Cleaning up (the other sort).

The Times reveals today that David Cameron is making good his claim to be cleaning up politics. It is alleged that 28 Conservative parliamentary candidates for safe seats are working for lobbying companies, whilst more than a fifth of his 150 candidates most likely to win seats for the first time will have done public affairs work.

To be fair, none of the three main parties has any kind of policy nor desire to reduce the influence of lobbyists on government - a situation recently referred to by President Obama as blocking 'the revolving door'. However it is the Conservatives, seemingly on the brink of power for whom the lobbying issue is of the greatest concern.

So what is David Cameron going to do about it? We can assume that he is having sleepless nights right now worrying about whether he can offer the British people, 'government of the people, by the people, for the people ...' and whether he can really offer them the 'transparency' that he so desires.

Because he is a Conservative, Cameron is seen as a man who can most likely offer Britain 'smaller government'. He will no doubt be aware that the reason government exists in the first place is because it offers 'critical mass' to individuals and groups of individuals.... because team effort achieves more than rogue behaviour in so many instances in life.

The question is: Is he aware that some groups and 'teams' in society sometimes find themselves wielding more power than others? Does money, inheritance, existing power etc., play a part in deciding for whom that government of the people actually exists? And does he understand that these questions are crucial if he really wants to achieve the goal of open, transparent, fair government?

Of course he does. He is an Old Etonian and he will have learnt that just as on the playing fields of Eton, so in a just society you have to play by the rules. He will know that those rules must be transparent and fair to all who play... Let's just hope that he knows exactly which rules everybody should play by...

Goosey goosey gander

The Chancellor Alistair Darling has stunned the City of London with his new 'get tough' policy, by telling Britain's Bankers '"The party's over." This is the latest in a series of initiatives by the government to show 'who is boss' and to make it clear that this government 'means business'.

The PM Gordon Brown has previously made it very clear that he is "not happy" that bankers are paying themselves massive bonuses once more. This has had the 'big swinging dicks' and 'masters of the universe' quite literally quaking in their boots.

Of course some commentators were of the opinion that 'the party was over' one year ago when the financial markets crashed and the demise of Lehman Brothers created the world's largest ever bankrupcy. But it appears that this was clearly not the case, according to Darling. For the past three months at least the phrase 'bonuses are back' has been on the lips of everyone still employed in the City.

Some wonder whether this new 'get tough' policy might be a response to the French approach. President Sarkozy of France has suggested he will leave G20 negotiations unless a “substantial, significant and detailed” deal on controlling bankers’ bonuses is reached. Already this week, Lord Turner of the FSA has intimated that many bankers offer little to society with their complex trades. And today, Lord Myners the City Minister has called for greater transparency in pay deals.

Whether the government's new assertiveness will amount to more than a hill of beans, is unclear. No one has yet come up with a viable way of curbing excessive pay packets. And most expect Gordon Brown, despite his 'noises' to back down when it comes to the crunch (not the credit sort, but the other sort). For Gordon has always realised that the City was the 'goose that laid the golden egg' (of high tax revenue). Now, why would he want to kill that goose, even if, from time to time, the bird sprays shit all over the place - as indeed it did one year ago.

Missed a postman..?

Oh yes, wait a minute, Mr Postman... Wait Mr Postman....

Please Mr Postman look and see... If there's a letter in your bag for me

( Please, Please, Mr Postman )

Why's it takin' such a long time... For me to hear from that boy of mine

There must be... Some word today... From my boyfriend... So far away


OFFICIAL CHORUS: The postmen are not working today because they consider it an imposition to work the eight hour day that their contracts expects them to work.
So screw your boyfriends, girlfriends etc... We work to rule and rule to work...

Gordy Blimey

Gordon Brown has received the ultimate accolade: A ringing endorsement from US former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The PM was named world statesman of the year at the Appeal of Conscience Foundation awards last night.

The Foundation campaigns for religious freedom and human rights - something that quite clearly appeals to a Prime Minister who has sought to pursue ID cards, extend imprisonment without trial, put innocent people on the DNA database and snoop on the internet traffic of all British citizens.

Kissinger said, "His leadership has been essential to our ability to overcome the moment of danger" - a reference to Brown's handling of the world economic crisis last year. Kissinger also praised Brown's "vision and dedication".

Kissinger undoubtedly saw in Brown many of the qualities of a former 'world statesman' - one for whom he had worked some forty years earlier - Richard Nixon. Like Brown, Nixon concealed behind his weather-beaten face and Cheshire cat grin an aptitude for scheming and duplicity that earned him the nickname 'Tricky Dicky'.

History will no doubt at some point confer a similar nickname upon the British Prime Minister - one to add to his title of 'world statesman'... Perhaps something along the lines of Fraudy Gordy..?

Disarray

The conference season has kicked off this year with all three parties engaged in internecine struggles. Key people in each party are the subject of whispering campaigns from within their own rank and file. Policy frequently appears made up 'on the hoof' and then later retracted as the press reacts furiously to any apparently 'off-message' speeches and announcements.

Nick Clegg has had to backtrack on his 'savage cuts' proposal, which appeared to be the result of bravado. Vince Cable has been criticised for not clearing his 'million pound house surcharge' with the rank and file first. Labour is contending with an Attorney General who employs illegal immigrants and a leader whom much of the party believes is a nutter who will probably bow out before the next election. Meanwhile the Conservative Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne is being criticised as weak and not up to the job, too much of a political point scorer, who is frequently out of his depth.

It is primarily the greater discipline of the Conservatives that has allowed them to maintain their lead over the other two parties. However, much of the electorate is very much in the dark as to how it will put 'clear blue water' between it and the Labour and LibDem parties. When politics is all about being all things to all people, it is difficult to avoid frequent political cross-dressing and the ultimate alientation of the rank and file.

How deep can you go?

Hard though it is to believe, internet chat rooms and newspaper comments boards are buzzing with a 'barrage of criticism' over the debut of a singer called Aleisha Dixon on BBC's 'Strictly Come Dancing'. What is really desperate is the fact that some fans of the show have claimed that she is 'out of her depth'.

Quite how any judge on a ballroom dancing show - however dim - can be out of their depth is anybody's guess. But it might have something to do with the BBC's remarkable designation of the show as an example of 'public service broadcasting.' The BBC Director General Mark Thompson underlined this point last week when he claimed that viewers of the show were concerned with "the quality and range of the programmes and content they watch and listen to.”

Oddly enough, the show is scheduled directly against that other beacon of public service broadcasting, 'The X-Factor' which gives some idea of the kind of programme the BBC really thinks it is. Still, fans of the dancing show now clearly are of the opinion that it truly is quality programming - as they indicated when they furiously bombarded message boards with such pearls of wisdom as 'Aleisha is banal' and "Aleisha's limited knowledge fell short of that of the ex-judge, choreographer, Arlene Phillips".

Maybe the BBC could have a rethink and start hiring wits and wags like Jeremy Paxman, Stephen Fry and Alain de Botton to judge pop and dance competitions. You never know, it might just fool people into believing that these shows are actually 'high-brow'.

Guilty until proven... guilty

The government, desperate to prove its green credentials is seriously considering a controversial plan to make motorists automatically liable in crashes involving bikes or pedestrians. The proposal is particularly insidious as there are many instances where cyclists are to blame for crashes, as in the case of red light jumping. However the government, having failed to persuade the requisite number of people to take to their bikes has fallen upon its default option of trying to change society by changing the law.

Clashes between cars and cyclists are common in London, which has actually seen a large rise in the number of people taking to the bike. The government's rather ropey logic has allowed it to conclude that it is therefore fine to blame the car driver. And so it has charged the transport secretary, Lord Adonis, with the task of formulating a policy that would blame the motorist, even when the cyclist was quite clearly to blame.

A spokesman for the Department of Transport said: "There is nothing wrong with this policy. By stating that the guilty can be considered innocent, the government is doing nothing new. It has itself been claiming total innocence in cases where it is plainly guilty for some years now. So we are very much at home with this policy." However a spokeman for a leading motoring organisation responded by saying: "Bad policy-making is almost the norm for this government, that thinks that you can change virtually anything in society by changing the law... It is clear that the wheels came off this Government some time ago."

Want some?

The LibDem leader Nick Clegg has challenged Conservative leader David Cameron to a duel to find out who is 'more savage'. The party leaders who, it is universally acknowledged, were chosen because of their youthful good looks and their charisma are both becoming increasingly concerned that this is the only reason why they were chosen.

Lately it has appeared pointless attacking the Prime Minister Gordon Brown as everyone else is already doing a good job of it. But it makes a lot of sense for The LibDem and Conservative leaders to round on eachother in order to prove which of them is the 'hard man' of politics.

Clegg has accused Cameron of not being 'savage' enough with spending cuts. He has suggested that there should be a longterm freeze in the public sector pay bill, scaling back of future public sector pensions and the withdrawal of tax credits from the middle class.

The Conservative leader who has previously avoided scaring the electorate with drastic spending cuts is sure to hit back with a withering attack on Clegg and is likely to announce broader plans to decrease public debt. Now that the 'c-word' has become acceptable, none of the party leaders can any longer feel shy of fighting in this particular arena.

What is clear is that throughout the past few years the three leaders have worked so hard to cling on to the same ideological turf that it now seems that the only way that any of them can distinguish themselves is by punching eachother's lights out in a public brawl.

No more cover-ups or denials

It is official: Gordon Brown has run out of things to cover up. The Prime Minister whose reputation for double-dealing has flourished of late is now facing a crisis of confidence, as he searches for new departmental policies and secret deals to hide or to deny ever existed.

Brown is currently defending himself from claims by the Tories that he mis-led parliament during a month-long campaign in which he accused them of planning 10% cuts to public services. A recently leaked Treasury document shows that at the time officials were themselves forecasting 9.3% cuts.

The Prime Minister's determination to move away from the spin of Old New Labour to the straightforward lies of New New Labour has undoubtedly borne fruit, most notably in the case of the Al-Megrahi release where he denied that an oil deal with Libya was in any way involved. Since that time, Brown has more or less universally been acknowledged to be a double-dealer.

But is it possible that time is running out for the man who has governed Britain for the past two years on a diet of untruths, cover-ups and denials? Can there be anything left to hide for the man who is assumed to be lying almost every time he opens his mouth nowadays?

Perhaps, the man who started out as he meant to go on when he denied back in 2007 that he was planning an election, could have just one more card up his sleeve. The ultimate denial for this Prime Minister would be the denial that there is going to be a general election in the next nine months and that he is going to lose it. But in the case of Gordon Brown it is not totally inconceivable.

"I see them everywhere"

Dan Brown's latest conspiracy theory novel, The Lost Phallus, has the hero Robert Langdon chasing penises. The book is true to the spirit of his first two novels, Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons where the Professor uncovered the mysteries of secret sects using his genius for decoding symbols. The plot is hair-raising and has Langdon alternately being chased or obstructed by nutters who are determined to keep their phalluses to themselves.

In the latest novel the plot revolves around the symbols not of religion but of government and commerce. The Washington Monument is central to Langdon's 'penis obsession' but The Eiffel Tower and Taipei 101 also play big parts in the proceedings. Langdon believes that the leading world powers were actually established by sex-mad political leaders who all signed up to the notion that "Power is the best aphrodisiac." He also thinks that early mystics hid clues to facts that would blow apart our understanding of reproduction.... and that they hid those clues in famous monuments.

Naturally Langdon is seen as a meddler by the phallocentric 'keepers of the secrets of reproduction' and they send a crazed scientist called Dawkins to get him. Dawkins will do absolutely anything to protect the truth. However, once Langdon has got the 'bit between his teeth', there's no stopping him and before long he starts seeing penises everywhere - even in his breakfast cereal.

The story ends dramatically with a giant gorilla climbing the Washington Monument, holding the Professor's 'female helper' Fay Wray in his sweaty palm. This is seen as a symbol of the repressed sexuality of the political classes. Meanwhile Dawkins is dispatched whilst trying to beat Langdon at a game of 'advanced symbology'. And Langdon's friend Professor Derrida claims that "The inner truth of gender is a fabrication." Nobody knows what he means by this. But it appears to do the trick, and the world's politicians soon come together and promise to be more transparent in future about their 'sexual relations' with 'those interns' etc.

The drama ends memorably with the symbologist Langdon raising aloft a large dildo and stating: "I have at long last got to grips with this sacred object."

"No more laymen, brothers!"

One year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers market watchers and political leaders alike are delighted that ordinary folk now understand collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) and other structured securities. There is a sense that, now that everybody understands the complexities of the market place, it is far less likely that maths geeks and rocket scientists will ever again be able secretly to develop and trade the toxic waste that brought down that financial behemoth.

It is widely accepted that banks will have to show greater accountability in the coming months and years. Congress is working through President Obama's overhaul of the regulatory system and in the UK, Gordon Brown is making noises about how cross he is that bankers are paying themselves large bonuses again. But the key to long term change in the running of the global financial system has inevitably to come from the ordinary voters, the taxpayers who will have to hold future political leaders to account, and through them, the banks as well. And for that to happen they have to be able to understand the nature of the products that those banks trade.

And so it is with this in mind that Prime Minister Brown has decided to authorise a new range of derivatives that mean something to ordinary people. He and Chancellor Darling will sign off the first wave of these in the coming months. They will include poker derivatives - after all everyone and his aunt does poker nowadays. They will also likely agree roulette derivatives - roulette being another hot home counties favorite; pawn shop derivatives - much in vogue nowadays, what with the recession; lottery derivatives - everyone loves a punt, and remember, it could be you; and, slightly more controversially, mortgaged-up-to-the-hilt derivatives - a personal favorite of the Prime Minister.

"Let me make myself clear: The era of bankers having all the best tunes is over." Said Gordon Brown today. "It is time for people to understand what many of us have understood for a long time: The financial markets are not going away. So if you cannot beat them you must indeed join them. And the best way to do that is for this government to spread plain, intelligible casino capitalism to the masses. So that is why I now offer you 'The People's Derivatives'."

Product Debasement

There are concerns in some quarters that the decision by The Department of Culture to allow product placement on commercially produced programmes in the UK will plunge broadcasting standards down to a new low. The Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is proposing a three month consultation before finally confirming the lifting of the current ban on product placement in a bid to allay these concerns.

There could however be some exciting new developments resulting from product placement. It is believed that edgy teenage dramas such as Skins and the Inbetweeners will allow the manufacturers of condoms, sex toys and 'lubricants' strategically to 'place their products' as and when appropriate. It is also thought that major cocaine, heroin and marijuana dealers will pay producers big money to show drugs as being freely available - and even possibly good - for young people. Arms manufacturers hope crime dramas will showcase their hardware, allowing a certain make of gun or of knife to be waved freely around in a threatening manner, with, say, the hero always carrying the more expensive, more refined model.

Commercial broadcasters and advertisers claimed today that ordinary viewers had nothing to fear from seeing product placement on their favorite programmes, since it would not generate anything out of the ordinary. Said one: "What's weird about seeing people in the Rover's Return or Queen Vic sipping insipid keg beers and piss-poor lagers before diving into their pot noodles and pork scratchings? And what is the problem with DCI Jane Tennyson washing down her Nurofen Plus with half a litre of Smirnoff? It's kind of what you'd expect anyway."

"The sort of people who watch programmes containing product placement will feel very much at home with the trash that producers will be placing. And let's face it, there could not be anything more naff and degenerate on television right now than mainstream television adverts... like that one with an irritating nodding dog or that directory enquiries one with those pathetic mustachioed men. Not to mention those ghastly sponsorship announcements at the beginnings and the ends of programmes. So can standards on commercial television really get much worse? Somehow I think not."