Is it meant to be ironic? Have cyber-vandals altered the text? Surely, to paraphrase the great John McEnroe, she cannot be serious?
To what and whom am I referring? Why the column on the ConservativeHome website from Tory parliamentary hopeful and sometime novelist, Louise Bagshawe, referring to her “hero-worship” (her phrase) of Margaret Thatcher.
Read this (and no laughing at the back if you please)
“She was the first major politician seriously to warn of global warming. Despite the ludicrous caricature of her public image, she was a champion of social justice, the grocer’s daughter who swept away the barriers to home ownership for many of Britain’s poorest people. Elected on a popular mandate again and again, the voters never threw her out, much to the dismay of the liberal commentariat. She was the ultimate people’s politician.”
More guff of a similarly simpering nature can be found here.
“I have several acquaintances who know Lady Thatcher socially. I can not, and likely will never, make that boast. I do not know Lady Thatcher. But politically, I worship her.
“Posters on this site should not worry when the media spins to them that Cameroon, modern compassionate Conservative MPs and candidates, want to distance themselves from Lady Thatcher. This is nonsense; I do not wish to distance myself. I wish instead merely to touch the hem of her garment.”
Funnily enough, WCH dreams of touching the hem of St. Margaret’s garment too. Usually as I launch the evil old bat off a very high cliff.
WCH
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
What next, a plague of locusts?
Disasters come in threes, apparently. If so, managers at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust should brace themselves for what 2008 might throw at them.
For this is the Trust exposed by the Healthcare Commission last October for an "avoidable tragedy" when an outbreak of C.difficile - a bacterial infection of the gut which mainly affects the elderly – resulted in the deaths of 90 patients.
As if that wasn’t enough bad PR for a decade, they were named last week as one of the eight Trusts revealed to have lost discs of patient data.
Clearly some butterfingered NHS manager has dropped every mirror in the trust simultaneously.
Now they are advertising for a “Chair” to spearhead their efforts at “business recovery and improving customer service standards”.
They are looking for an “exceptional individual” with the “enthusiasm, energy, firm resolve and creative flair.” Presumably needed to explain away the catalogue of errors
Cryptically, the advert recognizes that “the Trust has had a troubled past, both clinically and financially. It now needs an exceptional team to drive forward improvements in patient care and governance standards.” I’d say that’s the understatement of the year.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the role pays a nice £22,524 salary. For a three day week.
WCH
For this is the Trust exposed by the Healthcare Commission last October for an "avoidable tragedy" when an outbreak of C.difficile - a bacterial infection of the gut which mainly affects the elderly – resulted in the deaths of 90 patients.
As if that wasn’t enough bad PR for a decade, they were named last week as one of the eight Trusts revealed to have lost discs of patient data.
Clearly some butterfingered NHS manager has dropped every mirror in the trust simultaneously.
Now they are advertising for a “Chair” to spearhead their efforts at “business recovery and improving customer service standards”.
They are looking for an “exceptional individual” with the “enthusiasm, energy, firm resolve and creative flair.” Presumably needed to explain away the catalogue of errors
Cryptically, the advert recognizes that “the Trust has had a troubled past, both clinically and financially. It now needs an exceptional team to drive forward improvements in patient care and governance standards.” I’d say that’s the understatement of the year.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the role pays a nice £22,524 salary. For a three day week.
WCH
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Sleeping rough - what a laugh!
It seems not a day can be allowed to go by without Cameroonite social consciences being rolled out as if to prove the Tin Man has found a heart.
The latest piece of not-so-subtle ‘brand repositioning’ will see Tory housing spokesman, Grant Schapps, take to the streets of London in a bid to ‘gain a better idea of what life is like for homeless people’, reports this morning’s Observer.
Schapps, who sounds like a playboy from an Agatha Christie novel, will ‘spend Christmas Eve visiting homeless centres run by the Thames Reach charity. Then he will head off to the Victoria Street area to find suitable material for a bed and a comfortable place to sleep.’
“I am reliably told that cardboard and newspapers are two vital elements of good insulation,” quipped the Tory no-mark.
Now, I have never had the misfortune to sleep rough. But I can imagine how it feels: fucking cold and miserable.
And people like me, with the imagery of Thatcher's 'Cruel Britannia' burned into our souls, will need no reminding of “cardboard cities” as the vulnerable, destitute and mentally-ill were left to the elements, freezing to death in shop doorways.
I also seem to recall Matthew Parris, the overrated Times hack, trying a similar stunt a generation ago when he nominally laboured as a Conservative MP. Other similarly publicity-hungry Tories have camped out too, just to show its not all bad sleeping under the stars.
But of course we're not fooled. WCH remains in the mould of that other great Working Class Hero, Aneurin Bevan, who infamously proclaimed in 1948 that “no attempt at either ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep, burning hatred of the Tory party.”
“So far as I am concerned” the great man intoned, “they are lower than vermin.”
And despite Cameron’s cosmetic conversion to the human race, and silly stunts from Schapps, they still are.
My only hope is that a bunch of braying, boozed-up bovver boys piss all over Shapps as he sleeps. That would be an eloquent riposte to this latest gimmick by David Cameron's Conservatives.
Happy Christmas one and all – so long as you’re not a Tory rat.
WCH
The latest piece of not-so-subtle ‘brand repositioning’ will see Tory housing spokesman, Grant Schapps, take to the streets of London in a bid to ‘gain a better idea of what life is like for homeless people’, reports this morning’s Observer.
Schapps, who sounds like a playboy from an Agatha Christie novel, will ‘spend Christmas Eve visiting homeless centres run by the Thames Reach charity. Then he will head off to the Victoria Street area to find suitable material for a bed and a comfortable place to sleep.’
“I am reliably told that cardboard and newspapers are two vital elements of good insulation,” quipped the Tory no-mark.
Now, I have never had the misfortune to sleep rough. But I can imagine how it feels: fucking cold and miserable.
And people like me, with the imagery of Thatcher's 'Cruel Britannia' burned into our souls, will need no reminding of “cardboard cities” as the vulnerable, destitute and mentally-ill were left to the elements, freezing to death in shop doorways.
I also seem to recall Matthew Parris, the overrated Times hack, trying a similar stunt a generation ago when he nominally laboured as a Conservative MP. Other similarly publicity-hungry Tories have camped out too, just to show its not all bad sleeping under the stars.
But of course we're not fooled. WCH remains in the mould of that other great Working Class Hero, Aneurin Bevan, who infamously proclaimed in 1948 that “no attempt at either ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep, burning hatred of the Tory party.”
“So far as I am concerned” the great man intoned, “they are lower than vermin.”
And despite Cameron’s cosmetic conversion to the human race, and silly stunts from Schapps, they still are.
My only hope is that a bunch of braying, boozed-up bovver boys piss all over Shapps as he sleeps. That would be an eloquent riposte to this latest gimmick by David Cameron's Conservatives.
Happy Christmas one and all – so long as you’re not a Tory rat.
WCH
Friday, December 21, 2007
Devolution, Lakota-style
Fascinating story in this morning’s Telegraph about the Lakota Indians and their declaration of independence from the United States of America.
Descendents of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse visited the State Department on Monday to announce they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties signed with the federal government of the United States - some of them more than 150 years old - claiming they are "worthless words on worthless paper."
They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies and intend to continue their diplomatic mission in the coming weeks and months.
Their current constitutional status affords them a measure of “nationhood” within the US, but this move promises to see them issue their own driving licenses and passports.
The Lakota peoples are beset with all sorts of social and economic problems, including high teen suicide rates, a child mortality rate five times higher than the US average and a staggering male life expectancy of just 44.
Good luck to them I say!
Now, if only the north of England could have done something similar around 1980.....
WCH
Descendents of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse visited the State Department on Monday to announce they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties signed with the federal government of the United States - some of them more than 150 years old - claiming they are "worthless words on worthless paper."
They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies and intend to continue their diplomatic mission in the coming weeks and months.
Their current constitutional status affords them a measure of “nationhood” within the US, but this move promises to see them issue their own driving licenses and passports.
The Lakota peoples are beset with all sorts of social and economic problems, including high teen suicide rates, a child mortality rate five times higher than the US average and a staggering male life expectancy of just 44.
Good luck to them I say!
Now, if only the north of England could have done something similar around 1980.....
WCH
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Mount Clarke Erupts!
Oh dear. Charles Clarke, that veritable Vesuvius of former ministers has blown hot verbal lava all over the place in this morning’s Guardian. Again.
This time the big galloot claims backbenchers are “appalled” at Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” line; that Mark Malloch-Brown was a “foolish” appointment to the Government of all the Talents; and that Brown doesn’t support Ministerial colleagues enough ("Tony would always support his key people. Gordon should do that with his people").
But did I not hear The Big Bear was being lined up to replace Mousier Mandelson as Britain’s European Commissioner? Strange way of applying for the position berating the guy who makes the decision! And anyway, isn’t Comrade Mandelson in Europe in the first place simply because Tony Blair didn’t support him at the time of his second resignation?
Clarkey does however have a neat line in describing himself as “modernising old Labour” rather than a Blairite. WCH likes that, but not as much as Bernard Crick’s bon mot of his politics being those of the “moderate socialist”.
“Small ‘m’, capital ‘S’”.
This time the big galloot claims backbenchers are “appalled” at Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” line; that Mark Malloch-Brown was a “foolish” appointment to the Government of all the Talents; and that Brown doesn’t support Ministerial colleagues enough ("Tony would always support his key people. Gordon should do that with his people").
But did I not hear The Big Bear was being lined up to replace Mousier Mandelson as Britain’s European Commissioner? Strange way of applying for the position berating the guy who makes the decision! And anyway, isn’t Comrade Mandelson in Europe in the first place simply because Tony Blair didn’t support him at the time of his second resignation?
Clarkey does however have a neat line in describing himself as “modernising old Labour” rather than a Blairite. WCH likes that, but not as much as Bernard Crick’s bon mot of his politics being those of the “moderate socialist”.
“Small ‘m’, capital ‘S’”.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A blast from the past
Wow, is it really ten years since we last heard from that Thatcher-loving, platitude-spouting, talentless irritant? The Spice Girls I hear you cry? No silly, I am of course referring to Britain’s 50th Prime Minister, Sir John Major.
His appearance on this morning’s Andrew Marr show HERE served to remind us (in case we’d forgotten) what we’re missing: A weak and peevish little man with no discernable achievements from his six and a half years in the top job.
His attack on Labour’s “systemic sleaze” and “unscrupulous” behaviour in exploiting his own Government’s manifold episodes of sexual misadventure and corruption, was, frankly, a laughable double-standard.
Major was one of the least able men ever to become Prime Minister. His elevation in November 1990 was as much the result of Conservative MPs deciding they didn’t want Michael Heseltine’s regicide of Margaret Thatcher to be rewarded as it was an endorsement of Major’s own titanic political talents.
In many ways, Major was a more contemptible figure than Thatcher. He initially promised to build “a nation at ease with itself” but presided over a deep and lingering economic recession, effectively shut-down the UK mining industry, privatised the railways and told us to “understand a little less and condemn a little more” in relation to lone parents and the poor. His was Thatcherism without the redeeming quality of Margaret Thatcher’s certain leadership. Ideology without the conviction.
Like her great nemesis Francois Mitterrand, Thatcher made no plans for her succession, leaving no-one of any ability to carry forward her mantle. Having only entered the Cabinet in 1987, Major’s lack of experience in the political top flight meant he never stepped outside Thatcher’s shadow. His puppet-premiership was a dismal interregnum.
His twee and backward-looking view of Britain was an embarrassing and threadbare offering from the man given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead the country.
His weakness in facing up to his internal critics on Europe made a mockery of Britain’s foreign policy, despite his earlier stated determination to put Britain “at the heart of Europe.” He even guffed-up the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the US, backing the wrong horse when he dispatched Tory reseachers to trawl over Governor Clinton’s time as an a Rhodes scholar at Oxford before seeing “Slick Willy” become president.
And his shabby deal to prop up his parliamentary majority with the support of the Ulster Unionists even prevented forward progress on the Northern Ireland peace process.
But the myth that Major generously bequeathed Labour a sound economy in 1997 is the biggest lie in British politics. What Labour inherited was an economy recovering from the ravages of the 1991 recession and Britain’s ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism on "Black Wednesday" in September 1992, which paved the way for interest rate cuts and renewed growth. Claiming credit for an economic upswing, following a recession he created, is a fig-leaf which deserves to be wrenched from his shrivelled reputation once and for all.
So there we have it. John Major: whinging, lightweight, no-mark. Let’s hope it’s another ten years before we hear again from him again.
And that goes for the Spice Girls too.
His appearance on this morning’s Andrew Marr show HERE served to remind us (in case we’d forgotten) what we’re missing: A weak and peevish little man with no discernable achievements from his six and a half years in the top job.
His attack on Labour’s “systemic sleaze” and “unscrupulous” behaviour in exploiting his own Government’s manifold episodes of sexual misadventure and corruption, was, frankly, a laughable double-standard.
Major was one of the least able men ever to become Prime Minister. His elevation in November 1990 was as much the result of Conservative MPs deciding they didn’t want Michael Heseltine’s regicide of Margaret Thatcher to be rewarded as it was an endorsement of Major’s own titanic political talents.
In many ways, Major was a more contemptible figure than Thatcher. He initially promised to build “a nation at ease with itself” but presided over a deep and lingering economic recession, effectively shut-down the UK mining industry, privatised the railways and told us to “understand a little less and condemn a little more” in relation to lone parents and the poor. His was Thatcherism without the redeeming quality of Margaret Thatcher’s certain leadership. Ideology without the conviction.
Like her great nemesis Francois Mitterrand, Thatcher made no plans for her succession, leaving no-one of any ability to carry forward her mantle. Having only entered the Cabinet in 1987, Major’s lack of experience in the political top flight meant he never stepped outside Thatcher’s shadow. His puppet-premiership was a dismal interregnum.
His twee and backward-looking view of Britain was an embarrassing and threadbare offering from the man given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead the country.
His weakness in facing up to his internal critics on Europe made a mockery of Britain’s foreign policy, despite his earlier stated determination to put Britain “at the heart of Europe.” He even guffed-up the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the US, backing the wrong horse when he dispatched Tory reseachers to trawl over Governor Clinton’s time as an a Rhodes scholar at Oxford before seeing “Slick Willy” become president.
And his shabby deal to prop up his parliamentary majority with the support of the Ulster Unionists even prevented forward progress on the Northern Ireland peace process.
But the myth that Major generously bequeathed Labour a sound economy in 1997 is the biggest lie in British politics. What Labour inherited was an economy recovering from the ravages of the 1991 recession and Britain’s ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism on "Black Wednesday" in September 1992, which paved the way for interest rate cuts and renewed growth. Claiming credit for an economic upswing, following a recession he created, is a fig-leaf which deserves to be wrenched from his shrivelled reputation once and for all.
So there we have it. John Major: whinging, lightweight, no-mark. Let’s hope it’s another ten years before we hear again from him again.
And that goes for the Spice Girls too.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
When Two Tribes Go To War...
More muck-raking about divisions in the Government in the Telegraph HERE
Seems Blairite irregulars are gleefully briefing against GB with the piece even speculating, heaven forfend, that a New Labour/ Tory coalition might one day be upon us!
Now there’s no doubt that some Blairite nose joints are probably a bit out of whack with the passing of their boy. But flirting with Cameron on the rebound reaches Olympian heights of tastelessness.
I really have no sympathy for them. Blair had ten years at the top. He did some good things, some not so good things. Never promised to do anything too radical (and didn’t – apart from the war business) then sloped off. What’s to cry about?
Blair stood for very little of substance, hence his legacy’s a bit thin (3 election wins; Ireland; Iraq). His was a political career, a brand at best. Not an ideology. So-called Blairites are looking for meaning where there simply isn’t any; nor, frankly, was there supposed to be.
The test now is whether a more balanced Labour party under someone who looks and feels like a Labour politician can break cover and try to popularise equality – the Labour party’s historic mission.
Blair and his band were creatures of the dismal Thatcherite mindset that ‘There is No Alternative’. Free markets, unemployment and greed are the natural condition of man.
Brown is no angel, but something resembling a socialist heart still beats in him; which means the Labour party has a future. Another couple of years of Blair and the party conference would have been meeting in the upstairs room of The Red Lion.
By the way, if you’re wondering which camp you fall into, here’s a little test:
1. Are there limits to markets?
2. Does principle ever win out over pragmatism?
3. Is equality more important than ambition?
If you’ve answered ‘yes’, you’re a Brownite. If ‘no’, you still cling to the old order. Goodbye sucker!
Seems Blairite irregulars are gleefully briefing against GB with the piece even speculating, heaven forfend, that a New Labour/ Tory coalition might one day be upon us!
Now there’s no doubt that some Blairite nose joints are probably a bit out of whack with the passing of their boy. But flirting with Cameron on the rebound reaches Olympian heights of tastelessness.
I really have no sympathy for them. Blair had ten years at the top. He did some good things, some not so good things. Never promised to do anything too radical (and didn’t – apart from the war business) then sloped off. What’s to cry about?
Blair stood for very little of substance, hence his legacy’s a bit thin (3 election wins; Ireland; Iraq). His was a political career, a brand at best. Not an ideology. So-called Blairites are looking for meaning where there simply isn’t any; nor, frankly, was there supposed to be.
The test now is whether a more balanced Labour party under someone who looks and feels like a Labour politician can break cover and try to popularise equality – the Labour party’s historic mission.
Blair and his band were creatures of the dismal Thatcherite mindset that ‘There is No Alternative’. Free markets, unemployment and greed are the natural condition of man.
Brown is no angel, but something resembling a socialist heart still beats in him; which means the Labour party has a future. Another couple of years of Blair and the party conference would have been meeting in the upstairs room of The Red Lion.
By the way, if you’re wondering which camp you fall into, here’s a little test:
1. Are there limits to markets?
2. Does principle ever win out over pragmatism?
3. Is equality more important than ambition?
If you’ve answered ‘yes’, you’re a Brownite. If ‘no’, you still cling to the old order. Goodbye sucker!
Monday, December 3, 2007
Iowa Democratic Primary
Excellent cod memo to Barack Obama from Karl Rove, (that scientific experiment to splice the DNA of Niccolo Machiavelli and Elmer Fudd) in today's FT:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dee0a6e8-a109-11dc-9f34-0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dee0a6e8-a109-11dc-9f34-0000779fd2ac.html
Thursday, November 29, 2007
What Gordon Should Say
"I came into politics to help people, to make our country a better place for everyone.
"I passionately believe that party politics and our competitive political culture are valuable and necessary ingredients to a healthy democracy.
"Throughout my career, I have always tried to uphold the highest standards of personal integrity in all my dealings. As Chancellor I ensured that lobbyists, pressure groups and potential donors understood that access never buys influence.
"But I now believe that we have reached a fork in the road. We can either carry on as we are, with periodic scandals and crises about one or other parties fundraising, which simply drags all politicians into disrepute; or we can move decisively in another direction, where we clean up our system of politics, once and for all.
"All parties face similar challenges in raising the finance necessary to conduct their affairs properly and professionally. A great deal of time is now expended on fundraising, more so than at any time in the past. On that point, I’m sure all leaders will agree.
"And all parties, mine included, have made mistakes with their fundraising which have damaged the reputation of British politics.
"Grateful though I undoubtedly am for donations to the Labour Party, I feel the time is right for us to look again at how we finance our politics. To look again at how much our parties spend and where they raise their money from.
"This inevitably leads to the question of public funding for political parties. This is not a universally popular remedy; but I think the long-term interest of our political system demands action is taken to restore transparency and trust in our political system.
"And I believe that restoring the trust of the electorate in the integrity of our political system and the reputation of those engaged in it, is something worth paying for.
"In the New Year I will bring forward a White Paper presenting options about how some element of public support for the financing of our political parties could work in practice. "
"I passionately believe that party politics and our competitive political culture are valuable and necessary ingredients to a healthy democracy.
"Throughout my career, I have always tried to uphold the highest standards of personal integrity in all my dealings. As Chancellor I ensured that lobbyists, pressure groups and potential donors understood that access never buys influence.
"But I now believe that we have reached a fork in the road. We can either carry on as we are, with periodic scandals and crises about one or other parties fundraising, which simply drags all politicians into disrepute; or we can move decisively in another direction, where we clean up our system of politics, once and for all.
"All parties face similar challenges in raising the finance necessary to conduct their affairs properly and professionally. A great deal of time is now expended on fundraising, more so than at any time in the past. On that point, I’m sure all leaders will agree.
"And all parties, mine included, have made mistakes with their fundraising which have damaged the reputation of British politics.
"Grateful though I undoubtedly am for donations to the Labour Party, I feel the time is right for us to look again at how we finance our politics. To look again at how much our parties spend and where they raise their money from.
"This inevitably leads to the question of public funding for political parties. This is not a universally popular remedy; but I think the long-term interest of our political system demands action is taken to restore transparency and trust in our political system.
"And I believe that restoring the trust of the electorate in the integrity of our political system and the reputation of those engaged in it, is something worth paying for.
"In the New Year I will bring forward a White Paper presenting options about how some element of public support for the financing of our political parties could work in practice. "
Monday, November 26, 2007
Icepick anyone?
“To betray”, noted Kim Philby, “you must first belong”.
WCh doesn’t like traitors. Of any kind. Politicians ratting on their parties and crossing the floor is never over principle. So the defection of Lib Dem MEP, Sajad Karim, to ‘David Cameron’s Conservatives’ is of a long tradition of ignoble acts of self-preservation and self-aggrandisement by the politically self-deluded.
Just as Philby eked out his old age in a Moscow flat after he had outlived his usefulness to the KGB, so , too, Mr Karim, (who has only recently discovered that, like his new hero, he too was “a liberal Conservative”), will never be trusted by his new 'comrades'.
But political treachery cuts both ways. The sight of plummy toff defector, Quintin Davies, at the rostrum of September’s Labour conference almost made your humble correspondent vomit into his flat cap. Equally sick-making was the reaction of the twenty-something arriviste barrow boys of New Labour who rose to their feet to cheer this hero of socialism.
In a lobotomised political culture, where conviction and ideology counts for nought, WCH predicts these type of shenanigans will become ever more common.
Make no mistake it will be Labour’s turn soon. For every Alan Howarth, Shaun Woodward, Peter Temple-Morris and Quintin Davies there will be some Labour chancer in a marginal seat offered a golden parachute into a safe Tory berth or a perch in the Lords. Especially if the current polls stretch into a grisly trend.
Then what? Will Labour politicians call for them to resign their seat? Bit late then.
No, traitors should never prosper. If a politician cannot abide either party or policy then they should have the decency to sit as an independent. Or resign.
Interestingly, I gather the first Karim’s constituency staffer knew about his interesting career move was when their contract was terminated by letter.
Funny thing, principles.
WCh doesn’t like traitors. Of any kind. Politicians ratting on their parties and crossing the floor is never over principle. So the defection of Lib Dem MEP, Sajad Karim, to ‘David Cameron’s Conservatives’ is of a long tradition of ignoble acts of self-preservation and self-aggrandisement by the politically self-deluded.
Just as Philby eked out his old age in a Moscow flat after he had outlived his usefulness to the KGB, so , too, Mr Karim, (who has only recently discovered that, like his new hero, he too was “a liberal Conservative”), will never be trusted by his new 'comrades'.
But political treachery cuts both ways. The sight of plummy toff defector, Quintin Davies, at the rostrum of September’s Labour conference almost made your humble correspondent vomit into his flat cap. Equally sick-making was the reaction of the twenty-something arriviste barrow boys of New Labour who rose to their feet to cheer this hero of socialism.
In a lobotomised political culture, where conviction and ideology counts for nought, WCH predicts these type of shenanigans will become ever more common.
Make no mistake it will be Labour’s turn soon. For every Alan Howarth, Shaun Woodward, Peter Temple-Morris and Quintin Davies there will be some Labour chancer in a marginal seat offered a golden parachute into a safe Tory berth or a perch in the Lords. Especially if the current polls stretch into a grisly trend.
Then what? Will Labour politicians call for them to resign their seat? Bit late then.
No, traitors should never prosper. If a politician cannot abide either party or policy then they should have the decency to sit as an independent. Or resign.
Interestingly, I gather the first Karim’s constituency staffer knew about his interesting career move was when their contract was terminated by letter.
Funny thing, principles.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Normal Service Resumes
Today’s Guardian/ ICM monthly poll shows Gordon Brown’s honeymoon is well and truly over.
Labour are on 31%, down four points, and back at the level they were in the fag-end days of the Blair premiership.
Confusingly though, the Tories have also slipped back, dropping 3 points to 37%, while the leader-less Lib Dems went up three (go figure).
Of course, no-one should be surprised at this state of affairs given the recent wave of calamities – some avoidable, some not.
From here on in, though, the test will be whether a generation of corn-fed Labour backbenchers who are used to having it easy now have the discipline and loyalty to knuckle down and get behind Brown for the long haul.
Some of those in marginal seats are even going to have to start working for a living, taking seriously their Conservative and Liberal challengers.
And with a moribund party apparatus, unable to help them as in days of yore, they really are the architects of their own fortunes.
But the troops should not be too disheartened with this bout of “mid term blues”. Just have to make a readjustment that the days of plenty are over and electoral normal service has resumed.
Labour are on 31%, down four points, and back at the level they were in the fag-end days of the Blair premiership.
Confusingly though, the Tories have also slipped back, dropping 3 points to 37%, while the leader-less Lib Dems went up three (go figure).
Of course, no-one should be surprised at this state of affairs given the recent wave of calamities – some avoidable, some not.
From here on in, though, the test will be whether a generation of corn-fed Labour backbenchers who are used to having it easy now have the discipline and loyalty to knuckle down and get behind Brown for the long haul.
Some of those in marginal seats are even going to have to start working for a living, taking seriously their Conservative and Liberal challengers.
And with a moribund party apparatus, unable to help them as in days of yore, they really are the architects of their own fortunes.
But the troops should not be too disheartened with this bout of “mid term blues”. Just have to make a readjustment that the days of plenty are over and electoral normal service has resumed.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Memo to GB: Government Communications
Oh dear. Things had started so well. But like a yo-yo dieter, it doesn’t take long for old habits to creep back does it?
1) Your parliamentary performances need working on. The stuttering, hand shaking and silly habit of diving into minutiae rather than getting your soundbites out clean need urgent attention. You made your name twenty years ago standing in for John Smith when he had his first heart attack and knocked seven bells out of Chancellor Nigel Lawson across the Despatch Box. You can do it champ!
2) Chill out man! You’ve done it; you’re Prime Minister, enjoy it! Be gracious. Delegate more. Stop micro-managing. And remember to smile. A disaster has two elements: the initial calamity and the reaction to it. If you look as though you are taking things in your stride, people have faith in your ability to sort the problem out. Blair spent ten years coasting like this. You often look like problems are cutting you to the bone, so they compound. Work on your non-verbal communication. PDQ.
3) The Government needs a good frontman; someone reliable to communicate the Government’s case. At the moment you are short of decent talent in this department. You should reappoint a Minister-without-Portfolio/ Labour Party Chairman. It needs to be someone tough and silky to front-up the Government’s case.
And let’s face it, casting an eye around the Cabinet table doesn’t turn up much in the way of silk.
Jacqui Smith just looks flaky. Darling is narcoleptic. Yvette Cooper is tetchy. Ruth Kelly sounds like a WPC making an appeal on Crimewatch. While Ed Balls has all your worst habits plus a few of his own to boot. Meanwhile Harriet Harman – job sharing as party chairman and leader of the house - is plodding and dull-witted.
Much as it galls a class warrior like me to say it, the man for the job is Shaun Woodward. He’s not got too much on as Northern Ireland Secretary, so make him party chairman as well. He’s certainly silky. He’s also a tough old media pro. Crucially, he’s also English and speaks fluent Tory. As you’d expect!
In short, everything that the Government needs to project at the moment.
Even if it pains me to say so.
1) Your parliamentary performances need working on. The stuttering, hand shaking and silly habit of diving into minutiae rather than getting your soundbites out clean need urgent attention. You made your name twenty years ago standing in for John Smith when he had his first heart attack and knocked seven bells out of Chancellor Nigel Lawson across the Despatch Box. You can do it champ!
2) Chill out man! You’ve done it; you’re Prime Minister, enjoy it! Be gracious. Delegate more. Stop micro-managing. And remember to smile. A disaster has two elements: the initial calamity and the reaction to it. If you look as though you are taking things in your stride, people have faith in your ability to sort the problem out. Blair spent ten years coasting like this. You often look like problems are cutting you to the bone, so they compound. Work on your non-verbal communication. PDQ.
3) The Government needs a good frontman; someone reliable to communicate the Government’s case. At the moment you are short of decent talent in this department. You should reappoint a Minister-without-Portfolio/ Labour Party Chairman. It needs to be someone tough and silky to front-up the Government’s case.
And let’s face it, casting an eye around the Cabinet table doesn’t turn up much in the way of silk.
Jacqui Smith just looks flaky. Darling is narcoleptic. Yvette Cooper is tetchy. Ruth Kelly sounds like a WPC making an appeal on Crimewatch. While Ed Balls has all your worst habits plus a few of his own to boot. Meanwhile Harriet Harman – job sharing as party chairman and leader of the house - is plodding and dull-witted.
Much as it galls a class warrior like me to say it, the man for the job is Shaun Woodward. He’s not got too much on as Northern Ireland Secretary, so make him party chairman as well. He’s certainly silky. He’s also a tough old media pro. Crucially, he’s also English and speaks fluent Tory. As you’d expect!
In short, everything that the Government needs to project at the moment.
Even if it pains me to say so.
For Whom the Bell Tolls...
Ouch! Steve Bell’s cartoon in this morning’s Guardian will make every Labour supporter wince.
Depicting the PM and Chancellor in underpants and oversized glasses a la John Major is a powerful reminder of what happens when Government blundering become habitual.
True, the guff-up at Revenue and Excise is the kind of curve ball that will always be difficult to deal with. And Northern Rock is one of those issues where a Government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.
But it’s the Government’s self-harming tendency that needs sorting. Last Sunday’s papers were full of the quite unnecessary spat between Downing Street and David Miliband over No 10’s fiddling with ministerial speeches.
Obsessive centralisation and government-by-cabal are the frequently cited crimes. And Lord West’s ‘clarification’ of his position on pre-trial detention last week was simply a brilliant example of how to turn a slip into a stupid mistake.
If you’re going to have amateur politicians in government, make a virtue of their semi-independence, because they are bound to put their foot in it. Stamping on their independence also snuffs out their credibility. And what happens next time there’s a similar infraction? The term ‘loose cannon’ might have been coined for Digby Jones.
But the bigger problem is that the Government is beginning to drift. Take the issue of public service reform. The Government knows that the extra money put into public services in recent years has not delivered the kind of improvements that the public expects. The much tighter three-year Comprehensive Spending Review settlement means reforming the structures and workings of schools and hospitals is essential to make them perform better. But unsure how to position themselves in the post-Blair era, the Government dithers and turns inwards, failing to communicate its vision and set the ground for whatever course it eventually decides to take.
The good work of July to September has been erased and Gordon Brown is in danger of walking straight into the Conservatives’ trap. The Tories were initially wrong-footed by Brown Version 2.0 when he appeared to change tack, instituting a government -of-all-the-talents and shedding his reputation as the control freak’s control freak.
But old habits are creeping back. So then, what to do?
The immediate task for the Government is to reboot itself after the self-inflicted wounds of the past two months. Christmas is just around the corner and will offer a few weeks cover. The PM needs to take stock and accept that the Government’s current political narrative is dreadful. For the big danger is that it becomes a ‘paradigm shift’ not a temporary blip.
John Major was sunk after the fiasco of Black Wednesday in September 1992 and every other difficulty which followed had the worst possible interpretation put on it. The die was cast. It became impossible to draw a line under things and a self-fulfilling fatalism took hold and ultimately sapped the life from his government. The same is beginning to happen again.
One thing is clear, if Gordon Brown doesn’t want to emulate the career of John Major – a man he so effectively helped skewer a decade ago – he better get a move on. The cartoonists aren’t noted for their patience...
Depicting the PM and Chancellor in underpants and oversized glasses a la John Major is a powerful reminder of what happens when Government blundering become habitual.
True, the guff-up at Revenue and Excise is the kind of curve ball that will always be difficult to deal with. And Northern Rock is one of those issues where a Government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.
But it’s the Government’s self-harming tendency that needs sorting. Last Sunday’s papers were full of the quite unnecessary spat between Downing Street and David Miliband over No 10’s fiddling with ministerial speeches.
Obsessive centralisation and government-by-cabal are the frequently cited crimes. And Lord West’s ‘clarification’ of his position on pre-trial detention last week was simply a brilliant example of how to turn a slip into a stupid mistake.
If you’re going to have amateur politicians in government, make a virtue of their semi-independence, because they are bound to put their foot in it. Stamping on their independence also snuffs out their credibility. And what happens next time there’s a similar infraction? The term ‘loose cannon’ might have been coined for Digby Jones.
But the bigger problem is that the Government is beginning to drift. Take the issue of public service reform. The Government knows that the extra money put into public services in recent years has not delivered the kind of improvements that the public expects. The much tighter three-year Comprehensive Spending Review settlement means reforming the structures and workings of schools and hospitals is essential to make them perform better. But unsure how to position themselves in the post-Blair era, the Government dithers and turns inwards, failing to communicate its vision and set the ground for whatever course it eventually decides to take.
The good work of July to September has been erased and Gordon Brown is in danger of walking straight into the Conservatives’ trap. The Tories were initially wrong-footed by Brown Version 2.0 when he appeared to change tack, instituting a government -of-all-the-talents and shedding his reputation as the control freak’s control freak.
But old habits are creeping back. So then, what to do?
The immediate task for the Government is to reboot itself after the self-inflicted wounds of the past two months. Christmas is just around the corner and will offer a few weeks cover. The PM needs to take stock and accept that the Government’s current political narrative is dreadful. For the big danger is that it becomes a ‘paradigm shift’ not a temporary blip.
John Major was sunk after the fiasco of Black Wednesday in September 1992 and every other difficulty which followed had the worst possible interpretation put on it. The die was cast. It became impossible to draw a line under things and a self-fulfilling fatalism took hold and ultimately sapped the life from his government. The same is beginning to happen again.
One thing is clear, if Gordon Brown doesn’t want to emulate the career of John Major – a man he so effectively helped skewer a decade ago – he better get a move on. The cartoonists aren’t noted for their patience...
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
This Parrot is Dead!
And so to last night’s Newsnight and another tetchy double-header between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, peddling their respective wares to become top dog of the Dead Parrot Party.
Smart for Huhne to adopt the Karl Rove strategy and attack your enemy on his strongest ground. By talking about Clegg’s “flip flops” –particularly his indelicate remarks about “breaking up the NHS” he questions his opponent’s ability to communicate clearly with the electorate.
The fringe benefit of the ‘release’ of the “Calamity Clegg” dossier is that the substance of Huhne’s attack – that you can’t really trust Clegg because he has Tory-ish ideas – is now in the open. Won’t do him too much damage in the country, but the beardie-weirdies in the Lib Dems may get cold feet (and not just from wearing sandals!)
“We understand each other, we like each other” Huhne protested (too much). From my reading, Huhne has killed off any chance of kissing and making up with Clegg if he loses. The body language said it all. A high risk strategy, but like Ming, Clegg is fine going forward but flaky on the back foot – and peevish to boot. It’s not in the bag yet Nicky Boy. Yes high risk for Huhne, but fortune favours the bold.
Both were evasive and badly briefed for the inevitable question of who they would back in the event of a hung parliament. Both men are clever; albeit not very quick on their feet. And prone to drift off the point.
Neither has the oomph of Paddy Ashdown. Nor the likeability of Charles Kennedy.
But after 18 fusty months of Ming and tanking in the polls, the only way for the DPP is up.
Smart for Huhne to adopt the Karl Rove strategy and attack your enemy on his strongest ground. By talking about Clegg’s “flip flops” –particularly his indelicate remarks about “breaking up the NHS” he questions his opponent’s ability to communicate clearly with the electorate.
The fringe benefit of the ‘release’ of the “Calamity Clegg” dossier is that the substance of Huhne’s attack – that you can’t really trust Clegg because he has Tory-ish ideas – is now in the open. Won’t do him too much damage in the country, but the beardie-weirdies in the Lib Dems may get cold feet (and not just from wearing sandals!)
“We understand each other, we like each other” Huhne protested (too much). From my reading, Huhne has killed off any chance of kissing and making up with Clegg if he loses. The body language said it all. A high risk strategy, but like Ming, Clegg is fine going forward but flaky on the back foot – and peevish to boot. It’s not in the bag yet Nicky Boy. Yes high risk for Huhne, but fortune favours the bold.
Both were evasive and badly briefed for the inevitable question of who they would back in the event of a hung parliament. Both men are clever; albeit not very quick on their feet. And prone to drift off the point.
Neither has the oomph of Paddy Ashdown. Nor the likeability of Charles Kennedy.
But after 18 fusty months of Ming and tanking in the polls, the only way for the DPP is up.
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Blair Years: Nothing to write home about
And while we're on the subject of private schools, I managed to catch Tony Blair on BBC's 'The Blair Years' last night.
He made some remark about how being in tune with the aspirations of the middle classes was all important and private schools were simply a result of parents wanting to do the best by their kids.
But given Tone benefitted from a private education, he clearly sees nothing wrong with the principle of the rich buying advantages for their kids that others cannot afford.
When an Old Etonian in the shape of David Cameron looks across the Despatch Box at Fettes College-educated Mr. Blair we know our leaders are out of touch.
The last time two public schoolboys faced off at PM's Questions was when Hugh Gaitskell (Harrow) peered across from Harold MacMillan (Eton, again) in 1963.
Amid all the hagiography, its a shame Tone isn't a bit humbler about his utter failure to address the wealth and opportunity gulf his heroine Mrs. Thatcher opened up and he did all to little to close, despite having a decade to do it.
The boulder of social mobility that took the better half of the Twentieth Century to push up the hill has begun rolling back down again at a rate of knots.
Gordo, you're our last hope...
He made some remark about how being in tune with the aspirations of the middle classes was all important and private schools were simply a result of parents wanting to do the best by their kids.
But given Tone benefitted from a private education, he clearly sees nothing wrong with the principle of the rich buying advantages for their kids that others cannot afford.
When an Old Etonian in the shape of David Cameron looks across the Despatch Box at Fettes College-educated Mr. Blair we know our leaders are out of touch.
The last time two public schoolboys faced off at PM's Questions was when Hugh Gaitskell (Harrow) peered across from Harold MacMillan (Eton, again) in 1963.
Amid all the hagiography, its a shame Tone isn't a bit humbler about his utter failure to address the wealth and opportunity gulf his heroine Mrs. Thatcher opened up and he did all to little to close, despite having a decade to do it.
The boulder of social mobility that took the better half of the Twentieth Century to push up the hill has begun rolling back down again at a rate of knots.
Gordo, you're our last hope...
Saturday, November 17, 2007
The personal is most definitely political
Lib dem leadership "hopefuls", Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, went head to head on the BBC's Question Time on Thursday night.
Both were asked about the schooling of their children and whether they went to state schools.
Both are, of course, products of elite Westminster public school. So both were predictibly touchy about the question.
As only a Lib Dem could, Huhne said he sent his kids to both.
Clegg's two young kids go to a state primary - but he didn't rush to pledge that they would go to a state secondary. Instead he whined that the question had even ben put ('politicians entitled to a private life...etc')
Politicians who don't use our public services have no right seeking office to run them. If they're not good enough for them and theirs, they're not good enough for you and yours.
Clegg's whinging echoes David Cameron's slippery entreaty not to delve into his clearly misspent youth.
But politicians can't have it both ways. Nowadays, they are all selling themsellves as a brand and therefore stretch the boundary of what the public is entitled to know about them and the way they really live their lives.
I'm personally not bothered if our putative leaders are into fiddling with livestock - buying advantages for your kids at the expense of someone else's is, as far as this blog is concerned, a far graver crime.
Both were asked about the schooling of their children and whether they went to state schools.
Both are, of course, products of elite Westminster public school. So both were predictibly touchy about the question.
As only a Lib Dem could, Huhne said he sent his kids to both.
Clegg's two young kids go to a state primary - but he didn't rush to pledge that they would go to a state secondary. Instead he whined that the question had even ben put ('politicians entitled to a private life...etc')
Politicians who don't use our public services have no right seeking office to run them. If they're not good enough for them and theirs, they're not good enough for you and yours.
Clegg's whinging echoes David Cameron's slippery entreaty not to delve into his clearly misspent youth.
But politicians can't have it both ways. Nowadays, they are all selling themsellves as a brand and therefore stretch the boundary of what the public is entitled to know about them and the way they really live their lives.
I'm personally not bothered if our putative leaders are into fiddling with livestock - buying advantages for your kids at the expense of someone else's is, as far as this blog is concerned, a far graver crime.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Big Girl's Blouse
Today’s Financial Times carries a piece that has irked your humble correspondent.
Research from Cranfield University apparently shows “macho attitudes at science, engineering and technology companies mean they are less likely to have women in their boardrooms or in senior management positions than companies in other sectors”.
The report goes on to say that some boardroom practices “habits, language and ways of working” keep qualified women out of top jobs.
“Female executives said they sometimes felt excluded, unless they were interested in male sports, and that social occasions could be difficult if there was only one woman present.”
I’m sorry to sound unsympathetic, but there’s a point where the girls should be big enough to stand up for themselves.
Senior women managers presumably need leadership and communication skills to do their jobs – and are paid accordingly. Well, use 'em!
Making a mark among your senior colleagues and gaining respect in the workplace is a challenge for everyone. If football is the conversational currency in the Boardroom, then bone up on the offside rule.
The wider point is that its high time we recognised the Sex Wars are over and stopped forcing men to pay reparations for crimes most never committed.
Gender equality means removing glass celings not lowering the bar.
I’m personally more bothered about women cleaners not being paid the minimum wage, or women shop assistants being forced to work the Christmas holidays.
That faint hum is the sound of the smallest violin in the world playing ‘Just for the Senior Women Executives.’
Research from Cranfield University apparently shows “macho attitudes at science, engineering and technology companies mean they are less likely to have women in their boardrooms or in senior management positions than companies in other sectors”.
The report goes on to say that some boardroom practices “habits, language and ways of working” keep qualified women out of top jobs.
“Female executives said they sometimes felt excluded, unless they were interested in male sports, and that social occasions could be difficult if there was only one woman present.”
I’m sorry to sound unsympathetic, but there’s a point where the girls should be big enough to stand up for themselves.
Senior women managers presumably need leadership and communication skills to do their jobs – and are paid accordingly. Well, use 'em!
Making a mark among your senior colleagues and gaining respect in the workplace is a challenge for everyone. If football is the conversational currency in the Boardroom, then bone up on the offside rule.
The wider point is that its high time we recognised the Sex Wars are over and stopped forcing men to pay reparations for crimes most never committed.
Gender equality means removing glass celings not lowering the bar.
I’m personally more bothered about women cleaners not being paid the minimum wage, or women shop assistants being forced to work the Christmas holidays.
That faint hum is the sound of the smallest violin in the world playing ‘Just for the Senior Women Executives.’
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Who gets the P45 first?
Politics is a cruel business subject to the vicissitudes of unexpected events.
Which is a philosophical way of asking who will be the first minister forced from office in the Brown era?
Poor old Jacqui Smith is already in the dog house today over whether her department covered up the fact that thousands of illegal immigrants were erroneously cleared to work in the security industry.
Add to that the on-going confusion about the pre-charge detention legislation and Ms. Smith looks set for a rough time. Holding the Home Affairs brief is invariably a great career move in Opposition but disastrous in Government.
This morning’s Telegraph parliamentary sketch has some unflattering things to say about Schools Secretary Ed Balls, claiming he is the “weakest parliamentary performer in the Cabinet.” It’s true that the PM’s closest political ally is not the most impressive rhetorician around, but he is surely bright enough to work on that part of his game. But he will have to move sharpish. There is nothing the media loves more than taking a scalp from a minister close to the PM (does the name Stephen Byers ring a bell?)
Those other Brownite protégés Douglas Alexander and Ed Milliband were both burnt by advocating the election-that-never-was. But both are fortunate enough to have lower profile jobs than will keep them out of the firing line until their fortunes improve.
The other Miliband, David, will need all his silky skills as foreign secretary to make sure he doesn’t become the mouthpiece for another unpopular war as the drumbeat of US agitation against Iran grows louder.
Similarly that other old smoothy, Alan Johnson, has to explain to the NHS why it needs to pull its finger out and deliver a lot more on a substantially less generous comprehensive spending review settlement than it has enjoyed in the last few years.
Chancellor Alistair Darling, the proverbial “safe pair of hands,” had the curve ball of Northern Rock to deal with. He fared so-so in the initial skirmish, but a major credit crunch, coupled with a falling housing market really would make his eyebrows go grey. Similarly, I wouldn’t want to be his Number Two, Andy Burnham, if the pack of cards comes tumbling down.
That other narcoleptic Caledonian, Des Browne, remains the front man for on-going operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Defence is hardly a comfortable seat at the best of times, but Browne’s less than impressive communications skills make it difficult for him to punch his way out of tight corners.
Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, will have to grapple with that 300lb gorilla of a problem, road pricing. One of those issues which Ministers and Officials want to drive through, so to speak, but is full of political poison. The fall-out of a botched implementation in Greater Manchester may even cost Kelly her marginal Bolton West seat.
Meanwhile the battle-scarred veterans of Blairism seem to have found safer berths in the Brown Cabinet. Geoff Hoon must be thanking his lucky stars he can tuck himself out of harm’s way away in No 12 Downing Street as Chief Whip. Hazel Blears and John Hutton coast, respectively, in the lower profile communities and business portfolios.
Those deputy leadership blow-outs, Hilary Benn and Peter Hain, got a reasonable return on their misfiring campaigns with the middle-ranking jobs of environment and pensions’ secretary.
All in all, the Brownites hold the more sensitive briefs (for that read ‘where things can go wrong’). But a recurrent hallmark among the Brownites is that their intellectual ability is out of whack with their presentational skills. Put another way, they are fine when things are going well, but on the backfoot seem decidedly wobbly.
As the honeymoon quickly receeds, we will doubtless soon see for whom the political grim reaper comes calling first...
Which is a philosophical way of asking who will be the first minister forced from office in the Brown era?
Poor old Jacqui Smith is already in the dog house today over whether her department covered up the fact that thousands of illegal immigrants were erroneously cleared to work in the security industry.
Add to that the on-going confusion about the pre-charge detention legislation and Ms. Smith looks set for a rough time. Holding the Home Affairs brief is invariably a great career move in Opposition but disastrous in Government.
This morning’s Telegraph parliamentary sketch has some unflattering things to say about Schools Secretary Ed Balls, claiming he is the “weakest parliamentary performer in the Cabinet.” It’s true that the PM’s closest political ally is not the most impressive rhetorician around, but he is surely bright enough to work on that part of his game. But he will have to move sharpish. There is nothing the media loves more than taking a scalp from a minister close to the PM (does the name Stephen Byers ring a bell?)
Those other Brownite protégés Douglas Alexander and Ed Milliband were both burnt by advocating the election-that-never-was. But both are fortunate enough to have lower profile jobs than will keep them out of the firing line until their fortunes improve.
The other Miliband, David, will need all his silky skills as foreign secretary to make sure he doesn’t become the mouthpiece for another unpopular war as the drumbeat of US agitation against Iran grows louder.
Similarly that other old smoothy, Alan Johnson, has to explain to the NHS why it needs to pull its finger out and deliver a lot more on a substantially less generous comprehensive spending review settlement than it has enjoyed in the last few years.
Chancellor Alistair Darling, the proverbial “safe pair of hands,” had the curve ball of Northern Rock to deal with. He fared so-so in the initial skirmish, but a major credit crunch, coupled with a falling housing market really would make his eyebrows go grey. Similarly, I wouldn’t want to be his Number Two, Andy Burnham, if the pack of cards comes tumbling down.
That other narcoleptic Caledonian, Des Browne, remains the front man for on-going operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Defence is hardly a comfortable seat at the best of times, but Browne’s less than impressive communications skills make it difficult for him to punch his way out of tight corners.
Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, will have to grapple with that 300lb gorilla of a problem, road pricing. One of those issues which Ministers and Officials want to drive through, so to speak, but is full of political poison. The fall-out of a botched implementation in Greater Manchester may even cost Kelly her marginal Bolton West seat.
Meanwhile the battle-scarred veterans of Blairism seem to have found safer berths in the Brown Cabinet. Geoff Hoon must be thanking his lucky stars he can tuck himself out of harm’s way away in No 12 Downing Street as Chief Whip. Hazel Blears and John Hutton coast, respectively, in the lower profile communities and business portfolios.
Those deputy leadership blow-outs, Hilary Benn and Peter Hain, got a reasonable return on their misfiring campaigns with the middle-ranking jobs of environment and pensions’ secretary.
All in all, the Brownites hold the more sensitive briefs (for that read ‘where things can go wrong’). But a recurrent hallmark among the Brownites is that their intellectual ability is out of whack with their presentational skills. Put another way, they are fine when things are going well, but on the backfoot seem decidedly wobbly.
As the honeymoon quickly receeds, we will doubtless soon see for whom the political grim reaper comes calling first...
Monday, November 12, 2007
No Say on 'The Snip'
This week’s Economist has a brace of letters on the European reform treaty, nee European Connstitution.
The first, from a titan of European politics in the ample shape of former Irish Commissioner, Peter Sutherland; and the second from a, well, semi-titan, in the form of Europe Minister Jim Murphy.
Both are at pains to point out that the reform treaty needs speedy implementation and not the grandstanding of a referendum.
Indeed, admonishing the Economist’s temerity in backing a referendum, Sutherland says it would simply be a “recipe for confusion”.
The problem with Britain and the EU is that the project for greater European integration has never been openly admitted. From the very first moves towards applying to join the then EEC in the early 1960s, the entire concept of the ‘European project’ was kept under a cloak.
“It’s just a common market” we were told.
“It’s just about trade” they assured us.
Indeed the Government maintained this fiction by telling the public that the original constitution was simply a “tidying up exercise.”
The truth is that the British public have been systematically lied to by the political elite of all three main parties for forty years.
Instead of being honest with the public and explaining the issues involved, all governments have conspired to play down the significance of European integration. (All apart from the ultras on the Tory right and Labour left).
None will admit that the EU is effectively a political vasectomy. It snips off pieces of sovereignty from Member States and ties their economies together to prevent another war. Co-operation has replaced conflict for half a century; and the price for that co-operation is a measure of shared sovereignty.
So should there be a referendum on the current treaty? Well Messrs Sutherland and Murphy are right to say that both the Single European Act and Maastricht treaties were massively more important and there was no referendum on either.
But the wider issue of the political elite taking decisions that the public have neither consented to, nor, frankly adequately understand, is no longer tenable.
A referendum? Finely balanced, but not in this case. An honest debate? Most definitely.
The first, from a titan of European politics in the ample shape of former Irish Commissioner, Peter Sutherland; and the second from a, well, semi-titan, in the form of Europe Minister Jim Murphy.
Both are at pains to point out that the reform treaty needs speedy implementation and not the grandstanding of a referendum.
Indeed, admonishing the Economist’s temerity in backing a referendum, Sutherland says it would simply be a “recipe for confusion”.
The problem with Britain and the EU is that the project for greater European integration has never been openly admitted. From the very first moves towards applying to join the then EEC in the early 1960s, the entire concept of the ‘European project’ was kept under a cloak.
“It’s just a common market” we were told.
“It’s just about trade” they assured us.
Indeed the Government maintained this fiction by telling the public that the original constitution was simply a “tidying up exercise.”
The truth is that the British public have been systematically lied to by the political elite of all three main parties for forty years.
Instead of being honest with the public and explaining the issues involved, all governments have conspired to play down the significance of European integration. (All apart from the ultras on the Tory right and Labour left).
None will admit that the EU is effectively a political vasectomy. It snips off pieces of sovereignty from Member States and ties their economies together to prevent another war. Co-operation has replaced conflict for half a century; and the price for that co-operation is a measure of shared sovereignty.
So should there be a referendum on the current treaty? Well Messrs Sutherland and Murphy are right to say that both the Single European Act and Maastricht treaties were massively more important and there was no referendum on either.
But the wider issue of the political elite taking decisions that the public have neither consented to, nor, frankly adequately understand, is no longer tenable.
A referendum? Finely balanced, but not in this case. An honest debate? Most definitely.
There She Blows...
Thought all that “blue skies thinking” nonsense went out with the last fella?
Think again. The newly created Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (the unsexy end of the old Education and Skills brief) is advertising for a Head of something called the ‘Horizon Scanning Centre.’
Wow.
The blurb says Horizon Scanning (HS) is ‘the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities and likely developments including but not restricted to those at the margins of current thinking and planning.’
They’re after someone with ‘substantial experience and competences in futures work [what?!?] and/or strategic analysis...’
Pays a nice 66k.
So Dr. Who and Doc Brown from Back to the Future fame in with a shout then.
Think again. The newly created Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (the unsexy end of the old Education and Skills brief) is advertising for a Head of something called the ‘Horizon Scanning Centre.’
Wow.
The blurb says Horizon Scanning (HS) is ‘the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities and likely developments including but not restricted to those at the margins of current thinking and planning.’
They’re after someone with ‘substantial experience and competences in futures work [what?!?] and/or strategic analysis...’
Pays a nice 66k.
So Dr. Who and Doc Brown from Back to the Future fame in with a shout then.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Holey Cow!
Lib Dem leadship hopeful, Nick Clegg, has apparantly struck a bid for political honesty.
In a feat of unrivalled candour, worthy indeed of George Washington, Cleggy, the Hugh Grant of British politics, has admitted that there’s a “black hole” about where he would raise the cash to pay for his not unwelcome idea to dollop an extra £2.5 billion on the poorest kids.
He wants to spend the kind of money that Tarquin at public school routinely has invested in his education (or, for that matter, Nick Clegg at Westminster School) on the poorest in order to improve social mobility.
All very nice but uncosted policies are the political equivalent of window shopping or fantasy football.
Still, makes a change for a Lib Dem to have a hole in something that’s not his cardigan.
So a blow for political honesty then? Or a politician who can’t think on his feet in an interview?
Discuss.
In a feat of unrivalled candour, worthy indeed of George Washington, Cleggy, the Hugh Grant of British politics, has admitted that there’s a “black hole” about where he would raise the cash to pay for his not unwelcome idea to dollop an extra £2.5 billion on the poorest kids.
He wants to spend the kind of money that Tarquin at public school routinely has invested in his education (or, for that matter, Nick Clegg at Westminster School) on the poorest in order to improve social mobility.
All very nice but uncosted policies are the political equivalent of window shopping or fantasy football.
Still, makes a change for a Lib Dem to have a hole in something that’s not his cardigan.
So a blow for political honesty then? Or a politician who can’t think on his feet in an interview?
Discuss.
Welcome To The Fold...
"Tony Blair will convert to Roman Catholicism within weeks" intoned yesterday's Guardian, citing a piece in this week's Catholic newspaper, The Tablet.
Your author has always found the prospect of the Rev Blair crossing the aisle, so to speak, from Anglicanism to Catholicism a strange move. Strange because hs seems to be swapping the free form, take-it-or-leave-it, no pressure guv, wishy-washyness of Anglicanism for the no-room-for-doubt moral certainty of the Catholic Church.
Which is strange because his political journey has taken him in precisely the opposite direction. From the doctrinal purity of his erzatz lefty youth (replete with CND membership) to the soggy moral relativism of New Labour, which, as the Guardian points out, has seen such Catholic bugbears as gay adoption, stem cell research, rising abortion rates and the Iraq war
driven through with gusto on Blair's watch.
God moves in mysterious ways. But Tone's are apparantly stranger.
Your author has always found the prospect of the Rev Blair crossing the aisle, so to speak, from Anglicanism to Catholicism a strange move. Strange because hs seems to be swapping the free form, take-it-or-leave-it, no pressure guv, wishy-washyness of Anglicanism for the no-room-for-doubt moral certainty of the Catholic Church.
Which is strange because his political journey has taken him in precisely the opposite direction. From the doctrinal purity of his erzatz lefty youth (replete with CND membership) to the soggy moral relativism of New Labour, which, as the Guardian points out, has seen such Catholic bugbears as gay adoption, stem cell research, rising abortion rates and the Iraq war
driven through with gusto on Blair's watch.
God moves in mysterious ways. But Tone's are apparantly stranger.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Queen's Greatest Hits
Phew! After a hard day's toil WCH hasn't had time to digest the Queen's Speech in detail. Just managed to catch some of the parliamentary exchanges on the wireless. More on this tomorrow...
Don't know what Joe and Josephine Public make of it all, but I suspect Brown wins on points.
I tend to think that the louder Cameron speaks, the more braying he becomes. Plus he tends to purse his lips and frown a lot when he's trying to look statesmanlike, adopting the visage of Mr. Jeremy Kyle. Or perhaps a constipated baby.
The Clunking Fist sounded a bit dull, but somehow reassuring. Bit like having a backseat passenger who bothers to remember the directions home. Your kind of glad that someone's bothering to keep an eye on the detail.
And lest we forget, when people's mortgages are on the line, dull and reassuring is good.
Seems like the Tory attack line on Brown is focusing on his "lack of vision". The poor fella is blind in one eye you know...Same heartless Tories!
Don't know what Joe and Josephine Public make of it all, but I suspect Brown wins on points.
I tend to think that the louder Cameron speaks, the more braying he becomes. Plus he tends to purse his lips and frown a lot when he's trying to look statesmanlike, adopting the visage of Mr. Jeremy Kyle. Or perhaps a constipated baby.
The Clunking Fist sounded a bit dull, but somehow reassuring. Bit like having a backseat passenger who bothers to remember the directions home. Your kind of glad that someone's bothering to keep an eye on the detail.
And lest we forget, when people's mortgages are on the line, dull and reassuring is good.
Seems like the Tory attack line on Brown is focusing on his "lack of vision". The poor fella is blind in one eye you know...Same heartless Tories!
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Toff’s B&Q
Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, he of the black doll’s eyes, metallic voice and shifty name change (he was born Gideon) is famously heir to the family’s posh wallpaper business, Osborne & Little.
By way of a pointless diversion, they are currently advertising for an assistant manager for their King’s Road showroom.
‘Experience within a fabric/ furniture (trade and/or retail) environment and the ability to deal with people at all levels is essential. Candidates should be highly organised, well presented with an outgoing personality and strong admin skills.’
So there you go. Form an orderly queue.
Wonder if they have to draw up an A list of candidates for interview?
Why said advert is on page 22 of this morning’s Media Guardian is a bit of a puzzle...
By way of a pointless diversion, they are currently advertising for an assistant manager for their King’s Road showroom.
‘Experience within a fabric/ furniture (trade and/or retail) environment and the ability to deal with people at all levels is essential. Candidates should be highly organised, well presented with an outgoing personality and strong admin skills.’
So there you go. Form an orderly queue.
Wonder if they have to draw up an A list of candidates for interview?
Why said advert is on page 22 of this morning’s Media Guardian is a bit of a puzzle...
Perspective is lost: a race-ing certainty
WCH instinctively doesn't like Tories.
But politics is the loser when anyone saying anything remotely controversial is hounded as a result.
Nigel Hastilow, the Tory PPC for Halesowen and Rowley, has 'resigned' following publication of an article he wrote in a Birmingham newspaper along the lines of 'Enoch was right.'
Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said Hastilow’s comments showed the “racist underbelly of the Tory party”.
It showed nothing of the sort.
WCH gets nervous when politicians reach for the ‘R’ word. Finger-wagging, point-scoring piety invariably follows.
Let’s be clear: Hastilow was trying to tap into the very real resentment in many parts of the country about immigration and the changing nature of British culture. A change, I might add, that has never been signed-off by the electorate.
The entire issue might be sensitive and indeed it might even be inflammatory; but we can’t have entire areas of public policy deemed out-of-bounds. We’re not Iran for God’s sake.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davies called his remarks “very unwise”. Indeed they were. A more elegant appraisal of immigration policy and the effect on our society is, however, certainly needed.
Unfortunately, perspective is always the first casualty of a “race row”.
But politics is the loser when anyone saying anything remotely controversial is hounded as a result.
Nigel Hastilow, the Tory PPC for Halesowen and Rowley, has 'resigned' following publication of an article he wrote in a Birmingham newspaper along the lines of 'Enoch was right.'
Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said Hastilow’s comments showed the “racist underbelly of the Tory party”.
It showed nothing of the sort.
WCH gets nervous when politicians reach for the ‘R’ word. Finger-wagging, point-scoring piety invariably follows.
Let’s be clear: Hastilow was trying to tap into the very real resentment in many parts of the country about immigration and the changing nature of British culture. A change, I might add, that has never been signed-off by the electorate.
The entire issue might be sensitive and indeed it might even be inflammatory; but we can’t have entire areas of public policy deemed out-of-bounds. We’re not Iran for God’s sake.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davies called his remarks “very unwise”. Indeed they were. A more elegant appraisal of immigration policy and the effect on our society is, however, certainly needed.
Unfortunately, perspective is always the first casualty of a “race row”.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The Liberal Outlaws
Lib Dem street cred appears to be on the up.
Following former leader Charles Kennedy’s ticking off by British Transport Police in July for smoking on a train, the two candidates hoping to follow the Ming Dynasty are both showing their rebel without a cause credentials.
Apparently that nice, quiet Chris Huhne was banned from driving for three months in 2003 after being caught talking on his mobile phone.
This follows hot on the heels of earlier revelations that, as a student radical, he wrote a piece in a university newspaper calling for the legalisation of hard drugs.
Not to be outdone, his arch rival, Nick Clegg, has pledged to lead a campaign of civil resistance in the event of ID cards being forced on an ungrateful nation.
But as The Times recently reminded us, this will not be the home affairs spokesman’s first brush with the law.
As a 16-year-old exchange student in Germany, he secured a minor criminal conviction for arson after he and a friend “torched two greenhouses of cacti belonging to a professor”.
So, basically, whoever becomes leader of the Lib Dems will have a criminal conviction.
Still, some way to go before either man matches up to one-time leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who was, of course, tried (and acquitted) of conspiracy to murder.
Following former leader Charles Kennedy’s ticking off by British Transport Police in July for smoking on a train, the two candidates hoping to follow the Ming Dynasty are both showing their rebel without a cause credentials.
Apparently that nice, quiet Chris Huhne was banned from driving for three months in 2003 after being caught talking on his mobile phone.
This follows hot on the heels of earlier revelations that, as a student radical, he wrote a piece in a university newspaper calling for the legalisation of hard drugs.
Not to be outdone, his arch rival, Nick Clegg, has pledged to lead a campaign of civil resistance in the event of ID cards being forced on an ungrateful nation.
But as The Times recently reminded us, this will not be the home affairs spokesman’s first brush with the law.
As a 16-year-old exchange student in Germany, he secured a minor criminal conviction for arson after he and a friend “torched two greenhouses of cacti belonging to a professor”.
So, basically, whoever becomes leader of the Lib Dems will have a criminal conviction.
Still, some way to go before either man matches up to one-time leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who was, of course, tried (and acquitted) of conspiracy to murder.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Professionalism is to blame
Whatever criticisms can be levelled at this Government no one can say they haven’t reached deep into the State’s wallet to sub the NHS.
So today’s Healthcare Commission report into the horrendous state of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust should make every socialist weep.
90 patients lost their lives in filthy wards through contracting C.difficile - a bacterial infection of the gut which mainly affects the elderly.
But this scandal isn’t about a lack of funding. Or not enough nurses, doctors or radiographers.
It’s not even just about shitty management.
It’s about an organisational attitude that says “it’s not my job”.
Not my job to report dirty wards. Not my job to report a filthy toilet. Not my job to see that Doris gets a new nappy. Not my job to wash my hands before dealing with patients.
It’s about lazy nurses, arrogant doctors and fuckwit managers and the culture of underperformance they’ve cultivated for themselves. For years.
All the Government cash in the world won’t make a blind bit of difference to ‘clinicians’ who don’t have the wherewithal to report the disgusting state of the wards, on the basis of a clinical judgement about the potential risks to patient care.
But the big issue here is the failure of the Government to force the so-called ‘professional bodies’ to get behind an NHS run in the interests of patients first and foremost. Not those who work in it.
WCH was once squirreled into the Tory Party conference (clearly to destroy them from within) and checked out their exhibition area. Just which organisations were mad enough to splash out a big chunk of their marketing budget to attend this gathering of the walking dead in the vain expectation that Iain Duncan-Smith might one day become Prime Minister?
WELL, the BMA, and nursing unions were there. So were the education lot. And the Police Federation. In fact, all the ‘hidden’ trade unions (in all but name) who really run Britain.
You see, the greatest trick the ‘professional bodies’ have pulled is to create a political consensus for inaction. To make sure that whatever government is in power is too scared to act against their (invariably well-paid) members interests.
Bob Crow, Dave Prentis and Billy Hayes are mere amateurs in comparison.
And this is why public services never seem to get any better. Despite record amounts of money invested, we aren’t seeing big enough improvements in quality and reliability.
Until the Government gets serious about taking on the professional bodies, ending their "its not my fault guv" culture, efforts to improve public services for Mr. And Mrs. Bloggs will crawl along. It’s like driving with the handbrake on.
Anyway, back to the NHS...
Nye Bevan famously lamented that to get the consultants to buy into the very idea of the NHS in 1948 he had to “stuff their mouths with gold”.
Yet we still live with a system where GPs get 120k a year (same as a Cabinet Minister), but now work fewer hours than they used to.
Personally, I’d like to insert an anal probe in the form of my size 12’s into the back passage of the NHS to get a bigger bang for the bucks the Government has (undoubtedly) put in.
Before it is weighed down by so many horror stories the middle classes begin to take flight and demand a system of private provision.
Because, make no mistake, comrades, that’s where we’re heading.
So today’s Healthcare Commission report into the horrendous state of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust should make every socialist weep.
90 patients lost their lives in filthy wards through contracting C.difficile - a bacterial infection of the gut which mainly affects the elderly.
But this scandal isn’t about a lack of funding. Or not enough nurses, doctors or radiographers.
It’s not even just about shitty management.
It’s about an organisational attitude that says “it’s not my job”.
Not my job to report dirty wards. Not my job to report a filthy toilet. Not my job to see that Doris gets a new nappy. Not my job to wash my hands before dealing with patients.
It’s about lazy nurses, arrogant doctors and fuckwit managers and the culture of underperformance they’ve cultivated for themselves. For years.
All the Government cash in the world won’t make a blind bit of difference to ‘clinicians’ who don’t have the wherewithal to report the disgusting state of the wards, on the basis of a clinical judgement about the potential risks to patient care.
But the big issue here is the failure of the Government to force the so-called ‘professional bodies’ to get behind an NHS run in the interests of patients first and foremost. Not those who work in it.
WCH was once squirreled into the Tory Party conference (clearly to destroy them from within) and checked out their exhibition area. Just which organisations were mad enough to splash out a big chunk of their marketing budget to attend this gathering of the walking dead in the vain expectation that Iain Duncan-Smith might one day become Prime Minister?
WELL, the BMA, and nursing unions were there. So were the education lot. And the Police Federation. In fact, all the ‘hidden’ trade unions (in all but name) who really run Britain.
You see, the greatest trick the ‘professional bodies’ have pulled is to create a political consensus for inaction. To make sure that whatever government is in power is too scared to act against their (invariably well-paid) members interests.
Bob Crow, Dave Prentis and Billy Hayes are mere amateurs in comparison.
And this is why public services never seem to get any better. Despite record amounts of money invested, we aren’t seeing big enough improvements in quality and reliability.
Until the Government gets serious about taking on the professional bodies, ending their "its not my fault guv" culture, efforts to improve public services for Mr. And Mrs. Bloggs will crawl along. It’s like driving with the handbrake on.
Anyway, back to the NHS...
Nye Bevan famously lamented that to get the consultants to buy into the very idea of the NHS in 1948 he had to “stuff their mouths with gold”.
Yet we still live with a system where GPs get 120k a year (same as a Cabinet Minister), but now work fewer hours than they used to.
Personally, I’d like to insert an anal probe in the form of my size 12’s into the back passage of the NHS to get a bigger bang for the bucks the Government has (undoubtedly) put in.
Before it is weighed down by so many horror stories the middle classes begin to take flight and demand a system of private provision.
Because, make no mistake, comrades, that’s where we’re heading.
Isn't it just the meek supposed to inherit?
Hark! The huddled masses from the housing estates of Sunderland to the sink estates of south London ring out hosannas of praise for Alistair Darling’s decision to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £600,000.
And lo, it came to be that the meek were elbowed out of the way for the greedy to inherit the earth!
Praise be that near-millionaires can now safely inherit money they didn’t earn for work they didn’t do.
From relatives they probably didn’t give a stuff about.
The short-term politics of appeasing Middle England’s grubby sense of entitlement may be smart after last week’s beasting by George Osborne (My God - Osborne of all people?!?!?); but the long-term ethical damage to the Brown brand makes this u-turn a pyrrhic victory.
Just what is a Labour Government for, may I respectfully ask, if the undeserving rich are not expected to pay more in tax for the common good?
Here’s a novel idea: The level of inheritance tax paid should be based on how much care and support families give elderly relatives.
People who care and support aged grandpa should pay less.
Meanwhile, the jackals and vultures who let grandma marinate in her own piss in some flea-bitten care home without so much as a Christmas card should forfeit the lot!
And lo, it came to be that the meek were elbowed out of the way for the greedy to inherit the earth!
Praise be that near-millionaires can now safely inherit money they didn’t earn for work they didn’t do.
From relatives they probably didn’t give a stuff about.
The short-term politics of appeasing Middle England’s grubby sense of entitlement may be smart after last week’s beasting by George Osborne (My God - Osborne of all people?!?!?); but the long-term ethical damage to the Brown brand makes this u-turn a pyrrhic victory.
Just what is a Labour Government for, may I respectfully ask, if the undeserving rich are not expected to pay more in tax for the common good?
Here’s a novel idea: The level of inheritance tax paid should be based on how much care and support families give elderly relatives.
People who care and support aged grandpa should pay less.
Meanwhile, the jackals and vultures who let grandma marinate in her own piss in some flea-bitten care home without so much as a Christmas card should forfeit the lot!
Monday, October 8, 2007
As soon as you're born they make you feel small...
Tomorrow is John Lennon's birthday (9th october 1940), after who's song, of course, this blog is nominally titled.
Just thought I'd let you know. In case you didn't.
Thanks to Paul for the heads-up.
Just thought I'd let you know. In case you didn't.
Thanks to Paul for the heads-up.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The Return of Tony B...
Relax, that’s Benn, not Blair.
Yes the Grand Old Man of the Labour left has said he wants to stand for the new Kensington seat at the next general election after ‘retiring’ from his Chesterfield berth in 2001. Six years of daytime telly has clearly taken its toll.
When Benn stood down, he quipped that he was off to spend more time with his politics. He personified the “new politics” (that phrase again!) where being in Parliament was not the be all and end all to a political life.
This volte face simply reinforces the “old politics” view that all that matters in public life is parking one’s saggy old derriere on the green leather benches.
To put it bluntly, he’s in danger to countermanding his own, principled stand.
If he does end up on the ballot paper, then we will apparently see three generations of the Wedgewood-Benns standing for Labour.
Sonny Hilary continues to toil as environment secretary.
Now granddaughter, Emily, has been selected for the somewhat-less-than-a-socialist-bastion of East Worthing and Shoreham.
Only problem is that she is seventeen.
Now, I don’t particularly mind voting for a ‘mature’ candidate, but I’m buggered if I would demean the process by voting for a slip of a kid. Not WCH being po-faced you understand; it’s just a silly trivialising of public office. Also has an unfortunate dynastic pretension.
Anyway, back to the old boy...
As a fully-fledged National Institution his move to re-enter the Gentlemen’s Club is a sad change of heart, even if the seat is a no-hoper.
If need be, the members of Kensington CLP should save him from himself!
Yes the Grand Old Man of the Labour left has said he wants to stand for the new Kensington seat at the next general election after ‘retiring’ from his Chesterfield berth in 2001. Six years of daytime telly has clearly taken its toll.
When Benn stood down, he quipped that he was off to spend more time with his politics. He personified the “new politics” (that phrase again!) where being in Parliament was not the be all and end all to a political life.
This volte face simply reinforces the “old politics” view that all that matters in public life is parking one’s saggy old derriere on the green leather benches.
To put it bluntly, he’s in danger to countermanding his own, principled stand.
If he does end up on the ballot paper, then we will apparently see three generations of the Wedgewood-Benns standing for Labour.
Sonny Hilary continues to toil as environment secretary.
Now granddaughter, Emily, has been selected for the somewhat-less-than-a-socialist-bastion of East Worthing and Shoreham.
Only problem is that she is seventeen.
Now, I don’t particularly mind voting for a ‘mature’ candidate, but I’m buggered if I would demean the process by voting for a slip of a kid. Not WCH being po-faced you understand; it’s just a silly trivialising of public office. Also has an unfortunate dynastic pretension.
Anyway, back to the old boy...
As a fully-fledged National Institution his move to re-enter the Gentlemen’s Club is a sad change of heart, even if the seat is a no-hoper.
If need be, the members of Kensington CLP should save him from himself!
Memo to GB...
Dear Gordon,
What to do next:
1) The Numero Uno task is to ensure last week's fiasco is a blip rather than a ‘paradigm shift’ from your otherwise successful handover and three months’ worth of good government.
2) Use Monday’s Commons statement on Iraq to emphasise ‘Statesman Brown’. Project “business as usual”. Diffuse the situation. Concentrate on the Big Picture. Difficult for the Tories to make much hay on grown-up foreign affairs.
3) Use the Pre-Budget report on Tuesday to announce a fresh look at non-domicile status, with a view to a light fleecing of these tax-dodging parasites. Yes, it’s dancing to the Tory tune; but it’s a bit too weird to be outflanked by them on this issue. May as well take all the humiliation in one week.
4) In the longer run, this will help give both barrels to the Tory fox. Squeezing the “Non Doms” – and thus spending George Osborne’s nest egg on something socially useful - will blow a complete hole in their spending plans.
5) Get ready for a bruising PMQs on Wednesday. Need to inject a bit of spark into proceedings and knock seven bells out of Cameron at the start of a new term. This will help draw a line under the current shambles. A few good jokes are needed, especially after the telephone directory Leader’s speech a fortnight ago. Something self-deprecatory would be good.
6) Longer term there needs to be a more general debate about the role of taxation, as urged by Will Hutton in this morning’s Observer. It’s an ill omen that a Tory sop to allow near millionaires to avoid inheritance tax should be seen as a Great National Scandal and bounce The Evil Ones in the polls. The failure to popularise issues around taxation and fairness over the last decade has been a big mistake and is now coming home to roost.
7) Hopefully the hubris of the past few weeks will now be purged from the system and people who really should know better will knuckle down to business, learn the lessons about allowing speculation to get out of hand and avoid any silly repetition the future.
Yours in supplication,
WCH
What to do next:
1) The Numero Uno task is to ensure last week's fiasco is a blip rather than a ‘paradigm shift’ from your otherwise successful handover and three months’ worth of good government.
2) Use Monday’s Commons statement on Iraq to emphasise ‘Statesman Brown’. Project “business as usual”. Diffuse the situation. Concentrate on the Big Picture. Difficult for the Tories to make much hay on grown-up foreign affairs.
3) Use the Pre-Budget report on Tuesday to announce a fresh look at non-domicile status, with a view to a light fleecing of these tax-dodging parasites. Yes, it’s dancing to the Tory tune; but it’s a bit too weird to be outflanked by them on this issue. May as well take all the humiliation in one week.
4) In the longer run, this will help give both barrels to the Tory fox. Squeezing the “Non Doms” – and thus spending George Osborne’s nest egg on something socially useful - will blow a complete hole in their spending plans.
5) Get ready for a bruising PMQs on Wednesday. Need to inject a bit of spark into proceedings and knock seven bells out of Cameron at the start of a new term. This will help draw a line under the current shambles. A few good jokes are needed, especially after the telephone directory Leader’s speech a fortnight ago. Something self-deprecatory would be good.
6) Longer term there needs to be a more general debate about the role of taxation, as urged by Will Hutton in this morning’s Observer. It’s an ill omen that a Tory sop to allow near millionaires to avoid inheritance tax should be seen as a Great National Scandal and bounce The Evil Ones in the polls. The failure to popularise issues around taxation and fairness over the last decade has been a big mistake and is now coming home to roost.
7) Hopefully the hubris of the past few weeks will now be purged from the system and people who really should know better will knuckle down to business, learn the lessons about allowing speculation to get out of hand and avoid any silly repetition the future.
Yours in supplication,
WCH
Saturday, October 6, 2007
NO GENERAL ELECTION: CONFIRMED
Ta-da!!
As confidently predicted on this blog (well before the shilly-shallying johnnie-come-latelys) there is to be no imminent general election.
Don't like to say we told you so, but...WE TOLD YOU SO!!
Nick Robinson of the Beeb is predicting there may not be an electon until 2009 in order for the PM to hold a "verdict election" on his (by then) three years as Top Dog. Sounds about right.
David Cameron will be able to relax his bottom cheeks for a while although he is still going down to defeat. Seems that it took a bit of old fashioned Tory tax bribery to the middle classses to turn the tide. George Osborne is this week's big winner as Cameron's fluffy ethno-environmentalism is repudiated.
But how old will Ming be by 2009?! Given the Lib Dems are fast being written out of the equation in all the polls, we confidently predict he will long gone by then. Nick Clegg in place by the summer recess?
To all our dear readers, the next time you want something more than the bog standard predicitons and political commentary, available on the hordes of inferior blogs out there, you know where to come!
As George Bernard Shaw used to say about economists, if you laid them all end to end they still couldn't reach a conclusion.
We can.
As confidently predicted on this blog (well before the shilly-shallying johnnie-come-latelys) there is to be no imminent general election.
Don't like to say we told you so, but...WE TOLD YOU SO!!
Nick Robinson of the Beeb is predicting there may not be an electon until 2009 in order for the PM to hold a "verdict election" on his (by then) three years as Top Dog. Sounds about right.
David Cameron will be able to relax his bottom cheeks for a while although he is still going down to defeat. Seems that it took a bit of old fashioned Tory tax bribery to the middle classses to turn the tide. George Osborne is this week's big winner as Cameron's fluffy ethno-environmentalism is repudiated.
But how old will Ming be by 2009?! Given the Lib Dems are fast being written out of the equation in all the polls, we confidently predict he will long gone by then. Nick Clegg in place by the summer recess?
To all our dear readers, the next time you want something more than the bog standard predicitons and political commentary, available on the hordes of inferior blogs out there, you know where to come!
As George Bernard Shaw used to say about economists, if you laid them all end to end they still couldn't reach a conclusion.
We can.
New, Old Labour, not old, New Labour...
We’ve been asked, by our many observant readers, to explain what 'new Old Labour' means...
Well, once upon a time, New Labour was explained to us as being socially left wing and economically right wing. Thatcher, we were told, had won the economic arguments of the 80s, so we would instead focus on social equality.
Silly old Old Labour, in contrast, had things the wrong way round. We were deemed to be socially conservative and economically radical. Precisely what shiny, new, tax-averse, selfish middle class Britain didn’t want.
This gross over-simplification received a curious validation with the graduation of many of the one-time loony left to the upper echelons of the Labour Party.
It seems half the New Labour Cabinet had ‘form’ as 1980’s municipal or pressure group headbangers. The types who always cared more about trendy social equality than economic redistribution.
Put simply, if your cause can fit on a students’ lapel badge you’re in the club.
But if you call women ‘ladies’, think a civil partnership is a firm of good mannered accountants and want to squeeze the rich until their eyeballs pop out, then you’d better go somewhere else comrade!
Your correspondents at this blog have emerged blinking from our bunker, unscathed by a decade’s worth of wish-washy New Labour centrism.
We are resolutely Northern. Unashamedly working-class. Defiantly old fashioned. Contemptuous of political correctness. Exercised about the redistribution of wealth (it’s ALWAYS the economy, stupid). And now we’ve mastered this blogging lark, there’ll be no stopping us raising the scarlet standard high.
So if you’ve had enough ‘old’ New Labour, then watch out for new, improved, ‘new’ Old Labour instead.
‘Cos we’re back!
Well, once upon a time, New Labour was explained to us as being socially left wing and economically right wing. Thatcher, we were told, had won the economic arguments of the 80s, so we would instead focus on social equality.
Silly old Old Labour, in contrast, had things the wrong way round. We were deemed to be socially conservative and economically radical. Precisely what shiny, new, tax-averse, selfish middle class Britain didn’t want.
This gross over-simplification received a curious validation with the graduation of many of the one-time loony left to the upper echelons of the Labour Party.
It seems half the New Labour Cabinet had ‘form’ as 1980’s municipal or pressure group headbangers. The types who always cared more about trendy social equality than economic redistribution.
Put simply, if your cause can fit on a students’ lapel badge you’re in the club.
But if you call women ‘ladies’, think a civil partnership is a firm of good mannered accountants and want to squeeze the rich until their eyeballs pop out, then you’d better go somewhere else comrade!
Your correspondents at this blog have emerged blinking from our bunker, unscathed by a decade’s worth of wish-washy New Labour centrism.
We are resolutely Northern. Unashamedly working-class. Defiantly old fashioned. Contemptuous of political correctness. Exercised about the redistribution of wealth (it’s ALWAYS the economy, stupid). And now we’ve mastered this blogging lark, there’ll be no stopping us raising the scarlet standard high.
So if you’ve had enough ‘old’ New Labour, then watch out for new, improved, ‘new’ Old Labour instead.
‘Cos we’re back!
Friday, October 5, 2007
The sound of blank cartridge ?
Harold Wilson’s weary observation that a week is a long time in politics has hardly sounded more apposite.
Last weekend, the drumbeat of election speculation was reaching crescendo. This was the final reckoning of the Tory Party we were told. Gordon should strike now and blast the Tories into smithereens once and for all.
Now? Well we can hear a gentle “splish, spolsh” as Labour starts to row back from all the hyperbole.
Yes, there are still echoes of the phoney war with the party putting emergency plans in place to have candidates in all seats by the end of next week if a poll is called on Tuesday. But it feels half-hearted.
Instead, expect to hear Ministers in coming days talking about “getting on with the job” and “implementing the manifesto”. The message will be “back to business” after the fluff of the silly season.
Doubtless “media speculation” will be to blame for all the talk of an election.
For all that, read “the jitters have set in.”
Check out the post below. What is happening now was completely predictable and happens every year during the conference season. The state of the parties ebbs and flows. And as the Tories are the last out of the traps with their conference, they inherit a bounce as we head into the next political term. They were never going to fall apart. Silly to think otherwise. If the PM’s advisers couldn’t foresee all this it then shame on them.
Of course we have been here before. The famous putsch-that-never-was against Tony Blair last September saw Brownite outriders take to the ramparts and talk up a revolution only to lose the belly to fight it.
The sound of blank cartridge can be deafening.
But the big guff-up of the week was undoubtedly the foolish own goal of announcing 1000 troops coming home from Iraq. As 500 were already shaking the sand off their boots back in Blighty, the PM should have been more circumspect.
OK, 1000 sounds twice as impressive as 500, but only if you are going to get away with a bit of sleight of hand. Instead, Gordon took one of the army’s rickety SA80s and shot a great big hole in his foot having worked so hard in previous weeks to embrace the “new politics” and shake off his image as partisan machine politician par excellence.
The plain old truth of where we are is that too many pieces are in flux (to use Mr. Blair’s circumlocution). The polls are flaky. The Labour Party’s machinery is nowhere nearly ready for an election campaign. Foot and mouth, post office strikes, moth-eaten electoral registers and Scotland are all concerns.
A few months of stability and good government would set a better backdrop to an election campaign rather than cutting and running now. Let people see Brown in action and his policy agenda start to bed-in. That was even the advice of Hilary Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, on last night’s Newsnight.
To those still prattling on about an early election we at WCH paraphrase Clem Attlee on the loudmouth Harold Laski: a period of silence on your part would be most welcome.
Last weekend, the drumbeat of election speculation was reaching crescendo. This was the final reckoning of the Tory Party we were told. Gordon should strike now and blast the Tories into smithereens once and for all.
Now? Well we can hear a gentle “splish, spolsh” as Labour starts to row back from all the hyperbole.
Yes, there are still echoes of the phoney war with the party putting emergency plans in place to have candidates in all seats by the end of next week if a poll is called on Tuesday. But it feels half-hearted.
Instead, expect to hear Ministers in coming days talking about “getting on with the job” and “implementing the manifesto”. The message will be “back to business” after the fluff of the silly season.
Doubtless “media speculation” will be to blame for all the talk of an election.
For all that, read “the jitters have set in.”
Check out the post below. What is happening now was completely predictable and happens every year during the conference season. The state of the parties ebbs and flows. And as the Tories are the last out of the traps with their conference, they inherit a bounce as we head into the next political term. They were never going to fall apart. Silly to think otherwise. If the PM’s advisers couldn’t foresee all this it then shame on them.
Of course we have been here before. The famous putsch-that-never-was against Tony Blair last September saw Brownite outriders take to the ramparts and talk up a revolution only to lose the belly to fight it.
The sound of blank cartridge can be deafening.
But the big guff-up of the week was undoubtedly the foolish own goal of announcing 1000 troops coming home from Iraq. As 500 were already shaking the sand off their boots back in Blighty, the PM should have been more circumspect.
OK, 1000 sounds twice as impressive as 500, but only if you are going to get away with a bit of sleight of hand. Instead, Gordon took one of the army’s rickety SA80s and shot a great big hole in his foot having worked so hard in previous weeks to embrace the “new politics” and shake off his image as partisan machine politician par excellence.
The plain old truth of where we are is that too many pieces are in flux (to use Mr. Blair’s circumlocution). The polls are flaky. The Labour Party’s machinery is nowhere nearly ready for an election campaign. Foot and mouth, post office strikes, moth-eaten electoral registers and Scotland are all concerns.
A few months of stability and good government would set a better backdrop to an election campaign rather than cutting and running now. Let people see Brown in action and his policy agenda start to bed-in. That was even the advice of Hilary Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, on last night’s Newsnight.
To those still prattling on about an early election we at WCH paraphrase Clem Attlee on the loudmouth Harold Laski: a period of silence on your part would be most welcome.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Where's the Passion Folks?
The Internet is a truly marvellous invention. Shame there is so much rubbish on it.
WCH thought long and hard before his old gnarled fingers danced across the keyboard to bring you this magnificent offering.
Some of the so-called political bloggers littering up the information superhighway should have done the same!
I mean, some of the blogs passing for left-wing political comment are as a tepid as a baby’s bath.
Blogging and lefty politics should be about passion and energy. Not much of that about in cyberspace at the moment...
Apparently Alistair Campbell, the Mr. Hyde to Tony Blair’s Dr. Jekyll, thinks the ‘blogosphere’ (what a truly ugly word...) is dominated by the political Right. He has a point. There does seem to be more of the buggers out there. Why is that? Has the Right got more to say? Never! Are they better educated? Of course not! Can they afford better computers? Probably...
WCH thought long and hard before his old gnarled fingers danced across the keyboard to bring you this magnificent offering.
Some of the so-called political bloggers littering up the information superhighway should have done the same!
I mean, some of the blogs passing for left-wing political comment are as a tepid as a baby’s bath.
Blogging and lefty politics should be about passion and energy. Not much of that about in cyberspace at the moment...
Apparently Alistair Campbell, the Mr. Hyde to Tony Blair’s Dr. Jekyll, thinks the ‘blogosphere’ (what a truly ugly word...) is dominated by the political Right. He has a point. There does seem to be more of the buggers out there. Why is that? Has the Right got more to say? Never! Are they better educated? Of course not! Can they afford better computers? Probably...
EXCLUSIVE: NO ELECTION IN 2007!
There you have it. Nice and straightforward. No hedging of bets. No hiding behind forms of words. Even the BBC's reliably straight-talking Nick Robinson is sounding shifty...
Why won't there be an election? Because Cameron will knock 'em dead in his Leader's Speech. Everyone will rally round. His party will remember Lord Kilmuir's famous dictum that loyalty is the Tory Party's secret weapon. An overnight poll will show a surge for Cameron. And talk of an election will receed quicker than William Hague's hairline.
Of course, if I'm wrong then I'll look a blithering idiot.
But I'm not.
Why won't there be an election? Because Cameron will knock 'em dead in his Leader's Speech. Everyone will rally round. His party will remember Lord Kilmuir's famous dictum that loyalty is the Tory Party's secret weapon. An overnight poll will show a surge for Cameron. And talk of an election will receed quicker than William Hague's hairline.
Of course, if I'm wrong then I'll look a blithering idiot.
But I'm not.
Take A Walk on the Wild Side? No Thanks...
Before he departed the stage to ‘fix’ the problems if the Middle East, that old political drag queen, Tony Blair, thoughtfully reminded us that we now live in an age of political cross-dressing.
Watching this week’s Conservative conference I can now see what old gender-bender Blair meant.
Your correspondent is reduced to weeping tears of regret that it apparantly takes a Conservative Government to clobber the super rich “non-domicile” tax dodging parasites while a Labour Treasury sits on its bean-counting derriere for a decade and does nothing.
This following Margaret Thatcher being invited round to her old digs at No. 10 and lauded as a conviction politican – by a Labour Prime Minister!
Tories taxing the super rich? Ken Livingstone lecturing Boris Johnson about political posturing? Tea and crumpets with Thatcher? Where will it all end?!
Greens backing airport expansion? UKIP calling for implementation of the Working Time Directive?
I’m just waiting for the launch of the BNP’s equal opportunities policy...
WCH does not like all this political transvestitisim and is keeping his cloth cap firmly on his head...
Watching this week’s Conservative conference I can now see what old gender-bender Blair meant.
Your correspondent is reduced to weeping tears of regret that it apparantly takes a Conservative Government to clobber the super rich “non-domicile” tax dodging parasites while a Labour Treasury sits on its bean-counting derriere for a decade and does nothing.
This following Margaret Thatcher being invited round to her old digs at No. 10 and lauded as a conviction politican – by a Labour Prime Minister!
Tories taxing the super rich? Ken Livingstone lecturing Boris Johnson about political posturing? Tea and crumpets with Thatcher? Where will it all end?!
Greens backing airport expansion? UKIP calling for implementation of the Working Time Directive?
I’m just waiting for the launch of the BNP’s equal opportunities policy...
WCH does not like all this political transvestitisim and is keeping his cloth cap firmly on his head...
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