Cross their palms and then pull up a seat

two industries have produced

many millionaires and even

more complaints about the

services provided.

John Prescott's transport plan wants to tax the motorist on to trains and buses, thereby making more millions for those who now own them. One of the factors that would make buses and trains more attractive to the public would be affordable prices. But the provision of cheap transport is not the primary function of private owners, it is to make maximum profits for their shareholders. And they're right. They will demand and get state subsidies to keep prices in check. We will then have the grotesque situation in which publicly owned transport services were more or less given away to private individuals to be run for private profit, while being subsidised from the public purse. It's madness.

If we are to get a sane, ecologically safe, integrated public transport system then it should be public in every sense, including publicly owned. The Government should take a 51% controlling interest. This would not be against the principles of a Harold Macmillan-led Conservative Government but it's against the principles of a Tony Blair-led Labour Government. That's what we are up against. The Government will not stand up to any vested interest except the trade unions.

The Chancellor last week grovelled all the way to America, to bend the knee to Rupert Murdoch. Rupert isn't favourably inclined to the Common Market. With him it can't be a matter of principle. He isn't English. He's Australian. Well, he was. He became an American because under US law only an American citizen can own a big chunk of the American film and television industry. He is hostile to Europe because he can't get a foothold there and fears EU legislation might place legal obstructions to the extension of his empire. He's OK in Britain, where, in return for the support of his papers, Blair guarantees him favoured status.

Gordon Brown told Murdoch and his executives that in principle he favoured the European single currency, but in practice, depending on circumstances, we might or might not join. What a ringing declaration! That's that cleared up, once and for all. But are we going in or staying out? Is this any different from what John Major said, or for that matter William Hague? On principle some people favour a flat Earth, on the grounds it would save us having to walk up hills. In real terms I like to be transported by those who know it's in fact round and in places mountainous. In real terms our future lies in an outward-looking Europe, strong enough collectively to prevent the likes of Murdoch dictating to it's nations and peoples. The Government has to say this sometime but won't do so before the next general election, lest it annoys Rupert.

I think we all still underestimate the extent by which we are now governed by hype. The public spending plans for the period of this government were published last week. On BBC and commercial television the pundits were hoodwinked. So were the majority of press pundits. The facts are that the public expenditure of this Government over five years is unlikely to exceed the public expenditure of the past five years of Conservative Government. How, then, do we explain press headlines which implied that billions more new money was being poured into our hard-pressed public services? Either pundits were involved in

the hype or they were duped. Either way, that isn't good for British democracy.

What we do know for sure is

that those employed in the public sector are to have their salaries constrained once again, pushing them further back compared

with those employed in the

private sector.

It's intolerable that we are served so splendidly, in time of sickness, by those who are among the poorest paid in the country. Their low wages are subsidising the treatment of our illnesses. It's a scandal. This is the sign of a seedy society where the carers are ill rewarded while the grabbers get the lot, and ennobled for doing so.

Many New Labour peers were major donors to party funds. The list of such donors now has to be published. You can sit back and tick them off.

Lloyd George was pilloried for selling titles to those who put lots of cash into Liberal Party funds. Blair is doing the same. Cronyism is now endemic at Westminster. New Labour young men on the make are everywhere. Stuff their pockets with money and you get to the right people. Nudge, nudge, know what I mean. This is now officially part of the scene. The Observer newspaper disclosed last Sunday that New Labour ''is now using political lobbying firms to solicit funds from their corporate clients in exchange for the chance to dine with a junior Minister, select Committee member, or MP. Labour says it will supply lobbyists with an 'appropriate' politician for clients' tables at its annual conference gala dinner in September. A table for 10 costs #2000. When young women provide their services for a fee to clients in hotels and elsewhere it's called prostitution. There you have it. If you're

a pensioner who wants to raise a complaint with an ''appropriate'' Minister, or a public-sector worker in the same boat, don't give up. Help is at hand. All you need is #2000 and the

Minister will only have eyes and ears for you.

Sleaze, I think, was a word coined by tabloids. Though imprecise, it does have a certain resonance. I think it fully applies to Westminster. Yet it seems only to apply to Scottish local government. As soon as the cry goes up of sleaze concerning a Scottish councillor then the man or woman concerned is immediately treated like a blackguard. Take the treatment dished out to Pat Lally, the Lord Provost of Glasgow. He was condemned out of hand before there was any examination of the evidence. After a while (many months) the media and others began to have their doubts. Look back over past copies of the Herald and you will find that from the outset I examined the charges against Lally and his deputy Alec Mosson, found then risible, and suggested they were legally untenable.The charges were eventually laughed out of court. Don't rush to condemn Harry McGuigan in North Lanark. Whether he is complicit

in the affairs of one of the council departments has yet to be proven. If he is to go under the banner of ministerial responsibility then at least four government ministers should go under the same banner.

New Labour responds to any accusation against a Labour councillor like the conditioned reflexes of Pavlov's dog. ''Get rid of him or her'', whether guilty or innocent. New Labour's image has to be protected, at all costs. Like Blair protected it with Bernie Ecclestone? The corrosive corruption that is tearing at the soul of British Labour is the corruption of its principles and ideals. And that goes right to the top.