From a Parliamentary Early Day Motion…

That this House is dismayed to learn that both Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and JFC Brunssum will be closed for two full weeks over Christmas and New Year, that any telephone call to these establishments during this time will be greeted by a duty officer

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=36934&SESSION=891

Reminds me of the Yes Prime Minister sketch:

Jim Hacker		“Tell me, General, where is the Hot Line?”
General Howard		“Which one?”
Jim Hacker		“The one to Russia.”
Bernard Woolley		“The Red Hot Line, Sir.”
General Howard		“That’s in Downing Street.”
Jim Hacker		“So in an emergency, I can get straight through to the Soviet President?”
General Howard		“Theoretically, yes.”
Jim Hacker		“Theoretically?”
General Howard		“That’s what we tell journalists. In fact, we did once get through to the Kremlin, but only to a switchboard operator.”
Jim Hacker		“Couldn’t the operator put you through?”
General Howard		“We never found out. He didn’t seem to speak much English.”

Basically, if you are Russia and want to invade one of your neighbours, then the end of December would be a rather good time to do it. Even better, the Russian Xmas is actually two weeks after the Western one, so they don’t even need to tell their own troops to cancel xmas lunch on the 25th.

For some odd reason*, I just had a brrrrr email about the new ministerial responsibilities at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

What struck me though was this bit:

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PAT MCFADDEN MP: MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS AND POSTAL AFFAIRS

Responsible for employment relations, ACAS, postal policy and the Royal Mail and Post Office portfolio of the Shareholder Executive, the Insolvency Service (including companies investigations), strengthening regional economies, Olympic legacy and transformational government

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Am I being overly cynical when I note that the post office has been lumped in with employment relations – considering the rather stike happy lot the post office employs?

As Jim Hacker commented when offered a similar role in Yes Minister, “what – be held responsible for all the strikes in the UK? No thanks!”

Maybe Pat has upset Mandy and got lumped with the “strikers portfolio” as a punishment?

*odd in the sense that I didn’t know I was on their mailing list.

Been following the issue of the MP who had his conversation bugged when discussing an issue with a constituent. Needless to say, I am worried about this – especially as the constituent, who is in jail – is only there because of a US extradition demand and not any conviction for criminal activity in the UK.

Anyhow, I heard this morning that Tory Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis sent a letter to the Prime Minister several months ago raising this issue, and nothing was done until yesterday. Downing Street says that it never received the letter – which presumably means they will hold an enquiry into the failings of the Post Office?

Anyhow – hearing about this, I was reminded of the “Rhodesia Solution”, a (presumably) fictitious situation in the iconic comedy show, Yes Minister.

This cropped up in the Yes Minister episode The Whisky Priest.

After the proclamation of the Rhodesian state in 1965 Britain boycotted Rhodesia. Supposedly a British Minister got hold of information that British oil companies were illegally selling oil to Rhodesia. He told this to the PM, but in such a way that it was unintelligible and open for misinterpretation. Jim Hacker uses the same approach when he has learned about British arms being sold to Italian terrorists. He writes a letter to the PM where he only refers to the law articles that are offended against and he does not mention anything about arms or terrorists. Also he makes sure that the letter arrives on the day the PM leaves for an overseas summit. This way there is total confusion about what the letter actually says and who has actually read it. The whole thing is written off as miscommunication and everyone is in the clear.

I wonder if David Davies employed the Rhodesia Solution when he wrote his letter?