Chris Whiteside's Blog

Labour has been making much of their support for a new law which would enshrine in legislation the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on foreign aid. Labour themselves first made that commitment when they were running the country a decade ago. Yet it was the present coalition government which actually hit that target last year for the first time ever, as you can read at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/300084/Prov-ODA-GNI-2013a.pdf There is a graph on the site which shows that Labour in government never got the share of aid above 0.5%. And that was at a time when they had inherited a very strong economy from Ken Clarke and it was far easier to find money for things. Writing targets into law is not actually the best way of hitting them: it's just the best way to score a political point.

I certainly agree with the point made in a letter by Les Hanley to the Whitehaven News which suggested we all ought to broadcast the fact that Cumbria is a great place to live and work. Hopefully there will be a hastag and appropriate links for this in the near future.

Hat tip to Guido Fawkes for the following quote from a Times article by Jenni Russell, who was expected to be sympathetic to Ed Miliband (he is her child's Godfather.) The article is called " Ed and his team would be a disaster at Number 10 " It opens with an account of Ed Miliband and a couple of aides turning up at Financial Times event after most of those who had been present earlier had gone, and after accusing him of “arrogant indifference” and warning of the “stifling sterility of Mr Miliband’s lack of interest” in radical ideas, Russell concludes: “This strategy might just win Mr Miliband the election, but it is a hopeless strategy for government. A leader who can’t inspire confidence, build alliances or enthuse his colleagues will fall apart in No 10. One shadow minister told me that there was little time left to change. He was afraid of losing, but winning might be worse. ‘What some of us fear is that we’re going to win, but Ed could be such a terrib...

It was announced this week that Copeland Borough Council has underspent by £1.2 million during the 2013/14 financial year. Although that isn't a vast amount of money by the standards of a district council, it is a lot more than was saved by some of the most painful of the cuts they have made. This is an authority that has been closing public toilets, shutting the civic hall, getting volunteers to cut verges, and generally taking an axe to public services while blaming it all on central government "cuts." More details in the Whitehaven News here . Their leader comment included the following: "Copeland spent £1.2 million less than it budgeted for last year; while at the same time implementing a devastating cull of services that continues to affect us all. Many will agree with Councillor Alastair Norwood amd others who find the situation a little baffling." You never expect a council's forecasts to be dead on, and the long-term problems are not necess...

Former MSP Brian Moneith has a very well argued piece on Conservative Home here about how pro-unionists should deal with and debate First Minister Alex Salmond. Anyone reading this who was involved in the late and unlamented Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) in the early 1980's will give a wry smile both at where this article appeared and at the fact that I have given a link to it and praised it. Brian Monteith was elected Chairman of FCS in 1982-3 as a leader of the hard right faction who referred to themselves as "sound" and were generally known to their opponents as "Libertarian." The current Executive Editor of Conservative Home is Paul Goodman, who defeated Brian in the FCS Chairmanship election the following year and was leader of the moderate faction within FCS (usually known to the libertarians as "wets" although that title was misleading as the border between the moderates and libertarians was sufficiently far to the right th...

“Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”   ( Horace Mann  )

Seema Kennedy, currently a Conservative councillor for Marshalswick South ward in St Albans, has been selected to contest South Ribble where the sitting Conservative MP, Lorraine Fulbrook, is standing down. Congratulations and good luck to Seema. Lorraine will be a tough act to follow but South Ribble tories have certainly picked a good candidate to do it.

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”   ( Isaac Asimov  )

The BBC was carrying a story on Monday about the NuGen proposals for three nuclear power plants at Moorside near Sellafield, very similar to the reports which were in the West Cumbrian press last week and posted here a few days ago. It seems to be essentially the same story with a few more quotes. The three Westinghouse reactors planned for Moorside would have a combined output of 3.4 gigawatts. Nugen says they would be able to supply almost 7% of the UK's electricity requirements. "Moorside is the most exciting new nuclear build project in Europe," said Sandy Rupprecht, Nugen's chief executive. "We will be taking forward our project in West Cumbria, the UK's nuclear heartland, and we expect the national and regional economies to benefit extensively."

Prime Minister David Cameron writes: Friday was a bad day for Europe.   I made no secret of my opposition to the election of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the EU Commission - and I stood firm in my opposition, because an important principle is at stake here. His election hands power to the European Parliament and risks undermining the position of national governments.   This whole process has reinforced my conviction that Europe needs to change. Securing reform is going to be a long, tough fight and sometimes you have to be ready to lose a battle to win a war.   But we have showed that we won't be put off from our task - we won't be cowed, we won't be silenced. B ecause the status quo is not right for the EU. And it is certainly not right for Britain. It has got to change.   And at the end of 2017, it will not be me, it will not be the House of Commons, it will not be Brussels who decides Britain's future in the EU. It will be the British p...

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”   ( Ralph Waldo Emerson  )

“I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”   ( Douglas Adams , from  The Salmon of Doubt  )

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”   ( Søren Kierkegaard  )

While doing some clearing out today I came across some old maazines including a 2010 copy of the Speccie which included this acticle by Peter Oborne calling for a re-appraisal of the administration of John Major. The article looks even more apposite today than it did in 2010 as it is obvious that a number of the best reforming ideas not just of Tony Blair's administration but that of David Cameron's as well started off while John Major was in government. Here are a few extracts from the article. "It is becoming obvious, especially with the benefit of hindsight, that John Major was a formidable leader with substantial achievements to his credit.   "But the narrative of John Major’s hopelessness was so strong that for many years it was impossible to make the case in his favour. For example, in his Labour conference speech last year Gordon Brown paid tribute to Tony Blair for ‘starting’ the Northern Irish peace process. Actually it was John Major who launched...

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”   ( Albert Einstein  )

I learn from the Daily Telegraph here that Scottish Nationalist MSP's like Christina McKelvie and for SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars are trying to blame MI5 and MI6 for things going wrong with the "yes" campaign. Their latest preposterous fantasy is to suggest that British "secret service plants" pretending to be SNP "Cybernats" were responsible for the unpleasant tweets attacking J.K. Rowling for giving money to the "Better Together" campaign. As Michael McMahon, a Labour MSP, said the remark "would be laughable if it wasn't so serious". "The nationalists are really starting to lose touch with reality. First Jim Sillars said MI5 was out to get them, now Christina McKelvie blames the Secret Service for the awful abuse directed at JK Rowling by nationalists," Mr McMahon added . "Instead of coming up with ludicrous conspiracy stories, the nationalists should start giving Scots answers about what ...

Conservative Home, once desribed by the man himself as "That Blasted website" has an article up today called " In praise of Ken Clarke ."

The Whitehaven News is reporting this week that plans for a new nuclear power plant at Sellafield are moving closer and the team behind a proposed multi-billion-pound nuclear new-build will be carrying out surveys in the area by August.   A team from NuGen will begin to carry out geographical surveys at Moorside that, it is hoped, will pave the way for a new power station with three reactors being built. There is a strong consensus emerging both nationally and locally that Britain needs new nuclear build, with both the Coalition Government and Labour MPs in favour. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) says the project would bring at least £10billion of investment and create up to 21,000 jobs over the construction, including peak on-site employment of more than 6,000. Once operational, the reactors would employ 1,000. A recent event to promote the benefits of new nuclear build, organised by the Sellafield Workers’ Campaign (SWC), heard from John McNa...

Concerns have been expressed about the effect on local GP services of a shortage of doctors whcih is part of a natioanl problem. National doctors’ leaders say the lack of GPs means they cannot provide care that is safe and of high quality. And the British Medical Association (BMA) conference yesterday warned the government that GP services across the country are at breaking point, saying they provide “conveyor belt care at breakneck speed”. Dr David Rogers, Whitehaven GP and medical director for the Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group, said there were issues surrounding GP recruitment both locally and nationally. “There are over 450 GP training places that are not filled across the country,” said Dr Rogers, who is aware of the local practice facing difficulties. “A practice has highlighted concerns – because of staff issues – that they are really under pressure and the potential for serious incidents as a result of that pressure. They haven’t got as many doctors as they have ha...

"If we had some ham we'd have some ham and eggs if we had some eggs." (Frank Herbert, line in the book "The Dragon in the Sea")

"Now he asked a minute ago 'What is weak?' I'll tell you what is weak: attacking Murdoch, and then standing up with a copy of The Sun Newspaper, only to apologise a few hours later." (David Cameron, in response to a question from Ed Miliband at yesterday's PMQs.)

Gordon Brown employed a spin-doctor who spread vicious personal attacks, a few true, mostly horrible lies, about his boss's political opponents. Initially mostly about Gordo's opponents within the Labour party, although ironically McBride was caught when Guido Fawkes discovered he was planning to do the same thing to prominent Conservative politicians and their wives. David Cameron employed a spin-doctor about whose conduct in that job there has not been one word of complaint, but has now been convicted of offences committed during his previous job. David Cameron gave a full and complete apology for employing Andy Coulson yesterday wtihin about an hour of the court verdict. Gordon Brown took five days to apologise for what Damian McBride did while working for him. And the present leadership of the Labour party were close colleagues of Gordon Brown at the time when McBride was his "enforcer." All parties need to learn lessons from the toxic culture of spin and...

"Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning" (Desmond Tutu)

Both the economy of Britain and our transport network are far too London-centric. So I was delighted to hear the chancellor yesterday proposing that we start looking at a High Speed Rail link to connect the great cities of Northern England.   I was delighted to read in  the speech George Osborne gave yesterday in Manchester  the following about our great Northern cities:   “These cities, in a belt that runs from Liverpool to Hull all have strengths individually – but on a global scale they are also quite small. Manchester’s population is 2.6 million. Leeds’ and West Yorkshire’s is 1.8 million. “But together our northern cities can be more than the sum of their parts. “The last census found that the average commute of someone who travels into London from outside is 40 miles. If you make a circle of the same distance, and centre it here on Manchester, you’d have a catchment area that takes in Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and ...

"He may be a joke opposition leader, but there is every chance he may become a joke PM. The Labour party finds it almost impossible to dislodge its leaders, no matter how useless, as Neil Kinnock showed. And the arithmetic of parliamentary boundaries is massively skewed towards Labour" (Stephen Pollard writing in the Daily Mail, quoted in the Independent.)

The late C Northcote Parkinson, whose name has entered the language in the expression "Parkinson's Law" (which was " Work expands to fill the time available for its' completion ") also wrote some very funny articles with titles like "The Abominable No-Man" which was about people who alwasys say no, and how to make sure that a decision where you want a Yes is taken at a level where you find someone who usually says yes instead of such a person. Most of his humorous observations actually work in the real world but unfortunately some do not. For example I have been unable to find a single example of one character in his essays, who would be useful in a sense, but whom I am actually rather glad does not exist. This is the perfect contrarian indicator - the person who is always wrong. C Northcote Parkinson put forward the hypothesis that nobody is always right but some people are always wrong, and therefore the best way to get perfect advice is to...

The European People's Party has press released here that it's European parliament group, national leaders, and leaders of the opposition are having a summit before the next European Council meeting.It says, that, quote, . "The EPP candidate for President of the European Commission Jean-Claude JUNCKER will be present." This sort of behaviour sheds some light on why the leaders of these parties, including some who are sensible on many other issues, were so angry with David Cameron for pulling the Conservatives out of the EPP and working with other non-Federalist centre-right parties to set up the ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) group which is now the third largest in the European Parliament.) The EPP thinks and acts as if there were a European Demos (a functional, recognisable and coherent political electorate) with itself as the Europe wide centre-right party. If it were, many of their actions - like putting up Jean-Claude Juncker as a candidate f...

"I remain utterly mystified at how the political establishment, many in my own party included, can still look up to Tony Blair. He is still praised as the great political operator, but being a politician is not the same as being a great servant of one’s country. I cannot imagine that history will judge him as a great statesman. "I am even more mystified as to how he can be ever have seriously been considered as a “Middle East Peace Envoy”. As Conservatives are fond of saying about the economy, you don’t hand the keys back to the person who crashed the car. "It was Blair and his actions that destroyed any credibility Britain may have had left in the Middle East, and Blair who has made any major future intervention – even if it was needed - almost impossible. For him now to claim that we should have acted sooner by intervening in Syria is beyond belief. We know he has a high view of his own supremacy and favours articulating it through military muscle, but even if you...

The vote in Scotland on whether to leae the UK is a matter for Scots but those of us who live in the rest of the UK - including scores of thousands of Scots who live in England and millions of British people like myself with a signifiant proportion of Scottish ancestry - are entitled to take an interest. The FT's economic commentator Martin Wolf, wrote recently that England and Scotland have made is "the world's most successful multinational state"  whose sum is greater than its component parts and whose shared contribution to the world has been immense. He added that being English or Scots is an ethnic identity, but being "British a civic one … If Scotland were to depart, I would lose an important part of myself". I don't often agree with Gordon Brown on anything but he was surely right when he told the Dailty Record that ".. this is a question that really is not just like a general election or one vote – it is about the whole future of Sco...

For the second consecutive day we have been appreciating the sunshine, and summer fayre at Whitehaven harbour, with the tall ships still here and lots of people enjoying a glorious afternoon.