Paul Flynn - Read My Day

Woes R us

Hardcore pessimism

The gloom banshee is in full New Year wail. Doom, misery, suffering is certain for 2008. That’s if you believe the self-serving letters from some pressure groups. Many boost the incidence and scale of their area of work. Every new year is a fresh crisis – worse than ever before, so  send us shed loads of money. A good number  of pressure groups are well-managed and do marvellous work. Their messages are welcome become they answer un-met needs in neglected areas. They have achieved great things. Others have gone in for bloated empire building.

A typical one is an invitation from Shelter Cymru inviting MPs to a sob-in in the Commons in February. 2008 will be a crunch year, they say,
Because of the credit crisis new solutions (i.e. more money) must be found for them. There is not a hint that anything went right last year. There never is. They operate a fatwa against good news.

Let me cheer them us with the simple facts. In the most recent period in Wales

•    The number of Welsh homeless in priority need fell by 9%
•    The number of households in temporary accommodation fell by 6%
•    Those in bed and breakfast fell by 46%.

Strange not a mention of this spectactular good news from Shelter Cymru. Of course, there are cases of distress which involve lack of decent housing but the majority of those described as 'homeless' have problems of addiction from alcohol and other drugs, mental health difficulties and family breakdown. Crudely lumping them together under the misleading title of 'homeless'  inhibits progress.

P.O.W. rage

Tonight's key Euro vote will disappoint the anti-Europeans. They confidently forecast that 120 Labour MPs will rebel. It is likely to be less than 30. With enthusiastic Lib Dem support the Government majority should be secure.

Although some tabloids have tried to incite letters to MPs only a handful have reached me. One persistent e-mailer yesterday from another constituency fulminated.  She was against the treaty because her father was a Prisoner of War of the Germans. So was my father. He was grateful for the life saving medical treatment he had from the Germans.

It’s dismal that so many fossils are still fighting the world wars of the last century. Have they no vision? Our future crises are global warming, the divide between the Muslim and Christian worlds, civil wars, disease and starvation. These are daunting challenges that can only be solved if we work in partnership in Europe and with the rest of world.

Happily tonight Parliament will vote to tackle the problems of tomorrow not those of yesterday.

Train v Car

Not the journey from hell – but certainly from purgatory.

I fly as little as possible. I drive four times a year to my Council of Europe meetings in Strasbourg. It’s a gruelling 10-hour journey with 8 hours of driving.  I leave at 8.00 am and arrive at 7.00pm. Yesterday I went by trains, encouraged by the new TGV from Paris to Strasbourg,

I caught the 8.03 from Newport. It took an hour before the train finally headed in the general direction of London after taking in a tour of the West country including Bath and Bristol. It arrived an hour later than timetabled. The transfer to the Eurostar from Paddington to  St Pancras should be a doddle. Just 5 stops on the Circle Line. Alas the Circle and most of the District lines were closed down (Sunday). I had to hot foot to the taxi rank

The Eurostar left on time, but problems meant we were transferred to another train at Lille. That took 20 minutes. The delay  cut the time to walk from Gare de Nord to Gare de L’Est.  I made it with about 10 minutes to spare. It was all too close for comfort and I would have missed the train if I had not left long gaps between the connections. I left home at 7.30 am and reached Strasbourg at 7.00 pm.

It was more relaxing with a chance to catch up with the Sunday papers but it was not worth the constant nagging anxiety.

Next time, I’ll let the car take the strain.

Milliband PM

Brown Blairite
I’m reluctant to be impressed by politicians. Having seen it all, done most of it and suffered hope and serial dis-illusionment, I am warily cynical of aspirant statepersons.

My first impression of David Milliband took a long time to shift. He was just a  a precocious schoolboy who hung around Downing Street. He still looks impossibly young. I half-expect him to ask me if he can borrow the car keys or learn the facts of life.

As Foreign Secretary his stature grows. A ‘Blairite for Brown’ his new job has liberated rather than suffocated him. Last week at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting I asked him a question that would have driven his two predecessors on   to the resentful defensive.

“When we know that they can be no military solution in Afghanistan why did we not halt the expulsion of the two Pashtun speaking diplomats who were succeeding in winning the struggle for hearts and minds?”

His energetic head nodding when I asked the question encouraged me. His answer agreed. But these meetings are confidential and I will resist publishing the full details of his startling reply.

Elsewhere he has set out his four main progressive priorities - tackle terrorism and WMD, cut inequality with low-carbon high-growth aid, reduce conflict and finally strengthen international institutions that acknowledge the interdependence of nations.

He is still being cautiously diplomatic on Bush’s war mongering on Iran and North Korea. But he has little wriggle room.

As our thoughts turn to the earliest date of the General Election in May 2010, the prospects for the boy David are appealing. Two more long years of mutual destruction by Cameron and Brown will leave them battle-scarred and weary.

If candidates for change are still in demand, Milliband may well redeem Labour.

Clegg’s clangers
New Lib-Dems Leader has been suprisingly weak after the shock success of Vincent Cable.

Nick Clegg’s first two outings concentrated on repeating the exaggerated doom laden claims of pressure groups. He said that 25,000 people die of cold every winter in Britain.

On average that would be 78 people dying of cold in Newport every year. Months ago, I challenged the charity that made this claim to produce as many as  25 examples. If the claim is true I would like to know the details and try to do something about it.

Of course, no details came back. Only the figures that show that more people die in the winter than in the summer. That’s has always been the case in all corners of the world. There are many reasons. If cold was the main cause then more people would in severe winters than in mild ones. There is no correlation.

Why did the allegedly bright Clegg open his attack with an absurd claim? The cerebral Vincent was aghast. At least he can count.

Solution seeking problem
Two of the witnesses at the Public Administration this week had the unusual names of Selwyn Image and Sylvia Sham.

I was asked to be brief when I questioned Mr Image of the homeless charity Emmaus.  Now that homelessness is decreasing why are the number of homeless charities increasing? Is Emmaus a solution in search of a problem? Why did he establish the charity in South Cambridgeshire – not exactly a hellhole of social deprivation?

Mr Image gave vigorous defensive replies. Emmaus are doing fine work in de-toxing former prisoners, he said.. Great. Here is an unfashionable area where few charities operate. Why not concentrate on this rather than swell the overcrowded aid provided to a dwindling number of homeless.

Forgotten
If Peter Hain leaves his job, ‘his will have been the most high profile departure of a Welsh Secretary ever’ says blogger Normal Mouth in Golwg.

Out of sight and out of mind already is the unfortunate Ron Davies

Gossamer sleaze

Virtue besmirched
They are now nearly a 100 MPs under investigation for mini- crimes, nano-peccadilloes, sleaze free-scandals and virtuous incompetence.

The giggling opposition Schandenfreude of the ‘cash for peerages’ probe is replaced by a clutch of fear now the sword of Damocles is poised over a hundred heads.

Sleaze-watch is set to become as regular a feature of news reporting as the weather forecast. Legislators provide the additional service of entertainment for voyeurs who cluck in derision from their elevated moral ground. One was howled at for using a quad bike even though it is the only vehicle his MS allows him to drive.

The public is outraged because their MPs are not all fit for canonisation. Some have character blemishes, human frailties or been caught in possession of an impure thought or a crease in their knickers.

Yet in spite of an epidemic of ephemeral gossamer sleaze, we still rank in the top rank of the least corrupt nations in the world.

It’s all in the mind - perceptions overcooked by our venal prostituted media.

Spooking spooks

Tyrone O’Sullivan is a towering hero. It was his chutzpah and courage that extended the life of Tower Colliery after it had been condemned to death by Thatcher. It’s a rare example of socialist enterprise and a fulfilment of the co-operative ideal. Yet Tyrone was spied on as an enemy of the state. I was proud to be there on January 2nd 1995 when the miners marched back to Tower.

In March 1985, Cathy Massiter, an MI5 officer who left the service after 12 years, made disclosures to a Channel 4 programme that the telephone lines of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and National Council for Civil Liberties had been tapped. They also took a close interest in the miners.

Since the war hundreds of communists and socialists have been investigated by the secret services. In that time not a single spy has been found. But MI5 and the SIS were riddled with spies in the service of the Soviet Empire. It would have been more efficient if the socialists had been tapping the phones of MI5 and the SIS.

Deep mining is over at Tower but the company continues. It will now supply more than 60 men and equipment to work on the development and exploitation of the newly-opened Aberpergwm drift mine in the Neath Valley.

Peter Hain said yesterday, “The prospect of a renaissance of the coal industry in Wales is very exciting. In June last year I visited Aberpergwm, which produces around 500,000 tonnes each year of quality low sulphur coal for Aberthaw coal-fired power station and the domestic market. Exploring the full potential of clean coal must be central to our efforts to reduce carbon emissions and establishing secure, cleaner sources of energy supply.”

Flood doom
The answer to repeated flooding is not more compensation or subsidised cheap insurance.

Large areas of my constituency have been built below high tide level. In 1987 I made a plea to the flood authorities to raise the level of the sea wall because of global warming.

The first reply I had was dismissive and patronising. They explained that global warming ‘was an unproven theory.’ Two years later I had another reply with a different signature saying they would raise the sea wall.

In a storm surge in 1988, waves overtopped the  wall and lightly flooded the Lighthouse car park. The whole reenscape area has not been flooded since the disaster of 1607 that was probably caused by a tsunami.

Although there is no immediate threat, one newly built house on the moors has been constructed on ground that has been raised above the surrounding level. It is known locally as the ‘House on the hill.’ It’s a wise way to gain peace of mind.

Yesterday, there was a news report of a house that had been flooded four times already this year. When will the owner recognise that only radical re-building will help? No insurance could be economic. The house should be either bulldozed or made flood-proof. The downstairs has to become a concrete basement without electricity or other services at low levels. All flood water vulnerable property should be permanently located upstairs.

It is neither reasonable nor affordable to protect homes that will be a permanent burden on other insurers or on flood protection services. We need more homes on hills.

Tax heist

Extortion

‘That’ll be £14 each or £35 per family ‘

Without a blush or hesitation, the taxpayers of Wales are being asked to cough up more Farm Tax. That’s on top of the £540 that the average family pays every year to the dependency culture of farming.

The Welsh Media have fallen again for the poverty whinge. Because animal prices fluctuated for a brief period last year, the farm unions are demanding £40 million of poor relief.  All the news reports were sympathetic without a single challenging question.

Last year farm incomes greatly increased. If they want more when things go wrong, why do they not pay back the handouts when their income goes up?

The farming unions are mute on the seven times inflation increase in farm incomes in 2006-07 compared with 2005-06. The average increase in all farming types was 24.6 per cent, with larger increases of 33 per cent. in mixed farming, 88 per cent. In lowland grazing livestock, 119 per cent. In general cropping and 120 per cent in cereals. This year’s increase in cereals income will be even greater.

Anyone heard a peep from BBC Wales about this sensational good news? Yet, they lead their bulletins today on the £40 million demand - another chapter of the farm misery myth.

In the past week in addition to the Alpha Steel redundancies, 41 low paid workers in Newport West have been declare redundant.  Apart from their statutory entitlement, they will not get a penny from their employers or the Welsh Assembly Government to top up their redundancy payments. All of them contributed their £540 to farmers last year.

Nothing changes. It’s the rich that gets the handouts. It’s the poor that gets the blame.

Disappearing bollocks
Matthew Parris involves me in a dastardly piece of Commons Chicanery.

Rotund Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth was recorded in Hansard as intervening from a sedentary position when a Tory said that our troops were under equipped. Hansard the next day recorded him as coming up with the accurate and pithy rejoinder  'Absolute Bollocks.’

After a kafuffle, the offending words were removed from Hansard and will not appear in the bound edition or on line.

In the Times this morning Matthew Parris writes: - ‘I dislike the cavalier spirit that simply kicks awkward truths aside, as though failing even to acknowledge something means it isn't there. Owing something to modern marketing, and something to the old Soviet Union, this marriage of the Kremlin with PR consultancy is very Gordon Brown. As Paul Flynn, MP, once said of new Labour, his party: “Only the future is certain. The past is always changing.”

It’s true of all parties.

Future Gale

Tomorrow a national newspaper will carry a story of a Tory MP who allegedly charges to take visitors around the House of Commons.

The charge is for his staff time. All MPs can claim £90,000 for staff. A small amount is available for simple hospitality.  I know of no way that charging visitors  can be legitimate. It's part of our job and we are already paid for it.

The money in not being trousered by the MP but is passed on to his Party. Commendable enterprise or micro sleaze? The Commons authorities will judge.

Those who sow the wind are reaping the whirlwind. There will be more gales to come.

Pseudo news

Daily Ignorance
A wonderful book is on the way. It will change the way we think about journalism.

The last two major ventures by award winning journalist Nick Davies were on poverty in the Thatcher years and a television series ‘The Drug laws don’t work.’ Both had profound effects. Nick is no ordinary journalist. He takes single specific issues and spends years researching them.

On February 7th Nick Davies will launch Flat Earth News. His main revelation is that the mass reporting of news has been subverted into the mass production of ignorance. He makes a passionate appeal to return to truth-telling journalism.

Davies, with specialists from Cardiff University, found thousands of news items that are unchecked second-hand material from wire agencies and PR firms. Sophisticated techniques of propaganda produce pseudo news on a huge scale.

He uncovers how a prestigious Sunday paper allowed the CIA and MI6 to plant fiction in its columns: the newsroom that rejects stories about black people: a fraudster hired by a paper to entrap politicians: a law and order paper paying cash bribes to detectives.

Gullible readers have been conditioned to believe falsehoods as untrue as the belief that earth is flat. Today all papers woefully mis-reported Peter Hain’s reception in parliament yesterday. All negative comments were relayed. Supportive ones disregarded. Witnessing many major events at first hand, I know how routine distortion is.

Flat Earth News will be a great read.

Grabit and run
My previous confident forecast that MPs could not accept the recommended pay rise is under challenge.

The Telegraph lead story today is that we will. I still think it’s baloney. There are a few Labour and many Tory MPs who are canvassing acceptance. They argue that whatever decision is made the media will damn MPs as greed merchants. They cannot do anything more to condemn than they have done already..

One pointed out to me that the Telegraph listed our pay and expenses as ‘The Gravy Train’.  The line ‘Let’s grab the cash and let the press do their worse.’ is certainly heard in the Commons Tea Room. Some are backing the Police iIn the hope that will lubricate a similar above inflation one for MPs.

In the days of Thatcher, MPs did defy a PM and vote for a mammoth increase recommended by a tribunal. Circumstances were different.
It won’t happen again.

Secret
Yesterday’s brightest news were figures showing record employment growth. In the last three months 175,000 more people have found a job, while the number of people claiming unemployment benefit fell to its lowest level for over 30 years.  Thought you might like to know that. It did not make many headlines.

Accidental Triumph
Peter Hain has chalked one, probably unprecedented, achievement for a Welsh Secretary of State. Welsh Questions and the subsequent meeting of the Welsh Labour Group confirmed it.

He has united Welsh Labour MPs.

Malice in miniature

Lynching frustrated

Salivating Tories promised blood on the Commons carpet today after the planned lynching of Peter Hain. They fired up the 24 news channels that, for the first time, carried Welsh Questions live.

What a damp squib. There was a glorious chorus of Welsh MPs praising Peter in close harmony. The attacks were snide, miniature and mousey. Cameron did not go on the attack at PMs question time because he knows that more sago is about to hit the fan and fly in his direction.

There is a warning in the The Times today:

“..Mr Osborne's donations are more alarming. He is potentially the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would have the power to levy taxes and regulate business. The idea that money has been funnelled into his office from wealthy individuals who presumably have commercial interests and pet policies of their own foments distrust of him, his party and politics more broadly.”

Yesterday the Tories dropped the planned debate on pensioners and switched to a vindictive Hain-bashing line. They tripped themselves up and they will be embarrassed when they read their speeches tomorrow in Hansard.

Peter Hain gave a scholarly seminar explaining the laws of National Insurance to the opposition. Another flop. Perhaps they'll raised the subject next week. Now they understand a little bit about it.

£5,000 parking ticket

Adam Price MP dismisses the punishment of three Plaid MPs for their sleazy use of public money as no more serious than a parking ticket.

The Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges found the Plaid threesome guilty of using £15,000 of taxpayers’ money for party political campaigning. Setting aside the hypocritical opportunism of their opposition to the communication allowance then splurging it, it’s still a major offence. Many of the Tories who also voted against the allowance have declined to claim it. That’s consistent.

The scale of the offence is not unconnected with the size of the sum that Adam must repay. £5,000 is on the high side for a parking ticket.

Torchwood Rules

The British and American popular cultures are merging.

Although my visitors from New York yesterday have never heard of Goldie Looking Chain they are all great fans of Torchwood.

The success of BBC Wales in sending images of Cardiff across the world is immense. The series is being screened on High Definition Channels in Canada and the U.S. An anagram of Doctor Who, Torchwood is the work of the same brilliant Welsh writer Russell Davies and the Doctor Who team.

The explosion of creative exuberance in Wales has been inspired by the success of a Welsh Fourth Channel, devolved institutions and a burgeoning Welsh self confidence. For two centuries the best Welsh creative talent migrated to London.  The process is now reversed and Wales is the new magnet for those seeking artistic distinction.

Great work, BBC Wales.

Carpets – not bagged

A sinister political game is infecting the Northern Rock saga.

The two hedge funds whose machinations were resisted yesterday have strong Tory connections.

RAB Capital is, according to the Electoral Commission register, historically a Conservative donor. In March 2001, when William Hague was leader, it gave £10,000. RAB Capital says in its 2006 annual report that "in 2005 a payment of £3,000 was made to the Conservative Party" but no donation appears on the Electoral Commission register (rightly, because the reporting threshold is £5,000). RAB Capital's Co-founder Michael Alen-Buckley did give £50,000 in March 2006 and a further £50,000 in March 2007.

The hedge funds bought late into Northern Rock when the shares values had plummeted. They hoped to make a quick buck if the shares recovered. While there is great sympathy for the losses of long term shareholders, we can hold back the sympathy for speculators. Particularly hard-hit are those who are both shareholders and employees.

The majority of the shareholders yesterday put two fingers up to the carpet baggers.

The Tories are, of course, trying to dump the blame on the Government. If the Government had not acted, the run on Northern Rock could have created a panic that would have wrecked confidence in the whole financial system and set off a runaway slump.

Certain is a howl of counterfeit indignation from the Tories whatever happens.

New Europe wisdom

‘New Europe’ is fighting back against the Neo-Cons.
The former communist countries of Eastern Europe seamlessly accepted the benign domination of the world’s only superpower after decades under the malign domination of the Soviet Union superpower. It was comfortable and familiar to slip again into their small nation/ big brother role.
Bush hailed them as New Europe backing his Iraq disaster, rather then Old Europe which took an independent line. He assumed that they would be a soft touch for US nuclear bases. He justified this escalation of terror because of the mighty threat from the uber-nations of .........North Korea and Iran???

The docile Czechs appeared to be happy to have a radar station on their land that would make their country a target for future nuclear aggressors. This week a new poll proves new strong opposition. Majority support has changed to 70% opposition. The Czech Social Democrats, who are 9% up in the polls, are demanding a referendum to oppose the US plans.

These are very healthy signs that Bush’s belligerent plans will unravel and the world will be a safer, less confrontational place.  Strange that here we are comatose about Menwith Hill. We have generously offered ourselevse as the first strike casualties of a nuclear exchange for so long, that we no longer resist.

Croeso

A bracing stimulating morning with an exceptionally lively group of American students.

 

They cross-examined me about Commons traditions, global warning, the NHS, election funding, Welsh devolution immigration and the next US president.

The answer that always shocks Americans is that I spend a mere £4,000 every 4-5 years getting elected. They are used to money being the main lubricant of American politics.  Their senators are exceptionally well rewarded with pay and perks. It is worthwhile for one of them Trent Lott to resign to become a lobbyist. He can use his influence to add a few ‘0’s to his income in the pork barrel orgy of greed.
Even good idealistic candidates are pressured to sell their souls to the arms trade, pharmaceutical industry and the gun lobby. As Michigan is in the spotlight now, candidates are terrified of opposing gas-guzzling, environment-ruining SUVs, for fear of frightening the voters.

In spite of our incurable moaning, there are still great merits in our system. The sharp questioning of the American students showed them to fine ambassadors of their nation. Compassionate with needle-sharp intelligence, they are welcome to make a return visit at any time.

Crumblies cull.
Two senior Labour MPs have been de-selected.

Their local party have voted in younger candidates for the next General Election. Former gravedigger and redcoat, Frank Cook was dropped after 24 years in Stockton in favour of a local councillor. He has been a good MP especially in international affairs.

Also dropped is veteran anti-war Labour MP Bob Wareing.  He has vowed to stand against New Labour after his constituency party deselected him from his Merseyside seat in favour of former minister Stephen Twigg. Bob blames New labour but his local support was very thin.

In a previous parliament a globe trotting MP was de-selected from his Bootle seat because he ‘spent too much time abroad’. He indignantly denied this is a call to the Guardian. Unfortunately his case was weakened when he explained that he speaking from his hotel in Kathmandu.

The over-70s are an atrociously under-represented minority in parliament. Its time to call a stop to the cull, heavens knows where it will lead. (Interest declared)

Feeding the beast

Mini-sleaze

New Year day was celebrated by Welsh Labour MPs tonight with a modest bash.

The Gwaun valley in the west still marks the Julian calendar and celebrates the New Year in mid January. That’s one explanation. A more plausible one was that the Commons’ Jubilee Room was booked early for Christmas parties and the Welsh group missed out.

There was a good turn-out from parliamentarians and journos. Peter Hain was in buoyant mood among friends. There was a discussion on whether the interviews Peter’s friends are doing are just feeding the media beast. Is it time to starve it?

The Tories issued a nonsensical series of questions to Peter that they know will never be answered. The intention is to squeeze another day’s publicity out the witch hunt.  Gordon Brown’s strident vote of confidence in Peter was twisted by the media into a threat to sack him. Gordon said nothing of the sort.

An entirely supportive interview I gave on Radio Four at lunchtime was headlined in a lobbyist’s e-mail as ‘MP says Hain will get slap on the wrists.’ That the only half –negative, half-sentence I uttered as the likely most serious sanction he might have.

No one repeated my main message that, ‘The media believe that politicians are innocent until they are proved to be Labour.’

Still no answer to my plea on what crime Peter has committed. After all the frantic probing not a speck of sleaze has been found. We know he has not perpetrated the ignored sleaze of the opposition parties. He has not used public money for party propaganda – as Plaid did. He had not taken illegal money from foreign donors – as David Cameron did. He has not taken £2million of stolen money from a man who is now in jails- as the LibDems did.

The answer is that big sleaze is invisible; it’s nano-sleaze that the media seeks.

So little news is about they ran a main headline on a baby rescued from a flood. Exciting stuff? Not really. Even allowing for a bit of journalistic hyperbole, they claim that the flood was only a foot and a half deep. Not exactly a life and death situation.

If they are looking for a sensational story, they should write an account of the disgraceful dumping of at least 21 staff from their print shop with abysmal redundancy terms.

That’s a real story. Funny how papers are infallible on all issues except the ones that are going on under their noses.

Mini scoop

Dire days for the Local Newport paper the Argus.

So little news is about they ran a main headline on a baby rescued from a flood. Exciting stuff? Not really. Even alloawing for a bit of journalistic hyperbole, they claim that the flood was only a foot and a half deep. Not exactly a life and death situation.

If they are looking for a sensational story, they should write an account of the disgraceful dumping of at least 21 staff from their print shop with abysmal redundancy terms.

Out of sight..

Darkness Invisible

One visible life is more important than a billion invisible lives. That’s the perception of Radio Five listeners last night.

I pressed Clare Short to improve the work of our overseas aid through employing television camera crews in what was then her department. That would create rational decisions on allocating aid to the most pressing needs. Now public sympathy is engaged by whoever gets in front of a television cameras.

There was a tidal wave of compassion for the starving in Ethiopia in 1986. The reason was that Michael Burke and BBC television camera crew had a weekend free and were looking for a fresh story. The result was Live Aid and a stirring of the conscience of the world.

It would need a heart of stone not to be moved by this week’s pictures of the woman refused treatment in her own country of Ghana. The humane, compassionate reaction of decent people is to cry outrage and demand that her treatment here continues. The outcry may help her. A hectoring presenter on Radio Five last night provoked a 60% to 40% ‘vote’ in favour of treatment in the NHS. He was anything but impartial in his line that anyone opposed was a mean minded callous bastard.

The hearts are ruling the heads. By implying that we can be the NHS for the developing world, we cruelly create expectations that cannot be fulfilled. If this lady is returned here, there will be a sigh of satisfaction from the 60% believing that the problem has been solved. One down: a billion to go.

If camera crews were daily reporting the agonies of far away continents, we may begin to direct our campaigns to the massive problems not to a single individuals. I am haunted by the news that 2 million inhabitants of the America weigh more than 40 stones after crippling their bodies through over-eating. This in a world with 183 million starving people.

But they, like the victims of civil wars and treatable diseases, are all out of sight.

Elfyn's Brain-quake

Nobody dislikes the avuncular Elfyn Llwyd MP.

I owe him a debt of gratitude for helpful advice when I was in a hole. But he was wrong not to apologise to Peter Hain when he falsely accused him of offering a peerage to the late Peter Law. I told him so at the time.

But today was his foulest hour. On the Politics show, he described the now famous PPF fund as a ‘slush fund’ without a grain of evidence. Presumably he had lobotomised the half of his brain that holds the memory of his own recent ignominy.

A genuinely angry Don Touhig reminded Elfyn that the Commons Standards Committee had found him guilty of using public money for party election propaganda. That’s real, copper-bottomed, 24 carat, proven sleaze.

This jump-started Elfyn’s pre-frontal lobes. He remembered that he had ‘offered to resign from the committee’ after being ordered to repay £5,000 ‘but the committee would not accept my resignation.’ Huh? Didn’t you insist, Elfyn?

It was relief to hear that Elfyn has refused to sit on the committee when it’s judging Peter Hain. Just as well as he has already condemned Peter as guilty before he has heard the evidence.

Lovely chap, Elfyn. But not one to have on a jury.

New Labour: New Puritans

A mad delusion has infected a junta of otherwise sensible Labour MPs.

One ex-minister e-mailed me a year ago with the message that Labour is seeking to end all prostitution- an ambition not achieved by any other civilisation.

This miraculous change will be created by punishing the male customers of prostitutes in addition to the female providers. Their argument is reinforced with the claim that 25,000 prostitutes in this country have been trafficked here and are working under duress. The true figure is probably about 250. The total that has found so far is 85. They dismiss the possibility that many are willingly plying their trade for business reasons.

One minister has just visited Sweden. They have  recently changed their laws with uncertain results. Apparently he has not talked to the real experts – the collectives of prostitutes. Nor did he visit Denmark which has legalised prostitution and reduced problems of health and crime.

This crusade is driven by a manic bigotry. They’ll be tears before bedtime

Sleaze free scandal

Mandelsonian myths
The pundits are wrong. Perception no longer rules.

Stuck in the Blair-Mandelsonian era of error, Martin Shipton and others have been prophesying doom for Peter Hain. That’s how resignations once happened.

The Blair Government were neurotically hooked on a daily drip feed of media adulation. They hungered for the fix of approval. Five days of criticism and they broke. If a minister was the victim of the media lynch mob and a firm sleaze perception was lodged in the public’s mind, the minister had to go – regardless of the merits of the accusation. The media ruled.

Not now. Peter Hain did not go today. He is standing firm. The Daily Mail must not have the say in hiring and firing ministers. That’s the Government’s job. Rising above the smears and innuendos, Peter emphatically asserted his fitness for office, today.

The Tories have not called for his resignation – apart from Monmouth’s David Davies and he does not count. The opposition parties are terrified of inquiries into their own murky areas. They have far more to hide.

Gordon Brown has learnt from the past. Having abased himself before the supremacy of the media, Peter Mandelson followed his own logic and obeyed when the media demanded his scalp. Once was a bit excessive on his mortgage application.  But his resignation for the Hinduga brothers’ passports incident was barmy. He was not involved in any way as the subsequent inquiry proved.

This time, Peter Hain will be found guilty of concentrating more on his jobs in Northern Ireland and Wales than on his personal affairs.  He is also guilty of not keeping a firm check that others were doing their jobs properly. And that’s it.  However carefully  the committees inquire they will find no sleaze in this scandal.

Peter’s friends gave the money willingly.  They could not have been seeking advantages as most of the cash was donated after he lost the chance to be deputy leader. Nothing in the accusations makes Peter unfit for ministerial office.

There is a united Hallelujah chorus of praise from his Labour colleagues. All know him to be decent, honourable man of integrity. Sleaze? Forget it. Look in the direction of the Tories.

Honour the gallant

Yesterday saw the start of a bid to have a new statue in Newport.

Raymond Steed was the youngest fatality of the 1939-45 war. Aged 14 he joined a ship at Newport docks and served as a galley boy. He was killed when the ship was torpedoed in the Mediterranean and he is buried in Morocco.

Bert Bale, other Merchant Navy Association representatives and I met in the Civic Centre yesterday to launch a fund to erect a bronze statue of Raymond. Several members of the family are still living in Newport and they are very excited and supportive.

The campaign will launched an appeal next week and our high ambition is to have the statue in place before 2010 for this unique Newport hero. We plan a meeting with Newport Unlimited to discuss possible sites. An indoor one is favoured

Soothed to death

A new book published today could be subtitled ‘How to Poison Baby’.

It’s the terrifying history of our grandparents’ medicines.
The origin of these mass medications owe more to witch doctors than science. Potions were concocted on guesswork, given an eye-catching name and promoted to the masses as panaceas.

The best were the ones that contained no active ingredients. But they were few. The New York Tribune lambasted cruel neglectful parents who did not dose their babies with Mrs Winslow’s soothing syrup. The blurb said it had been ‘used for 50 years by millions of mothers with perfect safety and success.’

Well not quite. Two tablespoons were enough to kill a baby, and they often did. Its main original ingredient was a grain of morphine per dose. It certainly soothed babies - often into a comatose state.  After 50 years of enormous popularity the makers were forced to drop the morphine. They replaced it with bromide and alcohol in 1909. That lasted 20 years and the product was finally abandoned in 1960s.

They are dozens of other scary stories on the gullibility of our ancestors. Sadly many over marketed drugs are still major killers.