There are more pressing financial concerns than this

The two top dogs at the Treasury Select Committee, John McFall and Michael Fallon, give remarkably different reactions to the news that ministers withheld details of emergency loans to RBS and Lloyds for over a year. McFall argues that secrecy was necessary to avoid a run on the banks; Fallon expresses outrage that Lloyds’ shareholders were not privy to all information when considering the disastrous purchase of HBOS, urged on them by the Prime Minister.  

Both have their points. Blind panic is the defining recollection of those autumnal days. If...

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Will Chilcot be any different?

The Chilcot inquiry’s precedents don’t auger well. It's unfair to describe the Hutton and Butler inquiries as 'whitewashes', but their colour was certainly off-white. That said, the condemnatory characterisation of Sir John and his panel as ‘establishment figures’ is redolent of a lower-sixth common room circa 1968. Who else could conduct this inquiry? Mohammed al-Fayed? Pete Doherty? The Bishop of Bath and Wells? The Iraq controversy has not abated and a panel of angels would not be pure enough for some. But it’s absurd to suggest that anyone besides officials and foreign policy experts,...

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Carry on Karzai

The New York Times reports that 15 Afghan ministers, past and present, are under investigation on suspicion of corruption. Obama’s and Brown’s unequivocal stance on the Mk.3 Karzai government leaves the president with no choice but to sacrifice a few lambs.

However, if ever there’s a bolthole Karzai will scamper through it. Corruption is Afghanistan’s chief political currency and Karzai’s authority, such as it is, rests on backhanders. Oligarchic Afghan law decrees that ministers must be prosecuted by a specially convened court, and guess who controls judicial patronage? It’s an ingenious constitutional...

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Yet another poll for the mix

After the Ipsos MORI hullabaloo, it's tempting to treat the YouGov/Telegraph poll on Westminster voting intentions in Scotland with extreme caution.  But, for the record, here are the headline figures, and a hefty rise for Labour:

Labour --- 39 percent (up 9 points from August)
SNP --- 24 percent (down 2)
Conservatives --- 18 percent (down 2)
Lib Dems --- 12 percent (down 6)

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Mandelson downplays Van Rompuy and Ashton – and bigs up the EU's financial influence

To my eyes, there's more than a little dose of mischief in Peter Mandelson's article for the FT today.  Discussing the recent EU jobs grab, he seems to suggest that the new economic and financial commissioners may have a more important role to play than either Herman Van Rompuy or Lady Ashton, the EU’s president and high representative, respectively:

"Some commentators felt that the EU’s choices for its new president and high representative for foreign affairs lacked this kind of continental ambition. Herman Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton will no doubt

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Osborne's recycling giveaway is actually an Age of Austerity measure

I don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to an idea which is actually quite promising, but it's worth pointing out that George Osborne's plan to pay people to recycle – featured in quite a few of today's papers – was first mooted by him back in July 2008.  

The difference between then and now?  That this particular nudge was worth up to £360 a year for families who took advantage of it – whereas now the figure has come down to £130 a year.  In which...

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A debased database

As with much police work, the questions surrounding a DNA database come down to one thing: striking a balance between civil protection and civil liberties.  Going off a new report by the Human Genetics Commission, reported on the cover of today's Times, the government are getting that balance seriously wrong:

"Jonathan Montgomery, commission chairman, said that 'function creep' over the years had transformed a database of offenders into one of suspects. Almost one million innocent people are now on the DNA database...

...Professor Montgomery said there was some evidence that people

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A poll taken at the same time as the Ipsos-Mori poll had the Tories 14 points ahead

The Observer’s Ipsos-Mori poll has dominated political discussion since its publication on Sunday. But two things that I have heard tonight have increased my scepticism that it marks a dramatic shift in public opinion. First, I hear that another of the big pollsters had a survey in the field at the same time and it showed a fourteen point Tory lead. Second, a new poll for Political Betting has Labour down on 22, only a point ahead of the Lib Dems.

With polls it is the ones that are surprising that make waves;...

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The case for 40,000

As President Obama continues to consider his options on Afghanistan, The New York Times has a good primer on what the military could do with the various levels of reinforcements being considered. This is what the military believes it could do with an extra 40,000 troops:

"Should President Obama decide to send 40,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan, the most ambitious plan under consideration at the White House, the military would have enormous flexibility to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the Taliban center of gravity in the south, 5,000

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