Expenses claim

I love Harperson's comment : "I don't think there's any reason for resignations, but there is reason to tighten up the system "

When did she have this Pauline convertion?

Heffer talk out of his backside

Simon Heffer in today's Telegraph makes a case for jailing Gordon Brown: "Simply losing the next general election is, frankly, not enough of a punishment for a man who has inflicted such damage on our country that people won't even buy government bonds any more. An example needs to be made of him. I want him behind bars."

Heffer is of course talking out of his backside if he thinks that what Labour has done is criminal. Stupid, crass, idiotic yes … criminal no.

Irrespective of how we feel about the numpties in power, the law of the land is clear. We must not resort to the court of public opinion.

oh hang on … where have I heard that before?

I despair of Labour

There are times when I really really despair of Labour's attitude at the moment. I came across this posting on the dreadful Labour list saying that "Yesterday was truly the day that the Tories said goodbye to women’s votes"

Why? Alan Duncan took the piss out of Harriet Harman by suggesting that her love of stilettos constitutes "preparation for her becoming Prime Minister".

Now it wasn't probably very funny but to suggest that because of that women won't vote for Tories is risible.

Women might well vote for the Tories for exactly the same reasons why men will vote for the Tories: to get us out of the deep deep shitter that this Government has got us into ....

A dangerous precedent

I, like pretty well everybody, am appalled by the size of Sir Fred Goodwin's pension but it was -and is - perfectly legal, agreed by the board and Sir Fred would without any doubt win any court case that the Government tried to take against him.

Now I gather that Harriet Harman is proposing to introduce an Act of Parliament, that would retrospectively change the law concerning the pension. This is incredibly dangerous. Retrospective legislation should be ONLY used in the rarest of cases - the last case I can think of was the War Crimes act, and even then I had my doubts - and there is no question that that issue is infinitely more serious than embarrassing the Government.

Where could this end? Retrospective leglislation to repeal the Highland Clearances? Labour doesn't like something that happened in the past? hey ... just make retrospective legislation ...

Harman - as her interview to the BBC makes abundantly clear - is playing a cynical, populist, vote grabbing card which has nothing to do with Fred Goodwin's pension but absolutely everything to so with saving Labour's arse.

The consequences of any such legislation are so enormous that they don't bear thinking about.

Mad and dangerous ....