Greater?

The integration of health and social care is an excellent idea. It has existed in Northern Ireland for decades. What I find difficult to understand is why this, and its wholesale devolution to local government, is being pioneered in Greater Manchester.

The Conservative Party runs one of the 10 metropolitan boroughs there. Manchester itself has been Lib Dem, although Labour currently holds 95 of its 96 seats, with the only other member being an Independent. Most of the other eight are permanently Labour, and none is currently controlled by any other party.

Surely the same number of people, albeit spread over a larger area, could have been found in, say, the Thames Valley?

But in the course of the present Parliament, "the North", like "the old working class" and "the traditional Labour vote", has been elevated to the status of the Soul of the Nation, despite the fact that that would mean that Labour ought properly to have won every General Election since the War.

However, the only place in "the North" that they can name is Manchester.

Unlike the little more than ceremonial office of Mayor of London, which is so part-time and apolitical that even Boris Johnson can do it, the proposed Mayor of Greater Manchester, who in practice would be bound to be Labour, would be the Prince of his City-State, and one of the most powerful individual politicians in Europe, since ultimately answerable to no one between elections.

Even the big city mayors of the United States do not run healthcare. There are EU member-states with considerably fewer inhabitants than Greater Manchester.

Ponder these things.

"Already Illegal", Again

And "hardly exists in this country", again.

This time, FGM, as raised by Sir Bill Cash at Prime Minister's Questions.

This time, there is no possible room for doubt. Of course cutting bits off children is already illegal.

So, let's see some action, then.

"Paid Trade Union Officials"?

Has there been any such person sitting as an MP in the present century?

Likewise, trade union sponsorship is nothing more than a donation to the relevant Constituency Labour Party. A tiny little donation, at that. It is not a payment to the MP.

Not that I am a big fan of this war on outside work. But it is clever politics. Very clever, considering that there were two MPs involved this week, and one of them was one of Labour's most senior. Very clever, indeed.

Robust

Rob Flello has asked me to point out that it was a clerking error, and that he did in fact vote in favour of the anti-gendercide amendment. I am delighted to do so.

It was not the only clerking error. That'll teach them to leave these things to the American Religious Right trying, however ridiculously, to establish itself as a force in this country of which it knows nothing.

(Of course, nor is it any longer a force in its country, of which it also knows nothing. Mitt Romney, anyone?)

Mercifully, an amendment worded identically, apart from the one little thing that made all the difference, will be back very soon, when it will receive the negligible opposition that gestures in this cause have encountered in the past.

This is a job for Rob Flello and for the rest of the one to two dozen Labour MPs who are practically Bishops' Conference members.

As for the Bishops' Conference, this very day, straight after last night's vote, it is also keeping things in the family. A religious duty to vote for "a robust National Health Service," indeed.

Yes, that is a link to the Catholic Herald. Just to rub it in. And while we still can. For when the Telegraph goes down, then the Herald will go down with it.

Terminus

I am weeping at the fall of the man who privatised the railways.

Weeping, I tell you.

Weeping.

Cui Bono?

I admit to the possibility that I am over-thinking this.

But the Telegraph has the closest possible ties to the intelligence services, not only of this country.

Who wanted Sir Malcolm Rifkind out of the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee?

And who wants Jack Straw's departure from the Commons to be his departure from Parliament altogether?

Steppes Must Be Taken

The issue of MPs' outside earnings is important, although it is funny how there is always a financial scandal in the run-up to a General Election, lest we find ourselves talking about policy instead.

But the matter that most urgently needs to be brought to the floor of the House of Commons, and forced to a Division, is that of the deployment of our troops to Ukraine.