Mountain war

Tito survives
The first snow for two years in Ljubljana was a worrying reminder of the vagaries of Global Warming. But it was a great boost to our parliamentary delegation visiting the mountain warfare centre in the Austrian Alps that border Slovenia.

The invading Germans used the mountain training school in 1941 when Italians occupied the south of he country.  An officer told me of his terrible choice in 1991 when Slovenia declared independence and was attacked by the Yugoslav Army. He was then a serving officer in the Yugoslav Army. All Slovenes were asked to choose. Those who remained in the Yugoslav Army are now pariahs and not welcome in Slovenia.

Most Slovenes were more attached to Slovenia than Yugoslavia and our host joined the embryo Slovenian Army. They laid siege to the mountain school and cut off food, water and electricity. The Yugoslav Army surrendered in two days.

The war of liberation lasted 10 days and 200 were killed. It was the first state to break away from Yugoslavia.

One visible reminder of the time of Yugoslav rule is the word TITO carved in the cliff high above the mountain school. The Slovene soldiers have tried to get rid of it but it is carved too deeply into the rock surface. It is as difficult to move as Tito himself was in his remarkably long period of keeping Yugoslavia as one country.

Hain's new job

Hain follows Murphy – again.
I have lost count how often Peter Hain has followed Paul Murphy into jobs – and vice versa.
Peter said it was becoming a bit incestuous. It’s happened again. Tonight the result was announced on the election of the new Chair of the British Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body to replace Paul Murphy.  It was thought to be a consolation prize for Paul when he lost the Northern Ireland post last time. He won an election then  against Andrew McKinley. Peter did the same today.
Andrew must be a little despondent as one of the longest serving members of the body. The job he wants  more than any other in parliament  has been  taken away from him again by another partly sympathy vote for an ex-Minister.

Heigh ho.

Crisis Mongering

Speaker Michael Martin’s spokesman Mike Granatt told my Select Committee this morning that his speciality was ‘crisis management'.

'But you took a crisis and turned it into a disaster’ was the fair comment by a committee member.

Mr Granatt, a former top Whitehall communications official became Mr Martin's spokesman in May 2005. He said "The one mistake I made was in believing that the standards and behaviour of employees and staff in Whitehall over 25 years I would find elsewhere."   

We asked who had misled him; Mr Granatt said he was "not prepared to go into details of names or places... It wasn't the Speaker and it wasn't, as it was put to me, Mrs Martin."

So that is settled.