John Pugh

I have just moved onto the Lib Dem Treasury Team to work closely with Vince Cable

Vince has long been high in my estimation and that of most M.P.s. He’s rational,articulate, highly intelligent, a gifted ballroom dancer and after the Mr Bean joke – a well-known wit. Odd that a few throwaway remarks can turn you from being a first-rate parliamentarian to being a nationally known first-rate parliamentarian.

However after all the leader writers, political commentators and pundits have universally praised after a glorious and very successful period acting Lib Dem leader, I would like to add a little paeon of my own.

Vince’s role finished just before Christmas. Everyone said he was the best leader we never had; the press praised him to the hilt as did his colleagues and on his last day we adjourned after the parliamentary meeting to what used to be called the smoking room. Drinks were ordered and little nibbly things put on the table. I was sitting next to Vince and I noticed one very strange thing. In the midst of all this ego intoxicating praise and end of term banter he was most concerned with passing the peanuts and olives which were in front of him round to people who could not reach them.

A little, small, seemingly insignificant, polite gesture but not one many of us in such circumstances would do.

A man who passes the peanuts is a man to esteem.

I guess its been a while since I added to the Blog and the rule is if you want readers you must keep the flow going but even for compulsive bloggers there must be the understandable urge occasionally just to fall silent, reflect –perhaps even listen and watch. After all no-one has ever claimed that garrulousness is a virtue. My other excuse is that recently I have endured a bout of ‘man flu’ or what women describe as a ‘light cold’.

However it must be said too that there is no positive correlation between interesting quality experiences and peoples’ willingness to talk about them.

Me & You Tube

Before Christmas I went to see the Press Complaints Commission –no not because the Champion had written something unflattering about me- the Commission invited me! It followed on from me raising in parliament the fact that anyone can upload anonymously any type of footage on to internet sites like You Tube- be it illegal, cruel or offensive – the only sanction being that if it is reported it may be taken down.

This did not seem to me to be responsible corporate behaviour by a huge commercial body like Google that runs You Tube.

After all in China they filter out all government criticism. Anyway the relaxed rules for publishing on the Internet that differ from those for publishing on paper surprised me and I raised some questions only to find they are taxing others. First OFCOM the broadcasting regulator came to see me and pointed out that You Tube technically is not a publisher and no more legally responsible for what is on their site than BT are for what people say on phone lines.

Then the Press Complaints Commission invited me to their place for a chat. It’s a quiet suite of offices above a clothes shop with a serene and very peaceful atmosphere even though most of their customers/clients are incandescent and enraged on the phone about what the press have written about them. Its an odd contrast.

I had a nice conversation with their top people who showed me a You Tube Video of a young man throwing Molotov cocktails at passing trains filmed by his mates. Amazingly they were dealing with a complaint from the lad’s dad who objected ( not to the dangerous behaviour) but to his son being publicised. He felt that young arsonists had rights to privacy that should be respected.

I was also told of a complaint about a celebrity looking vulnerable and exposed in a highly intrusive photograph – a complaint which ended when it was discovered that said celeb’s PR people had themselves produced the photo. It was not unconnected with the divorce settlement the celeb was seeking.

Imagine you found £200,000 from somewhere, bought a share in a government arms firm being privatised , a firm full up of the brightest scientists on the planet. Imagine you, as the civil servant in charge, helped sort out the sale yourself and ended up managing director. Then imagine the shares you originally bought at a surprisingly cheap price now turn out to be worth £20 million and the company sold at a knock down price is worth a fortune to its buyers.

Well that’s more or less how things are for Sir John Chisholm, CEO of the firm Quinetiq – formerly a chunk of our nations military research and development wing and also owner of significant tracts of expensive land and industrial plant

There he was last week in front of us at the Commons Public Accounts Committee –(this week celebrating 150 years of its existence as the scourge of wasteful and improper use of public money).

How would you feel?

We suggested he should feel ashamed, embarrassed,repentant etc. I said they could not have made a worse job of selling off our military assets than if they’d put them on E-bay.

Each committee member lined up to be horrible to Sir John. For most people it would have been a torrid time but Sir John smiled through it,serene and refused to feel ashamed or embarrassed.

We reflected that having become a multi-millionaire could be some sort of consolation.

Rail, rage and berate though honourable members might Sir John, a collector of vintage Jaguars, could quietly reflect on the fact that he was now nonetheless probably at least twice as rich as the whole committee put together.

Later on that week I had to speak in a debate on the dangers of cheap alcohol where another knight of the realm featured heavily- Sir Timothy Leahy – boss of Tesco.

The house united in deploring the heavily discounted booze sold from the supermarket shelves and seemingly fuelling social and physical malaise. Not only that but the supermarkets are threatening the livelihood of pubs who believe it or not are selling less alcohol.

Honourable members spoke of the benefits of the drinking in the ‘controlled’ atmosphere of the pub as opposed to drinking elsewhere. I thought this a little glib. Perhaps they have been very fortunate in their choice of pubs or come from very uncontrolled homes.

As a real ale Camra supporting,opponent of Tescopoly. I too have my reservations about the all powerful role of the supermarket giant – though I think social attitudes can be ambivalent. They’ve just slashed dramatically the price of the normally very expensive Chateauneuf du Pape to £6.98 a bottle- surely below cost price. Protest so far has been rather muted

Even I, too, visit Tescos at times.

After taking out a camera, a security man arrived and told me taking pictures in Tescos was illegal.

I can’t quite remember us passing that law……..yet

Some time ago I had agreed, for reasons I don’t understand, to speak at a conference on Environmental Ethics so Saturday saw me haring down to Blackfriars Hall, Oxford where I found myself closeted with some very well informed and expert people with very little guidance on what was expected of me.

I decided to discuss the reasons that might make us be environmentally good. It could be fear for the planet but what if we thought nothing we would do personally could save the planet and anyway what if fear was not enough.

Well then I said we should be persuaded that a life in which we cared about nature, wasted less and shared more would basically just be a better life for us - more fun!

But I added we would still hanker after plasma screens, patio heaters and foreign travel and these might hurt the planet but not noticeably worsen our lives.

Then we would need the right incentives given by taxation and legislation.

But how in a democracy could one oblige people to give up doing something that doesn’t obviously or immediately hurt them or those around them - and still get elected? Its not easy coaxing people into using the car less or throwing less into the bin.

What could I have been thinking of?

Leaving Oxford I returned to London where I spent a restful Sunday refuelling my batteries.

First Mass at Westminster Cathedral (music excellent), followed by a visit to the Tate where they had all the silly things that have won the annual Turner prize grouped together in retrospective exhibition - Gormley men bent over suspended on the ceiling, a huge tableau by Gilbert and George, the shed that can be converted to a boat (as if !) ,three oddly moving royal blue hemispheres and Damien Hurst’s ‘mother and child’ -bisected cow and calf in formaldehyde.

How do they get it to stand up? It’s quite revolting close up !

Speaking of which I have just received a totally resistible invitation. It reads

Tackling Diarrhoea and Vomiting in Children’

Nappy Study Parliamentary Reception

We would like to invite you to a parliamentary reception at the House of Commons, which is kindly being hosted by Theresa May MP.

I think I might give that one a miss. Having brought up four children I think I’ve done my share !

By-elections are what most MPs want to avoid as the principal cause of them is death. That’s possibly why the House of Commons offers each MP a thorough medical every three years.

After six years in the place I decided to avail myself of the service and have the MOT for Members.

Phase one was Tuesday - quite a frantic day - I was late for the appointment and ran part of the way there. After a few life-style questions we got round to blood pressure which I had taken less than a year ago and knew to be fairly good.

However no sooner had the tourniquet been applied to my arm, the machine hooked up when my mobile phone went off.

I looked at the number. It was a call from the local press. I reached for the phone but the caller rang off and I phoned back finding the number engaged.

The nurse looked at the reading- “Bit on the high side”- she said. “Lets do it again”. We repeated the exercise this time no phone interuption. The reading dipped dramatically. Clear scientific proof of the pressures in a politician’s life - not that journalists are not perfectly polite, friendly, but every politician knows that if you don’t get the tone and the content of your comments right or you get misunderstood what you say goes into print can hang around and haunt you for years.

Anyway I discovered from my initial screening and advice session that no by-election in Southport was imminent but that if I wanted to reduce my risk factors further I should drink more water, eat more fruit and stop getting older.

The latter factor apparently dramatically increases your chances of death.

I haven’t figured out how to deal with it but I bought myself a bottle of sparkling water for the office, purchased a banana and having taken good care of my health thought it safe to indulge in those delicious if somewhat large packets of Cider Vinegar Crisps I like to buy in Portcullis House.

On Tuesday it all kicked off.

The State Opening, the Queen, the horseguards, the helicopters overhead, the Peers in their robes, Black Rod strutting his stuff. My new researcher was highly excited but for most M.P.s it’s like the beginning of a new term at school.

After the events of recent weeks the re-establishment of something akin to routine is probably good for our sanity.

Richard Caborn, the Sports Minister was asked to respond to the Queen’s Speech in the Commons - usually and by tradition its supposed to be light hearted response. As he is not standing at the next election he told us he was looking forward to a peaceful retirement a few weeks ago and now finds he has to trudge on for two or more years.

Which brings me to Rupert, Lord Redesdale, a hereditary baronet and one of the youngest members of the House of Lords.

Descended from people with names like Mitford and Ogilvy, Rupert’s family have stalked the corridors of power for 200 years. Very well connected with a son called Bertie, he’s just lost a fair sum of money betting on an early election. I had heard of his bet back in September at the Lib Dem conference and knew that him simply placing the bet had changed quite a few people’s views on the probability of an early election

He’s a Lib Dem peer, so when I ran across him on Tuesday. I asked him why he was so sure that cautious Mr Brown would have risked an early election. He told me that ‘the City’ knew there was going to be one - the men who move huge sums of money within and between continents.

“Why then had it been called off ?” I asked. “Was it the polls?”.

Rupert shook his head. Apparently another Rupert - Rupert Murdoch - owner of the Times, Sky and Sun had been contacted and told Brown that with the Euro-referendum issue around-his papers would not be supporting the return of a Labour government.

Election cancelled.

So “When’s the election going to be ?” I asked Lord Redesdale trusting him to know the views of what we used to refer to as ‘the Establishment’.

‘2010’ was the confident answer. The City is expecting a slump next year and we need to get over the credit squeeze and well beyond.

So there we have it. Despite all the show and finery of the State Opening of Parliament could it be that the nation’s destiny is decided elsewhere?

Lord Redesdale

The view from my office

This Monday I was to interview at the Public Accounts Committee Sir John Bourn, 72 year old Auditor General, the nation’s spending watchdog and scourge of civil servants that over spend.

Following a stream of adverse publicity about his and Lady Bourn’s globetrotting, Sir John’s dining arrangements and the unwise receipt of hospitality from companies like BAE with controversial contracts with the government- I felt the writing was on the wall.

His position as our advisor on driving out waste in government did not sit happily with all this.

I was anticipating a difficult meeting but on Thursday he suddenly found a reason to retire. Having done so I am sure he will have a really happy retirement and wonder retrospectively why he hung on so grimly to power.

The Ancient Greeks used to say that those the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

Sir John sadly had been inside the Whitehall corridors of power for so long he had lost track of how the outside world would view things.

Which brings me nicely to Sefton Council and the retirement or is it redundancy settlement of Chief Executive,Graham Haywood.

I expect to see a beaming, relaxed and happy Graham in future weeks but I have never heard of matters like this being arranged in a few minutes at the end of a Council Meeting with a scrap of paper, no costings and in secret - all on a mysteriously named agenda item called Sefton 2010.

The press don’t go much to full council meetings any more as the meetings are largely formalities and over in a trice but I cannot imagine a past era where the council could turn to press and public and say “We’ve been talking about things many of which we have no direct control over (supermarket packaging, I believe, cropped up) but now we are going to spend some real council taxpayers money, could you leave?”

Taxpayers money: Sir John Bourn and Graham Haywood