MPs' EXPENSES (2)

There has been a lot of talk in the U.K. press this weekend about how David Laws is an "honourable man" with oodles of "integrity". I have to say I think he is more than a bit of a dork.

A former banker, Mr. Laws is the economic brains of the Liberal Democrats and one of the main architects of the coalition agreement that has propelled his party into Government for the first time in more than a generation. His reward was to be made Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in effect deputy Finance Minister to the Conservative Chancellor George Osborne. The Chief Secretary's job is to control public spending by other Ministers, and so is a difficult one at the best of times. Since this government will have to make huge cuts in public spending, starting immediately, the job is even harder than normal.

However, it will not be Mr. Laws who will be doing it. After just 18 days in office, he resigned. It transpired that he had claimed up to £40,000 in expenses (paid for by the taxpayer) for renting a room in London while he attended Parliament. The problem was that the room was in a property owned by his partner of the past 9 years, James Lundie. Under the rules, that is not allowed.

Mr. Laws says that he never considered Mr. Lundie to be his partner, in part because they did not share bank accounts. This is unconvincing; I have been married to my wife for nearly 20 years, and we do not share bank accounts. He also said that he wanted to protect their privacy and not reveal his own sexuality (nether family nor friends knew of the relationship). Again, this is unconvincing. The easiest way to do that would be not to have made a claim. Mr. Laws - in effect - agrees that these reasons are unconvincing, since he has resigned, will be paying the money back, and has asked the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to investigate. As he himself put it, he can't escape the conclusion that what he did was "in some way wrong".

Exactly how wrong must await the outcome of that investigation. But that is not what makes Mr. Laws a dork, it is something else. Every politician in the U.K. - indeed, every voter - has known for at least a year that the system of claiming for Parliamentary expenses was rotten. Nearly everybody in Parliament was affected, a large number of the biggest culprits were forced to stand down before the recent general election, five of the worst offenders were prosecuted. If there was even the tiniest doubt about the legitimacy or otherwise of Mr. Laws' actions - or even if there wasn't - then the time to have put his cards on the table was then. He might have run into trouble, he might not (others did things that were far worse). But at least the electorate, both local and national, would have known where he stood. And he would not have ended up in the position where people affected by his decisions to cut public expenditure could reply "why can't I get money from the state when you can?". Forget everything about privacy and sexuality, this was a colossal political misjudgement.

Nick Clegg promised that the Liberal Democrats represented a new kind of politics. Mr. Laws has succinctly demonstrated that they don't. If I were Mr. Clegg, I would be furious (despite his protestations of support). And more than a little worried. If he didn't know what one of his closest associates had been doing, then what else doesn't he know? That question might well gnaw more than usual, given that the original revelations came not from Mr. Laws himself but from the Daily Telegraph. The right-wing newspaper has been the honourable champion behind the expenses revelations, but it is also undoubtedly a supporter of "the Conservatives should rule alone" mentality. Will there now be a dripfeed of revelations about other politicians in order to put the coalition under pressure?

Walter Blotscher

GIRO D'ITALIA (2)

After three weeks, 21 stages and roughly 3,500km of racing, Ivan Basso won this year's Giro d'Italia by a margin of just 111 seconds. It was the Italian's second victory in his home Grand Tour, but almost certainly a more satisfying one. In 2006 he simply blew his rivals away, leading one of them to say that he was not from this planet. That accusation acquired momentum when Basso was withdrawn at the last moment from the 2007 Tour de France - which he was favourite to win - after being caught up in the Spanish blood-doping inquiry Operation Puerto. After serving a 2-year suspension, he returned to the peleton at the beginning of 2009, but was not one of the top contenders at last year's Giro.

This year, however, was different, and he was clearly the strongest man in the high mountains of the final week. He also had the benefit of a powerful Liquigas team that not only convincingly won the team time-trial, but also managed to position more men around him when the gradients began to hurt. Once again, it underlined the importance in cycling of a supportive team; Basso still had to finish the job, but he wouldn't have been able to do it without their first having put him in the right position.

My earlier prediction that it would be Carlos Sastre turned out to be hopelessly wrong, as the Spaniard starting going backwards as soon as I had named him. Neither he nor his team were as strong as they needed to be. Neither could world champion Cadel Evans's titanic efforts make up for the fact that his BMC team is not even up to Pro Tour standard, but has a second-tier continental licence.

So, well done Basso. Here is my prediction for this year's Tour de France. It won't be Sastre or Evans, since they don't have the team. It won't be Basso, since it is almost impossible to win the Giro and the Tour in the same year (though another Liquigas rider might make the top five). It won't be Lance Armstrong, he is simply too old. It will instead boil down to a straight fight between two men not at the Giro, Astana's Alberto Contador and Saxo Bank's Andy Schleck. My heart is with Schleck, but my head says Contador.

Walter Blotscher

THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

If a Martian (or an Asiatic for that matter) ever needed evidence that Europe is not a homogeneous place, then they would need to look no further than tonight's Eurovision song contest, held this year in Norway.

Some features of the contest are familiar from EU politics. Greece votes for Cyprus and vice versa, as do Spain and Portugal. The East Europeans support each other. The big nations (Germany, France, Spain and the U.K.) get special favours, earning a bye directly into the final, instead of having to go through one of the two semi-finals. English is the dominant language, with many countries choosing it in preference to their national tongue; while French continues to fight a desperate rearguard action, as evidenced by the obligatory bilingual hosts (well, trilingual, if you include Norwegian). And the key to winning is the lowest common denominator principle; the song which is least offensive to the most other countries.

I saw part of the second semi-final on Thursday, which was a useful way of weeding out some of the more egregious entries. Holland's song sounded like an out-of-key fairground wurlitzer. Slovenia had the odd idea of combining a rock anthem with a traditional folk song. The Lithuanian boy band all bizarrely dropped their trousers. And Croatia's plan of using three leggy blondes in short dresses went awry when they decided to sing in Croat. Not a good idea.

The 25 songs on the night were more varied than usual. There was a thoughtful solo guitar act in English from Belgium of all people. The French entry was a lingala number from Kinshasa. The Belarussians and Romanians sang with thick East European accents and a grand piano. Serbia and Greece were awful. Spain sang twice, after a spectator invaded the stage during their act (though it didn't make the song any better). There were a lot of muscular and scantily-clad, if somewhat redundant, male dancers. And there was a fantastic "half-time show", where 18,000 people (1,000 people in 18 countries) did live dancing to a song in the studio.

The contest also showed how things in Europe are changing. The three big rock numbers came not from the U.K., but from Bosnia, Ukraine and Turkey. And two of the best female power ballads were from Azerbaijan and Georgia. All five were in English. I suspect that their parents would be gobsmacked.

And the winner was? Somewhat surprisingly, but by some margin, Lena from Germany, which was my daughter's choice. Singing in English, she sounded a bit like a Cockney trader. I rather liked Manga, the Turkish rock band, who came second. The U.K. deservedly came last.

Walter Blotscher

WOMEN'S TENNIS DRESSES

There is a new style in women's tennis dresses this year. Well, dress is probably the wrong word. It is more of a frilly skirt, almost a tutu really, worn over leggings that go down to the knees. Preferably of a different colour. Nadia Petrova is the leading exponent, but there are others.

Call me reactionary, but I have to say that I think they are ghastly. Not quite as ghastly as Svetlana Kuznetsova's shorts, which wouldn't look amiss on a prep-school boy; but nearly. I think it's the frills that get me, they just don't seem right for an activity that is designed to make you sweat.

The men, by contrast, are looking more elegant. Gone is the rather nasty "all-black" look of 5 years ago, now it is just baggy white shorts, and a simple coloured shirt. Roger Federer is looking particularly fetching in blue this year. But then, he doesn't ever really sweat.

Walter Blotscher

APPLE v. MICROSOFT

Apple has just overtaken Microsoft to become the world's most valuable technology company. This represents a remarkable turnaround for the former PC pioneer, which had a near-death experience during the 1990's, but which has surged back to financial health under the leadership of Steve Jobs and on the back of the range of savvy products (iPod, iPhone and iPad) that he has brought to market during the past decade. You have to go back to 1989 for the last time Apple was ahead of its rival.

This doesn't mean the end of Microsoft; with a market capitalisation of US$219 billion, it is still one of the largest and most valuable companies in the world, in any industry. Nevertheless, it should cause a few furrowed brows in Seattle. Microsoft currently has much greater sales (US$58.4 billion to US$36.5 billion) and net profits (US$14.6billion to US$5.7billion) than Apple. But Apple's value is higher because the market thinks that Apple has a greater potential to make money in the future. That should be worrying.

Yesterday's development reminds us that companies come and go, particularly in the technology field. When I first started work in 1980, the smartest companies all used Wang electric typewriters. Wang? Who now remembers WordPerfect, once the standard wordprocessing programme, and bought by Novell for a ludicrously high price in 1994? Indeed, who remembers Novell? Yes, companies come and companies go. Apple is one of the very few that have come, gone, and come back again.

Walter Blotscher

LENTILS

I love lentils. Apart from the taste, I like their texture, midway between mushy and crunchy. They also make me feel good, allowing me to eat protein without having to eat water-and-other-resource-heavily-dependent-meat. That does not of course stop me from eating a juicy steak the very next day. But hey, who said I was consistent and non-hypocritical?

Each time I eat them, I find myself saying that I ought to eat them more often. The only difference this time is that I am saying it on my blog. And that is because I have just had two bowls of delicious lentil and bacon soup while watching Desperate Housewives with my daughter. One packet of bacon, one large onion, two carrots. Chop them all up and fry them in some oil, add lentils, water and seasoning, and simmer for 40 minutes. Wicked!

My daughter is now going to serve me tea and cake in bed. She has just started work at the local bakery, and got two strawberry cream tarts when the shop closed. Wicked again!

Walter Blotscher

PILGRIMAGE

For the past few years my wife has gone on a "pilgrims' walk" at Whitsun. Over three days, they wander over nice parts of Fünen, the island in the middle of Denmark where we live, visiting and staying in old churches and ending up on the Monday evening with a service in Odense Cathedral. The trip apparently attracts all sorts; very religious, mildly religious, agnostic, even some professed heathens.

Because the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is supposed to undertake at least once in their lives, is one of the five pillars of Islam, pilgrimage continues to thrive in the Muslim world. It is also big in Hinduism. Yet active pilgrimage, as opposed to tourism to places that have a religious history (eg Rome), is no longer a required part of Christianity. Pilgrims were common sights on the roads in mediaeval Europe, with secular leaders to the fore; but like modern-day hitchhikers, they seem to have disappeared.

By chance, my son was in Galicia at Whitsun, playing for the Great Britain national handball team. They visited a number of places, but failed to go to Santiago de Compostela, the shrine of St. James, and perhaps the second most important mediaeval pilgrimage site after Rome itself. That omission seemed to sum up the way the western world has changed.

Walter Blotscher