Liberal Burblings

Archive for May, 2010

I was flicking through YouTube the other day and was pleasantly surprised to see several recent live videos of the Scottish rock group Nazareth. They had a few hits in the early seventies but it is marvellous that they are still going strong with two of their original line-up including lead singer Dan McCafferty. My favourite from them is “Shanghai’d in Shanghai”. The original record version is below together with a live version from Norway in 2006.

Nazareth are currently touring over the next few months in Austria, Germany, Norway and Canada.

I’ve just sent an email to the Guardian’s Readers’ Editor, for the Corrections and Clarifications column. I’ll let the email speak for itself:

Dear Reader’s Editor

Guardian main supplement Saturday 29th May 2010 Page 27
Simon Hoggart’s week – picture at bottom of column 1

This photo is captioned as “Fowey, Cornwall”. In fact, it is a photograph of Polruan, Cornwall.

With best wishes
Paul Walter

…Guido lost £500 on a bet that David Laws would stay in  his cabinet post.

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to raise a grin at that….think of all the Guinness you could buy with £500!

…or maybe a fruit & veg vendor? One does wonder when one reads the strapline to the lead story on Page 1:

No 10 seeks to reassure markets as Lib Dem’s (sic) worry at loss of influence

Over the years, the main things I have learnt about David Laws is that he is extremely rich and extremely intelligent. A double first in economics from Cambridge, a VP at JP Morgan at 22 and multi-millionaire at 28. But he goes and does something which is mind-blowingly stupid. If he felt so strongly that he didn’t want to reveal his sexuality, he could have paid his own rent without claiming it. So why didn’t he? Why did he, since 2006, play with fire, relying on a finely nuanced interpretation of the rules which would have taken an extremely expensive barrister to argue successfully?…And that fire turned into an almighty conflagration waiting to burst into flames when he took over the Treasury secretary role. Why did he not do anything about it earlier? It is utterly baffling.

BBC Parliament yesterday repeated Osborne and Laws’ statements when they announcement the £6 billion cuts recently. There was Laws, at tremendous length, describing very precisely what cuts he would demand on, for example, things like rail fares for public servants.

It was then that I realised, with shattering clarity, that Laws had done the right thing, with great dignity, in standing down right away. He could not have gone on cutting jobs and expenditure while having this was hanging over him. It’s tremendously sad and I feel great sympathy for Laws and his friend during this terrible time. It’s a great loss for the country, as David Laws was almost uniquely to drag us out of the deficit in a humane way.

But, one has to say, all the Oxbridge double firsts in the world don’t seem to stop people doing the most unbelievably mind-numbingly stupid things.

And yes, I have changed my tune from yesterday. So there.

And yes, the answer to the question in the title above is that we all do stupid things sometimes, myself definitely included. Unfortunately all the degrees, money and position in the world don’t innoculate us humble humans from stupidity.

When we finally hear what the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has to say on the David Laws’ case we’ll finally know the truth of the episode.

I feel intensely sorry for David Laws and his friend. It seems that a desire to keep their private life private may – may – have caused a misjudgment by Laws.

I suspect his resignation was inevitable in the end. I am sure Laws will bounce back.

What is a great shame is that David Laws was almost uniquely placed to pull the UK out of its financial deficit in a humane way.