15 February 2018

Diary of a Corbynista

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse – Oxfam!

by Don Urquhart

8 February

At first I thought it was one of those cruel satirical programmes.  There was an airbrushed and photoshopped Theresa May telling us how well the Conservatives were looking after “our precious NHS”.  I had blundered into watching a Party Political Broadcast.

Meanwhile Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the Nuffield Trust think-tank, said the health service was creaking at the seams – the growing number of trolley waits showed “corridors had become the new emergency wards”.

The PM and her coterie are turning denial of reality into an art form.

9 February

On today’s Daily Politics Dan Dalton, a Conservative MEP said that he did not know whether we would be able to benefit from EU trade agreements with outside countries during the transition period.  Michele Barnier said yesterday that a transition period is not a given.  He seems to be completely empowered to speak for the European Union.  Theresa May is taking her war cabinet on an away day to clarify the UK negotiating position. Hopefully there will be outward bound instructors leading participants in survival challenges and, if so, I trust that these will be successful in some cases.

10 February

In Shawsheet 110 I posed the question “What is the point of Alan Johnson?”  For the Tory Party he is the acceptable face of Labour given that he does not miss an opportunity to rubbish Corbyn and tell us that Momentum is a sinister organisation which could lead us to Trotskyite ruin.  This may be true but Andrew Neil’s This Week might surely have attempted a scintilla of balance.  On Thursday night he settled Anna Soubry on the sofa to nod approvingly at Johnson’s opinions about his party leader.  Also wheeling in Kate Andrews to advise alternative approaches to the NHS did not restore the political balance.  She represents The Institute of Economic Affairs, a “charity” which refuses to reveal its funding sources, and pushes right wing agendas.

11 February

In theory the Cabinet meets, resolves any disagreements, nominates someone to communicate policy and moves on.   They have had two days of meetings to agree Brexit policy, and will have a Chequers away day to make further progress.  To communicate policy they are trailing a number of speeches to clarify things for the world at large.  Foreign Secretary Johnson will make the first on Wednesday.  There will be further speeches from Davis, Fox, Lidington and May.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they address all of the issues, are unambiguous and in harmony?

12 February

Harold Wilson famously consulted his kitchen cabinet in preference to the lot who used to cluster round the big table in No. 10.  Every PM has special advisors but this can sometimes make cabinet colleagues restive.  Oliver Robbins was reassigned from the Brexit Department in September following bust ups with David Davis.  Now he runs a department of 30 people and is Mrs May’s Brexit Advisor.  Frictionless is a favourite word when discussing Brexit solutions.  I suspect that “Frictionless” is not something Mrs May is good at.

13 February

The government is heralding an imminent review of tuition fees.  As a baby boomer I feel no guilt about tuition fees, which never crossed my mind as a student.  The Zeitgeist surrounding me in the Sixties had university graduates as a national asset.  Everyone benefited from having well-educated people around.  Since 2010 the government has pushed the view that a degree is of value only to the individual, who will earn more because of it so can afford a “graduate tax”, currently posing as student loan repayments.

14 February

Ms Mordaunt’s response is that Oxfam will lose government funding if she is not convinced they will do better in future.  But how did they get in this situation?  The Charities Commission is carrying out an investigation which is unlikely to probe some dark corners, like how much the Charities Commission knew and when or for that matter how complicit the government has been in covering up the scandal for the greater good.   What you don’t see reported in the British press is that Oxfam receives €30 million per annum from the EU, which is also likely to be withdrawn.