Corbyn ushers in new style of PMQs

Today marked the begining of the Corbyn era of Prime Minister's Questions and I must say that I have been really impressed.

Many of my regular readers will know that I have not a big fan of the Labour party over recent years and am still dubious of many of their policies/MPs etc however I thought Mr Corbyn hit the nail on the head.

Charles Kennedy wrote in his book "The Future of Politics" that the House and indeed PMQs was stuck in a rut of like a Rugby game with two sides vying for supremacy and scoring points. Indeed over recent years it has become about bluster of;

"Thireen years of Labour government.... blah blah."

"More of Flashman... Same old Tory Party."

*knod* *knod* *knod*
Ultimately it did nothing to encourage any support for either party and was generally seen as an out of date process with people who should know better acting like school children on a long bus trip and being paid a large amount of money to do so. There also became a penchant for commentators of stating who had won or lost PMQS and often with a goal line in publications like the Evening Standard which trivialised the whole process

Mr Corbyn had a very different approach and had asked the General Public to submit questions which he and his staff (more likely the latter) had whittled down to a much smaller number of the most numerous.

Siting examples he asked calmly and collectidly about housing policy and benefits caps. The Prime Minister was forced to abandon his usual flashy displays and spouting and had to answer in a similar style.

Although I am always distrustful of siting an individual's experiences and passing them off as fact, something my Historian trained mind rejects as dangerous. One person's experience is not always everyone's nor is it fact. In this case however it does make the point that he has asked the public and real people are speaking through the new Labour leader.

It was a much more refreshing and dare I say it "grown up" approach to actually conducting business and actually holding the Government to account from the electorate rather than Political point scoring.

It is a style of politics that the public (myself included) can get on with and I look forward to more of the same in the future.

Horse meat is David Cameron's mad cow disease.

Queueing for a burger

I saw this heading in one of the tabloids yesterday and couldn't believe the absurdity of it. Indeed therer were many questions at PMQs today on the subject which makes me wonder - aren't there more important things to worry about?

The BSE scare in the 90s was the result of poor standards, and (if I remember the Tomorrow's world report properly) caused by the Sheep disease scrapie which was potentially past to cows.

I freely admit my science on that is almost two decades old though!

There were cases of humans catching and dying from BSE or CJD. British agriculture, which was always proud of British beef, took a serious knock and other countries like Argentina quickly took up the cheap but clean beef exports.

For the government, as well as the general public it was a serious concern. Who knew what an infected cow looked like? How many of us had eaten a bad beef dinner? Anyone could have a potentially deadly brain disease - there was a mild undertone of concern bordering on panic in some people.

Fast forward twenty years...

Horse meat has somehow slipped into minced beef/lamb.

Now, I know this is bad and somewhere down the line someone has either messed up or intentionally lied to supermarkets but let's keep some perspective.

Horse is edible.

I'd never knowingly eat one, short of a starvation/war scenario but the simple fact is that it is not harmful.

Minced meat, burger meat and sausages are made up from the off cuts and waste meat like offal and cartilage anyway but we all still eat them. If we start analysing what our food is would we still eat it?

The simple fact of the matter is that at some point we've all eaten horse instead of cow. It is unfortunate but there it is. No one is going to die from it, there is no medical consequences so let's calm the panic and faux outrage. Let's look at the suppliers and await the investigation and legislate so this doesn't happen again.

Rail fare increases - Commuters lose out at PMQs

I was pleased that I was able to sit and watch PMQs at work last Wednesday, even more pleased as the lead topic brought up by Ed Miliband was rail fare rises.

Regular readers will no that I, as a suffering commuter am opposed to such hefty rises and I fear a time when the poor hard working commuter will be priced off the networks altogether. I honestly think that cross party cooperation is needed for this and hoped to see some serious debate happen and some head way.

My hopes were soon dashed... as I should have probably feared.

We entered a tit for tat round of who was to blame for the current rise in fares.

The Process of the rise was put in by the last Labour Government.


The rise was too hefty for commuters.


Autumn Statement cut the rise from RPI +3 to RPI +1.

We cut the rise - You reinstated it.

You only did it for one year - election year.

No we did it permanently.

No you didn't...

No answers were reached.

Right before I go on lets get the "Blame" out the way.

The Conservatives privatised the railways and made a bit of a hash of it.
Labour brought in RPI +3 formula with a variation of 5% on that so long as the average increase was a rise of 8% across the network and all the current Rail companies have that in their contracts with the Government and the Coalition is tied to this variance ruling.
Labour did bring in a change for 2010 and unfortunately for Ed Miliband a memo from Lord Adonis was found verifying that it was a one year kybosh as a sweetener for the electorate and unfortunately the Coalition had to abandon that.
The Coalition however has not done much to fight it. MPs have talked about it, the Autumn Statement has held it down to RPI+1 as a respite but the future has does not look as rosey as we might hope.

Two further points:

The Southeastern region has been on RPI+3 because we were paying towards the High Speed 1 rail route where as a lot of the rest of the nation kept RPI+1 and Sir Roger Gale MP mentioned in PMQs that his Constituents (Thanet) have paid up to 11% for a few years under Labour Government.

This battle of Political one-upmanship is never going to benefit the commuter. It is one of the very easy vote winners, lowering taxes and cutting prices will always catch someones attention as will casting blame and bringing up unfortunate truths from another party's past but ultimately it solves nothing - Prices will continue to rise.

I'm not even going to say that voting Liberal Democrat will change that, yes we want change and fairness but I can't promise you that we won't do the same thing because all parties are caught in the simple truth that David Cameron brought up on Wednesday;
It either has to come from the Taxpayer or from the traveller.
I can hear hundreds of thousands saying- I don't travel by rail, why should my money go into helping all those people travel by train up London? Surely they get paid enough? Aren't some of them bankers?

 It is a fair question - one that there is not a fair answer to.

Ultimately if you use a service you should pay for it.

However these rises in Train fares are not only damaging for the Consumer, but also they could eventually be detrimental to the economy as low paid workers are forced off the railways and maybe out of a job because they simply cannot afford the travel.

This all boils down to responsible Capitalism, which I'll be writing about later in the week, and Government control of the pricing - I know not very Liberal but - so that any rise is affordable by the users. Other solutions are being bandied around and I know Labour have set up a task force for it but I sincerely believe that a Cross party group needs to get together and lay all this history at the door as this childish squabbling is not achieving anything.

PMQs: Nadine Dorries Question.

I've done something that rarely happens. I have left PMQs halfway through to sit and write, and write cross. (arguably I've written some of my best work cross!)

Prime Minister's Questions is an open forum for the Prime minister to be questioned about policy and direct issues to do with constituencies and since is televisation, and I agree with Charles Kennedy on this one, that it has become more of an open circus with people making media statements and trying to get noticed.

Any way today, and I should I have since this coming considering my previous post; ( http://gingerliberal.blogspot.com/2011/09/covert-whipping-and-nadine-dorries.html) Nadine Dorries asked the Prime minister;

"Considering that the Liberal Democrats make up only 8% of parliament why do they have such a large impact on Government policy? When will the Prime Minister tell the Deputy Prime Minister who is boss?"

Or words to that affect.

Firstly, a quick stats check... There may only be 50 Lib Dem MPs but 25% of the vote across the country was for the Liberal Democrats, so we are pretty unrepresented.

Secondly, the issue of abortion is being discussed by the whole house this afternoon and it isn't just the Lib Dems who oppose her amendment, in fact large groups across the country are against it, we are merely voicing their concerns which is what you are supposed to do in the House.

As for the Lib Dem influence on the Coalition? Maybe we do have a large influence, however there is a lot of common ground between our two parties and so a lot of the Government policy is naturally agreed upon and tweaked where necessary by both sides. We've had to sign off on things that we've not agreed on, Tuition Fees for example or Trident... The coalition is a partnership and we both have to make sacrifices - That's how it works!

I know, as I said in the previously mentioned post, that Ms Dorries thinks that Nick Clegg has influenced the Prime Minister and the letter that was sent to all MPs but this is not the case. She is frustrated that her amendment is not getting support and is looking for someone to blame. 

Both parties are in this Coalition together, and lets not forget why we are doing this, for "Real change" to the country and to sort out the massive deficit that has befallen the nation.

Will we always agree? No!

Do we negotiate and talk before finding a common ground that we can agree on like adults? Yes.

If Ms Dorries has a problem with the way the Government is being run, she should talk to her party leader, Mr Cameron and voice her concerns properly, not on national television in front of the whole house like that. It makes valid concerns that some Conservatives have about the government look like spoilt children.

We do not throw our toys out of the pram at PMQs just because we think the other kids are deciding what games are played. It's school yard and infantile and not the kind of grown up politics that this nation needs.