Finding this left-handed thug shouldn't be hard

Finding the left-handed thug in the short hi-vis vest who accompanied the dog-handlers and who fatally clubbed / pushed Newsagent Ian Tomlinson to his death shouldn't be hard. Story and video link HERE. Watch the slo-mo replay; you can see his baton hand raised in the club position, and as he throws Tomlinson to the ground he follows the blow through and raises his baton again at the end. He then speaks on his radio set in the background, and disappears to the group of officers off-camera to the right.

No wonder they've made illegal our taking of such footage and photographs. Now if Straw's Bill succeeds, they'll hold Tomlinson's Coroner's Inquest in secret, too.

Where work and blogging meet

If you've noticed a little shallowing in depth of recent posts, you're right. Over the past month I've been busier than I have at any time over the past three years, with more concurrent schemes than I can effectively manage, all hugely demanding of every ounce of skill and experience I have. Which I'd love to tell you all about but I can't, so I'll have to comment by proxy. And how appropriate following my previous post.

Of little interest to those outside London, Prince Charles has intervened over the new designs for the Chelsea Barracks site by Richard Rogers. He has proposed his tame classicist Quinlan Terry to the site owners, the Qataris. In my view, Rogers' scheme is lazy and uninspired. Terry is clumsy and much of his output grates as uninformed pastiche, like an oil copy of a European old master by a sweatshop Chinese artist, such as those sold on eBay. I wouldn't go for either. But this isn't a point about this scheme in particular, it's about the disjunct between what designers think the Client should want, what the Client actually wants and how what the designer proposes impacts on those who will have to use the building, or look at it, or live next to it.

Architects are generally narcissistic to the point of rivalling politicians. Where politicians strive for the short-term gain that will earn them a poll boost and sod the future beyond, architects strive for the portfolio moment, that instant in time when the builders have finished but before the Client occupies the structure and starts to ruin it. This is when they hire expensive photographers (at the Client's cost) to capture the exquisite form of their creation, both by day and by night. And this is where their interest ends. Job done. Next portfolio moment, please.

In practice this generally means a quiet battle between architects and those representing their Clients, as we tone down the more ludicrous, self-indulgent or frankly insane scheme details that they imagine will give good portfolio. We call this 'value engineering' but it isn't really; it's actually a reality check for designers who are sufficiently self-deluded to believe that they can change human nature. Like politicians. So we quietly remove structural glass floors from the ladies toilets, straighten extreme angles that would halve human occupancy and demur from the suggestion that spending 20% of the scheme budget in cladding the building with Arctic seal-fur is a sound design option.

Generally, sanity prevails and most commercial buildings end up being sound and usable structures and most Clients end up being persuaded that some remaining design feature adds distinction and importance to their investment and most architects end up getting some decent portfolio.

One aspect of Labour's government over the past decade stands out more prominently than any other; the absolute absence of anyone performing this function on politicians on behalf of their clients - us. This is what we imagined civil servants were for. But Labour's legislative history seems as though the entire civil service has gone native, egging their politicians on to not only put a glass floor in the ladies' toilets but to locate them immediately above the public cafeteria.

You may disagree. You may think I am depriving the world of the expression of genius, that I am frustrating the realisation of what the client should want if he but knew it. And that civil servants should, like Mad King Ludwig's builders, accede to every cake-icing turret, every grotesque gargoyle, without impediment.

The difference is, my continued employment depends on how well I serve my clients. If we, the public, are the clients of both politician and civil servant we have a situation in which one of them - the politicians - can be fired, albeit only after a few years, but the other can't. One expects the reality of politicians and architects to be distorted by vanity, hubris and self-delusion, but one also expects a civil service that guards and safeguards the client's interests. And in this it has failed.

Blogging via Tor

To mark the start of the government's requiring all ISPs to retain all details of web sites visited, I bring this post to you via Tor.

Installing it on my Windows XP machine was quick and problemless. It puts a little button at the bottom of the Firefox browser to enable or disable it; when enabled, things slow down a little as you're routed via computers around the globe but not by much. Even as I'm typing, the apparent origin of this post is changing from somewhere in Germany to the US to Greece and to Japan.

1st Round: Raedwald 1 Government 0

Hoon and other MPs cannot use the Nuremberg Defence

Let's be clear I am not comparing bent and corrupt members of Parliament to Nazi war criminals. However, the parrot-cry of all those sleazy bottom-feeders when they are caught is inevitably "It was within the rules. The Fees Office told me to do it".

The defence of 'I was only obeying orders' or 'Befehl ist Befehl', known as the Nuremberg Defence, was discredited as an effective excuse in the following terms:

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him

And this is the nub. It is not a matter of whether it was within the rules, or whether the Commons Fees Office gave it the OK. MPs have an individual moral responsibility that they should exercise in these matters. They are placed in stewardship over the nation's funds; they are trusted to legislate on matters that affect the lives of every subject in the Realm, and they owe a duty of responsibility to both their constituents and the nation in general. If they cannot exercise the most basic personal moral judgement over whether or not to steal public funds, they are not fit for the other duties that we repose in their care. Their failing is not confined to immorally claimed expenses, but extends to a fundamental failure in their ability to act effectively as Members of Parliament.

Hoon and his like are not fit to be seen in the precincts of the Palace. They should run in fear from London, pelted with filth and ordure, to ignominy, obloquy and disgrace in some dark hole far from the light of our sight. And every time I see that smug smirk on that reptile's face, I am suffused with anger and a deep sense of injustice.

Brown has no idea what morality is, let alone how he should be guided by it if he permits these vermin to infest our Parliament for a moment longer.

The global stigma of our enemy within

As Gordon Brown preens himself on a US Presidential visit that has earned him a blip in the polls, the people of Britain might ask themselves why they weren't permitted a sight of the President during his high-profile visit to America's closest ally.

President Obama spoke in the open air today to a crowd of 20,000 ordinary Czech citizens in front of Prague Castle with only a lectern and an autocue between him and the audience. Many of them will speak English and will have understood him. I don't begrudge the Czechs their sight of the new President one bit - but wouldn't it have been something if he's addressed a crowd of 20,000 here? Or gone walk-about down the Mall?

The reason he didn't of course - the reason his security detail wouldn't even contemplate it - is the same reason that according to the US State Department the UK poses the greatest terrorist threat to the US. Our enemy within. Muslims, largely Pakistani Muslims, bent on death and destruction and jihad.

So don't preen too proudly, Gordon. You're the Prime Minister of a nation not even safe enough any more for the US President to meet its people. Because you have failed utterly in securing our nation from an enemy within. And though the septics are too polite to say it, I'm not; you've burdened this nation with an international stigma. You're the failed leader of a failed government, and the only part of nation safe enough for you to be in is hidden is within your own security cordons and barriers, like some latter day Caeucescu.

I hope that one day, long after your foul and foetid government and party have faded from the minds of Englishmen, that an American President can once again be our guest, walk our streets and meet our people.

Troughing MPs in tax-theft scandal

The Times carries the story this morning that MPs are claiming back stamp duty on their second and third homes from the public purse. They can also claim conveyancing costs, and when they come to sell can claim the cost of the hated HIPs from taxpayers. No wonder they didn't oppose the insanity of the HIPs law in Parliament - like so many other costs that ordinary people have to pay, MPs are exempt from bearing such costs. Amongst the stamp-duty troughers are Kevin Brennan and Theresa Villiers.

It stinks like a public sewer.

Homophobe MP tops Troughers League

The MP who thinks gayers are "disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile" tops the Troughers League together with her husband with a joint swill-take of half a million a year from the public purse. Iris Robinson has apparently furnished her Belfast home with all the taste of a schizophrenic Chameleon addicted to kitsch on public funds. Iris and Peter also employ more relatives than Conway and have more public jobs than Mandelson. The NOTW has the story.

Well, Iris, I've got five words for your behaviour - disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile. I've got a few more as well.

Troughers of the week

'Three houses' Hoon tops this Sunday's Sleaze League for his shameless plundering of the public purse to build his property portfolio - but for a man jointly responsible for launching an illegal war, a little theft must be a minor matter of conscience.

Close behind come the seven members of the Commons Health Committee who swanned off for a holiday fact finding trip to New Zealand whilst the Commons was sitting, so they wouldn't miss their other holiday when the house rose for three weeks for Easter. The seven troughers are:

• Kevin Barron
• Jim Dowd
• Doug Naysmith
• Charlotte Atkins
• Charles Stoate
• Sandra Gidley
• Richard Taylor

"I couldn't care whether you think it's a good case or not" said Dowd. No, I don't suppose you do care - you and your kind have made abundantly clear already your contempt for the British public, and by your shameless plundering of the public purse for spurious 'business'.

Discredited Civil Service at the heart of lies and spin

The disease that gnaws at the heart of British politics is not only the self-serving corruption of the political class, but a politicised senior civil service committed to the excesses of the Leviathan State and to European Federalism. The need for reform is again highlighted by Peter Oborne in the Mail this morning in his take on the G20 communique:

The true story is that Gordon Brown seems to have corralled fellow leaders into perpetrating a gigantic collective fraud on world public opinion.

It is a sign of the degradation of the civil service over the past ten years that senior British government officials were happy to throw their weight behind what was little more than a lavishly funded PR stunt.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Jeremy Heywood - the senior Downing Street official who was deeply implicated in Tony Blair's sofa Government ahead of the Iraq War, when Britain was run by a close-knit cabal, when Cabinet government collapsed and normal procedures such as note-taking were ignored - should have been heavily complicit.

Only deep and heroic surgery, what arboriculturists would call 'crown reduction', has any hope of salvaging a working civil service from the rubble of Labour's scorched earth retreat from power.

SBEs - What you should know

What are SBEs?
Seriously Botched Economies (SBEs) are serious, sometimes painful ailments that can cause damage to your nation if not treated. Some SBEs affect only one part of the economy, others can damage the entire nation. Don't let this happen to you - get a confidential diagnosis

Don't be embarrassed!
It is important to know that many countries like you get SBEs. As many as 10% of the World's nations suffer from some sort of SBE. If you feel embarrassed, the most important thing to remember is these problems are very common amongst economically active nations. Getting treatment from the IMF is the most important thing, to ensure it doesn't spread to other countries.

Treatment
The IMF will prescribe an appropriate course of treatment. This may involve removing the source of the illness such as a Socialist government as well some nasty medicine. Don't be tempted to use another country's medicine; it may not work. Don't stop the medicine when the symptoms start to clear up; you need to see it through to remove all traces of the Socialist virus.

What are the signs and symptoms?
You may not show any symptoms, but if you do, you may have the following:

Women

• Pain in your purse area, or difficulty in passing cash
• Loss of interest in opening letters
• Pain and irritation caused by Socialist politicians
• Lethargy or enforced indolence as the virus attacks your income

Men

• A drip or discharge from your wallet that you cannot control
• Burning or pain when viewing still or moving images of ministers
• Increased time spent in the Jobcentre Plus
• Loss of house or other accomodation

How to protect yourself
The easiest way to avoid an SBE is not to vote Labour. If you must vote Labour, take the following precautions:

• Only vote Labour in seats where another party has an unassailable majority
• Vote Labour then write 'HOON' on your ballot paper to ensure it's spoiled
• Wear a blindfold when marking your ballot paper
• Try voting Lib Dem or Green rather than full Labour; this can be just as satisfying for many people, but at far lower risk of catching an SBE.

Remember, the IMF is here to help you get rid of your Socialist problem as quickly as possible, so your country can on with its economy as soon as possible. Don't be embarrassed - call us today!

(Britain should not be embarrassed in going to the IMF, says Cabinet Minister)

You're OUR representatives, why not let US decide, Dave?

Cameron told his R5 audience that he favours a substantial increase in MPs' pay in return for them losing their controversial allowances. But Dave is hardly an uninterested party, is he?

The Wisdom of Crowds allows for far better decision making on this issue. If all the guesses at the weight of a pig are averaged, the result will be closer to the actual weight than individual guesses.

So open the issue up to the entire nation; let every voter pick a figure for a new MPs' basic salary after the abolition of all the 'allowances' including second homes, communications and the rest. Then average them. The result will be absolutely right.

Catherine Ashton: The good news

Back on 6th October last year I wrote a naughty post about our new EU Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton. A bag of spanners was mentioned. As was the contraceptive potential of Ms Ashton's presence in the teenage consciousness. I opined that her presence in the UK was critical if we were to stem the tide of teenage pregnancies. Now, it seems, I will have my wish - but at a price.

Reader, October may seem like recent history to you and I. When the hard-pressed stores were putting up the Christmas decs. Before the January bad news. Perhaps your own tinsel and baubles, despite the spousal reminders, have still to be returned to the loft. A score or so of weeks have passed. And now Open Europe have revealed Ashton's leaving deal from the EU.

She will get a 'resettlement allowance' of £18,700. She will get three years of 'transition payments' valued at over £89,000 per annum. And she will enjoy a pension of £9,600 a year. These rewards are much reduced, of course, from what she would have got had she spent more time in the job.

Brown now needs to find a new job for this handsome and capable woman. Could I suggest that Catherine Ashton should be Britain's first Porn Tsar?

Sending a signal to the public sector fat cats

I've written before about Labour's 'Greed is Good' culture at the top of the public sector; to misquote Mandelson, Labour is intensely relaxed about senior public sector managers making themselves wealthy at the taxpayer's expense. Over the past decade, top salaries and rewards have doubled from being about 5 - 6 times a base level employee's reward to 10 or 12 times. With final salary pension schemes, these fat cats will be creaming disproportionate rewards from the public purse. We may not be able to end this culture overnight, but we can all help to bring the spotlight of publicity on the names and the faces.

I'd urge readers therefore to respond to this Local Government consultation.

The proposals are to require councils to name senior staff and provide a full breakdown of their salary, pensions and rewards. The consultees on the government's official list will mostly have an inbuilt bias against disclosure; they will lobby for their continued anonymity on the basis of Fred Goodwin's windows, and seek to restrict the information made available on the grounds of the risks of information and identity theft. I shall be responding as follows;

• Support fully the disclosure of all the reward elements listed at the level of detail proposed
  
• Would support extent of reporting at Chief and first-tier officer levels, and would encourage government to widen this to include any permanent or contract staff earning over £100,000 at 2009 / 2010 value (i.e. fully identified and full details given)
• Support fully anonymous banding of other staff earning over £50k in £5k bands subject to above (i.e. anonymous reporting from £50k to £100k)

I repeat, the consultation as issued has an inbuilt bias against implementation; the civil servant's letter asks specifically of councils that "you could ensure that copies of this letter are shared with officers / employees within your organisation who may have an interest in the proposals (i.e. have details about their remuneration package published). Individuals' views will also be considered in response to the consultation"

In other words, they're inviting every senior council fat cat in the country to write in on an individual basis to object to the proposals.

So please send your own (polite) signal. Our voices will make a difference.

Vacant: pretty vacant.

There's no point in asking us you'll get no reply

Oh just remember a don't decide
I got no reason it's all too much
You'll always find us
Out to lunch

Brown's robotic, charmless address in St Paul's was a dirge not a speech. Wooden, clumsy and emotionless it was an artless collection of spin words and phrases delivered with all the passion and panache of a lobotomised Sloth. Public speaking does not come easily to Gordon Brown; fluency, cadence, pitch and balance elude him and every speech sounds like Mr Brown the actuary giving a talk on the road signs of America to the local Rotary club.

Is this important? Yes, it is. An ability to speak effectively in public - to an audience or to the Commons - indicates a suppleness of mind, an intrinsic understanding of others, a melding of the man and the message. The fact that Brown can't communicate effectively may not only be at the root of his petulance and rages but reveal a man who subconsciously doesn't actually believe a word of what he's saying.

Politics is not a profession - part 8

This time it's Simon Heffer in The Telegraph who writes the words:

The generous system of salaries and allowances has ensured that people with a vocation tend to avoid politics, and those who seek a career – with all the cynical manipulation of the electorate it entails – are drawn to it like maggots to rotting flesh. It has also meant, on both sides of the House, that the inexperienced and unqualified predominate. Is there a link between that and the terrible state of our country's finances? Of course, as there is a link between a second-rate political class and our poor schools, our bloated public sector, our sporadic health service, our demotivated police force, our cruelly exploited Armed Forces, and so on. The worst sort of politician is the professional politician, and the present system of remuneration ensures we have them in abundance.