Paul Flynn - Read My Day

If Wilfred Owen had a blog...

If Wilfred Owen had a blog...

....would the First World War have dragged on for four years? Truth is the enemy of those who  wage war. Britain would not have lost 150 lives in Bush's war in Iraq if Parliament had known the truth.

The blogs and e-mails from British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are scything a path of light through the foliage of propaganda. Basra and Helmand are now missions impossible. It is almost certain that every soldier who perishes in both campaigns dies in vain in the same cause of futility and stupidity as the mass slaughter of Wilfred Owen's war.

This past week,  four British soldiers were killed in Basra and six in Helmand. We can ask Owen's question again,

"Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth
All death will he annul, all tears assuage?
Or fill these void veins full again with youth....

But the British public knew nothing of Owen's poetry until after the war. Only four of his poems were ever published before his death at the age of 25. The propaganda machine was still pumping out the myth of a glorious heroic struggle against a brutal nation. The truth of Owen and the other war poets was silenced.

The Minister of Defence have now introduced sweeping new guidelines to restrict serving military personnel from speaking, faxing, e-mailing, texting or blogging about the hellish truth of Basra and Helmand. There is mounting angry reaction from soldiers' websites. If this is an attempt of censoring the truth it will fail. Communications now are immediate, vivid with authenticity that cannot be challenged.

A new book on Wilfred Owen's work, Mapping Golgotha has just been published  by gregynogpress.co.uk. (01686 650625). The message from 90 years ago is powerful and moving and precisely reveals the truth of our times.

Drugging the old

Not one of the interviewers on today's dodgy report by Age Concern asked who funded it? Yet that is the only worthwhile question.

It sounds like a new try at medicalising society. Getting old is not good. It makes people sad. Nothing can change that. But drug companies want to offer the snake oil of anti-depressants. They give a brief boost but can also increase depression, the suicide rate and be addictive.

Some doctors, Age Concern complained, thought depression was part of the ageing process. Good for the doctors. Some Pharmas insist that we take their expensive pills if we do not have a euphoric smile on our faces from cradle to grave? It's good business for them. But bad medicine for millions.

When will someone ask whether Pharma money paid for this report?

Carrara and Gramsci

Today, I returned from an 8 day family holiday - the first for many years. Thanks to Fern and Jayne for continuing this blog on a daily basis  with some favourite bits from my books. 

One day of my stay in Italy was spent in  a visit  to Cararra the city that was a seething hotbed of  Italian   socialist and anarcho-syndicalist movements. The Duomo is built  entirely out of marble that has been quarried the mountains that cradle the city, leaving gigantic white scars that dominate the skyline. One of the city's main monument is dedicated to the workers who perished tearing the marble out of the hills.

The main town piazza is named after Antonio Gramsci. He was the  socialist leaders arrested because of his opposition  to Mussolini. He was sent to a camp for political prisoners at the age of  35.

During the trial, Mussolini said about Gramsci: "We have to prevent that this mind continue thinking."

He spent almost his entire life in prison. Although his ideas play little part in modern politics, his sacrifice and those of followers remains an inspiration. The working people of the city of  Cararra suffered dreadfully at the hands of Mussolini's fascists and the occupation by the German army.

A stroll around the richly marbled streets show that radical movements are still thriving. A left-wing rally will be held shortly close to the monumental  tributes to those died in an idealistic cause.

How to ask the PM a question

Eleven years ago, I had the foolhardy effrontery to give advice to MPs on how to be backbenchers. It's still the only - therefore best (and worst) book on the subject. Some bits are woefully out of date. A new Welsh MP is helping me to drag into the 21st century. Suggestions are warmly welcomed for improvement. Some things have not altered including PM questions and  lobbyists

The class act of the Parliamentary circus is Prime Minister's Question Time. The chances of an MP winning the lottery for the first question is once every six years.

The first question sets the mood that runs through the full 15 minutes. Opposition MPs try to knock the PM off his perch. The PM wants a soft ball lobbed from his own side that he can smash into the stratosphere.

'Number One' for an opposition MP is the equivalent of carrying the colours into battle. This is the chance to toss in the verbal hand grenade that will blow away the Government's defences. The cognoscenti craft their supplementaries with the devotion of a poet.

Only the foolish never rehearse their questions on others. All questions can easily crash land. The PM spots a weakness and flails the questioner. Failure at PMs questions is profound, agonising and invites terminal gloom.

As a fellow junior frontbencher Tony Blair (Lab Sedgefield) advised me when I had my first question number one to the PM. He told me to spend the whole morning preparing it. "Forget the mail. Forget telephone calls. Work on the question." he advised.

Even then failure is possible. He ruefully recalled the time he was 'handbagged' by Maggie. He had decided to surprise her with a question on a long forgotten Government report published exactly a year before his question was due. It's bound to be well forgotten now, he thought.

He spent the morning with a copy of the report in the Commons Library fashioning an Exocet of a question. Confidently he asked the question, certain that she could not have anticipated it.

Coolly Mrs Thatcher took a full copy of the report from her papers and gave a magisterial reply that left Tony wide eyed and speechless. Was it brilliant anticipation ? Or did someone see Tony doing his homework in the library ?

Whichever, it proves that question time is professional warfare and no place for wimps or amateurs.

How to write a standard abusive letter

For those who request you to do something that is light miles distant from your political stance a direct simple message will suffice.

"Thank you for your communication which I placed in my insane letters file."

Lobbyists are more difficult to shake off because there are professional naggers. Generally they are not deeply subtle and understand only a direct approach. A formula I have found useful is,

Dear Lobbyist,

I know of no good reason why I should co-operate with your inquiry. Lobbying organisations such as yours are an ugly, anti-democratic and corrupting incubus that haunts the British body politic.

If your client is genuinely seeking information I would be happy to provide it after they have directly approached me. Using you as a conduit only adds to their costs for no worthwhile purpose.

The quicker your malign presence is expelled from Westminster the sooner the cleansing of the Parliamentary stables will begin."

Drug companies are difficult to repel partly because they are convinced that all MPs are scientific morons. When Drug pushers PLC urged backing for their campaign to deluge the country with more expensive unnecessary toxic medicines, they should be vigourously challenged

In reply to one reasonable request I made for scientifically respectable arguments to back a claim they sent my copies of personal testimonies from individuals that had all the intellectual authority of a baked bean advert. Their transcendent greed jumped from every word of their odious letters.

Or am I a little biased?

My role in winning the war.

Bomb catching.

At the start of the war, I was six and my brothers were seven and twelve. My father’s brother Ted was a special constable charged with ‘guarding’ Cardiff's Canton Bridge over the River Taff during air raids. Dutifully he hurried from his Pentre Gardens home to the bridge between Cardiff Castle and Sophia Gardens at the bidding of the siren.

No-one ever told him how to guard the Bridge. If the Germans parachuted out of the sky, he had no weapon to defend it. Ruefully he concluded that the only useful job he could do was to spot bombs that were about to hit the bridge, catch them and throw them in the Taff.

Our infant inability to feel the depths of grief shielded us from the worst suffering of war. We accepted the empty desks at school the morning after a bomb destroyed four houses in Paget Street killing two classmates. Worse horrors were ahead. Land mines wiped out entire neighbourhoods in Grangetown and Riverside.

There was the rich excitement of watching a dog fight as planes fought at mid-day against a summer sky. It was the ‘day after’ flight by a German spotter plane to photograph the destruction of the night’s raid. Roaring engines, the crackle of guns and cotton wool puffs of smoke was a wonderful drama above our heads.

We experienced the raids through the noises of guns and bombs and the vibration of explosions. When a bomb was heard, beginning with its screaming fall to earth, there was a ritual bowing of heads. Bodies braced themselves for a possible impact. The scream grew louder sharper. Boom ! Relief and mutual congratulations that we were in the right place, again. Alive. Untouched. Wise heads would then announce “That one was close” as they guessed the distance from the sound and flash.

The master plan was that families should remain in their shelters all night. Cold and discomfort drove us back to our beds as soon as the “All Clear” siren sounded. To ease possible escape we slept downstairs. Following our return to our beds after one raid, we were awakened by my mother because there was strong smell of gas. She opened the windows to let it out. That did not help.

A time bomb had severed the gas main in the road six houses distant from ours. A passing lorry set off the bomb. There was an almighty explosion. A sheet of flame 50 foot high roared high above our three storey homes. Even at thirty yards distance the heat was unbearable. We were moved out into Granny Edwards’ house where we continued to pull her leg about the Dai Cap.

My future as a Portmanteau Carrier

Throughout elementary school life, I was judged to be one of the least able scholars - until my final  term. The first class in the ‘Big School’ was divided. The bright seven year olds were taught by Mrs Steel, the rest of us by Miss McCarthy. Even there, I did not shine. I starred only in an often repeated cautionary tale.

It was the history of two boys. One worked hard at his lessons, The other joked and idled his time away. Thirty years later the good scholar, successful and rich, arrived home at Cardiff Railway Station and summoned a porter to carry his portmanteau for him. The porter was his old lazy school chum.

“When you all grow up, “ the teacher asked,” Who will be the rich man ?” “Eugene McCarthy, Miss” the class chanted. Fixing me with her accusing stare she asked “..and who will be carrying his portmanteau ?” I was the only silent dissenter in the unanimous prophecy of , “Paul Flynn, Miss.”

I dreamed and drifted through the years of junior school puzzled by the futility of most subjects and rebellious about the illogicality of spelling. The saintly and gifted teachers never managed to coax me into steady work until the scholarship year. That was serious stuff.

At nine years, I became acquainted for the first time with a nuisance that was to accompany me for life. Without warning on rising from bed one morning, I found that I could not walk properly. My leg was shot through the pain. By mid-day it had gone. Intermittently the pain returned. The family doctor diagnosed “rheumatism” and provided a bottle of pink medicine.

For long periods it remain a merciful ever present intimate of mine. It became treacherous thirty years later and determined the course of my life.

Triumph in the scholarship meant a place at St Illtyd’s College in Splott, then the Far East of Cardiff. There, they wore white flannel trousers, played cricket and had never produced a portmanteau carrier. It was the passport to the dream ticket boast for all Cardiffians, “Born in Grangetown: educated in Splott.”

To the astonishment of the teachers I was one of eight children in our class of 35 who gained a scholarship. I had consistently been in the bottom eight of the class in all other examinations. The only thing of any merit I did in the scholarship exam was an essay that I enjoyed writing. The subject was “My Favourite Animal” and I wrote about an Alpine deer based on an article I had recently read. The novelty of the subject may have aroused the examiner’s interest after reading dozens of scripts about cats and dogs. I must have only just passed. On the basis of the scholarship result I was placed in the lowest of the three first forms in the grammar school.

Probably by a hairbreadth my life was changed profoundly. Failure could have transformed my future as desperately as did for many others. At eleven they accepted the brand of failure, reduced their ambitions and never recovered from the blow to their self esteem. The 11 plus was cruel and destructive. It still exists in England. In Wales, it must never be exhumed from its shameful grave.

Honouring our Iraq dead

Today, I received a further refusal by the Government to proactively support the issue of stamps to commemorate our Armed Forces. The stamp would be based on the work "Queen and Country" by the war artist Steve McQueen, which shows the portraits of 98 of those who have fallen in Iraq. If that cannot be done on veterans day—for understandable reasons, because the day is designed as a celebration of the work and sacrifices of soldiers—why can we not have a commemorative stamp on Remembrance day to remind us of the true cost of war?

Today, in response to a letter written after a parliamentary question, I received this response from Derek Twigg, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence. The MoD believe it would be "inappropriate" for the Government to involve itself in the matter. Responsibility should lie with the commissioning bodies and the Post Office. However it is the wish of the artist and many of the relatives of the soldiers who died that a commemorative stamp should be issued using the work of war artist Steve McQueen. That would be appropriate, not only because it is a strong and powerful work of art but because it would be reminder to us all of the true cost of war.

Sketched to joy or misery

Scorpion venom

The sketch writers are the best read chroniclers of the passing parliamentary pageant. A word of praise or flattery can put a spring in a politicians step for days. An insult can send a vain MP spiralling into a pit of misery.

Sketch writers are not expected to be entirely accurate. They enjoy a certain jokers latitude to distort the truth. Andrew Rawnsley one mocked me for being ‘heroically adjectival’. I was speaking on pensions bill. Rawnsley recalled that I raged and denounced the bill as “crude, wasteful and mean” and then admitted that the bill “would affect only 6 people in the UK." Entertaining. The figure is a fiction.

Possibly I had obliterated unkind references to me by sketch writers, but they have been generally kind. Simon Hoggart once suggested that I was not an ideal human type. I had asked Nicholas Soames a question about a “genetically engineered virus contaminated with scorpion venom which is being released in an Oxford wood to improve the growth of cabbages by attacking the moths that feed on them. ” I innocently enquired, “Wouldn’t it be safer if the scorpion venom was first fed to members of the cabinet. Even if that experiment failed, the country would benefit.”

Soames answered that ‘The Hon Member is the first example I have seen of a genetically engineered MP .’ Hoggart quipped ‘I am an admirer of Mr Flynn, who is the thinking man’s Dennis Skinner, but frankly, if that’s the best physical specimen Dr Quatermass can manage, he should get back to the lab.’

Walking in a funny way

I first met my lifelong companion when I was nine.

I leapt out of bed and fell over. The pain was new, severe but transitory. Occasionally I had difficulty in walking. Rheumatic fever was then a dreaded childhood illness that returned as heart trouble in later life. That was suspected. But I had escaped it. As described earlier ‘rheumatism’ was diagnosed and I was fed a pink medicine in a bottle. It had no noticeable effect.

‘Bone ache’ intermittently nagged me gently until I reached my mid thirties. Then it got nasty - especially in my hands.

Rheumatoid arthritis was diagnosed. Pain and exhaustion were frequent month long episodes. I devised tools to drive the car. Techniques were learnt to avoid using my hands. Doors could be opened by leaning on them with my shoulders. Staplers could be operated by elbows. There were no alternatives to some tasks - including many in my job at Llanwern.

The problems were not constant. The beast was a cyclic visitor. Sometimes merciful : other times treacherous. My cynicism about the value of medical intervention was at an embryonic stage. I took the odd pain killers when I could not sleep. The deterioration in my mobility worsened. Problems were spreading all over my body, feet, knees, hips, hands, arms, shoulders and neck. The prospect of increasing infirmity was a worry.

In 1974 my hands were closing and I could not fully open them. Arthritis nodules appeared on the backs of my hands and elbows. My consultant insisted on injecting steroids into my hands. The pain was excruciating and I bellowed like a stuck pig. Mercifully he did one hand only and asked me to return for the other one to be perforated in six months time. A few months later I could not remember which hand he had treated. There was no noticeable difference.

Being knowledgeable about the side effects of steroids I refused further injections. The consultant suggested that a ‘wheel chair’ was a real possibility in 'six months time’ if I persisted in refusing steroids. I stopped taking the tablets. There was a swift and long lasting improvement in my condition. Coincidence ? Probably. Without reason or discernible pattern it disappeared for months and then returned.

It determined my retirement from Llanwern but its intermittent nature did not stop Newport West Party from selecting me as their candidate. There was even a perverse bonus in Parliament.

When the beast was active, my walking gait was irregular. I limped and stumbled, at worst ricocheted from one side of a corridor to the other. If I had the slightest smell on alcohol on my breath, a fair conclusion was that I was ‘staggering drunk.’ Such reputations are easily gained, very damaging and impossible to shake off. I announced when I first arrived in Parliament that I would not drink alcohol there. Everyone quickly understood why I walked in that funny way.

Five elections later, a thorough health M.O.T.  and the support of the Newport West Party  approved my nomination as a candidate for Gordon Brown's General Election. More staggering forward.

How I fell out of love with Blair

Blairite

Punch drunk after 18 years of the indignities of opposition, Labour ached for election victory. I dumped my instinctive support for Margaret Beckett and Gordon Brown and campaigned for Tony Blair as the most likely election winner. I celebrated his election as Labour Leader.

Disillusion set in when the Daily Mail claimed Tony Blair was opting for a Grant Maintained School for his son. I wrote to Tony and spoke to his Parliamentary Private Secretary Bruce Groucott. I wanted assurances that Tony had not used his own position to seek privileged education for his son to attend the Oratory School. These are the established lines of complaint for a backbencher to take.

My letter was friendly and tentative. “Possibly untrue reports in to-days..but if accurate would undermine our Party’s educational ideals of non privileged education...The Oratory had sought status for itself at the expense of others schools” Neil Kinnock did not usually answer such letters. Blair did on the 11th January 1995. But he had not understood the point. He said the ‘Oratory is one of a number of very good state comprehensive my son could attend. We chose it because we believe it will be the right school for him. Labour policy has not changed.....’

Because of a regular clash with meetings of the tedious European Standing Committee B, I rarely attended meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party. In my ten years in Parliament I have probably been at less than 30 of the weekly events. Blair was speaking on education on a Wednesday when the Euro Committee was not meeting.

Blair’s speech was unapologetic. Roy Hattersley made a coded attack on Blair. I made an unplanned uncoded attack on Blair’s plan to use a Grant Maintained school.

In fairness, I began by paying a sincere tribute to Blair for attracting, by his personality and policies, a record number of members to the Newport West Party. I described myself as a ‘serial loyalist’ to Labour Party leaders since Attlee. Addressing him directly by name, I said his decision was inexplicable and unforgivable and that he had betrayed the ideals of our Party and undermined the struggle that our Party is having in the country. We cannot preach against privilege and then insist on it for our own families. Tony Blair look shocked. That was the end of the friendly relationship that I had always enjoyed with him.

Having ventilated my views I felt happier. I had no intention of leaking the story to the press. The rest of the day was packed with meetings and I put the matter to the back of mind, hoping that Blair might reconsider. A friend told me that some of my comments were on ‘Ceefax’. It was a sanitised version of the meeting put out by the spin doctors. Their account was positive about Blair’s contribution, ignored Hattersley's, but said that I had expressed ‘unease’ about Blair’s decision on the Oratory.

The word ‘unease’ is not in my vocabulary. My adjectives are far more direct. I was approached by BBC journalist Nicholas Jones. I told him it was a private meeting. He replied that he was a person of integrity and that any conditions I imposed on a statement would be respected. I told him that I had used more candid words than ‘unease’.

It was a major news item. Some carried imaginative accounts of Blair's shocked features. An unnamed whip (Don Dixon) was quoted as saying ‘If Blair does not understand now how he has upset the Party, he never f****ing will’. They was many unattributed quotation from Labour MPs on the lines of ‘It had to be said, but I am glad that I did not say it.’

I braved the tea room at breakfast time next morning. No hostility was detected. The chief whip Derek Foster raised me and said how difficult it always is to attack a Leader. Another senior whip stopped at my table, looked to the right and the the left, and gave me a bear hug. Others with handshakes, smiles and winks signalled their support. They included members of the shadow cabinet. The role of ‘conscience of the Party’ had been bestowed on me. It was to be mine for a very long time.

Newport Conservatives... can I help?

The best opponent ever.

Newport West Labour Party has generously selected me as their candidate for the next General Election. It could be sooner than we think - possibly this Autumn or Spring 2008.

There are no signs of other party candidates. In a spirit of co-operation could I helpfully suggest that two past candidate should be considered for their short list -Mark Robinson and the worlds most indiscreet politician Peter Clarke.

Mark is the only other person who has been the MP for Newport West from 1983 to 1987.  "Newport" he told me recently was "the best period of his political life.

He thought I might bear a grievance because he had described me as ‘the thorn in Labour’s Rose’ in 1987. I was never aware of it. It’s an accurate and helpful description that I will use.  Mark came close to joining New Labour ten years ago. It’s not a possibility now because of his disillusionment over the Iraq War. He may be tempted to rejoin Newport West Tories.

The ineffable 1997 Tory candidate Peter Clarke deserves another crack at the seat.

A few days after he was adopted I raised a point or Order in the Commons about an article he had written in the Scottish Edition of The Sunday Times,

“It is many years since anyone was called to the Bar of the House, but Erskine May makes clear your powers to summons here those who besmirch the good names of members. Have you read, Madam Speaker, the attack on the Secretary of State for Wales (William Hague) in which he was unfairly described as ‘deluded’ and ‘simple’ , for his fine work in bringing 6,000 Korean jobs to Wales he was accused of ‘pimping for Britain.’

Will you now call to the bar of the House and insist on an apology from the Conservative candidate for Newport West. ?”

There were better things to come from the colourful Mr Clarke. He had been a candidate before and amazed party and public.

Standing in East Lothian in 1987 he advocated, declaring war on South Africa, the privatisation of police and fire brigades, lowering the school leaving age to twelve, ending all dole or social security payments, the abolition of all local councils, a tax on golf, and the demolition of all un-sold council houses. He said ‘General Pinochet must be our inspiration’ and that ‘Enoch Powell is the greatest Welshman of all time’. He described Mrs Thatcher’s conduct on the Anglo Irish Agreement as ‘treacherous and foolish’ and threatened to stand as an Orangeman’s candidate in East Lothian. He also volunteered to serve in the American Calvary but he was rejected.

There was only one public debate at St Mark’s Church in the heart of Newport in the 1997 election. Arthur Scargill was one of speakers as a candidate in Newport East. Arthur’s plan to double pensions next Thursday seemed measured and reasonable compared with Clarke novel remedy.

His answer to pensioner poverty was to ship all the pensioners to Eritrea. The audience were white faced with shock. He did not spend enough time explaining the advantages to the elderly. On a British state pension someone in Eritrea could afford the best mud hut in the village or the finest meal of locusts that money could buy.

Davies moaned that life was unbearable in the Conservative Party office surrounded by octogenarian ladies reminiscing about when they were canvassing for Stanley Baldwin.

In Wales on Sunday on the April 27th, four days before polling day, Peter Clarke complained that he had been the victim of menacing phone calls. They were the latest in a series of incidents since ‘he helped fund a manifesto produced by Scottish Conservative Students that advocated a relaxation of the incest laws.’

Wales on Sunday quoted him saying ‘Malicious and unfounded allegations that I am a paedophile have followed me around ever since. The reason I am standing in Newport is that I am barred from standing in Scotland, where I am from, because of these malicious allegations.’ On Sundays the Labour Campaign in Newport West meet to discuss the week’s strategy. After reading the Wales on Sunday on April 27th many of our team decamped to the marginal seat of Monmouth.

The Labour majority doubled in Newport West to  a record 14,800. Monmouth was gained  for labour from Tory Roger Evens. Thanks, Peter.

Will ye no come back again?

Remember

To mark Hiroshima Day flowers are laid at Tredegar House lake every year.  It is a time to remember the anniversary of the first use of a bomb so powerful that it would come to threaten the existence of the human race.  It is also an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the cause of peace.  Click here to see the video Hiroshima Newport

Two tragedies do not make Crime Capital

It must be the silly season.

Last night I had a rare call from the Western Mail, the first in almost a year. They were trying to create a story of "Newport Crime Capital" from the two tragic murders at the weekend, even though they admitted that there was no connection between the two. It is a sheer coincidence that the two came so close together.

Some time ago a national broadsheet thought they had discovered the worst crime hell hole in the country. To them, Newport is a combination of the Wild West and Sodom and Gormorrah. This is on the basis that one incident makes a crime wave plus the fact that all crimes of violence in Gwent are recorded.

Not so in London. My colleague Chris Mullin suffered more than twenty burglaries at his London flat. My car has been broken into twice. To report these crimes in London would be a waste of our time and that of the police. Nothing would be done.

One Scottish area has suffered more than a hundred heroin deaths in a year. Newport had none in that period. Nor do we have drive-by shootings or council estates that are police ‘no-go’ areas. What we have in Gwent is one of the best Police Forces in Britain. Not only do they record all crime they investigate with great success all serious crime.

The deaths of the two men are extremely sad, and our thoughts should be with their families and friends at this difficult time. However there is no truth in the myth that Newport is Crime Capital.

Lest we forget.

A website makeover has meant that 900 pages and pictures from the previous version are no longer available. We will soon put this right with a new link. Meanwhile if you are looking for some past postings, they are on http://old.paulflynnmp.co.uk/

In reviving the old site a few gems re-appeared including these wonderful Tory 'foot in mouth' quotes.


"Suicide is a real threat to health."
- Virginia Bottomley

"Anyone would think we were living on some island somewhere."
- George Walden

"It's not the future I'm talking about, I'm talking about tomorrow."
- John Gummer

"The trend in the rise in unemployment is downward."
- Gillian Shepherd

"The more important things, are more important, than the less important things."
- Stephen Dorrell

"When the IRA plant such bombs, it proves they can scare people, it proves they can kill people, it proves nothing."
- Peter Bottomley

"We said zero, and I think any statistician will tell you that... zero must mean plus or minus a few."
- William Waldegrave

"Who Saddam Hussein kills, dies."
- Jeffrey Archer

"There's no smoke without mud being flung around."
- Edwina Currie

"I will never forget the 1981, or was it 1982? honours list."
- Julian Critchley

"All those people who say that there will never be a Single European Currency are trying to forecast history."
- Kenneth Clark

"The British public sees with blinding clarity."
- Michael Heseltine

"You know what they say, don't get mad, get angry."
- Edwina Currie

"We are not wholly an island, except geographically."
- John Major

Dragons or Poodles?

Have the Welsh dragons and poodles of the the 1997 stitch up changed. Time to revisit the assessment made then. Updates in capitals

The political stage is inhabited with fascinating, peculiar people. The characters of this sad drama are a blend of idealism, ambition, high ability and low cunning. There are no heroes or villains. As an instant guide especially to readers outside of Wales, their traits are assessed by their affinities to the characters of dragons and poodles.

Archetypal fierce dragons are awarded five ‘flames’; the most subservient poodles get five ‘wagging pom-poms’. Most are hybrids, a fusion of both beasts. Ratings are determined by permanent traits plus recent conduct in the stitch-ups.

Alun Michael:
Ex-journalist, ex-youth worker, incurable do-gooder. High on detail, low on humour. Earnest, serial father (five children), predictable, irrationally ambitious. Disillusioned with journalism, he took a job in youth work at half his previous salary. Quick to come to the boil, tetchy when provoked, Pontiff of workalholicism, marathon runner, Tony Blair groupie. At ease with the World of Wales which is evolving in his image.

Rating: One flame: three pom-poms.

AFTER BEING DUMPED ON BY BLAIR WITH REPEATED POISONED CHALICES, NOW BEAVERING AWAY IN HAPPY OBSCURITY.

Rhodri Morgan:
Unique political phenomenon. Ideas jokes and solutions Catherine-wheel off in a shower of iridescent brilliance. To Tony Blair, he is an unguided rocket, too unpredictable, too Welsh, too untidy, too original and far too clever. A resourceful and successful Shadow Minister on energy and Wales, ageism denied him Minister's job in 1997. Loves: rugby; beer; anecdotes; marathon running; dolphins; 'True Labour’; wood carving; and his caravan in Mwnt. Hates: tedium; spin doctors; Cardiff Bay. Was 'runner-up to Michael, not a loser’. Possesses fully operational, non-lobotomised brain.
Rating: Five flames. STILL FLAMING WONDERFULLY ON CARDIFF BAY

Ron Davies:
One of the most significant Welsh politicians of the century, has achieved what generations of his predecessors failed to deliver. Great political gifts, was moderniser to semi-corrupt ‘Labourism’ Welsh Local Councils in the 70's. Complex, secretive, astute, passionate on animal welfare and environmental issues, expert on agriculture. Wrenched devolution from the the centralising forces of New Labour with skill and persistence but harmed his reputation by about-turn on devolution referendum. Described Prince Charles as a 'pillock'. Suffered a year of hell, partly self-inflicted; rehabilitation now under way.
Rating: Five flames: one pom-pom.

Foot and Mouth Sanity - this time?

£8billion Income Support ?

Gordon Brown has wisely returned from his holiday to contain the spread of foot and mouth.

The vast slaughter and immense taxpayer rip-off cannot be repeated. The incentive to spread F&M has largely gone by removing the incentive to over-value slaughtered stock. A Pembroke farmer reported that she was offered a F&D diseased carcase for £2,000. She could have made a fortune if her herd was destroyed towards the end of the epidemic when valuations were out of control.

The great  lesson of the 2001 epidemic was that  after six months when the British meat industry was virtually closed down, there was so shortage of meat, no queues in the supermarkets  and no hike in prices. The whole production was replaced at lower cost from imports.

It's a lesson farmers have not learned. Another crippling expensive epidemic could cost every British Average family £300. That's on top of the £540 farm tax we are paying every year already.

How much longer will the public put up with subsidising a relative prosperous industry with £billions of income support?

Son of Star wars news buried

Gordon Good is not Gordon Perfect.

There is  real anger that the decision to go ahead with the use of Menwith Hill was slipped out by the Defence Secretary, Des Browne, on the night before the Commons rose for the summer recess. It was buried with more than 30 other statements.

It's the provocative anti-nuclear weapon programme dubbed "Son of Star Wars". A YouGov poll yesterday showed that 54 per cent of the public believe that stationing the US radar and communications stations, and possibly interceptor missiles, in this country increases the threat of attack on the UK.

I signed a letter of protest that was printed in several national newspapers today. The deployment of interceptor missiles at forward bases in Poland and the Czech Republic has already increased tensions with Russia and led to threats by its President, Vladimir Putin, to site Russian weapons targeted at the West. Menwith Hill will be used for tracking incoming missiles and sending interceptor missiles to their target.

Mr Browne announced on 25 July that the upgraded early warning system at Fylingdales on the North Yorkshire moors would be become operational this month and "equipment will be installed and operated by the US Government" at Menwith Hill to allow the receipt of satellite warnings of potentially hostile missile launches. The information will be fed into the US ballistic missile defence system in their response to any missile attack on the US. Mr Browne said there were no plans for interceptor missiles to be based in the UK, but the situation would be kept under review.

Alongwith 21 other MPs I warned in the letter to Gordon Brown : "The UK's continued and increasing involvement in US missile defence potentially puts the UK on the frontline in future wars. The decision  would make Gordon look  subservient as Mr Blair to the US President, George Bush, in spite of him impressive performance in Washington earlier this week.

I hope that this was a Ministry of Defence bungle. But experience suggest not.

Police misled on cash ?

If the Police Federation intend to make Monmouth MP and part-time policeman David Davies their parliamentary gofer, they'd better think again.

In the past three days e-mails have arrived asking me to sign an Early Day Motion of David's that appeared on the last whipped day of parliamentary business before the recess. Few MPs signed.

It is now impossible for any other MP to sign it until October 10th. Not much good if you are trying to influence a decision to be taken by September 1st. If this is a campaign, those who are running it should understand the reason that no more MPs can sign up for three months.

The e-mails seemed to be sent centrally from the Police Federation and it's impossible to reply to them. It's calling for a fair settlement of the Police pay claim before September 1st.

The campaign has flopped. Next time they should recruit someone who know how parliament works to head their lobby.

Great to see a mocker mocked.

Creative defacing

Giscard D'estaing , following a bling bribe scandal,  had his presidential elections posters  imaginatively defaced with diamonds pasted over his eyes. Tory poster in 2005 were hilariously defaced to boomerang the anger back on the accusers.

Newport has played an award winning pioneering role in recycling household waste. Part of that was the early introduction of fortnightly bin collections and separation of compost and recyclables. This is greatly to be commended.

But tabloid-driven local would be politician is trying sabotage the environmentally benign scheme. Fortnightly collections are working well but wide public acceptance. Pandering to  moronic Daily Mail , ruin-the-planet campaign, a local Tory has asked people to put leaflets in their window calling for a return to the energy-wasting, planet-destroying, money-squandering  weekly collections.

Few has done so. But one bright spark has posted the leaflet which has been creatively defaced with 'I support Newport fortnightly collections for environmental reasons." Great person.

Young idealism

Great work is being done by Newport YMCA in the most unexpected places.

Under the auspices of YCare international, two exceptional Newport young men have spent time working in China, Palestine and Somalia. Lewis Turner spent his gap year on the West bank before starting his university career at New College oxford. . Peter Chonka, a student at the School of Oriental Studies and youth worker Mustafa Ali are working on a project to assist Somaliland.

Newport and Cardiff have strong links with Burao with waves of immigration stretching back 100 years. Conditions there are dire. Paying for transactions with a wheelbarrow of money reflects galloping inflation and the collapse of the banking system.

The statistics for deaths in childbirth are among the worst in the world. Much can be achieved with low cost aid that is precisely targeted at perceived areas of need. Y.M.C.A. Chief executive Peter Landers and Mustafa Ali visited Burao and have plans to use funds from the local Somali Diaspora.

Some aid projects are small beacons of hopes in a wasteland of despair. Newport Y.M.C.A. hopes to link up with practical aid schemes and make a real difference. They deserve the city's wholehearted support.