New world born-unseen

At 6.00 a.m. this morning in a cavernous room in the Treasury, one man sat at his desk and signed a large number of documents. He was alone and no one was there to record the major event of Momentous Monday.

Alistair Darling paused to contemplate that the amazing nationalisation of British Banks, an event not anticipated by anyone, would pass unwitnessed. This in an age where every major event is recorded meticulously.

Alistair had several other moments throughout the day to announce this bold move. It must have been very gratifying to see that the world markets reacted with big rises in values of stocks and share. The announcements in French and German this afternoon closely followed the Gordon Brown formula for the Euro zone. The  British solution is being copied in France, Germany and the USA.

The Tories were left fretting and foolish. The extraordinary events of the last two weeks have changed politics and the world of finance for a generation.

The new world has been conceived in Britain.

Climbdown

Without much grace the Home Secretary buried the foolish idea of 42 days detention.

There was a fig leaf of an emergency bill that ‘might be invoked’ one day. It will not be. The original 90 days was designed to put the Tories on the back foot as being soft on terror. That was Blair’s first defeat. The Lords hammered the revised proposal of 42 days tonight.

I voted against both. Not that I am soft on terrorism but I am convinced that both bills would have increased the threat of new attacks. If either 90 or 42 days became law, there would have been mistakes. The people who would have been interned unjustly would not have been white Christian boys. That would have deepened ethnic resentment and recruited new terrorists.

The Home Secretary believes in ‘tough’ laws. Many of her fellow parliamentarians believe in intelligent laws. The 42 days clause should now be buried in a deep grave, covered with a slab of concrete and never aroused from its dishonoured grave.

Bankers blame

As certain as night follows day, a new parrot cry will appear in at least half of messages received by MPs. It will be ‘If  £billions can be found to rescue the bankers, why cannot money be found for X, Y or Z?’

Sadly it is not wise or possible to open the floodgates for all financial demands. The present approval of Government could switch to resentment. To nail the culprits, I asked Alistair Darling at a meeting of the PLP tonight to call in the police.

The bankers must not be allowed to hang on to their ill-gotten gains. If a repetition of the crash is to be avoided, the greedy culprits must found and punished.

Crash vote

In Canada House on Wednesday at 7.30am, there will be live coverage of the results of the Canadian General election. It has had no publicity here in spite of the close relationship between the UK and Canada.

The present Government is a minority Conservative one. The intriguing feature will be to see if the voters blame and punish the incumbent Government for the financial crash.

I suspect not. But whatever happens will create fear or hope in other governments in the Western World.

Passport future

Before any new panic breaks out on the future of the Passport Service, the following plans have been outlined. While minor re-configuration is possible, no major upheaval is planned. The unions were informed yesterday. As one of the MPs for Newport I discussed the matter briefly yesterday with Minister Meg Hillier and MP Jessica Morden.

The Identity and Passport Service is facing a tremendous amount of change over the next five years or so. Demand for passports wll fall - 6.6 million passports issued in 2005/6 reducing to 5.9 million in 2007/8 and estimated to remain around 5.4 million over the next three years. They will start issuing Identity cards for foreign nationals from next month and will be introducing the first identity cards for UK and EU citizens from late next year. Given all this, their future business will need to change.

Therefore IPS from 2012:

 

·         Shall become an online business where, over time, most of our customers will deal with us over the internet. Where customers want or need to deal with us in person we should be as close to the customer as possible – in their local high street if we can.

·         IPS could cost-effectively be in every high street.  We shall therefore use agents (as we use the Post Office today) to extend our reach and deliver service. We shall deliver service ourselves where it is necessary to ensure timely and universal provision.

·         IPS shall deliver the services which they provide directly to customers through two networks, supported by a headquarters function. The first network will be Customer Services Offices, based on existing counter services and interview offices around the country. This is where people will go when they need to see IPS staff in person, for example, for an interview or in an emergency.  The second network will be the six Application Processing Centres, based on current regional offices.

·         Shall continue to contract out to business partners those activities which IPS do not have the capabilities to provide themselves or where partners can be more cost-effective.

·         Shall retain within IPS the core competencies of making entitlement decisions, ensuring the integrity of the business and being an intelligent customer for their agents and partners.

Comments

[John]

The Canadian election is a signpost for the worlds future. Are they going to perpetuate tne Bush clone Harper with his flagrent import of US style policies. Or are we going to see a swing to a more liberal environmentally aware age in Canada that may signal a similair move furthur south in November.
Will the population finally see through the fear generated by exagerating crime and the dangers of drug use. I really do hope so. With almost 18% of Canadians being regular users of cannabis they have their own personal experience of the benign nature of this currently illegal drug (of course it is not risk free) and the comparative lethal affects of alcohol and tobacoo in their society.
I hold Canada as the freeest Country in the world with a vibrant economy that is only held back by the current Conservative Goverment.If I had the skills and age on my side I would have fled this country years ago to live in Canada.
As I write according to the pre election day polls it looks like the greens are going to make substantial gains from last time...fingers crossed.

[paulflynn]

Thank John. I am certainly no friend of Harper and would love to see his downfall. He appaers to have messed things up in Quebec but gained elsewhere because the Canadian economy is in a better state than the American one.

I hope to be in Canad House at 7.30 tomorrow to see the improved situation - with luck.

[valleylad]

Apart from Canada, back on message Paul :)

LIBOR pretty much unchanged, no apology for the govt complicity in this mess. No mention that unsustainable personal debt is the root cause It's wait and see if this will work, regardless we're in for a very rough ride. It might be nice to remind people of some of Gordon's mansion house speeches.

My issue with 42 days was it might be used against non-religious people regardless of colour (cf. Iceland?). If it could only be used against the religious I wouldn't see a problem with 90 days or more. The problem is terrorism is defined too broadly.

I never "need to see IPS staff in person", I may be forced to (and pay for the priveledge) shortly. But surely the statement should read this is where we will compel people to attend when it suits us under penalty of law. I'm not a "customer", and have little or no choice in dealing with these pathetic people.