What is proportionate?

If ever there was a cliche when it comes to Israel/Palestine issues it is the word "disproportionate". As far as I can tell, whatever Israel seem to do in response to indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas it is almost guaranteed to be called "disproportionate".

What I want to know is this. What do those who say Israel is acting disproportionately think is a proportionate response? I am yet to hear either a journalist ask someone this when interveiwing, nor am I yet to hear someone actually offer what they think Israel ought to have done.

I can't help wondering whether this is because no matter what Israel does it will always be wrong and disproportionate. Well that is unless it retreats to its pre-1968 borders when I don't doubt attacks would continue and there would be further calls for Israel to back down.

Labour's Latest Attack on the Tories

The WebCabinet.. a fake online webchat with Cameron and Osborne. As one would expect it is fall of the current lines, such as "Tories are economic thickos", "the Tories would do nothing" and "the Tories are just slick PR people and really hate you and want to eat your babies" type stuff.
Made me laugh though.

Cameron's Big Government Tax Cut?

So one of the big domestic politics news story of the day is that Cameron is proposing some tax cuts on savings. Specifically he announced that a Tory Government would abolish "income tax on savings for everyone on the basic rate of tax".

Now don't get me wrong, I love a tax cut, I think we need tax cuts, but think about the practicalities of this for a moment. How is a saver on the basic rate of tax going to prove to the bank that they are? More importantly how is the Government going to verify that the bank is telling the truth about its savers?

The result would be extra back office overhead for banks as they would have to process "I don't have to pay tax on my savings" claim. Wouldn't there also need to be official oversight and auditing of banks by Government - even more admistrative overhead - to make sure that claims were valid?

Great sounding idea, but for anyone other those of pensionable age - which is easy to know and doesn't require the banks to do much other than look at D.O.B. - isn't it going to be impractical and more than likely increase the size and scope of Government to inspect who is saving what and where?

How can Cameron deliver "fibre to the door"?

David Cameron has announced that he wants to see Britain become a "fibre to the door" nation within a decade, saying,

"We need to move much faster towards a Britain where fibre right into people's homes is the norm for everyone and a Conservative Government will do everything it can to make it happen within a decade."

Hmm... lets see then. Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) has been going on for some time now but it's still the case that BT Openreach own the final leg of copper from exchange to door (even if you're being billed by someone else and you only have a relationship with that Comms Provider).

So, if we're going to have "fibre to the door" how will a Conservative Government "do everything it can to make it happen"? Does this mean breaking up BT Openreach's maintenance monopoly on the final leg loop between exchange and door? Or does it mean increasing it? Or is it just a pointless promise that will soon become a mere aspiration?

Liberal Burblings....

Every now and again I find that I just have to pop over to Liberal Conspiracy to see what they're saying. It's a bit like my instinctive purchasing of the Independent. I do it for two reasons, first for the possibility to make myself a little angry at the general self-righteousness, but more so second, to have a good laugh at silly generalisations.

Today's brilliant example comes from Sunny Hundal, who, whilst being a good writer sometimes, just has a tendency to throw in rather stupid remarks. In a post he has done titled "White-washing George Bush’s legacy" which is largely an attack on Tim Montgomerie's decision to write a post listing what he think Bush did right rather than what he did wrong. Sunny says,

It’s an old tradition on the right to try and paint glowing legacies for political leaders who have been abject failures (think Ronald Reagan) so they can look back and reminisce about the entirely made-up good old days.

Correction Sunny. It is an old tradition of party political hacks on either side to try and paint glowing legacies for political leaders who have been abject failures. It's not something that is exclusive to the Right, and suggesting it is makes you look exactly like one of those partisan idiots you often complain about on the Right.

The fact is is that every democratic political leader, historically speaking, will have done somethings right, and somethings wrong. A leader that has managed to win a second General Election can probably be said to have definitely done something right in their first term.

Tony Blair did somethings right, and somethings wrong. Likewise, when Brown is gone there will be those who will write about what he did right as well. Of course, the judgment of what is right and what is wrong, will vary based on the subjective bias of the person assessing the period.

However, the idea that one leader or the other is an abject failure from start to finish, that is to say everything they touch went wrong, is frankly bollocks. What is even more bollocks is the idea that writing positively about a leader when most writing is negative is something only the Right do - one assumes that the apologists on the Left for, amongst others, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein passed you by?

Randall the Soothsayer

Last week there were predictions everywhere. Most papers did them, most blogs did them including this one. Of all the predictions that I can recall, it was Jeff Randell's in the Telegraph that I remember most clearly when he said,

The Government's bail-out of the banks will start to fall apart: more capital will need to be pumped in if all mainstream lenders are to survive.

How very right he was and who would think it would happen so soon after the turn of the year? According to this morning's Times, Alistair Darling will shortly make a decision on pumping yet more taxpayer money into the banks with a second recapitalisation bail-out because the first has failed and lending has dried up.

Interestingly the problem of lending not kicking off again has been one of the ongoing themes that the Tories have been banging on about, and any secondary action by the Chancellor will, I would imagine, be seized upon by them with a "told you so" tone and attitude.

Lib Dems split as secret coalition talks take place?

If you read just one piece of commentary today then it should be the one titled "Ditch Speaker Martin, make Vince Cable Chancellor and freeze out the Tories... is this Brown's masterplan for 2009?" by Peter Oborne in the Mail.

I will say this, it has an air of possibility about it, although I am a little sceptical about whether a tribalist like Brown would really go for such a high profile coalition. Of course, if the Tories were merely the largest single party in Parliament but had no overall majority he might.

The interesting thing that Oborne points out though is that there is a significant split developing in the Lib Dems. Vince Cable went "off-piste" apparently with an unauthorised arse-licking piece about Brown, and essentially the Orange Book right-wingers in the Lib Dems aren't particular happy about it.

Capitalism in Action

I wonder how the administrators feel about this.


People are even trying to sell the closing down posters!

Dumb eBay users?

Probably faked but it still made me laugh.

What's all the fuss about Nationwide?

I see that the Nationwide Building Society is supposedly heading for a ruck with the Treasury because it is planning on not passing on any further rate cuts to its customers on Tracker mortgages.

Basically it intends to invoke the the clauses in its mortgage contracts which says that the interest rate on the money cannot fall below 2% irrespective of what the base rate of the Bank of England may be.

What I want to know is what exactly is wrong with that? I have a fixed rate mortgage until 2011 currently, and am paying well above the base rate. I signed up to it, and thus I adhere to its conditions.

Likewise, if you signed up to a Tracker mortgage and the contract makes it clear that the interest rate will never fall below 2% even if the base rate from the BoE is 0% then tough shit.