CO-OP DEBACLE: THE FIFTH LABOUR OF MILIBAND

In the good old days, financial scandals mostly happened to Labour whereas the Conservatives were prone to sexual improprieties. Enter the larger than life figure of former Reverend Paul Flowers, doyen of ethical banking, amongst other things, and a man able to bestride this traditional political divide like a colossus, whilst bringing the Methodist Church in to disrepute at the same time. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Flowers_%28banker%29 Naturally, British media of all political persuasions have enjoyed a field day and foreign journalists have flocked to our shores to share this spectacle of ethical deflowerment around the globe. Britain is widely regarded abroad as a nation of hypocrites, although most of our politicians and wider governing elite, including the prime minister, seem blissfully unaware of this for much of the time, and for many foreigners the Flowers debacle story will have shown our country in what they believe to be its true colours.

However, whilst the role of the former Reverend Flowers, assisted it has to be said by many others from ruling elite, in the downfall of the Co-operative Bank may be a national embarrassment - whilst some have liked his antics off-stage to the US crime drama "Breaking Bad" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad  - the real lessons of this particular episode in British public life must be learnt most of all by Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband. Mr Miliband inherited what can only be described as "The Labours of Hercules" when he took over leadership of the party in 2010 and the task of cleaning-up after Paul Flowers, as well as other notables like Ed Balls, may be likened to "the Fifth Labour" or the cleansing of the Augean stables - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augeas  This is a chance for the Leader of the Opposition to demonstrate that he can rid himself of the legacy of financial incompetence inherited from the Blair-Brown Labour governments by appointing a new Treasury team. Failure to seize the opportunity could well spell an end to Mr Miliband's ambitions to be prime minister.

HORSE MEAT: DAVID STARKEY ON PRINCESS ANNE

The Duchess of York and Sir David Starkey in The Tatler magazine

Let me preface this post by saying that I love horses and good satire in that order. I also rather like Sir David Starkey, have some respect for Princess Anne and no particular objection to the Duchess of York (of whom nor more shall be written here). Nevertheless, it's fair to say that all three royals - Starkey, after all, is a historian of the monarchy - bring some controversy to the table.

So it was last week when Princess Anne used her speech at a World Horse Welfare event to suggest that eating horses may be good for their health. Now horse welfare is a complex subject which I do not propose to discuss in detail here, save to say that management of the equine population through appropriate breeding (including its prevention) practices is fundamental to this. End of life management is also a key issue and Princess Anne has done no harm in drawing attention to this. It should also be said that World Horse Welfare and similar charities do some excellent work in dealing with a range of problems facing equine populations in the UK, as well as in less developed countries where many animals labour and die in the most difficult of circumstances.

It was in to this uncomfortable discourse that Sir David Starkey too lept last week, when he suggested on the BBC Radio 4 panel show "Any Questions?" that Princess Anne looked like a horse - a comment that I'm sure the good lady would take as a compliment - and, with more than a touch of irony, that her advocacy of horse meat consumption revealed an unexpected "satirist".

Of course, it was Sir David and not Her Royal Highness who had spotted a satirical opportunity and chose to exploit this to the discomfiture of his more politically correct panel contestants and their audience. Likening Princess Ann's comments to Jonathan Swift's famous satire "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick"*, Starkey went on to debunk her suggestion. In doing so, he returned the issue of horse meat consumption to a wider welfare context, thereby displaying some deft satirical footwork, which was unfortunately lost on his companions from across the politically correct spectrum.

Instead, Sir David Starkey brought ire upon himself from those who missed his ironic analogy and interpreted his comments as sexist. Although the subsequent media indignation was not so great as that sparked by Princess Anne herself, it was nonetheless significant, with the Huffington Post and its followers on Twitter getting into a considerable huff over the matter.

What all this reveals is that rational debate around challenging issues is increasingly difficult in an age of so-called emotional intelligence, and that it is no longer just North Americans who lack a sense of irony. With contemporary sensibilities so easily offended on these and a whole range of other matters it is hardly surprising that public discourse in Britain is in such a parlous state.

*  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

WHO'S HOLDING UP THE CHILCOT REPORT?

In some respects the circumstances leading to and surrounding the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War are the opposite of those associated with more recent investigations into security leaks and media hacking. For at the heart of the Chilcot deliberations is not an explosive release of intelligence through illegitimate channels but rather an absence of information, currently reflected in the withholding, for reasons which are far from clear, of the inquiry's long overdue final report.

In a letter to the Prime Minister of 4th November this year, the official Chilcot website - www.iraqinquiry.org.uk - leads us to believe that the cause of the report's delay is due to the "Maxwellisation process". According to Wikipedia this "is a procedure in British governance where individuals due to be criticised in an official report are sent details of the criticism in advance and permitted to respond prior to publication. The process takes its name from the newspaper owner Robert Maxwell. In 1969, Maxwell was criticised in a report by the Department of Trade and Industry as "unfit to hold the stewardship of a public company". Maxwell took the matter to court where the DTI were said by the judge to have "virtually committed the business murder" of Maxwell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwellisation

However, for those who might infer from the above reference that it is the deceased newspaper mogul who is responsible for holding up publication of the Chilcot report, I can say quite categorically that this is not the case. Instead blame has been cast upon Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Heywood - who has apparently vetoed publication of documents supporting the main report.

Sir Jeremy's apparent action has led to a flurry of media coverage and a former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has requested that the Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Grayling - take charge of the matter. Meanwhile, the Independent newspaper claims in an exclusive today that it is the United States government who are now holding up publication of the long-awaited Chilcot report, although this has subsequently been denied by sources there.