Chris Whiteside's Blog

(After Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech which brought down Mrs Thatcher) "If that's what Denis Healey thinks being savaged by a dead sheep is like, I'll be giving any dead sheep in Leeds South-East a wide berth." (Anonymous Tory politician. This is a reference to the fact that Healey, who was MP for that constituency, once described being criticised by Sir Geoffrey as like being savaged by a dead sheep.)

There is a lot of confusion in the comments in the papers and blogosphere concerning who voted for what when the European parliament discussed the EU budget proposal including the proposed budget cut negotiated by David Cameron and Angela Merkel. That's why I posted a link yesterday to the motion proposed by Richard Ashworth MEP on behalf of British Conservatives and our ECR allies to make quite clear where the Conservatives stood. Certain other parties appear to be facing all over the place. The majority of MEPs voted for a resolution to, quote,   "reject the agreement in it's current form"  so I don't think it's unfair that many people have described the parliament as having voted down the EU budget cuts proposed by the summit. However, it would appear that the majority of MEPs are indulging in a certain amount of posturing and trying to get extra money added rather than a serious attempt to send the EU budget back to square one. It...

"There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose." John Kenneth Galbraith.

A few months ago, in a triumph for British PM David Cameron and German chancellor Angela Merkel, a summit of European leaders at the Council of Ministers proposed for the first time ever a cut in the EU Budget. At a time when both individuals and governments throughout Europe are facing incredibly tough pressures on their finances, it should have seemed obvious to any reasonable person that the EU budget should not be the only budget in Europe protected from an appropriate share of the pain. This was accepted by the Council of Ministers - but sadly by a majority of MEPs. Many of those MEPs who wanted to reject the deal obviously realised that they were out of step with public opinion - or they would not have tried unsuccessfully to get a secret ballot, to protect those who voted against the budget from the wrath of voters in next year's European elections. But although that particular trick failed, MEPs today voted by 586 to 161 against approving the ...

Members of the armed forces and foster carers are to be exempted from controversial changes to housing benefits. The proposed change will base the housing benefit payable on the housing need of the family, rather than on the size of the property they occupy. Pensioners were already exempt from the change, and a fund, administered by local authorities, has been set up to provide assistance in special cases - for example, it is intended that any family with disabled children whose disability means that they need extra space should be able to obtain assistance from that fund. Most of the legitimate concerns about the changes to housing benefit, inaccurately labelled the "bedroom tax" by the Labour party, have now been addressed.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." Noam Chomsky

Result of the Falklands referendum on the future of the islands. The question was  "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?" Of the 1672 residents eligible to vote, turnout was 1517 (90.7%) Of the 1517 residents who voted, the results were YES - 1513 NO -         3 SPOILT - 1 Nigel Haywood, governor of the Falkland Islands, said: "Obviously it is a major principle of the United Nations that a people have their right to self-determination, and you don't get a much clearer expression of the people's self-determination than such a large turnout and such a large 'yes' vote." Dick Sawle, a member of the island's locally elected legislative assembly, said it was an "absolutely phenomenal result which will send out the strongest possible message to the rest of the world about our right to self-determination - a right that was fought for in 1982,...

It is a shame when, in communities where it used to be safe to leave your door unlocked, this has ceased to be the case. But it is best that people recognise it. Our Police and Crime Commissioner gave a speech last week in which he mentioned that in one area of Cumbria, eight out of eleven burglaries under investigation involved an unlocked front door. Verbum Sapiens - don't leave your front door unlocked.

From Journalist Isabel Oakeshott to Vicky Pryce Tues 8 March 2012 "It's likely there is a minor risk of you being prosecuted but we think in practise" (sic) "it is highly unlikely, especially if we handle it right … " From another 2012 email during the same exchange of correspondence ... "My own view is that you would come out of it fine." Isabel Oakeshott on the Daily Politics TV programme, 10 March 2013 (After Vicky Pryce was indeed prosecuted and found guilty)    “We didn’t know the risks because we are not criminal lawyers." “It’s not my job and nor is it the job of the Sunday Times to provide expert criminal advice to a source of a story." It's generally a good idea to be very careful what one says to journalists ...

At the Penrith and the Border Conservative AGM last week, Rory Stewart MP finished his Q&A session with a quote which he had picked up from Conservative councillor Gordon Nicholson: "Conservative Government fall because they fight amongst themselves. Labour governments fall because they run out of money." I've been trying to track down quotes along these lines. Similar comments have been made by Mrs Thatcher and by George Osborne, but the best one comes from a page on a "Labour's problems" site which argues that " In the end labour governments always run out of money. " There are several other appropriate quotes on the page, which you can find here.

There is a fascinating item on the BBC website called " Affection for Britain brews in Germany " about people in Germany who are fond of Britain and agree with some of the things for which David Cameron is trying to argue in Europe. You can read the article here .

Watch out for ice and snow if you are out and about in many parts of Cumbria or Northern England today. There is a thick blanket of frost on the ground today in Whitehaven and I note that in many areas of Cumbria such as Keswick, the temperature is not forecast to rise above approximately zero degrees centigrade - e.g. freezing point - during the course of today. POSTSCRIPT 1.45 PM Very rare weather conditions this lunch time in Whitehaven - and I'm talking two or three times in a lifetime rare - with the combination of bright sunshine and significant amounts of snow. The only previous time I can recall seeing such a thing was about thirty-six years ago while I was taking a history O-level paper and could see out of the window as bright subshine illuminated snow being blown around Verulamium Park and the Orchard at St Albans School.

Another 142 new jobs are to be created at Sellafield on top of the 500 announced by Conservative Energy minister John Hayes shortly before Christmas. Sellafield stakeholders relations director Rory O'Neill told the Whitehaven News this week that “ We made a commitment before Christmas that our recruitment campaign would be locally focused, and as we come to the end of the campaign around the end of this month we will be able to look closely at the recruitment process, drilling down where exactly our new recruits are from. “We’re confident we will meet our commitment to source most of our new workers in West Cumbria. “All in all being able to offer another 140 new posts on top of the previous 500 is brilliant news. It increases the professional skills base on the site and further establishes Sellafield and West Cumbria as a global centre for nuclear excellence whose best days are ahead. “It also helps us deliver Sellafield’s mission of accelerating safe and efficien...

This post follows on from the "quote of the day" post scheduled to appear two minutes before this one, and which refers to Basil Hume's statement about how everyone can tell you something special about the nature of God. A huge irony which struck me this week is that of all the response I saw to the disgrace of Basil Hume's successor as the most senior Catholic churchman in Britain, the response which most exemplified Christian forgiveness came from an outspoken atheist. I was horrified by the news of Keith O'Brien's disgrace. The gap between what he said and what he did was wrong in itself and will undoubtedly have done great damage both to his own church and other churches, and brought unfair opprobrium on others who do not deserve it. Matthew Parris wrote an article in the Spectator which began as follows: "Were you to try to identify the sort of journalist least likely to feel sympathy for Keith O’Brien, I suppose you’d place near the top of y...

"Since we are all made in the image of God, and we are all different, it follows that each person can tell you something about the nature of God which no-one else can." Cardinal Basil Hume

The people of the Falkland Islands vote today and tomorrow in a referendum on whether they should retain their present status as a largely self-governing British Overseas Territory. I would hope that both the British and Argentine governments should respect the wishes of the islanders as expressed in that referendum, whichever way it should go. Not that there is much hope that the Argentine government will pay any attention. The present regime in Buenos Aires would not recognise an invonvenient the truth if their lives depended on it. But it is worth noting that virtully all the UN "Decolonisation" resolutions about the Falklands which the Argentine president regularly calls on the UK to honour refer to the wishes of the inhabitants. The referendum to establish secret ballot what those wishes are is a good idea. By pretending that the Falkland Islanders and their wishes, quote, "do not exist" it is the government of Argentina, not that of the Britain, which is...

A tax is defined as follows in the Oxford dictionary: "A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions." It is a tax when you earn money and the government takes some of it, or when you leave money to your children and the government takes some of it, or when you buy something and the government requires you to pay some extra money which goes to the exchequer. Or in really simple language: It is a tax when the government takes your money away IT IS NOT A TAX WHEN THE GOVERNMENT PAYS  YOU MONEY. Not even if, because a previous incompetent government nearly bankrupted the economy, the present government is forced to pay you less than you were getting before. At the moment we have tens of thousands of households in properties which are too small for them, but we also have a large number of subsidised homes which appear not to be f...

"If you put the Federal Government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in fiveyears there would be a shortage of sand." Professor Milton Friedman

"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law" Winston Churchill

"There are some people who think we don’t have to take all these tough decisions to deal with our debts. They say that our focus on deficit reduction is damaging growth. And what we need to do is to spend more and borrow more. It’s as if they think there’s some magic money tree. Well let me tell you a plain truth: there isn’t." David Cameron

Text of David Cameron's speech today on the economy: "Today, I want to talk very clearly and plainly about our economic situation. I know things are tough right now. Families are struggling with the bills at the end of the month. Some are just a paycheque away from going into the red. Parents are worried about what the future holds for their children. Whole towns are wondering where their economic future lies. And I know that is especially true for people here in Yorkshire and in many parts of the north of our country… … who didn’t benefit properly from the so-called boom years… … and worry they won’t do so again. But I’m here to say that’s not going to happen. Because we have a plan to get through these difficulties – and to get through them together. It’s a plan to fix the fundamental problems in our economy… …to get the jobs and growth that will make our country a success in the Global Race… …and to back the aspiration of hard working fam...

"Government, even in its' best state, is a necessary evil: in its' worst state, an intolerable one." (Thomas Paine)

There was a time when, around the world, a significant proportion of left-of-centre politicians started to wake up to why some of the attitudes traditionally associated with the left had been destroying jobs and wealth. These politicians often used names like "New Democrats" or "New Labour." Unfortunately their attempts to find a "Third Way" all too often turned out to be a blind alley and they often moved from one set of absurd and exploded socialist ideology to a belief that they could similarly ignore any principles they found inconvenient - leading to disasters in the political field like the Iraq war and in the economics field like Gordon Brown's absurd belief that he had abolished "Boom and Bust." But with all their faults, that kind of left winger had learned one lesson that the modern left is busily forgetting again, or pretending to which is in some ways worse: that confiscatory rates of taxation on the rich do not actually help ...

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable" (J. K. Galbraith - economist)

Hat tip to the Huffington Post for an interesting article by pollster Peter Kellner on whether there is a gender gap in British politics. His article, Vive La Similarite makes the interesting argument that although there are some differences between the political perspectives of men and women - of which the largest and almost the only substantial one is that women are usually less likely then men to support military action - these differences are usually greatly exaggerated. Usually as a result of numeracy-challenged journalists reading far too much into statistically insignificant differences between male and female polling data. You can read the full article here .

Politicians are like nappies, they both need changing regularly and for the same reasons (Anon)

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always rely on the support of Paul." (George Bernard Shaw)

"Of all the vulgar acts of government, that of solving every difficulty by thrusting your hand into the public purse is the most illusory and contemptible" (Sir Robert Peel)

I was amused to see that Douglas Murray had written the following piece in the Jewish Chronicle Online on Feb. 24th: "In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of "the Old Testament" is "hideous" and "a monster," and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character "in fiction." Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: "Well, um, the God of the Koran I don't know so much about." How can it be that the world's most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct." If it was survival instinct, he was not alone. I seem ...

I was interested to see a league table published in the Whitehaven News this week which showed the attendance level of Copeland Borough Councillors at council meetings. Greater transparency in this area is an extremely good thing and I welcome this: attending meetings is not the only part of a councillor's job but it is a critical one. The highest three attenders were Lena Hogg with 54 out of 57 meetings (94.7%),  Gilbert Scurrah with 33 out of 36 (91.7%) and Sam Pollen with 31 out of 34 (91.2%) If the figures given in the Whitehaven News are accurate, the most egregious poor attender was John Fallows (Labour, Millom Newtown) who attended just eight out of 33 meetings in the period since May 2011 - fewer than 25%. There are sometimes excellent reasons why a councillor cannot make a particular meeting, he or she may be representing the council at an outside body which clashes, or may have an unavoidable work commitment or be unwell. A word of caution, however. Th...