Macbrown's Innocent Sleep - Lost

Thursday's Times will not make pleasant reading for the idiots in Brown's inner circle, or Mandelson (who no doubt was the 'brains' behind the operation), who came up with the worst Gracious Speech in living memory. On the front page of that esteemed organ is news of a "savage attack" from Labour peers, which represents an embryonic Labour rebellion that could grow into a monster that even Brown can't survive, over his back-of-a-fag-packet, cynical (in that it is designed merely to blur in the public's eyes the Tories' excellent and established policy commitments on the same issue) elderly care "Bill". Read on, Macduff:

A key plank of Gordon Brown’s re-election strategy was condemned by members of his own party yesterday as irresponsible, unaffordable and based on a myth.

The Prime Minister’s plan to offer free care at home to the elderly, outlined yesterday in the last Queen’s Speech before the general election, was compared to “an admiral firing an Exocet into his own flagship”.

Lord Lipsey, a former member of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care, also accused the Government of peddling a “pernicious myth” that people are better cared for in their own homes than in a nursing home.

The measure, aimed at 400,000 of the neediest people, amounted to a “demolition job on the national budget”, he said, as the Government would be forced to cover unnecessary claims made by the better-off. He said that it threatened to undo current work on building a system to help the elderly and those most in need of care.

“I’m not looking forward to the night of the next general election but, if the result goes as I expect, one of the consolations will be that one of the most irresponsible acts to be put forward by a prime minister in the recent history of this country will be swept away with his government,” he added.

Lord Warner, a former health minister, described the care Bill as totally misjudged. “There has been no proper impact assessment, and no data to show how this would work,” he said. “There’s a big question mark as to whether there’s even actually a Bill ready.”

Other peers are known to oppose a Bill that many see as a last-minute, back-of-the-envelope proposal. Mr Brown, criticised by the Conservatives for what they said was a blatantly electoral programme of 15 Bills, faced more attacks from his own side. Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, said that the Prime Minister’s attempts to impose political dividing lines was “neither the best way to govern the country nor the best way for Labour to win in 2010”.

David Cameron said that the “biggest omission of all” was the failure to mention MPs’ expenses or the report by Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Sir Christopher joined in the criticism, issuing a statement pointing out that party leaders had agreed that his recommendations should be implemented in full. It was disappointing, he said, that the speech failed to address the remit, powers and independence of the new body being established to regulate expenses.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “We are not standing in the way of any of Kelly’s recommendations. Everything related to sweeping away the old, discredited expenses system . . . can and should be implemented without further legislation.”

The criticisms of the care Bill were echoed by health economists. Niall Dickson, of the King’s Fund, said: “These latest proposals seem to have been hastily put together and appear to cut across the options set out in the Government’s own Green Paper.”

This, or, indeed, the entire, pathetic, so-called "programme" hardly went down well on last night's Newsnight, either. I've seldom seen BBC journalists more aggressive towards, and less sympathetic to, the Labour cause to which they have been devoted for so long. Brown's naked frailties have once again been exposed for all to see. He's managed to piss off everyone this time - quite an achievement even for a natural divider and blood-stained usurper like him. But it's still all very strange - almost mysterious - the way the bad vibe just seems to follow him no matter what he says or does. It's like some kind of darkness is abroad, stalking Brown relentlessly. Mice eating owls and all that other unnatural Macbeth stuff, you know? He just can't seem to escape it, wherever he turns. It's almost as if it's his destiny.

Well, if you bed the devil...(er, Mandelson?)...you only have yourself to blame if he comes for your soul afterwards. And you can't pin the responsibility for your fate on the weird sisters either (you know, Harman, ****** & ****** - fill in the blanks as you please: there's plenty to choose from).

One thing is certain, however, Brown's future as party leader, and therefore as Prime Minister, has just become a subject for open debate once more after that trainwreck Queen's Speech. But that's as natural as justice.

We Are Not Amused

The Speccy's Lloyd Evans pretty much sums-up the impact - or lack thereof - of the most inadequate, partisan and self-serving Queen's Speech I think any of us have ever had to listen to. The Queen herself hardly seemed amused and with old lefty trolls like Denis Skinner loudly remarking that the current, hopeless Sergeant at Arms' legs were "better than the last one", you get a rough idea of just how contemptuous quite a large portion of the PLP is of Britain's parliamentary traditions. It was no accident, too, that the most glaring omission from Brown's outpourings (for that is what this was) concerned the small matters of the expenses scandal, Whitehall reform and the NHS. Conclusion? They just don't really care. All they do care about is trying to get re-elected. Newsflash, Gordon: it'll never happen on the strength of that meagre offering. The Spectator:

Even before the Queen had trundled back to Buckingham Palace, Mandy had let the cat out of the bag. Speaking on BBC News he said of the Gracious Speech, ‘All these laws are relevant … and achievable. It will be for the public to decide whether they want them or not.’ There you have it. The greatest power in the land admits the Queen’s Speech is Labour’s manifesto.

The response to the Gracious Speech is an enjoyably ragged parliamentary occasion, full of ancient traditions and even more ancient jokes. Frank Dobson proposed the Humble Address and spoke with pride about his Holborn constituency where the anti-Apartheid movement had been born. He met Mandela briefly after his release from prison and encountered him a second time when, as newly elected President of South Africa, he addressed a joint meeting of parliament. Mandela tapped Dobson on the shoulder. ‘You do remember who I am, don’t you?’

Seconding the Humble Address, Emily Thornberry announced how pleased she was to have been abused by Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail. It proved she’d arrived. He called her ‘scrumptious’ and ‘very county’. But Ms Thorberry corrected that impression and recalled her family’s eviction from her Guildford home by ‘bowler-hatted bailiffs’. Her single mother struggled on benefits and later became a Labour councillor – unusual in Tory Guildford – but the Conservatives were good enough to name a street in her honour. ‘Thornberry Way runs from the sewage works to the dump,’ she smiled. ‘Thanks.’

Over to Dave. He called the Gracious Speech ‘a Labour press release on Palace parchment.’ It was full of glaring omissions. No immigration bill. No sign of the promised regulations ‘to transform the culture of Whitehall’. And no mention of the NHS. This led Dave to deduce that ‘the NHS is not a priority for this government.’ That made Labour MPs very cross indeed. One leapt up and dared Dave to match Labour’s guarantee that cancer patients will be able to see a consultant within two weeks. Dave wriggled out of that one without quite making the pledge. He was then asked how he planned to maintain the army’s strength. This was bizarre. Labour MPs were acting as if Dave were installed in Number 10 and he had popped down to the house for his first PMQs.

Dave moved to Gordon’s record on employment. ‘The only jobs he has created are for his cronies,’ he jeered. He poured scorn on the ‘government of all the talents’, many of whom have taken ermine and moved to the Lords. ‘Never have so many stoats died in vain. Forget about jobs for the boys, it’s stoats for the goats.’

The most embarrassing omission in the government’s programme was the Kelly report. Cameron challenged Brown directly. ‘If he brings forward legislation to implement the rest of Kelly we will help take it through parliament.’ Brown stared down and pretended to fiddle with his papers. Dave tried again. ‘No one will understand why this vital work isn’t being done in this parliament.’ Would the Prime Minister accept Tory help? Afraid not. Gordon suddenly discovered he had something of vital importance to whisper into Batty Hattie’s ear. Dave swung a spotlight onto this Olympic display of dithering. ‘They’ve run out of money, run out of time, run out of ideas. And, we’ve just seen from the Prime Minister, they’ve run out of courage as well.’

Brown managed to raise the tone from low political knockabout to the loftier region of international relations. Afghanistan was on his mind. President Karzai had offered 5,000 troops (he didn’t specify ‘extra troops’) to hold ground recovered from the Taleban. And Karzai would soon introduce ‘an anti-corruption task force’. That sounds ominously like a new way to collect old protection money. Within NATO, Brown was pressing for ‘fairer burden sharing’ between the allies. Slovakia would shortly announce a doubling of its troop deployment.

When he moved on from the Queen’s speech, Brown relaxed a little and had some partisan fun with Dave’s proposals on inheritance tax. Labour rallied behind him, cheering with wild desperation like drunken sailors being kicked out of a party.

When Nick Clegg stood up there was an unseemly exodus from the chamber. The monarch, he said, had been asked to give ‘a fantasy Queen’s speech’. He questioned the need for yet more laws from a government which has already put over 500 measures on the statute book. ‘Legislation is Labour’s comfort blanket.’ Their proposals were full of superficial gestures. One example, a new measure against child poverty which ‘sets a target but doesn’t put a penny in the pockets of a struggling family.’ In the end, this was a Queen’s Speech written not on parchment but on rice paper.

"Never have so many stoats died in vain." That was good. In fact, most of Cameron's robust assault on Labour's "press release on Palace parchment", which I've just managed to watch, was good to very good - and sometimes excellent.

When all is done and dusted, however, and Labour's pathetic policy posturing (no action will be forthcoming on any of it from incapability Brown - and thank goodness for that) there is only really one question left for the electorate: what shall we do with the drunken sailor(s)? The rest of the lyrics to that wonderful old shanty provide the answers. They do not make pleasant reading for Brown's lame duck administration, which is now, surely, beyond salvation.

Praise the Lord!