Not abolishing boom and bust

The greatest economic mind of the last century ( ..ya Maynard.. ) argued many things, but he is best known for his insight that the capitalist economy is cyclically unstable. Government needs to stabilise economic activity by monetary and fiscal policy. To do that, it should balance the budget over the course of the business cycle. So it should build up surpluses when the economy is expanding in order to run deficits - beyond those that would normally arise from the contraction in output - and boost demand in a recession.

This obviously is not a description of what Gordon Brown did as Chancellor after 2002, because he disastrously believed he had abolished the business cycle. The share of public spending in national income rose from just under 40 per cent when new Labour took office to 48 per cent when the credit crunch arrived. That's an extraordinary figure for an economy that was growing briskly throughout that time.

Taken from Newmania in Lewes

....

Flat tyres and bagpipes.

Determination, or desperation?

From Fail Blog

....

Where's Gordon?

Anybody seen him?

Anybody read anything about him in the papers?

Has he vanished?

....

Rules and regulations.

If you read this excellent, and very reasoned article by Simon Jenkins you'll also have the chance to read quite a lot of comments. Some, of course, are calling for more legislation, some agree with the author and say we should back off, but Alfredthegreat sets the tone

Wow, Guardian posters railing against the big state. Maybe there is hope yet.

There were a few more that caught Mrs Rigby's eye. mikeeverest asks:-

Why, in a civilised society, is a taxi driver allowed access to lethal weapons?

Tell you what mikeeverest, Mrs Rigby's got a good idea that'll make us all much more 'civilised' and make sure nothing like this can ever happen again.

Let's nag and pester the government into bringing in a nice new law that says all taxis, oh, and buses and, to be really safe, all motor vehicles must have a big sign that says, "It is against the law to carry lethal weapons in this vehicle." And lets have a whole new squad of enforcement officers too, with instant 'penalties' for the naughty people who break the brand new law.

That'll work, won't it?

But a regular Guardian reader does it even better, took the words right out of Mrs R's mouth!

Erm, every taxi driver does have access to an extremely lethal weapon Mike - it's called a car - ever thought of the damage you could do with one of these if you went a bit mental?

I'm currently cutting up my dinner with a razor sharp implement I could use to butcher my entire family if the mood took me - I think we have to be mindful of the 'ban everything' mentality of the hideous nulabour regime and realise, relucantly and with regret, that there will occasionally be nutters who do terrible things you just can't legislate for.

..........

Let's move onto something else that's prompted by the article.

Numbed says this

I work with children everyday, and everyday at least one person makes some bizarre remark about child safety that puts the onus on my organisation to increase security measures, as if I was suddenly working in a maximum security prison, rather than a place of education and support for young people.

The silliest example recently was when - in a public building, also used by children, a visiting teacher asked why a male member of staff (CRB checked and cleared) was allowed to use a bathroom that might also be used by a child.

I could go on...

In another circumstance, a school locally failed OFSTED for not having high enough walls around the children's toilet building, despite the fact that the windows to the room were high and opaque glass.

Additional security for perceived guilty-until-proven-innocent adults who have regular contact or even irregular contact with children is ridiculously out of hand now.

repeal, repeal, repeal.

I'm watching a generation of young people growing up knowing that when confronted or challenged for poor or dangerous behaviour, all they have to yell is "pedo" and the power is with the child not the adult.

children deserve rights and they deserve to be respected, but adults should not fear children and they certainly should not be presumed to be dangerous when there is no evidence to prove they are.

A little later on shazthewombat says this

@ Numbed 8.01pm - great and depressingly familiar post. At my school, we've had the same stuff about kids & adults potentially using the same toilet facilities.

More worryingly, we had a supply teacher in last week. One of the children was overheard to say that he was gay and a paedo, and was going to rape someone.
This child is 10. There is something very wrong somewhere when kids of that age think it's acceptable to make comments like that - especially since official responses to such accusations can be swift and harsh.

and Numbed's response:-

and the ridiculousness of it is that I find myself constantly watching my behaviour around children. I don't touch them, even when they are upset or hurt; I don't give them anything other than water for fear they are allergic to everything else and that I will be prosecuted for causing them harm; and i find myself saying "of course, i understand" when some nutty comment is made because I am too scared that to challenge them would mean I too am a risk and that my organisation would lose it's reputation or business if I did.

I hate that I do this and I absolutely hate that I don't challenge this head on.

Instead, I wait for a staff meeting or similar and raise my concerns there. But, I generally meet with the response that we have to work within the law and that we also do less harm by agreeing than by dissenting.

this is terrible.

Mrs Rigby simply can't comment. These experiences show just how bad things have got in the past few years. There really is a lot of unpicking to do.
..........

Let's move on to robi, who is still in Guardianista mode

Many people enter into blind fits of rage... most of the time they don't have access to firearms and most of the time their rage subsides and they can go and seek anger management courses.

Yerrs!
..........

So let's move on to the discussions about the police response. There are varied comments, some say Cumbria uses Lancashire's helicopter ... and it got there quickly, they saw it flying over. They are corrected by another person who saw the same helicopter and it was Sky News.

There are questions, as already mentioned, about police preparedness. "Dungal", who lives in the area, explains things :-

I really don't think the police could have done a lot to prevent this incident as they are mainly briefed on terrorism due to Sellafield, which if targeted would make Simon's article look like opportunism.

Which means, of course, that if Mr Bird had driven up to Sellafield they would have known what to do, because he might have been a terrorist.

Small point. Although Mrs R has never met one she's fairly confident that "terrorists" don't always ask first before they start shooting, and they don't always look like terrorists either.

If there was a specially trained team available, why ...

Oh, there's no point in asking the obvious question, is there?

We know the routine - a committee will get together and have an enquiry. Afterwards they'll tell us it's very sad and 'lessons will be learned'. At least that's what they used to say, and then they'd bring in even more rules.

So, let's hope Cameron means what he says. The last words are his, via BBC.

"Of course we should look at this issue but we should not leap to knee-jerk conclusions on what should be done on the regulatory front. We do have some of the toughest legislation in the world," he said.

He added: "You can't legislate to stop a switch flicking in someone's head and this sort of dreadful action taking place."

..........

h/t Al Jahom, without whose blog Mrs R wouldn't have read the article in the Guardian.

....

Fast response?

... Derrick Bird was able to continue shooting people for a good three hours, entirely unhindered. According to press reports, the tv news seemed to be aware of the route being taken by the killer and warned local villagers to stay inside. The Cumbria Constabulary is small, sure, by comparison to other forces – but it does have 1,500 officers, plus the usual complement of “Blunkett’s Bobbies”. To find and apprehend one man. ...

So says Rod Liddle, and he asks a few more questions too.

Inspector Gadget says

I support the routine arming of all UK mainland police officers at all times.

Mrs Rigby acknowledges that the events in Whitehaven and nearby towns are a terrible tragedy. Any loss of life is sad, to have members of your family killed by somebody on a killing spree must be awful, and it's something Mrs R can't really relate to.

But things like this do happen. Thankfully they're rare events, but there are 'nutters' out there who do terrible things, and they always seem to find a way round the law, because they ignore it. And they don't just ignore the laws relating to the owning and use of firearms.

They ignore the law that says murder is illegal.

The media is, naturally, awash with 'ban all guns', 'ban all violent video games' and so on. The sort of knee-jerk reaction we've come to expect. It's the sort of reaction that led to the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 - following the Hungerford Massacre in 1987.

But that legislation didn't stop the Dunblane killings in 1996.

And the more stringent Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 and melting down of previously legal and never-killed-anybody weapons didn't stop Rhys Jones being killed in 2007, although it has stopped Britain winning Olympic medals.

So Mrs Rigby would like to ask some questions:-

1) Could Mr Bird's actions have been predicted?

2) Would armed police have prevented Mr Bird from going on his killing spree?

3) Would armed police have prevented him from taking any of these lives, including his own?

4) How easily could Mr Bird have acquired his firearms by other than legal means?

5) Have Britain's 'strict' gun laws seen a real, unmanipulated, statistical decrease in the number of shooting/gunshot fatalities?

If the answers to these questions are, "No", "No", "No", "fairly easily", "No", then routine arming of all UK mainland police officers would be a waste of time, more draconian firearms laws would also be a waste of time, and the existing laws - along with the penalties for breaking them - need to be carefully reassessed. They need to be reassessed using all those lovely statistics the last government liked to collect and looked at alongside legislation in other countries, including different states of the USA.

The UK population is apparently around 62,598,810. If correct, it means that 62,598,809 people did not go on a killing spree in Cumbria.

The government has to be very sure the rest of us are not punished for the wrongdoing of one man who is now beyond punishment.

..........

Oh, and maybe this is a slightly flippant comment that shouldn't be allowed. But, we have been led to believe that CCTV and webcams will prevent crime.

Mrs R has no idea how many constantly-running cameras, watched and monitored by carefully-trained operators there are in the towns Mr Bird drove through, but she did find this map of 'webcams'.

If CCTVs and CCTV operators are as good as they say, then Mrs R wonders why reports indicate that the police were alerted by a 999 call made from a mobile phone.

....

Updating Mr Brown's blog.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it's a good idea to revisit a 'defunct' blog and make sure the feeds are doing what you hope.

Mr Brown has a blog. It's here.

It doesn't contain very much, and the most recent post is dated May 07, 2010.

There are some useful sidebar links, including the Number10 twitter feed.

Here's more.

How, and why, did Mrs R find Mr Brown's old blog?

It's because she's doing a bit of a 'Where's Gordon?' sort of search, because she's wondering where he is. He hasn't been seen since he left Downing Street, wasn't in Parliament for the Queen's Speech and wasn't there for yesterday's PMQs.

But he is being paid to be the MP for the people of Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath.

....

Oh ... quotas!

Harriet Harman says half of Labour shadow cabinet should be women. She wants this because 81 of the 258 Labour MPs are women which, to the non-mathematicians, means that 177 are men.

She doesn't want this because these 81 lady MPs have already proven themselves to be good at their job and she doesn't want this because of their experience in the world of work. She wants this because

"It's time for Labour women to step out of the shadows,"

and because

"The Labour men are great - but they are not twice as good as the women"

Hah! Mrs R rather likes the put-down, but it's neither Churchillian nor Wildean. It's demeaning, and it's sexist.

In a fair job market each of those MPs should be considered and each should be considered on merit and experience, not because of their lack of 'Edwards'.

Do we, indeed does anybody, want somebody doing a job just because - only because - of their genetic make-up?

Some of these MPs have been elected as a result of all-female shortlists. They might think it was a nice way of getting an important job, and maybe they think it was their 'right', and perhaps don't realise they have only been chosen because they can wear skirts to work without any raising of eyebrows. They were only chosen to fulfil a quota - that's it, nothing more.

And Mrs Rigby thinks that sort of non-equal and divisive quota should be illegal, and it should be as illegal as the not-jobs masquerading as a training programme, where applications are only open to

... candidates from black or ethnic minority backgrounds because the "normal recruitment process was not rectifying" under-representation.

Bristol claims that their two year 'training programme' with a wage of £18,000 is not a job, and claims that

"Race Relations Act 1976 allows for authorities to offer training to specific groups of people if they are under-represented"

It's a convenient loophole that may well have been closed by later legislation. Even if it wasn't, Mrs R believes that both Bristol Council and Harriet Harman are wrong and are abusing 'the system' in order to satisfy arbitrary, made-up, quotas that eventually satisfy nobody.

Here's why.

First of all, those MPs. We know some of them were elected via all-women shortlists - which prohibits fair competition - and now they're to be given even more preferential treatment. If the 81 names were put in a hat then each woman would stand more chance of getting a well-paid job than if the men were put through the same selection process.

Mrs R can see it's wrong and will, ultimately, cause resentment and divisions amongst both Labour MPs and their male supporters who, even though they are the 'faithful', are pretty sick of being pushed to the bottom of the pile because they're male. The only people who can't see it's wrong are those who don't seem to care about the quality and suitability for the job - and have little understanding of the damage caused when people are promoted way beyond their capabilities solely to satisfy an arbitrary quota.

They can't understand how difficult it might be for somebody to turn up to work knowing full well that they've only got a job because of either their gender or their race - no other reason.

And they can't seem to work out why ordinary people don't like this sort of selection. It might be because we have children who are both male and female, and because we want them to have equal chances on their way through life - and not have doors slammed in their faces because of their gender.

As for Bristols?

Well, the article says that

The authority has a total of 9,000 members of staff of which 8,370 are white and 630, or seven per cent, are from ethnic minorities.

Because 12 per cent of Bristol residents come from minority backgrounds the council has begun searching for more employees to redress this imbalance.

Sorry, it shouldn't work like that. In making the same quota-hunting mistake as Harriet by excluding 88% of the local population from applying for jobs well-paid 'training opportunities' the authority is being discriminatory.

And it doesn't make a jot of difference if Kerry McCarthy gives the scheme a verbal pat on the head by saying

"I would support schemes like this. It gives people an opportunity."

It is denying opportunity - and at what price?

It clearly doesn't matter to the quota-ists that 88% of the population of Bristol are excluded, and it clearly doesn't matter to Harriet that about 66% of Labour MPs could be excluded from the selection for ministerial posts.

All that matters is 'the quota'.

....

Labour leadership #3

Mr Edward Balls

born 25 February 1967
Married to Yvette Cooper
"Labour Co-op" MP for Morley and Outwood.

Studied PPE at Keble, Oxford (where he was a member of both the Labour Club and the Conservative Association) then at Harvard (-1990).
Journalist on Financial Times 1990-1994.
Adviser to Gordon Brown 1994-2004.
First stood for election in 2004.
Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in June 2007.
Re-elected with a reduced majority as Labour Co-op party MP for Morley and Outwood, beating local Conservative Antony Calvert by 1,101 votes.

Mrs Rigby will leave it to the Guardian to explain why he might not be the best person to 'lead' a party, any party, especially a political that is meant to represent the ordinary working folk of Britain. An article that also, uncannily*, indicates some of the social problems that are Labour's legacy

I have arranged to go to Swindon with Ed Balls on the first excursion in his four-month Labour leadership campaign. There is just one problem. He has gone to Euston instead of Paddington. When he arrives, half an hour late, he apologises, explaining that he's having some difficulty adjusting to life without a ministerial car and half-a-dozen staff explaining where he needs to be.

and

The day proves to be pleasingly accident prone. We are met at the station by Anne Snelgrove, who lost her Swindon South seat to the Conservatives in the election but remains close to Balls and is one of his campaign managers in the leadership race. She has arranged a visit to a local pre-school playgroup, but *the playgroup's roof has been vandalised, causing a flood in their usual play area and confining the children to a small room next door.

and

On the train back – we upgrade to the almost empty first class to avoid annoying other passengers with talk of "post neoclassical endogenous growth theory" ...

and

From Paddington, we take a taxi to the Commons

Mrs Rigby just thinks it's rather odd that they had to go all the way to Swindon for the interview, instead of staying in London. Why the need for the journey - it certainly isn't very 'green'.

And to then visit a playgroup - why? Why involve little children in some stunt? These are pre-school children, they know nothing about politicians, and politicians should know that we're meant to be very careful around small children these days.

And the means of travel? Train/taxi? The reality is that ordinary people would, if they didn't have their own car, probably try to use either National Express or Megabus for longish journey, because rail fares are too expensive! A return journey from London to Swindon costs £109, or £179 First class.

But, Mrs R supposes it was all on expenses and probably all paid for by the newspaper, so stuff like that doesn't matter.

There's no indication that Mr Balls has anything other than a political awareness of the real world that the rest of us inhabit.

Is he really the best person to lead the Labour Party?

..........

See Mrs R's thoughts about Mr David Miliband and Mr Edward Miliband.
..........

P.S.
(added 21:11 02/06/2010)

There's this interesting piece too, dated 28 April 2010. Where Matthew Norman discusses the leadership potential of Mr Balls.
Read it - and you'll probably both smile and weep.

....

Benefitting from the long game.

The blogosphere has been awash with comments relating to David Laws' 'exposure' in the Telegraph. Some think it was a good thing, some think it was the right thing, some think it was mean and some think it was downright cruel.

Mrs Rigby's problem, when trying to write about this, has been because she roundly despises those who cheat - any of them, anywhere. She thinks those who abuse a system should be punished, and should stay punished, which is why she was a bit annoyed when she learned that Sir Ian Blair was to be ennobled along with the pieman. You see, she thinks the rules only seem to apply to decent people and, for them, they're rigidly enforced - which is why Mr Laws came off so badly.

She'd like to know a bit more about what's happening to those who should be on trial at Southwark Crown Court - but the media has kept very quiet about them and their court case, and have instead been distracting us by tearing into the Lib Dems.

Last week, when Alastair Campbell had a go at David Laws at the end of Question Time (and showed everybody a photo to make sure we all knew who he was talking about) it seemed that 'something' else might happen to the man. After all, nobody is allowed to spurn dear Alastair, he's a very important "Communicator . Writer . Strategist" - at least that's what he calls himself on his blog - and was closely involved in all sorts of governmental things, including getting us into the Iraq War, even though nobody ever voted for him, not even once. Mr Campbell had already written forthright comments about Mr Laws on his blog, and denigrated both the coalition and the Liberal Democrats, so QT seemed perhaps the last strategic assault before the final, killing, attack.

Bouncing into the fray came the Daily Telegraph, with their much delayed story about David Laws' expenses, which also, coincidentally 'outed' him as a homosexual. And that, Mrs Rigby thinks, was a touch cruel but par for the course for some journalists.

It also appears that, had Mr Laws been willing to share the details of his private life, he could quite legitimately have claimed a heck of a lot more money. But that's by the by. We're now being told that rules is rules, no exceptions. Nobody's entitled to keep their private life private these days, especially not if they're quiet, unassuming, and very competent politicians.

The media is hinting that, because the last lot were so bad and managed to walk away with both their pompous dignity and stuffed wallets intact, the new ones mustn't be allowed to do anything at all - nothing. Zero. They mustn't have done something wrong three or four years ago either, and we must give them no quarter, we must not allow them to make any excuses and they must instantly fall on their swords to prove their honour and probity.

There's so much to say about this, it's hard to explain Mrs R's opinion - (that's what blogging is about isn't it ~ sharing your own, or your family's opinion) - but she's going to start off the easiest way and link to others who've already said things, and done it far better - less muddled, more concise and more to the point.

Tory Bear says it was a Bad Day for Country, Coalition and Telegraph

Mark Reckons is "... so angry about David Laws having to resign"

Nábídána compares costs

Prodicus discusses "Vindictive, vicious, destructive and hypocritical press harlotry"

The Slog admits his own mistake and then tells the Telegraph to stop this vindictive cynicism

Fausty seems to find themselves in the same situation as Mrs R - wanting to be furious with Mr Laws, but can't quite manage it because of what others have already got away with, and so condemns both the media and accuses those to the left of the political spectrum of hypocrisy

Man in a Shed writes about political assassination

Tom King writes "That David Laws felt he could not reveal his sexuality is a damning indictment of our society"

Cyberborisjohnson discusses how religion can tear your soul in two - something so very few people seem to realise 'these days', when religion is so passée. (Mrs R's words) They also condemn the Telegraph.

The thing is that Mr Laws was only the first target.

Once they'd 'got rid of him' they started on his replacement, Danny Alexander, by telling how he'd 'exploited' a loophole over a house sale. A 'loophole' that is nothing of the sort. They did it remarkably quickly too, like a well-oiled machine, and when it didn't work too well they moaned about how Danny Alexander's wife has benefitted from MP's family travel allowances - again all, apparently, within the rules as 'family travel'.

Maybe these journalists don't like any of those rules any more and want parliament to change them? If so, why now? Why not when the other lot were milking the system - and got themselves off the hook by, smilingly, waving cheques around. Why were they satisfied that Mr Brown (and any government minister) could hire a private jet - but the Queen couldn't keep the RAF Queen's Flight, which government ministers previously had access to? Why were journalists, at least some of them, pleased to see Generals being told to use 2nd class travel, but not ministers - because the important government ministers might be attacked by terrorists, and so needed a fleet of cars and police outriders too?

It looks as if the media don't like the Liberal Democrats now that they're in government, and they don't like the coalition either, because they're telling us (ably assisted by a Miliband) that by joining forces and making concessions they've each 'betrayed' their supporters - us. We're their supporters. To prove to us wrong-voting mugs how bad these people are they're going pick them off, one by one, by using old news that they've already got lined up, and because there isn't any new news that they want to talk about.

The country?

Do these journalists care about that?

They still write about what 'SamCam' wears, comparing it to dear Sarah Brown in her Michelle Obama lookalike outfits. They bemoan 'SamCam' wanting to upgrade a nineteen-sixties kitchen, because it was good enough for Sarah's 'homely menus'. They want to know why Messrs Cameron and Clegg are wearing plain, unpatterned ties. All terrifically important stuff, far more important than the economy or trying to claw our way out of a deep credit crunch recession. Far more important than acknowledging that the last lot left nothing in the bank except a load of I.O.U.s because, like the greedy pigs they were, they'd turned the country inside out with their snouts in their hunt to find and consume (and/or sell/give to their chums) each and every trace of useful material, which left in their wake little more than a mess of barren soil.

As an ordinary person Mrs R can remember few details of the fall of the last Conservative government, but she does recall Black Wednesday and all the tales of 'sleaze'. Sleaze that was awful then, but mindblowingly trivial when compared to the last thirteen years of lies, obfuscation, behind-closed-door deals, lost manufacturing jobs, cheating, character assassination, nepotism, bullying and corruption that ended in a general election that left Commonwealth observers more than a little bemused, and the electoral commission facing complaints of being useless. (Read this about Birmingham, then pick your chin up off the floor.)

But, the media don't want to talk about all that. They don't want to talk about it at all. It's as if they've drawn a line under it and, instead, want to intensely dissect the new lot - who must be clean, absolutely clean, no skeletons in the cupboard and not a trace of dust under the carpet.

It's all cock-eyed. Or is it? Are they playing a long game, with their own rules?

Mrs R wonders if all these journalists and reporters are, with their faux new-puritanism, planning to (or already have) carefully inspect(ed) the character and personal life history of each individual in the coalition, and if when they find the slightest thing that can be condemned then they'll attempt to whip up a frenzy of indignation so great that we, the public, will not even imagine trusting their policies. After all, how can you trust a man who isn't light-hearted enough to wear a patterned tie to the office?

At the moment it won't work. Once people (other than 'Party' activists) had slept on the news and got over their initial, "OMG! Shock!" many found themselves wondering what all the fuss was about because, you see, we do remember the last thirteen years.

Having a new government - any government as long as it's not Labour - is enough to give us a bit of hope, a breathing space from the continuous onslaught by frowning, ill-tempered, arrogant, harassing, politicians who kept telling us what to do (or else you'll be punished) without offering the means to achieve anything, and all set out as finely defined 'targets' in their good-for-you and good-for-the-country and good-for-the-everybody else's-children three/five/seven-year plans.

Having new politicians who speak to the cameras without glaring, without facial tics, and who speak the same without-political-cliché language as most ordinary folk is refreshing. It's so refreshing that we aren't really listening to what they're saying, and we don't really care too much, because we did the right thing when we voted and didn't give any single party enough power to do exactly as they want. We forced them to compromise and stopped them from being party political idealists and that, for the moment, is enough.

But some sections of the media community don't like it and, in time, perhaps all the petty trivia they publish will begin to overcome our enthusiasm and we'll start seriously listening to the reporters and journalists who are telling us what we think. We might even think it's a good idea to try to use some of those new laws we'll have that will give us, the people of Britain, a bit more power and we might, perhaps, demand a vote of some sort that could actually risk the country's gradual progress towards financial stability and which could push us towards the increasingly dodgy-looking Euro and everything else it stands for - because there are very powerful people who think it's a good idea. They like the big-state idea, and the like the idea of trans-world regulation. Who knows that there might be a vote that we didn't really ask for, and didn't really want, but one that would be as carefully manipulated as the one a few months ago that 'demanded' a change to the voting system - when all most ordinary people wanted was a voice for England.

Maybe we're all pawns in a long game? If so, perhaps we do need to be very careful what we think we wish for. Perhaps we should stop and think, for a little moment, about how important it was, in the whole scheme of things British that never-really-expected-to-be-in-government Mr David Laws, who had only wanted to keep his personal relationship secret from his family, was 'outed' as a homosexual by a very British newspaper in the worst possible way.

This is the same Mr Laws who was "investigated" by the Telegraph, the same deeply investigative newspaper, back in May 2009 and all they could come up with then was

David Laws claimed £950 per month rent for his second home in London. Also claimed council tax, utilities and food and £80 for a vacuum cleaner

Compare that, if you will, to Douglas Alexander who claimed "more than £30,000 doing up his constituency home" and remained in office, or "Gerry Adams and four other Sinn Fein MPs claimed more than £500,000 over five years even though they refuse to attend Parliament" and were re-elected, or Michael Martin, the disgraced Speaker who was swiftly elevated to the peerage.

And whilst thinking about those men, consider how the Telegraph managed to suddenly, almost instantly, take a picture of Mr Laws' home and his long term partner and get it into print - and they managed to do it the day after Mr Laws had failed to appear on QT. And less than 24 hours later Mr Laws had resigned.

The thing is, we ordinary folk can play the long game too, and turn it to our advantage. But first of all we need to work out what we want from the so-called political class.

Do we want those who are best for the job, yet who may have made mistakes and then done their best to rectify them - and rectify them immediately, and with great personal sacrifice - or do we want those with an unblemished past? Because in the real world the two rarely go together.

If we want? ... Actually, no, it isn't 'want' ... at the moment the media seems to tell us that we are 'demanding'.

Politicians, collectively, are meant to be 'just like us' – there should be politicians who are rich, poor, thin, fat, average, smart, nice-but-dim and so on - because collectively, in Parliament, they're meant to be able to relate to our problems and represent our interests, whatever our walk of life. And in the real world people make mistakes and are forgiven.

But, if we voters/citizens/people of Britain demand purity of background from all those in public life, then our own lives should must obviously be the same – always, so our politicians can truly mirror us. It is, otherwise, unreasonable that we demand standards of behaviour that we, or our families/friends/neighbours, do not think should apply to us.

Let's imagine what it would mean … it would mean that from moment we're born our lives should be without awkward episodes we'd prefer to forget, or which we might try to conceal. There should be no drunkenness, no 'had a go with weed but didn't like it', no joining clubs that are fun at the time, no silly pictures on Facebook, no naughty sex at a party, and no divorce.

And we should also be able to predict changes in the law during our lifetimes, and we should tell no lies ever, not even white lies intended to protect our friends and families. And we should do this because otherwise none of us could ever become politicians, not even at the lowest, very local, level.

Can't do it can we? At least Mrs Rigby couldn't (but she's not going to tell you why) and nobody in the whole Rigby 'clan' could either – we've led terribly degenerate lives and have each done at least one thing we wouldn't want to see printed in the newspapers.

So, what we should really want (demand?) is that politicians are treated the same as us.

If they are decent people and make a relatively small mistake they should get the same chance that either our families or the law would offer us – and should get the chance to remedy things, and to show contrition by apologising. And no, not a Mr Brown sort of 'sorry' that was huffed out because he didn't think apologising applied to him because he was too important.

It is not unreasonable to expect the public services to treat politicians as they would us – break the law and face the consequences – equal consequences. That means if a politician is caught using a mobile phone whilst driving, they lose their license and have to travel by bus/coach/train or whatever alternative they can afford. It didn't happen during the last thirteen years, but we can make sure it happens from now on.

If we aren't prepared to do this, if we aren't prepared to be 'reasonable' then none of us should ever imagine being a politician because we've set them apart from ourselves, and we've also set them unreasonable standards.

We are the ones who have to accept contrition and forgive. We are the ones who have to say 'enough is enough'.

And after all that, and for a change, Mrs Rigby is leaving almost the last words to the BBC

[Mr Laws] said his wish to keep his sexuality private was influenced by the fact he had grown up at a time when homosexuality was still regarded as "wrong or shameful" and said "the further time went on the more difficult it seemed to be to tell the truth".

When the rules changed in 2006 preventing MPs from claiming expenses on properties leased from relatives or partners, Mr Laws said he should "probably have changed our arrangements".

"I have paid a high price for trying to keep my sexuality a secret. Losing your privacy, your Cabinet job and your perceived integrity within 48 hours isn't very easy.

and

Mr Laws said he intended to "get back" to his work as MP for Yeovil as soon as possible, a job which he said he "loved".

But he added: "Over the weeks ahead, I will want to understand whether I still have the confidence of my constituents, without which it would be difficult to continue my work."

There, Mrs Rigby thinks, goes a very decent man.

And she thinks we each need to stand, for a moment, in his shoes.

....

Weedy Ed's sour grapes (Labour leadership #2)

This is aimed at Mr Edward Miliband who, according to the Guardian, thinks the Liberal Democrats have

... been "betrayed" by their party's coalition with the Conservatives

He thinks ...

The coalition ... had not happened "by accident"

No. We know it didn't happen 'by accident', and there are a lot of reasons why.

The existing coalition was forced/precipitated by Mr Brown. He was the one who'd told us all that he had the right to form a government, because he was Prime Minister and because it said so in the constitution - the same constitution Mr Straw had been telling us we didn't have. Mr Brown had eighteen days, an unusual length of time to try to make a deal, but it didn't seem to be working out and he made what appeared to be a sudden, late in the day, decision to tell the Queen he could not form a government.

We've seen the pictures, we've seen who he was with at the time, and we've read the reports telling us what he/your party/Campbell/Mandelson wanted us to know and it seems he made his decision because talks about forming a 'rainbow coalition' with the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid etc weren't working out the way he/you/your negotiators wanted.

By scurrying off to the Palace he left the other parties with no choice. Mr Cameron, as the leader of the political party that won the most seats, HAD TO go to the Queen and say he would try to form a government. He had no choice, those were/are the rules – it's in the constitution, because the country is not allowed to not have a government for more than an hour or so.

Just think, Mr Edward Miliband, your party could have done a deal with the Conservatives and had a massive combined parliamentary majority. All it needed was a bit of wheeling and dealing. A bit of give and take and, who knows, you could have been in control of this country almost for ever. Imagine all those lovely new laws you could have made!

But no, you didn't think of that because people in the Labour Party hate the Tories, you hate people who might be Tories, and also hate making deals where you might have to make concessions. You want the upper hand, all the time – so you would never have approached those who had more votes and try to form a government with them. Frankly, it wouldn't have even crossed the mind of anybody in your party.

So, for the next few years your job is to be active in OPPOSITION. It is your party's job to, if necessary, try to rein in the coalition government if they try to take things too far and it's your job to try to negotiate, to fine tune bits of legislation so you get a little bit of your own way – and then you can tell the media how wonderful you are.

Trouble is, you haven't a clue how that works, have you?

You see, during the thirteen long years your party was in government you could do whatever you wanted, because Labour had a large enough majority to push through almost any legislation it chose - and you did. And you called the other parties names, said what bad things they might have done, but you didn't know for sure because although they were in opposition they didn't have enough parliamentary seats to be able to actively oppose anything and couldn't negotiate deals because you wouldn't let them – because your lot knew what was the best for the country and did exactly what you wanted. It was like letting a bunch of five year olds loose in a sweet shop.

The Tories, in the meantime, got themselves ready for being in government, because they knew that with the two-party system their turn would come. But it didn't work out that way, because we voters are fickle and unpredictable creatures, and we didn't want any party to have absolute power. So they had to make compromises, and so did the Lib Dems whose policies, to be honest, had almost as many holes as a sieve - but they meant well, and didn't imagine they'd ever have to see their ideas through to completion. But that's what's happening - with compromises and with concessions on both sides.

And you don't like it do you? You don't think it's fair. You don't think it's fair because you didn't win, and you're bad losers.

Ask yourself a question. Ask yourself why this happened and see if you draw the same conclusions as we Rigbys.

We think it happened because the election campaign, for Labour at least, started months ago. Public money was used to tour the country and 'electioneer' by telling everybody how wonderful you all were. Trouble was, you didn't bother speaking to ordinary folk, you only spoke to party activists and unionists who patted you on the head and smiled at you, said you were lovely - and they lapped up all the anti-Tory and, to some extent, anti-Liberal guff you were spewing out. There were no proper policy proposals, all we pleb voters heard was name-calling. It carried on too, and affected the ethos of the 'proper' electioneering and influenced those televised 'debates' which weren't debates at all.

And your real electioneering showed us all just how impoverished your party really is, how little money you have in the coffers and why you hate people such as that Tory donor - because you were jealous, because couldn't have his money and thought it should be yours. The moment Labour had to pay its own bills all the fancy jets, all the chauffeurs and limousines and police outriders vanished - to be replaced by minibuses and coaches and, sometimes, the front half of a regular train that you commandeered all to yourselves. And even then you didn't care about all the other people who'd bought tickets to travel. You were all much too important to even notice them.

The election campaigns left us ordinary people with difficult choices. Those who were 'floating voters' had a tough time making up our minds, because we didn't know what we were voting for. The one thing we did know was that we didn't want your lot to stay in government any longer, and the result showed just that – it showed that the country couldn't decide which party to put in government, although it most certainly put Labour out of office. We'd had enough.

We knew that your party's manifesto promises might as well have been written on rice paper - they were worthless, and tasteless too. We knew that your party was happy to break manifesto commitments if it suited you. We knew that members of your party were willing to lie to both enquiries and parliament, and we knew that your party would happily ignore ECHR rulings it didn't like and you did it, as one minister said, “To protect us from ourselves.” (and from all those horrible terrorists)

No amount of spinning and weaving stories will change the election result. Labour came second, and a poor second too. The party did not get enough seats to be able to form a viable coalition with the party that came third - maybe all the boundary changes were a bit of a mistake after all, because sometimes, just sometimes, you need friends.

And now? You're still bleating, and blaming the other guys for not being in your gang, and you're trying to split their party down the middle – because maybe you think it'll help you win. Win what? Mrs R isn't quite sure.

Frankly, their political party is nothing to do with you! How your political opponents organise themselves is none of your business - and it isn't good form to blatantly try to steal people from another party by telling them they're unhappy. Anyhow, it's pointless because ... let's say it again ... Labour is in OPPOSITION.

It's time to stop posturing, time to stop whining, time to stop moaning about the other chaps and time to start looking at your own party, your own policies and your own mistakes.

Once you can truly and honestly admit your party's mistakes, admit that the electorate doesn't really like you, then you can move forward and start to try winning the hearts and minds of those you alienated – the Mrs Duffys of Britain. All the ordinary folk who you brushed aside, along with the factory closures and jobs that were outsourced to India when you were looking, and who you called racist or xenophobic when they complained.

Mr Edward Miliband, you said in your interview that you and your brother never fought as children because

"I think we were too weedy for that. It wasn't really our style,"

Maybe that was when you learned to blame somebody else for your own mistakes, instead of learning to fight either physical or mental battles that you would either win or lose. Maybe that was when you, and those like you, failed to learn to be good losers, when you failed to learn that acknowledging a victor and being humble in defeat can be as powerful a thing as winning, because it shows the true character of the individual.

Mr Miliband, if you truly want to lead the Labour Party, then admitting to being 'weedy' might not have been the smartest thing to do, because the Labour Party needs a person with courage and integrity. It needs it because the party is in tatters, it's lost the plot and it's lost its' way. All you have are 'the faithful' and the Unions. The same Unions who are currently ruining people's long-planned holidays, because they want their travel perks - and it's alienating the electorate. Your media friends will help you all they can, but it's the ordinary people of the country you need to convince - and we will take a lot of convincing.

Our memories seem to be much longer, and more accurate, than yours.

....