Monthly Archives: October 2009

Champagne of the people

Posted on October 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

Visited the Cadbury factory at Chirk today. 

I always enjoy industrial visits, and this was no exception.  The remarkable cleanliness of food processing, which I also witnessed recently at the Rachel’s Organic factory at Aberystwyth, never ceases to impress and is immensely reassuring.

The Chirk plant is Cadbury’s principal facility for the processing of cocoa beans, imported via Liverpool.  The beans are transformed into cocoa liquor and then taken for further processing into cocoa crumb at the company’s factory at Marlbrook, near Hereford.  The final stage of transformation into the iconic Dairy Milk still takes place at the famous Bournville plant.

I asked my hosts whether Britons’ consumption of chocolate had been hit by the recession.  They told me that the market was remarkably resilient and last year had been a record one for production at Chirk.

It seems that when people need cheering up, they indulge in a bar of chocolate.  And who can blame them?  Napoleon did much the same with champagne: “In victory we deserve it; in defeat we need it.”

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tagged

You have to laugh

Posted on October 29, 2009 | Leave a comment

The leaks to the press of the purported details of Sir Christopher Kelly’s report are generating a mild degree of interest in Westminster, although it remains to be seen how accurate they are.

Good to see, however, that MPs’ sense of humour hasn’t been completely dulled by the revelations.

Last night, a whip was chivvying Members through the Aye lobby on the evening’s last vote.

“Come on,” he chided.  “Haven’t you any homes to go to?”

“We won’t have soon,” came the dry, unattributable reply.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in expenses

Tagged ,

Too late the olive branch

Posted on October 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

A report in today’s Daily Post gives a fascinating glimpse into the psyche of Mrs Edwina Hart, one of the candidates for leadership of the Labour group in the Welsh Assembly:

Labour leadership candidate Edwina Hart last night promised a minister for North Wales in her Assembly Government.

The health minister revealed the pledge as the three hopefuls gathered in Rhyl for the first of five official hustings meetings with party members.

Ms Hart, AM for Gower, would hand the responsibility to a Labour minister.

“Having spoken to party members and others in North Wales I have clearly gained the impression that a minister with special responsibility for North Wales would be widely welcome by those who feel they would have a voice in the cabinet.”

It is revealing that there are clearly those in the Labour party who share the view, widely held by many outside it, that North Wales presently has little or no influence in the Cardiff corridors of power.

It used to be the case that Welsh ministers would protest that this was merely perception and not reality.  Mrs Hart’s offer tends to confirm her acceptance it goes deeper than that.

Of course, nothing could have done more to encourage a feeling of marginalisation on the part of North Walians than Mrs Hart’s own ill-judged decision to require North Wales neurosurgery patients to travel to Cardiff or Swansea for treatment.  Many felt that Mrs Hart manifestly regarded the northern counties as a remote and inconsequential province whose people had a lesser claim to convenient medical services than the residents of the more populous south.

That Mrs Hart subsequently repented did little to ease the opprobrium she attracted to herself.  I fear that the olive branch she is now extending to the people of North Wales will probably be received with a mixture of scepticism and scorn.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Edwina Hart, Labour Party, neurosurgery

Tagged

An avoidable disaster

Posted on October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment

Nothing better exemplifies the ineptitude of this decaying Government than its handling of the Territorial Army training issue.

Faced with a strongly pro-military national sentiment, when thousands of British troops are serving in Afghanistan and many are wounded and losing their lives, Gordon Brown and Bob Ainsworth decided it was a good idea to do a bit of cheese-paring and save the relatively small sum of £20 million by cutting the TA’s training budget.

The fact that they made the decision is itself astonishing, but what beggars belief is that they clearly didn’t anticipate the storm of outrage it generated.  It was wholly predictable that serving members of the TA, their families and comrades’ associations would be appalled at the prospect of TA soldiers being subject to possible deployment to Afghanistan without proper training. 

It took John Reid, a former Defence Secretary, to tell Gordon Brown just how daft an idea it was.  No doubt Mr Reid was characteristically forthright in the terms of his advice.

Now the Prime Minister has climbed down, but has been left to look weak, indecisive and foolish.  An utter disaster for him and his Government, and one that was entirely avoidable.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Afghanistan, Bob Ainsworth, Gordon Brown, John Reid

Tagged

Hain resurrected

Posted on October 27, 2009 | 2 Comments

Ignore my last post.

The Western Mail website is reporting that Peter Hain will make a speech this evening in which he will say that a Conservative government will “take Britain back to the days of patients dying on trolleys stuck in hospital corridors”.

Quite apart from being untrue, scaremongering baloney (the Conservatives have made a point of promising to protect the NHS budget), this is very puerile stuff that will probably dismay even Peter’s own supporters.  The “stuck on a trolley” image is one that has haunted the NHS under Labour, as voters are only too aware, and I can’t think  that Labour strategists would want voters to be reminded of it.

So it would appear that Peter’s temporary absence hasn’t taught him any lessons at all.

Leopard. Spots.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Labour Party, Peter Hain

Tagged

Hain reborn

Posted on October 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

Peter Hain appeared before the select committee today, to answer questions on the Wales Office annual report.

I may be mistaken, but Peter does seem a different person since he was restored to the cabinet.  He is considerably less belligerent and partisan and more willing to accept reasonable criticism.

Perhaps it’s a consequence of being involuntarily reminded that a political career does not always follow an upward trajectory.  Whatever the reason, it becomes him better.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Peter Hain, Welsh Affairs Committee

Tagged

Obedient servants

Posted on October 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

Gordon Brown has apparently instructed two senior civil servants to “lobby discreetly” for Tony Blair to become president of the European Union.

Given that the British people have never been consulted on the Lisbon Treaty and would probably reject both it and its creation, the European presidency, if given the chance, I find it hard to see that this is a matter of huge significance  to the British national interest, as opposed to the Labour party’s own narrow  political interest.

I also find it hard to see why the time and effort of two British public officials should be expended in such a manifestly partisan venture.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Gordon Brown, Labour Party, Tony Blair

Tagged

AM for London

Posted on October 26, 2009 | 2 Comments

I was intrigued by this article in this evening’s Standard, reporting that French exiles in Britain are to be given the opportunity to elect their own member of the Assemblée Nationale in the 2012 national elections.

Actually, he or she will also be the member for Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic states, but since most by far of the individuals eligible to vote in that constituency live in the UK, he will effectively be “MP for Britain”.

Perhaps the French idea is something we Brits should consider emulating for our own general and devolved assembly elections.

Heaven knows, there are easily enough expat Welshmen and women living in London to form an Assembly constituency of their very own.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tagged ,

Motorcade man

Posted on October 26, 2009 | 2 Comments

David Miliband says he supports the notion that Tony Blair should become European Union president because he possesses what the Telegraph calls “the motorcade factor”:

“My own view is that we need somebody who can do more than simply run through the agenda. We need someone who, when he or she lands in Beijing or Washington or Moscow, the traffic does need to stop and talks do need to begin at a very, very high level. I think Europe has suffered from the lack of that clarity.”

I wonder if Mr Miliband has considered how well that would go down with the British people.  They already resent having  what they consider an unelected Labour Prime Minister foisted on them.  How much more would they resent being saddled with an unelected Labour European president who owed his status to a Lisbon Treaty on which they had also been denied a vote?

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Gordon Brown, Labour Party, Tony Blair

Tagged

Hostages to fortune

Posted on October 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

Gordon Brown informs us that the recession will be over in Britain by Christmas.  We must all hope devoutly that he is right.

However, given the wild inaccuracy of his predictions to date, it is reasonable to suppose that there is a strong possibility that he will be proved wrong yet again.

The question why the Prime Minister feels constantly compelled to give such hostages to fortune is an interesting one.  Either he is, despite the evidence of experience, still convinced of the infallibility of his own judgment, or he has now arrived at the point of desperation where he really doesn’t care.

Either way, we would all have cause to be profoundly disturbed if we were to think about it for any length of time.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in economy, Gordon Brown

Tagged

Nuclear reactors

Posted on October 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

There must be something about the sea air on Anglesey: it miraculously turns even the most hardened opponent of nuclear power into an enthusiast for a new generating station at Wylfa.

The Damascene conversion of Plaid Cymru’s Welsh Assembly leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, is already well known.  Plaid Cymru is deeply anti-nuclear; its 2009 Euro manifesto confirmed its “total opposition to the construction of any new nuclear power stations in Wales” and its Assembly spokeswoman, Leanne Wood, declared in a plenary debate in September, 2007, that:

“Plaid Cymru, under all circumstances, will oppose any future proposal to locate a new nuclear power station at Wylfa”. 

Mr Jones was accordingly very much out of step with his own party when, in January 2008, he enthusiastically welcomed the Government’s announcement of its commitment to a new generation of nuclear power stations as “good news”. 

Mr Jones admittedly is the Assembly member for Anglesey, and Wylfa is a major employer there, but nevertheless it is rather odd to see a party leader putting his name to a manifesto policy which he manifestly considers to be a load of old cobblers.

Now Carwyn Jones has also experienced the Wylfa effect.

Mr Jones is one of three candidates for the leadership of the Labour group in the Welsh Assembly.  He visited Anglesey yesterday as part of his campaign tour and announced that, as the debate on nuclear energy had “shifted considerably”, he now believed that “nuclear power will form part of Wales’s low-carbon response to the serious challenges we face in the years to come”.

Mr Jones’s dramatic turnabout will, I am sure, please the local MP, Albert Owen, who is staunchly pro-nuclear and has put his name to Mr Jones’s nomination papers.

It may, however, be less pleasing to another of his sponsors, the Welsh environment minister, Jane Davidson.  Ms Davidson has always strongly adhered to the official Assembly Government line (to which Mr Jones is still nominally committed) of opposition to new nuclear development in Wales.  Only two months ago, she demanded a public inquiry into the Government’s proposals for Wylfa B “on the grounds of concern over the safety and security of the management of future nuclear waste”.

Ms Davidson may now be wondering whether she has backed the right man.  Perhaps she, too, should take a trip up to Anglesey and breathe the balmy Wylfa air.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Albert Owen, Carwyn Jones, Ieuan Wyn Jones, Labour Party, Leanne Wood, nuclear power, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Assembly Government

Tagged

Sympathy for Griffin

Posted on October 25, 2009 | 1 Comment

Nick Griffin’s disastrous appearance on Question Time appears to have gone down badly even among his own supporters.

The Observer reports that Lee Barnes, the BNP’s legal officer (and what a demanding job that must be), has used his personal website to criticise Griffin for failing to take the opportunity to press home the attack on “the sanctimonious, hypocritical middle classes”.

Given that it is the middle classes, sanctimonious and hypocritical or otherwise, who make up a large proportion of Question Time’s audience, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for Griffin in the quandary that must have been presented to him.

But, on balance, I think I can resist the temptation.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in BNP

Tagged

BNP: should be good for a laugh

Posted on October 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

Matthew Parris has written a sensitive and intelligent article for today’s Times, which I strongly commend to readers.

Under the headline Why sacrifice free speech to squash a gnat?  Parris explains why those who believe in liberal democracy should be prepared to go some considerable distance to tolerate the expression of all views, even such as those so inarticulately pronounced by Nick Griffin in his Question Time appearance:

Nor do practical liberals like me believe in free speech regardless of its effect; they would not support free speech if they expected it to lead permanently to great harm.

But nor do they believe in free speech only when confident that their preferred opinion will win the immediate argument. They know that free speech can help bad ideas to gain ground as well as good. But they have enough faith in the persistence of human reason to believe that in the ebb and flow of argument, and over time, the better argument will eventually prevail.

Parris is entirely right and Peter Hain, among others, should take note.  Griffin’s performance on Thursday evening was lamentable; his website may have attracted a surge in hits after his appearance, but I’d guess that most visitors were prompted by curiosity to learn what sort of  oddball could justify his public appearance with a Ku Klux Klan leader on the grounds that the organisation was “almost totally non-violent”.

Griffin knows that he performed badly under the Question Time spotlight.  He has now filed a complaint with the BBC, saying that he was “bullied” on the programme.  Oh dear; what a dreadfully un-Ku Klux Klan-like way to behave.  Perhaps he will therefore decline the QT invitation the next time it drops through his letterbox.

We are an old democracy, in which extremism has never been able to take root, and are well capable of dealing with the odd Griffin who pops up from time to time.  Our usual, and best, reaction is to laugh at them. 

Any nation whose response to Adolf Hitler was to characterise him as a monorchic, Teutonic version of Charlie Chaplin knows exactly how to see off the likes of the BNP.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in BNP, Peter Hain

Tagged

Can’t afford any more of Gordon

Posted on October 23, 2009 | 2 Comments

gordonbrownThe British economy continues on its grim downward trajectory:  ONS figures released today show that it contracted by 0.4 per cent in the last quarter, the sixth consecutive fall, meaning that this is the longest and deepest recession since records began in 1955.  Sterling closed this evening down 2.4 cents against the dollar at $1.6338, and off 1.7 cents against the euro at €1.0878.

The Government’s economic projections have been shown to be hopelessly inaccurate; in the pre-Budget report last November, Alistair Darling predicted:

I, too, am forecasting that output will continue to fall in the UK for the first two quarters of next year. But then, because of decisions taken in this pre-Budget report, I expect it to start to recover, and GDP growth for 2009 is forecast to be between minus ¾ per cent and minus 1¼ per cent.

But the first, second and third quarters have now passed and the economy remains in deep recession, with little sign of pulling out in any hurry; this when Germany, France and Japan re-entered positive territory in the second quarter.

Gordon Brown has stubbornly persisted in asserting, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that his wise direction of the economy has left Britain best placed to weather the downturn.  Today’s figures demonstrate unequivocally that such is not the case and that, moreover, he really hasn’t a clue what to do about it.

Does he really intend to limp on like this for yet another six months?  Can’t he see that Britain simply can’t afford any more of him?

→ 2 Comments

Posted in economy, Gordon Brown

Tagged

Griffin’s public hanging

Posted on October 23, 2009 | 4 Comments

In the wake of what was a disastrous Question Time for Nick Griffin, when it would be sensible to allow the BNP leader’s intellectually threadbare argument to speak for itself, Peter Hain still can’t resist sticking his oar in:

“This could end up blighting the lives of many decent people in Britain just because they are not white. The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history.”

I know Peter means well, but he really ought to leave this one alone.  The BBC actually did everyone a favour by allowing Griffin to hang himself politically.

I would criticise the Beeb, however, for allowing the questions to linger too long in Griffin’s comfort zone of race.  If they had ranged across the gamut of contemporary political issues, they would have done more to highlight the fact that the BNP is in truth nothing  more than a lame and unattractive one-trick pony.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in BBC, BNP, Peter Hain

Tagged