Anne McGuire MP has been on her feet in the Common this afternoon raising a point of order about the £104,000 housing benefit pay out that George Osborne referred to in his budget speech.
The Stirling Labour MP points out, as Westminster Council did shortly after the budget, that no such award actually exists but the figure is now common currency and is being bandied about as cover for cutting housing benefit.
The rates Osborne used were and example of what housing benefit on a five bedroom house in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s most upmarket boroughs, would be - about £2,000 a week.
“It is what the rate would be,” said a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions afterwards. “We don’t have any figures on how many people are claiming that rate.”
Yet Osborne uses the figure to justify the squeeze the Housing Benefit budget and to create an impression that there is no alternative to his cuts agenda.
The effect of this cut, and the culmination of other benefit cuts, is given painful clarity in a painful blog blog entry, the budget and me, by Deepy Flawed and Trying.
This extract gives a reality check on what a “progressive” budget will mean for many people in Britain. The writer is a single mother and former social worker re-entering the labour market this year when her daughter goes to school.
I don’t have any more money than I had on Income Support- but I earn it. My eye has always been on the day where I could return to work full time.
Rachel starts school this September, and I got myself a full time job. Yay!
Then the budget happened.
LHA rules have been changed. Instead of contributing to the rent of a house with a rent at the median of local rents, they will only help with the cost of rent up to 30centile of the local rents.
This detail was lost under a great deal of fanfare about housing benefit paying people to live in mansions.
This takes approximately £20 a week out of my current income. With the VAT increase, and whatever happens with prices in the next few months- I don’t know how I will manage. The only way I was managing, was by keeping my eye on September- when I could feel the benefit of a salary.
I had hoped to be slightly better off when I got back to work. The cost of after school clubs, and breakfast clubs, is slightly less than the cost of full time childcare. However, the change in LHA rules- means that the slightly better off that I had assumed would happen- is also gone. I will be worse off than when I was working last time.
I have just put the phone down. The job is no longer there. To prepare for cuts of 25percent across the board, they cannot risk hiring new staff.
Even if I had started- I cannot physically earn enough to take me above the income level of someone on income support.
I am now going to be competing in a labour market flooded with the people who will be laid off as part of these cuts, in a profession with widespread recruitment freezes."
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Lib Dem betrayal - not just a Labour tune
Cameron is about to give a press conference in Leeds about growing the economy. Its brande PM Direct so I suppose that's one promise he's kept to. And he is very good at the Q & A sessions, always sounds reasonable.
He does the the easy bits and gets Nick Clegg to announce the winding up of regional development agencies in England today and Danny Alexander to renege on a loan to Sheffield Forgemasters in Clegg's back yard.
Everyone else is wondering about this out loud so I join the chorus of "what do the Lib Dems think they are doing?"
I spoke to a former Minister last week who said that officials he is still in touch with say the Tories can't believe their luck. When the door closes on Number 10 Downing St each night they do a little dance of joy.
The word from beyond the black door is that to begin with the Tories thought that setting up the Office for Budgetary Responsibility would give an impression of independence, and enough cover, to begin the cuts agenda. Then they couldn't believe their luck when the Lib Dems not only came into the coalition but presented themselves as willing executioners for the cuts agenda.
We know that Lib Dem MPs aren't happy about this, the 22 that don't have government posts that is. Recall Charles Kennedy's alleged outburst at Cameron and his eagerness to pair up with Labour MPs to avoid having to vote with the government, following his abstention on the actual coalition vote.
But it will take more than abstentions to save the Lib Dems. Two Welsh Lib Dems voted against the government's VAT proposals last night but the lid is being kept on things at Westminster until the party conference, or the battle of Liverpool, this September.
Meanwhile the Liberal soul searching goes on. There is an incredible piece by David Marquand online today about the betrayal of the Liberal tradition. You can read it on the click through but the essential passages are below.
Since well before Keynes, British liberals have sought to tame capitalism in the interests of social justice and a vigorous public domain, in other words to transcend the harsh choice between the free market and state socialism. All the liberal greats – John Stuart Mill, Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and William Beveridge – have taken part in that endeavour, as well as lesser, later liberals like David Steel and Paddy Ashdown. If Clegg and Cable are right, they were wasting their time. Capitalism is capitalism: it has to be taken neat or not at all. We do have to choose between the free market and the overmighty state. The historic liberal project which is one of the glories of the British political tradition is for the birds.
The implications are stark. The most obvious is that, if liberal politics are impossible, the Liberal Democrat party is surplus to requirements. But there is a less obvious implication as well. For the second thing we know is that free-market capitalism – the untamed capitalism whose mantras Clegg and Cable regurgitate in speech after speech – is inherently unstable. It is dynamic, alright; but its dynamism comes with a heavy price tag. Crashes are to it what fleas are to dogs. So are inequality, injustice, resentment and alienation. It is a strange destination for the heirs of Mill and Lloyd George.
Of course having the Libs fire the bullets and take the incoming fire suits the Tories fine. Cameron loves it every time Labour attack the Lib Dem betrayal because it drives Nick Clegg and co further and further into the arms of the Tory party. These attacks don't benefit Labour that much either. If Labour aren't smart they will end up on the wrong side of the political re-alignment that Cameron wants to establish.
It's too early to worry about polling, which is bad for the Lib Dems. A year on, at the Scottish elections and the English local government elections, we'll get a better measure of where the parties stand.
We might then also have an AV referendum then, one of Clegg's key demands, but who is going to vote for that, when not even Lib Dems want to adopt the system?
In a rejection scenario Clegg could face ruin but it might not be the Lib Dems that break the coalition. Cameron, strengthened, Osborne, no longer scary, the cuts not really beginning to bite until 2013 - the Conservatives could cut and run for a majority leaving the Libs to take the whiplash of their "betrayed" support base.
But Labour's new leader, whoever that might be, needs to get an alternative narrative running in double quick time, and that can't be entirely based on Lib Dem betrayal. There are enough unhappy Lib Dems to keep that line running without Labour help.
He does the the easy bits and gets Nick Clegg to announce the winding up of regional development agencies in England today and Danny Alexander to renege on a loan to Sheffield Forgemasters in Clegg's back yard.
Everyone else is wondering about this out loud so I join the chorus of "what do the Lib Dems think they are doing?"
I spoke to a former Minister last week who said that officials he is still in touch with say the Tories can't believe their luck. When the door closes on Number 10 Downing St each night they do a little dance of joy.
The word from beyond the black door is that to begin with the Tories thought that setting up the Office for Budgetary Responsibility would give an impression of independence, and enough cover, to begin the cuts agenda. Then they couldn't believe their luck when the Lib Dems not only came into the coalition but presented themselves as willing executioners for the cuts agenda.
We know that Lib Dem MPs aren't happy about this, the 22 that don't have government posts that is. Recall Charles Kennedy's alleged outburst at Cameron and his eagerness to pair up with Labour MPs to avoid having to vote with the government, following his abstention on the actual coalition vote.
But it will take more than abstentions to save the Lib Dems. Two Welsh Lib Dems voted against the government's VAT proposals last night but the lid is being kept on things at Westminster until the party conference, or the battle of Liverpool, this September.
Meanwhile the Liberal soul searching goes on. There is an incredible piece by David Marquand online today about the betrayal of the Liberal tradition. You can read it on the click through but the essential passages are below.
Since well before Keynes, British liberals have sought to tame capitalism in the interests of social justice and a vigorous public domain, in other words to transcend the harsh choice between the free market and state socialism. All the liberal greats – John Stuart Mill, Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and William Beveridge – have taken part in that endeavour, as well as lesser, later liberals like David Steel and Paddy Ashdown. If Clegg and Cable are right, they were wasting their time. Capitalism is capitalism: it has to be taken neat or not at all. We do have to choose between the free market and the overmighty state. The historic liberal project which is one of the glories of the British political tradition is for the birds.
The implications are stark. The most obvious is that, if liberal politics are impossible, the Liberal Democrat party is surplus to requirements. But there is a less obvious implication as well. For the second thing we know is that free-market capitalism – the untamed capitalism whose mantras Clegg and Cable regurgitate in speech after speech – is inherently unstable. It is dynamic, alright; but its dynamism comes with a heavy price tag. Crashes are to it what fleas are to dogs. So are inequality, injustice, resentment and alienation. It is a strange destination for the heirs of Mill and Lloyd George.
Of course having the Libs fire the bullets and take the incoming fire suits the Tories fine. Cameron loves it every time Labour attack the Lib Dem betrayal because it drives Nick Clegg and co further and further into the arms of the Tory party. These attacks don't benefit Labour that much either. If Labour aren't smart they will end up on the wrong side of the political re-alignment that Cameron wants to establish.
It's too early to worry about polling, which is bad for the Lib Dems. A year on, at the Scottish elections and the English local government elections, we'll get a better measure of where the parties stand.
We might then also have an AV referendum then, one of Clegg's key demands, but who is going to vote for that, when not even Lib Dems want to adopt the system?
In a rejection scenario Clegg could face ruin but it might not be the Lib Dems that break the coalition. Cameron, strengthened, Osborne, no longer scary, the cuts not really beginning to bite until 2013 - the Conservatives could cut and run for a majority leaving the Libs to take the whiplash of their "betrayed" support base.
But Labour's new leader, whoever that might be, needs to get an alternative narrative running in double quick time, and that can't be entirely based on Lib Dem betrayal. There are enough unhappy Lib Dems to keep that line running without Labour help.
Monday, 28 June 2010
Basking sharks in Point waters
I was on the Isle of Lewis for the weekend, where I had to give an address to the prize giving ceremony at the Nicolson Institute, a daunting prospect but in the event an enjoyable experience. I'll post about it later if I can.
The highlight of the trip was not my speech but the Point basking sharks.
These amazing creatures, two adults and a calf, were just offshore between the Braighe and Ramadal for two days, and only disappeared when the England v Germany game started.
They had fins the size of dining tables but photos from the shoreline don't really do them justice. There's a report on the Heb News website.
There's more information about the sharks, whales really, on the Basking Shark project website and Sea Trek safari on the west coast of Lewis has reported sightings of up to ten basking sharks in the last month.
We used to see schools of basking sharks off Point in the early 70s but they seemed to have disappeared for a long time.
I went for a close-up look early yesterday morning and standing on my own on a skerry with that huge fin doing lazy circles just 20 or 30 metres offshore was quite intimidating.
They're harmless and toothless but their sheer size, and the fact that they are mostly hidden from view, gives you that instinctive, tingling sensation which would be hard to ignore if you were in a small boat and didn't know what they are. It's easy to see how from such encounters come stories of sea monsters.
The highlight of the trip was not my speech but the Point basking sharks.
These amazing creatures, two adults and a calf, were just offshore between the Braighe and Ramadal for two days, and only disappeared when the England v Germany game started.
They had fins the size of dining tables but photos from the shoreline don't really do them justice. There's a report on the Heb News website.
There's more information about the sharks, whales really, on the Basking Shark project website and Sea Trek safari on the west coast of Lewis has reported sightings of up to ten basking sharks in the last month.
We used to see schools of basking sharks off Point in the early 70s but they seemed to have disappeared for a long time.
I went for a close-up look early yesterday morning and standing on my own on a skerry with that huge fin doing lazy circles just 20 or 30 metres offshore was quite intimidating.
They're harmless and toothless but their sheer size, and the fact that they are mostly hidden from view, gives you that instinctive, tingling sensation which would be hard to ignore if you were in a small boat and didn't know what they are. It's easy to see how from such encounters come stories of sea monsters.
Let's dig for the missing Lewis chessmen
Back in London town this morning the ever intriguing Lewis chessmen featured on the History of the World in one hundred objects on Radio Four.
I love the series anyway but having the chess pieces mulled over by Neil MacGregor was a treat. It will be on the BBC's play it again device and on Radio 4 at 7.45pm.
When the series started I guessed there would be another of these predictable calls for the 67 pieces to be repatriated from the British Museum to the Isle of Lewis. Step forward Angus MacNeil, MP for the Western Isles, who organised a Westminster Hall debate on the subject.
I wrote that asking for 12th century chess pieces, one of the iconic collections in the British Museum, was woefully under-ambitious aim. Far better to ask for the whole British museum to move to the Western Isles.
Museum franchising (the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Tate in St Ives and now the Victoria and Albert for Dundee) is the next big thing in terms of cultural tourism. Having a branch of the British Museum in Stornoway would make the place a tourism magnet.
I'm pleased to hear the Western Isles Museum Service has taken up the suggestion and that my idea was discussed at meeting between MacGregor and MacNeil at the British Museum recently.
But, back to the programme. What was even more intriguing than the history of the 78 pieces held between Edinburgh and London is that the pieces are far from making a complete set. The 78 chess pieces are enough for at least four incomplete sets.
Tantalizingly the minimum missing pieces are a knight, four warders (the shield biters) and 45 pawns, which are quite plain.
There could be more out there, either waiting to come to light in some private or forgotten collection, or still buried in the sands of Uig.
I'm not sure if there ever has been an exhaustive archaeological exploration of the sand banks where the pieces are said to have been found in 1831.
Maybe someone can correct me on that, but an organised dig for the missing chessmen would do for the Hebrides what Howard Carter did for Egyptian tourism with the opening the tomb of Tutankhamen. Anyone got a bucket and spade?
UPDATE: Sarah has posted some helpful information below, emphasising, as I should have myself, that any investigation of the sands ought to be authorised and authoritative. Amateur Indiana Jones need not apply is the bones of her post.
I love the series anyway but having the chess pieces mulled over by Neil MacGregor was a treat. It will be on the BBC's play it again device and on Radio 4 at 7.45pm.
When the series started I guessed there would be another of these predictable calls for the 67 pieces to be repatriated from the British Museum to the Isle of Lewis. Step forward Angus MacNeil, MP for the Western Isles, who organised a Westminster Hall debate on the subject.
I wrote that asking for 12th century chess pieces, one of the iconic collections in the British Museum, was woefully under-ambitious aim. Far better to ask for the whole British museum to move to the Western Isles.
Museum franchising (the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Tate in St Ives and now the Victoria and Albert for Dundee) is the next big thing in terms of cultural tourism. Having a branch of the British Museum in Stornoway would make the place a tourism magnet.
I'm pleased to hear the Western Isles Museum Service has taken up the suggestion and that my idea was discussed at meeting between MacGregor and MacNeil at the British Museum recently.
But, back to the programme. What was even more intriguing than the history of the 78 pieces held between Edinburgh and London is that the pieces are far from making a complete set. The 78 chess pieces are enough for at least four incomplete sets.
Tantalizingly the minimum missing pieces are a knight, four warders (the shield biters) and 45 pawns, which are quite plain.
There could be more out there, either waiting to come to light in some private or forgotten collection, or still buried in the sands of Uig.
I'm not sure if there ever has been an exhaustive archaeological exploration of the sand banks where the pieces are said to have been found in 1831.
Maybe someone can correct me on that, but an organised dig for the missing chessmen would do for the Hebrides what Howard Carter did for Egyptian tourism with the opening the tomb of Tutankhamen. Anyone got a bucket and spade?
UPDATE: Sarah has posted some helpful information below, emphasising, as I should have myself, that any investigation of the sands ought to be authorised and authoritative. Amateur Indiana Jones need not apply is the bones of her post.
Lowering of the flag
I'm not one to gloat over the misfortune of a team we couldn't beat in a competition we couldn't qualify for but...It was funny to hear the Prime Minister's official spokesperson admit that the flag of St George had been replaced with a Union flag above Downing Street "early this morning".
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Roghainn na Daoine - ball-coise neo drama
Carson, a dh' fhaighnich mo charaidh, tha thu a' dol a dh 'fhaicinn dealbh-cluiche sa Ghàidhlig an àite a bhith a' coimhead Sasainn an aghaidh nan Stàitean Aonaichte ann an Cupa na Cruinne?
Chuir a' cheist sin an doigh eile, dh' fhreagair mi, oidhche Shathairne. Tha am ball-coise air fad mìos ach tha cothrom dràma Ghàidhlig fhaicinn a-nis cho annasach 's gum b' fhiach siubhal ceithir cheud mìle airson fhaicinn. Sin cho ainneamh 's a tha dealbhan-cluiche Gàidhlig agus cothroman airson banntaireachd nan actairean.
Mar sin, 's e adhbhar misneachd a bha ann Roghainn na Daoine, air thuras le Theatre Hebrides, a ghlac mi anns an Tron ann an Glaschu. Tha an t-actadh ann cho cumhachdach 's cho làidir ri rud sam bith tha sinn air fhaicinn air an àrd-ùrlar ann an Gàidhlig.
Tha doimhneachd anns ann an cleasaidheachd agus ann a cuid dhan an sealleadhean tha fagail luchd amhairc agus na cleaseadhainn fhein claoidhte ri cliadhach a steid.
'S ann leotha tha an oidhche air fad. Iain MacRath - stoirm dealanaich am meadhan a h-uile càil sa bheil e an sàs; Dàibhidh Walker air e fhèin fhoillseachadh mar shàr actair; agus Catriona Lexy Chaimbeul agus Màiri Mhoireasdan cho aotram agus sgileil 's nach eil thu a' faireachdainn fad dà uair a thìde gu leth a' dol seachad.
Agus tha guth seinn Màiri miorbhaileach, agus millteach ann a doigh cathrach, le bhith a' cur a mach na loidhne anns an t-sailm. (Leasan saor agus an asgaidh an sin airson eaglais a tha gann de chothionalan)
Chan eil mi a' cur an coire air na cluicheadaran eile airson na Gàidhlig aca, tha a' Ghàidhig aig ìre mhàth, ach tha duilgheadas ann le creideas nan loidhnichean ann am beul-chainnt luchd-ionnsachaidh. Agus tha sin a' toirt air falbh bho saothar nan actairean fhèin.
Tha sin fhèin a' togail ceist mu dheidhinn banntaireachd nan actairean. Chan eil mi a' creidsinn nach eil iad ann, le sgilean cànain agus àrd-urlair, a-measg na h-òigridh.
Ach 's e neart nan seallaidhean laigse an deilbh-chluiche.'S ann air a chur ri chèile a-mach à buithean-obrach a tha an dealbh-cluiche air fad (as dèidh dhaibh an sgrìobhaiche, Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul, a chall) agus tha sin follaiseach o cheann gu ceann dheth.
'S ann mu dheidhinn eachdraidh sgaradh mòr na h-Eaglais, an Dealachadh, a bha an sgeulachd air a reic rinn ach tha na sgeulachdan pearsanta, inntinneach agus cumhachdach mar a tha iad, a' dol san rathad.
Tha iomadach cuspair a seo - an Gort, dùsgadh creideimh, armailteachd (militarism), dòigh beatha na Gàidhealtachd san naoimheamh linn deug. Ach gun mineachadh air a sgeulachd mhòr, chan eil cearcall slan air an dealbh chluiche.'S e call a tha sin.
'S mar sin, chan ann airson sgeulachd na h-Eaglais bu chòir dhuibh am ball-coise a sheachnadh agus ur slighe a dhèanamh gu Roghainn nan Daoine (Inbhir Nis a-nochd, Loch Carran agus Sleite an deidh laimhe). S ann airson fìor choileanadh air obair actair ann an bith a' toirt beò pearsa air do bheulaibh a thèid sibh ann.
'S e seòrsa de dhùsgadh a th'ann an sin fhein, neo dearbhadh air na ghabhas dèanamh le banntaireachd mar seo.
Chuir a' cheist sin an doigh eile, dh' fhreagair mi, oidhche Shathairne. Tha am ball-coise air fad mìos ach tha cothrom dràma Ghàidhlig fhaicinn a-nis cho annasach 's gum b' fhiach siubhal ceithir cheud mìle airson fhaicinn. Sin cho ainneamh 's a tha dealbhan-cluiche Gàidhlig agus cothroman airson banntaireachd nan actairean.
Mar sin, 's e adhbhar misneachd a bha ann Roghainn na Daoine, air thuras le Theatre Hebrides, a ghlac mi anns an Tron ann an Glaschu. Tha an t-actadh ann cho cumhachdach 's cho làidir ri rud sam bith tha sinn air fhaicinn air an àrd-ùrlar ann an Gàidhlig.
Tha doimhneachd anns ann an cleasaidheachd agus ann a cuid dhan an sealleadhean tha fagail luchd amhairc agus na cleaseadhainn fhein claoidhte ri cliadhach a steid.
'S ann leotha tha an oidhche air fad. Iain MacRath - stoirm dealanaich am meadhan a h-uile càil sa bheil e an sàs; Dàibhidh Walker air e fhèin fhoillseachadh mar shàr actair; agus Catriona Lexy Chaimbeul agus Màiri Mhoireasdan cho aotram agus sgileil 's nach eil thu a' faireachdainn fad dà uair a thìde gu leth a' dol seachad.
Agus tha guth seinn Màiri miorbhaileach, agus millteach ann a doigh cathrach, le bhith a' cur a mach na loidhne anns an t-sailm. (Leasan saor agus an asgaidh an sin airson eaglais a tha gann de chothionalan)
Chan eil mi a' cur an coire air na cluicheadaran eile airson na Gàidhlig aca, tha a' Ghàidhig aig ìre mhàth, ach tha duilgheadas ann le creideas nan loidhnichean ann am beul-chainnt luchd-ionnsachaidh. Agus tha sin a' toirt air falbh bho saothar nan actairean fhèin.
Tha sin fhèin a' togail ceist mu dheidhinn banntaireachd nan actairean. Chan eil mi a' creidsinn nach eil iad ann, le sgilean cànain agus àrd-urlair, a-measg na h-òigridh.
Ach 's e neart nan seallaidhean laigse an deilbh-chluiche.'S ann air a chur ri chèile a-mach à buithean-obrach a tha an dealbh-cluiche air fad (as dèidh dhaibh an sgrìobhaiche, Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul, a chall) agus tha sin follaiseach o cheann gu ceann dheth.
'S ann mu dheidhinn eachdraidh sgaradh mòr na h-Eaglais, an Dealachadh, a bha an sgeulachd air a reic rinn ach tha na sgeulachdan pearsanta, inntinneach agus cumhachdach mar a tha iad, a' dol san rathad.
Tha iomadach cuspair a seo - an Gort, dùsgadh creideimh, armailteachd (militarism), dòigh beatha na Gàidhealtachd san naoimheamh linn deug. Ach gun mineachadh air a sgeulachd mhòr, chan eil cearcall slan air an dealbh chluiche.'S e call a tha sin.
'S mar sin, chan ann airson sgeulachd na h-Eaglais bu chòir dhuibh am ball-coise a sheachnadh agus ur slighe a dhèanamh gu Roghainn nan Daoine (Inbhir Nis a-nochd, Loch Carran agus Sleite an deidh laimhe). S ann airson fìor choileanadh air obair actair ann an bith a' toirt beò pearsa air do bheulaibh a thèid sibh ann.
'S e seòrsa de dhùsgadh a th'ann an sin fhein, neo dearbhadh air na ghabhas dèanamh le banntaireachd mar seo.
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Scottish Questions - Moore lives to fight another day
It was Michael Moore's first outing at Scottish Questions as Secretary of State for this morning, and he was on his feet arguing he should keep the job his party wanted to see abolished before the election.
He's been in the post just 16 days, Jim Murphy reminded him, which was precisely as long as the last Secretary of State, Danny Alexander, lasted. Murphy hoped that Moore would live to fight another day and, responding to teasing questions from Labour shadow, Moore agreed that his post should remain, with him in it, for the time being.
Murphy, the now shadow Scottish Secretary, also sympathised with Moore for being in a minority in the cabinet, after all the Berwickshire MP isn't a millionaire.
But what did he think of that "gang of millionaires turning their back on the unemployed of Scotland" by cancelling the Future Jobs Fund, asked Murphy?
Unemployment in Scotland rose by 7,000 in the three months to April, official figures released yesterday showed.
The number of people out of work now stands at 212,000 - 35,000 more than in the same period last year.
Not our fault, insisted Moore, deploying the line that Cameron used in Prime Minister's Questions later.
"The reality is that the future jobs fund was set up on an unsustainable basis and what we need to do is to ensure we get a sustainable basis for the future of youth unemployment support," said Moore.
"Those proposals will come forward in very close order. Before you set up too many scare stories, existing bids will be honoured under the future jobs fund."
The fund was set up to provide 200,000 jobs to young people and paid at least the minimum wage for at least six months. That's longer than most Scottish Secretaries last these days.
He's been in the post just 16 days, Jim Murphy reminded him, which was precisely as long as the last Secretary of State, Danny Alexander, lasted. Murphy hoped that Moore would live to fight another day and, responding to teasing questions from Labour shadow, Moore agreed that his post should remain, with him in it, for the time being.
Murphy, the now shadow Scottish Secretary, also sympathised with Moore for being in a minority in the cabinet, after all the Berwickshire MP isn't a millionaire.
But what did he think of that "gang of millionaires turning their back on the unemployed of Scotland" by cancelling the Future Jobs Fund, asked Murphy?
Unemployment in Scotland rose by 7,000 in the three months to April, official figures released yesterday showed.
The number of people out of work now stands at 212,000 - 35,000 more than in the same period last year.
Not our fault, insisted Moore, deploying the line that Cameron used in Prime Minister's Questions later.
"The reality is that the future jobs fund was set up on an unsustainable basis and what we need to do is to ensure we get a sustainable basis for the future of youth unemployment support," said Moore.
"Those proposals will come forward in very close order. Before you set up too many scare stories, existing bids will be honoured under the future jobs fund."
The fund was set up to provide 200,000 jobs to young people and paid at least the minimum wage for at least six months. That's longer than most Scottish Secretaries last these days.
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