Tom gave a superb interview to BBC Today in Parliament yesterday (10 October).

The interview went out at 11:50pm on a Friday, so it was easy to miss and I thought I'd post the item here. It is about 10 minutes long.

Click through on the title for the interview.

I've askled Dave Cole to hold it over due to David Keen's Touching Base column being a bit later than usual today (it should be out around teatime).

The slot for the Devolving England series is 4pm-5pm, and it is up to Dave whether this is in the week, or at weekends etc.

Matt

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Front Page Images here and on the Front Page are Courtesy of Sky News.

For some reason, this morning’s newspapers are full of outcry about what UK councils are doing investing in Iceland anyway. The answer to that seems quite simple; they were seeking the best returns for the council tax payer, which is exactly what they should be doing. Remember, Iceland’s leading banks offered high rates of interest and enjoyed AAA credit ratings. Sounds fair enough to me.

Are the critics seriously maintaining that those good folk who cheerfully pay whatever shocking sum Ceredigion demands for a Band D semi would have been better off if their dosh had been in the safekeeping of Northern Rock or Bradford & Bingley?

It can be argued that they should have taken the money out in the few days avaialble to them, but - basically - spot on. If the original decision to lock in lots of money at high interest rates for long periods was faulty, then so was the Treasury advice to do the same.

OK, that's Councils. Now, if we start apply a requirement for individual judgement where it *can* be expected and follow the MP demands that individual bankers cannot hide behind the "letter of the regulatory regime", and then proceed with logic to apply the same principle to MPs with their expenses, where they themselves use the "it is within the rules" excuse to justify massive abuse - then we might get somewhere.

After a vigorous the debate from Garbo's last article: "The great English parliament debate: Devolving England II" (58 comments and counting), this article tries to tease out some principles of devolution, after a cook's tour through the different levels of government we may end up with if we simply add an English Parliament to the existing setup.

I sometimes lose track of the sheer quantity and depth of government between my front door and the politicians at the "top", so I have used a a tour through the levels of government to which I am subject to set the context. Sometimes I feel that I am at the bottom of a monstrous wedding cake of layers of government. I admit that I'm not completely clear what all the elements of all the different levels do, and if those of us who take an interest in politics don't know - then someone needs to help the general public.

Meanwhile, the Young Britons' Foundation ran a training day at the Conservative Party Conference for young activists. Mike Rouse has kindly written an account for the Wardman Wire.

For a little longer we continue to have about 6 contributors under 30.

I also have it on good authority that she starts wearing purple next year. Or perhaps it was last year.

A cartoon from ASBO Jesus.

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Front Page Images here and on the Front Page are Courtesy of Sky News.

That is a big enough change to be worth a look.

You can see the graph and other data here. I have some thoughts for tomorrow, but I'd be interested to hear other views first in the comments.

The teams: Who's who

The Government:

Paul Myners: The former Marks & Spencer chairman and ex-director of GLG, one of the world's biggest hedge funds, was a surprise appointment as the Treasury minister responsible for the City. Mr Myners, 60, was appointed to his new job on Friday.

Nick Macpherson: The permanent secretary to the Treasury, aged 49, was appointed in 2005 and is rated very highly by Gordon Brown. He gave £12,700 to Mr Brown's Labour leadership campaign when Mr Brown was Chancellor.

That caught my eye - a top Civil Servant giving a donation to a leadership campaign in a political party? Doesn't the Civil Service Code say something here? It does:

You must act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government.

Normally I display Viral Videos from a company called as part of the advertising on the site here, and usually they have anything between 1 and 4 new videos appearing each week.

Since the latest phase of the credit crunch started around a week ago, there has not been a single video released from my suppliers - so all we have are existing campaigns that have not yet run out of budget. And there are only two of those left.

The Daily Mash has been reduced to running the Paul Daniels Tesco Shopping viral video (the one with the Card Trick), which is the only one available apart from the Citroen Robot that is currently on the Wardman Wire frontpage.

Desperate times, indeed.

A cartoon from Indexed.

Click through on the title for all the papers.

Front Page Images here and on the Front Page are Courtesy of Sky News.