The ups and downs of a travelling salesman

Gordon Brown's drama today reminds me of a time, long ago, I worked with a pair of travelling double-glazing and central heating salesmen.

My task was to walk estate streets, knock on doors, and make appointments for their sales visits. When sufficient appointments were gathered the sales guys swept into the estate in their top-of-range limo, smoothed down their mohair suits and began their staged sales blag inside each family home.

To prospective customers they presented themselves as successful entrepreneurs, oozingly sympathetic to domestic problems, with every solution to a home's structural needs. It was a sleekly experienced pursuasive act, using every psychological cue, with the sales guys aiming to become adopted as the decision-maker's best friend and even godfather to any children.

Back in the car, the story was very different, whether they'd experienced a sale or a fail. Those who had rejected the sales guys extended efforts were illiterate, no-hoping idiots. Those who had succumbed to their sales act were idiots too—soft-headed, malleable suckers who'd fallen for all their tricks.

Fortunately for the salesmen, there were no hidden microphones recording the their real feelings toward the often vulnerable people they sought to pursuade, befriend and lift money from.

UPDATE
The nice man, nasty man trick. Sometimes when interviews went badly, a sales guy would return with a colleague who would harangue the householder in front of his family for not taking advantage of the opportunity he'd been offered. Nice guy would then intervene to calm and resolve the situation, playing down disagreements and smooth-talking the customer into gratefully accepting a very special offer.

Comparisons between these professional styles and those of our Prime Minister are, of course, subjective.

Keep the Genie in the Bottle(fair votes, hung parliaments & coalitions)

David Cameron has improved but Nick Clegg has got worse. Now he insists on 'fair votes' as his price to support a minority government.

Clegg says the genie can't be put back in the bottle: coalition government is becoming a reality and electoral reform must follow. But what would this really mean?

Quite simply, coalition government is inefficient and ineffective. The policies it introduces can never be the policies of its member parties. Policies will alway be compromises and fudges—agreed by arguments behind closed doors—and not designed to effectively address the issues.

The Lib Dems say proportional representation will deliver 'fair votes'. In fact, PR would lead to none of the voters receiving their electoral choices. Neither Lib Dem voters, nor Conservative voters, nor Labour voters would get the party policies they want.

Indeed, the only way to ensure any votes delivered a guaranteed result would be to add a box marked 'Coalition Government' to the ballot paper for voters to approve. Following this to its conclusion, all party names on the ballot may as well also be removed, since coalition government would always be the only electoral winner.

Acute observers will note that just one voting option at elections is the format used in countries like Cuba, North Korea and Burma. But this is effectively what would result from introducing Lib Dem PR. Election after election the result would be the same. No matter how disastrous the previous coalition government, the next election would produce yet another coalition. And so it would go on— for ever and ever.

So those who think voting Lib Dem would be a novel idea to freshen up the parliamentary system should be careful what they wish for. The Lib Dem insistence on introducing PR would mean an electoral dictatorship and the end of democracy in Britain.

If you're thankful to live in a democratic country then don't give that choice away. You won't ever be forgiven.

The Hollow Man

On last night's first TV debate, David Cameron was empty of anything to suggest he should be a Conservative Prime Minister. The fact he chose to accept the script of his US advisers, rather than talk straight Conservative policy to the British electors, is poor decision making itself. But I'm now left with the suspicion that without his script he would have had nothing to say at all.

In my last blog, I observed how the style stasi at CCO were now directing Cameron in the same disastrous way they had ruined the aspirations of the last two Tory leaders. After watching Cameron's peformance last night – Hollywood-style to a T – I put the blame not just on the advisers but on the man himself.

It is Cameron who has chosen to make this election a presidential race rather than a policy one. He has long sought to present the Conservative party as almost a one man band. But US Presidential races are about style not substance. In contrast, the problems in Britain are simply too great to believe they are for one person to solve. We have always had a cabinet government system, albeit the power of the primus has waxed and waned among the pares. But a cabinet of various talents offers observable strength as well as the confirmation of a team of like-minded conviction.

Cameron has sought to offload his one man responsibility for fixing the country by inviting us all to become members of the government. This ties in well with Conservative philosophy of personal independence and smaller government, but the public still need leadership, direction—and policies.

Last night, Cameron failed to elucidate Conservative policy on any question. Although the party has just issued a thick manifesto (which voters will never read), at this great public opportunity Cameron failed to illustrate it at all. Which suggests he is still too scared to reveal Conservative policy to the voters (i.e. his lack of conviction) or he really is just a hollow man and doesn't have Conservative philosophy in his bones.

The rise of Nick Clegg in the TV debate, illustrates another flaw for Cameron in adopting the US Presidential style. US elections are bi-partisan, enabling two contestants to fight each other and be compared directly. The three-way format negates the opportunity for Cameron simply to be compared with Brown on style. Put Mohammed Ali, Frasier and Foreman in the ring together and style would not be the winner. The revealing factor from Clegg was that he showed himself as a conviction politician. Even Brown, is his boring way, seemed to believe in much of what he said. Only Cameron remained aloof, refusing to really engage with the solutions he was offering, and restricting his answers to single well-rehearsed examples of the points he wanted to make. It must be the way they do it in the United States!

There are more debates to come and more pitfalls to fall into for each contestant. I hope Cameron learns that he needs to engage with the public as a potential Prime Minister rather than as a distant President. Sacking his American presentational advisors might be a good first step on this path.

Left as it is, Cameron's leadership of the Conservative party appears ever more like an exercise in management rather than of political conviction. I hope I'm yet to be proved wrong on this. If Cameron goes on to win his election, and becomes a good party leader and prime minister, I'll support him all the way. But at the moment, my doubts are rising.


P.S. Naturally, I will still be out on the doorsteps supporting my local candidates—parliament and government is a collective exercise.

Cameron Real

I've begun to dislike Dave Cameron's TV appearances. This began around the time the election was called. I'm sure there is a connection.

I have observed, with dismay and eventual horror, how the last two Conservative party leaders at their respective election times were grabbed by those responsible for 'style' at Party HQ and turned into performing seals, devoid of recognisable human behaviour.

For some time, I thought Dave was on top of this threat and had the measure of the style stasi at CCO. He's a former PR man himself, after all. He could justifiably say "I just don't need any of that—I'm already a PR pro". But never dismiss the power of the psycho-image-makers.

We know William Hague today as intelligent, suave and cool. But back then, he appeared as a teenaged rebel in order, apparently, to impress the voters. The baseball cap worn backwards against a backdrop of funfair rides, was more 'Princess of Wales–average mother' than wise party statesman. At party conference, he seemed like a frog-marched marionette—this time more 'Andy Pandy' than wise leader—with his ever-present minders pulling all the strings.

Then there's the debacle of the much respected, IDS, which has passed into infamous management history. Prior to his elevation to party leader he was known in Conservative circles (eurosceptic ones) as a thoughtfully concise man of clarity, integrity and high principle—and an excellent public speaker. But after emerging from the style gurus' mill he became a walking and talking disaster.

Dave has begun to suffer no less. Watch him arrive for his public performance set pieces. The self-concious walk. The wave. The look. Surely this is a man about to walk on the stage of the highest accolading body known to man—the Hollywood Oscars. And as he speaks—deliberately turning to left, right, and centre, arms consciously embracing all—do we hear sincerity? No, we hear Hollywood scripted sound-bite-speak. No wonder the voters are beginning to doubt the message.

Just occasionally we get to see the real David Cameron. At the press Q&As, immediately after the manifesto launch, he forgot to look directly at his questioners, forgot to place impact pauses into every seventh word of his replies, and forgot to be kind, sympathetic or understanding to the gathered reptiles. Instead, they got his message direct. He was forceful, uncomprising, sraightforward and coherent—and most of all ordinarily human. Just the way a campaigning party leader ought to be.

Will the voters ever get to see such a Cameron? Perhaps, as elected Prime Minister, the image controllers may let him be. But for the moment, as long as the image-makers can spot a video camera they'll control the shots. We can only hope that by the time polling day arrives voters will be prepared to do just anything to get Brown removed.

In the meantime, I'll watch the upcoming Presidential Prime Ministerial debates on TV with interest.

Why I'm backing the teachers — for once

—Teachers threaten strike action over spending cuts.
—Teachers threaten strike action over SAT tests for 11 year olds.
—Teachers threaten strike action over excessive workloads.
—Teachers threaten strike action over Pupil Councils appointing teachers.

Have you seen any of these headlines over the past 48 hours?

The annual strike calls from the NUT conference (in Liverpool next week) come as no surprise. But what struck me most forcefully today was the anguished complaint from the NASUWT teachers' union—broadcast on Radio 4—which explained the cause of the last strike proposal I've listed above.

Apparently, pupils in state schools are now accorded the right to vet future teachers at their interviews for a teaching job.

The exasperated union leader described this process on the Today programme as 'demeaning, embarrassing and humiliating'. Pupils were regularly rejecting potential teachers simply for their appearance or their mannerisms. She regarded the process as unprofessional and undignified and was willing to call her members to strike to get this pupils' right removed.

The irony of this teacher's complaint didn't fail to leave its mark.

For years, teachers have objected to the disciplined diktats of Ministers of Education, who insist on tests for pupils, yet have supported the socialistic, child-centred agenda that has poured out from the educationalist civil servants at the Ministry itself.

Now, the dystopian vision—the inevitable and ultimate consequence of the fervent child-centred activism of the DofE—has come to pass. And teachers realise they don't like it.

Margaret Thatcher, on assuming office, set about shaping up the Civil Service with a zeal of her own. The impenetrable obfuscation and personal agendas of the 'Humphrey Appleby's' of Whitehall were to be a thing of the past. Their role, henceforth, was to implement government policy. But the one Department she admitted she never penetrated was the DofE.

For decades, the Department of Education, or whatever it has come to be renamed, has got away with ploughing its own destructive path through the lives of successive generations of eager, open-minded, optimistic children.

By removing adult rules and discipline and replacing them with a theorised notion of child-centred human rights they have left a void in terms of behaviour, values, direction and aspiration. Too often this void is filled with the anti-social behaviour that we almost expect now from many children and teenagers.

Twenty and twenty-first century educational psychology has failed. It has produced a nightmare for teachers and a hardcore community of feral children and wasted youth.

So I say to all Conservatives, and others—when teachers start striking for the right to teach, go out and join these hard-pressed evangelists on the picket line.

Raise your voices and harmoniously cry:

What do we want? —a decent disciplined education system.

When do we want it? —as soon as Gordon Brown calls the general election!

Where is the Conservative future?

The trouble with Tory party presentation right now is it's not getting across a properly holistic message. Ticking off the government for a disastrous economic policy and telling us we have endless misery ahead is hardly an enticing approach.

This may be a problem with the media not focusing on what the party wants to say. But it seems more evident from what we do get to see and hear that it's the campaign strategy that's at fault.

When addressing realities to the British public the Tory party must acknowledge that we have all become used to paternalistic and invasive government. This has to change of course - for budgetary reasons as much as its economic and socially disincentivising effects. But changes in the way government is expected to communicate cannot be made or appreciated overnight. To engage with the public today the Tory party needs to speak as Harold Macmillan, or even Harold Wilson, once did.

The message will, of course, be quite different. The public needs to be encouraged to take on the challenges of mending Britain for themselves. But the Tory party's role right now must be to explicitly set out an agenda of change across every aspect of economic and social life. The public needs to know that the Tory party understands the depth and breadth of the issues that afflict us and will support the population's own skills and energy in tackling them all, towards a better life.

Instead, the Tory party focuses 90 percent of its message on attacking Labour for the economic mire we're in without offering any picture of the sunny uplands that can be the reward of individuals working together to overcome it.

People do need positive objectives. If they can be shown clearly where the problems lie, the path to tackle them, and the encouragement necessary from a government in waiting that they will receive every reasonable support in tax measures and business and social initiatives that enhance the private and third sectors, then people will be able to recognise and appreciate such messages and see a positive future ahead.

The small team presently determining the party's message at Tory HQ is simply not enough. Cameron focuses on attacking Brown for his redundancy. Osborne focuses on Brown's economic inefficiency. And Gove focuses on the introduction of a handful of 'free' schools and academies that no-one quite understands. Grayling, Grieve and Lansley get a word in occasionally. But overall, the public doesn't see a joined-up potential government, they just see a handful of Tories picking over isolated issues without a coherent message or strategy that addresses the lives of people or the nation's future as a whole.

Gordon Brown was wise enough to adopt Tory policy - on the budget - for the first two years of New Labour government. It helped ease the public into accepting change. Cameron seems to think that his socially conscious messages achieve the same thing. But the public are fed up with top down social engineering. Yet, while they do want change, they still need the messages of change to be delivered in the all-embracing way they've become used to over 13 years: especially when the country's future seems so fragile and uncertain.

Thatcherite Tories might be repelled by such a paternalistic approach. But Margaret Thatcher, gender confrontations aside, was an arch paternalist – concerned for the cost of eggs in the housewife's basket as much as telling us what was good for us all. Yet her accomplishments were not achieved in isolation, but through a high profile, active and effective ministerial cabinet.

Dave Cameron is no Margaret Thatcher. But he is supposed to be a communicator. At this moment he needs to communicate a broad and all-encompasssing message to the nation as a whole: that Conservatism is the country's salvation because it acknowledges the worth of individuals, of every status and from every sector, working with dignity together. And as a reflection of this, he needs to push forward his whole shadow cabinet team.

He needs to show that the nation's future is not about the personalities of Gordon or Dave, but about changing the whole ethos of government, giving people personal responsibility and supporting this with clear views from across the ministerial spectrum of just how renewal and a positive future can be reached over the lifetime of the next Conservative parliament.

In defence of bankers' bonuses

"Bankers are greedy bastards ... they're paid obscene sums of money ... all they're interested in is getting rich quick."

No argument there then. At least not where investment bankers are concerned.

As some of the world's major banks announce astounding staff bonuses—on the back of record profits achieved through the benign conditions set up by alarmed governments—it's unsurprising that taxpayers want financial retribution. And alarmed governments are minded to respond.

But let's look at bankers' bonuses from the other side.

Suppose you are fortunate enough to have substantial capital to invest in the stock, bond or commodity markets. Or perhaps you are the treasurer of a large corporation seeking a profitable return on corporate funds. Or maybe you are a hedge fund manager needing access to market trading.

What you need is the services of a reliable investment bank.

Such banks over the last ten years became dominated by derivatives speculators: Guys who were pulling in container loads of synthetic profits without needing or caring to know whether real markets were up or down.

But those guys are now largely dead and buried, metaphorically speaking, along with all those non-performing derivative vehicles left on their, or other banks, books.

The guys that are left at such banks now are traditional investment banking traders—buying and selling stocks, bonds and commodities at a profit, if they follow the market right.

But, as an investor, how can you know such traders will really look after your money? How can you trust their judgement? How can you be confident that the precious funds you place into their management really mean as much to them as they clearly do to you?

The answer is simple. Traders are paid bonuses to make profits. Successful management of client accounts brings profits to the firm and bonuses are the bribe that ensure traders manage client accounts well.

But do they really need to be bribed to look after our money wisely? Can't they just accept a salary for doing their job like most everyone else?

Well, who would you trust with your money? Someone who is paid a fixed salary whether they're effective or useless? Someone who arrives at 9:30, leaves at 5:00, takes three hour lunches and wastes half their desk time playing poker online?

Or would you rather trust someone who focuses every working minute analysing the markets, trying to secure client profits, because profits mean big bonuses and that's what keeps them pinned to their desk?

It's a no-brainer really. Funny that most of us can't see it this way.

It must be because most investment bankers are greedy, are paid obscene amounts of money and just want to get desperately rich quick!

Avoiding crashes — a word from the wise

       I am instinctively sceptical of big government—whether it be authoritarian national government, or regional or global governance. Big government rarely, if ever, properly understands the problems it claims to address—witness the global financial crash.

However, the opposite alternative—allowing economic activity to proceed without monitoring or check—also has its downside: witness the global financial crash.

So what is the solution?

I'm not sure I have one. But the answer must lie closer to the factors of economic production than the factotums of authoritarian government. It's only at the sharp end of economic activity that true knowledge lies and practical observation takes place.

However, how do we encourage those involved in economic generation to regularly report on their businesses. And how can we trust what they say?

Government has many select committees that invite senior representatives to comment on their, often troubled, industries. But what imminent pre-crash truths could have been learned from the CEOs of Lehman Brothers or RBS? Certainly very little indeed, since they were totally ignorant of the dangers they were in, or were in denial, or would have simply remained economic with the truth to protect their positions.

Other bodies in UK, such as the BofE, FSA, ONS, etc., seek to obtain real-time data on economic activity to inform policy-makers. But as we see from the financial crash, such data can be insufficient, unreliable or misunderstood—or the facts simply get ignored.

I've been reading a narrative* about the financial crash in the US, seen from the inside viewpoint of a financial trader at Lehman Brothers. This particular guy worked in the distressed bond department, where the skills required were to anticipate corporate financial disasters and take timely action for the benefit of the bank's clients and the bank itself.

This department began to notice worrying signs about the US financial economy back in 2005. They were concerned about the growth of unregulated credit default swaps (CDSs), which became disembodied bets against corporate collapses, and the vast expansion of the housing mortgage market, led by brokers not deposit takers, which generated collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), packaged and quickly sold by banks like their own with the active assistance of the major US credit rating agencies.

While the specialist derivatives traders, egged on by the management board, raked in profits hand over fist, without apparent risk or applied banking skills, the guys in the traditional trading departments who dealt daily in value and risk watched this phenomena with growing concern but were unable to be heard against the tide of profitability and the belief that the holy grail of a self-generating financial nirvana had finally been found.

Suffice to say, the guys on the lower deck were right, the profit-crazed management supporting the derivatives traders were wrong.

But how do governments, regulators, and the public who are put at risk, obtain the right information from the right people to be able to make wiser judgements than in the recent past?

It may sound like another aspect of intrusive big government, reaching in to the rivers and streams of the land, but perhaps some communication forum needs to be found that regularly enquires into the temperature of industry and particularly finance. The unique feature of this forum would be that its participants would be middle managers rather than the leaders of industry. In other words, those who deal directly with the trades, the clients and the finances that make the cogs of our economy work. Difficult to achieve, particularly where whistle-blowing is involved, but possibly worthwhile for the result.

Given the experiences we've recently been through, there is a self-interest in coal-face managers revealing trends and potential risk. At Lehman Brothers, the 'distressed traders' group took its own action—taking massive short positions against the activities of its own bank. Sadly, this could never match the colossal debts that finally stuck on Lehman's books. Nor did it affect the $14 trillion dollars of toxic debt that Lehmans and other Wall Street banks had already spread throughout the US and then the globe.

If only these wise, traditional, but actively engaged managers had had a way to speak to someone with ears to hear—it might all have been so different.

* The book is: A Colossal Failure of Common Sense by Larry McDonald

New decade on hold

Thank goodness we have another twelve months to wait before we can confidently celebrate a new decade.

Despite the fact we will have a Conservative government in a few months, it won't be the type of government we once had hoped for, or expected.

This new government will be mired in the path of depression laid for it by its predecessor.

But by the end of the year many dark issues will be addressed – if not resolved. Then the time will arrive to enable a true and creative Conservative government to emerge.

So hold on to your Champagne. Pop some when the Conservative era arrives. But keep the rest on ice for the dawn of the proper Conservative decade.

I hope you will join me in correctly welcoming this century's next decade on 31st December 2010 – as every logical person should!

After all, who could possibly want to celebrate a new decade with the scourge of a Labour government still beating down on our heads?

Meanwhile...

Cheers.

Global warmists feel the heat

Hello again.

This September, I had occasion to travel by train from Budapest to Vienna. Finding an empty compartment, I prepared to settle in when a polite, tall man in his thirties asked if he and his companions could join me for the journey. He left and returned with two other gentlemen who all carefully made themselves comfortable as the train drew out of the station.

My companions appeared a cerebral lot. They started talking between themselves, though a bit stiffly at first. I gleaned they had been at a conference in Budapest and though they had attended separately were leaving as a thrown-together party.

I chose to keep my eyes on my book rather than engage with these apparently gentlemanly, but passing, strangers – but my ears unavoidably tuned to their conversation.

The youngest of the three, curly haired with a designer beard, was Danish. The man who first greeted me, thin and a little nervous, was Russian. The third, seated in the centre of the group, was older, more senior, and by the clipped precision of his voice either German or a Swede.

It was soon apparent that all three were academic scientists engaged in various researches connected to the phenomenon known as GLOBAL WARMING.

The German(?) began questioning his companions in a school-masterly manner. It was culturally unavoidable but also seemed to stress his importance in the pecking order.

The Dane began to explain with enthusiasm some of the wind farm projects in which he was involved. The projects roamed globally wide and he backed up his descriptions by opening his laptop and pointing to graphic diagrams.

The German turned to the Russian and asked about his work. A little defensively, the Russian explained he had been employed as a climatology lecturer in Russia but was now doing research work for a climate science institute.

'How many are involved?' asked the German. The Russian mumbled. 'Ten, a hundred, five hundred?' the German asked. 'I don't really know,' said the Russian. 'You see, I contribute remotely and just focus on my own work.' He too opened his laptop and searched for papers.

The German showed a little compassion. 'I see, I see. Well it's good you've found a niche. As long as they need your speciality I'm quite sure they'll continue to pay for your work.'

Now the German opened up his own laptop. He said, 'See, here this is the agenda of the lecture I gave in Ankara. And this for the conference in Cordoba. And this in Gothenburg.'

'There's a great deal of funding available now, you know.' 'There are many, many grants through the European Union.' 'You will have no trouble at all,' he said confidently.

The Dutchman got up to get some coffee. The Russian proffered an orange. And the three of them settled back for most of the rest of the journey, focusing on the laptops on their knees. Three grown-up boys playing with their tools.

When we arrived at Westbahnhof Station they thanked me for my companionship. Had I contributed just by listening? I was certainly thankful for this brief insight into the driving forces behind the scientific academic world.

My thoughts were that this was nice work if you could get it. Payment by the taxpayer, possibly for life, simply to produce endless paper displaying writing and diagrams. Oh, and the travel to far-flung locations to deliver research papers to similarly funded audiences. And getting papers published in peer-group publications, enhancing reputation, credibility, longevity, salary and retirement pension.

So, to me, the ongoing revelations emerging out of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University (the chief scientific advisers to DEFRA) are astoundingly, mind-blowingly shocking, but not unbelievably surprising.

They lead me to a further and obvious observation, that such research is linked not only to the receipt of taxpayer grants but also to the financial incentives of industry. And what an industry – a multi trillion dollar industry – who wouldn't want to guarantee a share of that?

There have been many instances of scientific fraud perpetrated in the historic past, but this one seems to take the chocolate biscuit.

...Go get 'em!

Digital hiatus

For a while, postings may be more sporadic than usual due to meteorological conditions. Enjoy!

Labour don't get it

The young Labour candidate for Speaker had some interesting ideas. But heaven help us whenever Labour try to turn ideas into policy.

First there is a committee. The committee passes its ideas to a commission. The commission takes 15 months to deliver a report that repeats the ideas of the committee.

A Tsar is appointed to oversee a quango. The quango is given an enormous budget. The quango recruits lots of young people just out of school. The quango issues a public consultation document. The quango takes 15 months to filter public responses. It issues recommendations for how it will implement policy.

The Cabinet receives the quangos recommendations and passes them to the Policy Committee. The Policy Committee eliminates controversial elements of the policy and passes it to the drafting department. The drafting department takes 12 months to issue a Draft Bill.

The Draft Bill is mentioned in a Queen's Speech. A four-year Parliament passes. The Draft Bill is mentioned in the next Queen's speech. Pressure arises for something to be done. The government removes more controversial clauses from the Bill and places it in the Lords for a reading. More clauses fall but a few good intentions remain. Eventually the Act is passed unnoticed on a Thursday afternoon, after a debate with a Minister, two supporters and two opposition members.

The quango begins to implement the policy up and down the country. It promises enormous funds to local authorities, supported by eager private finance. Two years later, news reports emerge that the quango has gone bust. Local authorities are left with scores of unfinished constructions and massive unpaid bills. Questions of litigation and compensation for taxpayers are raised.

The Tsar is called before a Parliamentary Committee. The Committee asks if implementation of the policy had really been thought through. Were expectations too high? Was financial management too weak? Why did he imagine he had available a bottomless pot of money?

The Tsar replies he was merely implementing government policy. He steps down from his post with a Treasury pension of £12 million.

The government announces it will completely reform its policy and it sets up a committee...

John Bercow – Public Speaker

I remember occasional meetings with John Bercow ten years ago, when he was a eurosceptic speaker.

He was known then as a principled eurosceptic Thatcherite Tory, with a stoical resistance to traditional 'one nation' Tory pressures. I also learnt that he had a photographic memory, enabling him to quote freely from whatever, deliver forceful speeches without notes and confound opponents through his expert precision with words.

While an MP, Bercow also developed his media training business, which undoubtedly assisted the presentation skills of many fellow politicians over the years. He has also been used by the Labour government to report into facilities for children with communications difficulties.

John Bercow married in 2002. Since that time, his political views (with the possible exception of his euroscepticism) have been reported as progressively turning nearly 180 degrees. It is rumoured his wife is a Socialist.

I was always aware he was an ambitious MP, accepting junior Shadow Cabinet positions that appeared to override political reservations. But, while his political views have clearly changed over time, he has still been able to place personal principles above preferment, as with his resignation from the Shadow Cabinet over his party's support for Section 28.

His ambition to become Commons Speaker has progressed through a long campaign. It was probably sparked on first hearing the incomprehensible Glaswegian tones of Speaker Michael Martin expounding his knowledge of parliamentary procedures to the floor of the House.

The MSM, especially the BBC, consistently claims Bercow's frequent sneering from the backbenches, and his association with Labour MPs, has made him a hate figure among the whole of his party. Yet he wouldn't be where he is today if a good number of his party colleagues hadn't acknowledged the talents he has.

We await with interest to hear how Speaker Bercow's public-speaking skills are used to enhance the public interest.

You can't get the staff these days

Expenses claims redacted to the point of invisibility make the administrative facilities at Parliament as much an embarrassment as the financial antics of some MPs.

Sir Stuart Bell, Chair of the House Finances and Services Committee, insists the Fees Office was asked to limit the cover-up of MPs' claims to the minimum necessary for security.

In my view, the excessive caution shown has more to do with the skills of the staff assigned than with deliberate intent to be obscure.

Either the staff could not be trusted to apply judgement to their task or they could not be trusted even to seek advice. So they were given blanket instructions to black out almost all sources of identification.

To follow this up with the recall of just-published details of cash repayments by penitent MPs makes the Fees Office seem a genuine Whitehall farce.

Much as I'm suspicious of the political orthodoxy of France's École Nationale d'Administration, its consistent product might provide some training lessons for Britain's civil service.

Britain's Civil Service College was first created by Harold Wilson in the late 1960s, together with a new Civil Service Department.

This was a result of the Fulton Committee report, which recommended moving beyond the Victorian 'Northcote–Trevelyan' concept of independent generalists in the civil service, and the 1918 Haldane model of a partnership of authority and expertise between ministers and servants, to the recruitment of specialised talent that could address the needs of a modern economy.

It suggested such specialists could nevertheless work across departments where similar skills were needed, thus increasing career opportunities. Individual government departments were also to be brought closer into the recruitment process so recruitment and training would better match actual needs.

Three new training centres were established under the Civil Service College – at Sunningdale, Edinburgh and a Centre for Administrative Studies in London. By 1970, 200,000 civil servants were receiving departmental training and 25,000 were engaged in external courses of varying length.

Wilson's Civil Service Department, while recognising government needed skills used by modern business and industry, ensured central management training retained the ethos of a unified service.

Since then, various half-hearted or semi-detached attempts to reform the Civil Service have been made.

Margaret Thatcher introduced the report Improving Management in Government, which resulted in considerable devolving to governmental agencies or quangos. John Major presented Continuity and Change, which created a Civil Service Code. The Conservative period resulted in shifting a previous employment peak of 571,000 civil servants in 1977, to a low of 479,000 in 1999 (two years into NuLab's initial period of matching Tory budgets).

Since 2000, NuLab have overseen a plethora of civil service policy reviews. Initially this began under the still-ongoing Modernising Government Initiative. In 2002, Cabinet Secretary Sir Andrew Turnbull took over control with the message that he intended holding Permanent Secretaries to account for civil service reform and service delivery. This later shifted to the introduction of Performance Partnership Agreements with departments engaging in change programmes to meet purposes and priorities.

Sir Michael Lyons next presented a report in 2004, which called for 20,000 civil servants to move out of London to the regions. Then came the Sir Peter Gershon report, which recommended 84,000 civil service jobs be cut. This was to be accompanied by the merging of several agencies and departments and the effective re-centralisation of back office functions, procurement and IT.

Gordon Brown took up this efficiency programme and eventually cut a net 70,000 jobs, particularly affecting the DWP and the newly merged Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise departments. Most of these cuts came from back office administrative staff while the number of front line delivery staff was increased.

Nearly 75% of civil servants now work in four departments – DWP, Justice, MOD and Revenue & Customs. Reports by the national Audit Office in 2006 found departments were unable to demonstrate whether efficiency gains had actually been delivered or costs of personnel had simply been cut. The risk was that the efficiency programme could result in a drop in service quality.

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) later in 2006 determined that the civil service was well known to be under-performing in its core functions. It said too much Whitehall activity was undermined "by its inability to work effectively across departmental boundaries; by a narrow skills-base; and under-developed leadership ... Performance is poorly managed, and poor performance too often goes unchecked."

The report added that ill-defined relations between civil servants and ministers resulted in "a ‘governance vacuum’ at the top of Whitehall: lines of accountability are confused and leadership is weak".

The IPPR recommended reform of the governance system of the civil service. This would make politicians responsible for ‘policy’ decisions and civil servants responsible for clearly defined ‘operational’ ones. Thus, both would be independently accountable to Parliament and the public, with clear demarcation of responsibilities. However, making civil servants legally accountable for decisions made by ministers is an issue that raises much debate.

The Labour government has been promising a new Civil Service Act for more than nine years. In 2004, a draft Civil Service Bill was published for consultation but no action followed. Gordon Brown, since becoming Premier, has said he will present a Civil Service Act. But the issues such an Act are likely to focus on are those of high principle – strengthening the impartiality of the Service, the power of Ministers to make appointments rather than on merit and the role and responsibilities of 'special advisers'.

The question of 'service delivery', as the jargon has it, remains one that is very much in the hands of government itself. National government objectives, and the ways each government deems they should be brought about, will always heavily influence the public's perception of the actual outcomes being delivered by our civil servants.

More reading, if you want it, here and the Draft Civil Service Bill here.

Darling shatters Labour's spending myth

So now we have the truth.

Alastair Darling, in an interview with Faisal Islam for Channel 4 News, has finally spoken the words that Brown and Balls dared not.

Current and capital spending will increase between now and 2012.

So what's new?

All of that increased spending will take place this year.

The Chancellor did not actually use the words spending will fall from next year. He didn't need to. He simply said that Labour's spending plans for the next three years had been brought forward to the current year.

Now Labour's spending plans actually make some sense. At least, they do if you're a Labour Chancellor. Extra spending in time of recession and all that.

But the Brown and Balls story that spending will continue to rise in real terms year on year is revealed as total fantasy. Lewis Caroll might approve of such inversion of fact: political commentators certainly haven't.

Now we've stepped out from behind Alice's shattered Looking Glass, perhaps the debate between 'Labour investment' and 'Tory cuts' can assume something nearer reality.

Watch the interview: 2/3rds through this clip at 11:48

A wisp of smoke and mirrors

Listening to a skirmish between Ed Balls and Michael Gove on R4 yesterday was to gain an insight into the government's terminal disarray.

Ed Balls had evidently emerged from the bunker for this rare confrontation because he had an initiative to display. But it seemed increasingly likely that he had an initiative to display purely because he had agreed to appear with Michael Gove.

The 'initiative' was to declare he had secured £650 million extra funding from the Treasury to spend on schools and training. Apparently, listeners were supposed to be impressed with the Treasury's beneficence in finding the School's secretary yet more taxpayers' money to spend.

Balls challenged Gove to commit the Tories to similar spending. Gove challenged Balls over recent mismanagement of the further education budget. Then he discredited Balls' initiative with news that the sums were already being underplayed by Chief Treasury secretary, Liam Byrne.

Labour initiatives, such as they are, are media-driven – drawn out of the air for the positive PR impact they might deliver or to wrong foot the Opposition. It's not a new tactic, but it seems it is all Labour has left. And, of course, it's just what to expect from Peter Mandelson.

Master of crisis spin and people-manipulation Mandelson may be, but he is not a profound long-term strategist, nor yet master of all he surveys. Getting the Treasury to support announcements is one thing. Getting them to support them with money is another.

The government's new team seems increasingly lost and divided against itself. Expect more Mandelson inspired initiatives that disappear when held up to a mirror.