The reality about Labour's inflated image

Thanks to Richard Morris for pointing this out.

A new report shows the effects of inflation hit poor people hardest. The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the poorest had seen inflation of 4.3% between 2008-10, compared to 2.7% for the rich. The Director of the IFS Paul Johnson told Today: "The less well off spend more of their money as a proportion of their total budgets on things like food and fuel than the better off households. Food and fuel – by which I mean gas and electricity – have risen in price quite a lot more quickly than other things."

Note the dates. Well, as we know, New Labour was always "incredibly relaxed" about the very rich. Just a pity they were equally relaxed about the very poor.

Labour dinosaurs

The antediluvians of the Labour Party have wrecked any chance of a progressive alliance, confirming what an archaic, conservative force Labour is. David Blunkett and Jack Straw, two of the worst Home Secretaries ever, can't cope with the idea of a government that actually represents the majority of people instead of their own prejudices.

Cameron offers nothing

1. We did NOT promise to work with the party with the most support. Nick Clegg said before and after the election that that party (the Conservatives of course) had the right TO SEEK to form a government.

2. The Conservatives did NOT win the election either by the discredited first-post-the-post system nor by any proportional test.

3. The great prize of this election can be electoral reform. We will never have a better chance of getting it.

4. I have never had any doctrinaire opposition to co-operation with Conservatives or Labour, being pragmatic and basing my view on whatever they offer. It seems to me that Cameron is NOT offering and will not offer anything worth having and that Brown is pretty desperate and ready to offer more.

5. I believe an arrangement with Labour can be presented as a crisis measure for constitutional reform (PR, elected Lords and fixed-term parliaments) and economic stability in exceptional circumstances. There is a popular mandate for both and the Tories offer neither.

BBC: Not very appealing, not much trust

(Thanks to the Grauniad for the cartoon).
I have been pursuing the BBC's arcane complaints procedure to express my disgust at their refusal to broadcast the DEC appeal for Gaza. First, I received a response that simply re-iterated their original statement without answering my points. I replied to this as required and after two weeks received a response to my response to their response to my original complaint. This told me off for not using their webform and said that as the Director-General had made the decision, they couldn't consider any further complaint but I could complain to the BBC Trust.

As I had read their detailed procedure, I wasn't entitled to appeal to the trust until I had exhausted the BBC's own internal procedure. Meanwhile others had complained straight to the trust. Despite the fact that the trust had already received an appeal and reached a decision, the BBC's letter to me made no reference to it.

Turning to the substance of the trust's decision, they have acted like a court hearing a judicial review or an ombudsman receiving a complaint. In each case, the reviewing body (trust, court, ombudsman) does not attempt to substitute its own judgement of the issue for the judgement of the initial body (BBC in this case) but only to review whether the initial body arrived at its decision in a proper way. This is usually expressed as they took into account all relevant arguments, did not take into account any irrelevant arguments and their decision was not so unreasonable that no reasonable body could have taken it. In other words, there is no appeal on the substance rather than the process. As long as he jumps through the right procedural hoops, the BBC Director-General is no longer under anyone's control as he was when there was a Board of Governors. Isn't it comforting to know that the trust claims "As representatives of the licence fee payers, we take complaints about the BBC very seriously" ? Like so many of New Labour's reforms, the replacement of the governors by the trust has weakened the voice of the citizen.

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

Could anyone fail to be disgruntled, disappointed, disillusioned, dismayed by the dismal, disingenuous disaster that is Michael Martin ? I watched with incredulity this inadequate man's sad statement yesterday. No apology. No acknowledgment of his own duty or his failure to perform it. In true New Labour style he tried to pass the buck to others, the Sergeant-at-Arms or the police. Note his use of the passive - "I was not told that the police did not have a warrant" and "I was not asked the question of whether consent should be given or whether a warrant should have been insisted on...". The passive voice is always favoured by people trying to escape their own responsibility. Is there a bank-robber, a fan of any television detective programme, indeed any citizen who does not know that the police need a warrant to search ? Why did it not occur to the Speaker (£76,904 p.a. on top of an MP's salary) or the Sergeant-at-Arms (salary unknown) to ask to see a warrant ? Can it be, as Dominic Grieve and Chris Huhne suggested on Newsnight that Parliament has now become the creature of the executive and can no longer defend itself ? Yet most MPs are still mealy-mouthed about the Speaker. Time now to stand up. MPs must remember the words of Oliver Cromwell and tell Michael Martin it's time to go.

...and while I'm on the subject of New Labour...

Oh yes ! One of the politburo, possibly one of the Millibanden, has now advised us to read to our children when putting them to bed. Good lord, I'd never have thought of that if he hadn't suggested it ! But then this is the government which thinks it's all right for me only to see my children once a fortnight.

(Sorry, Barry. Some readers may have noticed some (shall we say) mildly critical comments on my postings on shared parenting by someone called Barry Molyneaux (who by the way does not exist, having an empty profile, no blog and admitting to being a pseudonym).)

Is it just me or is the world mad (3) ?

Now, I admit that I may have dreamed this, as the Today programme does sometimes send me back to sleep. According to a government spokesman, they are planning to send a letter to parents to tell them if their children are fat and what to do about it ! A doctor responded that it was much better to reinforce positive behaviour. That's the plan, the spokesman said. The government will actually send a letter to all parents telling them whether or not their children are fat. Because, apparently, some parents don't notice.

Clearly the government has accepted its responsibility for people being fat (see previous posting). We can expect soon to receive our personal targets, which will then be published in a league table. Doesn't it make you all warm inside to know that we are all in the safe hands of a New Labour government ? Or perhaps just flaming furious that these patronising, paternalistic, bureaucratic fascists are wasting your taxes telling you and your children how to live !

Go on, please tell me I dreamed it. Then it's only me that needs help.