Water, water everywhere...

We can't afford education. 
We can't afford to manage our energy supply. 
We can't afford the Arts. 
We can't afford health care free at the point of need. 
We can't afford training or skills for young people. 
We can't afford the elderly. 
We can't afford unions. 
We can't afford "Green crap". 
We certainly can't afford the sick or disabled. 
We can't afford to help people who can't find a job - but that's OK, because we don't want to help people like them anyway. 
We can't afford libraries. 
We can't afford Health and Safety. 
We can't afford soldiers' pensions, so we're sacking them weeks before they qualify. 
We can't afford woodlands. 
We can't afford Human Rights. 
We can't afford food safety inspections and anyway, why shouldn't people eat slurry? 
We can't afford the North, quite frankly, and why would we want to? 
We certainly can't afford to invest in renewables, or to put any money into mitigating the effects of climate change, or to build resilience into our infrastructure - but that is absolutely fine because there's really no such thing as climate change, honest, and we must frack the hell out of the country because there's money to be made and once again we are promising energy too cheap to meter. 
We must have permanent Austerity or else we'll become like Greece - and we wouldn't want to become like Greece, would we? 

And then - Surrey floods! Berkshire floods! Some carpets in millionaires' riverside homes get spoiled! The Queen could see flood water from the battlements of Windsor Castle, were she not staying in one of her other homes at the moment. 

And... guess what? "We are a wealthy country," says Cameron. "Money is no object."

Updated to add: apparently the unlimited cheque of our money that Cameron wrote yesterday to bail out some  Tory safe seats is going to come out of "underspend" in government departments. In other words, from cuts to social security, health, education, defence...

Just a thought

Is there nothing, really nothing at all, that Israel's government and its armed forces could do that would not find defenders and apologists?

I've been wondering about that for years, and here we are again with another, even lower, low.


Most amusing comment on the IDF's storming of the Flotilla in international waters so far: our delightful Tory Foreign Secretary Willian Hague has called for "an independent inquiry."

Fine [well, in politician terms fine - ie not very, especially when we remember how effective the last independent inquiry, into the attack on Gaza, was: results sat on for months and when finally released the Israelis suddenly discover that the internationally respected judge who chaired it was a war criminal who has no right to say anything about Israel ever to anyone... you can read some stuff about it here, if you must:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/05/19/neve-gordon/land-of-security-know-how/ ].

Back to the Foreign Secretary - that is fine, right up until you read the last two words of Hague's sentence....

Thats "an independent inquiry by Israel."

Umm, yeah.

On the other hand, an "independent inquiry by Israel" has a slightly lower chance of having its head smeared after the results come out and are found to be mildly critical.

Slightly.

Gutters, greed and grumbles

Two daft and depressing recent stories from the world of tabloid. And one from the fuzzy zone where tabloidness and politics merge and blend.

First off, somebody vaguely important and connected with a game that lots of people seem to like quite a lot had an ex-girlfriend. They went out to supper together and she secretly taped his conversation and sold the recording to a newspaper (actually this should be "newspaper" - it was the Mail on Sunday) for 75,000 pounds. As a result of some of the mildly indiscreet comments that he was taped making, England's chance to host a massive festival of the game that lots of people like has been destroyed for ever. Or not.

We won't know for a while but Lord Triesman (for it was he - and no, I hadn't heard of him before either) has lost his job heading the Football Association (for it was soccer - I have heard of that, but only barely) and has obviously annoyed a lot of people in the important world of football. The UK has spent a phenomenal amount of money on preparing for the Olympic games in 2o12, and evidently there was some hope that we might get a chance to recoup if we could host the football World Cup in 2018. Blown, apparently, for a mere 75,000 quids and a few more readers for the MoS.

Secondly, somebody who was once married to a former helicopter pilot who got lucky in the lottery of birth is secretly filmed soliciting huge sums of money for "access" to her ex husband. Apparently she was under the impression that meeting her ex-husband would be worth that kind of money to some of the people who have that kind of money.

But who would pay that kind of dosh to meet this rather undistinguished guy? (I believe he's a good golfer, to be fair). Well, the ex-husband has some rather nebulous role as the UK's special representative for International Trade and Investment, so quite possibly coughing up half a million quid (the price named by the ex-wife) might somehow turn out to be all worth while for the keen investor. Invest in Britain - my lovely country, with the best royal family money can buy.

Both depressingly ugly stories. Both involve a certain degree of illegality and some grey areas. For one thing, it is illegal in the UK to record a conversation without all parties being aware that recording is taking place. Journalists sometime get round this by claiming a public interest exemption (where for example the person taped has public office and the taping provides evidence of their unfitness).

But one trouble with public interest is defining it. Is it more in the public interest that Britain gets to host the World Cup, bringing huge sums into the economy? Or is it more in the public interest that we find out that someone most of us have never heard of texted his squeeze with the words "sweet dreams" and gossiped about whether one nation competing in the footie might try and bribe a referee? Who decides where the interest lies?

Then there's the general grubbiness of people "monetising" their personal relationships. I'm not sure whether Triesman's fancy, one Melissa Jacobs, was ever in it for anything other than the dosh. (She's a civil servant, apparently, and my goodness how standards must have fallen. She's also a blogger, inevitably enough.)

But how much would you sell access to your ex spouse for? Should I be offering introductions to my Beloved for the highest bidder? A current spouse, no less, and he'll probably make you a nice cup of tea too. But alas, no investment advice, so introductions to him have no monetary value.

Finally the third story - well, not so much a story as a state of affairs. The News of the World, the paper which gave us Fergie floggin access to Andrew, used to employ a private investigator and a journalist who together tapped phones, hacked into voicemail and did a lot of reprehensible stuff on a large scale. They were both caught and jailed. The paper had to pay damages to a number of victims, including footballers and members of the royal household (not, you'll note, just of people who happen to have been born or married into royalty, but also people who simply got jobs there).

During the court case in which the two were jailed, editorial staff at the paper were criticised for suffering a convenient "collective amnesia" about arrangements for the bugging, especially as regards to who knew about it, or indeed who solicited it.

The then editor especially, one Andy Coulson, claimed he knew nothing whatsoever about it - which either means he was an extremely poor editor who had no idea how the stories which appeared in his paper were obtained or what the large payments were being made for, or he was being extremely economic with the actualite. Numerous people are said to be considering suing him and the corporation for which he worked (News International, owned by Murdoch, which at the last election not only supported the Conservative Party but turned fairly rabid attacks onto Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems... until he made the deal which put Cameron in Number 10 and was suddenly hailed as a noble statesman).

Coulson is no longer editor of the News of the World, which ought to be good news. But actually, it isn't. He's now "Director of Communications" for the Prime Minister.

One wonders who is more pleased: Cameron for having such a direct line to his master's voice, Murdoch for having his bagman not in the corridors of power but inside the very office, or Coulson for the wonderful reward for his sterling career in "communications".

I'm sure all the other tabloids (those few not already in the News International kennel) are taking note.

Expect more of this. The rewards for illegality, grubby muck-raking and pursuing vendettas are great. Rather greater, one must now suppose, than the half a million quid solicited by La Fergie for a chance to press the flesh with her ex.

The Ties That MIght Possibly Bind

Yesterday I mentioned that Gordon Brown, resigning perhaps in the hope that the Lib Dems would consider a deal with Labour once he was no longer leading it, was photographed wearing a purple tie.

Purple is the colour adopted by the "Fair Vote Now" protesters who demonstrated outside the Lib Dem headquarters while negotiations were going on about the Tory offer of a Parliamentary Commission to ignore - I mean study - the case for Electoral Reform.

I signed off by saying that we should watch out for Cameron wearing a purple tie.

And guess what?

Today, the new Prime Minister David Cameron was photoed on the steps of 10 Downing street wearing a purple tie and chatting with his new Deputy Prime Minister and NBF, Nick Clegg.

Clegg seems to be wearing a yellow tie - the colour of his party.

Perhaps we should take it as a message that Cameron really means it this time on electoral reform. He's apparently promised that there'll be a whip to ensure all the Tory MPs vote in favour of a referendum , although they'll be free to campaign against a yes vote in the actual referendum.

And Clegg seems to be reassuring his own party that Lib Dem values will not be diluted by getting into bed with the Tories.

Of course they could have just picked the tie with the least egg stain on it.

After all, they've all been awake since last Thursday...

On and Off the Page - the blog which gives you the news before it happens.

Providing it's about ties.

More politics, sorry

People were turned away at the polling stations. Young people were told to allow older people to go first, then by the time they got to the head of the queue they told the polling station was closed. In some places not enough ballot papers had been printed and people could not vote. In some places, would-be voters sat in to demand their right to vote.
Third world?
Nope, the UK.
Not everywhere, not all over, and almost certainly thanks to incompetence and antiquated systems rather than actual fixing - although there are enquiries going on in some places into the use of the postal vote, where suspiciouly large numbers of voters have suddenly registered from the same address.
It was a hard fought election and the majorities in many places are very slim - just a few votes between winning and losing the seat. In Oxford West, for example, after an ill-tempered campaign in which the sitting MP was described on leaflets as "Doctor Death", the winner polled only 176 more votes than he did.
What effect has the lost votes had around the country? Nobody knows, and the only way to find out is for individuals who believe they have been prevented from voting to mount an individual challenge in that constituency. If their challenge succeeds there can be a by-election.
Our voting system is often described as "first past the post". This is true on two levels. In the constituencies, the winner is the one with more votes than the next candidate, even if it's only one more vote. In Parliament, the party with more seats than the others gets to form the government - which means that all the ministries are headed only by members of that party, only that party gets to sit in the Cabinet (the inner circle) and the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. Latterly, ministers and Cabinet members have even been appointed directly by the Prime Minister not necessarily from members of parliament (or, conceivably, even from members of the party of government), so important roles in government are taken by people who have not been elected to anything at all. Lord Young, part of Thatcher's government, was the first I can remember.
The situation at the moment is that the Conservatives, polling a minority of the votes cast overall, have more seats than the next party, Labour, but not more than Labour, the Lib Dems and all the small parties put together. This means that if they tried to pass any laws - especially laws that not all their own members agree with - the other parties could defeat them, and a government that cannot legislate cannot govern.
But Labour and the Lib Dems, polling a majority of the votes cast between them, don't have enough seats to pass laws if the Conservatives (and perhaps a few of the parties with one or two or three seats between them) oppose them.
So neither party can govern.
It's an irony of the situation that the two major parties which campaigned on electoral reform demonstrated the need for it by getting 52% of votes cast, but not 52% of the seats. The Lib Dems, for example, with nearly a quarter of the popular vote, got fewer than 10% of the seats.
This is why the negotiations between the Tories (who oppose electoral reform) and the Lib Dems (for whom it has been a platform for many years, and who stand to benefit most from it) are a bit delicate just now...
In the meantime, how would we know whether our elections are fair, or whether unfair tactics have been used, or whether local parties have lied to the electorate? Oddly, there is no central data monitoring, as Ben Goldacre explains:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/08/bad-science-election-data

Well, I wasn't going to blog about the election but it's been so interesting, and I've been thinking about it far too much for my own good. Plus my Facebook status updates were getting longer and longer... so here it is.

Interesting times - first hung parliament since I was a teen. Good. Labour did not deserve to win again after their record in power. Iraq mainly, but also so many things to chose from... mainly, for me, from turning themselves into Tory-lite, cozying up to the markets, the "faith" pressure groups and worshipping power and empire at its most naked in the GWBush adventures.

Unmitigated Toryness would be a disaster to all but the super-rich and the financial markets -as usual. The fact that they've got a smooth and emollient PR man at the head doesn't mean they have changed, expecially when you get... well, I was going to say "get below the surface", but Chris Grayling, the man who believes it's OK to discriminate against people, is shadow Home Secretary, which is hardly subterranean. Home Sec. is the third most important government minister.

The Lib Dems deserve some recognition of the fact that so many people in the country actually support them and their policies. It will be interesting to see how it pans out and will require negotiation and compromise - rather alien to the British tradition which is usually more adversarial and either/or.

Electoral reform may be on the cards now, at last, though that will be a tough one for the Tories, as they had specifically ruled it out. Right out. Right up until the morning after the election when they realised they'd have to offer some kind of sweetener to the Lib Dems to let them take power. So they've promised an all-party committee to bury it, I mean look into it. Classic political delaying tactic, given that there is likely to be a second election within a year. I hope Clegg has more sense than to accept.

Lib Dems also want to end Trident, a hugely expensive piece of junk which enables us to destroy Moscow if we really want to. Why we should want to, and why we should carry on with this vanity project left over from the Cold War is something nobody seems able to explain, but both Labour and the Conservatives have said we MUST keep it, because... er... we must.

Historically, Labour was against Trident, and only swung over to pointless militarism as part of the NuLabour project, which has done us so well in the last 13 years. It did get Labour into power, though and cast off the spectre of the mid 80s when they campaigned on a disarmament ticket, were slated as tools of Moscow and thrashed at the polls (though a majority of the voters voted against the party that won - more arguments for electoral reform, of course). But the Conservatives are generally the more military party.

And the Lib Dems want closer ties with Europe, which is a deep rift among the Conservatives still.

Tricky then for the Cons to work with Lib Dems, though as Cameron really really really wants to be PM and as his leadership style is extremely "kitchen cabinet" and centralised, he may manage to force his backwoodsmen and women to accept a deal, at least for the moment. He has a following wind in terms of media support, for now, and could possibly manage by offering deals and then blaming the Lib Dems if they fall through.

Tricky also for the Lib Dems to work with Labour, though they are in many ways more naturally allied. Labour promised electoral reform in 1997 (though forgot about it when they won a landslide under the winner-takes-all system), for instance. But Labour is very grubby and shopsoiled now, and Brown is no asset. Lib Dems might well lose popularity if they seem to be shoring up a government that the country thinks is well past its sell-by date.

So, yes, very interesting. A goodish result, I think, (and the first Green MP elected, hurrah!) but the exciting thing is what comes next.

Standby for a power struggle within Labour coming shortly, and before that, look out for what Clegg does next...