Scottish Independence: a net employment gain for England?

Courtesy of a Parliamentary Question, the regional distribution of Civil Service employment has been brought to my attention. And the data is quite interesting.

As at 31 March 2011, the headcount for the Civil Service was as follows;

• England                                        404,043
• Scotland                                         48,832
• Wales                                             33,299
• Northern Ireland                             4,355*

* Northern Ireland has its own Civil Service, and so it is rather difficult to do a reasonable comparison.

So, how does this compare to population? England has one civil servant per 129 head of population, Scotland has one per 107 and Wales has one per 90.

Naturally, there are reasons for the discrepancies. As a major employer, governments, especially Labour ones, have sought to transfer Civil Service offices from London and the South East to areas where employment opportunities are relatively few. This has benefits in terms of recruitment and retention, and the costs of accommodation are far less in East Kilbride and Merthyr Tydfil than they are in Croydon, Maidstone or Reading, let alone central London.

However, if Scotland does become independent, much of the work done there on behalf of non-Scottish customers would have to be repatriated, thus providing some employment south of the border. And yes, some of those staff would be transferred into new roles working for the Scottish Government, policy advisors, even whole new departments. In all likelihood, independence would be, at worst, employment neutral, as far as the public sector is concerned, although there would be an interesting question about how an enlarged public sector might be financed.

Not Left, nor Reform, nor Vision... just a Liberal...

I can't tell you how hard it is to keep up with all of this. It is as though for each reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. Ah, I forget, that's a law of physics, isn't it? And you cannae change the laws of physics... Anyway, no sooner has Liberal Left taken to the runway than Liberal Reform leaves the terminal building.

I won't be joining. I'm not the joining kind, I suppose, and besides, I already pay a subscription to something called the Liberal Democrats, an organisation dedicated to fighting for liberal values with a noble and valiant history of doing so. They seem to have the right idea, most of the time, at least, and I think that I'll happily settle at that.

That said, I wish them well, so long as they are about ideas and putting them into practice, rather than about opposing someone else within the Party. The website looks reasonably good, if sparse so far (it's early days, so don't take that to be a criticism), and we'll see what they do at our Spring Conference...

Blogging: it's not about recognition... well, maybe it is... a bit

Much to my surprise, postings on this blog have been included in the Golden Dozen in two of the past three weeks. Surprise, because the blog has been relatively quiet of late, but also because I'm not prone to controversy (despite my opinion piece for Liberal Democrat Voice last week).

I don't really write with a mass audience in mind - my life isn't that exciting, and my opinions insufficiently 'spicy'. I don't hold a key position in the Liberal Democrats, my council is hardly one to grace the pages of Private Eye's 'Rotten Boroughs', and I'm quietly happy.

Of course, in the early days of Liberal Democrat Blogs, and of the Golden Dozen, I was a bit of a regular, with fifty entries in the first 131 Golden Dozens. It was, I must confess, a bit easier in those far off days, but I still appear from time to time, which is nice.


I'll have to keep up the blogging though. Given the propensity of Liberal Democrat Voice editors to fade into blogging oblivion, I'd like to strike a happy balance between reportage and gentle whimsy, between occasional frustration and tales of my rural idyll...

Prayer and Local Government - between a rock and a hard place?

We don't really 'do God' on Creeting St Peter Parish Council. After all, that's what the Parochial Church Council is for, when they're not organising the village's social life (and sorry for missing today's coffee morning, I had to go to London).

I have to admit though, that if asked to take part in a prayer session as part of Full Council, I'd have to demur. I don't have an objection to religion - I am a guilty, non-practising Roman Catholic, not guilty because I'm non-practising, just existentially guilty - but I do see it as personal and a matter of individual conscience.

It is such a pity that the protagonists are so entirely unsympathetic. The spokesperson for the National Secular Society, Keith Porteous Wood, seems rather too keen to drive faith out of our society, whereas Lord Carey of Clifton gives the impression of being a reactionary Lord Blimp.

The abolition of mandatory prayers as an integral part of a council meeting is not the end of Christianity as we know it. And if my fellow councillors were to choose to have a prayer session before our formal business, I really wouldn't see how I could reasonably protest. It is their deeds as councillors that are my concern, not their deeds elsewhere.

I shouldn't be surprised that Eric Pickles has waded into the row. Given that he no longer appears to check basic facts before mouthing off, I tend to the view that if I'm taking a contrary stance to his, I'm on the right side of common sense.

So, if you want to pray, go right ahead, just don't oblige me to join you. And in return, I won't oblige you to enjoy a bacon sandwich, or be a bureaucrat, or savour a nice glass of riesling. It's all about freedom, isn't it, Eric?...

The return of the Returning Officer...

Alright, I've had my refresher training, and am now able to be let loose on unsuspecting Local Parties once more. And, as there are so many more of you wanting to be Parliamentary candidates than there are wanting to be Returning Officers (and why is that?), I really ought to give you a flavour of what to expect.

No more nanny state

You will, henceforth, be under much less supervision as an applicant. You won't need the approval of the Returning Officer for your manifesto, your leaflets or your other campaigning material, online or otherwise. Instead, you will be responsible for ensuring your own compliance.

The revolution will no longer be organised on strict procedural lines

There will be greater freedom in terms of process. As long as the six key principles - fairness, accountability, robustness, inclusivity, democracy and manageability - are met, there will be scope to do things differently. The limits on campaigning will be relaxed - yes, you can use social media, yes, you will be able to include photographs with well-known people in them.

More flexibility, less cost

There is a new two tier approach, with a rigorous process for target seats but a more 'fast track' one for those 'less obviously winnable ones'. The latter will be cheaper - removing the requirement to place an full advert in Liberal Democrat News (although a brief slot in the classifieds column will still be required), and allowing other ways to advertise the vacancy. The timetable in such seats is significantly reduced too.

Diversity yes, but only where it really counts

We'll be less prescriptive on diversity issues for the less winnable seats because what really matters is getting better balance amongst our Parliamentarians, i.e. getting more women and minority ethnic candidates selected in target seats. The evidence is that diversity isn't a major problem is non-target seats anyway.

No more Returning Officers as paralegals

Hopefully, my job will no longer require forensic scrutiny of a complex rulebook, partly because the new version is half the size of the old one, but because it is a document based on fundamental principles, rather than on a fear that candidates need control. As someone who likes to think a little outside of the box, that pleases me, and gives me scope for a little experimentation.

And so, let the games begin... but only once I've got some spare time...

Liberal Left: let a thousand flowers bloom*...

The news that a new pressure group has been formed within the Liberal Democrats has been 'welcomed' with a surprising level of hostility from a number of my colleagues. Obviously, there will be those who might expect me to be equally dismissive. After all, I'm generally loyal to the Party, and at least tolerant of its leadership.

And yet, I find myself wondering what the fuss is all about. It is, when all is said and done, the right of any group of Liberal Democrats to organise as they please, within the confines of the Constitution and the Membership Rules.

But what puzzles me more is that, as I recall, we talk a good game about pluralism. And, in a pluralist society, one accepts that individuals and groups have a right to take a contrarian view. It can be argued that the Coalition has been bad for the Party - indeed, polls by Liberal Democrat Voice indicate a consistent stance that the Coalition will be bad for the Party in at least the medium term.

So, for those who have been so negative about Liberal Left, a question. If, after the next General Election, we are offered a choice between Labour and the Conservatives as dancing partners, are you ruling out Labour now? And if so, why?

* Apparently, Mao never said this. The Chinese Communist Party did use the slogan "Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.". But it's still a good line...

Off for training in the morning...

I'm off down to London tomorrow, for my Returning Officer training. Oh yes, I need to be retrained, given that we have shiny new Selection Rules. I am aware of the irony, given that I was on the Working Group that rewrote them, but there can be no exceptions.

And it's probably about time too, as I've already had an informal approach to see if I'd be willing to serve in one of the forthcoming European Parliamentary selections (the answer is no, but then I said that I'd leave the country after the 1997 selection, and ended up doing 2002 and 2007 as well). There might also be Police and Crime Commissioner selections in my Region, and I do so like to be helpful when I can.

I've already done the pre-training test, which meant reading the new Rules - it would be rather embarrassing if I got too many things wrong.

I'll let you know what happened when I get back...

Climbing off the fence, and into the fray...

For those of you who read Liberal Democrat Voice (and for those of you who don't, why don't you?), you will have noticed that I have, somewhat unusually, taken a stance on something that troubles me. Actually, it's some of you...

So, take a look at the piece I've written, and let's see just what sort of Party it is I'm a member of...

Not cut off, not cut off at all...

Ros and I had been visiting friends for dinner in Hadleigh, a rather lovely little town in South Suffolk, on Saturday evening, and so found ourselves on the road on Sunday morning, snow or no snow.

The road out of Hadleigh towards East Bergholt was twisty and slippery, as the volume of traffic had not been sufficient to clear away the snow, and Ros drove cautiously as far as the turning for the A12. But thanks to the work of the Essex and Suffolk County gritters, road conditions were pretty good as far as Stowmarket.

Stopping only to buy a newspaper, some milk, crumpets and soup at Tesco, we then embarked on what we feared might be the trickiest part of our journey, along Mill Lane and then up the rise to our village. There isn't a lot of traffic at the best of times, and we're a long way down the order in terms of roads most likely to be gritted. But we made it home, to find our village covered in a white blanket of snow, and our house with it.

A fire set, and some logs burnt, and the house was cosy and warm.

But yesterday, with the weekend over, it was time to return to the work routine. And for me, that means the community bus. So it was with some trepidation that I headed out to the pick-up point in the middle of the village, with ice on the road and visibility down to less than fifty metres, after all, road conditions weren't great and the bus schedule is busy.

And so, at exactly eight o'clock, the bus arrived, on time. The road north to Stowupland had been cleared, and it was the usual efficient journey, as I chatted to my driver. All this for £2.10 return.

It reminds me that, here in the country, you need to be just a little more resilient. And fortunately, those that I depend upon usually are...

Call this cold? I think not...

Ros has always wanted to see the Northern Lights and, being a devoted husband and keen traveller, I have made the arrangements. And so, just after Valentine's Day (because the Lords will be debating the Scotland Bill that day), I'll be taking her to the Arctic Circle, to Oulu and Rovaniemi, where it's currently -31°C (-24°F for those of you who prefer that measure).

However, there is a bit of a breeze blowing, with the wind chill making it feel like -44°C, or -47°F... Oh well, it's a relatively balmy -28°C in Oulu...

But why Oulu and Rovaniemi? Well, the flights were fairly easy, the hotels comfortable, and Rovaniemi is the home of Santa Claus. And in a year when the Aurora Borealis is expected to be at its best, why not go and see?

So, I'll try and keep the blog up to date, at least until we leave. Because I'm not exactly sure what happens when a bureaucrat is exposed to the cold...

You know something, I'm not going to go gently into that dark night...

I have, I must confess, been confronted with signs of my mortality of late. No, I'm not dying, I'm not even ill. it's just that, in recent months, the notion that I am still young has taken a bit of a kicking. I've known that I'm in my mid-forties, but there has been a piece of me that, emotionally at least, has striven to deny the fact that I am, to put it kindly, getting on as bit.

I've been dwelling on my long-term finances, on my health, on the future. Ah yes, the future. I've never been very good at that, apart from planning trips (and I'm really good at that...). And now, whilst I don't have to be really good at it, it does make me realise that, eventually, one day, I might die. So, perhaps I ought to be a little more relaxed about duty, and slightly keener on fun, worry less about things that might go wrong, and wonder  more about what might just happen.


I wonder what will happen...

Lobbying Reform: sorry Eirian, but sorry doesn't cut it...

Today, it emerges that Eirian Walsh Atkins has resigned. For those of you who don't know her, until Friday, she was the head of constitutional policy at the Cabinet Office. Why was she important? Perhaps because she has been preparing the government's consultation proposal on a statutory register for lobbyists... a key part of the political reform package promoted by Liberal Democrats.

Interestingly, she resigned because of a message on her Twitter feed, wishing "that Unlock Democracy would die". Now you might think that such an attitude is, to put it mildly, unhelpful. You might also wonder if her attitude had led to potential bias in terms of her handling of the issue. I know that I do.

And, there is a suggestion that she has displayed such bias. We do know that she has refused to meet with the Director of Unlock Democracy, Peter Facey, to discuss the proposals. We also know that she has refused to meet with Spinwatch, an independent non-profit making organisation which monitors the role of public relations and spin in contemporary society. On the other hand, she is understood to have met with representatives of the UK Public Affairs Council four times since September 2010. Equitable treatment? I don't think so.

She also led the Cabinet Office's rejection of a freedom of information request to disclose details of its contacts with the lobbying industry since 2010. On the basis of what we do know, it might appear that she was covering up her own behaviour.

But before I continue, time for a declaration of interest. I am a member of the Council and Management Board of Unlock Democracy, and a civil servant, so I have multiple perspectives on her behaviour.

The Government has talked big about cleaning up British politics, and whilst I wonder if everyone is entirely committed to doing anything more than talking about it, the commitment to cleaning up the lobbying industry is a key step towards improving the transparency and integrity of our body politic.

And part of that body politic is the Civil Service, a body supposed to be beyond reproach in its dealings with the public and with those that govern us. As a reminder for Eirian, here are our core values, as placed on a statutory footing by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010;

• Integrity – putting the obligations of public service above personal interests
• Honesty – being truthful and open 
• Objectivity – basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence
• Impartiality – acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving governments of different political parties equally well

So, let's see how Eirian got on...

Integrity

That would be a fail. She had a duty to serve the public interest, and publicly declared her view towards a leading campaigner on the question under discussion. She has given a clear impression of favouring one side of the debate over the other.

Honesty

In one sense, she has passed. After all, her view of Unlock Democracy is refreshingly direct, even if unwise. On the other hand, if her refusal of a seemingly legitimate Freedom of Information request was intended to prevent scrutiny of her conduct, she has failed.

Objectivity

Article 11 of the Code states;

11. You must not:

• ignore inconvenient facts or relevant considerations when providing advice or making decisions

Is it possible to imagine that she could now be, or has ever been, objective? Can you credibly suggest that she has taken into account all of the facts? I really can't see that one standing up.

Impartiality

Oh dear, another fail. The merits of the case? She clearly doesn't believe in taking them seriously, and has evidently failed to serve this government well. Of course, she could have been equally useless under the previous Labour administration, but given her rank, it seems somewhat unlikely.

Article 13 of the Code reads;

13. You must not:

• act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests

So, not a good score, methinks. I'm pleased that she has resigned as head of constitutional policy, but might I suggest that this civil service thing isn't really her forte? After all, if you were a Cabinet Office minister, could you really trust her work? I couldn't.

Time to go and get a job as a lobbyist, Eirian. Don't worry, I'm sure that they'll look after you...

I can count, I can...

I am, somewhat unexpectedly, being educated again. Well, I say educated, in that I am part of an HM Revenue & Customs pilot study, testing the value of the NVQ Level 2 in Operational Delivery.

I've met my assessor, Barry, and done the mandatory literacy and numeracy tests. And that's my first concern. The picture shows one of the sixteen numeracy test questions, indeed, one of the more difficult ones.

Remember, I'm a tax official, working in an organisation that requires academic evidence of numeracy as part of our recruitment process. I have an 'O' level, two 'A' levels and a degree in Mathematics. I do find myself wondering why I am obliged to take a test that I would have been upset at failing when I was five. It appears to be 'education by box ticking', something that I don't really approve of.

And, to be blunt, it doesn't appear to be particularly rigorous. Keep the answers short, I am told, avoid detail. There I was, thinking that this might offer an opportunity to give some serious thought as to the way we function, and whether or not we provide a service that meets the actual needs of our customers, rather than one that fits with what we're willing to provide. Clearly, I am being naïve.

Once upon a time, we had proper, rigorous training, where you were taught not only what to do, but why you are doing it. But that's expensive, so instead consultants are brought in to break down our work into simple bite-sized chunks that a slightly slow gibbon could master.

That's fine, so long as you have a basic knowledge of the job. However, if you don't, as soon as something unusual crops up, you're floundering at the end of a long rope, with managers appointed on the basis of managerial competence, rather than any knowledge of your job.

And that, my friends, is why bureaucrats become jobsworths. If in doubt, stick to the letter of the law...

Eric Pickles redefines 'moral duty'

Not only has Eric Pickles failed to extend his largesse to Parish Councils, but he now accuses me of failing in my moral duty by increasing the Parish precept by 13%.

I would love to freeze our share of the council tax this year. But I can't - the numbers simply don't add up.

Like councillors around the country, I have a legal obligation to secure the finances of my authority. Each year, we fret about balancing the books, about long-term sustainability, about maintaining essential services, about protecting our staff and treating them with respect. Even in good years, difficult choices are made, but in hard ones...

Some of my colleagues on principal authorities have concluded that, rather than take the 'bribe' equivalent to a 2.5% increase on the previous year's budget, they will increase council tax. Their logic is that, one day, the bribes will stop and, when they do, the gap between income and expenditure will need to be bridged by a large increase in the precept. A little basic arithmetic tends to support their contention.

Others argue that it is better to protect council taxpayers this year, accepting the likelihood of a big increase for 2013/14. And if you're up for election in 2012, one can see the political attraction. Or, if you hope that the economy will improve so that the increase will seem less painful, it is entirely logical.

But, whatever decision they've taken, it has been one which has not been taken lightly. And given that Eric's largesse has no impact on the deficit, and that it is being paid for by taxpayers, I thoroughly object to him bandying around the phrase 'moral duty'. It is my moral duty to do the best for my community - all of my community. That may mean cutting costs, it may mean increasing council tax levels.

And by the way, Eric, you've just passed a Localism Bill, giving me a power of general competence. The idea was that local councils were to be trusted to get on with things without vast layers of central bureaucracy or diktat. For pity's sake man, read the memo. Or, if it's all too complex, it's your moral duty to get someone to explain it to you. I'd ask Andrew Stunell, if I were you...

For the benefit of Iain Duncan-Smith: a definition of homelessness

This morning, on BBC's Breakfast Show, Iain Duncan-Smith was talking about the impact of his proposals on a benefit cap. He suggested that the 'scare stories' were exaggerated, claiming that the Shelter definition of homelessness was unrealistic.

When pressed, he stated that their definition of homelessness includes circumstances where bedrooms are being shared. At this point, Ros noted that he was being less than entirely accurate.

So, I thought that I ought to check. Given that Ros has plenty of knowledge on housing issues, and has held senior office at District and County level, I'd tend to trust her judgement. And here, for the benefit of the Secretary of State, is Shelter's actual definition;

"Homelessness means not having a home - most people who are homeless don't sleep on the street. Even if you have a roof over your head you can still be homeless. This is because you may not have any rights to stay where you live or your home might be unsuitable for you due to severe overcrowding or other reasons."

If I was being extremely generous, I would accept that he may have misinterpreted this. But I'm not. To my mind, most people would see severe overcrowding as being rather more than simply sharing a bedroom.

So, either he is wilfully misrepresenting the facts, or he is ignorant of them. And on that basis, he is unworthy of any faith that Parliamentarians might wish to place in his judgement. And that rather casts doubt on the quality of the legislation he is promoting...

A benefit cap: victimising people at taxpayers' expense?

I freely admit that I haven't given an awful lot of attention to the Welfare Reform debate. Odd really, because Ros cast her first ever vote as a rebel against the proposal to punish those in receipt of housing benefit who have a spare bedroom. But nonetheless, it isn't an area of policy that I'm terribly knowledgeable about.

But I do like to think that a proposal should add up. And the benefit cap doesn't seem to do so. As I understand it, the proposal will lead to a direct saving of £270 million from the social welfare budget. So far, so good. But are there consequential effects?

Some of the people impacted, indeed, a lot of them, will be living in private rented accommodation. If housing benefit is reduced, they will probably lose their home unless rents drop in their area across the piece. That seems, to put it politely, somewhat unlikely, given that landlords will not want to reduce their income, and that overheads are likely to increase as interest rates revert to more sustainable long-term levels. If they lose their homes, they aren't intentionally homeless, and their local authority is obliged to house them, which comes with a cost to the local authority. If they have available housing, that cost can be held down but, if temporary rented accommodation is required, that can be quite expensive.

If the senior official in the Department for Communities and Local Government who wrote that the resultant costs would exceed the benefits of the cap is correct, the Government will have achieved something superficially popular and fiscally inept simultaneously. Quite some achievement, might I suggest?

Tim Leunig offers what seems like an entirely sensible alternative, suggesting that you could make equivalent savings by increasing the housing stock by 1.3%. You would create jobs, impose some downward pressure on housing costs across the board, and create an asset which will generate a return, all of which are obviously good.

I'm uncomfortable about the idea of punishing people on the basis of an arbitrarily chosen number. Yes, it is right that we should give people an incentive to seek work, but it can't just be about sticks - carrots need to play a part too. And whilst Liberal Democrats approach it by taking people out of income tax at the bottom end of the income scale, Conservatives appear to prefer making them so impoverished that any job, no matter how poorly paid, and no matter whether or not it allows them to live with dignity.

And so, in the unlikely event that Iain Duncan Smith happens to see these words, I'd be grateful if he put fiscal responsibility ahead of a rather perverse insistence on self-reliance...

Even a bribe from Eric Pickles wouldn't help me this time...

Last year, I was rather pleased that I had managed to freeze the Parish Council precept by cutting a swathe of utterly superfluous proposed expenditure from the draft budget. Indeed, I probably felt a bit smug about it at the time.

But something was bothering me. Our Parish Clerk produces an exquisitely detailed budget document each year, which we, the Parish councillors, look at and, apart from my enthusiasm to cut out things that I deem unnecessary, accept. I had therefore assumed that the income and expenditure balanced, as it all added up.

And, indeed, it does. However, it gradually dawned on me that I didn't have a grasp of the whole picture, a failure which annoyed me somewhat, as I take a degree of pride in my basic numeracy. So, this year, I produced my very own income and expenditure account, based on the budget figures, stripping out the earmarked funds for elections and the funds inherited from the Community Council intended to finance the playing field.

As a result, my vague unease was crystallised into a rather ugly realisation, that we were actually spending more than we were bringing in. To be honest, I should have spotted it earlier, but you know how it is, everything seemed alright, and I didn't want to be too aggressive as a reasonably new councillor.

Luckily, I'm not alone. Our Parish Clerk has seen the same iceberg, and has proposed some changes that will help address the problem. I've added my own thoughts, and we've filled much of the gap. Unfortunately, inflation and a transfer of waste management costs from the District Council make the numbers more difficult.

Which leaves one last option - increasing the precept. Not a palatable one, but really the only viable one we have. And so, taking a deep breath, I've joined my colleagues in agreeing a 13% increase in the precept for 2012/13, about £5 for a band D household.

It doesn't sound like much, 10p a week, but it's my friends and neighbours who will be paying it, so none of us have done it lightly. Hopefully, though, it will allow us to stabilise our finances in future years.

I do wonder how these people do it...

It is said that getting involved in Liberal Democrat Voice is a certain route to blogging damnation. With the 'curse of the BOTYs', whereby all winners have almost entirely stopped blogging thereafter, and the workload involved in being an editor, you can kind of see why that might be so.

And, alas, I seem to be sliding into the same trap. Blogging here has been a bit light of late, partly caused by my being on holiday, partly because my other responsibilities are keeping me from the blog.

Ironically, most of what I write for Lib Dem Voice is not what I have included on my own blog and, in truth, I haven't written that much for the site. It is a bit of a distraction though, and I really need to start managing my time a little better, so that I can keep up.

So, we'll see what can be done here, but in the meantime, it's my day today on Liberal Democrat Voice so, if you have any comments on how it's going, feel free to add them here...
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Don't you just hate it when an accountant spams you?

There are few things that genuinely annoy me - I'm a fairly placid soul at heart. But one thing that really does irritate me is commercial spam comments on my blog.

Last week, I blogged about an Indian chartered accountant turned standup comedian. So far, so commonplace. However, in my inbox is notification of a comment, reading as follows;

"For your peace of mind, Gordons Knight www.gkcadvice.co.uk offer a 100% Guarantee on our chartered accountant london services in the UK."

Now, I don't know the firm myself. However, their action in spamming my blog gives an impression that they are a bunch of opportunists, rather keener to attract clients than to worry about ethics. That might seem unfair, but it annoys me. They clearly don't know me too well either, as the chances of an HMRC official needing an accountant are, I would suggest, fairly small.

So, to those 'nice' people at Gordons Knight, might I offer a piece of advice? Spamming people is annoying, regardless of how well meaning you might be. Indeed, it gives the impression that you might not be that well meaning, something that I look unkindly upon.

Luckily, they're in South London, so I'm less likely to encounter them, but if you're looking for an accountancy firm in South London, don't ask me for a testimonial...
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No more unlikely than a chartered accountant doing standup...

One of the things about visiting family is that I am simultaneously inside, and outside, of my comfort zone. Inside, because I am with my family, and outside, because I tend to find myself doing things that I might not otherwise do. My second cousins, Dylan and Arlene, are somewhat younger than I am, and are incredibly social. So, when cousins are in town, they are keen to do things. And, for some reason, if there's karaoke involved, all the better.

We had been part of a shopping exhibition to Phoenix Mills, a rather chi-chi mall in Lower Parel, and the existence of comedy was noted. As, to my knowledge, stand-up comedy is not a traditional Indian artform, and having noted that one of the comedians was a local ex-chartered accountant, when the idea of a night out was mooted, we thought, why not?

So, on Thursday evening, we set off from our hotel, an edifice so vast that you can presumably see it from space, and so over the top that Graham Norton would claim it to be tasteless - just what purpose does the young lady wishing us a good morning actually serve? - in an air-conditioned taxi to the mall, where we were joined by Dylan and Arlene.

And yes, it's that 'Comedy Store', transplanted to South Mumbai for the benefit of a young, almost painfully hip audience. With a Geordie compere, who rapidly alighted upon a young man isolated on the front row, and kept coming back to him with some quite concerted advice on how to make friends, and made a series of suggestive comments about the sexuality of the guys further down the row.

I was intrigued, because homosexual acts are still punishable by imprisonment here, and somewhat surprised by the reception he was getting - uproarious laughter.

He was, it must be said, very funny in a 'thank God he hasn't seen me' sort of a way, and he had evidently made a real effort to research a bit of Mumbai culture first, with gags about biscuit adverts and Amitabh Bachchan (the Big B, as he is known).

Now I know that Will Howells has taken up stand-up and, whilst I haven't seen his act yet (so, when are you playing the Regal, Stowmarket, Will?), I sense that Karun Rao has given me a hint of what I might expect, as he delivered a set of jokes about being a chartered accountant and about how difficult it is to get laid when you are one. Geek humour at its very best.

Our last act was a black comedian from Greenford, near Southall, called Nathan Caton. As a West Indian kid at a mostly Indian school, he'd learned a pretty impressive number of Hindi swear words, which he tested on a fairly receptive audience. I have to say that I was least impressed by him, as he seemed to think that doing a bunch of gags about his mother would be enough.

The beer flowed, and the sushi was good too, and all in all, it was a really pleasant evening. But somehow, I can't see me getting into the Comedy Store in London for less than a fiver...