Brown explains his Ethical Foreign Policy to Gaddafi

I know that you have to deal with unsavoury characters as PM, but Labour had a policy of positively cosying up to Gaddafi. Given current events Brown is probably hoping that photographic evidence of contacts with the genocidal dictator won't emerge.

Oh dear:

Why Libya and not Burma?

Why Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and not Burma or North Korea? There is one factor that marks out the last two that is not present in the first three; the status and role of the army. In Burma and North Korea the army is integral to the State. Burma is run by the army. The leaders of North Korea hold rank in the army and the senior generals sit on the highest committees in the land. For the Arab countries the army is separate from the ruling party, and is a distinct and separate institution. In Egypt and Tunisia the armies are relatively powerful and designed to fulfil their role of protecting the country. In Libya, the army is relatively weak and not trusted by the ruling elite. This explains the Chadian mercenary units, the hiring of mercenaries being a classic tactic of rulers who doubt the loyalty of their own forces.

What this all means is the answer to this simple question: will the army fire on its own people? In the case of Burma and North Korea, no-one really doubts the answer. Both states have histories of using their armies for brutal internal repression. In the Arab countries the answer is no, and that is the basic reason why Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali are now in need of alternative employment. In Libya the answer also appears to be no, but Gaddafi's use of mercenaries has changed the dynamic. If you meet a peaceful demonstration with live heavy weapons fire from a bunch of foreigners then you had better think things through. Predictably, the Libyan army wasn't going to sit still while hired Chadians murdered their brothers and sisters. There is now a state of civil war in the country.

Of the many options open to him when the protests began it is actually possible that Gaddafi chose the worst, for both his country and for himself. By going with the Ceaușescu strategy there is a real chance that this will end with him and his family being put up against a wall and shot.

I suspect that there won't be too many tears if that happens.

West Ham clobbers Alastair Campbell

I am a West Ham fan. I am also a football fan, in that I will watch any decent team because I just like to see the game played well. Last night I didn't have to stray from my favourite team though because the boys in claret and blue were playing Burnley in the FA Cup. As anyone who follows that competition knows, West Ham won 5-1. What was even more satisfying was that the TV cameras picked out lifelong Burnley fan Alastair Campbell in the crowd looking a little sad.

Campbell is the former Director of Communications and Strategy to Tony Blair. He was also the man who debased British politics with a culture of lies, including the web of deception that fooled the Commons into voting for the Iraq war. His poison extended to the last election, where he tried to spin the line that Labour hadn't actually lost in an effort to keep Gordon Brown in power.

God knows what he is doing now, maybe lying to himself in the mirror of a morning just to keep in practice.

Labour Control Freakery kills their own media operation

Have you been wondering why so few Labour talking heads appear in the media? Certainly, their absence is very noticeable. We often get government ministers on Sky or the BBC without any response from their supposed shadows, and media items actually originating with a Labour figure, with the exception of Ed Miliband, are non-existent. Well, the Mail has the answer. Apparently, if you are a Labour shadow minister who wants to do any kind of media you have to fill in a form and get it approved by the Leader's office first. No, I am not making this up.

For those of you who haven't dealt with broadcast journalists what you tend to get is a phone call asking you to appear on their radio or TV programme at a particular slot and usually at quite short notice. Picture the scene: call to Labour Shadow Minister at 07:00, "hello can you do a slot at 09:00 to reply to William Hague on the situation in Libya"? Response, "er, OK", frantic search for form, furious scribble, desperate delivery to designated person outside of office hours, doesn't get returned in time and, "Sky Newsroom? Really sorry but I can't make it this morning, something desperately important has come up...". So, William Hague gets a clear run because no-one makes him fill in any kind of a form and the Labour party manages to drop the ball yet again.

The only thing that surprises me is that the Shadow Cabinet did not collectively tell Ed to shove off.

Council Non-jobs, Eric Pickles gets tough

The government's latest issue with Local Authorities is non-jobs. These, of course, are local government jobs that most people add limited value to, well, anything. The best examples of these are from our old friends at Manchester City Council, the same people who seem to enjoy cutting their own services because they get to blame the government about it, with the following:

Nuclear Free Local Authorities Secretariat Policy and Research Officer - salary up to £37,543, job description: Identifying nuclear hazards and pressing for existing binding international agreements on nuclear weapons;

and

New Media Manager - salary up to £38,000, job description: Facebook and Twitter Tsar, providing presence on social networking sites and other web tasks.

These roles are clearly bonkers, but sometimes Local Government is its own worst enemy. Jobs are advertised with descriptions in Council-speak so that they are incomprehensible to human beings. There is also the depressing tendency to try and reflect every aspect of a job in the job title, which leads to a title that is several sentences of gibberish long.

Eric Pickles does have a point though. Earlier this week I was told that Basildon Borough Council had been criticised because we do not employ a Tourism Officer. Now, I love this area, and I would be first to sing its numerous virtues to an outsider, but a Tourism Officer? I don't think so. Apparently though we are the only Council in Essex without one.

Think on that for a moment.

Forests PMQs - Less Questions and Answers and more a mugging

Wednesday saw Prime Minister's questions in the House of Commons. As a Tory I found it thoroughly entertaining, but I shudder to think what a Labour Party member would have thought. Now Ed Miliband is clearly a bright bloke but his performance on Wednesday was, frankly, appalling. He started by selectively quoting the former Cabinet Office Chief Economist, who was critical of the government on youth unemployment. Oddly enough, he left out the bit when the same man criticised the previous Labour government. The problem with quote mining is that if the other chap has the rest of the quotes then you can be made to look a fool. David Cameron did and so Ed was.

All I can conclude is that his question entirely came from a recent article in The Guardian, which, oddly enough, took a bit of an anti-government line. There was clearly no cross check with other media sources. Someone on Ed's staff needs a motivational talk at the very least.

Things actually got worse when Ed asked if the Prime Minister was happy with the proposed privatisation of England's forests. The answer was 'no'. Now it was obvious that Ed was not expecting this and so his follow up material was useless, but he tried to use it anyway, which was a very bad move. What he should have done is changed tack, thanked the Prime Minister for listening, asked for the timescales for a formal announcement, in fact just about anything other than use his prepared questions. He didn't, and was efficiently kebabbed by David Cameron as a result.

The same person on Ed's staff needs to consider that a question to the Prime Minister might not always yield the expected answer, or not. I am quite enjoying things as they are.

Votes on Council Officer salaries over £100k

Eric Pickles is clearly the energiser bunny of the government. It seems that barely a day goes by without another policy announcement on Local Government, and today is no different. The latest idea is that if a Council is to award a salary of over £100K then there must be a vote at Full Council to authorise it.

It is easy to see the downsides of this, and interview subjects have been mentioning this morning on radio and television. Firstly, it will be pretty intrusive and embarrassing for the new hire or promotion to have their salary debated at a public meeting where dozens of people will be present. Secondly, it is easy to imagine people who don't really understand executive pay getting over-excited by the whole process, and thirdly it will absolutely make senior officer pay the stuff of politics. All true, but the current system of closed-door meetings has led to astonishing salary inflation in the public sector, and debating and voting on senior salaries in public will no doubt have a dampening effect on salary levels in the future. There is also the basic principle that as much Council business should be transacted in public and attached to a democratic process.

Transparency and accountability are good antidotes to bad decisions.

Council 'Fat Cat' Salaries

Let us get something very clear: some of the top people in Local Government are grossly overpaid. It is impossible to justify salaries of over £200k for the senior staff of any Council, on the basis of the market alone, never mind against the fact that the Prime Minister only earns £142k.

Now, the argument has always been that you need the best people in important jobs, and you do. Further, the number to people who are genuinely talented enough to build and run a complex organisation is quite limited, but it is not that limited. Saving a few tens of thousands of pounds on a salary in order to employ second-best will certainly end up costing you more, maybe much more. However, it is a bit of leap from this to the vast remuneration some Council Chief Executives earn. Then you get people like Richard Kemp, the vice-chairman of the Local Government Association. He was reported as saying:

Running councils is significantly more complicated than running a private company. They may find themselves dealing with cases like Baby P one minute and a £1 billion private investment the next. Most council executives are worth what they are paid.

This is world-class drivel. The idea that a Council is inherently more complex than a private company is rubbish, and the examples given of activities are easily replicated in the Private Sector. Baby P was a particularly unfortunate example. Did he forget that the highly-paid Local Authority staff actually failed completely and the poor child died? An example of Council excellence? Only if you are in a parallel universe.

What we are dealing with is the hangover from huge explosion of public sector costs courtesy of the former Labour government. This needs to be unwound, and good job for the government for facing the issue.

I will say though, the attention paid to this matter seems to me to be at least because it is easily understood. The sums involved are high, but not compared to a typical Council budget. The real financial problems in Local Authority finance are much deeper than high-end salaries.

Council Finance trouble

Big article in The Sunday Times today on local government finance, which I can't link to because of their paywall. It deals primarily with the reduction in government support for Councils and their reaction to it. It also analyses the explosion of highly paid posts in local government that occurred under the last government.

What is going on is that the government is, quite rightly, reducing spending and local government is having to share in this. Good Councils that control costs and run balanced budgets can take this, not easily perhaps, but it is not a disaster. Basildon Borough Council is in this category. Bad Councils that have stumbled along for years with a high cost base and poor financial controls are in trouble. So, we see the appalling example of Manchester City Council, who are almost gleefully cutting services while blaming the government, and others who are nearly as bad.

My expectation is that this year will be sound and fury, but next year will be the crunch when the second round of reductions in government funding hit. At that point it is actually possible that some of the worst Councils will implode. A lot of people don't seem to get this, local authority finance is a complex, dry subject after all. So, instead there is a lot of chat about excessive salaries and Council newspapers, because they are easy to understand.

The reality is much, much worse.

Basildon Borough Heading for a zero Council Tax

Times are tough is local government finance. Thanks to our previous Labour government the country is strapped for cash, and so the coalition is having to cut support to Councils. For Basildon this means reducing our costs, and very sadly having to reduce our staff numbers by up to 100. This last is very regrettable. We have excellent officers and redundancy is a horrible thing to inflict on anyone. In general though, the prudent financial management of Basildon Council down the years means that we are able to get through this without hitting front-line services.

We also don't want to take the easy option of hitting the Council-taxpayer either. The government is helping out with that, with a deal that if we keep the notional increase to 2.5%, they will fund it down to zero. So, for 2011, we won't be raising the Council Tax in Basildon. This is great news for local people, many of whom are still hit hard from the recession and the squeeze from Labour's disastrous handling of the economy. As is heard fairly often in TV adverts - every little helps.