Verboten to photograph the Fuhrer

We used to mock the Germans for the devotion to the outward forms of authority. Back in the days when everything was allowed which was not forbidden, and when Britons were allowed to make their own assessments of risk, we laughed at Fritz because he would do nothing without a notice to tell him he was allowed to and felt adrift if his next step was not laid out in a manual.

Brown the waster tells us not to waste

Hypocrisy is New Labour’s prime characteristic, and Gordon “Heathcliff” Brown’s injunction to us all not to waste anything is a fine example of Labour - and specifically Brownite - hypocrisy

We are, apparently, throwing away £1bn of food each year. That is indeed something to be corrected, with implications well beyond the £420 per family which a Whitehall study has alleged. It deprives others, it generates waste and it inflates the profits of the supermarkets. It is nothing, however, to what Gordon Brown has wasted.

Caring too much to care about children

Two stories in Monday’s Times show how some of those who affect to care about children are much more interested in the appearance of caring and in the alleged purity of their views than in the actual effect of their actions on the children. Both are cases of do-gooders doing obvious harm.

The first article was headed Price of healthier school meals may be just too high for many. It is about new nutrition regulations which will come into force later this year and which require schools to provide details of calories, fat and nutrients in each meal. As with everything else from this government, there are targets for these things, and with them an extra expense which must be borne by the schools, the parents or the caterers.

Two FGW trains on time in one day proves a one-off

It was (lack of) service as usual on First Great Western on the day after an unprecedented piece of good time-keeping. If FGW paid as much attention to providing a service as they do protecting their revenue, we might be happier to contribute to their profits.

Something quite outside my experience occurred last week. My First Great Western train into London and the one which brought me out both ran to time.

This is like those fabled happenings which one hears of but never quite believes – Gordon Brown is not always unpleasant to everyone he meets; Ed Balls can let a day go by without either launching an “initiative” or filing an expenses claim; there is a highways officer at Oxfordshire County Council with an IQ in double figures; a Phoenix has been seen in Oxford. None of these seems in the least plausible, but if FGW can run two trains on time in one day then anything is possible.

New Labour and BSI tree inspections

My post yesterday on the proposal by the British Standards Institute that there be compulsory examination of trees at three-yearly and five-yearly intervals (BSI urges new trough for tree inspectors) brings me a comment this morning:

BSI are running short of business at the moment, with many manufacturing companies going out of business. This is a bit of marketing for them. Like the article says, just to Labour’s taste

I thought it worth following up both strands raised here - the suggestion that this sort of nonsense benefits BSI directly and NuLabour’s view, if any, on it.

BSI urges new trough for tree inspectors

One of the most despised features of the Blair-Brown years is the number of busybodies who get their noses into the trough by inciting new inspection regimes in areas which pose no significant risk. The latest is trees which, the British Standards Institution urge, should be subject to checking by a “trained person” every three years and to a full “expert inspection” by an arboriculturalist every five years. There will, of course, be hefty fees payable for this.

Labour lies about rats in rubbish

One of the least appealing aspects of the Blair-Brown administrations - in a very long list of unappealing things - is the institutional dishonesty which these two men and their advisers have brought to government. The dishonesty comes with added hypocrisy since both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, in their different ways, have expressly laid claim to a religious and moral basis to their lives.

This dishonesty is not just morally wrong. One is left gaping sometimes at the political stupidity of lying about subjects on which you are bound to be found out sooner or later, particularly things which, however important, are not matters on which governments fall. Governments are entitled to make some mistakes, to experiment, to assess the consequences, and to accept they got it wrong. What loses the votes is the persistent feeling that we are being lied to daily on every subject.

All announcements and no information at FGW

It would be useful (for the passengers at least) if the people who run First Great Western stations were to spend some time standing around on platforms, like the rest of us have to, totting up the ratio between the endless announcements thrown at us and the information actually conveyed by them.

They would find that, like the notices erected by the dumb animals who work in local authorities, and the stream of nannying advice poured over us by government and its many agencies, the value of the messages is in inverse proportion to their quantity.

Blears smears Oxford estate

A few days ago, Hazel Blears’ spokesman said that she supported “whatever the Prime Minister said”. Who would say that now?

Not everything which pours from Hazel Blears’ mouth is nonsense, and her observation in a recent speech that “brutal, ugly buildings and estates contribute to crime, antisocial behaviour and social exclusion” is quite correct. She made two mistakes.

One is that New Labour has been responsible for plenty of brutal, ugly building, much of it on grass, including former school playing fields. The opposition which it faces to its house-building programme derives largely from the certainty that most of the result will be hideous, as well as badly planned and divorced from the infrastructure which would make the houses work.

Got nothing to say? Send for Harman

There was not much Labour could say as the extent of the overnight debacle in the local elections became clear. If there is not much to say, Harriet Harman is just the person you need to say it, and the mere fact that it was Harman who was sent out to speak on the Today programme this morning was evidence enough that Labour was lost for words.

She was eloquent and fluent as streams of nothing poured from her mouth. John Humprys was gentle with her in a way he would not have been with, say, Geoff Hoon or Hazel Blears or any of the others from the substitutes bench who might have been sent out on New Labour’s behalf. It would be like kicking a dandelion.