Tuesday prospects
- 13 Nov 07, 10:59 AM
Today's programme editor is Dan Kelly - here's his early e-mail to the programme team:
Good morning.
Some good stories today.
The ±«Óătv Office have been accused of a cover up, after leaked e-mails suggest that the ±«Óătv Office was warned four months ago that thousands of illegal immigrants had been cleared to work in security jobs, some in Whitehall. One of the memos from Jacqui Smith's private secretary talks about holding back the information because "she did not think the lines we have are good enough for Press Office or Ministers to use to explain the situation." The story was finally leaked this Sunday to the Mirror. An attempt to bury bad news? What happened to Brown's spin free "new politics?" What are the real figures, and what type of jobs are we actually talking about?
In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto is under house arrest again. In interviews to the foreign press this morning, she has called for President Musharaff to step down from office and has said her party is "unlikely" to contest elections in January. Where does this leave the Washington/London strategy towards Pakistan, and can any kind of elections, let alone "free and fair" be held in these circumstances?
Rolling strikes on the railways are due to begin in France tonight over pension reform. Other public sector workers will join in over the coming days. Is this Sarkozy's "Thatcher moment?" Or will he bend as Chirac did famously in 1995. Allan Little is in Paris.
We have an interview with the Aga Khan on his attempts to restore ancient Islamic art.
Other stories today include inflation higher than expected, we'll watch bird flu and is can Newsnight gain any friends on Bebo???
Other ideas, treatments? Guest suggestions?
See you at 10.30
Dan
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>>"she did not think the lines we have are good enough for Press Office or Ministers to use to explain the situation<<
maybe you could run a competition to help them out?
what lines would Shakespeare write?
Love Labours Lost
Enter ±«Óătv Secretary and advisers to speak to the waiting crowd.
±«Óătv Secretary :'They who love us should we not love return? If one friend brings joy, what then many friends? I bring great news of increase in our friends.
More helping hands to ease the daily grind. I will not number them. Do friends need a paper to say they are friends? Is friendship illegal? Or help or joy? And who can count love? In friends our green Island is heaven blessed. Rejoice and let us press them to our breast.
Exit pursued by media.
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Mansion House was a very dull film indeed and the Sarkozy theory is so old hat now past it.
Is Malcolm Rifkind the only commentator the ±«Óătv can get these days ?
He seems to be on everything and after a while it gets boring listening and watching him.
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Dear Newsnight
Story idea, not original
• Could Newsnight find out how many MPs went privately for medical treatment rather than the NHS when given the choice?
Q- Would standards in the NHS improve if MPs had to use it?
Q- Similarly with public transport? How many MPs take the care, benefiting from a good mileage allowance?
Q- If they had to use trains would the service improve?
Q- Should MPs have to use the services for which they are responsible?
Q- What are the numbers? Special emphasis on Government ministers
• and very specifically ONLY looking at what the MPs do personally, leaving their families totally out of it.
The first responsibility for a parent is to do the best for their child and their families so for me looking at say which schools MPs children go to is totally out of bounds as is anything concerned with their families,
best wishes
Bob
Perhaps there isn’t a story here with MPs using all the public services all of the time
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"cost of war (in Iraq)" - feature noted in the Newsletter.
Early on after the conflict started we heard good coverage of how utilities were/were not being restored. That's never mentioned any more.
Is it time Newsnight reviewed whether practical life has got any better/worse, not just the death toll and security.
I would also add, where is the oil revenue up to now; is Iraq in sight of being self financing yet (or do the Americans take such a cut there's not enough left!!)
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JACQUI SMITH IS AN MP - (as defined below)
(All sequences enclosed ** are verbatim from the Parliament website. E&OE)
The Parliament website tells us under *”The responsibilities of your MP”* that: *At times a constituent’s demands may conflict with party policy and your MP will have to decide where their FIRST LOYALTY lies.* Setting aside the somewhat pejorative use of “demands” painting punters in a negative light, section III of the Members’ Code of Conduct (described as the *nearest approximation* they offer, to an MP job-description) it says, around the 9th paragraph: *Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest, and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.* At first sight this looks as if we (“the public”) are in with a shout. However, after telling us – above under “Responsibilities” – about “loyalty judgements” that the MP is faced with, the next sentence makes clear that the said MP might reasonably act in the knowledge that *a majority of constituents would support the party policy – after all (an arresting couplet) that is likely to be one of the reasons why they elected him or her.* If I infer correctly: the MP, warm in the (apparently) undeniable probability that (despite a multifaceted manifesto) “a majority” of constituents are behind the party in all things, is properly empowered to put party first, as this MUST amount to “the public interest”.
By my analysis, two facts emerge from the above: (1) An MP has no ultimate duty to their constituents. (2) When soliciting votes, at election-time, the bearer of the
party-favour is a mere cipher – a
party “rosette stand” – as I have always asserted.
This is never unequivocally declared when a candidate solicits votes.
In no sense of the words can the above be termed “representative democracy”.
Is it any wonder our MPs treat us with contempt?
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