Let's get this David Laws issue right

David Laws is a highly intelligent and articulate man who has enjoyed great success in business and is now a Member of Parliament. For seventeen days last year he was a member of the Cabinet - appointed to the Privy Council and entitled to be known as "Right Honourable". In the fortnight between his appointment and his resignation he made a good impression on a lot of people, me included. The message he put forward was restricted to his ministerial duties at the Treasury and was as clear a statement as you could have of the necessary consequences of the previous government having spent far too much money that it didn't have. Then it was disclosed that he had claimed £40,000-odd in expenses to which he was not entitled and he left office (but did not resign from the Privy Council).

The essential circumstances of this wrongful receipt of money are important. Mr Law was a secret homosexual and shared a home with a gentleman friend. Beause he did not wish to disclose his proclivity to his family or to the world in general he pretended that he was renting a room in his friend's home and claimed that rent as expenses. The reality was that he was living with the man rather than renting a room from him. No doubt he made a financial contribution to the running of their joint household and, had matters been declared openly, at least some of that could have been reclaimed as expenses. I have read suggestions that he could have claimed more than he actually claimed and am happy to accept that as true.

Two matters that frequently crop up in discussions about Mr Laws must be discarded immediately because they are not relevant to the crucial point.

First, that he is independently wealthy as a result of his previous work did not disqualify him from claiming legitimate expenses. A system existed for compensating Members of Parliament for constituencies outside London for costs they incurred by reason of having to run two homes rather than one. We can quibble about the details of the scheme but there was a scheme and an MP who incurred additional living costs was entitled to claim at least some of them. Mr Laws could afford not to claim anything but it would be absurd to argue that his private wealth should exclude him from having additional costs reimbursed - that would amount to requiring him to make a substantial additional contribution of tax.

Secondly, that he could have claimed the same sums or more had he arranged matters differently is neither here nor there. He did not arrange matters differently, he arranged them as he arranged them for reasons of his own. A footballer who hacks an opponent's ankle to prevent him making a pass cannot avoid a yellow card by claiming that he could have used a lawful shoulder charge instead. What matters is what happened not what might have happened had you not chosen to do what you actually did.

The crucial point is very very simple. He told deliberate lies in order to expropriate money. Had he been paying rent to his friend he would not have been entitled to reclaim that rent because of the nature of their relationship (namely that they co-habited in a single household regardless of bedroom preferences). It seems unlikely to me that he did pay rent, but anything is possible. If we assume he did pay rent he was not entitled to reimbursement and he knew it. He lied about the nature of the relationship in order to get the money. It is blatant fraud. If, as I suspect is more likely, he contributed financially to the household and those contributions are not properly defined as rent, he lied about the nature of the payments he made in order to be repaid out of public funds. That is also blatant fraud.

It is a matter of the simplest and most basic test of honesty. Spinning a policy so fast that a politician appears to be saying something factually inaccurate will be defined as lying by his political opponents when it is possible (sometimes only by being incredibly generous) to describe it as ambitious advocacy. Some might consider it dishonest or even fraudulent to act in this way but there is room for debate on the issue. There is no room for debate when it comes to making deliberate false statements in order to claim money you could not obtain if you told the truth.

Some might suggest that Mr Laws should have special dispensation because he was merely trying to keep his private life private. That just doesn't wash with me. He told deliberate lies in order to get money from the public purse. Whatever the circumstances and however strong the mitigation might be, the underlying dishonesty remains and that dishonesty is what is relevant first last and all the time in this tale.

Now suggestions are being made that Mr Laws might return to the cabinet. I am not concerned about the "signal" this sends to anyone, because that looks at it from the wrong angle. I am concerned that someone who thought it appropriate to lie in order to obtain money he could not have obtained by telling the truth should be in Parliament at all let alone in the uppermost layer of government. No matter how able he might be and no matter how strongly he wanted to keep his sexuality secret, his chosen method of protecting himself was to act in a way wholly inconsistent with the responsibilities of ministerial office.

It was not so long ago that dishonesty caused resignation as a matter of course, not just resignation from ministerial office but from Parliament, and banishment to the history books as a former politician with no hope of recovery. Ability was irrelevant because the right to represent others and to hold power over others required probity. The country might lose the services of someone with much to offer but that was of no consequence when the politician in question had failed to conduct himself in a way Parliament and the law requires the little people to behave. You can call it a betrayal of trust if you want, I believe it is something more general and, perhaps, more fundamental. If you are to have power over others you can only justify your position if you live by the standards the law requires of those under your power.

Mr Laws chose to act dishonestly and in doing so he forfeited any right to have power over others. He should not still be in Parliament, for him to return to the cabinet would cast a serious blow against the fragile legitimacy of the current coalition government.

Contentment and the common enemy

Casting my mind back several decades to my student days I recall observing a phenomenon associated with communal living. Almost all my fellow students spent some time in college accommodation before finding a flat to share with others. In the normal run of things three or four would share because money was extremely tight and the overheads of rent, rates (now council tax), water rates, standing charges for electricity and gas were little different for a three-bedroomed flat than a two so it made sense to get a bigger place and spread the cost three ways or more. I found a flat together with two friends. From the very day we moved in one of them became marginalised, as we would put it today, it was me and my chum against her whenever a dispute arose. Interestingly, the same was seen with all trios of sharers I knew. Indeed when four shared it was three-against-one.

As far as I could tell there was nothing intentionally malicious about it, it was just how things worked out. When there was a dispute about what colour to paint the living room or whether to buy logs or coal for the fire a decision had to be taken and the majority would rule. What I found interesting at the time and find interesting still is that being in the majority added to the pleasure of life. Had we all agreed about everything there would have been no sense of victory or accomplishment in getting ones way. It goes without saying that on a great many matters we were all in agreement, disputes were few and never bitter nonetheless I found elation in being on the winning side when push came to shove. The victors went to the pub and gloated, criticising their common enemy in order to boost their egos. Without a common enemy that experience would have been lost, there would have been no victory and no elation, life would have been less enjoyable.

What was absurd about the whole situation was that our flatmate was not really our enemy at all. She was a lovely girl and, I presume, is now a lovely middle aged lady; but she was our enemy for certain limited purposes and in that capacity she enhanced our lives. Sadly I have now lost contact with both old flatmates, for all I know they are in contact again and bitching about me.

We see the same phenomenon in all sorts of circumstances. In the workplace the foreman or manager is seen as the enemy of the serfs and forcing him to reverse his position gives pleasure far beyond any temporary material benefits that are received. A football club goes through a bad run and the supporters turn on the manager or owners. They get their way and cheer the replacement manager/owner to the rafters until next season when the exercise is repeated. Do they really cheer the new manager or owner, or do they cheer themselves for having won a battle whether or not the club's fortunes improve? British Airways cabin crew seem to be following this pattern with their current series of strikes. They might or might not gain long term benefits if the strikes result in their present demands being met, but you can be sure their greater pleasure would be winning the battle rather than enjoying what happens next.

It is only a short step to offer the prospect of winning battles as a political strategy to gain support. It matters not whether winning these particular battles will benefit those whose support you seek because they will support you for the chance of enjoying victory even if it leaves them out of pocket or out of work. This has been seen over the last couple of years with calls for penal rates of tax on "The Rich". No one can be certain that the future will mirror the past but all experience from around the world indicates that taxing income at more than around 40% results in a fall in tax revenue (because some move overseas to avoid it, some deliberately earn less and others find it worthwhile to spend a few quid on a specialist accountant to reduce their tax bill to the absolute minimum possible). That evidence suggests that a proposal to tax income at 50% would be counter-productive and should not be tried because it is likely to require higher taxes on the non-rich to make up the shortfall.

The policy has nothing to do with raising revenue and everything to do with gaining support from those who are encouraged to believe there is a group known as "The Rich" against whom a victory can be won. Support is given because the non-rich smell the sweet scent of victory, they sense the chance to get one over an opponent. The opponent only exists as an opponent because he has been described as such by those who invent the battle. Once the policy becomes law those who were persuaded to support it have won, they feel good, their lives have been enhanced by being a winner. Yet it seems likely from past experience that they are the very people who will have to pay when the policy backfires. That doesn't matter to the politicians, they will put forward a different excuse for having to raise taxes on the non-rich, their concern is getting votes by any means they can.

Lest either of my readers is tempted to tell me of Mencken's hobgoblins don't bother, I know them well but my point is different. He asserted, I believe correctly, that setting up mythical ogres gains votes because people want to be protected from the threat those ogres appear to pose. My point is that the prospect of victory against a fictitious enemy gains votes because victory is a benefit in itself whether or not the defeated person posed any threat. Promise the thrill of victory, any victory, and people will say "yes please, I'd like a slice of that". They say it because they know it will make them feel good. The more bitter, envious and spiteful they are, the better it will make them feel. It is a perfect tactic for the political left.

Lies, spin and goodwill

Whether you work in a trading business or a service business, your profitability is determined by your customers. It is easy to think of the profitability of a shop or a firm of architects being determined by how much money is received compared to how much money goes in costs and that is obviously the case in each individual accounting year. But what about next year? What you do this year and did in past years can have a significant effect on how well you do last year through the invisible power of goodwill.

The goodwill of a business is named aptly. Repeat business comes from keeping your customers happy and hoping they tell their friends about you. You generate goodwill among potential customers and that goodwill translates into custom in the future. When a business is sold it is common to find the price broken down between property, stock, debts owed to the business and goodwill. Ripping people off might turn a few quid now but it dissuades them from patronising your business again. So too if you are in a service business and provide a shabby service. The customer who has already engaged you might keep you on to finish the job because it would be more trouble to hire someone else to take over, but he won't use you again and might warn his friends and neighbours that you are to be avoided. This is all pretty obvious stuff.

The more competitors you have, the more you are likely to suffer in the future by letting down a customer today. That is one of many reasons why we have laws and regulations to limit the number of monopolies and place restrictions on those that do exist - give a monopoly free-rein and you create ideal conditions for a modern equivalent of the wartime spiv. The best explanation of this phenomenon I have ever come across came from the old television comedy Dad's Army. One of the characters is a spiv, a black marketeer, who offers something for sale for five shillings (I think it was knicker elastic, it usually is in English comedies) only to be faced by the comment "but it's only two shillings in the shops", to which he responds "ah, but you can't get it in the shops". Because only he could supply knicker elastic he could charge the highest price he felt his customers would be prepared to pay. Monopolies lead to higher prices, competition leads to lower prices because suppliers have to fight for your custom. Some suppliers will charge more and be busy because some customers value not just price but customer service, that's all part of the same thing - they offer something extra that people enjoy and are prepared to pay for.

My question today is: given all that I have written above, why do so many people lie to their customers when there is a problem rather than telling them the truth? The reason I ask is that I was talking to someone I know who has written and self-published a book, a "how to" guide to a particular craft. She keeps a stock of books in her garage and posts copies to individuals and craft shops as and when orders are placed. Every year or so she has to have a few thousand more printed and lets the printer know how many she needs. She's a well-organised person and arranges a reprint months in advance of the date she is likely to run out of stock. This year she ordered another five thousand and was given a date for their likely delivery. Two weeks before that date she telephoned and was assured everything was in place for that date to be kept. The date arrived but the books did not. Over the next few weeks she was given all sorts of promises of imminent delivery. In the end she received them three months late.

She had received an unusually high number of orders and her existing stock was exhausted a week after the original date set for delivery of the new print run. Being a sensible lady who wears sensible shoes, on receiving a new date from the printer she told her waiting customers of that date, only to have to do so again and again as lie after lie was told to her by the printer. Fortunately no one cancelled their order but the interruption to efficient delivery might have an effect in the future.

The true position was that the manager of the print shop had suffered a family misfortune which required him to spend a lot of time away from work - a fact only divulged once the books were printed and dispatched - causing the printing of everything in their catalogue to be delayed. Had the truth been told, her customers would have been told the same thing and everyone would know it was just one of those hitches that occurs from time to time through nobody's fault.

Customers make all sorts of allowances when they are kept informed of a problem that has arisen, allowances they will not hold against their supplier provided they do not later discover that the information they were given was simply a lie. Had the printing firm said "Mr Snodgrass's son is very ill and Mr Snodgrass can only be here a couple of days a week, we are running on 50% capacity so there will be a delay" the author would not have known when she would receive her books but she would have an explanation she could pass to her customers and the likelihood is that no goodwill would be lost between printer and author nor between author and putative reader.

As it is, she is looking for another printer because she was told numerous inconsistent untruths including: "we've started, it won't be long", followed by "it's next on the list, it won't be long" and then "we're waiting for paper supplies and yours is the first one to be done once they arrived". All of it garbage, all of it lies, all of it has lost goodwill.

That is just one example but I have encountered many examples of the same thing in recent years. Something goes wrong and there is no apology or truthful explanation, instead a load of deflective spin is spewed out to try to buy time. It does buy time but so would telling the truth and the latter would also retain goodwill.

"Painkillers" again

I think entertainers must be jolly unlucky people. Singing, dancing and acting appear to cause immense amounts of physical pain, requiring the practitioners to be prescribed constant doses of powerful painkilling medications. Not for them a quiet cup of steaming LemSip or a trip to see the burly Latvian masseuse at Madam Fifi's Sauna and Hanky-Panky Parlour, it has to be handfuls of pills or strong liquids injected wherever and whenever a doctor is paid to administer them.

I read this morning that taking pain medication "became part of" the late Mr Jackson's life. He is not the first and he won't be the last. Before Elvis Presley left showbusiness for a career behind the bacon counter at the Co-Op in Barnsley (or wherever he was last sighted) he was said to have been taking vast quantities of prescription drugs, including many to relieve pain. How strange it is to an outsider like me that the weight of a hand-held microphone can cause such stress to the human body that it leaves the performer in constant agony.

Were I a cynic I would probably suggest that many entertainers' painkilling medication is plain old-fashioned drug addiction tailored by skilled medical practitioners to give the thrill that is desired without the risk of criminal penalties. And pain is a wonderful way to achieve this end because it is virtually impossible to disprove someone's claim of pain. "Slacker's back" results in countless idlers being signed off work by doctors who have no means of knowing whether the person in front of them is putting it on - he says he's in agony, he winces and walks with a stick, what's the quack meant to do? He could say "I don't believe you", but on what ground could he form that view? He might be right, he might be wrong, there is simply no way of telling unless positive evidence is unearthed that is inconsistent with the claimed malady. Many years ago I acted in a personal injury case for someone who claimed his right hand was useless as the result of someone colliding with his car. Throughout the necessary medical examinations and during the trial his right arm lay limp at his side and his wife was brought along to take notes for him because he could not write. On securing a tasty sum in damages we were leaving court when he rushed ahead of me, grasped the handle of the heavy courtroom door with his "useless" right hand and pulled it wide open to allow me to pass through. Fortunately no one on the Defendant's side witnessed it. This sort of thing happens all the time in one way or another.

Frankly, I don't care whether people take illegal drugs or not. Many are illegal through historical quirks while other equally potent medicines are readily available within the law. The whole thing is pretty random. If someone takes something and misbehaves as a result, it is their misbehaviour that the law should address. Injesting an illegal substance and then helping old ladies across the road does not seem in the least bit objectionable to me (unless they didn't want to cross the road, of course).

Somehow I think it would be fairer to the memory of the late Mr Jackson for it to be asserted that he was addicted to drugs rather than engaging in the wishy-washy code of "He started taking pain medication. It became part of his life." He would still be dead (subject to there being any vacancies in supermarket delicatessens) but at least people would be honest about him.

I'd rather have throat rot than be lied to

A while ago, I care not exactly when, cigarette packets began to be adorned with gory pictures and threatening words. At the start there were just advisory messages, all of which said nothing more in substance than "smoking cigarettes might make you ill". Things were quite honest in those days. Of course that wasn't enough for the hectoring single issue fanatics, so then we read "smoking kills" and "smoking causes lung cancer". Now we have pictures of rotten teeth and nasty red masses on necks. Yesterday I bought a packet of ciggies adorned by the image of a curved cigarette. The picture appears within a rectangle. The filter end of the cigarette is at the bottom left corner and arches upwards and to the right, then there is a length of white gently curving to the top of the rectangle, then a length of ash curving down from the top-centre towards the middle-right of the rectangle. Beneath the image is the terrifying warning "Smoking may reduce the blood flow and causes impotence".

I had to think about the warning because it seemed on first reading to be garbled and contradictory. The lack of clarity is emphasised by the way the warning is written, there is a change of colour, it reads like this: "Smoking may reduce the blood flow and causes impotence". I'm not a one to be picky but there really does seem to be an awful lot wrong with this whole thing.

The image of a curved cigarette is, presumably, meant to suggest a drooping penis that would be firm and proud if not for its owner's smoking habit. So why does it start by heading upwards and maintain a curve that eventually heads down? Is that what the impotent experience? Do they have sufficient blood flow for the old pecker to start its excited journey on a steep upward path only to find that it can manage nothing better than a smooth curve leaving the tip some thirty degrees above the starting point? Or are they, in fact, not able to get anything like this initial upward thrust? I don't know, but I would guess restricted blood flow into the pecker would almost always mean a state of general firmness can be achieved for some time but without any significant upward movement. I would guess everything heads south albeit with slightly more girth than when the good lady has a headache.

And why do they use a cigarette to illustrate it? They tell us that smoking causes our teeth to rot and show a graphic image of blackened stumps and fetid gums. They tell us smoking causes throat cancer and show a photograph of a man with a massive and, frankly, thoroughly unpleasant scarlet growth on his neck. Why do they get all coy rather than showing a limp, impotent willy doing its inadequate best to prepare itself for the most sticky of matrimonial duties?

The written warning is nothing short of bizarre. It is divided into two parts: (i) "Smoking may reduce the blood flow", (ii) "and causes impotence". Red script is used to emphasise "reduce the blood flow" and "causes impotence".

I can't resist it, I'm sorry but I just can't, I have to be picky. "Smoking may reduce the blood flow" is meaningless. "May" is permissive: "You may have an extra scone, Vicar, if you take your hand off my knee", "Thank you, I'll forgo the scone". "Might", in this context, is concerned with probabilities. They mean "Smoking might reduce the blood flow". As far as I know that would be accurate, as far as I know smoking can cause or accelerate the clogging of arteries, therefore it might reduce the flow of blood around the body including to the willy. But only "might", it does not have that effect on every smoker.

Because smoking might or might not restrict blood flow, it might or might not cause or contribute to impotence, yet there is no qualification on the second part of the warning. It states in bold terms "and causes impotence". That is absolutely true in those instances where it causes impotence, but it is not a universal truth. When it cause impotence it does so by reducing the blood flow, not, as far as I am aware, by any other mechanism. What I find troubling is that the first part of the warning (despite the incorrect use of "may" rather than "might") states that reduced blood flow is a risk associated with smoking cigarettes, yet the second part asserts without qualification that smoking causes impotence.

No doubt those who drafted this incompetent warning would seek to justify it by isolating the words "smoking ... causes impotence" and arguing that this is indeed the case sometimes. That is no justification. The first and second parts of the warning work in tandem, impotence is a sub-set of reduced blood flow. Yet "causes impotence" is given red lettering all by itself. All they have to do to tell the truth is change two words so that the warning reads: "Smoking might reduce the blood flow and cause impotence". No one could argue with that without looking a bit of a chump. As it is, the warning is simply wrong. Perhaps it is just incompetence, perhaps it is deliberate deceit, either way it makes warnings on cigarette packets even more of an absurdity than they have ever been.

Lies, damned lies and pretend conventions

Last weekend the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer expressed concern that the government's chosen method of tackling recession could cause a collapse in the value of Sterling. The Prime Minister's answer was to tell one of his big fat lies by claiming there was a convention that the opposition should not seek to undermine government economic policy in times of recession for fear that it might make matters worse.

My dim memories of the early 1990s, when the UK was last in recession, are not of a Labour opposition cheering the government to the rafters and pledging loyalty to the then Chancellor and Prime Minister. My recollection is that they said exactly what the Conservatives are saying now, namely that the government had mismanaged the economy for over a decade and needed to change course if the worst effects of recession were to be avoided.

1991 was a long time ago and many a week has passed when FatBigot Towers has witnessed the consumption of more than the recommended number of units of alcohol, so I thought I'd see if I can find what poor Gordon, the serial liar, said at the time. Well well, what a surprise. He opened a debate on the 30th of January 1991 and put forward a motion in the following terms:

"That this House is concerned about the deepening recession which is bringing rising bankruptcies and closures, falling output and investment and fast rising unemployment hitting all regions and all industries ... condemns the Government for the economic mismanagement that has created a recession ... calls for an immediate reduction in interest rates, a Budget for investment in industry, and a modern industrial policy ..."

The debate is recorded in Hansard here. It is interesting to note that, in addition to doing exactly what he says the opposition is not allowed to do in a recession, poor Gordon the serial liar was criticised for not engaging in debate but steamrolling a series of disparate points in what one MP described as a "Gatling gun approach". Another objection was to his refusal to allow others to interrupt him to seek clarification of what he meant. These flaws in his character, so often commented on today, were well established almost two decades ago.

Not content with attacking government policy on the 30th of January 1991, poor Gordon the serial liar did so again at some length in a debate on the Budget on the 25th of March 1991 (here), then again on the 13th of June (here), the 16th of October (here) and with specific interventions in debates on a number of other occasions that year. He cannot claim to have forgotten dedicating a whole year of his parliamentary life to doing exactly that which he now says is contrary to established convention.

There is only one explanation. He is simply dishonest to the core and prepared to tell deliberate contrived lie after deliberate contrived lie to further his tenuous grasp on power. It really is a most extraordinary way for a Prime Minister to behave but then we have never before in my lifetime had a Prime Minister devoid of any of the qualities required for the job.

Gordon's money tree keeps on rattling

A few times each year groups of doctors write letters to the serious newspapers claiming that their speciality is underfunded. Psychiatrists state what is, for them, an obvious truth namely that mental health is at the heart of all human wellbeing. A few weeks later it is the turn of gynaecologists to tell their obvious truth, namely that all wellbeing stems from a happy birth. Then come the bone menders, the liver wobblers, the blood curdlers and all the rest of them in turn displaying a narrow and patently blinkered vision of the world. None of them ever suggests which of their colleagues should have to forgo funding to pay for the extra their department needs. No matter how much money is pumped into the Stalinist bureaucratic maze that is the National Health Service there are always calls for more as though money grows on trees.

Now we are seeing the same attitude being shouted every week from the audience of Question Time. The cry is always the same: "If they can find all that money for banks they can find it for ...". Be it schools, hospitals, social workers, army, wildlife refuges, housing, roads, railways, museums of ancient woodcraft or any other subject you can imagine, the cry is always the same. I think these people really do believe government should spend unlimited sums on every pet project or cause and that there will never be any repercussions. In a way their position is entirely logical because the government did just promise billions to banks without telling the people that any not repaid by the banks would have to be repaid by them out of taxes. Even if that message had been sent, the numbers are so vast and the money seemed to be available so quickly that the message would in all likelihood have been lost in a haze of fluttering £50 notes.

I wonder what would have happened if the government had said "we are considering bailing-out the banks and to do so we will raise income tax by 10p in the pound from next Tuesday". The answer is pretty obvious, the outcry would have been so loud and threatening that the plan would have had to have been scrapped, so instead there was no mention of taxes rising. The problem, as we are now witnessing, is that it is looked on as free money sitting on a money tree somewhere in Downing Street and there's plenty more where that came from.

It is a good example of the need to be honest so that everyone can understand what is happening and, in particular, can understand that every penny spent by government must be raised from tax. No doubt all those calling for greater spending would understand that it must come from tax if only someone sat them down and talked it through, but our politicians don't do that any more and for a decade that fundamental truth has been hidden. While the credit bubble was creating false wealth and taxes were being levied on that false wealth no one felt any real pain.

The Stamp Duty paid on an inflated house price was overtaken within a few months by the nominal increase in the value of the property. You didn't want to give the government £10,000 for the privilege of moving home but it seemed a small price to pay as you read in the newspaper that your new house is now worth £35,000 more than you paid for it. It's still a £25,000 profit in a few months and poor Gordon is "investing" the other £10,000 in public services, all is well with the world.

And so it was also with stealth taxes. They don't come in big clumps but as little bits here-and-there. Many go unnoticed, some cause a stink for a short time and are reduced a little or an increase is delayed, but then they just become part of life. You cannot evade them so you just put up with them, but all the time you have enough spending money available on the plastic or by remortgaging your house and releasing the £25,000 profit, so life is more comfortable than ever before and the additional taxes cause no pain that is not more than compensated for by a nice holiday, new electronic wizardry and a fridge with two doors.

All this time the government is spending more and more and locking ever greater on-going expenditure into the public psyche. The message is that it's "investment" and we all know investing for the future is a good thing. The message is that it's "prudent" and we all know that means there's no waste. The message is that it's "vital public services" and we all know that the opposite of vital is dead. It's all beneficial, it's all necessary it's all affordable because there is no more boom and bust. The psychological effect is pervasive, it changes the public mood and the public perception. The perception is of endless growth allowing the vital public services to expand without pain. People believe that stuff. That it is nonsense with a hat on is neither here nor there because the exercise is not about rational analysis but about persuading people that they are getting more and more from government without having to pay much more for it. Yes, you notice the extra taxes but the vast figures bandied about whenever spending on "vital public services" is announced seem so much more than the extra you are paying that you're making another profit to add to the profit on your house.

That is a very dangerous perception. It is built on layer after layer of half-truth and exaggeration from poor Gordon but examination of his veracity takes second place to the perceived profit-on-profit you are making from his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister. You actually believe that he is making money from nothing because he is spending billions and billions yet you are only paying hundreds. It's the numbers game I adverted to a few days ago - when the numbers get so big we cannot comprehend them, they take on a life of their own. Before you know it you believe he has a money tree, then he tells you he has a money tree because he is finding endless billions for the banks without even hinting that you might have to pay for it, so you want some of the rich fruit for your favourite cause.

That is how people fall for the guff. That is what causes them to say "if he can find money for the banks he can find money for [insert pet subject of your choice]". It will take a long time and some harsh lessons for this absurd inversion of the truth to be removed from peoples minds. In the meantime we will continue to hear calls for the money tree to be shaken again and again. Only honesty can undo the damage and there is no prospect of the current government being honest, to do so would be to change the habits of a political lifetime.

"A pretty united cabinet"

The heading I have chosen for this little exercise in blogology is Gordon Brown's description of his top table. It strikes me as a quite extraordinary thing for a Prime Minister to say but from the mouth of the current incumbent I suspect it has a special meaning.

At the heart of cabinet government is the concept of collective responsibility. This does not require all members of the cabinet to agree that the collective decision is right but it requires them all to defend every such decision in public no matter how furiously they might argue against it in private. If they feel unable to do so they must resign from the cabinet. These days there does not seem to be much recognisable cabinet government going on but there is still a cabinet and its loyalty to the Prime Minister is crucial to his survival in office.

The principle of collective responsibility allows the Prime Minister of the day to say with absolute confidence that his cabinet is united. In order to be a cabinet it is, by definition, united. For a Prime Minister to say his cabinet is "pretty united" is curious indeed. So why did he say it?

Was it a rare moment of honesty from a man with an 11-year record of dishonesty in his public utterances? Was it a weary slip of the tongue? Was it an exasperated recognition of pending revolt? Of course I do not know what it was other than a very strange thing for a Prime Minister to say. My guess is that it was the best gloss he could put on the truth, if so the next couple of months should be very interesting.

Mr Brown's upside-down attitude

It was only a matter of time. Today the government announced that the planned 2p per litre increase in fuel duty will not happen until March 2009 at the earliest. He was keen to stress that the decision was taken to help people at a time when household budgets are being stretched by rampant inflation in fuel and food prices. This tells us a lot about Mr Brown and his attitude towards the little people.

This whole saga started with a deception. True though it is that an increase of 2p per litre in duty was planned, to announce it as an increased cost to the customer of 2p per litre is a big fat lie. Duty is one of three elements making up the price we pay at the pump. The other two are the cost of the fuel itself and VAT (value added tax). The price of the fuel is determined by normal market forces and has risen rapidly recently as demand has exceeded supply. Duty is a fixed sum per litre regardless of the price of getting the fuel to the pump. VAT is a levy of 17.5% charged on both the fuel price and the duty. Therefore, any increase in fuel prices is multiplied by 17.5% at the pump because the government makes a windfall gain. Equally, any increase in duty results in a further 17.5p in the pound being charged by way of VAT. They have different names but duty and VAT both result in money going from our pockets to the Treasury. A 2p rise in duty is a 2.35p rise in tax. Talking of a 2p rise in duty is, therefore, a deception. What was proposed was a rise in tax on petrol of 2.35p per litre.

Next we can look at how the government viewed this proposed rise in tax. As well as continuing the deception by only ever referring to it as a rise of 2p per litre, the anticipated revenue was built into their shaky calculations of tax revenues for the financial year. When calls were made for the increase to be scrapped Mr Brown and Mr Darling bleated about the need to increase duty in order to balance their books. They said that spending plans were predicated on the revenue from the rise in duty being received. Not once did they acknowledge that the increased VAT from soaring fuel prices more than cancelled out any loss of revenue from scrapping a 2p rise in duty. When you also add-in the additional VAT payable as a result of rising food prices, the significance of fuel duty on the overall tax-take becomes even smaller (yes, I know many foodstuffs are not subject to VAT but many are, and all are when turned into a VAT-able meal at a restaurant). Perhaps they felt they had to say this because the government's accounts have gone completely haywire and they need all the tax they can get to pay for their bloated spending plans. But that does not explain why they felt it necessary to concentrate so much time and energy on a tiny element of the overall tax structure.

And today, when they finally had to back down in the face of overwhelming public pressure, they had the gall to say they were doing us all a favour. This was not a lie because it reflects precisely how they view the situation. As dedicated socialists they presume that the State has the right to all property. An income tax rate of 40% is, in their eyes, a gift of the remaining 60% to the lucky people because their starting point is that the State is entitled to 100%. So it is with fuel duty. The 2p rise in duty was never, for them, an increase in what the State takes, it was a proposed reduction in what the people were allowed to have. Protests about increased duty were met with the attitude "you are lucky to have been allowed to keep that 2p per litre thus far, why are you being so ungrateful now that we propose to make a small inroad into our generosity towards you?" A further psychological effect was in operation. Because Mr Brown looks on the proposed increase as a move by the State to retain its own property, he had to fight for it in the same way we would fight for our television if someone is seen walking out of our house with it.

This attitude, and only this attitude, explains why Mr Brown sees a postponement in the increase as a favour. It has guided so much of what he has done over the last 11 years, yet it is upside-down. There should never be surprise that approaching anything from completely the wrong angle leads to an expensive mess.

It's part of the economy, stupid.

Adopting my alter ego of Nostrafatbigot it is incumbent on me to make a prediction. I predict that the next general election will be dominated by the issue of taxation of the poor.

The country's economy has never experienced the bizarre situation we see today. Mr Brown's tax credit scheme requires the poor to be taxed so that he can then hand back some of the money he has taken to some of the people from whom he has taken it. It is completely bananas. The administrative costs of the scheme are vast and errors enormous.

A statutory minimum wage was introduced in 1999 (they have had one across the USA since 1938, first introduced in Massachusetts more than 20 years earlier). Employers who do not pay the minimum wage can be prosecuted and fined up £5,000 for each incident. Yet the government can, and do, reduce the minimum wage by taxation yet are at no risk of prosecution.

Increases in rates of pay for many of those on low levels of income are determined by the Consumer Price Index, a statistical basis for measuring inflation which examines the change in prices of a range of items deemed to be representative of an average household budget. As a measure based on spending patterns of from average household income, of necessity it includes items beyond the expected spending power of those on low incomes. Currently the CPI measures annual inflation at around 3%. For those on low incomes this is far from reality when faced with almost weekly increases in the cost of basic foods and soaring energy bills.

To pay for the government's ceaseless increases in expenditure taxes have to rise. Raising income tax is political suicide so indirect taxes are the preferred option. Those on low incomes are the hardest hit.

Retired people who have paid national insurance contributions fully for 44 years (men) or 39 years (women) are paid a state pension of £90.70 per week for a single person and £145.05 for a married couple, other state benefits increase these figures to an average of around £140 for a single person and £155 for a married couple. Private pension arrangements assist many but those who relied on assurances from governments of both parties that the state pension would provide for their needs did not take out private provision and now have incomes far lower than they were led to believe.

The double-whammy of tax increases and inflation hit the most vulnerable the hardest. These people have long been viewed as natural Labour Party voters. The more the Labour government squeezes this part of its natural constituency the greater the chance that the victims will change allegiance.

Two events in very recent political history tell us a lot about the attitude of the country to taxation.

Last autumn the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced a proposal to raise the threshold for inheritance tax to £1million. The government said it was unaffordable and, somewhat contradictorily, that it would only apply to 6% of estates. The people said those who had built up a nest-egg for their children and grandchildren should not have it raided by The State; the opinion polls changed overnight and have stayed consistently strong for the Conservatives ever since. Never before has a single policy proposal caused such an enormous change to declared voting intentions.

The government was forced to make a second budget in 2008 by public outrage that the poorest would lose the 10p tax rate and have to pay their first band of income tax at the rate of 20p in the pound. I am not aware of a single person who favoured increasing the bottom marginal rate of tax by 100%, it was an obscene proposal and was viewed as such by those at all levels of income. Gordon Brown's stock plummeted as he claimed over and again that no one would lose money as a result of the change, perhaps the most absurd fib ever told by a British Prime Minister. We might never know whether he opposed his Chancellor climb-down on this issue (the change in tax rates was, of course, contained in Mr Brown's last budget when he was Chancellor in 2007), but the credibility of both was destroyed forever by this shockingly bad policy.

We wait to see whether Mr Cameron will follow the position taken by such senior members of his party as John Redwood and concentrate much of tax policy on ensuring that those with least to spend spend least on the government. Such an approach would, I believe, have wide support for many reasons but, perhaps, most compellingly because it is the fair thing to do.

Chicken Licken and the motorist

The modern day Chicken Licken tells us that the sky is about to fall in and a major cause is nasty people driving motor cars. Why is that a major cause? Because motor cars emit Chicken Licken Gases and the more Chicken Licken Gases there are the quicker the sky will fall in. It's a terrible problem. Something must be done! What are we to do about it? That's obvious. We must prevent people from driving motor cars. One simple law is all that is required. Ban the lot of them. The sky will be saved, Praise Al Gore and pass the gin and tonic.

For some reason that hasn't happened. Why not? Let me think ... oh yes, anyone who did such a thing would never get re-elected. So what have they chosen to do instead? They have increased taxes on motoring. This has been done in two ways, first by simply upping taxes all-round and secondly by adding additional tax to cars which produce the most Chicken Licken Gases.

Let me now say two things which are blindingly obvious. First, increasing taxes on motoring will only reduce Chicken Licken Gases if they reduce the total amount of such gases associated with motor cars. Secondly, increasing taxes on motoring will only reduce Chicken Licken gases if they reduce the overall Chicken Licken Gases associated with travel.

In order to see what gases are associated with motor cars we need to ask what motor cars are. I am no expert, but I believe they are machines comprising assorted metals, plastics and fabrics. There are three stages to their life - they are manufactured, then they are used, then they are scrapped. At each stage Chicken Licken Gases are produced.

Lots and lots of Chicken Licken Gases result from manufacture. I claim no direct knowledge but have read that more are produced during manufacture of a motor car than during the average lifetime of its use. Even if only half as many Chicken Licken Gases are producing during manufacture as during an average lifetime's use, it's still an awful lot in a manufacturing process of a week or so compared to what is then produced over 12 or 20 years of driving. Nor do I claim direct knowledge of what is involved in scrapping a motor car but presumably it is necessary to separate the metals from the plastics and fabrics and melt-down the metals for re-use elsewhere. A good few miles of travel would be required to produce the same emissions as the melting process.

So, we have three stages to the life of these machines, two of which are industrial processes producing significant amounts of Chicken Licken Gases compared to the daily amount emitted by actually using the thing. In order to keep to a minimum the overall level of Chicken Licken Gases resulting from the existence of a motor car it is, therefore, necessary to keep each one on the road for as long as possible, thereby delaying both the scrapping process and the need to manufacture a replacement. On an incidental but related theme, the scrapping process involves other "green" problems such as the disposal of non-recyclable plastics and fabrics, but that is a different issue.

Any taxation policy which encourages people to dispose of large cars and replace them with smaller models will actually increase the overall level of Chicken Licken Gases unless the disposed-of larger cars are then acquired and used by someone else and this can only happen if there is a market for such vehicles. The very factor which encourages the original owner to dispose of it (increased running costs) will inevitably reduce the field of potential purchasers. It is a simple fact of life that those who can only afford a small initial investment on a car also require the car to be cheap to run. Equally, someone who can afford to run a car at an annual cost of many thousands of pounds is unlikely to want to buy an old vehicle - if he can afford that much to run it, he can afford a new(er) car. There comes a point when increased running costs make certain vehicles unsaleable to the British driving public. At that point they have to be scrapped or sold overseas to be used in a country where they can be afforded. If a car is scrapped and a replacement bought, more emissions are produced than if the old car was used because the new car has to be manufactured; if sent to India or Africa (and there are many thousands of such each year) it will produce just as much Chicken Licken Gas in its new home as it would if used in the UK but there are further emissions resulting from shipping the thing half way across the world. In other words, taxing large cars off the road to be replaced by smaller ones will increase emissions until the date on which the last of the large vehicles would have ended its useful life and been scrapped.

Next we have to ask whether stopping people driving motor cars will ease Chicken Licken's worries - this is where the second blindingly obvious point made above comes into play.

People have to travel. They have to get to work. They have to get to the shops. They have to visit family and friends. These are not optional activities they are at the heart of their lives. Can they switch to public transport? In some places they can, but what of those in rural areas where public transport is not readily available? No doubt the bicycle and horse have a part of play (though beware the Chicken Licken methane produced by a flatulent horse), but these are not replacements for the motor car for all purposes. Many simply have to drive if they are to continue earning their living and living their lives.

Even a switch to public transport where it is available will only go so far to placate Chicken Licken. Buses and trains do not just appear by magic, they have to be manufactured and, eventually, scrapped. Switching to public transport does not eliminate CO2 emissions it merely saves the difference between (i) the total Chicken Licken Gases created by the manufacture, use and scrapping of the abandoned motor vehicles and (ii) the total Chicken Licken Gases created by the manufacture, use and scrapping of the trains and buses now used by the former motorists.

So how many people have to be taken out of cars and put in buses and trains for the total Chicken Licken Gases to be reduced? No one knows for certain because there are too many imponderables, but we can get some idea from figures that are generally available.

UK government figures (produced by DEFRA) provide some useful information. Differing estimates (some higher and some lower) come from other sources but since DEFRA is a Department of the UK government and it is the government that imposes the taxes I will use their figures.

DEFRA estimates the average CO2 emission per passenger mile of bus travel is 140g. This is based on fuel consumption alone, it excludes manufacture and scrapping of the buses, also excluded are other factors which affect the total emissions of public transport compared to average domestic use of a motor car - such as running their offices, manufacturing and installing bus stops and shelters and cleaning (I can speak only for myself but my car is not subjected to daily cleaning unlike London buses).

For train travel the DEFRA figure is 100g per passenger mile. As far as I can tell it is based on fuel consumption and manufacture of both trains and tracks. It excludes emissions caused by building and maintaining stations and the railway operators' offices.

DEFRA estimates 430g of CO2 emissions per mile for a medium sized motor car (as far as I can tell this assumes single occupancy and includes manufacture but excludes servicing, cleaning and scrapping).

Fuel consumption, and therefore CO2 emissions, of all these means of transport will increase as the number of occupants increases but the average emissions per passenger mile will decline. In addition, increased passenger numbers will require the manufacture of more buses and trains because many are already full at busy times, this might also require the building of new bus garages and train depots but one can only speculate about how many would be required or what quantity of Chicken Licken Gases would result.

A further relevant factor is the extent to which a particular journey by public transport includes wasted miles. For example, if I want to go from FatBigot Towers to St Paul's Cathedral I can drive straight there (about three miles due south) but the most direct bus covers about an additional mile and the quickest train route takes me west, then southwest, then east for approximately six miles in total. Assuming four people make the journey the DEFRA figures give a total of 2,240g of CO2 by bus, 2,400g by train and 1,720g by car. So I'm in credit for that journey. If I take one rather than three passengers it is 1,120 by bus, 1,200 by train and 1,720 by car; I am suddenly a sinner, but perhaps not when one adds-in the items associated with bus and train travel which do not go into the DEFRA figures. In addition, most train journeys require the passenger to get to and from the station at each end, each mile of bus journey at each end adds 140g to the equation. There are, of course, many journeys for which trains or buses are able to take more direct routes than private motorists but that is not generally the case so one must factor-in the wasted miles involved in using public transport.

One cannot draw precise inferences from DEFRA's figures about how many drivers would have to take public transport to make any significant impact on overall emissions. What can be said is that car journeys involving 3 or more people would appear to give Chicken Licken no more cause for alarm than similar journeys undertaken by bus or train and even trips by single motorists are not as troublesome as our gallinaceous friend might fear because the alternative means of transport carry us on a more circuitous route.

So, where does this leave "green" motoring taxes? To suggest that they will make more than a gnat's fart of a difference to world CO2 emissions is to fly in the face of reality. Are they really intended to stop people driving? We can usually judge as much about any political policy by what is not said as by what is said. A policy to increase tax on motorists with a view to getting cars off the road inevitably involves a second step, a Plan B. Once those cars are off the road the tax will no longer be received by the Treasury, so we must ask about Plan B - where will the lost tax come from once the cars are dead?

Of course Plan B has not been announced.

There is no Plan B.

There never has been.

They don't want us to stop driving, they just want to wrap a massive tax hike in bogus eco-friendly clothing.