The Boris appeal: Please give generously….

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Boris launches appeal Pic: courtesy anorak.co.uk

 

Boris Johnson recently told the London Assembly that he simply could not afford to give a 4 per cent pay rise to the lowest paid staff at City Hall because “everyone is feeling the pinch.” He may yet be forced to make an appeal on his own behalf. This is how it might look.

These are hard times. Everyone is feeling the pinch. But it is much worse for those at the top who now face crippling taxes  while having horrendous responsibilities for clearing up the mess left by those nasty Socialists..

What you don’t seem to realise is how badly off I am. Don’t you realise thanks to Dave’s dodgy decision to keep the 50 per cent tax rate which is driving my mates away from the City, I am having to pay MORE in extra tax  on my £400,000 a year than some of you will ever earn in a lifetime.

As mayor I need proper time for r and r and this doesn’t come cheap. While only on New Year’s Eve I needed to shell out over 35,000 rupees a night- £501 in British sterling if you must know – for a camping holiday in the middle of  the Indian scrub.

And while lying in my tent I was about to be upstaged by a load of Russian oligarchs with oodles of cash arriving from Amritsar in a private jet! Fat chance of me travelling from London in the same style, even if I could hitch a lift from Lord Ashcroft. And that was without the cost of flying out by bog standard passenger jet and the prices for big fat Havana cigars and loads of Scottish malt whiskey which any Mayor has to consume to keep up public appearances.

Indeed I was forced to jump back into my personal hot tub to avoid indignity of being outspent by those Russians. Thankfully there was decent Chinese air com and an Italian espresso to calm my shattered nerves.

As you can see from the web brochure, http://www.the-serai.com/the_serai.html, it was a modest place, at least for a mayor.

Fortunately back in Blighty my good friend Fraser Nelson allowed me to recoup a little cash by writing  about my holiday trip for my old  magazine, The Sextator, sorry Spectator. You can read all about it at http://bit.ly/gbhGlx and my views about the Piccadilly line are thrown in for free.

 But this extra cash is not going to be enough. I will need more money to keep the r and r I must have while I battle on. You can help me by contacting me by e-mail at mayor@london.gov.uk . Do give generously. As I told the London assembly everyone is feeling the pinch.

Netroots: Blogger’s victory safeguards public scrutiny

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brian coleman -thwarted by a blogger.Pic courtesy: Evening Standard

Those who went to the TUC’s Netroots conference  last weekend should take heart from the success of one of their active bloggers only days after the event.

Adam Bienkov, aka Tory Troll, spotted that Brian Coleman, chair of the London fire authority, had tabled a paper changing arcane standing orders to abolish the right of any of the elected representatives to ask him a question on fire policy. This was to happen at the same meeting that is expected today to tear up a carefully negotiated settlement with London firefighters over their working hours.

 Brian Coleman, no stranger to this blog, was going against Conservative policy to promote transparency and accountability in public life. He would have probably got away with it without the tenacity of Adam. He published the facts,linked the report on his website and it got taken up – by print media in the London Evening Standard and the Guardian Diary. Soon it was on local radio airwaves and this morning was on regional BBC Breakfast TV.

The result: a complete climb down when Boris Johnson, to his credit, effectively repudiated Coleman, and publicly endorsed the party’s policy of openness in City Hall.

This is worth highlighting because  it  can be replicated with the new Netroots network. Other bloggers can keep an eye on their local council by looking up the agenda of council meetings on the council website  before they take place. And if they see anything nasty, highlight it and get in touch with the local media. Turning sunlight on dodgy council decisions can be really effective. Well done, Adam.

2010 in review

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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 28 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 43 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 8mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 15th with 975 views. The most popular post that day was Armchair Audit: Brian Coleman- Britain’s highest paid councillor.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, facebook.com, uk-fire.net, outeverywhere.com, and guardian.co.uk.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for roast beef, roastbeef, beef, roast, and nick clegg.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Armchair Audit: Brian Coleman- Britain’s highest paid councillor November 2010
8 comments

2

Roast beef rebels plan Cameron Stew May 2010
2 comments

3

An own goal investment in England’s green and pleasant land March 2010
1 comment

4

My Career so far… November 2009

5

Nice Try, Guido. Or Not Really. January 2010
7 comments

Armchair Audit: Gareth Bacon – The Tory recruiting public servants for Eric Pickles to sack

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Gareth Bacon - A key ally of Brian Coleman

After receiving some 2000 hits on the first Armchair Audit on Brian Coleman, the Tory chairman of the London Fire Authority, a second right-wing Conservative councillor has been highlighted by readers as sharing the same virulent anti union beliefs while taking lots of cash from the taxpayer.

Gareth Bacon’s  entire income comes from either taxpayers or from the successful recruiting of staff for  quangos and local councils.

The 38 yr old London Assembly member from Bexley ( where he made his name in recycling)  is one of the rising right-wing Eurosceptic stars  in London. He has courted publicity recently by attacking Transport for London for allowing staff to have free travel, backed driverless trains on the tube to end the RMT union’s ” stranglehold” and supported  London Fire Brigade chairman Brian Coleman in criticising  firefighters and the FBU.  Like  Coleman he is no stranger to drawing cash from the taxpayer for the various jobs he holds himself. He also is a member of the Eurosceptic Bruges Group and Conservative Way Forward. See profile on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Bacon

His income from five jobs is:

Member of London Assembly                                                                       £53,439

Cabinet member (Environment)Bexley Council                                  £13,197

Member Bexley Council                                                                                  £9,418

Chair, London Fire Brigade Performance Management Com         Free *

Total income from the taxpayer:                                                            £76,014

* Under rules he has to waive a £5329.50 a year salary if a London Assembly member. Allowance available for first time this year.

Private Income:                                                    estimated between £75,000-£100,000

Director, RandstadFinancial and Professional Ltd, a Dutch owned financial recruitment company. Details of his job are here:  http://bit.ly/eP7PC4 . (look under our people after selecting about us).   His perks include private medical cover, company pension and bonuses.  He makes his money by recruiting highly paid officials to quangos and councils which his party want to curb or abolish. Clients include a string of London boroughs from Tory controlled Barnet and Hammersmith and Fulham to Labour controlled Hackney and Newham. Quangos include the soon to abolished Audit Commission and the 2012 Olympic Authority.

The company had a turbulent two years after the credit crunch. The company did not respond to any inquiries about the future of their recruitment policy  for the public sector.

He admits to a combined income of above £150,000 which means he pays 50 per cent tax or as he put it ” I am in the highest income tax band, meaning that every penny I receive from the public purse is taxed at the maximum rate, which in turn means that more than half of
it does not reach me, indeed in effect it never leaves the Treasury and exists only on paper.”

This was in reply to  Danny Hackett, a 17 year old student who queried his claim for a free travel card after reading this blog.

EXPENSES

Unlike Brian Coleman, Gareth Bacon, hardly claims any. There is one glaring exception. He  claims an annual Transport for London travel pass worth £2016, the very perk he believes should be withdrawn from staff, many of whom earn a quarter of what he claims in allowances from the taxpayer. See the entries here. http://bit.ly/i5OTex

HOMES and INVESTMENTS

Fairly modest. His improving financial fortunes have seen him move from a house in Sidcup bought for £170,000 in 2001  and  sold at a profit of £70,000 last year to a £365,000 home  nearby well set back from the road. Mortgage is with Santander and a restrictive covenant prevents him building another home on the site or extracting sand and gravel. He is also an investor in his parent’s property in the borough.

LATEST CONTROVERSY

Very keen on the police kettling demonstrating students-particularly after the first demo. He would also like  police uniforms to have sown in cameras – so they can monitor every action.

 HIS RESPONSE

He took offence at  me not contacting him directly but checking some of these facts with London Fire Brigade press office before putting this up.

 He said to me: ” I have nothing remotely to say to you.”

CONCLUSION:  ALL IN IT TOGETHER

Gareth Bacon’s views will affect the livelihoods of firefighters and train drivers and the treatment of demonstrating students. But his most extraordinary contribution is his private sector job recruiting highly paid people to councils and quangos – the very bodies his political party wants to slash.

You can contact him to put your own views at both the Greater London Assembly and Bexley Council. His direct e-mail at the London Assembly is  gareth.bacon@london.gov.uk . His Bexley e-mail is  councillor.gareth.bacon@bexley.gov.uk . He is bound to pick up either as Dave Hill reports in The Guardian he has four blackberry devices.

 

Going Downhill fast: The Liberal Democrats bankrolled by RBS

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Nick Clegg-party in dire straits and bankrolled by the Royal Bank of Scotland

In the week when student protest over tuition fees reaches a climax, public support and money for the Liberal Democrats is collapsing all the time. And it is now even more in hock to one of the banks that provoked the financial crisis in the first place

In article in the Tribune  this week http://bit.ly/eC4Xb5 I point out that the party has had a bad time in recent local council  by-elections  getting as few as 10, 45 and 98 votes in some cases. It is also in an appalling financial  situation getting less money in the last quarter than UKIP and  relying on a big donation from the taxpayer via the Electoral Commission  to keep afloat. Only after the 2005 election were the figures worse. 

 A closer look at the party loan book reveals a delicious further irony – the party is actually being bank rolled on a £1m indefinite loan from the discredited Royal Bank of Scotland – the bank of Fred ” the Shred” Goodwin- which itself is being bailed out by the taxpayer and subject to a still secret report from the Financial Services Authority.

 Given Vincent Cable’s high-profile attacks on the banks for the poor lending, the business secretary is much more cautious in lending his party money than RBS. He gave a £10,000 interest free loan to the party on April 13 but demanded his money back, insisting it was repaid on May 25. He was one of only two donors post the election who wanted their money back pronto, the other more understandably being Susan Kramer, defeated by Zac Goldsmith in Richmond.

As for local elections performance the best guide is on this website http://bit.ly/fWKVmT . Although it shows a small overall gain of four for the Liberal Democrats, this can be accounted for entirely by their performance on general election day,May 6, where they made a few gains. Since then, apart from taking one seat from the Tories and a couple from Independents in Cornwall, they have slumped.

And all of this is before the cuts and tax rises have to bite and student fees go through the roof.

No wonder Vince Cable wanted his money back. He’ll need it for his retirement.

Europe’s poverty aid programme for bankers and tax havens

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Not quite the aid bankers have in mind. Picture courtesy The Guardian

When you think of aid to the starving poor in Africa, you think of Oxfam or Christian Aid. You don’t think of wealthy bankers, private equity companies or tax havens.

 Yet a report out  examining in detail the aid programme given by the European Investment Bank on behalf of the European Union reveals more and more aid cash is being given to African banks, private equity companies and passed through tax havens.

 The report from a group of non governmental organisations Counter Balance reveals that much of the €1.01 billion given  to relieve poverty is now going to projects that are run by banks and private equity companies. And worse than that commercial confidentiality by both the banks and the EIB  is preventing the public and the taxpayer knowing whether it has gone to good use.

The EIB argues that all is well as the banks know better than them what to do with the money and their own audit checks, often farmed out to local firms in these countries, prove it is value for money.

But the report reveals that all is not as well as they claim. In one case in Gabon the EIB had a lucky escape when they were about to give money ton the Banque Gabonaise de Devloppment only to discover that there was alleged corruption at the bank involving the siphoning of funds by the cronies of the now dead president, Christian Bongo. They pulled out just in time.

 In Nigeria, they also offered a €50 million credit line to the Intercontinental Bank of Nigeria at a  time when its managing director was being investigated for alleged fraud by Nigeria’s equivalent of the Serious Fraud Office. The bank had to bailed out last year by Nigeria’s state bank. Luckily for the EIB none of the money had been drawn down.

The report also highlights a lot of money going to Mauritius – where many private equity companies are based, but not much of the cash is being spent there, most of it is spent in the rest of Africa.

 The fear must be – in the wake of the Irish bank crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers which started the global crash – that the EIB could be next on the list. What could look on the surface as a sound investment might turn out to be little better than some of those subprime investments given a AAA rating.

 The problem is that all the EIB loans are triple AAA rated because they are in Europe. If anything goes wrong, it could be another matter. Don’t say you have not been warned, but this report, even though it is quite dense and detailed, is a must read. It is rather like a canary warning of danger in the mines.

You can get the report at Counter Balance. The direct link to download it is http://bit.ly/f6zalC.

 I have also written an article in The Guardian. The direct link is bit.ly/fdkO5K.

Armchair Audit: Brian Coleman- One of Britain’s highest paid councillors

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This is the first of an occasional series of blogs auditing the work and wealth of public figures

Brian Coleman - a councillor with expensive tastes

who are shaping the destiny of thousands if not millions of people during the age of austerity. Taking my cue from David Cameron, who will be thrilled with the idea of this blog, it is part of making sure we are all in it together.  I am sure he will applaud the  checks on those at the top. Everything here is obtained from public documents and websites. Nothing, Andy Coulson please note, has been acquired from tapping personal mobile phones.

 Tory Brian Coleman, 49, has been in the news over a bitter dispute with London fire fighters over their hours. He accused them of holding down ” two jobs” and he brokered bringing in a private company, Assetco, to fight fires when the firefighters went on strike. The company is now in serious trouble-see other blogs on Assetco on this site.

HIS  INCOME

 Brian Coleman holds down four jobs all funded by the taxpayer. They are:

Member of the London Assembly                                                      allowance: £53,439

Cabinet member Barnet Council                                                         allowance: £38,177

Chair London Fire Brigade                                                                   allowance: £26,883

Chair LGA* fire services management committee                    allowance: £10,365

Grand Total from the taxpayer                                                                                £128,864

*Local Government Association, a voluntary body funded by councils from council taxpayers.

EXPENSES

Brian is a great expense claimer never knowingly underclaimed. He can claim for expenses for three of his four jobs – the LGA don’t allow him.

Last financial year his expenses as a London Assembly member and chair of the London fire authorityreached in excess of £3500 and that does not include his Barnet expenses which he declines to disclose on-line. Included in this are claims for the congestion charge – a tax that MPs are even barred from claiming and which might be challengeable by Revenue and Customs.

 He is a big patron of London cabbies claiming once over £10,000 a year  from the London Assembly on trips (2006-07). He is now more modest – claims have varied between £8000 -plus a £1700 travel card (2007-08) and £345 for 2009-10. All from the taxpayer.

His fire brigade expense claims are not much different.These include a £119 taxi fare to the Fire Service Awards Ceremony in  May 2009 and £143 to attend Westminster’s Lord Mayor’s reception for the Lord Mayor of London. He also spent £402 on a  rail ticket to go a LGA conference in Manchester. Little difference in 2011 -with a £145 taxi fare for him and his mum to go to a  firefighters service of remembrance  and meetings in London.

His red letter claims day is May 12 last year – where he managed to claim car mileage, congestion charge and over £67 in taxis  for a dinner -all on the same day.

For the current  financial year he is already on track to meet his usual high spending record- having claimed £1650 so far from the London fire authority. This included £145 for taxis one one day to go to St Pauls and back for the National Firefighters Remembrance Service in September and another £155 to go to and from a remembrance service for a colleague.

This year he has been entertained to lunch by two prominent Tory lobbyists – unsurprising given it will be election year in 2012 for the London assembly. They are Alex Challoner, managing director of Cavendish Place Communications, who masterminded Steve Norris’s ill fated bid to be London mayor, and Tony Hutt, of Four Communications, who is a lobbyist for major planning schemes in the capital.

His gifts include four dinners (three of them before the company won the contract) and a £350  Harvey Nichols hamper from the head of AssetCo, John Shannon, the company which has a £9m PFI deal with his authority and provided strike cover.

On Christmas Day he started to eat and drink everything in this picture.

Brian Coleman’s huge Christmas hamper: courtesy HarveyNichols

You can keep abreast of his latest expense claims and gifts by clicking these links  http://bit.ly/bRWy6Y and http://bit.ly/9IfKHi  for the london fire brigade and http://bit.ly/9DoqLs for the London Assembly. He has opted out of declaring his gifts and expenses at Barnet Council -see http://bit.ly/b5ADWV

He and David Cartwright have also been busy being entertained to £50 a head dinners by  Danish private fire company Falk, and British private outsourcing giant, Serco.

HIS HOME

Brian Coleman represents Totteridge in Barnet but lives in West Finchley, N3.  He is a member  of the Finchley Methodist Church. They are his landlords and his flat has a registered fair rent of  £546 a month since 2008. That is about £125 a week. This is the Valuation Agency document.Scan_Doc0002 . According to local estate agents, the market rent for 2 bedroom flats is £1200 a month in his and neighbouring streets. Mr Michael Giles, the minister in charge of the charity, has declined to comment on the huge difference.

ODIOUS TOAD AND OTHER CONTROVERSIES

Never short of a sharp word. Most of his exchanges are recorded on his wikipedia site.See all on http://bit.ly/dvA5P5

To get an idea of what he is like see this exchange that closed down a council meeting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsA2EIVCsPk

 He also has had a spat with single mum who went to him for help but ended up being told to live in the ” real world” when she was faced with a £150 a month rent rise – paying double what Coleman pays on his subsidised flat.

CONCLUSION – ALL IN IT TOGETHER?

Brian Coleman’s  decisions will have a huge impact on thousands of families – both in his campaign to cut back on firefighters terms and conditions of work and his role as a team player  at Barnet Council implementing Easy Council solutions for  residents which will affect the lives of the poor, vulnerable and many of his middle class constituents. He is  going  to curb the right of backbench and Liberal Democrat councillors to speak at council meetings with the backing of the Barnet Mayor.

In the meantime he defends his income and expenses from the taxpayer. 

“I work about 100 hours a week and have had three days off since Christmas. I’m not pleading some special case, just saying that … these salaries are not unreasonable.”

Tell him what you think. You can ask to be his friend on Facebook but he keeps his comments there private.

 You could also  email him. His Barnet Council and London Assembly e-mails are:

I am sure he will be very much in favour of David Cameron’s policy of accountability and be delighted to respond. You can also find on this site armchair audits of Gareth Bacon, chair of  London fire brigade’s  performance management committee and David Cartwright,  the Mayoral appointee to the London fire brigade.

Meanwhile any comments on this blog are welcome.  Contact me if you think who should feature next.

David Kelly: Why Dominic Grieve is right to rule out an inquest

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David Kelly:Leave to rest in peace

Sad to say Dominic Grieve’s decision not to hold a further inquest into the death of David Kelly  is the right one. A very detailed letter from Lord Hutton, to the Attorney General and published on the Attorney General Office’s website  this week seems to be clinching evidence that a new inquest would not reveal anything that we do not know already. You can find it  by scrolling through the reports on this link http://bit.ly/mfQPPo. He seems to make quite a convincing case that Dr Kelly’s death was investigated to a higher standard than happens at  a normal coroner’s inquest. Also as I said earlier the quality of the expertise of the investigators could not have been higher, even if the press at the time ignored what had been released as the issue was dominated by Andrew Gilligan’s reports over the Iraq War.

By publishing the pathologist’s report last October  to my mind had already laid to rest some of the more ludicrous conspiracy theories, including one by the present transport minister, Norman Baker.

As I wrote at the time(October 23, 2010)

The pathologist’s report into the death of Dr David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of the row over whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, should finally lay to rest conspiracy theorists’ views that he was murdered by the security services.

The report provides harrowing detail of the self-inflicted wounds he sustained and no evidence whatsoever that he had been attacked or fought off attackers.

Unfortunately the failure to publish the report by Lord Hutton’s investigation in 2004 and the decision to keep it secret for 70 years fuelled conspiracy theories that it was a gigantic cover up.

Yet careful examination of the evidence given by Roy Green, a forensic biologist and crime scene specialist, to the Hutton Inquiry on 3 September 2003 – it is still on the inquiry website- will show that many of the details in the pathologist’s report today  were made public at the time.( http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/transcripts/hearing-trans29.htm)

It would also be extraordinary that Lord Hutton and the inquiry secretary Lee Hughes, who forced the PM’s aggressive press secretary, Alistair Campbell, to release his private diaries and the intelligence agencies to publish internal Whitehall minutes should be suborned by the government to suppress evidence of a murder. The Hutton inquiry, whatever one feels about its findings, was one of the most open and transparent investigations ever held – and its secretary, is an unsung hero in Whitehall in pressing for a freedom of information act.

The explanation is much more mundane – Lord Hutton wanted to safeguard the privacy of Kelly’s family – but even he knew at the time that his request could be overruled because of the Freedom of Information Act.

The real scandal is not the conspiracy to cover up a murder but the fact that it has distracted everyone from the appalling behaviour of Tony Blair’s administration in using every means possible to silence journalists and investigators from finding out the truth about the government’s lies over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and their threat to Britain.

Number Ten effectively used the naming of David Kelly to browbeat the BBC and  blacken the reputation of Andrew Gillighan, a  journalist trying to get to the bottom of the facts, and then were horrified when Kelly took his life.

But as someone who has to deal with moles, some can take a lot of shock and awe but others have to be treated with kid gloves, because their consciences tell them the public should know the facts but they are terrified of being exposed.

 Kelly, from his performance before  MPs, was obviously in the latter group and the fact that he was about to be exposed for lying to MPs that he had talked to another journalist, Susan Watts, was enough for him to kill himself.

The security services did not need to murder Kelly – even if they had wanted to do so, which is highly unlikely – he became sadly another  tragic victim of the Iraq War because he couldn’t take the strain of  being exposed to such  a massive media circus.

The real tragedy is that we have wasted six years going up a blind alley which might be great sport for conspirators, but we have let the people who drove this decent man to his death, escape any retribution for their actions and for not telling the people the truth.  Hutton’s conclusion in this respect left them off the hook.  I would be surprised whether the Chilcot inquiry – which has been far less open about releasing documents does any better.

This blog was first published on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website. For lots of responses see that site.

To “Red” Ed:Some advice from a “has been” Hack

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Ed Miliband: The need to be ruthless and brave Pic: courtesy peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon

Journos love a drama and nothing better than a fratricidal battle between two brothers. But the coverage by my colleagues of  ” Red” versus ” Dead ” Miliband has  been well over the top.

Basically the argument goes like this. Ed has already been defined by his enemies as  red in tooth and claw, only in power because of the machinations of  union barons who duped their members into supporting him to ditch his brilliant elder brother.

Now with Joe Public  well briefed – and with only that difficulty over spending cuts which a public  will reluctantly accept after being told Labour is to blame – the Tories will be able to romp home in four years time.  Just offer the  squeezed middle classes big tax cuts from selling off the banks.

This cartoon portrayal  is likely to go badly wrong. I have no inside knowledge of the Ed Miliband team but I do talk to a lot of contacts who deal with him – and if he is astute enough he has a winning card.

Some people are obviously up to a job, others grow into it. Ed is the latter. As a special adviser to Gordon he seemed frightened of the media. As a Cabinet Office minister the Whitehall view was that he was indecisive about what to do. But as climate change and energy secretary, Whitehall revised their opinion. He took  them on over   emission targets and won, and there is nothing more they like than a minister with a firm agenda.

It was similar in the leadership election campaign. His address to the Parliamentary Lobby lunch was OK, but lacked blood and fire. But through the large number of  hustings, his performance improved and  he was steadily winning the argument. It is a myth  to say that he won the vote because only union bosses backed him. It was his arguments that convinced the individual union members to vote for him and pushed the leaders into backing him. David Miliband – as an article about to appear in The Journalist will reveal – campaigned equally ferociously with the unions but lost the argument.

So where does that leave him? For a start with four years to establish his personality, policies and identity thanks to fixed term Parliaments. The mood  music will then be quite different. We are still in the phoney war over the cuts and higher taxes. From January when VAT goes up, we will face a rolling programme of higher taxes, lower benefits and unthinkable cuts to public services- defended equally by two major coalition parties.

His first speech suggests that he will fight a number of the cuts but not offer to restore every one. He will have to be fleet footed, ruthless, know his own mind and be able to create not just an alternative policy but an alternative narrative that can be believed by the general public. On some issues he will need to be brave, because  the policy may not be instantly popular. He needs to use focus groups not just to tell him what people think but how he can influence people to think differently.

 He should not  underestimate his main opponent David Cameron. Behind  the public relations manner is a ruthless brain – just look at how he handled the expenses saga, leaving Gordon looking flat footed.

One Tory contact of mine at the conference  –  who  I have known for years- had a chilling insight into the right wing agenda. He said he did not mind if it was a one term coalition – because by 2015 they would have dismantled so much of the state – that  a Labour government would never have the money to put it back. His money comes from the Far East and the oil rich states surrounding Russia- so he doesn’t care if the UK does not really prosper – as he thinks  India and China will be the wealthy power houses of the future. That if nothing else should be warning to Ed of what he has got to do.

Medical Misdiagnosis Update:Inquiry on the Scillies

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the scilly isles - beautiful but medically dangerous if you fall:pic courtesy duchy of cornwall

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Community Health Services has launched an inquiry into how they missed my triple fracture to my arm and shoulder at their local hospital on St Mary’s.

It has accepted a formal complaint from me aimed not only aimed to find out how my injury was misdiagnosed but to look into why  you can only get an X ray done on the islands for two hours a week.

 Given that the Isles of Scilly is a tourist destination for walkers, sailors and scuba divers it seems to me essential that at least in the summer months there should be proper medical facilities to deal with accidents.

Otherwise beautiful as the islands are, staying on them could result in serious consequences  for your health should you unfortunately trip over. I have still not got the full use of my arm back four months after the accident.

There is another reason to be worried. St Mary’s hospital is  GP led and the government without announcing it in its manifesto is commtited to GP commissioning of services. The Isles of Scilly is probably the nearest place where GPs are in control – and will this mean penny pinching and cost saving?

The authority has promised to reply within 25 days. I will keep you posted.