Ramblings about politics, economics, secularism and stuff
Thanks to Pete Baker over at Slugger I can feature Mark Devenport’s round-up of the political week from last night’s Hearts and Minds.
Incidentally, Mark references a “Conservative on the airwaves” making reference to Lady Sylvia’s socialist credentials. He was referring to me on yesterday’s Good Morning Ulster.
OK Mark, I admit that perhaps she is more New Labour than Socialist Workers Party – but allow me some poetic licence!
It is a pleasure to embed this video – I do so following an appeal by Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome. Well done Tim.
However, I’d ask viewers to interchange ”BNP” with “DUP”. After all DUP spokespeople have made clear that it’s not fond of foreign workers taking local jobs. Moreover, its senior spokespeople – nearly all fundamentalist, creationist, “intelligent design” advocates – aren’t too keen on designated minority groups who don’t share the DUP’s simple “morality”.
In the latest of its revelations the Daily Telegraph has exposed husband and wife team Peter and Iris (“homosexuality viler than child abuse”) Robinson’s food and expense claims.
The Telegraph makes clear that the Robinsons have not broken any rules. However, given the amount of time that the couple actually spends on Commons business one really has to question the value for money that local tax-payers are receiving from this quadruple-jobbing money-making machine.
The couple has claimed nearly £200,000 of mortgage/food expenses related to their London home since 2004. However, in the last year, Peter Robinson has only spoken in six debates. He has only voted in 37% of votes – “well below average for most MPs” according to the site TheyWorkForYou.com It would also appear that only one person has commented on things he has said in his speeches.
But if Peter’s attendance history is bad, Iris rarely shows to speak or to vote in debates. She has only spoken in 4 debates in the last year and has voted in just 28% of divisions.
So while all these expenses are AOK as far as the fees office is concerned one really has to wonder why the Robinsons need to saddle the taxpayer with the costs for all these meals and hundreds of thousands of pounds of mortgage payments on a luxury docklands pad. After all, they rarely turn-up, rarely vote and rarely speak.
It’s ironic that the first resignation over the MPs’ expenses furore should be Andrew MacKay. He, and his wife, also an MP, had two homes. He claimed that home #1 was his second home – so the tax-payer would cough up for the costs; his wife claimed on home #2. Two homes, paid for by the tax-payer – and apparently no main home between them.
Today he was forced to resign as Cameron’s Chief Aide.
It is ironic because Andrew MacKay was David Cameron’s right-hand-man during the Conservative Party and Ulster Unionist negotiations. I met him on many occasions and he attended all of the meetings that I attended between David Cameron and Sir Reg Empey and the other senior teams from both Parties. (Needless to say, he made no intervention when I was summarily suspended from Area office by Eric Pickles).
In this excruciating interview, he tries to make excuses for his behaviour.
Surely it’s appropriate that David Cameron removes the Conservative whip from Mackay and his wife. One hopes that both will also resign as members of parliament after repaying the full amount of their over-claims – likely to amount to well over £100,000.
STOP PRESS: 2/3 of Conservative Members Agree: MacKay Should Go
Lady Sylvia now seems to be enjoying stirring it up and is getting more aggressive and definitive in her media interviews. Where yesterday, in her interview with Gareth Gordon for the BBC, she gave a conditional answer to the question would she stand under the Conservative flag, today she’s making it much simpler and easier to understand:
“I’m not a Tory…never have been and never will be,” she tells Ken Reid in this interview.
Thanks Sylvia, that’s a lot clearer.
It looks unlikely, therefore, that Sir Reg will be able to convince her otherwise – despite his clear intention to do so in this interview over on the beeb. However, he hasn’t actually got round to calling her yet, it would appear.
Yesterday I revealed that one of the reasons that the Conservative Party logo does not feature on Jim Nicholson’s election posters is because the UUP members of the joint committee had a big problem with the Conservative Party “tree”. It’s green. Unionists don’t like green.
However, in an article in today’s Belfast Telegraph it is implied that part of the reason that Lady Hermon has a bad feeling about the Conservatives is that David Cameron “wore a green tie to a Unionist event.”
Now I was under the impression that the RUC wore green ties and even green uniforms. As the wife of the former Chief Constable of the RUC I would have thought she would be rather impressed with a green tie. Apparently not.
So, at last, the news we were all waiting for…Lady Hermon doesn’t like Conservatives and won’t be standing as a Conservative and Unionist. Surprise, surprise.
As Mark Devenport notes over on his blog Lady Hermon is not one to give media interviews if she can avoid it. But today, keen to clear her name of any expenses impropriety, and to have a go at Tories claiming for chandeliers and moat cleaning, she blurted it out. She’s an Ulster Unionist and always will be so.
(Mind you, I get the impression that the Lady is not too keen on her own Party leadership either. But that’s another story).
I moderated several focus groups in her constituency a few months back (for her benefit, but she didn’t make the effort to attend any) to hear what a cross-section of constituents thought of her. Most respondents felt she was a hard-working MP. Many were impressed that she was a woman politician among a sea of old male farts. Quite a few seemed proud of her. Most thought she’d be even more attractive as a candidate if she stood as a Conservative.
But that appears unlikely to happen. Instead it looks as though she’ll run as an independent Ulster Unionist. Perhaps, if she does, UCUNF will be reluctant to put up a candidate. Who am I to say?
But it makes one wonder what there is left in this relationship with the UUP for the Conservative Party. It doesn’t even look like there’s an MP in the bag.
Too green a tree for the UUP?
As I’ve mentioned before on this site one of the odd things about the Jim Nicholson Euro Campaign election materials is the lack of a logo. Plus the “Conservatives and Unionists” at the bottom of the posters is so tiny as to be almost unreadable.
Interestingly, my mother was, yesterday, canvassed in Lisburn by a ”little man” who thrust a leaflet under her nose as she was mid conversation, with a friend, in town. She felt the canvasser was a tad rude. So she made clear to him that if he was canvassing for the DUP he had no hope of getting her vote. “No,” he said, “Jim Nicholson.” The canvasser made no attempt to explain Jim’s Party affiliation.
Now, my Mum, in common with most other local citizens, has no idea who Jim Nicholson is or what Party he’s from. So, on closer inspection of the election leaflet, she was somewhat surprised that he was the Conservatives and Unionists candidate. And then it came back to her. He’s the guy from the UUP. The Conservative thing threw her.
So she called me. And this was her question: “Is he a member of the Conservative Party?”
“No,” I said. “Strange as it may seem, no he’s not.”
“But,” she said, “it says here he’ll be with the Conservatives in Europe.” Hmm…
And there’s the rub. Here we have a candidate, standing as the Conservatives and Unionists (sans logo), who isn’t actually a member, as far as I can gather, of the Conservative Party – the Party he’ll be sitting with in Strasbourg. Ironically, I am a member of the Conservative Party but I am not permitted to hold office in the Conservative Party, because I was critical of another political Party – the UUP. Indeed, I expect I would be unable to stand as a Conservative candidate, despite being a fully paid up member of the Conservative Party.
And now back to the tree. I can today reveal the key reason why the UUP couldn’t countenance using the Conservative logo on its elections materials. The Conservative tree logo is green. Yes, green trees and the UUP just don’t get on. They could live with a blue tree, or even a union jack tree, but a green tree? No, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.
O'Gara and the Queen (Pic: Irish Times)
There’s been a lot of talk about whether Ronan O’Gara was disrespectful to the Queen on her recent visit to Hillsborough Castle.
The Irish Times photo implies that he slouched with his hands in his pockets. It does seem like an odd way to stand when meeting a Head of State. Keeping both hands in one’s pockets doesn’t come that naturally (except, perhaps, to men who play a game with odd shaped balls).
The photo also implies that O’Driscoll is somewhat distressed by the whole situation. I can understand.
Good manners dictate that when meeting someone – especially a Head of State – one stands appropriately with hands outside of pockets. The other team members obviously took that as a given. As to whether Mr O’Gara was making a political statement – perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t. But such a contrivance looks to have an agenda behind it. And we’re not talking pocket billiards.
EDITOR’S POST-SCRIPT: AS IT HAPPENS THIS POST IS NONSENSE. RONAN O’GARA DID SHAKE HANDS WITH THE QUEEN
“Ref: claim for lounge corner unit: if you feel this is excessive can I say that due to size and layout of the room a normal three-piece suite will not fit. This ‘corner group’ fits perfectly” (Labour MP writing to the fees office in August 2006)
In the Daily Telegraph’s scoop revelations of scrounging by our elected members of parliament, the “best of the begging letters” are really worth a read. They show the arrogance and self-importance of some of these people alongside the cavalier squandering of tax-payers’ money.
The following is my personal favourite:
“I object to your decision not to reimburse me for the costs of purchasing a baby’s cot for use in my London home…Perhaps you might write to me explaining where my son should sleep next time he visits me in London?” (Letter to fees office from Labour MP in Nov 2004)
Chief among the spongers, of course, is Sinn Fein – a Party that unashamedly enjoys fleecing the British tax-payer to redistribute the gains to various Republican causes. However, the pathetic and feeble excuses from normally holier-than-thou politicians, of all flavours, is a joy to behold. Well done Daily Telegraph. Journalism at its very, very best.
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