The Iraq truth is already starting to disseminate

Two items in the Chilcott Iraq war inquiry have already come to light. The first was that the USA and Britain had already discussed deposing Saddam Hussein before September 11th 2001, and the second that the Attorney General had advised that it would not be legal.

 

We expected the first, to be honest, and we're probably not surprised by the second. But just these two facts really do ring big alarm bells over why we went to war. The whole terrorist link which was trumpeted by George Bush and WMD report by the British Government were a means to an already wanted end. And what was it that changed the Attorney General's mind?

 

It's no surprise really, but it confirms our doubts that the public were heavily misled about the war. The words 'in good faith' will be used time and again over the next few months, but if the first few days are anything to go by we should not hold much store in those words.

 

Squiffy.

 

Tony Lloyd re-elected as Labour PLP chairman

Last night Tony Lloyd was re-elected unopposed as the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. This seemingly small piece of news has bigger implications than what first appears.

 

There are precious few moments when the Labour Party can do the most sensible thing and get rid of a Mr. G Brown of 10 Downing Street. One moment was last night. Barry Sheerman had said that he may stand as chairman of the PLP as a "Get Brown Out" candidate. If he had succeeded it would have shown that the Labour Party did indeed want him to go. Without the vote, that's another chance gone.

 

Maybe the poll over the weekend showing the Tory lead down to 6% had an impact. But as they were voting another poll put the Tories' lead at 17%, and Labour at a low of 22%. It now looks likely that the previous poll was rogue and normal service will be resumed.

 

There are now two more set pieces which could trigger the downfall. The PBR and Budget. So far each PBR and Budget of Mr. Brown's reign has immediately lead to a worsened poll position.

 

It is beginning to look like Labour will stick with Brown and face a severe drubbing. Of which we can all be truly grateful.

 

Squiffy.

 

The Queen must have been cursing inside her crown.

What a pitiful Queen's speech. Getting the Queen to read out a Labour Party political broadcast is horrible. It was cringeworthy.

We know there are only 33 days in Parliament before a General Election is called and so hardly any bills with any opposition will become law.

The worst law is the promise to reduce the deficit by half in 4 years. Sure the aim is fine, but what happens when it isn't adhered to. Can't imagine the PM being taken down. No, it's just the worst politics. Just bloody do it. I can't believe the Labour party can though, at every turn they just spend more money. It's the only thing they know.

Oh, by the way, what happened to the fiscal prudence rules which were passed into law in 1997/1998. They were supposed to keep out debt down. When it went slightly wrong they redefined the economic cycle. Then when it went further wrong, it was the global downturn. So who's going to prison for breaking this law? No-one. So what's the whole point.

Yesterday we heard Lord Mandelson on the Today programme being interviewed by Evan Davis. It was handbags at dawn, as Davis put it to Mandelson that the law to make sure no families would be in fuel poverty by 2010 was going to be broken. Who would be prosecuted. Mandelson did his usual trick of blaming Evan for not listening to his answer (the fact that there was no answer, didn't seem to matter to Mandelson). He's good, but soon the interviewers will cotton on to his technique!

Please put this Government out of its misery. I don't think I can wait another 5 months.

Squiffy.

Jenson to McLaren. Probably not good.

Now that it has been confirmed that Jenson Button will be joining Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, we take a look at his chances.

Firstly, we know that both are very good drivers and both should win races. But both like different set-ups. Lewis prefers an oversteer based car, but for Jenson it has to be perfectly balanced.

We know that Lewis has been McLaren's favoured son for many years. The likelihood is that the car will be built to Lewis' preferred set-up making it very difficult for Jenson. When Lewis doesn't have his perfect set-up he can grab the car by the scruff of the neck and make a good fist of it. Unfortunately, Jenson can struggle in a non-balanced car.

It does look to me that he may have made the wrong choice and will be beaten by Hamilton. I'm hoping I'm proved wrong and they are more evenly matched, but my suspicion is that Lewis will blow Jenson away.

Squiffy.

Degrees in Nursing?

I heard with incredulity that everyone who goes into nursing will need a degree in a few years time. What has happened to this country?

 

My mum was a night sister, very respected, well liked, firm but fair. Everyone knew where they stood with her and the patients knew they were getting the best of care.

 

She didn't get a degree, she left school at around 15 to go into training. In fact, she didn't have O-levels and I was extremely proud of her when she decided to get GCSE's later in life to make up for her lack of formal general qualifications from earlier schooling.

 

You can't tell me that hospital care is so different now to what it was two decades ago. Sure things will have moved on, there will be new treatments, drugs and a bit more administration but the care being provided by a nurse will greatly similar.

 

By making nursing a degree only profession, it will close off another job prospect to those kids who find they're not as academically gifted and be another reason why vocational qualifications are not taken seriously in this country.

 

I suppose this is one way to fulfill the Government's aim of getting 50% of people into university. There'll be no jobs for anyone without a degree soon! What does this mean for the policy of raiding other countries for nurses in recent years? Is it going to be that only British nurses need a degree, whilst others can transfer in without the necessary qualifications?

 

How flaming ridiculous.

 

Squiffy.

 

 

 

Reaction to the Tory change of policy on Europe

Now that we know what the new Tory policy on Europe is (or we think we do), I can give my first thoughts.

 

Firstly, disappointment that my recommendations weren't taken on board. I guess David Cameron does not want to go on board the train that could lead us out of the Union.

 

Secondly, though, I believe the policy is largely pragmatic and will have the best possible chance of keeping the Tory party united. I like the sound of the legislation to keep British Sovereignty, make sure future treaties have a referendum, and stop the ratchet clauses. I just hope they are strong enough to hold legal force!

 

Thirdly, when the dust has settled and we're on a path to economic recovery and a debt-reduction plan is in place, he will need to start playing hardball with the EU on his promises to bring back powers. Any lack of determination will be as much as a broken manifesto promise as the Labour party's promise to hold the Lisbon referendum. He must be prepared to withhold money, and must be prepared to play the EU countries at their own game and be very slow at implementing new laws.

 

Finally, in private he must be telling the EU partners that we must being to look at Association and not Union unless we get our powers back. Anything less will not get them thinking.

 

And for  all those people who harp on about the "cast-iron guarantee", they forget to mention the line after that which reads "No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum." i.e. the cast-iron guarantee is only while the treaty is not ratified.

 

Overall, probably the best the Tories could hope for. But as Vic and Bob used to say, 'you wouldn't let it lie' - and the public won't!

 

Squiffy.

 

David Miliband as EU foreign representative? No

In a column in the Mail on Sunday William Hague talks about David Miliband's recent comments about the Conservative's partners in Europe.

He points out that the EU partner's are not very happy about these comments, and it just so happens that some of them form coalition partners in their Governments or have the position of President. Do you think that they will want David Miliband to represent them at an EU level? I don't think so.

Mr Miliband has been disgraceful and will have to apologise before he gets that job. Even then his behaviour has been less than diplomatic and should rule him out completely!

Squiffy.

Europe: The proposal

Earlier in this post I gave some options that David Cameron can use for his European policy.

I've now got my proposal.

Firstly David Cameron should be up front and say that he didn't want to be in this position. He had said that Lisbon was a step too far, and it is. He now has to push for Britain's rights to have the relationship we want with Europe. With that in mind he will have one or two referenda.

The first referendum will have a question such as "Britain should have its own rights over Fishing Quotas, Immigration, Taxation and Employment rights. Agree?". The exact list should be set out at the time, but be at a level where we are happy. I can now hear the laughter - how naive, Europe will never agree to such repatriation of powers (even though the original Constitution was supposed to bring some powers back to nation states - look how that turned out!).

That's the reason for the second referendum. In case the EU turns away and chooses not to listen to the UK's point of view, the second referendum is asked. "Britain should have an Economic relationship with the EU, and have associate membership". This is the nuclear option.

Both referenda will be set out at the start. It is blackmail, but the EU does not listen to its people and Governments collude to deny the electorate their say - so needs must.

It will then be a matter of how much the EU wants the UK as a member. If they do want us, then we will continue to contribute to the coffers but we want some powers back. If they don't then fair enough we will go our own way.

I think it is time to play hard ball with the EU political elite.

Squiffy.

The Brown jinx hits again

Whenever the PM wishes someone well before an endeavour or publicly supports someone, you know it's curtains. Last night he publicly back his old friend and foe, Tony Blair, as new President of the Council of Ministers. This morning we hear that EU leaders have cooled on the idea.

 

He's done it again! Maybe that was the plan…

 

Squiffy.

 

David vs William: Part two

An infrequent series of interviews seem to be occurring on the Today programme where at 8.10 a.m. both David Miliband and William Hague are interviewed together. It's always entertaining.

 

In this morning's exchanges, William had the killer point in the earlier part of the interview and David in the latter.

 

Firstly, William Hague pointed out that the Labour Government claimed that the treaty was not a constitution and was just a tidying up exercise and so the referendum was not needed. But Hague then pointed out how David Miliband is stating that we need a strong new EU President who can stop the traffic to push forward EU views to the rest of the world. Surely that role is quite a constitutional change from the rotating presidency with limited powers now. David Miliband had no real comeback on this hierocracy.

 

Then in a discussion about the polish head of the Conservative grouping in the EU, Michael Kaminsky, David Miliband read out an interview in which Kaminsky said that the death of 300 Jews  was not of a scale as the Holocaust and should not be apologized for. William Hague had no come back for that.

 

1 all, I would say.

 

P.S. When I think about the EU and how the electorate (of the whole EU) are being treated, I get angry. Very angry. In fact I've nearly had enough. I am now close to changing my position on the EU and thinking that we should go for associate membership, like Norway. I'm not there yet, but it's getting closer.

 

Squiffy.

 

Iceland closes down McDonalds

No this has nothing to do with Kerry Catona's advertising prowess, making the burger giant fold!

 

This morning it is reported that the recession is so bad in Iceland that the three McDonalds restaurants (can I call them that) will be shut. Apparently the Icelandic Krona is so weak that it is now too expensive to buy a Big Mac. Wow, it must be really bad, or possibly a blessing is disguise.

 

Maybe they will be able to get their fix by digging up the semi-putrified fillet-o-fish buried last summer and eating those!

 

Squiffy.

 

The failure of Labour's schemes

George Osborne today made a significant speech about Labour's failures in tackling the recession and what the Tories would do about it. It was an impressive speech, but what struck me was the scale of the failure of the Governments plans. If George Osborne is correct then these are the figures.

- The Capital for Enterprise fund has helped just 5 companies.

- The Mortgage Rescue Scheme has helped 15 families.

- The Trade Credit Insurance Scheme has helped 58 businesses with £13 million, it was designed to supply £5 billion!

- The Guarantee for Asset Backed Securities has not provided any guarantees yet.

- The £2.3 billion Automotive Assistance Programme has not provided funds to anyone yet.

We know that the car scrappage scheme has worked, but it looks like nothing else has. Including the VAT cut.

What a waste of time. Gordon Brown says the Tories would do nothing to help, well he should look to himself because that is what his government has achieved. I think the £50 billion loan guarantee would have been better than all these schemes!

Squiffy.

The Frenchman wins round one

There are two French vs Finnish motor sport contests this weekend. The first is for the Presidency of FIA, the governing body. Unfortunately Jean Todt has beaten Ari Vatanen to it. I say unfortunately, because Max Mosley has been a big supporter of the ex-Ferrari team boss and he hopes that it is more of the same.

 

I wanted there to be a big change. Some more consistent rulings, a push for reduced carbon emissions throughout motor sport, less intrigue and less politics overall. Todt is made in the Mosley mould, so get ready for more stories of motor sportshooting itself in the foot.

 

The second contest is for the World Rally Championship, between the Finn Mikko Hirvonen and Frenchman Sebastien Loeb in Wales. Loeb has won the championship for the last five years and I think it would be good for the sport if another were to win it this time around.

 

Squiffy.

 

Question Time : The verdict

I quite enjoyed the car crash telly of last night. I didn't know whether all the questions would be BNP based or follow the normal pattern of current affairs. In the end they plumped for the former, which worked but I think that if they were to repeat the exercise they would be advised to do a normal format.

 

Most people were worried that Nick Griffin would be articulate enough to strike a chord with the working class who feel hard done by. In the end I don't think that happened, he was simply not good enough. He came across as more evasive than most politicians and tried not to explain why he had been a holocaust denier. I don't think, and I sincerely hope, that he didn't do the BNP any favours. Most of what he said seemed to deny reality in a way Gordon Brown could only dream of. His insistence on the "indigenous English" coming from the ice age 17000 years ago, floating down on an ice sheet I suspect, is just laughable. Doesn't he know that even the word English comes from the Angles (invaders from Germany), what an eejit.

 

I thought Jack Straw was awful tonight, he's usually much better than that. Baroness Warsi argued a good case and Bonnie Greer had a good one liner ("I've brought  some good history books for you, you should read them"). David Dimbleby was excellent though and asked some probing follow up questions, he's  hopefully put to one side his woeful presentation the US Presidential Election last year.

 

Great TV.

 

Squiffy.

 

"Best placed to weather this recession". Humbug.

At the beginning of this recession the Prime Minister and ministers were often telling us that Great Britain was best placed to weather this recession. Well today's GDP's figures shows how wrong they were. Whilst France and Germany pulled themselves out of it, we're still stuck in negative territory.

 

We were the first into this recession and now it looks like we'll be the last out of it. This one tops the 80s and 90s recessions with six quarters of negative growth, worst since 1955.

 

So stick that up your quantitive easing.

 

Squiffy.

 

No to all women shortlists

David Cameron is mistaken in considering all women shortlists for Tory MPs. If he genuinely believes it then he is simply wrong. His argument that parliament is not working well because it is unrepresentative is wrong. It's not working well because the executive is too strong.

 

We now have more women than ever in parliament, is our politics better than ever? No, it's in the gutter. Have female ministers proved to be more able than their male counterparts? No. Am I blaming women for any of this? No. The number of women in parliament is irrelevant to this argument. If we had better MPs maybe we would be in a better position, and by better I mean more able to think for themselves and formulate an intelligent argument whilst supporting their constituents. So they should get to be an MP on merit, i.e. not by being on some favoured list or minority only list.

 

It is completely un-Tory. Which makes me think that DC is up to something? Is he wanting a clause 4 moment? If he is, he's chosen the wrong argument because he will lose.

 

If all jobs were chosen on merit, we'd be in a better country.

 

Squiffy.

 

It's October FFS

Just watching TV, and there's already been three Christmas adverts on. God help us.

Squiffy.

Congratulations Jenson

This is a slightly tardy message of Congratulations to Jenson Button on his first World Championship. It's slightly late because I'm recovering from a hangover, brought on by the champagne we drank last night toasting the 2009 champ!

 

We'd planned for some friends to come round to watch the Brazilian Grand Prix in the hope that Jenson would secure the title. On Saturday night, though, it looked like we were being premature. As he placed his car on the 14th spot to set off, I didn't think he could win it there and then. Just get around the Senna S and hope for the best!

 

Instead, in a fantastic race, Jenson pulled off 4 great overtaking manoevres to make a drive worthy of a champion. In a neat symmetry, both Lewis Hamilton and Nigel Mansell won the world championship coming home in 5th place.

 

As an aside, I was impressed by Kobayashi. Many Japanese drivers seem to be in F1 due to their relationships with Honda and Toyota and not purely on merit. Kobayashi's first race was very good. He was aggressive and fast, and didn't make any significant errors. He deserves to be in F1 next year.

 

At the beginning of the year I predicted that Robert Kubica would take the championship. How wrong was that? Big time - but I'm glad I was and now I'll take my hat off to Jenson Button. Deserved World Champion 2009.

 

Squiffy.

 

The fire sale has started

The news that the Government is now looking to sell off assets to fund its huge amount of debt is to be partly welcomed. I welcome it because many of the proposed assets should not have been in Government hands in the first place - can anyone think why the Government should own a betting company?

 

I add caution though. The sale will occur near the bottom of the market for many of these assets, they should have been sold when we were booming to help to pay off accumulated debt. If Gordon Brown was a spread better or trader he'd lose so much money. Just take a look at how much he got for the nation's gold reserves when he sold them off at a quarter of the current price. Maybe the Tote isn't best placed in his hands!

 

The other point is that you can only sell them off once. This does nothing to bring down the structural deficit. As an example, we would have to sell off the assets identified every month to break even! They still need to outline a plan for cutting costs.

 

Squiffy.

 

David Cameron speech : The verdict

David Cameron's speech was bit more positive than George Osborne's, but was still a bit downbeat. It was a good speech, but not great. Two years ago I was ecstatic, this time I'm merely impressed!

 

It was a personal speech, and he was obviously trying to look Prime Ministerial. I think he succeeded in that aim. He gave a broad brush of conservative values and there were no policy announcements, which is as expected.

 

So my verdict is 7 out of 10.

 

After all the conferences, George Osborne's speech stood out. It was extremely candid, and brave. But I don't think any speech will be seen as a game-changer.

 

Squiffy.