On the 26th January 2007 I posted a Reading Evening Post article about the need to improve forces’ housing. I took the proposals to the Defence Secretary, who expressed enthusiasm for some such scheme. I am reissuing it today, because nothing seems to have happened, and it is time to take it up again. Our armed forces are getting a rotten deal. The very least we could do is offer them some stability in their family housing, and offer them a way of improving it. We need to ensure that when they leave the services, they have a deposit for their own home and are not left trying to obtain poor quality accommodation from reluctant, hard pressed local authorities.

“I was upset to see the poor living conditions many soldiers have to put up with in the recent revelations about the modern army. It was a reminder of how the public sector can let its staff down in important ways.
We saw the lack of maintenance, the poor facilities and run down state of some forces housing. We did not hear about the other problems besetting forces families from the nature of army life. It isn’t just a case of broken bathrooms or worn out kitchens.
Soldiers and their families get moved around a lot. This can disrupt schooling, employment for the non soldier in the marriage, civilian friendships and wider family life. As the accommodation is rented, when the soldier leaves the forces he or she has no accumulated investment in a house or flat and often finds it very difficult or impossible to get the first foot on the housing ladder. Most of their friends and contemporaries have owned a property of their own for several years by the time the soldier’s tours of duty end.
So what could be done about this? I am proposing a means of bringing greater stability, better housing and an investment to those soldiers who would like it.
The MOD should invite tenders from outside financial and property companies to run a scheme which permits the soldier to buy all or part of his married quarters from the army on a mortgage. Very run down quarters would be sold at appropriately low prices with a requirement for the soldier to renovate it. If he chose to renovate it himself he would gain an extra investment for his work. If he used private contractors he would need to borrow the money as part of the mortgage.
When the soldier left the army he could sell the house or flat. The army would have the right to buy it with and for another soldier wishing to enter the same scheme. The transfer would take place at open market value, as if the soldier owner were selling it on the open market. The retiring family would have capital from the sale to buy a new home. The incoming soldier would have the chance to build up his investment over his time in the army.
Each soldier would buy at a barracks which became his home barracks. In all normal circumstances whenever he was in the UK he would be based at that barracks. His family would stay there if he was abroad on duty without them. If the family went abroad the army and its contractors would organise a short term tenancy so the rent could help pay the mortgage payments.
This scheme would be voluntary, but I think it would be popular with many army families. They would like more freedom to do up and look after their own property like the rest of us, and they would appreciate keeping up with the housing market when it starts to rise again in due course. They would welcome money coming in to improve the quality of the accommodation. The army would still have the right to allocate the home to a new soldier when the old owner left the service, and in the early years would have substantial capital receipts allowing it to buy better equipment, or more land and buildings for other purposes. It would be a win win.
Perhaps there are some bright entrepreneurial businesses out there that would like to make it happen. Something needs to be done, and it doesn’t look as if the Treasury is going to come up with enough money to do up all the run down houses anytime soon.”

Yesterday the Opposition highlighted the great Vehicle Excise Duty take away. Brought to you by the same people who doubled the income tax rate on the lower paid, they have thought up another unpopular wheeze to lift an extra £2.5 billion from motorists as if we were not paying enough already.

Deep in the small print of the budget was the fact that the large increases in VED would apply, not just to new cars, to put people off buying the larger and sportier vehicles, but also to older cars where there is no such element of choice. Even Labour MPs now see how unpopular this could prove to be when it comes into effect next year.

If you own a car which emits 161-165 grams of carbon per km (where are the miles the government said they had protected for us?) your VED will go up from £145 to £175, an increase of more than 20%.

If you own a car with emissions of 201-225 grams, you will have to pay 43% more, a rise from £210 to £300.

If your car puts out more than 255 grams, the rise will be 10%, from £400 to £440.

The government have dared to “sell” this idea as a green tax, which will limit carbon output from vehicles by persuading us to buy greener cars. Yet the government’s own figures say that, as a result, UK vehicle emissions of carbon will fall by just one seventh of one percent, a figure so small that it could be lost in the estimating error. Their forecast for a stonking 130% increase in tax revenue from this source shows they know it will not change behaviour, just swell the Treasury coffers.

This is no green policy. This is another milk-the-motorist policy, from the people who have brought us rip off petrol prices (with an added 70p a litre of tax!), rapacious parking charges and congestion charges. There is also their enormous speeding fine revenue from a system so complicated and perverse that you need to be a bad driver to be able to comply with it, watching your speedo so often whilst scanning the horizon for the speed signs rather than the road ahead.

The average motorist already pays £1,800 a year for his or her motoring, and does not have an extra £90 available to pay to the government just to keep the car on the road. Government Ministers, firmly insulated from these costs in their Ministerial cars, just think they can clobber the motorist again. Yesterday’s performance from Treasury Ministers goes to show they have still not understood just how people are being squeezed, and how fed up they are with a government which takes all their money.

David Runciman has written a clever book. He seeks to show that hypocrisy is an essential part of political life. The main part of the book is an analysis of the views of political hypocrisy by a range of thinkers running from Hobbes and Mandeville through Bentham and Trollope to Orwell. The book also seeks to draw lessons for modern politics and politicians from the insights and philosophical approaches of Runciman’s chosen thinkers.

Runciman thinks that Trollope, the novelist with the least philosophical background, has the most penetrating insights into the nature of political hypocrisy. He shows considerable sympathy for the amusing views of Mandeville, who shocked his contemporaries and successive generations, while he argues rather more over what Hobbes and Bentham meant to say. It means that in part Runciman’s book is an attempt at a rather narrow interpretation of a small part of Hobbes and Bentham’s work, while in other ways it is an essay on the abstract noun “hypocrisy”.

The book opens with a definition of hypocrisy which is wider ranging than the conventional notion that hypocrisy is where a politician holds a set of stated public views which do not confirm to his own way of life. Runciman’s definition runs almost as wide as including all types of lying, which he sees as essential to political success. Towards the end of the book we learn that Runciman really believes that as a politician you can either be sincere and untruthful, as he thinks Clinton and Blair were, or you can be honest and hypocritical as he thinks Brown and Gore are.

It is where David Runciman tries to draw these general views out of his sources and apply them to modern politics that the book is least satisfactory. It is difficult to see Gordon Brown as honest. He has continued many of the practices of the Blair regime in spinning stories in the press in response to the public mood as gauged by pollsters and focus group research, which do not necessarily relate to what the Government he leads is actually doing. Mr. Brown has got into difficulties through seeking to sympathise and emphasise with England and Conservatives when he himself is statist and, at heart, more of a socialist. I am quite sure that Gordon Brown honestly wishes to reduce what he calls “child poverty”. Indeed, that is an aim he shares with his political opponents as well as his own party. But it is also the case that Mr. Brown wishes to pose as a tax-cutter because he sees that tax-cutting is now extremely popular with Conservative voting England, which he needs to woo over if he is going to win the next election. Given that Mr. Brown’s main method of tacking child poverty is to spend more public money on benefits, it is quite difficult to combine this with a general tax-cutting strategy, which leads him to spinning rather than acting to get taxes down.

I do not agree with David Runciman that lying is a necessary or essential part of politics, and we merely have to decide which kind of hypocrite we wish to elect. The public usually loses confidence in a politician who turns out to be a hypocrite or liar in an important area of policy or life, and where the politician’s intervention is seen to be damaging to voters and to the country. Thus the Labour governments of 1974 to 1979 under Wilson and Callaghan were brought low, for whilst they said their closeness to the unions meant they could get on well with the trade unions, the long and damaging strikes over the winter of 1978 to 1979 showed the public something different and inconvenienced the voters. John Major claimed during the election in 1992 that a vote for him would lead to economic recovery starting the day afterwards, only for the electorate to discover that his commitment to the ERM entailed further grief. Indeed, the very nature of a political deal to espouse fixed exchange rates requires leading politicians to lie when they have to reassure the public that the exchange rate will never be devalued, knowing only full well (if they have any self-knowledge) that it is all too likely it will be if the other policies they are following are unhelpful.

Tony Blair got into grave difficulties with his war in Iraq. He told the public that we needed to intervene because we faced a possible threat from weapons of mass destruction. After the invasion it transpired that the intelligence was inaccurate and had been presented to the public in a rather different, positive way from that intended. This greatly reduced the Labour vote in the 2005 election and lay behind the pressure to get rid of Tony Blair for his unpopularity.

David Runciman does not think that Al Gore’s own lifestyle, jetting around the world whilst having a very large house which eats energy, is particularly damaging to his campaign to get other people to take action in their personal lives and limit their carbon outputs. I would disagree. I think the hypocrisy revealed by the Al Gore lifestyle made many people find his preaching extremely unattractive. If a politician is asking people to do something they do not wish to do – in this case, curb their travel, turn down their heating, and lead a less comofortable modern life – that politician should expect great difficulty in winning the argument and persuading people if he or she is not living to the high standards they set for others.

The fact that many politicians in the past have been hypocritical does not mean that hypocrisy is a necessary part of successful politics or that, in the way David Runciman seems to say, we should recommend clever hypocrisy to our politicians. It is not inherent in the political arts that you have to lie. Of course a successful politician builds a big coalition, which means making compromises without leaving aside more difficult issues, and seeking agreement between people who do not have a lot in common. This can be done in an honest and open way, and may be more successful for having been done in that way. Most examples of political hypocrisy one can think of in David Runciman’s canter through the politics of Clinton and Lincoln, Blair and Cromwell imply that when they were at there most hypocritical and were seen through, they faced their greatest difficulties with those they sought to govern. David Runciman has produced some interesting sidelights on some important political thinkers, and he has challenged our little grey cells to consider how much hypocrisy is essential or desirable in politics. He has not convinced me that being a hypocrite is the best model for being a successful leader, and I think he misjudges some of these leaders he seeks to analyse. It is perhaps difficult for a senior lecturer in political theory to have enough grasp of history to appreciate the interplay between ideas, actions and words in the case of so many historical figures operating at different times.

What a difference a year makes. In May 2007, the professionals completing the RICS estate agents’ and surveyors’ survey of the residential property market were bullish on past property price rises and the prospects of more to come. That May survey showed a positive balance of 21 for past prices UK-wide, and a big 56 positive balance for London. New-buyer enquiries were in balance. The latest figures in 2008 show a negative balance of 95 on past prices UK-wide and a negative 94 on London. The business has never been more pessimistic, with practically every agent reporting prices down and expecting more of the same. New-buyer enquiries have reached early 1990s levels, at minus 68. Even the Housing Minister has to go to cabinet with a pessimistic forecast for house prices, and kindly lets the rest of us read what we already know from the public surveys.

This week also brought the expected bad inflation figures. Energy and food prices have boosted CPI and RPI inflation, with the government’s alcohol duty increases and VAT on petrol and diesel offering the extra boost to the rise. Readers of this blog will not be surprised by either development, following pieces on the coming drop in house prices and the short-term up-tick in inflation. Shop-price inflation is still much less than factory-gate inflation, which is far below the inflation in metals and energy used by the factories. Everyone is having to absorb higher prices to some extent. The consumer is unable to protect himself or herself through sufficiently large wage increases, so spending power is falling.

The UK is now paying the price of government and regulatory excess in recent years. The government sector has inflated its costs and borrowed too much. As a result, the UK government had to increase taxes at exactly the point in the cycle where it should be cutting them. The Bank of England is having to keep interest rates much higher than our leading first-world competitors, because the inflation here is exacerbated by tax increases and the sloppy credit conditions of recent years. The nationalisation of Northern Rock has left the government short of cash to improve the liquidity of money markets, when its US counterparts are being much freer with the extra cash.
It was against this background that Gordon Brown carried out his tax con, cutting the basic rate of tax to 20p, while removing the 10p band. People noticed this was a disguised tax increase for many, and that it affected those on low incomes disproportionately. It led to the forced U-turn this week, as Labour backbenchers reported accurately the mood on the doorsteps, and demanded a rebate.

In the US, a positive recession-busting strategy has been followed vigorously. Interest rates have been slashed from 5.25% to just 2%, cutting everyone’s cost of borrowing. Substantial sums have been made available to money markets to ease the liquidity crunch. Mortgage regulation has been eased. Consumers have been given a boost with a tax cut, helping those on lower and middle incomes.

The UK is unable to cut interest rates as much, because of its persistent inflation problem. The UK authorities have not made so much money available, because they foolishly spent far too much on Northern Rock, instead of heading off that problem with sensible monetary easing before the run. Northern Rock, in public ownership, is now increasing the credit squeeze by having to cut back on its lending. The UK government has been putting taxes up instead of easing pressures on consumers, because of the big appetite of the government sector to spend more. Yesterday, for one year only, we were offered a modest tax reduction through the gritted teeth of a government held to ransom by its backbenchers and afraid of the voters of Crewe and Nantwich. The UK is talking of intensifying regulation, rather than easing it, while there is no danger of over-lax lending. We are told there will be more and tougher banking controls in the draft Queen’s speech – the usual sound of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone, making it impossible to get the horse back in.

The US should get by without the savage recession some have already called and others have forecast, because they have been so determined to see off the downturn as quickly as possible. The UK will have longer to struggle, with its twin large deficits – an over-borrowed government sector, and a heavily indebted consumer one. While the tax rebate this week makes a small but welcome contribution to the consumer, it is achieved at the expense of an even worse public sector deficit. This will act as a further constraint on the government achieving a better economic performance. The Chancellor yesterday should have offered reductions in wasteful or needless spending, or, at the very least, postponed some of the expensive computer and consultancy schemes during the year when he intends to give some money back to taxpayers.

We have more months ahead of mortgage famine, falling house prices, and price rises squeezing us more. The government’s tax increases on fuel, alcohol and others have made it more difficult to get inflation down and to reassure people that their real incomes will not fall too much. Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region continues to outgrow us, and the pound is now falling against the dollar as well as against the strong currencies of the fast-growth countries.

Yesterday I visited Crewe to help with the by-election. The Labour vote was crumbling as we visited. Practically everyone I spoke to was angry about the big increases in petrol and diesel prices, food prices, and the vanishing 10p tax band. Understandably, they felt their family budgets were being squeezed too much, and, understandably, they blamed the government for the part that tax has played in all this. I canvassed into the evening, long after the news first broke about the government’s spectacular U-Turn – for one year and for one by-election only – on income tax, but it made no immediate impact on the feelings of voters, bruised by tax bills and inflation. Life-long Labour voters confessed they were having to think long and hard this time, because they could not believe how their party had let them down over tax and the economy.

The Conservative operation seemed well-organised, with plenty of good material being put out containing strong messages about the war on motorists and the squeeze on incomes. There was a detailed set of arguments being conducted by several parties, about who had the most or least local candidate, which preoccupied some voters, but overall the issue was simple: “We’ve had enough. We can’t afford all the bills”.

Labour’s backbenchers, ably led by Frank Field, “got it” well before the government. The Chancellor has gone from zero to hero with Labour MPs for his lend-lease approach to tax reductions. He hopes his one-year special offer of a tax cut paid for by yet more borrowing will take the political trick. The danger for Labour is that people will say “Too little, too late”. They may also worry that because this government cannot afford the tax cut, it is but taxation deferred. We will all be paying for this tax cut - with interest – as we are having to borrow it. It would have all been better if the Chancellor had been able to say this would apply for more than just one year, and if he had covered its cost by reducing wasteful and needless spending. Goodness knows, there’s enough of that to pay for this modest reduction. The Taxpayers Alliance found £82 billion of waste in its 2006 book, and even the government found more than £20 billion.

On the trains, there and back, I saw plenty of Conservative MPs but not one Labour MP. Are they still shy about facing the voters of Crewe?

On a rare occasion when I saw some TV, I was intrigued to see an advert from the government demanding that people pay their Vehicle Licence fees.
It did not surprise me that they are wasting more public money on ads, or that they wish to portray themselves as money-grabbers. That is exactly what we have come to expect from this rapacious crew. What did surprise me was their decision to tell the audience they have taken powers to crush your car if you forget to pay the VED. They showed a film of a perfectly good-looking car being needlessly destroyed, just because the owner had not paid the tax. No wonder they are 23% in the polls and falling.

I understand a lot of non-VED payers are also committing other crimes, and that the car impounded may have been stolen. Surely, in such circumstances, the authorities should seek to return the car to its legal owner, rather than crush it? If the car belongs to a forgetful, legal owner on holiday or otherwise away, it seems very unfair to crush the vehicle, if he or she has had no opportunity to pay the tax and penalties to get the car back.

It sums up this government’s approach. Taking money off people – to pay for ads, spin doctors and more bureaucracy – is the aim. Getting brutal with people who do not pay is the means. Viewers were obviously meant to feel on edge, and had to rush out to where their cars were parked to check they had not made a mistake.

Someone might be away on business, on holiday, or very busy when the VED tax demand arrives. The renewal note might be sent to the wrong address, or they might have forgotten to notify all the money-grabbing branches of government when they moved. Shouldn’t such people be treated more sympathetically? By all means charge the non-payers extra to help cover the costs of compliance, but isn’t crushing a car way over the top?

Now we hear today that Nottingham Council are planning to levy a tax on employers – who may make their employees pay it – for every car-parking space they have thoughtfully provided in the city centre. For heaven’s sake! The employers who provide car slots are helping take vehicles off the road. If you rely on municipal car parks and on street parking, you often have to drive round and round looking for a space as they usually underprovide. The employers who have their own car parks contribute to reducing congestion, at no cost to the Council.

If the government have begun to “get it”, they will veto this scheme as yet another example of how to pillage the parker and milk the motorist.

As I am never shy to criticise the BBC, I should be fair. Today, they invited Brian Wilson and me to debate the issue of devolution and the PM’s wish to have a debate to “save the Union”. It was a balanced and sensible piece, which I hope the audience found worthwhile.

It enabled me to explain that I opposed Labour’s devolution scheme in the late 1990s because it was lop-sided and unfair.

I want proper devolution - devolution of many more decisions to individuals, families, companies and communities, in both Scotland and England. The UK is over-centralised.

I am against regional devolution in England, and in favour of equal treatment of Scotland and England when it comes to making decisions at UK or England/Scotland level. If the PM wants to save the Union, he could begin by abolishing unelected regional government in England, and by giving power to English representatives to decide the issues the Scottish Parliament decides north of the border.

Three years ago I worked on a proposal for “Thames Reach – A New City”, and published the ideas with sketches, provided by Area Architects, of what could be achieved. I was seeking to show that there was scope for more construction, and a more imaginative approach to new housing estates and commercial estates in the East Thames Corridor.

The part of the plan which excited most attention from the media was the suggestion that we could reclaim some land from the Thames, and extend the built area into the estuary. It seemed to me that we could use such new land to take the pressure off greenfield sites in Kent, and, out of the proceeds of all the planning permissions, we might be able to pay for the additional flood defences London and the East Thames developments are going to need.

I was delighted to see yesterday that Scott Wilson, the engineering consultancy, has taken up a variant of the idea and has drawn on Terry Farrell’s scheme for a bridge linking Kent to Essex via islands in the estuary. Apparently there are interested Middle Eastern investors, who have seen how well reclaimed land and property development has worked in Dubai.

If London is to keep its place as one of the world’s great cities, and as an attractive place for inward investors, we need the next Docklands to keep the momentum going. What better option than to create waterside locations for offices, shops and residential developments, by reclaiming estuary land? At the same time, deep-water channels could be dredged for shipping and London’s sea defences strengthened.

Click here to download John’s PowerPoint presentation on “Thames Reach - A New City”. Please contact his office directly for a copy of his pamphlet on this subject, which is too large to upload onto the website.

I thought Gordon Brown was an intelligent man. I read that he has hired, at our huge expense, a number of intelligent advisers. How can they, between them, have come up with the subject of care for the elderly as the topic for the “fightback”?

Anyone with half an ounce of commonsense - or do we have to say gram these days? – would see the pitfalls. The popular position on care for the elderly is to offer “free” care for all, the one thing the government has to rule out on cost grounds. The issue is one settled by Members of the Scottish Parliament for Scotland, where they have more generous arrangements than England.

So, in the middle of a row about the unfair treatment of England and the state of the Union, generated by his own side led by the Labour Leader in Scotland, a Scottish MP, acting as Prime Minister of the Union, decides to highlight the unfair treatment and tell us, the English, it has to stay unfair! Did no-one, from the PM down, see what an own-goal this was likely to be?

My colleagues and I have sat through many a surgery appointment where constituents have complained that their elderly relatives have had to sell their homes to pay the nursing home or residential care-home fees. We have had to patiently explain (under this government and its predecessor) that offering to pay all nursing and care-homes fees from taxpayer receipts would mean a big increase in taxes. We have explained that health care is still free to all of whatever age, but living costs in a home are more akin to you and me paying the mortgage and the grocery bills, so they have to come out of private funds until the elderly have run out of cash, when the state will then take over. The constituents are rarely persuaded, and feel a great sense of injustice that their elderly relatives have to sell up and pay.

There are four possible answers to the vexed question, ‘who pays the care-home fees?’ The first is the elderly themselves, either out of their savings, or from the proceeds of selling the houses they no longer live in. The second is the relatives or friends of the elderly, often the people who will inherit the houses if they do not have to be sold to pay the fees. The third is for the elderly to have put in place some type of insurance or financial arrangement in their younger years when they had more income, so they do not need to touch their previous homes and their capital value. The fourth is to require the taxpayers to pay, as if residential care were a full cost on the NHS.

It might be a good idea for the relevant Secretary of State to consult on more imaginative ways for elderly people to finance their possible need of care-home services that do not require the sale of their residence when they do have to move into a home, if the government now has such ideas. It makes no sense for the Prime Minister himself to open up the whole issue of care for the elderly when he cannot afford to offer the solution those most affected by the issue would like, and when it is treated differently on either side of the English-Scottish border. It just reminds people that he is a Scottish MP, and reminds us all of the differential treatment under his lop-sided devolution.

Care for the elderly reveals the unfair settlement for England. The Prime Minister and his advisers are letting England down again, and spending our money on highlighting just how they are doing it. They are showing that Scottish MPs in this government can lead the debate and settle the outcome for England when they cannot do the same for Scotland, and when English MPs have to keep out of the Scottish decision.

The Prime Minister tells us he will do whatever it takes to save the Union.

He should begin by remembering it was the Labour government he supported which put through lop-sided devolution for Scotland, and half-hearted devolution for Wales. Far from saving the Union, as advertised, these schemes made the Union unstable. I wrote my book, “The Death of Britain”, to explain how Labour’s constitutional revolution meant “tearing our country up by its roots”. I argued that “devolution Labour style will devolve more power not to people, but to politicians and administrators. Far from cementing the UK, it will pull it apart as advocates of a Europe of the Regions intend”.

If Gordon Brown is serious about wishing to save the Union, he needs to understand the strong feelings of injustice in England.

1. English people do not want their country balkanised into Euro regions. We do not think you make up for the lack of an English Parliament by offering elected Assemblies for the South East or the North West. Indeed, these unelected regional governments throughout England, which Labour wishes to offer in elected versions as substitute, need to be abolished to show the government has at last understood the meaning of the “No” vote in the North East. Regional government in England is an insult to those of us who love our country.

2. English people want some symmetry in the constitutional arrangements. If Scotland can decide matters like local government finance, planning, health, education and the environment without English MPs being involved, why can’t England decide the same things without Scottish MPs being involved? Nationalists in England now want the extra cost and complexity of a full English Parliament in addition to Westminster. I prefer making English Westminster MPs do both jobs. The same could also apply to Scotland, with the Scottish MPs settling Scottish matters in Edinburgh for part of the week, and joining us to settle Union matters for the rest of the week. If Scotland wants to have two lots of representatives, as they do now, they should have the pleasure of paying for them.

3. Many English people want fairness in allocating the money. Constituents want to know how it is that Scotland can afford a better deal on student finance and, in some cases, a bigger range of pharmaceuticals on the NHS. Gordon Brown should tackle the more obvious anomalies that hurt England.

4. The Prime Minister should grasp that the biggest constitutional threat to the Union comes from EU developments. English people are not going to be happy until they have a vote on the Constitutional Treaty, and have their view taken seriously that we want less EU power over us, not more.

I concluded in 1999 that “The Government’s devolution plans will create more tension and conflict, rather than less. We already see London complaining that Scotland gets too much money. We will soon see Wales complaining that it is not being treated seriously and Scotland complaining that the powers it has received are not enough… It is all playing into the Commission’s hands beautifully. It is creating a Europe of the regions in the way the Commission wants. It is helping to fuel nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales. London is useful to begin the process of regionalising England…The end result will be a more divided, more factious, more overgoverned, more overregulated UK… it will just create more armies of bureaucrats and politicians wringing their hands, complaining that they do not have enough power, and levying money from people to keep themselves in a lifestyle to which they wish to become accustomed”

Just when you might have thought it could not get worse for the Prime Minister, we enter the battle of the memoirs. Reading the press this weekend, it is as if senior Labour figures feel they need to speed their stories to the papers while the two words “Gordon” and “Brown” are still high news. Labour figures have certainly learnt from the NU Lab Bumper Book of Spin when it comes to sending out salacious stories and exciting tittle-tattle to boost circulations and encourage good contracts with newspapers for extracts from their literary toils.

John Prescott has confirmed what all good journalists were telling us – and all MPs who watched carefully knew. There was a series of bruising rows between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, and Brown did want the top job. All those official denials, all those pictures and stories spun, especially at election time, to show what good buddies they were, did seek to conceal a very difficult relationship. The Blair government was split into rival camps, and they did all seek to mislead with their official statements, while briefing extensively behind the scenes about the endless disagreements and hurt feelings. One of the reasons why the taxpayer had to pay for an expensive Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, was to handle these family rows, apparently.

John Prescott gave good advice when he suggested to the Prime Minister that he should have sacked Gordon Brown. I always felt Tony Blair should have offered Gordon Brown the Foreign Secretaryship in the third Parliament. He could have presented it to him as a necessary broadening of experience before eventually taking over as PM. If Gordon had accepted, it would have broken his power-base at the Treasury, which was used to associate Gordon with the large sums of public money being spent on causes dear to the hearts of the Labour MPs whose support the would-be Leader needed. It was also the power-base he used to block any Blair reform he did not like. Had Gordon refused the move, all but his strongest supporters would have thought him petulant and disloyal to the team.

Cherie Blair’s memoirs have been brought forward for earlier publication. It is not helpful to the PM to have this concentration on the Blairite past, and the rows at the top that characterised it, so close to an important by-election in Crewe. The aside that Tony is now offering advice on the next election, and how to win, invites retaliation from the PM. The Memoir threatens to rekindle the old rows, as it is difficult for the PM to leave it all unchallenged, without someone putting his point of view. It was, after all, the unpopularity of Blair’s war which led the Labour party pressurising him into going. Raking over the immediate past like this encourages some to remember what they did not like about that period, and others to make unfavourable comparisons between the old PM and the present one.

On 11 May 1812 a man in a green coat with brass buttons called John Bellingham stood, full of anger at the government, in the lobby of the House of Commons. He had lost substantial sums on trade with Russia. He felt strongly that the government should have offered compensation.
Approaching him was no less a person than the Tory Prime Minister. Spencer Perceval was having all manner of problems, trying to keep his administration together against a background of resignations by senior politicians. Others refused to serve. He had to be his own Chancellor of the Exchequer following six rejections from Parliamentarians he had approached.
Perceval had persisted with the Peninsular War despite all its complications, reversals and costs, against Parliamentary criticism. He was to be vindicated by the eventual victory. He responded to Napoleon’s “continental system”, blocking British trade with the continent, with Orders in Council restricting trade in retaliation. These measures were unpopular with merchants and bankers, and were, to some, part of the cause of the economic depression that had hit manufacturing employment and sparked Luddite protests. On that fateful day the Prime Minister was walking to a debate on those very Orders in Council, thinking, no doubt, about the arguments he would need to marshall to deal with his critics.
John Bellingham produced a gun and shot the Prime Minister through the heart. He then gave himself up to the officers. He was duly tried and executed.
I am glad to say that no other Prime Minister has ever been murdered, though there have been threats to some of their lives. It was a tragedy that Spencer Perceval was killed in this way, his life cut short at a time when Britain’s fortunes were about to improve, thanks to the progress of our armies in the Napoleonic War. The Prime Minister had successfully put in place the Regency legislation to handle the problem of the King’s madness.

The loathsome government of Burma is an extreme example of an all-too-common phenomenon. Too many people in power have a cruel desire to control everything in the society they are meant to serve. They wish to manipulate the media, send out only positive images of themselves, and exclude, punish or destroy anyone who wishes to disagree with them. The military junta produce ludicrous television pictures of a happy people gratefully receiving aid from the army, at a time when thousands are close to death without shelter, without enough clean water or food, and prey to disease. They seek to ban any foreigner from coming to their country to help, as they fear they will send back words and pictures reporting the truth, and fear they will expose the gross inadequacies of the regime’s response to such a major human tragedy.

I admire the bravery of the anonymous BBC reporter who has sent back vivid and worrying words to describe the tragedy unfolding in the delta. I admire the patient work of the humanitarian organisations, trying to persuade the military government that they should be allowed to help. I regret the clumsy, attention-seeking intervention of the Lib Dem leader, Mr Clegg, who suggested dropping food supplies from helicopters or planes without the permission of the Burmese government. Has he checked that the military regime would leave such planes unmolested and not treat them as enemy aircraft? Has he thought about the problems of the terrain in the flooded delta, and how difficult it would prove to retrieve many of the large packages sent from the skies? How would he prevent the junta seeking to intercept those parcels which could be reached, and taking them for their own purposes? Did he not hear the impatience in the response of those who are trying to negotiate an agreement with this dreadful government? We all share his wish to do something, but believe the international community can do more if it works with, and through, people on the ground in Burma.

The Burma regime is clearly paranoid. It remembers that the US, EU and UK have all condemned it in the past and have imposed sanctions. It fears they will use this opportunity to expose it and will be intimidated by proposals for unilateral western intervention. It naively believes it can control the information, words and pictures coming out. Fortunately, in a footloose world where westerners are already in Burma for other purposes, and in a world where there are so many cameras, mobile phones and communications equipment, pictures and information will flow out to tell the rest about us of the sad plight of so many Burmese.

The international community wants to help, and can help. To help effectively the regime has to be persuaded to take in not just more food and water, but also equipment to deliver the supplies to the dispossessed, and technical assistance to begin the recovery. That cannot be done by aerial bombardment. It can only be done by negotiation.

Today is the anniversary of the German invasion of Holland and Belgium, 68 years ago. On the first day of the fighting in Holland around half the small and old Dutch air force was destroyed, Waalhaven airport seized for troop landings, and the bridge taken at Dordrecht. The Dutch army and the small boats of the navy put up stout resistance, but the absence of any functioning tanks and the loss of air cover made resistance difficult. In Belgium, the Germans hurled more substantial forces against the Allies, and destroyed around half the small Belgian air force on the first day. The German forces went on to conquer Holland by May 14, following the devastating bombing of Rotterdam and their threats to do more of the same to other Dutch cities. The attack on Belgium led to the English and French retreat from Dunkirk, and the successful German occupation of the rest of the Low Countries and Northern France.

Some argue today that we have been spared such battles over the last 63 years, thanks to the European Union. I always find this one of the most unpleasant and absurd arguments in the thin armoury of the proponents of a politically integrated Europe. Are they seriously suggesting that, without the EU, modern Germany would be following a warlike course against her neighbours? I see no evidence of any such intentions on the part of modern Germany, which has a very different outlook from the Germany of the Kaiser, or of Hitler. Why do they think so ill of a country with whom they wish to have such close relations? Do they not understand that military matters in the post-war period were mainly determined by NATO, not by the EU? Do they not recall that for much of the second half of the twentieth century Germany remained under four military zones from the occupying powers? The US emerged after 1945 as the world’s main superpower, and was herself committed to maintaining the peace in Europe, should there be a threat to it. As it turned out, the main fear after 1945 was not of German military action, but of cold-war tension between east and west flaring, into hot war across the divide between East and West Germany. As far as the west was concerned, the threat to peace did not come from within the EU, but from the communist world. The only protection against that came from a strong NATO with the US as its main pillar.

On a day when we mourn the loss of life in the blitzkrieg against Holland, and in the early exchanges of the battle for France, we are reminded what a much better place Europe became with the death of German militarism and its replacement by a peace-loving democracy, whose constitution endorsed their wish not to arm for conquest. It is wrong to argue that this came about only because of the EU, when it came about for wholly different reasons. Peace has been maintained in Western Europe for 63 years because the countries no longer wish to fight each other. That has been backed up by the presence and actions of NATO.

Vote Conservative in the cold and wet, dodging the hailstones, on May 1st, and enjoy a week of sunshine and summer temperatures.

Let’s hope this felicitous coincidence will be matched by improvements from Conservative government in action at the local level. I was pleased to see Boris has set up a Commission to help him cut costs at City Hall. They will be spoilt for choice, starting with the over the top 70 press officers, and working through the advisers Ken needed to run an alternative foreign policy.A staff freeze from day one, with new recruitment only permitted with Mayoral authority, would soon start to save the Council taxpayer serious money.

The other day the head of a major services company which takes on public sector work came to see me. He said they could perform more or less any administrative function currently undertaken by branches of UK government for between 15% and 30% less than its cost in house, and they would take on all the staff involved in the activity because they could find other things for them to do where they were not needed to carry out the original operation. If they can do, so could the in house teams if they were under pressure to do so.

Savings of that magnitude should be easy - the system has not been asked to deliver more for less for a decade, and looks very flabby compared to the best of the private sector under the cosh of international competition from China and India.

Today Russia commemorates the ending of the Second World War, one day after our VE day as always. The new President, doubtless influenced by Mr Putin, has decided that Russia is now strong enough to parade her military might as part of the display. As the oil price climbs to ever higher levels, Russia’s income grows. As her income grows, so she spends more on weaponry, to remind the USA that she is not unchallenged.

On another ocean, two Asian powers are also questioning US supremacy.

The Japanese have been honorary members of the Anglosphere since 1945, plugged into the first world of corporate activity and progressively freer trade. They have usually accepted US leadership. At the end of 1980s Japan started to flex her diplomatic muscles, doubting the US ability to adapt and grow. She chose to do so at a time when the Japanese bubble was at its most full blown. The Japanese sell off of the early 1990s coincided with the strong US move forward based on digital technology and the communications revolution, leaving the Japanese looking foolish and weak as their markets crashed and stayed down for a long time.

Today some Japanese pundits are questioning US supremacy again. They point to the weakness of the dollar, the sub prime problems, and growing dependence of the US on Chinese goods. They would be wrong to read these as signs of the end of US economic supremacy, just as surely as they were wrong about the collapse of the USA in 1990.

The truth is that the USA has outgrown both Japan and the EU over the last decade. Despite starting with more income per head and with a technological lead which others can learn from, the strength, breadth and depth of the US economy has been on display during years of poorer performance from both Japan and the EU.

Japan worries about her position, perched close to China in the Pacific half of the world. This may be the Pacific century, and the excitement may come from the West coast of the USA, from India and China, but that does not necessarily make it comfortable for Japan. Japan will be watching very carefully the military build up in China, and asking herself when the US will accept that China has serious military power to allow her to influence the patterns of politics and economics in her corner of the world?

Although China has 2.1 million military personnel, buttressed by a further 800,000 reserves, she still lacks aircraft carriers and overseas bases to project this conventional power far from home. The fleet comprises 29 destroyers , 46 frigates and 59 submarines. The air force boasts 1762 combat aircraft.

Whilst a lot of this equipment is not up to western standards, the latest planes and ships are much more sophisticated. Given the wealth of the country and the willingness to spend on armaments, we should assume a lively pace of new armament.

More significantly China has 806 missiles of varying capability (IISS Military Balance 2008) including intercontinental ones which could reach the USA and the EU. China is a nuclear weapons power, with more warheads than the UK but fewer than France at around 200.

We should expect China as she grows economically to buy in better weapons technologies from abroad and to re-arm heavily.

The US remains overwhelmingly stronger than Russia or China militarily, with a huge technological lead. Her command of the digital revolution, the US ability to see and hear an enemy and to strike one from a great distance are far ahead of what would be rivals can do. Nonetheless, the world is a more uncertain and dangerous place as China and Russia re-arm. The USA has to learn to operate with diplomacy and persuasion more, building more alliances with those who share her democratic and economic values.

This week has seen more moves to ease the Credit Crunch in the USA. The Fed has taken the drought in the money markets seriously, and has kept a big flow of liquidity available to ease the worst of the problem. The Term Auction facility is now up by another $50 billion to $150 billion. There are $100 billion of 28 day repurchase agreements, and $62 billion of reciprocal currency facilities with other Central Banks. There are some signs that rates in US money markets are falling from the extreme differentials of the worst of the Credit Crunch as a result of all this extra liquidity.

Now the jeremiahs are worrying that this will be bad for inflation, forcing higher interest rates ere long when the Fed realises the evil of its ways.

The latest figures for the US economy do not illustrate an inflationary problem. Over the year ended 31 March 2008 US productivity grew by a satisfactory 3.2%. Because people across the economy were working 3% smarter, with modest wage and salary rises overall, costs were under good control. Unit labour costs only grew by 0.2% for the year, hardly evidence of an incipient inflationary lift off.

The price increases are all coming from the price of food, energy and raw materials, which have been rising dramatically worldwide over the last six months. The surge in food prices is most alarming, as it is pricing the poorest out of their basic diets. The big rise in oil and other energy prices has a knock on effect to all prices of goods that need energy to produce them and energy to transport them.

The flooding of rice lands in Asia, the impact of the severe winter in China on agriculture and the demand for energy, and the diversion of crops for bio fuels have all helped force prices upwards. The Indian government is now seeking to stop “speculation” in food by preventing Indians buying and selling certain food based contracts. Several Asian countries are imposing export bans on staple foods.

These responses are understandable but they are not going to solve the underlying problem. There are “financial” buyers of wheat and rice futures contracts, but it is difficult to distinguish a “speculative” buyer from a trade user of such contracts. If just a few countries seek to ban trading in such items, the trade will continue elsewhere in the world. It is unlikely that Chicago will shut down its commodities trading markets, and if it did farmers would be up in arms as well as speculators. Nor will export bans solve the problem. The country that imposes an export ban on Item A will still want to import Item B and will be relying on other countries not imposing export bans. If too many export bans are put in place the world will become poorer, as trade will be damaged.

The shortages and high prices are squeezing us all, but they are especially bad news for the poor. The prices going up are the prices of the basics – food and fuel. The answer has to be more production of both, to cater for the growing demands of a rapidly rising world population. The high current oil price is leading to more exploration and more oil finds. The high prices of grains should lead to more land going under the plough, and the adoption of more intensive methods of growing grains in developing countries. In the meantime the UN needs to redouble its efforts to help the poorest in the worst affected countries. The answer is not to move to protectionism, the system which intensified the slump of the 1930s.

Hitler committed suicide on April 30th 1945. On May 7th the new government of Germany bowed to the inevitable and authoritsed the signature of the unconditional surrender document at Reims on May 7th, and in Berlin on May 8th. All war like operations between Germany and the Allied powers ceased at 23.01 on May 8th.

There was great rejoicing throughout the country, with dramatic scenes on the streets of London. The relief must have been huge after the long dark years of bombing raids, the loss of loved ones overseas,and the nagging fear of death to civilians and active service personnel alike. The evil of the concentration camps and gas chambers discovered by the Allied armies was still sinking in. Years of post war austerity lay ahead, but who cared on the news that the war was over?

At the Potsdam Conference the Allies decided on the partition of Germany, and the granting to Poland of territory from the Reich. This ushered in an era of suffering for the Germans who were living in the wrong places in Eastern Europe and had to move out.

One of the main preoccupations of the Allies was to dismantle German heavy industry, to prevent future rearmament and the construction of battle ships, tanks and fighter planes. They ordered the dismantling of steel capacity, the closure of many factories, and the transfer of weapons techonology.

This thinking lived on with French governments, and led directly to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community and the proto EU. It took a long time for Western politicians to come to see Western Germany, later Germany, as a peaceful democratic ally in an uncertain world.

EDM 1481

MULTILATERAL ACTION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE AND WORLD HUNGER

06.05.2008

Redwood, John

That this House notes that China is the fastest growing major economy in the world and India the second fastest; further notes that China will soon overtake the United States as the world’s single biggest source of carbon emissions; expresses its concern at the role played by the growing demand for biofuels in world food price increases; is alarmed at the World Bank’s prediction that food price inflation could set the fight against Third World hunger back by seven years; urges the Government to do all it can to help tackle global food poverty; recommends that the UK leads change to regulations to drop any requirement to divert crops to fuel, as arable land is needed for food; further recommends that the Government uses its leverage to persuade the US, China and India to proceed on a multilateral basis to tackle climate change; and recognises that if the UK proceeded unilaterally it could drive fuel-intensive industries into jurisdictions with less stringent regulatory and fiscal regimes, which would cost British jobs whilst failing to reduce the world’s total carbon output.

The Labour leadership’s astonishing U Turn on a referendum about Scottish independence in Scotland leaves Gordon Brown in an even weaker position over both the EU and England.

Up to this point we have been told that big constitutional issues - like Who governs the UK - is a matter for the UK Parliament and not for a popular vote. We have been deprived of the promised EU referendum on the grounds that it is too complicated for the voters to grasp and has to be left to professional politicians.

Now we learn that the question of who governs Scotland is a matter just for the Scottish people.

In that case Who governs the UK? should be a matter for the UK people. The case for a referendum on the big transfer of powers recommended in the EU Constitutional Treaty on this logic has to be put to the voters.

The Scottish example comes across as yet another injustice to England. If Scottish voters can settle their fate within the Union unilaterally, why can’t the English? Gordon Brown should now offer the English a vote on whether they wish to stay in the Union, which would force him to recognise the unfairness of the current settlement and to offer improvements in order to secure the continuing consent of the English to his constitutional arrangements. As a Unionist myself I want English votes for English issues - the restoration of the English Parliament at Westminster with dual mandate English MPs.

Under Labour we have had to put up with lop-sided devolution for a decade. Now under Labour we have to put up with lop sided democracy, where five million Scots can express a view on our constitution, but 50 million English cannot. When Labour first presented its skewed devolution proposals I argued that, far from strengthening the Union, they would weaken it as they were unfair on England. This further twist will do yet more damage. It is as if the SNP has found a way to get the London government to do its job for them. It has always been SNP strategy to make England angry with the Union. They have an able assistant in this cause in Gordon Brown.

The alternative explanation is that he is so weak he cannot control or influence Wendy Alexander, the Labour leader in Scotland. Labour’s devolution has badly miscarried from their party political point of view. They now have a Conservative Mayor of London, an SNP-led government in Scotland, a coalition government with the Welsh Nats in Wales, and no Labour representation in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I am sure their original idea was to create devolved government in places Labour usually won, and offer a voting system which made it difficult for anyone else to gain a majority.

If I had to choose between being a democrat and being a Conservative I would choose democracy every time. When you see the misery of Zimbabwe, the oppression of communist states and military dictatorships, you remember just how important it is that we have the power to choose our governments, and to get rid of them by peaceful means if we wish.

For that reason I want to thank on behalf of the whole community all those who stood as candidates in the recent local elections, and all those who gave their time to deliver leaflets and knock on doors in all the parties that participated. Only if people are prepared to do that does the electorate have a choice. Only if enough people do that with differing views and interests do we preserve our liberties. I would also like to thank all those who took the trouble to vote, for that too is an important part of maintaining a free society.

I am naturally grateful that voters decided to elect a majority of Conservative Councillors. I am also conscious of the weight of responsibility that rests with them, and the need for them to serve the District well. Whilst the overall political complexion of the Council has not changed, we will soon have a new Leader of the Council following Frank Browne’s retirement. We also have a number of new Councillors. Whilst I trust they will draw on the experience and knowledge of their longer serving colleagues, I hope also they will not be shy about making their own contributions based on the experiences they have gained elsewhere and the passions and enthusiasms they bring to the job.

Some constituents imply that as the local Member of Parliament, sharing a party with the majority on the local Council, I am just a phone call away from changing anything that the Council is doing. I would like to assure you that it cannot – and should not – be like that. Our Councillors value their independence, and accept their responsibilities to exercise the legal powers they assume. Many of them would not welcome me overseeing their every move or seeking to guide them on what to do. They hire senior officers to advise them and to carry out their decisions.

Of course I work closely with the Council when they want to influence government, for that is my task. Of course when constituents complain about something the Council is doing I refer it to Councillors or officers as I want my constituents either to have a good explanation of what is happening, or hope the Council will change its mind if constituents have a good case. If something is going badly wrong I will add my voice to the clamour for a rethink, if I believe that would help rather than being counter productive.

The forthcoming change of leadership gives me an unusual opportunity to say bit more about the direction I would like to see. I do not myself have a role in the choice of Leader, and have no vote. It will be decided by the elected Conservative Councillors. I think that is the right answer, for they know their colleagues best, and can judge who would give them the best lead. I do not have a preferred candidate, and do not know the WB Councillors from outside my constituency as well as I know the ones from within.

Whoever they choose, I would offer the following advice. Deliver more than you promise. Make sure something can be done and can work before making a firm promise. Remember just how squeezed people fell, so be ever vigilant to control costs and keep the administrative burdens down. Even prudent Conservative Councils can do things better and cheaper, and Council taxes generally are high.

As Leader listen as well as lead. There may be times when you need to lead Councillors in a direction that make some unhappy, but always seek to persuade rather than boss or assert. Do not have favourites, do not exclude any colleague from decision making through the Group, and never stop listening to the criticisms you will receive from all quarters. The Opposition will not always be wrong. Great leadership is strong and subtle – it happens without people noticing. Weak leadership is characterised by endless calls for loyalty, botched attempts to stifle debate, and reliance of an ever dwindling band of admirers and supporters. For all our sakes please avoid that.

There have been some great replies to the challenge to name some taxes.

I like:

Alcohol Duty - Fun tax
Betting Duty - I have a dream Tax
Congestion Charge Fine - Forgetful Tax
Air Passenger Duty - I should have stayed at home Tax
Vat on fuel - Tax on Tax Tax

and I would add

Inheritance Tax - The In case you’ve something left Tax.

Last night Tony Robinson struggled through a feature-length version of Time Team, with enough material for a 30-minute programme. His central point was that the southern North Sea and the eastern English Channel used to be part of the European land mass, linking what is now England to France, Holland and Germany. He introduced us to a handful of finds of early human bones, with remains of a sabre-toothed tiger, large elephant and other tropical creatures, dredged up from beneath the sea. One marine archaeologist found a piece of wood that could have been part of a human structure when it was on land. It implied that it used to be a lot warmer here than it is this Spring, and suggested there was much more land a few thousand years ago.

I sometimes watch Time Team in its shorter format. They do dig some interesting new sites, and bring to our attention some finds from important historic remains in the landscape. You have to put up with the irritating and formulaic TV conventions. The dig always has to take place to a tight timetable, to create an artificial impression of urgency and worry lest it is not finished in time. There always has to be a row between Tony and one of the experts, and some disagreement over interpretation at the early stages which can be resolved by the end. Despite that, it can be a worthwhile and pleasant way of absorbing some history and archaeology.

Last night plumbed new depths. The producer allowed Tony Robinson to turn it into a thinly researched piece about climate change. Having made the interesting point that climate change was nothing new, and having established or asserted that the Channel was once a huge river delta with the Thames a tributary of the Rhine, Mr Robinson then proceeded to claim we could now be about to experience something similar for very different reasons based on modern climate change theory and the role of man. He suggested we are now in a warm period, without pausing to ask why he had just revealed animal bones which implied much hotter weather in ancient Europe. He produced no evidence for any of the assertions about what might happen next. Perhaps C4 will now offer a Conservative historian a reply programme.

It is an interesting idea that Western Europeans lost a large area of river delta to the sea, in the way that the sea now seems to be threatening the low lying deltas of the Ganges in Bangladesh and the Irrawaddy in Burma. Today we are all saddened by the tragic loss of life in Burma and keen that the international community should be allowed to help bring relief to those who survived.

The Dutch have shown that it is possible to take on the sea and to prevent it from making further inroads, by building dykes and sea walls, and raising polders from the floods. They also demonstrate that sea inundation is not a recent phenomenon. We need to consider which low lying parts of the world can and should be defended, and use best technology to protect the large cities that have been built all too close to the ocean rush. We could start here in Britain by planning the next London Thames barrier, because the present one will not serve the needs for that much longer. We may also have to accept that some low lying areas will be overwhelmed, as many have been throughout recorded geological time. These should be uninhabited areas, or areas where the authorities take action for re settlement in good time.

If Labour want to finish themselves off, they should press on with the Bin Tax. It will be the ultimate parody of their style of government. It means probing into the messy detail of every family’s life, literally rummaging through their garbage to find out what they are up to. It will require cameras or spies on the bins to watch what is going in. It will doubtless require CCTV on high, to see who is putting things in the bins, to stop people using the defence that they didn’t put the offending items into the bins themselves.

There will need to be a new army of bin enforcers, to go alongside the speed and parking police. They will be able to create new criminal offences, levy far more fines, and even send some more people to jail if they refuse the fines or offend too often. It will be intrusive, bureaucratic, expensive, vexatious and penal.

If the Conservatives are really lucky, the Prime Minister will dither before bringing in the Bin Tax. It will then be implemented in trial places, only for a Labour rebellion to build up against the whole idea!

It is so difficult writing parody these days, when the government set out to parody themselves so comprehensively. Could someone buy them a mirror so they can see just how it looks to the rest of us?

Today I received a message from Dave Wetzel, as he leaves the government of London.
He tells me ” It’s been a fun eight years and I would like to thank you for all your help in London achieving…road safety reductions…”
I thought some of their crazy anti traffic schemes were unsafe too - now we’ve heard it from the man himself.