Kennedy petition is nonsense

The BBC reports that Ben Ramm of The Liberal magazine ("more distributed than read") is claiming that 3300 party members, including two MPs and 386 local councillors, have signed his petition calling on Charles Kennedy to resign as Lib Dem leader.

If you look at the petition website it quickly becomes apparent that he cannot know any of this.

People signing the petition are not asked for their party membership numbers. Even if they were, there is no way the magazine could check the numbers they gave against the party's database.

In fact they are not asked if they are Liberal Democrat members at all. They only information requested is name, location and e-mail address. So Ramm's 3300 figure is meaningless.

And how does he know about all those councillors and MPs? Again, this information is not asked for and, in the case of councillors, would take a lot of checking if it were. I have a horrible feeling that these are just people who have signed the petition claiming to be councillors or MPs - a very different matter. So again the figure is meaningless.

The truth is that anyone can sign this petition. I signed it myself as Mickey Mouse from Cheeseborough - indeed Cheeseborough University, to judge by the e-mail address I gave.

I have a horrible feeling that Mr Mouse is one of the 3300. The only consolation is that The Liberal magazine has not so far claimed the backing of a number of distinguished academics.

The conclusion is clear. If you want to know what it really going on in the Liberal Democrats, subscribe to Liberator.

Here we go again

"Good will to all men" does not extend to Charles Kennedy, at least as far as his colleagues and political journalists are concerned. The Guardian website quotes an anonymous (as ever) "Lib Dem frontbencher" as saying that:

Mr Kennedy's new year message showed he should go because it was directed more at attacking the government than the new Tory leader.

"One way or another, things have got to be resolved in the next 14 days," the MP said.

"We all have to decide where we are going in the next fortnight on that particular issues."

Later. There is a longer report by Patrick Wintour in Friday's paper.

Around the Lib Dem blogs

First of all, welcome to Iain Sharpe's new blog Eaten by Missionaries. It's a great title and he makes a promising start.

Elsewhere Susanne Lamido takes Tom Brake to task for what may well be the silliest press release in the history of Western democracy. That release begins:

Father Christmas should consider changing his mode of transport to make himself more environmentally friendly.

Liberal Democrat research has revealed that Santa Claus, by continuing to use a fleet of reindeer for his deliveries on Christmas Eve, is failing to take the most environmentally sustainable option.

and gets worse after that.

If you give someone called Brake the transport portfolio you have to think he is very good indeed. This isn't any good at all.

If you want to see how a seasonal press release should be done, have a look at the one by Paul Burstow on the thousands of old people who die alone with no friends or family.

Finally, Mary Reid offers a grim portrait of a motorway service station during the festive season.

Leicestershire food: Now the bad news

Just before Christmas I wrote about the victory of Melton Mowbray pork pie-makers in a court case. Now the other peak of Leicestershire cuisine is under threat. From the British government.

Today's Daily Telegraph reports that:

The centuries-old recipe that gives Stilton, the "king of English cheeses", its distinctive flavour is under threat from the Government's anti-salt campaigners.

It seems that the Food Standards Agency has proposed cutting the salt in blue cheese to under 1.9 per cent but Stilton typically needs around 2.5 per cent. Why is that? The Telegraph explains:

Nigel White, of the Stilton Cheese Makers' Association, said: "Salt plays a vital part in cheese making and has done for thousands of years.
"Although it may be feasible to reduce salt in some products, we are concerned that it could start affecting the taste and character of the cheese. With something like Stilton, which has a protected origin status, we don't think that's too clever." ...
[Stilton] is created from cow's milk from a restricted list of creameries in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but gets its name from the Cambridgeshire town, 80 miles north of London on the A1 where it was traditionally sold to resting travellers.
Salt is added partly for taste, partly to drive out moisture and also to slow the development of bacteria.
Without salt, the curd "races away" and the resulting cheese is unpalatable and does not last well. ...
"Of all the blue cheeses, Stilton has consistently the lowest salt levels," said Mr White.
"The reason it is higher than cheddar is that if you don't get an even distribution of salt above a minimum level, you won't get the cheese to blue. And since blueing is the single most important characteristic of blue cheese, you risk shooting yourself in the foot."

You certainly don't want to shoot yourself in the foot with a blue cheese. But wouldn't it be easier for people who are worried about their salt intake to choose a different variety of cheese?

Tim Worstall and The Devil's Kitchen also have this story.

Incidentally, the place with the best claim to being the birthplace of Stilton is Quenby Hall in, of course, Leicestershire. And Stilton was in Huntingdonshire when it made the cheese famous.

On the Buses

One of the low points of the Christmas TV schedules was the appearance of two of the On the Buses films. Samizdata.net has some interesting observations on what the awfulness of these films reveals about the 1970s:

It was quite a shock watching the film. It was a reminder of how greatly Britain has changed since the early 70s. For starters, the constant leeriness towards women, the assumption that any vaguely attractive woman was nothing more than mattress-fodder, makes even yours truly - no fan of political correctness - feel uneasy. One of the main themes of the story is how the manager, in a drive to improve the efficiency of the layabout male staff, decides to hire a group of women drivers. The men regard this move as a disaster and a threat to "their" jobs (probably correctly). What is particularly striking is how the shop steward of the bus-drivers' union makes it clear that as far as his union is concerned, women have no place in a bus, except either as a customer or as someone he can molest.

Quite right, and it is worth pausing a moment to reflect that the first of these films was the top British box-office film in 1971, surpassing even the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever.

Christmas in black and white

There is a pleasing selection of old photographs of snow scenes on The First Post.

Britblog Roundup never closes

Driven down from the hills in search of food by the cold weather, this week's Britblog Roundup can be found on Adloyada blog.

Sid Owen and Al Pacino

The other night the BBC aired one of their Before They Were Famous shows. It was a disappointment as I had seen most of the clips before.

But one glorious fact stood out: Sid Owen played Al Pacino's son in Revolution.

This was a dreadfully misconceived picture about the American War of Independence, released in 1985. A critical and financial disaster, it did much to ensure that the hoped for 80s boom in the British film industry never happened.

I had the feeling that there was a decent film in there somewhere, given ruthless editing, but this review reflects the consensus.

Holiday reading: The Uncle books

The Christmas issue of The Economist proves that the magazine has a heart after all. It carries an article on one of the neglected classics of British children's literature: the Uncle books by the Reverend J. P. Martin.

Who is Uncle? The article explains:

The hero is a millionaire who exercises one-elephant rule over a gigantic, moated castle called Homeward. His domain is so enormous that large parts of the castle—which is linked together by a fantastic array of lifts, railways and secret passages—are unknown even to its owner. Much of the books is taken up with accounts of expeditions to different parts of Homeward, which is populated by hundreds of animals, dwarves, ghosts and other eccentrics. Uncle, who strides around in a purple dressing gown, also has his own devoted (indeed sycophantic) entourage.

But across the moat from Homeward—and sadly within plain sight of Uncle—lies Badfort, an unpleasant shanty town of run-down huts, inhabited by Uncle's enemies, “the Badfort crowd”. While all is elegance and magnificence over at Homeward, the Badfort crowd, led by Beaver Hateman and his relatives Nailrod, Filljug and Sigismund, live a sordid existence. They wander around barefoot and unshaven, dressed in suits of sacking, and living off “skob fish” extracted from a dank stretch of nearby water called Gaby's Marsh, while quaffing an oily drink called Black Tom.

A straightforward battle between good and evil then? Not quite:

On the one hand, the elephant leader is undeniably a goodie and his rivals from the “Badfort crowd” are undeniably bad—gaining their living from a variety of petty swindles. On the other hand, Uncle is humourless and pompous, and many of the barbs slung at him by the Badfort crowd have an uncomfortable element of truth.

The Uncle books have rarely been in print since they came out in the 1960s. In part this is because too many publishers have failed to share Martin's sly sense of humour, and in part because, as the article says:

Quentin Blake, the book's illustrator, muses that “The books have always had terrific fans, but they have never attracted a mass following because they are so eccentric.” Charlie Sheppard at Random House agrees that “there just may not be enough truly eccentric children out there.”

Blake's illustrations help to explain why second-hand copies the books now fetch three-figure sums. Even the paperback reprint of the first two stories, which came out a few years ago, now seems hard to find. (I know. I gave mine away.)

But Uncle lives on amongst a select group of enthusiasts, and the Economist suggests that printing-on-demand technology may be his saviour. In the mean time you can find out more about Uncle and the Revd Martin here or join the Lion Tower discussion group.

Later. I have now found an Uncle bibliography.

Merry Christmas to all our readers

The Bitter Withy
As it fell out on a high holiday
Small rain from heaven did fall,
Sweet Jesus asked his mother dear
If he might play at ball.

"To play, to play," dear child she did say
"It's time that you were gone
And don't let me hear of any mischief
At night when you come home."

So it's up the hill and down the hill
Our sweet young savior ran,
And there he met three rich young lords,
Good morning to each one.

"Good morn," "Good morn," "Good morn," they said,
"Good morning," then said he,
And which of you three fine children
Will play at the ball with me?

Oh, we are lords and ladies sons
Born in a bower and hall
And you are nothing but a poor maid's child
Born in an oxen stall.

Well, if I'm nothing but a poor maid's child
Born in an oxen stall,
I'll make you believe in your latter end,
For I'm an angel above you all.

So he built a him a bridge of the beams of the sun
And over the water ran he,
Them three little lords followed after him
Drowned they were all three.

So it's up the hill and down the hill
Three rich young mothers ran,
Crying, "Mary mild, fetch home your child,
For ours he's drownded each one."

So Mary mild fetched home her child,
And laid him across her knee,
And with a handful of withy twigs
She gave him slashes three.

Oh bitter withy, oh bitter withy,
You've caused me to smart,
And the withy shall be the very first tree
To perish at the heart.

These words are taken from the Golden Hind Music site. For a discussion of the song's history (and a different version) see The Hymns and Carols of Christmas.

A fight in the House of Commons

Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.

Picking a fight

On 27 July 1893 the debate on the committee stage of Gladstone’s second home rule bill ended. Joe Chamberlain compared Gladstone to Herod. T. P. O’Connor, the Irish Nationalist who sat for a Liverpool constituency, called Chamberlain “Judas”. The division bell rang, but arguments still smouldered in the chamber.

At this point one of my political heroes entered history. J. W. “Paddy” Logan was Liberal MP for Harborough. A major railway contractor, he began as a Conservative. But when he visited Ireland he was so shocked at the condition of the people that he returned a Radical.

Logan had won Harborough from the Tories at a by-election in 1891 and held it until he resigned in 1904, his health affected by a hunting accident. He returned at the second general election of 1910, only to resign again six years later.

Nationally, he was known as a sportsman. He won the House of Commons steeplechase and founded the most celebrated bloodstock line in pigeon racing. Locally, he gave Market Harborough its swimming baths and donated land for the town cricket ground.

He lived at the village of East Langton, where he gave another cricket ground and a village hall. He also maintained a cottage home for the children of men killed on his works.

On the night of 27 July, as he waited for the throng to clear, Logan crossed the chamber and sat down truculently beside Carson on the Conservative front bench. Hayes Fisher, a Tory MP, pushed him away. Logan elbowed back and was grabbed by more Tories, whereupon the Irish Nationalists waded in to support him.

For the next 20 minutes elderly, frock-coated MPs belaboured one another. Hats were flattened, coats torn and faces bruised. Onlookers in the galleries began to hiss and eventually the Serjeant-at-Arms restored order.

Today, Logan is remembered in street names in Market Harborough and by the dedication stone from his swimming baths, which can be found outside the new leisure centre. And, of course, Market Harborough Logan Ward returns two Liberal Democrat councillors.

If Logan were around today, witnessing the events of the past fortnight, I feel sure he would say: “Start a fight by all means, but make sure it is with someone in another party.”

Kettle comes to the boil

Martin Kettle in today's Guardian is rightly critical of the deputy prime minister's recent intervention in the education debate:

John Prescott should be nobody's hero for his extraordinary attack this week on the government's education plans. "If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that everyone wants to go there," he told the Sunday Telegraph. The great danger? What world is he living in? Certainly not the Hull of his constituents, whose schools consistently produce the worst GCSE results of any local authority in the whole of England. A few good schools there would be just what the city's next generation needs

Overall it is an even-handed piece and worth reading.

Just fancy that

Mark Oaten writes a diary of his week in the 19 December issue of the House Magazine:

Tuesday
On to lunch with Julian Glover from the Guardian in the Members' Dining Room...

Lord Bonkers' Christmas message

Lord Bonkers' latest diary has been posted to his website.

It happens that I know a thing or two about mazes, having a fine example of my own at the Hall. Planted with the fast-growing Rutland leylandii – if one ponders too long which path to take, both may disappear – it has proved a firm favourite with visitors, particularly since I hit upon the idea of charging them to leave the thing rather than enter it.

As the scientists amongst us will know, these days “peer review” is all the rage; it works along these lines. If a chap believes he has come up with something juicy in the scientific line, he writes it down and posts it off to a member of the House of Lords. I have a skim through it and write something such as “Splendid,” “Terribly Clever” or “Sounds a bit far-fetched to me” on the bottom, before sending it on to the editor of one of our leading journals.

To St Asquith’s for Divine Service. The Revd Hughes preaches on the parable of The Man Who Refused to Carry an Identity Card – a new one on me, I must admit. It is all about a brave chap who refused to have one of those beastly cards and went to prison as a result. Everyone said what a splendid fellow he was, and when he came out they agreed that he had much more go than that dreadful Scotsman and was not a wet blanket like the member for Winchester.

Liberator 307 published

Liberal Dissenter (welcome back) has the details.

Joyful and triumphant

Tonight's carol service in Parliament Square, held to protest against new legal restrictions on peaceful demonstrations in a wide area of Westminster, passed off without any arrests.

Thanks to the BBC Traffic Jam Cam, you can see some pictures of it on Parliament Protest.

BBC to broadcast Greenmantle

The BBC dramatisation of John Buchan's Greenmantle is to be broadcast on Radio 4 over Christmas. This is the production that was quietly pulled from the schedules after the London bombings in July.

As I argued at the time, Greenmantle has much to teach us about relations with Islam.

Pork pies: More than you need to know

Good news for Leicestershire. As the BBC reports:

Pork pie-makers in the Melton Mowbray region have been told they can apply to Europe for the same sort of exclusivity enjoyed by Champagne.
A High Court judge has turned down a challenge by Leeds-based Northern Foods aiming to stop the move.

What is so special about a Melton Mowbray pork pie? Andrew Chancellor, writing in Waitrose Food Illustrated, explains:

Many of the offending companies who produce the imitations describe their pies as 'cured', which is precisely what the pork in a real Melton Mowbray pie is not. Ever since it first became popular in the early 19th century as a convenience food that Leicestershire huntsmen could carry in their saddlebags, it was made with fresh, not cured, pork.
This is one of the crucial distinctions between Melton Mowbray and other pork pies. There is nothing wrong with cured pork ... Many people, particularly in the south of England, prefer it, because cured pork looks pink whereas fresh pork looks grey. But finely chopped, fresh pork, seasoned only with pepper and salt, is the essence of the Melton Mowbray pie.
Another essential feature is the pastry that encases it. Originally, this was not eaten but simply used as packaging for the meat, as is still the case in France with the hard, inedible pastry that encases the goose liver in pâté de foie gras en croûte. But, as the Melton Mowbray pork pie developed over the years, the pastry became as important a part as the pork in the whole gastronomic experience.
The pastry in question must be 'hot-water pastry', made only with boiling water, boiling lard (another pork product), flour and salt. And it must be baked with the fresh meat already inside it, and without any external support, such as a tin or a hoop. The pastry case is no longer 'hand-risen', as it used to be, around wooden moulds - it is now machine-made - but the pie still has to stand free when it is placed in the oven.
The final ingredient is pork stock, which is poured in through a hole in the pastry lid after baking to form a jelly. This surrounds and penetrates the meat, which has shrunk a little in the oven.

One thing that Chancellor does not mention is that the pork pie industry grew up in Melton because pigs could be fed on the whey that was a waste product from the local dairies that made Stilton cheese.

A few years ago I was walking from Barrow upon Soar to Melton and stopped for lunch at Six Hills. Finding the pub boarded up, I had to buy lunch at the garage. I chose a "Melton Mowbray pork pie," only to discover that it had been made in Cornwall.

If you want to sample the real thing, visit Dickinson & Morris's shop in the town. And for a list of all the British regional foods that now enjoy protected status look at the European Commission site.

Nuts to road safety

A heart-warming story from the BBC, appropriate to the season:

An animal-loving youngster was so upset after a red squirrel was knocked down on a road outside his home he urged forestry chiefs to erect warning signs.

Luke Hodgson, six, wrote to the Forestry Commission after seeing the fate of the creature at Sidwood, near Greenhaugh, Northumberland.

They listened to his appeal and installed six warning signs.

My first reaction was to wonder if the squirrels would be able to read the signs. (I have written here about education often enough.) But it turns out:

The signs, which alert people to red squirrels crossing, were being unveiled on Tuesday.

So where does that leave the Tufty Club? As you probably won't recall, Tufty was the poster squirrel for road safety back in the 1960s.

I did wonder if he was a grey squirrel. These nineteenth-century American imports are rather larger than our native red, more aggressive, wear loud check trousers and are inclined to flash their money about.

A study of the club badge (reproduced on a rather irreverent site), however, shows that he was clearly a red. Frankly, I feel a little cheated.

But seriously folks, the red squirrel is a lovely creature. I saw one in Glenmuick a couple of years ago. Their tales are translucent and look pink as the light shines through them.

So if you see one crossing the road, please slow down. It turns out that they are not experts at crossing the road after all.

The men in sandals

This blog is on message. You won't find any disloyaly to Charles Kennedy here.

That said, I did enjoy the Daily Telegraph's suggestion that, when the time for the Lib Dem leader to stand down comes, it will be "the men in sandals" who go to see him.