Monthly Archives: March 2009

Opposite sides of the planet

Posted on March 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

In Cardiff, for the Welsh Conservative party conference, which is being held at the Swalec cricket stadium.

I drove down from North Wales yesterday afternoon, through a sunny spring landscape of greening hedgerows, lamb-filled fields and verges of jostling daffodils.  

Idyllic countryside, but the journey took over four hours, as it always does, and that in a small, agile, reasonably powerful car.  Imagine, I pondered, how much longer this would take in an ambulance.  And how uncomfortable it would be in the back of that ambulance.  Particularly if you needed a brain operation. 

Almost two years have passed since the Welsh health minister, Edwina Hart, made the spectacularly silly announcement that she intended to divert all elective neurosurgery generated in Wales to hospitals in Cardiff and Swansea.  The plan caused outrage in North Wales, followed by a high-profile campaign, including a gratifyingly well-attended public meeting at Colwyn Bay.  Mrs Hart went into reverse thrust, and, after commissioning the usual inquiry, concluded that North Wales patients should continue to be treated at the Walton centre in Liverpool. 

Yesterday, the Welsh select committee published an important report on the issue of cross-border health provision.  I’d urge everyone interested in this important issue to read it.  It is highly critical of the absence of coordination between the Welsh Assembly Government and the Department of Health.  It speaks of longer waiting times for Welsh patients seeking treatment in English hospitals, which are not paid for treating Welsh patients at the same rate as English patients.  

It talks of the Welsh NHS putting up “bureaucratic barriers which stand in the way of patient needs being met swiftly and efficiently” and concludes: 

It is unacceptable that individual providers and commissioners have been left to negotiate ad hoc solutions to problems caused by government-level decisions, apparently taken without regard for their impact on crossborder commissioning. Even where local arrangements work well, patients should not have to rely on the good will of those involved to ensure that their health care pathways are coherent. A solution must involve a sustainable and enforceable long-term agreement between the relevant Ministers and Departments so that future disputes will be avoided. The key test must be whether all parties demonstrably have as their highest priority the need to secure the best possible service for patients. 

The lack of coordination of policy between Whitehall and Cathays Park does not end with healthcare.  The select committee has noted similar problems in education, and only this week we heard from the Welsh transport minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, that the “all Wales” freight transport strategy is not coordinated with policy in England.  This is a bit odd, given that it is there that most freight journeys in Wales either start or finish. 

Over the years, devolution has resulted in inevitable divergence of policy between Cardiff and London.  This is understandable, but it should not impede the efficient delivery of public services, which is what is happening at the moment.  Administrations at either end of the M4 sometimes behave as if Wales and England are on opposite sides if the planet. 

This problem needs to be tackled before it gets any worse, and that is what the next Conservative government will do.  I’ll be speaking about this at the conference this afternoon.

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Posted in Edwina Hart, neurosurgery, Welsh Affairs Committee, Welsh Assembly Government

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Kicking and screaming

Posted on March 26, 2009 | 1 Comment

gurkhaLast September, I blogged about the High Court test case won by a group of retired Gurkhas, giving them the right of settlement in the UK.  In the wake of the court’s decision, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, confirmed that she would, by the end of the year, review her Department’s criteria for considering applications by Gurkhas to remain in the country.

The review proceeded at snail’s pace.  In fact, it was never completed. Nor did the Home Secretary complete the review of some 1,000 outstanding settlement claims.

Today, the Gurkhas went back to court seeking to enforce September’s ruling.  Their QC told the judge that the Home Secretary has now agreed to make a statement to Parliament within three weeks setting out her policy on the Gurkhas’ right to remain.

Sadly, some Gurkhas have died waiting for the Home Secretary’s decision.  The most recent was Rifleman Prem Bahadur Pun, on March 15. A document put before the court makes extremely distressing reading:

“It appears that his death – as well as being deprived of cheap modern drugs to bring him comfort in his final months – is linked to the Secretary of State’s failure to comply with her assurances to publish the policy and complete the reconsideration of over 1,000 stayed cases by December 30 2008.”

When the court made its ruling last year, one might have expected the Home Office, above all departments, to do its utmost to fulfil its undertaking to publish its policy and complete its consideration of the outstanding cases.

It is hard to think of anything that could reflect more discredit on the Government.  There is a huge fund of goodwill for the Gurkhas among the people of this country.  They are the staunchest, most loyal friends we have anywhere in the world.  They have been badly let down.

The Government should be thoroughly ashamed that it has had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to court before it would finally get round to honouring its legal and moral obligations to these brave, decent people.

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Posted in Gurkhas, Home Office

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Sticking to the script

Posted on March 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

speedoHarriet Harman stood in for Gordon Brown once again today at PMQs.  This is becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence, as a consequence of the Prime Minister’s equally frequent absences abroad.  No doubt things will calm down after the G20. 

William Hague again deputised for David Cameron.  He pressed the leader of the House repeatedly on the issue of whether or not she agreed with Mervyn King’s bleak assessment of the economy, but answer came there none, Harriet preferring to bang on about the Conservative inheritance tax proposals. 

William persevered, in his inimitable way:

Mr. Hague: The question was about the Governor of the Bank of England. I know that inheritance may preoccupy the niece of the Countess of Longford, but it is no good attacking our policy, which is to reward people who have saved hard and worked hard all their life, and which, when we announced it, the Government tried to copy. Let us be very clear what the Governor of the Bank of England said:

“I think the fiscal position in the UK is not one where we could…engage in another significant round of fiscal expansion”.

The question to the Leader of the House today is whether she agrees with the Governor of the Bank of England-yes or no?

No joy, however; Harriet was reading from a script and sticking rigidly to her lines.  She had been told to deflect the attack by going on ad nauseam about IHT and, dammit, that was exactly what she was going to do. 

William, however, had the funniest line of the day, which left Members on both sides chuckling:

Mr. Hague: My party called for a national loan guarantee scheme all the way back in November and the Government have dithered about it ever since. They are all over the place. The Prime Minister is on his way to Chile. The Business Secretary has just arrived in Brazil. Should he not be implementing those schemes instead of unpacking his Speedos on a Latin American beach?

“ Speedos”.   Bullseye, William.

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Posted in Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman, William Hague

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King’s intervention

Posted on March 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

mervyn-kingThe Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has well and truly rained on Gordon Brown’s parade. 

Appearing before the Treasury select committee today, the Governor told the PM, essentially, that there was nothing left in the kitty to sustain a second fiscal stimulus.  Or, as he more circumspectly put it:

“There is no doubt we are facing very large fiscal deficits over the next two to three years.

“Given how big those deficits are, I think it would be sensible to be cautious about going further in using discretionary measures to expand the size of those deficits.

“The fiscal position in the UK is not one that would say, ‘Well, why don’t we just engage in another significant round of fiscal expansion?’.”

This message, delivered in the mildest, most restrained terms, is going to come as a severe blow to the Prime Minister. 

Gordon was looking forward ever so much to strutting his stuff at the G20 and presiding over the delivery of an internationally-agreed global stimulus to an adoring world.  Now the Governor has told him, very politely, that he would be barmy to do so: we’re skint, the cupboard is bare, and that, Prime Minister, is that.

What’s worse, the Governor is effectively saying that the Conservative analysis is right: to carry on borrowing would be madness.  No more can Gordon crow at PMQs that the Tories are isolated.

It is virtually unheard of for Governors of the Bank of England to do or say anything that might be even remotely interpreted as intruding on political territory, so Mervyn King’s pronouncement today is all the more significant.  

He is, effectively, telling the Prime Minister that he is heading for an economic car crash and that he, Mervyn King, will take no responsibility if he doesn’t change course.

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Posted in economy, Gordon Brown

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Fashion notes

Posted on March 24, 2009 | Leave a comment

desperate-danThe Welsh select committee today heard evidence from the Legal Services Commission on the issue of the downgrading of their Cardiff office, following reorganisation.  The committee was not best pleased to hear that neither the commission nor the Ministry of Justice, to which it is answerable, had thought to discuss the proposal with the Wales Office. 

The commission officials were accompanied by Lord Bach, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who apologised in fulsome terms for the omission and assured the committee that the Ministry had (inevitably) “learned the lessons”.  Blessedly, he didn’t add that they were now moving on. 

I was somewhat distracted by the Minister’s socks.  They bore a cartoon design – an interesting choice for a select committee appearance – and a slogan that I couldn’t read without getting closer to the noble Lord than either he or I would have liked. 

I wouldn’t swear to it, but it looked very much like Desperate Dan, which was perhaps appropriate in the circumstances.

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Posted in Welsh Affairs Committee

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Tweet in store

Posted on March 23, 2009 | 3 Comments

A few months ago, out of idle curiosity, I signed up for Twitter.  I’d heard it was a ground-breaking social networking utility and that all self-respecting modern politicians should be hooked up to it.  Indeed, such glitterati as Stephen Fry were avid Twitter enthusiasts, faithfully recording and imparting to the world such momentous events in their lives as being stuck in the lift.  So if  it was good enough for a renaissance man like Mr Fry, it should be good enough for me.

I tried it once and then forgot about it.  To be honest, I didn’t see the point.  You have to keep answering the question: “What are you doing?” in no more than 140 characters – a repetitive haiku of latter-day banality.  It just didn’t grab me. 

Then, a few days ago, I received an e-mail out of the blue telling me that someone was following me on Twitter; then another; now there are five.  Why they’re following me I don’t know, because I doubt that I will go very far.

It’s like the old Tommy Cooper joke: “Got lost in the Underground yesterday and saw a sign saying ‘Follow the green light’.  Stood there for half an hour but  it didn’t move.” 

Anyway, my elder son, who is the fount of all knowledge about contemporary techno-culture, says that I must give Twitter a go and do a few posts.  Embarrassingly enough, the exercise is called “tweeting”.  

I’ll try, but I feel pretty sure I won’t keep it up.  Unless, of course, I happen to get stuck in the lift and have the urge to tell the world about it. 

Rather than, for example, just pressing the alarm button.

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Posted in Twitter

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Benign economic environment

Posted on March 20, 2009 | 1 Comment

northern-rock1

The National Audit Office today publishes its report on the Treasury’s handling of the Northern Rock collapse.  By any standards, it is highly critical.

Among the failings reported are:

  • Northern Rock continued to write over £1.8 billion of mortgages of up to 125 per cent of a property’s value throughout the period that it was receiving emergency support from September 2007 to February 2008, when it went into public ownership. 
  • The Treasury had been aware of potential shortcomings in the arrangements for dealing with a financial institution in difficulty before the crisis at Northern Rock arose. Exercises it had carried out had revealed the need for further work on how to handle the “resolution of an insolvent firm with systemic repercussions”.  
  • However, “prior to 2007, work on improving the existing arrangements was not judged by the Treasury to be a priority in a benign economic environment, compared with other financial crisis response planning.” 
  • In the lead-up to public ownership, the Treasury did not commission its own due diligence on the company’s operations, for example, on the quality of the loan book. “The Treasury judged that it could rely on the work of the Bank, supported by its accounting advisers, and the Financial Services Authority as respectively lender to and regulator of the company.”
  • The Treasury struggled to maintain continuity of staffing in handling the crisis. “The maintenance of financial stability had not, in terms of staff resources, been a major part of the Treasury’s work. In dealing with Northern Rock, the Treasury had to respond very quickly to events as they developed… The availability of people with relevant skills and experience was severely stretched and resulted in two changes of team leader along with changes to the composition of the team.”

Putting aside the extraordinary conclusion that the Rock was allowed to continue its reckless pattern of lending – which is what got it into trouble in the first place – even after its difficulties had become all too apparent,  the overall picture is of a largely unprepared Treasury that assumed that the “benign economic environment” would continue indefinitely.

The report also casts still further doubt on the robustness of the tripartite regulatory system, which was,  it will be recalled, the personal creation of none other than the Rt Hon James Gordon Brown.

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Posted in economy, Gordon Brown, Northern Rock

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So irritating

Posted on March 19, 2009 | 5 Comments

Speaking of language (which is probably the most appropriate thing to do with it, really), I wonder if readers have also noticed the increasingly prevalent  use of the word “so” at the beginning of a sentence. 

This new grammatical quirk came to my attention only about twelve months ago, but since then it seems to have become more frequently and widely used. 

The word “so”, when not used as an adverb, is a coordinating conjunction: it is employed to link two clauses, the second of which is dependent on the first.  It therefore belongs, strictly, in the middle of a sentence, not at the start.

Of course, coordinating conjunctions frequently are used at the beginning of a sentence, notwithstanding the purist’s view that this is a solecism.  My grandmother, who taught English, used to drum it into me that one should never start a sentence with “and” or “but”.  Nevertheless, I do.

So I have no huge objection (as you can see) to starting a sentence with “so” if it acts as a coordinating conjunction with what has been said in the previous sentence.  But (there I go again) I can see no grammatical or logical justification for using a coordinating conjunction when nothing has been previously said at all.

Recently, the Welsh select committee heard evidence from a senior executive of a huge international corporation.  She was smart, manifestly highly intelligent and clearly a native English speaker.  However, she insisted on prefacing her reply to almost every question with the word “so”.  Because the word was so incongruous (she having said nothing previously to justify the use of a coordinating conjunction), it detracted considerably from the impact of what she was actually saying.  No doubt it will be edited out of the transcript.

I suppose that “so”, used in such circumstances, is something of a non-word, rather like “well”.  It is probably employed to give the speaker a scintilla of extra thinking time. It is no more irritating than “like”, “you know” or “I mean” (in fact, rather less irritating).  It’s just that it appears to have come from nowhere and to have spread with amazing rapidity.  It also has a foreign, vaguely Germanic feel to it.

If readers can suggest where this strange linguistic affectation has come from, I’d be fascinated to hear from them. 

So please do write in.

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Posted in Miscellaneous, Welsh Affairs Committee

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Meaningful dialogue

Posted on March 18, 2009 | 1 Comment

Congratulations to the Local Government Association, which has circulated to its member authorities a list of 100 words and phrases to be avoided in the interests of effective communication with the public.

The list contains a gratifying number of my own pet hates, such as “core value”, “empowerment”, “holistic”, “stakeholder”, “sustainable”, “transparency” and “vision”. 

It does not, however, include my particular bête noire, the ludicrous “roll out”.  I once heard it announced in Parliament that a certain police force had “rolled out” twenty new community support officers, which must have been a very painful experience for them.

It may be my imagination, but this vile bureaucrat-speak seems to have proliferated substantially during the lifetime of this Government.  It possesses, after all,  the quintessentially New Labour double virtue of sounding cool and modern, whilst conveying little or no meaning at all.

So Labour employ it liberally, to the extent of placing the following horrors on the lips of Her Majesty when she delivered the Gracious Speech last December:

“My Government will bring forward legislation to promote local economic development and to create greater opportunities for community and individual involvement in local decision-making…

“My Government will also bring forward a Bill to deliver a more effective, transparent and responsive justice system for victims, witnesses and the wider public…

“My Government will bring forward a Bill to promote equality, fight discrimination and introduce transparency in the workplace to help address the difference in pay between men and women…

“The Bill would create a duty to take account of the new National Health Service Constitution that will set out the core principles of the Service and the rights and responsibilities of patients and staff…

“My Government is committed to the Northern Ireland political process and will bring forward further measures for sustainable, devolved government…

“My Government will work for a coordinated international response to the global downturn, including by hosting the next G20 Summit on financial markets and the world economy in the United Kingdom in April next year and reforming financial institutions.”

I am certain that that is not the sort of language our down-to-earth Queen would ever dream of using when conversing in private with Prince Philip.

Sadly, however, I am equally sure that there is a sharp-suited speechwriter deep in the bowels of No 10 who sees nothing at all wrong with it. 

Indeed, he probably regards its use as evidence of blue sky thinking and helicopter vision.

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Posted in Labour Party

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Call that an apology?

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Leave a comment

gordon-brownThe apology that friends and opponents alike have called on Gordon Brown to make finally arrived today, in the columns of the Guardian.  

Not that it was really that apologetic.  What Brown said was: 

“I take full responsibility for all my actions, but I think we’re dealing with a bigger problem that is global in nature, as well as national. Perhaps 10 years ago after the Asian crisis when other countries thought these problems would go away, we should have been tougher … keeping and forcing these issues on to the agenda like we did on debt relief and other issues of international policy.” 

“Taking full responsibility for one’s actions” is not the same as being sorry.  Not the same thing at all.  Indeed, one could take full responsibility for one’s actions and still be pretty proud of them.  And one gets the impression that, in spite of everything, Gordon Brown still is. 

Furthermore, Brown’s acceptance of responsibility is followed immediately by the inevitable protestation that the problem is “global”, so it’s not really his fault.  It all began elsewhere; America, to be precise.  And there was precious little Gordon could do about it. 

What’s more, it was those silly “other countries” that thought “these problems” would go away, not Gordon.  He never did. 

But if he was at fault, which is really very debatable, it was in that he wasn’t “tougher”.  That’s always been his problem, you see: too soft hearted.  But in the scheme of faults, it’s not a bad one, is it?

This is hardly the humility that Alistair Darling and other cabinet have urged the PM to display.   One still feels that, deep in his heart, he firmly believes he has nothing to apologise for. 

And that is the problem.  It’s not just a case of seeking the ritual humiliation of the Prime Minister, of making him eat humble pie.   It’s a question of wanting some acknowledgment from the man who has been in charge of our economy for the last twelve years that he is responsible for a failure of regulation that has led to the near-collapse of the British banking system, large-scale unemployment and a recession that is likely to be deeper and longer here than in most other countries. 

Because if he can’t come to terms with the reality that he got things wrong, how can anyone ever trust him to put things right?

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Posted in economy, Gordon Brown

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Gloom in Threadneedle Street

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

bankConflicting economic signals this morning.

Ben Bernanke, the US Federal Reserve chairman, has predicted that America’s recession will end this year, with growth resuming in 2010.  He has even gone so far as to use the dreaded phrase “green shoots”.

At the same time, the Bank of England’s quarterly bulletin, published today, warns that the UK is in danger of entering a Thirties-style depression.  Deflation will have a particularly severe impact here, because of the high level of personal debt, averaging £60,000 per household; furthermore, some 40 per cent of mortgages are on fixed rate deals, meaning that the cost of debt will in effect rise, compared to average costs throughout the economy.

The report illustrates starkly the extent to which the British economy has been weakened under Labour.  Gordon Brown ramped up an artificial boom founded on an enormous increase in personal debt, which has risen by 165 per cent since 1997 to a level that is now the highest in the world. 

Now that the bubble has burst, we can see that the British economy has been left more vulnerable than that of any other major nation – hence the contrasting levels of optimism displayed by the Fed and the Bank.

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Posted in economy, Gordon Brown

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Sorry, Nuneaton

Posted on March 12, 2009 | 1 Comment

Nightmare journey home tonight.  The first train is cancelled and the second then manages to overshoot the platform at Nuneaton; 20 minute delay while driver backs up.

We were promised a better service from the end of January, after completion of all the West Coast line work.  I’ve yet to see any substantial improvement.

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Posted in Virgin trains

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Arc of prosperity

Posted on March 11, 2009 | Leave a comment

The unemployment debate was enlivened by a contribution from the Scottish nationalist MP for Glasgow East, John Mason, who bizarrely blamed the UK for the fact that Scotland had been “dragged into this recession” – as if Scotland were some minor planetary body orbiting a particularly unpredictable sun. 

Mr Mason was asked, not unreasonably, by Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough, how Scotland would have been able to handle the banking crisis on its own.  Keeping a remarkably straight face, Mr Mason assured the House that “it is possible that if we had been independent, neither HBOS nor the Royal Bank of Scotland would have been in such shape, and that they would not have been as large or as much trouble as they currently are.” 

I then asked Mr Mason whether Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, still regarded Iceland as a proper model for emulation. 

Mr Mason replied that, on the whole, the SNP tended to prefer Norway these days.

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Posted in SNP

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Golden silence

Posted on March 10, 2009 | 1 Comment

Spoke today in the Opposition Day debate on unemployment and highlighted the propensity of the Government for announcing initiatives and then failing to follow them through.  

A prime example of this was given to me by a constituent from Abergele, who runs a small company and wishes to take advantage of the spanking new “golden hello” scheme for employers taking on new staff, which was announced by James Purnell in mid-January and which since appears to have sunk without trace.  Her e-mail to me speaks for itself: 

“I am the MD of a company based in North Wales and actually wish to recruit some new staff! I noted Gordon Brown’s announcement of 12th January detailing ‘golden hellos’ for employers recruiting new staff. They seem to be elusive! I have tried the local Jobcentre Plus, the regional Jobcentre Plus, and they have tried a national Jobcentre office.  

“I have e-mailed…the Department of Work and Pensions, the Treasury, phoned the Welsh Assembly, but alas no-one knows anything about it. Please can you take up my query and see if this was just pure hype by the Government or whether there is some substance to the announcement. What are the criteria and how does one go about obtaining help? We are a small SME, but growing, but need all the help we can get!”

I read the e-mail out in the House and asked the minister, Tony McNulty, to indicate in his reply if the scheme still existed, whether it was to be implemented and when that might be. 

Depressingly but predictably, all I received was silence.

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Posted in economy

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Wolves in wolves’ clothing

Posted on March 9, 2009 | Leave a comment

I’m absolutely delighted to see that Adam Price MP has launched a website to promote the “benefits of an independent Wales”.

For years, Plaid have pretended that independence isn’t part of their agenda; indeed, Dafydd Wigley was particularly dismissive of the notion in the approach to the 1999 Welsh Assembly election:

“We haven’t used the term full independence or independence at all in any stage in our history.

“We have used the term self-government and self-government within the European context as we believe that is the relevant term.

“We don’t believe that any country is independent in the 21st century in the way that it was interpreted in the 19th century. There is interdependence between countries and particularly between the countries in Europe.”

Wigley was arguably a lot shrewder than Adam; he knew that a policy of pushing for independence was potential electoral poison.  Now Adam has thrown caution to the winds and has decided to drop the pretence that Plaid have any goal other than to tear Wales out of the United Kingdom.

From a Tory perspective, this is a most helpful development.  It’s always best to have battle lines that are clearly defined.

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Posted in Plaid Cymru

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