Anyone for tennis @ No. 10?

"Love: 40 - that's what I reckon the score is - " Arturo chuckled.

Not a sound you wish to hear too often, I assure you! I really didn't know what he was on about. I was sure that he would enlighten me - and I wasn't wrong.

"Haven't you heard, mi old pal? Anyone but any one can bid to play a game of tennis with our dear PR man of a PM - give him a great hand - 'Boy' David Cameron. Always one with an eye to the main chance, he saw a great way of raising money for the poor old Tory Party! Take a look at this, mi old pal."

He pointed at his tablet and I saw the headline:

Cameron rejects calls to pay back £160K tennis match donation

The article on the BBC News web site read as follows:

David Cameron has rejected calls to pay back a £160,000 donation to the Conservatives from the wife of a former member of President Putin's government.

Mr Cameron said he would not accept money from a "Putin crony" but Lubov Chernukhin "certainly wasn't that".

Mrs Chernukhin bid for a tennis match with the PM and London mayor Boris Johnson at a fundraising event.

A 'Putin crony'!! Ah ha! It seems that this bloke Chernukhin is no longer a crony! No siree! Here is the rest of the enthralling story:

A tennis match with the prime minister and Boris Johnson was the star lot at a Tory fundraising ball held in London earlier this month, which reportedly raised £500,000 for the party's general election war chest.

A Tory spokesman said the gift from Mrs Chernukhin, a longstanding Conservative donor, would not be paid back because it was within the rules and would be declared to the Electoral Commission.

Her husband Vladimir, who was a Russian finance minister, was sacked in 2004 and had fallen out with President Putin and did not have links with the Putin regime, added the spokesman, and the couple were now both British citizens.

So that's all right then! We can all breathe a great big sigh of relief. We (Cameron and the Tory Party) have not breached any EU plans to get tougher on 'Putin'. I am just waiting for the French to yell 'Perfidious Albion', as they are wont! But hang on!!! See what the BBC reported:

Mr Cameron has criticised France for going through with a deal to sell warships to the country despite Moscow's backing for separatists in Ukraine.

But France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hit back on Monday, suggesting Britain should look at the number of Russian oligarchs in London before criticising his country.

I just knew the Froggies would have their say. Who could blame them?

In the article, the BBC also commented:

A number of wealthy, UK-based Russians have donated money to the Conservative Party in recent years.

At the same fundraising dinner, Ukrainian-born energy magnate Alexander Temerko, a political opponent of Putin who successfully fought extradition proceedings to remain in Britain, is reported to have paid £90,000 for a bronze bust of Mr Cameron, which he donated to the Carlton Club.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28443588

A bronze bust of Cameron!! Perish the thought! Seeing him in the flesh is bad enough but fleeting! A bronze bust would be a permanent feature! It's enough to put a cat off his fish! We'll have to find out what the moggies at the Carlton Club think of it!

It wasn't only the BBC who ran the story. Jason Groves in The Mail wrote:

According to Electoral Commission records Mrs Chernukhin was once declared an ‘impermissible’ donor when she tried to give the Tories £10,000 in April 2012.

This means that at the time she did not meet the criteria required to make a donation to a British political party.

However since then Mrs Chernukhin, who is understood to be a Conservative Party member, has since made three donations worth a total of £5,500, which have all been accepted.

An ‘impermissible’ donor that must have broken the heart of many a Tory Major, living in the shires. What a waste of good brass! Never mind, she made up for it later!

The article concluded:

... a leaked list from last year’s Tory summer ball revealed it was attended by a number of wealthy Russians.

These included Vasily Shestakov, an MP in Russia’s parliament who is an old friend of President Putin and his long-term judo partner. He co-wrote several books on the sport with the Russian President including Learn Judo With Vladimir Putin.

Also present were billionaire banker Andrei Borodin and his model wife Tatanya Korsakova, owners of Britain’s most expensive home, the £140 million Park Place, near Henley-on-Thames.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2701234/Tories-pressure-160-000-Putin-minister-s-wife-play-tennis-Boris-Dave-amid-sanctions-call.html

Arturo and I can't play tennis! We don't even like watching it on the TV - it makes us dizzy. We wouldn't pay to watch Cameron and 'Mop Head' Johnson wack a ball across a net - let alone play with them!

However - we do both fancy a taste of caviar. So - next time a former 'crony' of Mr Putin's comes waltzing through the front door, we'll see if we can impress them enough to hitch a lift in their limousine. Maybe it'll take us to Henley on Thames or Chipping Norton or anywhere really! A taste of caviar would go down just fine, whatever the venue!

Bye

Lies,damned lies & statistics @ No. 10

It's nearly the end of this political session! 'Boy David' Cameron is desperate to 'hang on in' before his next chillax. Yes indeed, the boy wants to chill out and relax! Maybe, just maybe during such a chillax time, he'll learn a bit more about statistics. After all, statistics should be the bread and butter of all PR men, aren't they?

Arturo was pacing the corridor outside the Cabinet Office and muttering:

It's all lies, damned lies - that's what it is! Yet they claim it's statistics!"

He grabbed hold of me and told me to read up on the PMQ fracas of 2 July. So, naturally I did just that. What did I discover - well here's some of it!:

Question: Has the number of people waiting more than the guaranteed four hours in A and E got better or worse?

PM's reply: "We have met our waiting time target for accident and emergency. ...it is 30 minutes."

He added: "There are 7,000 more doctors, 4,000 more nurses, over 1,000 more midwives, and we are treating over 1 million more patients a year..."

Question: ... before the NHS reorganisation, the number of people waiting more than four hours (in A & E) was 353,000. After his reorganisation, that has risen to 939,000, an increase of 300%. Is that better or worse?

PM's reply: "The average waiting time is down by more than half. ..."

It went on and on - and I have only briefly summarised the PMQs of 2 July! If you have the time and patience to read the full exchange, go to:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm140702/debtext/140702-0001.htm#14070259000006

As you can imagine, the whole fray received comments aplenty. Michael Deacon, Parliamentary Sketchwriter in the Telegraph wrote:

Spirited though Mr Cameron’s defence may be of his NHS record, some of his boasting was dubious. Under this Government, he crowed, “There are 7,000 more doctors!” Yet to train as a GP takes 10 years. Unless Mr Cameron and his current Cabinet spent the period 2000-04 going round secondary schools and urging pupils to study medicine, it seems rather a stretch for him to claim credit for it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/pmqs/10941213/PMQs-sketch-Dave-and-Ed-play-the-numbers-game.html

The following day, again in the Telegraph, Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent wrote:

David Cameron's A&E waiting time claim questioned: House of Commons library says PM's claim waiting times have fallen is "simplistic" and contradicted by better data sets

'Simplistic' and contradicted by better data sets! Now that's telling him! Was 'Boy David' Cameron best pleased - I should cocoa!! Holehouse's article went on to consider the issue further:

David Cameron's claim that A&E waiting times are getting shorter have been questioned by the House of Commons Library.

The Prime Minister’s claim that the average waiting time in NHS hospitals has fallen from 77 minutes under Labour to 30 under the Coalition is based on a “simplistic reading” of statistics.

The measure Mr Cameron used “is not the most natural indicator of ‘average waiting time’ in A&E”, the analysis found.

The intervention is significant to the Prime Minister because the House of Commons Library, which compiles research for MPs, is widely regarded by both parties as authoritative and non-partisan. It rarely makes comment on the merit of MPs’ claims in the chamber.

Now there's a fine kettle of fish! And it's stinking fish too (yum! yum!). If the Commons Library can smell it - there's trouble for our 'Boy'.

Holehouse continued his comments on the PM's responses to the questions at PMQs:

Mr Cameron responded: “Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman exactly how long people are waiting. When the shadow Secretary of State was Secretary of State for Health, the average waiting time was 77 minutes; under this Government, it is 30 minutes.”

However, rather than looking at average waits for treatment - which has been "static save for seasonal variation" since the change in government - or total time spent in A&E - which has been "steadily rising" - Mr Cameron's figure related to the average time after arrival in casualty before patients are first assessed, the analysis said.

Rather than highlighting the "median" average, which "has remained more or less unchanged at around 10 minutes" since 2008, Mr Cameron pointed to the "mean" average, which showed a dramatic fall from more than 70 minutes to around 30 after April 2011, which was the date when time to initial assessment in A&E was designated as a "care quality indicator" and became subject to mandatory reporting.

The House of Commons Library said that evidence suggested that "the mean value here is not a good indicator of time to initial assessment in A&E, so we should rely on the median value to tell us what the typical time to initial assessment in A&E is... which does not show the trend that the PM refers to."

And it added: "It's plausible that the fall in the mean in April 2011 reflects an improvement in data collection, quality and reporting, rather than any genuine change in waiting times."

The analysis concluded: "The data does not show that the average time in A&E has fallen since 2008. Rather, the typical total time in A&E has risen (for admitted patients, at least), and the typical time to treatment has remained static.

... The analysis concluded: "The data does not show that the average time in A&E has fallen since 2008. Rather, the typical total time in A&E has risen (for admitted patients, at least), and the typical time to treatment has remained static.

Now - I don't know my averages from my medians from my mean values!! But then I'm only an under-stairs cat - I ain't the Big Cheese the PM. He ought to know - or if he doesn't he ought to find someone who does know! Instead - he found a guy who was as great at PR as he is. This guy said, according to Holehouse:

A Downing Street spokesman said: “What the Prime Minister said was 100 per cent accurate. The average wait for an initial assessment is only 30 minutes under this Government – down from 77 minutes in 2010.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10944598/David-Camerons-AandE-waiting-time-claim-questioned.html

Arturo watched me closely, as I read the various sources. Then, before I could so much as say a word, he said somewhat wistfully:

Politics is merely a socially acceptable form of vandalism. Instead of killing each other, politicians beat each other about the head with dubious statistics. I suppose it's better than blood dripping on the floor!

We've developed quite an appetite thinking about statistics! So, we're off to a fancy brasserie for a nibble or two - or three or four - or maybe that's six!Or should we go for a median value of seven? What do you think, Mr Cameron?

Bye

Up the pole - or do I mean poll @ No. 10

This week, Arturo and I were nearly mincemeat! If it hadn't been for Arturo's ever alert whiskers, the AA rescue vehicle would have squashed us. We were having a quiet siesta under 'Boy David' Cameron's Jaguar - the engine was nicely warm, you understand. However, it seems it was not in any state to see Mr Cameron on the road. As Tim Walker reported in The Telegraph:

Rather like Basil’s car in Fawlty Towers, David Cameron’s official Jaguar would appear to have a nasty habit of packing up just when its owner is under maximum pressure.

My man in No 10 assures me, however, that the PM resisted the temptation to “punish” the vehicle by bashing it about its bonnet – Basil Fawlty-style – with a branch.

“We had to have an AA pick-up truck come to Downing Street and tow it away,” he says. “It is the sort of thing that makes for an awful picture opportunity, but, so far as I know, we got away with it.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10936075/David-Cameron-suffers-a-breakdown.html

Our 'Boy David' Cameron, the beloved Prime Minister, has indeed been suffering a number of breakdowns in the last few weeks - and not of the merely mechanical kind! His problem seems to be more fundamental. It is one of flawed judgement. In most people, flawed judgement has an impact on themselves and their families - possibly their work. However, flawed judgement in a Prime Minister has an impact on the entire country. "Where was his judgement flawed?" Do I hear you ask? Let me explain.

Cameron is a poor judge of other people. Maybe this is inherent in having been to Eton College. Most old Etonians appear to be so totally self-confident that they assume anyone coming into their environs will abase themselves at their feet and wish to serve. Not a sensible attitude since the days of forelock-tugging are long gone. In fact, most people are now so self-obsessed, since Thatcher held sway, that the general mantra is 'me first!'.

'Boy David' Cameron assumed that when Andy Coulson was put forward as an ideal communications expert, everything was hunky-dory. It wasn't! As Nick Davies recently wrote in The Guardian:

When Coulson was hired as the Tory leader’s media adviser, in late May 2007, he gave assurances to Cameron and to George Osborne that there was nothing more that they needed to know about the scandal, which had ended with the jailing four months earlier of Clive Goodman as a “rogue reporter” who had hacked royal phones without the knowledge of anybody else at the News of the World.

Detailed evidence that directly challenged that claim was already in police hands at that time. A clear hint was available on the public record in comments made by the judge who had sentenced Goodman. But, according to senior Tory officials, Cameron made no attempt to seek a police briefing or to check the court record, even when he became prime minister and took Coulson into Downing Street. Cameron has been accused of employing Coulson in spite of his past in order to build a bridge to Rupert Murdoch.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/24/-sp-andy-coulson-verdict-questions-remain-for-david-cameron-and-others

As the recent trial verdict has shown, more questions should have been asked. It might have saved Cameron the need to apologise so publicly for his mistakes! However, things could only get worse, as a result of his past errors of judgement.

When Cameron became leader of the Tory Party one of his first moves was to lead to the problems he is now having with the EU. Ian Traynor wrote in the Guardian in 2009:

David Cameron is coming under fierce criticism from centre-right allies in Europe for his decision to ditch mainstream ­conservatism in the EU in order to lead a new movement of Eurosceptics.

In advance of next month's European elections, the Tory leader came under fire from senior figures over his move to end 17 years of alliance with the European ­People's party (EPP), which groups the centre-right in the parliament, and to establish a caucus of "European Conservatives". In separate developments:

• Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany appeared to threaten to withhold cooperation from the Conservatives.

• Cameron's close ally, Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, warned the Tory leader that he faced isolation. ­Reinfeldt called on Cameron to reverse his decision to quit the EPP.

• A senior Czech politician added that his liberal rightwing ODS party, a key ­Cameron partner, was having second thoughts about joining the Tories in the new caucus being plotted.

• Hans-Gert Poettering, the German Christian Democrat who presides over the European parliament, angrily described Cameron as untrustworthy.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/11/conservative-eu-david-cameron

It seems even the odds (ODS) were against it! But the chickens have just come home to not only roost but roast! It is Cameron who was roasted by the other members of the EU. In fact he was roasted to a frazzle! Again it was a case of poor judgement.

Cameron led his Tory Party into the EU to form the ECR (European Conservatives & Reformists). They had already been dubbed an "extreme right wing organisation". Recently, the ECR admitted the very right-wing Danish People's Party and The Finns Party into their ranks! This did not go down well with other less 'rightist' parties in the EU. Despite this, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, was still sympathetic to many of Cameron's aspirations.

Then - blow me down! Call me a Charlie! Our insightful 'Boy David' Cameron blew a great big raspberry right up her nose! His group - the ECR - only went and admitted the German Alternative für Deutschland Party into the group! Poor old Merkel must have been gob-smacked! She must have been infuriated. The German Alternative für Deutschland Party are her opponents. Any sympathy for Cameron's aims was gone - members of her own party could not tolerate Cameron's actions.

For more information on these complex issues take a look at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/house-of-lords-28037012

Cameron was doomed - but had neither the wit nor the wisdom to read the entrails! So when he needed allies to help him snooker a certain Mr Juncker's election as European Commission President, what do you think happened? You're right, they vanished! Only Hungary voted the way Cameron wanted. What a mess! What an embarrassment! Cameron and the whole UK looked a right load of Charlies!

So was our boy 'up the pole'? Well, this is the surprising thing! It seems that there are many who have as flawed a power of judgement as the PM. This was shown by Peter Dominiczak, Assistant Political Editor of The Telegraph who wrote the headline:David Cameron boosted in the polls by 'Juncker Effect': The Conservatives get a poll boost in the wake of David Cameron's failed bid to block Jean-Claude Juncker becoming president of the European Commission

He went on to say:

The Conservative Party has enjoyed a poll bounce in the wake of David Cameron’s failed attempt to prevent Jean-Claude Juncker becoming president of the European Commission.

The so-called “Juncker Effect” has seen the Tories overtake Labour in a poll conducted by Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative party deputy chairman.

... Stephen O'Brien, the MP for Eddisbury, made reference to the German aircraft manufacturer Junkers as he made a joke about World War 2.

He said that he hoped “the Prime Minister takes inspiration from the fact that in a previous battle of Britain, we saw off many Junkers before”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10936707/David-Cameron-boosted-in-the-polls-by-Juncker-Effect.html

"Ah, mi old pal," Arturo said shaking his head, "there's nowt so queer as folk!"

He's right, of course! It seems many others have as flawed a power of judgement! Maybe it's something to do with hope springing eternally that, in the end, we're bound to win. Even after England having crashed out of the World Cup - after all - there's still Andy Murray!

Me and Arturo, having survived the encounter with the AA vehicle need our nerves calmed, before the removal van arrives - we're going to the Savoy kitchen tonight for a nibble or two.

Bye