CentreRight

We often hear the Cottesmore Harriers from our garden, and see them when we are out walking. It's always good to know they are there; they are the sight and sound of courage. Cottesmore village is a few miles away, over the county boundary into Rutland. Our son goes to Cubs there, in an ugly scout hut behind a very pretty pub, close to a fish and chip shop that's worth driving out of your way to visit. The RAF base is a vital part of the community, and the largest employer in Rutland. Its closure will have a massive impact. It has a human cost; people will be hurt as a result. 70% of the fish and chip shop's business comes from the base. Other businesses and jobs depend on it as well.

I'll leave it to others to look at the Defence implications of this. My point is a different one. Public services will inevitably be cut over the next few years. People will lose their jobs. Families and communities will be damaged. Some of the jobs that go may be unproductive and unnecessary in Conservative eyes, although it's unlikely the people who lose them will think that. But whatever the job or the organisation that is cut, the human cost must be acknowledged. Boris Johnson put this powerfully at the party conference this year: where there must be cuts, he said, do it with humanity and compassion, recognise the price people must pay.

Which is where Quentin Davies went wrong today: If we can get by with fewer bases that will be a very good thing to do. We don't have bases for the sake of having bases, you know; they are not an end in themselves. We have bases where it is necessary to contribute to our defence capability. His tone, complacent; pride in being a Minister, self-evident; compassion for those affected by his decision, zero.

His offensiveness is especially culpable not just because he also today laughed off his £20,000 bell-tower repair claim as an "absolute joke." Nor because this decision has been driven not by defence considerations but by the incompetence, spectacular even by the standards of this government, with which the Defence budget has been set and spent. It is because Quentin Davies represents the next door constituency to Cottesmore. Some of his own constituents work there. But I doubt he realises that.

I am not amongst Quentin Davies's greatest fans. But his recent career should be studied closely by all would-be MPs and Ministers, lest they follow his example in any way.

If the next parliament runs its full course, about 3 million people will die in the United Kingdom. Millions more of us will be bereaved. That this is our future is the one thing that we all definitely have in common. Yet in general terms we are very bad at talking about it. Death and dying has often been described as the last taboo left standing in the West.

This has consequences. Making sure everybody has good end of life care hasn't been a major public and political priority, although that is now beginning to change. Services haven't been designed to enable people to get the care they want, when and where they need it. Most of us won't die where we want to (home in most cases); instead most of us die in hospital. Over half of the most serious complaints about acute hospitals concern end of life care.

The Dying Matters coalition has just been set up to raise public awareness about death, dying and bereavement and help us all become much better-informed and more confident about talking about and planning end of life care. Ultimately the aim is to change societal behaviour - talk needs to bear fruit. A good death should become the norm.

So this is really important. Do come to our fringe meeting at the Party conference. The panel includes;

• Nadine Dorries MP
• Anne Milton (Shadow Health Minister)
• Paul Woodward (Chief Executive, Sue Ryder Care)
• (me!)  Simon Chapman (National Council for Palliative Care)

Tuesday 7.30-9.00. Charter 2, Manchester Central (GMEX). Food & drink will be served. It would be great to see you there.

More details are here: Download Conservatives

Some of us pay income tax directly; others have the money removed under PAYE before it ever arrives in our bank account. Having been self-employed for most of my working life, I have had to write an income tax & national insurance cheque twice a year. I have had to write other cheques as well, like VAT.  It's been a painful but important experience. I have always known precisely how much of my earnings were going on tax, and have had to hand them over physically. It felt very different to having them collected for me by my employer. That deadens the pain; it removes the personal link.

There is a sense in which paying tax isn't personal enough for many people. There's an awareness of being taxed, a knowledge that almost everything is taxed, but what's missing is the physical act of having to pay.

Making everyone pay their own income tax directly would transform our attitudes to being taxed. It's almost certainly not practicible, at least immediately (although any comments about that would be really interesting). However there may be ways of emphasising the point, by issuing employees with very clear statements along the lines of:
"Dear John/Jane Smith: the following taxes and deductions have been deducted from your pay this month: Income Tax  £XXXX; National Insurance £YYY. This totals £ZZZZ and represents AA% of your income this month."

Spelling it out isn't as painful as having to pay it. But it's a step in the right direction. As is this remarkable effort by a hairdresser who is telling his customers precisely how much of the (substantial) bills he charges are made up by taxes - almost 50%. His overall charges, and the amount taken up by taxes, are hair-raising.

Hat tip: Burning our money

Ian Birrell has a profoundly disabled daughter. He has seen the NHS at its best and at its worst. He wrote powerfully about the impact this has had on his political views back in 2005, when David Cameron became party leader. He writes again today, detailing the ways in which he and his family have been inexcusably let down as well as wonderfully well-served. His final point is that it is precisely because our health service is so important that we need to be clear-eyed about its faults and ruthless about remedying them:

"My daughter is still alive, for which I give thanks to the support, dedication and friendship of many in the health service. But it is precisely because I am such a fervent admirer that I believe it is so shameful that the NHS is allowed to limp on in its current state. For too many people, especially many of those most in need of its help, it is something of a disaster zone. The NHS is a sick institution, and cheap political point-scoring will do nothing to solve the problems. We need to find a cure."

Do read the whole thing. Love is not blind. It is not the same as sentimentality. It can be tough. It is honest. It celebrates what is good, and puts right what is not. You cannot love the NHS and leave it unreformed.

Just back from being away, and seeing all the column inches devoted to not debating the NHS, a question occurred. If Labour politicans are so attached to the NHS as it now is that they can tolerate no criticism, and so opposed to anything that might smack of a two-tier system, what do they think about people who have the temerity actually to use private health services? Either as self-funders or through health insurance. What do they think about employers who fund healthcare for their employees? Or self-employed people who fund it for themselves? Or Trade Unions, like Equity, which negotiate a BUPA discount for their members? Surely Labour must strongly disapprove.

Andrew Flintoff has been seeing lots of doctors recently. I have no direct knowledge, but would be absolutely astonished if any let alone all his recent medical treatment has been on the NHS. If it's alright for Flintoff and/or his employers at the ECB to pay for swift and expert treatment to get him fit for work as quickly as possible, rather than wait in line, why not the rest of us? I assume that most Labour politicians think it's a good thing Freddie is fit for the Oval tomorrow, but perhaps not?

Reports are that about 6.7 million people have health insurance. Back in 2001, Danny Kruger found that 3.5 million Trade Union members had private insurance (I haven't found a more up to date figure). And many others besides pay directly for treatment. That's an awful lot of voters.

This is what the government says: "I am also committing to you, in the way that the Prime Minister has, that we will continue to maintain growth in health spending in (2011-14)" - Andy Burnham, the very new Secretary of State for Health speaking today.

And yet...the NHS Confederation forecast today that "the impact of the recession, allied to rising costs mean it is likely the NHS will face a real terms shortfall of £15 billion".

But was the Confederation pulling its punches? Only £15 billion? (And why, by the way, did the BBC report it as forecasting a reduction of "only" £8 to £10 billion, when they had said £15 billion?) After all, the NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson, had published his annual report only a fortnight ago and went rather further (page 47) "We must be prepared for a range of scenarios, including the possibility that investment will be frozen for a time. We should also plan on the assumption that we will need to release unprecedented levels of efficiency savings between 2011 and 2014 – between £15 billion and £20 billion across the service over the three years. This is so that we can deal with changing demographics, the implementation of the regional visions and cost pressures in the system." (my emphasis)

Whatever politicians protest about protecting NHS funding after 2011, it's abundantly clear that the NHS leadership is planning for less in real terms, not more. David Nicholson does not sound there like a man preparing for growth. I am told he was even more emphatic when he actually presented the report. And this is widely understood. I have been at two Health conferences in the last fortnight, with funding and commissioning central to both agendas, and the starting premise at both was that the challenge over the next few years is doing more for less.

Rigging the way in which we elect our politicians won't change our disregard for what they say, so long they continue to remain in some parallel universe where public spending can remain unaffected in the face of unprecedented deficits. It will change when they level with us, speak the truth, and debate the future on the basis that everyone else, including the NHS leadership, is operating.

Will The Apprentice ever be the same again? What will he insist on being called by everybody? "Good morning, milord"?

As some resign and others don't, but only Purnell has the commitment to truth to say that Gordon Brown is finished, as Johnson sets up his campaign team and then accepts the job as Home Secretary, Miliband Major backs his failing foe Brown not his friend Purnell, as the Chancellor clings on leaving Balls and Woodward weeping in the shadows, and as we recall Frank Field's comments last year about the lack of political VCs on Labour's front bench, it's worth also remembering Tony Blair's parting advice at the 2006 Labour conference:

"The first rule of politics: there are no rules. You make your own luck.

….And if we show belief in ourselves, the British people will feel that belief and be given confidence…it's about a Party's character.

...You're the future now. Make the most of it."

Labour has very few leaders who are game-changers. They are reactive, shaped by events, not shaping them. Whatever happens over the next few days and weeks will happen to and despite of the Cabinet, not because of it. Even if Alan Johnson takes over at some point soon, he has already sacrificed his credibility. The force has left the Labour Party.

The Conservative Party should no longer worry about who leads the Labour Party into the next election (although clearly strategy may need adjustment). Our task now is to make sure we are elected with as much popular enthusiasm and goodwill as possible, not because we are not Labour. We will have a horrendous mess to fix, and will need all the electoral mandate and political capital we can muster.

David Cameron once told Blair "You were the future once". Reading Blair's words again, they are good advice for all politicans not just the Labour Party, including the man who perhaps even then Blair believed is the future now.

As I said last week, the way in which candidates for Speaker conduct their campaigns will speak volumes about their suitability for the job. Although MPs are the only electors in that vote it is imperative that candidates run their campaigns in the open, and make themselves and their ideas available for public scrutiny and support.

At that stage, Frank Field had already started to set out his stall and had announced his intention to publish his ideas. John Bercow published pieces in the Independent and Guardian the following day outlining his thoughts thus far. Ann Widdecombe is apparently prepared to be a temporary Speaker for the rest of this Parliament (she is due to retire then).  Nothing has been heard from any other potential prospects, so far as I am aware.

As he promised, Frank Field has now started to lay out his plans in more detail, with posts on his blog yesterday and today. Do read them: they are well-considered and radical, and have the potential to transform the power of our Parliament. Highlights include:

• Setting up a Government Budget Select Committee, with equal weight to the Public Accounts Committee. This is explicitly aimed at debt reduction.
• Establishing a House of Commons Business Committee to produce less but better legislation
• Requiring all non-emergency legislation to be preceded by a Green Paper, before presenting a draft Bill (by which time it is often too late to make significant changes), explaining why new legislation is required, identifying the costs it will impose, and inviting Select Committee involvement in drafting the Bill
• Devoting "what perhaps might be one or two days a week, to debating, deliberating, changing, and if need be, rejecting European legislation"
• Widespread use of open primaries to select candidates.

His whole approach shows that Frank Field has grasped the way in which this scandal is changing politics and must change Parliament. He wants, and deserves, to be our Speaker, not just the Speaker of the House of Commons. We should let our elected representatives know who we want.

Candidates for speaker aren't supposed to campaign are they? It's all hushed encounters in dark bars and quiet corners, soundings being taken on behalf of others, significant glances and unspoken words. There aren't really supposed to to be candidates even, in the sense that we understand "candidate" with people making a positive case for themselves. Somebody emerges after a vote and is dragged ever so reluctantly to the Chair (although Michael Martin didn't look that reluctant on the footage). This might explain why David Davis, Vince Cable and others are being so robustly reluctant, at this stage anyway.

But that's all seriously old politics now. Very closed-source. The Speaker had to go, because he didn't have the authority to restore public trust in the House of Commons. The next Speaker must have genuine credibility with the public as well as amongst MPs. That's not going to happen if candidates and MPs simply allow the process to be conducted internally amongst themselves. Candidates have the opportunity over the next month to do it all very differently: to engage with the public; to set out the principles they would apply and the reforms they would make; to be open to scrutiny and question; to seek open support from the public and from fellow MPs; to be, in a meaningful and transparent sense, candidates.

It is therefore shocking to see the Daily Mirror declare already that Labour MPs are likely to vote en masse for John Bercow. This is before we know who the contenders might be, let alone anything about what they might think. There is no positive case for him, at the moment. If the report is true, it shows that the parliamentary Labour Party still doesn't understand what open politics is all about, or how recent events have changed the way the Commons must operate. The new Speaker needs to have genuine cross-party support; this smacks of partisanship, even whipping. They know full well that John Bercow will have to work very hard indeed to persuade many of his Conservative colleagues that he would be suitable. John Bercow would be well-advised to distance himself from this, and all the party leaders and chief whips should publicly affirm that they will leave this contest to individual MPs.

Douglas Carswell, obviously. He has rightly emerged with great credit as somebody who cares deeply that we have an effective House of Commons. He understood the problem earlier than anyone else and so we should listen carefully to his analysis about how to put it right. Beware of attempts to dismiss him as a "maverick".

And also those who spoke out in the House of Commons on Monday.

However, the list of those who put their names to the no confidence motion makes interesting reading. 23 members signed it: 11 Conservatives; 8 Liberal Democrats; 4 Labour. None from the Nationalist parties. The UKIP Independent* MP, Bob Spink, was still praising the Speaker even after he had gone. Let's keep that in mind when the minor parties try to parade as "anti-politics".

A disproportionate number of signatories came from the 2005 intake: 12 altogether. 7 of them Conservative (Carswell, Hollobone, Main, Davies P, Davies DTC, Stuart, Walker) and 5 Liberal Democrat (Hemming, Featherstone, Swinton, Williams, Mulholland). None from Labour. Indeed the 4 Labour signatories were all old hands - the most recent entrant was Ian Gibson in 1997.

Conservatives Against Trident that is. And there’s an acronym we wouldn’t have expected  to see these many years past. But I don’t think it’s unfair. Yes we need to conduct a strategic defence review when we get into government. But any decision about Trident should be put in the context of our defence needs for a generation (by which I mean 25-30 years) not a parliament or two. And who’s to say what the world will look like in 2034? It’s still less than 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down (9 November this year is the anniversary for those who want to party hard). Energy and food shortages seem likely to create more threats not fewer.

It is deeply disquieting to see decisions about Trident being discussed in the context of political positioning, the gist of the “analysis” being that to sell spending cuts Conservatives need to be prepared to consider everything even our own “sacred cows”. National security isn’t a sacred cow. It’s national security. Meanwhile Health and International Development are said to be sacrosanct – new sacred cows perhaps?

Bloomberg's report on anger management inside the Downing Street bunker (which sounds increasingly  like Downfall, the main difference being it cost us considerably less to defeat Hitler and fight the Second World War than it did to have Gordon Brown as Chancellor and Prime Minister):

I'm intrigued: how do they find anything good to talk to him about, let alone two pieces of good news for every piece of bad news?

Where’s Mandy, asks Iain Dale? Easy. He’s shut away in Downing Street working on the most challenging, demanding important task he has ever had to do. Teaching Gordon to say the S-word. The Obama disc may or may not have been ordered, who cares? The point is that Gordon needs to do it.

It’s not difficult to imagine. Every parent has had to teach their child how to say sorry and why it’s important. We’re used to all the excuses, evasions and dissembling - Wasn’t me! He did it! She did it! Don’t know who did it, it just wasn’t me! – the running away and hiding, the volcanic tantrums, the toy-throwing, anything rather face up to what they have done and say sorry. We’ve all explained slowly and patiently how it’s really important to take responsibility for what you’ve done and accept the consequences, how it makes people even crosser with you if you won’t admit it than they were about what you did in the first place, how if you can say sorry straightaway and mean it people will respect that, how you’ll feel better when you’ve done it. And then when they force out a muttered, eyes-averted “sorry”, making sure they identify precisely what it is they are sorry for, to make sure they mean it, rather than simply saying sorry to get you off their back. And reminding them that a genuine sorry needs to be marked by a change of behaviour not carrying on regardless.

We’ve been there Peter. It’s a necessary life-skill to impart. It's part of becoming a grown-up. And some people find it very, very hard. But as you’re finding out, rearing our children right is the hardest and most important thing we’ll ever have to do.

Gordon is beginning to remind me in some respects of Otto in A Fish Called Wanda. Otto thought he was a world-beater, hated being called stupid, blamed other people for everything, and was awed by his own intellect. But he lost the money, lost the girl, and ended up getting steam-rollered.

There’s a wonderful scene when Wanda tells him why he needs to say sorry. Sadly it’s not all on YouTube, but for some weekend light relief, there’s a clip at the end of this post of what happens immediately beforehand. If anyone can load up the whole scene and let me know, I’ll embed it. If (which it might be) imagining Kevin Kline as Gordon and Jamie-Lee Curtis as "Manda" isn’t too much of a stretch, the scene, with a few minor adjustments, might go like this:

Gordon: Don't call me stupid.

Manda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?

Gordon: Apes don't read economics.

Manda: Yes, they do, Gordon. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Milton Keynes is not an economic advisory council. You didn’t abolish Boom and Bust. If you can’t pay your debts you don’t borrow more. Those are all mistakes, Gordon. I looked up your polling. Now... you have just destroyed the one thing that could keep you in power, that made the country rich. So what are you gonna do about it, huh? What would an intellectual do? What would Obama do?

Gordon: Apol...

Manda: Pardon me?

Gordon: Apolo...

Manda: What?

Gordon: Apologise!

Manda: Right!

Gordon: I'm sorry.

Manda: No. Not to me, to the voters. And make it good, or we're dead.

Gordon: Oh, I'm so very, very, very, very s... I'm s... I'm very, very s... I'm so very s... Very, very, very s... Very, very...

There's been a rash of recent examples of Christians facing the sack for expressing their faith, of a type that we never see in relation to any other faith. But this story of a school receptionist and her 5-year old daughter is bizarre and shocking in equal measure, on all sorts of levels.

If I were a governor at the school it would be the Head under investigation, not the receptionist. If I were a parent I would be looking for a new school.

Jeremy Clarkson has apologised for remarks about Gordon Brown that he made on Australian TV. The BBC reports his remarks, and the context as follows:

The controversial presenter compared Mr Brown to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, shortly after Mr Rudd had addressed the country on the severity of the global financial crisis. Clarkson said: "He [Rudd] genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he's actually seen the books. "[In the UK] we've got this one-eyed Scottish idiot. "He keeps telling us everything's fine and he's saved the world and we know he's lying, but he's smooth at telling us."

Interestingly the protests were aimed at the facts (that Brown has one eye and is Scottish) not the opinion. The RNIB didn't like the suggestion that disability should be equated with incompetence (have they ever read Guido I wonder?). Somebody called Iain Gray, who apparently leads the Scottish Labour Party, didn't like the reference to Gordon Brown being Scottish. Neither of them, nor anybody else, appears to have objected to the idea that Brown is a liar nor that he is an idiot. Clarkson certainly hasn't apologised for that, only for a remark about the Prime Minister's "personal appearance" - but you cannot tell from that whether he is one-eyed or Scottish. Although he is looking increasingly pale and puffy.

Matthew Parris was in bracing form today:

"This recession is not a failure of market economics. It is a reassertion of market economics after a decade in which we paid ourselves more than we were producing, and funded it precariously and temporarily by complicated credit instruments that it took a while for the market to rumble. Now a prosperity that always baffled ordinary citizens has collapsed. The collapse of confidence is not irrational; it's the correction to a long run of irrational confidence. All that stuff about the emerging Asian giants wasn't just phrasemaking for party conference speeches. It was true. We're falling behind. We face a mountain of debt: the difference between the life we are able to sustain and the life we were enjoying."

He's right. This wasn't a free market failure; it was the failure of a highly-regulated market. We are where we are because of inadequate bank governance, badly-designed regulation and profligate government, aided and abetted by all of us who have been over-stretching ourselves. Only some of that is "global". We need to keep saying this loudly and clearly, because Gordon Brown continues to claim otherwise.

Matthew Parris warns us to watch out for Labour hokum about the way out of the recession; beware of government attempts to "generate new models of high-added value industrial hi-tech innovation" for example - the market will drive any of that that will be successful, not our government. I disagree with his conclusion, that Britain is destined for "the world's second-league", but that's due to stubborness as much as anything else. He's right that we need to tighten our belts and adjust our expectations. All he leaves out is what that means for public spending.

"He did not come across as the foreign minister of a friendly nation."

This is what was said in India, by government spokesmen, about our Foreign Secretary. Miliband didn't just make a massively ill-judged speech about terror in Mumbai and lecture them on Kashmir (an issue in India which needs enormously careful handling by foreign diplomats) he was ineptly rude as well, to the extent that official complaints have been made about him by his hosts. And if Guido's right, Uncle Peter's had to hot-foot out there to clear up after him, with only limited success. Will Miliband Major ever be allowed out by himself again?

I'm really surprised that more hasn't been made in the media about this - although both governments are now dampening it down as much as they can. India is a key strategic and trading ally. This sort of stunningly non-diplomatic performance is worthy of Inspector Clouseau. Last summer Miliband saw himself as the next Prime Mimister. On this form he's lucky to be any sort of minister at all.

Obama's inauguration yesterday was a terrific example of democracy in action. Former ambassador Charles Crawford (do visit his blog, if you haven't already) puts it really well:

"For now as a non US citizen I express my humble and hearty gratitude to the USA for showing the world once again how to deal with powerful leaders. Compare what happened yesterday in Washington with the political wreckage in Zimbabwe, Cuba, N Korea, China, most of the Arab world, Russia and so on.

A leader with huge power gracefully accepted that the end of his rule had come and in a solemn yet light-touch ceremony handed over power to a new man, duly elected to replace him. He now in turn has at most some 416 weeks to lead the United States before he steps down.

This is Civilisation. Playing by the rules, and not making sneaky selfish manoeuvres to change them. A fresh start. Which creates the conditions for some positive Change to complement all that Hope."

One great thing about this presidency is that it blows the cover of those in the West who, truth be told, really don't like America very much at all, but have spent the last 8 years pretending that it's just President Bush that they loathe beyond all reason. He's gone now, and that excuse with him. As a pro-American I am delighted that the USA has a leader that anti-Americans find themselves having to like.

Fraser Nelson has already made the point that successful reform does not just require a radical and coherent set of ideas and policies: it needs really tenacious energetic visionary and knowledgeable personalities to champion and drive it through at every level,  especially the ministerial. Getting the people right matters very much indeed. Particularly in so complex and technical an area as welfare reform. Policy is one thing; making sure it is implemented is quite another. Hence the concerns already surfacing about the decision to replace Chris Grayling with Teresa May.

But the questions go a little further. Welfare reform doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a vital component of the Party's whole agenda to mend the broken bits of our society. The central insight of IDS and the Centre for Social Justice is that this can only be done through a large raft of carefully focussed and mutually supporting reforms across a whole swathe of policy including education, family, and prison & penal, as well as tax and benefits. Reformers are needed in all those portfolios. Take Nick Herbert's speech at the 2008 party conference for example:

"I want to tell you about a policy which we launched just a few months ago. It’s called Prisons with a Purpose, and it’s one of the most radical policies which this Party is promoting. And what we’re saying is that it really does matter to us that prisons can perform a role, not just as places of incarceration, but where we can turn the lives of offenders around.

We’re going to create prisons as independent Prison and Rehabilitation Trusts. We’re going to charge them with a mission to reduce re-offending.  We’re going to devolve power to prison governors and give them the authority to contract with outside services run by the private sector, the voluntary sector – organisations like Rob’s which turn the lives of offenders around. So that prisoners can go straight, [receiving] drugs services in and out of prison, teaching prisoners skills to read and write, making sure that prisoners are mentored when they’re released, giving them a chance to get into work.  So they’ll be enrolled on one of Chris Grayling’s Welfare to Work schemes the moment they are released from prison."

"I know that the majority are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration underway and the people who matter in (Ireland) are currently thinking about it."

Alright, I know he said "Britain" not Ireland, but the parallel is exact.

Today's news on The World at One that there will be a second referendum by October 2009 (after a period of the EU's inimitable combination of charm, threats, bribery and fear-stoking "consideration") shows precisely the regard that Barroso, Brian Cowen the Irish Prime Minister and others have for democracy. Agree with us or we run and re-run the vote until you do. No is not an option.

In a thoughtful post today on assisted suicide Iain Dale says this:

"We all know that doctors and family members are making decisions in our hospitals every day about whether to switch off life support machines or to continue to administer life continuing drugs. These decisions may not be wholly comparable with assisted suicide, but they lead to the same result. The decisions effecctively put individuals out of their misery in the same way in which assisted suicide does."

There are many myths and misunderstandings about end of life care and decision-making, and Iain has identified one of them, in this case that withdrawal or refusal of treatment is similar to assisted suicide.

But, ethically, withdrawing or withholding treatment at the end of life are not in the slightest bit comparable to assisted suicide. People dying as a result of a life-threatening condition, be it MND, cancer, heart disease or anything else, die as a result of their condition. When they enter the dying phase, their body starts to shut down. Good care means that decisions need to be taken about, for example, whether to discontinue their drips and to focus solely on comfort care. The burden to the dying person of continuing treatment may outweigh any benefit it could bring. Artificial nutrition and hydration may cause a brain tumour to swell, increasing discomfort. Or somebody may decide not to take antiobiotics for their next chest infection, and ask simply to be made comfortable. But those people are dying naturally as a result of their underlying condition.

There is a real difference between that and intervening to (self-)administer a lethal dose to bring about death weeks or months later than would otherwise have occurred.

...the defence of the machine apparatchik down the ages. The first instinct: self-preservation. The second, self-satisfaction. Complacency mistaken for competence and command, and authoritarianism for authority.

Personified today by the Home Secretary, on Marr. Marr did a decent interview, but didn't ask the obvious question (unless the clip's been edited): "Home Secretary, are you not astonished that the police told the Speaker, they told the Mayor, they told the Leader of the Opposition, but they didn't tell you?"

But at least she made an appearance. Macavity Brown said he wasn't there and then went to ground.

The government is drowning on this. Campbell and Mandelson are either away or are losing their touch. There's no grip, no recognition of the widespread alarm and anger in and outside Westminster about Damian Green's arrest and the searches of his home and offices; both that it happened at all and the over-bearing manner in which it was done. In her interview Jacqui Smith admitted that Damian Green's activities in holding the government to account are wholly legitimate. So he did nothing wrong, and she  still won't apologise. She could have tried to reassure; to acknowledge that this is an unprecedented situation; that she understands how genuinely and deeply concerned many people are about this; that she will act. She chose bluster and self-defence.

Listening to what she said, I think Dominic Grieve is right: she knew more than she's letting on. There was a studied ambivalence in some of her answers.

"Nothing to do with me Guv, I'm just the Home Secretary" She is not up to her office. May she be gone soon.

This is the Chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, dancing with somebody that the Met doesn't seem to think is terribly important. Mr. Vaz has so far said nothing about Damian Green's arrest.

This will surely change. Mr. Vaz is not known for his media shyness. And he and his Select Committee will want to find out exactly what went on here. After all, Mr. Vaz is no stooge when it comes to the government's anti-terror laws.

6.00 pm Update. Thanks to Marcel: Mr Vaz has now broken silence. His comments demonstrate that he is as intent on holding the Executive to account as ever he has been.

Walter Wolfgang, Iceland's banks, and Damian Green don't have much in common. But Labour's anti-terror apparatus has been deployed against each of them.

Who next?