The Last Days of Rome?

I'm obviously missing something here.

RBS are paying bonuses worth £1.3 billion to its employees. The Chief Executive of RBS meanwhile is saying, they have lost money because they are not paying big enough bonuses. His rather patronising attitude during interviews on TV show a man who is rather tired of having to answer such petty questions from interviewers, some of who may bank with RBS, daring to ask him what is going on, on behalf of us, the shareholders.

But most worrying of all are the bloody wimps – the socialist, Labour, government of the people, advocates of a fairer Britain, those who are standing up for the underdog, I don't frankly give a monkey's, bunch of second rate, insulated, do as I say not as I do tossers that masquerade as the British Government. They put billions of our money into RBS, we own 84% of the bank, yet the government think it unnecessary to be asking just who are getting the million pound bonuses. Why are they not doing what the US government is doing and insisting we know who this mysterious bankers are? If the Labour government think this in any way enhances their credibility then I am totally mystified. And don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely certain that the Conservatives would do no better. It's just inexplicable that a so-called Socialist government can behave in such a manner.

And let's not kid ourselves shall we. Just who are these bankers going to go and work for if they don't get the level of bonuses that Britain's banks are paying?

I am becoming so disillusioned by what is going on with politics. It's not a bloody game (with particular reference to that idiot Alex Salmond and his display in Holyrood today) it affects our national state of mind. Is it any wonder that we are a nation in terminal decline. Is it just me that thinks we are living in the last days of Rome?

A Fairer Britain or The Forces of Hell?

Good! So that's alright then. We now all know that Mr Brown is not a bully. He's just someone who cares and is determined to build a fairer Britain.

In the meantime Mr Darling, arguably the next most important man in government to the PM, has confirmed in an interview with Sky News that two of the Prime Minister's key aides briefed long and hard against the Chancellor when he predicted, back in 2008 that Britain's economy was in for a very rough time. According to Mr Darling, "the forces of hell were unleashed." Now who could have unleashed the forces? The 'forces of hell', clearly not a very nice man. But does this constitute bullying. No it probably does not but what then followed exposes someone who is clearly hell-bent on getting his own way.

During the summer Mr Brown wanted to replace Mr Darling with Ed 'Blinker' Balls, but Mr Darling got his own back by refusing to be replaced, insisting he would resign to the back benches rather than accept another job in government. This would have made the PM's job close to untenable. Result Mr Darling is still in No.11, while Mr Brown remains in No.10.

Now all this can do little for the smooth working of government in these most testing of times. Mr Brown is clearly someone who likes to get his own way. For years he wanted the top job, over which he agreed a deal with Tony Blair. Now is it, was it, right that Tony Blair, who said he was going to serve a full term, stepped down to allow a man into the top job who is most obviously not cut out for such a role?

As I've often said on this blog, Mr Brown is not a leader, he is not the stuff from which leaders are made. All that has gone on since he has come to power shows a man who is Machiavellian, a man who has not the skills to be PM and most worryingly a man who is by inclination introverted rather than an extrovert. Leadership in a parliamentary democracy, one that is founded on the longstanding principals of cabinet rule does not sit well with Mr Brown (nor did it with his predecessor but he was a lot cleverer, as were those he gathered around him.) Gordon Brown is a controller, not a leader.

Vast column inches are given over to the opinion polls, the tea leaves and crystal ball gazing by pollsters trying to determine who is ahead, and by how much, and what it could all mean for our future government. Clearly Mr Cameron has not grabbed the electoral high ground; it might all change when we have the TV debates, but then again it may not. So could Gordon Brown still be PM after the election? Yes he could, and then the country will be in real trouble. Watch then the infighting and the jockeying before the knives come out. We will be faced with a Labour party who thinks it is omnipotent, one that will contain even less experience than the current cabinet. Who will push the knife into Mr Brown should he win in a couple of months?

Gordon Brown may want to be careful what he wishes for. . .

Unbelievable – Jim Devine

This is unbelievable on every level. However, what is most worrying is the fact that this is one of the 646 MPs who are elected to supposedly run our country. Watch this and weep. . .

Ed Milliband – Am I Bovered?

According to today's Daily Mail Ed Milliband, the brother of that man with the pencil case, has broken his silence on the ongoing row about man-made climate change by declaring war on the 'siren voices' who denied global warming was real or man-made.

Bovered?

The BBC's Very Own Management Bollocks

If ever I doubted there would be enough material for Management Bollocks 2 then bless the BBC. They are advertising for a 'Change Lead' position in their internal newspaper. They describe the position as. . .' 'responsible for shaping and managing the execution of the change ambition' for the Digital Media Initiative Programme.

In the meantime I'm just finishing Political Bollocks – the biggest challenge? Fitting it all into 124 pages!

Go(Ed)Balls and Go Now!

The seriously delusional berk, Balls, has got himself embroiled in a fantastic spat with Fraser Nelson the Spectator columnist. You can read it HERE.

All I want is for Balls and his other loony Labour luvvies to bugger off. . .all they need to do is leave their offices tidy for the Conservative that will follow them.

Millionaire Blair at our Expense

Last year there was a good deal of controversy over the fact that Tony Blair shredded much of the information surrounding his parliamentary expense claims. Here is the heavily 'redacted' claim from September 2007 for £305.50. So not only did the spinmeister shred the evidence, but we paid for it! Really you could make none fo this up and of course nothing will happen to millionaire Blair. The whole thing is almost too amazing for words.

Update

I have found I'm late to the party. Mr Guido Fawkes got there yesterday, I should have known!

Celebrity Politics TV Anyone?

Muriel Gray knows a thing or two about the telly so it's very revealing what she has written in the Herald on Sunday about Alan Sugar's appointment as 'business tsar' – whatever the hell that is. No one in their right mind can honestly believe that Sugar can do anything for British business; he is after all just a TV presenter. However, what his appointment is ultimately all about is the mindlessness of Brown and his henchman Lord Mandy.

Most damning of all in Ms Gray's piece is this. "Nothing wrong with any of that. It's a terrific show. Sugar does what he's told by the producers, appears to follow a script as he often stumbles over the words, and is probably, if other reality shows are the benchmark, told by the production team which contestant to fire each week."

Read the whole thing and weep for what a nonsense this government has become. Maybe instead of elections we should have Simon Cowell and half a dozen other celebrity judges should help select our politicians. Pick our Politicians or The Ballot Box on the box? We'd probably get more people voting and would they be any less competent or qualified?

60,493,912 of us are marching to the beat of one man with 24,278 'friends'

So let's get this straight. Gordon Brown, a man elected to serve his constituency in Fife by 24,278, who then becomes Prime Minister in some kind of stitch-up with Tony Blair wants change. He's a man who has brought into government as his de facto No.2 someone who has been disgraced twice and continues to show little more than contempt for everyone who comes into contact with him. He's also a man who has added more unelected people to his front bench than any Prime Minister in living memory. This is the man who is now proposing electoral reform of our democracy. It's bloody staggering!

You'll pardon me for being somewhat sceptical of his reasons. At best he's looking for ways to deflect yet more criticism of his patched up government. At worst he's trying to save his own skin. In fact everything that Gordon Brown does is about 'me', not about the country and the people he constantly claims to serve. Naturally to do a job like PM you have to have a highly, a very highly, developed ego. It seems like we have a man who is so convinced of his own rightness that he does not tolerate dissent, is prepared to sell his soul (to Mandelsdon, if not the Devil) and who is more focused on himself than the job he has to do. Despite all the talk of getting on with the job all he has succeeded in doing is getting on our collective nerves. In a random poll across the country I doubt that Brown would make double figures in the popularity stakes.

And we all thought it couldn't get any worse.

Gordon Brown – Nero Without a Gun (Or the Bullets)

Gordon Brown when he became PM promised us a government of all the talents and set about granting peerages left, right and centre to bring in people to positions as 'ultra special advisers'. But with this latest reshuffle Brown seems to be bringing in more and more talent' to do jobs that others could just as easily do. Mrs Kinnock, while experienced in Europe, gets a great gig to boost her personal standing and do precisely what? Is there really nobody among the 350 Labour MPs who could do the job?

Of course we've already had Mandelson who is now according to reports defacto Deputy Prime Minister. Lord Adonis is the Transport Minister and Alan Sugar has been given a peerage to be 'Enterprise Tsar'. In many ways the appointment and peerage of Sugar is the worst of all. It's a flagrant attempt to cash in on his profile as a TV face and got little to do with 'enterprise'. It's arguable what anyone in a position like his can actually do. I also doubt, among British business leaders, that Sugar has the highest respect quotient.

Democracies are wonderful things; we are blessed in this country with one that is much better than most. However, Brown's actions are making a mockery of the whole thing. Unelected cronies, hangers on, self servers and out of touch is what most of them are. It's the out of touch bit that's probably the worse thing in all this. But that's Brown's Achilles heal. He has been in government for so long that he has lost touch with people. Not content with bringing people into government his bunker mentality is what has done for him.

There's more than a whiff of "I'm going to take you all down with me." The moral compass was lost a long time ago. His emotional radar never has worked and now it seems the 'brain the size of a planet' has gone into lock down. We are about to witness a very unpleasant few months in which Brown finally implodes before our eyes. Do I feel sorry for him? No, not one bit. But I do feel sorry for Britain though. His arrogance and delusional behaviour has brought the office he coveted for so long down to a level of disrespect I never thought I'd see in my life time. Defiance is not strength. Saying you are, "not going to walk away", does not make you a leader.

Fundamentally Brown is a weak man. He's no leader as he's proved, yet again, over his dithering about Alastair Darling's removal. How can a man who cannot command the respect of his party get the respect of the country – let alone run it. It's all going to get very nasty indeed as Brown impersonates Nero. Unfortunately such is the ineptitude of his cabinet that none of them thought to take a gun, let alone the bullets into the bunker.

Lies, Spin, Connivance, B/S, Total Bollocks and Wind Farms

The opening this week of the Whitelee wind farm outside Glasgow exposes the lying and deceitfulness of both the wind farm industry and Alex Salmond.

Hurrah they all trumpeted! The 322-megawatt wind farm is going to be able to power the whole of Glasgow. Except it isn't. Government figures show that it will likely operate at a capacity of 28% which means it will be far from effective but just as expensive. It will do little more than keep half of Glasgow’s lights on, and not do anything to power TVs, dishwashers, tumble dryers et al.

Of course it will make a lot of people a lot of money because of the subsidies that are paid. Especially the Spanish owned company that built it and the landowners on whose land it's built. We will be paying massive subsidies so that these ultimate examples of gesture politics can keep turning.

Meanwhile, according to Jason Ormiston the former PR windbag for Scottish Renewables, which represents the wind industry, the vast majority of wind farms were sited out with highly sensitive landscape areas. What utter bollocks. Try coming to the Lammermuir Hills where most of the wind farms are built on AGLVs (officially designated Areas of Great Landscape Vale) and a SSSI in the case of the Aikengall wind farm. He also said, "One of the biggest threats to wild land is climate change and one of the most effective responses to it is the sensible development of renewable energy." He said this in his capacity of Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables, having been promoted from PR spokesman.

He went on to say, "The industry will continue to work with a rigorous planning system so that the building of productive renewable energy projects in the right places continues to follow good practice." He, and his organization, cares not a jot where they are built, just as long as they are. The wind farm planned by that defender of the Scottish Borders landscape, the Duke of Roxburghe on land he owns in the Lammermuir Hills at Fallago Ridge is case in point. It s on peat bogs that will be forever ruined by the concrete bases that are the size of football pitches that will be needed if the wind farm gets approval. It has been awaiting a decision by the Scottish Government's reporter following a public inquiry for over a year now. The reason that none has been forthcoming is nothing to do with the fact that it will complete the decimation of these remote hills, but because the MOD objected. Their radar will not work properly, creating 'holes' in its effectiveness. Ironically it would not be able to 'see' if an aircraft was approaching the Torness Nuclear Power station.

So desperate is the Duke’s company to develop this wind farm that they have got the former Conservative minister and now MP for Kensington and Chelsea, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, to write to Des Browne and another Labour Minister pointing out that they are acting contrary to the Prime Minster’s stated aims.
"As you know, the Prime Minister has indicated very recently the importance the government attaches to the development of alternative energy projects, and clearly wind farms must be a very important part of this overall strategy. It would be unfortunate if one arm of the government was pursuing a policy with such rigidity that it conflicted with the broader arms of the government."
Now that’s a first. A Tory helping the Prime Minister!

Then we have the downright untruths spouted by the great leader who opened the Whitelee wind farm. According to Alex Salmond, "Whitelee in its current form is already flying the flag for onshore wind power in Europe. The benefits of this investment go beyond South Lanarkshire and beyond our real economy. It is an investment in Scotland's potential and ambition to lead the clean, green energy revolution."

Back in January 2007 Alex Salmond was unequivocal. "There is a real difficulty with public acceptance of onshore wind. There should be a cap on future developments. We should concentrate the development of onshore wind into suitable areas.”
He went to say that financial support for onshore wind farms should be looked at again as he believed there was a danger onshore wind developers were getting too much financial support. Of course all that was done in order to help the SNP get elected and gain votes in areas where there was rising opposition to wind farms being built against public opinion.

This volte-face from Mr. Salmond is not totally unexpected; he is after all a politician. But such is the courting of the Scottish government by the renewables industry that even I’m staggered by the complete change in attitude. Does he not understand that wind turbines are inefficient, make little money for Scotland – other than for the landowners and the renewable companies, which are often foreign owned?

Are there any wind farms in Mr. Salmond’s constituencies? In fact how many wind farms have been approved in SNP constituencies as opposed to opposition constituencies? It might make for interesting analysis.

Nadine Dorries MP, Ex-Blogger?

Nadine Dorries the Tory MP has had her blog taken down overnight. Apparently her less than well thought out remarks on the Barclay Brothers having some kind of agenda against British politics has caught up with her. As I said yesterday her new media profile could back fire on her, and it has. I read her blog last evening before I went to bed and I have to say it made pretty dire reading. Having read it occasionally I didn't think it was that well written and having watched her on Question Time a couple of weeks ago my immediate reaction was, thinks she's smarter than she is. She is/was clearly in a bit of a spin over all the Telegraph's coverage and she announced on her blog that she is going on holiday. I think she needs one. I bet David Cameron thinks likewise.

Update
There's a short article by Ms Dorries in the Indy, it does not reflect well on her. She calls what is happening to MPs, "torture" – a very poor choice of words. She also complains that MPs should be paid what they are worth; I think a lot of us feel that too. I get offered some small amounts to write some books, I accept it and get on with it, or I don't and I don't. I'm not complaining, it's the way things are. She's been in the House for 4 years and already she's a fully paid up member of the club.

Could We Have Some Government Again Soon?

Nadine Dorries on Today this morning can be heard HERE.

Several points.
• Nadine Dorries has turned herself into a bit of a media turn. . . it may well back-fire
• This morning she argued her case pretty well against the questioning
• However, she, like a number of MPs has to 'get' the mood of the country a little more. Saying that it's a McCarthy style witch hunt is not credible.
• She also has to be careful arguing the 'we are worth this much (salary + allowances)' so we shouldn't be attacked.
• I think she has some good points to make, but the arrogance of some MPs and I'm thinking of the likes of Hoon, Darling, Blears here, Ministers who expect people to do as they are told, when they are totally comfortable with flipping their homes and making money as a result, is not going to wash.
• Ms Dorries in in the kitchen and the heat having been turned up is finding it difficult to cope with it. Nobody was dragged kicking and screaming to be on the ballot paper. There is just the hint of hypocrisy in all this.

Having said all that, would many of us have done any different to what it appears the majority of MPs have done? I think not. Most of us would have been lining up to line our pockets. However, that's what leadership is about, and it's what ministers just don't seem to grasp. If you get the big gigs then you have to be above reproach. Gordon Brown going on TV saying, "I was the only one trying to get this problem fixed" is absurd. He now won't deal with his ministers who flipped and flapped and milked the system. He cannot sack Hazel Blears because it would begin the domino effect.

As in all such situations we shall see some good people go from politics; however, we have needed the system to be fixed for a long while. We can but hope that the fires of the public's outraged indignation will burn themselves out soon. We need our politicians to get back to the job of government.

How Much is a Moral Compass?

. . . and where do you buy one? No doubt if you're an MP it's from John Lewis and by the looks of the Prime Minister's expenses in this morning's Telegraph you definitely charge it to us, the taxpayer.

Apart from charging twice for his plumbing repairs, no doubt a genuine error, and trying to get his kid's blinds paid for I'm sure our PM has done nothing outside of the rules. Debating how daft are the rules will carry on even after the new ones eventually come into force, but that's to a large extent not the issue here. Gordon Brown has long wagged on about his moral compass, played up his standing as a son of the manse, I'm just an ordinary guy type stuff, yet what his expenses prove is that he is out for himself, and his family, and bugger us the tax payer. It's no defence to say it's 'within the rules' and"I'm the one who is going to change them."

Ten days after Blair announced he was standing down Brown switched his second home to that of his constituency house in Fife. In that way he's bagged a hat full of cash and is laughing all the way to the bank. He knew very well what he was doing. His moral compass should have said, hang on a minute, ordinary people can't move there properties around like a house on a Monopoly board. If you're a leader then you have to lead by example not just by telling others what to do, shouting the odds or claiming that you are a decent guy. What Gordon Brown has done is indefensible. Yes others from every party have done similar but he's the one at the top of the totem pole. And it's not just since he became PM. He elected to live in a flat while he was Chancellor, not in the grace and favour home he was entitled to. This enabled him to claim for it as his second residence and therefore build up his property portfolio.

So what do we have so far. A catalogue of ministerial nose-bagging led by the Vasco de Gama of MPs expenses who has regularly consulted his moral compass to ensure he remains just an "ordinary guy " and of course, "within the rules." It's just a pity he wasn't as prudent with the country's money as he's been with his own.

Gordon Brown is Finished

Anyone who has been a regular on this blog will know that I'm no fan of Gordon Brown. But, honestly? Not even I thought he was this bad. Back in May 2007 under a post entitled, Never Make Dreams Your Master, I said.
Previously the one thing that people perhaps could say about Brown is they respected him for what he has done, now even that is unravelling. So what are we left with? A man who isn't actually very likeable, who is fond of telling us all how wrong we are and how he knows what's best. At the same time those close to the clunking one have been working double time to try and soften his image, they know how damaging it is. Yet no matter what they do he will never be able to pull it off. Gordon Brown will never a leader be.

Five days later I commented on The Last Ten Years – It was Nothing To Do With Me.
It was after his first speech as PM in which he famously said.
He was to move away from the "cult of celebrity" and sleaze allegations that had tarnished Mr Blair's years in office and that his premiership would be guided by a "moral compass" instilled in him by his father, a Scots minister of religion, and his mother.

By June I went all Oscar Wilde and talked of The Importance of Being Earnest. It was in response to Milliband's appointment as Foreign Minister and the bringing in of 'experts' who would be made peers to do specific jobs.
Government of all the talents my big toe, it's Gordon Brown trying to appear to be all embracing while he will continue to be what he's always been - a controller and a man who is exclusive rather than inclusive. This is not going to be a lot of fun.

By May last year I was getting desperate, Gordon Brown – Back Door Man
People talk of Brown's intellect, his work ethic, his brain, all the other attributes that he is supposed to have in abundance, yet has any one ever talked about his leadership skills? It's too easy to say, ah yes, but he was always been in Tony's shadow, but he’s had time to do his own thing and he’s been found wanting. No matter what Brown does he has not the charisma, the charm, the interpersonal skills - that special something that leaders have and those who are their number's two's always think they have - that's GB's biggest problem and always will be. He thinks he's cleverer than everyone around him, which he might well be in intellectual terms, but IQ, brainpower, cleverness, and being a bit of a know it all will never out trump someone who has that special something. Like it or not Blair had it and Brown will forever be the man in search of it.

In the same month I was asking if he was Standing on the Shoulders of Midgets.
Twenty-five years ago I was on a plane somewhere over America when I picked up a copy of Time magazine with Ronald Reagan’s picture on the cover. The lead article was about Reagan’s style of managing his team. He said, “Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out.” It’s the total antithesis of what Gordon Brown is about and it’s why he can’t hack it. As a No.2 his power was based upon tripping people up on the detail, as a No.1 it’s his Achilles heal. He just doesn’t have what it takes to be a leader and the more that the young guns defend him it only highlights what’s wrong with his leadership.

By June it was another question. Are No.2s Always Brown?
Leadership is an art and it’s also something that has a huge deal to do with confidence. It’s why I have constantly said that Brown is no number one, he’s a No.2 and always will be; sort of appropriate really….

By July 2008 I was loosing it Gordon Brown, Superstar

“Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown
Who are you, what have you sacrificed
Gordon Brown, Superstar

Do you think you're what you say you are?”

Gordon Brown is no superstar; he’s just damaged goods.

At the Labour Party Conference in the autumn I noted that Gordon Brown was Like A Worn Out Record
"This is not about rhetoric", says the Prime Minister. It's not? That's what this and his entire government is based upon. He doesn't do leadership; he does talking. Politics as we all know has a lot to do with the ancient art of smoke and mirrors, but it also, just occasionally, has to do with not just talking the talk, sometimes you have to walk the walk too. Fundamentally it's all about leadership and it's what Brown doesn't get about it. He thinks the more he talks the talk about “fairness” and “rising to challenges” it will all magically come right on the night. Just about everyone in Britain have had their pockets picked by Labour with stealth tax after stealth tax making things ever worse, while all Brown can do is blame it on the global crunch. Yes of course there are global issues but our problems are also domestic, labour-made, issues. It's been an accident waiting to happen and Brown has overseen this mess - much of which is his own making.

A couple of days later I suggested that.
Gordon Brown will become a similar object of derision for Conservatives and those who vote labour out at the next election. He will become the man whose legacy will keep Labour out of power for years to come. No matter what happens he’ll be the Brown eyed loathsome man.

Over the past week or so the McBride scandal and now the addition of Balls, Whelen and co. has dragged Brown to a new low. In the Sunday Telegraph there is an article by Tom Bower. It is THE best article I've read anywhere on the calamity that is Labour and the unmitigated disaster that is Gordon Brown – especially since becoming PM. The simple fact is that Brown does not have the ability to lead. He's like a guy I once worked with that was recruited from academia. His response to everything was, let's write a paper. These papers looked impressive, were big and were full of graphs and diagrams. However, very little of what he proposed made any sense – fine in the confines of the classroom, no good in the real world of cut and thrust business. Brown and his boys (because that is largely the problem, they have little experience) can go on and on talking the talk – they just can't walk the walk.


What's to happen? Well, we're going to have a completely discredited government under a leader who cannot lead, doesn't know how to lead at a time when we need leadership and a strong government more than we've ever needed one. The blogosphere (not keen on the term, but it'll do) did well under Guido's full frontal attack last week. However, the MSM, and especially the newspapers have been stung into action. They are having difficulties coping with declining sales and Ad revenue; they don't need their credentials as journalists and commentators called into question. We will have a run of stories on the government from papers anxious to show their Lobby correspondents are not tame hacks doing Labour's bidding.

Watch their space....it's going to get bloody.

Labour Gone For A Generation...

The story in the News of the World on Sunday about Labour's General Secretary being fully involved in the Red Rag web site and now the Sunday Times breaking the story that Ed Balls has been 'running' McBride come as yet more seismic shocks for Labour and Gordon Brown.

You will need to the read the full shocking details for yourself, but suffice to say. Is it any wonder that things in this country are the way they are? Government ministers are so busy sniping at each other that they are too preoccupied to run the country. Of course they all see the writing on the wall for Labour who are hopelessly out of touch and will be out of office as soon as there's an election. The SNP will decimate Labour in Scotland; the Tories in England, which means Labour will be gone for a generation. . .at least.

Alastair Campbell Still Tellling it Like it is

Alastair Campbell has a new web site on which the banner claims he's "a communicator, writer and strategist." He's also started a blog in which he says he's "I have enjoyed some of the exchanges (on facebook) with political opponents, of which I seem to have a few, despite having left the frontline ages ago." This despite also saying "Tories welcome (to the blog). Some of them anyway, if only to be told where they're going wrong.

There's a section on the blog where it talks in the third person about his public speaking. Part of it says. "He is towards the top end of the fee scale for paid public speaking engagements. But he speaks regularly, pro bono, for charitable, political and educational events. "

Pro Bono? Does that mean he likes U2?

Tell It Like It Is

So, RBS seem to be saying that they may be paying bonuses to their senior management. How can this be when they've lost such spectacular amounts? Most of the country seems to be happy having a job at the moment. But then what does Gordon Brown say. "We expect whatever decisions are taken to reflect the conditions of the economy and the performance of the banks. There are no rewards for failure in what we are proposing." Meanwhile his new best friend Mandy (who last night said on TV "Remember small business grow into big businesses." – what insight!) said. "What I would say is please be mindful about how this looks and what public opinion will be,

What is it with politicians that they find it so hard to speak in proper clear language. "RBS you must not pay those bonuses." Is what he should say. The Government owns 70% of RBS after all.

Mandy Watch No.7

There's an interview with Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool in the Guardian today. Apart from it being mostly about how great his Lordship thinks he is, there is much guff about how good his relationship with our Prime Minister has become once again and what a truly great leader Gordon Brown is. This utterly bizarre statement tops it off.

"Internationally people say to me,’ Your prime minister has been transformed. His standing has soared.' People really do look to him like some Moses figure who is going to lead them away from this economic mess to the promised land."

First he wants to be on Strictly Come Dancing and now he's waxing lyrical. He gives the impression of somehow taking the whole thing as a bit of a joke. Then again he has it made. Mandelson will spend the rest of his life, assuming Labour lose the next ejection, being a non-exec director for a large number of businesses keeping him the style to which he has become accustomed, yet never having done a decent days work to deserve. The man is a shyster, a fiddler and worst of all he's arrogant in the extreme.

The Politicization of our Policing

If the arrest of the Tory Front Bench spokesman required 9 anti-terrorism policeman and three separate raids it begs a number of questions about what it is exactly that our security forces are concentrating upon. But more significantly, if there was a need for such heavy handed policing, was there some imperative or urgent threat that forced the police to operate in such a way? Of course there wasn't. How do I know? He's been bailed to appear in February!