UK Railways and those German trains-Labour fall over themselves,-again.

Much steam and smoke has been generated from the UK's Labour Party camp following the award of the contract for the rather late running Thameslink 2000 project.

The terms and conditions attatched to the bidding process by the former government headed by one Gordon Brown, late of these columns, whose two closest henchmen were Eds Miliband and Balls did not create a level playingfield for British companies. Indeed they favoured other non UK EU bidders. It was no surprise therefore when Germany's Siemens, already a supplier of high quality trains to the UK defeated Canada's Bombardier (European HQ:Berlin) who happen to have an assembly plant at Derby. They won fair and square. Indeed some factors were not taken into account but that was down to Labour's own legal stipulations. Once the bidding parameters and conditions were issued to all parties and they had responded there was no way they could be ammended without risking enormous damages being awarded to whoever produced the best deal under them. Labour know that full well although they seem to be telling the public that it's not true.

The next big contract pending is for Crossrail trains to operate on the route being created between Shenfield in Essex and Maidenhead in Berkshire. It was due to open for bidding on much the same terms in December this year. The government has now announced a delay to the process to enable the conditions to be rewritten so as to give companies with building facilities in the UK an equal chance, but no guarantee, of winning thanks to a broader range of considerations.

One would have thought that would have brought widespread acclaimation from the Opposition. How naive can we get? Not so. Anna Eagle the opposition spokesperson shreiks : " If ministers are now saying it's possible to review the Crossrail contract how do they explain why they have cost British jobs by refusing to do the same for the new Thameslink trains as Labour has repeatedly demanded?"

How does one explain to Ms Eagle and colleagues that it was her party who made it unlikely that Bombardier could win the Thameslink contract and it is the wicked Tories (primarily, though the Lib Dems might be in there somewhere ) who are now enabling them to bid for the next big one on equal terms? Such is the quality of political intervention at the back end of the silly season. With party conference time coming up there are signs that we are in for heavy doses extended silliness and on the part of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition it will no doubt be wrapped in the increasingly boring and yawn inducing packaging of "too much, too soon" at the intellectual end of the arguments and " Cameron and cronies are toffs" at the other. Could we suggest that, far from being too long, the parliamentary holidays are far too short?

Gaddafi- Final choices.

The street celebrations in Tripoli yesterday did give the feeling of "Hey , wait a moment, this may be a bit premature. He hasn't gone yet". And so it has turned out.

Why? Ian Kershaw's new book "The End: Hitler's Germany 1944-45" gives at least one clear answer. Hitler fought to the end at vast cost of German and the Allies' lives at least partly because he had no option. Unconditional surrender was demanded and to him then and Gaddafi now that meant at best "A fair trial" whose outcome would be no different or more comfortable than an unfair one. He would be hanged. That just isn't an attractive proposition whatever choices of last meal are on offer.

A safe passage to a compound in some less than desirable spot might do the trick. Even the most barren rock (ideal) would be seen by most dictators as a better prospect.

Feet on the Street- Less can do more.

A byproduct of the London riots has been calls from quarters various ranging from Boris (who has a mayoral election to win next Spring or all those nice seats at the Olympics might go to his friend Ken) to the Police Federation (union) and all sorts of others for "the cuts" not to be applied to Police numbers,- or indeed anything else.

As in nearly everything to do with "the cuts" so far, there is fundamental confusion between numbers of heads employed and their effectiveness. The Government missed a vital trick at the very outset of the defecit reduction programme by not insisting that cost cutting did not mean stopping doing things. Up and down the country Government departments and councils ,particularly Labour ones who do not want "the cuts" to succeed anyway, have drawn a straight line equation between cost reductions and activity reductions.

We have said before and will keep saying,-that equation is invalid.

Take for example Police or customer service people in any business on the beat or station/airport/shop floor. One person, armed with all the required training and information plus now modern communications, can be very effective a high percentage of the time they are deployed. What happens if a second is added and they work in pairs? A 100% increase in effectiveness? Sadly not. Being human, they will start to talk to each other. That's pleasant and comfortable and doesn't involve difficult people,questions, exertion or even danger. Quite quickly a high percentage of their time is spent inwardly focused on each other. Their time/cost effectiveness plummets. The larger the group gets the steeper this downward productivity curve gets. Just look at two police on the beat,- how much more would they be looking around and taking things in if they were on their own? The next time you go to an airport take a look at what the staff are doing if they are at desks, boarding gates etc in multiples. Most frequently they are talking,-to each other,-often with backs to the customers.

As a rule the closer the number of people employed to the real demands of the job in hand the more effective and outwardly focused on the task they will be. Add more and their individual performance drops off. It's human nature. The smallest number will also probably be happier and more satisfied by their jobs through achieving more, learning more and being responsible for more. No wonder unions, driven by the financial need to keep memberships and subscriptions up ,hate to even contemplate "more with less". Happy people aren't good for recruitment. As for Boris,-well, he just doesn't understand it and again there is that election to win.

The end of the riots.....the coup de grace....

.... was of course that it started to rain.

Discomfort = game over.

Added to the fact that the police changed their tactics, also causing discomfort to the participants, that should give another clue to what works. "Watch and observe" certainly doesn't.

The end of the riots ( Political) truce. Labour promises/threatens its own enquiry.

As predicted, Thursday's rare House of Commons appearance of unity in condemning the rioters without too much political jostling for position hasn't lasted long. The mirages of potential glories from grandstanding and being "more aware of the sociological causes than thou" are just too strong.

Ed Miliband sees a great opportunity to offside David Cameron as being uncaring, out of touch and all those things by promising that if the Government does not hold an enquiry into the origins of the riots then the Labour Party will. Maybe he's overlooked the fact that most of the young participants spent their formative years under the 1997-2010 Labour governments but we can safely assume that any Labour "enquiry " would gloss over this small fact and instead home in on the evil "cuts" its successor has had to introduce in the last 15 months to try to erase the ongoing annual structural spending defecit generated during those years. Transparency is a great thing but Ed is so transparent as to be totally see-through.

Away from the whinges of the Opposition but in tune with them are other groups who are trying and will continue to try to ride the riots as evidence of the need to avoid cuts. Sadly amongst them are currently some Police leaders who are risking their required political neutrality by indulging in a little light " We got it right, the politicians were on holiday and we ourselves changed tactics at the right moment" banter. Nice try but very clearly the Police, for all the bravery of many individuals, did not get the first two or three nights right. Their primary duty has to be to defend life and property and say what they might, they failed to do so. Once they did follow Manchester's lead and literally crack down on the out of control young it was very quickly game over. To then say that effective policing is threatened by cuts (only in fact to 2002 manpower levels in fact) is nonsense. Their real problem is that as in many other areas of the public sector and ex public sector, a myriad of "Spanish practices" -a term probably unfair to the Spanish,- has grown up adding cost and undermining numbers and effectiveness on the front line. Amongst these, rostering, overtime and how it is calculated,allowances and manning levels (how often do you see a solitary policeman?) are all in need of thorough examination and overhaul. The numbers are and will be adequate,- it's what they actually spend their time doing that's the problem.

This would be a much better nettle for Ed to grasp. He could join in working on a total redesign of public sector effectiveness and the working practices, manning levels and reward systems to make it deliver more at lower cost. The private sector has been doing this for a good thirty years and much more if you read some company histories. Unfortunately it is a total no go area for his paymasters, the Union barrons who effectively control Labour Party policy. One very useful byproduct of the disturbances will therefore go untackled by the Party and instead they will wander in the wilderness of urban deprivation while denying that their own legacies of poor education standards,working hard at school being uncool and a bullyable offence in some communities have anything to do with it. They will simply carry on saying that welfare dependency and the rest are not great problems or that they do not exist at all. For all their expressions of reasonableness and wishing to genuinely find solutions there is only one scapegoat they are really after, -"The cuts". They may throw in bankers and a few others as well but the cuts are the real target. Labour benefits if they can prevent the government carrying on with defecit reduction and showing that balancing the books has happened and begun to work by the time of the next General Election in 2015. For this reason Cameron may well have to head off Labour's own enquiry by announcing a government sponsored one. In that case Ed will just have to make do with claiming it was he who forced a reluctant Cameron to hold it. That way he would hope to achieve some good PR with the expenditure of very little effort. Another brief chapter in the everyday story of political folk. Just don't look for any integrity here.

Just two more weeks of the holiday "silly season" to go. Then we get onto the even sillier one. It's called Party Conference time.

It's only 8th August and they're coming back!- London burns. The race for the political high ground.

We only waved goodbye to our political leaders last week but here they are heading back to London.

Why?

Anarchic riots have broken out and, thanks to modern tweeting and the rest, the flames have quickly spread from north London round to the south, including now the unlikely location of Croydon and north again to Birmingham .Rentamob which used to take a while to assemble and therefore be reasonably easily contained has been replaced by Flashmob which is a much more difficult proposition. Incitements to violence can be signalled between groups in an instant and the reaction can be very swift as well as unpredictable. No easily detected buildup over months is needed. The security services have a new start point to look for . The "mobs", are generally quite small and do not necessarily come from the district where the action, damage and destruction takes place. They therefore have no interest in the livelihoods of the local people. They are far outnumbered by onlookers but sadly these are unwilling to risk life and limb by standing up to them. Violence and looting goes unchecked until enough police are on hand to quell it.

So far so bad.

Politically it causes an enormous dilemma to (deservedly) holidaying political leaders. The best thing they could do is to stay away and come back as refreshed as possible. However they and their advisors have a problem. Tabloid -and even allegely more up market,-media have been itching to label them as negligent and guilty of "Crisis, what crisis?" behaviour. Ever since the Royal Family were pilloried for not immediately returning to London when Princess Diana died and ended up being offsided and upstaged by damp eyed, hand wringing Tony Blair, the question for leaders has not been what they really should do(in this case stay away and deny oxygen to the troublemakers) but what they need to be seen to be doing. The Prime Minister also knows that if he doesn't return he risks the same offsiding by pictures tomorrow of Ed Miliband touring burned out buildings, shaking hands with people who have lost their homes, businesses and possessions and "feeling their pain". Cameron will be just in time as both Miliband and Harriet Harman are also heading back tonight. Ed no doubt to look serious and outstretch his palms, while Harriet nods slowly and thoughtfully.

So where now?

The original spark of the disturbances lost its relevance to them very early on. It is no excuse for the incitement and actions now taking place which leave all other then the participants worse off. Some who by sheer hard work have built up their businesses, bought their flats and improved their lives or even just managed to hang on to what they've got have seen their livelihoods destroyed in a few mindless nights.

The first thing has to be to extinguish the violence and restore law and order and security of individuals to the areas concerned and choke off any further outbreaks before they take hold. It doesn't help and probably isn't just coincidental that we are now in the long school holidays. Many of the hooded looters are still at school or college .

The second thing is when that has been done that has been done and probably large numbers arrested there will have to be a firm smack of justice and the message being that that whatever the frustrations of young lives, wanton destruction is never warranted and is quite simply a criminal act.

The third thing and much more stretching problem is how to deal with the new ability of anarchistic groups and ordinary criminal troublemakers to generate widespread disorder almost anywhere out of the blue and in a very few minutes. That's the really difficult one and it has to be a top priority in any civilised state.

A state,-and government-has to protect its people. Cameron will be determined to do so but Ed will be looking for every opportunity to portray him as failing in this duty. Ed must be longing to reach out in a moment of monumental cynicism and opportunism for the word "Cuts". That's why Dave is back tonight.

It's August. Our dear leaders are away. They should be more often,- and further.

Yes, it's hols time again and thankfully last year's chattering and pontificating classes ,- yes that includes the Archbishop of Canterbury too,-obsession with saving the planet by not flying is not the 2011 fashion. That gives our political leaders a little more leeway. Clearly they have to look serious and visibly share our pain as we set about paying for the Blair/Brown borrowing and spending spree but one can just about get away with making it across the channel to Europe. After all we are all Europeans now,- aren't we Silvio? We may not have quite got the hang of afternoon siestas or fully grasped that "popping in for a quick one on the way home" doesn't mean a half in the Red Lion by the station, but we do have few star spangled blue flags around and there is the brilliant Eurostar even if the French have so far stopped it going anywhere other than France or ,OK, Belgium but that's more or less part of France isn't it, Waloons excepted of course. Oh dear, it's all too complicated but yes we can go there by ferry or low cost airline and still be more or less sharing the pain. We are not sure that British Airways Cityflyer out of London City is quite RyanAir Dave but we will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Where then have the Big Three gone to make best use of their new increased freedom and range? It used to be the Big Two, but coalition etiquette demands a temporary elevation of status for the Lib Dem leader even if many of his knife fingering "team" would rather be lurking scowling in backbench obscurity influencing nothing but with no restraint on hare brained and hand wringing utterances.

Dave has gone to a smart Tuscan villa where he is hopefully sharing nobody's pain but his own should he over indulge in the excellent local produce. Poor Nick is for about the 16th year running imaginatively enjoying the company of his outlaws in an allegedly dusty Spanish village, again hopefully within an arm's length of the best of local produce and a corkscrew. That should reduce the pain. Ed though is said to be test driving his newly modified nasal tubes somewhere along the UK south west coast so there could be a bit more real pain sharing there. It is uncertain how the tube straightening might affect his voice but he should be able to sleep better and maybe enjoy a recurring nightmare that he will turn out sounding like Margaret Thatcher. On the other hand if he were to holiday north of the border he could come back with the resonance of his mentor Gordon Brown. That would be a nightmare for the rest of us.

For all the media-led carping and whining whenever politicians take holidays, cross the Channel, stay in a decent hotel or heaven forbid have fun , we should all want them to have more. They need to lighten up, stroll about unattended by grovelling functionaries, security men,or local party worthies. They should sit in cafes, on buses , trains (not in reserved carriages though) and listen and talk to people. In other words they should strive to live normal and pleasant lives with normal interactions and normal non-patronising conversations. They should also see and hear some of the rough stuff. Try, incognito, A&E on a Saturday night. (When Blair was rushed in to an NHS hospital with a possible heart problem the order came out that he should nor see or be seen by any of the regular clients.) Party leaders and Prime Ministers in particular are frighteningly cut off from the world inhabited by the rest of the population. They can rarely even walk down the road to buy a newspaper. As result they rely on others and the media to bring them news of what is going on outside and they lose their own feel for it. That's just at home in the UK.

Beyond the UK their lack of reach and breadth of experience and understanding is even more startling. For the people responsible for our political destiny they have astoundingly little. They have met few foreigners in non business circumstances and with few exceptions and some now distant gap years have not lived amongst them. On official visits they will operate to tight schedules with too little sleep and few off duty moments or chances to just stroll about. They could be anywhere and they will not even experience the normal delights and hassles of travel, queues, officials, wrong room keys, ripoff con artist taxi drivers or other travel experiences. They will not have sat at a small tropical airport in the rainy season or across the road in a bar in the dry season awaiting the distant sound of an approaching aeroplane and hoping it's theirs. Their lives, even when travelling , become very one dimensional and sanitised as well as time-pressured and measured in value in pounds or dollars per hour. Sadly there is no column in the accounts book for the value of time spent looking, listening, watching, thinking or even just enjoying doing nothing while in doing so revitalising the batteries and clearing the mind ready for the next big thing.

We should encourage all our politicians and especially the Big Three to travel frequently, widely and informally. They need to see and feel the adrenaline of the big Asian cities, the buzz and the hum of activity against a background of no benefits culture, no restrictions of when and how people can work , where smart school children set out every morning with a parentially driven inner need to work and do better. The Scandinavian countries, Europe,the USA, Africa, Australasia, South America all offer interest and instant education to the visitor as do a host of smaller regions and places. They provide the message and intellectual stimulus of "There are other ways to live and to do things. Don't think for a moment that you have the only and right answers" They open the windows of the mind and invite people to think of the big picture, the big ideas, what doing things differently could do for them and their worlds. For the politician it should take them away from the idea that protecting a narrow view or interest is a sensible use of the brain. It should also tell them that if UK Plc isn't prepared to understand, adapt, energise and compete it faces a very bleak future because for sure others understand what survival and advancement looks like and they aren't about to slow down to leave room for us to indulge ourselves. Our union leaders could get out and about a bit and grasp a few of the realities of the world as well,-but maybe that's just a dream too far.

Go well!