Tim has already had a good look at “Guido’s” post, incluing asking some questions regarding Tom Watson’s expenses, but let’s just expand slightly on the way Paul Staines has done his maths:

Last year Watson pocketed his £60,000 salary and his parliamentary expenses amounted to £150,000-plus – bringing his total package to £211,000 – making him the 73rd highest claiming MP out of 646 MPs. Quite an achievement for an MP not claiming for travel to and from Scotland. He of course employs his wife Siobhan at the public’s expense, his brother, Dan, is constituency director to Euro MP Michael Cashman, Dan Watson’s wife, Joanna, has no fewer than three jobs.

Like her husband, she also works for Mr Cashman and for Wolverhampton Labour MP Pat McFadden, yet still finds time to be a Labour councillor in Sandwell. Amy Watson, cousin of Tom and Dan, works for Birmingham Northfield Labour MP Richard Burden. The West Midlands constituency Labour Party offices are packed with Watsons…

The total annual cost to the taxpayer of the Watson family’s five not-so-little piggies is in excess of £300,000. Far more than the disgraced Derek Conway fiddled…

The Conway scandal centred around £40,000 he’d paid to his son and it has to be said that £300,000 is definitely far more than £40,000. You can’t argue with numbers.

But what is “Guido” comparing? The £300,00 is in large part made up of Tom Watson’s salary as an MP (£60,000) and his expenses for 2006/07 (£150,000). The £40,000 is not in large part made up of Derek Conway’s salary as an MP (£60,000) and his expenses for 2006/07 (£140,000).

(By the way, Conway’s London constituency is about 100 miles closer to Westminster than Watson’s. “Guido” never mentioned that.)

Instead, the £40,000 refers to specific money paid by Conway to his son. Having investigated whether these payments were justifiable, the Standards and Privileges committee said they were “astonished that there appears to be no evidence, independent or otherwise, of any aspect of Freddie Conway’s work for his father”. They also concluded that Derek Conway had paid his “all but invisible” son bonus payments which were substantially larger than allowed by the rules.

I can find no similar report from the Standards and Privileges Committee regarding Tom Watson and £300,000.

So is it a like for like comparison? Obviously not. I feel silly even asking the question. And yet, “Guido” has attempted to suggest that it is.

I can’t say for sure why Paul has attempted to make this ridiculous comparison but I suspect it has something to do with his willingness to treat all politicians with equal distain…

Passing by HMV, I decided to pop in and pick up some Blackadder DVDs. I’d been meaning to get the full set for a while now so I was pleased to see that they were all available. They also had the Planet Earth DVD box set so I got that too. All things considered, it was turning out to be a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. (It’s the small things in life…)

Unfortunately, my good mood wasn’t to last long. As I attempted to leave HMV, I appeared to trigger their security alarms. As the  beeping and flashing continued, two rather burly security guards hurried over and blocked my path. With forced politeness, one asked whether I’d paid for the DVDs I was carrying. “Yes, of course” I replied, “now if you don’t mind…”

That didn’t satisfy the security guards though; they demanded that I produce a receipt for the DVDs. A receipt? Why on earth would I have a receipt? Are the BBC going to charge us twice for watching their programmes now? First the license fee and then again for the DVD?

When I told the security guards that I didn’t have a receipt but could go home and then return with my TV licence if it was absolutely necessary, they laughed in my face. When I argued that Iain Dale said I shouldn’t have to pay again for something I’d already paid for, they said they didn’t know who Iain Dale was and didn’t care either. They accused me of shoplifting and called the police. I was arrested. Arrested! All because I didn’t want to pay for the same thing twice. I can think of nothing more outrageous!

If there was ever any doubt that the BBC is run by Stalinists, Leninists and Trots, this travesty of justice surely proves the point! These leftists are destroying our way of life and must be resisted at every turn. Next thing you know, there’ll be a tax on totally spurious blog posts. I remember when this country used to be great, you know…

PS, Iain really was caught stealing from the BBC. Maybe if he understood that bandwidth costs money, he’d be on his way to answering the question in his update*. He might even spare himself further embarrassment instead of causing even more.

* A I understand it, there are other reasons why iPlayer programmes are only available for seven days. As well as bandwith costs, there are storage costs to consider. Without the limit, what would soon become an essentially infinite archive would have to be stored in a format which would allow for streaming; the costs would soon mount up.

There is also the issue of licensing and repeat fees (or rather the avoidance of repeat fees). Similar fees are certainly an issue when the BBC sells permanent copies of programmes. When content is made available to download from the interwebs, the introduction of a small charge might help to cover these costs…

* Cross-posted from Big Sticks and Small Carrots

Most notably, he holds the extraordinary distinction of having lost his position at the Daily Telegraph because of his political views. Back in 2004, Martin Newland, former Telegraph editor, explained to the Guardian:

It’s OK to be pro-Israel, but not to be unbelievably pro-Likud Israel, it’s OK to be pro-American but not look as if you’re taking instructions from Washington. Dean Godson and Barbara Amiel were key departures.

Dean Godson was too pro-Likud and too subservient to the US government for the Telegraph. Given the writers they happily still employ, you’ve got to wonder just how extreme his own views must be.

Mr Godson has also been reasonably open about the need for the US and UK government’s to deploy covert propaganda techniques. In an article for the Times in 2006, he wrote that:

During the Cold War, organisations such as the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office would assert the superiority of the West over its totalitarian rivals. And magazines such as Encounter did hand-to-hand combat with Soviet fellow travellers. For any kind of truly moderate Islam to flourish, we need first to recapture our own self-confidence. At the moment, the extremists largely have the field to themselves.

The Information Research Department was a secret Foreign Office propaganda organisation which operated mostly in the developing world during the Cold War. It’s practices were modelled on psychological warfare operations. Typically, it covertly spoon fed “slanted” anti-communist stories to journalists to achieve the desired effect

Encounter magazine, on the other hand, was funded by the CIA. Based in London and initially edited by Irving Kristol, it too was a covert Cold War propaganda tool. It’s primary function seems to have been to attempt to steer European left wing intellectuals down the “right” path (no pun intended). The “right” path was the path deemed most acceptable by right wingers in the CIA. The CIA funding was kept secret in order that readers wouldn’t know that attempts were being made to manipulate their views from across the pond.

Neither of the government funded organisations operated in a transparent manner. Quite the opposite in fact. Mr Godson, who worked for the Reagan administration, will almost certainly be aware of the covert nature of these organisations. In true neo-conservative style, this does not seem to bother him in the slightest.

This suggests rather strongly that Mr Godson is a believer in the idea of the political noble lie as a means to achieve social cohesion and national security.

And he is the “Research Director” of Policy Exchange, an organisation which purports to be “an independent think tank… committed to an evidence-based approach to policy development”.

Right…

I’m no expert but I’m not sure that Dean Godson is the best man for the job.
(cross-posted from Big Sticks and Small Carrots)