Quintin Jardine's blog

I’m in Spain just now, so I’ve been slightly removed from the current stooshie about the Coalition government’s proposed benefit cap and hadn’t examined the detail. However I admit that when a reporter mentioned on TV news last night that the cap per family is to be £26,000, net, I raised one eyebrow, and then the other. I said nothing, though; I will leave that to others.

However, I said plenty this morning when I learned that the proposal was defeated in  the House of Lords last night and that among those voting against were ‘The Bishops’. I am not against a bi-cameral system in principle. The ancient UK model is in need of reform, but that is on the way. However there is one change that should be made today; in my opinion it should have happened long ago. Don’t you find it outrageous, that proposed legislation can be voted upon by people who are only there because they hold promoted posts in one, and one alone, of the UK’s many organised churches? I don’t care how they vote, it’s the fact that they still can that gets to me. I pray that they are disenfranchised, sooner rather than later.

If you are up and about at 07:30 GMT, have satellite TV and are bored by what’s on offer on the top channels at that time, try tuning to Russia Today. Three times a week you will find a programme called The Keiser Report, hosted by an American named Max Keiser. Max seems to be impervious to civil law on defamation. Latterly he’s been making a career out of being outrageous, and in RT he seems to have found the perfect platform, after earlier forays on Al Jazeera English and on the BBC World Service. RT gives him half an hour to say more or less what he likes about the global financial system, although curiously, he seems to omit anything Russian from his constant stream of accusation and allegation.

His technique is simple, he talks so fast and fires so many accusations that it’s impossible to analyse them all, and so the tendency is simply to say ‘Wow, I never knew that,’ and move on with him to the next. As we all know, the US  financial system is based on piracy and fraud . . . well, that’s what Max says, although he omits to mention that as a stockbroker he was one of those piratical fraudsters himself. Indeed as we all no the word ‘Yankee’ is derived from a  word meaning pirate . . .well, that’s what Max says, but you won’t find authority for that claim anywhere. He has a side-kick too, a flat faced  fellow American called Stacy Herbert who is described as an ‘analyst’ when in reality she is his straight woman, Abbott to his Costello.

As morning entertainment, it’s pretty funny, but if you want to catch it, you’d better hurry. If the world really is as Max says, he may not have long to live.

Thanks Gillian, I knew I could rely on you to ask the question. Apart from The Loner, the other two books in my top three for film/tv treatment are A Coffin for Two and Grievous Angel. However since I am omnipotent in this forum, I will squeeze a fourth title on to the podium. This one may surprise you ; Somewhere Over the Rainbow, even though it has never appeared in printed form, only as an eBook on Amazon.

High praise for The Loner; thank you very much. I’m asked often about film and television adaptation, and I’m usually rather cagey in answering. However, I’ll make a confession. Of all the works I’d like in another medium, that’s in my top three.

‘Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.’— Marsha Norman

What the hell does that mean?

This morning’s Torygraph leads with a report that Vince Cable is demanding that the Chancellor includes in his next Budget what he and others refer to as a Mansion Tax. There was a time, before the last election, when Vince had a reputation as a wise old elder statesman; that was when people didn’t know a hell of a lot about him. In office he has turned from being Winnie the Pooh’s friend Owl, into his other mate Eeyore, but this doesn’t mean that he’s forgotten how to grab a headline. On the face of it, there is merit in what the former Glasgow Labour councillor and member in his lifetime of four political parties (the further left the better as long as it’s electable) is proposing: a 1% annual levy on homes worth more than £2m. Why not? People who own great such big piles deserve to pay a bit more than the rest of us. But they do already, VInce, in income tax. What you’re proposing, taking from the rich to give in theory to the poor, might sound as if it’s sprung straight from Sherwood Forest, but I’ve never been able to gloss over the fact that Robin Hood in the unlikely event that he ever existed as depicted, was an out and out thief. And if you believe that it is, as you say, ‘a very good idea’, then so are you.

Fortunately, the Chancellor is not going to buy into the Cable wheeze, and I doubt very much whether his leader, the self-aggrandised deputy Prime Minister will either. But it does show you the sort of character who has slithered into high office. The principle of taxing people on what they earn and what they buy is well accepted. The principle of taxing them, even the super-wealthy, on what they have, is not, never has been and never will be. Dr John Vincent Cable is a manipulator with a Red Box, and the sooner it’s taken away from him the better. Anything I have heard or read from the man leads me to the conclusion that if he had real integrity, and wasn’t in love with the power of office, he would leave the Lib Dems and rejoin the Labour Party. But he doesn’t, he is, and he won’t.

Just been looking at iTunes and Amazon music.  Guess who they’re pushing like mad for the last cent of profit? Easy. The very recently late Etta James. Too bad they didn’t push her a little harder when she was alive.

Having been hooked on the Moffat-Gatiss Sherlock, I am immensely pleased to learn that indeed there will be a third series, (even if it will use up TV time that might have been even better spent on an adaptation of Skinner). Given the way Sunday’s ended, I cannot imagine how they’ll explain the hero’s reappearance, but I’m looking forward to it. I hope also that Moriarty ain’t dead . . . although that will be seriously difficult to script . . . since the guy who played him was amazing.

I read this morning that Rangers are about to sign a player called Celik. That could lead to all sorts of media confusion, given received Scots pronunciation. Reminds me of the time Celtic signed a Brazilian called Scheidt.

I am very wary of offering opinions on American politics, but I feel compelled to say that I’m sorry to see Rick Perry dropping out. Before my friend Nurmi disowns me for ever, I will explain that I want the Republican candidate to  be the one with the least chance of beating President Obama and that was Perry, by a mile.

Another invitation, this one from Kenneth Roy, one of Scotland’s great journalists, to contribute today’s Diary to his ezine, The Scottish Review, and again, it’s been an honour to accept. Kenneth won’t mind me sharing, so please, click the link and I hope you will return many times thereafter.

http://www.scottishreview.net/QuintinJardine218.shtml

Incidentally, The Scottish Review was once described by the former pop singer, Pat Kane, or ‘Fat Pain’, as I have heard him called within my daughter’s circle, as being for ‘robust older curmudgeons’. All I can say to that gentleman is this, in the immortal words of the late Jim Holton, he who would have haunted the darkest dreams of today’s so-called football hard men, ‘Aye, son. And don’t you forget it!’

Just received an invitation to the inaugural Bloody Scotland, and I have been delighted to accept. Scotland’s inaugural international crime writing festival takes place in Stirling, from September 14 – 16. It’s being driven by the excellent Alex Gray and Jenny Brown, and it promises to be the major event that my country deserves, a chance to showcase its talent in one of fiction’s most popular genres. The programme will be revealed on May 17, so watch this space.

I had been giving serious thought to test-driving an Alfa Romeo Giulietta; very serious thought. Then I saw their latest round of TV ads and realised that they have dropped Uma Thurman as the public face of the model . Since it was she and she alone who’d made me interested in the damn thing,  the President of the company may now feel free to park his motor up his own fundament.

I watched a Rebus last night, one I’d seen before. I knew whodunnit, but I had to confirm what I thought I saw first time, namely the directorial liberty which allowed the entire village of Gullane to be taken out of the Firth of Forth and relocated somewhere south of Tantallon Castle. Also, I wanted to see Ken Stott in a Hibs scarf again. And finally: I needed to try one last time to get my head round the image of Ken snogging Julie Graham. Still can’t. I hate making personal remarks, but here I just can’t stop myself. She has to take evasive action to avoid his nose.

I am not entirely sure why Wikipedia is off the air today, as I’m not familiar with the detail of the US bills to which Jimmy Wales and others have taken exception. However, as someone who does his research on the hoof, it’ll be interesting to see how I get through a day without it. While the first rule remains ‘do not accept its content automatically as fact’, it is nonetheless a massively useful tool.

‘That isn’t writing at all, it’s typing.— Truman Capote’

He should know, he typed enough.

I’m told by a partial witness that the Fred Macaulay Show sounded okay this morning. I always come out of these things with a very hazy recollection of what I’ve said, but I don’t think I’ve offended anybody, and I will listen to realistic offers for my Bullworker. One lady listener phoned in to say I sound just like Chic Murray. (That would probably be spelled Xic in Catalan.) I don’t propose to go into stand-up, but any comparison with the peerless Tall Droll is an honour. Thanks to Anna in Glasgow for setting everything up and thanks also to Pilar and Iker in Girona, for making me feel welcome in their studio.

Awoke this morning to the news that Nick Clegg wants to create a ‘John Lewis economy’. I’m not against the policy proposal, but I find it ******g wonderful that it’s tabled by the leader of a party that has never knowingly undersold itself, or its principles.

First it was Paul Scholes. Then it was Thierry Henry.

Since major events and cataclysms are said to come in threes, I’ve been thinking. It’s less than a year since I hung up my Adidas Sambas and took my name off the Thursday Legends player pool, after a stellar career of something like 35 years. I’m still in shape, I’ve been training with the reserves, so why the hell not?

Either that or I may follow Eric Cantona’s example, and run for President of Scotland.

I am not a major fan of opinion polls. Mostly they are predictable and tell you what you know already. But the YouGov study which indicated that support for Scottish independence is greater in England than in Scotland did take me by surprise . . . not because I assume the English love us, but because most of them don’t actually know or care who we are. Until now, I’ve been dismissive of the view that anything referendum must be carried out across the union as a whole, but now I’m not so sure. At the turn of the century, as the Scottish Parliament  came into being, a very senior Tory politician, told me than in his view, independence would come when the rest of the Union tired of us and kicked us out. He also said that it might happen as soon as 2015. Looking back, that is beginning to sound like a very astute prophesy.

My support for independence comes from the heart, but the campaign is being run by some very gifted political thinkers within the SNP. It will be interesting to see how they read the implications of that YouGov poll and how they react to it.