Opponents of the Conservatives have always sought to make out that the 1980s were a unique decade for greed and envy. They have sought to imply that it was deliberate policy of Mrs Thatcher to encourage and support greed.
I can assure you that as a sincere Christian Mrs Thatcher regarded greed and envy as sins. She wanted to encourage self reliance, self help and the protestant work ethic, not excess. Subsequent decades under other governments have had their fair share of the deadly sins as well.

I have not spent much time writing about Scottish independence, because I do not think the Scottish people are likely to vote for it. The latest polls show flagging support for the cause of independence.

As an Englishman I accept that the vote will be for the Scottish people to decide. As an Englishman I will become more engaged should Scotland vote to leave. I will want to make sure that the negotiation which follows the vote is fair to England.

I am writing today on this topic to give you, my readers a chance to set out your views if you wish. The fact that the vote is for Scottish people only does not prevent the expression of opinions or invalidate the views of voters elsewhere in the UK. It is our union too, and we have every right to a view without a vote.

Were the polls to turn round, and were Mr Salmond to win, certain results follow naturally. Warship building and maitenance for the Royal Navy would not continue in Scotland, as Labour and shop stewards in Glasgow have explained. I do not see how Scotland could continue to use the pound as her currency. Why should the Bank of England stand behind Scottish banks, if they got into trouble again? Surely we have learned from the troubled experience of the Euro that it is dangerous to separate political control from monetary control. The Chancellor has said he thinks it would be very difficult for the two countries to share the pound under the Bank of England, and that looks like an understatement.

It is true the two could share a monarch. The UK does not have exclusive use of the Queen at the moment. The two countries could not share armed forces, especially as the SNP part of Scotland has different views on weaponry from the rest of the UK.

I would expect that both Scotland and the rest of the UK would negotiate new arrangements with the EU in the event of a split. It is clear the EU would want to change our arrangements, as the rest of the UK would be over represented in the EU where representation is related to population. There would also need to be budget changes, to allow for the smaller tax base of the rest of the UK. Scotland will surely have to negotiate a new membership, as the smaller partner leaving the union of the UK. Will Scotland have to sign up to Euro membership in due course? Will she lose all benefit from the current UK rebate on contributions? She will presumably lose all the opt outs the UK has obtained.

The rest of the EU might see the split as a way to worsen the deal for the rest of the UK at the same time. I would hope that with a stronger English Eurosceptic representation in Parliament we could use it to have a very different and far less intrusive relationship. If, however, all this came to pass under a federalist UK government it could spell more EU control over the rest of the UK.

Whilst the Judge did not grant the petition to stop the planned construction of a High Speed Train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, he did make the State work out a new financing plan to cover the full high costs of the project before they can issue the bonds they wanted to sell to pay for part of it.

High speed rail in the USA is highly contentious and becoming very expensive. Will construction get underway next year as planned? Will the state find new ways of paying the very big bill?

Running a good business requires good housekeeping. Good modern factories are spotlessly clean. The best shops have well arranged goods, empty aisles and sparkle with their cleanliness. If you fly into Heathrow you see a busy airport around you, but you are not confronted by parked broken and decaying planes, piles of tarmac to repair the runway, or weeds growing high by the side of the taxiway.

Yet when you take a train into some of our town and city stations, you may see out of the window a railway wasteland. There may be sidings with weeds growing high, showing they have not been used or looked after for months. There are often piles of old timber, sleepers awaiting a use and other maintenance materials and parts stored carelessly in the outside weather by the tracks. There may be old and rusting carriages or waggons on abandoned track nearby. There may be substantial track that does not look as if it is much used.

All this gives the impression of a badly run business. Stocks cost money to buy and to keep out of use. Stockpiles held in all weathers out of doors will deteriorate more quickly than if properly warehoused. Disused equipment should be taken for refurbishment and reuse or sold for scrap, rather than hanging around in a siding.

There is also a lot of railway land that is not fully utilised. The land in or near to our major stations should have considerable development value. Of course the railway should keep routes it might need and space it may require for growth of its business, but at many stations it has more than this. It could remain the freeholder where development is a profitable prospect if it wishes.

The railway has access to such huge sums of state guaranteed borrowing and state subsidies, that it clearly does not think it needs to look after stocks, supplies and land. It does not make the capital work as hard as in most businesses. Many railway journeys show you through the carriage window that the railways, primarily Network Rail, are a long way off the pace of being a world class high quality operation. The capital base is very large and badly used and maintained. There are no profits before subsidy.

The press release from the Warsaw climate change conference under UN auspices was exceptionally thin. Only 37 states out of the 195 potentially involved now have “legally binding emission limitations and reductions” for CO2 under Kyoto. Warsaw was remarkable for how little most countries do want to do, and for how good many countries are now at getting out of any future binding commitments. Green is very much the last decade’s colour.

The press release said they had done preparatory work to take to Peru, and then finally to Paris in 2015 where they hoped countries would have something to offer for post 2020. However, the ambition is now for countries to offer “contributions” not commitments, and to police them themselves. Emerging economies have declined to join in as they see the need to expand their economies using fossil fuels without hindrance. They also think the advanced countries should send them money as compensation for the CO2 the rich countries have produced in the past, and they favour rapid transfer of technology on favourable terms to assist them.

Meanwhile the USA remains unenthusiastic about binding targets, Australia has opted out, and Japan no longer has the enthusiasm it had in the first Kyoto agreement. It looks as if the EU is largely on its own now when it comes to setting binding targets and to pushing through dearer renewable energy to replace cheaper fossil fuels. The USA is cutting its CO2 output by its new dash for gas, but this is the result of a policy based on exploiting a new carbon based fuel which offers cheaper energy, not based on binding commitments to cut CO2.

The climate change issue has become very bound up with the arguments over wealth and income transfers from the richer to the poorer countries. The UN hopes the advanced countries will offer substantial sums through a new international mechanism for “loss and damage”. They are also looking for routes to accelerate and enlarge financing to assist greener development.

It looks as if only the EU is going to press on with dearer energy and tough targets to cut CO2. As a result the world will not be saved from an excess of carbon dioxide, but industry and activity will continue to relocate from the EU to elsewhere in the world.

This morning’s announcement that they are not going ahead with the large offshore windfarm in the Bristol Channel is good news for energy users, as the power from it would have been dear and intermittent. The question remains, however, what new capacity is going to be built instead.

I awoke this morning to the news that the HS2 Bill will be 55,000 pages long. I suppose it’s good to know we get something for the millions of pounds being spent on preparing for the project, but why does all this need to be passed as a law? The environmental impact of this railway in general terms is pretty obvious to anyone looking at the project on a map, and will not be changed by the knowledge that it has been so extensively studied we can now have 55,000 pages written about it.

I have been using the railways to visit cities around the UK to make some speeches. One of the things that comes over most strongly to me is the negative and aggressive approach they take to their customers in many of their official announcements.

On Wigan station recently they kept repeating an announcement telling passengers they should not smoke on the station. They told us that the station included the ticket office, the entrance, the toilets and the platforms, in case we did not understand what no smoking on the station meant. They told us we would be fined if we disobeyed. There was no offsetting announcement wishing us a good journey, telling us of the station’s facilities, inviting us to use the waiting room out of the wind or saying there was a coffee place.

When joining a train at Euston in the morning there are often announcements warning you that you must not board or stay on the train if you do not have a specific peak hour ticket for that particular train. Again, the pill is not sweetened in any way. You are told you must get off the train immediately if you have the wrong ticket, and wait for your later train. Why don’t they welcome you aboard, and say if you would like to travel on this train but have a ticket for a different one, they would be happy to upgrade you for a supplement?

On some trains you are also told you have to be an unpaid policeman or support team member. You are told you have to observe packages and behaviour of your fellow travellers carefully, and report anything suspicious. Fortunately on the last couple of trains where I have been told to do this, the carriage was so empty that there were no other passengers in my view, so my duty was easily discharged. In a busy train this could be an onerous requirement of travel to seek to satisfy yourself of the behaviour of others when you have no powers to do so.

There is little or no attempt on trains to sell you other items which might assist on your journey. The captive clientele is left in their seats without seatbelts. Heavy luggage is left unrestrained in the racks above your head if you are in a carriage with other passengers.

The staff providing drinks and food where that is part of the service are often friendly and welcoming. It’s the system and the official announcements that leave one wondering. When I go into my local supermarket I am not confronted by announcements telling me to avoid shoplifting, to pay the full stated price or instructing me that I must not smoke. If there are announcements they are usually about special offers and products I might like to buy. Why are the railways so different? Why can’t they take the laws of the land for granted, and just do what it takes politely to check tickets or deal with any unruly passenger who does misbehave? Why aren’t there more positive announcements of ways they can help improve your journey and enable you to use the time on the train more productively? Why isn’t there more flexibility in the way they do handle passengers on trains? Why do they not offer upgrades to first for a sensible fee where they have lots of empty seats?

I had begun to fear I was not going to get any more leaked letters from the senior civil service, when across my desk in a brown envelope the following turned up. It is one of Dame Lucy’s latest to her deputy, Dr Roy Spendlove.

Dear Roy,

I am writing to reassure you. The government may be saying it no longer takes green policies seriously, but the requirements of the climate change agenda have been built in strongly at the EU level as well as into domestic laws and regulations. The same is true of the open borders policy which the previous government embraced with enthusiasm. Our Treaty obligations and the twin constraints of the European Court of Human Rights and of the European Court of Justice will require Ministers to stay true to the policy of the free movement of people throughout the EU.

In a long pre election period we should expect political statements about the wish to cut the price of energy and the wish to control numbers arriving in the UK from one of the governing parties. We should always question Ministers to make sure it is the Coalition speaking and not just a wish by one party within the coalition. We should also of course seek to do as Ministers wish, but our first necessity is to ensure they and we remain within the rule of law.

Knowing of your concerns, I would like to make you responsible for ensuring all colleagues dealing with Ministers understand the need to have a good understanding of EU law. We must avoid infraction proceedings against the government we serve, and help the government to avoid statements or policy demands which could annoy our European partners. I know consultancy and related budgets are tight, but I do have a contingency fund which we can use should need arise to ensure we have enough good legal advice on hand. I do not wish to see years of patient and careful diplomacy undermined by rash words and promises from Ministers not entirely in sympathy with our European approach.

I am pleased to see colleagues in DECC are well aware of the need to stay within the requirements of the Large Plants Directive to retire older generating plant, and within the ambitious targets of the Renewables policy to provide enough new windfarms. I would like you to help keep the Treasury and Business Department on board. There is no likelihood of any change to the fundamental EU law on this important matter. Ministers seeking some relief to electricity bills may be able to find a temporary subsidy from elsewhere in their budgets, but in the end it is Ministers’ duties to explain to the public that the EU anti global warming policy is important and does require rationing of energy use by price.

I am more concerned by the recent spate of comments, speeches and polls on the topic of the free movement of peoples. Free movement rests at the heart of the European project which the British people chose in a referendum in 1975 and have endorsed in all subsequent General Elections by their votes. It is true now that one of the Coalition parties wants a renegotiation and a new relationship, but we must be clear. This is not Coalition policy and so the civil service must in no way assist with it. It will be debated in future elections in 2014 and 2015. Until and unless a government is elected pledged to do this we must continue with the EU policies that have been ably implemented in recent years with substantial Treaty increases in EU powers.

In the meantime, if the Coalition as a whole is now asking for a revised approach to open borders within the EU, we need to offer them the strongest possible advice that the previous government signed us up to free movement. There is little sign that the rest of the EU wishes to alter these fundamental requirements of the amalgamated Treaties.

Yours

Lucy

We are fast approaching the change of border rules. In January the transitional arrangements which limited entry to the UK and other EU states from Bulgaria and Romania comes to an end. This has posed two big questions for the government.

The first concerns welfare payments. Is the UK too generous to recently arrived migrants from the rest of the EU? Should the UK, like some continental countries, state that we have a contributory system, and require new people arriving to pay money in before they can qualify for benefits out – unless they have been born and brought up here?

The second concerns the numbers of people we should invite into our country to take the many new jobs the economy is now creating, at a time when we still have a lot of unemployed people already settled here. Many UK voters think there should still be some limits on inward migration from the rest of the EU, as there is from non EU countries, all the time we have a large number of unemployed people.

The question arises, should the UK government be doing more to retain and assert control over our own welfare system and borders. Presumably these are two critical areas which we would wish to renegotiate come the day. Maybe the Coalition government should try to gain an extension to the current transitional arrangements, as some of us have tabled as an amendment to the Immigration Bill this week. Maybe it should also look further at eligibility for benefits, and move our system more in the direction of the contributory principle.

The EU offered the free movement of workers, not of benefit recipients. The last Labour government, when signing away so many of our powers at Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon, assured us we would retain control of our benefit system. If the EU does allow full mobility and eligibility to receive benefits anywhere in the EU, then many more people will gravtitate to the countries that pay the highest benefit levels.

I am not against mutuals. Nor am I starry eyed about them in the way some people are.

They can be a way of giving more of the profit of an activity to the depositors or savers, as they pay no profit and dividend to company shareholders.

This can mean they are riskier than a shareholder business, as they do not have PLC style retained profits as part of their shareholders’ funds or reserves. They might pay too much out. There are no shareholders to fall back on and ask for more capital.

Some people seem to think they are morally superior to for profit businesses. This is odd, as the banks and insurance companies are still for profit, but they want more of the profit to go to the savers or users of their businesses.

The UK mutual sector is now damaged by two spectacular collapses. The UK’s oldest mutual insurance company, Equitable Life, was brought low by promising more than it could afford to pay out to policyholders and savers. The mutual sector’s largest bank, the Co-op, has just reported large losses, insufficient capital and a Chairman who lacked the qualities of mind and character to be a successful bank chairman.

It is difficult to see how either of these businesses had a more moral approach to business than the for profit competitors they faced daily in the market. The Co-op bank was not averse to using the complex ways and products of modern finance. Equitable Life got its sums hopelessly wrong, and ended up dashing the hopes and legitimate expectations of a generation of its savers.

I have no problem with a good well run mutual. This recent history should, however, be a warning of the special risks mutuals can pose. With no shareholdersto provide capital and insufficient conventional profit reserve some financial mutuals can be very risky. I myself always steered clear of Equitable Life because of its structure. As a result I have been able to represent my constituents caught up in that problem without conflict of interests. Quite a lot of MPs were in EL themselves.