CentreRight

Spot the £80,000 difference

The Foreign Office has hardly shrouded itself in glory today.

The front pages of both the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph carry details of the offensive FCO memo preparing for September's Papal visit, suggesting that the Pope might like to find time to open an abortion clinic, officiate at a civil ceremony for a gay couple and launch his own brand of condoms while he is in Britain.

Elsewhere in the Mail on Sunday is news of a rebranding of the FCO logo, as the two images below show:

All that appears to have happened is a change in the font - to one called Frutiger.

As the Mail explains:

"A glossy brochure which accompanies the rebrand claims that the new identity – featuring the Royal Crest and a new typeface for the words ‘Foreign & Commonwealth Office’ – will ‘subtly represent the ‘‘Power to influence”’. The new FCO brand came into effect last month with all embassies and other posts around the world issued with a ‘brand tool kit’ including a lists of do’s and don’ts on how to use the new logo... According to the FCO, its new brand represents six words: ‘Empowering, Insightful, Principled, Persuasive, Strategic and Intelligent’."

And the cost to the taxpayer? A mere £80,000. Truly unbelievable.

Methinks a change of management is more important than a rebrand...

Parliamentary and presidential systems

Constitutional systems have all kinds of titles for the individual with key operational Executive power - Chairman, Prime Minister, King, President, General, Emperor, and so on.  And many systems have another individual, without operational power but with the power to intervene in special circumstances.  Confusingly, the titles chosen for this individual (King, President, Emperor, Supreme Leader) often overlap with those chosen in other systems for the operational Executive.

Nonetheless, a really key distinction in broadly democratic systems is this: is the individual with key operational Executive power directly elected or not?  When that individual is directly elected, we typically describe the system as "Presidential".  Presidential systems operate in France and the US, amongst others.  When that individual is not directly elected but is, instead, chosen by and dependent on the continuous support of a number of elected representatives, we typically describe the system as "Parliamentary".  Germany has a Parliamentary system, in this sense.  Up until now, so has the UK.

In the modern era, most Prime Ministers have been selected by the governing Party without going to the Electorate.  For example, if we consider the past five Prime Ministers, three - Callaghan, Major, Brown - have been chosen in this way.  Only two of the past five have become Prime Minister directly as a result of a General Election - Thatcher and Blair - and in each case that was only so because the governing party changed.  There was a similar pattern in earlier times: when the governing party changed leader, the Prime Minister changed without an Election; an Election was only the driver of change in Prime Minister when the Election caused a decisive change in the political balance of the Commons.

This illustrates the central dependence the Prime Minister has, in our Parliamentary system, upon the continuous support of his or her Members of Parliament.  For us to have Prime Ministers such as Brown that did not obtain their power as a result of a General Election but, instead, as a result of shifting political support amongst MPs is not a strange or otherwise anomalous situation.  It is the norm of the British Parliamentary system.

Parliament MUST complete investigations against defeated MPs

The possibility of a hung parliament has raised a real possibility that MPs who are currently being investigated for serious abuses of parliamentary expenses – could have those investigations dropped if they lose their seats on May 6th.

This week I submitted a complaint against my constituency MP and Labour government minister Bob Blizzard (Waveney) to Andrew Walker, the Director General of Resource at the House of Commons. Mr Walker has for the last few months at the request of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards been investigating two previous complaints I made that Bob Blizzard had repeatedly used his £10,000 p.a. Parliamentary Communications Allowance to publicise attacks on Conservative controlled Waveney District and Suffolk County Councils and even encouraged people to vote against them. Both of which are of course in clear breach of the most explicit prohibitions in the Commons rule book which repeatedly and categorically states that the Communications Allowance cannot be used for any form of party political campaigning.

The third complaint that I made this week was that Mr Blizzard , a government minister and whip responsible for ensuring that Labour MPs keep the parliamentary rules (!), appeared to be using his parliamentary expenses to employ a local Labour councillor as his ‘Constituency Political Secretary’. The use of parliamentary staffing allowances for any form of party political or non parliamentary work is most explicitly forbidden in the principles set out in the Green Book.

However, the response to my complaint from Mr Walker’s office was that whilst the complaint could be investigated after the election

"As you will be aware, there are currently no Members of Parliament and therefore I will not at this point be able to take your complaint further."

The implication is that the parliamentary authorities intend to drop any ongoing investigations against MPs who are not re-elected on May 6.

However, this would mean that it would then be quite possible for MPs such as Bob Blizzard, if they are defeated on May 6, to have all the expenses investigations against them dropped, but for them to then stand again a few months later in a second general election resulting from a hung parliament – as if they had a clean sheet, with local voters being none the wiser.

This general election has in many people’s eyes quite rightly been about cleaning up parliament. So, now would be a very good time for us to take the lead in insisting that investigations into MPs expenses must be completed – even if they are defeated on May 6. The real possibility of a hung parliament makes that absolutely essential.

Nick Clegg's broken promise on the Lisbon Treaty referendum

The Lib Dems played an absolutely crucial role in preventing a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty from taking place. In the leaders TV debate Nick Clegg had the cheek to complain that the Conservatives were no longer going to have a referendum on the Treaty - but the reason for this is that it is now in force and so legally that is too late. The question is why did a referendum not take place when there was still time?

The Conservatives proposed an amendment. Cast your eye down the list of those voting for it. There are some Labour MPs such as Ian Davidson even a few Lib Dems such as Alistair Carmichael. Good for them. But you won't notice Nick Clegg's name on the list. He whipped his MPs into abstaining. Those who did not agree were sacked as front bench spokesmen. As Churchill, with whom Clegg has been implausibly compared, once said:

"Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."

But then when they were worried that abstaining might not be sufficient to scupper the referendum they voted against it in the House of Lords. Had the Lib Dems voted the other way the referendum would have been approved.

Changing Prime Minister - Urgent clarification needed

ToryDiary reports that David Cameron has pledged that in the future there could be no change in Prime Minister without a new election occurring within six months.  I hope there can an urgent clarification from CCHQ indicating that the ToryDiary story misrepresents David Cameron's position or that this is a personal aspiration of David Cameron's, rather than a pledge on which the Conservative Party is fighting the General Election and that the Party would be committed to introducing thereafter.

Pending such a clarification, I shall offer no further comment at this stage, and I would urge other explicitly Conservative-aligned commentators to do likewise for the moment, given that we are in a Election campaign.  Perhaps Conservative-leaning bloggers and journalists can offer their provisional opinions whilst we await this CCHQ clarification, which I hope can be produced very soon.

Clarity vs Legitimacy?

The Times has an interesting leader this morning.  This contends that there are two important distinct functions of democracy: "the public being able to kick out governments it dislikes" and "that the government appointed to lead the nation should reflect the nation's preferences."  It suggests that delivering clarity in respect of the first of these is the key virtue of first-past-the-post in a two-party system, but that if we enter three-party politics, so that first-past-the-post ceases to deliver a clear result, then its key virtue is lost and a change in the system might be required.

I would not quite characterise the virtues of democracy in this way, but that is not the issue I wish to focus on here.  Instead, I want to say that the Times' argument misses the dynamic virtues of first-past-the-post.  Just because one obtains an unclear result on one occasion it does not follow that there will always thereafter be unclear results.  Instead, what happens under first-past-the-post is that either public preferences evolve or there is realignment in the positionings of parties, until a new two-party structure is re-asserted.  (This can sometimes take a little time, as in the 1920s in the UK.)

In this way the first-past-the-post system drives the formation of new sustainable, broad, and vaguely coherent alternative political coalitions (parties).  This is one of its great virtues.  To respond to a three-way split result by overthrowing the system is to refuse to allow first-past-the-post's virtues to operate.

Beware Lib Dems praising the virtues of coalitions in Scotland and Germany

The Lib Dems' Chris Huhne is wrong in this article in the FT in suggesting that coalition governments are good for fiscal crises. I have also encountered this argument from the Lib Dems at various constituency hustings. Here are the two examples they most often use to support their case.

The first is Scotland, where the Lib Dems were "in government" in coalition with Labour for many years, and how smoothly this worked, or so they say. Now, I am not an expert in Scottish politics, but my only point is this: the Scottish government's role is principally to manage expenditure in the country. By contrast, the next Government in Westminster will have to manage a difficult interrelated triangle of taxation, expenditure and borrowing. There are no Scottish gilts or other forms of debt. I am not aware of there being siginificant Scottish taxes, except for the ability to vary income tax rates which has never been used. The Scottish government is funded by a block grant, and is charged with spending it. The contrast between the two set-ups is extremely important, especially when we are in a fiscal crisis. It stands to reason that a stable coalition is much more achievable when the authority is only there to spend, not to raise taxes or issue debt as well.

The second example they use is Germany. Huhne is quite wrong to suggest that the CDU-FDP coalition there is working well. Don't take my word for it. Listen to the Germans themselves. Just check the reports from the English pages of Der Spiegel.

The coalition took some weeks to get itself together - despite the fact that the two parties had pledged to work together in advance of, and during, the September 2009 election.

An open letter to David Cameron on his secret weapon

Dear David Cameron,

Today is St George's Day, however the celebrations will have to wait - we have for now our own dragon to slay and it's called the Liberal Democratic Party.

The televised debates have proven to be a game changer in this election to an extent none of us expected; they have catapulted the third place also rans into first place, and made the current governing party seem an irrelevance. If we are to win the election with an outright majority - as we must - something must be done. Last night that something became apparent.

In the United States the televised debates are a big part of their Presidential elections, but one part of many in very big elections. Their impact is mitigated by a sea of television and radio ads, swamped in effect, and by far longer election campaigns stretching right back to speculation about potential primary challengers. The voters are bombarded with information. Our problem is not the debates - rather that we have imported a Presidential style debate into a constituency based election for a cabinet based government and crammed it into a few weeks. Some people will vote having only seen the debates, or part of them. It means that 4 1/2 hours of television has a greatly disproportionate influence - far greater than in the US - and so 'new kid on the block' Clegg can use his novelty factor before it wears off.

Last night after the Sky Leaders Debate the various party officials, hacks and spinners were interviewed and it struck me - the Lib Dems are their own worst enemy. Beyond Clegg they are all either incredibly odd or incredibly crazy, indeed they're usually both. In one debate about Trident they even suggested the Japanese alternative, namely a research lab which could do research if we one day needed into possibly maybe eventually one day maybe building some kind of weapon ("Don't attack us or we'll launch our boffins!") whilst another spokesman looked younger than I am (I'm 21). And here is our great opportunity. We cannot go back in time and cancel the debates, but we can "swamp" them with overwhelming force at their weakest point. In short it's time to fight fire with fire and unleash our secret weapons - your team - against their weakest flank - their team.

The more policy is discussed, the more people are turned away from the Lib Dems -as last night's debate proved. The more Lib Dems people see, the weirder they seem - as the post debate coverage proved. In every policy area Labour has failed and the Lib Dems either have no policy for change or a loony policy that will defeat itself, yet in every policy area the Conservatives have well thought policies for real change and the people to argue for them with reason. We've had the Leaders debate, we've had the Chancellors debate, now it's time for the Schools debate, Health debate, etc etc, and for these to be televised, prime time. We have the rules, the broadcasters have the studios, and it's not like there's anything else on - all you have to do is challenge them.

The question is not whether we should do it, it's whether it's fair to launch Grant Shapps, Andrew Lansley, our Trident educational missile Michael Gove, Liam Fox, Damian Green et al against Lembit Opik and Co. I say fire up the studio!

Nick Clegg's Euro allies are the real nutters

Nick Clegg has been quick to dismiss critical stories about him as "smears." They seem pretty well sourced to me. Furthermore in this evening's debate he was the one engaging in smears about the Conservative MEPs entering into an alliance with those he called "nutters" - "homophobes", "anti semites", etc. These charges have been refuted thoroughly enough already.

But what of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe? This is the group which Nick Clegg's Lib Dem MEPs sit in. It's leader Guy Verhofstadt MEP wants to abolish the nation state.

The Lib Dems fellow affiliates include the Feminist Initiative from Sweden, who had an MEP until last year. This Party's propose to abolish marriage and create "gender-neutral" names.

Then there is the Latvian affiliate to the group the Lib Dem Euro MPs sit in. It is the LPP/LC a merger of two parties Latvian First Party and Latvian Way. It really is homophobic. One of its leaders equated gays to paedophiles. The Party regards homosexuals as degenerates.

In last week's debate Clegg came up with the staggeringly hypocritical and dishonest claim that the Lib Dems were clean on MPs expenses. But I think his comments this evening on European Parliament groupings manage to trump that.

Messages for this evening's debate

As they used to say on Blue Peter: Here's one I prepared earlier:

The key point of democracy is that it gives us a chance to kick the rotters out when they fail - something that would not happen if Nick Clegg were in power, because he'd introduce the haggling of PR and the dominance of the EU.  Brown has failed, and change is necessary.

1. Brown's banking regulation failed, contributing to economic disaster in the form of the worst depression for nearly ninety years.

2. Brown spent far too much, creating the worst deficit ever, leaving us in serious danger of our international standing being irreparably damaged if we are forced to call in the IMF.

3. Whilst squandering money in other areas, Brown sent our brave soldiers into wars that he didn't properly resource.
4. New Labour achieved little positive in Europe, whilst at the same time cynically breaking its promise of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

You can get that change I understand you want - a proper liberal Conservative approach to international affairs; a realistic engagement with Europe but one that takes back powers in Britain's interest - but real change will only come if you vote Conservative.

RE: How we can still win: Focus all guns on Labour

Further to this, note this Ipsos Mori poll of marginal constituencies.  Forget the headline; note what is being said here.  These are Labour seats where the Conservatives can win with swings of 5-9%.  The Lib Dems can pile up third-place votes all they like.  They can leap into second and it makes no more difference.  What counts is the gap between the Conservatives and Labour.  And the Clegg surge has made no difference to the Conservative-Labour gap.

South of about 37%, the net Lib Dem damage to the overall Conservative story is limited if we have enough margin over Labour - i.e. insofar as the Lib Dem votes come more, net, from Labour than the Conservatives.  Of course they take some high-profile Conservative victims such as Letwin, they take a good few Labour seats where they begin second, and they take some three-way marginals.  But they will also take votes from Labour in many areas that split the anti-Conservative vote allowing us to take these seats.  The (complicated) net impact of these four effects combined on the Conservative final seat tally is much less than you might think.

Hundreds of parents write to The Guardian in support of Tory education plans

Last week around fifty headteachers wrote this letter to the Guardian attacking Conservative plans to allow parents, charities and others to set up new state-funded schools.

By way of response, nearly 650 parents from around the country have written to today's Guardian criticising those teachers, in a letter organised by the New Schools Network.

They write:

"We were disappointed to see that some head teachers do not wish our plans for new, excellent schools in our communities to succeed. Many of us cannot afford to move into the right catchment area to get to the best schools, or pay school fees - and as a result we are denied a good local school. Many of us live in areas where there is no local school at all - or where population growth means there shortly won't be enough places. We have support across our communities and are working with education organisations and teachers to create an inspiring school with the class sizes, the discipline, the curriculum and the ethos that our children deserve.

"We call on politicians of all parties to support our plans and change a school system that supports the wealthy and ignores the wishes and energy of parents."

The full list of signatories is online here.

Opting Out

Today over at the TaxPayers’ Alliance we have a new paper out looking at Justice and Home Affairs. The United Kingdom enjoys an opt out, or an opt in depending on your vantage point.

The difference is subtle, but crucial. As the response to our Freedom of Information request has shown, it’s as a bridge rather than as a wall that the provision has been used.

Subtly, quietly, without fanfare, the UK has been signing up to a surprising range of proposals – no fewer than 53 asylum and immigration measures and 15 civil judicial measures. No doubt the standard response is that these are areas individually of small consequence, each decided on its own merit, and a tiny pooling of sovereignty. That defence does not stand scrutiny. As a Parliamentary Question laid down in Copenhagen shows, the Danish Government (which too has an opt out) has by comparison signed up to just four measures.

Is it because the British Government, endorsed by its ministers, has lost all confidence in its own ability to control the country’s borders and run its own judicial and criminal system? Is it because the Danes, having secured their opt out thanks to the Maastricht referendum, have a much greater appreciation of the freedom that they won?

I suspect the answer lies in a combination of them both. Parts of Whitehall have adopted the old Italian way of doing business in Brussels, content with handing powers and budgets over to the EU as a false solution to an acute awareness of their own shortcomings and failures.

Labour ministers have quietly presided over this transfer. Liberal Democrats call for much more. The Conservatives are currently silent. An opportunity to change all this takes place on Sky TV this evening. Tonight, the electorate deserves a debate. The voter deserves to be told.

Is Lord Rennard pulling Nick Clegg's strings?

On Saturday I wrote:

In January last year Clegg called for tough action on Labour peers found to have accepted offers of payments to seek changes in the law. "I am also now calling on the Government to introduce urgent new legislation to change the rules so that peers found guilty of wrongdoing are expelled from Parliament," he said. But Clegg's tough stance does not extend to Lord Rennard who claimed £41,000 in expenses he was not entitled to as his main home was in London. Rennard has
resigned as Chief Executive of the Lib Dems continues to sit as a Lib Dem peer.

Now it turns ou to be much worse. Lord Rennard is the Lib Dems answer to Alastair Campbell. Nick Clegg is dependent on him for advice on what to say.

We know this because of a scoop in The Sun courtesy of a taxi driver who handed over a Lib Dem dossier to the paper that was left in his cab.

The report says:

The dossier reveals Lord Rennard was heavily involved in planning the Lib Dem manifesto launch, despite quitting as the party's chief executive last year following a row over his expenses.

Despite claims that Lib Dems champion women's rights, Lord Rennard demanded there must be a token female involved in the launch. In the event, there was just one woman on the platform.

I think the electorate ought to know more about how the expenses abuser, Nick Clegg, relies on an even greater expenses abuser, Lord Rennard, as puppet master.

A Lib Lab pact? Such a success last time.

I enjoyed Daniel Hannan's description of last week's TV leaders debate:

Why did Gordon Brown spend the televised debate throwing himself at Nick Clegg, like a woman of a certain age making a fool of herself over a younger man?

A bit more kindly I thought of Gordon Brown as the Lois Lane of this election screaming out: "Only Superclegg can save me now." Either way Brown seem to have decided that he only hope of clinging on is with Lib Dem backing in a hung Parliament. Clegg is conscious that such indiscretions are unhelpful before the election. But he has not been able to silence his predecessor Lord Steel who has a letter in the Times this morning declaring what a success the Lib Lab pact was last time round 1977/78.

Lord Steel writes:

The last time we had a balanced Parliament was in March 1977 when the Callaghan government had gradually lost its majority. The facts speak for themselves: the very day that the Lib-Lab agreement between Mr Callaghan and myself was announced the pound and the share index both
rose. Inflation had started on a sharp upward trend in the last year of the Heath government and had reached the alarming rate of almost 20 per cent that month. During the 15 months of the so-called Lib-Lab pact it fell to under 9 per cent, only to climb again during the minority Labour period that followed, returning to 19 per cent in the first months of the Thatcher government.

Mortgage interest fell from 12.25 per cent at the start of the pact to 8.5 per cent at its end only to start upwards again after it, reaching 15 per cent under Margaret Thatcher.

How we can still win: Focus all guns on Labour

OK.  So it was a really really stupid idea to have those debates with Clegg.  Take that on the chin and get over it.  Don't hope that it can all turn into a good idea really, as if Clegg will be "exposed" in the last two debates.  First impressions last, and in the other two debates he'll be on strong territory: "We told you so about Iraq" then "Vince - blessed be his name - told you so about the economy."  People will see attacks on Clegg now through the lens of the good first impression they had of him.  Saying that the Lib Dems will keep Brown in power when they don't say they will (and pretty obviously won't) just looks desperate and hollow.  The Lib Dem bubble might burst before the Election, but I don't believe there is any way that Conservative tactics can burst it.

No.  There's no way we can, through effort and argument, put the Lib Dem genie back in the bottle.  Attacking the Lib Dems is just a tactic for minimising the Lib Dem influence in a hung Parliament - it can't, itself, secure us a majority.  So is a hung Parliament inevitable?  By no means!  We can still win, and handsomely - a solid overall majority of 50+ seats, even with a Lib Dem surge.  But how?

Nick Clegg airbrushed lobbying job from his CV

At last the press have started giving some scrutiny to Nick Clegg's background.

Writing in the Daily Mail today Peter Oborne says:

Clegg claimed that 'all my life' he had opposed the rotten nature of the Westminster system.

However, this was an audacious fib. In fact, he has a background as a Westminster lobbyist with the firm GJW, where he worked as an account executive for 18 months. (Something he has omitted from his curriculum vitae on the Lib Dem website).

Also, after his spell with GJW, he worked for the Brussels office of the European Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan.

In truth, Clegg is a prime specimen of the British political class who has reinvented himself as a rebel and an outsider. Nor is his party more decent and honest than other political parties, as Clegg
suggests.

On the contrary, many Lib Dem MPs have been shameless beneficiaries from the expenses scandal. What's more, the party has yet to repay £2.5 million it received from its largest donor, a notorious fraudster called Michael Brown.

Are the DUP confused about their policy on the European Union - or just misleading us?

The Better Off Out campaign, which favours British withdrawal from the European Union, counted 15 MPs of the last parliament as supporters, according to its website.

And no fewer than eight of those 15 were MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party - meaning that only one of the DUP MPs in the last parliament was not signed up to BOO.

BOO members include their leader, Peter Robinson; deputy leader, Nigel Dodds; and their founder and former leader, Ian Paisley.

So I was slightly confused when I had a look at the DUP's manifesto for the general election yesterday.

In the section about international affairs, it merely states that:

"too many powers have been ceded by our national Government to the European Union"

and cites opposition to the UK entering the Euro zone, whilst stating the British Government:

"must do much more to oppose the continual power-grab exercised by the European Commission."

Meanwhile, in the section on agriculture, it states:

"The Common Agricultural Policy underpins primary production within Northern Ireland. Without a continuation of funding coming into Northern Ireland through the CAP, farmers could not afford to produce the raw material for the food processing sector or maintain and protect our rural landscape."

Shouldn't a party whose entire leadership team is signed up to Better Off Out state unequivocally that it favours withdrawal from the European Union, plain and simple?

Or are the DUP and all its senior ranks confused and/or misleading the people of Northern Ireland?

Expenses abusing Lib Dem MPs in the top Tory targets

I am sceptical as to whether the extraordinary opinion poll boost for the Lib Dems will be sustained. In the TV debate Nick Clegg tapped into the anti-politician, "plague on both your houses" mood. But surely he will get found out as he and has party finally come under scrutiny for their policies and conduct. For instance we have Nick Clegg's his assertions that Lib Dem MPs were blameless over expenses. Of course they were in it up to their necks. But consider who the beneficiaries would be if the voters accepted Clegg's assurances.

Several of the Lib Dem MPs who were culprits in the expenses scandal are in target Tory seats. They will be hoping that Nick Clegg's protestations of virtue mean they will be able to escape a damning verdict from their constituents for their misconduct.

Three of the Tory targets are Lib Dem MPs in outer London seats - Susan Kramer in Richmond Park, Tom Brake in Carshalton and Wallington and Paul Burstow. They did not claim second home allowances. Then on the other hand this doesn't qualify them as saints. Neither did the overwhelming majority of outer London MPs (inner London MPs aren't entitled to them.) I think among the 19 Tory MPs there were only two who did - Andrew Rosindell and Theresa Villiers both of whom have constituencies right on the edge of London that probably are rather a long commute. By the way, before you feel too sorry for the London MPs not claiming, they get a London Costs Allowance (which Kramer, Brake and Burstow have all claimed) of £7,500 a year - in return for not claiming for a second home.

Another of Brown's business council loses faith with Labour's economic strategy

Due to various volcano and Cleggmania-related news, something that escaped my notice this morning was this letter in the FT from Sir John Rose, the CEO of Rolls Royce.

He is a member of Gordon Brown's business council, yet he seems very much at odds with Labour's economic approach - the latest of many leading businessmen to speak out in this way. Not only is he critical of the Government’s claim that cutting waste this year will endanger the recovery or threaten frontline services, but his view that the country must get wealth creation right echoes Conservative concerns at Labour's planned national insurance rise.

Here's what he had to say:  

Sir,

Articles last week by Martin Wolf, Max Hastings and Luke Johnson had a common theme. That we must be realistic about the state of the UK economy, that a rebalancing is necessary and that there will be no quick fix to restoring public finances to some sort of sustainable balance. I agree.

To draw an analogy, if the UK was a business, the shareholders would be asking serious questions. The current model appears to be that we can grow our business by growing overhead, by applying better terms and conditions to support functions than to wealth creators, and by paying dividends out of borrowings not all of which are recognised on the balance sheet.

We are also asked to believe that service levels will inevitably suffer if the costs of delivery are reduced. This need not be the case. As any business will confirm, service levels will reflect prioritisation, proper definition of desired outcomes, concentration on reducing waste and investment in productivity.

In the UK, the debate now needs to focus on how to make the pie bigger, rather than how it is sliced. We must concentrate on creating an environment where the enablers of wealth creation, which government can influence, are world class. In defining the right policies, there are many examples against which we can assess ourselves, but we must measure honestly and then take the necessary actions to be competitive. Importantly, there must be the will to apply policy consistently and over the long term.

If we get wealth creation right, distribution and consumption will follow. It cannot be done in the reverse order.

Lee Rotherham: Plaid Cymru are fighting an uphill struggle with Europe

By Lee Rotherham

Over on the TaxPayers’ Alliance EU blog we’ve been looking at the various party manifestos and where they stand on Brussels.

Plaid Cymru are fighting a battle to improve the image of Wales in the EU.

Their manifesto bravely pledges to stand up for the interests of minority cultures in Europe.

The best of luck to them: judging from the official document in my picture here, they may have their work cut out...

United in adversity?

With travel chaos spreading across Europe, many Members of the European Parliament have been unable to make their way to the monthly plenary session in Strasbourg today. 

As such, there have been calls from MEPs from various far-flung parts of Europe to cancel votes this week.

According to the Treaties, however, the session must proceed with or without stranded MEPs - a decision which has frayed tempers.

Ever the dedicated Europeans, a German MEP chose to respond to the tales of travel chaos which have been shared across the Parliamentary e-mail system by his stranded colleagues with a  few "helpful" observations:

"If all those who participated in this MEP chat room thus far invested the same amount of creativity in getting home at the end of last week as getting back to Parliament this week, we would find almost as many colleagues as usual in Strasbourg"

The MEP went on to outline a selection of possible travel routes from various European countries, before asking:

"Would a train ride be considered too much an effort to take in order to assume the function that one is elected for?"

An old hand from Luxembourg added:

"Millions of people all over Europe try and succeed at coping with the present exceptional circumstances. I therefore believe that, what would actually seem "a bit absurd" would be that less than eight hundred MEPs could not"

The Italians took exception:

"No matter how hard you try to be witty, we are not in the mood. From Roma all the trains are already booked until April 23rd. So, before doing travel agent for everybody, update your information!"

The Finns were were furious:

"How do you think that we come from Finland? All the ferries are already fully booked and there are no straight trains or buses from there. You can take a bus but it takes for two to three days (depending if you can get a ferry from Finland to Sweden) from Finland to Strasbourg or to Brussels"

A sarcastic Portuguese Member added:

"It appears that this unfortunate natural event has shown that some of our colleagues may not be aware of the true geography of Europe"

Hardly the entente cordiale is it?

Across the course of the day, calls to cancel the week’s Parliamentary business have grown. 

Calling for decisive action to postpone the sitting, a Romanian MEP was at least philosophical and kept the situation in perspective:

"Ca s'apelle force majeur and leadership means to take responsibility for tough decisions in such times".

With the exception of perfidious Liberal Democrat MEP Edward MacMillan-Scott who has declared he "shall not attend", British MEPs of all parties have managed to make their way to Strasbourg.

The Agony of the Cleggstasy

ConservativeHome's regular update service today brings you a round-up of the frenzy that's sweeping the nation: the mega-phenomenon that is Cleggism. But first:

An Apology 

In common with every other media outlet, we may in the past have given the impression that Nick Clegg was at most an irritating pipsqueak, incapable of stringing a sentence together without annoying anyone within earshot. After last Thursday's edition of the X-factor, however, we realise - in common with all our readers, and the BBC News service - that in fact Mr Clegg represents the last, the only, hope for our embattled nation. If nation shall speak peace unto nation, then Mr Clegg shall be the germolene-type substance we rub into our scabby knee, in the hope that it gets a bit better, and we can stop picking at it, and making it bleed.

*

I was Nick Clegg's Fag - by Louis Theroux

It was that strange time, the eve of adolescence. You know, as well as I do, what it's like in your first term at an in-no-way exclusive twenty-nine-thousand-a-year public school, with the weight of A Famous Father draped about your shoulders like an invisible cloak of many, but mostly red, colours. I often wonder to myself: did my unerring ability to stare blankly at a camera with an air of fake disingenuousness begin that first term? Even now, closing my eyes, I can smell the burning toast as if it were only fifteen or twenty or perhaps as many as thirty or so years ago. I remember the first time I heard his high-pitched-yet-authoritative tone, already showing that compassion for the common man that has become his hallmark:

- You boy! Theroux minor! I want you for my fag!

Why I'm a convert to Twitter (and just about the least likely one on the planet)

Grant Schapps was monstered by respondents on this site when he posted recently about Twitter.  I rather took their side - having seen each innovation during my lifetime boost information at the expense of knowledge.

Why make it worse by Twittering?  Grant's piece - and Tim's evangelising about Twitter - provoked technophobic visions of my blackberry crashing under the weight of tweets from -

• Willam Hague announcing that canvassing weather in Grimsnipe Pogglington has never been nicer.
• Vince Cable explaining that when he said Lloyds TSB's takeover of HBOS was a good idea he hadn't meant it really.
• Paul Staines and Danny Finklestein anathemising each other as mutual berks.
• And John Prescott declaring how many times a day he visits the bathroom.

In the words of Margaret Thatcher: "No, no, no."

But I'm infinitely less resolute than Margaret Thatcher - and Tim pays my wages.  So with infinite reluctance and resentment, I decided to give this Twitter thing a go.

And it's been a revelation, because -

• You don't have to have e-mails from complete strangers sent to your blackberry - or even your desk inbox.
• This is because you can use Twitter just like any other website - and yes, it's primarily a website, not e-mail's answer to Interflora  - and log on and off when you choose.
• If, as Grant suggested, you compile a list of people you want to follow, you can simply log on whenever you like, have a look at what they're up to, and log off.  As a way of finding out what the news is, it beats websites.
• If you don't want to log on, then just say no.  (As in: if you don't want to zap TV channels, just say no.  If you don't want to buy an IPod, just say no.  If you don't want to snog Nick Clegg, just say no…)

In short, Twitter's just a quicker way of getting news which interests you - if that's what you want it to be.  I don't believe in working any harder than I gave to, so I'm simply following Tim's suggested twitter list, tweaked very slightly, and am not sending out tweets myself (at least yet).

So there you have it.  As George Orwell nearly wrote: everything is all right.  I have won the victory over myself.  I love Twitter!

Tim: can I have my pay rise now, please?

Roger Helmer MEP: Nick Clegg is not only wrong on the EU, but his caricature of the Conservative position is downright dishonest

By Roger Helmer MEP

As Nick Clegg’s star appears to rise, it is entirely right that other parties should draw attention to the damaging nature of Lib Dem policies.  We in the Conservative Party have pointed out that the Lib Dems supported the defunct EU Constitution; supported the Lisbon Treaty (which amounts to the EU Constitution Mark 2); support (and indeed claim credit for) the EU Arrest Warrant, which is denying some UK citizens the most basic legal rights; and even favour scrapping the Pound and having Britain join the failing euro project.  In fact the Lib Dems have a knee-jerk response to any EU proposal: Vote Yes.

And Nick Clegg’s answer to these accusations?  Shocking, even by the mendacious standards of the Lib-Dems.  He asks (and I quote from today’s Daily Telegraph):

“Do we really think we can pull up the drawbridge, and (that) ranting and raving from the sidelines is really going to help us be stronger and safer?”

Who are these people who want to “pull up the drawbridge and rant and rave from the sidelines”?  There may be a few in some fringe parties, but none that I have met in the Conservative Party.  We are a Party of free trade, and not given to pulling up drawbridges.  We would like to see global free trade, but failing that, free trade across Europe is a good start (although many of us regret that the EU is, of course, not a free trade area but a customs union).  We are an internationalist Party (although unlike the Lib Dems, we recognise that there is a world beyond Brussels).  So we are strongly in favour of international cooperation, both with EU countries and with non-EU countries, in dealing with all the issues that cross borders, like crime, terrorism, trade, pollution and so on.

So where are our differences with Clegg?  Simply that while we want trade and co-operation, we also want to participate as a free, independent and democratic nation, not as an off-shore province in a quasi-country called Europe, which is neither democratic nor accountable.  The EU has a malign momentum of its own, and (as we have seen in referendum after referendum) it treats the will of the people with utter contempt.  Even Clegg admits, with masterful understatement, that the EU “is not a model of democratic efficiency”.

The implicit falsehood in the Lib Dem position is the assumption, absurd when you spell it out, that we can only achieve trade and co-operation if we sacrifice independence and democracy.

And Clegg knows this.  During the time when we both sat in the European parliament representing the East Midlands (1999-2004), I several times debated against him.  I vividly recall him remarking to me (he now conveniently insists that he has no recollection of the statement, but I remember it very clearly):

“When I first heard your views on Europe, Roger, I thought you were mad.  But now that I’ve heard you argue your case, I can see that you have an intellectually defensible position, even though I disagree with it”. 

So he knows that no-one in the Conservative Party wants to “Pull up the drawbridge and rant and rave”.  And his deliberate use of this mendacious caricature is downright dishonest.