A reader has e-mailed to suggest I must have made a mistake
last week when I claimed that Cllr John Allen-Mirehouse had written
a letter to fellow members of the National Park authority in which
he claimed that his interest in land which he owned was "non-pecuniary"
(Not easily confused).
"Even someone who belongs to the oxymoronic Independent Political
Group must know better than that", my correspondent suggested.
As last week's piece relied on my memory of the events of 10 years
ago - always a dangerous business for people of Grumpy's age -
I made a quick visit to the shed to reacquaint myself with the
documentary evidence.
Thankfully my marbles are more or less intact because Cllr Allen-Mirehouse's
letter begins:
"I see from the agenda for the National Park Planning
meeting on Wednesday 16th December that planning application NP/98/439
Chapel Bay Fort, angle is on the agenda for determination.
Unfortunately I am unable to attend the meeting as I have to deputise
for the Lord Lieutenant who is ill.
I also realise that I should have to declare an interest and not
be present during that part of the meeting as I am at present
the landowner.
Bearing in mind the interest which I have in this site which is
non-pecuniary I would like to urge you to vote for a site inspection
at Chapel Bay Fort."
As the Monitoring Officer says in his report:
"In his letter Member A [why the MO thought Cllr Allen-Mirehouse
should be given anonymity is not made clear] pointed out that
as the landowner his interest was non-pecuniary. There is an obvious
contradiction here since a landowner's interest is bound to be
pecuniary."
There was an interesting sequel to this which I have not previously
published. A few months after this episode I read in the Western
Telegraph that Cllr Allen-Mirehouse had been appointed a JP.
Now, I am firmly of the opinion that a society should be extremely
careful when selecting those given the power to deprive their
fellow citizens of their liberty and cash.
So I took the trouble to visit the Lord Chancellor's website where
I discovered that candidates for the Bench were required to inform
the department of anything in their past which might bring the
Magistracy into disrepute and when, in reply to my query, I was
told that the LC had not been apprised of Cllr Allen-Mirehouse's
brush with the National Park's MO, I wrote back to suggest that
his failure to disclose this information; his apparent inability
to understand the distinction between pecuniary and non-pecuniary
interests; and his failure to comply with the National Park Authority's
Code of Conduct, meant he wasn't, perhaps, the ideal person to
be sitting in judgement.
The Lord Chancellor's Department took the view that his actions
were not sufficiently serious for him to be removed from the Bench,
though I was told that he had been given a warning as to his future
conduct.
Lord Mandelson has said that the UK finds itself in "an
uncomfortable place" during the current economic crisis because
there is no blueprint for how to extricate ourselves from the
mess.
This is tantamount to saying that the government hasn't got any
idea whether the measures so far announced will work and is is
a classic spin operation designed to bring public expectations
into line with reality.
One feature of this crisis is is that this week's news always
seem to be worse than last week's.
Can it be only seven months ago that the economic experts at the
Western Telegraph were predicting only a mild slowdown in the
economy (WT editorial)
In November the CBI was predicting that the economy would shrink
by 1.5%i n 2009, it has now revised that figure down (or up) to
3%.
The fall in house prices shows no sign of bottoming out, indeed
the pace may be increasing.
Unemployment is forecast to top 3 million by the end of the year.
And so on.
The question that used to be asked was whether the meltdown in
the financial sector would spill over into the the real economy.
This was a bit of a no-brainer because credit is what lubricates
the real economy and, as I said last September (False
prophets). it was a bit like asking whether running your car
without oil might damage the engine.
The next question is whether the meltdown in the real economy
will have undesirable political consequences.
I would like to be optimistic about this but, again, I fear that
the two are inextricably linked.
Of course, as governments across the world announce multi-billion
bail-out packages for the banking system, it is easy to fall into
the trap of thinking that money grows on trees.
One commentator in the Daily Telegraph recently observed; only
half jokingly, that, nowadays, no self-respecting financial journalist
will get out of bed to cover a story involving less than £10
billion, but as one US politician famously said: a billion here
and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
And it is an economic fact of life that governments can only spend
what they can raise by either borrowing, which has to be paid
back, or higher taxation, which, as the UK government has tacitly
admitted by cutting VAT in an attempt to boost the economy, depresses
economic activity.
At some point in the future government spending will have to be
cut to take account of the new reality and at that point you can
expect widespread unrest.
This is already happening in the former Soviet bloc countries
of Eastern Europe where excessive borrowing in foreign currencies
is already taking a heavy toll.
I find it hard to believe that it is two-and-a-half years since
I first drew attention to this potential problem (Carried
away).
With Wales two-fifths of the way to another Grand Slam, it is
not the time to overdo the gloom, so I won't mention the public
sector pensions' time bomb or the public spending implications
of the related problem of our rapidly ageing population.
Thankfully England weren't nearly as poor as I anticipated,
and Wales, without Shane Williams' genius, rarely rose above the
ordinary.
Still it was a terrific Test Match both for the undying commitment
of both sides and, until near the end, the uncertainty of the
outcome.
I watched it in the company of the family, including my three
grandchildren all decked out in their Welsh rugby shirts.
They were cock-a-hoop at the end as Wales emerged victorious and
seemed totally unimpressed by my claim that England had won by
two tries to one.