A longer than usual gap since last posting. This is partly due to be busier (various things) but partly because I didn't really feel inspired to the share the thoughts that had come to mind.

Most of the items in the news that gave pause for thought were domestic UK ones. The disasters in Burma and China have made a deep impression but they challenge the desire to find meanings too seriously to provoke any comment. The one 'meaning' that seems abundantly clear is that of the lack of effective action by the military junta in Burma - we have other priorities that are more important for us than the lives of our people.

Incidentally, I hadn't heard any explanation as to why the media have stopped referring to 'Myanmar' - according to Wikipaedia, although 'Myanmar' is the correct name for the country in the Burmese language, it lacks legitimacy because it was imposed by the junta and opposition groups continue to use 'Burma', which is the colloquial name.

It seemed dubious that Burma and China should be knocked out of their top spots by the government's tax policy or Mervyn King's reading of the economy.

Commentators' handling of the increase in tax allowances was curious. They homed in on the end of the crisis over the abolition of the 10p tax rate and the start of another storm over government borrowing but didn't make the obvious point that an increase in everyone's tax allowances will be nice - thank you very much. On yesterday's 'Today Programme' Gordon Brown compared the tax allowance announcement to the economic stimulation packages in Spain and the US (though it's much smaller). This wasn't very convincing. The government hasn't yet tried to make much capital out of its gift to the taxpayers. Presumably, it's hoping to make this into more of a good story by the time of the next general election.

The alternative is that some way has to be found of clawing the money back from us because of a crisis in government finances a short way down the road. The next 12 months are going to be nerve-racking time for Treasury Ministers.

Frank Field's apology to the Prime Minister in the HOuse of Commons can be taken as an indication of just how frightened the Labour Parliamentary Party are. At least a 'peace within the castle' policy demonstrates an instinct for survival.

Of course the abolition of the 10p tax rate was wrong-headed but it took nearly all of us an awfully long to reach that conclusion. So where did the government's crisis getup such a head of steam? Gordon Brown can never have wanted it to happen this way but the government's accountability to Parliament has improved no end. The government has been made to look stupid but its parliamentary party looks much more principled and effective than it normally does. How would that play out in an election?

Gordon Brown's other humiliations have jostled for our attention in the last week. The run of political biographies have managed to partially eclipse the matter of the referendum on Scottish independence. As the memoirs will be forgotten by Christmas while a referendum on Scottish independence could reverberate for the rest of the century, this lack of proportion is unfortunate.

Of course, the Labour Party stand to lose far more from Scottish Independence than any of the other parties but their worries about their own interests seems to be blinding them to the true dimensions of the whole issue.

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I don't think the fine imposed on ITV was really big enough but hopefully a low point in cynicism has been reached - and passed. The decision to ignore the votes phoned in by the viewers only goes to show how trivial the programmes' producers thought the programmes were in the first place. It'll be interesting to look back and see if viewing tastes change after this.

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On the personal level we've had one great outing to the beach, I've heard a cuckoo (at Puttenham Common) and I'm in the process of demolishing the compost heap, in order to make space for a composter. Work has paused now but it looks like there are some interesting opportunities coming up.