Gordon Brown is Great...

...isn't he? He's come out finally and said that the MPs second homes allowance should be stopped. How come he wasn't doing or saying anything about it when he was Chancellor? How come as our supreme leader he didn't tackle the problem until the clamour of public (and media) opinion became deafening? It's because he's no leader; he's Gordon the Reactor.

Perhaps he has been forced into this move by what must be the height of cynical expense claims by the Labour husband and wife MPs who have both claimed the allowance so they could buy a £500,000 Thames-side apartment when their constituencies are outside the geographical limit. Ann Keen, a junior health minister, and her husband Alan have claimed at least £175,000 in publicly-funded expenses despite the fact the Labour MPs shared London constituency home is just 30 minutes away.

Ann Keen is MP for Brentford and Isleworth in West London, and Mr Keen represents neighbouring Feltham and Heston, live in a terraced house in Brentford. It is just nine miles by road from parliament, in a journey which takes 30 minutes by car or 55 minutes by bus and Tube. They bought a flat 7 years ago that is situated behind the Royal Festival Hall in a complex which has its own swimming pool, hot tub, gym, concierge service and spectacular views of the Thames. Between 2002 and 2007 - the latest year for which figures are available - Mrs Keen claimed £87,325 from the ACA, while her husband claimed £87,803.

The fact is that while the rules allow such things surely their moral radar would be sufficiently attuned to tell them that this is obscene (far more so that Mr Smiths adult movies). Is it any wonder that MPs have become so far removed from the realities of real life that they can no longer understand what life is like for the majority of people in Britain. And don't give me the security argument, the late sittings in the commons or whatever else. They could get a taxi home and charge it under parliamentary rules. This is all about profiting at our expense.

Socialists? They have not a scintilla of understanding of what it means.

Gordon Brown Demolished. . .

Trumptown Update

The Donald appears to be at it again. This time according to Fan Hitter he's blocking access to the Menie estate. Local councillor Debra Storr said "I received a complaint yesterday and immediately investigated. I found that gates into the estate were closed and locked at all the main accesses and that many local residents were worried that they would no longer be allowed access to the estate and beach.

Folks, it's only going to get worse. . .

EventScotland a Non-Event?

Whaddya mean you've never hard of EventScotland? Surely you have? It's the organization that, amongst other things, has been coordinating Homecoming Scotland – that mega event designed to bring Scots home in their droves during the course of 2009. You'll not be surprised to know that they have about the same abilities in their web site activities as their counterpart VisitScotland.

According to their web site "At EventScotland we are working hard, with our partners, to ensure Scotland remains one of the premier event destinations in the world." It's yet another quango who are sucking up money that could be better spent if it were part of a better structured situation under the tourism umbrella (although not VisitScotland of course). So inept are the numpties at EventScotland that they cannot even spell Britain in their literature (they think it's Britian!). They have also just paid a London PR firm £40,000 to undertake PR on Homecoming Scotland. EventScotland employs around 25 people with a staff cost of £4.6 million and last year they contributed almost £4 million to various events (not saying that's a bad thing but when their staff costs are higher than what they contribute it begs the question). EventScotland's other operating costs were almost £600,000.

By the way, still no word on how VisitScotland intend to run their online booking service following the debacle with eTourism. eTourism's cumulative losses to the end of 2007 were £12.4 million, VisitScotland have had to write-off a £2.7 million of loans and interest on loans in their last accounts. Meanwhile we still have a rubbish web site and no sign of things getting any better.

America the Beautiful

There is nothing I like more (musically) than a good dose of harmony and there are few bands who do harmony as well as America. They were back in Glasgow on Thursday night to serenade us with another set of superb songs. From Riverside, their opening number, to A Horse With No Name their closer an hour and forty minutes later it was wall to wall hits with a few surprises thrown in for those people, like me, who have just about every one of their albums.

Music for all of us time stamps our lives and I cannot hear anything from America's first album without instantly being back, high in the Alps, standing and looking at a stunning view of the mountains with the songs from it playing on my old Phillips cassette recorder. I'd rigged it up to a big speaker that my mate Steve and I set up up in his mini van. We were on our way home from a week's camping in Chamonix in the early summer of 1972. I'd bought their first album the day it came out, from which Horse, Riverside, Sandman and I Need You came from; on Thursday evening they played them all.

America's songs are great radio records and Ventura Highway is still often heard here in the UK; go to the USA and you'll hear it along with You Can Do Magic, Only in Your Dreams, Tin Man, Don't Cross the River and Sister Golden Hair which all graced the Billboard charts. But America are far from an oldies act that rely on the power of nostalgia. They are still making great records and manage to imbue their live show with a freshness and wonderful musicianship that many bands with a quarter of their experience would envy. Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley along with their three piece band of Willie Leacox (drums), Michael Woods (guitars and keys) and Rich Campbell (bass) create a sound that is full, tight and well crafted.

New this time was a very clever film show and backdrop that accompanied and enhanced the sets. During Hollywood it really was superb, as it was on Sandman with its images of the Vietnam War; but even when it was little more than subtly changing images of the desert or highways it helped to create mind-set that made listening even more pleasurable. The Glasgow Concert Hall was not full but I guarantee that every person who went left with a head full of harmony and a heart full of great memories.

John Prescott – A Man with Time on His Hands

According to the Observer this morning John Prescott is Labour's new web weapon. He's "been chosen as the unlikely leader of Labour's general election campaign on the internet, as the party prepares to launch a low-budget battle for a fourth term in government."

"Prescott, a veteran of traditional, on-the-road campaigning who famously thumped an egg-throwing heckler during the 2001 campaign, has told friends that he sees his new role as driving Labour's "virtual battle bus". The former cabinet minister has surprised the party's high command by helping to raise Labour's profile on the web with his own blog and by establishing a formidable presence on the networking sites Facebook and Twitter."

All well and good, and probably all true, but in the meantime what about the day job? In the last year Prescott has failed speak in any parliamentary debate, is a member of no parliamentary committees and has only voted on 47% of occasions – well below the average. Added to which during 2008 this man of the people has received remuneration of between £112,000 and £165,000 for speeches, TV and books.

What about the day job Mr Prescott? What about doing what your constituents and the country expects you to be doing? How about turning up for what we the tax payers pay you for? Easy to do the twittering, facebook and blogging stuff if you're doing bugger all else! Of course he is to stand down at the next election so why does he care? No doubt he's expecting a peerage when he does and the gravy train will roll on once he's in the Lords.

The Menie Trumpet

This just in from the San Diego Union Tribune.

Nearly 70 plaintiffs who invested millions of dollars in the Trump Ocean Resort, a planned luxury oceanfront development in Baja California that was never built, are now suing Donald Trump, his son and daughter, and the project's developers on a fraud claim.

The lawsuit was filed yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court. It alleges, among other things, that buyers who put down deposits on the planned development's 526 condo-hotel units were deceived into believing they were buying into a Trump development when the Trump name was merely licensed by the developers.

Included among the defendants are Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, as well as principals of the project's Los Angeles-based developers, Irongate Development, its partner company Punta Bandera Investors USA, and its real estate brokers S&P Destination Properties.

Among the 41 causes of action listed are allegations of fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation, deceit and breach of fiduciary duty.

Tricked into buying into the development when all they had done was license the Trump name? Perish the thought!