George Osborne insults us all

George Osborne's appointment as editor of the London Evening Standard while refusing to stand down as a member of parliament is ridiculous, offensive, corrupt and insulting. It has already been said over the last couple of days that it is impossible to be an effective MP and newspaper editor at the same time. They are both demanding full-time jobs and the people served by both jobs deserve so much more than a part-timer. It has already been said that doing these two jobs represents a massive conflict of interest. His appointment demeans the role of an MP as well as the role of a newspaper editor.

Of course there are inane apologists for this steaming truckload of bullshit.  

"But he'll just be a figurehead editor!"

Great. Super. Wonderful. So he'll be on an inflated salary to waft in and out of the office when he can be arsed, doing the bits of the job that amuse him, while the rest of the Evening Standard staff have to do the real work? Will he be there for boring parts of the editor's job? For the negotiations with the sales team that require decisions about balancing revenue with editorial credibility? For refereeing a dispute over the style guide? For the inevitable staff member who appears at the editor's desk in tears?

As well as propping up the notion that only the privileged get the top British media jobs, Osborne's appointment reinforces the myth that journalism is an easy job that anyone can do. 

"It's all about his great connections!"

When he first aspired to be a journalist many moons ago, his rampant privilege and connections could not get him entry-level positions on The Times or The Economist. He did a freelance stint writing the Peterborough diary for the Telegraph. This means anyone who has done a competent enough job on more than one publication has more experience as a journalist than George Osborne. And in a city the size of London with its large media market, there are plenty of well-connected journalists with genuine runs on the board. 

It should not be beyond the wit of Evgeny Lebedev to find someone who has a full contacts book and the ability to run the daily news conference without having to refer to Journalism For Dummies or surreptitiously Google "what is the splash?" on his phone.

"But Boris Johnson did a great job as a journalist!"

Yeah, that'd be Boris Johnson, the same irresponsible spoiled flake of a journalist who got a bit bored trying to report accurately on the European parliament so he started simply making shit up instead. He is largely responsible for starting the "bonkers Brussels" myths that so many leave voters fell for in the EU referendum. He wrote stories about the EU declaring snails as fish, and EU directives to standardise the smell of manure, ban prawn cocktail crisps and standardise condom sizes. This nonsense was published unchecked and people believed it. Boris Johnson was a purveyor of fake news. 

"But Michael Gove is a Times columnist!"

Yeah, that'd be Michael Gove, the man responsible for an embarrassingly sycophantic interview with Donald Trump that was about as hard-hitting as a headbutt from a sea-monkey.

And perhaps most inane of all...

"Oh, it is just delicious that George Osborne can make mischief by trolling Theresa May in the pages of the Evening Standard!"

This is not what a newspaper is for. No newspaper should exist for a self-serving editor, particularly one who already has plenty of opportunities to publicly air his views, to settle scores, to use it for his own personal vendettas. This is not the same as holding the government to account. It is all about George Osborne's ego. It is about him being arrogant enough to assume he can do some newspaper editing in the morning and a spot of parliament in the afternoon and do justice to both jobs.

There is no way George Osborne can do a credible job of editing a newspaper for London. It was bad enough reading the Evening Standard on the commute home when Boris Johnson was mayor. The level of arse-kissing was off the chain. I honestly don't know what Boris would have had to do to be criticised by the Evening Standard in that grim era. Deep-fry a few live kittens outside Buckingham Palace,  perhaps? Then the paper backed Zac Goldsmith even as the wheels fell off his mayoral campaign, Sadiq Khan won the election convincingly and ever since, the coverage of his time in City Hall has been very fair and balanced.

Whether fair and balanced coverage of City Hall will continue when Osborne takes the reins remains to be seen. But it is impossible for him to be an objective editor overseeing the stories that affect Londoners when he has been responsible for votes in parliament that affect Londoners. He is a mess of conflicting ideologies and competing priorities.

He is arrogant enough to think he can remain as MP for Tatton, in England's north-west while editing a London paper. George Osborne has been the mouthpiece for the largely vacuous Tory policy of creating a "Northern powerhouse", of developing the north of England and moving away from a London-centric economy. This is at odds with the unabashedly pro-London stance of the Evening Standard. Can readers expect to be urged to leave the capital for the north? 

He voted for the Health and Social Care Act 2012, an act which led to the creation of Clinical Commissioning Groups, which are putting health services and, in some areas, entire hospitals under threat in London. Will he ensure the government is held to account in the coming months and years if and when London loses essential health services?

Despite being pro-remain, he voted against seeking to protect the residence rights of EU citizens lawfully resident in the UK post-Brexit, despite London being a city that will be seriously depleted in multiple professions if we cannot guarantee the rights of EU citizens to stay on here after the negotiations to leave the EU are complete. Osborne can claim all he likes that he is offering resistance to a hard Brexit but on this issue, he is on the same page as Theresa May. There were two votes on the same issue last year and he was absent for both, hardly the actions of a man committed to wanting the best for London. Yet he is set to edit a paper in a largely pro-remain city where plenty of readers will be uncertain of their own fate or that of friends, lovers, colleagues and neighbours.

He has voted consistently for a reduction in spending on welfare and for a reduction in housing benefit for council tenants with a spare bedroom (the so-called bedroom tax). Unsurprisingly, these laws have done nothing to alleviate poverty in London or address the shortage of affordable housing in the capital, particularly for workers in essential services and low-income earners. 

Will he as editor of the Evening Standard be able to look such tough issues squarely in the eye and ensure they are covered properly? Or will be simply play-act at editing a newspaper, leave the hard work to the rest of the staff and return each night to one of his lovely, warm houses, secure in the knowledge that there will be people on the streets of London using copies of the Evening Standard as bedlinen? 

Photography: duncan c/Flickr

In defence of John Bercow

Poor Donald Trump. When he visits Britain, he is going to be no-platformed everywhere he goes, the media will completely ignore him, nothing he says will ever get reported, and the people of this country will have absolutely no idea he is even here. Poor little Donny won't have any freedom of speech.

Except that will not be how it pans out when he takes up Theresa May's embarrassingly fast invitation to pop across the pond and say hello. His visit will dominate the news cycle for days. His views will be heard by millions. This is a man who makes global headlines every time he tweets. He has more platforms than an Olympic diving team.

But none of this has stopped Trump's British apologists from demanding John Bercow resign. This is all because Bercow plans to use the power he has as speaker of the house to not invite Trump to address MPs in Westminster Hall. Please note that Bercow has not called for Trump to be refused entry to the UK or to never speak to anyone or for press conferences to be called off.

All he has done is refuse Trump an invitation to speak at Westminster Hall as a statement against Trump's racism and sexism, and to send a message of British support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary, both concepts that seem to elude the wit of Trump. Bercow had the opportunity to take a stand, to speak out on behalf of British values and he took it. He can look back on this in years to come and be very proud. Good on him.

Bercow's upholding of support for an independent judiciary is particularly important. This week, a 44-year-old man from Hertfordshire was arrested at Gatwick Airport on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack when he disembarked from a flight from Iraq. British idiots, who are apparently experts in US constitutional law, started saying that this was proof that Britain should copy Trump with travel restrictions for people with passports from Iraq - except that at this stage we don't know if the arrested man had an Iraqi passport.

It is entirely possible that the arrested man only has a British passport, in which case a travel restriction would not work. And even if he does have an Iraqi passport, he has been arrested before committing a terror attack on British soil. This would indicate that we don't need to copy Trump because our intelligence services and police are already being effective.

The same idiots who called British judges "enemies of the people" for ruling that our democratically elected MPs should have a vote on triggering Article 50 for leaving the EU are siding with Trump instead of the independent judiciary on the issue of the travel restrictions yet, curiously, they also have a lack of respect for our counter-terrorist forces, even when they do their job properly.

Trump's apologists have also pointed out this week that Bercow has shaken hands with leaders of such undemocratic regimes as China and Saudi Arabia. This is true but these leaders were not invited to speak at Westminster Hall. In any case, plenty of people who are supporting Bercow have also publicly objected to the human rights abuses of both countries and plenty of others with whom Britain breaks bread.

Barack Obama only got the opportunity to address Westminster Hall in 2012, after he had already served an entire term as president. Aung San Suu Kyi has addressed Westminster Hall, which made a powerful statement against the despotic forces in Burma that have imprisoned her and attempted to silence her over the decades. Nelson Mandela has also had this honour. While there are debates as to whether he was a freedom fighter or a leader of thugs, it is hard to argue that he was not a towering figure in ending the official policy of apartheid in South Africa.

In this historic context, for Theresa May to offer Trump a state visit within moments of his election is desperate, premature and completely embarrassing. In the wake of public pressure as well as an outcry that has transcended party politics, it looks like Trump will still be coming over here but his visit will be scaled back.

The latest news is that instead of London, the visit will move to Brexit heartland of the Midlands and Trump will use the opportunity to raise funds for British veterans. Oh good. So basically Trump is employing the same tactics of far right hate group, Britain First. They gained a lot of social media traction by posting things many people who are by no means extremist will agree on, such as support for our troops when they return from war zones and memes about not being cruel to dogs. But Britain First, like Trump, also holds plenty of despicable views. It would appear they are both playing the "But I support the troops!" card as a distraction and in an attempt to mislead people.

In any case, charities such as Help For Heroes should not have to exist in the first place.

If a government sends men and women to war, to risk death and life-changing injury, the least they can do is ensure that injured veterans are housed and do not slip into abject poverty. If Trump was going to schedule a meeting with the defence secretary on how the US and British governments can better help injured veterans when they return home, that would at least deserve some respect. The latest reports indicate Trump wants to host a mass rally with tickets at £10 a head.

Trump can expect protests wherever he goes. Moving the visit away from London won't stop that. People will travel to make themselves heard and it is simply wrong to assume that everyone in the Midlands will be delighted about Trump turning up in their neighbourhood. If anyone wishes to exercise their right to protest when Trump arrives, that should be respected. This will not impede Trump's right to freedom of speech.

Peaceful protest has long been a hallmark of British democracy. With the latest anti-Trump protests, there have certainly been some potty-mouthed banners, especially in Scotland, but peaceful does not mean colourful language is verboten.

In any case, Britain has outdone itself in the last few weeks with the most polite online petition ever.

At the time of writing, 1,853,814 people signed up to the following: "Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen."

To say that Donald Trump is free to visit this green and pleasant land but that it should not cause embarrassment to an elderly woman is adorable. And, if Trump doesn't get to meet the Queen, that will really grind his gears. But it does not mean for a second that his freedom of speech is being denied. Seriously, Trump apologists of Britain and the world, get a grip.








Photography by Matt A.J/Flickr

It's about time Britain grew up...

It has been one of those weeks where I just want to yell: "GROW UP! GROW UP, THE LOT OF YOU!" at the internet. Seriously, too many people have been really pathetic.

In particular, those outraged at Jeremy Corbyn not singing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain commemoration need to pipe down and let the grown-ups talk at the big table. If you want to live in a place that forces people to sing national anthems, I hear North Korea is lovely at this time of year.

But, honestly, the outcry over Corbyn and "God Save The Queen", a ludicrous anthem if ever there was one, was manufactured by the media, with the notable exception of the Guardian choosing not to plaster the fauxrage on its front page today.

If the editors were genuinely offended by Corbyn's respectful silence and wanted to show they are all about honouring those who have died in war, why weren't the front pages focused on the actual service of remembrance at St Paul's cathedral? It wouldn't have caused the easily offended little petals on Twitter to lose their shit, it wouldn't have been great clickbait, but it would have been the mature way to cover that story.

Another mature story to put on today's front pages would have been a report about how £4.4 billion worth of cuts to tax credits will affect people who are in work, but that wouldn't play into the whole "all people on benefits are feckless, lazy scroungers who spend all day watching Sky TV in tracksuits while texting their drug dealer on their iPhone" narrative.

And then it was Prime Minister's Question Time, Corbyn's first as leader of the opposition. Has anyone noticed that all of a sudden, journalists are referring to "Her Majesty's Opposition" when they have never done so before? It is accurate, but it is naive to think this is not being done on purpose. Again, grow up and quit editorialising when you are meant to be doing balanced, fair journalism.

Corbyn set the tone with an appeal for a less theatrical PMQs. He asked questions that real voters want asked in parliament. This is what parliament is for - it is meant to represent the people. This is Democracy 101. It would have been good to see Corbyn add more facts and stats to the questions and the responses, but the idea is sound and it will be interesting to see how this continues to play out in the coming weeks and months.

And it's not as if David Cameron's fans can complain about Corbyn's calm, measured approach. The law of unintended consequences means that Cameron comes across better in a less melodramatic forum. His answers were no more substantial than they were in the last parliament. He trotted out the tired £8-billion-for-the-NHS line out once more, without any detail or context again, for example, but he did not come across as a braying schoolboy.

Even when another Tory MP added a jibe about the national anthem to the end of his question, Cameron was classy enough to not take the bait in his response.

It was a far cry from the ding-dong battles of the last parliament but then things got a bit silly again. Andrew Turner, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, popped up from the government back bench to ask a question about the isle's struggle to import a tiger for its zoo. Apparently, the hapless kitty has been kept in isolation in Belgium for two years because of red tape about a rabies certificate. Leaving aside the ethics of keeping a tiger in a zoo on a tiny island rather than letting her live in the wild, this was the moment that PMQs jumped the shark. The whole scenario smacked of a set-up, of a way to draw attention away from questions on issues such as housing and mental health.

And again, PMQs looked like a schoolyard.

Afterwards, there was a pleasing tweet from Labour MP, Chuka Umunna. He may have thrown his toys out of the pram by refusing to be part of Corbyn's shadow cabinet but he was very gracious when he tweeted: "#PMQs is a circus. I've long argued to abolish it and put a better alternative in its place, but it was rather refreshing today - good."

And some people lamented the lack of theatrics. They too can grow the hell up. I am really sorry if a civilised exchange of views is boring for you. I am really sorry that you have the attention span of a kitten and can only concentrate on politics when members on both sides of the house are carrying on like a Grange Hill brawl. And I am really sorry if you truly think that sort of mindless, unproductive crap is the way forward for British political debate.

What would happen if Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour leader?

The Honourable Member for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, could end up as the leader of the Labour Party in September. If this happens, delight and horror will ring out around the country, possibly in equal measure.

This week's vote on the welfare bill may well be the nail in the coffin for the leadership campaigns of Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, all of whom abstained with the hope that a bunch of amendments will get through. It's a risky strategy because, aside from the amendments not dealing with some of the more awful aspects of the welfare bill, Labour will be left in an awkward spot if some but not all of the amendments are passed. What then? Do they go ahead and vote for a bill with a few tweaks or vote the whole thing down if they can't get all the amendments passed?

If the majority of Labour's MPs let a slightly tweaked bill become law, that is not going to placate the people, both in and out of the party, who are siding firmly with the 48 MPs who voted against the bill this week. Corbyn was among the 48 rebels and this has given his campaign for the party leadership new vigour.

Nobody seems more surprised than Corbyn himself that he is now a realistic contender for the Labour Party leadership. By his own admission, he threw his hat into the ring to reinvigorate debate rather than with any real hopes of winning the damn thing outright.

The fragmentation of Labour and the resulting arguments the leadership contest has spawned has led to much speculation over whether the party can ever win again if it shifts too far to the left or the right. Tony Blair was a master at finding the middle ground. He then took the party possibly further to the right than it had ever been before, but he is still hailed as an electoral hero by many.

But since Blair's time in office ended, there have been growing murmurings about whether there is an appetite for a centre-left party to govern the UK. Some will say the Green Party is the obvious choice and will despair that more people don't vote Green, while others find aspects of Green policy, such as their war on air and road travel, to be a leap too far to the left but they would rather like to vote for a party that preserves things like the NHS, the BBC, state education and housing benefit for under-25s. Some would deride these people as champagne socialists, although they are more likely to simply be realists who happen to own a car and like to take a holiday abroad once in a while.

A sober analysis of this year's election results is needed. The numbers reveal that 36.9% of all votes went to the Conservative Party. Of these, there would be lifelong Tory voters, people who figured there was no point voting LibDem, swing voters, voters genuinely convinced that the Conservatives can manage the economy properly, and UKIP supporters who thought better of it in the privacy of the polling booth. Labour trailed in second place with 30.4% of the vote.

It is the rest of the results that make for interesting reading. UKIP were a distant third with 12.6% of the vote - as well as the stereotypical UKIP voters, plenty of disillusioned Labour voters went purple this year. Some are Eurosceptics - and this is a significant element of the population that Labour will need to consider if they are serious about winning the 2020 election - and some ex-Labour-now-UKIP voters genuinely think Nigel Farage's party supports working class people in a way they feel Labour does not.

Meanwhile, the hapless Liberal Democrats managed 7.9% of the vote and the Greens 3.8% - if Labour were able to better appeal to these left-of-centre voters, they probably could have won the election, albeit by a tiny margin given the first-past-the-post system. But seriously, the craven pandering to the Tories by the LibDems in the last Parliament should have been a gift for Labour.

Then there is the loss of Scotland, formerly safe Labour, to the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon led a highly effective campaign to appeal not just to Scottish nationalism but also to sell the party as a way more credible, anti-austerity opposite than Labour. Now Parliament is back in session, it is hard to deny that it is the SNP that looks like the strong, coherent opposition party right now.

On top of all this, while the 66.1% voter turnout was considered high, that means 33.9% of eligible voters didn't vote. This can be arrogantly dismissed as an acceptance of the status quo or it can be a sign that a large proportion of adults in Britain did not see the point in voting. Would anything change, regardless of how they voted? Was there any real difference between the major parties?

On balance, it appears there is a not-insignificant number of people in Britain who don't want to see the country resemble East Germany but would welcome a credible centre-left alternative to the current government.

The NHS is a good case in point for a desire for sensible centre-left policies. Poll after poll shows that people from across the political spectrum are keen to keep the NHS free at the point of use. The need for reform in the NHS is also widely acknowledged and accepted, but Labour has done an appalling job of showing people how the ongoing reforms of the NHS by the Tory-LibDem coalition and now the Tory majority government are doing more harm than good and have made the NHS less cost-effective and more bureaucratic than ever. Like the LibDem failings, this should have been a gift for Labour at the last election. Hell, ex-Tory leadership prospect Michael Portillo is on the record back in 2011 as saying that David Cameron and Tories lied to the people of Great Britain about their intentions for the NHS because they knew it'd be electoral suicide.

If Corbyn can provide a compassionate and cost-effective alternative to the destructive Health and Social Care Act of 2012, that alone would make him a very popular Labour leader. And the same goes for the welfare bill - it is one thing to take a stand with 47 rebel MPs against what is largely terrible legislation but it is quite another to put forward a bold new proposal that doesn't throw the vulnerable under a bus, doesn't penalise the millions of people in work who rely on benefits, and shows a genuine commitment to job creation.

Would it be so terrible if Corbyn led the Labour Party? Or would it be like Michael Foot all over again?

What I do know is that the left can be easily disappointed in their leaders. There is a tendency to place heroes on pedestals - so ironically anti-egalitarian - and this gives them a long way to fall for even the slightest transgression. Barack Obama, Ed Milliband and Julia Gillard are examples of heroes of the left who, despite varying degrees of success, have invoked serious disappointment among some of their supporters. If Corbyn, as Labour Party leader, shows any signs of compromising with the centre-right factions of the party - even if this means preserving his leadership - I predict he will face a barrage of criticism from people who hitherto supported him, just as surely as he would be crucified if he released a manifesto that the mainstream media deemed to be too socialist.

Corbyn will face a delicate balancing act if he becomes leader of the Labour Party. How he manages to walk this tightrope might ultimately depend on how much he wants to lead the party more than how much his party want him to win an election in 2020.

Politicians, perks and public transport

Nadine Dorries is whining again today. She says she was given permission to take four weeks off while Parliament was sitting, but admits she didn't disclose that she wanted the time off to go to Australia and appear on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. Now everybody is picking on her. Boo and also hoo. But there is an element of hypocrisy - no Member of Parliament should be allowed to take additional time off unless they are ill or there are genuine personal reasons for taking extra leave, such as bereavement. This is how it works for the rest of us. Why should MPs be any different?

And while we're at it, how about we make the working lives of MPs more like the working lives of the people they represent? Perhaps we should view Parliament as being like the London head office of a company that has branches across the whole nation. Below are a few pointers on how MPs can live like the rest of us, not make outrageous expense claims and maybe even save taxpayers some money. This is how it works for employees, especially in the private sector. Surely the Conservative Party cannot object to Parliament being run more like a private company...

• If you live and work in London, you generally get public transport to work at your own expense. MPs who live in the Oyster card zone should do likewise. This is not at all unreasonable on a salary of £65,738.
• If you work for a private company with a London head office but you're not based in London, your company will most likely reimburse you for travel expenses when you need to be in the capital for work. As such, MPs, apart from those not based on the mainland, should be able to claim train travel between their constituency and London, provided they travel by Standard Class.
• However, if you do need to travel to London for work purposes in the private sector, you're probably not allowed to claim for the rent on a second residence in London. Chances are, you will be put up in a hotel and, in this age of austerity, it probably won't be the Dorchester. Instead of MPs having second homes in London, how about a few empty buildings get transformed into budget hotels for MPs? Surely all they need is a clean, comfortable room, a desk, a phone, wifi, and somewhere to shit, shower and sleep?
  
  The process could be put out to tender so that private companies, such as Premier Inn and Holiday Inn Express, can bid for the contract to develop the buildings and offer rooms to MPs at a guaranteed reasonable rate so the taxpayer is paying for the sort of rate a reliable corporate client would pay. What Tory could possibly object to such privatisation? When Parliament is not sitting, the hotels would be open to the public. This is London. The rooms will be booked. The hotels would create jobs during the construction phase as well as when they are operational.
• MPs who are not based in London will receive an Oyster card for travelling around London and can only claim taxi fares if they have to attend late night Parliamentary sessions, which are rare.
• No MP should be allowed to claim for maintenance and repairs on their constituency homes. Everyone else pays for their own home repairs. Why should MPs be any different? Seriously, they are no better than the "benefits scroungers" many of them claim are wasting the taxes of hardworking people.
  
  This is by no means an exhaustive list of ways that we can ensure MPs lead lives that are more like those of their constituents, but it's definitely a start. Any more suggestions are warmly welcomed. One of my favourite writers, Fleet Street Fox has explained how George Osborne lives in no way like anyone I know but can't seem to apply the same acumen to the economy.
  
  After all, if the current government is obsessed with cutting spending and reducing benefits, surely they can set an example? We're all in this together, aren't we? Aren't we? Hello? Tumbleweeds...

Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com