Blair To Blame For Brown

Quite aside from all his other disastrous decisions, mainly on foreign policy, it seems perfectly fair to me that Blair be blamed for not seeing while he was Prime Minister that Britain wasn't saddled with a successor he himself thought was unfit to govern. This is, according to Andrew Rawnsley in his extraordinarily excoriating assault on virtually the entire Labour administration, the thing for which Blair, ultimately, is most guilty. It's a heck of a read and should be disastrous for all Labour's leadership candidates, tainted as they are with the charge of cowardice, arch and chronic dishonesty and, simply put, self-interested misgovernance. Anyway, here's a taste of something which, if you haven't already read it, is well worth a look:

If Blair thought that Brown was unfit to be prime minister – and there's now lots of evidence that this is precisely what Blair thought – he had an obligation to his party and his country to do something about it. At the very least, he should have, as he could have, ensured that there was a contest for the succession in 2007 rather than allow Brown to be crowned without proper scrutiny. It was one of Blair's most selfish acts and a gross dereliction of duty to swan off to make his millions while leaving his party and country to cope with the consequences of a Brown premiership.

The implication from this is that by the time he had finally given in to the forces of hell unleashed by Brown in the form of Balls, Wheelan et al in 2006, Blair simply didn't give a toss about what happened next. A more damning indictment of the man as Prime Minister is simply inconceivable, even one involving his misleading the House of Commons, the country and the world over WMDs in Iraq. It's actually quite difficult accurately to describe a person like that, whose self-interest and vanity is only trumped by his greed and dishonesty. In some ways if one views it in the light of this unforgivable dereliction of duty, as Rawnsley rightly calls it, Blair ends up as an even worse national leader than Brown, difficult though that might be for some (like me) to swallow.

If you do accept Rawnsley's characterisation of Blair, it is, however, perfectly possible to argue that he was worse than Brown as a man and as a leader. The only difference between the two frauds being, therefore, that Blair was a far better con man than Brown ever could be, which meant that Blair was able to trick the country into believing him and then voting for him. By contrast, Brown was just Brown: paranoid, delusional, vicious, incompetent even in disguising his many falsehoods and, ultimately, a total electoral liability and a catastrophe for the nation.

The impact of these realisations on the Labour leadership campaign as I said should be massive. All the candidates are as discredited as each other for failing to make the decision Blair couldn't be ar*ed to make and stopping Brown once it was crystal clear he was utterly hopeless. As Rawnsley says, quite fairly and quite mildly in truth:

Andy Burnham was one of the nodding dogs who would declare to TV cameras that the cabinet had every confidence in Gordon Brown when the reverse was the case. Ed Balls ran the thuggish Brownite machine and the decade-long insurgency against Tony Blair to put his master in Number 10. Ed Miliband makes pious noises denouncing "factionalism" as if he is a saintly figure who never had anything to do with it. "The emissary from Planet Fuck" – as he was known among Blair's aides during the civil war – was at the heart of the Brown faction.It is a bit tricky for David Miliband. He was one of the senior members of the cabinet who knew Brown was taking them to defeat and failed to act before it was too late.

So they all should be screwed - and rightly so. For all his hypocrisy, Mandelson doesn't really matter because he's not a leadership candidate. So, assuming (and this is a big assumption) the MSM ends its own version of Labourist dishonesty and begins to treat the rest with the contempt they should have coming to them for their pathetic behaviour in propping up Brown, the only untainted candidate in the Labour leadership race is, hilariously, Diane Abbott!

Either way, and this is essentially Rawnsley's conclusion, Labour is truly, deservedly and royally buggered. And in the end, of course, they themselves are the ones who are to blame for it. After all, Blair only gave us Brown because he'd given up, and that's how history will judge him. But the Milibands, Burnham and Balls (and Mandelson) are the ones who propped the disastrous loser up. That was unforgivable - and the country isn't going to forgive them, ever.

Now, thankfully, their past seems finally to be catching up with them. Soon there'll be nowhere left for them to hide any more and no amount of continued lying will save their collective political bacon. If the PLP is stupid enough to elect one of them, (and it's almost certain that it is that stupid) then they should prepare to be out of power for decades, if not forever. Mind you, exactly the same thing will happen if they choose bonkers Abbott.

Catch 22 for the Labourist wreckers - and music to my ears!

Mandelson Spins His Own Memoirs

New Labour Spin Twins: currently out-lying each other

Hardly surprising, I know, but since they have not been entirely well-received by his own party it was necessary for Mandelson to spin his memoirs for all he was worth upon their publication today in the face of what I predict will be pretty poor sales - and some reasonably tough questioning from Evan Davies this morning.

Even so, to hear Mandelson actually trying to spin his own, printed words from his own, conceited book - to hear him attempt the epistemologically impossible and wriggle and squirm as he did so - was a source of some pleasure for me as I battled my way into work through sheets and sheets of West Wales rain.

Doesn't he realise we stopped believing anything he says long ago? Davies made the point quite well: something like, don't you think the public will find it quite annoying that only three months ago you were telling them to vote for what you now call a 'dysfunctional' prime minister and party. Mandelson had no convincing answer to that, at least, not convincing enough for any potential readership, I would say.

But is this a case of one spin operation too far for the Prince of Spain (sic)? I suppose it's inevitable, actually, that spinners end up spectacularly but stubbornly contradicting themselves. After all, 'spin' is merely a euphemism for 'lie'. And Mandelson, after Alistair Campbell, is the biggest spinner of them all.

The only important thing about this book of Mandy's is that it represents the first shot in Labour's latest civil war, a war which, with enough luck, should keep them away from office - and us - for a generation.

So well done he. Sort of.

Mandelson's Irrelevant Memoirs

Jackie Ashley, in her piece in the Graun this morning that's basically a 1500-word moan about why-oh-why the Labour party is imploding and so many people are 'abusing' the party's record in government, describes Mandelson's new memoirs as "bank-swelling". I'm not sure I agree with her about that. Beyond all the MSM political hacks who must buy it (assuming they're not given free copies), the professional bloggers (one of whom probably helped to publish it), MPs and former ministers, (who'll all be desperate to see if they get a mention from the oily old pocket-liner) I have a sneaking suspicion that very few people will be remotely interested enough to shell out their hard-earned on such an artefact of conceit.

You see, the thing Labour people like Ashley don't seem to grasp is that contempt for the Labour party and all its works has gone well beyond mere abuse now. Try as she and her BBC husband might to talk it up, the fact is that people have moved well on from the Labour narrative and are comfortable with the new, Tory/coalition one. So comments like this from her, let's face it, pretty desperate piece...

Somebody needs to fight back against the hysterical torrent of abuse being poured on Labour's economic record, which after all included a decade of good times, the rebuilding of public services, and successful action to stave off a full-scale collapse in the banking system. It may be too early: the self-righteousness of the Labour-haters now matches the self-righteousness of New Labour in its pomp. But the time will come.

...sort of pretty spectacularly miss the point. The "hysterical torrent of abuse" would not be the relevant thing even if it actually existed (it doesn't), the outcome of the general election is, with millions of people deciding, not as "self-righteous Labour-haters" (a rather feeble example of the sneering hyperbole I've often heard from self-righteous Tory-haters like her), but as ordinary voters, to reject Labour and its pisspoor record. You know, in their self-righteous Tory-hating, which shields them from all conceivable criticism, I think Labour-losers still really haven't understood the fact that they have lost the argument - comprehensively and conclusively - and that they are, consequently and with increasing shrillness, talking to themselves.

The sales of Mandelson's new novel, the serialisation of which is safely hidden behind a Murdoch paywall, should provide a fair measurement of just how irrelevant Labour have quickly become, and just how far the country has moved on from them and their sorry tale of failure in government.

Me? I expect to see it in the bargain bins within weeks, along with Mandelson's memoirs.

Brown Implodes Mandelson's Campaign

Been reading a few hand-wringing blogposts around and about reinforcing the idea that after that truly appalling rant at the weird, "Citizen UK" rally, Brown had somehow found his voice at the eleventh hour. Of course, it's in the nature of the media that these things become self-reinforcing narratives leading, usually at breakneck speed, to some sort of settled view or consensus, however totally detached from the truth - or reality - it might be. In fact, you could argue that the general election battle is a battle not just for a vote, but to influence that mercurial, flowing media narrative and try to alter, if you like, the course of the discourse - so to speak.

So in one sense - this sense - one could say that Brown sort of succeeded. He has shifted the narrative slightly - maybe - with the BBC on this morning's Today programme being willing accomplices, typically, or even the initiators of this latest little change of tack. But we know that the whole narrative, whichever way it is leaning, is generally nonsense anyway; that the reality is rather different, regardless of whether it influences people's minds or not.

The reality is that Brown, with his back against the wall and his campaign leaders pulling in three different directions, telling their own voters to vote for other parties (David Blackburn was pretty amusing on this in the morning), has decided unsurprisingly to get all atavistic on our butts; to go back to the old irrational, deceitful, Tory-hating, prehistoric Balls-Brown fake dividing line that Mandelson and Darling worked so hard to move away from and onto less toxic, less risky ground. They tried to decontaminate brand Brown. It seems they failed.

But they at least could see the bigger picture that concerns the whole future of Labour. I figure they calculated that if they allowed Brown to lie about phantom Tory cuts/ equally phantom Labour spending, won the election and then proceeded to cut everything in sight having been ordered to by the IMF, they would lose the next election (which would probably come soon afterwards anyway) by a country mile, be truly obliterated this time by a livid electorate, and secure 25 years of Tory government into the bargain without David Cameron even having to break sweat.

So, the upshot is that, despite the direction in which the media narrative is currently veering, apparently and irrelevantly, the fact is that Brown has got it disastrously wrong. He's not only reverted to type (who could have doubted that he wouldn't - that's all he is, after all), but he's actually going to lose the election on the back of it too, so we can skip the brief period of the total turmoil of a Labour government winning on a lie and collapsing within months as the economy tears itself apart and move straight onto the Tories.

All in all, the couple of more rational members of the former Labour cabinet must be tearing their collective hair out (that doesn't include Liam Byrne, naturally) gnashing their teeth and generally wailing a lot. Thanks to Gordon Brown, the whole, elegantly triangulated (and exquisitely dishonest rather than brutally deceitful) Mandelsonian election campaign strategy has now totally imploded and will suck the party down with it.

As I've said before, they only have themselves to blame. They could have removed Brown a long time ago. Hell, they never should have taken the piss out of the electorate by giving the auld wrecker a coronation in the first place. But that's all history now, and so is Labour. The one silver lining is that if there is any justice left in this world, or, indeed, sense left in this country, then even if Labour aren't kicked into third place and kicked into touch for a generation - even if they manage by some miracle to keep Cameron down to a minority government - Brown will be gone.

Even I, ever the optimist who still firmly believes in the clear Tory triumph - if by some horrible, perverted twist of fate I'm wrong, even I would happily settle just for the end of Brown if I can't have anything else. That outcome would be by no means satisfying, or even satisfactory, but it'd be one hell of a relief.

Where's Darling?

I was surprised to learn from Sky News this morning that the latest general election economics debate, if I heard right, will be between George Osborne, Vince Cable and...er...Peter Mandelson.

Hang on a minute, do they mean Lord Peter "We're all fighting to get re-elected" Mandelson, Business Secretary (among many other hats)? He's not Chancellor of the Exchequer as well these days is he? That's Alistair Darling, isn't it?

Have I missed something? Has Darling come down with an inexplicable stomach complaint (soon after having tea and crumpets with the Evil One yesterday afternoon, no doubt)?

If I haven't missed something, however, but there's no highly suspicious sudden sickness involved (it'd have to be a pretty serious affliction to force you to miss your own debate seven days before the election, wouldn't it?), then we are all entitled to ask a grave question about this very fishy affair: where the hell is Ali?

I think we should be told.

PS: If someone knows, by the way, why Darling has been elbowed, do let me know in the comments.

I wonder if George knows...

==Update==

Not entirely my fault because this wasn't made clear on the news - or I was half asleep - but the three mentioned above are all giving speeches to the Institute of Directors today, not debating, according to Sky.com.

Even so, the question remains: where's Darling!

Or, looking at it another way, why not send Clarke into bat against Mandelson instead of Osborne whose eyes, let's face it, are probably still watering after being on the receiving end of a couple of severe spankings in the past administered with thinly disguised fetishistic relish by the Lord of the Lies.

Ken Clarke, in contrast, owns Mandy's ass.

Temperature's Rising...

This is what I like to see, and thanks to the superb Daily Politics for spotting it and blogging it so fast. Here we have a some real journalistic pressure being brought to bear by Adam Boulton, and even Nick Robinson, who's been marginally better of late.

One thing's for certain, it is, as the DP says, a trainwreck press conference - for Mandelson in particular. You know that when he adopts that menacing, patronising tone and starts telling reporters of Boulton's calibre to 'calm down', he's lost it.

When he was saying 'calm down' to Boulton, Mandelson was talking to himself. Have a peek:

A shocker for Mandy, the pair of Balls either side of him, and for Labour. You call that 'losing the plot'. More please!

EUseless!

Not Iceland - This ash is dangerous

So the Telegraph is reporting what quite a number of stranded holiday makers have no doubt suspected for quite a while, namely that the EU organisation that plunged the entire continent into the pre-Wright brothers era so emphatically was basing its decision on yet another dodgy Met Office computer model. As the chairman of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisignani, told Radio Four earlier on, "This is a European Embarrassment and European Mess".

Only, he didn't mean that exactly. What he meant, precisely, is that this is an EU embarrassment and an EU mess that is rapidly developing into a full-blown EU disaster. Why, then, exactly, is our equally useless, soon-to-be-booted-out government sitting on its backside listening to this horse manure about engine-devouring ash, which has now pretty much been proved as just that, equine effluent, and not simply saying, "Up yours, Delores, our planes go up!"?

Answer? Obvious. Aside from being useless, they couldn't even do it if they wanted to. The ban was made possible by treaty and as such is legally binding, meaning that anyone breaching it, from any nation, could be fined by the EU to the tune of millions and without any democratically elected national government being able to stop it short of dropping out of the EU or going to war.

The EU, in its infinite stupidity has, thanks to its epic bureaucratic blundering, turned a minor volcanic eruption in a peripheral European nation into a crisis the scale of which can scarcely be conceived. Remember, closing Europe down directly affects the lives of 400 million people 'home' and indirectly the entire globe, one way or another. "Monumental" doesn't begin to describe it. But it certainly doesn't auger well for Britain's future if we permit a repetition. But how do we avoid a repetition, I hear you ask, when Gordon Brown has signed away our right to object without even consulting us, probably at the behest of the most dishonest man in the entire world, Peter "Lord" Mandelson?

Hmm, well now, I would imagine we could avoid a repetition, at least in Britain, by reclaiming control of our own government, regulatory systems, businesses or, at the very least, next time there's a lunatic, suicidal order from the EU, to, say, shut down the entire electricity grid of Europe because a lousy CICO computer model from the bloody Met Office has told them that there's a 34% probability that all the pylons are about to come alive and eat us all, they just say NO!

Meanwhile, I watch with increasing suspicion as our airline industry is made to implode as a result of bad science and even worse supranational, unelected government, the reaction of the alarmist lobby. You have Plane Stupid, the watermelon, single issue fanatics and misfit band of dropouts, layabouts, anarchists and other assorted activist oddballs who want to send us all back into the 14th century - not that I have anything against the 14th Century, I just don't want to live there - starting with the abolition of flight. As you might imagine, they're loving this:

So, Eyjafjallajokull, you may have an unpronounceable name and an odd smell, but nonetheless we thank you for giving us a brief glimpse of life without planes. And for demonstrating that, despite what the aviation industry would like to have us believe, a world without air travel could well be a very happy place indeed.

For you maybe. But then you're a weirdo so forgive me if I ignore you from now on. Ordinary people like to use aeroplanes and they like to travel. Air travel does not harm the environment (although poorly located airports, like Heathrow, certainly do). It's all in your imagination, hairy man, stirred up into a fever by that self-same, God awful menace of a Met Office, with its useless modelling and man made warmist obsessions. Hang on a minute, Met Office gives a warning based on dodgy science to unanswerable EU body with power to shut down every airport and ground every plane on the entire continent. All aircraft are grounded. Enviro-fascists everywhere united in common approval for the Met Office's and the EU's responsible opportunism in taking full advantage of a little volcanic ash and enabling what Copenhagen could never do, bring the aviation industry, already weakened by Brown's bust, to its knees. Good heavens, I never thought they had it in them.

Well, that's the point, they don't. Between them, the EU, the Met Office and AGW nutjobs who now infest them all, couldn't organise a conspiracy of that complexity in the space of a couple of days. No, all the Met Office was, as usual, is incompetent. All that Brown did, as usual, was dither.

And all the EU is, always and forever, is completely useless - catastrophically and expensively so.

Anyone who wants five more years of Brown so he can complete the process of transforming this country into the arse end of the EU donkey wants his head examining. But this is exactly what you'll get, and more, if you vote for the Labourists or, for that matter, the Libdums. I suppose these losers all have one thing in common: all they're interested in is their own, pathetic political agendas, not the interests or the desires of the people, whether of the UK or of "Europe".

Oh Dave, Dave, if only you'd promised that referendum. The election would be over by now, and you'd be in Downing St sticking two fingers up to the EU and getting our planes flying. I trust. Why, oh why? I'll always be pondering that one right up until the day I pass on through the great ash cloud in the sky to the heavens beyond (go on holiday to Thailand, in other words, assuming we still have an aviation industry left by then).

Er, that's enough. (I'm just putting off doing some real work ;)

Hometime, I think!

Tax On Jobs and Cuts In Waste

It's incredible, really, how fast the political currents can shift when a couple of objectively true concepts suddenly coalesce into slogans. It's extraordinary that within the space of 24 hours, Labour's 1% NICS rise, conceptually a heroically dumb idea even in the worst of economic times, has now become known - and will be known henceforth until doomsday - as a 'tax on jobs', and 'cuts in frontline public services' has shifted, it seems to me as permanently, to 'cuts in government waste'.

If that's not a massive shift in the 'narrative', (if you like postmodernist critiques of this sort of thing), then I'm a stinking socialist!

Cameron and Osborne have been absolutely dead right on the mad Labour NICS policy since Budget Day (I wonder what Kenneth Clarke's part was in all this), but the real consequences of being right in this case (they've been right a lot of times before, but to little or no political avail) is not merely that they've won the argument hands down, they've changed the very terms of the debate, and there is nothing, but nothing, that the Labour Party media machine can do about it. They've been linguistically neutered. For good. (At last!)

There is now, in everyone's minds, judging by the late night media coverage of the papers, a very clear, articulated, choice between Labour and the Conservatives, between Brown and Cameron: Labour offer nothing more than a tax on jobs and more waste; the Tories will deliver no tax on jobs and they will cut government waste.

If you find this hard to believe (and you shouldn't, because it true!), then read this Andrew Porter piece for this morning's Telegraph. Brown is now under pressure to kill Labour's National Insurance hike! Business groups, representing 10 million workers, have praised the Tory plan and say they will 'fight' for it to happen.

This is a tectonic shift in the mood of the nation, and the fortunes of the two main parties. I think it started with the hubristic vanity of Mandelson when, off the leash as always and carried away by a sense of his own superiority - as always - during Labour's desperate damage control operation this morning (that went well, lol), he effectively branded a lot of high-powered employers "a bunch of mugs who should know better". They should listen to him, he implied, because he knows best, according to his own estimation of himself.

Massive, massive mistake. And it will cost Labour the election, and then some. Big day, then, for everyone.

Halleluja!

Update:
Iain Martin thinks it was all part of a carefully choreographed Tory sting operation. I'm not so sure. I think this was, in addition to the media planning, a genuine, momentous outing of the truth, and therefore massively more significant in terms of historic political outcomes. No one could have planned an operation as successful as this one. He's underestimated the terrible impact of the Mandelson intervention, in my 'umble.

Libyan Health Service - Best In The World

He was wasting away from prostate cancer in a Scottish prison hospital, so the Scottish government, in a shady deal involving the Foreign Office, Lord Mandelson of Sleaze and flatulent nutcase Gadaffi's son, released the only convicted Lockerbie bomber on 'compassionate' grounds. He had an absolute maximum of three months to live, after all, said a couple of hired quacks. The poor man would have become an ex-bomber by the end of October 2009, so we were told (and didn't believe). Sorry to quote myself, but this was me back in November (three months after the Megrahi release):

Al-Megrahi: the convicted Lockerbie bomber might still not be dead as all the Labour stooge doctors and this Labour government ghoulishly promised everyone he would be (he's a full five days overdue now), but he's still about to come back and haunt at least one of them. Yes, you guessed it, the King of Sleaze himself, Lord Mandelson of Tripoli.

Now we learn from a number of sources that six months on, Megrahi is not only still alive and free, but he's actually recovering - and free. Clearly, something is amiss. Instead, however, of branding this whole, stinking affair a web of deceit motivated by a Big Oil deal and reaching right up to the highest levels of the British government, let's just praise the Libyan Health Service. Megrahi's almost miraculous cure in the capable hands of Libyan doctors offers pretty conclusive proof that Libyan health care is comfortably the best in the world.

Toby Young, however, is rightly livid about the whole, grubby, insulting episode, just as everyone else should be. He also argues - and I think this is very important - that Megrahi's conviction was absolutely safe, according to a relative of a victim who understandably took a very close interest in the trial.

Given the fact that Megrahi is a convicted terrorist, and given that thanks to these legendary Libyan healthcare professionals, he's now on the road to recovery, isn't it nearly time for him to be put right back in jail? We could even settle for a Libyan jail.

I suspect that that wasn't part of Mandy's backroom sweetener BP deal, however, so I won't be holding my breath.

Truly sickening.

Europe: Our "Domestic" Market

Our 'domestic' market

Fanatical europhile Pete "Teflon" Mandelson has admitted Europe is our 'domestic' market. During what can only be regarded as an extraordinarily rude and thinly-veiled attack on the USA's plans for regulating its own banking system, he revealed this peculiar - some might say unique - weltanschauung, presumably, by extension, believing that the United Kingdom is now no more than some kind of local trading area, rather than a sovereign nation.

Of course, we all know what he's up to: softening-us up for entry into the eurozone without a referendum while simulatenously trying to reboot the "only Gordon can save you" routine. Pull the other one, it's got Russian billionaire-paymaster yachts on it. "Dishonest" is simply far too weak a word to describe the depths of this hideous individual's machinations. Here's an example:

Asked specifically about critics of the single currency who argue that by retaining sterling, Britain had been sheltered from the worst of the market backlash against high public deficits, Lord Mandelson said: "That's true.

"But it doesn't necessarily mean that being out of the eurozone will always play to Britain's advantage

"The truth is that Britain depends on a vibrant, growing European economy, this is our domestic market. The one on our doorstep, we don't want it to fail. It will have a better chance of succeeding the more Britain is able to influence its policies.

Europe's become our "domestic market" eh? (tell that to the French and Germans!). And a virtual admission that we're heading for the eurozone, eh? Over my dead body.

Anyway, you can read the rest of the article here.

If anybody else is tempted to vote for these traitors, liars and thieves again, I will be amazed. That 30% of people still, apparently, are planning to, is amazing.

Lies, Cuts and Party Politicals

We've just been treated to a ten minute, free Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Labour party, shown simultaneously on the BBC and Sky News. In it, the man who by-now people everywhere must be thinking is the prime minister, Lord Mandelson, accused the Tories, among other things, of having economic policies that were in "disarray" were "unravelling" and were "confused". We all know that this is a fine example of the familiar Mandelson mendacity technique: strike out at your opponents by accusing them of suffering from your own weaknesses. Just to be clear, it is Labour's economic policies that have been "confused", have been "unravelling" and have been in "disarray" ever since Brown's mega-bubble was pricked and burst all over him (and us) in 2007. We've been in recession for 18 months, a post-war record, following ten years of debt-fueled growth and now the "signs of recovery" that Mandelson slimed and slithered about are either in areas that have been artificially boosted with deficit spending (will vanish, in other words, when the cash runs out) or simply aren't there. Manufacturing overall kept shrinking in the last quarter, for God's sake. And Mandelson has the barefaced cheek to lecture the Tories on economy. But that's the point, he is that brazen. But he is not unbeatable, even if the Tories are that pathetically scared and/or in awe of him. For one thing, when Mandeson is pinned down on detail, as Ken Clarke proved the other day, or on philosophy and underlying principles, he squirms and looks very dodgy indeed.

But there are two other points to make about this: if Sky and BBC are going to collude with Mandelson and his Labourist media managers in abusing the law of the land over party political broadcasts, then they should face sanctions. If they have merely been duped into covering - live - what they were presumably told would be a policy announcement but then turned out to be an utterly partisan assault on the Opposition (and Cameron personally more than once) and, as such, was a clear breach of rules, then someone needs to be disciplined or fired for being so damned stupid. And Labour need to be brought to book instantly for it. This must be nipped in the bud. The BBC, particularly, is not Labour's personal advertising service. And neither, for that matter, are any other channels. Given the huge surge in government advertising since the New Year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this Labour government was really a giant, publicly-funded advertising agency, rather than merely a bunch of socialist incompetents desperate to cling on to power, and who will stop at nothing - and break any rule - to do just that.

Speaking of socialist incompetents, that brings me to the second point. David Lammy was on the BBC just after Mandelson had wound up his ten minute Labour party political special. His brazen lies about university cuts were worthy of the lizard lord himself. He talked about 5% cuts - and then decided that wasn't a big enough lie so he then contradicted himself and said that spending on universities was, in fact, still going up in this "growth cycle". There were other, equally awful, exchanges with Lammy accusing the universities (and the media, laughably) of "scaremongering" over the potential loss of 200,000 university places this year, as a direct result of government cuts, claiming, absurdly (175,000 failed to get in last year), that places were going up! He had the usual dig at Major's Tories ("leaky roofs") in spite of the fact that universities were booming by the time he was shown the door - but that's ancient history now.

But Lammy was lying - and I have proof. My own university, for whom I work and in which I study, has had to up its projected level of cuts for this year from 15% to 17.5% as a direct consequence of government policy. It has already fired a number of senior lecturers, suspended building projects, abolished an entire department but must go much further to meet the enforced target. The university must find other ways of meeting these desperately deep spending cuts, though, and one of them is by expanding its private operations and income. It does this by opening its doors even wider to foreign undergraduates. By bringing in more and more and more overseas students (one third of the student body is now foreign, it is thought), however, post A-level British pupils are left at a severe disadvantage. Hence the fears that 200,000 British young people will not be able to find a place this year.

So it's not scaremongering, as liars like Lammy would have you believe, you see. These fears are grounded in harsh reality, a harsh reality of a stealthy squeeze on spending by Labour, which, quite simply, they have lied about and are lying about. So you see, the real, Mandelson-style "choice" is between Labour cutting and then lying about it, and Conservative cutting - but telling the truth about it. Deceit versus honesty; mistrust versus confidence; and, in the end, failure versus success - Labour versus Tory. Simples!

"Now for change"? You bet. And, in point of fact, given the total invisibility of Brown this weekend, it looks like there's already been a change at the top of the Labour party. Mandelson will be the face of the campaign and their chief target will be David Cameron. In which case, Cameron should relax and start smiling again (I used to like him when he smiled). If Labour want to name-check him every other sentence, then who's complaining? It's a sign of real desperation, on Mandelson's part especially, that the best he can do is drone on about his soon-to-end car scheme thing and then wildly claim that David Cameron would wreck the recovery by taking it away (at least, that's what I thought I heard him say).

For sheer bloody nonsense, that one was hard to beat. But then came Lammy...

Clarke-Mandelson

It's not exactly Frost-Nixon (not least because Jon "Red" Snow is involved, letting Mandelbum basically do whatever he likes), but it is compelling, and it is a complete victory for the most effective, honest and no-nonsense post-war Chancellor of the Exchequer this country has ever had. That'd be Ken Clarke.
Part 1:

Part 2:


Smart people and people who remember will understand why Clarke won that confrontation hands down. Everyone else won't be certain. They won't know, for example, that Mandelson is one of the most dishonest men ever to have held - been fired from (because of that dishonesty) - held again - and been fired from again (again, because of his habitual dishonesty) - a cabinet post. But nonetheless, despite his desperate record of deceit, he now holds the second highest office in this land - to which he has never been elected. I'm astounded Ken Clarke gave him an audience.

Mandelson is the epitome of (New) Labour - but is, sadly, proof that Labour, even after its monumental lies, failures and inadequacies, are nonetheless still dangerous. Mandelson - and Labour - will stop at nothing to stay in charge of a country that no longer wants them, and an economy that desperately needs them gone.

Ken Clarke is a man that demands - commands - your support. And, regardless of his strange, undying European fetish, he still totally deserves it.

Brown Confident of Labour Victory

Or, at least, he was in 1992.



What a great call, Gordo!

Lame duck Brown: wrong then; wrong now. Wrong about nearly everything. It was with good reason he was dissuaded by Mandelson and Blair in '94 to stand for the leadership. They already knew what a loser he was, so they gave him the British economy to screw around with for a decade instead, until he managed to stage a coup of his own in 2007, after a long-running, deperately divisive and deceitful campaign against his boss, Blair. But if the last three years of his unwanted, undeserved and unearned premiership have proved anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's that the man is still a total loser.

If they could be honest with the public for ten seconds, Darling and Mandelson would be the first to agree with that summary, if recent events are anything to go by. That's why, in one, final, desperate throw of the dice before the general election, they've taken over - leaving the loser to his thoughts.

I think it is safe to say now that it won't work. All they've managed to do is to create a paradox. Everyone knows that keeping the loser in place simply means to most people that if they vote Labour, it probably means five more years of Brown. So they won't vote Labour. Game over. If they did get of Brown now, then people would conclude that Labour is utterly divided (we know that anyway, but it would then be 'official'). So they won't vote Labour. Game over. I suppose one could speculate - and I wouldn't put it past them - that there might be some sort of calculation there that in the event of a hung parliament, which is the best they can really hope for barring a miracle, Brown would 'retire' soon after as part of some dodgy deal with the Lib Dems.

But back to now - and, perhaps, reality. The fact is that Darling and Mandelson have stripped Brown of his authority, fearing a total meltdown for Labour had he been permitted to go on lying and spinning - and misleading a wised-up electorate - on the economy while trying to run just another negative, ineffective (remember Crewe?) Brown-Ballsian smear assault on Cameron's Conservatives. Their eyes are on the future, yes. But not the future of Britain, the future of Labour. They've neutered Balls, before he and his fellow left wingers have a chance to mass their forces, to head off a post-defeat bloodbath before it starts. Whatever I might think about Mandelson, he's certainly got game.

However, I don't think people can forgive the depths of his cynicism, the tedious naval-gazing and vanity driving Labour's endless infighting, or with what increasingly looks like a faked coup effectively leaving a technically legitimate Prime Minister with no authority, a prisoner of his own cabinet. In fact, there was a real coup - and it was successful. As I said, unelected Mandelson is now in charge of the UK. As this begins to dawn on people over the next few weeks, I reckon the horribly decayed state of the Labour party, and their attempts to mislead people about this reality, will begin to register in the polls.

So the Tories are dead right: this is all about Labour when it should be about the country. After these events, the country desperately needs to be permitted to grant a fresh mandate to govern - doesn't matter who to - and to do it immediately, preferably with the first thaws.

A point for Labourists to bear in mind? The longer you wait, the angrier people will become, and the bigger your defeat will be. But hey, I know you'll go on burying heads in sand (or snow). Fair enough. But don't say you weren't warned when you're clearing-up the rubble of a total collapse in your popular vote at the general election. I can't wait.

(Thanks to ajs41 for another great clip.)

Eyes Right

Official Government spending for 2008-9. Pdf here.









Guido, while analysing the impact of Darling/Mandelson's outflanking of Brown and neutering of Balls, reaches some very interesting conclusions about the implications for Cameron.

"Peter Mandelson’s speech on Wednesday was overshadowed by events, parts of it sounded more right-wing than anything Cameron has said in years...Mandelson sounded positively Thatcherite. Can you imagine Cameron delivering a speech written by Steve Hilton which souonded like that? Cameron’s opening speech of the year promised a new high-speed rail network and the creation of 100,000 apprenticeships. Dave sounded more like Gordon Brown than Maggie."

Ouch!

The fact is that now Brown is a lame duck Prime Minister, and Labour's left wing has effectively been silenced, Cameron has the wriggle room to turn right - at least on the economy. He can keep his guarantee on the NHS (though not without powerful caveats about massive savings through restructuring and the complete abolition of trainwreck IT, PFI disasters, for instance). But he can now launch an all-out assault on Social Security (which last year cost the UK taxpayer £136Bn [it'll be much worse this year - ed]) and public sector employment, especially in local government and NHS (mis)management.

Both of these have spiralled out of control under Labour. In these areas, the areas that really do count when it comes to saving the British economy from collapse, he can now be bold - but he must also be imaginative and make sure the banks are not let off the hook, too. Treasury expenditure has trebled since the bank bailouts and useless Brownite 'stimulus' packages. That can't go on.

The point is, now that the Labour government is being run by a Darling/Mandelson axis, I think Cameron will be bolder - and good luck to him. Maybe it'll get he likes of Fraser Nelson off his back (although I wouldn't hold my breath on that one - Nelson appears to have gone bonkers).

Mandelson Equivocates

The Spectator, among others, reports that Mandelson has released a statement through a spokeman that is so equivocal, it will surely leave Brown quaking in his boots:

Peter Mandelson's much-awaited statement does not seem particularly full-throated in its support of the Prime Minister.

'No one should over-react to this initiative. It is not led by members of the government. No one has resigned from the government. The prime minister continues to have the support of his colleagues and we should carry on government business as usual.'

There is no praise for Brown and it almost reads as if someone did resign we would be into a totally different ball game.

Just so. In fact, to me it reads as a not-particularly well-disguised invitation for someone - anyone - in the cabinet to do just that: to resign. However, the statement hedges so much that I still think this thing, given the epic levels of spinelessness we're dealing with here, will amount to nothing. No one in the Labour party, let alone the cabinet, has the guts to change the game and it's that gutlessness that will end up costing them all very, very dearly at the general election.

They won't oust Brown because they are basically hopeless cowards. Cameron will be relieved to hear it.

==Update==
Iain Dale has what looks like a bit of a scoop. Mandelson has pulled out of tonight's Newsnight, which is, if true, suspicious in the extreme. This thing could actually be on a knife edge, especially if it's Alistair Darling who's behind it and accepts Mandelson's invitation to quit. He hardly looked like he felt like being supportive at pmqs.

==Update 6.34pm==
Course it's not Darling. The Fink of the Times has reported:

Alistair Darling (Chancellor)- a statement: "As far as I'm concerned we should be concentrating on the business of government and getting though the recession".

Real spine there. Not. What he hell was I thinking...

I suppose this thing might still have legs if Harperson remains AWOL (Guido). But I doubt it.

Frankly, I'm beyond caring what the Labourist jellyfish do to themselves anymore. What a bunch of pathetic, squabbling, infantile nobodies.

Bring on the election so we can finally put them all out of our misery.

Guardian Declares War On Journalism

The Guardian's chief political correspondent, Nicholas Watts, has launched a ludicrous attack on Rupert Murdoch on behalf of Peter Mandelson (who else?) that'll appear in tomorrow's edition. There are some extraordinary claims that suggest a distinct and burgeoning paranoia on the part of the Labour Party - (you remember them, the ones that sucked-up to, erm, Rupert Murdoch for 12 years); a familiar, hypocritical stench surrounding Mandelson; and typically ovine support for any old nonsense from his pet newspaper, the good ol' Graun.

However ridiculous the story, though, it's might (ought to) cause one hell of a row, not least with the Tories.

Here are a couple of the more extraordinary claims (supported by zero evidence in the article itself, as far as I can see):

Lord Mandelson declared war on the Murdoch empire today when he accused News Corporation of maintaining an "iron grip" on pay television and warned that the company wants to import rightwing Fox News-style journalism to Britain.

Um, what? I know News International's just announced that it no longer wants people like me nicking their stories (big deal - and fair enough, they don't belong to me, and they're usually naff anyway) but that hardly amounts to an 'iron grip'. As for wanting to 'import rightwing [sic] Fox News-style to Britain', well, no complaints here. It might at least break the monopoly of the biased BBC - and be interesting, to boot. Again, though, Watts doesn't feel the need to substantiate the claim.

In a sign that Murdoch also faces a fight in Britain, Mandelson turned his fire on a joint Tory-News Corp campaign to dismantle the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom.

Again, no substantiation or evidence, just a repetition of an increasingly shrill Mandelson slur about a joint Tory-News Corp 'campaign'. This is the Guardian at its very, very worst in terms of journalistic standards. Have they seen any documents that support Mandelson's bizarre, shrill charges? Of course not. Do they care? Well, if Watts was a genuine journalist he would. But he doesn't so he's not. He's just a mouthpiece for mad Mandy.

But wait, what's this - further into the article? Evidence?

Cameron pledged to dismantle Ofcom during a speech in July devoted to "cutting back the quango state". The Tory leader said: "With a Conservative government, Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist."

James Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp in Europe and Asia, accused Ofcom in August of imposing an "astonishing" burden of regulation on Sky.

Sorry folks, 'fraid not. For one thing, Cameron made his speech (about quangos) a month before Murdoch Jnr's machinegun assault on anything not Sky (which is sort of his job, after all - to make daddy proud). But still no 'evidence' there. Just more half-baked accusations and the flimsiest of flimsy circumstantial claptrap bordering on a waking dream. And anyway, James Murdoch was right, too! The burden of regulation on broadcasting generally in Britain is outrageous. Oh, unless you're the Beeb of course. Then you can do whatever they like, editorially and financially, despite being funded by a legally enforced tax.

In the end, of course, this is all about Mandelson who, ably served by his tame Guardian journalist, is pushing his ultra-partisan 'Digital Britain' bill, which is actually designed to do just one thing, and its not to secure Britain's digital future (there's no 'we' in Labour). It's to secure the left's control of the BBC from now until doomsday. Well, Pete, doomsday for you could be coming sooner than you think, with or without Murdoch's (junior or senior) help.

As for the Guardian, well, we've long known that its standards of journalism are basically the lowest in the entire legacy press, at least in terms of giving two hoots about even the pretence of impartiality, but this joke article represents an outright declaration of war on the profession itself. No evidence, just mindlessly parroted Mandelsonian smears; no attempt to qualify those claims, just dutifully reinforced prejudices.

I mean, how can it hope to be taken seriously if it keeps on behaving like the BBC? Obviously, we can expect more of this kind of crap as the general election nears, and it should be criticised for precisely what it is: activism and cynicism, not journalism.

The Graun had better remember that the Tories will probably win that election...and that they have long memories.

Megrahi: Still Not Dead - Meanwhile Banks Rejoice

Al-Megrahi: the convicted Lockerbie bomber might still not be dead as all the Labour stooge doctors and this Labour government ghoulishly promised everyone he would be (he's a full five days overdue now), but he's still about to come back and haunt at least one of them. Yes, you guessed it, the King of Sleaze himself, Lord Mandelson of Tripoli.

Incidentally, this partridge shooting party thing of Lord Rothschild that Mandelson attended with, among others, Saif Gaddafi - I can't help but wonder whether there is any connection between this and today's "Supreme" Court ruling enabling banks to continue legally to steal however much they like from customers that their extortionate, punitive charges turned into debt slaves in the first place. After all, at least one of the judges was a Rothschild banker.

The point is that wherever you look there's some sort of Labour shadiness going on - or has been going on- so often with Mandelson right at the very heart of it. Be it Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, the banks, education, health, PFI, Europe - the list is seemingly endless.

If and when we kick these ruinous crooks out, the Tories will have to uncover anything and everything about Labour's record of betrayal and deceit, however damaging it might appear potentially to be to the reputation of the country. Hiding it will only cause the rot to creep ever further. Revealing the truth about these long years of Labour corruption and sleaze is the only way gradually to draw Britain out of shadows into which it has been cast by the worst government it has ever had inflicted upon it.

Good Rowson Toon

From today's Guardian. I trust Alex Massie of the Speccy, who has formed a particularly odd, and frankly rather corrupt, view of this latest scandalous stitch-up and travesty of justice, has seen it...

Martin Bright Is Quite Right

At least, he is on the subject of Mandelson's depraved deal with Libya over the Lockerbie terrorist. Yours truly has been watching cricket all day, so came rather late this evening to the blogosphere. Hence the delay in catching sight of Bright's half-decent recent blog for the Speccy.

The Guardian has arranged a group of "leading thinkers" to give their views on the release of Abdelbasset al-Megrahi from prison on compassionate grounds. There is a quite a split in the liberal establishment over this issue.

I find myself completely in agreement with Geoffrey Roberston QC. Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be online, which is a real shame. But his first paragraph sums up my feelings exactly:

"It seems to me an utter perversion of the meaning of compassion, both in law and morality, to suggest that an unrepentant, mass murderer of entirely innocent human beings should not be required to end his life in prison."

He also makes an important point about the morally corrupt thinking behind Kenny MacAskill's bizarre decision:

"The decision to release him for what any person of any intelligence at all would forsee as a hero's welcome in Libya was lacking in compassion to every victim of terrorism and makes an absurdity of the principle of punishment as a detterent."

Those who approved this decision should also read the words of Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, the author of In the Country of Men.

"I am imagining my father today. For the past 20 years he has been a political prisoner in Libya. The Libyan government continues to deny his existence. This even though Amnesty International has documented the case. In this time he has not been able to see or communicate with anyone outside the prison. Then I think of him listening to the celebrations of the prison guards at the news of al-Megrahi's rturn. The prisoners might have been given presents to make the occasion. Then I think of al-Megrahi's children welcoming him home."

The Libyan regime funded IRA terrorism, pursued and murdered its dissidents on the streets of European cities and is the only foreign government I know that is responsible for the killing of a British policewoman.

This was a truly dark day for the reputation of this country.

Too right, Bright. And your party was responsible for it, chum. Care to abandon it now? Or do your words amount to no more than a hill of beans (as usual)?

Incidentally, one of the comments in response to Bright's post is worth quoting, too - even though it is rather long:

Congratulations Martin on affirming the view of the progressive Left which tries to uphold a set of universal values , prominent among which is the need to affirm that the deliberate targetting of civilians is a crime under international law wherever it happens.

I am sure that if it had been a planeload of Scots who had been blown up over Lockerbie, Kenny MacAskill would have stuck to his earlier position that whoever had been convicted in a Scottish court must serve out his sentence.
The SNP's mindset and priorities are parochial ones and it would not have risked the wrath of so many bereaved Scots. But the victims were mostly from the US, a country whose institutions and indeed its people are regarded with scorn by pro-SNPers - as any glance at newspaper electronic comment spots will quickly show.
Absent from the Scottish airwaves and from the opinion pages of newsapers like the Scotsman and the Herald are left-wing journalists like yourself Andrew Anthony, Joan Smith and Nick Cohen who try to stem the slide of the political Left towards making common cause with religious obscurantists who, if they prevailed, would wipe out many of the civilizational gains of the last 500 years.

Too many 'small toon kailyard Nats' wre prepared to find excuses for Milosevic in the 1990s and Middle east tyrants today because their defiance of big powers is a reflection of their own struggle against foreign overlords. These Nats overlook any moral dimension and asume that it is the small country resisting American power which invariably has right on its side even if its policies are tyrannicial, genoicdal and deeply misogynist.

The Grande dame of the Scottish chattering classes,Lesley Riddoch who struts her stuff on BBC radio, the scotsman and the Guardian hailed MacAskill for 'placing compassion above vengeance , and independent decision-making above kow-towing to the world's most poweful nation'. (Guardian 21 August)
She even approvingly linked al-Megrahi's release with MacAskill's plans for non-custodial sentences for violent offenders and knife-carriers.

She showed the elitist and essentially non-democratic mindset that prevails among he interst groups that flank the SNP by arguing these policies must be right because of the support of profssionals and a range of quangos involved in criminal policy.

There was no mention of the plight of ordinary Scots many of whom will never get true 'independence' because they live in communities where thugs prevail and the authorities just walk on by.
So it make sense that Alex Salmond, macAskill or their new friend Lesley Riddoch ought to be unconcerned about the new wave of hurt caused to relatives of the 1988 bomb by the feting of al-Megrahi in dictatorial Libya.

When the Scottish parliament meets on Mnday it is likely that the Riddoch view that the Scots have just won gold in the OLympiad for international compassion will prevail.

We can only hope that his episode which fans hostility to the USa for electoral captital and credibility in the metropolitan media will spur Scots who want their country to have a progressive and responsible role in the world (whatever its constitutional status), to become more vocal and organized.

Time for the Scots to take back their country - and from their own "Nationalists", no less, it seems. Scottish people should feel humiliated by the behaviour of their terrible administration and hold them to account. They should also realise that none of this could have happened without the collusion of Jack Straw and Mandelson. There wasn't just a deal made with the Libyans - it was made with the SNP leadership, too. And it stinks.

It really is time for us all to force Mandelson's Labourists out once and for all. If this issue doesn't galvanise people, as this commenter suggests it will, but north and south of the border, then nothing will. It will tell me that Britain is finished as a moral voice in the world and deserves its fate. Thank-you Labour. You did this because you are the people who wouldn't know a principle if it hit you square in the face.

Mandelson Lies Through His Teeth - Again

Mandelson: a compulsive liar, the plaything of plutocrats, an unelected, unofficial Prime Minister...and totally out of control

So, the release of the Libyan terrorist responsible for the Lockerbie bombing wasn't part of an oil and gas trade deal brokered by the evil Lord Mandelson...according to the evil Lord Mandelson (as I've just seen on Sky News)? So Gaddafi's son is a liar, is he? Not bloody likely. Labourist liar-in-chief, Mandelson, is behind this whole, stinking affair. And now he has the barefaced cheek to go on national television and lie to people's faces about it.

Perhaps I was too hard on the Scottish Nationalist idiot who claimed to have released the terrorist, who is (we are led to believe) dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds and then, in the same breath, claimed that the Scottish "government" was forced to take the decision because of pressure from the "UK" government. Perhaps he - sort of - well - wasn't lying. Perhaps his decision to make propaganda capital for his "nationalist" movement out of this sordid affair, and the grave insult dealt particularly to the families of the American victims, were understandable and justifiable, given Mandelson's behaviour. Well, maybe all that's true. Frankly, it's for others to decide - especially the people of Scotland. Given Labour's strong links to that country, I have my suspicions about the level of collusion between them and the nationalists over this deviant policy shift.

As for Mandelson: this twisted individual is not fit for any, let alone high, office. He's as dishonest as he is scheming as he is greedy as he is vain. Twice he has been forced to resign for brazenly lying to the public, over issues that involved some shady deal or other from which he made some kind of personal gain.

Hey, Mandy, third time's not a charm, "mate".

If the Tory party is worth its salt any more, liar and fraud Mandelson will gone again in a matter of weeks. Get on with it.

Update
The report at Sky.com:

Lord Mandelson has dismissed claims that the release of Lockerbie bomber is linked to a trade deal - as the head of the FBI slams the Scottish government.

The claim was made by Seif al Islam, the son of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, in a television interview filmed as Abdelbaset al Megrahi was flown home.

"In all commercial contracts, for oil and gas with Britain, (Megrahi) was always on the negotiating table," he said.

"All British interests were linked to the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi."

The claim was rejected by the Foreign Office, and was followed by an angry response from the Business Secretary.

"It's not only completely wrong to make such a suggestion it's also quite offensive," Lord Mandelson said.

He said he had met Colonel Gaddafi twice in the past year, and on both occasions he had raised the issue of Megrahi.

"They had the same response from me as they would have had from any other member of the Government. The issue of the prisoner's release was entirely a matter for the Scottish Justice Minister," Lord Mandelson said.

"That is how it was left, that is how it was well understood."

Meanwhile the head of the FBI Robert Mueller, who as a US Justice Department lawyer led the investigation into the 1988 bombing, said the decision to release Megrahi made a "mockery of justice".

The comments are said to have come in a letter Mr Mueller wrote to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, the man who made the decision to the release the bomber.

So that's alright, then, is it? Assumed issue-linking is not agreed issue-linking. Robert Mueller is wrong: it's not merely a mockery of justice, it's a mockery of the British people. We are being dragged into a cess pool by people who care nothing for ethics or morality, justice or liberty, decency or principle - people like Mandelson (and any number of Labourist politicians, like Millipede, for instance).

They've got to go. Urgently. Or this country really is finished. The Americans, for one, will make bloody sure of that. They have long, long memories and they will not forget this betrayal in a hurry. Nor will it have escaped their notice the curious role in all this of Russian oligarchs sympathetic to the Moscow Mussolini, Vlad Putin. Mandelson certainly has some strange bedfellows, they will think. And they will be right to do so. He does...and, by implication therefore, so do we all in Britain. Talk about being shafted.

(PS: Mike Smithson did say something about Mandelson's wriggling earlier today, btw. Worth a quick read.)