FIDDLING WHILE DAVE PLUMMETS

The Tory referred to in the last posting read this message and commented 'Jack boots and staff cars? That's a bit harsh. Dave says we can't have those any more.'

Proving that Tories do have a sense of humour.

WHEN WILL IT END?!

I have been reasonably reliably spun by a Tory activist of my acquaintance that their Central Office 'intelligence unit' is calling everyone they know to advise that the Tory high command (inages of jackboots and staff cars) are '99% certain' that the election will be called on October 7th, with polling day on November 1st.

Could this be the first thing the Tories have got right this year? Or could it be the Tories trying to annoy Gordon Brown into not calling it as he doesn't want to be second-guessed by them?

HOORAY FOR A GREEN THEORY WHICH IS NOT COMPLETE PANTS!

James Lovelock, creator of the wonderful Gaia theory that the earth works as a single organism to sustain life, has come up with a startlingly simple but brilliant scheme to ‘help the planet’ to address global warming (http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3001626.ece).

The idea is to draw up nutrient-rich water from the depths of oceans with huge pipes to allow plankton to consume them and thus to multiply and absorb more carbon dioxide. The system would be powered by the natural movement of the oceans.

When I first read Lovelock’s first book on the gaia theory I was blown away. Now I once again marvel at the logical approach he has to even this most urgent of problems. The best thing about Lovelock is that he is not an annoying green guru who wants us to live in mud huts in forests. That kind of message is completely unreasonable for the vast majority of the world’s population who avoided the misery of a public school education. Instead he adopts a scientific approach to the problem of global warming – even advocating nuclear power as a quick fix, which is one issue I disagree with him on.

It is remarkable that solutions to the most complex of problems are invariably surprisingly simple. Will it ever happen? God, no but as we all fry at least we can say he told us so…

OKAY, SO LET'S TAKE THIS ELECTION BLUSTER INTO THE REALMS OF FANTASY

As the rumour-mills of the country's press go into overload here's perhaps the most absurd reason why Gordon Brown will call an election within days (as suggested here over a month ago).

He will remember 'Sunny' Jim Callaghan, the Labour Prime Minister between 1976 and 1979, who took over from a previously popular leader whose light was on the wane, rather than getting a direct mandate in a General Election and who resisted pressure to go for an election in the autumn of 1978, instead waiting until the Spring of 1979, during which time his 'supporters' in the public sector trade unions stitched him up good and proper with the 'Winter of Discontent'.

History is a useful teacher and Gordon seems like a traditionalist to his finger-tips so my guess remains that he will call it any time based on his fear of repeating Labour history.

Plus he's ahead in the polls by a margin he can only have dreamt of and David Cameron is almost without toes, he's shot himself in the foot so many times.

If I'm wrong, blame Mark Oaten. No reason why, he just deserves it.

WAS THIS THE SOUND OF THE TURNING TIDE IN BRIGHTON?

It seems revolution may just be in the air. Having yesterday dismissed Simon ‘Saul’ Carr, the Independent’s rather too jocular political columnist for his two dimensional reports on the state of the country’s parties and for his continual offhand dismissal of the mighty juggernaut (humour me…) that is the Liberal Democrats, it seems he was found kneeling in a shaft of golden sunlight on the Brighton seafront, that he stood up blinking, temporarily blinded after this momentous event, that he stumbled to Hove to have his sight restored at a watering hole and subsequently returned to Brighton to listen – yes, ‘listen’ - to Ming’s speech.

He then produced an article of jaw-dropping warmth towards our Dear Leader, topping and tailing it with a paean to the magnificent Elspeth Campbell – surely the party’s secret weapon in any future contest.

He congratulated Ming on his message – we apparently have one now, on his jokes and on his presentation. Jaw dropping, indeed.

If I were gracious I would warmly welcome this column and retract my previous comments as – to keep the Biblical burblings going – if it were the return of the Prodigal Columnist but we need to see what happens in future weeks and months after Gordon Brown calls the election.

If we can get such fulsome praise from one of our chif detractors there may just be something in Ming's approach to the game. Play on!

THE TRUE STORY OF SIMON CARR, COLUMNIST

Simon didn’t want to be a soldier or an astronaut like his chums. He wanted to be a ‘columnist’! So one Christmas his parents bought him a shiny new ‘paradigm’ which told him all about two party politics. Simon was thrilled and he immediately started to use his ‘paradigm’ to write about politics to his parents’ great delight. His paradigm served him well for years and years, although he often had to sellotape it back together as it was so old it often fractured.

Then one day, Nice Old Mr Ming and his friends decided they wanted to have a nice party as well and they tried to join in the fun with lots of new ideas like green taxation and being allowed to discuss things in a grown up way without being involved in ‘splits’ or ‘rumour-mongering’. Poor Simon was so confused with Mr Ming’s new party. How could he use his trusty old paradigm now to describe a changed political reality?! He went home that evening feeling jolly sad.

The next morning while he was eating his cereal he told his mum about the problem.
“Why don’t you just ignore Mr Ming and carry on as you always have?”
“What, with no new thinking to reflect the changed political situation, mum?” asked Simon, looking quite confused.
“Why not? All the other columnists do – apart from that Andrew Grice from number 43 - so no one will notice.”

So Simon decided that he was going to be the best columnist at ignoring Mr Ming and his party and instead to concentrate on the embittered sniping of the two old parties. Simon was so pleased that he immediately wrote a column decrying all the ‘Liberal Democrats’ for, well, everything!

His new old columns were a great success because no one bothered to read them any more. His favourite time of all was conference time when he seemed to live in a lovely dream world of traditional ideas which no one else could even vaguely recognise - except him and his trusty paradigm! His stories of the conferences followed in the best traditions of fairy tales through the ages. They were complete fantasy but they carried a serious moral message. The message was the same every time and it was that people should not believe a word Simon scrawled since he’d made it up!

But Simon remained jolly happy and everyone left him alone with his paradigm.

OH COME ALONG EVERYONE, SETTLE DOWN! (A LOYALIST WRITES)

So it's to be National Smiles Week at Brighton as we must all support the Dear Leader. Well, I for one am content to do so. I am happy to state that he was not my choice for leader but he is the leader and that's it. Mindless loyalty aside, Ming has demonstrable qualities.

He has proven abilities as an MP of long standing, a wealth of experience of international affairs - not exactly marginal in the current febrile atmosphere we endure thanks to Blair's idiocy, and he has done much 'off camera' to look hard at key problems which exist in our society.

He sold his beloved Jag to prove his green(er) credentials, he was an Olympic sprinter - allowing lazy journalists endless headlines and even his name has generated more column inches than a new Royal baby.

However, Ming's key skill is in knowingly and actively sowing the seeds of his own downfall. He has devoted much of his time as leader to allowing our other MPs to develop their profiles and to demonstrate their abilities to wider audiences. For 95% of the population the question 'name five Lib Dems' remains a bit of a poser. Beyond St Paddy, Charles Kennedy and Ming the umming and ahhing tend to begin in earnest.

Now, silver-tongued eco-smoothie Chris Huhne is increasingly in the limelight, as is 'Golden Boy' and chief poisoned chalice supper Nick Clegg. David Heath is the only MP we have who manages to ask good questions and sound like he means it in Parliament. Lembit remains our Boris - and long may he do so.

Ming is widely credited with having built up a far more organised team - a key word, this - at Cowley Street and this also will be a legacy he can pass on to a successor.

For all his rather too polished Edinburgh Lawyer tendencies, Ming remains the leader. The alternative? A baseball cap and more embarrasing gaffes than the University of Luton accommodation guide.

Our MPs really messed up with the manner of their removal of Charles Kennedy - and in their concealment of a real problem at the top of the party for many years. Everyone needs to hold steady now and not let the press dictate our future. The alternative is the internecine lunacy of the Tories and electoral suicide. I'd support Mark Oaten over that option.

No, that's too far but you get the idea...

MING GOES FOR THE JUGULAR ON IRAN – ABOUT TIME TOO!

Plaudits to our Dear Leader who has written to Gordon Brown to decry his decision to post British troops in southern Iraq on the Iranian border - on American 'advice'. Ming has set out how this demonstrates the lack of a clear strategy for our forces and the fact that this move does nothing to serve our regional or international interests.

Perhaps that is the key: does the British government seek to serve British interests at all or is it still inexplicably following the diktat which emerges from across the Atlantic? Most significantly, this move will put more British lives at risk, which one would imagine any government would seek to protect above almost all other considerations.

The sabre rattling between Iran’s frankly unhinged President and the Leader of the Free World is perhaps the most dangerous situation in the world today. A sensible response from a staunch ally such as Britain would be to do everything in our power to hold our gallant allies back from their next planned disaster and to give them the benefit of our experience of more foreign disasters in the last 200 years than you can shake a fatwa at.

Instead it seems the British government intends to continue with its disastrous response to any American ‘requests’ by simpering apologetically and saddling up. It would be nice for a British Prime Minister to give our armed forces more support than this.
The true heir to Blair emerges blinking from behind the curtain of ‘change’ which all new incumbents try to hide behind.

PRIVATE DENTISTS? I'D RATHER HAVE A BOX FOR ME TEETH!

According to a study published by the University of Dundee recently, it seems that one in five dentistry students said they would shun NHS work once they had qualified. Given the disaster that is dentistry in this country, this is clearly a problem for everyone not willing to be sucked in to expensive and severely limited con insurance policies like Denplan.

The simple thought occurs that, if these delightful students are receiving £180,000 worth of free education at the expense of taxpayers, it is not beyond the realms of possibility to set out a simple contract at the start of their studies requiring a minimum period of NHS practice before they slink off to private practice. What about asking these fine, upstanding citizens to work for a mere ten years for the hoi polloi beforehand.

To the retort that no one would study dentistry if such a requirement was put in place I offer a simple shoemaker’s salute. There is still enough profit to be made from private healthcare even if one is required to pay back one’s student debt in kind. Good heavens, we could even sweeten the pill by removing fees from dentistry students.

COO, THERE MIGHT JUST BE AN AUTUMN ELECTION AFTER ALL

When the Labour Prime Minister starts to come out with tosh such as ‘Jobs for every Briton’, which would involve a ‘crackdown’ on migrant labour, the political heat is rising perceptibly. The government is dredging up the old saw about a points system for migrant workers and requiring that they speak English to a good standard before coming here (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2947393.ece).

The language being used is so tediously predictable as to be laughable – except that large numbers of Daily Mail readers will be rubbing their soiled hands together with glee at such pointless attacks on people who come here to work. How dare they!

There is of course nothing wrong with ‘encouraging’ the many ecomonically inactive people who could work into employment and most reasonable folks would agree entirely with such a proposal. One just has to question whether the attack on migrants is necessary to allow the government to do this.

And the location of the ‘jobs for every Briton’? Step forward Sainsbury’s Primark and Travelodge. One can almost feel the delight among the people soon to be targeted.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the forthcoming election campaign were bigotry-free, if none of the parties threw the Race Card down with such obvious glee – for that is what this latest statement is. You may say I’m a dreamer…

Time to check the odds for autumn.

REFLECTION

Humankind has evolved over many thousands of years from being simple tree-dwelling creatures, through those first tentative steps on the Serengeti and across east Africa, to hunter gathering, then to cultivation of a few crops, the domestication of animals and the creation of surpluses. From this, we have achieved the development of civilisation, written language, technologies such as paper and pen, the wheel, steam power, the internal combustion engine, space flight, computer technology and the internet.

With all the wondrous developments we have collectively achieved as a species, and in the certain knowledge that I owe my complex lifestyle to those many millions of people who went before and strived for greater achievements, why oh why am I so pathetically grateful to have simply booked myself a bed in Brighton for conference week that I am close to tears?

DEAR LEADER

Our own Ming has called for members of the public to be called to write a new constitution for the country, along with some politicians, with the resulting document put to a national referendum (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdems/story/0,,2163088,00.html).

This is a wonderfully ‘liberal’ idea but it beggars one huge question: if members of the public are to be called to help write a constitution and the result is to go to a national referendum, what is the point of politicians?

Politicians may not be loved by all but they are elected to do a job, which is to run the country. The wonderful idea which is democracy means that every four or five years the electorate get to give their view on how the politicians are doing. The system may be crude and more full of flaws that a naked Ann Widdecombe but it does work after a fashion.

If a new constitution was drafted a referendum would be appropriate, since such a document would define the way this crude system worked but for [enter deity here]’s sake let’s let the experts do the drafting.

WAS THIS NAUGHTIE’S CROWNING MOMENT?

On ‘Today’ today, a reverential James Naughtie introduced the late great Luciano Pavarotti singing his signature tune, ‘Nessun Dorma’, which made for a nice tribute. At least it would have been a great tribute had the dunderhead not then exclaimed into his open microphone that the tune would be over shortly, thus ruining the end. Oh, and the Today team also crudely faded it out.
I’d stick to berating politicians, guys.