I’m not big on new year’s resolutions as I’m an habitual goal-setter anyway, so I tend to have ongoing ‘resolutions’. Assuming the Mayans are wrong,  I’m hoping 2012 will be a year where I can focus on my career now that my housing is sorted. Also, I need to get back to a health regime! Anyway, the dearth of news making sure Maurice Glasman and Diane Abbot are blown out of all proportion means I’ve not a great deal to write about today.

I hope you are all fully recovered from your Chrimbletide excesses and have mastered your in-boxes back at work. I think I’ve just about managed it. I’m working on a bit of a large blog post on economic thinking but it’s still in draft stage at the moment. Either way, you’ll hear more from me soon. Until then, happy New Year and all the best for 2012.

It saddens me just how commercial Christmas is, but I know lots of people say the same thing. I hope  you’re all far too busy with family and friends to be reading this blog post, but if you’re such a devoted fan that you just couldn’t stay away, then I wanted to share something about what Christmas is to me and millions like me around the world.

Have a lovely day.

I need add nothing to this brilliant Withnail Star Wars mashup

It’s very easy to write a few hundred words about the what those horrible capitalist marketing people from Coca-Cola have done by creating the red-suited, white-bearded, rosy-cheeked Santa myth. But it’d be boring.

It’s much more interesting to take a bit more of a look at who Santa was. The original Santa Claus is far more interesting than 21st century version we see in toy shops and movies.

There has been a whole series of growing stories built up around the facts of a boy called Nicholas who was born in AD 280 into a wealthy family. His parents, it’s said in early histories, brought Nicholas up in the Christian faith and taught the sacred texts of the time.

Early depiction of St Nicholas

Orphaned before manhood, Nicholas was left on his own in the world with nothing but a lot of money and  knowledge of Jesus. He heard of a local man who had been left with nothing and had three daughters to raise. Without a penny to put toward dowries, they had been doomed to live an unhappy life of spinsterhood and prostitution. That thought horrified Nicholas so, late one winter night, he threw three small bags of gold into their home, some chronicles say via the chimney, and so saved the daughters from their fate.

As a seventeen year old, Nicholas went on pilgrimage to Palestine where he felt called to priesthood and so went on to be ordained. He went to serve in a monastery near Myra in Lycia, which is now in Turkey. While there, an old priest was reported to have had a vision that the new Bishop would be Nicholas.

The people of Myra elected Nicholas as bishop and he was known for his zeal and love of the Gospel. In these still-early days of the Church, the pagan gods of Rome and Greece were still the dominant religion. Nicholas made it his mission to challenge at the Temple to Artemis in Lycia.

Of course, the challenge of one man wasn’t going to overturn centuries of worship, and in AD 303, Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered the persecution of Christians. As the “chief priest of the Christians”, Romans arrested, tortured and imprisoned Nicholas along with many of his flock.

It was 10 years later that Constantine signed the Edict of Milan, ordering an end to the persecutions and Nicholas and all other Christians were freed.

Nicholas had been beaten raw, but he had refused to renounce his confession of Jesus as his saviour. It was also reported by other Christians that Nicholas had spoken up on behalf of those falsely arrested for being Christian and that he went out of his way to help his people survive.

After Arius made the Arian assertion that Jesus was a created being and not in existence from all eternity, Methodius wrote that “thanks to the teaching of St. Nicholas, the metropolis of Myra alone was untouched by the filth of the Arian heresy, which it firmly rejected.”

The Council of Nicaea and the burning of Arius' books

It is also written by historians of near the time that Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, where Arian doctrine was finally rejected, and that Nicholas had himself debated with Arius personally over the theological question of whether there was a time when Jesus did not exist. The debate was said to have ended when Nicholas punched Arius in the face and knocked him out right in the middle of the council floor at Nicaea as the emperor Constantine looked on.

Not quite the fluffy character you see on your Christmas cards today! In fact, quite far from it. He was a godly, charitable man who was persecuted, imprisoned and tortured for a decade just for believing in a baby in a manger.  He was a passionate defender of his faith. He defended the weak, the needy, and the helpless against the ravages of famine, poverty and the persecution of the Roman empire.

He’s a lot more than a marketing tool for retail giants and fizzy drinks, even today.

Without further ado, here it is. Enjoy!

Most journalism is about disagreement, difference and dissent. It creates drama and drives a story. In general, in British politics, this means  the arguments between Labour and the Tories. Over the last decade or so, fleet street have enjoyed milking the Blair/Brown divide within the Labour party, which was always good for a headline or two.

However, nowadays at least, Labour has a problem making a case on issues like the NHS, the

economy, and defence, no matter how right we might be. That’s because the media doesn’t want to write about Ed Balls’ disagreements with George Osborne, or Andy Burnham’s differences with Andrew Lansley.

That’s not where the money is. The money is in the slightest sign of a split within the coalition.

So it’s been a bit of a boon for the media in the last few days.

As I write, Cameron is making to the House of Commons on the European summit and what it means to Britain. Nick Clegg is nowhere to be seen and any number of jokes about ‘alarm clock Britain’ will be being penned up in the press gallery above the Speaker’s chair.

The reason that will be given for his absence will probably be some prior engagement that couldn’t be cancelled. But the truth is far more likely to be that if he turned up, he’d be jeered by the Tories behind him on the government benches.

This is all because of his strangely evolving reaction to Cameron’s announcement of the use of Britain’s veto at the EU summit.

As an aside, Cameron and the Tory party using the word veto is a bit of a misnomer. I’m not sure it means what the Prime Minister seems to think it does.

The dictionary defines veto as:

the power or right vested in one branch of a government to cancel or postpone the decisions, enactments, etc., of another branch, especially the right of a president, governor,or other chief executive to reject bills passed by the legislature.

I really do struggle to see what exactly has been cancelled or postponed other than Britain’s chance to influence the future of the European Union for the next few years.

And I’m pretty sure that Nick Clegg agreed with me. At least he did at some point over the weekend. On Friday morning, he was telling the press (sniffing for splits as usual) that Cameron’s manoeuvre was probably in the best interest of the nation. By Friday evening, he was frustrated with Cameron’s manoeuvre. On Saturday, he was telling Toby Helm that he was ‘furious’ with Cameron’s manoeuvre. On Sunday, he was unleashing this tirade on the morning politics shows about Cameron’s manoeuvre. By Monday afternoon, he’s gone into hiding otherwise engaged.

It’s all a bit unwise from Clegg, really. Creating splits in the coalition, which in theory could lead to a general election, when you’re in single digits in the national polls is not a clever thing to do! His invisibility today combined with Danny Alexander and David Laws both backtracking on national television to try to paper over any splits that may have appeared, like the tenants of a slowly subsiding terraced house.

The LibDem leadership obviously feel they’ve made an error in creating the sign of disagreement. But I think their mistake is not to have disagreed in the first place. Clegg has committed that most grievous of politicians’ sins. He’s flip-flopped. First supporting, then disagreeing and now rowing back faster than an Oxford coxed eight. Clegg is left losing his rag over a decision that has broad popular support with the public, rightly or wrongly.

The Tory European actions are all very short-termist in their thinking, or at least I think they are. Losing influence across an entire continent to keep influence with 305 parliamentary colleagues, strikes me as pissing off the teachers so the kids in class will like you.

You have to wonder just when David Cameron decided to use his ‘veto’ given that he’d already planned in advance to be dining with Euro-sceptic backbenchers that same evening, despite talks still going on in France.

You could also say the same about Clegg’s anger as well, of course. Did he betray his true feelings on Friday morning and then try to keep the UK’s hand in the game with the EU by letting them know some in Government are pro-Europe? Was Nick attempting diplomatic relations there? Or was he just being stupidly naïve?

Update: Clegg’s office have apparently not gone with the prior engagement argument. They’re just saying he’s not attending the PM’s statement because “he doesn’t want to be a distraction”. If we can’t see him in the chamber, we’ll apparently forget all about any disagreement, difference and dissent.

Those are the reasons I’ve not written a blog post for a month or so. I apologise, but I’m sure you – Dear Reader – have been just as busy as I have, and I bet you’ve as many blogs in your reading list too, so I doubt I’ve been missed too much!

A bit of time away from the blog has given me time to think about things I want to write about a bit too. Writing a political blog while working in Westminster tends to make me feel like I need to write about things as they happen like some lobby journalist on a deadline.

Take the Autumn Statement given by George Osborne. It was delivered on the afternoon of November 29th. If I’d been firing on all cylinders, I’d have written and published a response by the evening of November 29th. It would probably

George Osborne

have been an interesting read with at least a half-decent cursory opinion on why Osborne and his statement were a bit poor.

Now, I’ve had time to read the statement in more depth, I’ve had time to study the impact, and I’ve seen the later debates in Parliament. Including the one a couple of evenings ago where Labour won their first vote for some time. I say Labour won, but I think it’s probably more accurate to say the Government lost it. Very poor management from the coalition whips meant that hardly any government MPs were there to follow the line and head through the lobbies. I rather suspect there was a severe bollocking for whoever was on whips duty for the government benches that night.

Any way, back to the Autumn Statement. It’s very clear that Osbornomics just hasn’t worked. People up and down the nation have felt the pain of George and Dave’s plan for months now, but Osborne finally admitted that his economic manoeuvring had essentially failed.

That would be fine if it was as simple as just saying ‘hey ho, plan A didn’t work, let’s have a bash at something else chaps’. But it isn’t that simple. There is a cost to economic failure. They originally came to power saying that the harsh cuts were necessary to make sure the structural deficit was slashed by the end of the current parliament in 2015. In this statement, Osborne told us the deficit wouldn’t be gone until 2017. In fact, he went on to tell us that rather than carefully managing borrowing, government would borrow £158 billion more than they had planned 12 months ago.

Even the IMF have now announced that, if the economy continues to stagnate and underperform against forecasts, Osborne should do what Labour has said all along and slow down the cuts. Of course, George is so arrogant that he’s just going to carry on regardless. More and more he reminds me of the captain of the Titanic, heading inevitably toward the icebergs with no sign of slowing down.

Tonight, Cameron is at yet another European summit to discuss the failure of the Eurozone. No doubt Osborne will add this issue to the list of other excuses for British economic failure. We’ve had snow, weddings, and probably leaves on the line. And of course the Euro has an impact on our country, but that doesn’t explain why the UK has slower growth than 23 of the 27 countries of the European Union in the last year.

The OBR forecasts growth in the Eurozone at 1.6%, while it forecasts the UK’s at 0.9% over the same period. You have to wonder, given those numbers, how Osborne can logically blame the Euro crisis for his own failings.

Just to drive my point home, here are some other OBR numbers for you:

Slower growth this year, next year and every year up to 2014

Higher unemployment next year and every year up to 2015

£158 billion more borrowing than planned a year ago

Both of these filled me with sadness, one more than the other for obvious reasons.

It’s occasions like this that always hit us hard and make us think. And so it has been with me.

I thought I’d share this image with you all, which I first saw a year or so ago and whose sentiments I tend to like. It’s true: Life is fleeting and we should try to grab it by the scruff of the neck and not let go.

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• Philip Gould: architect of New Labour and close aide to Tony Blair (telegraph.co.uk)

I’m not entirely comfortable with the big beasts’ handling of the Eurozone crisis

in Athens.

According to Greek Prime Minister (at the time of writing, at least!), Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy joined forces to tell Papandreou that if Greece fail to accept the bailout, then they’ll be out of the EU for the next 10 years.

Now, I’m not sure whether Germany and France are even capable of making that happen. This point that there’s no provision for withdrawing from the Eurozone without leaving the European Union may be true in theory, but in practise there are plenty of countries in the European Union who aren’t part of the Eurozone, including this green and pleasant land in which I write.

The other problem I have isn’t just to do with the facts of how the mechanics of the Eurozone work, but also with the politics of the handling of Greece and the Greek people.

One of the few comparable situations where a European country was forced into an austerity programme was Germany in 1919.

In the aftermath of the Great War, the German government was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles which meant making reparation to the other European nations to the value of £325billion at today’s value.

The German people were hugely against the austerity measures being forced on them by the rest of Europe and, consequently, hugely against their government for agreeing to it in the first place. Sounds reasonably familiar doesn’t it?

The Weimar republic began a slow and very messy collapse over the next few years with the economic situation in the country giving an opening to a right-wing Chancellor in January 1933. I don’t think I need to write about what happened next. If you don’t know, you probably should be reading something other than my little blog. Seriously, go buy some history books.

It’s very dangerous to push a nation and its populace beyond their limits. The stick is fine to a point, but there needs to be a lot more carrot offered to Athens. Papandreou will probably go and Greece will have to make some hard choices. And, like 1919, they’ll be choices that will affect the continent for many years to come.

As you may have spotted from other posts on here, I work in Parliament. Consequently, most days I

have lunch in Parliament as well. There are many places to eat in the Parliamentary estate, but as I spend most of my time on the Lords side of the building, I most often eat in what is called the River Restaurant which is attached to the Lords bar.

It’s a modern canteen-style dining room with a random mix of members’ staff, House staff in funny uniforms, and peers sitting in there. As a general rule, people just sit wherever there’s space and there’s not too much worry about Lords or Ladies sitting on their own, etc.

It’s really rather convivial and not at all snobbish or anything of the sort. Except for the rather odd Victorian uniforms you see from time to time. The Peers I’ve worked with have been some of the most down-to-earth and affable people I’ve met.

Anyway, today I sat in the first available seat to tuck into my healthy tuna steak and veg – still dieting, you see – only to find that Neil Kinnock was sat next to me being interviewed by a journalist about Labour history.

Neil Kinnock is one of my political heroes with his brilliant speeches and the beginnings of dragging the Party toward electability. I choose to airbrush out of my mind the falling over on the beach and weird Sheffield rally and focus on his warning of a Thatcherite Britain and his questioning of being the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to get a higher education.

I sat tucking into my food trying to appear all cool and relaxed and not in awe of the Bevanite Welshman from my childhood. And what a joy it was, Dear Reader, to hear him tell his stories of Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan, Barbara Castle, Thatcher and Militant. His skills as a raconteur are almost as good as his skills as an orator.

I listened entranced as he talked about off-the-record conversations, debates, and battles won and lost. It was utterly fascinating and I hope the journalist who writes it up does it all justice. Sadly, I suspect the journalist will be unable to convey the mimicry skills of Kinnock as he ran through a series of – rather good – impersonations of various Labour and Union people during his meander through history.

As they wound up their interview, I couldn’t help myself.

I took out my moleskine and asked for his autograph. Given Parliament’s propensity for rules and conventions, I suspect that broke any number of protocols but I couldn’t resist.

“thank you Lord Kinnock”

“It’s Neil. ‘Lord Kinnock’ makes me think of a pub”

I know it’s all a bit childish to be in awe of someone else and probably laughable to some, especially people in the party but I’ve always admired Kinnock. There’s just something about him I relate to.

I’m the first Carr to go to University for a thousand generations after all.