Commandant Harperson & Fixing the Law

The increasingly eerie Harriet 'Harperson' Harman, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Orwellian law enthusiast, has turned her attentions to Sir Fred Goodwin.

Goodwin is the man who was in charge of Royal Bank of Scotland, which was recently bailed out by the taxpayer after posting record losses of £24 billion.

The argument stems from the fact that Goodwin has a pension of more than £650,000 a year.

Harman, Brown and several other key government figures object to the notion of other people being paid to fail, as they claim Britain's unwritten Constitution reserves such a role just for them.

OK, not quite - but in effect they might as well say that.

Here's Harman herself on the situation:

"His contract might be enforceable in a court of law, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion - and that's where the government steps in."

Excuse me? Since when has this government cared anything about public opinion? On this new found basis, will it be restricting immigration, scrapping the ID card scheme, building more prisons, restoring the death penalty for murder, holding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?

Harriet has the answer, if you know where to look. She goes on:

"Sir Fred should not count on being £650,000 a year better off... The Prime Minister has said it is unacceptable and therefore it will not be accepted."

Right. So now it's the Prime Minister's decision - make your mind up, Harriet.

I'm going to sleep a lot easier tonight knowing that the government feels it can retrospectively create a law to persecute one individual who is only receiving what was stipulated in his employment contract.

I'd feel slightly better if they weren't doing it entirely to take the heat off themselves - Brown is as responsible for the crisis as the 'Greedy Bankers'; he knew that the boom wasn't forever and what goes up must come down, but he was spending money and giving away assets like it was going out of fashion.

He, er, also signed off Sir Fred's pension deal, back in October.

What next? A special show trial for Sir Fred? I for one would be much more interested in an apology from the government and Brown calling a General Election.

But why do that when you can blame someone else?

Double Standards on ID Cards

The British Government was yesterday displaying yet more of its brazen double standards. I hope that you're suitably shocked.

According to James Lyons of the Daily Mirror, if ID cards are forced through against the will of the public and Her Majesty's Opposition (and for once I'm not using that title ironically), the Government will levy a £1,000 fine if they are lost and this fact is not reported within a month.

A replacement will cost an extra £30, which is estimated to earn the Government £33 million in replacement fees (estimates based on the number of passports and driving licences lost each year). These very same calculations predict that over 1 million cards could be lost or stolen each year.

Interesting. But Mr Lyons also reveals that Whitehall staff lose, on average, 23 security passes and official accreditation per day. The Ministry of Defence alone lost 11,245 last year - but oddly, they're not fined - the documents are simply replaced at the expense of taxpayers.

I find this incredible; if someone issues you a security pass which allows you to work in the heart of government, should you not be expected to be quite careful with it?

If you can't even manage to hang on to your own security pass, are you fit to do your job?

Yes, everyone makes mistakes - but 23 separate incidents on the average day?

I feel this fact alone explains an awful lot about the state of our country and our government.

Registry on a central ID card database will be compulsory for all passport applicants from 2012, as will having your finger prints taken like a common criminal, as well as potentially an interview. However at this point you will not have to be issued with or carry the card.

They will only become compulsory for all over-16s if Labour win the next election (and I wish them good luck with that, naturally) and manage to get the legislation past MPs.

Foreign nationals living here already have them (as seen in the sample pictured above, being launched by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith).

I'm against the idea for several reasons; I see them as a sneaky way to introduce an internal EU passport (most other European countries already have them in some form, natch).

The immigration system has been too shambolic for decades for the scheme to have any chance of aiding border controls or national security.

It just seems a way for the government to increase its power and its army of bureaucrats whilst being seen to do something about immigration and the threat of terrorism - and being seen to do things whilst not actually doing them at all is what New Labour likes best.

Inside the Mind of a Luvvie

Camp Liverpudlian chat-show host Paul O'Grady was interviewed in The Sun yesterday.

Mr O'Grady is most famous in the UK for playing acid-tongued drag act Lily Savage, but since then he has had a very successful tea time talk show on Channel 4.

I would describe him as outspoken, perhaps a typical working class Scouser.

In the interview, he saw fit to stick up for Carol Thatcher over the 'Golliwog Incident'; not because he agreed with what she said, but because:

"I’ve met Carol and she’s lovely, she really is,’ he says. ‘I don’t believe she’s a racist.
'But she shouldn’t be saying things like that. She needs a good slap on the wrist."

Quite.

However, here is his opinion on Prince Charles calling a Polo chum 'Sooty' (allegedly at the man's request), and Prince Harry larking about on video:

'Paul, 53, is less forgiving of Prince Harry, 24, who called a fellow Army officer a ‘paki’, and his father Prince Charles who calls a friend 'Sooty'.
"For God’s sake, what’s up with these people?’ he tells The Sun. ‘There are certain words you don’t say — in public or private. ‘Re-educate yourself. There’s no excuse. You don’t think like that, never mind talk like that." '

Now that's very interesting use of language. So what's the crux of this issue?

If you're a good friend of Mr O'Grady and he feels he can vouch for your character, then within reason you can say what you like without being judged. It was all just a silly misunderstanding.

However, if you belong to a certain class or group of people, you should 're-educate' yourself if you hold certain opinions, think certain thoughts, or even stupidly say something as a joke or in anger, spur of the moment.

To be completely honest, what shocks me more than a group of close comrades messing around and a racial epithet being used in jest is a popular TV personality telling people that in his opinion, certain thoughts are taboo, and anyone who is even suspected of being guilty (and doesn't have a fashionable celebrity backer like himself) should be 're-educated'.

Am I alone here? Mr O'Grady is openly gay. There was a time, not so very long ago, when public opinion would probably have liked to see him 're-educated'. So clearly the popularity of a measure is not an indication of whether or not it's moral or right.

Got that, Paul?

The way this country is going, I very much doubt anyone will have to 're-educate' themselves; I'm sure there will be a queue of willing volunteers waiting to purge the unbelievers of their out dated, evil notions.

Perhaps Mr O'Grady should open a history book, and take at glance at the goings on of societies such as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or communist China and North Korea. That's what you get when the government and those it sanctions to spread its message take an interest in what people think.

He might also then find that the term 're-education' probably has more negative connotations than 'Sooty' or 'Golliwog' - and adjusting for context, of course - is just as offensive to large numbers of people.

Maybe he'll then take his own advice and think before he opens his mouth.