High noon on the high street

Gordon Brown probably doesn’t do much shopping. If he did wander unaccompanied round almost any town centre in the country, he’d discover the real impact of his policies.

They are rapidly becoming ghost towns. In many places, half the shops are closed down and boarded up.

The only boom industry is charity shops – but nowhere can survive long with just a series of places selling second-hand junk and tat even if it is staffed by volunteers and all for a good cause.

There are small modern developments of mini-malls where one or two survivors struggle on.

But with the likes of Woolworth closed down and Marks & Spencer pulling out, they are attracting fewer and fewer customers.

The lunchtime office workers, who keep many shopping centres alive, are disappearing. Office blocks stand empty as companies consolidate or close. Even sandwich shops are feeling the squeeze.

Pretty soon the last remnants of the Blair-Brown boom will shut up shop and the windswept malls will be left to the drunks and the homeless.

As for the main streets of our towns, there is less and less reason to visit them.

It’s often difficult – and expensive – to park. The surviving shops are all the same wherever you go, so if you want something different or unusual you’ve come to the wrong place.

And the atmosphere is sometimes fairly hostile – so many regular shoppers have already gone elsewhere the streets are left to people you would not want to bump into on a dark night.

Markets are in such decline that Sandwell is thinking of offering stalls rent-free. Empty shops in Wolverhampton could become art galleries to stop the city looking run-down. Even Bingo halls are closing.

These days we prefer to shop “out of town” at purpose-built retail parks like Merry Hill. It’s so much easier because everything is accessible, we can park and walk and the places feel safer and more friendly.

Alternatively, we go on-line where the choice is infinite and the prices are often much more competitive.

I felt very guilty the other day when I decided not to buy a couple of CDs (neither of them by Michael Jackson) in a privately-run shop because they were £13 each. I knew they were available on Amazon for just £7.25.

What was I to do – support what is almost certainly a struggling small business by paying £26 for the CDs or get them both for £14.50?

Guiltily, I ordered them via the internet which, of course, means I have to wait for our glorious Royal Mail to complete the difficult task of delivering them.

But more and more people seem to rely on the internet for their shopping.

At the moment, about 17 per cent of all retail sales take place on-line. In May, internet sales increased by “only” 8.7 per cent.

This is apparently the slowest rate of growth in the nine years people have been measuring sales over the world wide web.

But in this terrible recession most people would mortgage their grannies for an 8.7 per cent sales increase.

We’re stuck with the internet, despite its many faults. That’s why the experts reckon that in five years’ time, between a third and a half of all our shopping will be carried out on-line.

Good news for the Royal Mail, maybe, but desperate for small town centres, which will be increasingly abandoned by the best-known names – gone to the retail parks – and the small businesses – gone on-line or bankrupt.

Banks, building societies and Post Offices are closing, estate agents have taken a hammering, pubs are shutting every day, pretty soon there won’t be any shoppers left to buy coffee at Starbucks.

It’s not all Gordon Brown’s fault but the economic collapse he helped to engineer has almost certainly speeded up the decline of the traditional town centre.

In the long run, this may lead to a new era for small towns. Rents will collapse which, in turn, may tempt some people to open up new shops.

In some towns, shops may even get converted back into houses which would create demand for the kind of small stores which once existed simply to service the locals.

But that will take years. In the meantime money is draining away from our towns, destroying local businesses and creating wastelands of what was once the heart of the community.

The Federation of Small Businesses claims 2,000 local shops are closing each year. Since 1990, 40 per cent of bank branches have gone and 50 pubs a month are throwing in the towel.

People like browsing through shops that are different and interesting but who would be mug enough to open one of them today? The Commons all-party Small Shops Group believes there will be no independent retailers left by 2015.

It wants Mr Brown to protect small shops and town centres to make sure there is still some competition and shoppers have some choice other than the big chain stores.

He could cut business rates and, axe car park charges for a start. But even that might only delay the inevitable.

A drop in the ocean

When I knew John Bercow he had only just begun his progress from right-wing head-banger to New Labour cheerleader.

The newly-elected Speaker of the House of Commons was already MP for the safe seat of Buckingham, where they don’t bother to count the Tory votes, they just weigh them.

He invited me to sit on a committee he set up to campaign to protect England’s last 164 grammar schools from attack by the Labour Government.

At the turn of the Millennium, Labour was confident it could close these bastions of elitism and the Conservatives, led by Mr Bercow, were determined to stop them.

I quite liked Mr Bercow at the time. He had clear ideas about what he believed in and strong views about the dangers posed by Labour.

He was quiet and thoughtful but friendly and serious. It’s no surprise he has since climbed up the political greasy pole.

It is surprising, though, that his rise is not through the ranks of the Opposition but as the supposedly neutral Parliamentary figure of Speaker.

And it is astounding how he seems to have changed since the days we were both fighting to preserve grammar schools.

Few Conservatives have a good word for him – and not because the party gave up the idea of creating more grammar schools.

Mr Bercow’s elevation to the Speaker’s chair is owed almost exclusively to the way he has wooed and won MPs in the Labour Party in an obvious and open election campaign which, he now admits, began back in 2005.

This success, according to the conspiracy theory, is a Labour plot to secure the position for one of their friends so they can make trouble for a future Government led by David Cameron.

This is low politics at its worst. The kind of low politics you would think our MPs might avoid, now their reputations have been comprehensively trashed.

Plotters are already at work deciding whether it’s worthwhile ousting Mr Bercow immediately after the next General Election.

They believe Mr Speaker Bercow will favour Labour and make life difficult for a Tory Government.

Mr Bercow’s changing views are connected with his marriage in 2002 to Sally Illman, a former Young Conservative who switched to Labour. Critics say Mr Bercow discovered sex and socialism at the same time.

It is claimed only three Conservatives voted for Mr Bercow to become Speaker.

One angry Tory called me as I was writing this article to ask if he should stand as an Independent Conservative in Buckingham at the next General Election to “put Bercow in his place”.

This would flout the Parliamentary convention that the Speaker gets a free ride at election time and faces no serious challenger.

Whether such a threat materialises, Mr Bercow’s elevation does nothing to tackle the real problems.

He is among the many MPs tainted by the expenses scandal. He has regularly been among those claiming the maximum allowances possible, he “flipped” homes and had to pay £6,508 in capital gains tax he’d managed to avoid.

He didn’t break the rules, of course, but this sort of record doesn’t inspire confidence in the man chosen to clean up Parliament.

Poor old Michael Martin lost his job as Speaker because our MPs needed a scapegoat. The rest of us were blaming them for their greed; they needed someone to turn on.

Now they’ve had their little bit of fun and games, our MPs need to realise the appointment of a new Speaker is a side-show.

The longer the expenses scandal has gone on, the less faith we have in any of them. This is unfair because there are some truly Honourable Members of all parties.

But too many MPs are tainted. How can anyone who has been lining his pockets command the respect needed to preach to the rest of us about the need to care for hard-earned taxpayers’ money?

How can those who have exploited the system stand up and claim to be trustworthy guardians of our money?

The raising and spending of money – our money, let’s never forget – is at the heart of what Parliament does. That’s why Parliament chopped off King Charles I’s head and why the United States fought a war of independence from Britain.

It will need a great deal more than a Speaker who doesn’t wear tights and wig to restore confidence in our MPs’ right to raise taxes.

The other day I walked into a shop which displayed a notice on the door announcing: “Only two MPs at a time”. Someone had scribbled underneath: “That’s one too many.”

When our MPs have become a laughing-stock, the idea that they can play low politics over the election of a Speaker and think somehow that their reputation might improve is the worst kind of madness.

At Mr Speaker Bercow’s first Prime Minister’s Question Time, Tory Mark Harper called on the Prime Minister to lift the ban on MPs being kicked out of Parliament if they are sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

The rest of us thought the ban had been lifted quite some time ago.

Ten ways to reform Parliament

Reforms we need:

1. Let MPs run the House of Commons. That means they, not the Government, appoint the chairmen of their select committees, giving them free votes and decide the Parliamentary timetable.

2. Require proper scrutiny and voting on every piece of legislation which originates in Brussels – reserving to the Commons the right and power to throw out anything which our elected representatives deem to be unacceptable.

3. Accept that MPs have always tried to milk the system – so make it impossible for them to do so by paying them a single, all-inclusive rate for everything: salary, office costs, second homes, “researchers”, publicity, moats, the whole lot.

4. Recognise that in order to do this, they will need a significant increase in basic pay to somewhere around £200,000 a year.

5. Get rid of MPs’ final salary pension schemes and make them all self-employed so they have to make their own financial arrangements while, at the same time, reducing their dependency on the State.

6. Acknowledge that the taxpayer can’t and won’t pay even more for an excessive number of politicians, so we must reduce the number of MPs from 646 to 323.

7. When choosing how to reduce the number of MPs, start by taking the axe to those representing seats in Scotland and Wales. If they have their own Parliament and Assembly, there is no justification for them to have excessive numbers at Westminster as well.

8. Introduce “English votes for English laws”. If Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can run their own affairs, England should be free to do so as well.

9. If necessary, kick out all the MPs not representing English constituencies and reform the House of Lords to create an elected, all-Britain upper chamber for the United Kingdom.

10. Insist that if sovereignty means anything then our MPs should demand an end to the massive quangocracy and require that any taxpayer-funded body is answerable directly to a Minister and, though him, to Parliament. Starting with the EU, of course.

And ten reforms we don’t:

1. Taxpayer funding for political parties. Just because corrupt practices like the sale of Peerages is illegal, doesn’t mean they should make us pay instead. And where would it end? Which parties “deserve” taxpayers’ money and which do not? Who would decide?

2. Proportional representation – it breaks the link between MPs and constituencies, creates permanent coalition Government and dodgy deals in smoke-free rooms.

3. Mucking about with the House of Lords – proper change is what’s needed otherwise what’s the point?

4. Kicking out the heredetaries without proper reform.

5. More quangos to police our MPs. If they are forced through public scrutiny to become Honourable Members then the only supervision they’ll need is the voters’. Otherwise it reverts to the old boys’ club.

6. Fixed-term Parliaments. They would take away the Prime Minister’s secret weapon of setting the date for an election but they’d straightjacket Government. What would happen if a minority Government fell out with its partner and couldn’t call an election, for instance?

7. An end to outside earnings. We’re already run by professional politicians with no life outside their cosy little world. Surely we don’t want to make the club entirely exclusive for rick Old Etonians, perpetual students and trade union “trusties”.

8. Quotas for MPs based on any of the popular requirements.

9. A reduction in the voting age. Encouraging 16-year-olds to vote won’t just be an uphill struggle, it won’t make Parliament any more representative, democratic or responsive.

10. Even more Ministers who are not answerable to Parliament.

Blank looks at The Birmingham Post

It seems The Birmingham Post is poised to become a weekly paper and the Evening Mail is to come out first thing in the morning.

Having worked as a reporter for the Mail for some time and been editor of The Post for seven years, I have to mourn the sad decline of two once-great newspapers.

But this latest catastrophe to befall what were once giants of the regional press has been on the cards for a long time.

You can only squeeze so much blood out of a stone. The papers’ owners, Trinity Mirror, have never given the papers much of a chance.

Every brief new dawn has proved to be a disastrously short-lived false dawn.

Every change has been dressed up as a bold new initiative but everyone knew the reality: it represented just another stage in the ungentle management of decline.

Trinity Mirror has, to a great extent, brought this disaster on itself.

But the papers are also victims of the times.

For The Post in particular, it’s not just recession and the decline in advertisement spending that is the cause of its demise.

It’s not even the loss of buyers – though the abandonment of long-standing readers in an attempt to win over younger and more wealthy ones was always misguided. It alienated traditional readers and failed to attract new ones.

It’s also a result of competition. Many traditional morning newspapers have been on the slide for years. The Post’s plight is just worse than most.

The unfair dominance of the BBC in the regional media market, subsidised by the licence-fee poll tax, and its colonisation of the internet, are significant factors as well.

The Post thought it could survive by exploiting the internet. But there’s not much money to be made on-line unless you’re Google and the BBC is such a dominating presence that a rather feeble attempts by The Post and the Evening Mail were never likely create much of a threat.

There is still a healthy market for the printed word – just look at the racks of publications in a large newsagent’s for evidence of that.

But electronic communications have played a part in killing off a daily Birmingham Post.

You can even blame Birmingham’s proximity to London as a reason why it failed. The potential audience of business leaders was never a mass market.

But increasingly the people targeted by the region’s only business paper were not local and had few allegiances to the city or the region.

Many potential readers look to London. What happens on their doorsteps matters less and less – especially as most of them don’t live in the city of Birmingham but in its leafier hinterland.

Yet there is a loyal and true readership. There are hundreds – but, significantly, not thousands – of people who will mourn the paper’s demise and who will miss it’s daily arrival on their doorsteps.

Likewise there are business people, for whom the paper is still a vital source of local news and views, who will feel equally deprived.

But The Birmingham Post and Evening Mail have been in a spiral of decline for the decade since they fell into the hands of Trinity Mirror.

Journalists on these papers have done their best. There is some real talent there. But that’s not enough to make a viable business when the leadership is so weak.

One of the lessons of what has happened to the papers is that the actions of the management really do make or break businesses.

For years, the Birmingham Post & Mail (it’s called something else these days but I still think of the company by its old name) was seen as a cash-cow by a succession of owners.

They milked it for all it was worth. And if the money started to get a little tight, the owners found new ways to cut costs.

And every round of economising led to poorer newspapers – less interesting, less newsworthy, less worth bothering to pick up and flick through let alone buy.

The procession of managing directors and editors in Birmingham have all been engaged in the same dispiriting task – trying to make the best of an increasingly bad job.

For much of the time (1999 to 2006), the chairman of Trinity Mirror was Sir Victor Blank.

Yes, that’s right – Gordon Brown’s chum who, as chairman of Lloyds TSB, pushed through the merger with HBOS.

Turned out the deal was a disaster. HBOS had made losses of £11 billion, the taxpayer was forced to bail the business out leaving us all with a 65 per cent stake in Lloyds. And Sir Victor was toast.

I fear this tells us most of what we need to know about what’s happened to the Birmingham Post & Mail.

PS I have always thought of newspapers as living organisms created by the people who work for them and by those who read them. That, I suppose, is why I have disliked it when they are referred to as "products" or, even worse, "brands". Somehow I think the decline in many newspapers is linked to a rise in the idea of their being "brands" and "products".

Survival of the fattest

When Central television gives us reports from Northampton and Gloucester, we know local news ain't what it used to be.

There isn't much money in local telly any more. Commercial broadcasters have merged, sliced, cut and trimmed in a desperate bit to keep Channel 3 in profit.

But it's an uphill struggle against a recession, dozens of satellite channels, the internet and - worst of all - the monopolistic domination of the BBC.

There has been talk that BBC money should be handed over to ITV to subsidise local news because it's an endangered species.

Naturally, the former Wolverhampton council chief executive Sir Michael Lyons, now elevated to the chairmanship of the BBC Trust, is vehemently opposed to the idea.

He wants to keep all the money to himself. The State Broadcaster is in no mood to compromise its dominance not just of celebrity pay but of every source of information.

The State Broadcaster, though it is cutting back on local news and quitting Birmingham in favour of Manchester, aims to impose itself on us whether we like it or not.

The BBC Empire is not just a couple of terrestrial TV channels and a radio station or two. It stretches across the whole media world including, most scandalously of all, the internet.

Why the State Broadcaster is still a trusted source of news baffles me. It doesn't simply report what happens, it aims to shape society in its own politically-correct image.

The BBC wants us all to be its humble and obedient clones.

But these things take time and money which is why Sir Mick is so keen to hang onto every penny.

He is arguing over less than £200 million, originally raised to force through the "digital switchover" and now declared surplus to requirements.

This should all go back to the viewers, who have to pay the BBC's poll tax licence fee.

But commercial broadcasters like Carlton spotted an opportunity to grab a subsidy for themselves.

They have a case if only because it is increasingly difficult to compete with the over-mighty State Broadcaster which has the money and muscle to destroy everything in its path.

There were high hopes that the grandly-titled Minister for Communications, Broadcasting and Technology, Lord Stephen Carter, might settle the argument in his "Digital Britain" report.

But he fudged the issue, handing victory to the State Broadcaster. Sir Mick was "not convinced" that taking a tiny slice of the BBC's £3.6 billion licence fee income and handing it to a competitor was a good idea.

What these New Labour panjandrums will never contemplate is that there is a much cheaper alternative to throwing taxpayers' money at the telly.

The simple answer is to cut the State Broadcaster's income. Dramatically.

The BBC has more money than it knows what to do with. That's why it throws millions at "stars" like Jonathan Ross not to mention its army of bureaucrats and "controllers".

All this money allows the State Broadcaster to dominate the internet, where it acts like a tarantula spider drawing rivals into its world wide web and consuming them.

Why do we permit this? The State Broadcaster could survive perfectly happily with a modest website, a couple of TV channels and two or three radio stations. And half the licence fee.

If the BBC were cut down to size there would be more opportunity for commercial rivals to earn a living without having to beg for crumbs from the rich man's table.

Even Lord Carter's plan to impose a £6 tax on home telephone lines is mainly to boost the BBC because it will allow us to view programmes via its iPlayer more quickly.

At the moment, internet service providers are struggling to keep pace with the demand for the iPlayer. This new tax will supposedly raise £1.06 billion in seven years, expanding the BBC's Empire still further.

In a democracy, we need as many alternative sources of news and opinion as possible. The internet is supposed to offer us that.

But there is so much junk in cyberspace most of us rely on a few trusted sources.
The BBC is one of them. Yet it has a grossly unfair advantage over rivals because it enjoys a guaranteed income, unaffected by competition or recession.

This cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. Traditional media, including some venerable newspapers, are struggling for survival.

Ironically, as competition for revenue increases in the commercial media, the monopoly position of the State Broadcaster becomes more deeply entrenched.

The weaker its rivals become, the stronger the BBC gets.

The anti-British Broadcasting Corporation has succeeded in killing off a small move to keep its rivals alive.

Sir Mick and his politically-correct army of BBC luvvies will show their gratitude to the Government for maintaining their monopoly over icence-fee money in the usual way.

The BBC will do what it sees as its public duty and promote New Labour propaganda - whether or not New Labour remains in power.

Why is the internet above the law?

Why are internet service providers above the law? Why do we assume the internet is above and beyond the law?

The world wide web should be as much subject to the laws of the land as any other form of communication. Yet it’s still the “wild west web” where lawlessness is rife and politicians wring their hands claiming there is nothing they can do.

The truth is that the internet service providers – big businesses like British Telecom, Tiscali, Orange and Virgin Media for instance – are in exactly the same position in relation to the material they make available to the consumer as WH Smith is when it sells goods over the counter.

A shop breaks the criminal law if it sells stolen goods. A shop breaks the obscenity laws if it sells banned pornography. A shop breaks the libel laws if it sells libellous material.

In each case, the shop owners face legal consequences ranging from fines to imprisonment.

The ISPs are in exactly the same position as retailers. They make goods available to their customers.

Indeed, they are in a more privileged position than most shops because their customers pay ISPs for access to the internet which is the virtual equivalent of the freedom to use their “shops”.

The internet should not be censored. It is a boon to freedom and offers possibilities undreamed of even a decade ago.

But the internet is – or should be – subject to the same laws as the rest of the world.

In this country, if it is illegal to download music then the ISPs must be breaking the law. They are facilitating it and, indeed, profiting from it. They are surely guilty of handling stolen goods in the same way as any back street “fence”.

If it is illegal to view or download some forms of pornography, the ISPs are guilty of living off immoral earnings in exactly the same way, or worse, than the average pimp.

And if someone is libelled on a web-site, the ISPs as well as the site host, are guilty of publishing the libel and, as WH Smith would be in the case of a newspaper, they are guilty of spreading the calumny and liable to pay damages for defamation.

We don’t need new laws to bring the internet into the compass of existing laws. This is not a question of censorship.

If, as a nation, we have laws then they should be observed. The ISPs can’t make the excuse that they don’t know what’s going on or who is doing what.

They may be the sewer, not the sewage but surely they have an obligation, in law, to prevent criminal activities.

The music industry is trying to get them to block illegal downloads. The Government is making them legally liable.

Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time.

But that’s a new and unnecessary law. The ISPs are facilitating criminal activity and should be prosecuted under existing laws.

The excuse that they can’t be held responsible for what is available on other people’s web-sites won’t wash.

If, technically, they can block access to illegal download sites – and they can – they could do it for other sites which also break the law.

They just don’t bother because it’s all too much trouble and it might reduce the number of people taking advantage of their service, which, in itself, proves they are making money “fencing”, “pimping” and “defaming”.

All it needs is to recognise the profitable role that ISPs play in providing people with the opportunity to engage in illegal activities.

It may be illegal to take drugs but users don’t feel the full force of the law.

It may be illegal to grow drugs but the producers are outside this country’s jurisdiction.

The full force of the law, and the efforts of the police, are concentrated on cracking down on the drug dealers who make millions out of an illegal trade.

Why should we see ISPs as any different? They are the world wide web’s middlemen matching up the supply of illegal substances with the demand from the customers. They are the corporate drug barons of the internet.

A victory for None Of The Above

The real victors of the European Elections were the people who didn’t vote. Two-thirds of the electorate found better things to do than potter down to a polling station on Thursday.

That is not a surprise. The “none of the above” option doesn’t exist on a ballot paper. But it does exist in reality because we are free to withhold our votes.

And that’s what we did, in overwhelming numbers. The calamity facing the Labour Party is not so much because its supporters went elsewhere – it’s because they stayed at home.

This is the most crucial aspect of the whole election. Because it registers to an overwhelming degree the disillusionment the majority of people feel towards the entire political class.

The expenses row is the catalyst. No party is untainted. Our leaders may not all be guilty of exploiting the system for financial gain but so many of them are that it is impossible to discriminate between the parties.

Refusing to vote in European elections is, of course, a good British tradition. That may well be because however you vote, in the EU the decisions are not made in the European Parliament anyway.

Whatever your views of the EU, the remote bureaucracy and incomprehensible system of decision-making means that the views of the voters are irrelevant. Why bother to vote for a system which ignores your opinions anyway?

The catastrophic collapse in support for Labour is an entirely domestic issue. It’s partly the fury over expenses, partly due to dismay at the state of the economy and partly the result of Gordon Brown’s lack of leadership.

The Prime Minister is now the focus of all attention. Can he survive? Will enough Labour MPs gang up against him to force him to quit?

The chances are that they won’t have the numbers, or the courage, to do so. Labour MPs facing unemployment will want to delay the fateful day for as long as possible.

Replacing Gordon Brown would see the arrival of a second unelected Prime Minister in two years. There really would have to be an early General Election.

A poll in October this year rather than in May next year would merely hasten the demise for dozens of Labour MPs trying to defend marginal constituencies.

They may calculate that a new PM such as ex-postman Alan Johnson, the new Home Secretary, would help to limit the damage. But that has to be weighed against the turmoil a leadership coup would provoke and the long-term damage it would do the Labour Party.

There is also the possibility, though only remote, that a revival of the economy over the next year would improve Labour’s chances at the election.

On this there are conflicting indications. Today we have Lloyds TSB preparing to repay some of the money it owes the taxpayer – a sign that the banking system is coming back to live.

On the other hand, Birmingham’s LDV has not been saved and has been forced into bankruptcy for want of £60 million of support from the Government.

This is yet another blow to our weakening manufacturing base and not likely to endear the thousands of people who will be affected by the collapse to the Labour Party.

It seems probable that Mr Brown will survive tonight’s meeting with Labour MPs. They will probably conclude the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t know.

It won’t stop talk of plots and coups but if the backbench Blairites do not strike now, they will have missed the bus.

What they – and the other mainstream – parties must concentrate on now is persuading the silent majority of non-voters that our political system is still worth bothering with.

Turnout in European elections is always low. But this time it was a deliberate and calculated snub by millions of people protesting at a political class which has comprehensively let them down.

The voters want a system they can believe in and politicians they can respect.

Until they get it, they will continue to vote for fringe parties, extremists and loonies. Or they won’t bother to vote at all.

The immediate crisis is over the future of the Prime Minister. But that won’t solve the deeper crisis which is disillusionment with our entire democratic system.

Tackling that crisis is the real challenge facing all our professional politicians. Let’s hope they’re big enough to recognise the dangers and don’t spend coming weeks and months simply manoeuvring for political advantage.

It's not just Gordon who must go

While the Labour Party agonises about the future of Gordon Brown, the rest of the country knows better.

It’s not just the Prime Minister who has to go but the whole bunch of scumbag politicians now infesting our Parliament.

The antics of Cabinet Ministers are proof enough that they are no longer capable of putting their country first.

Why did Jacqui Smith and the red squirrel quit? Over their shaming expenses claims. Why did James Purnell stick the knife in? Because he, too, is an expenses crook and should, if there was any justice, have lost his seat in Parliament by now, never mind a place at the Cabinet table.

Why did Caroline Flint flounce off protesting at the treatment of “window dressing” women? Because she spent Thursday night defending Gordon Brown only because she expected promotion to the Cabinet on Friday. When it was not forthcoming, she suddenly had a bout of righteous indignation.

This screaming hypocrisy has nothing to do with the state of the nation.

While we sit watching in bewildered horror, like witnesses to a motorway pile-up, scandals pass by almost unremarked.

The collapse of LDV because Peter Mandelson’s billionaire chum Oleg won’t, or can’t, find a few million pounds to keep it alive is a piteous example.

We might reasonably expect a Government – of whatever hue – to do something about this if it possibly could. Mr Brown’s administration has thrown billions at the banks to pay their bonuses and golden goodbyes but hasn’t got a penny for real manufacturing.

He won’t subsidise wages for companies on short-time working. He won’t cut taxes on empty buildings. His “scrappage” scheme is too little, too late. His Enterprise Loan Guarantee Scheme is nothing of the sort. His taxes are forcing hundreds of wealth-creators to leave the country.

But nobody does anything about any of this because they are too preoccupied worrying about their own political futures.