Chris Whiteside's Blog

"What's the point of fining RBS when we own it?" (Comment made on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning in respect of the money RBS, a large part of which is owned by the taxpayer has set aside to pay expected fines)

The PM had an article in The Times today about the need to increase Tax thresholds, of which more anon. He also had this to say about the difference between that approach and that of the main opposition party .. Today the contrast between the Conservatives and Labour could not be more clear. We're reforming welfare; Labour want to turn the taps back on. We celebrate the businesses who create jobs; Labour demonise them. And while Labour want to put up taxes on people's homes, pensions - even their deaths - the Conservatives are committed to cutting your taxes. Over the past four and a half years, as we have reduced the deficit, we have also cut income tax for 26 million people. In the next Parliament, we will go further. We have made two clear commitments that will benefit 30 million taxpayers: We will raise the tax threshold again, so that nobody earning less than £12,500 will pay income tax No-one earning less than £50,000 will pay the 40p rate of tax Financ...

Reading and listening to reports in the media today which respond to a Home Office study on the effectiveness of different drugs policies, it seems that some journalists and commentators do not need to be using mind-altering drugs to have difficulty using logic. After examining various approaches to drus policy used in the UK and thirteen other countries, from zero-tolerance to decriminalisation, the report concludes that drug use is influenced by factors "more complex and nuanced than legislation and enforcement alone".  The report says that it would be "inappropriate" to compare the success of drug policies in different countries because data collection and many other factors differ between each country, and the study also makes clear that drug policy is highly complex - e.g. approaches which may work abroad can't necessarily be implanted into the UK. It adds that   "Looking across different countries, there is no apparent correlation between ...

Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith writes ... Families left without the security of a pay packet; parents not able to provide for their children. Under Labour, the number of households with no-one in work rocketed. Families were left on benefits, out of work, with no stability or prospects. But while Labour were happy to write these families off, we weren't. We set about changing the welfare system so that it encourages and rewards work - and we backed businesses so they could create the jobs and opportunities people needed. As a result, the number of households where no-one works is at the lowest level since records began - and we need to make sure everyone knows the progress we've made.  Please share the graphic below on Facebook  and  Twitter  today.   There is still more to do, but our long-term economic plan is working - and securing a better future for families across Britain. Please share the graphic above and let everyon...

"All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in a sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence. A great thing is a great book; but greater than all is the talk of a great man. "And what is a great man? Is it a minister of state? Is it a victorious general? A gentleman in the Windsor uniform? A field marshal covered with stars? Is it a prelate or a prince? A king, even an emperor? It may be all these; yet these, as we must all daily feel, are not necessarily great men.  "A great man is one who affects the mind of his generation, whether he be a monk in his cloister agitating Christendom, or a monarch crossing the Granicus, and giving a new character to the Pagan world." (Benjamin Disraeli, from his novel Coningsby)

Anecdotal evidence maybe, but powerful none the less. I heard this evening that a good friend of mine had taken his wife from West Cumbria to the North Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle for a planned and much needed operation this week. She was being prepped for the operation and he was advised to come back in three hours. When he did it transpired that the procedure had been cancelled at the very last minute because there wasn't a bed available. There appeared to be ambulances queuing outside the North Cumberland while they tried to find space for the patients inside. The people of West Cumbria must participate in the forthcoming consultation and make the point that, quite apart from the highly undesirable travel time to Carlisle over poor roads, there simply is not room in the North Cumberland Infirmary for the patients or operations required if they take services away from West Cumberland Hospital. My friend's wife has been offered another appointment for Monday a...

"No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. " (Benjamin Disraeli, from his novel 'Coningsby')

I am introducing an occasional feature on this blog, name in honour of Lord Prescott, for murdering the English Language. And appropriately in an ironic way, the first people given the award for a savage assault on the English Language is a police spokesman - the one who described the jogger who accidentally bumped into David Cameron while on his way to the gym and was promptly bundled away by anti-terrorism officers as having been subsequently, quote "de-arrested." What a ridiculous and unnecessary new made-up word. You don't need to put a negative prefix in front of the word "arrested" when English has a perfectly satisfactory and much more natural sounding word, which is "released." But try telling that to the spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers who told the BBC that being de-arrested is not the same as being released without charge and t he key difference in terminology is whether the person is taken into custody and proc...

Fascinated to hear on the radio this morning an interview with a gentleman called  Waleed Ghani who is trying to revive the Whig party and has registered it with the Electoral Commission with a view for standing for election next year. Don't agree with everything he had to say - Independents and Tories had at least as much to do with the passage of some of the reforming legislation he was claiming on behalf of the Whigs. (For example, William Wilberforce who led the campaign to abolish slavery was an Independent MP and very close to the Tory Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger, who supported his campaign: there were Whigs and Tories on both sides of the argument about whether to abolish the slave trade.) The ideas of the Whigs were radical and often very positive in their day, but that day finished 150 years ago. Certainly there is an amusing side to seeing someone, in an age of widespread disillusion with politicians, to see someone try to overcome that disillusion by reviving a ...

Hush!' said Mr. Tadpole ...  'what the country requires is a sound Conservative government.' 'A sound Conservative government,' said Taper, musingly. 'I understand:  Tory men and Whig measures .' (Benjamin Disraeli, from his novel 'Coningsby')

Prime Minister David Cameron has given the green light to plans for a high-speed "HS3" rail link in the north of England, following a report by HS2 boss Sir David Higgins. Sir David said better rail links in northern England were "desirable" and "possible" after being asked to look at ways of maximising the benefits of HS2. The government said it would now develop a strategy looking at options, costs and a delivery timetable for HS3 and will produce a further report in March 2015 Speaking at the launch of Sir David Higgins' report, Chancellor George Osborne said the government "need to take David's report and turn it into a proper plan that can now be legislated in parliament". He said that it was a "big flaw" of the original HS2 plans to miss east-west connections. Journey times from Manchester to Leeds could be cut from 48 to 26 minutes. The east-west improvements backed by Sir David would be in addition to the no...

"The choice at the election, if you’re a Eurosceptic, is clear enough. You can have a pro-EU leader who will nonetheless give you an in/out referendum (David Cameron), an anti-EU leader who can’t deliver one (Nigel Farage) or a pro-EU leader who doesn’t even pretend to want one (Ed Miliband). I trust the electorate, and am more bullish than most about winning a referendum on withdrawal even against the three party leaders. Still, what an opportunity looks like sliding past. The latest poll shows the Conservatives and Ukip taking 50 per cent of the vote between them, while Ed Miliband becomes prime minister with 34 per cent. It’s enough to make you weep." (Dan Hannan, Conservative MEP,  writing in the Spectator. You can read the full article  here .)

New Office for National Statistics figures show the economy grew by 0.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2014 – showing our long-term economic plan is delivering a healthier economy and a more secure future for hardworking taxpayers and their families. Today’s strong growth figures show that the UK continues to lead the pack in an increasingly uncertain global economy. With all the main sectors of the economy growing it’s clear that our recovery is broadly based. But the UK is not immune to weakness in the euro area and instability in global markets, so we face a critical moment for our economy. We cannot afford an atom of complacency, and the growth we are seeing has not yet produced a turnround in the economic pain experienced by many families, with the exception of the nearly two million families who now have a breadwinner in work which they did not have when this government was elected. But we are heading in the right direction, even though the economy is a long wa...

It has been pointed out to me how Mr Miliband changed his tune over the course of one day depending whether he was speaking in Rochester and Stood (and trying to shore up Labour support against UKIP) or to ethnic minority activists. Granted, the two promises are not mutually exclusive but the difference in tone is rather marked ...

If the members of the North Cumberland University Hospitals NHS Trust spend as much time on the A595 travelling between Carlisle and Whitehaven as they should, they cannot have failed to notice a display of public support for keeping hospital services in Whitehaven. Between the Sunny Hill and Great Clifton, there are a large number of effigies of NHS related figures with written messages calling for the retention of services and saying things like "Save West Cumberland Hospital." I hope the Trust is listening, because they should be.

"Sir Thomas More's achievement, in being both knighted and canonised, is likely to remain an unbeaten record" (C Northcote Parkinson, of Parkinson's Law, on the rarity of different types of success) Of course, More was also beheaded .... 

Don't forget to put your clocks back an hour this evening, unless your name is Ed Miliband or Nigel Farage. If your name is Ed Miliband, put your clocks forward 29 years, 364 days, and 23 hours. If your name is Nigel Farage, put your clocks forward 49 years, 364 days, and 23 hours.

The review of maternity services, and the possibility of a disastrous decision to remove consultant-led maternity facilities from West Cumberland Hospital, is just part of an overall review of key services announced yesterday. I have put a more detailed article about this on my hospitals blog here .

The NHS Trust which manages hospital services in North Cumbria have revealed three options for the future of maternity services. Two of the proposals by North Cumbria Hospitals NHS Trust involve withdrawing consultant-led services at West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven. A third would be to retain both the unit in Whitehaven, and that at Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary. The trust said it did not have a preferred option and promised that - as required by law - there would be no decision without a public consultation. It is therefore essential that we campaign for the third option - the idea of Mum's in Labour having to travel 40 or more miles on the A595 to the North Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle or FGH in Barros is too ghastly to contemplate. The plans are part of a review of medical services, which the trust is undertaking in a bid to get out of the special measures it was placed in after high death rates were found following the Keogh review. In September, th...

“People can learn a lot from one another if their need to be right falls away.”  (  K L Jordaan  )

Councillor Kelly Tolhurst has been selected by a postal ballot primary of all electors in the Rochester and Strood constituency to be the Conservative candidate in the By-Election on 20th November. Sign up, then retweet to help @KellyTolhurst secure a better future for Rochester and Strood: https://t.co/wwC2ZTmtdw pic.twitter.com/YpsZGZGSjA — Conservatives (@Conservatives) October 24, 2014 Good luck to Kelly in the election - I am certain she will be a fantastic MP if elected

You could almost wonder sometimes whether elements of the European Commission past and present are secret agents in the pay of the UK Independence Party. Barroso's valedictory speech was a gift to UKIP - and welcomed by Nigel Farage as such - but the annoucement this week of adjustments to the amount the EU is demanding from various states, with rebates for some and extra payments demanded from others, was adding injury to insult. The "Technical Adjustment" requiring Britain to pay more to the Commission as a consequence of the fact that we are recovering better from recession than most of the Eurozone would have been painful enough it had been applied in a way that made sense. But to demand that Italy and Greece also pay more for the same reason looks very odd.

"I am advised by my own chief whip that herding cats is quite difficult." (John Thurso, a Liberal Democrat MP, telling the Commons yesterday why the House authorities do not propose to use cats to control parliament's mouse problem.) 

In the area of Cumbria where I live, properties which change hands for £2 million can reasonably be describe as mansions - though there are so few of them in this county that a tax on such properties would hardly raise enough money to be worth the effort of collecting. But in some parts of the country, particularly London, house price inflation has put the homes of ordinary working people into the territory which might be caught by Labour's so called "Mansion Tax"  And if the suggestion by one Labour politician to apply the tax to houses in the North West worth over £400,000 were put into effect, there are plenty of family homes in places like Keswick which are certainly not mansions but would be affected. This is what Priti Patel has to say on the subject: 'Let's stop calling it a "mansion tax"- these are not mansions, these are family homes' - Tessa Jowell, Labour MP Ed Miliband's planned tax on the family home will hit hardworking ...

A happy Diwali (Festival of Light) today to everyone whose religion or culture includes this celebration.

“Don't curse the darkness but light a candle.”  ( Brother Andrew ,  God's Smuggler )

Hat Tip to Political Betting for pointing out at a paradox in the opinion polls - at the same time that hte UK Independence party is doing very well in the polls, support for British membership of the EU is polling at a record high level. They are probably right that part of this may be a ripple from the Scottish Indyref and that part can be explained because the rise in UKIP is having a polarising effect - they are about as "Marmite" (love them or hate them) as a broadly mainstream party can get. If there is a referendum, I don't think either side can take the result for granted. As with Scotland, the battle will narrow as we get close to the event, and unless one side really blows it - as the "Yes" camp did in the AV referendum and the "No" side got uncomfortably close to doing in the Indyref  before pulling their socks up in the final month - I would expect an IN-OUT referendum to present a nerve-wracking possibility of going either way. I sti...

"The Government have provided investment to develop facilities further, particularly facilities for surgical procedures, in the hospital and the local area. With that investment, there is a strong future for local hospital services.  It is important that local clinical commissioners continue to engage with staff at the trust, and particularly with local patients. After all, if we want a health service that is fit for purpose in Cumbria and elsewhere, it has to be based on the needs of local patients. It is to them, more than anybody else, that local commissioners need to listen." (Daniel Poulter MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, winding up the debate in the House of Commons this Monday about the future of West Cumberland Hospital.)

There was a "adjournment debate" in parliament yesterday about West Cumberland Hospital. This is a means of getting a short debate, often attended only by the Speaker or Deputy Speaker in the chair, the MP or MPs who raised the issue and by the minister who is replying, about an issue of constituency or other concern. I know there is - rightly - a huge amount of concern in West Cumbria about our local hospital. I thought it was worth publicising the full text of the debate, so I have posted it on my hospitals blog and you can read it here .

Adrian Davis-Johnston, a great guy who I knew a few years ago when he was involved in various campaigns in Copeland, has published a very clever Youtube parody of Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive" in support of the campaign to protect services at WCH. ((Hashtag #WeNeedWestCumberlandHospital) The nearest alternative hospitals to WCH, e.g. the North Cumberland Infirmary at Carlisle or FGH at Barrow, are respectively an hour away from Whitehaven or Millom on terrible roads, and more like ninety minutes away from much of South Copeland. Given the importance of getting people to treatment quickly, any reduction in major trauma, maternity or other emergency services at the West Cumberland could have a dire impact on West Cumbria. This is Adrian's take on the consequences if we lose services at WCH

One of the many proofs that, if there is a God, He has a sense of irony came when the lead actor from the original "Total Recall" film became governor of California in a recall election, replacing a previous governor who had become very unpopular. A number of US states have recall laws, generally, as in California, they are used from time to time but not every five minutes, which is probably a good sign, as it means that they can be used to give elected politicians an additional reason to listen to the electorate without making the state ungovernable (or at least, not more ungovernable than it already is!) Today British MPs are debating the "Recall of MPs" bill, and if you think that sounds like a conflict of interest you have a point. The bill proposes that, if an MP is given a prison sentence of up to 12 months or a ban from the Commons lasting more than 21 sitting days, a petition could be set up calling for a recall election. The petition would be open f...

When someone links to a view expressed by a member of an opposing political party, it usually means that the person linked to has gone off-message and attacked their own side. I'll admit that I sometimes link to people who have done this. As Ted Heath once said, "I do not often attack the Labour party - they do it so well themselves." However, the piece I'm linking to in this post is not an example. Kevin Meagher has an article on "Labour Uncut" this week about the current EU migration rules, which is partly a response to the valedictory speech yesterday from outgoing EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso. The article is called  " Blind Defenders of Free Movement sound like US gun nuts ." It is a refreshingly bipartisan (from a British viewpoint) and thought-provoking argument that the modern impact of EU freedom of movement rules is having a much wider and more dramatic impact than was originally intended and that these rules sho...

I try not to re-use material on this blog too often, but today, the 209th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, I will make an exception. it's important to understand our history and Trafalgar is a key part of that history. I'm don't think I can improve on what I wrote nine years ago for the 200th anniversary in 2005, so here is that article again. The Immortal Memory Today is the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar – one of the three most decisive and important naval battles of all time, and the most important in the past 2,000 years. Only the battle of Salamis in 480 BC, when Greek city states fought off an invasion by the Persian Empire and thereby ensured the survival both of early democracy and the ideas which would develop into science, and Actium in 32 BC which determined who would found the Roman Empire and what course it would take over the following 400 years, were as important. So why is Trafalgar so important ? First, it ensured that Na...

"England confides that every man will do his duty" (Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, original form of his "Trafalgar" signal sent 209 years ago today) "His Lordship came to me on the poop, and after ordering certain signals to be made, about a quarter to noon, he said, 'Mr. Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, ENGLAND CONFIDES THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY' and he added 'You must be quick, for I have one more to make which is for close action.' I replied, 'If your Lordship will permit me to substitute the confides for expects the signal will soon be completed, because the word expects is in the vocabulary, and confides must be spelt,' His Lordship replied, in haste, and with seeming satisfaction, 'That will do, Pasco, make it directly.' (Lieutenant  John Pasco, signals officer on HMS Victory, about how the signal was actually sent.)

There are just 200 days to go until the next General Election - and it is the most important for a generation. For four years, the British people have worked hard to raise our country out of recession -  and we are now growing faster than any other major advanced economy in the world, with record numbers of people in work. That means more peace of mind for millions of families - more parents being able to provide for their children. Our long-term economic plan is working - and at the next election, we can either continue on that path or throw it all away. We have the chance to make Britain even greater: a place where reward truly follows effort; where your destiny is not decided by where you're from, but how much effort you put in; where we remain able to provide for the poorest, the sick, the elderly; where morally, culturally and economically our country stands tall in the world. A Labour Britain hardly bears thinking about. All Ed Miliband offers is more spending,...

  “Never assume the obvious is true.” ( William Safire  )

Adam Gopnic has written and broadcast a "Points of View" article, from which I took my "quote of the day" which can be read on the BBC website at   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29657506 , or listened to at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04l3ly6 . The broadcast article is called the "Football Fallacy" - as one part of the article argues that the British are better at watching football than playing it. But the article is actually much more general and wide-ranging in scope. On the internet the text version is called "Why are our obsessions never the things we're best at?" His basic argument is that the activities which often most interest or indeed obsess people, and which they think they are good at, are often things which in fact they are rubbish at. Now I absolutely cannot accept that this is always true, because someone who is obsessed with something often works very hard at it, and there are very few human activities which...

"When I first supported Chelsea, back in 1973 ...  They were thrilling until, loaned to their national sides, they played other countries and you found that they weren't, really. It didn't seem to matter.   "Now Chelsea is owned by a billionaire from Russia and made up of several millionaires from Spain and West Africa, with a couple of Englishmen left over to cower on the sidelines ... This strikes me as a completely positive change, making them much more exciting to watch - but some of the local flavour is gone, including the peculiar local flavour of not being very good." (Adam Gopnic writing about the changes in his local football team, in an article on the BBC website at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29657506 about the fact that the things people are obsessed with are often not the things they are good at. See next post for comments on this article. He's just as rude about the Americans and French performance on the things they think t...

“Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are.”   ( Lois McMaster Bujold ,  Labyrinth )

As I mentioned in a previous post,  Lord Freud has apologised unreservedly for comments he made about employing disabled workers. He was right to do so. But we should also recognise that Lord Freud, who does not claim a ministerial salary, has been a passionate advocate of getting disabled people back into work, particularly those with mental health problems, although as he himself has admitted he should not have accepted the premise of the question asked at the party conference event and his words have offended many people. Conservatives have a proud record of helping disabled people: · The number of disabled people in employment is up 116,000 this year alone, meaning many more disabled people have the security of a job because of our long-term economic plan. · Conservative MPs forced through Parliament, against the then Labour Government’s opposition, the Autism Act 2009, the first piece of legislation on a specific disability in British history. · ...

Conservative Campaign HQ would like to remind everyone of a few salient facts. Everyone knows that reducing the deficit and dealing with our debts is the key to a stronger, healthier economy. Everyone, that is, except for Ed Miliband - who 'forgot' to mention the deficit in his hour-long speech at Labour conference. Watch this film  then share it with everyone you know to remind them that you can't trust Labour with the economy:   Thank you, Conservative Campaign HQ