EVEN for a Government regressing to Blairite habits of discipline, it was a silly move. Chief Whip Nick Brown ruled that MPs who have rebelled against Gordon Brown would not be allowed to sit on the new House of Commons Yorkshire and Humberside Committee. This is supposed to be a punishment, although some would see it as a blessing in disguise.
The same rule presumably applies to all the new all-party select committees being set up to monitor £2.7 billion a year of public money spent by quangos in the regions. In Yorkshire’s case, it would mean barring more than half the local MPs, including the Prime Minister’s own parliamentary private secretary, Jon Trickett.
Not that he’s particularly looking for a seat, but the ban would exclude HBOS-jobs champion Linda Riordan, Mike Wood and John Grogan (42 days’ detention without charge rebels), Colin Burgon, Fabian Hamilton, Austin Mitchell, Colin Challen, Paul Truswell and the trusty Trickett (all renewable energy rebels).
Five Labour nominees are required for the committee (dubbed “powerful” by the Yorkshire Post, in an excess of respect), with only a field of 14 to choose from – if the ruling is enforced.
The signs are that it might not be. The usual suspects (“sources”) say the ban is under review after complaints to the Prime Minister at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Local MPs branded the move as “farcical” and made it even more so by rushing to the media.
Generally speaking, I have the highest regard for Newcastle Brown, but this time the Chief Whip appears to have dropped a spherical. A quiet withdrawal behind the customary camouflage might be in order, since Harold Wilson ruled that every dog is allowed one bite. More than 100 Labour MPs have bared their fangs since Brown (Gordon, that is, but you can take your choice) took over. Muzzling backbenchers was always a counter-productive business.
Mind you, I don’t really give much for the chances of these new-fangled regional select committees. They’ll only be up and running for a year or so before the general election and, given hostility to their establishment from the Tories and Lib Democrats, they will be hard put to stay in existence after then.
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GRAMSCI Street, I grant you, and Garibaldi Street and Matteotti Street, all named after Italian patriots and revolutionaries, because I’m in Piran, on the Istrian coast of Slovenia, for long disputed territory and still with a large Italian minority.
But Marx Street, Engels Avenue and Lenin Street? And 1st of May Square? The Berlin Wall has been down 20 years and Yugoslavia has ceased to be a communist country – or, indeed, a country at all. West-leaning Slovenia was the first of the seven republics to leave the Yugoslav federation, with encouragement from Germany and the United Kingdom, whose then Prime Minister John Major got the Maastricht Treaty opt-outs for his support. Ljubliana adopted a market economy and is a full member of the Eurozone.
So, I asked, why keep these potent political symbols on the streets of an upmarket seaside resort? “Because”, argues Dusan, a Serb travel agent who has somehow washed up here hundreds of miles from Belgrade, “they are part of our history. Why should we get rid of them?”
Well, for the very obvious reason that they are reminders of the Tito years and his unique brand of communism that died a brutal death on his demise. To that rejoinder, I get only a pursed smile. Sometimes, having visited this country more than any other, I think I’m a Slav changeling. Until I meet the real thing again.
But over the slivovica domaca (homemade plum brandy – it smells and tastes like diesel, only more lubricative of the internal combustion system) in Piran’s oldest bar, the talk turns to Big Brother Croatia, next door. Zagreb’s militant nationalists are eyeing the Adriatic waters off Slovenia’s coast, demanding more territorial waters. The wily Slovenes, mindful that Croatia is desperate to join the European Union, threaten to use their veto if the Croats don’t back off.
Meanwhile, I noticed that just up the coast in Koper the main square is still called Titov Trg. It’s a case of having your slivovic and drinking it.
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PERHAPS Alex Salmond could declare Slovenia part of his “arc of prosperity” with Scotland. A country of only two million people, half-covered in forests and mountains, it’s doing remarkably well, as a building boom testifies.
Happily, I can report that the SNP leader is just a little less prosperous himself than he was before the Glenrothes by-election, at which Labour’s Lindsay Roy emerged the victor with a thumping majority.
Salmond, a fearsome gambling expert, bet me £5 that his colourless candidate would triumph, the winner to donate the cash to the charity of his choice. Thanks very much, Smart Alec. Macmillan Cancer Support is now a fiver better off.
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