All My Pretty Chickens

The arrests on Saturday morning of a few more senior Sun journalists has really got the whole news room spooked.
With the sister paper (more like detested stepsister) News of the World suddenly being disbanded by the Murdochs, there is understandable fear the same fate awaits the Super Soaraway. It prompted political editor, Trevor Kavanagh (pictured), to write a

snarling attack on News Corp bosses, any other time a sacking offence. But what does Trev have to lose? He may yet regret admitting payments were "standard procedure" and his belief there was "nothing illegal" about it.

This of course is not phone-hacking but allegations of payments to police officers and other officials which threatens to draw in federal investigators in the US. It could be a lot more costly to the organisation than merely shutting the gates on a 150 year-old paper.
Defenders of the Number One are scarce. Newsnight dug up the dismal Nic Ferrari who whined like an adolescent about the manner in which his chums were arrested and how many officers were on the Elveden investigation as if the other guests were of the same intellect as the average Sun reader.
"This is just a smokescreen. The question is 'was there a crime'?" bellowed Murdoch biographer Michael Woolf.
Ferrari, previous defender of the humiliated cop Andy Hayman, moaned on about the dawn raids but it was left to Tom Watson MP to point out the bleedin obvious about the NI journalists and edtitors previous obfuscation and flat denial. " It is News International's behaviour that is to blame for police having to devote immense time and resources to establish the facts. By deliberately lying to the police and trashing evidence they have made the job far more complex and expensive than it should have been...the notion that the police might politely ring up to make an appointment to see a Sun journalist for a civilised chat is far-fetched. It takes some nerve for News International, in the form of Kavanagh, to be accusing the police of wasting time and resources."
Today's front page picture of the late Whitney Houston's bath where she died shows the Currant Bun has lost one of its ghoulish zeal. But its dependance on its pre-eminence status is not just in doubt, these could be the final editions. But in that case the hacks would expect a little more sensitivity about the recent demise.

I Can Put it into Three Words - DIY

The Health and Social Bill has already been amended in over 130 clauses, something of a modern day record. The Government has resisted about 1,000 more.
One fairly important one was to ensure the Secretary of State was still responsible for the NHS. Lansley, for it is he, had wanted to palm off accountability to some Commission Board. So whenever a hospital closed or people started dying in droves on waiting lists, he would have been able to say to any Parliamentary Question "Not me Guv, ask the Board of unelected officials."
The founder of the NHS Aneurin Bevan (above) would have not been surprised by the Conservative plans for opening the door to private sector on health. Bevan's greatest achievement was banishing the unaffordability of healthcare for most people - under the guise of bureaucracy busting, Cameron is letting it in again.
It would be one thing if the department were robustly confident in the provisions but clearly there is huge anxiety in Whitehall. The routine matter of publishing the Bill's risk register has been resisted to the point of legal challenge. A Commons debate on it next week should be a pivotal point for the Grand Architect Lansley.
The fear among senior sources is it will say something like "tens/hundreds of millions of pounds of public money will almost certainly be sucked out by private enterprise."
The Bill also allows for services to be opened out to European law like any knicker factory. It means an ambitious private healthcare provider could takeover a region's provision for say, X-Ray at a loss, ruin the opposition then bump up the prices later.
There are dark murmurings in the corridors of Tory HQ about this being another poll tax and indeed it could be on that scale of unpopularity once its full potential is realised. One difference is the Tories put the poll tax in their manifesto. This colossal upheaval has not even got a mandate.
Overall it is simply asking too much of doctors who predominantly want to care for patients rather than project manage all the area's primary health care. As Dr. Clare Gerada, of Royal College of GPs put it, "Doctors are like the pilots...they just want to fly the plane, not build it as well."

What, really?

At the next European conference on climate change, British Ministers will have explain to their counterparts, the absence of Chris Huhne as Secretary of State.
It would amusing to see their faces when it is revealed he resigned for allegedly declaring his wife was driving so to avoid a speeding ticket ten years ago. In politics this must amount to being the smallest scandal ever.
A Guardian survey showed around 300,000 people have committed this 'easy' offence so it should be stressed a custodial sentence must be very unlikely. The Mail suggested two years in jug was usual for conspiring to pervert the course of justice. So it is, but it is also usually associated with witness intimidation. This is hardly the same.
In fact Keir Starmer, the DPP perhaps should perhaps have not brought this prosecution at all as it barely seems to be in the public interest. Of course it is technically an offence so Huhne can only scowl privately about how a petty media campaign driven by Telegraph and Mail has led to his resignation. But the biggest joker of all is his ex-wife who certainly caused him no end of stress in revealing some collusion but now finds she too will be in the dock.

The Race is Run

The previous England captain to be charged with a criminal offence was Bobby Moore (left) in 1970. It was an obvious stitch up to make old Mooro look like a shoplifter in some jewelry store in Bogota and was meant to disrupt the team's preparation of defending the World Cup.
A more honest leader of England you could not find. Bobby Moore stood as a model of professionalism and integrity.
Not so the current holder of the post, the somewhat less respected John Terry. Putting to one side some of his family's criminal behaviour and his infidelity with a team mate's wife, Terry has defiled the post by his being charged wth racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. He has pleaded 'not guilty' to the charges and his trial is now set for July 9 having got dispensation from the court to lead England in the European Championship this summer.
Why has he not been suspended? Is there no moral dimension to the national game any longer? Reading the columnists this morning it is hard to find a supporter for Terry. But nothing has changed in essence since November when he was first charged. He should have been dropped from the team then and if Chelsea had any honour he should be dropped from his club too.
It is hard to see him resigning and Capello (to his discredit) hasn't commented so it is up to the FA to be decisive. Because, as Liverpool FC have found, if you don't condemn racism unequivocally, you just encourage it.

Less for the Least

There is scene in Alan Bleasdale’s ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’ when a world-weary DHSS manager (Jean Boht) advises an aggressive colleague from pursuing a prosecution against two unemployed builders, “We’d just be taking from people who have got nothing.”


The same could be said of the current Government plans to set charges on single parents for using the Child Support Agency. They would have to forego 12 per cent of their money; most are paid less than £20 a week.

The House of Lords inflicted a miserable defeat on the Government of 270 to 128 and so sent the unequivocal message that it would have to be amended. But then came brutally terse response from DWP, “We are disappointed the Lords seem content to leave in place a system which has consistently failed children...we will seek to overturn this in the Commons.”

Such defiance in the face of a decisive Parliamentary vote looked like pointless arrogant posturing. The rebels were led by former Tory ministers Lords Mackay and Newton. Even Brian Mawhinney voted against which should suggest a tactical retreat is called for. The Government’s position was to compel couples to seek voluntary agreements. The Child Support Agency was established because voluntary agreements we not workable. To charge the poorest of the poor for a dismal service amounts to a new low in the Victorian patriarchy of the DWP led by IDS and Chris Grayling (pictured).

The substantial defeat was simply ignored by invoking the little used "financial privilege" which was established in 1911 to prevent the peers rejecting Budgets. It can be used on a wider basis, subject to Speaker's agrement, but is a 'nuclear option' necessarily undermining the authority of the upper House. Clearly they don't care.