The Spectator

Mr David Blunkett resigned as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions after it was revealed that he had taken a directorship in a DNA-testing company called DNA Bioscience, after resigning from his previous Cabinet post, without consulting the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, as the ministerial code of practice stipulates. He had sold some shares he’d bought in the company, saying he wanted ‘to protect family and friends from further intrusion’. After a delay caused by a rift in the Cabinet, the government announced a Bill to criminalise tobacco-smoking in enclosed public spaces, apart from pubs not selling food and private clubs.

Power to the locals Leo McKinstry takes a dim view of the new localism (‘Local schmocal’, 22 October), but most of the new intake of Conservative MPs have signed up to the localists’ ‘Direct Democracy’ charter. We have done so because we believe Britain’s centre-right needs a strategic rethink. Why? First, because we recognise the government has failed to improve public services because it has tried to micro-manage them from Whitehall. Second, because we realise that no matter who wins elections, power will still reside with unelected and unaccountable quangos, judges and Eurocrats.

Tony Blair has always had the remarkable ability to give the appearance of engaging in an heroic struggle with the intransigent Left of his party — while on closer inspection his proposals present at best a minor departure from old Labour dogma. He promised to ‘think the unthinkable’ on social security: the unthinkable result being that we now have record numbers of citizens — including almost all parents earning less than £60,000 a year — claiming state benefits. He promised to bring market reforms to the NHS, yet it has ended up even more of an unwieldy monolith than before; the main ‘market reform’ being that its doctors now sting taxpayers for Harley Street rates of pay.

Conservative MPs got down to selecting the two candidates for the leadership of the party between whom members at large will be asked to choose; they did not include Mr Kenneth Clarke, who came last in the first ballot. Miss Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, confirmed that, if avian influenza communicable between human beings visited Britain, then perhaps a quarter of the population might be infected and 50,000 might die. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a speech to Progress, a Labour party organisation, said, ‘What we must not do is fall for some modern version of the old Left delusion: that the problem with the progressive government is that it is not Left enough and if only its leadership rediscovered its true principles, all would be well.

When Edward Heath was held to ransom by the unions in 1974, he called an election with the stirring question, ‘Who governs Britain?’, to which the answer was ‘not you, chum’. It is incredible that after more than 30 years, when so much is meant to have changed, the unions have just rolled over a New Labour government, with disastrous consequences for the public finances. Over the past year the Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson has made a series of bold interviews and speeches on the need to reform public sector pensions, whose over-generous provisions promise to bankrupt future governments. Mr Johnson’s determination and common sense made him a worthy ‘Minister to Watch’ at last year’s Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards.

Prepare to leave Iraq As one who was against the invasion of Iraq from the start, I feel I must now urge a complete reappraisal of what our forces can realistically be expected to achieve there. Whatever views people may have had on the legitimacy of the various reasons presented to them for going to war, the operation — from the moment the military objectives were achieved — has degenerated into a disaster. Last week there were reports from usually reliable sources in the press that the militias have infiltrated at least half the police and internal security forces in the Shia and Sunni regions, and barely 10 per cent of the Iraqi army is considered loyal to the authority of the central government.

Comments on There is no cure for the UN by Mark Steyn Thank you for bringing us Mark Steyn and his comments. We need him dearly here in Canada but are now confined to the excellent Western Standard to read him. The information in this column should be shouted from the rooftops - but - nobody wants to listen. Bravo to The SpectatorJames Murawsky Brilliant analysis!. I must admit that, as an American, I think we should just leave the UN, kick them out to Brussels, and then accidentally bomb Brussels flat. That way, we'd destroy two transnational organizations with one shot.Dennis Sheehan How did they get away with it for so long? In 2001 I worked for a while in an accounting firm with a large number of clients who were Australians of Iraqi origin.