Across the pond

Lots of aggro in the mainstream media, about the supposed rift in Anglo-American relations. Because Obama refers to it as British Petroleum, although the present BP, is an Anglo-American company, because the  original BP, which was not a private enterprise super goliath, but a company owned  by the British goverment, for most of my life-time, merged with a US company. So it is now owned bymany Americans, and lots of other international players, as well as the Brits.

In trying to maximinse the profits of its shareholders, it has perpertrated an ecological disaster in  the Gulf of Mexcio.

But of course , BP is doing what all the international oil companies are doing, seeking to maximise their profits.

By selling more oil.

But we now know that that is a danger  to the planet. So the western democracies, have been seeking to develop other energy sources.

But meanwhile India and China are seeking to allow their citizens to own motor cars, just like all of us toffs in  the west.

So oil companies have to increase their production to meet this huge new demand. And to take risks with  safety.

And, of  course, to threaten tthe planet  because of the nasty emissions.

Two sparrows are chasing each other across the roof of the house opposite, watched by a pigeon sittting on a telegraph pole in the grey light of a cloudy dawn. A sea gull circles around, swooping down gently flapping its pure white wings. Just now two small black shapes have entered the picture. Swallows, or maybe young gulls. The silence is complete. The grand-children have not yet to greet the new day.

I am left with my thoughts.

Three hundred miles north in Cumbria, twelve families will be waking up, still stunnned by deaths  caused by the taxi-driver who went on the rampage with a rifle and a shot-gun, and killed twelve human beings, starting with his twin brother and his solicitor and a few of his mates from the taxi stand. Going on to who-ever came into his sites as he careered around the leafy lanes of the Lake District. Ending when he walked into the  dense woods near Boot, and shot himself.

Over thousand miles away on the Gaza strip, the Palestinians and their friends have just buried nine dead. What began as a peaceful attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaze, with a flotilla of boats sailing from Turkey, ended in a bloody war. The fully armed Israeli commandos shimied down ropes onto the deck of the biggest ship. The Isrealis say they were attacked by the Palestians with poles and clubs. The Palestinians say the Isrealis fired first. The Security Council has ordered an inquiry. So it will be  months before the full facts are established. Though, so far as I can glean, the dead had all been shot and they all came from the Palestinian side.

For days now these two events have dominated the media. A succession of pictures on our television screens. Thousands of words in the newspapers, reporting on, and seeking to explain, what has happened during the week of half-term holiday.

All I can do is mourn the passing of 21 human beings, whose lives were ended so abruptly

I finished my last post, which predicted Laws would resign before the weekend was out, shortly before I joined my wife and our guest  for dinner. After dinner I went in to the BBC web site to discover that he had fallen on his sword while I was eating the organic salmon. He showed great dignity in the brief statement he made to the television cameras. And he evoked a sympathetitc response from this morning’s Sunday newspapers. Even those who hate the LibDems did not dance on his grave. Hopefully, after a suitable period of penance he may even be able to retturn to this government if a suitable vacancy arrives in a year or two.

Meanwhile Cameron and Clegg have acted promptly to fill the gap before the markets open on Monday. Danny Alexander is a greenhorn as far as the City is concerned. But he has  the guts to stand up to George Osborne, his new boss. He was widely applauded by his own LibDem colleagues and the Cconservatives for his work on the team which negatiated the coalition terms. And he is not totally ignorant of matters economic. His Oxford degree was Philosophy, Politics and Economics, a degree which led many of my contempories into a succesful career in journalism and/or politics.

Alexander was known to be disappointed in the cabinet job he actually got, Scottish Secretary, which offers little hope of doing anything effective, given devolution and the power of the SNP north of the border. He is replaced by Michael Moore. Not THE Michael Moore but the 44 year old  son of an Army chaplin in Northern Ireland. He moved to Scotland at te age of 5, and went to Edinburgh University, not Oxbridge. That should help him in Scotland, but it does nothing to dilute the elitist majority of this cabinet. Most of the students I taught with a first degree from Edinburgh did not have a trace of a Scottish accent, even those born and bred in Scotland. They had as much difficulty understanding the Gorbals accents of some of  the Glasgow graduates as I did.

This is one of the saddest blogs I have written. David Laws is undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and able members of the new coalition cabinet. As the number two to George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer he was nobly shouldering the principal responsibility for introducing the unpopular cuts in public expenditure which are necessary to deal with the financial crisis. But following the revelations about his expense claims in today’s Daily Telegraph and his own subsequent admissions,  his position is clearly untenable, and I expect his resignation letter to be on David Cameron’s desk before the weekend is out. And I would expect David Cameron to accept it.

Although it provides a major headache for the new coalition, of which Laws was one of the principal archiitects as the LibDem leader of the negotiating team. David Cameron and Nick Clegg this weekend will have  to find some other very capable person, with the right economic experience and political skills to take this hottest of hot seats in the cabinet. And that person should ideally be a Lib Dem to preserve the agreed balance of the coalition between the two parties. Who will have to learn the ropes quickly enough to take part in the budget preparation.

And for Laws himself it is a terrible personal tragedy. His political career has bit the dust, just at the time it was taking off.

So what did he do wrong?

The essential facts are agreed between the Daily Telegraph and Laws.

Between 2004 and 2009 Laws paid rent of £40,000 to James Lundie. Initially the payment was for a room in a flat in Kennington, which Lundie sold for a capital profit of £193,000 in 2007. Then he bought a house and Laws rented the second bedroom for £950 a month and paid almost as much as a contribution to utilities, services, etc. Which adds up to over £20,000 a year. Quite a lot for a room, even in Kennington.

Since 2006 parliamentary rules have banned MP’s from claiming for rent paid to partners or family members. And, as he nows admits, Lundie has been his partner since 2001. As Laws points out himself, he could have claimed the £40,000 he has now agreed to pay back, quite legitemately, if he had declared that Lunde was his partner.

He did not want to do this, because he wished to protect the privacy of himself and his partner. Apparently he had told any of his family or his friends of his gay orientation, despite the fact that they have been living together in Kennington and at Laws’ house in Yeovil, throughout.

So what did he do wrong?  He was not seeking to maximise his financial gains. He was not making extravagont claims for moats around his castle.

But he was breaking the 2006 rules by concealing the fact that Lundie was his partner. Ironically for a man called Laws, he was making his own laws. Which is a form of hubris.

He says today that it is an relief to finally declare his sexuality. And hopefully his family and friends will think none the worse for him on that score. He may find that most of them  guessed as much years ago.

But in career terms he is paying a very heavy price for one mistake. But that mistake is at the heart of our present democratic concerns. MP’s and particularly ministers, who make our laws, must not be caught out breaking them. If he stays how can Cameron and Clegg still go on claiming to be the clean up government they want to be.

(Photo from The Guardian)

Halfway through tonight’s concert at the Bridport Arts Centre I decided to call upon all the manic depressive/bi-polar crowd to rise up and start calling themselves melancholics. If we have to have  a label melancholic has a more dignnified ring about it. And it jolts  the thinking away from the contemporary practice of treating depression as a mental illness, which is best treated by doctors and shrinks, using drugs or specially trained psychotherapists. The idea was given wings by the music, and it soared during one of episode of deeply melancholic music, led for a time by the trumpeter, Byron Wallen, a young black, in what was otherwise an all-white, all-male band.

From the applause,  I guess, that most of the audience liked the accent on the  negative, the long drawn out notes conveying pain, suffering and very gloomy feelings. We go out to concerts, or turn on the tele to be taken out of ourselves, to be cheered up after a hard day’s work. Or a hard day of not being able to work. We are not looking for more gloom, but when a performance, like this one, puts us in touch with our deeper sadness inside, the effect is hugely positive.

Tragedies can cheer us up more than funniest comedies.

Which is one reason, why I think it is more useful to regard manic depressives as people with a non-average temparament, which needs to be managed differently, rather than sick people, who should be cured.

This particular concert came from the manic idea of a journalist, and jazz-lover, Paul Lashmar, who got together a local band, to re-enact  the Miles Davies Concert (now a CD), Kind of Blue, performed in NewYork in 1959. The climax was the deeply melancholic final number on the CD. But the encore, sending the audience out into the chilly night, was the manic So Long, in which the drummer, Matt Fishwick,  thumped the drums with more exhuberance than skill.

Earlier in the programme, he had given one of the finest performances of the evening, which came out of the improvisation, that makes a live jazz performance so much more exhilirating than a CD. Fishwick was probably the youngest member of the band. To me he looked about 18 but he must be older. His moment came when responding to a nod from the leader, he went into an inspired virtuoso battery of drum bashing, quite amazing in its dexterity.

All jazz musicians are not manic depressives (sorry, melancholics). But perhaps all mainc depressives should be offered offered jazz tuition as an alternative to Prozac and shrinks. Who knows, it might even get a lift from David Cameron’s Big Society, with that most notorious old rascal and jazz fiend, Ken Clarke, being made Minister of Jazz, as well as Business Secretary.

It has taken me nearly a week  to calm down sufficiently to write about the entrapment by the Mail on Sunday of David Triesman, the chairman of the Football Association. My first impression was one of disbelief, that even the Mail could stoop so low, could score a new low in standards of decent journalism. The Mail, which purports to stand for everything that is good and decent in middle England, should put the boot in on a 66-year-old man AND on England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

If that’s Patriotism, folks, it should be sold with warning notice in large black print.

THIS PRODUCT SERIOUSLY DAMAGES THE NATIONAL HEALTH

It has driven out of public life a 66-year-old man, David Triesman, who has given quite exceptional public service in his four careers. He was General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers, where he skilfully directed the energies of the membership to fighting the savage cuts of Thatcherism and Blairism, which threatened the quality of British higher education. He made sure the moderate majority forces were present in the conference chamber to stop the union’s left wing, succeeding in their campaign for an academic boycott of Israel. 

Instead of resting on his laurels he took on, aged 58,  an even more difficult job – General Secretary of the Labour Party, at a time when morale was low and the membership dwindling. He did that job so well that he was brought into the Labour government  as a junior  minister two years later.

In January 2008,  the year he collected his free bus pass, he took on another challenging job. He became the first independent chairman of the Football Association, a job he expected to enjoy, because he is a fanatical football fan and Spurs supporter. He went into this job with a boyish enthusiasm, still fuelled by all his happy memories of those Saturday afternoons on the terraces.

Thanks to the Mail on Sunday exposure, his last dream job has ended in tears.

Judged by one journalistic standard this was a major triumph. The Mail scoop made headlines in the national and international media and forced the immediate resignation of the target figure. Triesman was exposed as a sexual predator, a married man who had taken advantage of a young woman employee. And as an rash leader who had made allegations of bribery against European football leaders.

Judged by another journalistic standard the story was a disgrace.

The young woman, Melissa Jacobs, was actually 39. She was not courted by Triesman until he was no longer her boss. Then he took her out to dinner a few times. The proof of his immoral yearnings comes from the publication of his private emails to her, which show that he was behaving like a lovesick teenager.

But ‘old man besotted with younger woman’ does not exactly make front page news, even in the Mail.

But, when you examine it, the second prong of the story, is even more of a disgrace. The Mail, according to The Guardian, paid £75,000 for this story, via the publicist, Max Clifford. At their final dinner together Jacobs was wired up with a hidden microphone. During the dinner Triesman confided to the civil servant who had worked for him when he was a government minister, that he suspected bribes were being offered by some of the Europeans.

Now this is an important story, worthy of serious journalistic enquiry. Had the Mail  followed that up and done a proper investigation into the truth of these rumours, I would be singing its praises.

In the event they chose to put two quite different stories together in order to ‘convict’ Triesman.

By so doing they commited the worst of all journalistic sins.

They missed the real story.

The Times has a scoop today, which makes disclosures that ‘risks opening a rft at the heart of the Lib-Con coalition’.  They have been told by insiders that Vince Cable made two telephone calls to Gordon Brown over the weekend urging him to work for a Lib-Lab pact and telling him he would rather work with Labour than the Conservatives. Rupert Murdoch will chuckle with delight when he reads it.

It is likely to be the first of many stories in the right wing press, looking for lively copy and pouncing on any signs of cracks in the coalition.

But my guess that this one will help Clegg and Cameron at tomorrow’s LibDem confernce which has to decide whether to back this coalition. Because it is one further indication that the leadership did not rush into bed with the Tories, but also vigourously explored the alternatives.

The new Europe minister, David Liddington, is a pro-European, unlike the man who held the job in the Conservative shadow cabinet. The fact that Cameron has made this change suggests that he is fully aware that the Conservatives need to make their voice heard in Europe. The appointment sends an unmistakeable signal to Europe that Cameron’s government will not be screaming with the right wing minority parties, but takiing part in the serious debate with the main parties, about how Europe responds to the present financial crisis.

He is one of the posh boy, educated at a Haberdashhers’  school and Cambridge. Before going into politics he worked by two of Britain’s biggest international companies, BP and RTZ. He was parliamentary private secretary to Michael Howard in the last Conservative government, and pps to William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary. This looks the right sort of cv for what is one of the toughest posts in the new Government. Because Europe is going through a crisis, and because Europe is a divisive issue, in the nation as well as around the cabinet table.

When 28 people sit around a table to make decisions, only a few of them manage to say something effective before the decision is taken. This I know from lots of rather good academic research on what happens when human beings join in such meetings. And from my own personal experience, starting 59 years ago when I first engaged in university politics. So I can confidently predict that two members of this gang of 28 will have no trouble at all in getting more than one twenty-eighths of the speaking time.

Neither of these men (they are, of course, men) took a major role in the election campaign. And  both of them are pensioners. And this election, in which television (the news programmes as well as the television leader’s debates) have been dominated by two men striding towards the corridors of power, with all the bloom of their fortyish youth. Gordon Brown, though still six years short of his bus pass, was portrayed as  yesterday’s man clinging on to power. Which of course he was. But only in part.

He danced  to the young men’s tune. Under the tutoring oif Tony Blair’s spin doctors, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, he danced to the young men’s tune. He not only subjected himself to the punishing election schedhule of  whistle stop tours, he learnt new tricks. Like learning to talk to ‘ordinary’ people at tea parties.

 This strategy hit the buffers when he was over-heard, by the Sky Television microphone still live around his neck,  saying that the working class life-long Labour supporter whom he had just talked with was a bigot. And the real Brown emerged,  when he was on all the television news clips, hanging his head in shame after a radio interview in which he realised what he had done.

And against the predictions of the opinion polls and all the mainstream media,  the electorate denied Cameron his majority and demolished the hopes of the other young man, striding towards the corridors of power. They rejected Gordon Brown, but they voted for him in much greater numbers than anyone expected.

In front of the nation on television, both Cameron and Clegg united in the march towards change, emphasing the characteristics they undoubtedly share. They are both nearly twenty years younger than  the defeated ‘bully’ Gordon Brown.

But back to the cabinet table. The two pensioners who will carry far more weight than the average in this cabinet of 28 will not be at all shy in speaking out. Because at aged 69 and 67 they are not worrying about their next job, if this government fails. Both of them have major ministerial responsibilities, but both of them will speak out when the cabinet is locked in arguments about matters that do not concern their ministerial  responsibilities. Because they are not at all  worried about their next job.

They are both very happy indeed that they have been given proper jobs, in an age when in both the private sector and the public sector, have been urged to take early retirement, even at 50! They will not, God forbid, agree with each other, but both of them will have no trouble at all getting listened to in this cabinet of 2010 in which change is entrusted to 40ish youth. And  in which the Chancellor the Exchequer, not the brightest of the Cameron team, is given the top economic job, making him at 38, the youngest holder of the post since this the Stone Age. (This is a journalistic exagerration!)

Both of these pensioners will speak their minds. They may often disagree with each other. But both of them, together or separately are not Posh Boys. Both were born into working class families.

This is not obvious in the case of Ken Clarke,  who speaks in an accent so plumy, that any Old Etonian, would be tempted to give him a hug.

In fact his father was an electrician, who only began voting Tory when he had started on the road to entrepreneurship, by making his living as a shop keeper. His mother was a shop assistant with a near Communist Pacifiist grandfather. Young Ken was brought up with the Daily Mail on the family doormat. But he did not take their views as gospel truth. Though he was educated in state schools he won a scholorship place at Cambridge, when really began to think about politics. For a year or so he was an enthusiastic supporter of Gaitskellite Democratic Socialism.

But when  he began his career in politics he hitched his star to the Ted Heath brand of Conservatism, and learnt the trade in several humble jobs. Despite his always outspoken comments, he was also pulled in to serve Margaret Thatcher, whose venom against the Argies,  was  nothing as compared to her venom against Ted Heath, whom she thought had betrayed the Conservative cause. Nevertheless, Clarke  served her. But he did not make his mark  until Thatcher was succeeded by John Major, who made him chanceller in place of the the Thatcherite, Norman Lamont, who, as Chancellor, had caused Black Wednesday, that day in 1992 when Lamont’s actions had created a massive attack  on the value of the pound sterling. Some months later, Major fired Lamont and brought in Clarke to save his government and the country.

In the event he  saved both. His stewardhip of the economy, not only rescued Major, but it would international acclaim. He not onlly rescued Major’s Conservative party, but he made Blair and the rise of New Labour possible. Becaue by 1997, Britain, though not a world power, was not bankrupt. It’s currency was to be trusted.

Fast forward to 2010. Clarke is most definitely not a part of Cameron’s inner circle, although he is a member of the shadow cabinet. In the election campaign he was  wheeled in to orchestrate one of the main press conferences. Just at the time when the credibility of Cameron’s bosum pal, George Osborne was at it’s nadir, and Cameron was threatened by the quite un-expected surrge towards the Lib Dems.

Clarke served his chosen party well. By proclaiming what he believed. That a vote for Clegg, was  tantamount to a vote for Gordon Brown. But he also disclosed in the closing moments of that event, his own reservations about one of the Cameroons, Andy Coulson, the media chief and veteran of the Murdoch press, editor of the News of the World during phone tapping scandal.

The other pensioner  at the cabinet table, Vince Cable, refused to be dazzled by the prospect of acquiring power. So much so that he ruled himself out as leader of the Lib Dems, because he thought he was too old. He is now 67. Despite the fact that  he had won the hearts and heads of the nation. By opposing speaking against the Iraq war, which we now all now has  cost the lives of British soldiers as well as the millions of pounds which might have been spent on alleviating the plight of Britain’s poor.

And, co-incidentally, pensioner number two, Cable, is also  a working class lad, who has bettered himself. Unlike Clarke, who made his living as a barrister, he has not learnt to speak  with an upper middle class accent. But unlike John Prescott, Bllair’s deputy leader, he does not under pressure make an ass of  himself by talking incoherently, making himself an easy target for the ever watchful right-wing press.

Quite the opposite. Although his accent is not posh, he demonstrates that in intelllectual agility he is a match for any of the posh boys. And in terms of wit he excels. When Prescott fumed he became a joke. Cable never fumed but when he got angry he turned his opponents into a joke, because of his wit.

Cable’s father was a skilled worker in a chocolate factor in York, who happened to vote Tory. His mother was a packer of chocolates in a rival York chocolate factory. He went  to the local grammar school, where he did so well that he won a scholarship to Cambridge. Amazingly, because he was the first member of his family to go to any university.

At Cambridge in the 1960s he became active polically support the Liberal Party. He got thrown out because he advocated a merger with the social democratic wing of the Labour Party, a decade before the Gang of Four left Labour, formed the SDP and then went on to ally themselves with the Liberal Party.

Young Vince concentrated on student politics, so effectively that he ended up as President of the Cambridge Student Union, which then, as now, offered him a fast track into adult politics. Liberals, Conservatives and Labour would alll have considered him seriously.

But he was not ready for a political career. He took himself off to Kenya in 1966, for his first job, which was economic advisor to the Kenya government. Later he earned his bread as and advisor to the Commonwealth Secretariat. He first entered politics in 1970, by which time he had become a Labour supporter.  He stood unsuccessfully for Glasgow Hillhead in 1970. But he did become a Labour councillor and later worked as special advisor to John Smith in 1978, when Smith was the Industry Secretary in the Callaghan Labour government. In 1979 he tried and failed to win the Labour nomination for Hampstead, but lost to Ken Livingstone.

1979 also ushered in the age of Thatcherism, which resulted in the Gang of Four deserting the Labour Party and founding the Social Democratic Party in 1981. Cable joined them a year later and stood as SDP candidate for York in the 1983 election. He lost. He  fought two more elections which elections which he lost. It was not until 1997 that he first took his seat in the House of Commons. He was a new boy, aged 54! The New Labour prime minister, Tony Blair,  was 44, and looking younger,  radiating the youthful energy which was going to lead us into a brave new world. But  in fact Blair was a House of Commons veteran, with 14 years experience of asking Prime Minister’s questions, before he occupied the hot seat, when he had to answer them.

But in the last two or three years Vince Cable has been regarded as the wise elder statesman by the House of Commons, and by the audience listening, watching and reading the newspapers.

Both he and Clarke will make their voices around the cabinet table . Even if he wanted to Cameron could not steam roller this cabinet, which has a wide range of views amoungst the Tories. On some argues they will be arguing against each other, quite as  fiercely as against each.

One of virtues of the Posh Boys, is that they learn at their public schools, that the British aristocracy survived, while the French, the Russians and many other Europeans were getting their heads chopped off. They survived by bending to change.

In the last few days, Cameron has shown that he understands that. And it suits his personal style.

Minister.wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww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Cameron and Clegg did some joking around in the garden behind No 10 Downing Street yesterday that prompted the newspapers to invite readers to suggest which other double acts they most resembled. None of the entries I saw, which ranged from Flanagan and Allen, Ant and Dec to Wooster and Jeeves were remotely appropriate. Most people watching found it re-assuring. Thank God they’ve got a sense of humour and are able to work together despite the hurtful things which they said about each other during the election campaign. The media are already calling it a love-in and asking how long the honeymoon will last.

So perhaps it is time to abandon this marriage analogy, which I used in my last blog when I termed it a marriage of convenience with Prince Charming escorting the Cinderella party into the corridors of power.

Cameron and Clegg are two party leaders, both of whom have just failed to get as many votes as they expected from the electorate. They are not promising to work together til death do them part. But they have emphatically committed themselves to working together for five years, sharing responsibility for introducing the cuts in public spending, which all three parties agree are necessary to save the country from going bankrupt.

Their partnership is not an equal one. The Lib Dems have secured five of the twenty eight seats at the cabinet table, which roughly the same ratio of the number of MPs each party has. It does not take any account at all of that the Lib Dems got 23 per cent of the national vote compared with the Conservative’s 36.1 per cent. By contrast Cameron has made very substantial concessions to take account of Lib Dem policies notably on political reform and on taxation policies to deal with the financial crisis.

There was a real danger that if the Conservatives had won a substantial majority in this election, and pushed ahead with its manifesto commitments, we would be facing riots on the British streets, quite as nasty as those happening in Athens. How much this danger has been reduced by the coalition is still an open question.

If I wanted to give that double act a name, I would call them the Posh Boys. Clearly one of the reasons they get on so well personally is because they have very similar backgrounds, born with golden spoons in their mouths, happily married to rich women, educated at two of our finest public schools, followed by Oxbridge. They could not be farther removed from the realities of the working class poor.

When you look at the composition of the cabinet the class bias is quite as worrying. No less than 59% are privately educated, compared with 32 per cent in the last Labour government. And 69 per cent went to Oxbridge compared with 32 per cent. The gender ratio shows a small rise of two per cent to a still derisory 14 per cent. So fasten your seat belts we are in for five years of government by Posh Boys and the compassionate sex is no better placed at the cabinet table than the Lib Dems to plead on behalf of the poor. Even while I was writing, Cameron has announced that ministers will take a 5 per cent cut in their own salaries. A step in the right direction, but my God they can afford it.

At this point I should mention that although I have been offered a cheap low cost property in France I shall be emigrating to escape the rule of the Posh Boys.

Because I do not think either of the two top Posh Boys are power seeking opportunists, willing to abandon their principles to get to the top of the greasy pole.

Cameron right from the time he was bidding for the Conservative leadership has been emphasised that his two favourite British Prime Ministers, were Disreaeli and Macmillan. Disreali came from a Jewish immigrant family and fought his battles against that very powerful of the left wing, Gladstone. But it was Disreali’s Conservative government, which introduced the education acts that gave the British poor decent schooling. Macmillan, like Cameron was an Old Etonian who married a woman who was not only super rich but was daughter of the poshest of the posh, the Duke of Devonshire. But he was a relatively poor scholarship boy and as a man never forgot the poverty he had witnessed in the North East of England during the great depression of the 1930s. And it is also worth remembering that Cameron, unlike many Posh Boys is educating his children at state schools.

Clegg is on the right of his party on many, but not all issues. He is a rarity in British politics, in that he cut in his teeth not in British politics but in European politics. In 1994 he jacked in his first job as a journalist on the Financial Times and went to work for the European Commission. By 1999 he had decided he wanted to work in Europe, not as a civil servant, but as a politician. His then boss, Leon Brittain (a former Conservative cabinet minister, whom many of today’s Conservatives would regard as a left winger), tried to persuade him to give up his Liberal Democrat convictions and stand as a Conservative. Clegg stood firm, and in 1999, he started a five-year stint as a Lib Dem MEP. 

He did not come back to London until 2004. The following year he won the Sheffield Hallam seat for the Lib Dems. The new deputy prime minister, who will be taking questions whenever Cameron is not there, and the vast majority of those asking those questions will have many more years of experience in the House of Commons than  him. They will also know, that know that he has faced some very public resignations from Lib Dem activists in the constituencies, like many in the South West, where the enemy is the Conservative candidate, with Labour having no chance of winning.

But most of all Clegg knows. I have said a lot about Europe here, because that is key part of his core political position, that Britain must play an active part in the mainstream of European politics, so the biggest personal risk for him is joining with the Conservatives who are presently alligned with the right wing extremists in Europe. So I think he will continue to fight for fairer society for the under-priviledged as well as a more realistic approach to the Europe of which we are a part.

I have written at length about these top two Posh Boys, because there is lots of evidence that neither of them wants a New Thacherism. The arithmetic of the cabinet table makes very depressing reading for the working class poor. So much so, that they that they may well be considering either a painfree suicide or building up a stock of petrol bombs reader for the battle of the streets.

But arithmetic is not the only option. As I will argue in my next blog.