The first meeting of the South West Regional Select Committee met for most of yesterday afternoon. They interrogated the Regional Development Agency, the Government Office for the South West and me, as South West Minister.

Having spent years complaining they don’t have the opportunity to scrutinise regional bodies, not a single Tory or Lib Dem MP bothered to turn up. Their constituents should be told!

One of the things that’s never remarked upon in the furore over MPs’ expenses is that under the Tories nobody knew how much people were claiming.

It is only because Labour has opened things up (though not enough in my view) that we know anything. The voters are now free to analyse their MP’s claims, compare them with others and make their own judgement as to whether they are providing good value for money. And why any newspaper would pay £300,000 for copies of MPs’ receipts is beyond me, when they are all being published in a few weeks anyway.

Hail Barack! Who isn’t feeling at least a little excited at the U.S. President’s first trip outside North America to London today?

So much guff has been said and written about what would constitute success or failure at the G20, it’s worth just sitting back and taking stock. The best commentary on it came from Will Hutton in Sunday’s Observer. We need better national and international regulation, more capacity for the IMF and co-ordinated action by Governments to tackle the global downturn.

I note the Tories are claiming some great propaganda victory at having secured a few minutes of Barack’s time for Dave. I wonder if Cameron will have the chutzpah to tell the leader of the free world he opposes the main plank of his economic rescue package.

Good for Gordon, if true, that we’re finally going to tackle Britain’s outdated anti-Catholic and anti-female royal rules.

It’s ridiculous that sectarianism is enshrined in law at the top when as a country we’ve made such progress to rid ourselves of its pernicious vestiges everywhere else. Why should Wills and Harry be the only people in Britain forbidden from marrying a Catholic? Equally, why should Wills’ first born - assuming he has children - be excluded from ascending to the throne because she’s the wrong gender?

To cut through the anti-Brown bile and the doom and gloom-mongering in the run-up to next week’s G20 summit, note today’s Guardian centre page spread.

It shows that in spite of Mervyn King’s comments this week and the teenage rantings of swivel-eyed Tory Euro-boy Daniel Hannan, the UK still has by far the lowest level of public debt as a proportion of GDP of any of the rich nations, except Australia.

For the record, the figures are:

Australia 15.4%

UK 47.2%

USA 60.8%

Canada 62.3%

Germany 62.6%

France 67%

Italy 103.7%

Japan 170.4%

Who says we can’t afford a stimulus?

The news that nhs waiting times have hit record lows and the whole country has now met the Government’s maximum wait of 18 weeks is a great tribute to the hard work of NHS staff.

It was not uncommon under the Tories for people to have to wait 18 months or two years in pain for their operations. People died waiting for heart surgery.

The average wait is now down to 8 weeks thanks to the Government’s investment and reform.

The Tories are committed to scrapping all targets, including 18 weeks, which would take us back to the bad old days of interminably long waits, except, of course, for those wealthy enough and willing to pay!

I was pleased my praise for Alastair Campbell’s guest editorship of the latest edition of the New Statesman has ignited such controversy(!). But I’m surprised the attack on Alastair’s edition came from Suzanne Moore.

I like and respect Suzanne, even since she moved to the Mail on Sunday. At least she ensures that some sensible views are occasionally published in that newspaper.

Surely the real test of Alastair’s editing is how long you spend reading the product. I confess that it usually only demands a few minutes, less (though I hate to admit it) than the right-wing Spectator. But Alastair’s edition took considerably longer and beat a rather feeble Spectator by miles.

The Tory’s turmoil over inheritance tax was entirely predictable as soon as Ken Clarke returned to their front bench.

But it would have happened without him. The idea of a tax cut aimed at millionaires was bad enough in the economic good times, but it is now completely toxic.

Of course the Boris Johnsons and John Redwoods of this world can’t stand the idea that the richest should be asked to play their own fair part in helping the public finances return to balance when the downturn is over. And they are far more representative of the Tory Party at large than Ken Clarke. E

Expect more of these tax and spend bust ups as the media begins the long overdue process of asking the Tories what they would actually do.

I must have been one of the few people in the country not to have followed the ins and outs of Jade’s battle with cancer.

But surely whatever one thinks of the media circus surrounding her last few weeks, Jade’s invaluable legacy will have been to increase awareness of cancer – vital for early detection and to have helped reduce the taboos that still all too often surround the disease.

In case like me you’re bored reading only criticism of Gordon Brown’s handling of the economic downturn – you might be cheered by this recent little nugget from the New York Times, by an author not otherwise known for his love of our PM!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/opinion/12Cohen.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=gordon%20brown&st=cse