CentreRight

Quote of the day

RTS left this comment on ToryDiary:

"It will be the final irony. Smoking bans, alcohol restrictions, anti-obesity programs all to ensure we live long enough to be bullied into euthanasia."

The War of the Parties: The Earth under the Credit Crunch

[With apologies to Jeff Wayne.  Possibly the most disturbing part of this was how few words I actually needed to change...]

GORDON: Listen, do you hear them drawing near in their search for the Electorate?
Feeding on the power of our fear and the splits in the Cabinet
Incarnation of Thatcher's creation of all that we dread
When the Tories arrive those alive would be better off dead!

PETER: There must be something worth standing for
There must be something worth trying for
Even some things worth holding an Election for
And if one man can stand tall
There must be hope for us all
Somewhere, somewhere, in the mantras of New Labour

Do you realise the seriousness of Britain's economic crisis, Alex?

Hello again Alex,

A few reactions to your response.

AS: "Labour’s proactive response - the £20 billion fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing, the VAT cut – has been widely applauded. Those policies, oft-derided by the Tories, have saved jobs and helped begin the process of rebooting the economy. Even the right wing press are beginning to admit that!"

The gamble on quantitative easing - very much a Bank of England initiative - may indeed pay off but I cannot agree with you on the fiscal stimulus nor with your contention that the VAT cut has been "widely applauded".  Leading retailers from Next and Marks & Spencer said the VAT cut made little to no difference to the economy.  What it has done, of course, is leave Britain with an even bigger budget deficit.  Voters and consumers aren't stupid.  They know that the VAT cut was a temporary thing that would lead to higher taxation soon after.  The feeble recovery may get even more feeble when Labour's taxes rise.

AS: "This wasn’t big, meddling government; it was just good government, targeted government."

There was nothing targeted about the VAT cut.  It was given to consumers visiting shops where sales were already discounting by 10%, 15% and more.  Some of the more targeted initiatives have not been successful.  Grant Shapps recently exposed the failure of Brown's repossession programme.  Insured lending for corporates took far too long to be delivered.

AS: "As you point out, the line “Labour investment over Tory cuts” has troubled me for some time; it's a line more suited to 2001, 2005 or even 2008.  But in 2009, it appears deliberately deceitful and doesn’t add value to the sort of politics I subscribe to. Whatever the Labour government has done to reduce the effects of the downturn today, it is clear that we will have to pay off our debts tomorrow."

As I wrote yesterday your own candour on this issue is a refreshing contrast to your dishonest leader. 

Will Britain's contribution to the EU be reduced?

No. I'm told that Britain's contribution to the European Union will also be protected from the axe - not by choice but by necessity.  Renegotiating our contribution will either be too time consuming or impossible.  Either way it cannot be cut quickly. Britain pays about £12 billion to the EU every year and only gets about £7 billion back. Once the next Tory administration has protected the three budgets of health, aid AND Europe it will be left making even bigger cuts in all the other budgets.

My own view: No extra money for the EU until it can get its budget successfully audited.

What happens if we don't get the trampoline recovery Darling is relying on?

From the day of the Budget economists have been pointing out that the Treasury's projections are very optimistic.  Ruth Lea wrote, in a blog for the TPA: "There should be a health warning on the Chancellor’s forecast; “Do not believe.”  What we haven't had is a concrete idea of what it will mean if things don't go that well.  Today a new report for the TPA by the Centre for Economics and Business Research gives us an idea of what it will mean if the economy recovers more slowly, these are the figures:

Of course, it could be that we get the trampoline recovery that the Treasury are projecting.  Recent academic research suggests that financial crises tend to be followed by far more protracted and messy recoveries than ordinary recessions though, which doesn't bode well.

The research also looks at the consequences of attempting to fill the hole in the public finances with tax hikes.  The dynamic modelling, building on earlier CEBR work for the TPA in 2007, shows that the 50p rate will mean less growth and less employment, never raise any revenue and lead to £1.8 billion greater borrowing by 2020/21.

Some of the scenarios explored by this report are uncomfortable, for low tax campaigners like us as much as anyone.  But it is vital that we understand the scale of the crisis in the public finances so that we know the scale of the challenge we’re facing.  The last thing anyone wants is for the next government to address the public finances in a panic, pushing through clumsy spending cuts or disastrous tax hikes.

We are facing this crisis in the public finances because the Government were far too optimistic.  They increased public spending on the basis that an economy which had seen the back of "boom and bust" could afford to.  That turned out to be an expensive mistake and we're all set to pay a steep price.  British taxpayers can't afford for politicians to make the same error again.

LabourList v ConservativeHome

LabourList's Alex Smith has responded to my letter to him.  Before I respond what do you think?

Help me write the Great Repeal Bill

Some things are best left to the experts.  I wouldn't want my doctor or the engineer who designed my car making technical decisions on the basis of straw polls.  Those are best left to those with specific knowledge.

Yet would we want experts with specific knowledge deciding on the price of things in the shops?  I hope not.  It has been tried and was not a success.  We know that allowing markets to decide prices collaboratively ensures folk get what they want, at the price they're willing to pay.

So what about our laws?  Since Plato, there's been quite a debate.  Is making law something best left to elite guardians or can it be entrusted to the demos? 

A couple of days ago, I began a wikipolitics experiment to see if, in this digital age, it is possible to use the wisdom of crowds to draft legislation.

The Great Repeal Bill - an idea first mooted in The Plan: 12-months to renew Britain, which I wrote with Daniel Hannan - ought to be a good suitable subject for such an experiment.  Why?  In order to contribute you don't really need much specialist knowledge - just personal experience of overregulation.

So why don't you take part in drafting this wiki-law - the Great Repeal Bill?

It could be that the trolls take over and the experiment fails.  But when I last checked, it seemed to me as if a real draft Bill is taking shape online through collaborative thinking.

Why not join in this experiment now?  Click here to take part.

The legalising of assisted suicide

Yesterday, their Lordships made two key decisions:

- That there was a need to provide clarity concerning the conditions under which assisting a suicide might result in prosecution

- That the Human Rights Act provides us with a right to choose the manner and moment of our own deaths

My previous post on this provoked some fairly strong reactions.  I presume that with yesterday's decision and the likelihood now that Parliament will need to legislate to change the law, readers will at least recognise that my interest in the topic is not simply an extravagance.

I want in this post to respond to some of the arguments offered against my position, and to advance the discussion in a couple of ways with specific reference to assisted suicide.

First, I want to emphasize - as I did in my previous post - that I have the greatest sympathy and pity for many of those in the difficult circumstances that drive them to suicide.  But my pity for the dead is not going to save lives.  Convincing people that suicide is wrong might save many people's lives.  You should understand my case as a desperate argument, in full knowledge that I am in a small minority and that placing my head above the parapet attracts the greatest opprobrium (indeed, hatred), directed at trying to save a few people's lives.  I know you hate me for it.

The roots that clutch

I turn off from the main square, loaded with bubbling tourists, I'm like a branch cast into a stream, first rushing along with the current, now thrown down an offshoot, away from the crowd. No self-direction. I'm in a dark tunnel, where only a pinpoint of light, and what sounds like a murmuring at the far end, confirm that this is a tunnel, and not dark oblivion. Down the passage and I find another public square, smaller than Piazza Erbe, but, disconcertingly, packed with rows of silent people. They're watching a film of a Shakespeare play, projected onto the far building's wall, and they're watching it, not just with attention, they're watching it, with rapture. Since we're just two steps from Juliet's balcony, I'm glad that it's The Comedy of Errors and not you-know-what. I breathe in some communal peace before tiptoe-ing back to Erbe, and back to the hotel.

*

-- Which part of Britain is the most Victorian? I'm asked at lunch on Wednesday. Hmmm. I start to describe Glasgow, home to my alma mater, but Paolo interrupts me: -- No, not the architecture, the political culture. Well, that threw me. I was tempted to say -- Anytime that Melanchthon is posting an article to CentreRight, but I didn't. I'm now going to disagree as strongly as possible with a fellow CR contributor, without offending etiquette. I hope.

An invitation to LabourList's Alex Smith to be more honest than Gordon Brown

Dear Alex,

I'm delighted we are starting this exchange between ConservativeHome and LabourList.  If it works out I hope it will only be the first of many and thanks for letting me go first.  You never know we might even have more enlightening debates than take place between Brown and Cameron at PMQs!

We agreed that our first exchange should be about public spending and the debt crisis.

First of all I should congratulate you for being a lot more honest about the choice between the two main parties than your leader.  On 25th June you wrote: "I'm still concerned that the Party line "Labour investment over Tory cuts" is a dead end. It's a ten year old argument not valid for this recession... Instead of "Tory cuts" and "Mr 10%", Labour needs to say "yes, unfortunately we're going to have to reduce funding for some services; but we have a record of investing in the most important frontline services, and your school, your Sure Start centre, your hospital and your local comunity centre are all completely safe.""

Do you think that Brown will abandon his discredited line any time soon?  His stubborn-ness (some would say dishonesty) is a huge political advantage for the Conservatives.

Daniel Kawczynski MP: Why I am challenging the Electoral Reform Society to debate changing the voting system

By Daniel Kawczynski MP

The Electoral Reform Society is a well-funded, well-resourced and influential organisation. It seeks to change the voting system for parliamentary elections in the UK to a model of proportional representation. The favoured model of the Society is the Single Transferable Vote (STV).

The Society is making a great deal of headway in its efforts to lobby the Prime Minister on this subject.  This is a matter of real and immediate concern, and cannot be left at the mercy of back-room deals in smoke-filled rooms.

So, as Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on First Past the Post (FPTP) – the electoral system currently in place – I have been in touch with the Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society to challenge him to a public debate on electoral reform.

Such a debate is urgently needed, for there is a strong possibility that Gordon Brown, who has no personal mandate from the people of Great Britain, could use the dying months of his administration to engineer a referendum on electoral reform, to take place on the same day as the General Election.

Chris Kelly: How Conservatives are helping to rebuild lives in Srebrenica

Chris Kelly is PPC for Dudley South and is one of 30 Conservatives who have been volunteering this week as part of Project Maja, the party's social action project in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I am writing this from the hills above Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the end of day three of Project Maja, the Conservative Party's social action project organised by Baroness Warsi and her team at CCHQ.

Most participants arrived into Sarajevo airport, which only 14 years ago was the scene of fierce fighting, late afternoon on Monday. After a two and a half hour drive we were in Potacari, an industrial area where, in July 1995, more than 8,000 people were massacred.

A local widow explained what had happened to her husband at the former battery factory which was used to hold thousands of refugees whilst Dutch UN peacekeepers were present in the town. We watched a moving short film about the events of 1995 in a converted part of the factory and walked to the memorial at Potacari's mass graveyard which was opened in 2003 by Bill Clinton, US President at the time of the war. Countless white headstones glistened in the early evening sunlight.

Anti-semitism

Last week the Community Security Trust (CST) released an interim report (PDF) on anti-semitic incidents since the start of this year.  Between 1998 and 2008 there had already been a big rise in the number of incidents, their last annual report (PDF) contained this graph:

The new report reveals that this year, in just six months, there have already been 609 incidents, beating the previous annual record with only half the year gone.  Clearly the rise is connected to the conflict in Gaza but it builds on a long term trend of rising incidents and it cannot be acceptable that the security of Jews in Britain depends on an elusive peace in the Middle East.

Working at the TaxPayers' Alliance, we go along and speak at quite a few different venues, to different audiences.  Not so long ago, I spoke at a Jewish school.  The children were bright, attentive and, when they disagreed with what I was saying, a challenge.  Unfortunately, there was also the sad sight of a number of security guards lining the entrance to the school.  While it was obviously good news that they were there, it was incredibly disappointing that they had to be and really brought the reality of anti-semitism home.  It felt like such an awful failure that, in our country, a school should need that kind of security to defend the children in its charge against racist attacks.

No one wants some sense of victimhood to define the Jewish community, the CST put it well on their blog when they say that  "Antisemitism does not define the British Jewish experience and Britain is a good place to be Jewish. Our community is, generally speaking, well integrated, highly educated and relatively prosperous."   Action is urgently needed though, to fight the scourge of anti-semitism.

Why the editorial lines of newspapers really DO matter

It is sometimes said that newspaper endorsements don't matter that much.  Insofar as very few people are hugely influenced by the leading articles that appear inside newspapers that's probably true.

The editorial lines of newspapers really do matter, however, in how they affect news coverage and choices of topics/ front pages.  This devastating front page of today's Sun is a case in point:

Incidentally those Sun readers who do get to the leader column will read this powerful attack on the Defence Secretary:

"While our politicians have been using the taxpayer's hard-earned cash to pay for bath plugs, duck houses and porn movies, the Ministry of Defence was launching an appeal against an increased payout for Corp Duncan and Royal Marine Matthew McWilliams, who got £28,750 for a broken thigh.  While the Corporal was facing the enemy yesterday, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth was "on leave" at a secret destination, which you can bet was NOT Helmand Province.  Mr Ainsworth is the third man in a year to try and run the defence ministry - a department where penny-pinching bureaucrats turn a blind eye to the waste of BILLIONS on equipment that is often late and unsuitable for the job at hand. Yet the minister - who claimed almost £6,000 for redecorating his second home, charged £669 for cleaning and laundry and another £4,100 for food - wants to claw back money from heroes like Corporal Duncan and Marine McWilliams."

Andrew Mitchell MP: An update from the Project Umubano team in Sierra Leone

Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow International Development Secretary, files another update on Project Umubano.

I’ve just had an update from the Project Umubano justice team that’s based in Sierra Leone for the duration of our project.  A group of six solicitors, barristers and magistrates are taking our project across the continent and working with their local counterparts to help develop the West African country’s justice sector.  Led by David Mundell MP, they are bringing their skills, expertise and experience from previous Project Umubano work to bear.  Sierra Leone is very different from Rwanda in many respects, but as a post-conflict country it also faces a number of the same challenges with very limited human and financial resources.

The team tells me that following their initial briefings, kindly provided by the British diplomatic, development and military representatives in Freetown, the core of their work is underway and keeping them on their toes – not to mention the regular torrential downpours of Sierra Leone’s peak rainy season!

With the majority of Sierra Leone’s limited number of lawyers based in Freetown, vast swathes of Sierra Leoneans are left with severely limited access to legal help.   However, the team has come across a country-wide network of 35 paralegals – supported by a local NGO called TIMAP (loosely translated from the local language, Krio, as ‘Stand Up For Justice’), who provide legal advice and assistance to communities outside the capital. So over the fortnight the team are running a series of mediation and advocacy workshops in rural areas for these paralegals.

The team have also been planning workshops and seminars with the Bar Association and the High Court and this is going incredibly well.  Their schedule for the fortnight is filled with a range of work from advising on a bail policy for the country, through helping develop plans for a new commercial court, to improving access to legal texts and online resources for Freetown’s lawyers.

Just as Project Umubano in Rwanda is a two-way learning experience for all involved, we’re confident that the project’s extension to Sierra Leone will be the same. 

Other blogs we have posted from Rwanda: Andrew Mitchell, Alistair Burt, Nick Hurd and Robert Halfon.

A few more suggestions for the shoestring budget...

... can be found in the Obama's administration's economy drive.  Examples include a single department saving half a million dollars a year by setting photocopiers to copy onto double sided instead of single sided sheets, another saving $5 million by deleting inactive e-mail accounts, another saving over $300,000 a year by e-mailing certain documents instead of printing them, etcetera... read the whole thing here.

Finkelstein is talking from the past - Spending must be cut now

Andrew Lilico is Policy Exchange's Chief Economist.

In this morning’s Times, Daniel Finkelstein continues a theme he has pursued in a recent series of exchanges with Tim Montgomerie.  He argues that public services reform will deliver savings, but that such savings take time to emerge.  He cites the example of changes to the retirement age for women, introduced in 1995 but only now yielding savings.

The implication, in his view, is that the proper procedure will be:

• Raise taxes to address the deficit problem
• Reform public services
• Down the line, public service reforms will yield spending reductions
• Since spending has been reduced, taxes can then be reduced as well

I believe that this is a point of view that does not properly recognise how much the world has changed since 2007/8.  Then, we were spending around 41% of GDP.  This was up from 36% in 1999 and the discussion was about how we had allowed spending to rise too fast during a boom period, “not fixed the roof whilst the sun was shining”, and spent a great deal of extra money on public services without reforming them with the predictable result that productivity returns in the public services were very poor.

Pi**ed off with David Cameron

I know the usual Cameroonians will moan at me for this post but it is not acceptable for a leader of the Conservative party to use street language in broadcast interviews. I'm talking about this. Does Cameron talk like that in front of his children? David Hughes of the Daily Telegraph agrees with me.

Spirits crushed and spirits restored

Last night I saw one of the worst films I have ever seen.  It wasn't because it was bad. Far from it. In fact the story was accurate, the acting too real and the scenery entirely on location.

So, what was the matter?

I say it was one of the worst because the story was a tale of profound human misery - of man's inhumanity to man.

This film was called Shooting Dogs - about a particular and desperate episode, during the Rwandan genocide, when thousands of Tutsis were massacred at famous school in Kigali known as L'Ecole Technique Officielle.

I happen to know this school, having visited the buildings and walked around the classrooms.  I have seen the markings of Machetes on nearby trees.  The trunks were used for weapon sharpening, before the Interahamwe (the extremist Hutu Militia) went into into the school to slaughter the Tutsi innocents.

So I knew the backdrop to this film and I was aware of what had happened.

A depressing list

On ToryDiary 'Mikey' has left this comment that I thought deserved wider attention.

"Although I hate Heffer's style here's why I fear he might be right:

CAMERON'S TRACK RECORD

1, Accepting the climate change consensus.

2, Opposing grammar schools.

3, Accepting 50p tax.

4, Declining to say he'll reverse Lisbon.

5, Cutting defence spending but increasing NHS spending.

6, Forcing Catholic adoption agencies to accept homosexuality (I'm gay btw but support freedom of association).

7, Backing extra state funding of political parties.

8, Making air travel too expensive for poor families.

9, Supporting positive discrimination for women and ethnic minorities.

10, Backing for shooting galleries for drug addicts.

11, Cuddling up to Obama while shunning Bush.

12, Opposition to nuclear power stations.

13, Dumping of the Patient Passport.

14, Silence on immigration.

Enough for now."

Andrew Mitchell MP: Reporting back on my meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame

Posted by Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow International Development Secretary, from Rwanda, where he is leading Project Umubano. Andrew also posted here last week, whilst we have also featured contributions from Alistair Burt and Nick Hurd in Rwanda.

We jump into our minibus and head to the President’s residence for a meeting with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. We all take our seats in the circular-shaped Cabinet table, and wait for the President to arrive. This is an important opportunity to present our project formally to the Government of Rwanda, and to discuss wider issues affecting Rwanda and the Great Lakes region.

After the introductions and formalities, some of our volunteers say a few words each about the different development projects they are working on. Alistair Burt MP outlines his work with the Rwandan Football Association, which involves developing the skills of local coaches and bringing practice matches, footballs and kit to children around the country.  Damian Hinds, our Parliamentary candidate for East Hampshire, describes the work our lawyers are doing with the Institute of Legal Practice and development and the Rwandan Ministry of Justice.

Another volunteer describes the work of our four doctors and two nurses, who are working in a number of remote rural healthcare centres to treat patients and train Rwandan health workers. He explains that some of the main health challenges they face include muscoskeletal problems, malaria and malnutrition. A vibrant private sector is vital for development, and Anthony Coombs, a former Conservative MP, Chairman of a FTSE company, and one of our business gurus, sets out the work that our private sector volunteers are doing to help train the next generation of Rwandan entrepreneurs and business people.

The 50p rate will mean fewer entrepreneurs and fewer jobs

At the TPA, we've just released a new report that I've co-authored with Jonathan M. Scott, a Teaching Fellow at Queen's University Belfast and blogger.  Tax and Entrepreneurship looks at the relationship between the tax system and people's decision to start a new firm.  It points out that in order for the risks association with starting a new firm to be financially worthwhile, there need to be rich rewards if things go well.  Often, those rewards will go beyond someone's immediate needs and be saved and then passed on to children, it's no accident that Theo Paphitis on Dragon's Den refers to the money he invests as "my children's inheritance."

Unfortunately, that gets taxed heavily and repeatedly.  The money is taxed when it is earned, when it is saved and invested in a company and then again when it is passed on to children - even before it is spent.  That adds up to a total top marginal tax rate of 90% even with the current income tax regime and a top rate of 40p.  Throw the new 50p top rate into the mix and you're talking about a top marginal tax rate of a massive 92%.  20% of the amount people are left with right now will be taken away with the introduction of the new top rate.  That is a massive burden and will reduce the incentives to start a new firm.

That means that the 50p rate shouldn't just concern the rich.  The vast majority of new jobs are created by new firms, particularly the high growth "gazelles".  If we see fewer of those firms thanks to the new 50p rate then more people losing their jobs now thanks to the recession will have to wait longer to find work again.

Hansard since 1950 now online - read Lady Thatcher's maiden speech, etc

I might not be the first to point this out, but Parliament now has Hansard available online from, it seems, 1950 onwards. As ever, TheyWorkForYou.com provides a much-improved search engine. The first searchable Winston Churchill speech is him welcoming the Speaker to the chair in 1950 after the General Election of that year.  

Margaret Thatcher was first elected in 1959, and I knew she had introduced a private member's bill to make Local Council meetings open to the public. What I didn't know was that her maiden speech was the one introducing the Bill! This is really remarkable - both events are quite nerve-inducing, the maiden speech and introducing a private member's bill, but to do both at once is really quite something! Characteristically, she wastes little time with the conventions of the House, where maiden speeches are traidtionally uncontroversial, praise one's predecessor and talk about the constituency. Here is how her speech starts:

Mrs Margaret Thatcher (Finchley)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is a maiden speech, but I know that the constituency of Finchley which I have the honour to represent would not wish me to do other than come straight to the point and address myself to the matter before the House.

and then she is straight into the Bill!

Plastic baggage

I've written before about the hot topic of plastic bags in supermarkets.  Andrew Lilico has sung their praises on here too.  Anyway, here is a great article about the plastic bag ban, from an Australian perspective.  Here's a flavour of it:

The Productivity Commission did a cost-benefit analysis in 2006 on the merits or otherwise of plastic bags, and found they comprise just 2 per cent of litter and it was not certain if they damaged animals.

The commission claimed plastic bags may be eco-friendly in solid landfill, because of their "stabilising qualities, leachate minimisation and minimising [of] greenhouse-gas emissions".

Three-quarters of us recycle the bags as bin-liners, pooper-scoopers or carry bags, thus confining stuff that might otherwise become litter.

But, as usual, green hysteria obscures the truth. For instance, Planet Ark 's founder, Jon Dee, was quoted in 2006 saying he had been "inundated" with calls from farmers whose calves had died after swallowing plastic bags. But the National Farmers Federation has never heard of such a thing, a spokesman said yesterday. Nor has the Cattle Council of Australia had a single report.

A 2002 Newfoundland study of 100,000 marine animals killed each year, which is widely cited by green groups as proof of the evils of plastic bags, turns out to have been wildly misquoted. The deaths were actually attributed to fishing nets. So ban fishing nets.

And since cigarette butts comprise almost half of Clean Up Australia's rubbish collections, why not ban cigarettes instead of plastic bags? Unlike bags, fags are not useful, and there would be the long-term benefit of improved health.

In an attempt to fend off draconian bans, retailers have been getting stingy with plastic bags and making bucketloads on green imported Chinese faux-enviro-bags. We can live with that, but what is intolerable is the fact that so many plastic bags have become so flimsy they are next to useless for anything heavier than a Paddlepop.

Why come to Rwanda and coach soccer?

Alistair Burt MP, avid Man Utd supporter, is the latest reporter from Rwanda.  Previous blogs have been submitted by Nick Hurd MP and Andrew Mitchell MP.

Rwanda loves its football. European games are watched avidly, and there is a thriving national league. National facilities have been much improved by Fifa, but my experience of two years ago was that at grass roots level the twenty seven soccer centres around the country lacked the most basic facilities available to boys and girls in the UK. It is here that our work is targeted.

With the support of the Rwandan FA, Football Umubano is delivering a high quality coaching package to assist coaching for thousands of children here. Thirty two coaches of young footballers from all over the country have been brought to Kigali for a week’s course being run by our FA, which has generously partnered us, and delivered by the National Grass Roots Director of Coaching Les Howie. For a week, these coaches work every day, firstly in the classroom, followed by time out on the pitch amongst themselves. Then, after a break for lunch and the midday heat, we are out on the pitch again for a couple of hours with nearly a hundred youngsters from Kigali. The coaches deliver the new training games and ideas Les has given them, carefully packing away his expertise to take home.