The Home Secretary came to the House to explain the failure of the Security Regulator to check whether approved people for the security industry were legally settled here or not, and to explain the emails reproduced in the press from her office saying she did not wish to release the information about the problem when she became aware of it.

Instead of apologising for what had happened and showing rapid movement to put things right, she told us that everything she had done had been fine, and the delays in sorting it out were presumably just one of those things.

During the course of her remarks she mentioned that she had written to other government departments reminding them of the duty which rests on employers to check immigration status before employing someone. I asked how many illegal migrants the government has found it is employing, and what action is going to be taken where such employment is found. Answer came there none.

My colleague, James Clappison, asked why so many more National Insurance Numbers have been issued to new arrivals compared with the number of work permits. Again there was no answer to the main point, even though there are some cases where people are entitled to a NI number without needing a work permit. The failure to answer properly implies there is also a problem with the NI issue.
The Home Secretary protested innocence too much. She still had some Labour supporters, but she must get on top of the administration of her deparment to give a convincing impression of authority.

I understand why many of you are worried by inflation - food prices are leaping up, and the government has just increased the price of petrol sharply through the duty increase and the ad valorem tax increase on the back of the increase in oil prices. It is quite likely our inflation rate on the government/Bank’s measure of CPI will go back above the target of 2% in the next couple of months. If you add mortages in to the full RPI the figure is much worse, given the rate rises we have experienced. There is a real squeeze on disposable income. People may try to have a good Christmas and New Year at the shops, but that will just lead to slower sales thereafter.

The Bank, the MPC and the government should be focusing on the medium term picture - there is nothing they can do to stop the food price inflation in the pipeline, and they seem unwilling to solve the petrol inflation problem by cutting the tax rate as they want to pocket the extra money. I remain of the view that inflation is not the problem over the next couple of years - the problem is deflation from the credit crunch.

We now see that UK commercial property prices have fallen and may well fall more. Experts are arguing over whether they have fallen a few percent or whether it is already by more than 10% in many districts. Residential property prices are falling in most parts of the country outside the expensive districts of central London, where foreign demand seems to be keeping the market lively and detached from the rest of the country.

For the first time for several years the government is keeping public sector wage increases down - save for the top officials and managers who escape the squeeze. THere is no sign of a priivate sector wage lift off either.

Evidence is coming in from the banks that they now want to show more cash on their balance sheets, and are far more reluctant to lend. This will have an impact on retail spending patterns as people find it more difficult to obtain unsecured loans. The slow down in the volume of housing transactions will also reduce spending, as substantial big ticket and housing related expenditure occurs when people move, when a larger mortgage helps.

Keeping the pound high against the dollar by keeping money markets tight is extering downward pressure on manufacturers’ selling prices as they have to try to stay competitive against US exporters.

The Bankl and the MPC should not be misled by short term strength in inflation into making the credit crunch worse. If the government wanted to help they should cut the tax rate on petrol now, to control the short term increase in the CPI. Then the Bank could cut interest rates, lwoering RPI inlfaiton in the process and starting to relax the squeeze.

The authorities have to decide how far they want property and other asset prices to fall before they think they have done enough to make their point. If I were them I would not leave it too late. The US faces a bigger inflation threat than we do owing to the big fall in the dollar, but they decided on two cuts in interest rates to try to stop their residential property price collapse spreading and worsening, with the risk that it could tip the whole economy into recession if the authorities stood idly by.

Last Thursday (the 8th November) saw Adam Connell and Dominic Lister of The Emmbrook School debate their way to victory in the final of the Wokingham Schools’ Parliamentary Debating Competition.

Proposing the motion that ‘The UN has failed to make or keep the peace’, Adam and Dominic provided the well researched arguments and quick witted delivery that the competition’s audiences have come to expect from the Emmbrook team.

Opposing the motion were Amber Anderson and Rebecca Knowlson of Luckley Oakfield School, whose incisive interventions and clearly formulated speeches kept the Emmbrook debaters on their toes.

Choosing a winning team at the end of such heated debate was likened by Donald MacDonald, Chairman of the Judges, to judging a boxing match: despite powerful blows from both sides, the competitors were still standing at the final bell, so it had to be awarded on points. Scoring was described as very close.

At the end of the evening, Adam and Dominic were awarded the John Redwood Cup. A multi-media projector for their school, courtesy of sponsors 3M, was presented to their teacher, Diana Collins.

Speaking after the event, John Redwood said: “There has been both fun and serious argument over the competition as a whole, debating everything from hugging a hoodie to Chelsea tractors, and from school exams to the work of the United Nations. Emmbrook have emerged as worthy winners, whilst Luckley Oakfield pushed them hard in the final. I look forward to welcoming both teams to the House of Commons.”

I was pleased to see Iain Duncan Smith is considering prison reform.

Attention has concentrated understandably on the need to lock up for long periods those who represent a real threat to our future security, becuase they are likely to perpetrate violent crimes against us. To do this we need to have enough prison places to protect the public. These prisons need to be properly staffed and secure, to avoid the scenes of prison riots and break outs we have seen reported in recent years.

Attention should also focus on why so many people in prison are on drugs, unable to read and write to a good standard or otherwise ill equipped to lead a life based around gainful employment.

I hope the Review will ask these two important questions:

1. What more can be done where criminals have turned to crime owing to their inadequacies, to ensure when they do eventually leave prison they are better equipped to earn a living from a legal job rather than from shop lifting or drug dealing or the like? Can more be done to encourage them to learn employable skills, by only allowing reductions in time served if they meet suitable standards and are seriously preparing themselves for a life without crime when they leave. Is their progress monitored properly and sufficiently when they leave prison to try to avoid re-offending? A prison will work better if it is a school for going straight rather than an academy of crime.

2. Are we locking up too many people who do not represent a threat to society in the future and who do not need special programmes to get them off drugs or to equip them for a proper job? The Review should look at whether some who have committed a non violent crime should be expected to remain earning their own living, and be required to compensate society or their victim generously out of their income and maybe expected to give up some of their non working time to make a further contribution to society.

Further examples of poor management in the present UK public sector are in today’s papers. We learn that despite having a special agency to check out applicants for security jobs in the public sector - a new quango established by this government - thousands were not checked to see if they were legally settled here. Maybe the lack of such an obvious check occurred because there was a new quango: the line mangers of the new recruits did not bother because they assumed the quango covered them, whilst the quango did not do it because it did not think it was in its remit. It shows how more is worse, and how responsibility is reduced if you intrude quangoes and others into areas that should remain the responsibility of HR and the line manager deciding on the employment of the individual.

The position can be summeed up as follows:

IN THE COMPETITIVE PRIVATE SECTOR FIRMS STRIVE TO DELIVER MORE, AT BETTER QUALITY, FOR LESS COST

IN THE MONOPOLY PUBLLIC SECTOR, ORGANISATIONS STRIVE TO DELIVER MORE AT BETTER QUALITY FOR MORE COST

and what do they deliver?

THE COMPETITIVE PRIVATE SECTOR DELIVERS MORE, AT BETTER QUALITY, FOR LESS COST.
THE MONOPOLY PUBLIC SECTOR DELIVERS LITTLE MORE, SOMETIMES WITH WORSE QUALITY, FOR MORE COST.

I was pleased to see today’s Sunday Times highlight the huge increases in some of the top public sector salaries under this government, and the large 12% plus average increase in these incomes last year when the government was preaching pay restraint to everyone else. It shows the government’s plan to have a better paid public sector with lower productivity and higher costs is on track.

Every day when they do come to the Commons to tell us what they are up to Labour Ministers boast about how much extra particular public services are costing us compared to 1997. They come less often than their predecesssors used to, as they need half term holidays three times a year. They live their brand of lower productivity in the public sector. They tell us proudly they have increased the cost of all the public services under their control. They seem to muddle cost up with quality. We can now see that some of the increase in cost is their generosity to high flying civil servants, Regulators and nationalised industry chiefs. It is doubtful if these people would have resigned and been replaced with inferior talent if they had made them experience the same pay restraint as everyone else. The bosses at the Post Office have benefitted from the new approach to public sector pay, but not all their customers are convinced that it has bought them a better service, especially given the recent strikes and the reduction in deliveries.

The fall in public sector productivity - or in some cases its failure to rise at the rate achieved by the private sector - must be laid at the doors of the very senior managers who are receiving the largesse of big pay increases, both in basic pay and in “performance” bonuses. All too often now we have to pay twice for something to be done - once for the salary of the official in charge, and then again to the consultant that he decides should be given the job rather than doing it in house. As public sector productivity and quality fall - as with poor hygeine standards in hospitals - the taxpayer is made to pay for an ever larger army of Regulators, as the government seeks to show it is doing something about the problem.

The government should ask itself how it is the private sector keeps raising productivity and quality, whilst keeping costs down. I do not go to a local supermarket because it spends more on its staff and top managers than the one down the road. I go to it because it provides high quality merchandise at competitive prices. I do not want my constituents to go to a local school or hospital becuase they are dearer than some other school and hospital. I want them to go because they deliver an excellent quality service at a price the taxpayer can afford. I do not see supermarkets boasting that they have put their costs up.

Driving back into London and then onto home last night by the A13 I was reminded that this government has done something sensible in transport. The six lane highway from the M25 into the East end of London which they have completed is a good addition to our road network.
Properly run,it would be both safer and greener than the smaller roads it replaces or takes traffic from, allowing cars to cruise into London in top gear at optimal speeds for fuel efficiency, free from conflict with pedestrians.

Instead, the government has allowed its dislike of the car, van and lorry to colour its judgement on how to regulate the highway. A large section of the new road has a speed limit of 40 mph. Most drivers using the road think 50-60 is a safe speed. Unfortunately because there are several cameras along the route this means all too many drivers slow down abruptly for the cameras and accelerate away when they are past them. Some even indulge in high speed lane hopping, frustrated by the control and by the lower speeds of some of the other drivers resulting from the control. Doing a steady 40 mph I found myself in the slow lane watching the antics in the other lanes, using a lower gear than I would have liked to keep the speed down. That meant I also had to watch the higher fuel burn.

I am glad Paul Smith’s excellent research work showing our roads have got more dangerous as safety policy has concentrated on speed control is now receiving a wider airing. Judging by the driving standards last night on the A13 speed control is now a direct cause of worse driving and should cause even this government to think again. The A13 could be a greener and safer road, if only they would use common sense in choosing a speed limit. As Paul Smith points out, less than 1 in 20 of all accidents has speeding as a cause.

We are meant to be grateful to the government and the Environment Agency for predicting a sea surge and telling people to leave their homes yesterday to avoid the flood. I am certainly grateful that on this occasion the flood defences worked and the sea surge was not as big as predicted. I would feel more grateful to the authorities if they got on with sorting out the mess after last summer’s inundations, and did some work to prevent them happening again.

I spent part of Friday visiting people in my constituency who still cannot live properly or at all in their homes which were damaged by flood water and sewage last summer. There is still a row going on between the various authorities over who is to blame, and who might be bothered to do something to sort the problem out. It simply is not good enough that four months later no-one is taking responsibility and no-one is even carrying out works to stop homes being deluged with sewage. I will carry on harrying the authorities until there is some follow jup and some action. The government just doing a few interviews on the media and sahying job done does not protect people’s homes.

Today we learn some new Review is looking at how to increase motoring taxes more to “curb carbon outputs”. Apparently they think the way to do this is to increase taxes on older and bigger cars to force people to switch to smaller and newer ones. This idea ignores the large carbon outputs of making a new smaller car, let alone the impact more car production has on other resources of the earth. If these people were truly green they would take all that into account as well. I guess the true reason is they have been told to report before the budget in the Spring with a long list of higher motoring taxes, because Darling has plenty of ways to waste the money and does not think he can get by with just his current rip off tax burden. No wonder people are cynical about this government’s “green” taxes, because so often they do not make the world greener, they just make the Treasury fatter with out money.

At the same time we learn of plans to increase speeding penalties to 6 points in certain cases.They make the correct observation that doing 60 in a 30 mph area can in some cases be dangerous, whereas doing 79 on a motorway is judged safe by most motorists, and say they wish to penalise the one more than the other. They never think that maybe the thing to do is to lessen the penalty on the motorway offender who is not doing anything dangerous as most people see it, judging by all the cars that pass me when doing 70.I guess here they are aware that our roads are too crowded, so they are hoping that they can take a lot of people off the roads by removing their licences after a couple of speeding offences.

I wold take all this anti motoring passion more seriously if Ministers all gave up their cars and showed the rest of us how you can go shopping by train or how you can get to your business appointments by bus.

US export growth is lively, and will receive a further boost from the latest drop in the dollar.

So far the Fed has decided recession fighting is the order of the day, and has been cutting interest rates, whilst the ECB and the Bank of England are still fighting the last battle against inflation and are keeping interest rates up. As a result the USA will export more, and the EU/UK will export less.

In the UK there has been a double tightening of monetary policy in the last two months. The first tightening occurred because market rates of interest have risen above the recommended rate by the Monetary Policy Committee. The second tightening has occured thanks to the rise in the pound against the dollar, given the importance of dollar trade to the UK accounts.

Just as the oil price approaches $100 a barrel in the market we hear that Brazil has found substantial reserves, which could turn this considerable oil user into an oil exporter.

This level of price also makes the exploitation of tar sands, and the conversion of coal to fluid hydrocarbon more likely. The doom mongers who think the great oil economy is soon to be undermined by a lack of raw material should think again.

The BBC has managed to run pieces on petrol and diesel prices now going above

I wrote two books around the turn of the twenty first century about the changing shape of great power politics. The first, “Stars and Strife” (2001) predicted that the European Union’s attempt to rival the USA would peter out, both because the population numbers of the EU would fall and because the EU would be unable and unwilling to spend enough on military technology and hardware to back up its foreign policy. The foreign policy too, would remain dogged by disagreements and differing national interests amongst EU states. Whilst the EU would become a substantial and more integrated economy with its own currency for most of the members, it was no contest when it came to superpower politics. Its economy would also continue to underperform the USA owing to the choice of a high tax high regulation model.

The second, “Superpower Struggles” (2005), predicted that the USA’s true long term rival would be China. I concluded “One day China will turn her new found economic power into military power as well. For the time being her success will be heavily concentrated in industrial products and product markets,and her main impact on the west will be felt in the rising price for commodities as Chinese demand surges. Unlike Japan, she will not remain neutral and lightly armed.As her economic success develops so too will her military and political might” (Rise of China)

I now realise that the rise of China is happening much more rapidly even than I thought a couple of years ago. China has accelerated her path to great power status by two main means, both related to her grasp of the capitalist system and her generation of huge surpluses on trade account. By the end of this year the Chinese trade surplus will be running at over $500 billion a year, and China will have foreign exchange reserves in excess of $1500 billion. She is using these surpluses to buy herself a strong position in parts of Africa, Asia and South America where there are important natural resources. China wants more control over and access to the raw materials that are needed to feed her powerful industrial machine. She also sees the political leverage this gives her over the nations that produce the commodities, creating a new kind of Chinese empire based on Chinese contracts to buy the commodities, and Chinese investment in extracting the materials from the ground.

China is also now in a position to demand a place at the table of the rich west, as she can have an important impact on the value of the dollar and the interest rate on dollar bonds. Her large holdings give her the power to support or undermine US markets by buying or selling clumsily. The large dollar and Euro reserves also enable China to buy any freely quoted company in the west she chooses, enabling China to buy technology and management by takeover of the whole company that has them. This is in addition to the wide variety of partnerships, investment contracts and other negotiated deals which give China access to Western technology at home as she invites in an increasing number of western companies to help develop the Chinese economy.

This has come about because China has been allowed to keep her currency relatively low for a long period, giving Chinese goods an even greater competitive advantage in world markets. At a comparable stage in Japanese development there was intense pressure for greater upwards movement in the yen. The USA has understood this issue, but has proved unable by diplomatic means to get a sufficient revaluation of the Chinese exchange rate.

We see the way this economic power is translating into political power. China has shown her ability to influence North Korea, and the USA has accepted China’s position in dealing with this difficult country. One day, after the Olympic games have revealed the extent of China’s economic transformation to the world, China will up the pressure to take over Taiwan. This issue may prove to be the test of the political maturity of both China and the USA. China has to judge if and when the USA will no longer think she can protect Taiwan from Chinese takeover and no longer has the will to do so, and the USA will have to judge if and when they reach the point where trying to keep Taiwan independent is unrealistic.

It is difficult to believe that yet another Labour Prime Minister, and yet another Labour team of senior law officers and Home Secretary have bought the crazy idea that to protect our liberties we first need to destroy them.

I find 28 days detention without trial or charge bad enough - the longest period in the free world. Doubling it to 56 days would make us a pariah of the free democracies, turning our back on the important advances this country pioneered to establish that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and has a right to life and liberty unless charged with a serious offence, the charge backed up by evidence and supported as a case to answer by a junior court.

Yesterday in the Queen’s Speech debate on security and crime I asked the Lord Chancellor (Jack Straw) if it really could be this government’s policy to let proven criminals who had been sentenced for serious crimes out early in order to make prison places available for people for up to 56 days against whom no charges were laid. He told me my question was not up to my usual standard. This was I guess a kind of back handed compliment, but answer came there none. So I take that to be a “Yes” then.

I do hope the government thinks again about this. I like them wish to prevent terrorism. The way to do it is not to change the rules of a free society, but to use them to ensure justice is done. By all means charge a terrorist suspect with a lesser charge and then take the power to carry on examining him or her to see if they should also stand trial for a more serious charge. A Court should be involved in the process so there is some external check on its use. iI necessary part of all of the proceedings could be in camera to protect the identity of informants and witnesses. Allow the prosecution to use in court all the evidence that led the authorities to suspect the individual in the first place. It is farcical if there is good intercept evidence that someone is about to commit a terrorist act, but this cannot be used so the authorities have to spend 56 days on a fishing expedition to try to find some other evidence.

We need to take tough action to try to prevent terrorism, but we must avoid locking up hundreds or even thousands of people -we are told there are 2000 being monitored - when we cannot bring any charge against them and when some if not many of them will be innocent.

Two representatives of the BAA came to a Lords Committee Room yesterday to hear the comments of Parliamentarians and to answer our questions. I would like to thank them for coming.

I asked them why they had allowed such chaos in our leading airports following the change of security requirements. I pointed out that the queues were unacceptable, and reflected badly on them There were not enough security screening devices, too few lines to queue in, and a set of procedures which are comples but not necessarily helpful to achieve greater security.

They replied that service had been poor immediately following the new regulations, but felt that it is now better at their airports. They said at the beginning they lacked staff, and were now recruiting more. They claimed they were now freeing more space for more lines and machinery. In discussion it emerged that the worst delays now were caused by government services for Immigration on the way into the country, and we were reminded that the security requirements were designed by the government rather than by the BAA.

Their latter points were carefully phrased as they understandably have no wish to have a row with the government. What we do need is a sensible discussion between government and Airports over the following:

1. Will the government place enough staff and enough desks in the Passport Control area to make sure we have properly policed borders, whilst allowing most people rapid entry or exit from the country? Apparently if two jumbos land at the same time it can take 45 minutes to clear Passport Control at Gatwick.

2. Will the government review the requirements for the security checks? Why do they insist on such complex checks before getting onto a plane, leaving so many people vulnerable to terrorist attack in the departure hall before security? Have they taken on board the fact that the last terrorist incident at an airport was an attempt to burn people in the departure area by driving a vehicle at the doors and igniting it?

3. Will the government review why they have such elaborate checks for flights and no checks at all for train travel? Have they taken on board the horrendous terrorist attacks on trains on the continent?

4. Will they ask why it is necessary for most people to have to take off shoes, and for all to have to show their after shave or face cream in a plastic bag at an airport? Will they exmaine how effective the video technology assisted baggage search is, in the light of findings in the USA that in some airports too many planted devices went undetected when they tested the system? Can’t more be done by the technology? Couldn’t more be done by random sampling rather than making everyone go through the same checks?

The truth is we are more likely to intercept terrorists by surveillance, infiltration of their networks, eavesdropping and by being observant and alert. We should be concentrating on those where the authorities have reason to think they might be terrorists, rather than on most people who just wish to get on with their lives and go about their business.

John Redwood, speaking on the first day of the Queen’s speech debate, called on the government to grant a referendum on the EU Constitution and to offer justice to England within the Union.

He welcomed the stated government aim, to return power to Parliament and people, but pointed out this Queen’s Speech did the opposite. It will transfer substantial power to the EU and to various new quangoes, denying us the referendum Labour MPs promised electors before the last election.

He summed up his critique of the Queen’s speech by saying:

“I will vote against the Queen’s Speech because I see nothing in it to solve the main problems facing the country. I will vote against it because it does not strengthen our democracy; it undermines it further. I will vote against it because it does not tackle the lack of trust in politics; it accentuates it by not offering us a referendum or sorting out the English problem. I will vote against it because I do not think it contains solutions to the problems in our large public services, and because I do not believe it truly meets the aspirations of the British people”

ENDS

The full speech, taken from Hansard, is below.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): It is a great pity that on today of all days we have lost a sense of occasion. That may be because it is the first time that the Queen’s Speech was delivered by the Prime Minister several weeks before Her Majesty gave the speech. It may be because at 11.19 this morning I

The attention of rating agencies and credit analysts is moving onto other types of debt beyond sub prime mortgages. In the re-”pricing of risk” - cutting the value of advances already made to reflect the possibility there will be more defaults - there will be more losses for banks to report. The financial sector became adept at packaging municipal bonds, leveraged buy out loans and corporate debt as well as mortgages. They did so to spread the risk around the world’s financial system, and they did so in the belief that a package of difficult debts would be more resilient than the individual debts on the reasonable basis that a portfolio diversifies risk, and on the law of averages more will survive than will fail. They were right about this, but the market underestimated the amount of risk that still resided in these collections of loans. That is now being being sorted out against the backdrop of higher interest rates, which makes defaults much more likely. The Rating Agencies believed these packages had little risk in them. They too are having to revise their views in some cases, adding to the price falls of these loan parcels,and adding to the reluctance of buyers to appear in the market for them at any price. We will hit bottom when vulture funds are established to buy up these packages at knock down prices and trade them out for a profit.

The future is very dependent on what the Fed, the Bank of England, the ECB and the other monetary institutions do from here. They must have been aware in the low interest rate era that financial institutions were lending large sums and packaging it up to place it around the balance sheets of the world. They must now be aware that their move to substantially higher interest rates has exposed the dangers of some of this borrowing. They have to decide how much more damage they wish to do. They are also now in the position that even as interest rates come down there will be no immediate relaxation of the credit crunch, because the banks have lost substantial sums and this will constrain their ability to lend more.

The Fed seems to understand all this, and has been doing its best to pump liquidity into the market. The Bank of England does not seem to grasp this yet, and seems intent on putting more pressure on interest rate sensitive areas like housebuilding and property development. The Governor is engaged in a war of words with the Chancellor, seeking to shift the blame for the Northern Rock crisis onto the Chancellor who we learn was kept fully informed of the looming crisis and given options to deal with it some 4 weeks before the run on the bank began. The Bank of England still thinks its problem is fighting inflation (0.2% below target currently) rather than stabilising the banking and property sectors.

There is an unresolved tension in government policy. The Prime Minister wants more housebuilding, yet the Chancellor and the Bank are putting off that possibiltiy by their credit squeeze, and by their veiw that too many people have already borrowed too much on mortgage to put them off wanting more mortgage debt by more people. Latest figures imply a sharp contraction in demand for homes in the UK. There has also been a reduction in the supply, thanks to the government’s imposition of Home Information packs on sellers. Many are deciding they are not going to pay more than ??500 ($1100) just to see if there are any buyers out there for their property.

I enjoyed Richard Caborn’s speech yesterday moving the motion to support the Gracious speech - almost as much as Richard enjoyed it. It was good to hear the Prime Minister being teased and upbraided by an authentic voice from New Labour - reminding us of how under Blair they stood for all night drinking, more gambling, more national parties at the Dome and elsewhere and soccer as the new religion. It was amusing to see the Prime Minister reminded of the 9-3 victory of an English soccer team over Scotland. It was even more fun seeing the glowering look on Gordon Brown’s face as comment after comment showered in about the hedonism and Englishness of the Blair days compared with the more puritanical and Scottish presentation of the present government. We have gone from a government wanting to bring Calvin Klein to the masses to one wanting to bring Calvin to the masses. I wondered why Gordon’s Chief Whip had chosen Mr Caborn - maybe he has a sense of humour as well. That could prove dangerous in this serious regime.

Yesterday in the Commons I reminded the government that balkanising England will not solve the injustice England suffers from lop sided devolution. Indeed, I urged them to drop creating regional governments around artificial European regions in England, as it is likely to annoy the English more rather than persuade us devolution is now fair.

The royal arms, symbol of a United Kingdom, quarter the 3 lions passant (walking with right paw raised) guardant (body to side, face to viewer) of England with the single lion rampant of Scotland (standing on one hindfoot with forefeet and tail raised). The Scottish National party wants to arouse the English lions from their casual indifference. They may think the English lions couchant, quiescent,somnolent today, but it is quite possible they will awaken and be fierce in exposing the injustices of the Union to England as the SNP continue to poke sticks into English eyes. That is clearly the SNP’s plan.

We English are tolerant,even long suffering, used to being attacked by all and sundry. The English spirit may be slow to arouse, but it is awesome once awoken. This government is making another one of its misjudgments in thinking England will continue to put up with the growing injustices of the devolution settlement, and will even tolerate the splitting of England into artificial regions. Cromwell tried that with the rule of the Major Generals, but it was not a constitutional innovation which survived the Restoration of the monarch. The broken promise on a referendum on the EU constitution combined with regional government may be the acts which do arouse the English lion. A UK government dominated by Scottish MPs will find it increasingly uncomfortable if they misread the English mood on these crucial constitutional issues.

The winner of this year’s Wokingham Christmas card design competition, organised by John Redwood MP, has been announced as Connor O. S. Piper (age of Winnersh Primary School. The judges described the winning entry as

Following last Thursday’s (1st November) Semi Final, Adam Connell and Dominic Lister of The Emmbrook School will be debating with Amber Anderson and Rebecca Knowlson of Luckley Oakfield in the competition Final this Thursday. The two other teams in the Semi, Ashley Phillips and Tom Morris from St Crispin’s and Karishma Ipe and Zamira Monteiro from Padworth College, were very close runners up in what was an impressive round of debates, disputing what constitutes

They might have waited for Her Majesty to arrive in the Lords before sending the speech out to all outlets. Now there can be nothing new, no suprises, for the Queen to deliver.

I assume this way of treating the Queen’s Speech was deliberate.

If anyone had been in any doubt about the importance of Mr Darling in the handling of the Northern Rock crisis, they cannot be this morning. The Governor confirmed that the Chancellor knew well in advance of the difficulties facing Northern Rock, and himself took the decision not to help a takeover of the ailing institution by Lloyds Bank. We already knew that Mr Darling endorsed the decison not to make more money available to UK markets over the summer, and was himself telling the bankers it was all their fault just before the run on Northern Rock took off.

The UK authorities latest statements are not good for morale or confidence. Confidence is a precious flower at the best of times. Today it is much needed. If the authorities take a gloomy view, and encourage markets to think the losses are bigger and the problems deeper seated, it will be that much more difficult to rekindle bank to bank lending which underlay the expansion of recent years. The authorities should be worrying privately about the way bank losses will cut both their profits and their ability to sustain all their lending from their more stretched balance sheets. If the latest suggestions for how much value has been destroyed in world banking are correct, it represents a substantial reduction in credit for the advanced economies which will slow them down further. It is as if the UK authorities have forgotten what a credit crunch compunded by an economic downturn is like. The one reinforces the other, destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses and forcing repossession of people’s homes.

It is still possible to get the UK through this without a recession, and that should be the aim. The US is clearly now trying to stop the housing problems spreading too widely to send that economy into recession, with its aggressive policies of interest rate cuts and more liquidity being supplied. Too much gloomy talk by either the Chancellor or the Governor in the UK will not help, when so much value has been destroyed and when banks everywhere are having to pull in their horns.

Gordon Brown might as well have told the Queen to stay at home to today.

I remember helping a previous government prepare a Queen’s speech or two. There was long confidential discussion about which matters needed legislation, and what could be fitted into a legislative year. There was departmental comment on their parts of the draft speech, to make sure it reflected the balance of the government’s work in the year ahead. Only a relatively few people knew what was in the whole speech, as keeping it secret until the Queen delivered it was a crucial part of the ceremony and a courtesy to the Queen. On the eve of session the Cabinet and the Speaker were invited to hear a private reading of what the Queen would say. Proper discussion of the measures in it was reserved for the press on the day and the day after the speech was delivered, and for the subsequent week long debate in Parliament. Ambassadors and other important dignitaries came to Queen’s Speech day because it represented an important day in the year, when the government set out its full programme and intentions for the year ahead, including the diplomatic engagements and State visits, so there was something new to fill the telegram or email when reporting back to their home country or institution.

Today we are going to hear a speech which has been given once by the Prime Minister as a draft Queen’s speech, and then fleshed out in a series of initiatives and press interviews in recent days. There may or may not be a “suprise” or “lollipop” as one commentator put it in today’s version. That is a matter for Labour’s news management. Nothing can restore the dignity and importance of this speech, or the importance of the Queen’s speech debate in the House, because most if not all of it has been given out in advance and chewed over by reporters and commentators.

It is all part of Brown’s passion to centralise everything around himself, that he had to deliver the Queen’s speech first. It shows how he does not value Parliament, that this week Ministers and others briefing for the government have guaranteed most of the important ideas in the Queen’s speech have been discussed without Parliament having the chance to join in, as we have been locked out for the week.

Today the Opposition should highlight the constitutional outrages of the Brown regime. The debate gives us the chance to demand a Bill for a referendum on the EU constitutional Treaty, and a referendum on Scottish independence and or on justice for England within the Union settlement. It allows us to complain long and loud about the further sidelining of Parliament, the short hours and the numerous holidays, the endless spin and the use of legislation as an elaborate press release to fill the newspapers with a sense that the government is “doing something” about problems it has allowed to get out of control.

Brown’s advisers may at last be grasping that treating every Parliamentary occasion as a chance to bash the Tories lets the public down. The first task of a government should be to set out its intentions to Parliament, and defend its actions and its plans in the House. Of course a sensible government sets out what it thinks is wrong with the Opposition, but only after it has carried out its constitutional duty and explained its own position and how it wishes to respond to the problems of the naiton. Too many Ministers in the current government follow their master’s lead, and just think Parliament is the place to recite long worn out and tired anti Tory soundbites. I do hope they surprise me today with something better, but I doubt it. Don’t expect any vision for the future of the UK. Just expect more short termism, and a continuing guerrilla war against the Opposition.

The revelation that the government had got its numbers wrong over how many people have come to the UK and have taken jobs here came as no surprise to those of us who have been watching what has been happening. The government had to admit sometime ago it massively underestimated the numbers of eastern European arrivals when the new members joined the EU. Now they have to admit they had understated the total figures by at least 300,000.

Some migration is healthy, and some families want their loved ones to be able to join them. The difficulty comes when the numbers arriving are so large we do not have the homes, roads, hospitals or schools for them all to use. Every day brings me more emails or letters from constituents who do not want the greenfield near them built on, or the neighbour’s house replaced with flats. People feel under too much pressure, and it is places like Wokingham that are made to expand as the numbers of new arrivals grows.

Worse still is the news that 5.4 million people of working age are still living on benefits with no job. Some of them are too disabled or ill to work, but most are not. We have watched as these high levels have remained high despite all the new jobs created in the economy. Many of the new opportunities have been gratefully taken up by the new arrivals.

It is a case where the government should look at how Bill Clinton solved the same problem in the USA. His administration took the Wisconsin experiment and made it nationwide. They offered people on benefit some continuation of benefit if they took a job, phasing it out over time. They gave incentives to private sector employment companies to find the jobs, rewarding them if someone came off welfare and stayed in a job for a specified period. The combination of incentives to the benefit recipient and to the jobs specialist was backed up by the ultimate threat of withdrawal of benefit from people who were capable of work but turned down sensible jobs.

The government here says it wants to reduce the large numbers of people without jobs. The Prime Minister talks about British jobs for British workers