No authentic expenses

It was no Mo Mowlam film. That was hauntingly realistic. It was exactly like watching Mo.

Brian Cox's portrayal of former Speaker Michael Martin in last night's BBC Four programme 'On Expenses' did not work. It had the guile and the vanity but not the kindness and diffidence. Not for a second did I believe that this was Michael Martin. Some of the staged scenes were unbelievable to those familiar with the House of Commons.

I have a legitimate moan about the heroine of the expenses scandal Heather Brooke.   when I met her six weeks ago, she said 'I'm surprised you are still talking to me.' I did not recognise her name when she turned up to interview me a month earlier about one aspect of expenses that I have complained about. No-one told me that she was the person who had opened the books with her Freedom of Information request. Nor did anything think to mention that the programme was called the MPs Gravy Train.

As it happens, I have no regrets. They were not straight with me but they provided me with a platform for the points I wanted to make. I am still on friendly terms with the programme and i have been filmed for another future programme.

Victor Winstone

On Jan 15th I put a link to Victor Winstone's last book on this site. The great historian of the Middle East  died last week. He sensed that at 84 he might not live to see the book published. It's a great visionary work. A fine tribute was paid to him by Tam Dayell in the Independent. 

"In 1991 Victor Winstone achieved another unsuspected "first" with his biography of Howard Carter, discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun, which characteristically stressed the class bias in Britain's recognition of achievement. In a book that achieved world-wide praise, he pointed out that the most famous and lucrative discovery of all time, made by a self-taught Norfolk lad, had been rewarded with not a single official or academic honour, "not even a lowly MBE".

In our last phone conversation Winstone was appalled by the chaos in Iraq and the violation of archaeological sites and the museum in Baghdad. His most recently published book was War Without End, a critique of Anglo-US foreign policy from 1900 to the present, which with apposite timing, he launched online during the course of the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry while he was ill with lung cancer.

In his personal life he was devoted to numerous animal welfare causes and in Devon, where he and his pianist wife Joan Marigold lived for more than 20 years, he was an implacable enemy of the hunting lobby. His letters on that subject in the local press attracted much attention. He leaves four daughters and one son, and eight grandchildren."

In his final work, Victor asked, "Why were Bush and Blair so anxious to take the hazardous road to war when the political route would have provided obvious advantages.  

Why, a year after the initial Palestinian assault on Gaza do the USA and Britain maintain the fiction that the war in that territory is the responsibility of the two warring factions when in fact Israel keeps up a war of attrition that has caused 1400 deaths in a single year, and nearly 6,000 severe casualties.

Why, ten years after the instigation of the Anglo-American war in Afghanistan, is there still fighting and a call for intensified effort in London and Washington by the alliance when a political solution would be so much more effective?

Why the continued insistence on the occupation of Iraq almost ten years after it was subdued with ‘shock and awe’? And why does Blair insist that given another opportunity he would blurt out the same lies all over again, just as the Chilcot enquiry begins its in-depth examination of one of the most blatant acts of aggression ever carried out by one of the world’s most powerful nations on one of the smallest and last armed?

 

Only here on the the Internet are intriguing authorititive answers to those questions. ‘War Without End’ is the first book for eight years from the pen of one of the most prolific British writers on the Middle East. Victor Winstone said: ‘this is positively the last, but after a life time devoted to biography and political study, I can’t help thinking it is the most significant’

Comments

[Ad]

From what you have said about him Paul, I think you have to respect an author like that. He seems to tie the foreign policy rubbish, lies and injustices into a pragmatic criticism. I mean to read him, but I understand clearly the summary of his arguments and his point of view.

Its good to hear experienced reporters having these views. It is unfortunately the case that there is a dominant narrative which originates with NATO and the participating governments. This is simply reported on by the news media. There is a great deal of difference between what is true and what is the ‘news’.

[Tony]

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is 84 per cent owned by the British taxpayer, will pay out £1.3 billion in bonuses to its investment bankers after reporting a £3.6 billion pre-tax loss for the past financial year.

- that SUCKS ! I don't care what the arguments are, this sends out ALL the wrong messages. Where does it say you get paid a bonus for making a LOSS? If the taxpayer had not bailed RBS out they would not have a bloody job - unlike the 2.8m who really don't

Perhaps this is what New LAbour means by equality - copme on get a grip !

[HuwOS]

Don't worry Tony, if the tories get in you'll have the chance to buy shares in it.

[Kay Tie]

"Where does it say you get paid a bonus for making a LOSS?"

Because your work was good and you made a profit? Or are you so into collective punishment that no matter how good someone is, you must be punished for the failures of others?

[dave]

how can anyone be given a bonus when as said above rbs has losses of 3.6 billion.
the reason given was to retain good staff.
are these the same staff that made losses of around 24 billion last year.

am i missing something here.

as tony said THAT SUCKS

i hope you will speak of our disgust paul and help stop payment of these bonuses.

this money could help british industry suffering because of the banks.

i would have rathered the bad banks be allowed to collapse than bail them out.
if labour believes in free markets why wasnt this done?

the banks have been repossesing homes quick enough.whats good enough for us should be good enough for them.

[Kay Tie]

"are these the same staff that made losses of around 24 billion last year."

So all people are the same? Absolutely no-one worked extra hard, finished their projects, sold and met their targets?

[HuwOS]

dave KayTie is right, you have no idea whether the people getting the 1.3 billion in bonuses earned profits for their sections or not.
Of course, neither does KayTie, she's just jumping to the defence of the extremely well off and overpaid, a much maligned minority in her opinion as needful of protection, especially hers, as any abused child or oppressed person.
KayTie, you need to realise, that the majority people who live in what is generally referred to by most as the real world (come and visit some time), no matter how hard they work, if their company loses money whether the loss is counted in mere hundreds of thousands of pounds or millions of pounds they can be pretty sure that they won't get any bonus whatsoever, probably no pay raise either, cost of living or otherwise.
That is of course if they manage to avoid pay cuts or getting laid off.

[Kay Tie]

"neither does KayTie, she's just jumping to the defence of the extremely well off and overpaid"

No, you don't know that either. I have a friend in an IT section of a forex part of a bank. Helped deliver the project successfully on-time, but no bonus: "too sensitive."

Another example of politics making things worse. You know my philosophy Huw: people should be treated as individuals. The collective mindset if the Left would punish people collectively.

"they can be pretty sure that they won't get any bonus whatsoever, probably no pay raise either, cost of living or otherwise."

Given that the public finances are in deficit, there should be no bonuses for public sector workers. That's not what we see, though, is it? Funny how largely Labour-supporting government employees continue to get bonuses, don't you think?

[Patrick]

It's strange that public sector fat cats get above inflationary pay rises every year (not to mention bent pension schemes).

It's strange also that the Council tax bills rise above the inflationary rate every year.

It's not strange at all that my self-employed business gets the life squeezed out of it in the process.

On the Eighth day a civil servant was heared saying.......

'We the public sector who know and serve the land and God are blessed beyond blessing.'

[Patrick]

Oh it's all gone quiet......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/1579819/Do-public-sector-workers-deserve-pensions-guaranteed-by-the-taxpayer.html

[Patrick]

Just in case anyone missed the last one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/26/public-sector-pensions-shortfall

[Kay Tie]

There's nothing to say Patrick. Those who aren't illiterate in economics are horrified. But we are in a phony recession: the disease has been postponed by a sugar-rush of government spending. But there's no more money for sweets and the ugly horror is slowly becoming apparent. Trying to cure cancer with sweeties never works. If we don't take proper medicine soon, Britain's decline could be permanent.

In some ways I would welcome five more years of Gordon Brown. The system is so diseased it would be better to kill it - which surely Gordon Brown would - and then build a new, sane country from the ashes.