Manners and young women.

I was minding my own business and totally sober in the middle of the day walking along the pavement from Bedford Place to Above Bar when I was insulted.

I was on the pavement and a car emerged and stopped from a private parking situation on the east side of London Road. I acknowledged the courtesy, although it was my right of way as a pedestrian on a pavement, by raising my hand. The gesture I suspect was misunderstood because the driver of the car who was a woman of about thirty summers, fat and not very good looking wound down her window and shouted at me 'You f---ing stupid old bastard'.

My legitimacy is not debatable although my lack of intelligence is open to question. But what upset me was the reference to me being old. I am only 73 for God's sake.

Taxation and the Rule of Law

There are certain ideas and proposed practices that should be killed at birth. Such a proposal is the one from the Inland Revenue that they should be given powers to raid bank accounts without first getting a court order.

The proposal from the Inland Revenue that they should be given such powers is put forward at the same time as the National Audit Office have found that, in the year to April, mistakes by officials at HM Revenue & Customs resulted in taxpayers making £157 million of overpayments and £125 million of underpayments.

We thus have the juxtaposition of one million people taxed wrongly according to the National Audit Office and a proposal that the error prone Revenue, who have overseen the million mistakes, should be given powers to raid bank accounts without first getting a court order.

There needs to be new more effective taxation laws to pursue those who choose not to pay taxes (and of equal importance those who are non resident for taxation purposes but whose main business is in the UK) but the present Revenue proposals are not the way.

Prime Minister

When Mr Brown took over as Prime Minister I had one or two doubts but he has made a brilliant beginning. His handling of the terrorist incidents had been appropriate and assuring but the part that gives me hope is that he clearly believes in the separation of powers and that those in the gift of the Prime Minister need to be curbed. He has intimated that he will give up the exercise of the Queens prerogative on the subjects of public appointments, ratifying treaties, appointment of Bishops and the power to declare war without consulting MPs. Hopefully a proper democratic reform of the House of Lords will follow.

The only fly in the ointment of these constitutional changes is that the bus is being driven by Jack Straw. Given his past pathetic performance in the democratic reform of the House of Lords one worries.

The former unlamented Deputy Prime Minister.

On another blog, albeit with Tory sympathies, there is a report that recently Mr Prescott was seen strutting into a parliamentary party dinner with a cabal of confidantes. Seconds later Mr P re-emerged in full tantrum with his confidantes in hot (though somewhat bothered) pursuit. Mr P was allegedly heard to complain "Not one of them stood up when I entered the room! I was deputy prime minister only four hours ago!"

If that were true then it is the final comment on how power corrupts and how self important people given positions of authority loose all sense of perspective.

Weather.

It has been reported that this is probably the wettest June on record. It can only be a matter of time before hose pipe bans and drought warnings are issued.

Harriet Harman.

I was as amazed as a lot of other people were when Mrs H became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. I thought that Alan Johnson was home and hosed. Wrong again. After recovering from the shock my subsequent judgement was one of horror. The Labour Party have only themselves to blame but the country deserves better.

But let the last words go to a mighty Labour backbencher Gwyneth Dunwoody. Her view of Harriet Harman? "She is one of certain women who are of the opinion that they have a God-given right to be amongst the chosen."

However HH has been appointed Labour Party Chairman and it seems unlikely that she will also get a Cabinet job. That may be the only good thing to come out of the election.

The Change.

Goodbye Mr Blair. Welcome Mr Brown.

The demonic Donald Rumsfeld.

The Irish in many ways have a softer and more subtle way of saying things. The alternative word in England for excrement sounds to me rather crude and offensive but if like the Irish you add an 'e' to the word it becomes shite an altogether more softer and attractive expletive.

The word came to mind when I was reading 'Rumsfeld - An American Disaster' by Andrew Cockburn. Rumsfeld has to be the greatest shite of the last decade. If anyone thought Bush was bad be grateful that Rumsfeld did not rise higher in the game of politics.

The documentation of the activities of Rumsfeld is also an expose of the pernicious US system of lobbying and political contributions for favours past and future. It is an area that should cause increasing concern in this country and which calls for absolute transparency. The present checks and balances in our system are totally inadequate.

Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid (aka Mr Anthony Blair)

An amazing rant by Mr Blair about the feral press.

If it is true that people get the government they deserve then it is an absolute truth that governments get the press they deserve.

One can have little sympathy for the Prime Minister. He sowed and then he reaped.

Paris Hilton, Cash for Honours and Justice.

The return of Ms Hilton to the pokey gives the clear message that in America celebrities are subject to the normal rules of justice. I hope we in the UK will follow this example set by the American Judicial system when it comes to prosecuting and sentencing in our Cash for Honours scandal.

Education and Grammar Schools

When I was (until recently) a member of the Labour Party there were times when many of us marvelled at the infinite capacity we appeared to have of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It is now clear that we did not have a monopoly of this particular commodity.

The Tory Party have got themselves into a right tizz-waz over Grammar Schools. Ironically there was no need to do so since the real issue is not whether you select and stream pupils or what you call the school. Selection and streaming happens whether children go to Grammar Schools or Comprehensives. The real necessity in State Education is to bring all schools up to the standard enjoyed by pupils in private education. This demands investment to improve the school environment, a policy of not trying to micro manage schools, restoring the authority of the Headmaster and a reduction in the size of classes by approximately fifty per cent.

The arguments should be about how we best achieve the improvement.

The Blair World Tour.

The tour continues but I fail to see what it has achieved for Mr Blair or of more importance this country and its taxpayers.

It is the final act of vanity on what for me has been a decade of missed opportunities and misjudgements. It seems inevitable that power after a number of years corrupts to the point of clinical madness and total self delusion

I can see little difference in this respect between the final acts of Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair.

As expected (see earlier post) President Bush plans to name Robert B. Zoellick, a career diplomat and trade negotiator, to head the World Bank, seeking to dispatch the leadership crisis that has gripped the institution under Paul D. Wolfowitz.

An unknown faceless bureaucrat is an infinite improvement on Monsieur Wolfowitz and is likely to cause less damage to the third world poor.

There was an article in today's Telegraph about phrases that like really bug us all.

There were also readers views on the most annoying phrases. Many readers shared frustrations over the misuse of "forensic" and "literally", while management jargon such as "downsizing", "brainstorming" and "thinking outside the box" also received plenty of nominations.

There is now A Daily Telegraph Infuriating Phrasebook. Amongst the references are

"It's not rocket science".

"Up close and personal".

"To die for".

"Pushing the envelope".

"Only £1,999.99".

Different words annoy different people. My own pet hates are "holistic" and "you know" after every statement.

Humour and Pigs.

As they say humour is a funny thing. I don't know why certain things appeal and others appall. I did however like the anecdote on Radio 5 last night. A truck driver was going merrily about his driving and was passed by a lady driver coming from the opposite direction. As she passed she pulled down her window and shouted 'Pig'. The driver replied 'Bitch' and continued his journey. Two hundred yards further on at a bend in the road he was derailed by a pig on the road.

Education and Mr Johnson

The suggestion by Mr Johson, a contender in the Labour Party Deputy Leadership stakes, that public schools should lend teachers and facilities to the state sector in return for charitable status misses the point.

Mr Johnson's contribution puts the onus on public schools to improve state education and like so many earlier interventions in Education is at best irrelevant. The responsibility for the state education sector rests unequivocally with the Government of the day. Instead of avoiding this responsibility they should be properly funding state education so that class sizes and the school environment matched that in public schools.

A political tale of Poetic Justice or was it Revenge.

At one time Nora Goss was a Labour Party Councillor and became under the Labour Administration of the day Mayor of Southampton. Subsequently there was parting of the ways and Councillor Goss joined the Liberal Democratic Party. Thereafter she was nominated by the Lib Dems for a further stint as Mayor but the Labour Party were having none of this and vetoed her appointment

Earlier this month the result of the local elections for Southampton City Council resulted in The Conservative Party obtaining the same number of seats as Labour and the decision on who should be the ruling party depended on the minority Liberal Democratic members. They decided to sit on their hands except for Mrs Goss who broke ranks and voted for the Conservatives. There must have been some consternation in Labour ranks but revenge disguised as political justice is sweet particularly when one has to wait some years to administer the act.

I am ashamed to note that in spite of previous promises my last blog was on 3 April 2007. I have been away on holiday a couple of times, the last occasion being best part of a month in Ireland, but there is no excuse for my indolence.

Of more importance is the speculation that Prime Minster Blair may be the replacement for Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank. I think not. Ever since the inception of the World Bank the United States have been the major shareholder and have always nominated a United States citizen for the post of President. The most famous previous President(1968-1981) was Robert Strange McNamara. It is fanciful to suggest that US policy will change now.

In any case and even though the position carries a substantial salary and perks it would presumably not be attractive to Mr Blair given the millions he can now earn doing less onerous things such as speaking on the US circuit.

That the arch Neo-Con Wolfowitz has been ousted from the World Bank should however be celebrated. His economic philosophy, if followed, would have heaped more misery on the poorest in the Third World. He was of course the architect of the disaster that is Iraq and one can only hope that he is not allowed back into any position of influence to bring further disaster to the World.

There is currently something of a debate about childbirth and the relative merits of having it at home or in hospital.

Some years ago there was a campaign to popularise having the birth in hospital. One of the posters at that time emphasised that the first three minutes of childbirth are the most dangerous of life.

Someone added to the poster that the last three minutes were a bit dodgy too.

The division of the Home Office into two parts is the sort of simplistic solution beloved of politicians and bureaucrats. In itself it will achieve nothing, zilch, Nada.

If for instance we wish to improve security we need to further increase the resources for the security services and ensure they are properly supervised and not by a comfortable committee of the so called 'Great and the Good'. Whether the Security Services report to the new Department to be run by Mr Reid or to Mr Reid in his present guise is immaterial totally. Ministers and bureaucrats do not provide the safety we desire. Those working in the Security Services do whoever is their political master.