Yet another Tory folly

Just heard that my conservative opponent at the last election has been removed from the tory list of candidates. A daft decision. Victoria was the best candidate I’ve faced since I stood against Gladstone in l892.

Hannah Mitchell Foundation

Campaigning for the North has always alternated between hope and despair. Richard Wainwright and I formed the Campaign for the North in the Seventies. That petered out and wandered off to Newcastle to die.

The Great PFI Con and other general ramblings

In the great PFI raffle (700 schemes worth £200 billion) the Treasury has been totally naive. It would have been cheaper to pay for all these schemes by raising public debt at a much lower rate of interest.

Education not Alienation

I went to Catch’s Apprentice Recruitment evening: hundreds of keen kids and dads enquiring about the good apprenticeships offered in construction, engineering and chemical and oil processing.

Sun Setting?

Hope not because it would bring down the Times too but there is chaos driven by the lawyers in New York trying to head off investigations under the foreign Corrupt Practices Act which would torpedo the share prices.

Put Upon Poms

I’ve always struggled to understand the English. Even though I am. My New Zealand friends say that we don’t really like each other. It’s a question of class. Every Pom has class sensing antennae to detect by accent, dress, and behaviour the class of every other and like or dislike them according.

God Save The Lib Dems. Clegg Won't.

Why are the Lib Dems losing Cabinet Ministers at twice the rate of the Tories and so fast all Lib Dems will get and lose ministerial jobs if it goes on?

The Queen and I

Sixty years ago today I turned up at the Council Offices in Baildon to hear the Queen proclaimed. In rain turning to sleet, Howard Moore town clerk announced ‘The King is dead long live the Queen’, rolled up his wet proclamation and went back inside.

Telegraph supresses defence of MPs

Last Thursday I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph criticising an article by Sue Cameron writing as a civil service hack to criticise Parliamentary Select Committees for doing their job.

Civil Service Conjuring

Public Accounts Committee enquiry into Massacre of government bodies brings out the new reduced role of the civil service. Tories come in promising a bonfire of quangos most of which are inexpensive advisory bodies.

Uk Exit and UK jobs

I co-signed and sent a letter to the Guardian yesterday which supports leaving the EU in order to create more jobs for Britain.

Bugger Integrity Keep The Cash

Straight after taking (and failing) the integrity test: would you keep a tenner I found in the street? Yes.

REGIONAL CAPS REPLACE FLAT 'ATS

Can’t get to PLP meeting tonight (30 Jan) to denounce Liam Byrnes idea of regional benefit caps instead of the £26, 000 benefit cap proposed by Duncan-Smith. But I can’t support it.

The Good, The Bad and The Lib Dems

The Lib-Dem “rebellion” on the benefit cap is just a con to protect their image as a caring party when the only thing they really care about is that their coitus with the Eons should not be interrupted.

Home Rule for Scotland?

Home Rule for Scotland won’t happen but it will obsess English politics for two years. So we should seize the opportunity to get Devo Max for the North which has more in common with Scotland than it has with the class ridden, snoot nosed, public educated, snob ridden, slob governed, South.

ED-ITTING

Eds I and II have hit the Edline by promoting "Responsible Hair Shirt Labour" but buggered our friends and supporters.

Normal Blogging Is Resumed

Apologies for lack of blog over Xmas Season. If you noticed. Family get together. Weekend in Whitby, miserable cold weather.

Christmas Virgins

If ‘top’ business leaders like Branson make business decisions on the same kind of judgement as their claim that we’d lose millions of jobs if we don’t sit up the arse of Europe then sell your shares in Virgin quickly!

What now for Dave, Merkozy and the gang?

It’s not a good idea to use your nuclear weapon for no purpose. The Merkozy deal is a PR exercise which won’t work.

Merkozy Madness

The Merkozy plan is the Growth and Stability Pact reheated, it won’t work.