JOBS FOR THE BOYS.

I read that the Government has named former Conservative Cabinet Minister and Party Chairman, and Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, as its preferred candidate for the soon to be vacant post of Chairman of the BBC Trust.

Talk about 'jobs for the boys' ! What possibly qualifies Patten for this job which, no doubt, pays an exorbitant salary ? If Patten is appointed, this would be a blatantly political appointment and would confirm this Government as being every bit as corrupt and self-serving as its predecessor. Surely there are other, far better qualified, candidates who do not have the same political baggage. Patten has never had a 'real' job. After leaving Oxford (!) he joined the Conservative Party Research Department in 1966, aged 22, and continued to work for the Party in one capacity or another until he lost his Parliamentary set in 1992; after that, he emerged as Governor of Hong Kong (a Government appointment), a post he held until 1997. Since then, he's had a number of other political roles, including European Commissioner, but what has he ever done in the world that mere mortals inhabit ?

Presumably, "Lord Patten", has already renounced his membership of the Conservative Party in readiness for this appointment. Nonetheless, is it really right that a person with such an overtly political background should be appointed to such a post ? Is it right that someone with no serious experience of broadcasting should be appointed ?

I think not.

CAMERON GETS IT WRONG AGAIN.

Everyone seems to be berating the Government for its supposed slow response to the situation in Libya, however, I have a slightly different view on the subject.

A relative handful of British citizens have found themselves in potential danger in a foreign country but I suspect that many of these people are there as employees of oil companies and are earning large, tax-free salaries in an industry literally awash with cash. They have chosen to live and work in a country ruled over by a vicious dictator for their own pecuniary advantage. How many of them pay UK tax ?

It should not be the responsibility of the UK government to rescue these people; it is the responsibility of themselves and their employers. If anyone should be criticised for responding slowly and inadequately to the deteriorating situation, it is the companies. Of course, our government is responsible for its own employees and has a responsibility for other British citizens who may be there for other reasons, but we should never forget that we are all responsible for our own choices. If a bad choice leads to a bad situation, that is our own fault, no one else's. We cannot expect the cavalry to come charging over the hill whenever danger threatens.

David Cameron's knee-jerk apology today is a huge insult and slap in the face for William Hague, a far more competent politician, and Mr Hague must surely now be 'considering his position'. If it was I, that consideration would already have occurred; I'd have packed my bags and said goodbye to 'Dave' and all his works.

TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING ?

I never cease to be amazed by the capacity of our Government to propose changes that are neither wanted nor required.

Apparently, we are to be graced with a 'tourism strategy' which will include a plan to adjust clocks in the UK to the same time as in a large part of Europe. This will produce darker mornings and lighter evenings, and is supported by the tourism industry and so-called 'safety campaigners'. The Scots, however, are not convinced, but 'Dave' is reported to be in favour.

The questions that arise from this idea are legion. Given that the tourism industry does not actually have a role in electing our Government, why should said Government take any notice of them ? Regarding, 'safety campaigners' who are undoubtedly a nebulous band of do-gooders with no right to speak for the majority, the Government has no business treating their pleadings any more favourably than those of any others.

Why should our Government change our clocks to match those of other European states ? Britain is the centre of world time keeping, with the international meridian set at Greenwich; what lunacy would it be to deny our own heritage ? 'Safety campaigners' claim that the proposed change would reduce road accidents; how ? Darker mornings, when people are generally more sleepy and less alert, will surely lead to more accidents, not less. In the far north, mornings will still be dark at a time when people are well on their way to work, even in summer.

Lighter evenings will cause people difficulty in getting to sleep and there will be more disturbance in the streets; there will be more drunkenness. More people will stay up too late and not be fit for work the next day; there will be more absenteeism. Those who want this change will not admit this, but then why would they ? They've decided what they want and that's that.

Are people not able to arise at a sensible hour and adjust their behaviour to the natural clock ? What idiocy is it for Government to try to meddle with a natural feature of our lives in this way ? What is to stop people, and business, from adjusting their working hours according to the time of the year, without needing to change the clock ?

Doesn't the Government have more important things to occupy itself with, or is this a useful diversionary issue ? Whatever the reasons for this stupid proposal, it should be kicked into the long grass forthwith.

EURO-LUNACY.

What a relief ! It seems that the European General Court - no, I hadn't heard of that one either - has ruled that it's acceptable for the UK Government to designate certain sporting events as too significant to only be on Pay-TV. This means that the football European and World championships will be available on free-to-air television services.

Pardon me, but can anyone explain what a UK Government decision about what is on UK television channels has to do with ANY European court ? What on earth is going on ?

WHAT A PICKLES !

Eric Pickles, the thinking man's John Prescott, apparently wants to introduce measures to control the pay of local council officials. No doubt similar measures to control the pay of other public sector employees, where they haven't already been introduced, will follow. This purely populist approach is imbecilic in the extreme.

What netherworld do Pickles and his idiot socialist-orientated pals inhabit ? The pay of even the most senior public sector officials is a tiny fraction of the pay of very many in similar positions in the private sector. The Government wants the public sector to be more like the private sector in terms of innovation and eficiency but, it seems, is unwilling to pay for the skills required to achieve this. In order to attract the most talented managers, you have to pay market rates; if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. It may seem to many that salaries of £100,000 and more are vast and can't possibly be justified; the truth is that, in the private sector, such salaries are far from uncommon as can be seen from the enormous salaries paid to many lawyers, accountants, bankers, corporate managers etc.

If you want Chief Executives and Finance Directors who can really do the job, you have to pay a going rate, and if you don't do this you will never get managers of the required ability. The silly pronouncements of this Government in this respect are a sop to the increasingly left-leaning attitudes put forward by all our main political parties. Mr Pickles is a fool.

BIG SOCIETY ..... BIG CON.

David Cameron's catch-phrase of the 'Big Society' is again in the news and the main talking points seem to be simple - what on earth does it mean and what is it meant to achieve ?

In truth, I don't think anyone outside of the political elite can answer either question, as the whole idea is a political construct designed to divert attention from other things. However, in my view, a) the phrase, itself, is so vague as to be meaningless and b) it's about encouraging ordinary people to add to their already busy and stressed lives by taking on a variety of tasks previously undertaken by Government.

Years ago, when there was very little in the way of social support from the State, most local services were run by local people; philanthropists gave money to local causes and people helped themselves and each other as needs arose. Over a period of time, the Government took on more and more of these responsibilities and raised ever-increasing amounts of tax to pay for them, until we eventualy arrived at the position today. Now, the Government, in its desperate search for savings, has decided to try to return to the situation of decades ago but without returning any of the resources that it has stolen from its citizens in the intervening period. At the same time it is taking measures that will cost many thousands of people their livelihoods, and will increase the workload on others quite dramatically.

The basic idea is a good one; Government should not be involved in our lives in the intrusive and all-invasive manner that it has in recent years, but the quid pro quo has to be that money, and a lot of it, is handed back to the people through reduced taxation. The problem that arises is that the Government is already so over-committed financially that it can't give any money back, in fact it needs more, even with all the cuts.

Thanks to Governments of the last 60 or more years, and particularly thanks to 13 years of Labour Government from 1997, the financial state of our country is dire. We have been living so far beyond our resources for so long that the only answer is a massive retrenchment, the result of which will be that the majority of us are going to experience a huge reduction in our living standards in the coming years.

The 'Big Society' is Cameron's way of trying to con us into accepting all of this through a sudden wave of mass benevolence and altruism that makes us forget how poor we are all becoming. While he and his rich mates sit in Westminster, and elsewhere, assuring us that they understand our pain and difficulties, the rest of us will be working 60 and 80 hours a week for half the pay we get now, and then doing 'good works' in our spare time as well, all buoyed up by the knowledge that we're doing good and supporting the 'Big Society'. Get real, Dave, and stop treating the population like morons. That way lies bloody revolution.

MIDDLE CLASSES ARE NOT STUPID.

I see that Ken Clarke, the cuddly face of the Tory Party, has decided to point out to the 'middles classes' that they have yet to feel the true horror of the Government's spending cuts and other measures designed to address the calamitous state of the nation's finances.

He is, of course, quite right that the full weight of the cuts and tax rises has yet to strike home, however, to suggest that the nebulous 'middle classes' don't understand this is to be condescending in the extreme. Anyone with any claim to be 'middles class' already knows that VAT has gone up, petrol prices are increasing daily, their pay is being frozen and that their tax burden will rise exponentially. They already know that their child benefit and tax credits are due to be reduced, and whatever savings they have are not only returning nothing but are also been eroded by inflation at an ever-increasing rate.

Which parts of this scenario does Mr Clarke think people aren't aware of ? I fully accept that some, perhaps many, people have tried not to think about the horrors ahead and some may not quite understand the impact they will feel themselves, but that is not the same as 'the middles classes' not grasping the full scale of the problem. I have little doubt that many are already contemplating less exotic holidays, have already decided

not to replace that oldish car, won't be sending little Jimmy to private school after all, etc etc. 

The 'middle classes' are bearing most of the effect of the profligacy of the previous Government, having profited very little from it in the first place. Before long, we will have only 2 classes in this country, the rich ruling class and the rest of us, all poor as church mice, and that's when the trouble will really start.

MPs RIGHT BUT POWERLESS.

MPs have reportedly voted overwhelmingly, by a majority of 212, against the proposal to give prisoners the right to vote in elections. This rejection is, apparently, not binding on the Government but will add to the pressure on it.

As well as the sheer lunacy of the proposal in the first place, and the fact that our supposedly sovereign Government us being told by a foreign court how it must behave, it is also quite shocking to realise that a vote of British MPs in the British Parliament cannot legally over-rule a judgement by a disparate group of European judges.

What has happened to our sovereignty ? If anyone wants a reason for this country to distance itself from the European project, this is surely it. Let us start arranging the divorce without further delay and begin with the nonsense of this European Human Rights Court..

BERCOW HAS TO ACT.

For hundreds of years, the position of Speaker of the House of Commons has been one of enormous significance and stature. He currently stands, in order of precedence, as the most senior citizen after members of the Royal Family, the six highest ranking church leaders in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Lord President of the Council. He is, in short, someone who should set an example to the rest of us.

The current Speaker, John Bercow, was elected in somewhat controversial circumstances and created more upset when he dispensed with all the traditional trappings of the post. His performance in the House of Commons has caused a degree of unhappiness among some of its members and there have been rumblings about attempting to force him out of office.

To add to his unpopularity, Mr Bercow's wife, Sally, seems to be using her new-found position as a means to promote herself and to further her own political ambitions. Her recent appearance on the front page of a national newspaper, wrapped only in a sheet, shows an appalling disrespect for the position her husband holds and surely also raises the most severe questions about his own judgement and outlook. Never before has a Speaker's wife behaved in this way and for him to do nothing about it is unacceptable.

Mr Speaker Bercow has a choice. He must either set about controlling his wife's behaviour, which seems unlikely, or he must resign. If he does neither, the damage to the standing of this high office may be irreparable.

VOTES FOR PRISONERS IS CRIMINAL.

This morning, I heard part of William Haig's interview with Andrew Marr on BBC television. One issue they discussed was the question of votes for prisoners which it seems that most sane people consider to be ludicrous.

Our Government recently created a shiny new 'Supreme Court' to replace the judicial functions of the House of Lords, but it appears that this court is anything but supreme. The story is that Britain signed up to the 'European Convention on Human Rights' in 1950, which established a 'European Court of Human Rights', effective from September 1953; much more recently, in 1998, substantial changes to the operation of the Convention were introduced which dramatically increased the powers of the Court. Given that most of the convention is drafted in fairly general terms, most cases brought before the Court are determined according to the interpretation that the members of the Court put on the relevant articles of the Convention and the Court is, therefore, acting as a law maker rather than as a law enforcer. Our 'Supreme Court' has no power whatsoever to challenge the decisions of the European Court and is, essentially, subservient to it.

What is particularly concerning is that, in this era of 'social awareness' and 'caring', the interpretations of the members of the Court take no account of what the original signatories to the Convention envisaged and, instead, apply their own moral views to the issues before them. In the case of whether or not prisoners should have the vote, it is blindingly obvious to any rational person that anyone who has infringed the law to such an extent as to warrant incarceration has also foregone their 'human rights' beyond anything but those of a very basic nature. Giving prisoners the vote is anathema to most people in this country and our Government should tell the European Court to get lost. Hopefully, enough Members of Parliament will vote against the proposal to make it clear that this is their only option and they will then have to look for alternative courses of action.

BRITISH OR NOT - THERE IS NO IN-BETWEEN.

So Dave has decided that 'multiculturalism' has failed. Leaving aside the question of what 'multiculturalism' is meant to be, it's good to know that Dave has now come to the same conclusion that most of the population of the UK came to years ago.

I really don't care what people do in their private lives and if they want to indulge in cultural activities from other places, that fine. What I don't accept is people living in this country without accepting the values of this country; this is the issue that Norman Tebbit was so reviled for when he referred to immigrants not supporting the England cricket team. At the time, political correctness required that Tebbit was wrong though he was clearly right.

Immigrants to Britain must accept our values and mores. They must accept that they no longer have the right to live as they did in whatever country they came from. Immigrants who are granted British citizenship, and all second generation immigrants, must see themselves as British, not as Pakistani, Indian, Greek, Australian, Chinese or anything else. They must learn our language and the nonsense of having to provide special help for hordes of immigrants who have made no attempt to learn English must end. We cannot have a state in which mutiple groupings set up enclaves in which they try to recreate their countries of distant origin and carry on as if they were still there.

Britain has one Community, not many; there is no Pakistani or Greek community, nor any other. The sooner our leaders truly ackknowledge and act upon this fact, the better.

DEMOCRACY IS NOT FOR ALL.

The recent troubles in Tunisia and now Egypt are a matter of concern for us all, not least because relatively stable, if autocratic, governments may well be replaced by ones far less friendly to the western world.

Western governments seem to be welcoming the events and lauding the moves towards more democratic leadership in these countries. Have they learnt nothing from passed history ? Not that many years ago, the Shah's overthrow was welcomed as was the demise of the 'illegal' Smith regime in Rhodesia. Various other dictatorships have gone the same way, and many have been replaced by even more brutal tyrants; few can be considered friends of the west. Today, South Africa is rapidly moving towards the brink, as the power hungry factions vie for totalitarian control under the mask of 'democracy'.

Western politicians seems incapable of understanding, or unwilling to accept, that the 'one size fits all' approach cannot be applied to models of government. Democracy, or the sham that we in this country refer to as democracy, is not necessarily a model than can or should be followed by less developed nations. It may well be that benign dictatorship is the best form of government for third world countries; it doesn't seem to have done Britain much harm in the past.

While we should not condone the actions of Mubarak and his ilk, we should also recognize that whoever replaces him is unlikely to be that much different in the long term and may be substantially worse. The nature of the beast cannot be denied.

QUEENSLAND BATTENS DOWN THE HATCHES.

The people of Australia, in particular Queensland and Victoria, seem to have upset someone important. The shocking flooding that's affected them in the last few weeks makes the minor weather problems experienced in this country of late pale into insignificance.

Now, as if catastrophic floods aren't enough, Queensland is now experiencing a category five storm, the most powerful to ever hit the state. Winds of nearly 200 mph are forecast, something unimaginable to we Britishers, and enormous damaged has already been done; buildings are being destroyed and tens of thousands of people have already been seriously affected.

Remembering our 'Great Storm' of 1987, I recall the damage caused by something far less powerful and I can only hope that Queenslanders have heeded the warnings issued to them and taken all proper precautions to safeguard their lives.