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SO WHY ARE THEY ARGUING?

On today鈥檚 Daily Politics, Andy Love, Labour MP for Edmonton (another Scot) said that the Treasury select committee had been confused by so many conflicting figures that it was unclear if anyone had been disadvantaged by the 10p band removal or who they might be! The committee asked the Treasury to carry out an enquiry. That ought to do it.

The description of Jimmy Carter's valuable trip leaves out two items reported in the New York Times: that Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader in Damascus wants all Palestinians, whether living in the proposed state or elsewhere to vote in the referendum thus making it likely that the "right of return" issue would lead to the agreement being voted down; and that Hamas and Fatah had to agree first before any referendum be held. Another massive roadblock.

There also does not appear to be agreement by Hamas of Israel's right to exist?

Another problem is which Hamas Carter spoke to. For instance, "But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri in Gaza said Hamas' readiness to put a peace deal to a referendum "does not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum."

Such a referendum, he said, would have to be voted on by Palestinians living all over the world. They number about 9.3 million, including some 4 million living in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem."

As a charity worker I am one of those who have been hit by the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

An issue for me, and I guess other, is that the government assumes that we do not have children.

This is not so, we do have children, but they are are in their twenties.

Because of house prices and student loans we find that they still need some financial help from us.

We feel that we have been hit by this government in two directions. Maybe an acknowledgement that children are financially dependant on their parents much longer these days would be a good thing.

In Dundee West we are still waiting for the New Deal launched by Gordon Brown in Jan 1998 to deliver - so are not exactly thrilled
to hear that the only concession on the 10p tax band issue is 'another poverty review'?!

What planet is this man living on? Does he not understand that Labour's Jim McGovern
is going down in this constituency - even if
he huffs and puffs about resigning as PPS!
Gordon - you are FINISHED in Scotland .....

That is the message that GB doesn't 'get'!
But when England starts to understand it,
then his shelf-life becomes even shorter I suggest. What he needs to do is to scrap
this idiotic budget measure and hand over
the keys of Number 10 - to Angela Eagle?!

In Scotland, the SNP Government delivers,
and they are now on New Labour's UK tail.
Perhaps the most interesting passage in
the speech given by Alex Salmond to his
Spring Conference this weekend past is
where he sets a target of 20 SNP seats
for the next UK General Election, with a
not unrealistic hope of making the House
of Commons "dance to Scotland's tune".

Labour should now be very, very scared.

I am 63, and live on a works pension of 拢8500 a year. Last year i paid 拢500 in tax.
I presume this year my tax will double. with all the bills going up by more than the rate of inflation, this will be a big blow to my economy.
Perhaps I should try harder to get a job, but as soon as an employer knows you are over 60, you have had it.

The big worry in Scotland today when PM Gordon Brown was addressing the STUC
in Inverness was not "the threat to the Union" as prioritised by Brown - but the
threat to petrol supplies in Scotland and
The North East of England because of a
dispute between workers and managers
at the Grangemouth refinery. What does
Brown do? Nothing. His Energy Minister
Malcolm Wicks isn't even in the country.
His Scottish Secretary is the part-time
Secretary of State for Defence - so he
is also rather busy with other matters.l

What does Alex Salmond do? Well, he convenes SEER (the Scottish 'Cobra')
in the Scottish Executive Emergency
Room - and does that last Friday. He
then authorises his Finance Secretary
John Swinney to do the contingency planning and call on both parties to
keep talking and sort the matter out
and not to emerge from their talking
until they have negotiated a solution.

He then inserts a line in his own speech
telling them to get talking - and then he
announces today that he has appointed
a conciliator with pensions expertise who
can help them all work out an actuarial solution to the problem without a need
to bring Scotland to its economic knees.

That friends is national leadership. Brown should take note. It may or may not lead
to a solution (a large part of the problem
may be UK tax issues outwith his control)
but it sure is statesmanship and we like it.

Was Brown in Inverness today at STUC or did he call off to face internal party critics ?

There was certainly advance trailing of a speech in the weekend press in Scotland.

But maybe he chickened out .... this is the
problems with 'McAvity' - he's not always
actually there .........

Paul Mason has just suggested two solutions to the 10% tax issue. One was to increase personal allowance by 拢300, which would take 3.3m people out of the issue, but would cost 拢2.5bn and also benefit everyone else. Why not counteract this increase with an equivalent reduction in the amount of post tax income which is subject to 40% tax. I don't know how much that would need to fall to offset the 拢2.5bn but I imagine it could be calculated. It would penalise higher earners but 拢300 for them is a relatively modest rise. The mass of base rate payers would be a bit better off.

Very interesting interview with Carter .........

Meanwhile back at Gordon Brown's ranch -
sounds like the Labour 10 p 'rebels' might
wimp out on the basis of vague promises?

Pathetic - but perhaps predictable ...... I'm sitting looking at an autographed copy of
a Manchester Statistical Society paper by
the late Professor John P. Mackintosh MP
which was read on 11th March 1970 and
is entitled: 'The Influence of the Backbencher, Now and a Hundred Years Ago' ....... price 18 shillings 38 years ago.

What he set out to do in this paper was to
'estimate just how much power backbenchers did deploy and by what methods in the two sessions 1857-59 compared with the two sessions 1967-69.'

Forty years on from the second period of comparison chosen John P. Mackintosh's
conclusions still seem to have resonance:

"In conclusion, voting behaviour is not of great help in assessing the influence of the modern House of Commons. Indeed the task of reaching any conclusions is much harder because the Commons cannot remove a government, nor it cannot be seen to reject a Bill in the clear-cut way possible in the 1850's. It has control over
its own timetable only on quite exceptional occasions and normally the Executive lloks over its head directly to the electorate. What the House can do, and what the level of abstention and cross-voting can help indicate, is the morale in the party, it can form part of the background of pressures and responses which the government has to take into consideration in reaching its decisions. Whether this is a sufficient degree of influence or control either to attract men of calibre into the House, whether it is enough to satisfy the electorate that our political system, oru democracy is a better method of achieving a measure of popular control than demonstrations and direct action, is not a matter for this paper.' Food for thought eh?

Of course, such scenarios change with the prospect of a hung parliament and the role
of the backbencher in proportionally elected parliaments such as now obtain in Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland is much greater.

But Mackintosh is surely right that even if eg the 10 pence Labour tax revolt fizzled out under pressure from the Whips and a raft of face-saving promises of reviews of
poverty, a lethal impact on the 'morale' of
the governing party can still influence the course of political history if not Mr Brown?

Perhaps Labour are doing better in the opinion polls because of the back bench rebellion on the 10p tax rate, not despite it as some would attempt to portray.

Outstanding Jeremy tonight, particularly the Jimmy Carter interview. Carter tried justifying Hamas - a terrorist organisation which advocates wiping Israel off the map and killing anyone who is Jewish - to a group who could become peaceful as a joke. Jeremy pointed out that by Carter's reasoning, perhaps we should also be talking to Al-Qaeda.

Interesting solutions to the 10% tax abolishment. Why do I think that Paul would be a far better Chancellor than Allistair Darling? :-)

On last nights newsnight Pual Mason stated that to remedy to injustice of the 10p tax the Chancellor could raise the tax threshold by 拢300 and this would cancel the effects of this 10p tax to 3 million or so.WRONG!,Paul,this would only give the low paid 拢60 a year(20p x 300=拢60),please do your homework,it looks like you went to the same economic school as Brown and Darling.

At least they're trying to do something.

At the end of last night's show your political editor Michael Crick suggested that the poll gap between the Tories and Labour had narrowed since the budget.

As the opposite is true was Crick showing an anti Tory bias or ignorance?

I look forward to a correction tonight.

ANATHEMA

Neil Robertson (#9) quotes John P Mackintosh MP, from 1970, referring to the matter of 鈥渁ttracting men of calibre to the House鈥�. Since standing for Parliament in 2005 (Newbury) I have become ever more aware of the self-perpetuating charade that is Westminster.
During the 2005 election I strove to highlight the 鈥渞osette stand鈥� status of party-pre-chosen candidates, and became acutely aware that today鈥檚 MP is a cipher, as the following extract from the Parliament website shows (note the couplet FIRST LOYALTY and the "spun" word-choice of DEMANDS rather than needs or worries).

鈥楢t times a constituent鈥檚 demands may conflict with party policy and your MP will have to decide where their first loyalty should lie. The Member may think that, in any case, a majority of constituents would support party policy 鈥� after all that is likely to be one of the reasons why they elected him or her.鈥�

The above ethos ensures that all but fools or knaves are filtered out. Men and women of calibre must, surely, find the place anathema? Mr Mackintosh had a point.

NEWSNIGHT: Could you pursue this? Or would the interactive game with the usual suspects then have to stop; leaving you twiddling your thumbs?

Jimmy Carter looks jolly more effective at the job than a certain 'middle east envoy'.

President Carter is an embarrassment to America, a distraction from the issues in the Middle East, and an obstacle to any chances of real negotiations. He's like a crazy old uncle you have that you wish would never be seen or heard in public.

Hamas in NOT prepared to accept that Israel has a right to exist under any circumstances. That is because their position is and has always been that all of the land Israel is on was stolen from the Palestinian People (forget that there was no such thing when Israel was created.) What they have said was that they would like a 10 year cease fire. This will give them time to regroup for a war to finally wipe Israel out. The Israelis know this. So does President Carter. Mr. President, please go back to Plains Georgia or somewhere and pound nails into two by fours. Someone somewhere in America must still need a house built for them. Maybe New Orleans.

Suzanne Holdsworth's appeal has been long over due. What can only be described as a slap dash investigation and prosecution from the Cleverland police will no doubt be described as such in the not too far distant future; a serious case of gross incompetence from most, if not all concerned. The gathering of 'facts' (and omissions) leaves you with the impression that this case sits firmly at the top of any list of miscarriages' of justice. Certainly from the previous John Sweeney report and his latest update, you can't but only come to the conclusion that this sad case for all concerned is and was a travesty of justice.