The (s)tory conference

It started poorly, I mean I can understand a government split, a party split, but for a single minister to be split on an issue is a new one.

According to the BBC article Mr Hammond says

“Increasing the motorway speed limit to 80mph would generate economic benefits of hundreds of millions of pounds through shorter journey times."

So that is clear.  If we let people drive quicker they will get to their desk sooner and start making money for the economy a few minutes earlier.

He goes on to say

"What we are doing here, is bringing a lot of drivers who currently, routinely break the speed limit, back on the right side of the law - and that has to be a good thing."

Right, so what we are saying is people actually won’t get to work earlier because few stick to the speed limit anyway (so he has countered his first argument) we’re simply legalising that behaviour.

As it happens offering those heading north on the M3 on a Monday morning, who consider a steady 50mph a good day, the chance to do 80mph seems a little pointless.  

So after a very poor attempt to amaze us with a genuine idea, the Tories resorted to their normal behaviour of reading the Daily Mail and announcing the editorial section as their own policy.  I think enough have commented on Theresa May's cat tale, but even the PM is at it.

Now this story about a prison van travelling 100 miles to take a prisoner 200 yards is nothing to do with human rights.  Firstly it is unusual for a court to be 100 miles away from the nearest prison van.  And I bet that van was not just carrying one prisoner to one jail, it would probably be doing many stops.

The bit that gets me is the complete stupidity of those who wrote the story and then Cameron for accepting it.  Imagine the Court had agreed that the prisoner could walk the short distance and he had escaped, that would have been front page stuff.  Or the prisoners enemies attacked him and his guards as they walked to the prison, you can see the headlines 

"Dangerous criminal on the run as waiting for a van would infringe his human rights"

"Guards attacked after Criminal refused transport"

If I was in charge of transporting a prisoner from Court to prison, it would be done in a van, whether it was 100 yards or 50 miles.  Whether the van was 100 miles away or not.  It is about managing risk.  Anyone working in the prison/security system covers their back.  If they bend the rules and it goes wrong, they're news, sacked and feel responible if it causes a victim.  Cameron has revealed himself to be a even more clueless than we feared.

Beyond that we had Eric Pickles proving that he still has no idea what localism means.  Having got rid of a Labour government that told everyone what to do, we have a Communites secretary who says "you can do what you like as long as it what I want you to do, here's a couple a quid, empty those bins weekly"

Then Osbourne with his Council tax con trick, which I will cover later.