Express – The Double Dinosaur

As Peter Hill says goodbye to the Daily Express, with the paper’s circulation languishing below 650,000, it is hard to believe that, in the great days of Max Aitken, that circulation peaked at around four million. And it is equally hard to believe that, in those days, reporters went out and got their own stories, rather than copy them off the PA wire or lift them from the previous day’s editions of rival papers.

First on Monday ...

Because the Express is now, it seems, reduced to repeating stories just to fill the paper: yesterday, under the by-line of Emily Fox, came the story of Anna Ford’s “Dinosaur” criticism of David Dimbleby’s alleged new deal at the BBC. There is also a critical comment about the Beeb’s John Simpson.

... then again today

And today comes a remarkably similar story, this time under the by-line of Tom Morgan, once again about Anna Ford, with the same “Dinosaur” criticism of Dimbleby Major, and a mention of John Simpson. Thus the spiritual home of Phil Space.

At least there isn’t a plug for Channel 5 in the articles.

TPA – High Speed Flap

Our old friends at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) are today working themselves up into a terrible flap over the rebuttals to their “report” on proposals for a high speed rail network from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, known as High Speed 2 (HS2).

The report by former BR man Chris Stokes was, in fact, a reworking of his article from last October’s Modern Railways magazine, with some added material intended to counter assertions from pro-HS2 group Greengauge 21. The publicly available copy of the original article is hosted by the so-called HS2 Action Alliance.

Since the TPA article appeared last week, I’ve posted two observations on it (HERE and HERE), but more importantly, Greengauge 21 have replied once more, and the Department for Transport (DfT) have found adversely on the TPA’s suggestions.

This last has clearly distressed the TPA, because it suggests that the DfT has made up its mind and the TPA is therefore being ignored. And the TPA doesn’t like being ignored. But they themselves are ignoring key factors in their desire to rubbish HS2.

Firstly, there is still no mention of freight from the TPA. If the package of improvements that they are championing is implemented, the capacity of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) to accommodate even the existing freight paths would be lost – but there is a demand for more of those paths. Freight is profitable, and an area where competition between providers works – one might have thought that the TPA would be all in favour of this, yet they appear blind to it.

Secondly, the use of demand forecasts for rail traffic between London, Paris and Brussels to suggest that HS2 is overestimating demand for a new line is a non sequitur. The demand forecasts for HS2 are based on historic data and do not assume particularly high growth rates, especially given increased demand for rail travel over the past ten years.

Thirdly, HS2 is an incremental project: the first phase, from London to Birmingham, will be followed by later phases with lines on to Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds, the latter two destinations allowing some relief of both the Midland Main Line (MML) and East Coast Main Line (ECML), and yet more capacity for the freight traffic that the TPA doesn’t want to discuss. But the TPA is focusing only on London to Birmingham.

Moreover, as I noted previously, having a former BR manager on board does not make the TPA uniquely authoritative – it merely means that one former BR manager does not agree with the proposal for HS2.

That’ll Cost You, Sport – 23

After all the burnt fingers from the .com bubble, one thing has been taken on board by those valuing internet start-ups: don’t assume it’s worth anything until someone is prepared to pay good money for it. Well, someone at AOL has decided that it is worth paying rather a lot of good money to buy the Huffington Post – more than 300 million US Dollars’ worth of it.

Quite apart from the achievement of co-founder Arianna Huffington, who is now effectively in charge of all content from the merged group, this should tell us something about the value of free-to-access web content versus the paywall approach touted by Rupe and his troops of late.

Murdoch has put the Wall Street Journal, Times, and Screws behind a paywall, and the official line is that all is well, but the seemingly never ending one-quid-for-a month’s-trial introductory offer suggests otherwise. Arianna not only disagrees with the Murdoch approach, but has said so in forthright terms.

Her speech to a journalism conference in Washington DC back in December 2009, titled “Journalism 2009: Desperate Metaphors, Desperate Revenue Models, And The Desperate Need For Better Journalism” stands re-appraisal in the light of the tie-up with AOL. The Murdoch empire had, she noted, painted the HuffPo as “parasites”, “constant kleptomaniacs”, “vampires”, and thieves who “steal all our copyright”.

The references were to the aggregating of content – but, as Arianna pointed out, everyone does that, even Rupe and his troops. That, together with linking to content, quoting from it, appraising it and using it as the basis for yet more content, is what the new media is all about. As she put it, it’s “part of the web’s DNA”.

I congratulate Arianna on her achievement, and commend her article to anyone doubting the approach she has taken. Rupert Murdoch may have been good at the old media, but the new version may be beyond him. Here’s hoping.

Perception Of The Muslim Brotherhood

With the situation in Egypt still unresolved – although I still think that time is up for Hosni Mubarak and that he’ll be off sooner rather than later – speculation continues about what political change in that country may bring. At the forefront of that speculation is the Muslim Brotherhood.

Who they? Well, you can find them on the web, and their site tells of the group’s opposition to the al-Qaeda franchise, of its founding back in 1928, and states that “Egypt’s Revolution is a Peoples’ Revolution with no Islamic Agenda”. There is an aspiration to a “democratic civil state”, together with a clear distancing from pronouncements coming out of Iran.

So far, so unthreatening, but that’s not how some of the UK press see it: a comment piece in the Maily Telegraph yesterday contained this gem: “Maybe the Muslim Brotherhood will manage to foment enough religious feeling to create a new Islamist state”.

The Daily Mail observed the Cairo protests and noted that “A large number had the trimmed beards of Islamic conservatives, a sign of how the Muslim Brotherhood movement is playing a major role in the fight”

So we are clearly supposed to be frightened, even though, as the Guardian’s Michael Tomasky pointed out, we don’t know what approach the Brotherhood will take. This contrasts with Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, who are warning of “Islamic law”, a “rise in extremism”, and “damaging confidence”.

But there is one horror not being blamed on the group: none of the assembled hacks has thus far mentioned falling house prices.

The Plane Mutiny

No doubt they were acting with the purest of motives, and in the spirit of good customer service, but the folks at Ryanair, the Millwall of air carriers (everybody hates us and we don’t care) have found themselves at the centre of yet another unfortunate misunderstanding.

It seems that one passenger boarding a flight from Lanzarote to Charleroi (which is not near Brussels) was judged to have a carry-on bag which exceeded the size limit. The subsequent attempt to levy an extra charge was not well received by many already on board, and scuffles broke out.

After the law had to be summoned, over a hundred of the 168 passengers were refused boarding. Now, I’m sure that Michael O’Leary’s finest acted within their particular rules, but this kind of thing does seem to affect Ryanair rather a lot.

It was only last November that another hundred passengers refused to leave a Ryanair flight that had been diverted to Liege in Belgium, because its intended destination, Beauvais (which is not near Paris) had closed for the night – an inevitable downside of using smaller airports.

And last June, Ryanair called the police to an aircraft waiting on the tarmac at Prestwick bound for Girona (which is not near Barcelona): the carrier refused to provide refreshments, even though they had been waiting departure for over four hours. The police paid for those refreshments, thus helping Ryanair maintain their low cost model.

Maybe it’s just coincidence, but those less charitably disposed to this carrier may disagree.

Jezza And The Foot In Mouth Habit

The overmonied trio of presenters who bring Top Gear to BBC2 are in hot water once more. No-one should be surprised. Making what they claim to be politically incorrect comments is the show’s stock in trade, and while it may precipitate raucous laughter in the studio, does not always go down well outside.

And, although I commend Jeremy Clarkson for decking appalling toady Piers “Morgan” Moron, his comments about the citizens of Mexico were out of order, and he should admit it – not the BBC. But those comments were not unexpected.

When Rover’s Longbridge plant ceased production almost six years ago, Clarkson’s first reaction was to think “good”. He then went on Top Gear and made great fun out of a Rover badge which had been re-styled to read “Over” (geddit?!?). This may not have gone down too well with the 6,500 people who lost their jobs.

Yes, Jezza later sympathised with them, but it was too little, too late. After all, this is the presenter who thought it was OK to make jokes about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes, which, if he’s got any sense, he won’t reprise if he visits West Yorkshire any time soon.

Mainly because Peter Sutcliffe was a lorry driver.

Off The Buses

As local authorities around England and Wales are forced to cut back services because of reductions in funding from central Government, subsidised bus services are in the firing line. Bodies such as the Campaign for Better Transport have highlighted a potential 70% reduction in subsidised bus operations.

The potential problem faced by an average provincial town outside London and away from Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) areas can be seen here in Crewe.

Click for larger image

On the face of it, the town appears to have a pretty good bus network – until you itemise the services that operate “commercially” (without subsidy). In and around Crewe, these are:

6 Shavington – Crewe – Leighton Hospital. 3 buses per hour M-F daytime, 2 Saturday daytime, otherwise hourly. Subsidised evenings and Sundays.

20 Hanley – Crewe – Leighton Hospital. 2 buses per hour weekday daytime, otherwise hourly, extra services Sunday between Crewe and Leighton. Whether any journeys are subsidised is unknown.

31 and 31A Crewe – Winsford – Northwich. 2 buses per hour. No service after 1900 weekdays, no Sunday service.

37 Crewe – Sandbach – Winsford – Northwich. Hourly. No service after 1830 weekdays, no Sunday service.

38 Crewe – Macclesfield. Hourly. Subsidised evenings and Sundays.

84 Crewe – Chester. 4 buses per hour weekday daytime Crewe to Nantwich, 2 going on to Chester, otherwise Hourly. Subsidised evenings and Sundays.

D1 Crewe – Sandbach Common. Hourly. No service after 1800 Monday to Friday, one bus Saturday, no Sunday service.

Now have another look at that map. All the services not listed above are only there through local authority subsidy. And that subsidy is now under serious pressure.

EDL – Where It All Began

To commemorate the rally of the English Defence League (EDL) yesterday in Luton, where an attendance of around 12,000 was predicted, but less than a sixth of that number turned up, Zelo Street has been trawling the archives to show its readers the early days of this organisation.

Yes, the EDL has, it seems, been with us for almost forty years, as this short film from 1972, extolling the cultural side of the organisation, shows. It’s good to see that the EDL has maintained such a high standard of awareness and clarity of thought for so long.

And it gives an idea of why the other 10,000 were missing.

Fat Eric – The Way Out

So the “Bradford Revolution” had ended: just 20 months after taking charge at City Hall, Eric Pickles saw the Tories lose five seats to Labour, beginning a decade in power for them. But what of the future? Pickles initially dismissed suggestions that he would be running for Parliament, but events showed otherwise.

Just two months after that local election defeat for his party, Fat Eric fetched up at a selection meeting in the then safe Tory seat of Halesowen and Stourbridge, which is a long way from Bradford. There were two other hopefuls on the ballot, one of whom, former MP Warren Hawksley, was selected. Hawksley lost his seat – not helped by boundary changes – in the Blair landslide of 1997.

Pickles had kept his trip to the West Midlands quiet: this, together with his public denial of Parliamentary ambition, did not go down well. But it didn’t stop him trying again, and the following month he tried to get nominated for the North Yorkshire seat of Scarborough. This time he failed to even get on the short list, but once more he was fortunate not to be selected: John Sykes won in 1992 but – once again not helped by boundary changes – lost in 1997.

By now it was clear that Fat Eric was not long for Bradford, but the council’s Tory group did not move against him. In any case, they didn’t have long to wait, as at the third attempt, Pickles was selected for rock-solid safe Brentwood and Ongar: Robert McCrindle, the retiring MP, had enjoyed a majority of almost 19,000 in 1987. This time, Pickles had a better chance of success: his was the only name put forward.

So, in April 1991, Fat Eric ceased to be leader of the Tory group on Bradford council. His twelve year stint as a councillor ended the following month: he therefore did not have to face the electorate again. As Pickles made his journey south to the land of upmarket city commuters, others were left to pick up the pieces of his bruising reign.

Eric Pickles is a figure of paradox: here is a career politician who has done little outside public service, and who has done very nicely out of that service, overseeing cost cutting that will put tens of thousands of public servants out of work, in an echo of his brief leadership of Bradford council. Other questions remain – on who precipitated the Honeyford affair, some aspects of the “Bradford Revolution”, and Pickles’ animus towards the Audit Commission.

Zelo Street will continue the attempts to shed light on those matters, and anything else that will better inform a wider knowledge of the present Communities Secretary.

TPA – High Speed Slip Up (2)

The latest “report” from the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, High Speed Rail [.pdf], which I first inspected yesterday, managed to ignore one major factor driving the need for new network capacity, while erroneously introducing another. This post considers these: the rail network’s F and C words.

The F word on the railway is Freight: this is the kind of traffic where the C word – Competition – works, and moreover is profitable. Network Rail (NR) would like to be able to accommodate more of this, and the operators would like to run more, but their aspirations are often frustrated by that lack of capacity.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) out of London to the North West: intermodal and other container trains occupy every free path on weekdays, and more capacity is being won by new layouts at Nuneaton and (in the near future) Stafford, yet it is not enough. The suggestion in yesterday’s TPA report that the WCML could take as many as fifteen Inter-City services each way every hour would squeeze capacity even more, and either commuter or freight services would be pushed out.

Hence the push for HS2, a new railway that will take much of that Inter-City traffic off the WCML – and, as HS2 continues towards Leeds as well as Manchester, off the East Coast Main Line (ECML) as well – leaving capacity for better local and commuter services and more freight. Yet the TPA report does not mention freight even once: this is an unforgiveable omission.

However, the TPA do bring on the C word – Competition – with regard to passenger services [p15]. Their report infers that the use of spare capacity by “open access” passenger service providers is A Good Thing. What it does not mention (again) is the need for freight capacity, or that “open access” operations have succeeded only where they are able to stop at major stations served by franchised (and subsidised) operators, and abstract traffic from them.

The idea that passenger services can be run to compete with one another is not part of anyone’s vision for the NR network, and even in the past it never happened. Sure, it was once possible to have a choice of express services from London to Birmingham, the West Country, Sheffield, Leeds, Merseyside, and Edinburgh – but by different routes and between different stations.

Today, there are different providers who offer a train service from, say, London’s Euston terminus to Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe and Liverpool, but these are different kinds of services – Regional versus Inter-City – and are complementary, not competing. It will be the same with HS2 and the services that remain on the WCML. It’s not that passenger rail doesn’t compete: it does – with road and air.

Get Out More, Mandy

Reading the output of the Daily Mail’s resident antipodean hack Amanda Platell is something that I do only rarely: there are more pressing claims on one’s time when paint is drying. And whenever I do happen across the scribbling of this particular Sheila, the impression is given that she ought to, in the words of the Fiesta advert, get out more – and maybe do some research.

Latest target for the Platell platitude is Mr Speaker’s wife Sally Bercow (maybe the appalling Quentin Letts, who I considered a while back, was unavailable for hatchet job duty). Sal has been posing for the Evening Standard magazine with a sheet draped over her, and Mandy has reached the conclusion that this is “undermining the democratic process”.

It is? How does that work? Perhaps the sight of Mrs B dressed (perhaps) in only a sheet is causing MPs to be so distracted that they fail to vote, or enter the wrong lobby. Perhaps all in and around the House of Commons are so busy obtaining a copy of ES Magazine that normal business has ceased. Or perhaps La Platell is indulging in more hyperbolic drivel.

But it is when Platell compares Sal to Christine Hamilton, a Tory whose party loyalty and duty is unparalleled, that she comes unstuck. Mandy tells that “Mrs Hamilton waited until her husband had been booted out of Westminster before indulging her addiction to cheap celebrity”. Er, you don’t get out of the South East much, Mandy, do you?

I concede that the fragrant Christine never – as far as I’m aware – posed with a sheet draped over her, but her celebrity was something she indulged to the full. Whenever and wherever Neil turned up, so did she: there was no photo of one in the local paper without the other. And that was before the legendary “Battle of Knutsford Heath” in early 1997 when she tried unsuccessfully to put the frighteners on Martin Bell.

Indeed, such was Christine Hamilton’s ability to share her husband’s celebrity, the impression was given that, had she been able to find a way to do it, she would have accompanied him into the Commons chamber itself. And you could never accuse Sally Bercow of trying to do that.

So I say once again, Mandy P, you ought to get out more!

TPA – High Speed Slip Up (1)

First there was the so-called HS2 Action Alliance (HS2AA), and now there is the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA): the caucus of lobby groups opposed to the expansion of high speed rail links in the UK continues to churn out propaganda.

Today’s TPA product, “High Speed Rail” [.pdf] carries the imprimatur of former BR man Chris Stokes. So does that give it a definitive authority? No, it merely means that one former railwayman does not agree the premise for HS2. I’ll look at Stokes’ analysis over two posts: first the obvious shortcomings and exaggerations, then later the perpetual problem of network capacity and competition.

Stokes starts by attacking the business case for HS2 [p5], and homes in on the Benefit/Cost Ratio (BCR) of 2.4, which he suggests is not high enough. However, his support for a series of upgrades to the existing network called Rail Package 2 enjoys a lower BCR – just 2.19. Moreover, Rail Package 2 would push all but Inter-City passenger traffic onto the slow lines out of London Euston.

Stokes also focuses on the energy consumption [p14] of high speed rail – this was also a part of the HS2AA report – yet neither cite any figures to show what a typical journey from London to Birmingham would consume relative to existing rail services or other transport modes.

And he selectively exaggerates the effect of HS2 on local public transport [p7], asserting that “Euston is the most dramatic case: the Victoria Line is already full”. Not only is capacity on the Victoria Line being increased with introduction of a new Automatic Train Operation (ATO) system in the near future, Euston can be accessed by both branches of the Northern Line, and the Sub-Surface Line (SSL) station at Euston Square is slated to have more convenient access to the main line station too. Also, passengers can access Euston by other transport modes.

Then there is the occasional questionable accuracy of the TPA report: the graph showing “Long distance rail trips by income” [p15] is based on data from 2002-5, the numbers do not appear to have been scaled up accurately (source report HERE), and the inference that middle income earners average no more than two rail journeys of more than 50 miles per year masks the fact that there are dozens of conurbations around London which are over 50 miles from the capital, and have sizeable commuter flows, meaning ten such trips per week.

And some of the quotations are plain silly: Stokes [p7] quotes Henry Overman of the LSE: “... claims about the transformational nature of transport investments for particular areas should be greatly discounted ... because they have no convincing evidence to support them”.

Better go back and dismantle all those motorways, then. More soon.

Basic Mail Doublespeak

The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre work to a variety of agenda items, one of which is demonising the EU. So it should surprise no-one to see a headline today suggesting that the dastardly Eurocrats are forcing us to make part of the driving test easier.

Open and shut EU case ...

That headline, “Looks like the driving test is getting easier: reading distance requirement shrinks 8ft ( ... by order of the EU)” appears unequivocal: the only conclusion that can be reached is that the EU are ordering the reading distance test to be, well, 8ft easier.

Except that there has been no such order. The sight test – at present a requirement to read a numberplate at a distance of just under 66 feet (or 20 of those garlic crunching French metres) – will indeed have the distance part changed to 17.5 metres, or 57 feet. But the tone becomes more equivocal as you read further.

Soon, we see “The change is ... in the wake of an EU directive”. Then the article tells that Ministers had taken advice from the Government’s “Honorary Medical Panels” on the changes. But if those changes were “by order of the EU”, then why would there be a need to seek advice?

All is made clear at the end of the piece, where Transport Minister Mike Penning tells that “While UK standards must be at least at the level of a minimum standard, we are not required by EU law to relax existing domestic standards where these are higher than EU standards”.

... or maybe not

And, on the advice from that Panel, “However, where the panel has advised that a relaxation is consistent with road safety we are recommending that this is adopted”.

Which means that there is no EU order to make the sight test easier, and that the change is being recommended after taking advice from our own experts.

But that would not have fitted the EU-bashing Dacre agenda.

Fat Eric – Poisoning The Well

At the end of February 1990, Margaret Thatcher visited Bradford, and in the Lord Mayor’s Parlour at City Hall granted an interview to Yorkshire TV stalwart Richard Whiteley. She was full of praise for Eric Pickles, telling Whiteley that “I think he’s doing a superb job”, “doing extremely well”, “has done wonders”, “kept the Community Charge [poll tax] down”, and that “had it been a Labour council, it would have been very much higher”.

So the then Prime Minister might be thought to have approved of Pickles’ conduct in the year and a half since the Tories took control of Bradford council. Her enthusiasm was not shared with the opposition, nor with an increasing number of the district’s voters.

In May of the previous year, the twelve month term of Lord Mayor Smith Midgley ended, and, as I noted yesterday, by custom the next holder of the office was to be a Liberal. But Fat Eric had, once more, been doing his homework: there was nothing in the council’s rules to enforce this custom. So when the council held its Annual General Meeting, the Liberals’ nomination for Lord Mayor, to their surprise, was voted down.

Then, Tory George Hodgson (another Pickles pal from Keighley) was nominated. Using the outgoing Lord Mayor’s casting vote, the Tories voted Hodgson in, and therefore kept their hands on the levers of power for another year. While the use of the Lord Mayor’s casting vote had annoyed Labour and Liberal councillors the previous year, the cynical use of that vote to retain the office poisoned relations between the parties for years afterwards.

But, as Margaret Thatcher had told Richard Whiteley, Fat Eric had kept the Poll Tax level down, although he probably had been helped in this endeavour by central Government. So perhaps the electorate would look more kindly on him when the 1990 round of elections arrived: after all, the Tories were defending just eleven seats, most of which were considered safe.

Sadly, the Tories’ national loss of popularity, together with the electorate being less than totally impressed with the so-called “Bradford Revolution”, meant that they lost five of those seats, while Labour, defending nineteen seats of which some were marginal, held almost all of them, in addition to their gains from the Tories.

Labour were now the majority party, and would remain so for another decade: the Pickles era had ended.

TPA – Sheer Nastiness

The so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) is seemingly prepared to pick over the most minor part of public expenditure: yesterday, the smug face of non-job holder Chris Daniel headed an article in the TPA’s “burning our money” strand (you want pejorative language? Look no further) whingeing about exercise equipment supplied to prisons in England and Wales.

Daniel’s piece reveals that a whopping three million notes was spent on exercise equipment during the 2009-10 financial year. That sounds like a very big number, until you realise that it translates into a cost to each taxpayer of rather less than 10p.

The TPA article, predictably, whines on about “expensive equipment”, while mentioning only briefly that much of it is remanufactured or refurbished – in other words, second hand – and erroneously compares facilities available in prisons to folks who may have to cancel their gym memberships due to the economic downturn.

No mention is made of the potential benefit of avoiding medical problems typically associated with the less mobile – after all, prisoners have by definition no freedom to exercise except within the confines of their prison. So no comparative analysis is made, which is predictable, as this piece, in characteristic TPA fashion, has been written to fit an agenda, rather than stimulate informed debate.

That agenda can be seen at work in the commentary provided by the TPA’s Emma Boon to papers like the Daily Mail: “It is outrageous that the Government is splashing out on top of the range new equipment for convicts, while pushing up taxes for ordinary law-abiding citizens” (my emphases: similar comments were also printed by the Express).

Only one conclusion can be reached from the above: this is a crude and deliberate attempt to whip up anti-Government sentiment by selective release of figures, backed up with inflammatory rhetoric, with the sole objective of, as usual, demonising that Government.

And that’s not good enough.

Nobody Listening, But Somebody’s Home

Over at the Maily Telegraph website, someone has a problem getting his target audience to listen to him: step forward self styled “saviour of the western world” James Delingpole, who has assumed – wrongly – that he is on a mission to annoy anyone and everyone whose stance is to the left of his (which would be around 90% of the population).

Looking at his sneer-filled blog for a reaction to Monday evening’s BBC4 Meet The Climate Sceptics, which he had decided in advance was a “stitch-up”, I found that his review was missing, perhaps because those climate sceptics, like his pal Christopher Monckton, got plenty of exposure and opportunity to make their pitch, even if they did not convince any of the talking heads who do not share their beliefs.

In place of the expected rubbishing of Beeb and established science was Delingpole’s show of distress at viewing Channel 4’s Ten O’Clock Live the previous Thursday. The show, he concluded, is “leftie comedy”, and Charlie Brooker’s cynical look at “tea party” favourite Sarah Palin confirmed that presenters and audience were “right-on”, which also means “leftie”.

But all is not lost, because, as Delingpole concludes, Palin “drives liberals totally crazy”. In support of this dubious argument, he notes that Dana Milbank of the WaPo has said he will not mention the former Alaska governor for the whole of February. Milbank, whom Delingpole calls a “libtard” – sadly, someone who read English Literature at Oxford is no longer able to summon a competent subset of the language – is making the point that Palin is not worth the time and effort.

This, though, is lost on Delingpole, who may have missed Monday night’s Daily Show, where host Jon Stewart speculated as to whether Palin might be a Russian agent (video may not play in the UK). The message from comedy shows on both sides of the north Atlantic is the same: Palin is becoming a figure of ridicule.

And if James Delingpole wants to annoy liberals, he needs to get someone who liberals actually read and take seriously to relay his ideas. Continually sounding off to his echo chamber on the Maily Telegraph site will merely confirm him as a cheap UK version of Ann Coulter, who is revered by the Republican right, but whose hectoring rhetoric is tuned out by all those liberals who are supposed to be annoyed by it.

Which makes both of them utterly ineffective, so long may they continue.

Fat Eric – Playing By The Rules

A Bradford council insider, looking back on Eric Pickles’ mercifully short tenure as leader, observed that he had been “arrogant and ruthless, pugnacious, utterly charmless and incredibly reactionary”. But Fat Eric had also been doing his homework, and had figured out how to turn the Tories’ 45 seats – exactly half the total – into a solid majority.

Pickles had discovered that the power of the Lord Mayor was more than merely ceremonial. Sure, the holder of that office could make a casting vote on procedural matters, but on policy, it was the custom that a tied vote meant maintenance of the status quo – or so it was thought. Pickles’ research showed that the Lord Mayor could make not only a casting vote, but a substantive one in addition: it was, in effect, a potential 91st councillor.

And Pickles was doubly lucky: the sitting Lord Mayor, Smith Midgley, was not only a Tory, but also one of Pickles’ colleagues from Keighley. All that was needed to drive through policy changes was to make sure all 45 Tory councillors turned up for the vote, which by and large they did.

That was fortunate, because the Tories had, during the election campaign, told their electorate that Labour had been wasting ratepayers’ money. Sad to say, though, when Fat Eric and his troops opened the books, there was very little evidence of waste, and certainly not enough to make a cut in the rates.

But savings had been promised – the intention was to cut 50 million from spending over five years – so a programme of price increases and sell-offs began. Charges for leisure centres, school meals, home helps, meals on wheels, car parking and even cemeteries were raised. And old peoples’ homes were sold off. Council house rents went up and many local Government workers – including teachers – lost their jobs.

Not surprisingly, the Labour and Liberal opposition were annoyed enough at the prospect of large scale cost increases and job losses to turn up to every vote, producing a tie. But Smith Midgley would dutifully cast his vote with his fellow Tories, and Pickles would carry the day, whatever the criticism.

There was only one problem with this approach: the Lord Mayor’s term was for one year only, and it was the Liberals’ turn in 1989 to nominate a candidate. But a Liberal Lord Mayor would stop Fat Eric and his reforms in their tracks, so once again the council’s leader did his homework: he discovered a solution that would make him, and his party, uniquely unpopular.

But not with the party leadership – that comes next.

Fat Eric – The Liberal Obstacle

It is late March 2009, and the ruckus over MP’s expenses is starting to kick off among the media, generating increasing cynicism among the electorate. The BBC Question Time programme, out and about around the UK, fetches up in Newcastle-on-Tyne, with regular chairman David Dimbleby flanked by four relatively serious politicians, plus novelty act Michael Winner.

The seating arrangement is unusual, with Labour’s Charles Clarke and Tory Eric Pickles on the same side of the chair. Opposite them are Green MEP Caroline Lucas and Lib Dem Ed Davey. The audience are restless, and not placated by any mention of expenses, as Fat Eric finds out to his cost, his performance closely resembling an on-air car crash.

But another detail is telling: Davey clearly dislikes Pickles. And he shows contempt for Keighley’s most infamous son when Pickles tells him that Liberals “don’t matter”. Thus another revelation from the Pickles past: Fat Eric hated the Liberals back in the 1980s. They kept his team out of power, and on occasion propped up Labour.

When reorganisation of local Government created the Metropolitan District of Bradford in the early 1970s, the party balance changed. The solidly Labour voting city was balanced by Tory supporting towns like Shipley and Ilkley. There were rural wards too: these would lean to the Tories. Bradford became finely balanced between the two main parties.

And this suited the Liberals fine, because with only two or three seats out of 90, they often held the balance of power. On one occasion in the early 80s, they forced the Labour group to adopt the Liberals’ capital plan as the price of propping them up. Fat Eric knew he couldn’t drive through a Thatcherite agenda if the Tories were dependent on Liberal support.

So the Tories had to get an outright majority. How else could they win votes and push their plan through? But that majority never came: in 1988, the Tories had a good local election in Bradford, but when the results were all declared, they still came up short. However, after a by-election that September, they won a seat from Labour, and this gave the Tories exactly half of the 90 seats.

Fat Eric now had to work on making sure this translated into a winning half, not a tying one. That comes next.

TPA – A Boon Year For Storytelling

Our friends at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance are limbering up for the Budget. Although this upcoming test for the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the Seventeenth Baronet, does not come until March, it is clear that the TPA will be churning out apparently well meaning suggestions from, well, right now, and all the way to Budget day.

And on Budget Suggestion Duty today is the ubiquitous Emma Boon, who is beating the drum for tax cuts. Not just any tax cuts, you understand, but things like the 50p tax rate, which she describes as a “disaster”, despite its having been in existence for less than a year. In her defence, La Boon cites a piece on the Spectator Coffee House blog penned by Speccie editor Fraser Nelson.

Nelson always comes across as being a genial and agreeable bloke, but this does not prevent him from trying to pull a fast one with his analysis. He, in turn, cites the IFS, and tells that they are suggesting the higher tax rate will lose the Exchequer 800 million notes a year. However, the IFS paper he links to [.pdf] takes a much more nuanced line, and pitches no such figure.

Moreover, Nelson’s citing of the TPA figures suggesting that the higher tax rate will actually lose the Exchequer 4.5 billion can be taken with a large pinch of salt – unless they have been independently verified. The legend “TPA calculations” in that group’s various publications means it is otherwise worthless.

Boon’s article has one purpose: to demonise the raising of the income tax rate on the top 1% of earners, and this is for one very good reason: that top 1% is where the TPA gets a substantial amount of its income. Exactly how much is not easy to pinpoint – as ever, the TPA demand transparency of others while refusing to practice it themselves – but those backers want some good PR for their money.

That is why the TPA puts the rich first, and considers everyone else later.

Percy’s Progress

[Update at end of post]

The ratings are in: now we can see just how much of the USA was conquered by shameless self publicist Piers “Morgan” Moron. The first fortnight of The Percy Moron Show began well, with a well received interview with Oprah, but by the Thursday of Week Two, reached its nadir when Percy was reduced to quizzing the Kardashian sisters on whether their breasts were genuine.

Moreover, during that period, the show’s ratings went from over two million to just under half a million, and Moron’s main rivals for 9pm ET viewers, Sean Hannity at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) and Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, had their numbers largely unaffected by the new order at CNN.

Protagonists: Sean Hannity at Fox ...

Percy might have scored top slot on his first night, but Fox had lined up “tea party” favourite Sarah Palin (who is, of course, also on the Fox payroll) for an hour’s softball with Hannity: this undoubtedly helped his ratings.

... Rachel Maddow at MSNBC ...

And from that point, it has been mainly downhill: it took just two more days for Moron to fall to third behind Maddow, and even though he regained second spot the next day, his show continued to lose viewers.

... and Piers "Morgan" Moron at CNN

One bright spot was that viewer numbers picked up last Friday, but this show was – as Larry King was every night – live. And the numbers should have been better, as Moron was anchoring the CNN coverage from Egypt: this is the kind of set piece news event that gets viewers turning to CNN, but not so many of them did.

Viewer numbers in thousands

The signs are not good. Even moving Joy Behar’s show on sister network HLN to 10pm ET – this programme beat Larry King on the Tuesday of his last week – hasn’t helped. And Moron’s talk of the reach of CNN across the world is hot air – just how many captive viewers in airport departure lounges are bothered who is on the screen?

Self publicity only takes you so far. To build an audience, and keep it, is something you have to work at. Whether Percy is up to working that much harder only time will tell.

[UPDATE: better late than never, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, has miraculously hit upon the less than stellar viewing figures for CNN's new 9pm ET weekday host. It has taken him almost six months so to do. Pity about the grotty photos of Hannity and Maddow, though]