Published: Thursday, 5th February, 2009 11:00am

Titian? Gordon Brown's half right

by Maurice O'Brien

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KEN Clarke must be baffled by his new Quixotic role jousting with invisible business ministers.

Having waited all this time for Dave's call, he stubs out the cigar, gives the suede shoes a brush, saunters to the rescue of the Tory front bench and what happens? He might have some fun talking sums with Carol Vorderman, but he can't find anyone to have a proper dust-up with.

Lord Mandy, Baroness Green Shoots and several odd coves from the world of banking have been put in charge of the business of getting us out of the mire. But GB (who's half right comparing himself to Titian) clearly feels rhetoric is the best form of defence, so they're all out of canny Ken's reach in the House of Lords.

With poor wee Alistair Darling playing the ventriloquist's dummy it's a bit like setting up a heavyweight boxing contender for a big fight and, when he clambers into the ring, he finds the only thing awaiting him is a punch bag.

But there's something really puzzling about the Clarke second coming.

Whatever old Ken was up to while waiting in the wings to make his comeback, why does his halting delivery from the front bench make him sound like a dead ringer for BBC economics guru Robert Peston?

- AMID the shock horror reactions at the militant response to the use of Italian and Portuguese labour at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, very few have acknowledged that it's merely a manifestation of the harm that EU membership has inflicted on Britain's independence.

Our rulers have fully signed up to the free movement of citizens and labour within the EU, and even when the current bunch had the opportunity, like the Germans, to use transitional powers to turn away workers from eastern European nations which joined the club in 2004, they didn't take it because someone thought the boom times of employment would never go bust.

Neither, in the interest of British jobs for British workers, could anyone have prevented Italian company IREM winning the contract and hiring whoever they like.

That would have been illegal under EU law. Welcome to the United States of Europe folks.

- WHO said Post Office Ltd hasn't got a sense of humour?

An excitable press release urges us to persuade the citizens of West Berkshire and Wiltshire to vote in the new national and regional Best Post Office Awards 2009. Surely they've got to find one before they can vote for it.

- THE prize for the winter's most annoying, and utterly pointless, warning went for the umpteenth successive year this week to: "Don't travel unless your journey's really necessary."