andrewwoodman's blog

This weekend I had a very interesting conversation with a Royal Navy officer who had just returned from the Middle East where he had been for 6 months. His tone was one of someone who was desperate for a Government to start treating the Armed Forces with the understanding and respect it deserves.
 
Firstly he made the point that virtually no one in the Labour Party understands the armed forces because less than a handful have ever served, and indeed the Defence Secretary is only part time. Because they have no background, they have to take the advice they are given by the heads of the armed forces and here lies the problem.

This problem is twofold. Firstly you have the heads of the Army, Navy and RAF all competing to be head of the armed forces. These people aren’t going to want to be outspoken and risk not being seen as sound for the top job. This leads to the conspiracy of silence whereby when a Minister visits, troops are told not to say anything about equipment shortages. Secondly, the heads of the services experience of war and combat is very different to the challenges faced today.

Then of course there is the equipment issue. We’ve all heard tales about white Elephants like the Eurofighter, but while we’ve undertaken such excessive capital expenditure on projects like that, we’re putting our troops on risk by not providing the most basic of lifesaving equipment. An example of which being the officer’s tale of being given a stab proof but not a bullet proof vest. This is on a ship within a stones throw of both Iraq and Iran. It seems a warped sense of priority that the Government is currently spending £12 billion on what will in all probability be an ineffective central computer system, but can’t find the money for £200 bullet proof vests.

Then there is the hospital facilities. Again the officer told me how when he was hospitalised with a broken collar bone, that there was a soldier in desert combats who had been flown back to Brize Norton and taken up to the Selly Oak Hospital. He had his leg blown off and was sitting waiting in casualty. The hospital must have been aware he was on his way, yet with that severe injury bought about serving his Country is left to sit in casualty amongst civilians. This is not right.
 
So what can we do to put things right. Well here’s a few ideas to ponder: 
 
A dedicated military Hospital in it’s own right. Not one welded onto an existed Hospital.

A body of serving lower and middle ranking soldiers advising the Government on what is really happening on the ground. With steps taken to see there are no reprisals from above for telling the truth.
 
All our troops to be given proper equipment. This should be a given but is simply not happening. Serious money will have to be spent. Maybe savings from not indulging in so many white elephant projects in areas such as Government IT.
 
A review into our Armed Services Structures. The officer told me of a Navy Lieutenant who had to fill in for an army officer behind a machine gun in Afghanistan without a clue of how to handle it. While the Army is at total overstretch, the Navy and particularly the RAF are having to think about their role in war zones like landlocked Afghanistan.
 
It most be the moral duty of a Conservative Government to sort out the crisis that Labour are plunging our Armed Services into. Many people in the services are relying on us and we most not fail them.

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The other day I came across a great collection of clips on Youtube of PMQ's in 1996. A fag end administration dying and a popular opposition kicking the Government around. Thanks go to ergos645 for putting them up, so if you have a few minutes free have a look at some of these.
 
NHS
 
Tony Blair criticising the amount spent on administration in the NHS. Oh the irony.
 
Party Funding
 
Another classic here. Blair passionately attacks gifts disguised as loans (donations are ok though). Nice mention of trade union funding for Labour by John Major. Twelve years on and....
 
A Lesson for Harriett
 
Michael Heseltine takes questions from Prescott (now middle class) about dumping an unpopular Prime Minister. At least John Major won an election.
 
A couple of things strike me about the videos. As I was 14 at the time and had a life, I hadn't seen them before but it's amazing the difference a proper Speaker makes. There's no doubt the present Speaker has been appalling in comparison. Secondly how calm and measured Tony Blair was at the time, until the subject got on to party funding and he had his rant. Quite remarkable when you consider what happened a decade later. Thirdly how much better and at ease John Major was in comparison to Gordon Brown. At least he maintained some likeability which Brown seems to be failing to achieve.
 
All very interesting, I wonder how today's PMQs debates will look in 10 years.

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One of the biggest lies perpetuated by Gordon Brown and co is that the UK is best placed to withstand the global slowdown. Now I might be being a little simple here but we have an economy where wealth for the majority is based on their house price. This drives their spending power and this consumerism keeps the UK economy going. Now falling house prices = less equity to feel rich through = no more new kitchens, bathrooms, plasma TVs (unless you’re an MP).

With this in mind, how the economy fail to fall into recession? We’re in a bear stock market, people have eye watering personal debts on which their interest rates are going up on, the savings ratio has plunged since Gordon Brown wrecked pensions in his first budget and got rid of tessas and peps. We have a diminished manufacturing industry and a service industry economy which relies on consumerism (and so we’re back to the start).

With Government borrowing billions and the off balance PFI’s and pensions, this country is in a mess and people are only just waking up to it. We’ve had a 10 year boom of house prices fuelled by cheap money and the likes of Kirstie Allsop saying but buy buy property. This could never continue and indeed the realignment is now taking place.

So what are the economic consequences. Well as the impact of the housing crisis starts to feed through, I expect many industries to topple like dominos in a long drawn out slowdown. New house building has come to a virtual halt and can’t just restart overnight. Unless credit markets open up prontish which is not happening, then the house price falls will continue. Therefore I would be surprised if over the next 2-3 years, growth gets above 1% in any year. There will be a contraction in amongst that in late this and early next year.

Politically, a Prime Minister who has boasted about the end of boom and bust for a decade will look a weakened figure every day. This boast has always been ridiculous as there was no way one man could hold make the economic cycle. Brown could well send Labour into total meltdown come election time with these circumstances.

Having always wanted to be Prime Minister, he should have paid attention to the old adage ’be careful what you wish for’.

Andrew Woodman

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I was going to write something on Thursday about the DD resignation, but I thought I’d wait a few days to see how things are playing out. Three days on, it looks like things are developing ok for DD, and once again the mainstream media have been shown to be out of touch with the rest of the nation.

Like many on Thursday, I was bemused by what was going on. However after listening to DD’s speech outside Parliament, I couldn’t help admiring the principles behind his decision as I simply couldn’t see what he was going to gain by making it. The media took its typical reaction with various political reporters spurting out the lines fed to them by the Labour Party, while looking for splits and bust ups within the Tory Party and labelling the whole thing a stunt.

Friday saw the Sun lay into DD which was no real surprise with the famous guardian of British liberties Rupert Murdoch at the helm. He looked to fund a candidate to fight DD after Labour prepared to bottle out.

The weekend saw a change as the Westminster village started to realise that many people regarded DD’s actions as a noble act in defending civil liberties. Sunday has certainly gone DD’s way after a very effective display on the Andrew Marr show which showed up the robotic David Milliband peddling why the British people have no right to express their opinion on the European Treaty in the way the Irish have.

So what’s going on, why has DD done this? Well I can only come to the conclusion that it’s a real genuine belief in Civil Liberties. That this endorsement of DD will ensure the Conservatives become real champions of liberty and it will bounce the leadership in accepting it as the thinking behind all of its policy. If that happens, then DD could go down in history as the man who stopped 1984 becoming a reality.

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The media in the last few days has been full of talk of fuel duty. People are at last beginning to realise just how much the Government is taking off them in duty at the pump and no doubt that’s another reason for Labour’s current unpopularity.
 
So it was no surprise on Question Time last night when the first question was about the soaring cost of fuel. Unfortunately, Eric Pickles was unable to give a clear answer about what the Conservatives would do about this, because he desperately wanted to stick to the green agenda and so talked about the replacement taxes policy in a rather confused and convoluted manner.
 
I don’t blame Eric Pickles for this. The whole idea of these replacement taxes has become convoluted and needs dropping. It’s become apparent that tax will be a big issue at the next election with the public reaching the tipping point of their tax toleration. Do we really want to be going into the election saying we want to put more tax on cars and flights. Trust in politicians has been so eroded that the public won’t believe in the tax savings elsewhere.
 
Also, I can't believe there are all these people (especially those on lower incomes) who are all driving and flying for the hell of it. Most driving especially in rural areas in essential to get to work, kids to school ect. In the village I grew up in, a bus come through 4 times a day. For a family to holiday closer to home and not fly abroad, that will surely involve driving as well won‘t it!
 
In practical terms, I don't see these green taxes having a major effect in behaviour, and will only succeed in punishing the worse off. The policy must be dumped.

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Being rather sad, I forewent a Friday night out to see Boris confirmed as London Mayor. Before the result was announced, I watched a very funny edition of Have I got news for you hosting by Brian Blessed in maniac mood. It was quite fitting really as had it not been for Boris’s appearances on this programme, Ken Livingstone could well still be Mayor. For it was this programme that launched Boris on the national stage. You could argue he would have been famous due to his work at the Telegraph and Spectator but it was HIGNFY which put him in the public consciousness.
 
It was also this programme which helped the public rehabilitation of William Hague of course with a series of hilarious and very professional guest appearances which made the general public release this man isn’t a sad political loser but a clever funny normal bloke.
 
Add in the regular appearances of the likes of Bob Marshall Andrews giving New Labour a slating, and you could say the Conservative Party have a lot to thank the producers of this show for in the last few year. Whether that lasts into a new Conservative government of course remains the subject of debate.

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I always thought is was only Tory leaders who had their succession talked about within a year of their leadership. However there's been plenty of talk in the media about Brown's successor over the past week.
 
I'm presently reading Gyles Brandreths diary of the last term of Tory Government, and it's interesting how the future leadership contenders of the Tory party were viewed with horror by some with such a lack of credible contenders. People with views or a track record which would split the party. That's why we had an unready William Hague and an unable Iain Duncan Smith when former Cabinet figures such Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, Stephen Dorrell, Peter Lilley, John Redwood etc were still on the scene.
 
So if, as we all hope Labour are kicked out of office, what would the succession be. Well Brown's favoured successor seems to be Ed Balls. Initially this had me howling with laughter, but this was soon replaced by hopes and prayers that this odious man takes the reins. It was Drop the Dead Donkey that gave Peter Lilley the slimy git of the week award 14 weeks in a row. If that show was still running, surely Balls would win the award closely followed by his wife. I really can't see Labour voting for Brown mk2 without the charm so he is probably out the running. Shame.
 
So who's in the running. Milliband x 2 (both too geeky), Jacqui Smith will be ejected from the Commons, Harriett Harman is Harriett Harman which rules her out, Hilary Benn is likeable but seems to shy away from tough controversial jobs so I can't see that. More credible are the chances of Alan Johnson, Alan Milburn and James Purnell. Each of these have drawbacks though. Milburn is not linked with Brown so should Labour want to get back to Blairism, then he could be the man. Unlikely though. Johnson seems to be keeping his head above water at Health but did lose out as Deputy leader which didn't suggest he's loved by the unions and grassroots. That leaves smooth talking photoshop man Purnell. He would probably be the most acceptable media face to attract the southern voters, but I can't see the roots warming to him.
 
In conclusion then, it looks like a mess with no heavyweight contenders, and plenty of drawbacks with the frontrunners. I'll revisit this when bookmakers put some odds up.

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I'm not referring to the Zimbabwean elections, but the election for MEP candidates for the Conservative Party. Never before have I seen such an arse covering undemocratic election.
 
Let's start at the beginning. Currently we have a majority of MEP's whose view on Europe is largely at odds with the membership. A quick perusal of those guilty of this shows that many of these are MP retreads who were kicked out of the UK Parliament in 97. They then found sanctury in Europe a couple of years later, and it is questionable what they are actually achieving out there. Whatever it is, it's certainly what the membership and indeed the country wants with a step back from federalism. Their determination to remain in the federalist European Peoples Party shows that.
 
Realising they are out of tune with the membership, it would appear some of our MEP's lobbied the Party to remove members from voting to rank them within the whole list, but instead rank the sitting MEP's so they are guaranteed their place and don't have to face the membership. This is the sort of election system Mugabe would dream of. No accountability and no risk of losing your seat of power.  
 
The other unfair factor in this election is the fact that after incumbents, the next place is guaranteed to a women no matter how far they placed behind the highest ranked men. Another self explanatory unfairness, which has rendered this selection process virtually impossible for a man to get into the European Parliament next year no matter how talented. Indeed it's surprised any man applied given how the odds are so stacked against them.
 
The Party has done this for short term benefit. No European arguments and more women. However in the longer term, it may well live to regret this. There are many well qualified men who would have added some real talent to our MEP delegation, and would have been far more in tune with the direction of the party. They have effectively no chance of election. We also have kept in place a lot of MEP's who rather enjoy the status quo in Europe and have no wish for reform or change. While they may keep their head down and say nothing of the EPP withdrawal proposal at the moment, once set free for a 5 year term, they will be very difficult to control and may well prove an obstacle to us when in Government when we step away from the federalist programme some of them appear to endorse.

Andrew Woodman

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At long last, it looks like Gordon Brown's record as Chancellor is being seen for what it was as a con trick. He inherited a booming economy with 5 years of economic growth, low inflation and throughout his tenure had a £20+ billion windfall of mobile phone 3G licences, global economic growth and low interest rates, cheap far eastern imports keeping down inflation and the internet revelation which has created new markets and growth. Labour ask us to believe that they had something to do with all this. Suddenly the global conditions change and it has nothing to do with them. This is the lie.
 
As the Conservatives have been arguing, we should be entering these potential bad times with low competitive tax rates and a surplus to fund them. Instead we are borrowing billions to fund pet Labour projects and the hundreds of thousands of civil servants that they've taken on. We have over regulated businesses because these civil servants are having to justify their existence which is causing us to slip down the world competiveness league.
 
Anyone this is just some background to what I wanted to write about and that's the menace of inflation. A recent poll suggested that something like 90% of people don't believe the Governments inflation figure. I find it astonishing that the rest do believe it. We have fuel up 20%, food up 10%, Energy up 20%, Council tax up 5% and so on. How on earth can they splutter out that inflation is 2.2% with a straight face. A poll suggested that 8.1% is a more accurate reflection of their personal inflation and that sounds much nearer the mark to me as well.
 
I think a portion of Labour's weakness is the unrealistic figures they are portraying. This is where the Conservatives must pounce. As part of cleaning up politics, we must present realistic economic figures. After all, part of our current economic difficulties may well be due to the Monetary Policy Committee setting interest rates to deal with an incorrect inflation target. In short, we need to commit to restoring the Retail Price Index as the measure of inflation. Whilst that at about 4% may be an underestimate, it is certainly more accurate and trusted than the Consumer Price Index and will give the MPC a proper target to aim for.
 
We also need to look at the committee itself. Half of it is made up of Chancellor appointees. Does this make them truly independent you have to ask. Also where is the accountability? A letter to the Chancellor is hardly earth shattering is it. Perhaps there should be representation from Parliament (maybe the Treasury Select committee).
 
Changing the measure is imperative though. We need a measure that the public and business can have faith in, and it would prove the Conservatives are serious about sorting out the economic problems that Gordon Brown's wasteful years have left us with.

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That time of year again when Political Party’s have a pretty pointless conference. I saw nothing of Labour’s conference last week even though I watched Sky News, News 24 and the terrestrial bulletins. Gordon Brown allegedly made a speech but I never saw any reports about it. Perhaps the media have got their own back over the decision to cancel it last year. It was interesting though that all the written reports were about how negative Labour were about the Tories, calling us all sexist racist homophobes. Pretty desperate stuff from a desperate party.

In contrast, the Lib Dem conference seems to have been covered extensively. Obviously the nonsense of their position on the EU treaty, and the three line whip to abstain has put them in the news again. Everyone seems to expect them to drop in the polls because of this. On the flip side it has got them noticed again, so we will see if Mike Smithson of Political Betting fame’s rule about David Cameron doing better when he’s in the news no matter the subject extends to Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems.

Anyway back to their conference. I have to say that I think Vince Cable’s VAT policy on smoothies seems to be a good idea. As long as it doesn’t extend to things like sunny delight, then it’ll be worthwhile and the idea will probably get stolen. However things did get a bit wackier after that. Vince seems to think he’s the Lib Dem William Hague who can give a comic turn. However a lot of those jokes turned into basic insults, and if he continues in this vein, I fear he will turn into the Colin Hunt of the political world, making an amusing comment once and then spending the rest of his life trying and failing to replicate it. Go out at the top Vince, you're no William Hague.

Talking of funny comments, Richard Littlejohn’s take that the Lib Dems have replaced Captain Mainwaring with Pike amused me. Sums it up very well.

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Bet you think I’m going to talk about Europe from that headline. Far from it, I’m actually irate about speed humps. The Ken Clarke reference is due to the fact that he admitted he was responsible for introducing them into Britain. Anyway, this all stems from a very unpleasant bill I had to pay to get my old banger through its MOT last week. It was due to the fact that the hooter wasn’t working because the wiring had been crushed by a collision with a speed hump. Thinking back, I remember the hump in question. It appeared without warning on a road which didn’t have it the previous week, I took it at 25mph in the dark and the result was thus.
 
This has bought home to me just how much I hate these things. They appear without warning in areas where you would struggle to work up a decent speed, and proceed to knacker up your suspension due to how oversized they are. I also had a very unpleasant experience when I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance 3 years ago and the vehicle that had been ravaged by speed humps and I felt every single slight bump in the journey. Not what you want when you’ve got peritonitis.
 
Apart from my personal gripe with them, there are other reasons they need to go. I’ve already mentioned emergency vehicle damage and hold ups. These things could well be costing lives. There is the extra carbon emitted by the stop start nature of these things. There’s the noise pollution they produce especially with lorries going over them.

A sensible approach would be to dig these up and install either hazard signs showing your speed and urging you to slow down or installing chicanes. This would slow traffic down without damaging cars and emergency vehicles. As we haven’t come out with a transport policy or statement for months, then the halting of the installation of speed humps in favour of other solutions must surely be a popular and worthwhile policy direction.

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I really am getting bored with all this talk of MP's expenses. The press have the bit between their teeth and unless there's a royal scandal or a war, we can look forward to it continuing for a while yet. What amazes me is we've known MP's abuse their expenses for years. Instances such as Margaret Beckett claiming £19,722 in 2002/2003 for a London housing allowance when she owns a house in her Derbyshire constituency which is free of mortgage, had a grace and favour flat in Admiralty House, funded by the taxpayer, and rented out her Westminster house. This has been widely known for years but no one's really concerned themselves,
 
Suddenly Derek Conway is caught red handed and the press are portraying every MP as a crook. There is a reason why they do this, and a pretty easy solution to ending it as an issue.
 
Firstly there is the reason. Sixty thousand pounds isn't really enough money to attract a decent calibre of MP. You either end up with incompetents, or people of independent wealth who can afford to pursue a parliamentary career.
 
Secondly there is the solution. Get rid of the housing and additional costs allowances and bung the wages up to £100k a year to end the fiddling. Have a historical guide for travel expenses and postage costs and make MP's who go over this justify their expenses or pay for it themselves, and of course scrap the communications allowance.
 
In addition to this, reduce the number of MP's. Bumping a constituency up to 95000-100000 over the next decade should be on the agenda. That way MP's will have a workload which will mean they couldn't cope without a proper staff, and the cost of Government will be going down. If we pursue a localism agenda, there will be less for them to do anyway.
 
I wonder if the speakers three wise men who are investigating this will have the guts to do this though!

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It's that time of year again where the oil companies report their profits. It's a time of year that winds me up with such lazy and ill informed media reporting designed to whip up public hostility to the idea of companies doing well.
 
Today it's Shell. They've reported a profit of about £14 billion or billions as Gordon Brown might say. This is wonderful. A British company competing and winning in a highly competitive global market, providing thousands of jobs, helping to keep the country running with new oil finds, helping our balance of payments and paying billions of pounds in tax. It also helps the upkeep of our pensions funds as they hold a significant portion of the shares.
 
How do the media choose to report it. Well for every news report I saw this morning, there was a reporter on a Shell forecourt asking motorists if they're being ripped off in view of these obscene profits. It's the same every year and perpetuates this myth that profits are wrong, and they all go to one or two fat cats while everyone suffers. It's so lazy of the media. What do they expect, oil companies to subsidize the British motorist so only the Government makes money out of them? We have some of the cheapest petrol in Europe, it's only when the Government takes its 70% that it becomes the most expensive.
 
Of course the unions have to have their say. Unite's joint general secretary Tony Woodley said the profits were "quite frankly obscene" and "Shell shareholders are doing very nicely whilst the rest of us, the stakeholders, are paying the price and struggling." He also wants a windfall tax on oil companies. What a good idea!! Let's take legitimate profits from a company so it has less to invest in finding and producing the petrol, make it a target for a takeover and lose another British company(well at least part British). That way we can lose billions of future tax revenues, a few thousand British jobs and do a bit more damage to our pension funds.
 
So how about praising a British success story that's funding a significant part of our public services, instead of lazy ranting about a tax driven petrol price. Expect the same when BP reports.

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So Peter Hain’s gone. It did have an inevitability to it and we’ll have to see what he does to attempt to clear his name. What I’ve found interesting is the reshuffle that followed. James Purnell to Works and Pensions, Andy Burnham to Culture, Yvette Cooper to the Treasury and Caroline Flint to Housing. On the face of it, jobs for the boys and girls. Literally in some cases.

James Purnell is an interesting choice for Works and Pensions. I can’t find much evidence that he’s had a proper job but that’s not that unusual now is it. On his Sunday morning TV interview, he showed himself to be true new Labour. Platitudes and targets plucked out of the air. Saying the Government would give more freedoms to people claiming disability benefit like choosing the time of their taxi (which is the case now). No real indications about how to achieve these blind aims.
 
Andy Burnham helped architect the shameless pinching of Tory Policies for the budget which helped Labour so much. Yvette Cooper has put in place the disastrous and useless HIPs just at the wrong moment for the housing market and so has been awarded a promotion for that, and anyone in the Housing department who thought they were rid of an arrogant hectoring woman are out of luck, as she’s been replaced by another.
 
When the resignation was announced, I wondered would Brown use the opportunity to show he has changed and doesn’t hold grudges. He could have done that and bought Alan Milburn back in to Works and Pensions. At a stroke he would have showed there were no factions in the party, that he welcomed experience in his cabinet of pygmies and he wasn’t as paranoid about his own inadequacy as Prime Minister as everyone believes.
 
However a leopard never changes its spots, and considering Brown’s character as we know it, it was fanciful to believe he could undertake such a bold move. So the pygmies remain and Milburn and co remain on the outside.

As a side note, have you noticed how Charles Clarke, Alan Milburn, Peter Mandelson, Neil Kinnock and co have disappeared from the media completely since chicken Saturday. Talk about fair weather friends.

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The title is naturally sarcastic. I didn't really want to write about the Lib Dems again for a while, but after a recent by election I campaigned in fighting them, I've actually realised just how low their tactics are, and thought I'd share them with anyone who's not already familiar with them.
 
For a start they lie. They will say that only the Lib Dems can win here (even though they recorded barely 20% of the vote in May). This is backed up by dubious bar charts from even more dubious canvassing. They will then proceed to throw as much dirt about their opponents as possible. The truth doesn't enter into this much. A leaflet saying the candidate lives 10 miles away when it's actually only 3, whilst their candidate has been local for about 3 weeks since he registered in the ward. I'm sure anyone who has fought the Lib Dems is fully aware of these tactics, but I just don't understand where this reputation as the nice party comes form. They are negative and dishonest with voters to a degree that take politics into the gutter.
 
There is a side effect of these tactics which the Lib Dems don't seem to realise. By portraying Labour and Conservatives as self serving good for nothings, they damage politics as a whole and aid the cause of the BNP. For when politics is portrayed in a sleazy way, some voters will kick all 3 main parties and side with the protest party. This is what the BNP is taking advantage of. To simply call them racist and nazi's seems to be spurring voters on who feel the BNP are being ganged up on by the establishment. To take on the BNP, parties must expose their far left economics and the implications of their far right immigration policies. Would people be so happy to vote for the BNP, if the generous owner of their football club would be slung out of the country by them. We need to explain implications rather than look like bullies to stem the BNP.

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This weekend used to be one of the most eagerly awaited weekends in the football calendar (sorry non footy fans but the politics does come later). FA Cup third round day not that long ago would generate great excitement as it meant so much to clubs and their fans. Now, stadiums are half empty and Premiership clubs play weakened teams in the hope of going out of the competition. All this in the name of progress. The Premiership and cash has become king with the side effects of non British players becoming the majority, and in some cases to whole of the first team staff, British owners are being priced out in favour of dubious foreign Billionaires and the big four clubs and the Champions League are now dominating the game.
 
Some would say what’s the problem with this. The world’s best players have made the premiership the best league in the world. I can’t help but feel we’ve lost the soul of the game somewhere along the line though. There’s so little to aim at for clubs outside the top 4 or 5 other than financial survival. This imperative is helping destroy what was once the best cup competition in the world.
 
How does this relate to politics? Well it’s got me wondering if we’re losing the soul of our society. David Cameron has often spoke of our broken society and what has happened to football could be considered to be a metaphor for this issue.

It seems the ever increasing pressures on people and in particular working parents is making finding the time for family life increasingly difficult. The pressure to maintain lifestyle with ever increasing taxes and inflation set against record house prices and student debt means real struggles for the families of the future. The impact of this will surely be less time with children as they grow up.
 
Will this benefit society? David Cameron has said that families are essential to repairing our society. That’s why they must be allowed to flourish and do their job of moulding the next generation into responsible members of society, and steer them away from pitfalls such as crime. Can this be done effectively with all the current pressures on parents to return to work so quickly after the birth. It will be interesting to see how Conservative Party policy is shaped in response to this.

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Well it's been quite a year. We've had Blair applauded off the stage (deserved for that level of acting ability), had Ming Campbell kicked off the stage by those nasty Lib Dems and Gordon Brown heralded and hated within the space of six months. And what of David Cameron, he's had a honeymoon at both the start and the end of the year with a near divorce in the middle.

Where do we stand going forward then?

Well I'll make a prediction that Gordon Brown is unelectable. He has all the presentational skills of David Brent and the decision making skills of a lemming. He's shown himself to be scared of the British public by virtue of the fact that he pulled out of an election and an EU treaty referendum. On the doorsteps I see no enthusisim for him. If I'm noticing it, then I'm sure Labour MP's are, so what are they goimg to do about it?

In my opinion they'll do nothing, mainly due to the fact that there is no one to replace him. The mere that that Jack Straw is seen as the only replacement shows how bereft they are of talent. This is a man who helped create the shambles that the Home Office is today. Brown's young turk are totally without experience and likeability. There is an arrogence attached to them which comes of never fighting a marginal seat and have to go out there and win peoples votes. Put together with a complicated process of getting rid of a Labour leader, and a leader who will never want to go, there's little doubt he's fighting the election.

Then I got thinking about counter history and what would have happened had Robin Cook lived. Although they made up before his death, would there have been any possiblity he could have challenged Brown for the leadership. Maybe not, he would have had a senior cabinet post and had reportadly said he was 'insufficiently attractive to be an election winner'. I wonder though. Could you imagine him getting rolled over at PMQ's in the same way Brown does? He could have represented a real change for Labour without Iraq baggage and the fact that he hasn't been 2nd in command in the failing Government.

If he didn't run, then he would now be talked about as the alternative leader now surely. We will never know, but how The Labour Party must wish he was still here.

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It's only a week until the gripping contest that is the Lib Dem leadership contest comes to a conclusion. It's odds on the that Nick Clegg will prevail. Has the leadership election itself and following Vince Cable made his task a little trickier than it looked a few weeks ago though.
 
Before the leadership contest, Clegg had a profile similar to Ming Campbell's few years ago. The man who should have run for leader and had a firm grip on his brief. During the leadership contest though, there have been one or two unedifying moments. His run in with Chris Huhne on the Politics Show over the 'Calamity Clegg' document, as well as undertones from the Huhne camp about lack of real life experience. As well as that, there has not been a lot of vision or ideas from Clegg, partly due to Lib Dem conferences making their policy. Much has been made about breaking the law on ID cards if they are bought in, but that's student behaviour and not that of a statesman.
 
His biggest problem though is taking over from the successful deputy Vince Cable. Cable achieved something almost unheard of when he got the Lib Dems noticed in the House of Commons, with the line about Stalin to Mr Bean which could well stick to Gordon Brown. Clegg will struggle to better Cable in the Commons, and bearing in mind it was the Chamber that shaped the impression that Ming was not performing and incompetent, Clegg will need to be on top of his game for his first performance in the new year.
 
I wonder if he regrets not going for the deputy leadership. If he had, he could have been shown to have been the competent leader following the disastrous reign of Ming. In leaving the field open for Cable, he's created another 'he should have been leader figure'. Dangerous people to have around.

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I'm sure over the past week our football loving readers have been depressed as I about the current state of English international football. I have added depression supporting a team that is bottom of the table and ships 5 goals a game but I won't get into that now. Anyway in the last week reflecting on our hapless heroes inability to hold the ball less than 2 seconds, I wondered if Government and football team run parallel in their triumph and trouble. After all both are in trouble at the moment.
 
I'll start at 1966 when we last triumphed. Harold Wilson won the election of that year and after we won the world cup, traded on the fact that England wore red. You would think that would be enough to win you the next election and retain the world cup with most of the same squad. However in 1970, England went out in red unexpectedly and so did Labour. 
 
A decade of disappointment and failure was to follow. The Government was in regular crisis with strikes, and 3 changes of leader failing to get a grip of the Country. The Football team followed in a similar vain failing to qualify for any major tournaments throughout the decade with 3 changes of manager failing to get a grip of the team.
 
Then entered Margaret Thatcher and later Bobby Robson. Both faced early pressures with a change to moneterism and the dropping of Kevin Keegan. the former leading to high unemployment and the latter to England maybe failing to qualify for the 84 European Championships. Things did pick up though. The Economy for Thatcher and the 86 World Cup for England (where of course we were cheated out of it by Maradona).
 
However in 1990 both were forced out having left the Country in a much better state than they found it in. Both were replaced with lesser men. Major and Taylor both having pretty calamitous reigns with Black Wednesday and Koeman knocking us out the World Cup of 94 by scoring for Holland when he should have been sent off. The media hammered both personally although I don't remember Major having his head made into a Turnip though.
 
Enter Sven and Tony. Both had big promises to live up to, but despite being good at winning, both were held back by the limitations of their teams. What they also have in common is not being appreciated at how good they were until they were gone. For when their number twos took over, a period of ineptitude and failure beckoned. Mclaren is gone, how long before we can get rid of Gordon?

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I had a strange dream on Sunday. I dreamt I'd heard on the radio that GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips has been offered a Government job by Gordon Brown in the summer. I then woke up and found it to be true (well according the the papers anyway). I am astonished. The end of spin and celebrity government claims look more and more hollow every day.
 
On the rare occasions I've ever watched GMTV, I've found it to be dumbed down TV at its worse, with Ms Phillips at the pinnacle displaying the intellectual rigour of a dead badger. A short trail round various internet forums shows the contempt many people hold for her and the programme. I suppose the fact that she's in bed with the equally intellectual bankrupt Mirror Newspaper, it should come as no surprise those in New Labour crave her 'talents'.
 
Later on Sunday, I witnessed those nice Lib Dems having a verbal punch up on The Politics Show. It's quite clear that Huhne is playing a win or bust game for the Lib Dem leadership, while Clegg is a indecisive flip flopper (hence the fact that he's a Lib Dem). The fact that he's complained about the Calamity Clegg document is hilarious and shows that this idea that the Lib Dems are the nice party is as realistic as the chance of Northern Rock paying a dividend this year.
 
And on the subject of Northern Rock, where was Gordon Brown for Alistair Darling's statement in Parliament about the ongoing shambles. The problem was built up on his watch, yet in Macavity like fashion he had disappeared when the going was tough. Perhaps he was recruiting Ant and Dec to run the Foreign Office. I just hope he wasn't buying tickets for England game on Wednesday, for he has become the gamblers friend. For whenever he's around (as Scotland found out at the Weekend), the opposition prosper. Time for a bet on a Conservative Election victory maybe.

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For the past few years, I've been amazed at how little is made of the fact that Gordon Brown changed the rate inflation is measured from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Prices Index. We know why he did it of course, and that was to make his target easier to attain whilst ramping up public spending. The problem is we now have an inflation figure that no one trusts and bears no relation to the costs people are facing.
 
Today the rate went to 2.1%. Now when I think of living costs, there is food which has been ramped up, fuel which means motoring and heating costs have been ramped up by double digit percentages and nothing going down in price. The idea of 2.1% is a joke. Much more realistic is the 4.2% RPI index which is what employers have to use the pay settlements (because the unions would destroy them for using the CPI).
 
So what is the point of the CPI? No one believes it, and it is hiding the real problem of inflation in the economy at a time of economic slowdown. If Gordon Brown was interested in candid Government, he would scrap it and allow the bank to deal with the proper inflation rate which is overshooting its target by 2%. Much of which is being caused by fuel, of which the Government is taking 76% in duty and VAT and which it added 2.7 pence last month.
 
The Government needs to work with the Bank of England to sort out these problems before they escalate, and getting rid of unrealistic measures like the CPI would be a start. However, after Northern Rock, can anyone have confidence that they can work together?

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The case of Sir Ian Blair that's been in the media this week has fascinated me. Here is a man who is running an organisation that has been found guilty of killing an innocent man. In the private sector, if a company is found guilty of corporate manslaughter, the management get sacked and their career would be in ruins. Yet in the public sector, the management who got it wrong are present themselves as the only people to put things right. Imagine the directors of Enron stopping on to sort out their mismanagement. The whole idea is bazarre.
 
Of course, it's another symptom of Big Government and an overbearing state. There are so many controllers, the blame keeps getting laid off on the next person down until the computer programmer eventually sacrifices their job and everyone else 'gets on with the job of putting it right', until the next time. Just look at Government IT projects. Late, over budget and not fit for purpose. Who takes the blame for this non achievement. No one I know of.
 
It is time people like Blair were accountable to the public. Fortunately the Conservatives have a policy to remedy this issue with elected sheriffs. Local communities voting for their representative to hold polices forces accountable for their actions or indeed non actions. This is the way to make voters feel like their vote means something and will reinvigorate democracy. No wonder Labour don't like it.

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There are two institutions I really don't like very much. One is the British Broadcasting Company and the other in the European Union. If I weigh up the positives and negatives of each one, the latter always seems to outweigh the former and most interestingly, the reasons seem to be very similar.
 
Firstly there is the issue of choice. I'm forced to pay the £135.50 licence fee. If I don't a big ugly man demands the right to enter my home looking for a TV. With the EU, I and every other person in the UK is forced to contribute billions of pounds towards the running of the EU in spite of the majority of us never voting to do so.
 
Then we have the issue of accountability. I don't like the way for instance John Redwood is portrayed miming the Welsh National Anthem when he's in the studio to talk about regulation relief. I wrote to the BBC and nothing. Not even the courtesy of a reply. Why should they? They know they're going to get my money so why bother to listen to me. The same goes for the EU. It's an old chestnut but the issue of selling in pounds and ounces has been around for years. Who can you complain to about this. MEP's? We all know they have virtually zero power which is why many of them can't wait to get into the UK Parliament.
 
Moreover, who's running these organisations and who are they accountable to. The BBC is run by a Trust appointed by a quango and ministers. The EU run by unelected commissioners who are more often than not political failures at home. There's no democracy. No say by those who are putting the money up.
 
What can we do about this. Selling one and withdrawing from another is the simple answer many people will give. However, the British public are a conservative bunch and wouldn't swallow that. All we can hope is salami tactics of slice by slice might ignite the British Public into wanting this change.
 
With the EU, it's vital that the referendum is held and the constitution defeated. The EU leaders might start to believe the game is up and a Conservative Government can look to grab powers back. With the BBC, the expansion of channels both on TV and Radio needs to be halted to stop any further damage to it's commercial competitors who are operating in unfair markets. We can only hope that once this ball is rolling, there would be no stopping it, and we once again have accountability within our ruling institutions.

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Well what a week for English sport. Lose to Russia through a dodgy penalty which could well knock us out of Euro 2008, lose the Rugby World Cup final due to a foot touching the line (Still don't understand the rules properly even though I played for my school) and the Lewis Hamilton's engine cuts out losing him the World Championship. Add in floods and foot and mouth, and it seems like the nations luck has turned since Mr Brown took up residence in Number 10.   
 
The purpose of my article was to be on Brown's nauseating attempts to play politics to survive this job. His first 100 days have consisted of playing political games. Announcements of policies which are unlikely to happen on Housing, The NHS and British jobs for British workers. Alongside this there were stunts like Iraq, inviting Baroness Thatcher for tea and the early election cock up.
 
On Saturday though he managed to combine both of these traits. With the chorus of boos he received when England played Germany at Wembley a few weeks ago, you would have thought that would have been enough to put him off trying to make himself popular through sport, but then on Saturday there he was again at the Rugby World Cup final. The sight of a very nationalist Scottish leader sitting in the stands supporting England was pretty bad, but then it got worse.
 
Alongside head of States, the head of Government took his place in the trophy presentation party. Looking like a spare part hanger on at a wedding, he took on a duty I would have thought a member of the Royal Family should be doing. As a piece of PR, it looks like another cringeworthy failure from someone who can't fake sincerity.
 
So back to the main point. Is Gordon becoming a Jonah. Well since he became Prime Minister, I can't think of much he's associated himself with that can be described as a success. The budget, The NHS with its recent troubles, The EU constitution and Ed Balls. He'd better hope his luck picks up soon because it won't be his courage that sees him through.

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One of the big impacts of Brown vs Cameron has been the squeeze on the Liberal Democrats, who are heading rapidly towards single figure polling. Now while this is a traditional trend mid term, this real substantial drop seems to indicate something more fundamental and it's not all about the leader.
 
Obviously Ming is pretty inept at leading his party. I always thought of him as the only real substantial statesman like figure in the Lib Dems when he was foreign affairs spokesman. Taken out of his brief though and he's been found wanting. Lamentable PMQ performances and no real connection with the public. However, the Lib Dems have a far more wide reaching problem than that, and that's identity.
 
What do the Lib Dems stand for. Are candidates in Newcastle council elections telling the same stories as those standing in rural Hampshire. I think we all know the answer to that. The point is the Lib Dems need to work out if they are going to go to the left of Labour or portray themselves as a soft Tory party. The real problem they have is the seats won in by elections from Tories. They want to hold on to these but don't want to pursue a policy agenda to do so, as they prefer to be on the left.
 
So what do they do. Well there is much talk of having a female leader to be distinctive. Looking at their benches, there is no one at all suitable due to age, incompetence and the marginal nature of their seat. In any case, that is only a superficial fix. They instead need to work out what they are for and who they appeal to. Do they go after disaffected Labour voters in places like Liverpool and Newcastle, and in doing so risk their southern soft Tory seats or do they try to compete with Cameron as soft Tories. That would be very courageous. At this moment in time their future must surely be in the North chasing Labour seats. Their hatred for Tories will probably see this doesn't happen. My only forecast is there will be trouble ahead.

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