Educational Failure

There has been some discussion in this last week-end's Sunday papers about the new coalition government's plans for education and how - or if - it will benefit the kids of the future. Something has needed to be done about education for donkey's years and, indeed, something was done - 65 years ago - via the 1944 Butler Education Act. This gave us grammar schools open to all and I, personally, have good reason to be grateful for the opportunities that act offered to me. At the time I did not think too much about what was happening. I went to Bolton [School] and took their entrance exam and later [2 weeks] I went to the local secondary modern and sat the early version of 11+. I was summoned for an interview at Bolton School but, filled, with nerves, I failed to impress and I was rejected. Nevertheless, I did well enough in the other exam to be offered a place at Leigh Grammar School. This lead to Leeds University and a degree in Chemical Engineering. Along the way, I met other pupils and students from varied backgrounds from basic working class to the very rich. I got along with all of them and, in addition to my academic qualifications, I received an education. The economy will determine the usefulness of otherwise of technical qualifications but an education is a priceless asset.

Britain has a long track-record of general educational failure that goes back to the 19th century - and earlier. The Industrial Revolution had its origins in Britain. We were the workshop of the world and in the late 18th century it was said that there were more machines working in Lancashire than in the whole of the rest of the world put together. Whether this was really true, I know not, but the fact the it could even be suggested indicates how dominant Britain was in those years. The second Industrial Revolution came along in the second half of the 19th century. Where the first Revolution had relied on the ideas of great inventors - practical men like Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson, James Brindley, Thomas Telford and Joseph Bazalgette - the second grew out of science and technology driven by high levels of education. Britain failed dismally to provide such technical expertise. That greatest of all Victorian engineers, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was educated in France. Although it was not immediately apparent, Britain's decline as a manufacturing and exporting nation began in about 1875. Until the First World War, we could maintain our position, just. But from then on, old technology in old manufacturing premises allowed us to go down-hill. Our balance of payments deteriorated and we relied on money, insurance and financial services to balance the books. At the end of the Second World War, things were desperate and the Labour government did much to try to stop the rot. But after 1950 things carried on down-hill and, in the name of equality, in the 1960s a Labour government abolished the grammar schools. Since then the resurrection of the grammar schools has been a non-subject. In the name of equality of opportunity, everyone must go to a comprehensive. Everyone, that is, except those whose parents are wealthy enough to send them to a proper, good-quality, private, independent school. The make-up of the present cabinet in the coalition government is a crashing indictment of the failure of the policies of the last 40 years. Now there is not more equality; there is considerably less. People like me who come from working class backgrounds cannot have the benefits of a grammar school education. We just stuff everybody through the comprehensives, hand out meaningless bits of paper that suggest the school leavers are well educated and then send them to third-rate universities to get more useless bits of paper. Meanwhile the children of the rich are educated privately, go to the best universities and get all the top jobs. This last, unlamented Labour government even tried to socially engineer the universities by deliberate discrimination against applicants from independent schools. Social deprivation was now to be considered an essential element in qualifying for a university. I am sure that, in the future, this will be appreciated if any bridge designed by a socially disadvantaged engineer collapses.

The last 20 years have demonstrated the failure of our education system and of our economic planning. After the financial collapse, there is a realisation, at last, that we need to make things that people want to buy and that Britain has lots of bits that are not London. Manufacturing now accounts for about 13% of GDP and reversing the collapse will be a Herculean task. Are our politicians up to it? I am sceptical. After all, I am still waiting for Harold Wilson's "white hot technological revolution" of 1964.

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David Laws

Our new coalition government suffered its first blow yesterday when David Laws resigned as First Secretary to the Treasury. He was forced to resign when the Daily Telegraph revealed that he had claimed nearly £40,000 in expenses between 2004 and 2007 for rent paid to a landlord with whom he had a relationship. The problem arose because David Laws had been in a long-term relationship with James Lundie and from 2007 it has not been permitted for expenses to be claimed for renting a flat or house or part of these if the owner is a spouse or partner. David Laws has not really done anything wrong. He has a house in his constituency of Yeovil, on which he has a mortgage and he rents part of a house in London. He does not have a civil agreement with James Lundie and if he were a completely independent individual there would be no complaint. David Laws had wanted to keep his sexuality secret and therefore had made no disclosures. His relationship with James Lundie is quite low key. They share the house in London but live fairly separate lives and are only seen together when they go on holiday. The amounts claimed by David Laws were not excessive and he sought no personal gain from the claims. It is sad, that even in this day and age, David Laws could not admit publically that he was gay. As is so often the case, he did not want to tell either his parents or other members of his family. Now the matter has been splashed all over the media and his private life is very public. All the signs during the first two weeks of this government were that David Laws was a very competent minister and his resignation is a sad loss.

Why has this matter suddenly been revealed? The Daily Telegraph has had all the details on MPs expense claims and has made everything public months ago. Nothing was said about David Laws' claims because they were perfectly legitimate and reasonable until it was revealed that he was gay. Somebody has tipped off the Telegraph. It is said that he is considering also resigning his seat in Yeovil and leaving politics completely. I hope he will not do this. He has many qualities which parliament needs.

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Eurovision Again

Last night was the night for the annual European Song Contest and UK came last - with a mere 10 points - for the third time in eight years. This is quite impressive and possibly unequalled - I include the word "possibly" only because I can't be bothered looking it up. Who cares anyway. Most songs in this annual waste of time, money and effort sound alike. They have the bland un-controversial feel of a TV commercial or a tin of Heinz beans. Our candidate for stardom this year was one Josh Dubovie, who is, I am told, a teenager. That sorts out how old he is but whether he can sing or not, I know not. His song was written by Pete Waterman while idling away a few hours on a restored steam train excursion and even he did not think the song was up to much. Josh was selected as our candidate for the songfest via a viewers vote at the end of a TV programme in March - which somehow I managed to miss. This system of selection is, surely, flawed. Watching the Eurovision Song Contest for several hours can drive a man to drink - as Terry Wogan reported every year; he only got through it by drinking whiskey throughout. What then of viewers who, for several hours, watch a programme that attempts to single out a performer from a selection of hopefuls, who, we must assume, would have been bombarded with eggs and old fruit if they dared to perform in a live venue. And these viewers are the people who are being asked to make a selection. The fact of total failure - coming last - in three years out of eight does suggest that we need to think outside the box - as the saying goes. At the end, in 2010 we just managed to pip Belarus for bottom spot and they would have had about 2½p to spend on the project.

But Britain is, in general, not good at music. Our greatest composer was Georg Frederik Handel - a man born in Germany and only to be counted as a British composer on the strength of his naturalisation after he came here with the German speaking King George I. If we discount Handel, we will give top prize to Henry Purcell, a man who died in 1695 at the very Mozartian age of 35, without achieving quite the international fame of Wolfgang Amadeus. My own feeling is that the greatest of British composers, if Handel is excluded, would be Edward Elgar. He composed music that was original, of the highest quality and oozing the atmosphere of England. He was no Beethoven but his best music has stature that stands well alongside the best of European composers. And his "Dream of Gerontius" is, like Beethoven's Missa Solemnis admired rather than loved.

It's quite a journey from the Missa Solemnis to the Eurovision Song Contest and something tells me that we had problems with the sat-nav and got lost along the way.

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Selling Stonhenge

These days we are quite used to reading about daft bits of research that, after months of work and the expenditure of much public money, tell us the blindingly obvious. But yesterday, I read of some bit of research, which told me something it was almost impossible to know. Stonehenge is worth £51,000,000. Who says so? Estate agents, that's who. On what basis have they valued it? It's a bit tatty but there are few structures on this planet erected by humans that have survived for over 4,000 years in any condition at all. The survey of estate agents by findmeaproperty.com set to find out what they thought various iconic buildings were worth. The publishers of the survey said there was a surprising agreement on the value of Stonehenge. Now, estate agents are normally required to value buildings as potential homes. On this basis, Stonehenge cannot be considered a good buy since it has obvious weaknesses as a place to live. The structure is Grade I listed so any attempts to modernise and install an Ikea kitchen [for example] would come up against some pretty formidable obstacles; and we will gloss over the matter of weatherproofing and new damp proofing. It has panoramic views across Salisbury Plain, spoiled only by the damn great car park near by. So, on what basis did they value it? As an asset [like a Picasso painting]? Possibly, but it could not be easily moved - does it go with all the other associated megalithic monuments? As a business? This makes more sense. It generates about £6 million per year in revenues and with a bit of smart marketing, this could easily be doubled. Can we persuade Sir Richard Branson to buy it and make it Virgin Stonehenge? A few banners and some promotional balloon ascents should stir things up a bit. Will they allow Branson to be Chief Druid - after all he would look the part when wearing the ceremonial robes.

This same survey has suggested that 10 Downing Street is worth £5.2 million and Windsor Castle, a snip at, £391 million. Admittedly, these are more des-res but Downing Street seems a bit low - although you never know who might be living next door and there's not much privacy.

In these straightened times, has the valuation been done as a first step to selling them all to the highest bidder to help pay off the national debt? The Queen could manage without Windsor - she still has a few other castles and houses to live in.

As is well-known, privatisation is more efficient than public ownership so who can tell what dramatic improvements could come from selling off all this old stuff, thus providing us with the cash to keep some of the most important of the 1,162 quangos that provide us with so much and employ 714,430 people [as of yesterday]. As the government embarks on the great bonfire of the quangos, we have to ask, how will we manage without the British Potato Council and/or the Milk Development Board, or the Government Decontamination Service - responsible for removing troublesome back-benchers, I assume?

It is obvious that our new coalition government is examining every option in its attempts to deal with the debts. We will have to see how the cookie crumbles.

Now, about the Cookie & Puddings Marketing Board .................

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A Bit Of A Do

I have not posted much in the last couple of weeks because I have been busy with so many other things. I was in the North of England - in Atherton until yesterday - where I have been for the last week. I was there to attend a wedding and to give away the bride - my niece, Lorraine. Her father died some ten years ago and I was acting on his behalf. The wedding took place on Saturday 22nd May, which was a very sunny day and turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. Certainly, dressed in my new suit and wedding waistcoat with cravat/tie thing, it was a very suffocating experience. I am not a regular wedding attender; at my age, funerals are a more common occurrence. The organisation was done by my two nieces and, I have to say, the whole event went off like clockwork. A good time was had by all for the reception and afternoon meal and at the evening buffet and disco. The cake was made by my elder niece Carol, who is becoming quite skilled at making fancy cakes for weddings, birthdays and the like. It is only a bit of a hobby but she is very good. The cakes taste as good as they look.

The event took place at the Greyhound Hotel on the East Lancs Road in Leigh at the junction with Warrington Road. During the period of planning there were a few occasions when we had doubts about the organising abilities of the hotel group but we were quite wrong. They did an excellent job at every stage. The meal at the reception was of excellent quality for a bulk catering job like this and was much appreciated. They, also, were very complimentary about the wedding party. They had no complaints at all about anyone's behaviour. Something you would expect to be the norm - but, apparently not. The previous week they had a wedding which went far from smoothly. During the afternoon, the management discovered that a dozen or so young children had wandered off from the reception and had crossed the East Lancs Road to investigate a circus - or some such entertainment - on the other side. This was something potentially very dangerous but none of the guests seemed to have noticed. The staff rounded up all the children and then brought them back and tried to sort out which children belonged to which parent. This proved quite a task since no-one seemed very worried or even interested. Later in the day, there were disagreements and several fights ensued. I expect by Monday the bride and groom were round the divorce lawyers to try to unravel the whole thing. It makes our day seem so boring.

Watching the exchanging of vows and the swearing of everlasting bonds of love, only a cynic would want to point out that 50% of marriages end in divorce. Dr Johnson may have had no problems with a first marriage but he had grave doubts about the second marriage - "the triumph of hope over experience" - but at least Lorraine and Andy have been together for 16 years - which surely is enough of a trial run to be sure.

On Monday morning they went off for a short holiday in the Canaries and I found myself driving them to Liverpool Airport very early in the morning - we were there by 5.30 am. Not something I want to do every day - but it did seem to make time pass more slowly.

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Henry Of Anjou

The weather today is hardly spring-like. It's still a little on the cold side and the weather men are promising us some rain during the day. Yesterday was FA Cup Final day - Chelsea just managed to beat bankrupt Portsmouth 1 - 0 - much to almost everybody's regret, I am sure. And this is the Sunday of the annual motor-fest in Monaco that is the Monaco GP. I will watch this evening because the race through the streets is a wonderful spectacle - even on television.

Today is also the date of a rather obscure anniversary but one which was enormously important in English history. On 16th May 1152 in Poitiers, Henry of Anjou married Eleanor of Aquitaine. So, what's special about that? Henry of Anjou was the son of Matilda, the only surviving legitimate daughter of Henry I of England. She had been married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1114, when she was only 12 years old and she lived in the land that is now Germany. Henry V, like many a Holy Roman Emperor, spent much of his time arguing with the Pope about who had responsibility for what on this Earth and holding meetings [diets] in Worms to try to reach agreements. Henry V died in 1125 and Matilda then returned to England as the "Empress Maud". In 1127 Henry I forced his barons to accept her as the Queen of England in the event of his death. The barons were less than enthusiastic - about having a Queen Maud but also because neither England nor Normandy had ever been ruled by a woman. But, for the moment, they went along with it. In the meantime Matilda married Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, which only increased the antagonism of the barons; the Plantagenents in Anjou were long time enemies of the Normans. Matilda's son was Henry Plantagenet.

When Henry I died in 1135, the barons, with the support of the Church invited Stephen, Matilda's cousin, to be king. He was the son of Stephen, Count of Blois and Adele, daughter of William the Conqueror. Stephen was crowned king and reigned until his death in 1154. However, much of this time was spent in a civil war with his cousin Matilda. Stephen's reign was, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a time when "there was nothing but strife, evil and robbery" across the whole kingdom of England. These were indeed difficult and chaotic times and power moved from Stephen to Matilda and back again several times - it is a long story. Eventually, Stephen came to a compromise - almost a coalition - with Matilda and agreed to recognise Matilda's son Henry, now married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, as his successor as king. The marriage to Eleanor gave Henry control of large and rich areas of France which strengthened his hand as king.

The reign of Henry II - the first Plantagenet king - from 1154 to 1189 did much to stabilise England after the turmoil of Stephen's reign. He was a well educated man and a good manager of the nation's finances. He lead a quite spartan existence by the standards of the time and only rarely did he wear the full regalia of a king. He was the first monarch to call himself King of England - as opposed to King of the English. He is now, perhaps unfortunately, remembered mainly for the incident of the murder of the Archbishop of Caterbury, Thomas Becket, by four over-zealous knights.

There, a bit of history. I think we can truly say that "Not a lot of people know that!"

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Educating The Cabinet

In the exciting new world of coalition politics it is interesting to look at the educational backgrounds of the new cabinet. Of the 23, 12 went to fee paying schools, 7 went to old fashioned grammar schools and only 4 went to comprehensives. Since some of the grammar schools attended by cabinet ministers no longer exist and either vanished or are now fee paying, it seems likely that in the future even more cabinet ministers will come from independent [ie public or, more accurately, private] schools. All of the ministers went to university; 15 went to Oxford or Cambridge. Only four cabinet members are women and only one is not white Anglo-Saxon. I am not sure whether we should celebrate or commiserate with the perpetrators of this hopeless failure to represent an accurate cross-section of the nation. There is no earthly reason, of course, why the cabinet should be a cross-section of the nation. But what is worrying and surely a matter of real concern is that even though grammar schools were generally abolished 40 years ago and in spite of the fact that over 90% of the population attend state comprehensive schools, only four individuals made it to the cabinet. We have known for years that the top positions in the civil service and the law are filled with men and woman from fee paying schools who have attended Oxford or Cambridge universities. Sir Humphrey Appleby told Jim Hacker in "Yes Minister" thirty odd years ago that the department of education concentrated on keeping parents and teachers unions happy while they educated their own children privately. It's still the same. David Cameron told us during the election campaign that background and education did not matter, it was policies that were important. It is OK to say this if you come from a privileged background and have a few million pounds in the bank. David Cameron told us that a vote for the Tories was a vote for change. On the matter of top jobs and the education of those who fill them, nothing has changed.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the education provided in fee paying schools is far superior to that provided by all but the very, very best of comprehensives. In my young days there were over 1200 grammar schools in this country, all having intakes selected by some form of entrance exam. Many of them with long histories, they provided an education not far short of the independents but open to all who could pass the exams. After the Labour purges of the 1960s only 165 grammar schools remain - mainly around Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Kent. Their abolition has taken away the possibility of quality education from the poorer classes. It will be argued that a majority of children in the old grammar schools came from middle-class parents. Possibly. But many came from working class families. Until David Cameron came along, the last Old Etonian Prime Minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964. Most of the rest, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major went to grammar schools. Brown went to a state school in Scotland and was the son of a parson. Tony Blair came from a modest background but his father studied for a law degree at Edinburgh while working as a tax inspector and later was able to pay for his son to go to the Fettes College [current fees £25,000 per year]. The whole picture is a crashing indictment of state education. In spite of the fact that the Labour government had as an objective to send 50% of the population to university, the fact is that most were unqualified for a university education and got to downgraded universities via an exam system that every year gives higher and higher gradings to children who often can hardly read or write. As I have written before this country has always been run by the rich and the very rich. In many ways they have made a pig's-ear of it and it must be better to broaden the selection base and strengthen the roots in all sections of society. Perhaps they suffer from a form of intellectual incest.

I will still wish the new coalition well as they try to face up to the immense problems of national [and private] debt. Are we in an era of new politics? Will anything change for the better? In five years time [or less], we will know.

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For The Good Of The Country

It's still cold for the time of the year with night temperatures falling to ground frost levels in some secluded spots even in the south. British Airways - its management and aircrew - are hard at work - dust clouds permitting - on a journey to oblivion. It is almost a slow-motion replay of of the industrial bloody-mindedness of 70s Britain that ended with industrial wastelands across large areas of Britain and gave us Mrs Thatcher.

The new government is getting to work and I sense a general optimism among the general public that this coalition can be made to work. But there are forces willing them to fail. The Tory Party has a right wing element that like British Airways would rather self-destruct than compromise on anything. We know these people exist but the media seem deliberately to be seeking them out to plaster their minority views all over the front pages of the newspapers or broadcast them on radio and TV. The BBC has not performed well in this respect and I am almost inclined to believe the paranoids who think the BBC is filled with leftist propagandists working for the Labour Party.

On last night's Question Time, there were Lord Faulkner, Michael Heseltine and Simon Hughes putting forward sensible views on the formation of the Lib-Con coalition, when few other realistic options presented themselves. And, I believe that the two parties had a duty to pull together. But the coalition was attacked by members of the audience who, it seemed had been selected for their negative views on the coalition. But, if this were not bad enough, the otter two panelists were Melanie Philips who rants and raves all the time with her to-the-right-of-Genghis Kahn views and paranoid obsessions and Mehdo Hasan, the political editor of the New Statesman who also ranted and raved blaming everybody for failing to cobble together a deal between Lib-Dems and Labour. If the Lib-Dems had any guts, he said, they would have stayed out of this squalid deal and allowed the Tories to govern as a minority - which would ultimately have collapsed, caused a General Election and lead to the re-election of the Labour Party. I have to say that Michael Heseltine and Simon Hughes defended the coalition with vigour and a great deal of common sense. It seems that with so many Lib-Dem MPs actually part of the government, Simon Hughes is going round the TV and radio studios as a front line of defence. Considering that he is a fairly left wing Lib-Dem man, he has accepted the coalition with considerable alacrity and has a done a good job defending the government against many detractors. For years we have adversarial politics with parties shouting at each other providing little illumination and accepting that every few years we change over from one lot to the other - in every case in recent times elected by a minority vote. David Cameron has said that he wants to change that and I wish him well. It is a huge task, made more difficult by the fact that it has to be done alongside treating the worst financial disaster in modern times.

Today, William Hague was in Washington shaking hands and having a chat with Hillary Clinton and emphasizing the easy relationship between our two countries. Meanwhile, David Cameron was making friends with Alex Salmon in Edinburgh. This is going to be bit of a struggle because of the lack of Tory representation in Scotland but, again, there seemed to be some good will between the two men.

In the last few days there seems to have been an orgy of searching the archives to find examples were Lib-Dems and Tories called each other names. What is the point? As long as parties are fighting each other they will accuse each other of all kinds of things. That is what has been wrong. Now they should be pragmatic and pull together for the good of the country.

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A Funny Old Day

Well, it's been a funny old day, what with one thing and another. A chilly breeze has been blowing across Sussex and snow fell in Cumbria - and forget not that it is mid-May. I did some work on heating and cooling and on pressure relief valves for my old employers, had my hair cut - the breeze became much chillier then - and I cleared out some of my old rubbish - mainly plastic bottles and paper. I ordered more tee shirts for the gym - good quality ones from a little company in Erith down on the south bank of the Thames. And I enjoyed - in a masochistic way - a cup of coffee out on the patio in the murky sunlight.

The day has also been one of great political transitions and some truly historic events. Journalists from TV companies and newspapers from around the world have been camped out in Downing Street and in Whitehall watching all the comings and goings and trying to assess what has been going on. At times, seeing individuals who were likely to be senior members of a possible new government wandering up and down Whitehall mingling with crowds of press and media people as well as police, security men and the general public was more reminiscent of earlier times when politicians could wander freely without threat of attack rather than today's more dangerous times. It was refreshing that so many senior politicians could walk so freely. It seems that early today discussions with the Labour Party came to a fairly swift end. To me its was a result that surely was capable of being predicted by the most unskilled of Mystic Megs. Just look at the negatives. The new prime minister would be the same one who had just lost 97 seats in a General Election - and a PM who would be replaced in the coming months by one selected by the Labour Party hierarchy. The arithmetic was wrong - they would not have a majority. Any stirring in the ranks would inevitably lead to House of Commons defeats. The country would reject it - see earlier posts. Now it seems that many Labour MPs right up to cabinet level regarded the whole concept as completely unacceptable and that the party should just admit that they had lost and go into opposition. I am now convinced that Gordon Brown's appearance yesterday was entirely at the instigation of the spin doctors - Mandelson and Campbell - and that the mad scheme had never been discussed with the MPs.

So discussions between Lib-Dems and Tories continued and various messages came out that things were going well. Then about 7.30 pm Gordon Brown came out of No 10 and announced that he was going to resign as PM and would advise the Queen to send for the leader of the opposition. He announced also his immediate resignation as leader of the Labour Party. Then with his family he went off in the official Jaguar to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen. He emerged after 20 minutes and soon after David Cameron arrived at the palace. Then slowly over the hours from 9.00 pm through to the early morning the news came through that David Cameron would head a coalition government of Tories and Lib-Dems. The Lib-Dems would have five cabinet posts with Nick Clegg as Deputy PM. Various cabinet ministers were named immediately and it was said that there would be at least one Lib-Dem junior minister in every department. Vince Cable would head up a department concentrating on business and the banks. What will Ken Clark do? Home Secretary again?

I feel sure that these decisions - warmly welcomed by both parties - will be well received by the markets tomorrow morning and by the public and, with luck, will result in a very positive government. There was an announcement that the two parties have agreed in principle to fixed parliaments of 5 years. We need to hear the details of how this works if a government is defeated in a no confidence vote but, in principle it is step forward and stops prime ministers fixing election dates only when things are going well.

So far David Cameron has behaved with considerable diplomacy and statesmanship. He has big problems ahead. He is leading a very unusual [fro Britain] type of government - but of a type that has worked well at times of crisis in the past. Very few ministers will have had any experience of high office. David Cameron should make very good use of those who have. Harold Macmillan's problem with "events, dear boy, events" would probably equate to Donald Rumsfeld's known unknowns and unknown unknowns. There are many difficult problems for David Cameron associated with the known unknowns. It is the unknown unknowns that will require his greatest powers of statesmanship if the coalition is to stay together.

I wish him luck.

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Forming A Coalition - Part 2

It's now five days since we voted in a General Election and the inter-party "discussions" are still going on. Some of it is so disgusting that the media should stand up and say so now. Particularly my complaint is against the Labour Party. Current thinking is that they can cobble together a deal with the Lib-Dems assuring them of political reform and seats in a coalition cabinet. It would be a minority government that is 20 seats short of a majority. It will not last and will hardly be the stable and strong government this country needs. When it collapses, as it surely will, there will have to be another General Election which the Tories will win with a landslide - and both Labour and Lib-Dems will suffer. This could happen before the coalition has delivered the jewel [for the Lib-Dems] of electoral reform and from then on the Lib-Dems will be in the wilderness for a generation. The Labour Party spin machine - ie Lord Mandelson - believes that a new minority government of Labour-Lib-Dems can be "sold" to the electorate on the basis that they have more than 50% of the votes and that the people voted for the Labour Party and not Gordon Brown and hence they can select their new Labour leader when and however they like. It is a load of bollocks that could only be considered rational in the mind of a scheming, slimy operator like Mandelson. It shows quite staggering contempt for the electorate and the sooner they realise it the better. It is suggested that all this nonsense is happening because certain venerable old Lib-Dems believe that they are naturally anti-Tory. That is not the point. The Tories are the largest party - by far - and so far, in public at least, David Cameron has behaved both responsibly and with statesmanship and at this moment he is one of the few to come out of this haggling with any merit whatsoever.

The Lib-Dems should stop all the shenanigans now and form the alliance that is needed with the Tories. I have been much more impressed by the Tories in the last few days when party figures like William Hague, Oliver Letwin, John Major and others have emerged from the shadows and appeared very reasonable and confident. They can even ignore the rantings of Norman Tebbit - is he a real person?

Today must be the crunch.

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Forming A Coalition

Well, today at 5.00 pm Gordon Brown announced that since the Lib-Dems had so far failed to reach an agreement with the Tories, he would also put in hand negotiations with the Lib-Dems to try to form a working government. He would stay on as PM to see that process come to fruition but he would ask the Labour Party to find a new leader by the autumn and the Party Conference. I think he has been forced into this position by the dark forces of Mandelson and Campbell in order, they think, to improve the chances of a deal with the Lib-Dems that will keep them in office. It is political manoeuvring of the worst kind. Labour has quite clearly been rejected by the electorate and we should have a government which is lead by the Tories as the biggest party. The stumbling block seems to be the fact that Tories and Lib-Dems are diametrically opposed on the matter of electoral reform. I can understand that but the parties need to compromise. The Lib-Dems cannot talk about PR and yet not be prepared to go into coalition unless they get everything they want. They are after all the minority party. But it is madness to think that this rainbow alliance of Labour, Lib-Dems, a collection of celtic parties and a green will be allowed to gather together to run England and yet demand that we [England] continually give them money to finance their pet projects in their own countries - each of which has a devolved parliament elected by PR - which we in England cannot have because it "produces unstable government." It is a monstrosity completely unacceptable to England. Someone should get Mandelson and Co to look at a post election map that shows almost the whole of England blue. The people of England want and expect that we will have a government that has the Tories as the major partner and that the prime minister is someone who has been elected. To have all this business of election debates of three party leaders and then see Labour heading a government with yet another Labour leader who becomes prime minister without an election is an absurdity and a corruption of the democratic process.

The Tories have now offered Nick Clegg a referendum on voting reform via the AV system. At the same time, to keep the right wing of the Tory Party on board, David Cameron will offer cabinet posts to the likes of Michael Howard, Ian Duncan-Smith and David Davies. I have no problem with any of these in principle but Michael Howard is no longer an MP so presumably he will be moved to the House of Lords. I suppose he could be Lord Chancellor - or its New Labour equivalent. At least they are adding some experience.

The Lib-Dems now have negotiating teams wandering from one meeting to another and we must wonder when this will stop and they will take a decision to join in government or cut and run. It can't be that difficult.. I hope they will soon stop messing about and form the right government of Tories and Lib-Dems and tell the ragged edges of their party - who, perhaps, fundamentally don't want to be involved in running anything - that this is the best chance in nearly 100 years for the Lib-Dems to be part of a government and if they do a good job, they really could be on the rise. Get this wrong and chicken out of responsibility and they will not get PR and they will sink back into oblivion.

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Negotiations & The Financial Crisis

I have just been told - via Channel 4 News - that Europe is at an epic crossroads and standing on the brink. It is a vivid picture, which is being used to try to persuade us of the seriousness of economic negotiations taking place today to [yet again] cobble together a deal to save Greece. It will, almost certainly, cost more than the last final deal and will create yet more friction in other countries - particularly Germany - who will have to pay for it. The trouble is that the deal will almost certainly not work and, in the end, Greece will default. A writer in Money Week said that these days economic policy making was all too often a matter of putting off problems until next year or the year after or even the year after that. And, of course, the debts get bigger and bigger.

We must hope that the solutions that the politicians come up with here will really tackle our own problems. Negotiations between Tories and Lib-Dems are still continuing and seem to be getting somewhere. But now, in the middle of this it seems that Labour are pressing the Lib-Dems to join them. If necessary they will dump Gordon Brown. This manoeuvre has all the hallmarks of Mandelson fiddling about to the last. Does he, or anyone else in the Labour Party believe that it is possible or acceptable to cobble together a new government with a tiny majority using the celtic parties and introducing another unelected prime minister? It is ludicrous.

Hopefully, by tomorrow morning we will see the makings of the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition.

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The Treaty of Windsor

As I may have mentioned in these postings, I have been investigating my family history for a few years with the objective of putting it all together in a book. The project has grown so much that my writings to date suggest that my finished history will be on a scale that, by comparison, consigns such stories as War & Peace to the category of mere novelettes. I feel that my multi-volume work will need much editing before I proceed to publication. In searching the roots of my family I find myself in Lancashire in Tudor times and earlier when the county was still a wild place. I come up against land and allegiances tied to John of Gaunt [1340 - 1399], Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III and ancestor of Plantagenet kings Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI and via his illegitimate line of the Beauforts to Henry VII, Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth. Not that our family was ever anything above the level of yeoman. It is just that John of Gaunt - who does not seem to have ever had anything very much to do with Lancashire or Lancaster - was an essential cog in a vast family that controlled England and the lives of the whole population. I have just delved into this complex family structure again when I noted [via the BBC] that today is the 724th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Windsor between England [not Britain of the UK] with Portugal; this treaty is still in-force and as such is the oldest such treaty still valid anywhere in the world. The treaty marked the alliance on the occasion of the marriage of John I of Portugal to Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt. The treaty was important in cementing an alliance that recognized Spain as a common enemy. The treaty was actually a revision of a document first signed in 1373. The treaty has been invoked many times over the centuries to bring Portugal into military actions - like the Peninsula War and WWII. It seems almost a pity that we have to record that Portugal is almost unique [I know that such a condition is impossible; it is either unique or it is not] among the countries of Europe in that during a period on 700+ years we have never gone to war against them.

All this makes recording May 9th as the anniversary of Colonel Thomas Blood's attempt to steal the crown jewels in 1671 - he failed to escape and the damaged jewellery was repaired - as a mere trifle in the eons of English history. Oddly, King Charles II pardoned the Irishman and gave him lands in Ireland. Perhaps, it is suggested, the king just loved an un-restructured rogue.

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Posturing Or Government?

This morning is a rather dreary May day with some light rain and a cool breeze from the east. I read on the BBC web-site that some rail fares have quadrupled in a year - because the railway companies have changed peak hours to include more of each day. More volcanic dust is drifting across from Iceland and Spanish air space is closed. Iceland - with a population of just over 300,000 and some dodgy banks - has been a troublesome country over the years. Remember the cod wars? Their volcanoes pose a continuous threat - it is even suggested that a volcano in 1787 and 1788 produced so much dust that harvests across the whole of Europe were affected, leading to hunger among the poorest people, increased deaths and, in France, the French Revolution. The dust seem to be by-passing us at the moment.

On the other hand, the dust of our General Election seems to be settling - slowly - although we still do not have a new government. Tories and Lib-Dems are carrying on discussions to see if they can form an alliance of some kind. There are reports coming out of opposition inside the Tory Party as well as from the Lib-Dem camp. Much seems to revolve around the matter of electoral reform. The Lib-Dems want it; the Tories do not. I can understand this but if we assume that the Lib-Dems do not go into a coalition because of this then they risk electoral oblivion and - I would argue - they will deserve it. As Harold Macmillan said many years ago, the biggest problems he had to deal with as prime minister were "Events, dear boy, events!" That is the situation for the Lib-Dems. There is no point in sticking for electoral reform if they are not part of a coalition. They can agree to back the Tories on specific issues without an alliance but this really amounts to responsibility without power and it will not make the Tories change the electoral system. In any case, a change in the electoral system will not matter until we have another general election, which, with a stable government, will be four years off. They can argue the merits of their case and, surely, a commission of all parties with a set timetable leading to either confirmation of the present system or a change - approved via a referendum - is an acceptable step forward. Nick Clegg has to trust David Cameron. If he does not, he needs to say so and give up on an alliance and on giving the country a stable government. If the Lib-Dems chicken out of this one they will exacerbate the UK's economic problems and after struggling on for some months, David Cameron will have another election and the Lib-Dems risk annihilation. I will repeat: the two parties have a duty to the country to form a stable government. Together they have the support of 60% of the electorate and, if they believe in democracy, then they have to come together. It is of no use waffling on about principles if you are never in a position to get anything done. It may be that some in each party are just posturing - hopefully, most of the beans and sandals wing of the old Liberals should now have gone to the Greens - but our economic woes do not allow for posturing. We need action by a stable government. Tories and Lib-Dems together would have a majority in parliament of 76, which is more than adequate and would allow for individual groups to disagree on specific bits of legislation without bringing down the government. We will probably know the best - or the worst - by Monday.

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An Alliance

It is 01.45 am on Saturday 8th May. With all the General Election results in the Tories have got 306 seats and it is clear that the only way of getting a government with an overall majority is via a full coalition government of Tories and Lib-Dems as I suggested earlier. In the middle of the afternoon David Cameron made a very clear proposal that the Lib-Dems should join them in a coalition to tackle Britain's problems. This was an encouraging announcement and was public supported by a number of prominent Tories like Sir John Major and Michael Portillo. While discussions were still going on this evening Ken Clarke and Lord Harris were interviewed by an overwrought Kirsty Wark on Newsnight who hammered away at the idea that no coalition was possible because the Lib-Dems could never accept the Tories ideas on electoral reform. She banged on and on and on about it until I was convinced that she was drunk, mad, insane or infected by aliens. What was the bloody woman on about. Had she been programmed or instructed by a dictatorial BBC megalomaniac to wreck any compromise deals? The two interviewees reacted with admirable courtesy and restraint as the demented woman screamed her manic rantings at them. She needs to be taken away for treatment.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown remains in Downing Street - as he should - until The Tories and Lib-Dems succeed in making a deal or failing to make a deal. In the first case, Gordon Brown must immediately go to Buckingham Palace to resign and advise the Queen to invite David Cameron to form a new government. It is the right thing to do yet many people are suggesting that the PM should get out of Downing Street at once because he has lost. He may have lost but if Cameron cannot put together a government then Gordon Brown has to try.

I hope we do get a Tory-Lib-Dem government. It is the right solution and reflects what the voters have demanded because together they carry 60% of the votes cast. What the people have said via the polls is that they do not like Labour but do not want to go the whole hog and give the Tories a massive majority. They want to see a government of co-operation and compromise. After all compromise can be the corner-stone of diplomacy.

In spite of their losses in the General Election, Labour are having success in the local elections picking up seats from all other parties. So in spite of all the difficulties and the abuse by the press, Gordon Brown has bounced back - when we consider the situation one year ago. The party may have taken a battering in the General Election but they have survived intact with the loss of only a couple of the big guns. The gains in the local elections should help soak up the tears.

I wonder who will be in charge of finances in the new government. Brown and Darling are much the most experienced in dealing with the financial problems but if Ken Clarke and Vince Cable can join with George Osborne in the coalition, they should be able to get to grips with the finances and the Greek tragedy.

And Gordon Brown can make a dignified exit.

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A Coalition Is Needed

Well, it's now 11.45 am and more General Election results are in. All the signs are that when all the results are in, the Tories will have 306 seats and with DUP support would have 316 seats. Labour and Lib-Dem together would have 317 seats. The only possible working arrangement is Tory and Lib-Dems and, whether they like it or not, that is what should happen. Otherwise, at this critical time, we will be without a stable government for weeks or months and in a situation that could only get worse. Now, we have to see if the politicians can cobble an agreement together and get on with the job.

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The End For Labour

It's 2.30 am on 7th May and all the signs are that later today we will have a Conservative government. It is not 100% clear yet whether they will have an overall majority but they won't be far off. If they do not, I think it is likely that David Cameron will try to govern with a minority government while he fixes the constituency boundaries and reduces the number of MPs to ensure that there is a built in Tory majority and that no longer will there be a weighting towards Labour. Then, when support for the Lib-Dems has faded away, he will go to the country again and get the overall majority that he wants - and we will be back to the same old politics which the public wants to get away from. The old system in which 30% of the vote is enough to give a big enough majority of seats to ignore the voting split. So far there has been no discussion of the percentage share of the vote last night but I think it will show yet again that even when the Lib-Dems increase their share of the vote it makes little difference to their number of seats unless they can surge past 30%. On the basis of current information the Labour Party plus Lib-Dems will still not have enough seats to form a majority government.

One of the most disturbing facts of this election has been the chaos at polling stations where all over the country people have been queuing for hours and have still been deprived of the right to vote because they could not get into the polling stations by 10.00 pm. In some places people had queued for 3 hours and still not got to vote. Is there any end to the incompetence of the people who run this country? Here we are reduced to the status of a banana republic unable to organise the simple matter of an election by providing enough polling stations and officers. In spite of hundreds of thousands of extra workers employed by the government over the last few years, this simple task was beyond them. It seems that some polling stations even ran out of ballot papers; others didn't even have up-to-date electoral rolls. The excuse is that the turnout has increased significantly. No it has not. It is up by 5% or 10%. We expected that and in olden days turnout was over 80%. How did we cope then? This really is the most staggering failure of local government. Many politicians have complained over many years about voter apathy; now when the numbers of voters goes up they cannot vote. Some returning officers should be sacked. These days they are paid gold-plated salaries and they should carry the can for such embarrassing failure. Should a country that cannot arrange for voters to put crosses on forms be allowed to have nuclear missiles?

I think tomorrow Gordon Brown will resign with dignity and the old warhorse will retire to the back benches. He is a decent man who did many good things over the years and was the longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer in history. God knows who will lead the Labour Party. David Miliband? Alan Johnson?? Ed Miliband??? Harriet Harperson?????????????........ It all sounds like a horror comic. And alongside them David Cameron and George Osborne will be trying to learn how to navigate the boat and to help their rich friends. Still Lord Mandelson should be OK.

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Motherwell & Hibernian Draw

The final day of the election campaign and to celebrate Motherwell & Hibernian fought a 6 - 6 orgy of a draw to score the most ever goals in a Scottish Premier League match. Nick Clegg went down to Eastbourne for his final attempt to stimulate the voters; David Cameron rushed off to the oil terminal on Sullom Voe - or somewhere equally remote - as he continued to seek the obscure vote; and Gordon Brown headed home to Fife. Latest polls show the Tories in the lead but short of an overall majority and still more than a third of those declaring that they will vote have yet to make up their minds. I know the problem. It is impossible to vote for that which many of us want - a hung parliament that forces political parties to work together to solve our desperate problems. We will have to decide on the day via a hunch or calculated tactical vote where we place our cross. I have said over and over that I regard the Blair/Brown government as the worst in my life time. Gordon Brown is a decent man, grumpy and curmudgeonly perhaps, but he has men like Balls, Mandleson and Campbell around him - and that's depressing. Should we vote for Labour or suggest "in the name of God, Go?" Do we feel that like democracy that is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time, that we should stick with the devil we know - and all his experience? Or do we rid ourselves of Brown to replace him with something worse? If Cameron achieves an overall majority it will be with the support of less than 27% of the total electorate and then, like Mrs Thatcher, he will be free to run riot with anti-social legislation that benefits only the rich. He will also do everything in his power to scupper yet again the Liberal revival. The last thing he wants is any form of proportional representation. The only way that we can curb the excesses of right wing dogma is with an anti-Tory coalition government of Labour and the Lib-Dems. Coalition governments in Britain do have a good record in tackling serious problems in war and in peace times. At the moment no one can call the result. Tomorrow we will know the make-up of parliament even if we do not know the make-up of the government.

We live in hope that this election proves to be more than a triumph of hope over expectation.

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A Day of Anniversaries

Today is a day of interesting anniversaries.

Let us start with 1469 when Niccolo Machiavelli was born. A man whose cynical attitude to government and politics has given us the adjective Machiavellian, a word that has survived 550 years of government in the western world and shows no sign whatsoever of becoming redundant.

May 3rd 1926 was the day that the only General Strike in British history began. The Prime Minister, the smooth operating and experienced politician Stanley Baldwin, managed to get everyone back to work in nine days but the cause of the strike - the intention of coal mine owners to reduce miners' wages and to increase working hours - remained unresolved. The miners alone stayed on strike for another six months but then starving and unsupported they went back to work. They achieved almost nothing and many miners were put out of work for years before being hit again by the Great Depression.

Another event of May 3rd was the opening by King George VI of the Festival of Britain on the South Bank of the Thames in 1951. I remember this quite clearly from cinema newsreels, although I never went to London to visit. The event was intended to exhibit Britain recovering from WWII and to an extent it succeeded. The only survivor of the exhibition is the Royal Festival Hall, which in spite of much criticism has settled comfortably into its place on the south bank of the river. It is not brash, it is architecturally undistinguished but, to me, it always feels like a much loved friend. It has now become so accepted as a "national treasure" that in 1988 it gained the status of Grade I listing - the first post-war building to be so classified. In these days of energy efficiency and conservation it is worth noting that even in 1952 the Royal Festival Hall was operating a very efficient heat pump system linked to the River Thames for its heating and cooling. The whole of the Festival of Britain was planned by the old London County Council and it employed its own architects to design the Festival Hall. The LCC planned for the first concert in the hall to be conducted by Arturo Toscanini - a man with somewhat tenuous connections to London, I would have thought - but the great maestro was ill and his place was taken by the English duo of Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Adrian Boult - but not, I suppose, both at the same time. The thing about the hall that appeals most is its being open to the public all day and ever day to visit the shops and restaurants, etc. It is a living building in a way that the architecturally more impressive Sidney Opera House is not. On my one and only visit to that exalted building, it struck me as more a mausoleum than a living opera house.

Other events of 3rd May include births of Bing Crosby [1903], Richard D'Oyly Carte [1844], Engelbert Humperdinck [1936] and such happenings as the demolishing of Worcestershire County bowling when, in 1934, that greatest of all batsmen, Don Bradman scored 206 runs against them at the County Ground in 3½ hours.

I suppose all dates are "historic" in some way. David Cameron may care to consider that on May 3rd 1979 the country elected Margaret Thatcher and caused eighteen years of uninterrupted Tory government. He must hope that he can do something similar on May 6th. He cannot, of course achieve an overall majority. If he does not - and the likelihood is that he will struggle to have 300 seats in the House of Commons - then we must have some kind of coalition or a weak minority government. In that situation, we must hope that Labour and the Lib-Dems can cobble together a proper working coalition capable of governing effectively for at least two years. David Cameron's Tories, I am sure will do everything in their power to maintain the first past the post electoral system and try to build up an entrenched Tory majority in England. On the economy Brown is right and we have to give that prime consideration in deciding whom we will vote for. I hope we get the right result.

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A National Government

Only four more days to go before the nation has to decide on a new government. Many - including me - are still undecided and an important reason is that the right answer is "None of the Above". But if we take this route by nor voting or deliberately spoiling the ballot paper, we will get a government selected by others. The problem is that I cannot vote for what I really want. The No.1 problem that swamps all others is the economy. Even the problem is not simple and the answer is almost impossible to control. Only this morning the parties are again waffling on about £6 billion of cuts here or there. It is irrelevant bollocks. I remember incidents in the past where the powers that be argued about paper clips when the major problems were ignored. I think we are in that territory here. The politicians argued about things they could get their collective minds around while ignoring the monumental and complex problems that they could understand.

Let's put the problem simply - again. With present levels of government income, we need to cut government spending by 25% to just stop the deficit getting any bigger. If we do that immediately, we will potentially put 1½ million government employees out of work, reduce government income still further as the unemployment increase had a knock-on depressing effect on every part of the economy and put even more people out of work. In areas like the NE it would cause almost total economic collapse. We would be heading for another Great Depression. Whatever government is in office, it has to re-structure the economy, transfer labour from paper shifting bureaucracy into manufacturing and services which we can sell abroad and has to get young people properly educated to an appropriate level to enable them to meet the national needs and it has to encourage in every way possible the re-building of our industries. It will take 50 years to complete but we need to make a start going in the right direction. We cannot have a government that is not prepared to look beyond the next General Election.

It has been proposed that we build a new high speed railway network. This project should go ahead but only if we are determined to do it by using British companies and workers in all aspects of the project. Sure, we would have to buy some things from elsewhere but it should nor amount to more than about 15%. Building these railways is a vast capital project that will need a great deal of sophisticated engineering that we can subsequently sell to others. It will encourage more overseas investment in our country. Britain is after all, the country that built railways for the world. We should be ashamed if we cannot do it again. George and Robert Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the great railway engineers from the past you should all be living at this hour.

We should be increasing our investment into green energy via wind turbines and water power as well as improving the overall performances of existing power generation systems, road and rail vehicles, etc. there is much that can be done.

But can we get a government that can do it? The new government will have to get public finances under control and get the economy growing at something like 3% per annum [or better] and cut down on paper shifting. It is wrong to restrict the areas in which we can save money wasted on pointless administration. The NHS suffers on many occasions because it has its organisation disrupted by unorganised patients demanding treatment. But surely, it does not need one bureaucrat for every bed!

Such a re-organisation of the economy would be complicated still further by the turmoil in other countries. The European Union is in deep trouble and if the problems of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy cannot be resolved - no mean task - then the Euro will either collapse completely - very possible - or the currency will devalue by perhaps 30% and that will knock back onto our ability to export. It may also devalue our currency as well. At this moment. the only currency that I feel confident will be capable of recovering is the dollar. But there are economies around the world that are basically sound and/or are expanding - like Canada, Australia, Brazil, China and South East Asia generally. I think India and Russia will grow but much more unpredictably. We need to improve our ties with these.

I would like a coalition or national government - which is more likely to take the right serious decisions than a one-party government that has every daft idea it comes up with dictated by dogma. Mrs Thatcher sold off our national assets to foreigners while banging on about the principle that private monopolies were somehow more efficient than public monopolies. There was a never a shred of evidence to support this but it is still quoted as a holy grail of right wing economic management. Look what we did to those old fashioned and very effective organisations called Building Societies. All of those that became free market banks have collapsed and some even gone into foreign ownership. How has this benefited our economy? Lacking Stanley Baldwin and Clement Attlee, my national government would be made up under Gordon Brown - surly and bad-tempered - as PM with Alistair Darling, Vince Cable and Ken Clark combined into a financial team that would be give all the authority they needed to sort out the economy. The other major posts in government would be spread between the parties. But I cannot vote for a national government. My best hope will be an alliance of Labour and the Lib-Dems. And we don't want to hear about the parties squabbling about who does what. Most of us believe that together politicians and the financial institutes got us into this mess, so now you can sort it out.

Will it happen? Don't hold your breath!

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Is There Life After Bigot-gate?

Tonight Gordon Brown was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight. It was a strange set - also used in interviewing the other two main party leaders - in which the two men appeared sitting on a couple of chairs in the middle of what appeared to be the middle of a wide open empty floor of an abandoned office block. Where they the last men standing in UK Ltd and about to put the lights off as they left? Apparently, this was the first time that Mr Paxman had interviewed Gordon Brown since he became Prime Minister. In fact he performed very well. He seemed quite relaxed and not ready to be bamboozled by Paxman into saying what he did not want to say. He was very eloquent in re-stating as he and his chancellor have both done for some time, that cutting back on government spending should not begin until the economic recovery is well advanced. It is an argument with some merit but he should still face up to advising what he will cut when the time comes. I do not think he can ring fence things which account for almost 33% of all government expenditure and say that those areas will not be cut back. The biggest is the NHS and there is no doubt that the service is weighted down rather heavily with excessive bureaucracy.

I think that Gordon Brown is a fundamentally decent man but corrupted so much by the monstrosity that is New Labour - that artificial contrivance of Mandelson and Blair and spun by Alistair Campbell - none of whom ever had any political principles whatsoever - that he has lost his ability to judge anything correctly. Yet with all his faults I still tend to think that he is the best man to be PM. He appears to have a stature that the other two just do not have and I think also that their lack of experience is a big negative. I don't think that either of the other two leaders are bad men either but they are very rich and have come from very privileged backgrounds.

But as Gordon Brown fights on in this General Election, there are yet more rumours about plots in the Labour Party to get rid of him and - God helps us - replace him with "the dream team" of David Miliband and Alan Johnson. Are they all insane? Dream team? It is more a ghastly nightmare. And if the dream team is so good, why has this General Election been all about Gordon Brown? Why have we seen almost nothing of other senior party figures on hustings or touring the country and putting the party's case?

I rather feel at this point that with all pressures removed and with nothing to lose Gordon Brown will perform better that he has done at any time in the last three weeks. He could even laugh when Paxman asked him why he thought that nobody liked him. The fundamental problem for Gordon Brown is just that he has been the man in charge, first during his ten years at the treasury and then three years as PM and he has allowed the economic mess to develop without putting the brakes on. Even before the financial crisis we had government debt that was far too high.

We will probably have a hung parliament but how the government will pan out is still impossible to say.

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