That would entail abandoning the traditions of purdah and the internal mystique that have surrounded the Budget process for far too long.”Baroness Hogg also warns the Prime Minister that he cannot allow his spending priorities to be thrown off course by the demands of the pounds 85bn budget for welfare.”Other programmes cannot continue indefinitely absorbing cuts forced on them by persistent overshooting of the wel fare benefits budget,” she says.She says special commitments, the need to avoid Parliamentary trouble, and “above all, ministerial deals” have undermined government spending priorities.”Tightening the qualifying conditions for receiving invalidity benefit is only the first response to the seemingly relent less growth in social security No-one can suppose that this is the end of the story. She says that for this assistance committee members are bound to extract a price which may as high as demanding to become involved in tax decisions.”Sooner or later, this side of the government’s balance sheet is bound to become a matter of collective discussions too. Members of the Cabinet committee on spending, code named EDX, chaired by the Chancellor, will demand a say in tax decisions, she warns.”Involving other senior ministers in spending decisions provides the Treasury with extra firepower against public spending pressures in Cabinet. Baroness Hogg, the former head of John Major’s Policy Unit, says a state of the nation address is needed to fill the gap caused by the decision to move the Budget from the spring to the autumn.
Highlighting weaknesses in the machinery of government, Baroness Hogg calls for a “green” budget to allow more consultation with Cabinet colleagues in Prospect, a magazine launched tomorrow.Her advice is likely to be resisted by the Treasury which she says has jealously guarded its power to take unilateral decisions on tax.But Lady Hogg says the Treasury is unlikely to be able to maintain this barrier much longer. The Chancellor has been urged to open his tax decisions to other Cabinet ministers and to make a “state of the nation” address in the spring, by one of the Prime Minister’s closest former advisers. You know I had been saying all along, `Why don’t they just try the glove on?’ “And the verdict? “I have wavered about whether Simpson is guilty.

If I was a juror I would feel that he was but I could not say that beyond a reasonable doubt.” And after it is over? “It will be a relief, I’ll go back to my regular exercising, back to where I was before it started.”. Some of his rulings have been very pro- prosecution and I don’t think that he has had good control The most riveting part has been the glove. Like most OJ addicts she has become something of a self-styled expert in the intricacies of criminal law: “I like all the defence lawyers but I have had a hard time with Judge Ito. I had to hear what went on.”OJ addiction, like most compulsions, is extremely boring for anyone not involved and can provoke jealousy.

“One night my husband came home at 7pm and – he’s the most mild mannered man – he walks in the house and starts screaming, `When is this going to be over with? Get a life. I can’t take it any more.’ “Mrs Gershon has her favourites from the courtroom drama, among them Barry Scheck, the lawyer who has handled most of the DNA testimony for Simpson’s “Dream Team” and one of the most engaging speakers in the court. “It has become so addictive that I make my schedule around the trial. When the court takes its lunch break is when I go out and do errands,” she says.As with most OJ addicts, Mrs Gershon’s affair with the trial started slowly. “I started by watching the chase and couldn’t believe in the beginning that he could have so brutally murdered two people like that. It is later surmised that the bag contained Simpson’s bloody clothes and/or the knife. Most perplexing: the murder weapon is never found.`When the court breaks for lunch I go out and do my errands’Susie Gershon, a 54-year-old housewife from Prairie Village near Kansas City, is a self-described OJ addict.

Larry and Craig “The Animal” Fiato tell the court that Detective Vannatter told them that Simpson was a suspect when detectives first climbed the wall – rebutting Vannatter’s original testimony that they were not in rush to judge, as the defence contends.On 22 September, in waiving his right to testify, Simpson tells the court – out of the presence of the jury – that “he did not, could not, and would not have committed this crime”.The prosecution is furious and calls his statement tantamount to testifying without cross-examination.The MissingThe Colombian cocaine cartel’s hired hitmen who, it is alleged by the defence, were sent to kill one of Nicole’s friends but killed her in a case of mistaken identity.Soon after the murders, Robert Kardashian, a friend of Simpson’s, is videotaped taking a Louis Vuitton bag from Simpson’s house. In a classic mistake of asking a question they do not know the answer to, Simpson has difficulty getting them on. It is a disastrous move from which the prosecution never fully recovers.In early September, Fuhrman returns to the witness stand, out of the jury’s presence, and invokes the Fifth Amendment protection against self- incrimination. Judge Ito rules that the jury may hear that Fuhrman’s unavailability may be used in considering the value of his evidence, but he is overruled on appeal.Thwarted in presenting the Fuhrman,the defence cast out for a dramatic finish They call two mob informants to testify. The end of the trial will hurt the media, which will go in search of a substitute.The DefenceThe defence case opens with a glowing character reference from Simpson’s daughter Arnelle.

They contend that Simpson did not have the time to commit the murders, that the evidence was sloppily collected and/or planted in a racist conspiracy to frame Simpson.An orthopaedic surgeon testifies that Simpson was too crippled by his football injuries to have committed the murders. The prosecution introduces an exercise video of Simpson taken weeks before the slayings – he appears perfectly able. In an out-take, he jokes about “hitting the wife”.In July, the prosecution calls Simpson to try on the gloves found at the scene. KNX-AM, the only LA radio station to be transmitting the trial gavel-to-gavel, claimed a weekly rating of 1.8 million at the start It now gets 1.1 million That is 900,000 more listeners than a year before.