Here's to you, Mr Mandelson

It was the ultimate sacrifice. No man was more loyal to his master than the Member for Hartlepool. In accordance with the arcane doctrines of the NuLab cult, Peter Mandelson's moustache had to go:

Many Labour high fliers have sacrificed facial hair in the name of naked ambition.

But perhaps a terrible error has been made. Here's the latest from India:

POLICE in northern India are being paid an extra 30 rupees (36p) a month to grow a moustache to give them more authority.

Mayank Jain, a police superintendent in Madhya Pradesh, said police with moustaches were treated more seriously, but that shape and style would be monitored to ensure they did not look mean.

Grow it back, Mandy. You'll be back in the cabinet in no time.

Another education row

Several previous postings concerning education have mentioned Judith Gillespie of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council. Normally Ms Gillespie's remarks are of the sort that would be highly acceptable to most members of the Scottish political-educational complex. Now she has caused a bit of a rumpus:

Judith Gillespie, the development manager of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said teachers should not be working in the state system if they send their children to private schools.

Her comments, which echo those made recently by an Edinburgh headteacher, will strike a chord with many in the profession but have prompted an angry reaction from union leaders and politicians.

Here is one of those reactions:

David Eaglesham, the general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said: "I’ve seldom heard such garbage. Life is about making choices, which car you want, where you live and what you do for a living. I think it’s despicable to say that teachers should not have a decision in their children’s future.

"You are getting into the area of social engineering. It’s serfdom.

In today's Scotsman Gillian Bowditch writes about this row and starts off by defending the teachers who chose private education for their own children:

At the heart of the argument is a dangerous assumption that those employed by the state owe total allegiance to the state.

The presumption is that if you work for the system, you have to support it whole-heartedly. If this totalitarian philosophy is taken one step further, no state employee - doctors, nurses or civil servants - would be allowed to choose an independent school for their child.

It may be galling for parents who have little option but to send their children to a failing school, to watch teachers opt to educate their own children elsewhere. But private education is not a morally reprehensible choice - for teachers or for anyone else.

Those were my own first thoughts on this matter. I then began to have doubts, as did Ms Bowditch:

It is too easy, however, simply to dismiss Wood and Gillespie’s arguments as unreconstructed Marxism, as outmoded as the class war. If you work for the state you must swear fealty to the state may be a dangerous philosophy, but it is one which is frequently advanced by New Labour, despite its hubris about choice and decentralisation.

Just so. New Labour wants the masses, including government employees, to be completely beholden to the state. Exceptions can be made for the Neuearbeitspartei’s own henchmen, or rather henchpersons, as Gillian Bowditch notes:

It is different for politicians. Diane Abbott has a duty to send her child to a state school because she has been elected on the basis of an ideology which opposes private education.

By choosing the independent sector she is perpetrating a fraud on the electorate. Politicians are responsible for education policy; teachers are responsible only for doing the best job they can within the parameters set by government.

Many other NuLab politicians are perpetrating such a fraud, including the Great Leader himself.

Back to those state school teachers again. I don't blame then for wanting the best for their own children. But if they use private education I don't see how they can belong to trade unions or vote for political parties that oppose private education. By speaking out in favour of private education teachers can protect themselves from the criticisms of the likes of Ms Gillespie, and indeed myself.

The curse of the blogger

Yesterday I criticised the head of Standard Life. Today he has resigned!

STANDARD Life chief executive Iain Lumsden today quit after 36 years with the Edinburgh-based finance giant as the group announced a strategic review of its operations.

He stood down as the life and pensions firm admitted it may have to consider demutualisation to strengthen its financial position.

I do hope that Standard Life survives as an independent entity - it is, I believe, Edinburgh's largest private sector employer. Standard's problems stem from remaining highly exposed to the stock market throughout the big declines of last year. I was a Standard Life policyholder until not too long ago. Being a student of the Austrian School of Economics, I switched out of the with-profits fund (linked to the stock market) into their cash fund at the end of 2001 and thus avoided the bonus cuts that followed. More recently I cashed in the policy. I cannot accept any responsibility for giving investment advice but I believe that the markets are still far too overvalued. Except for gold and silver of course.

To float or not to float, that is the question

The new rules of the Financial Services Authority may mean that Edinburgh based Standard Life Assurance may have to give up its mutual status and float on the stock market. I may well write more about this in the future but couldn't help noticing this quote from Standard's boss:

"If we become a public company, future payouts will go down by 10 per cent because we will have to pay dividends … The best way to understand our worth as a mutual is to realise we are worth 10 per cent more." - Iain Lumsden, 12 December

That's extremely misleading. At present, all of the wealth owned by Standard Life is attributable to its current members - the policyholders. If Standard Life floats on the stock market dividends will indeed be payable to the shareholders but the first shareholders will be those very same members. No one can force them to sell their investment if they think that the capital value of the shares plus future dividends is worth more than the going stock market valuation.

Say no to government schools

Jean Walker has commented about this previous blog as follows:

And exactly what do you suggest we do with all the students who are "got rid of" because of disruptive behaviour? For some schools this would constitute 40-50% of their enrolment. Where do they go?

and again:

No one seems to be able to answer my question - if ALL schools are privatised and therefore able to "get rid" of all children who are not willing to learn or behave appropriately, where will they go? Who will educate them? Will the private sector then set up special schools with special teachers with special salaries (and therefore at a very increased cost) to cater for this fast growing group of students, and if so will students be forced to attend them and who will pay, as these students generally come from the poorest homes?

There are two things to consider here. First, should government be paying for education at all? Second, if so, should it run its own schools?

I make no bones about it: education should not be funded by government. The only legitimate function of the state is to protect citizens against those who initiate force or fraud. That means the provision of the armed services to protect us from external aggressors, the operation of local police forces to protect us from domestic aggressors, and a court system to try those accused of aggression and punish those found guilty. Whenever possible, criminals should make full restitution to their victims.

Everything else done by government should be privatised.

If most people want education to be funded by means of taxation, that's what will happen, even though I would argue that such provision is morally wrong and damaging for society. Government funding of education does not however require that schools be operated by the state. The provision of vouchers to be spent on private education is far preferable to the present system. And yes, private schools would be free to decide on which children they would teach. If the state wished to educate those children who cause disruption, then private schools could provide such services at a price. It is quite wrong that the majority of children (and their teachers) be terrorised by a mindless minority. When taxpayers are able to see the real financial costs of educating the troublemakers, there will be a justifiable outcry. We may then start asking questions like: Should education be compulsory? Answer: No - almost all children went to school when attendance was voluntary and not funded by government. Should the welfare state be abolished? Yes - it encourages the lack of responsibility shown by the parents of disruptive children. Should we get rid of the ludicrous minimum wage laws that keep young people from entering the workforce thus combining formal education with learning on the job: Obviously yes.

We won't solve the problem of disruptive children unless we re-examine the whole question of state education. Privatised education is making great strides throughout much of the world. Why shouldn't Scotland show the way here in the UK?

Nyet!

Sometimes it becomes very clear why so many people support Scottish independence. What could have been better designed to help the nationalists than this incident?

A Russian student refused entry to Scotland to study English was told by Whitehall officials she would have found the Scots accent difficult to understand.

The extraordinary statement was made in documents sent to the un-named women by Foreign Office officials when they refused her entry to the UK last summer.

"You cannot satisfactorily explain why you have chosen to attend an English course in Scotland rather than your options of Oxford or Cambridge, where you should face less difficulty understanding a regional accent," officials stated.

There were other reasons for refusing entry into the UK but the Foreign Office has refused to apologise for its remarks about "regional" accents. Full marks to John Swinney for ambushing Jack McConnell in the Scottish parliament. I wonder what would have happened if the Foreign Office had still been under Robin Cook, who himself has a "regional" accent.

More on the Council Tax

The Scotsman's Bill Jamieson shares my concerns about the removal of the second home discount.

Explaining that most second homeowners are not multi-millionaires, Mr Jamieson writes:

They are, in the main, quiet, modest, hard-working Scots who have saved out of their taxed incomes to buy a holiday home in the country they love. They are not the "idle rich" or "tax cheats". Nor should they be treated as if they are.

They make relatively light demand on council services such as schools and social services. But they do bring in a lot of spending that would not otherwise come to a rural area. They spend in local shops, pubs and restaurants, and employ local services for renovation and refurbishment. And when they let out these little properties, they bring in others who spend.

Treat them like milchcows for tax, and you risk driving Scots out of Scotland. Doubling their council tax is as good a way as any of closing down VisitScotland and boosting the tourist industries of France, Spain and Portugal at the expense of our own.

Sometimes you can't help wondering if our politicians are paid agents of competing countries!

Here is another point made by Mr Jamieson:

Councils may argue that they need the money for "social housing". But it is not at all clear whether more council housing, as opposed to private-sector starter homes, is the answer. Planning restrictions and the cumbersome nature of the planning system are also a major factor behind lack of suitable property for local workers.

The Scottish business community is up in arms about the harm done by the planners to industry and we see here that the planning regime lies behind the shortage of homes for young people. Scotland does not need any more council houses - now described in politically correct speak as "social housing". Aren't all houses for social use? At one time Scotland had a higher proportion of council housing than many of the communist countries in Eastern Europe. Let's do away with our damned dependency culture. Free up the market, sell off the last remaining "social" houses, fire all those unproductive consumers of the council tax and liberate the people.

Down with democracy

John Thorpe is correct to say in his letter that polluters don't have the right to infringe on the rights of others, but I get worried when he makes this statement:

Democracy does not mean the individual has the right to do exactly as he pleases. The will of the majority prevails, and, like it or lump it, the individual must accept that.

It's not that his definition of democracy is wrong; it isn't. What's worrying is that Mr Thorpe doesn't seem to understand what's evil about an unlimited democracy. The majority votes to execute all redheads. Under Mr Thorpe's democracy that's perfectly fine. Kill all coloured folk - OK if there's enough votes in it. Imprison those who go to the wrong church - why not?

An unlimited democracy is wrong. That's why the founding fathers of the USA created a constitutional republic whose Constitution was all about limiting the power of the state and not one that established an unlimited democracy. It's a tragedy that America threw away its republic and such a pity that so few in this country even know what the word means.

(Update:

By an extraordinary coincidence I have just come across this post on the Discussion Board on the Daily Reckoning website:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."...."The average of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back to bondage."

The quote was attributed (to the best of my knowledge) by John Bagot Glubb in 1973 to Alexander Frasier Tytler. Others have sourced this quote arising from Tytler's book "The rise and fall of the Athenian Republic" 1776. Tytler certainly lived 1747-1813, becoming Lord Woodhoouselee in 1792. He was a Scottish lawyer and scholar, admitted to the Edinburgh bar in 1770, was a Edinburgh University professor from 1780 and became a judge in 1802. I personally believe the quote is taken out of some pamphlets in connection with his history courses at Edinburgh University, not any book. (There is no evidence in Edinburgh Univ or the British Library that any book entitled "The Rise and Fall of the Athenian Republic" or similar was ever published.)

To consider that this concept existed at the time of the founding of the US, is not surprising. The founding fathers tried very hard NOT to make the US a democracy, but rather a Republic with limitations imposed on its branches. It is most unfortunate in my opinion that the Supreme Court has failed to uphold the limitations of power clearly written into the Constitution. The US has tragically for all intents and purposes become a democracy, and, alas, probably will suffer the fate described by Tytler.

Exactly!)

No taxation without representation

Tory MSP Brian Monteith explains here why the planned removal of the "second homes" discount on council taxes won't have quite the effect that some are expecting:

Your report gave the impression that scrapping the discount would result in "extra" income, when in fact councils determine the amount of revenue needed to meet their budgets and then set council tax levels accordingly. Therefore, the removal of a discount from one group of taxpayers should result in a decrease in all other council taxpayers’ bills to collect the same amount of revenue.

What exactly is wrong with the existing discount? People who own second homes do not receive the same "benefits" from their local councils as do full time residents. You can't have a child in two schools at the same time. Refuse is not generated simultaneously at two houses. Your car isn't using up two streets at once. Yes, the police may be protecting both of your properties - unless you're a Norfolk farmer of course - but that's about it. The discount should stay and along with it there should be the entitlement to a half vote at local elections.

Barefaced cheek

Here we go again.

The naked rambler has been sent to jail:

A MAN known as the "naked rambler" who is attempting to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats was jailed for three months yesterday.

Stephen Gough, 44, was found guilty at a trial at Dingwall Sheriff Court after he was seen trekking nude through the centre of a Highland village.

How much public money has been spent persecuting this guy? He wants to walk from Land's End to John O'Groats wearing no clothes. It's not the kind of thing I would fancy doing in the middle of the winter - or any other time come to that - but why not just let him finish and go home?

Of course if he were to start breaking into remote farmhouses along the way and rob the residents the authorities would no doubt turn a blind eye and probably recommend him for a peerage for services to the performing arts.

Another Scottish Parliament scandal

This time it's not the building; it's the day-to-day expenditure of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on things like salaries and running costs. The parliamentary audit committee has been in session today and was addressed by the Auditor General:

He said parliament bosses had been given several warnings of shortfalls in procedures and his report was the equivalent of a red card.

At one point last year nearly 300 discrepancies totalled more than £5m.

The Auditor General continued:

"What I mean in plain terms is that while there was sufficient evidence to confirm that the accounts are not materially mis-stated there were important shortcomings in the corporate body's internal financial controls.

"Specifically these weaknesses in control prevented me gaining sufficient assurance regarding the possibility of accounting errors or even fraud affecting the corporate body's affairs in some way."

This affair has been played down in the media on the grounds that there was:

"a mixture of debit and credit entries, which were offset against each other, the combined net total of the unreconciled entries was very small, at just over £300. But the combined value of the 290 underlying transactions which have not so far been matched were significantly greater, some £5.3 million." (from the notes to the Auditor General's report)

The news reports didn't give us enough to understand the implications of this. If £5m worth of phone bills had been recorded as, say, electricity costs, then it's not very efficient, but not such a big deal. If, on the other hand, £5m worth of current expenditure had been wrongly recorded as accounts receivable (assets) there would indeed be a potential loss of £5m that was understated in the accounts.

Let's give them the benefit of the doubt (for the moment). What is totally unforgivable is this:

"During 2002-03 the Corporate Body did not complete the necessary periodic reconciliations between its ledger and bank accounts ...... By the final stage of the audit, in early December 2003, 290 items remained unreconciled between the Corporate Body's bank accounts and its ledger either because payments recorded through the bank were not recorded in the ledger or vice versa."

That's just not acceptable. Reconciling one's bank account is the starting point to getting the accounts correct. This is a shameful disclosure especially in Scotland, the land that more or less invented accountants.

Reading further into the AG's notes we find this:

Final accounts testing found continuing errors affecting a wide range of matters including income overstated by almost £2m, two compensating errors of £1m each on fixed assets and errors in creditor accruals of £1m.

This would seem to indicate that the "bottom line" was out by a hell of a lot more than £300, but it's not expressed clearly enough to know the real story.

I wish that I'd gone along to the meeting today, although as a mere taxpayer I wouldn't have been able to contribute. I've read that the Parliament has failed to appoint a finance chief for many months. Here's the deal: I'll do the job for nothing as long as I can fire anyone I find to be incompetent.

What's in a name?

I note that Scotland's First Minister, Jack McConnell, is calling in the ad men:

Advertising experts have been called in by the Scottish Executive to promote a more modern image of Scotland abroad.

But it's not just the country that may need a new image. What about Jack himself?

Jack and Chloe have been knocked off the top spot as the most popular names for Scottish babies.

While Jack remains the most popular baby name in England, Lewis, which has its origins in Germany, is now favourite with parents north of the Border.

So parents in England still put "Jack" at number one, but not here in Scotland. Surely this has no connection with the name of our beloved leader.

A not so Happy New Year

Many readers will no doubt have heard about the last-minute cancellation of Edinburgh's Hogmanay party:

THE world-famous Hogmanay fireworks display and concert in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens was cancelled for the first time in the 12-year history of the event last night.

In high winds which hit the city, four stewards in the gardens were injured by falling gates and pieces of debris.

My wife and I had decided to stay at home on Wednesday evening and watch the firework display from our window. I was looking forward to taking some photographs. On the way back from a lunchtime visit to the Oxford Bar I noticed that a strong southerly wind was developing. By 6pm the gusts were up to 45 mph and became stronger as the evening went on. Around 10.30 I read on the web that the whole event - the concert and the firework display - had been cancelled. I was shocked as by then the wind had died down considerably although I realised that southerly gusts could have blown fireworks onto the crowd in Princes Street.

The cancellation of the New Year event has rightly been seen as a fiasco:

Safety must, of course, always be the prime consideration at any public event. But the Hogmanay street party was a joke. This was not because of the cancellation of the fireworks (although the weather did improve significantly before the bells) nor the gig in the gardens. It was because of the attitude.

You do not tell 100,000 people, many of whom have travelled half way round the world to attend the event, to go home 75 minutes before the bells.

Perhaps it was necessary to cancel the firework display, although the wind had slackened considerably by midnight. Surely though there should have been a display the next evening when most of the foreign visitors would still have been in town. Apparently the fireworks were still usable.

More unforgivable is the lack of a proper venue for performances in Princes Street Gardens. As one of our few sensible politicians put it:

The city’s Tory leader Iain Whyte today suggested that serious questions had to be asked about whether the "crumbling" state of the Ross Bandstand played a role in the cancellation of the event.

He said: "Like many of the other culture and leisure facilities in the city, the Ross Bandstand hasn’t had much investment in recent years.

If we didn't waste so much taxpayers' money on politically correct boondoggles the city might have built an all-weather structure that would have allowed the concert to take place. Speaking of weather I read that one of the organisers had claimed that weather insurance was not obtainable because "it was an act of God". So why are there 2,770,000 references to weather insurance when you click on Google? In my advertising days I regularly arranged weather insurance to cover film shoots.

I do feel a bit sorry for Peter Irvine who has done so much for Edinburgh's tourist industry, and he did indeed warn about the state of the bandstand in the Gardens:

Pete Irvine, the director of street party organisers Unique Events, has called for the bandstand to be replaced by a permanent structure, which could be used not only for the Hogmanay concert, but for Fringe shows and other events throughout the year.

Mr Irvine’s suggestion must be taken seriously. The Ross Bandstand is an ageing structure which is obviously unsuited to modern concerts, or it would not need to be so heavily expanded for shows like the Concert in the Gardens.

The use of temporary awnings may be acceptable in fine weather conditions, but the on this occasion its instability has led to injury of four people and the cancellation of the concert at the centre of one of the world’s most famous New Year celebrations

So let's make sure we get it right next year. Get some of our large companies to sponsor a new bandstand to be ready for next winter and have a "Plan B" in the event of the weather necessitating cancellation of the firework display; don't just tell people to go home at 11pm.

At least we didn't get nuked.

High Noon

The British people have spoken and their message is clear:

A proposal to allow homeowners to use "any means" to defend their homes, has topped a BBC poll on the bill people would most like to see become law.

So can we expect the Tories to back the public?

Not likely:

Tony Martin's MP, Conservative Henry Bellingham said it went too far by suggesting homeowners should use "any means" to protect their property.

Mr Bellingham's views are shared by other members of the elitist establishment:

But leading criminal barrister John Cooper warned that the idea was dangerously flawed.

He said: "The law as it stands at the moment, despite its critics, is functioning. If you are in your house and you are attacked by someone or threatened by someone, you can use proportionate force.

"We do not live in the wild west. This legislation that is proposed effectively may well turn us into that."

I advise Mr Cooper to read a bit more widely before spouting off.

The "wild west" was actually very peaceful, especially compared to modern Britain:

The West during this time often is perceived as a place of great chaos, with little respect for property or life. Our research indicates that this was not the case: property rights were protected and civil order prevailed. Private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved.

Where's Marshall Will Kane when we need him? The voters want a lawman who will run the likes of Henry Bellingham and John Cooper out of town. We want justice for people like Tony Martin.

Prisoners' Dilemma

You've got children. They're at a state school. You want to take the family on holiday, but all the best deals are outside the school holiday period. Increasingly people - no, not you of course - are breaking the "rules" and going away during term time. It can save you 40% off the holiday price, and it may soon get you a criminal record:

Parents in Scotland could be fined as much as £1,000 or be sent to prison for up to a month - or both - if they take their children on holiday during term time, it emerged yesterday.

The Scotsman has an editorial (the 2nd one on the link) about this today:

... in many modern jobs, holidays rarely coincide with traditional school terms (which are based on agricultural seasons). Perhaps the long-term solution is to review the pattern of school terms and make them more flexible.

The question is: Why do all the schools have the same holiday periods? It's not as if many Glasgow children rush off to bring in the harvest once school is out for the summer. Surely this is just another example of what happens when (almost) all the schools are run by the state. We don't need a "long-term solution" in the form of a "review"; we need immediate action. Once again we can see why schools should be privatised. With hundreds of schools owned by many different entities it would be inconceivable for them to ignore the market demand for varied school holiday times. The state is not your friend.

Pay for your own games

It's not often that I agree with SNP politicians, but Peter Wishart MP is absolutely correct on the question of London's Olympic bid:

Mr Wishart said: "I have no problem with London hosting the Olympic Games in 2012, indeed I would support it. But I am strongly opposed to the UK taxpayer underwriting the entire cost, regardless of what that cost may finally be - and particularly when there is a danger of the London bid soaking up Lottery funding from Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. If London wants the Olympics, London should take financial responsibility"

"We already have the example of the Millennium Dome - where Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England were expected to pay the price."

Mr Wishart also reminds us of something to which I have seen no reference in the London media, namely that the decision to construct the new Edinburgh Parliament building was taken at Westminster by the UK Government.

"However, when the old Scottish Office (i.e. the pre-devolution entity) decided on the Holyrood project, Scotland is expected to pick up the tab, despite the fact the decisions were taken under the authority of the Cabinet in London."

Scottish voters had always assumed that our new Parliament would meet in the already available Royal High School building on Calton Hill.

So yes, if London is mad enough to want to host the Olympic Games it should fund them itself.

New links

I have added a couple of new links from this site.

First there is Eursoc, a useful source of information about the Frankenreich.

Then I have added a link to One Hand Clapping, the website of the Reverend Donald Sensing, a Methodist minister in Tennessee and a former US Army artillery officer. I recommend reading this post on possible US responses to a terrorist nuclear attack.

Schools need shareholders, not "charters"

I read that the teachers' trade union wants a new charter for pupils:

The document proposed by the EIS would cover areas including equality, access to teachers and the right to be taught free from disruption by unruly pupils.

The union wants children to be at the centre of the decision-making process.

This sounds like more of the politically correct nonsense that we expect from unions. What on earth does "equality" mean in this context? And who's stopping children from having "access" to their teachers at the moment? No one, I suspect. Freedom from disruption, on the other hand, is a fine idea, but the only problem is that it's incompatible with the very politically correct climate that teachers have done so much to create. Schools need to be free to get rid of disruptive pupils. They also need to be free to set the curriculum and to get rid of bad staff. That means employing professional not unionised teachers. In other words we need to privatise the lot of them.

Quote of the day

"It was all part of this terrible attack on people by those who had nothing better to do than to give advice on all sorts of subjects. These people, who wrote in newspapers and talked on the radio, were full of good ideas on how to make people better. They poked their noses into other people’s affairs, telling them to do this and to do that. They looked at what you were eating and told you it was bad for you; then they looked at the way you raised your children and said that was bad too. And to make matters worse, they often said that if you did not heed their warnings, you would die. In this way they made everybody so frightened of them that they felt they had to accept the advice."

... as spoken by Mma Precious Ramotswe in Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith.

Note this:

In an interview on the publisher's web site, Smith says he thinks the country of Botswana "particularly chimes with many of the values which Americans feel very strongly about -- respect for the rule of law and for individual freedom."

I had already read The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, McCall Smith's first book about Detective Ramotswe, and the theme of individual responsibility and personal freedom jumps out from almost every page. The heroine and her husband-to-be are both self-employed entrepreneurs with a deep respect for independence and a healthy distrust of politicians and government employees. Christmas has resulted in my now having the next four books in the series. I have little doubt that the libertarian theme running through McCall Smith's delightful books is one reason for their tremendous popularity.

Same old Labour

Professor Sir Donald Mackay has written an interesting analysis of Labour's economic policy - old and new:

One of the most influential economic tracts of the 1970s was entitled: Britain’s Economic Problem - Too Few Producers. Written by two Oxbridge economists, it argued that the UK’s poor economic performance was largely a consequence of a structural imbalance between the market and non-market sectors of the economy.

Prof Mackay thinks that Labour hasn't learnt the lesson of the 1970s. The same "structural imbalances" have returned.

The Labour government, thinks Prof Mackay,

... needs structural reform of public services to accompany increased funding, and a realisation that squeezing the market sector is no substitute for such reform. That simply compounds the underlying problem of how we can generate the additional resources to finance improved non-market services. Hence the borrowing spree on which the Chancellor is now embarked.

The experience recalls unhappier times. A friend summed it up neatly. Having listened to my lamentation, he remarked sagely: "New Labour - Same Problem."

Of course I think that only a tiny proportion of government activity can be justified - almost all of those "non-market services" should be, well, marketised. If the state is to continue to fund "public" services there is no earthly reason why it should also operate them. The running of schools and hospitals must be taken out of the hands of state employees if we are ever to see any improvement in Britain's education and health.

Another institution bent on self-destruction?

On Monday I wrote about the ban on a CD that mentioned Jesus. Readers will probably not be surprised by the angry comments in these letters in today's Scotsman. As Derrick McClure puts it:

This goes beyond mere ineptitude; it is one of the most crass, pathetic and shameful gestures ever reported of any public body in Scotland. The highest principle the clowns in the Scottish Executive and the hospital can think of is that of not giving offence.

Well, I am offended.

I suppose we could argue that the hapless hospital official who banned the CD was simply reflecting the values of his political paymasters, but what are we to make of a church advertising campaign that replaces Jesus with Santa Claus?

It's a traditional nativity scene with a difference. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds are all there in the stable - but the manger is occupied by a baby Santa Claus.

But one senior Scottish churchman is not amused that Santa has ousted Jesus from the crib.

The Rt Rev Michael Hare Duke, former Episcopalian Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, says the advert - which his own church has backed - will confuse people rather than help them to understand the Christmas message.

He said: "They have replaced the baby, who is essentially a historical person, with the mythological figure of Santa Claus.

"It will confirm what lots of non-churchgoers think about Christmas - that it’s a happy children’s fairytale."

A culture or a religion that does not stand up for its own values is doomed.

The attack on Western culture continues

The latest unlikely battlefield is an Edinburgh hospital:

THE Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh yesterday confirmed it has banned the distribution of a charity Christmas CD because it mentions the baby Jesus.

More than 150 copies of the disc, featuring traditional and new festive songs, were donated to the hospital to help raise the spirits of children receiving care over the festive period.

But hospital managers refused to pass it on, saying it could offend those who were not of a Christian faith.

Except of course this battlefield is not unlikely at all, is it? Any institution that is in receipt of the Blair pound is fair game in the relentless battle against British traditions, a battle that is obviously more important than music for sick children.

Sensible people like the well-known Muslim leader Bashir Maan are concerned:

"If somebody doesn’t want to listen to this, they don’t have to. This is political correctness gone mad," he said. "It is going too far and it is going to be counterproductive."

With all due respect to Bashir Mann this type of "political correctness" is not mad at all when we consider its purpose. It is designed to destroy our belief in liberal values and to render us helpless against the onward march of the servile state. British people have traditionally kept quiet in the face of provocations - until a breaking point is reached. Then, we get very angry. Bashir Mann probably realises that minority groups may be unfairly blamed when the backlash against political correctness finally explodes, as it will. We should be clear that political correctness is a virus that has infected large numbers of self-hating members of the West's own thinking classes. That's where the sickness must be acknowledged, rooted out, and utterly defeated.

What next?

Now it looks as though the starting date for the construction of the Scottish Parliament building may have been faked:

The Holyrood project was hit by a fresh political scandal last night when it emerged that construction companies were told they had to fit in with Labour’s election timetable if they wanted to win the main building contract.

Sir Robert McAlpine, one of the companies in the running for the contract, was told to make sure work appeared to start on site before the 1999 election so Labour politicians could claim the credit during the campaign.

Of course the Conservative-supporting McAlpine company didn't get the contract despite being the lowest bidder.

It's becoming difficult to keep up with the endless revelations that are coming to light in the public enquiry into this fiasco. Here's an interesting list of observations from today's Scotsman

• The reinstatement of Bovis for the main construction contract.

Bovis had been dropped from the shortlist by a panel of professionals on cost ground, because the company’s tender was too high. Yet Bovis was brought back unexpectedly by Barbara Doig the project manager and the company went on to be awarded the multi-million pound contract.

No-one has adequately explained why this happened.

• The decision to allow Bovis to change its tender.

Bovis had demanded hundreds of thousands of pounds to provide a parent company guarantee, a condition which made its bid one of the most expensive. This demand was dropped at the final interview and the company was awarded the contract, changing the basis on which it was judged by the Scottish Office.

Again, no-one has adequately explained why this was allowed to happen.

• The apparent breaking of EU tendering rules by failing to debrief McAlpine.

EU tendering regulations require public bodies to offer a debrief to losing tenderers.

This was not done by the Scottish Office despite several requests from McAlpine.

• The selection of Enric Miralles as the lead architect without adequate insurance.

Firms entering the design competition had to provide evidence they could secure public indemnity insurance of £5 million. Mr Miralles failed to do so but still ended up winning the Holyrood contract.

The way things are going I wouldn't be too surprised to see some statue toppling by irate Scottish taxpayers.

Come back Jim Callaghan, all is forgiven

Well maybe not, but it is looking rather like the 1970s again:

The International Monetary Fund says the Chancellor’s gamble that tax revenues will rise enough to pay for an extra £34 billion in borrowing over five years could backfire.

It accuses him of being over confident that the growth will produce enough extra cash to put Britain’s finances back in the black.

It's just as well that the Conservative "opposition" sees what's wrong with the economy, isn't it? But what's this:

The attack came as the Tories claimed that thousands more key public sector workers will find themselves sucked into paying the top 40 per cent rate of tax in the next ten years and find themselves forced to pay for Mr Brown’s "wasted" spending.

There are two things to note here. First, as I have written before, public sector employees don't actually pay any tax at all - their income tax is merely a bookkeeping entry in the government's accounts. The net pay of state workers is extracted by taxes (forcibly) levied on those who work in the private sector. Second, just how many government employees are going to vote Conservative anyway? It is in the class interest of public sector workers to increase the state's exploitation of the productive private sector. Surely the hapless Mr Letwin should be speaking on behalf of overtaxed non-state workers if the Tories are going to get anywhere.