Fund me, fund me, baby, baby fund me (got to get my Candy free)

Sir Hayden Phillips is conducting a Review of the Funding of Political Parties as mentioned on Guido's site

The state funding arguement can be reduced to:

(1) Political parties need money;
(2) They cannot be trusted to get it themselves;
(3) ergo they should get it from the public purse;

you can't spin it any other way.

You can register your views on Sir Hayden's site. As you can probably guess I'm against increasing it above the levels it's already at - see here.

Basically the existing state and subsidised funding in a non-election year is £34.173 Million, and in an election year this increases to £106.173 Million (this does not include and allowance for the amount the Government who can draw on the resources of the state, including the use of the Civil Service, to undertake its accountability to Parliament.) If we said this was broadly in line with the Short money provided to opposition parties (£5.5 Million+) then we have over a typical election cycle of 4 years we have a total of around £ 1/4 Billion.

Based on current published expenditure levels of the major political parties we are already at a further £ 1/4 Billion over the electoral cycle.

Which takes us to a grand total of £ 1/2 Billion over the electoral cycle.

Now I'm thinking we should be decreasing the funding not increasing it.

Beckett's going native

While the cats away the mice do play:

Leaked: No 10 'rebuffed ceasefire call'

One in the eye for Blair from his cabinet: Airport curb on US 'bomb flights'

And the other eye from the EU: EU Clashes over Ceasefire

Ah well, he's back on Thursday for a flying visit before his next freebie holiday, and then it's "bring on the Prezza", "bring on the Prezza"...

Summer Holiday

Blair's Holiday (to the tune of Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday)

Blair's off on a summer holiday.
Prezza in charge for a week or two.
Middle-East left in crisis.
Plenty of worries for me and you.
For a week or two.

Blair's off where the sun shines brightly.
Prezza doesn't seem to have a clue.
We've seen it in the blogs.
Will rumours 'bout Rosie be true?

Prezza in charge this summer holiday.
Doing things Gordon always wanted to.
Blair's on another freebie holiday.
Whiter than white, too good to be true.
For me and you.

On a slightly more serious note it is believed Mr. Blair will be staying at Sir Cliff Richard's £3m Barbados villa as he has for the last 3 years. By a strange quirk of coincidence, it would seem Mr. Blair has been responsive to Sir Cliff's lobbying for an increase in the Copyright term for musical recordings from 50 to 70 years. Some of Sir Cliff's recordings are nearing the end of their 50 years. Any retrospective increase of the copyright for another 20 years means Sir Cliff, and his record companies stand to make extra money.

As all commercial contracts between Sir Cliff and his Record Company(s), and pricing for the these musical recordings to the consumer would have factored in the 50 years it would seem to be morally dubious that they should benefit from any retrospective legislation.

By all means increase the copyright term to 70 years, the Artists and Record Companies could then factor that in to pricing, which should result in lower prices to the consumer.

The poodle's poodles

Just who is/are the poodles?

Is it Blair, who it could be reasonably argued independently holds the same views as George Bush on the 'War Against Terrorism', or members of his Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party who don't?

Genie let of the bottle...

It was a welcome show of transparency when the Government introduced the Freedom of Information Act, and went some way to restoring trust between citizen and the state. Now we are told that the Government wants to block access to this information by making it difficult for requests to be made.

The Government has already realised that through the application of Crown Copyright, it can suppress the further publication of documents obtained under the FOI act. Indeed it has already moved to do so on at least one occassion - the case of Craig Murray our former Ambassador to Uzbekhistan following his controversial sacking by the Foreign Office.

However although the Foreign Office has succeeded in having the 'Craig Murray' documents removed from Craig's site they still persist on the Internet.

It seems that the Genie won't go back into the bottle so easily.

('Genie let out of the bottle, it is now the witching hour' - Radiohead)

The ghost of Mr Blair

If the story in Today's Independent is correct - Murdoch set to back Blair - for a place in his boardroom then the media magnate Rupert Murdoch is expected to offer Tony Blair a senior role in his News Corporation empire when he stands down as Prime Minister.

Sometime, maybe in the not too distant future, there's a call to Downing Street -

ring-ring...

PA: hello

TB: put me through to Gordon, it's Tony (sounding exasperated)

PA: hello Gordon - I have Tony on the line for you

GB: oh no what now? (big sigh and slumps down in his chair). ok put him through.

TB: Gordon, I thought you understood that Rupert and I don't like you messing with my Legacy - you do understand don't you...

GB: But...

TB: No buts Gordon, you want to win the next election don't you.

GB: Oh yes please, pretty please.

TB: Then you know what to do, get it sorted.

GB: I will (in a resigned tone).

TB: Good. (Hang's up with his broadest ever Cheshire cat grin.)

GB: arghhhhhhhhh!

NICE and sleazy does it.

What would you do with £54 Million?

This is around the amount of money it would take to fund the treatment of 3,000 blood cancer sufferers in England with a condition called multiple myeloma. Velcade is the only licensed drug for people with this condition, a drug which is in available for use in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

A good use of money? - apparently not. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has refused to approve Velcade for use in England on the NHS, saying it is not 'cost-effective'. See here.

Velcade puts the cancer into remission and dramatically improve life expectancy for it's sufferer's and is available in every other developed country in the world.

It struck me, skimming through the accounts of the political parties, that this is the kind of figure it costs to keep the 2 major political parties afloat each year (around £24M for the Conservatives and £34M for Labour).

Where would you prefer to see your money going - the treatment of 3,000 cancer patients or state funding of political parties?

'I did not have relationships with that sale'

John Prescott insists he had '...no part in the dome sale...', according to the Andrew Marr Interview on Sunday 23 July 2006. The transcript is here: BBC Sunday AM

He also says in response to being pressed by Andrew Marr 'Yeah, and then indeed ... Yes, Charlie took charge of that and sold it, right - Charlie Falconer. He sold it, he was responsible for it, and I had no responsibility for the sale or indeed of the planning decision.'

Yet this is not what the National Audit Office report says. In a table of persons/organisations involved and their responsibilities in the sale of the dome it lists (see p.42)

Organistion:

Cross departmental group (Chair: Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for the Dome from Cabinet Office, Ministers from: DCMS, DETR, HM Treasury) set up for the Sale of the Dome.

with responsibilities:

First Competition:

Received advice from the Sale team, and other bodies involved. It made the final decisions in relation to the selection of bidders based on advice from English Partnerships and New Millennium Experience Company.

Second Sale Process:

Received advice from the Sale team, and other bodies involved. It made the final decisions in relation to the selection of bidders based on advice from English Partnerships.

Notes:
The 'First Competition' refers to the failed sale to Legacy plc who lost preferred bidder status on the dome on 15/02/2001;
The 'Second Sale Process' refers to a series of contracts between English Partnerships and Meridian Delta Ltd and the Anschutz Entertainment Group which finally became unconditional on 18th June 2004.

The NAO report would seem to imply that although John Prescott was not minister for the dome, he chaired the cross departmental group responsible for the Sale of the Dome. Besides these deals did not fully complete until 18th June 2004.

The only other 'Google' reference to the existense of a cabinet sub-committe is here which says referring to the Legacy bid on 01/02/2001:

'The Cabinet Office refused to comment about yesterday's meeting, but it is understood that a Cabinet sub-committee including John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, Lord Falconer, and junior environment and culture ministers are due to meet to discuss the deal as early as today.'


In support of his meetings with Philip Anschutz Prescott says:

'...which meant 10,000 new homes, 24,000 jobs and £5 billion of private investment. I am quite prepared to meet people who provide jobs and investment of that kind, and it was quite right' (hansard)

Just who is providing these homes, jobs and £5 billion of private investment? - the reality is the bulk comes from Meridian Delta Limited (AEG's investment is £350 million or £600 million dependent on a casino or not as the case may be?)

In this case the question to the DPM should be how many time did he meet with executives of Meridian Delta and/or it's shereholders Lend Lease and Quintain Estatesand Developement plc?

Tucked away in the Audit Comissions report is also an admission that AEG's investment may struggle to make commercial sense without 'additional Dome-related income streams':

Before concluding their agreement English Partnerships asked their financial advisers Deloitte and Touche to review the viability of Anschutz Entertainment’s business plan for the Dome. The advisers concluded that income earned from within the Arena alone would not generate a fully commercial return. The rate of return on investment would be unlikely to be more than four per cent, and could be negative if assumptions over income from sponsorship and corporate hospitality proved to be overly optimistic in the UK market.

This provides the commercial backdrop for the meetings between AEG and the DPM. AEG knew they needed a better deal and John Prescott for his part seemed at least willing to listen.

Maybe John Prescott takes a similar view to Bill Clinton, but if the Audit Commision's report is correct 'he did have relationships with that sale'.

Update 30th July 2006: Police are considering charges against John Prescott for alledged corruption over his stay with Philip Anschutz.