Gordon Brown's Britain - Surreal View of the Week

An Article by: Mark Jago - Published with his permission.
The Opinions Expressed are those of the Author, who assures me the article was written under the influence of nothing stronger than decaffeinated coffee:

Good news, the Government is working tirelessly to create jobs for those British citizens negatively affected by the global economic crisis brought on by outside forces that would seek to undermine the social fabric of the British state.

Our supreme leader Gordon Brown returned on the weekend triumphant from an EU meeting where he secured European autocratic socialistic "order in our time" by agreeing compromises that would see UK financial regulators have an expanded role as part of a new super European financial regulator with powers over the City of London financial system. He gained reassurances that the UK Government would retain "the right to bail out UK Banks when the Government thought it necessary". In exchange he has agreed a compromise package of sweeteners that would encourage the Irish to ratify the Lisbon Treaty making any renegotiation of the Treaty by a future Conservative Government more difficult. European commissioners are keen to maintain their support for the Prime ministers Government until the Lisbon Treaty is ratified.

This news was overshadowed by continued state sponsored media headlines detailing more parliamentary expenses revelations. That had in its wake brought about Government party purges, prompting our supreme leader to respond with an early re-shuffling of his cabinet. He also decided to increase the number of his non-elected members of cabinet to ten and at the same time said that he intended to bring about Parliamentary reform. The Government sanctioned Conservative party opposition has now become concerned that their party will lose out on reforms designed to smooth our supreme leader's re-election.

In a move designed to bring his supporters rushing out on to the streets in celebration, state media reported our supreme leader Gordon Brown has announced his intention to lead the Labour party into the next general election securing a fourth successive term for the party. The spontaneous demonstration however failed to materialize and we can now report that an un-named source has informed us that Chancellor Alistair Darling had failed to secure an EEC grant to pay for security forces to round up the necessary "volunteers". We also found that placards that were to be used in the demonstration did not materialise because the Government had failed to pay a previous printing bill. The placards were supposed to be pictures of the supreme leader with captions saying "God Save our benevolent leader", "You saved the World and we love you" and "one party one leader for life". This after our supreme leader had allegedly said that he could quite easily leave the trappings of leadership behind and go into teaching. Apparently he was misunderstood because he was a little incoherent due to the fact that he had lost his temper at the time. What we believe he said was "If a few malcontents think they are going to make me give up the trappings of power they have another think coming". When is my little red book "The teachings of your supreme leader Gordon" going to be available from the printer's? I'm going to make this book compulsory reading for all UK citizens!

The alleged rift between are supreme leader and Chancellor Alistair Darling seems to be getting worse after budget forecasts for tax revenues were publicly reported to be falling short of expectations. The governor of the Bank of England, not someone who normally likes to associate himself with common talk about money has let it be known that some fix-up of the Country's finances may be necessary? We understand that he got into a little bit of a sweat after workers who were printing new twenty pound notes started to demand to be paid their wages in foreign currency. Apparently there had been some minor Government miscalculations based on their assumptions that the City of London was "The financial capital of the World" and that the Prime Minister had already saved the World's financial system. Was there a general breakdown in the coordination and communication between Government departments? The Government is denying the oppositions assertion that tax increases would be inevitable. A anonymous spokesperson for the Government said that the first planned autumn petrol tax increase originally planned to be at four pence a litre could be increased "to say forty pence" without constituting breaking the Governments promise not to bring in any "new" taxes.

Unrest has again been reported in the energy industry following the firing of some 51 contract worker's some 650 other workers who walked out in sympathy were then also fired. The allegation being that cheap foreign workers were being brought in to complete the Total refinery project. We hear from an undisclosed source that these workers are going to be offered re-training and jobs in law enforcement, social services and the funeral service industry. This as a reward for not advertizing the fact that the government and their UK banking friends have exploited foreign Companies developing North Sea energy and have forced some of them either into bankruptcy or to drastically reduce expansion plans. The resulting loss of jobs and tax revenue is said to be substantial.

In other news our supreme leader announced this week an enquiry into the Iraq war to be held behind mostly in private although the public will get to hear some conclusions. The inquiry he said will look into lessons learned and not apportion blame. Someone not wishing to be named said that the government would be interested in gaining a better understanding of how they managed to invade another country and commit murder without being indicted for war crimes?

There has been some good news out of the National Health Service after it was found that the number of deaths from deadly infections introduced during surgery had declined. It has been found that deaths are now more commonly attributed to delays in transporting patients to hospital and simple mistakes during the admission process. An industry spokesperson said that this was a "Win Win" solution because patients no longer have to face the likelihood of a prolonged agonizing death at public expense. A rumour that the number of patients turning down National Health Surgeries was substantial was said to be exaggerated. However the spokesperson did admit that for some reason that hospital admissions and even attendance at doctors sugeries had suddenly declined substantially and that there was no longer a problem with waiting times. The spokesperson reiterated the health services commitment to provide a prompt humane service.

Finally this week, a first successful test run of Britain's first high-speed domestic train service using a Japanese-built train that hit a speed of 143 miles per hour on route between London and Ashford was rapturously announced by British Transport Secretary Lord Adonis. This is a real tribute to the policies of successive British Governments over decades of encouraging the export of innovative British industries and talented engineers and scientist to countries where their technologies and talents are more appreciated. The new "very" limited service is to start only thirty three years after train regular 170mph service was introduced in Japan and some decades after high speed rail services became common place in France.

The UK Government is beyond Contemptible

An Article by: Mark Jago - Published with his permission.
The Opinions Expressed are those of the Author.

It comes as a relief to hear that the rabble that call themselves politicians will be shortly shuffling off to their respective constancies for a long undeserved break from Parliament through to October.

It seems to me too much of a coincidence that the public should be subjected to a sordid little expenses scandal when there are other more critical issues that the Government should be held accountable for.

It's been long understood that the tabloid press is little more than a mouth piece used by politicians to communicate their positions and to influence public sentiment. There is an incestuous relationship between the press and their political insider informants. Over the last few days politicians have been using the press to communicate to each other their positions following the Labour Cabinet shake up.

It's my view that the Parliament expense scandal was deliberately encouraged as a relief valve in order to channel public attention and displeasure that has been building up over the past few months. The instigator and benefactor of this sordid little exposé is obvious. Gordon Brown, who now has all those people that would be his successor in Cabinet with him, where he can keep them busy and have them compete for his favour's as a possible successor. The hapless less intelligent politicians caught up in the coop that "really never was" having become collateral damage road kill. Convenient scapegoats that can be used to palm off past government failures onto, not many voters are going bother with semantics over these losers.

Mary Riddell's June 08th Telegraph Column:
"Gordon Brown: His enemies want him dead, but he is still Labour's only hope"
could in my view have been written by Gordon himself. It's difficult to imagine why she would of her own volition and while being of sound mind write such drivel?

Meanwhile the Government's sound bite politics and disastrous economic mismanagement continues quietly unchallenged and without democratic sanction.

Readers of my earlier Articles about Oilexco in this blog will not be surprised to hear Chancellor Alistair Darling in an interview is warning that the current high price for oil had the potential to be a huge problem as far as a recovery from the recession is concerned. (See: Oil prices could hold back recession recovery warns Chancellor).

He goes on to say that "we've got to convince everyone, including some of the Gulf states, who really have been badly affected by this downturn in their broader economies, it is in no one's interest that we allow a high oil price to impede recovery." The truth is that the Gulf States have suffered very little. He doesn't mention that the current run up in oil is largely due to commodity market speculation in which the City's commodities traders are intimately involved in and are active participants in siphoning off huge profits.

He also warned that getting banks lending again remained a problem, and that lenders were still struggling to build confidence. "If you don't fix the banking problem, you'll never fix the wider economy," Mr Darling said.

What is clearly understood by the World political community is that the US and UK are jointly responsible for the credit crisis and recession. They both benefited by usurping their trusted positions as regulators of their leading financial centers to allow for their own financial institutions to fraudulently manipulate investments and defraud the World community.

The fact that the British Labour Government has added to these problems with their own profligate spending and lack of banking supervision has in truth brought the UK to the brink of economic oblivion. They continue to blame others while failing to put their own house in order with corrective actions that protect their citizens from additional liabilities.

Those people in the UK that continue to support this Government because they themselves have been bailed out of a bad personal banking situation, or are reliant on the Government for a job, or for financial support should know the facts and rethink your motives.

Firstly, the amount of Government bailout money used to help individual depositors makes up only a small portion of the bailout funds given to the Banks. Much of the money has gone off-shore to cover the obligations that the banks created as part of their sub-prime involvement. The collapse of the car industry, other business and of the housing bubble is because the Banks withdrew their lone support in all these areas in order to save themselves from bankruptcy.

The amount of World toxic debt is many times larger than the amount of bailout and stimulus funds that have been committed to date. The UK Government may be working feverishly at this moment to size the exposure that they took on by taking over the UK banking system, but they still most likely have no idea of the cost of their commitment.

This is a major critical error the Government made is compounded by the fact that they persuaded the US to do the same. The action the Government should have taken was to support the good UK banks, those with non-subprime exposure to take on the retail business and industry lone businesses from the bad Banks who had the toxic lone exposure. The toxic debt would then be imprisoned within a few bankrupt banks and Government stimulus would be focussed on a quick recovery of the economy.

As we now know, successful businesses and families who through no fault of their own were at the time reliant on bank funding in the course of a normal banking relationship have been whipped out due to this extra ordinary catastrophe.

Last week's meeting G8 optimism about an end to the recession should be taken in context. On a global basis the world economy has gone from free fall to a bottoming process. The more robust economies and those with less exposure to toxic debt have begun to recover. The change in sentiment has seen funds that were put into the US as a safe haven are now being taken out again. This has resulted in the drop in the US dollar that has also seen other currencies including the pound rebound.

In the case of the UK, the major economic engines are Government spending and the City's financial business. These are both areas of economic activity that are not going to collapse over night, but will wither and die over time given a shift global sentiment.

This shift has already begun. Following on from the London G20 meeting there is a move to have the City's financial oversight come under European Common Market control. This will most likely fought by Gordon Brown who will try to postpone the inevitable however, his position is becoming weaker by the day. The Government has already requested Common Market banking help to save the North Sea energy industry, a move that's come too late. They are also asking for assurances that UK Vauxhall car plant production will remain operational under the new owners.

With a tax base that's shrinking by the day and a Bank of England reduced to printing money to keep the economy afloat the Government has only a short window of opportunity turn things around. Unlike the US they don't have a reserve currency to fall back on. Any special relationship they have with the US is fading fast and their attitude towards the EEC has not won them any friends. A rising tide will likely come too late to lift this UK boat.

The World does not owe this contemptible Government a living. The UK has made its own bed and now it must lay in it.

Why Would Someone Vote BNP?

The Idle Man has for sometime believed there were reasons beyond the obvious (anti-immigration and pure racism) why people vote for the BNP, but couldn't formulate a clear perspective of what these reasons might be (probably in part because of my intense dislike of the party). I finally came across an Article by David Lindsay (a writer based in Lanchester, County Durham. He has been a Councillor and a school governor since 1999. He holds two Durham degrees) in The FirstPost from February 2009.

At the risk of having my knuckle rapped (and possibly worse) for copyright violation the following is amost all of the original article, which can be found here: How the BNP moved into the political mainstream:

In the centre of Durham, one recent Saturday, I walked past a Trotskyist stall, manned by undergraduates, and a BNP one, run by men in early middle age, all with accents from no further than five miles outside Durham. While the Trots were ignored, the BNP was swamped.

How come? There are no asylum seekers in County Durham, and visible ethnic minorities account for only one per cent of the population. At the last census, the district of Easington was found to be the least ethnically diverse area in Britain.

No, the reason why the BNP inspire such interest is because neither Labour, the Tories, or the Lib Dems are talking about the issues that worry people here.

Many in the North-East, and, indeed, around the country, are concerned about a loss of sovereignty, whether to the European Union, to the United States, or to global capital. And about the practical consequences of this loss, from the Common Fisheries Policy, to the Iraq War, to the credit crunch.

They are concerned about a new working class whose members understand no English except words of command, know little or nothing about workers' rights here, can be moved around the country at will, and deported if they step out of line. Deference to Islam is another complaint.

A lot of people really are worried by these things. I am. So why aren't the three main parties? Proper Labourites, or Conservatives, or Liberals would be.

Otherwise, people are talking about the erosion of the traditional family and its values, not least on the airwaves; about lap-dancing clubs; about the deregulation of drinking and gambling; about how the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have effectively legalised cannabis and lowered the age of consent to 13; about the Police not patrolling the streets, soft sentencing, and indiscipline in schools. Again, the BNP is the only party that has responded.

They are also talking about the real concern that the white working class has been left behind. And that no one ever mentions manufacturing, which still accounts for more than twice the GDP of the entire financial services sector, never mind the bailout-begging City.

Meanwhile, because the powers-that-be are unable to distinguish between the respectable working class and the characters from Shameless, council and housing association tenants now face having Shameless characters moved in next door to them, or even in place of them.

Many people are also concerned that Scottish devolution has never been supported by the majority of eligible voters in Scotland; that a mere 26 per cent of the electorate ever supported devolution in Wales, where it is being used to entrench the rule of those in English-speaking areas who speak Welsh as a cordon sanitaire; that the government of Northern Ireland has been carved up between a fundamentalist sect and a terrorist organisation; and about how badly England has been treated.

These are the issues that the BNP advertise on their leaflets, and discuss when they campaign door-to-door. This is what they were telling the Durham public at their stall that Saturday afternoon. Far from being racist, these valid and well-founded concerns are strongly shared with ethnic minority communities. I am, myself, mixed-race. Far from being necessarily right-wing, these concerns are felt most keenly by traditional Labour supporters, who now abstain in enormous numbers, and could put the BNP third in numerous seats and second in quite a few. The BNP is far more of a threat to Labour than UKIP ever was to the Tories. Yet neither Labour nor the other two parties are addressing these concerns. So the BNP is filling the vacuum. The terrible truth is that they are now the only force even pretending to share and articulate numerous perfectly mainstream and reasonable fears and grievances. Ignorant of and unfaithful to their own traditions, and scornful of the people whose worries these are, the main parties simply refuse to do so. Thus are people drawn into a world of racism, thuggery, and Holocaust denial.

I wish I could write that well, but my shortcomings aside. All the major parties say they are listening to the electorate, but effectively ignore them. Instead wringing their hands over the problem of political disengagement and how to tackle it. For example see Squirrel Nutkin's, sorry Hazel Blears speech to the Hansard Society in November 2008: Tackling Political Disengagement (in PDF Format).

The BNP realising that to make any real impact it had to change its image has done the obvious and listened, and then made peoples concerns part of its policy platform. UKIP to a lesser extent has done the same.

I believe that the leadership of all the major parties should read this article an take on-board the simple message. Listen to the voice of the people, take on-board their concerns and do something about them, hardly rocket science.

Dear Prime Minister. About My Pension

The following is a genuine letter (with the senders details removed) which was sent to the Prime Minister on the 15th May 2009. The contents will strike a cord with 1,000's of women, who have reached pensionable age and then discovered that because during their working life they had to take time out to care for members of their family, they are considered to be worth less than an unemployed school leaver:

The Right Honourable Gordon Brown
Dear Prime Minister,

I have worked for 40 years, 11 years full time and 29 years part time, paying full stamp for 11 years and then lower stamp for 29 years. I went part time to enable me to care for my parents who were both in bad health, and in order for me to do this I paid the lower stamp, and continued to work part time in more recent years to look after my sick husband.

Because of the strain of caring almost continually for these years I had to give up work at 6 months over 56.

When my husband retires in September this year I have learnt I will receive a pension of £57.05. This makes me one of the many women in this Country who have paid N.I. contributions some at the higher rate and some at the lower rate, paid taxes, cared for sick relatives, been hardworking and responsible human beings, to find our reward in our retirement is less than Job Seekers allowance. This can be paid to individuals who may have paid none or very few contributions, some who are still living with parents, with no expenses at all. In some cases, I understand, benefit can be paid to individuals who have never contributed. The rules seem a lot stricter for people in my situation, which seems very unfair. Where savings and Council tax are concerned the formula used to calculate entitlement to help, is ridiculous and outdated.

I know I am only one of hundreds and thousands of women who are in my position in this Country today, who are the forgotten, overlooked and undervalued members of society.

I am also very angry when I hear and read in the media about the alleged misuse of M.P.s expenses, and how I am expected to live on my income.

I look forward to receiving you comments.
Yours sincerely.

The Idle Man can do little more than point out that Pensioners are an increasing percentage of the electorate and if this. or any future Government continues to ignore them, then they do so at their peril.

Reply from the Prime Ministers Office
(Scanned and OCRed):

10 DOWNING STREET
LONDON MA2AA
www.number10.gov.uk

From the Direct Communications Unit

3 June 2009

Name and Address Removed


Dear xxxxxxxxxx.

The Prime Minister has asked me to thank you for your recent letter and to say that the views that you have expressed have been carefully noted.

Mr Brown would like to reply to you personally, but as you may know, he receives many thousands of letters each week and his many duties mean that he must ask Government Departments to reply on his behalf. He does appreciate the time that people take to write to him.

The Prime Minister has asked that I pass your letter to the Department for Work and Pensions so that they are aware of your views and may reply to the detailed points raised in your letter.

Yours Sincerely
MRS S.CAINE

Assuming there is a communication from the Department of Work and Pensions it will be posted here:

UK and Holland inching further Right

Which UK Party has the following as part of its core policy?
We will freeze immigration for five years, speed up deportation of
up to a million illegal immigrants by tripling the numbers engaged in
deportations, and have ‘no home no visa’ work permits to ease the
housing crisis.
No not the BNP, who now have two MEPs, but UKIP with 13 MEPs.

Staying with UKIP as they now have the second largest number of MEPs in the UK and intend to field a large number of candidates in the next General Election should we now consider them a Mainstream Party?

Moving over to Holland and the situation where the far-right PVV has won 4 European Parliament Seats and has Nine MPs in the Dutch Parliament.

For some years the Idle Man has considered Dutch Public opinion as an indicator of future trends in British Public opinion.

If the Dutch, who for all my adult life, have been one of the most tolerant of nations has moved this far to the right, then my guess is unless the Mainstream Parties in Britain address the reasons for the BNP and UKIP gains, then in five years time the Far Right may not just a cause for concern, but a major force in British Politics.

But I fear the three main parties, other than occasionally wringing their Hands about the rise of the BNP and promising to do something to address the reasons, will actually do little, or nothing.

In the European Parliament my guess is that two BNP MEPs will 'double team' with the four MEPs from the PVV (after all they have so much in common) but whether they and the PVV join the Independence/Democracy Group (of which UKIP is a member) or combine with other Far-Right MEPs (with whom they have less common ground) to form a new Group is going to be a situation to watch.

External Links to the Parties Mentioned in this Post
UKIP - United Kingdom Independence Party
See the UKIP Policies Section both summary and detail.
BNP - British National Party
PVV - Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) English Website

Other External Links
Independence/Democracy Group Web Site
Independence/Democracy Group - Wikipedia Entry

Nick Robinson BBC Political Editor Blog
Mark Mardell's Euroblog

Tonights European Election Results are in!

The results mean, unlike the Idle Man, most Labour MP's will have trouble sleeping. Not of course over the problems that face the country, but over their careers. The Disasters in Wales and the South West are just bigger blackspots in a nationwide picture of misery for the Labour Party (and I am sorry to say I cannot find even a smidgen of sympathy for their plight).

The Conservative Leadership will be pleased at their share of the vote. Plus MEP Daniel Hannan confirmed his celebrity status with his acceptance statement:

For the Lib Dems a slightly disappointing night, but at the end of it all one seat gained.
But for The Greens and UKIP a good night and for the pariahs of the far right the BNP, a night of joyous celebration having not just achieved one MEP, but two!

Whilst the rest of today will be interesting for those who follow the Westminster Soap Opera, but as for actually getting to grips with the problems that face the country and need to address the underlying reasons for the BNP success, another wasted day.

At close of play tonight the results were:

1. Conservatives 24 (+1)
2. UKIP 13 (+1)
3. Labour 11 (-5)
4. Lib Dems 10 (+1)
5. Green 2 (No Change)
6. BNP 2 (+2)
7. Plaid Cymru 1 (No Change)
   

Squirrel Nutkin and the WAGs

Hell hath no fury like a Woman Scorned: Well Gordon Brown has scorned three women recently and one about a year ago. Plus a number other Ladies, who feel disgruntled and marginalised since Gordon became PM.

The result the monthly Quiet Girls Night Dinners for Senior Members of the Sisterhood (a body of female Labour MPs more loyal to each other than their party and Blairites to a woman - Surely their loyalty should be to their Country, their Constituents, then their Party. Silly me, these are New Labour Politicians, self before all others) has metamorphosed into the WAGs (Women Against Gordon).
Membership of the WAGs is basically the same as the original Social Dinner Group, but with a single focussed agenda: revenge.

The fact this country is at War in Afghanistan, faces a Terrorist Threat - At time of writing this is deemed Severe and a terrorist attack is highly likely, coupled with a severe Economic Recession (leading to ever higher unemployment, exacerbating the already serious problems with the Health and Education Sectors, Business and Manufacturing), is irrelevant to this group of (sic) Honourable Ladies.

So who are the WAGs all of whom entered Politics as a Career (tsk, I mean of course Public Service - Where is that hollow laughter coming from)?
Well as they are on a bit of a recruiting drive at the moment. the list of shame that follows only covers the key members, three of whom are shown (in happier times) in the picture below:

Caroline Flint, Squirrel Nutkin & Jacqui Smith

• Caroline Flint: - Nice to Look at, but unpredictable emotional behaviour. Was a briefly gushing Gordon Groupie, until Gordon didn't give her what she wanted and immediately became the harpie from hell:
  
  
  
  Caroline Flint in Modelling Pose (at least in Modelling a hissy fit is accepted) .
• Hazel Blears: (aka Squirrel Nutkin): Resigned just before she was pushed.
  
  
  
• Jacqui Smith: Resigned before she was pushed. A relief to the Idle Man who felt she had been promoted way beyond her limited talent.
  
  
• One Apparent leading WAG not in the Group Photograph is Ruth Kelly (remember her):
  
  
• Other Current Members it appears include:
  Beverley Hughes, Patricia Hewitt, and Margaret Hodge
  

As this post is having a go at a Group of Labour Politicians, who are all Women, I think it is only fair to finish with quotes from women:

First Geraldine Smith MP writing in the Mail Online:
I’ve always been uncomfortable about women-only groups. I’m not a member of the so-called Women Against Gordon (WAGs) group as Caroline, Hazel Blears and some other Blairite MPs are. Nor would I want to be. I call it the ‘Blair Witch Project’ – not WAGs.

Jan Moir also writing in the Mail Online:
Tired of being girls interrupted, they want to be girls aloud - no matter what price the electorate must pay for their personal ambition.

What a sick joke. Especially when you consider that most of them are in office only because of Labour's notorious 'women only' candidate shortlists.

If their fate had been left to the process of natural political selection on a non-gender basis, they'd all still be teachers, sweet shop assistants, failing social workers or stay-at-home mums.

Judged on merit, all of them would merit not much more than a kick in the pants.

Instead, they are the highly-promoted beneficiaries of reverse sexism; Calamity Jane third-raters who have become drunk on the fleeting tot of power that this Government has poured them before it finally self-combusts.

None of these women is fit to iron Betty Boothroyd's tights. Or polish Barbara Castle's boots. Or even, if we must, sweep Margaret Thatcher's front steps. (Jacqui, dear, you hold the broom the other way up).

Unsurprisingly, Blears and gormless Jacqui Smith are at the core of the group, while other members include Beverley Hughes, Patricia Hewitt, Caroline Flint, Margaret Hodge and Tessa Jowell. Now that's what I call a party! Although not a political one, obviously.

Over quiet suppers in the privacy of their flipped homes, the WAGs meet to compare freebie soft furnishings and get out the taxpayer-subsidised fish knives to stab the Prime Minister in the back.They plot over pasta and cheap wine. Pesto sauce from a jar is dished up alongside over-heated, ready made Blairite grievances with a side order of sour grapes.

My heart almost cracks with the agony of it all.

Well thank you Geraldine and Jan, I guess you are both off certain peoples Christmas Card List!

Present For The BBC - Much Better Pay than being an MP

The base salary for an MP is nearly £65,000. Which is about twice what many of them are worth. But if based on the 'job description' is probably about £15,000 too low.
Now MP's salaries and expenses have been in the Media spotlight with the BBC in there with the best of them (and quite rightly so).

Yet when it comes to the contracts for its Radio and TV Presenters, it suddenly goes very coy. Siting confidentiality agreements with presenters over pay!
This is the BBC fearless investigator of those whom it deems have their noses in the trough and are riding a gravy train?
Apparently so, but then who but the BBC would pay:

• That aging Juvenile Jonathan Ross £6 Million a year for the past three years and is rumoured to be renewing the contract for another three years at £3 Million a year!
• The miniature man Graham Norton has been paid nearly £2.5 Million a year for the past three years and looks like renewing for less (but almost certainly many times what he is worth i.e. the Minimum Wage plus 10%)
  

But this is the BBC where the 'talentless' are routinely overpaid and allowed to over exercise their egos! Surely there are some decent Chat Show Hosts out there?

Moving on: Jeremy Paxman who is very good at what he does. gets £800,000 for Newsnight and plus more for doing University Challenge, pushing his annual earnings over £1 Million. Yes Jeremy is good, but that good!

Meanwhile, Terry Wogan is reputedly being paid £800,000 a year for his radio show! Whilst Chris Moyles get £630,000. These inflated salaries mean that Production costs for most breakfast and drivetime shows on BBC radio were "much higher" than those on commercial radio stations and the average Presenter Salary was twice that paid by Commercial Radio.

I think the BBC is one of the greatest British Institutions, but some of these salaries are beyond belief and trying to hide information from bodies such as the National Audit Office and House of Commons public accounts select committee is an indication of not only they have something to conceal, but know that they will face the same sort of public outcry that they have helped to stir up against MPs expenses.

The BBC's reaction is typical of the Media's fear of being investigated for the very abuses they publicize in others. Whilst one almost expects this of the Newspapers, the fact that this is the BBC once again shows how low standards have fallen.

However as light relief, here are Stephen Fry's comments on Journalists during an interview with Michael Crick:

“Although, of course, anybody can talk about snouts in troughs, and go on about it, for journalists to do so is almost beyond belief, beyond belief. I know lots of journalists; I know more journalists than I know politicians.And I’ve never met a more venal and disgusting crowd of people when it comes to expenses and allowances."

It is probably the first time I have laughed whilst watching a Newsnight Interview. Whilst I disagree with Stephen over much of what followed in the interview, it is worth watching for his opening comments:

Michael Crick inteviews Stephen Fry on MPs Expenses