Guardian readers: 'Does not compute'

Martin Kettle writes about Dambisa Moyo on the pages of Comment is Free, in a piece that is broadly supportive of her position on ending aid payments. The CiF readers seem largely to be behind her too, with several calls made for trade deals rather than more handouts. You can almost sense the confusion - Moyo's message is what heartless rightwingers have been saying for years - the message of hateful Thatcher and moronic Reagan - but they find themselves not only unable to vent their fury because the message is being delivered by a young black woman, but also finding themselves finally having to admit that the hate figures on the right were, erm, right all along.

This is rather extraordinary, but I wonder if I might have put a spanner in the works by pointing out in my own comment that the default position of Guardian reader is that buying green beans from Africa is equivalent to murder - it's going to lead to global warming isn't it? We're meant to be buying only from our local farmers' market, no?

I can square this circle without a problem - buy the goddam string beans and help the poor Africans. Guardian readers on the other hand are going to have to reconcile their desire to open doors to African trade and to close them at the same time.

Trade not aid

There's an interesting article in the FT about Dambisa Moyo, an economist who wants to scrap all of the aid programmes to Africa. Somewhat surprisingly, her views seem to be not unpopular, with at least two African leaders inviting her to talks.

It's certainly a breath of fresh air to have someone speak about "exit strategies" rather than simply demanding more handouts.  The FT speaks ominously,however, of a groundswell of opposition from the aid community. This is only to be expected. There are taxfree lifestyles to be maintained among the "misericorderati", so they can certainly be expected to fight hard and dirty.

But it's only trade that offers a long-term solution to the problem of poverty in Africa.

Quote of the day

If we cannot trust ourselves, and cannot be trusted by the British people to sort out our own pay and allowances, how on earth can we be trusted with the nuclear deterrent, the state of the economy and the other much more important things with which we are meant to be trusted?

Bernard Jenkin

(How indeed?)

Does Gordon Brown have to stand down as an MP?

• Gordon Brown claimed for a cleaner on expenses. He did this while provided with grace and favour home in Downing Street.
• The rules require that MPs can only claim for costs that are "wholly and necessarily incurred in connection with their parliamentary duties".
• A cleaner does not meet that test.
• Therefore Gordon Brown has broken the rules.
• But Gordon Brown says that any MP who breaks the rules cannot stand as a Labour MP.
• Therefore Gordon cannot lead the Labour party into the next election.

Is my logic flawed somewhere?

A thought

Has the opposition been so supine over the last ten years because they had their fingers in the till?

In other words could an MP have been told not to protest the actions of the government too loudly, in case word of their expense claims should find their way to a newspaper?

Some new fake charities

Renegade Parent notes that the government campaign against home educators is being implemented through fake charities. We already know about the NSPCC, but it appears that BECTA and the Inclusion Trust are also just extensions of government.

Meanwhile the Englishman has a story about the Blood Pressure Association who look to be a prime example of a nanny state quango and a fake charity to boot.

I hope you guys are going to submit these to the database...

Update on May 19, 2009 by Bishop Hill

And another one: Tony at Harmless Sky has the story of Aber Artro Beech Woods. The Countryside Comission for Wales decided that the woods, which were owned by the Woodland Trust, were actually oak woods, despite the vast majority of the land being covered in beech. The Trust has now started to chop the woods down. Very obedient.

Now this is interesting, because the Woodland Trust has been fingered as a Fake Charity, although they have gone to the trouble of denying this, pointing out that only 13% of their funding comes from the state. Given the evidence from Tony N though, 13% seems to be quite enough to get them to do as they are told.

So despite their protestations, it does look very much as if they are indeed a fake.

(As an aside, the Woodland Trust also cleared a wood near me a year or so back. Living as I do in an area of few woods, this was a pity. The trees had all grown up on a raised peat bog, so I think they probably had a reasonable case that they were restoring what was there before, but all the same, it's odd to find a body ostensibly dedicated to looking after trees spending their time chopping them down.)

More good news on the expenses front

LabourHome is reporting that the constituency Labour party in Luton south is standing behind their troughing MP, Marge Moran - her of the rotten house in Southampton.

This is wonderful news. The party is demonstrating to everyone that not only are its MPs corrupt but their supporters are too. Believe me, they are going to be toast.

More of this please.

The speaker must stay

No, really! DK is saying he's got to quit, but let's face it: if he stays on (with the connivance of Gordon Brown) we could well be looking at a complete wipe-out for Labour at the next election. I mean complete. One so big that the Lib Dems end up becoming the next official opposition.

And that's what I call a win.

Bishop Hill for mobile devices

I've set up Bishop Hill for mobile devices using MoFuse. Not having one of the aforementioned mobile devices, I have no idea if this has worked or not. Perhaps someone can tell me. The URL is: http://bishophill.mofuse.mobi/

Causing trouble

I chanced upon this site, which puts up a daily photo of the police at work. This is a protest against the government's silly law criminalising the photographing of law enforcement officers.

This prompted a thought.  A policeman friend told me that there is a police open day at Fife Police HQ this weekend. Some awkward sod should report everyone who takes a snap of a copper to, erm, one of the coppers present.

This should cause complete and utter chaos, ruin the police's PR day and publicise what a terrible law Mr Brown and his legions of lunatics have put in place.

Just a thought.

Tax freedom time

The Adam Smith Institute has an interesting article about how Tax Freedom Day, the day on which you stop working for the state and start working  for yourself, has now reached June 25th (at least if you take into account the surplus of government spending over its income).

Tax Freedom Day is a good idea, transforming a rather abstruse number (the percentage of GDP taken by government spending) into something that is readily comprehensible by the man in the street.

The problem with the concept though is that it only comes round once a year. It would be better public relations to have a tax freedom time, the point each day when you stop working for the government and start working for yourself.

By my calculations, if you normally work a 7 1/2 hour day, starting at 9am, you will probably still be working for the government when you knock off for lunch at 12:30. So when you buy lunch, you still haven't retained a single penny of your salary in order to pay for it - Gordon's had everything you've earned so far. Then, you return at 1:30, you have to work for another seven minutes until finally at 1:37pm, you finally reach tax freedom time.

And it's the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

ACPO to be subject to FoI?

The fact that the Association of Chief Police Officers is allowed to operate as a private limited company, thus making it exempt from the Freedom of Information Act,  is one of the more outrageous innovations of the kleptocrats that run the country.

There is however, the merest hint that this may be about to change. According to a government minister, some private organisations are to be brought into the scope of the FoI Act. Of course, we know from bitter experience that just because the government announces something, doesn't mean it will happen, so we will have to watch this one closely.

It is a solution of a sort, I suppose, but I'm not sure it's the right one. I can see no obvious rationale for keeping ACPO in the private sector.  Is there any rationale?

A link from a national heroine

It's not often that one gets a blog link from someone currently being hailed as a national heroine. In my case, it's Heather Brooke, the freedom of information campaigner who has, more than anyone, been responsible for getting the details of MPs' expenses out into the open.

Heather picked up on my posting about Michael Martin's use of the s34 exemption to the Freedom of Information Act to quash a request about MPs' paid-for trips abroad. It turns out that this exemption was put in place to deal with pressing matters of national security! This is starting to look like a pattern in government legislation isn't it? "Counter-terrorism laws will only be used against terrorists" and so on.

Mr Speaker has also, it seems, used the exemption to deal with matters even less pressingly important than overseas junkets - for example the setting up of the Parliamentary Beer Group.

MPs' tolerance of Martin in the position of speaker is starting to look almost as culpable as their expense claims.

In the meantime, Heather has been setting up an online petition. Together with the Taxpayers' Alliance, she is demanding full disclosure of MPs' expenses. This seems like a pretty good one to sign up for.

Who should represent you?

Reading between the lines of the reports of Cameron's press conference on Tory MPs' expenses yesterday, he has gone as far as he can with the parliamentary Conservative party. As Adam Boulton explains, paying back the ill-gotten gains is as far as Tory MPs are willing to go.

When someone is punished, either they are contrite and take their punishment or they are not. Clearly the Tory MPs are not. They still feel that they are in a position to negotiate over what their punishment will be. They presumably still feel they have done nothing wrong - the argument that "it was within the rules" argument seems to dominate their thoughts.

Lots of people have pointed out that this kind of thinking suggests an inability to distinguish right from wrong. This is undoubtedly true.

And we can't have people like that as our representatives in Parliament.

It's very sad for Cameron, who I think would go further if he had the ability to do so, but he relies on the parliamentary party for his position. He cannot force the crooks out. So there's no alternative but for the electorate to deal with the issue themselves. The fact remains that decent people cannot vote for the three big parties and I hope they give their verdict accordingly.

My party? Or my country?

What jolly japes this expenses saga is launching.

Lord Tebbit has announced this morning that people should not vote Tory - or words to that effect; it was slightly more nuanced than that. This has got readers at Conservative Home in a bit of a tizzy, with Jonathan Isaby arguing that the whip should be withdrawn from the noble lord.

The thing is though, surely Lord Rottweiler is right - surely nobody with a shred of decency would want to vote for a party awash in corruption and graft? Jonathan Isaby is obviously keen to maintain internal discipline in the party he supports, but this is the problem with party politics. At times, you are put in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between what is best for your party and what is best for your country.

I would have thought that the only possible answer to the dilemma is to choose country over party, if one is to maintain even a shred of self-respect. Decent people will refuse to vote Tory, just as Lord Tebbit suggests.

I wonder how many Conservatives support the Isaby line?