The Lioness Sleeps Tonight

Scribbler50 waves sad, fond goodbye to a grand presence in the New York night life, which will be a lot dimmer and duller with her gone:



Bar Land got a little darker last night, in fact a whole lot darker, as one of its brightest stars no longer shined. Elaine Kaufman, the last great New York saloon keeper and owner of the famous restaurant which bears her name, died yesterday afternoon at the age of eighty one. And when I say ?the last great saloon keeper?, I mean just that, dear reader�. there was Elaine, Toots Shor, and then all the rest. For you don?t get named a Living Landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which she was in 2004, unless you?re something special in the great Big Apple. Rest in peace, Elaine.

I wasn?t what you?d call a close friend of Elaine?s, just merely a week-end customer, but you?d never know it by the way she always greeted me. She was always a wave when I walked in the door and a smile to back up the gesture, when we spoke she was always warm and polite in discussing how our nights had gone, and the last time we actually did have a chat (ironically now that I think of it), she joined me at the bar and bought me a drink for my birthday. A real honor, believe me. And I only bring that last thing up not to act like a big shot, but to make the larger point which rarely gets made. See everyone talks about her celebrity clientele and believe me this woman had one, from the lions of literature to sports, TV and the movies, but what rarely gets mentioned is how she treated John Doe. Guys like me. Because if you showed up on any kind of regular basis (even if just on week-ends), you were treated with the same respect as the ?rich and famous?. You were definitely part of the fold, both valued and welcome.

And of course on the flip side of that coin, and the part which I really love, you were treated with equal disdain if you stepped out of line. There were more than a few celebrities over the years sent packing for bad behavior, only to return with humility and hat in hand...



The last big blogger get-together was held at Elaine's, among those in attendance Scrib' himself, The Siren, Lance Mannion, Siobhan, F Word Brenda, M. A. Peel, and--I know I'm forgetting some names, forgive me. Among those making cameo appearances in the saloon were "Uncle Junior" from The Sopranos and a tableful of Steinbrenner wives, who should probably get their own reality series, because why not? And Elaine herself was there, which was as it should be--her not being there would have been as cognitive-dissonant as Hilly Kristal not being on the premises at CBGB. She was one of the last ties to a Manhattan that was a lot less impersonal than the glassy, glossy island we have today, where money and privilege slap you in the face almost wherever you turn.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2010/12/scribbler50-waves-sad-fond-goodbye.html

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Roger Carr, the new CBI head, promises to make foreign takeovers more difficult

Under former Cadbury chairman Roger Carr, the CBI will defend British companies against hedge funds and foreign predators

After a vigorous fight, Roger Carr reluctantly agreed to sell Britain's favourite chocolate maker, Cadbury, earlier this year to the US food multinational Kraft. As the next president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), he wants to prevent the rest of the nation's industry from melting away.

"We're presently the most open goal of almost any country in the world in terms of foreign takeovers and, indeed, takeovers in general," says the former Cadbury chairman. "As a country, are we comfortable with that or do we want to make it more difficult?"

Carr, 63, has been a fixture at the higher echelons of the business world for decades. The son of a Ford salesman, he started as a computer programmer for Boots. He made his name during the 1980s by building the industrial conglomerate Williams with Sir Nigel Rudd and Brian McGowan.

These days, Carr is as establishment as they come in the business community ? he's a director of the Bank of England and chairman of Centrica, and a member of Brooks's gentlemen's club in St James's. His views, though, are fiercely independent and frequently diverge from the Thatcherite norm that prevails in boardroom circles.

In carefully calibrated terms, he told the Observer he approved of Labour's contentious 50p rate of tax on Britain's super-rich ? a levy dubbed "class war" by the conservative press: "My personal view is that when things are difficult, everyone should make a contribution. Those who can make a bigger contribution should do so. So I, personally, do not think the rate is unreasonable."

Carr is also a critic of the hedge fund industry, which claimed last week to support 50,000 European jobs. He feels that short-termist funds crowding Cadbury's share register were among the reasons for its fall to Kraft.

"I'm an advocate of open markets and very much against protectionism but, as a nation, if you want to address this situation, there are ways you can approach it," he says. He outlined some options earlier this year: raising the takeover threshold to 60% of votes, providing tax incentives for long-term ownership of shares, and considering a "national interest instrument" to defend a broader range of corporations.

After the Cadbury deal, Carr pointedly declined to pose for a photo with Kraft's chief executive, Irene Rosenfeld. But he stresses that British companies are both "predator and prey" and that some fall for reasons of their own making: "The best protection is not to underperform."

Carr becomes deputy president of the CBI next month, before assuming the presidency in June. He takes the role at a time of public anger at government cuts, tuition fees and a feeling that companies are eluding their share of the pain. The amorphous protest body UK Uncut has organised a series of flashmobs and attacks on firms accused of tax avoidance ? including Topshop, which is registered in Monaco, home of the wife of billionaire retailing tycoon Sir Philip Green.

Carr defends the right of companies to minimise their tax bills: "What are the rights, duties and responsibilities of any company? To ensure shareholders are correctly rewarded and to act in the right way for the organisation. Part of that is to be tax efficient. That's reasonable and appropriate."

Does that extend to registering a business in Monte Carlo when its operations are in Britain?

"A business has a responsibility to the country in which it's domiciled. If it has a tax bill, it should pay it. But it's appropriate to be tax efficient," he says, carefully, before adding: "Artificial tax structures are different to efficient tax structures."

He is not planning to join the protests any time soon: "I am concerned to see any group of people rioting and smashing windows. That's not the way to make your case."

Carr has not covered himself in glory in every endeavour. He quit as chairman of pub company Mitchells & Butlers two years ago when the business lost �391m on a failed property deal. His �17,000 leaving present attracted embarrassing coverage.

He did not join fellow business leaders in signing a letter endorsing the coalition's austerity cuts back in October, declaring that "in principle" he will not put his name to open letters. Nevertheless, he is broadly on board: "Although it's very difficult, it's better to move quickly than slowly. It's important that British business does step up to the plate and finding a way of driving growth and creating employment."

As president of the CBI he follows the likes of British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, former BT boss Sir Iain Vallance and one-time Rentokil supremo Sir Clive Thompson. It's an unpaid role ? but Carr picks up �450,000 a year for chairing Centrica. He says the core message from the CBI won't change: "Growth is our priority. The message one would encourage is that Britain is open for business and indeed encourages business."

• Confederation of British Industry (CBI)
• Centrica
• Tax and spending

Andrew Clark

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/12/roger-carr-cbi-foreign-takeovers

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This Week: James Naughtie, Katia Zatuliveter, Min-Jin Kym

Lucy Mangan on the people in the media spotlight in the past seven days

Naughtie words

James Naughtie

Forget WikiLeaks, the sexual assault charges, Operation Payback crashing online payment sites and the concerted effort of every misogynist ranter on the internet to paint the women pressing charges against Assange as honeytrapping hoors. Forget the students taking to the streets against the Lib Dem betrayal, tripling of university fees and cutting of resources that will put higher education back in the hands of the financial elite. The story of the week was undoubtedly the Today programme presenter (below) delivering the ultimate Spoonerism when announcing his guest Jeremy Hunt, culture secretary. He subsequently suffered a "coughing fit" and delivered an apology for the slip of the tongue. What of course we really need to know is ? who are the c***s who called in to complain?

I spy a front page

Katia Zatuliveter

It's the old story ? boy meets girl during a defence committee trip to the eastern bloc, spots her potential, gives her a job in the UK as his parliamentary assistant with access to at least three years' worth of documents pertaining to the country's defence policy, and then turns up for work one day to find she has been detained and questioned by MI5 on suspicion of being a ruddy great Russian spy.

So it was with Mike Hancock, MP for Portsmouth South, and his assistant Katia. He insists the idea she was engaged in espionage is ludicrous; she is appealing against her deportation order. But the important thing is that the tabloids have been able legitimately to publish photos of a fruity blonde 25-year-old, instead of having to go with that Asian chick who was murdered on her honeymoon again. That gets, like, a bit depressing after a while, y'know?

Expensive lunch

Min-Jin Kym

There's not a lot you have to remember to do when you're a violinist carrying a �1.2m Stradivarius and �62,000 Dominique Peccatte (the luthier of luthiers, plebs) bow around London with you, but foremost among those few is probably: don't leave them unattended, no, not even for a second, when you're buying a cheese sandwich in Pret a Manger.

Alas, this vital instruction slipped musician Kym's mind when she was ? uh ? buying a cheese sandwich in Pret a Manger at Euston station, and by the time she turned back to her belongings, an opportunistic entity with a poor sense of social propriety had made off with it.

British Transport police have issued a public appeal for the return of the items and Kym's insurer is offering a �15,000 reward. Keep an eye out, would you? But ? unless you're a forgetful Strad-owner ? don't have nightmares.

What they said

"I feel like I have had a jolly good time. It's been tremendous. Time of my life!" Ann Widdecombe speaks entirely for herself after being voted off Strictly Come Dancing after 10 long, long weeks

"iTunes? I organised it all with Steve Jobs ? I'm also in training for the Olympics. I've been asked to train for the British Paralympic ski team. I went skiing in Austria recently and skied downhill as fast as an able-bodied person." Heather Mills. Who else?

"I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can ... But I still believe in peace, love and understanding," John Lennon's last interview, three days before his death, published in full for the first time this week

What we've learned

? 97% of films on over the festive season are repeats

? New mothers spend 90 minutes a day on the internet

? The world's priciest advent calendar, filled with diamonds and glass angels, has gone on sale for �1.7m

? This Is Spinal Tap's rating on IMDb is eight out of 11

? One in 10 over-75s still have a mortgage

? 13 million people watched the Corrie massacre-by-tram

... and what we haven't

? Who caused the US mint to print $110bn of $100 bills wrongly, rendering them useless

• James Naughtie
• Liberal Democrats

Lucy Mangan

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/dec/11/this-week-lucy-mangan-james-naughtie

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On the Wish List: Tax Reform

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2010/12/11/on_the_wish_list_tax_reform_247171.html

Gloria Arroyo

Palin arrives in Haiti

Are you in Haiti? Share your Palin images and cholera updates with CNN iReport.

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin arrived in Haiti on Saturday as part of a humanitarian delegation led by evangelist Franklin Graham and his relief organization Samaritan's Purse.

"I am pleased that Gov. Palin will accompany us on a brief trip to Haiti this weekend, and I appreciate her willingness to visit Haiti during such troubled times," Graham said in a statement on the organization's website.

"I believe Gov. Palin will be a great encouragement to the people of Haiti and to the organizations, both government and private, working so hard to provide desperately needed relief."

Palin -- the Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 election -- has not commented on the widely reported trip. Many observers believe she is considering a run for president in 2012.

The visit comes as Haiti is fighting a massive cholera outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people and sickened nearly 100,000.

The country has been struggling to recover from January's massive earthquake that left more than 220,000 dead.

A disputed presidential election has threatened to plunge the country into further chaos.

Graham's delegation is expected to stop at a cholera clinic where they will deliver holiday gifts to children under Samaritan Purse's Operation Christmas Child.

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Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/4BioWPI0foo/index.html

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Liberal Democrat grassroots hit back over tuition fees

Richard Grayson, former director of policy, says Liberal Democrats should move closer to Ed Miliband and Labour

The depth of anger among the Liberal Democrat grassroots over tuition fees is laid bare tonight in an astonishing article by the party's former director of policy. Richard Grayson claims that most Lib Dem members have more in common with their counterparts in the Labour party and the Greens than with their own leadership.

Grayson, who was director of policy between 1999 and 2004, and until October a vice-chairman on the party's federal policy committee, says the divisive issue of tuition fees should make ordinary Lib Dems "sit up and think". He urges the party to seize the "exciting opportunity" of Ed Miliband's leadership and to engage more with its traditional enemy.

Grayson, a history professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, adds: "Most of the party defines itself as being 'centre-left', so how did the party end up so badly split on an issue which has previously united it? This split stems not just from a different approach to fees, but from a wider division between centre-left and centre-right liberals. Those on the right generally favour privatised and marketised policies. On the left, we really do take the view that 'we are all in it together'."

He says the Labour leader is a genuine pluralist and points to the fact that he has signed up to the campaign for the alternative vote (AV). But he adds: "The current Liberal Democrat leaders will not always be our leaders. In time, the centre-left roots of the party should (or at least could) reassert themselves."

The remarkable words come at the end of a difficult week for the party which saw it split three ways inside parliament as protests outside spilled over into violence. Despite a large rebellion, the party's leadership won a vote that will allow universities to almost treble tuition fees to �9,000.

Nearly half of Lib Dem voters are ready to abandon the party over its backing for the rise, according to a new poll. Research by Ispos MORI for the News of the World showed 29% of those who previously voted for the party said they were much less likely to do so in future, while 17% said they were somewhat less likely. A separate poll in the Sunday Telegraph suggested that just 54% of those who voted Lib Dem in May planned to back the party at the next general election.

Grayson is not the only party figure to express anger. David Hall-Matthews, chair of the Social Liberal Forum, which represents members on the left of the Lib Dems, said the closer the leadership was seen to be to the Conservatives the further it was from the party mainstream. They "have some work to demonstrate to the party and the public how they differ from the Tories", he added.

In a sign it is starting to do just that, the leadership today lays out the details of its pupil premium in an attempt to prove that it is securing victories within the coalition. In the first year of the policy, the country's poorest pupils will receive additional funding of �430 a year. By 2011-12 that will have risen to �625. Nick Clegg said: "When money is tight, you have to be really clear about what your priorities are. One of mine has always been making sure that the most disadvantaged children in this country get the help they need."

He said he first proposed the idea a decade ago and being in government meant he could put it into practice. "Despite the recent controversy, all the evidence shows that the best way to help bright kids from poor families get to university is to target additional resources at them when they are younger and so give them a head start in life." He was determined to break down the socially segregated education system, he said.

Critics said that Grayson does not represent the mainstream of the party.

• Liberal Democrats
• Tuition fees
• Ed Miliband
• Labour
• Students

Anushka Asthana

Allegra Stratton

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/11/liberal-democrat-fees-richard-grayson

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As NHS cuts bite, we will soon see the next eruption of popular anger

Andrew Lansley's disruptive reorganisation will see waiting lists go up and treatments withdrawn. The blue touchpaper is lit

Rioting by a few, peaceful protest by many, an attack on the heir to the throne and the throwing of bricks at Treasury windows, all this makes eye-popping TV news footage. But plenty more issues over the next year have the same potential to light the blue touchpaper of public opinion, without necessarily spilling on to the streets.

Political volcanologists watching for eruptions should be turning their seismographs on the NHS. In his early days, David Cameron saw that the NHS could do the most damage to Conservatives: he neutralised fears of Tory plans to dismantle it by pledging himself pink in the face to protect it. He even used his sick son's NHS treatment as proof of his sincerity. The NHS would get a "real increase" every year, with none of the plague of disruptions visited on it by previous governments. The sacred text of the coalition agreement promised: "We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care." But now each pledge is broken. John Healey, shadow health secretary, emerging as a soberly effective and emphatic critic, this week exposed how new inflation figures show the NHS will suffer a real cut, alongside its most radically disruptive reorganisation.

Listen to the warning rumblings. This week, at the thinktank the King's Fund, there was a stunned silence followed by a great ripple of approval as a key NHS executive burst out in frustration that the service was heading for "a bloody awful train crash". The chief executive of Ealing primary care trust, now taking over several neighbouring PCTs, spoke with passionate authority of how all his time is taken up with reorganisation, "completely clearing out my team and making a whole series of new appointments ? I am not spending a moment thinking about patient care or money".

Many primary care trusts have heavy debts they are expected to pay off fast, before handing over to GPs to commission all NHS services. No one thinks it possible. PCTs are sending out letters ordering GPs not to refer patients for anything but urgent surgery. In public they talk of stopping cosmetic procedures and treatments for tattoo removal ? or, as Zoe Williams reported this week, stopping IVF, causing immense suffering. However, the cancellations go much further ? Surrey, Warwickshire, Lancashire and almost every other PCT is delaying surgery for hips, knees and even cataracts, sometimes until the new financial year.

By banning GPs from referring, they avoid falling foul of Labour's NHS rule requiring treatment within 18 weeks of GP referral. Other delaying wheezes include refusing to treat smokers until they take a course on giving up (Surrey, �35m overspent) or fat patients until they lower their body mass index (Portsmouth City). Some stay within 18 weeks by delaying all surgery until 16 weeks ? though that catches up with itself.

What happens when PCTs save money? They pass their debts on to hospitals, which suddenly find their surgeons have fewer patients to treat and less money coming in. The only effective cost-saving is through strategic planning ? to rationalise services into specialist hospitals, as with the life-saving stroke treatment re-organisations. But the government is scrapping strategic health authorities, believing a perfect market will rationalise itself. That requires a lot of hospitals to go bust ? politically impossible since Cameron joined pre-election hospital protests pledging no closures.

Alarm is widespread, but usually off the record. The Ealing PCT manager was only echoing the sentiments of the head of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, who told the health select committee that the PCTs being abolished were in "meltdown" as the best managers fled: only "Stalinist" controls could now keep a grip on NHS finances he warned. The former Tory health secretary, Stephen Dorrell, head of the committee, gave a taster of what his report next week may say, warning the same meeting that no health service had ever achieved what is now being squeezed from the NHS, a 4% annual saving for four years.

Waiting lists are where the NHS bursts out under pressure. Professor John Appleby of the King's Fund is monitoring them, not trusting the government to keep the figures. Whitehall departments may stop collecting central data: in the guise of localism, ministers say it's up to local citizens to hold services to account, with no need for centralised figures or odious comparisons.

This week health secretary Andrew Lansley ignored every red light to launch 52 pathfinder GP consortia, commissioning services for a quarter of the population. He claims they will "put patients at the heart of everything the NHS does". That sounds cosy, as if your local GP will commission for you; but most consortia will be larger and more remote from patients than the PCTs they replace. One pathfinder is Great West Commissioning in West London, where GPs have contracted United Health to run its referrals.

Only a quarter of GPs in surveys express enthusiasm. Dr Clare Gerada, head of the Royal College of GPs, has been fiercely critical, warning that, if GPs are responsible for rationing, they will lose people's trust. Patients will eye their doctor's BMW in the drive and ask if that's why they aren't getting a treatment they need.

The government has put GPs in command: they may be saints as individuals but, collectively, they have held governments to ransom ever since 1948. They rarely do anything new without extra pay: look how they bamboozled John Reid and Alan Milburn into a huge rise. Their tough four-year freeze ends conveniently just as the new system goes live in April 2013. Already fuming at suggestions of a pension cut and retirement at 65, expect them to force a goodly screw, pushing the �3bn cost of Lansley's plan higher. The chair of the Association of Independent Medical Accountants warns that GPs' pension protests will "make the student demos look tame". Hyperbole, no doubt.

But look at this cocktail of trouble brewing ? an organisational upheaval, significant numbers of GPs opposed, and an unprecedented real cut in cash when the NHS needs 3% to stand still. Now watch the fast-rising surgical waiting lists. Every local and national paper will fill up with NHS anecdotes of woe by next year. Labour all but abolished waiting lists for the first time, but waiting used to top the poll of public discontent year after year. As with the tuition fees fiasco, this reorganisation at a time of the harshest funding was an ideological choice. The NHS will provide another crisis of the government's own making.

• Health policy
• NHS
• Liberal-Conservative coalition
• Health
• Andrew Lansley
• Labour
• Conservatives
• Protest

Polly Toynbee

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/11/nhs-cuts-andrew-lansley-anger

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