Morning Rant: Libdums, Hague on Schools and The BBC (Again)

Dad examines little Nick's report card

It was less than I'd hoped for but no more than I expected. The sight of wall to wall BBC coverage of the father-son Libdum, Clegg-Cable double act droning on and on about bad policies that will never be enacted (thankfully) or attacking other politicians from a position of, well, what? Total, unconvincing inexperience I would say. The sight of those two, with Clegg looking over at his dad every time he needed approval for something he said about banks or tax or bonuses or shares or whatever, was pathetic. The main point, though, is about the BBC (naturally). Why, exactly, has the BBC decided that every Libdum press conference and Q/A session has to be covered without interruption? They are the third party. What is more, this is the second day in a row our senses have been assaulted by the luminous, fried-egg colour wall and this pair of twits. For a third party, they get a heck of a lot of coverage from the Beeb. And none of the scrutiny (Paxman going easy on Clegg, for instance).

A little later, by contrast, I then had the sound of John Humphreys laying into William Hague about the Tories' excellent and intelligent, proven schools policy. Preferring the sound of his own voice to that of his guest's, especially if he's a Conservative, Humphreys repeated a phrase that I am sure I have heard Ed Ballsup, among other Labourists, use before, namely "a counsel of despair". How making it far easier for parents collectively to intervene in the education of their own children, and perhaps set up a legendary new institution for posterity as well, is quite beyond me, I'm afraid. Seems like the state grant they would receive to do it, in addition to the charitable donations and private funding, amounts to an absolute bargain. Everyone's a potential winner, most of all the children.

Yet Humphrey's pushed it for all he was worth, right up until Hague came up with his hilarious put-down that if state control of anything and everything, which is the position Humphreys appeared to have chosen to adopt - the Labour position - was such a perfect thing, then the Soviet Union would have been a spectacular success instead of the mother(land) of all trainwrecks, which clearly rattled the Humph judging by his response, which was blustery and weak.

I think this policy will resonate very widely and even excite a lot of people in this country, especially if people as good as Hague are making the philosophical case for it, but mainly because it's a damn good idea that, as Hague pointed out at the end, has a proven track record of success in the USA.

The Tories are winning the argument on education. The Libdums don't have an education policy. The BBC has just lost it.

Vague Hague Kills Ashcroft Story Stone Dead

Peter Hoskin has covered very well Hague's interview on "Today" this morning about the Ashcroft non-story, which I listened to while driving to work (which is where I am now - so this won't be a long post!). Suffice to say that Hague, while slightly vague at times, did nail down this stupid story once and for all, and successfully lobbed the ball straight back into Brown's court. Lord Paul, anyone? Hoskin's conclusions are rather cleverer than mine, (no surprise there), but sort of amount to the same thing.

Any road, it seems this is now a non-runner for Labour, but that does not mean they won't continue to push it, no matter how stupid they will increasingly look for doing so now that Hague has, in my view, successfully killed the story off once and for all. However, if, for instance, this latest piece of Charlie Whelan delusion is anything to go on, then truly anything is possible (so thanks to Daniel Finkelstein for reporting it):

In yesterday's interview with Will Straw, Charlie Whelan appears
to have given up being a spin doctor and a political organiser and become,
instead, a pollster. He claims that it is not true that a third of Unite
members are planning to vote Conservative because his own survey showed it was
only about 8 per cent. It never occurs to him to wonder if their might be an
interviewer bias in answers to a survey conducted by his own
officials. He describes the contrary evidence as:
Some Tory paper did a bogus poll of Unite members
But the poll was actually a balanced and representative survey of 1,023 members of the union conducted by Populus last year.

This Whelan man is extremely sinister, not least because he is as big a self-deceiver and figure-fiddler as Brown himself. Moreover, in the name of a union membership the majority of whom clearly doesn't support him or his party, he is trying to shut down British Airways internationally by unleashing the forces of militant trade unionism abroad. Sort of sympathy strikes for the global era. But care not one jot do these people for democracy, or the massive job losses that would result from the collapse of a business as big as British Airways.

A Matthew Parris anecdote in his column in this morning's Times is quite disturbing on that score:

It was before he was even a Cabinet minister that, in a private
conversation, Mr Mandelson was asked who he thought would be in the running for
the leadership of the Labour Party if the present Government were turfed out of
office at the coming general election.

He paused thoughtfully, then, with no hint of a smile, and peering over his spectacles in apparent incredulity, observed: “You don’t think a little thing like losing a general election is going to stop Gordon Brown, do you?” Whether, by “stop”, Mr Mandelson meant stop
Mr Brown from carrying on as Labour leader, or stop him from carrying on as
Prime Minister, he did not say.

Getting rid of this particular crop of corrupt, anti-democratic, arrogant socialists might take a bit more than a general election victory for the Conservative Party!

Brown won't take electoral defeat - or "No!" - for an answer.

Denis MacShane Makes a Tit of Himself (Again)

Rentagob

After the Guardian, the Spectator's cuckoo lefty Martin Bright and every other left-leaning media outlet, now Liberal Conspiracy is desperately trying to keep the biggest non-story of the year afloat by repeating habitual Labourist exaggerator rentagob, Denis MacShane's, dumbo list of impertinent, unresearched questions for William Hague about, you'll never guess who, Michal Kaminski. Hague's laser-guided exoceting of banana boy Millipede's ongoing lies and smears in yesterday's Mail appears to have found its target, therefore, and caused a great deal of damage given MacShane's rather muddled and somewhat shellshocked response. First, though, it's worth repeating the comment of one LC commenter, called "Watchman," (who, it's indicated, is no particular friend of the Tories), which comprehensively fisks MacShane's nonsense.

Lets analyse these points one by one (ignoring the poor use of capitalisation, the lack of courtsey in using honorifics etc which one would hope for from an MP).

1. Does he agree with the Chief Rabbi of Poland’s criticism of Michal Kaminski’s views on the murder of Jews at Jedwabne?

Nicely phrased, since the views are that Poland as a country should offer no official appology for the criminal acts of certain of its former citizens, which seems valid. Is Mr McShane going to appologise for all the burgalries committed in the United Kingdom between say 1820 and 1830 by British and Irish subjects? Because this is exactly the same logic, just a lot more obviously stupid. A crime is a crime, and is the responsibility of the person who committed it, not all of us.

2. Does he agree with the Chief Rabbi’s views that Kaminski sought out to join and was active in a “neo-nazi and antisemitic” party when he started political activity?

Nicely phrased again. I do not recall that the Chief Rabbi ever said that Mr Kaminski had sought out a neo-Nazi or antisemetic party, merely an opposition party which subsequently has become such. As an illegal opposition party its views were somewhat less well (if that is the right word) formed.

3. Does he support ECR MEPs appearing on Radio Maryja which the Vatican and Polish Holocaust survivors have criticised for its anti-jewish broadcasts?

Does it matter? Should elected representatives only appear on broadcasters they agree with (that might cut down the number of politicians on the BBC of late)? Is it not perfectly acceptable to appear on a hostile platform to put your own views, or is such debate unacceptable to Mr McShane?

4. Does he support kaminski’s homophobic language?

No. And neither, now, does Mr Kaminski, who admits using the phrase was wrong. However, we probably have all used words or phrases we now regret at some time, including Mr McShane. Admitting mistakes is admirable, sticking to them is merely stupid.

5. Does he think President Kwasniewski was right to say sorry for the Jedwabne massacres and Kaminksi wrong to attack that apology?

I think as a possible future foreign secretary Mr Hague should not be speaking on this issue, but there is nothing morally wrong with either position.

6. Will hague be joining his new friends in Latvia when they commemorate the Waffen SS?

Does Mr McShane not read anything anyone else writes? All major (non-Russian) parties in Latvia commemorate all the dead who fell in World War II, which includes those who fought for the Nazis, those who fought for the communists and the innocent victims. So this is doubly selective – focussing only on one party and one section of the commemorated. Hardly convincing.

7. Does William endorse the efforts of the PiS (Kaminski’s party) to ban gay pride marches in Warsaw

I guess not myself. So after six failures, finally a hit – a local political matter has resulted in an unacceptable decision, so we must beat up the foreign affairs spokesman of a party in another country, allied to the party in question. Unfortunately, this is hardly going to be a unique occurence, and all parties will be equally vulnerable to this sort of thing. And, to be honest, do we need to go to Poland to find local political bigotry etc.

8. Do the Tories endorse the Germanophobe line of the PiS and the kaczynski brothers?

Thinking Germany has too much influence and power over your own country is not Germanophobe, it is merely a political point of view.

9. Why do Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel brief openly that Cameron is “untrustworthy” (see saturday’s Gdn)?

I give up. Does Mr McShane even check his sources before making a fool of himself like this. This was never said.

10. Does he agree with the Economist that he has created a “shoddy, shameful alliance” with Kaminski and Vile?

I doubt it. But then again why would Mr Hague agree with an avowedly Eurofederalist publication? Does Mr McShane agree with the Spectator that he has firmly lost this argument?

I would say my respect for Mr McShane has gone down having read this, but unfortunately this sort of desperate muck-flinging (easily answered) is exactly what I have come to expect. If Labour wants to be a serious force for good in politics (which is to be desired) it needs to marginalise the facile and fatuous puff, with almost no facts behind it, the likes of Mr McShane produce; it does not even warrant the name of spin, as at least that has to be convincing and not demonstratably wrong. To allow Mr McShane, already recently wrong on the number of trafiked sex workers but determined to defend his figure with no evidence, to keep highlighting weak arguments like this will just present an image of a party with no moral compunctions regarding evidence, which might not be a good thing at the moment.

Ouch! One other point, of course, is that all this has merely served to do is to make outlets such as Liberal Conspiracy (is it possible?), The Grauniad ('twas ever thus) and even Martin Bright (shows occasional flashes of journalism) look more and more laughably stupid while they go on and on - and on! - flogging a horse that's been dead for so long now, it's stinking the place out. But hey ho, I guess they're just following orders. "Ours not to reason why," and all that.

After all these coordinated Labour lies, smears and spin have finally dissipated, however - like pollution usually does - there do remain one or two unanswered questions to answer. They are the ones William Hague puts to Labour in his cogent, clear, well-supported article (MacShane, take note! That's the way to do it). I won't go into all of them here - you merely need to read the article to see them for yourself. But there was one in particular that struck me as more than merely of party political point scoring significance, and that's the question of the role of the Foreign Secretary.

...I have still been shocked to see Mr Miliband and other Labour politicians spend their time trying to orchestrate a ruthless smear campaign against the Conservative Party’s allies in the European Parliament.

The Foreign Secretary used his Labour Party conference speech – his moment to give a positive vision of Britain’s future in the world – to make appalling accusations against Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, the party of the President of Poland and one of the governing parties of Latvia. That was not the behaviour we have the right to expect from a Foreign Secretary.

This is far more damning than claim and counter claim about whose EU grouping has more nuts in it. It's about the competence, the integrity and the suitability of a person currently pretending to occupy one of the great offices of state. As John Ward wrote earlier today:

The really daft thing about the smear claims is that they have been so easy to comprehensively disprove. It makes David Miliband look a complete idiot and certainly an incompetent politician.

William Hague has forensically dissected the whole business in his customary fashion, and has left no wriggle room at all: it is an open-and-shut case. He has been generous in merely asking for Miliband's retraction and an apology: it really should have been a resignation from the Cabinet and spending the rest of his parliamentary career on the back benches.

Who could argue with that?