Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

I had thought Blair's Iraq posturings were the worst affront to democracy but the current Coalition is beating him hands down.

Both parties commissioned and agreed to the Coalition document to bind this parliament.

One of the things it says is 'No Top Down reorganisations of the NHS'

From Sir David Nicholson's testimony to the Health and Social Care Committee today -

Just heard the best political interview in years - James O'Brien knew his facts, refused to be browbeaten and kept politely and firmly insisting the Iain Duncan-Smith learns to listen to inconvenient facts... he wasn't successful of course but it was massively illuminating. 

Listen to the amazing exchange in full below

It's abundantly clar that Iain Duncan-Smith has no idea of what the Court of Appeal actually ruled nor about the fact that Caitlin Reilly was required to give up a more relevant piece of work experience (she did not 'volunteer' to for work experience entirely unsuited to getting her paid work).

Interesting pieces in the Guardian today about some interesting people

Ecuador's Lenín Moreno gives revolutionary turn by quitting while on top

guardian.co.uk, 19 Feb 2013

Jonathan Watts in Quito

World's only paraplegic head of state eschews high office to focus on link between quantum physics and human values

Interesting article by David Mitchell

Which brings me to George Osborne. "Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich," he said in his speech to the Conservative party conference last week. I think he's misunderstood the whole balancing metaphor. The challenge for a chancellor isn't to balance the budget on something but just to balance it – to make it balance.

...

So, the top man at Thomas Cook trousers £15m in 'hard earned and decent' (my sarcasm) bonuses over the last couple of years and now Thomas Cook is in dire trouble and planning to lay off thousands.  Well thank goodness for Free markets.  Nurses, teachers and other public servants must have their pensions cut, but goold old chief executives must have huge payouts even in times of trouble.  We're all in it together of course....

More troubles for the IPCC

Saw a piece earlier in the Guardian about Steve Keen, the Australian econonmist who seems to have been more right than most on the crisis and actually saw it coming.

Larry Elliot has a good piece in The Guardian today

Thought the Guardian called it right again

• Legal aid reform: poor law

  Editorial: change is never painless, but it needs tackling with a surgeon's scalpel, not the scythe that Ken Clarke has armed himself with

I particularly liked

So, in his testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Rupert Murdoch says:

So, in his testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Rupert Murdoch says:

Q224 Jim Sheridan: Mr Blair visited you halfway round the world, before the 1997 election. Anyway, that does not matter.

Rupert Murdoch: That was something that Mr Cameron arranged—Campbell.

Meanwhile in Letters Guardian