Michael White's Blog, page 42

Cornwall does not need permission to feel different it is different

Westminster needs to do more than grant 'national minority' status to impress county with history of voting for party of protest

Were people dancing in the narrow streets of Cornwall's towns and villages on Thursday as news filtered through that the government in distant London had finally agreed to grant the Cornish and their Brythonic Celtic language "national minority" status like the Scots and Welsh? Not that you'd notice. When a late Easter confirms the start of the main tourist season most locals are too busy making their living.

When I spotted the headline "It's official: the Cornish are Different" next to the black and white Cornish flag on the front page of the Western Morning News, my friendly St Ives newsagent broke into a broad smile. "My dad would have been so proud of this moment," she said. She was proud, too. It wouldn't change much, but it is a good moment.

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George Osborne's gamble: is it paying off?

A year ago, the chancellor was still living down his 'omnishambles' budget and critics doubted his economic plan could ever work. But now he is claiming success for some recovery and seeing his own stock rise. What's behind the change in fortunes?

George Osborne has a spring in his step. A well-received budget, a growing economy, a fighting chance of winning the election, the opportunity to stick it to his critics. If, as they say, revenge is a dish best served cold, the chancellor has been plating up a large helping in the past few weeks. But between now and the general election of 7 May 2015 so much could go wrong for David Cameron and his closest cabinet pal a Blair/Brown partnership without the rivalry and suspicion that Osborne must wake in a sweat at night thinking about it.

It's not just the UK's fragile economic recovery, which could be knocked off course by renewed problems in any number of places, from the ailing eurozone to rising nationalist tensions in Asia, not to mention the new cold-war-style standoff over the integrity of Ukraine's borders. At home, Ukip's populist panaceas ("quit Europe, end immigration") enjoy rising popularity among disaffected Conservative voters who see the presiding duo as metropolitan posh boys; "greedy elitists" who don't know the price of milk.

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Veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell to stand down, sparking battle for seat

Great Grimsby MP calls on Ed Miliband to 'mix with ordinary people more' as he announces he will quit

The veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell has called on Ed Miliband to "get out and mix with ordinary people more" as he announced he will stand down from his Great Grimsby seat at the next election.

The 80-year-old MP said he was stepping aside "basically because of age" after 37 years representing the area. It comes after rumours that he was intending to step down to free up the seat for Melanie Onns, a former head of compliance at Labour party headquarters.

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How did Cyril Smith outfox the law? | Michael White

Cunning, bombast and like Jimmy Savile friends in high places. Was that enough to cover up the former Rochdale Liberal MP's child sex abuse?

While reading Daily Mail extracts from Labour MP Simon Danczuk's chilling exposé of the paedophile career of his Rochdale predecessor, the late Cyril Smith, I have been racking my brains: did I ever speak to Smith as a young Westminster reporter in the 70s when rumours of sexual misconduct first surfaced?

I certainly don't remember doing so. Why should I? Whichever way you looked at Smith, he seemed an unsavoury character, a loud-mouthed, unreliable and manipulative bully and a political populist of no discernibly fixed convictions not an MP to have a drink with and discuss the future of social democracy or post-industrial blight in Lancashire cotton towns. Smith led the Cyril Smith party. That was it really.

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Michael White's diary: Dig deep for Clinton, if not the miners

Can a Reagan-age Hillary save us from a third mediocre Bush in the White House?

So Britain's deep-mine coal industry, which once employed a million people, goes belly-up (again). But never mind, says smug business minister Michael Fallon. There's plenty of cheap imported coal out there, and not all from Russia either. Such airy assurances are what they gave us over Royal Mail's flotation and back in the 90s on the need to switch to diesel to meet EU carbon emission targets. It was going to be cheaper and cleaner, and have a better mpg, remember? Now we're hooked we're told the CO2 savings were small but diesel's NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) and particle pollution is choking our cities, and us. Green groups, scientists and governments were too focused on climate change, not air. Think more holistically there.

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Michael White's diary: Yes, it's Nigel Farage's United Kingdom Expenses party

From Brussels to Yorkshire, the Kippers have shown that at heart they are a traditional bunch of commonsense trough gobblers

So get rid of Maria Miller and vote Ukip for an end to political hypocrisy and expenses greed? Not exactly. Nigel Farage cheerfully admits to his participation in the Great Euro-Gravy Train robbery to the tune of £2m of expenses since 1999 far more than Ronnie Biggs managed from his 1963 caper. Some fellow-Kipper MEPs do even better, and all this on top of their £79k salaries in a job they all despise, especially the work bit. One was jailed for fraud (£36k diverted to cars and wine), another for benefit fiddling (£65k). That's an even higher proportion than Labour considering Ukip currently has seven MEPs, after losing six to pub sulks and defections since 2009.

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Maria Miller's resignation is a shallow victory for the media oligarchs | Michael White

The self-righteous anger against the resigned culture secretary reveals a process debilitative to elective and accountable politics and the ineptitude of Cameron's government

Michael Gove sounded shaken on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday morning, as well he might be. The education secretary had agreed to appear on the Today programme to talk about GCSE reform and found himself, totally unbriefed, defending David Cameron's defeat in his attempt to save Maria Miller's cabinet career. She had resigned within the hour.

This is a victory for public revulsion against her conduct and the wider privileges perceived to be enjoyed by the political class. The terms of their pay and conditions modest by the standards of the metropolitan plutocracy enrage voters far more than those of investment bankers whose greedy and irresponsible conduct has damaged the same voters far more. The City still hold us all to ransom.

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Michael White's diary: Murdoch and Modi and an unlikely matchmaker

Rupert and Narendra are a lovely couple. Deng Xiaoping must have felt the romance in the air

Not even Rupert Murdoch's closest admirer (R Murdoch) would deny that the old boy loves to be on the winning side. Pro-commie in Beijing, capitalist in New York, populist in London (and Edinburgh), he is at Narendra Modi's side as the Hindu nationalist BJP leader cruises towards victory in India's protracted general election. Not literally, but in publishing Brit Andy Marino's admiring ("I found him to be very good company") biography of Modi, handily out this month under HarperCollins imprint.

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Michael White's diary: Cameron's favouring some very small businesses. Bottles of Fairy Liquid all round

So you only need a cleaner once a week to clean up from the PM's employment allowance. A Charlie Brooks could be just the way to celebrate

A wholesome tip for hard-pressed employers or a new low in political PR? You decide. But David Cameron has just signed off on almost 2 million letters reminding small businesses and charities that they may qualify for up to £2,000 worth in national insurance rebates. Under the new employment allowance they can use their share of a £2bn tax cut to hire new staff or invest. "Britain through some very tough years endured one of the biggest bank bailouts long term plan private sector-led recovery [etc etc]" Dave's feelgood letter reads like a Tory party election leaflet. But it's a government document on Downing Street notepaper, paid for by guess who (you). It's also gone to some very small employers indeed: including households whose cleaner comes once a week.

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What MPs do with their doughnuts

There are often strange goings-on in the House of Commons. Roaring when the prime minister slides on to the frontbench is a ritual but is circling or 'doughnutting', as colleagues did with Maria Miller, a new tactic?

Since the arrival of TV cameras inside the Victorian neo-gothic chamber of the House of Commons in 1989, after years of resistance, voters have become accustomed to the little tribal rituals that unite as well as divide elected MPs. They roar their "hear, hears" of approval, heckle or jeer at rivals, and for reasons to long to explain here howl like wolves at a full moon when Desmond Swayne, Conservative MP for New Forest West, Hampshire, rises to speak. But what do these rituals mean?

It is easy to mock, but most forms of association have them, even football supporters and accountants. So viewers will have understood last week when they saw Tory colleagues providing a supportive circle of suitably solemn faces around the culture secretary, Maria Miller, when she made her 32-second statement to MPs over her expenses lapses.

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