all extra spending is good. If the Heath Secretary goes on an extra “fact finding” trip abroad we are told health care has improved because spending has gone up. If the Health department employs hundreds of extra private sector consultants to advise on central targets or restructuring, we are told health care has improved because its costing more . If The Health Department spends a fortune on a new computer system to change the recuitment of doctors, which messes up the whole process, we are told health care has improved. If glossy brochures could create a great health servcie we would by now have the best in the world. The latest documents on dealing with obesity are themselves very fat, with one mega glossy that covers a small coffee table and three other A4 glossies just for good measure on the same subject on the same day. Is this the paperwork that will launch a million slimming diets? I doubt it.

People want more money spent on more doctors, nurses, teachers, and policemen to deal with shortages and queues. They do not want more money spent on bureaucracy, centralised targets, too many government interventions, bigger Ministerial drinks cupboards or more management consultancy contracts. The Opposition needs to distinguish between good increased spending - money which buys an improvement in service - and bad extra spending - money which is wasted or goes on the wrong priorities.

Maybe the way fortward is to move the debate to discussing outcomes rather than cost. I would be happier to hear both government and Opposition concentrating on setting out what we can expect from our Health Service or our schools, and then competing to produce it for best value, not for highest cost. You do not hear shops on the High Street telling customers to come to them because they spend more on conusltancy contracts and the stock room than their rivals. They appeal by claiming to have the best products and services at the keenest price. We need to moved the debate on public service back onto the commonsense ground of value for money and quality, away from the idea that dearest is always best.

Gordon Brown managed a red tie and a white shirt yesterday, as he strove to support his recently adopted team.

He will find it even more difficult to come out showing his support for the EU, after years of Eurosceptic briefing. I am not expecting to see him anytime soon sporting a twelve stars blue tie humming the Ode to Joy - he would rather have to sing God save the Queen and stick with the red and white of England.

Yet the truth is Gordon Brown shows much more commitment to the twleve stars of Europe than he does to the red rose of England. This is the man who

Denies English votes for English issues in the Commons
Who insisted on a Parliament for Scotland which has become a predictable dagger in the heart of the Union now it is run by Nationalists
Signs up to a disgracefully federalist EU Treaty, denying it is the old Constitution re packaged
Ensures England has a bad deal within the Union on anything from cash allocation to planning
Refuses us a vote on the EU’s power grab

If he were an honest man he would have worn an EU twelve stars tie to the rugby yesterday, and claimed his mission was to woo his French hosts, as they will now play such an important role in the government of England.

Today we mourn the deaths of 1663 brave seamen and soldiers who died fighting to preserve the freedom of our country against Napoleon’s imperialism 202 years ago.

Their deeds were heroic. 27 English ships of the line (including 3 small 64 gun vessels with no ship carrying more than 100 guns) engaged with 33 French and Spanish battle ships, including the three largest ships in the world in the coalition fleet (a 130 gun ship and two 115 gun ships). After a few hours action 19 enemy ships had been captured or destroyed by the English fleet. No English ship surrendered.

1805 had started far less auspiciously. The English navy was stretched by the need to control the Eastern and Western Med, to protect the West Indies, to blockade Toulon, Cadiz, Ferrol, Rochefort and Brest, and to patrol the Western approaches to the Channel. Napoleon in the summer massed his army at Boulogne with barges and ships ready to cross to England. Too may English ships were unseaworthy and not on duty.

The arrival of Barham as First Sea Lord in the Spring began the changes necessary. He took control of the detail to get as many ships as possible out to sea to allow the navy to carry out its worldwide role. He decided that Admiral Sir Robert Calder needed to be recalled from duty following his failure to destroy the French fleet in the battle of Finisterre. He made the important decision to give Nelson command of the English fleet to attack the French, and sent him to join Collingwood’s forces off Cadiz.

Nelson’s leadership rested on his own mastery of seamanship and sailing ship tactics, and on his ability to enthuse and reassure all the men under his command. He gave considerable latitude to the captains of the vessels that sailed with him, remembering how much freedom he had needed as a more junior officer when he had taken chances that represented deviations from the book or from the Admiral’s orders.

As a result practically every man that day wanted to engage the enemy in battle and believed that they would win. They did not worry that they were the inferior force attacking the superior force. The captains did not urge caution or object to Nelson’s unorthodox plan for the battle. Captain Harvey of the Temeraire ( a ship immortalised in a Turner painting at the end of her life) tried to overtake Nelson so he could get to the enemy first, only to be told by his Admiral to stay behind the Victory. Harvey, also a member of Parliament, and the Temeraire, subsequently were singled out in Collingwood’s victory despatch for taking on two French warships at the same time and forcing the surrender of both, saving the Victory flagship from some raking fire in the first heat of the battle.

Barham’s Admiralty won at Trafalgar for two main reasons. They combined administrative efficiency, getting more ships to sea well prepared for their task, with brilliant man management. Barham trusted Nelson to choose his captains and give them instructions. Nelson trusted his Captains in battle to get on with their jobs without close direction from the flagship. Lines of communication were short, people were empowered to make decisions and all were motivated by the Leader’s belief that they could win.

What a pity our public services today do not have those leadership skills, and that same concentration of purpose for peaceful ends that the English navy showed pre eminently on that day of light winds and great deeds 202 years ago.

I think this afternoons clash might go along the following lines:

Westminster Old Boy: I want the Liberal party to speak out to the country,and to speak up for what voters want. I want us to modernise.
Another Westminster Old Boy: So do I. I want a new more honest type of politics where we connect with the wishes of voters.

WOB: It’s most important we do not have a referendum on the EU Treaty. This is not the same as the document I wanted a referendum on when I promised one to help me win my seat at the General Election.
WOB 2: I entirely agree. I find myself in the same position on this. The voters are wrong to want a referendum.

WOB: I want us to modernise the UK, so that Britain fits in and is part of all the supranational bodies like the EU, the UN and the Climate Change Treaty.
WOB2: I favour more Lib Dems flying to more parts of the world to discuss how to reduce the numbers of people allowed to fly around, to help save the planet.

WOB 2: The Lib dems must be distinctive. We should offer people a 4p in the