TORIES GO BANANAS - THE RASCALS!

Its a pedantic point but I wonder if those cheeky Tories with their hilarious joke at their conference where they displayed a picture of David Milispoons with a box of bananas used fairtrade ones.

Pedantic but where the Tories are concerned it seems like the right thing to do.

CONFERENCE ROUND-UP

On Sunday Dave said things were really bad. He stressed this point by extending the ‘a’ in ‘bad’ to several seconds. He then paused dramatically, frowning meaningfully and then went ‘woooooo’ into the microphone, causing several Tory ‘activists’ to expire. He said Gordon Brown hated them all and that he was really horrible in the House of Commons. Dave said that Gordon never washed his hands when he went to the lavatory – Tories never say ‘Toilet’ – and that he took a copy of the Daily Mirror into the cubicle when he was on ‘twos’. The backdrop showed a picture of rats in a sewer singing The Red Flag.

A number of the extremely posh delegates were seen retching into their freebie buckets provided with a stainless steel shovel to all conference goers by the Daily Telegraph. The buckets had the logo on the side: ‘Tories will clean up the mess left by Labour’. Underneath it noted that the bucket could be given to the servants after conference to clean up after the dogs and the children.

Dave told his loyal followers that, although things were very bad he would make them good again. The backdrop changed to a picture of a labrador puppy and some kittens and activists in the hall began to cry openly, while others hummed ‘Jerusalem and made racist comments to their neighbours to further improve their mood. Michael Gove looked quizzical but Dave simply winked and said the British voters should trust him, he had a solution to the global financial crisis on the back of the van and , if they'd just part with their votes he'd nip round and get it for them. Straight up, no messing, it was all kushti.

Later in the week, George Osbourne told the conference that the credit crunch was a jolly bad thing and that his chums had been given a real shock by events in the City and around the globe. Apparently, they told him, even foreigners have been affected, which was rum. One hedge fund manager had recalled the sorry tale of a family he knew who had had to let their Filipina maid go as they simply could not afford the £14 a week they paid her. Another told of how their daughter had been forced to part with a pony and that she would have to go skiing in France this year to cut costs. This last comment drew a gasp of horror from delegates, many of whom still believe we fought the wrong European country in the 1940s.

George Osbourne regaled the conference with a number of such sorry tales before announcing the Tories’ ‘Big Plan’ for solving the credit crunch. The Tories would freeze Council Tax for two years he declared to tumultuous applause, the sacrifice of an ox at the foot of the stage and a flurry of Tory delegates dancing naked around a fire covered in woad, which Dave had required them to dye green to reflect the Tories’ new green credentials. He said that freezing Council Tax would be welcomed in stock markets across the globe. Chinese President Hu had offered Osbourne the premiership of the Zhenzou Autonomous Economic Zone and a clutch of concubines in recognition of this statesmanlike gesture which would surely put the whole world economy back on to an even footing.

Edward Leigh stood up at this point and demanded that Osbourne and Dave bring back workhouses to force the feckless lower classes to play their part in the recovery. The audience roared their approval and the backdrop showed a picture of some overweight poor people eating dung for the delegates to jeer at. At this point Dave was seen at the corner of the stage furiously hitting the controls for the backdrop until the picture changed to one of a nice family looking gratefully up at a tweed-clad Tory benefactor who was handing them some money. Michael Gove looked on, oddly.

At a private meeting, Oliver Letswin spoke at a fringe meeting on what the Tories would actually do in government. When asked this question, Letswin looked first horrified, then dismissive. “Do?!” His phone then rang and, apologising, he took the call. A voice that sounded like Dave’s shouted down the line at Letswin for a few moments before he hung up and declared that the Tories would do what Labour had done, only better. He said the Tories were for education. And hospitals. Families - they liked families. And tax cuts – but-only-if-the-economic-conditions-allowed-for-them, he parrotted.

In separate announcements:

• the Tories agreed to oppose a third runway for Heathrow. They would make this possible by requiring anyone wishing to fly to be a member of the House of Lords, unspeakably rich or a farmer. Anyone who was poor but had attended even a minor public school would be allowed to fly within Europe.
• Horny handed son of a miner Dominic Grieve promised to free up police to take out whoever they chose at any time, so that the plague of Brazilian tourists threatening our underground system with their walkmans could be stamped out once and for all.
• Cherie Blair attended a fringe meeting. She was invited to the meeting to show voters how ghastly she had been to encourage more of them over to the Tories.

Meanwhile, the Tories slid gently down the polls as Gordon emerged into the limelight with his undepants on the outside of his dreadfully ill-fitting suit to save the world economy. Ed Balls accompanied him, mumbling ‘dinna dinna dinna dinna dinna dinna dinna dinna’, although he had rather strangely put his underpants on his head.

OLMERT PLAYS HIS LAST HAND

Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the unsayable on the future of Israel, namely that any peace deal will require the country to revert to the borders it had in 1967. He has naturally been pilloried by right and left but it is pretty amazing that such a senior politician has said this.

The worry is that he will now be targeted in the same way Yitzhak Rabin was. Rabin also tried to achieve a lasting peace and he paid with his life. Hopefully Olmert will avoid this terrible fate and hopefully his comments will kick of a serious debate.

QUARTET PLAYING IN YOUR AREA SOON

A report from international aid agencies has said that the ‘Quartet’ of the USA, EU, Russia and the UN is failing in its attempt to bring a settlement to the Israel/Palestine problem. Perhaps the headline should be that anyone is in any way surprised that this is the case, given its membership.

The USA has done more than most to destabilise the Middle East through its shoring up of Israel without using any of its considerable leverage to force that country’s government to do anything to resolve the regional situation, not to mention the various notorious forays into the region to meddle with yet another country every few years by shoring up the odd dictator, or occasionally taking one out if they tire of him…

It is also surely something to marvel at that anyone expected anything of St Tony of The Blessed 45 Minutes, about which nothing needs to be said which hasn’t been ranted on ad nauseum infinitum.

The Israeli government has no interest in reaching a settlement with the Palestinian government, for if it did it would have to remove hundreds of settlements, causing huge social upheaval and releasing the most extreme elements in Jewish society into the more moderate parts of the country. It would have to remove the ghastly wall across the country, return the thousands of acres of land which have been illegally enclosed within this new barrier, give up half of Jerusalem and admit to decades of discrimination against the Palestinians.

To hopefully spike some of the attacks which will no doubt be heading my way, this is not to hold up the Palestinians as paragons of goodness and virtue. God knows their leaders have screwed up enough over the years, not least Yasser Arafat, whose desperation to get something from his life caused him to reach a ‘peace of the stupid’, when his own people had spent years working in secret with the Israelis for a far more equitable settlement, a process which had been achieving progress.

The continuing violence carried out by Palestinians is also no help to their cause and must be stamped on, even if it is understandable in many cases. Anyone who finds this last phrase terrible, if you are living in comfortable surroundings with proper sewerage, running water, decent schooling for your children, a secure job, no threat of summary arrest or execution for you or your family and of course the chance to leave where you live for work, study or a holiday and be able to return there without the risk of being told that you are no longer a resident, as happens to Palestinians in Jerusalem, think twice before commenting.

The bottom line is that the ‘Quartet’ will never work until the USA puts pressure on Israel. That means withholding some of the billions of dollars of funding for various projects in Israel until the government in Jerusalem realises that it must make meaningful compromises. That means detaching American policy from the lunatic Christians who want the Jews gathered together in the Holy Land for the Second Coming. It means setting a deadline and discussing every relevant issue including Jerusalem and the much more difficult ‘right of return’. This last problem is one area where the ‘Quartet’ could make a valuable contribution as its resolution will almost certainly be symbolic and financial.

Still, none of this will happen, the Israeli government will continue to discriminate and to encroach on Palestinian land, the Palestinian government will continue to be ineffectual and corrupt, Palestinians will continue to murder Israeli citizens, thus hardening attitudes within Israel yet further, and the great mass of Palestinians will continue to live in misery and squalor for countless generations to come.

This is one of those articles which could just be stored and brought out next year with the dates and one or two names altered but otherwise largely unchanged.

Now that’s tragic.

SPARE SOME CHANGE FOR THE QUEEN?

The Independent today reports how the Queen's household is appealing to the government for more cash as it cannot afford to manage with the £15m it is paid by British taxpayers...Apparently they need around £32m to maintain the various properties around the country.

Now I'm a rare thing among Lib Dems, a supporter of the monarchy as they are good business in terms of heritage tourism. Also, as long as the Royal Family exists, President Blair will be but a pipe dream.

However, this appeal doeas rather stick in the craw. After all, Her Majesty could quite easily sell off one or two palaces. Apparently she hates Buckingham Palace so there's a prime bit of real estate in the heart of London which must be worth oodles. When in the south she could quite comfortably stay in Windsor. Trains to London are very frequent from Windsor and Eton Riverside, I understand.

Perhaps some members of the Royal Family could, er, pay their way. No names, no pack drill, as they say.

This last point illustrates my key problem with the Royal Family. I think it is sensible to keep the monarch to insinuate our republic beneath, to coin a phrase, but I can't quite see why we should be paying the way of the extended family.

Anyway, here's a rare thing: praise for the government. Long may they refuse the request for more money and look to the Royal Household to make sensible and entirely reasonable economies.

THE LAST OIL SHOCK

I have just finished reading ‘The Last Oil Shock’ by David Strahan. He sounds like an American but he is a British journalist so the book is readable and coherent.

What he explores is the expected peak in oil production which many people expect very soon but which the oil companies and governments tend to want to ignore, for obvious reasons. The book is excellent and made me think hard about the future, despite the fact that I remain quite sanguine about what lies ahead and I question the essential theory that the world is running out of oil as quickly as the author says.

I don’t think anyone really knows when the oil will peak, although many have provided very well researched views, as this book does. It is a very persuasive argument and the main point is that we absolutely need to change the way we live as soon as possible to minimise the pain. Otherwise it is going to be a crunch rather than a slowdown.

I am of the view that there is little I can do to change the world but I can at least put my house in order, which I try to do through lower consumption. That said, I drive 46 miles a day (in a small car though) so I’m not exactly on the side of the angels…

Anyway, I would strongly recommend the book as it is very well written and it poses some fascinating questions.

ANGRY OF WITNEY

A woman in Cheltenham who bit her son’s arm has been sent to prison for five months. She admitted to doing this, told police it had been a knee jerk reaction as she believed her son had hurt her daughter and attended anger management classes. She is a single mother and had admitted struggling of late.

She has gone to prison, her children have gone into foster care, there has been a lengthy court case and countless hours of police and social service involvement costing many thousands of £s. Meanwhile, sad to note, there are probably tens of children in the vicinity who are a real risk of harm, if they are not being harmed already and their situations probably merit intervention a damn sight more than this case, although I of course don’t know any more about this story.

However, reading the information which is available, and at the risk of sounding like the Daily Mail (God help me), this is absolutely bloody stupid and seems to serve no one well, least of all the children, who have lost their mother for two or three months.

THE POT IS STIRRED ONCE AGAIN

Here we go then. A poll in the Independent this Sunday showed that the Tory lead over Labour slumped from 21 to 12 points, while support for the LDs went up to 21, a rise of points, which is all to the good.

What I think this poll shows most starkly is that the Tories are on a bubble which can very easily be burst. Brown didn’t do much that was very dramatic last week, when the poll was run (yes, I know this is a matter of opinion – this is my opinion), but his stock has already crept back up. I think we can expect a reasonably good conference for Brown as his party seeks to come together around him, so his poll rating may rise further. The first time they return to parity with the Tories, Dave’s days are numbered. If that happens, where then for Team Tory? What we must remember is that Dave was the last throw of their dice.

If I were a Tory I’d be sleeping a lot less soundly. Their conference is going to need to be a humdinger and their leader is going to have to get some proper ideas to back up the spin he has used so far. Dave should remember that a captain does not earn his money when the ship is coasting in calm waters but when the iceberg is fast approaching.

And I see icebergs!

The best bit is that the cautious route being taken by Nickers and the ever improving communications team somewhere on Cowley Street seems to be bearing fruit. It’s looking like a very wise plan to go slow and steady, outflank the Tories and relish their discomfort. After all, the next election will inevitably have a significant ‘anti-government’ vote, whoever is Labour leader. Nickers seems to be putting us on track to capitalise on that.

Wipeout in the south, Littlebrain? Think again – and mind that hedge! Whoops, too late…

THE TIME MACHINE

I have just read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. It was a great read and the writer’s imagination can only be marvelled at. It also diverged quite significantly from the two films I have seen based on the book, although the fundamentals of the story are actually quite limited so you can see why Hollywood would need to flesh it out with a heroine, a war and the destruiction of the moon, for example.

What struck me most, however, was the inherent violence which often crops up in 19th century books. The hero spends much of his time generally pushing around the creatures he encounters in the distant future when they don’t do what he wants. He gets angry when his time machine is taken away without his knowledge and his immediate response is to start beating the wan Eloi around. His response to the more sinister Morlocks is also to generally lay about them with his fists even though at his first encounter with them he does not know if they’re good or bad.

There has been all sorts of moralising over our performance as a country in the 19th century and we have much to feel uncomfortable about – as well as much to be proud of, I might add, unfashionably - but the general tenor of such books really puts into focus how our ancestors thought about the world.

Still, it makes you think...

GORDON'S 'GET OUT OF JAIL' CARD

Few doubt Gordon Brown's fundamental abilities. He is an able politician and is sometimes credited with having driven Project New Labour, rather than the Smarmmeister Blair. He just happens to be an abysmal Prime Minister, lacking the necessary 'chutzpah' needed for the job.

However, if Brown could sort out the regulatory fiasco which is the City of London while retaining the support of bankers and managing to gee up the mortgage market in particular, he could remind people why he was generally well regarded as Chancellor, even if circumstances helped him during his ten year tenure (there's a Country and Western song in there somewhere...).

Then again, Labour is slowly going doolally so they might decided to ditch him next week, to be replaced with, er, someone else no one likes. Brilliant!

DOSCLAIMER: I am not seeking to defend Brown, I just want the pack of journalistic hounds to grow up and focus their attention somewhere else for a change. What about Witney, where the Rt Hon David Cameron MP continues to do little but say much about it?

MARKET TURMOIL: A MOMENT OF CLARITY

There was an interesting Radio 4 documentary this morning on the current financial market problems which finished without me learning anything new but which featured some interesting comments, not least from a director of Lehmann Brothers calling from his office as the business went tits up. His candour was very interesting.

However, the best comment came from the plummy owner of one of those old institutions which have got us into this mess in the first place. His bank is over 300 years old and he recalled lamenting the market turmoil in the 1970s to an aged relative (who also clearly worked his way up from the business floor to direct the company by some peculiar fortune). The aged relative calmed him by showing the ledger from the South Sea Bubble and commenting simply that in banking there will always be booms and busts as it is part of the system.

It's not much comfort for the poor saps losing their jobs and their savings but it does offer a useful perspective.

SIX WORDS TO DERAIL PROJECT CAMERON

I went to a meeting organised by the needy 'Liberal Vision' which featured a couple of good speakers nonetheless. One of them came out with a very good phrase which resonated with me as perhaps the 'silver bullet' to throw 'Blue Labour' completely.

The next time Dave or Gideon appears on a platform with a LD to empathise with 'hard-working families', the Georgians, the environment or any other pet headline, the response needs to be, purely and simply: "Yes, but what would you do?"

SUBTLE NEW SHOOTS EMERGE ALL AROUND

Is something changing for the better for us? I ask this question having just finished reading the analysis of Nickers' speech on the BBC website by Reeta Chakrabarti. Her observations were measured, sensible and, crucially, demonstrated that she had actually listened to (or read in full) the speech before committing digits to keyboard. She also omitted the usual cliches about the third party, beards and sandals, Tory/Labour wannabees etc etc ad nauseaum.

I also read a report in the Independent on Monday by the usually dismissive Simon Carr in which he also seems to have betrayed an uncanny ability to, er, notice us and to hear what we are on about.

This is all very rum but it might just hint at a new direction for the narrowly focused supertanker that is political commentary in this country. If the hacks are starting to change their tune about us we might be on to something - in which case I'll up my score for Nickers' speech to 9 out of 10.

I shall of course tune into Newsnight this evening to reassure myself that the boorish, blinkered Paxman remains hostile to us in keeping with his tired, shouty persona.

NICKERS' SPEECH CUTS THE MUSTARD

Well, I'm, content with that speech. Nickers pushed the right buttons for me and he's upset my 'closet Tory' brother, so that must be good. He was a bit nervous and he fluffed one or two lines but the jokes were good, if perhaps a little wooden.

I also have some doubts about the value of his personalising the speech to include constituents with problems. I'm sure it's all genuine but it was perhaps a little too 'down home', folksy American for me.

Comparing the Tories to a Toilet Duck was a high point, as was the clear, unequivocal opposition to Heathrow and Stansted expansion and the new Kingsnorth Power Station. He also unequivocally said no to polluting Nuclear Power.

My summary would be that it was a great speech for activists with enough soundbites for the journalists to feed upon, although I doubt it will set the world on fire. 8 out of 10.

MY CONFERENCE REFLECTIONS

I have spent the obligatory 3 days at conference and found it once more a fairly rewarding experience, largely because it has been held this year in Bournemouth, which is a beguiling town with one of the most gorgeous seafronts in England. The only downside is that it lacks a decent set of local shops but that's a minor gripe. I still managed to find some rock to take home for the kids.

The most striking impression I have taken from this year's conference has been the very high calibre of our MPs, whom I have heard speak on a variety of matters. My favourite this time has to be Steve Webb, who takes personability to new heights and who is remarkably well informed. He is followed by Julia Goldsworthy who deserves her place as holder-but-one of the poisoned chalice of leadership material.

I must also commend the various MPs I have accosted to ask for quiz questions for their good nature in response to this assault on their private lives and their supply of interesting facts about themselves. Did you know, for example, that Andrew George and Dan Rogerson made their swearing in declarations to Parliament in 2005 in Cornish?

I was also delighted to hear that Mark Littlewood fell over a wall during an altercation with Adrian Sanders, who through these heroics becomes my number one MP until at least next year. I assume that Littlewood fell on his brains so there can be little chance of any serious injury having befallen him.

I must also mention the always excellent ALDC training which I have attended for much of the three days, as this is the main purpose for my visits. What ALDC can't teach you isn't worth knowing and if you're a party activist and you're not a member of ALDC, you are probably only operating at around 40% of your potential. My advice is to head off to www.aldc.org pronto.

Finally, me and my Council support officer colleagues in our loose association, LDSO, have taken full advantage this year of various meetings to plug, plug and plug again the merits of having a support officer. Once again, if you're a LD councillor and you don't have the advantage of a professional, partisan officer within your Council to give you the support you could surely use to better do your job while you hold down all your other responsibilities, you are missing a trick. Post a comment on here if you'd like more info.

I shall stay here until Lembit Opik speaks on rural housing this evening, no doubt with Kerry Katona or Cheryl Cole in tow...Love the guy but he would do well do get his private life in some sort of order.

Great conference and a great venue. Compliments to all involved in organising it.

PLAUDITS FOR THE NEW PARTY WEBSITE

No doubt pedants of the world will unite to condemn a mising bit of script or the failure to use the right html but the new party website looks fabulous and it is so much easier to use than the old one. I looked for a couple of things and they were all about two clicks away from the front page.

I particularly love the policy page, which links you to the portfolio holder, the policy and the news in that area.

Still, I wish they'd used java XT7 for the main meme. The failure to fully integrate the twitter nodules is a failing.

I'm sure humans trying to use the site will cope with all the flaws which will doubtless exist.

Full marks to all concerned once again. We seem to have a communications operation which knows how to, er, communicate.

WHY GORDON BROWN IS SAFE, PART 94

Another Labour Cabinet minister was on the radio this morning. This time it was Ed Milispoons - and what a revelation he was.

There is something unsettling about a Labour MP speaking with a hopelessly plummy voice but that wasn't the worst of it. He simply had nothing to say on the subject of the Cabinet meeting in Birmingham. It was reminiscent of the early days of New Labour in 1997 when they were all young, keen and completely unaware so they tended to umm and ahh through interviews like schoolchildren on speech day.

One would have hoped that 11 years in they might have improved but it seems there is simply no one who can come close to Gordon for experience.

Of couirse I could be wrong - I tend to be - and Gordon could be chucked out of a first floor window in the ICC but that would be a huge mistake given the pygmies he is surrounded by. You increasingly have to wonder if this is a deliberate ploy of his, given just how poor his ministers seem to be.

Now the rider: I don't doubt that the Milispoon brothers in particular are intelligent and able enough to be whatever they want to be, as will many Cabinet ministers, no doubt. But being Prime Minister seems to need a bit more than bald ability. It requires the kind of chutzpah that Harold Wislon (sic.), Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair brought to the role.

Gordon is safe because there is no one to challenge him.

ANDY MURRAY - RESPECT

Andy Murray has beaten world number one Rafael Naal to get to the US Open Tennis final.

This is a phenomenal result from the brilliant British player who is now ranked as world number 4. I expect I will be glued to a radio tomorrow night as the commentary this evening was surprisingly good, given how difficult it must be to commentate on such a fast and visual sport as tennis.

I don't know what Murray's politics are but I can't help wondering how long it is before either Alex Salmond or Gordon Brown adopt Andy Murray as their 'champion' for either Scotland or Britain. I read in the Independent that superstar Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy has already complained about politicians 'using' him. Wouldn't it be wonderful to think that Andy Murray's spectacular achievement was primarily his and his team's and not that of point scoring politicians?

Fingers crossed for him and for this aspiration.

CHARLES CLARKE HAS A MOAN. THE COUNTRY YAWNS.

I find all the politicking over Gordon Brown's future mildly diverting but I always come to the same conclusion eventually, which is that most people couldn't care one way or the other about petty Westminster squabbling. On this point, leaving London some years ago was a revelation as I emerged blinking into 'the real world'.

Still, news of Charles Clarke having another go at the Labour leader is interesting but perhaps not for the same reason it is for the febrile commentators in the meejah. It seems to me that if serial whinger Charles Clarke is attacking Gordon Brown, his position can only be strengthened. Nick Robinson on the BBC alludes to this, although he continues along the tired hack's path of desperately trying to whip up a crisis for tomorrow's Today programme. This is a shame because I like Nick Robinson but he remains stuck in the Westminster bubble just like all the others. Only the Independent's Andrew Grice appears to see slightly further afield.

I remain convinced that the Tories have peaked too soon and that the only way for them is down. If Labour MPs hold their nerve and start to get behind Gordon Brown, regardless of his pretty abysmal performance so far, they might just make the next election a lot more interesting that it looks from here.

A stronger Labour Party which stopped the Tories from sweeping all before them (involuntary shudder) could benefit us in areas where a strong and unchallenged Tory Party could wipe us out.