Safe havens are only the start .sx FIRST THE GOOD news , or a promise of it , for the Kurdish refugees in the most hopeful reading of Mr Bush's new plan .sx It is of a tacit understanding , enforced by the symbolic presence if Western troops , between the Baghdad regime and the allies to allow those refugees to return home by stages .sx Having set up their tents , communications , latrines and clean water , the US , British and French troops will be more a hovering presence in the helicopters that fly in aid than a thin line of battledress on the ground .sx The plan is based on the assumption that , in the words of one Pentagon official , the Iraqis will " not be dumb enough to screw around with us " .sx It also assumes a fairly orderly progression of refugees back from the Turkish border into what will amount to five or six staging camps .sx Satisfied that life in Arbil or Kirkuk will at least be tolerable , they will then move on .sx Saddam Hussein's side of the deal is an affirmative response by the UN to Iraq's request for the easing of sanctions .sx It has protested against the Bush plan , but that could yet prove to be mere routine denunciation of " intervention in internal affairs " .sx The principle of non-intervention is still a substantial one , and to breach it is always a contentious course of action .sx One of the cases where it appeared most justified - Vietnam's overthrow of Pol Pot - is still regarded as illegitimate by Britain and the US .sx Another worrying question concerns the way that Resolution 688 is being invoked as legal justification , although it does not actually authorise anything except " humanitarian relief " .sx Not for the first time , there is the prospect of a Security Council resolution being regarded as a blank cheque for independent allied initiatives .sx ( Mr Bush himself indirectly conceded that a new resolution might be necessary) .sx Secretary General P e rez de Cu e llar is not an easy man to read , yet his reaction yesterday to the news was distinctly hesitant .sx He can appreciate the danger of the UN having nominal responsibility without power , just as he did during the actual war .sx Against these worries it may be argued that there is no reason why international as well as domestic law should remain immune to changing public opinion and practice .sx This debate will remain academic - though vital for the future of the UN - if Mr Bush's plan works .sx On the assumption that the allied troops now being sent to northern Iraq can be regarded in rather the same light as soldiers being committed to famine or flood relief - and that they do the job successfully - many people will put these questions of international law very much in second place .sx But what if we face instead an alternative scenario of bad news ?sx Then we shall recall how senior US officials , just last weekend , were arguing against the plan their President has now adopted .sx There was National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft who said that a safe haven for the Kurds could result in an instant West Bank .sx There were others who feared that the sanctuaries could not cope with the refugees , and that any US commitment would have to be " open-ended " in terms of time and manpower .sx ( Both Mr Bush and Mr Major , while hoping for a quick outcome , were careful yesterday not to fix any time limit) .sx We may also recall that a separate agreement with Baghdad on establishing " humanitarian centres " in northern Iraq was being negotiated by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan .sx And we may reflect rather more on the irony that if all the Kurds had headed for Iran , and not for Turkey , no Western leader would have dreamed of proposing a safe haven or encampment of any description .sx In the meantime the refugees in the mountains are still dying , in hundreds every night .sx The young and sick obliged to drink dirty water all over Iraq are also dying .sx The Bush plan can only be part of a much greater international effort which targets all the refugees , and all the civilian victims of the war .sx Inflation down the ages .sx DID YOU know that the price of homekilled lamb rose by 5.9 per cent between March and April , 1977 , or that potatoes went up by 7.27 per cent between February and March , 1958 ?sx Or that the general level of prices went down by 28 per cent in the year to January , 1922 ?sx These and thousands of other facts are contained in a wealth of statistics about the Retail Prices Index just published by the Central Statistical Office as part of its 50th birthday celebrations .sx They are in the best tradition of objective government statistics untainted by political bias .sx Which is more than can be said about the retail prices index today which has become a political football with different groups constructing their own indices to suit their purposes .sx Last year the Government favoured the 'underlying' rate excluding mortgage interest payments which were then rising .sx If , as some others are doing , the effects of the poll tax are taken out as well then it is possible that by the Autumn the official index will be recording an annual increase of less than 4 per cent while 'core' inflation ( RPI less poll tax and mortgage interest ) will be over 8 per cent .sx This week's figures for producer price inflation ( which has crept up from 5.8 per cent a year in September to 6.3 per cent in the latest quarter ) are a reminder that inflation in the real world looks much more like the underlying rate than the official one .sx In other words inflation in tradeable sic !sx goods ( which affects our industrial competitiveness and the balance of payments ) is still on a worryingly high upward trend .sx This is mainly because of wage settlements no longer offset by productivity increases .sx This is not an invitation to ditch the official RPI .sx Far from it .sx Nearly half of all households have a mortgage and when interest rates go up and down they affect spending power in a real way just as fluctuations in prices do .sx The RPI , for all its faults , offers a fixed standard of comparison over the years ( as yesterday's CSO document confirms ) which politicians will meddle with at their peril .sx But like all economic statistics its constituent parts must be analysed carefully .sx And the underlying message at the moment is that while inflation for mortgage holders is coming down the inflation of goods - which we have to export in a competitive world - is still rising .sx Politicians will ignore that message at their peril .sx A leg up for the teachers .sx WHOSE pay has suffered the worst decline in the last 15 years :sx nurses , doctors , dentists , senior civil servants , judges or teachers ?sx Correct , the biggest group of all , the 450,000 teachers .sx And by a large margin .sx Teachers' pay has dropped from 37 per cent above the white collar average to a mere five per cent in the period .sx Which of the six groups named above does not have a review body ?sx Correct again , the teachers .sx Yesterday , the Education Secretary agreed to set up a teachers' review body .sx Five out of the six teaching unions are now sensibly ready to support this solution .sx It is now four years since teachers' pay negotiating rights were withdrawn by Kenneth Baker after two years of disruption in the schools - plus even more years of inter-union disagreements on the Burnham Committee .sx An Interim Advisory Committee was set up - and advised on the last four pay rounds - before the Government introduced its Bill in the current Parliament to restore limited negotiating rights .sx That bill is now being dropped , and new legislation introduced to set up a review body in time for the next year's pay deal .sx Of course , at the crux , all review body recommendations can be reduced , delayed or staged by governments facing economic problems .sx But consider how empty national negotiations would be in the current system :sx first , any agreement between local education authorities and teaching unions could be undermined by Whitehall refusing to fully fund it ; second , opted out schools will be allowed to negotiate their own pay deals ; and third , the rivalry between the six unions could once again reduce national negotiations to a farce .sx In the words of the last Permanent Secretary at Education , Sir David Hancock , " by far the most serious problems in education are restoring the morale and raising the status of teachers " .sx Pay is only part of the solution , but it remains a crucial part .sx As the all party Commons Select Committee on Education noted last year , the pay scale needs restructuring .sx Career prospects must be improved .sx It takes a good honours student just six years to reach the top of the present pay scale .sx A review body is the ideal forum under which such reforms could be achieved .sx The doctor departs .sx THE LONG uncertainty is over .sx Dr David Owen , unwilling any longer to hang about in politics in the increasingly meagre hope that something worth his attention may one day turn up , is standing down as MP for Plymouth Devonport at the next election .sx His eyes are on other horizons :sx he has always , he tells us , looked on politics as temporary , never as a permanent career .sx Dr Owen was sped on the way yesterday by two remarkable tributes .sx " I am sorry he is leaving the Commons .sx He is a man of talent whose abilities I admire " :sx John Major .sx " An unforgiving loser .sx .. sheer abrasiveness .sx .. something of a nuclear fetishist .sx .. I have never tried to work closely with anyone with whom it was so difficult to talk things out .sx .. " :sx Roy Jenkins in his memoirs serialised in the Observer .sx The curious thing is that both judgments sic !sx are true .sx Few who have observed him would question Dr Owen's ability , his sweeping and often original vision , his detailed , sometimes over-detailed , grasp of all kinds of subjects where others were content with surface impressions , from the nature of nuclear weapons to the financing of housing or the NHS .sx Few would challenge his courage , or deny him some at least of the essential qualities of leadership .sx There is an echo here .sx Dr Owen's forthcoming memoirs , reported in the Sunday Times , recount an occasion which sounds only too authentic .sx At a Downing Street dinner in 1988 , Mrs Thatcher took Dr Owen's wife , Debbie , aside and lectured her in this fashion :sx " Your husband has a big choice to make and it can no longer be avoided .sx There are only two serious parties in British politics and we women understand these things .sx It is time he made up his mind .sx " Debbie , he reports , " bridled" .sx No doubt .sx But did David bridle too ?sx David Owen and Margaret Thatcher had quite a lot in common .sx That is not to endorse the familiar sneer which dismisses him as always , deep down , a Tory .sx His commitment to an NHS whose battering under the Conservatives he never underestimated , stood in the way of that .sx But his famous assault on " fudge and mudge " , his impatience with reservations , his hatred of " wetness" , a word he deployed with much of her snarl , marked him down , much like her , as a team player only so long as he could be captain .sx Those outside politics often have most respect for those who refuse to compromise .sx That was part of Mrs Thatcher's appeal , and of Enoch Powell's , to a swathe of British electors right across party barriers , though few were ever quite as besotted as Fleet Street .sx The truth of the matter is that compromise , even dreadful old fudge and mudge , are an absolutely inescapable part of peace-time politics .sx All parties are coalitions built round a common denominator .sx No leader can hold a party together indefinitely around the tenet :sx I am right and you are wrong .sx The Conservatives took it from Mrs Thatcher while she delivered :sx when she ceased to do so , it finished her .sx David Owen at all times saw himself , bravely and undissemblingly , as master of his fate and captain of his soul .sx