Nice Work If You Can Get it...

This is just taking the piss...

Mr Entwistle, who resigned on Saturday night after just 54 days in the job, leaves with a £450,000 lump sum on top of his £877,000 pension pot, which was described as “unjustifiable and unacceptable” by one MP.

The BBC Trust said Mr Entwistle had been given a year’s salary, which amounts to £8,333 for every day he spent as director-general, to “reflect the fact that he will continue to help the BBC business” by giving evidence to a series of inquiries into the Jimmy Savile affair and “to effect a speedy resolution and allow the BBC to move on”.

Autonomous Mind makes a similar point but expressed more eloquently than me

Stealing 'Our' Votes?

One thing you encounter pretty quickly as a UKIP candidate, either in local or national elections, are arrogant accusations from the Tory party that "we're stealing their votes" or letting pro-EU candidates in like Lib Dems or Labour.

Both accusations are obviously completely false. There are no such things as 'Tory votes' which get stolen; they are votes which belong to the electorate - you earn them or else. It reminds me of this quip by American Republican Scott Brown - 'it's the people's seat, not Ted Kennedy's seat'

That somehow the Tories are any different to Labour or the Lib Dems when it comes to the EU is an argument that has been well rehearsed on here many times.

Yet still the same excuses keep on coming in defeat:

A LEADING Conservative councillor has accused the UK Independence Party (UKIP) of costing his party victory in a by-election.

Leader of the Royal Borough, Cllr David Burbage, made the remarks following a narrow win for Liberal Democrat Cllr Simon Werner in the Pinkneys Green by-election held on Thursday last week.

Cllr Werner beat Conservative candidate Catherine Hollingsworth to the seat by eight votes- 839 to 831 - with UKIP candidate George Chamberlaine finishing third with 152 votes.

Cllr Burbage said: "It is unfortunate that, largely thanks to UKIP, the residents of Pinkneys Green have missed out from electing a very effective councillor in Catherine Hollingsworth. The last thing that people who voted UKIP would have wanted would be a boost to the pro-EU Lib Dems."

UKIP Cllr Tom Bursnall said: "We have made it very clear we wanted to have a strong alliance locally. This has not happened so they shouldn't be surprised if UKIP stands as its own party locally. A partnership might have led to something like this not happening."

This is not a unique experience to UKIP, just symptomatic of an arrogant disdain for us as a whole. Even as power drains continuously away from the Tories, it's a case of "we deserve to govern", fingers in ears and "la la la we can't hear you"

Their priorities lie elsewhere.

hattip: Bloggers4Ukip

We Will Remember Them

Today is the time to remember all those who have given their lives for peace and freedom. A day to pause to reflect on the sacrifices made by our brave service men and women with services and laying of wreaths at the foot of memorials erected in villages, towns and cities across our nation.

Behind the names on memorials are stories of heroism and courage that is left unsaid by the cold pragmatism of a simple name engraved.

However away from town squares, war memorials can be found in the most unlikely of places. Shown above is one such memorial in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, which is tucked away on an anonymous housing estate - well away from the busy town centre - that I pass every day on the way to work. A tale of self sacrifice and courage that is one of many which we should remember today.

The inscription speaks for itself (click to enlarge):

All Publicity Is Good Publicity?

Thanks to a comment on a previous post, alerting me to the appearance of Nigel Farage as a guest on last night's HIGNFY, I made the effort to watch, something I've been reluctant to do since the first episode this series.

Doubts were made at the time about how wise that would be and as it turns out not entirely without foundation.

Forgotten Victims...Again

On one level it's tempting to indulge in yet more schadenfreude as the BBC gets itself into a right pickle over its latest Newsnight allegations, as the fallout from the Savile scandal continues. But it's gone past that. Given that News of the World was closed on the back of hacking Hugh Grant's voicemail one wonders how much more serious it has to get before it's decided that the BBC is not fit for purpose?

When Labour MP Tom Watson raised his question at PMQs over concerns (rightly) that there has been a cover up on a previous abuse scandal, he must have known (probably deliberately) that it would over-excite many of a certain political persuasion. And so it's proved. What has followed has been ill-disguised form of gleeful Tory bashing - desperate to label the Tories as the party of paedophiles - including the likes of the Speaker's wife Sally Bercow and Guardian journalist George Monbiot. Amid all the mea culpa, undoubtedly some will be basking in the warm glow of 'mud sticks'.

Amidst all this are the victims, many who have remained quiet for years for fears of not being believed. They deserve due process and (hopefully) justice or at the very least their voices to be heard. Instead the serious nature of the offences is reduced to the level of tittle tattle on a television programme where basic 'research' involves plucking random names off the internet with which to ask the country's PM (Although one has to ask what the First Lord of the Treasury was doing on such a programme anyway).

Those of certain political leanings often put their hatred of the Tories over and above the welfare of others, or indeed the country, so it shouldn't be a surprise, but it's still pretty nauseating stuff.

Update: Looks like Tom Watson has pulled his site.

The EU Is On Strike

No, really:

BRUSSELS - Around nine in 10 EU Council staff and one in 10 European Commission officials went on strike on Thursday (8 November) in protest at proposed pay cuts.

Trade unions estimate that between 500 to 1,000 workers met outside the commission's main building in the EU quarter in Brussels to hear speeches and wave placards.

The EU court and commission offices in Luxembourg were also affected. Commission research facilities in Petten, in the Netherlands, and in Ispra, Italy, were involved as well.

The Council did almost no work as a result.

Oh dear, what a shame. This comes under the category of 'make your own jokes'.

Deserving Better

It's Remembrance Sunday this weekend so undoubtedly, and rightly so, will be numerous articles on the many reasons why we should remember them.

An example being this article in Daily Mail showing Pathe footage from WW1 of soldiers suffering from the disturbing effects of shell shock.

What a shame it is then that the Daily Mail couldn't do the footage proper justice with a decent original piece rather than lazily copying and pasting large chunks of it from a BBC article in 2004

Separation Of Powers

Witterings from Witney makes an excellent point about the difference (or lack of) between the antics of Nadine Dorries and the position of David Cameron as an MP and Prime Minister (one minor difference is those in Witney knew what they were getting, but Dorries' constituents didn't expect her to swan off for a month on taxpayers' money - however the wider point remains).

So because WfW's MP also happens to be the Prime Minister in effect it leaves him disenfranchised not much different de facto to those of Mid Bedfordshire:

In the context of the question it is necessary to repeat a question that I have posed, as one of his constituents, to David Cameron; namely how can he, as my Member of Parliament, represent me against what I consider an injustice as a result of government policy when he is the Government and who actually decides government policy? This question should be put by every constituent whose Member of Parliament accepts ministerial or PPS office.

This conflict of interest between trying to represent your constituents on matters that maybe against government policy are obvious and a situation which WfW has rightly railed against for years. This also applies to residents of Buckingham with regard to the Speaker and those whose MPs are ministers or part of the government in any capacity such as mine - Ed Vaizey.

As I've noted on my blog before what we have is a 'fusion of powers' between the legislative and executive. This is most symbolically evident on the green benches, where part of the legislative sits with the government and opposite sits the rest of the legislative; the green benches usually split along tribal party lines. So instead of accountability via legislative vs executive, we have instead some legislative and executive vs the rest of the legislative. Accountability of the government is diminished as a result.

This lack of separation is in part why Cameron was so keen to reduce the number of MPs. Cynically tapping into public anger over MPs expenses, what Cameron was in effect doing was proposing to tip the balance of power towards himself - the Executive. By reducing MPs he reduces the number of backbench MPs who are supposed to scrutinise the government - thus making government legislation much easier to pass because of fewer rebels.

The current situation is not fit for purpose, therefore a proper separation of powers is a must, and the only way to achieve that is a directly elected Prime Minister as per the Harrogate Agenda.

Unintended Consquences

One is struck by the irony that the British cyclist Bradley Wiggins has been knocked off his bike, thankfully his injuries are not severe and he should make a full recovery.

It looks obvious, although the details have not yet been fully established, that it's been a simple accident, but one where the woman van driver didn't see the cyclist in question - and one that will probably be established as being her fault. It's reported that the woman is naturally shook up and undoubtedly now will be subject to her personal details being splashed across our papers tomorrow.

In response, with world weary anger, undoubtedly cycling and motorbike organisations will point to SMIDSY (Sorry Mate I Didn't See You) syndrome, not without some justification. Conversely many complaints will be made by motorists against the behaviour of cyclists and motorbikes for disregarding the rules of the road (though in Wiggins' case probably highly unlikely), equally not without some justification. Thus will begin ultimately a fruitless war of words.

However, there is one element that in my view is often largely overlooked in these cases but a contributory factor. As cars have evolved and progressed much emphasis has been on safety for its occupants: air-bags, ABS brakes. traction control and so on. They have also been designed to be much safer for their occupants in terms of a rigid passenger cell, all a process rated by the Euro NCAP system. Safety, particularly the top rated Euro NCAP 5, sells as it does for the car I drive and it is one that possibly saved my life - if not a serious injury - 2 years ago, when I was able to open the door and walk away with nothing more than a bruise on my leg. Obviously I'm hugely thankful.

But there's a price to pay. To make a rigid passenger cell requires much thicker door frames, particularly the 'A-frame' between the windscreen and the door. As a result in my car to earn its safety ranking the blind spots are horrendous: it's not just pedestrians and cyclists but whole cars 'disappear'. Roundabouts are turned into Russian Roulette as the ability to see off starboard bow becomes non existent - other road users become invisible. In addition by reversing the car forget seeing a cyclist, child or pedestrian, just making out an elephant would be a challenge.

Thus lies the dilemma - by making the car safer for its occupants it in return makes it less safer for other road users, perhaps we need look at more what we mean by safety. So while I appreciate the case for SMIDSY, for car drivers it has increasingly become more of a case of SMICSABT (Sorry Mate I Can't See A Bloody Thing).

She Does What She Wants

The Sun reports today that:

FEISTY Tory Nadine Dorries is about to upset David Cameron AND her constituents — by going on I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here.

The £65,738-a-year MP, who dubbed the PM and Chancellor George Osborne “arrogant posh boys”, will spend the best part of a MONTH in the Aussie jungle.

Sources say the Mid Bedfordshire MP will be paid “a maximum of £40,000”.

Undoubtedly much anger will be directed her way in light of this decision, and not without good reason:

By TOM NEWTON DUNN, Political Editor
MAD Nad has a whole lot of questions to answer today, because she has sparked a serious democratic problem.

Besides missing the December 5 mini budget, who will represent her constituents for a month now she has flounced off to the other side of the world? Dorries has also prompted questions for her boss David Cameron. Did he give her permission? If not, can he really allow her to keep the Tory whip?

A serious democratic problem? Well yes quite, but what are we going to do about it? Angry words, tweets and comments in newspaper articles are all very well and good...but they won't stop Nadine going, they won't kick her out of her seat and they won't stop her getting paid. What we need is a solution...and thankfully we have one: the Harrogate Agenda. If implemented we could stop it.