Our Balanced Media

Sunday Times - MPs claim stamp duty on expenses

Mail on Sunday - We buy Jacqui Smith a new BBQ and MPs' New Zealand junket

News of the World - Peter Robinson sucks the taxpayer dry

Sunday Express - Hoon on the fiddle

Observer - Nothing

Sunday Mirror- Nothing

Even the Independent covers the Hoon story

A balanced media. The bulwark of democracy.

NuLab Spin Watch

G20 £1.1 trillion - Which turned out to be almost all reheated previous announcements.

Less stigma for IMF bailout - Mandelson and Timms preparing the ground for Brown's IMF begging bowl.

Treasury got it wrong - Darling preparing ground for a truly horrible budget.

Campbell, Balls, Whelan, Draper may have moved on but old habits die hard.

Taxpayer Madness

Man in a Shed gets it in one. Utter madness. At the expense of the taxpayer.

Jade Reality Check

I wrote this about the death of David Cameron's son. It just as well applies to Jade Goody.

Today will be nauseating. First, the people who made Goody - the tabloid, red top media and the lower end of the TV spectrum - will gush with faux tears about her demise. We will breathlessly follow the funeral all day. Again, the media making money out of an unwitting fool.

Second, celebs and politicos will all queue up to wax lyrical about "how special she was", "how wonderful she was", "what a brilliant ambassador she was" etc. Nauseating.

Third, the media will cry pity tears for Jack Tweedy, "how brave he's been", "how he was her rock", "how much he loved her" etc. Puke.

Perspective: as sad as any death is, particularly a young person's, this happens every day in every town all over the country. All over the world. No one cries for them.

Goody was in fact famous for being just incredibly stupid and for milking her 15 minutes of fame by doing anything, however debasing - including while blind drunk pushing a wine bottle up herself on live TV. Tweedy is a convicted felon, currently tagged, who is shortly to go to court on another charge.

These are not role models. They do not deserve adulation.

Update: Apparently it was not Goody who performed the wine bottle routine. It was another Z list called 'Kinga', whoever she was.

The Old Disease: Scape-goat-itis

I'm terribly confused about the global recession.

Our illustrious PM assured us repeatedly it was all America's fault with all that sub prime madness. Or though, he didn't seem too keen to repeat this when Nick Robinson asked him about that view in one of the many Gordo and Obamo press conferences over the last few days. Now he seems to be sucking off St Obama every other nanosecond.

OK so not America, really it was those evil bankers seeking fat cat bonuses through reckless lending. Oh and in particular that nasty Mr Fred Goodwin (boo, hiss, stone him). All out for themselves, the bastards. Seize their bonuses. Sequester their pensions. Sell their wives and children.

But now the blame caravan seems to have moved on once again. Now - and forgive me as I have missed the logic here - the G20, who are all led brilliantly by the able and wise Mr Brown, have fingered those evil, Nazi sheltering, international crime riddled tax havens. So naughty have they been in fact we're going to.....name and shame them (oooh, awful, how will they cope with the shame).

Just remind me. When exactly did tax havens create the global recession? Was I asleep or something? I'm pretty sure that if they were responsible that nice, balanced and unexcitable Robert Peston would have been whining about it every night for weeks.

No, as ever, the politicians are (a) looking for their latest scapegoat and (b) using the cover of unrelated announcements to roll out their own political dogma.

What exactly have tax havens done? They have operated within the law to assist people pay less tax legally. So nothing wrong so far, then.

Remind me. Who sets the law within which they operate? Oh yes, it's those sanctimonious wankers who want to blame them and curtail their totally legal activities. Let's just recap. The recession was caused by:

1. Too lax a system of government regulation within which banks operated.

2. This allowed them to lend too easily, thus stoking up markets, and the residential market in particular, to crazy, totally unsustainable levels of growth.

3. They also lent too easily to people who could not afford the loans.

4. In fact, governments pushed banks to lend to poorer people so they could boast that they were "attacking social injustice" and "creating social mobility".

5. And just to add incompetence on top of imprudence, governments - ours in particular - built up their own unaffordable debt burden to carry out all their social engineering policies. The regulators had gone native.

6. When the cycle changed, as it always does, there were too many debts, not enough cash and hence recession.

7. Despite Gordy's ridiculously hollow boasts, we are worse off than most and well into IMF territory - according to the IMF - because during the good years NuLab spent more than it earned. Put simply, we were already up to our national overdraft when our tax income began to collapse.

So not America, then. Not actually bankers, who all operated within the laws set by governments. And not really tax havens, who frankly played no actual role in the debacle at all.

In fact, it was shoddy government regulation.

Huh. Haven't heard the brilliant Mr Brown opine much about that, have we?

Wonder who the next scapegoat will be?

Trust and Privacy; Lost Forever

Trust is like virginity: once lost, it can never be regained.

So the recent poll for the Bar Standards Board is grim reading for certain professions. Guess which ones. Well, in ascending order of trust:

1% - Politicians and estate agents

2% - Bankers

3% - Journalists

13% - Barristers

14% - Accountants

17% - Solicitors

57% said they trusted none of them.

Jacqui Smith, Tony McNulty, Nigel Giffiths, Eric Pickles, Caroline Spelman et al might want to ruminate on why politicians come at the very bottom.

My quip about virginity is true for privacy too. And we seem to be breaching sensible norms on this as well, as evidenced by the attack on a Google Street View photo team yesterday.

There is so much wrong with our society.

Final Word on MPs' Pay and Rations

Even I am now almost bored of the debate surrounding the thieving by MPs of taxpayers' cash. I think this will be my last post on this for a while, unless some new exposé stings me into action. I have read two interesting blog posts by others on the subject:

British Dude has an interesting article by JackArt. He makes some very good points, for example:

"The (current) rules achieve two ends... first they create a culture of entitlement amongst MPs, which is corrupting; and they poison the wellspring of debate, and they seriously reduce confidence in the political process."

He goes on:

"Unfortunately MPs have been allowed to appear to profit from a badly designed system. This is the New Labour way - design something in haste in response to the Baying mob, and then leave it half done."

And:

"This is wasting time, energy and bile on a few quid for some porn, when it should be focusing on the real crime committed by MPs: failure to hold the executive to account over the savage assault on our civil liberties and the profligate waste of taxpayers' money on spurious "stimulus" packages by a government who is more interested in scorching the earth ahead of a Tory victory than actually "saving" the economy."

Where I differ with him is here:

"I am not interested in MPs expenses. I couldn't care less if an MP was enriching himself at our expense. Trying to stop money flowing to power is futile and pointless, and one shouldn't even try."

There is an important issue of principle here. Leaders must have integrity to be respected. We elect these guys to lead our Government, to lead our country to represent us at an international level. If they lose our respect because of their actions, either by doing stupid stuff or filling their pockets with our cash, then we should call that to account.

Nor do I agree with this:

"The idea that they only work when in Westminster is just laughable, and demonstrates profound, and frankly willfully chippy ignorance."

Some work hard. Some work less hard. And some are just fucking lazy, whether that is in Westminster or their constituency. I have seen this from the inside in a previous life. With virtually no scrutiny, there is a considerable cohort who do the absolute minimum and milk their over-generous allowances.

I also disagree with this:

"...if they are not paid appropriately, genuine corruption (altering the governance of the land in return for money) becomes more common. Like it or not, the kind of corruption common at the top of, say, the Italian system is rare here. £60-odd grand a year is not big money for a legislature..."

JackArt is right that in that UK political corruption almost does not exist. It's in the 0.00% range, unlike many of our European cousins who are all up to it. (Little aside - when working within the European Parliament many years ago, a few office doors down from me, there was a Greek MEP who never turned up ever and in fact rented his own European Parliament Brussels office - with all its facilities, free phone, free fax, free meeting space etc - to a Greek lobbying company! Un-fucking-believable.)

But here's the point: £65k in UK employment terms is a lot of money. It may seem like small beer for some of us who are doing well, but it's 2.5 times the national average wage. On just salary alone, MPs cost the taxpayer £42 million pa. Add to that MPs' expenses of another £93 million pa, and then pensions and so on and MPs direct costs add up to the thick end of £200 million. That is a number that needs public scrutiny and control. What other group of civil servants votes itself £200 million pa of taxpayers' cash to spend on themselves as they see fit?

And I have a problem with this:

"Removing "office" costs from MPs individual expenses will cost vastly more as any incentive to keep this down (the embarrassment of declaring it personally) will be removed."

I agree but this is not the best solution. Better to give them an allowance (I have previously suggested £75k rather than the overgenerous £100k as now) and let them spend it all if they want. The point is that it should be paid direct from Parliament to the named support staff, rather than go via MPs' pockets for them to fiddle.

Another problem is this:

"Removing any second homes allowance will necessitate a higher salary to enable the supporting of two homes."

Absolute rot. Give them a per diem or overnight allowance. They can do what they want with it: buy a flat, rent a flat, use hotels. That's up to them. But only pay them for the nights they actually spend in London on Parliamentary business. Viz salaries, see my comment above. Too many commentators are suggesting - egged on by MPs staring down the barrels of losing their fat 2nd home allowance - that MPs will need a pay rise. No other fucker in the UK is getting a pay rise right now. Quite the opposite. We're all down-sizing, many into having no job at all! Time for MPs to down-size too, and if that means getting rid of that nice 2nd home, paid for by the taxpayer, so be it.

And this point needs some comment:

"Any centrally owned flats for MPs will be more expensive than simply allowing a bit of mortgage interest."

This suggestion has been circulating in the media and on blogs for a few days. It is mad! Barking mad. What better way to waste more taxpayers' money than to fund a special hotel for MPs! Can you imagine how this budget would spiral out of control. Remember Portcullis House? The Scottish Parliament? The Welsh Assembly building? Incredible that anyone would suggest such a stupid thing when all they need is to join the real world and have a per diem or overnight allowance.

I find Luke Akehurst's view on almost anything very annoying, in the 'it's so irritating when those whose views you dislike often say something interesting and sensible' vein. His post on MPs' pay and allowances is part good and part bad:

The good:

"The basic salary MPs get is a good one compared to the vast majority of the population but derisory -even taking into account discounting it for an aspect of voluntarism/public service - compared to jobs of equivalent seniority (and in the case of Ministers scary levels of responsibility) - including the salaries of the newspaper editors getting sniffy about them."

And this:

"MPs need to grow up and stop pretending they can live the lifestyle of someone far better paid whilst publicly appearing to have a salary of only £64k. If they want the better lifestyle they need to accept the scrutiny that will come from having a salary proportionately bigger. Otherwise they should learn to live on £64k, which after all sounds like megabucks to over 90% of the population.

"They also need to take a good long look at their consciences and ask if the tax payer really ought to be paying for 88p bath plugs or £700 stereos. Whatever the rules say, I'd feel queasy and morally sullied if I claimed for either. The question they should ask themselves is "this will end up in the public domain by one means or another, how would a reasonable elector in my constituency view this use of their tax money?"

But Luke goes off message badly:

"The vast bulk of the headline "expenses" figures quoted in the press are not expenses at all - they are staff pay. When non-MPs fill in expenses claims at work we don't add a section for the pay of the staff that work for us....Most of the rest is legitimate - is anyone seriously saying MPs should pay for travel on parliamentary business, their office IT equipment or postage costs for casework letters out of their personal salaries?"

Luke, my dear Lefty, you miss the point: first, their allowances are overly-generous and second, they fiddle the fuckers and keep the cash for themselves - aka theft in every other walk of life.

This too is just wrong:

"MPs need a second home because we expect them to live half the week in their constituency and half in London. If a non-MP had an employer who expected us to live away from home half the week we'd expect to be able to claim the accommodation and subsistence on expenses."

No, Luke. For possibly 183 days this year, they need an allowance for staying in central London, not for the taxpayer to help them start a property portfolio.

Luke's conclusion badly misses the point:

"I would suggest that a quick solution is to find a "public sector comparator" - the Civil Service is an obvious one - and put MPs onto exactly the same expenses regime as the equivalent public servants, and allocate them to one of the civil service pay scales so their annual increments, pensions etc. are transparently linked to it, with Cabinet Ministers earning the same as the Permanent Secretary who reports to them."

The solution is to take control of the setting, administration and policing of their pay and allowances away from them. Poachers don't make good gamekeepers.

But I guess we all know what's going to happen. My prediction:

ACA goes. Overnight allowance comes in. MPs get pay rise.

Norman Tebbit Shocker...or is it!

I'm not sure what shocked me more in this article about Norman 'Mad Dog' Tebbit allegedly signing up as a non-exec of a lobbying company. Was it:

a. This: "Zeitgeist founder Steve Prail told PRWeek: ‘We’re delighted to have Norman on board. Few people are better connected to the Conservative leadership".

b. This: "It is understood that Prail and Lofo begun talks with Tebbit after meeting at Annabel’s, the exclusive nightclub in Berkeley Square, which is said to be a favourite haunt of Tebbit’s. The two lobbyists were introduced by former Labour cabinet minister David Blunkett - a close personal friend of Tebbit..."We were in our booth with David and a mystery blonde when Norman wandered over with Andy Coulson [Tory communications director]. We sealed the deal there and then."

c. Or this: "Prail said that Tebbit would introduce his clients to key members of the shadow cabinet. He specifically referred to the ‘key influencers’ who will draw up the Tory manifesto, notably the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove and the chairman of the policy review, Oliver Letwin."

Until I remembered that it was April Fool's Day.

Yawn....

So I have blogged about the G20 and summits before. I am so sick and tired of the breathlessly gushing wall to wall coverage over the last few days, I cannot add much more than I have written before:

G20

"Fresh from his cheesily pathetic attempt to achieve some reflected glory from St Obama a few weeks ago, now standby for some truly teeth-sucking, butt-clenching G20 awfulness that will be all about Gordy desperately trying to look statesman-like, surrounded by wall to wall NuLab spin with their media pet poodles lapping it up. Ghastly."

Summits

"If there is one certain rule in life, it is this: when politicians announce a 'summit' or a 'tour of the country', you know that:

a. they're in the shit

b. that means that we poor proles are in the shitter with them

c. they have absolutely no idea how to get out of the shit, and

d. they are desperate to be seen to do something to deflect attention from c above."

Celebrity Madness

The just ridiculous media wankathon that is the coverage of St Obama is not unlike the complete madness that descended on them at the time of Princess Diana’s death and subsequent funeral. He is not God, guys. He is the President currently in charge of a fucked economy.

Likewise, the appointment of Alan Shearer as manager of Newcastle today. And for that matter, Martin Johnson as England rugby manager. Neither have ever managed anything but have celeb player status.

To illustrate how totally stupid this is, imagine taking Robert Peston and appointing him as BBC director general, or Mathew Parris and appointing him as CEO of News International. It’s amazing how the cult or religion of celebrity is now invading every part of national life.

Everything you need to know about the state of how celeb crazed our society now is, can be summarised by this: the first photos of Wayne and Coleen Rooney’s first child, due in the autumn, are apparently worth £1 million according to London Life last night.

Pathetic and unbelievable.