Originally published @ 7:24 am, Mon 6th Dec 2010
FIFA's World Cup venues decision reflects a clear track record of Sepp Blatter’s of taking the tournament to different parts of the world. South Africa was never a safe bet for this year’s tournament and it got security issues wrong (thankfully to little significant impact other than an England fan getting arrested for walking into the England team’s dressing rooms) but it was still perceived to be a successful event.
So we have to be wary of the “Johnny Foreigner’s corrupt” explanation for England’s defeat. (And how are people supposed to be perceive Boris Johnson’s frosty withdrawal of hospitality to FIFA because we lost the bid?)
The Nottingham Post reports a record low temperature for Nottingham last week - “last Sunday a freezing minus 9.2°C broke that record.” Just can’t be right. I remember Shawbury, near Shrewsbury, getting minus 26 in the early eighties. But it has been challenging in Nottingham all week to keep the bus routes cleared at the very least, just after each fall of snow began. More resource has been made available to cope this year and streets to have their refuse collected were also prioritised this week.
I received a compliment from a member of the public about a pamphlet that the council had only distributed a week or so before, on how snow and ice was to be tackled this year - http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=22739&p=0 – including asserting that you can’t be prosecuted for trying to clear a path if you were trying to make things better. As I was growing up, everyone used the ashes from their coal fire on paths and pavements. Re-use, before it became part of the green pyramid.
Labour had some problems last week. One of our former MPs admitting guilt on falsifying expenses, having lost a claim to be protected by Parliamentary Privilege.
And Phil Woolas finally lost his case over the leaflet published on the eve of the General Election. Labour supporters familiar with the Lib Dems at by-elections, especially at Bermondsey, feel some kind of grievance that Phil has lost. I spoke with Phil at the 2009 conference about the great lengths he was taking to listen to his voters’ concerns on immigration. (I would have liked to do the same thing but for the sheer scale of effort and resource it would have required to match the efforts of Phil and his Labour Party.)
There’s also some concern that the courts have taken one step further in intervening in the result of an election.
However, all the due processes have been followed and seen through. What has to be taken from this is an expectation that political campaigning has to be conducted at a higher minimum standards. A new line has been drawn and now enforced.
I wonder if any such minimum standards might be applied to Gordon Brown? Conservatives launched a mini-attack on him concerning his attendance in Parliament last week, as ever, playing the man rather than his arguments. Even Labour supporting bloggers have taken to referring to his mental health on the grounds that he has not taken to legally challenging people who previously said something. Note too that the judgments in the leaked of American diplomatic messages are taken as gospel.
But in Saturday’s interview with the Guardian, Gordon Brown makes compelling arguments for the interventions he made in response to the possible collapse of the banks and to sustaining the Educational Maintenance Allowance (launched whilst he was Chancellor).
(The journalist reports “Swift action two years ago prevented a full-scale banking collapse, but [Gordon Brown] argues that needs to be followed by major reform of the global financial system and a range of different but coordinated measures in both rich and poor countries to boost growth and create jobs.”)
Brown’s scale of knowledge and belief that knowledge matters dwarfs Local Government Secretary of State Eric Pickles and his call for councils to mitigate the cuts by the use of reserves. Most councils like Nottingham have been down to reserves necessary to sustain existing projects and to ensure liquidity to support existing services for some years. Nottingham seems set for yet another reminder from the Audit Commission.
Unfortunately for Derbyshire County Conservatives, the reserves argument led to their spokesperson having to explain £25m of unallocated reserves were not really unallocated at all, which as a Unison official gleefully pointed out meant he was misreporting their accounts.
Eric Pickles also called for councils to drop concepts like “Winterval”, which as Tabloid Watch reported - http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2010/11/winterval-again.html - only one council (Birmingham) used and that was dropped after two years in 1989.
How long will it be before Conservative Council leaders start bewailing the misrepresentation of them by their Secretary of State?
Nottingham’s Old Market Square was full of Christmas activity on Saturday and so rather dwarfed the local branch of the UK Uncut demo. They were protesting about Vodafone and Boots not paying sufficient tax. UK Uncut’s arguments can be seen at - http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/targets
Labour’s spokesperson said in the Commons “a company such as Vodafone seems to have been able more or less to decide the size of its own tax bill, and, in doing so, is rumoured to have avoided a sum as high as £6 billion”; the Ministerial reply was “This Government are determined to crack down on tax evasion and tax avoidance, but the Vodafone deal was a matter for HMRC, and it is right that the Government are not involved in such negotiations.”
The demo was also highlighting tuition fees, and was particularly angry about Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. The protestors know that the Lib Dems condemned tuition fees, and Nick Clegg personally designed a pledge, despite it being known in political circles that a significant part of the senior membership of the Lib Dems wanted to change the policy to fees. The remarkable thing for me is not that the share of the students intending to vote Lib Dem has fallen from 45% to 15%; but that at 15%, it’s still higher than the national rating for the whole population.
The joke doing the rounds is about trying to buy the Lib Dem manifesto, only to find Lib Dems sellers saying they’ve sold out. Thinking this might only be going around Labour Party circles, it was something of a surprise to see the BBC Politics Show use it too. A similar level of joke used to be told about the New Labour supporter who went to the barbers, but refused to take their headphones off.
The Labour Party has tried to do something serious and seasonal on its web-site with an advent calendar - http://www2.labour.org.uk/a-coalition-christmas
To remind us all what humbug actually looks like, remember David Cameron saying –
“We are not going to behave like flint faced turbo-charged accountants, slashing spending without regard to the social consequences.”
David Cameron: Fiscal Responsibility with a Social Conscience; Thursday, March 19 2009
Also in the speech,
“The poorest in our society should not pay an unfair price for mistakes made by some of the richest. Paying down our debt must not mean pushing down the poor.”
Yep. Humbug.
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