David Blackburn

Over at Three Line Whip, Ben Brogan takes me to task for criticising the Owen Paterson’s attendance at the Marquess of Salisbury’s shindig. ‘But it seems a stretch to lambast Mr Cameron for doing his job as a unionist politician, which should be to find political ways to ensure Sinn Fein doesn’t end up the winner as the result of the failure of Unionism in Northern Ireland to get its electoral act together.’ The Conservatives are a Unionist party so there is no objection to their attending, especially as the Unionist cause is so disorganised. My objection was to its secrecy. Iris Robinson will tell you that there is no such thing as secrecy in Northern Irish politics.

The union of irreconcilables was unlikely to last: power-sharing in Northern Ireland is on the verge of collapse. Where once Blair and Ahern would descend on Stormont as a couple of charismatics, today Gordon Brown and Brian Cowan face an enormous and unenviable task. They deserve support: both governments have been courageous in their approach to Northern Ireland, and the Tories were right to offer unconditional support. In which case, why did the umbrella of unionists, including the Tories’ Northern Ireland spokesman Owen Paterson, convene at the Marquis of Salisbury’s house in secret? A mixture of the furtive and the preposterous, one expected reports of Richard Hannay emerging from behind a curtain and fixing his Colt on Peter Robinson.

Proof positive that Brown listens, sometimes at any rate. The Prime Minister will give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry before the election. Chilcot has been resolute in his wish to keep politics out of the probe, which suggests that No.10 may have put in a call following the mounting clamour for Brown to appear. Brown is something of master in expressing defiance with a single line: “I have nothing to hide,” he averred on Wednesday. Might this sudden decision prove to be, as Sir Humphrey might have said, courageous? As Daniel Korski noted two weeks back: 'Brown’s role in the Iraq War, not that of Blair, that is the most obscure part of Britain’s modern history. As chancellor, Brown was the second most powerful man in government. He held the purse strings.

This morning’s Independent contains an almost incredible splash that £26bn has been wasted on IT projects over the last decade. It's a litany of binary bungles - the incompetence: staggering; the forecasting: inept; and the planning (or lack of it): simply shocking. Contending with such absurdity whilst staring down the barrel of a £175bn deficit, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Let me take you on a whistle stop tour of dud investments made on our behalf. The major culprits are the NHS’ national IT programme (over budget and late at £12.7bn and used by only 160 health organisations out of £9,000), the MoD’s defence information infrastructure (over budget and late at £7.

As James argues, Nick Clegg’s income tax threshold is a brilliant policy. It should benefit lower to middle income earners and the working poor. That’s the theory to which Daniel Finkelstein objetcs. ‘The vast bulk of the money goes to those earning more than £10,000. It is a very expensive tax cut, very poorly targeted on the working poor. Second, there is an interlocking relationship between income tax and working families’ tax credit. Many of the working poor would find the money they gained from the tax cut clawed back because their increased income attracted less tax credit.