David Maddox: Are some people more equal than others?

Remember these words when Alex Salmond prior to taking the oath to become an MSP in 1999 and again in 2007 (pictured top right)?

"As an SNP group our primary loyalty is with the people of Scotland in line with the Scottish constitutional tradition of the sovereignty of the people."

The statement of course was worked out to assert the importance of the people over the monarch in line with the underlying sentiment of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. This treasured document supported Robert the Bruce's claim to the throne but made it clear it was on the basis of support from the populus rather than any divine right and could at a future time be removed.

Which makes you wonder why Mr Salmond missed the National Conversation event with the people of Dundee this morning so, according to his spokesman yesterday, he could be present at the Queen's garden party this afternoon.

In fairness people of Scotland were present at the garden party too, just in posh hats.

David Maddox: Is it an omen?

A researcher in Holyrood was trying to download a copy of the Calman Commission report on devolution and got this response:

For those of you without microscopic eyesight, it reads: "The file is damaged and could not be repaired."

Which by strange coincidence seems to be the opinion of many people on the Calman Report now that the three unionist parties have started arguing among themselves about it.

David Maddox: Murphy's law

You know when the silly season has begun because political parties start sending pictures of their opponents committing parking violations.
But this one is wholly deserved. Labour yesterday released a picture of SNP Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson using disabled parking spots for his electric car test (scroll down to the post two below this one) accompanied by the usual expressions of shock and outrage. So today the SNP have responded.
They found me this picture of Labour Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy with his car parked on double yellow lines near the Palace of Westminster. To make matters worse it actually appears on the Scotland Office website.

I seem to remember that there are some security risk issues about parking in that area too.
But the real lesson here is political parties in glass houses should not throw stones.
I guess we won't be having any games like this off the Lib Dems because we all remember the time when former Scottish leader Nicol Stephen parked his campaign bus on double yellow lines too.

David Maddox: Politician caught blue-handed

It is amazing what politicians will do to try and appear to be cool and trendy, even though it usually turns them into a walking oxymoron.
There are those who still cringe at the thought of former Tory leader William Hague in a baseball cap at the Notting Hill Carnival. If you find the memory painful don't look at this picture.

But Mr Hague's faux pas has not deterred the current UK Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg who has waded in among the music lovers of Glastonbury, although, wisely, he left his baseball cap at home. Here he is pictured at the festival with his hand painted blue.

Apparently the blue hand was in support of the Talk Yourself Blue in the Face campaign to stop climate change. The leader of the UK's third party joined the likes of Fatboy Slim among others in getting various bodily appendages painted blue.
However, there was some speculation that given Mr Clegg's brown attire, the blue paint might have just been a precaution to make sure he showed up if he got stuck in the famous Glastonbury mud.

David Maddox: Minister's electric shock

The SNP spin machine is a pretty effective one and certainly ahead of the game in Scotland at the moment.
But it appears that the party spindoctors paid for by the tax payer may have taken their eye off the ball for a recent publicity stunt in Glasgow by Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson when he was test driving an electric car or perhaps they left it to their civil service colleagues.
The footage run by the BBC showed the minister testing the car in a cordoned off area which is normally used for disabled parking. This at a time when a bill has gone through Holyrood protecting disabled parking, as pictured below.

So not only was the minister denying disabled people parking spaces, it is possible he may have actually been breaking the law.

The author of that bill, Labour Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie, has called on Mr Stevenson to apologise and make a donation to charity in recompense.

Chris Mackie: Bring it on (or maybe not)

If this interesting snippet from James McIntyre of the New Statesman (http://www.newstatesman.com/2009/06/brown-labour-minister) is to be believed, it would certainly put the Labour cat amidst the SNP pigeons:

"Meanwhile, a separate idea, bold if controversial, is quietly being considered for the same election day: a referendum in Scotland on independence. This reflects a rueful and secretly held sense among some in New Labour that devolution was a mistake which emboldened nationalists and strengthened the hand of Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party’s leader and Scotland’s First Minister. Brown has long fretted about British identity and about how people increasingly define themselves as English, Welsh and Scottish, rather than as British.
A referendum would call the Nationalists’ bluff. It would be a high-risk strategy. But Brown would be gambling on the majority of Scots who continue to recognise that the social, economic and political union remains much more than the sum of its parts."

While no doubt being supported by Wendy Alexander ("bring it on" etc), I agree that the move would carry extreme risk for a Prime Minister not known for his bold decisions. On the plus side for Brown, taking control of the referendum would allow him to dictate its terms and could embolden the "no" campaign before the SNP has a chance to make inroads at the Westminster elections. The likely upsurge in the turnout would also help to get the Labour vote out - something it manifestly had problems with in the Euro elections.

Looking at it with a more Machiavellian eye, if we assume the Labour party expects to lose the next election, a referendum on election day could give an incoming Team Cameron the mother of all constitutional headaches to deal with should the Scottish people vote "yes".

But is he really brave enough to take the Nationalists on in this way? I suspect he has neither the gumption nor the resources to fight two battles simultaneously, especially with the stakes so high. After all, even if he won the referendum, it is unlikely he would be in office to enjoy the political benefits it would bring - those, you suspect would be David Cameron's to savour.

David Maddox: This constitutional stuff is really interesting...

Or maybe not, as this picture of Labour's Cathy Jamieson listening to her colleague John Park in this morning's debate on the Calman Commission proposals shows. Thanks to a contact in the MSP tower with a quick camera trigger finger for his TV screen.

David Maddox: Green shoots of recovery? It's all pants

In these dark days of economic gloom and depression there are many people out there desperately looking for any positive signs of recovery.

But instead of watching the FTSE or listening to the pronouncements of eminent experts like the Scotsman's Bill Jamieson or the manic ramblings of the BBC's Robert Peston there could be a much simpler method of knowing when the worst is over - loiter around Marks and Spencers and see if men have started to buy new underwear.

According to former Federal Reserve boss Alan Greenspan (pictured left) when sales of pants bottom out, it is probable the economy has too. His theory is that when men want to save money they stop buying underwear boxers and Y-fronts because very few people are likely to see them.

There has been another more messy method knocking around which apparently comes from a food critic. He suggested people go through restaurant bins and see how many broken egg shells are there on the basis that this shows how many people can afford to eat out.

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (18) - serving up a bit of Nationalism

Another Yougov poll is out tomorrow (Thursday 25 June) with results from an interesting and quite topical question.

Along with the usual "how much do you hate Gordon Brown ?" will be a question on Andy Murray.

It asks the polled to say how they feel about the World number 3's description of himself as "Scottish and British."

Now clearly there may be some who think the marketing men have got at Britain's best hope of winning Wimbledon since Fred Perry cleared off to America after being told to take his balls elsewhere by the snobs who ran tennis. Appealing to all of Britain brings in a lot more money than just Scotland and it was noticeable that in his early days Mr Murray was less inclined to be seen as British and quite keen to promote his Scottish identity (as the picture top right illustrates).

But the question is interesting given the hullabaloo surrounding Scotland poor old mercurial cyclist Chris Hoy and his emotional tears (as pictured left) in Beijing as the Union Flag was pulled up in his honour during one of his three gold medal awards.
There was clear resentment among Nationalists that any Scottish sportsman may wish to call himself British and equal desperation among unionists that he became a symbol of their cause.

So for whatever reason Andy Murray has found himself in a much bigger match than the ones he will find on Centre Court over the next week or two.

Eddie Barnes - Brown falls into the trap again

The exchanges at PMQs today perfectly highlighted the Conservative trap which Brown obligingly keeps falling into. Cameron repeatedly asked Brown to correct his assertion last week that capital spending will increase until the Olympics in 2012 (the figures, from the 2009 budget, are actually as follows: 2009: £44bn; 2010, £36 billion; 2011, £29 billion; 2012, £26bn).

Pretty bang to rights you might think. But Brown wouldn't admit it. Instead he laboured on about the increase in spending between 2007-08 and 2009-10. OK, but unless the Olympics is being moved forward by two years, this doesn't explain his claim from last week.

The actual numbers game here is a side show. The Conservatives' real aim is to expose Brown's evasive behaviour. The tactic is simple. The Tories know that Brown will never ever concede anything to them, so deep is his hatred for them. So they simply ask him to do something reasonable - like admitting to his little porkie over spending last week - and then sit back, happy in the knowledge that, once he has turned down their request, his unreasonableness will have been exposed for all to see.

Imagine if Brown had just admitting to his mistake about spending going up right until the Olympics in 2012. He might have said something like "you know what, I'm glad you raised that because the truth is I got that bit wrong. I'd like to apologise to the House about that. But I'd also like to point out that at least we've brought forward capital spending until 2010."

Yes, he would have had 160 Tory MPs screeching at him. But so what? The sound of Tory MPs screeching is guaranteed to turn off swing voters. And the public watching the exchanges on the telly would have admired Brown for his honesty. But it's not Brown's style, is it? Keep digging......

Gerri Peev: MP takes the Pisces...

Could this be the least down to earth expense claim so far? Tory David Treddinick has claimed £510 for astrology consultancy services. Apparently, it was because he was interested in complimentary health care and its relationship with Indian Ayuverdic medicine and astrology.

http://www.libdemvoice.org/tory-claims-for-astrology-cd-15460.html.

Surprising that the MP did not attempt to disguise his expense claim...He must have known that this one was coming (well, if the software worked).

David Maddox: Fishy business by the Scottish Government

Just ahead of the crunch vote on the Climate Change Bill (Scotland) it might be worth taking a quick nosy at the Scottish Government's current credentials on saving the world from ecological disaster.

Some of you may have seen the amazing and apocalyptic (if you are a fish) film End of the Line, which has made waves around the world. The thought-provoking documentary is film based on the book by the Daily Telegraph’s Environmental Editor Charles Clover, revealing the impact of over-fishing the oceans, in the sense that they will be empty pretty soon unless something is done.

Obviously, Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead, who has made his name by cosying up to Scotland's fishing lobby, has not seen the film or doesn't believe it. That can only explain the Scottish Government's recently launched Eat More Fish Campaign.

The campaign may be one of the reasons why the Greens are less than convinced about the SNP's commitment to climate change targets.

As Green MSP Robin Harper put it to me: "This is a clear case of the Government collaborating with industry in the face of well-founded scientific criticism. Without a change in tack from the SNP and other governments worldwide there will simply be no more fish to eat."

Anyway if you like to eat fish here's a picture of Mr Lochhead from the campaign showing us just how its best done:

David Maddox: Revealing - Full details of MPs expenses published below

David Maddox: When words aren't necessary

The Tories' finance spokesman Derek Brownlee has in recent times developed a reputation for being one of the best speakers and debaters in Holyrood. That was until his colleague Jamie McGrigor gave an interesting running commentary on his speech last week.
It wasn't quite clear whether Mr McGrigor, well known for his risque party songs and putting tartan into law, was protesting over his party's endless calls for a general election or just found Mr Brownlee excruciating to listen to.
Whatever the answer, it may take Mr Brownlee a while to recover his reputation from this recording below.

David Maddox: A funny thing happened on the way to the job centre...

Strange indeed. Peter Duncan (pictured right), the deposed and would-be Conservative MP for Dumfries and Galloway, ran into a spot of bother whilst he was trying to make a local job centre a useful means of getting his old job in Westminster back.
In his recent In Touch leaflet Mr Duncan made great play about how job centres were being shut and included a picture of himself outside the JobCentre in Stranraer with a young woman who he said was "a jobseeker" suggesting the picture was taken quite recently.
Except she was not a jobseeker and the picture was five years old.
Kate Nassar, the young woman in question, in fact turned out to be a local teacher, but had been employed by Mr Duncan in 2004 when the picture apparently was taken.
"It really is ridiculous," Mrs Nassar told her local paper. "At a time of economic instability it really makes you wonder whether they are taking the issue seriously. Surely they should be speaking to people genuinely affected by the recession.

"Instead they used a five year old picture of me and I wasn't even unemployed then - I was working for Peter!"

Mr Duncan has reportedly declined to apologise but has promised that the picture will not be used again.

He said: "There are clearly a lot of unemployed people in contact with me and angry with the current economic situation and I will give them the opportunity to be involved in the future."

The offending leaflet can be found on page 2 of this link: Duncan%20leaflet.pdf

But never mind at least his Conservative colleagues in Holyrood are on the ball.... Or maybe not.

This week Nanette Milne (pictured left), the party's environment spokeswoman, the Scottish Government's efforts to reduce waste, even though the Tories tried to amend deposit and return out of the Climate Change Bill.

Then she praised the a recycling company Wood Works for doing good stuff on waste, except they ceased trading in June last year because of cuts in (Scottish) government funding. Maybe her researcher (Miles Briggs) is spending too much time trying to win Menzies Campbell's seat in North East Fife.

David Maddox: So much for extending the hand of friendship

For those of you who think that all those displays of high dudgeon in political life are just a show for the public by politicians and in reality everybody is much more friendly behind the scenes, this exchange of e-mails may make you think again.

At 1.50pm today (Thursday 11 June) Fiona O'Donnell a Labour Party researcher extended the following courteous invitation to all researchers and MSPs in Holyrood:

You are all invited to the following Co-op Party event. Please reply to me if you are able to attend. This is not a Labour Party event and is open to non-party members, so if you would like to bring a guest, please let me have their details.
Many thanks
Fiona

She got the following response at 3.01pm from Ken MacColl, the SNP researcher for Business Minister Jim Mather.

Fiona,
You state that this is not a Labour Party event but it sounds depressingly like one.
I particularly treasured the concluding paragraph suggesting that it was the Labour Party that delivered a Scottish Parliament as for most of my political life they strenuously opposed such a concept. Roll over Brian Wilson, George Cunningham et al.
As places at this soiree are limited I will resist applying for a place and depriving some more receptive soul an opportunity to hear Iain Gray..
Regards
Ken

Unfortunately for Mr McColl, who apparently took offence to a document attached to the invitation describing the event, accidentally hit "reply to all" which meant his message went to every researcher in the building and a few other e-mail addresses.
I guess he could have just said no....

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (17)

I've just been handed the odds by one of the SNP's government special advisors (spin doctors) from Ladbrokes on the likelihood of the SNP reaching various targets.

It would be wrong to assume that this has anything to do with the First Minister's well known favourite past time outside eating curries, but no doubt he has taken a punt.

Alex Salmond's target of 20 seats for the SNP is 15/8 with the bookies, but I think a brave punter might look at the generous 9/1 for 26 to 30 seats.

The European election result would have given the SNP 27 or 28 seats in theory, if Electoral Calaculus is to be believed, and I must admit that my own calculation based on the MP expenses scandal fallout and some narrow margins of error could see the SNP win as much as 29 seats.

Here are the odds:

0-5 Seats 33/1

6-10 Seats 8/1

11-15 Seats 2/1

16-20 Seats 15/8

21-25 Seats 4/1

26-30 Seats 9/1

31+ Seats 12/1

David Maddox: ....and speaking of the Welsh

The leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams (pictured), was in Holyrood today to meet her Scottish counterpart Tavish Scott.

Ms Williams, 38, became the first woman leader of a major party in the Welsh Assembly.

She shares one thing in common with Mr Scott in that she is credited/ blamed for wrecking her party's chance of going into a rainbow coalition to run the Principalities. While her objections though were more working with the Tories rather than Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Nats), it was Mr Scott's supposed dislike of the SNP, before he became leader, that is rumoured to have been the main block to a coalition with them and the Greens.

But the visit did bring one slightly cruel suggestion from one of the Lib Dems political adversaries based on last weekend's European election results.

It was speculated that Ms Williams was visiting to get advice on how to reach the dizzy heights of the fourth place and 11.5 per cent of the popular vote achieved by her Scottish colleagues from the fifth place with 10.7 per cent of the vote her party managed in Wales.

But on the bright side, maybe George Lyon might be prevailed upon to represent Welsh Lib Dems in Brussels as well as the Scottish ones.

Ross Lydall: Michael Martin's last hurrah approaches

The Rt Hon Michael Martin MP, or Mr Speaker as he prefers, will be lapping up hypocritical tributes next Wednesday after chairing his last Prime Minister's Questions.

Announcing forthcoming Commons business today, Harriet Harman, the Labour Leader of the House, said business next Wednesday (17 June) would include "Mr Speaker's valedictory and tributes by the House".

This, of course, will be the same House that only a few weeks ago could not get rid of Mr Martin, Speaker since 2000, quickly enough as a sop to public anger over the MPs' expenses scandal.

Mr Martin has since had his 15 minutes of infamy - while the public shows no sign of forgetting about moat-dredging, duck houses and porno DVDs.
We are told to expect that all MPs' expenses for the last four years will be published on Thursday 18 June (on the Parliament website rather than that of The Daily Telegraph) - giving Mr Martin enough time to slope off on holiday rather than face any further embarrassment, having been instrumental in trying to block their release.

Mr Martin formally stands down on Sunday 21 June, with a new Speaker being elected in the Commons the following day. No announcement on the date of the by-election in Glasgow North East (or Ian Gibson's Norwich North constituency) yet, though.

Ross Lydall: Salmond's flying visit is almost lost for words

IT's a long way to travel for 71 words. Alex Salmond made it down to Westminster yesterday to contribute his tuppence-worth to the SNP/Plaid Cymru motion to dissolve Parliament in the wake of the expenses scandal etc etc.
It was his first contribution to a Commons debate for a couple of months - the last being on 27 April 2009, during the Budget debate (not more than a year ago, as I mistakenly said previously).
Was yesterday's contribution worth the air fare? Mr Salmond intervened on Welsh Secretary Peter Hain to boast about a 10 per cent increase in the SNP's vote in last week's European elections, which the First Minister said was a "resounding endorsement of the SNP government in Scotland".
That was it - though Mr Salmond did hang around until 7pm to vote with his six SNP chums. However the SNP motion rather backfired as the government ended up with a majority of 72, larger than Labour's working majority of 63.
To Mr Salmond's credit, though, he did make the effort to turn up, unlike David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown - yes, the self-same Prime Minister so keen to put Parliament at the centre of British political life, though not so keen to spend time there himself.

David Maddox: Why Labour hate the Welsh vote

Given the last few days this could be a blog about how Labour lost the popular vote in Wales for the first time since 1979 in last week's European election, the first time that the Tories have topped the principalities there, but its not.

Instead step forward Andrew Welsh (top left), the quiet Nationalist MSP for Angus current convener of the Finance Committee who has been a fixture in Scottish politics for the last 35 years (with an eight year gap between 1979 and 1987).

As the youngish MP for South Angus, elected aged 30 in 1974, he was part of the famous gang of Nationalists (top right, Andrew Welsh is second from the right) led by Winnie Ewing whose votes in the famous vote of no confidence in Callaghan's Labour government brought about the 1979 election and the start of the long years of Conservative rule under Margaret Thatcher (bottom left).

As a result, this morning in the Conservative sponsored debate in Holyrood calling for another general election, following the Nationalist one in Westminster yesterday, Mr Welsh has been a particular focus of attention for Labour MSPs.

They have been busy telling him and those outside Holyrood taking any notice, that the SNP "pact with the devil" in 1979 led to a particularly dark period in Scottish history, culminating in the poll tax being imposed North of the border.

So Labour MSPs in high dudgeon spent much of their time demanding that Mr Welsh apologise for letting Mrs T in. It goes without saying that Mr Welsh, in his usual style, politely and demurely refused.

The Labour could, however, have also pointed out, but they did not, that it led to the Nationalists being routed at the polls 30 years ago including poor old Mr Welsh losing his seat to the Tories. There was also the small matter of a civil war amongst the SNP's ranks with the emergence of the radical 1979 Group including present day party luminaries such as Alex Salmond, Kenny MacAskill, Stewart Stevenson and Roseanna Cunningham.

How times have changed and yet in Mr Welsh's voting habits not.

David Maddox: Dealing with Britain's Nazis

You can understand why when Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP (pictured top right), came to make his acceptance speech the other seven victorious MEPs for the North West of England as one turned their backs and vacated the stage.

No doubt none of them wanted to be pictured sharing a platform with a man who represents some of the more odious elements in British politics and the act was an understandable sign of their disgust and rejection of all that he stood for.

But, think on this. For the past few weeks the news agenda has been full of how the politicians in main parties in British have being doing their best to prove how unfit they are to govern. As each day has passed by we have seen how they have been helping each other to help themselves at the trough of public munificence in the MPs expenses scandal.

At the same time there has been a concerted campaign by these so called "establishment" parties to dissuade voters from turning to the BNP.

And the BNP has throughout portrayed itself as the victim of an establishment plot, the "clean" party on the outside of the corruption but on the side of the people which the main parties want to keep out.

It is of course all spin to cover its racist core, but when the main the representatives of the main parties walked off the stage together like they did in Manchester, they simply reinforced the image which the BNP has used to successfully gain a foothold in British politics.

Like it or not Griffin and his followers are now part of the democratic process and have been elected to office by the rules that govern our democracy. For that we can thank Tony Blair and his bizarre decision against the will of many of his Labour colleagues to accept the Liberal Democrats demands of introducing proportional representation.

There was no need for Mr Blair to do this, it was born out of New Labour's arrogance in the heady days of the late 1990s that people would always love them and that PR could guarantee a centre left Lib/ Lab government for generations to come with the Conservatives and Nationalists forever kept out. The test bed, Scotland, has since proven this assumption wrong with the SNP's famous victory in 2007, although arguably PR has worked North of the border to a point.

But with the European elections the critics have been proven right. Opponents of PR always warned that it would open the door to extremists and not just "cuddly" fringe groups like the Greens or more reasonable Nationalists like the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Now we have BNP MEPs and we can only be thankful that Blair was prevented from introducing PR for Westminster.

So given this new political reality the main parties would do better, perhaps, to clean up their own act and take on the BNP through proper debate instead of taking an approach that bolsters their pretence that they are the "victims of British politics" kept on the outside by a dysfunctional elite.

Gerri Peev: Labour pickled over email plot

Having spoken to many would-be plotters and rebels, it is still striking how few have seen this fabled email calling for Brown to go.
But then, last night, came proof that of its existence. It had been sent to one Eric Pickles, the chairman of the Conservative Party. Did they think that a northerner with a proper regional accent could only be Labour?

Tim Montgomerie over on Conservative home points to proof that the Labour rebels have so far been unable to organise a party in a brewery. But they did manage to get pickled over their email:

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/06/if-you-want-proof-that-labours-coup-plotters-couldnt-organise-a-pss-up-in-a-brewery.html

David Maddox: Making history

Here is the new Cabinet announced by Gordon Brown today. It contains many surprises, some over-promoted (Ainsworth), some who Mr Brown wanted to sack (Darling) and some who thought they would never return (Hain).
But look carefully at the list because if things go really badly on Sunday night with the European election results it could be the shortest serving Cabinet in British political history.

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service
The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal; Minister for Women and Equality (and deputising for the Prime Minister at PMQs)
o The Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP
First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council
o The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson
Chancellor of the Exchequer
o The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
o The Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor
o The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department
o The Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
o The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP
Secretary of State for International Development
o The Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
o The Rt Hon John Denham MP
Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
o The Rt Hon Ed Balls MP
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
o The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP
Secretary of State for Health
o The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
o The Rt Hon Shaun Woodward MP
Leader of the House of Lords and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
o The Rt Hon Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Minister for the Cabinet Office, and for the Olympics and Paymaster General
o The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP
Secretary of State for Scotland
o The Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
o The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
o The Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP
Secretary of State for Wales
o The Rt Hon Peter Hain MP
Secretary of State for Defence
o The Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP
Secretary of State for Transport
o Lord Adonis
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
o Ben Bradshaw MP

David Maddox: And the important news is.... baa

As Labour goes into meltdown and the UK Government appears to be on the verge of collapse you can always rely on the Lib Dems to come up with the top news story of the day.

Their press release's headline screamed out:

SCOTLAND’S SHEEP FARMERS NEED MINISTER TO ACT OVER EID

EID is apparently electronic identity tagging. The trouble is that most of the sheep people are thinking about today are the panicking Labour MPs in Westminster and the only EID in play will be the one the despairing PM (pictured right) is no doubt trying to put on his last remaining ministers to make sure he can keep track of them before they too decide to resign.

Gerri Peev: Sugar not so sweet on Brown

The Brown-Sugar relationship may have soured before it has even been consumated.
Gordon Brown has offered a peerage and an enterprise role to Amstrad chief Alan Sugar.
But the love-in between the two has not always been so strong.
Back when Brown was Shadow Trade Secretary in the 90s, Sugar wrote a letter lambasting him for failing to do his "homework", warning that Labour did not the solution for getting the country out of a recession.

This letter appeared in the FT on 19 March 1992, after Brown appeared to accuse City bosses of feeding off the recession:

Sir, I have noted with disgust the comments of a certain Mr Gordon Brown who has accused me of doing well out of the recession after reading the letter published in The Times from 40 top industrialists.

I do not know who Mr Gordon Brown is. Excuse my ignorance, but I don't. Whoever he is (shadow trade and industry secretary), he has not done his homework properly. The man doesn't know what he's talking about. How he has the audacity to say that Amstrad, or Alan Sugar, has flourished in recession is a complete mystery to me.

Amstrad made its first loss ever this year. It is not a secret that our share price has tumbled to about one-seventh of what it was. The value of my shares has collapsed from Pounds 500m to Pounds 100m more or less overnight. The salary I have been taking in the company is pretty meagre - about Pounds 170,000. It's nowhere near the million-pound bracket. So this talk that I have prospered in the midst of recession is total nonsense.

I personally have made a lot of money in my time, despite coming from a working class background in the East End. The money hasn't been handed down from family to family or by the old boys' act. I was able to start from scratch.

When taxation was 98p in the pound under the last Labour government I would have been spending my time doing what I am doing now - creating wealth and producing employment. I would have been better off going to Bermuda, the Virgin Islands or Timbuktu.

But I don't want to go to Bermuda to avoid tax and lie on the beach. I don't like paying tax, but I agree that the 40 per cent I pay at the moment is reasonable and fair when you balance the fact that the country has got to run itself somehow, and I like living in England.

So that's why I'm here. That's why I'm still spearheading my company and that's why I'm still employing people, innovating and surviving in a very difficult market.

Our letter to The Times talked of the importance of the enterprise culture for the future prosperity of Britain. The thing that frightens me the most about a Labour government is that it suppresses enterprise.

For instance, Labour's talk about investment is a bit of a joke. The capital allowances for machinery, plant and equipment it urges are not going to encourage people to rush out tomorrow and start equipping a factory or making products.

If you've got good design and innovative products you don't need any help, thank you very much indeed. You get on and make it. Amstrad is a classic example. We built our own factories in Shoeburyness in Essex without a penny grant on an 11-acre site. From there, in 1980, we fought off the Japanese to turn ourselves into the market leader in audio equipment. I didn't need help from anybody at that stage because we had invented good merchandise and good products.

The same goes for satellite dishes today. We rule the satellite dish market in this country and half of Europe and the dishes are made in Birmingham. I didn't need any investment or any help to do it. All I needed was the government to keep out of the way. More than 1m dishes have been sold to date in this country alone. When we placed the orders in the factory the satellite hadn't even been launched. It's that sort of entrepreneurial spirit the Conservatives believe in and Labour doesn't understand.

The reason Labour flourished many years ago was the 'them and us' situation that prevailed in England. There were the rich and there were the poor. At that stage maybe I would have sympathised with the need for a Labour government.

But that's all been changed now. Look around. Yes, there are the very poor and more should be done for them. But almost everybody's got a microwave oven, a car and a colour television - maybe more than one colour television in their homes. Let's be honest with each other. 'Them and us' doesn't exist any more, as I have demonstrated.

I have been able to come from the working class, achieve what I set out to achieve and not be suppressed by anybody. Likewise, in the stock market today there are bright young men with a Cockney accent doing deals and buying and selling shares. It's not just the Heskett-Smythes mob that are doing it. Anybody can do it.

The government has made mistakes; nobody's perfect. To be sure, somebody took his eye off the ball. Now the belt has been tightened and there have been casualties. But it is not just the poor unemployed factory worker from the Midlands who is being thrown out of work. So are the merchant bankers, the stockbrokers and the estate agents.

Labour offers no sort of route out of recession. It's out of date and - as Brown's remark shows - it hasn't done its homework.

Alan Sugar,
chairman,
Amstrad,
Brentwood House,
165 King's Road, Brentwood, Essex

After Purnell, Smith, Blears and now Hutton, hasn't Brown learned his lesson in trying to recruit to half-hearted converts?

Gerri Peev: Biggest story so far in Brown meltdown

As the Cabinet implodes and Brown clings on by his fingernails (which incidentally are very short because he bites them), news reaches us of the most momentous development so far.

A telescopic SNP press release lands in the inbox:

Its headline reads: BROWN MELTDOWN REFLECTED IN HEARTLAND BY-ELECTIONS

LABOUR JUST CLING ON IN SAFEST WESTMINSTER SEAT IN SCOTLAND

The release details the earth shattering news that the Labour vote in a by election in Coatbridge North and Glenboig in North Lanarkshire has collapsed.

But er, Labour still won. This is hailed as a massive blow for Gordon Brown by Bruce Crawford.
A clever Labour press officer would actually dress this up as a victory for the PM, given the range of catastrophes facing him.

The headline about the Aberdeen man lost at sea springs to mind...

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (16)

People are out voting today (some of them anyway) and it looks like it might be a better turnout than expected if the feedback I'm getting from the front is true.
Anyway, it offers us a quick look at the Scottish sample of the latest Yougov poll which is running today.

SNP: 33 Lab: 25 Con: 18 Lib Dems: 16 Others: 8

This would mean a distribution of 2 seats each for the SNP and Labour, and 1 each for the Tories and Lib Dems. This was the predictable result even before the expenses scandal, but it appears that events in Westminster have shored up the Lib Dem vote and the only question is if Labour's drops so low it only qualifies for one seat.
As the sample is 410, it is a little better than the usual but still about half the number needed to be considered properly scientific.
And, as it was a large sample, just for fun I ran it through Electoral Calculus to see what it would mean in a general election.

SNP: 28 (+22) Lab: 17 (-24) Con: 4 (+3) Lib Dems: 10 (-1)

OK it is a sample not a proper poll, but this analysis indicates a sea change that could reshape Scottish politics far more accurately than the six seats available in the European parliament can tell us.

David Maddox: The unlikely lads

With just a day to go to the European Parliament elections it seems that the talk is about how many seats will go to the fringe parties.

With the list PR system in place and the main parties at an all time low in public esteem because of the MPs' expenses scandal, this is probably an historic opportunity for one or two smaller parties to make a big impression.

Could it be that afterwards there may be some horse trading to see which of the smaller parties can co-operate with one another.

With this in mind, a Scotsman colleague of mine while waiting for a bus on the Royal Mile spotted the most unlikely of pairings.

Striding up the road jauntily were Scottish Socialist Colin Fox (top left), his SSP rosette still resolutely stuck to his lapel, and Scottish UKIP candidate Peter Adams (bottom right) proudly displaying his party's badge on his distinctive maroon blazer which he wears for broadcasts, which some say makes him look like a Lothians bus driver.

"Could we be about to see the formation of the most unlikely of coalitions?" asked my colleague. Nationalist from the right of politics and internationalist from the left, not in this world.

But at least it goes to show that despite wide differences in views political opponents can still get on and have a laugh together, something that is often forgotten in the screaming matches of Holyrood and Westminster.

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (15) - Shouting the European odds

As the European election beckons on Thursday there may be one other group apart from political party members who take much of an interest - gamblers. With the expenses scandal hanging over the whole contest there are genuine fears of a record low turn out.

As mentioned in my blog earlier, this looks set to benefit the smaller parties and it appears that unfortunately the BNP are odds on to get a seat.

The BNP bet is among a series of interesting ones highlighted by Betfair listed below which also allows people to put their money where their mouth is regarding a potential Labour meltdown at the polls - 3-1 looks a reasonably decent bet for zero to nine seats in the current climate.

• European Elections BNP To Win A Seat? – 2-5 Yes, 12-5 No
• European Elections Total UKIP Seats – 5-6 Less Than 15 Seats, 11-10 More than 15 Seats
• European Elections Labour v UKIP – 5-4 Labour, UKIP, 9-2 Tie
• European Elections Total Labour Seats – 5-4 thirteen to fifteen seats, 11-5 ten to twelve seats, 3-1 zero to nine seats, 9-2 sixteen to seventeen seats, 11-2 eighteen or more seats
• European Elections Labour v Lib Dems – 5-6 Labour, 5-4 Lib Dems, 9-2 Tie
• Next General Election Overall Majority – 4-9 Conservative Majority, 14-5 No Overall Majority, 14-1 Labour Majority, 129-1 Any Other Party Majority

David Maddox: The Numbers Games (14) - Green shoots of recovery?

Could it be that despite all the worry of BNP candidates being returned to the European Parliament the actual main beneficiaries of the expenses scandal could be the Greens?

The party of recycling policies has put out a press release on the latest poll conducted by ComRes which seems to be very encouraging for them, especially in Scotland.

The UK figures of the poll of 1,009 people were:

Conservative: 24% Labour: 22% UKIP: 17% Green: 15% Lib Dem: 14% Others: 9%

This could increase the Green's seats from two (one in the South East and one in London) to 10, according to a party press release.

The Scottish sample was:

SNP: 29% Labour: 22% Green: 18% Conservative: 12% Lib Dem: 9% Others: 7%

Amazingly it puts the Greens in third place and would mean 2 seats each for the SNP and Labour, 1 each for the Greens and Tories and nothing for the poor Lib Dems.
One should remember though that the Greens are the party who predicted they would get 10 seats or more in the 2007 Holyrood election and hold the balance of power. Surprisingly, their eventual return of two seats actually meant they were at least half right because at times they have had the decisive votes, notably in voting down the budget.
But getting back to this poll, this Scottish sample represents a mere 89 people, which makes it not exactly the most scientific study of popular opinion in Scotland, although the way things are going not many more people may turn out to vote on Thursday.