Proportion, or lack of it

Today has been a funny news day - and a day when any sense of proportion was lost.

First of all, we heard yet more about the silliness perpetrated by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, when they called Andrew Sachs on Brand's BBC radio programme and left offensive messages on his answerphone. This was, clearly, an immensely childish thing to do, and deserves to be treated as such. I have no respect at all for Russell Brand, who is a talentless idiot with backcombed hair; and whilst I do sort of respect Jonathan Ross, they should both be relieved of their radio presenting responsibilities over this. They are paid out of our license fee to do these jobs, and I don't think arseing about making prank calls to upset people counts as doing their jobs.

However, the whole business has gained an unnecessary level of prominence - our Dear Leader (how I wish I could post without mentioning him) has condemned their behaviour; and yet, I feel that there are more important things our PM could be dealing with. Although, come to think of it, at least when he's talking about this he's not coming up with ways of spending more borrowed money.

On a more serious note, a senior civil servant has been fined £2,500 for leaving top secret documents on a train. Good. Hang on... This man, it is safe to say, was making a lot of money, certiainly in six figures per annum, when he made this extraordinary mistake. If you are willing to take on the responsibility of looking after really confidential documents (and apparently he took them home "by mistake" in the first place) you must be held properly responsible. The fine he was given is ludicrously small. It seems that he was "under extreme pressure" at the time. Oh dear. Remind me to care next time someone charged with top security work cocks up unforgiveably because of "extreme pressure". It seems he has since been demoted. So it is, by implication, only a bit naughty to leave top secret documents in public view.

If our civil service is to work at all, we need to maintain proper security. "Extreme pressure" doesn't come into it. Sort it out.

Responsible borrowing? Ha.

Gordon Brown might as well get a second face tattooed on the back of his head. He has certainly mastered the art of facing both ways on all matters economic. Having presided over the extraordinary and unsustainable expansion of personal credit whilst preaching financial prudence, he has recently taken to condemning bankers and speculators for their excessive risk-taking and general financial skulduggery whilst borrowing tens of billions of pounds extra on our behalf.

Apparently he believes that it is "right and responsible" to maintain "investment". Think about this for a minute - our Prime Minister now wants the government to save us from recession by "investing" (spending money). What, precisely, are they investing? There is an important truism to remember here: all government borrowing is deferred taxation.

Ken Clarke, the best Chancellor of the Exchequer in my lifetime, made the important point on Newsnight this evening - Gordon Brown has been spending too much and borrowing too much for years, enjoying the impunity of a booming economy. To promise more of both before the recession really bites, is at best, foolish. At worst, it is downright irresponsible.

Gordon Brown - Zero to, er, Zero

I watched with astonishment the BBC news this evening. Apparently, our Prime Minister is being feted as some sort of hero amongst EU leaders. Now, in fairness, most of the these EU leaders wouldn't know a solid economy if it bit them on the ankle, but that's no excuse. Along with Bill Clinton's social agenda in the US (see previous post) a major contributor to the current problems is Gordon Brown's "light touch equals no touch at all" attitude to regulation, especially in the City of London. During the heyday of his "successful" reign as Chancellor, Gordon was busy defending the speculators and city bonuses, because everything was rosy. Now, he is falling over himself to criticise them. Those of us with memories more capacious than that of a goldfish are now wondering how he has managed to forget all the things he did and said in his old job.

The upshot of all this, and it is actually quite unfortunate, is that the Conservatives are in a difficult position. When Tony Blair took office, he inherited Ken Clarke's legacy - an economy which had been through difficult times, but which was now on the up, fundamentally sound and with a moderate national debt. When Cameron takes office (and he almost certainly will) in 2010 he will inherit probably the largest national debt this country has ever had, an economy in tatters and very low business morale, and will have to rebuild things from scratch. This will be difficult.

Remember, Gordon is not a hero. This is, at least partly, his fault. And now he is intent on spending an awful lot of your and my money, to try and stabilise the problems he and his mate Bill caused. Incompetent? Yes. Unforgivable? Absolutely.

It's official - the Toyota Prius is for posers

I have always been suspicious of people who drive the Toyota Prius. Not because it's far too expensive, very ugly and therefore obviously a bad choice, but because I've always suspected that it had a lot more to do with self-conscious smugness than any desire to save the planet. Years ago, Top Gear demonstrated not only that it struggled to achieve more than 45mpg on a normal motorway journey, but that when pushed hard round a track, it actually acheived worse fuel economy than the BMW M3 (4-litre V8 etc) which was following it at the same speeds.

Now we have the irrefutable proof - Toyota are beefing it up for the Yanks. Yes, despite the fact that Leonardo di Caprio, Cameron Diaz and various other mindless celebs have been parading the things for years, Toyota have decided that what they need to do to sell the Prius in the states is make it bigger, give it a bigger engine, improve the performance and, oh yes, make the fuel economy even less impressive.

The Prius has always been a car for fools and posers: people who are happy to spend far too much money for an uninspiring car which will do nothing to save the planet. The materials required to make its battery have to travel so far and create so much pollution in the manufacturing process that it has been argued that it has a greater environmental impact over its lifetime than a Range Rover. Now Toyota have given in and (indirectly) admitted it - so if you really want to save the planet's resources, or save money on your fuel bills, buy an efficient diesel, and drive it sensibly. Then you might actually achieve upwards of 60mpg; something that really isn't possible in the Prius.

Goodbye Ian, hello Mandy

The departure of Sir Ian Blair as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is no great surprise. But, more importantly, it's actually a good thing - despite what Jacqui Smith might say in her whining about Boris.

Ian Blair has, since the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, become increasingly divorced from reality. Most importantly, he has become untrustworthy. I, as a Londoner, don't trust him. His fellow senior police officers don't trust him. He was unwilling to take responsibility for massive blunders (see earlier post about the Menezes debacle - incidentally, he was Mr Menezes, not Mr de Menezes). Ian Blair was a political creature - that is, a mendacious, self-serving, self aggrandising man in a job which should be about helping other people. Boris did the right thing - if only it had happened sooner.

The return of Peter Mandelson to the cabinet is simply extraordinary. Not because he's already resigned twice over misdemeanours, but because it is well known that he and Gordon Brown have hated each other for the last fourteen years. Gordon has nevertheless dragged him back from Europe, where he was being cheerfully ineffectual, for no good reason I can see. He hasn't removed David Miliband, who has been setting out his stall as a future leader, or Alistair Darling, who has been monumentally useless. This is a pathetic reshuffle.

I should also point out this excellent article, the import of which is that the credit crunch is Bill Clinton's fault. It is a better explanation of the current problems than anything we've heard from the congenital Bush-haters, who will blame the current Republican administration regardless. It's worth thinking a little about the current orthodoxy - it may be wrong.

No-show? That offends me.

Over the last two evenings I have been sitting on an audition panel for a fundraising show I'm MDing for a London amateur company. It's been interesting, enjoyable and fruitful, but there has been one thing which has really surprised me: several people, especially young pros, simply failing to turn up for audition slots they had booked. I know that sometimes an audition becomes impractical or you realise you can't/don't want to do the show, but there is a reason why we give you a mobile number to contact on the day. I attend auditions quite frequently, and I wouldn't dream of simply failing to turn up.

Let me explain. There are many forms of rudeness. Some are direct, or active: pushing someone out of the way when attempting board a crowded train, for instance. Some are indirect, or passive: failing to respond to a polite email, perhaps. But they have this in common - they arise from the implicit belief that my time and priorities are more important than yours. I will not bother to travel to the venue and audition for you, but I don't think it at all important if you have to wait around for half an hour because I haven't bothered to spend twenty seconds sending you a text saying "Sorry, I can't make it".

That it is so easy to let someone know and yet some people don't is revealing. A failure of courtesy at a level as basic as this tells you everything you need to know about the person in question. One of my colleagues on the audition panel proposed a 'blacklist' for these people and said, if he were a casting director, he would set one up. Simply put, anyone who failed to turn up without informing the company would never be cast again. Casting directors are used by a large number of companies. It would work.

Unfortunately, we have become so used to this sort of basic, selfish rudeness it seems unlikely to happen. And what do we do about the person who turns up half an hour late for a meeting and fails to apologise? Or the people who reserve a table for a Saturday night at a restaurant and then don't turn up? Or indeed that berk in a suit who always pushes in front of you when you're trying to get on the tube in rush hour?

Let's blacklist them all. Next time someone does something like this to you, they have demonstrated that they have no courtesy, and deserve none in return.