Dines' Days

There are limits

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:06:00 GMT

HARKING back to my recent blog or an hour or so ago, I have no hesitation in standing up for Gordon Brown against the harsher name-calling of him to be found on the Internet. The barbed pen of Guido Fawkes, the right wing blogger with the web site http://www.order-order.com , leads the way in what he calls "*** watch" by name-calling the PM as the Curse of the One-Eyed Son of the Manse.

It's totally unnecessary to make fun of the PM's disability. Would Guido get away with acid remarks if Brown was indeed brown? Of course not.

Young Tim's Colchester definition of a successful government

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:07:00 GMT

CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and principled opinions are, I hope, the distinguishing hallmark of impartial journalists. They set us apart from posturing politicians for whom everything the Government does is either outstanding or absolutely hopeless, depending from which view point they are coming. Colchester's Labour leader on the borough is one Timothy Young of this parish. Wife Julie is also a councillor.serving on both Essex county and Colchester district. They seem to be here, there and...(read more)

Bottler and his little list of little lists

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:03:00 GMT

GORDON Brown would make an excellent Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner of Japan, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado is next revived. You'll recall that Ko-Ko, looking for victims for beheading with the ceremonial sword, assures all the inhapitants of Titipoo that "I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list."

As does our beloved Prime Minister. Everytime he is asked a direct question, there's rarely a direct answer. Feverishly, his fingers turn the pages of his vociferous crib sheet and he avidly shouts out his little list, mainly of Tory iniquities from more than a decade ago.

It's all getting very tiresome. Whether the good folk of Glasgow East cheer his recitation may well determine the outcome of the by-election on July 24. By some amazing lack of planning by Labour, Glaswegians will go to the polls during the annual two weeks holiday shut down. Last time at the General Election, less than 50% of them voted, although it was enough to re-elected the Labour MP by 13,000 votes. Don't expect the turnout to be above 30% next time.

It will take a 22% swing to give the Scottish Nationalists victory. It seems improbable, but the Prime Minister may have to learn a little list of by-election defeats for his speech to Labour's delegates in Manchester for the annual conference.

New law on anonimity must not be retrospective

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:41:00 GMT

THE Government is right to close the legal loophole which caused a trial to be aborted last week after the Appeal Court ruled that prosecution witnsses could no longer remain anonymous. Anonimity if offered by prosectors in certain sensitive cases as an inducement by people to come folrward to give evidence without fear of retaliation. The judges said that under Common Law, defendants had the right to see and to know the identity of those helping to convict them.

Gordon Brown says he will "bring forward next week immediate legislation to enable the courts to grant anonymity to witnesses for cases such as those involving organised crime and witness intimidation. "I hope and believe we can do this with all party support."

It would be wrong, however, to make the legislation retrospective, even if it results in accused people walking free. It would like reintroducing capital punishment and executing murders convicted since the ultimate deterrent was abolished in the 1960s.

Introduce the law quickly, but it should only take effect from when given the Royal Assent.

Anyone but Andy

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:26:00 GMT

AT least we are spared the wet knickers brigade screaming "Come on, Tim!" as the great British lawn tennis hope goes down to another defeat at Wimbledon. The British reaction to the two week-tournament baffles me - Wimbledon is but one of four grand slam tournaments, but there is little interest in the US, Australian, and French tournaments.

The attention of Brits this year is meant to be focused on Andy Murray, who won't clad himself in the Union flag but will profess allegiance to the saltire. I shan't be cheering for Murray. My hostility to him stems from the 2006 World Cup when he declared that he didn't care which team did, as long as England were defeated.

I return the sentiment. I don't care who beats Murray, as long as it's early in the tournament.

Olympics "stealing cash from churches"

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:40:00 GMT

SOME of the best architectural glories to be found in England are out churches, mostly from the pre-Reformation era and some which date from before the Norman Conquest. But funding for our Established Church, clerics suggest, is being diverted from repairing these places of worship to pay for the soaring cost of the London Olympics.

Sir Stuart Bell, who represents the Church Commissioners in Parliament, said at Commons question time today said: "It is not generally known that the State does not actually help us in terms of financing the preservation of churches, although we do work closely with English Heritage and we do receive funds from them.

"There is a great concern within the Church that funds may be diverted from the Heritage Fund for the Olympic Games, which will not assist in this preservation.''

Tory Sir Peter Viggers said: "The burden of maintaining one of the glories of this country, namely our old churches, falls heavily upon the modest number of people in the congregation.

There may not be much sympathy for the Church, because Anglicans are a dwindling minority among this country's religions and the growing number of people professing to no religious beliefs. Good use has been found for the redundant medieval church in Ipswich, thanks to the Ipswich Historic Churches Trust.

I might be accused of sentimentality, but I believe taxpayers should contribute to keeping these wonderful buildings, many of which are in the countryside - reflecting the power that the Church, firstly Catholic and then Protestant held sway in our largely pre-Elixabethan economy. I would also urge all dioceses in England to set up special appeal funds and to publish an annual at risk register.

Time to clamp down on Felixstowe's anti-social truckers

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:55:00 GMT

IF there's one thing that gets me all heated up while driving is container truck overtaking each other on dual carriageways, and taking an age to pass leading to congestion behind them.

Lorries should be banned from overtaking lanes. Because of their speed limiters, it can take five minutes for one lorry to pass another. And what does it achieve? - they simply get to the greasey spoon a few minutes ahead of other truckers.

The A14 is particularly prone to this anti-social driving. I'm happy to join Felixstowe town council and others in calling for the boys in blue to start prosecuting more truckers. If the drivers are in danger of losing their licences, and thus their livlihoods, it might make them act with more consideration for other road users.

You are just plain wrong, Mr Davis

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:34:00 GMT

DAVID Davis may regard his decision to quit as an MP, and fight a by-election on the growth of our suveillance society, as principled and the best way to put the issue into the public arena, but it was an incredibly stupid and egotistic mistake for which the Tories mayt well be punished.

The bulk of the electorate support 42 days for detention of terror suspects without trial. Davis is fighting on an unwinnable issue - does he really think that if Cameron becomes PM he'll rescind 42 days? Of course he won't.

42 days a small price to pay to defend our liberties

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:59:00 GMT

GORDON Brown struggles each week to fend off attacks not only from the Tories, Liberal Democrats, a motley crew of dissident Labour MPs, and the media. But on the thorny issue of 42 detention without charge, he is absolutely right.

Locking someone up for six weeks is a big step to take. But if 28 days was deemed right by the Commons, an extra 14 days is not indefensible. As long as suspects retain the right to proper and frequent legal representation, 42 is surely reasonable, especially if it stops an outrage by insurgents who enjoy killing and maiming and do not mind if they die themselves in the process of perpetrating atrocities.

As Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, the former Commissioner of the metropolitan police, wrote this week: "It is the duty of those of us wgo have been on the front line - losing sleep, working through the night onthese cases to thwart attacks - to put forward the argument for this extra power.

Supporting him were two senior and well respected peeresses. Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale - who worked for MI6 during the so-called Cold War, said: "There is no question there will be more terrorist attacks in future, it's not a question of if, it's when. Voting against 42 days increases the odds in favour of the terrorists."

Baroness Park of Monmouth, who was one of MI6's most senior controllers for more than 30 years, said MPs should recognise that prosecutors need longer to sift evidence because of the global inquires that had to be made."

Gordon Brown won the vote by nine votes. Opponents insist he has been further weakened by the size of the Labour revolt. The Prime Minister has made a stand for our freedoms and for that he should have the full support of us all.

Modern dictator needed to sort out railways

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:15:00 GMT

I DON'T really want to become the founder member of the Suffolk and Essex branch of the Mussolini fan club, but it's high time someone took our railways by the scruff of the neck and managed to get our trains running on time, just as Italy did in the run-up to World War II.

The chaos caused by a National Express train bringing down power cables between Shenfield and Chelmsford was bad enough on Monday evening. That the disruption to services has continued for more than 48 hours is no joke for the commuters and other travellers who pay dearly for the privilege of riding the East Anglia main line.

With the service reduced off-peak to one train an hour, instead of three, to and from Liverpool Street and Ipswich, and one train an hour on the London to Clacton-on-Sea line, inconvenience is, to say the least, inevitable. This afternoon, the problems were compounded by an accident to Network Rail workers involved in fixing the overhead cables.

Of course, the incoinvenience of getting home fades in significance to the serious injuries of the engineers. But if our rail infrastructure had been updated in the 1980s and 1990s, and proper investment had been ploughed into rolling stock and modern trains as has happened in continental countries - Belgium is, however, the dishonourable exception with downright filthy and uncomfortable carriages which make our trains look top class - we would not be suffering today the constant delays caused by either signalling and wiring faults or broken down locomotive-hauled trains.

Britain gave railways to the world. Other countries have risen to the challenge of rapid mass transportation in the 21st century while we are daudling along on a branch line. In other countries, new routes and modernisation of existing tracks seem to spring up overnight. In the UK, it took an age to construct the Channel Tunnel Rail Link while the upgrading to the West Coast Main Line from London to Preston and Glasgow grinds on and on and on.

This afternoon, I arrived at Liverpool Street at 15:10 for the 15:30 InterCity to Ipswich. In the platform stood the 14:30, packed to the gunwhales with passengers squeezing into the carriages and fretting and fuming at the delay to the journey. It was 20 past three when we moved off, only to stop at Stratford where more unfortunate souls tried to board.

Next stop Shenfield, where the train was held for an age to allow emergency services to finish dealing with the injured rail workers. We shuddered to a start, only for another long wait a few miles up the line, finally traversing the London-bound line to make our way on to Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester and Manningtree, arriving in Ipswich at 17:00. For people who had boarded the train for a 14:30 departure, that represented a jounrey time of two-and-a-half hours, instead of the normal 68 minutes.

I travel all over the UK by train because for all the faults, it is less frentic than motorway driving and allows time to recover from the party conferences and meetings in London. As petrol drives up the cost of motoring, the train should really come into its own. But that will never happen unless the customers have confidence in travelling and that needs modern, clean trains which run on time.

The "on-board train team" as guards and buffet workers are now called tried their hardest this afternoon. Miracle of miracles, the air conditioning did not conk out.

Passengers seated in first class looked distinctly uneasy and unhappy as the plebs stood in the central aisles swigging back cans of lager. But hey, we all have to rough it at times on Britain's railways today.

There was one brief moment of entertainment as I waited at Ipswich for the Felixstowe shuttle - that was the sight of Jonathan Denby, National Express's PR guru, wearing a customer relations team yellow jacket and handing out compensation delay forms for arriving passengers. Every little helps, but Mussolini did it with much more chutzpah.

Call Me Dave sports a new look in Essex

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:43:00 GMT

A VERY modern haircut for a very modern leader - Call Me Dave wowed 240 Conservatives at a constituency dinner in Chelmsford last night, sporting a parting straight down the middle.

Cost: £10. A bargain indeed in London.

If he'd worn a wig or exposed a sudden hair loss, the effect would have been the same. Tory activists in Chelmsford firmly believed the UK's next Prime Minister - or Prime Minister the one after if Labour gets a chronic case of the jitters and ditches Bottler - was standing before them,. relxed, microphone in hand, happily posing for mobile phone photos and doing everything he should to impress on the faithful that they should take nothing for granted.

But Call Me Dave has the sort of magnetic personality which is capable of attracting support from across the political spectrum. Labour switchers to the Conservatives helped them to a famous by-election victory in Crewe & Nantwich. Labour's fears seem well founded indeed

Why they started doubting Thomas

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:20:00 GMT

IF politicians and journalists are regarded as pond life by the public at large, then spin doctors are the bette noire of scribes who have to suffer the arrogance and bullying of those paid to divert attention away from an often uncomfortable truth. Most government and local government public relations officers are former journalists, who have gone on to highly paid jobs in the lucrative public sector, with gold plated pensions underwritten by tax payers. Others are graduates...(read more)

The `mouth of the south' should think twice

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:48:00 GMT

EVEN if the sky should fall in on Labour in England, surely our Scottish hero Gordon Brown should be able to rely on massive support north of the border. Wrong.

Labour's crumbling fortunes in England are reflected in Scotland. But because of the cavalier action towards the Scots adopted by Margaret Thatcher when she was in Downing Streets, Scottish voters are not turning to the Conservatives in desperation. It's the Scottish National Party which is soaking up disenchanted Labour voters. And it is endangering the union.

The contempt for Labour in Scotland must be deeply worrying for Brown and the rest of the Scottish coven at Westminster. But it should have been obvious that when devolution was granted, many Scots would press for the ripping up of the Act of Union.

Labour's Scottish leader Wendy Alexander - sister of wee Dougie Alexander, an arch Brownite - is known in Scottish political circles as "the mouth of the south" because everything she does has to accord with British Labour policy. She may have called for an early referendum on independence - "bring it on" she enthused - but it would damage irrevocably Labour's chances of winning a general election in England, Wales and Ulster

It would be ironic indeed if a Scottish Prime Minister who professes his support for the union were forced, by a referendum vote in Scotland, to push through Westminster a Bill giving Scotland independence - and, of course, what would follow would be Gordon Brown not having a seat in the Commons.

Gordon's deepening hole

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:45:00 GMT

I have some sympathy with Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling - but not much.

They're in a pickle in that their spending plans are based on tax revenue. Firstly, they've had to borrow £2.7bn to bail themselves out of the 10p tax rate fiasco. Public anger, reflected among Labour backbenchers, is growing at the wholesale change in vehicle excise duties meant to clobber the gas guzzlers but which will catch drivers of older cars in its net. Then there's the near ruinous price of petrol and diesel, on the back of soaring food rpices.

Yet, we all know food and fuel hikes are not unique to Britain. And yes, it's unfair to blame the Government for the price of tea from Sri Lanka. But after 10 years of allowing Gordon Brown to get the credit for boasting of low inflation, a golden economy, and no boom and bust, he's now well and truly in the firing line when the booming economy he has presided over jolly well does bust.

Politics, Gordon, is about taking tough decisions and standing up to be counted. Sorry, but there's no hiding place.

Nasal exploits may prove the final straw in downtown Crewe

graham.dines@eadt.co.uk — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:36:00 GMT

UNABLE to get to the Commons in time to witness Prime Minister's Questions live, I listened with half an ear to the BBC2 broadcast and indulged myself in the fun of watching the on-line comments instantaeously posted on Guido Fawkes' web site. His political blog http://www.order-order.com/ is one of the most amusing on the Internet, and contains sharp, cruel and highly irreverend comments from his on-line community..

A tremendous number of right of centre bloggers seem fascinated with Gordon Brown's nose picking exploits as Alastair Darling delivered the Budget. It seems that 233,649 people so far have logged on to Guido Fawkes' YouTube page to see for themselves the video grab "Prime Minister Gordon Brown Picks His Nose."

The PM's nasal exploits have given bloggers a new batch of quite tasteless (!) nick names for our Bottler, but the descriptions are amusing even if I don't think it advisable to reproduce them. In any event, they are less demeaning than "Cyclops."

As to PMQ's at noon, David Cameron asked whether the £2.7bn tax package, announced followng the row over the abolition of the 10p tax rate, would continue next year.

Bottler says he wants to continue to help people affected by the abolition of the 10p rate, but accuses Cameron of refusing to come out in support of the 10p tax deal and claims the Tories would prioritise inheritance tax and stamp duty.

Cameron was back on his usual tactic of accusing the Prime Minister of never answering clearly questions posed to him. He said Bottler had done it again, from which people should conclude the £2.7bn tax package is a "one off" and a "tax con". He says the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggests 18m families would be worst off next year.

Bottler claimed Labour wanted to help lower and middle income families while the Conservatives want to help "other people". Then the elephant in the room surfaced - tomorrow's by-election in Crewe & Nantwich. Cameron asked why Bottler did not have the courage to go to Cheshire, but the Prime Minister ducked it, claiming.it was traditional serving Prime Ministers did not go to constituencies before by-elections.

Cameron hit back, quoting Tony Blair, on his way to a by-election when he was Prime Minister, who had said he had "never understood" that convention. He had believed in "leading from the front."

Was that the faintest hint of a smile on Bottler's face at this wittisism?

Mark yet another PMQ's triumph for David Cameron, even though Guido Fawkes' on-line adherents think that Cameron let Bottler off lightly. You can't win them all, Dave.