PAYING FOR THEIR PRIVILEGE....

This is the Bournemouth International Centre, err....in Bournemouth, scene of next week`s Labour Party Annual Conference. And a very nice venue too. I`ve only been there once before which was some years ago when one of my sons was working on a Simple Minds gig.

Straight away, of course, I am struggling to escape the appropriateness of ascribing `Simple Minds Gig` to the events of the coming week, but that may be a tad unfair on Jim Kerr and his combo buddies.

However tempting it may be, rather than launching into rantland about the qualities of each political party, I just want to have mini-rants about two aspects of the whole party conference thing, so bear with me.

The first is this. We taxpayers pay handsomely for our MPs` salaries, generous allowances, goldplated pensions and all the other perqusites associated with life in the mother of Parliaments, so it`s not unreasonable for them to be at their workplace, say, 48 weeks of the year like the rest of the working population. Instead, what do we find? They take long breaks at Christmas, Easter, even half-term time when schools are out but especially they take almost three months away from their Parliamentary desks during late summer, which extends into the Party Conference season and beyond.

I`m not convinced that each and every one of our elected representatives actually `works from home` during these long breaks or that they all slavishly attend the conferences. I have some suspicions that even if they do, then their contributions may be limited to simply being there....and perhaps, like me, wondering why.

However, on to mini-rant two. I see that the Dorset Police are mounting a £5.3million security operation, `Operation Pegasus` (where do they get these names from?) which will involve 400 Police officers, over 100 civilian staff and nearly 200 security staff hired from a private security firm - all to provide security for the conference delegates and the public visiting the town during the week. Dorset burglars please note.

The effort is enormous and the cost exhorbitant but I can`t blame Dorset Police for that - they have a job to do and I`m sure they will do it well. The justifiable concerns of local taxpayers have been headed off by the Government announcing that these costs will be met `from a Government grant from the Home Office.` Phew, what a relief, cry the good folk of Dorset. But hang on....`Government grant` equals taxpayers` money - the Government have no money of their own; it`s all ours. And I cannot see why I should have to pay for the security of people who choose to join a private organisation which is what a political party is. I`m content to pay for the protection of `the general public` but I`m distintcly unhappy that the private club of the Labour Party is not footing at least some of the bill for their own protection at their own annual get-together. After all, if football clubs pay for police presence, then why not political parties?

Now, wthout wishing any harm on anyone, nevertheless something in my quest for value-for-money hopes that there might, just might, be a little more to Operation Pegasus than arresting poor old Wolfgang for daring to question the policies of his political chums.

Rant over.