Darling Puts The Boot In

This pretty strange report in tomorrow's Telegraph, about an interview with Alistair Darling in which he claims that "Brown unleashed the forces of hell" on him for predicting the recession, suggests that at the very least, as Iain Dale says, he's just signed his own "political death warrant".

In an frank interview, the Chancellor said that people working for Mr Brown tried to damage him because he told the truth about the economy.

His remarks follow reports in a new book by Andrew Rawnsley that Mr Brown’s aides tried to undermine Mr Darling after the Chancellor forecast the worse economic downturn for 60 years.

In a Sky News interview, Mr Darling confirmed that No 10 worked against him. Mr Darling made his 60-year prediction in an interview in Scotland in the summer of 2008. Afterwards, No 10 aides briefed journalists that he had harmed the economy and should be sacked.

“Nobody likes the sort of briefing that goes on,” Mr Darling said, “the forces of hell were unleashed”.

It might sound like Darling is getting his own back for Brown's desperate disloyalty when the bust came, which he knew was all his fault and not Darling's, but I'm not so sure. If past experience is anything to go on, Darling, if challenged, will simply issue another humiliating "clarification" tomorrow and say that Brown has his "full support" and always has, clearly total rubbish though that now certainly is. But there was more in the report about Brown's henchmen, one of whom is still in business, bankrolling the Labour Party with the membership funds of the union he's been given to play with (Charlie Whelan):

Asked if he believed Mr McBride and Mr Whelan had briefed against him, Mr Darling said: “Of course you have people saying things.”

In a reference to Mr McBride’s resignation last year, the Chancellor added: “My best answer for them was: I’m still here and at least one of them is not.”

During the summer of 2009, Mr Brown planned to remove Mr Darling from the Treasury and replace him with Ed Balls, a long-standing ally.

The plan to oust the Chancellor brought a new confrontation between the two men.

But, as I said, I think Iain Dale is right, this could well be a step out of line too far given the current coverage Brown is (quite deservedly) receiving, clarifications or no clarifications. However, for the time being, I suspect it will be business as usual in the bunker, at least superficially, mainly because Darling, for all his genuine niceness, is as much of a politically self-interested jellyfish as any other Labour MP or minister.

But, in putting the boot in to Brown, Darling was not trying to perform some sort of a public service (perish the thought!). He was indulging a minor act of political revenge that merely provides us with further proof of the factionalism and mutual loathing that's always existed at the rotten heart of this Labour government, but especially so under the utterly disloyal political thug that is Gordon Brown. Darling offers conclusive proof - as if we needed it - of two things. One, that the facade of government unity under Brown, peddled by the likes of the slimeball Mandelson (et al), for reasons of personal aggrandisement and vanity, has always been just that, a complete myth. Brown's government is one of the most factional and dysfunctional of all time. Second, that working under Brown is hell.

Given that the future of the country is (or "was" - it might well be too late) at stake, this calamitous state of affairs at the top of the government is a lot more serious than a mere case of bullying. This is a major case of a man promoted way beyond his abilities (Brown or Darling - you pick). What's crystal clear is that when Brown is finally ousted, the kind of revelations that come out about his behaviour while in politics, let alone while in charge, will ensure that his historical reputation will lie in total ruins. Couldn't happen to nicer man.

No wonder he's so desperate to cling on - preferably, no doubt, without the inconvenience of the democratic process.

Make Labour History

Tony, whose Cogito Dexter blog won my sincere admiration many months ago, has asked us all to join him in his campaign to Make Labour History.

He has my full support to that end. If you really do want to secure a prosperous, free, pluralist and debt-free future for your children, in the finest traditions of our great country, Tony should also be able to count on yours.

I promise that I will do as much as I can to bring about that desirable, and, for everyone in Britain, and for the nation itself, that desperately vital outcome in this Year of Change, 2010.

Bottom line: if you want to save yourselves, your economy and your nation from total socialist destruction, then Vote Conservative - and make Labour history. After thirteen years of hurt, it's very much more than Labour deserves, and it's what we and our country so desperately need.

(Tony: sterling work, compadre. Outstanding.)

Imported Labour Votes

This article, in today's Telegraph, explains why this country has five million plus more people, born and brought up overseas, living in Britain now than in the year 2000.

And this statement from the report tells us all we need to know about why Labour opened the national floodgates:

Voting trends indicate that migrants and their descendants are much more likely to vote Labour.

No Ellis Island, birth of a nation altruism here. Vote rigging? Social engineering? Well, yes, and much worse than those two evil practices - this is just another example of the straightforward corruption perpetrated by the most utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt government ever inflicited on this country.

Vote them in again, and watch your country - and your democracy - vanish. We only have one chance of ridding ourselves of them. Don't blow it, tempted as you might be, by voting for someone other than the Conservative Party. For all the Tory Party's frailties, do not lose the focus (ridding ourselves of Brown Labour). All sane folk must vote for Cameron. Not to do that is to invite catastrophe out of mere self-indulgence.

Do that - vote for someone other than the Conservative Party at the next GE - and we might just end up with more of the same, which would, quite literally, be an absolute catastrophe for what's left of the United Kingdom. Get it?

So get a grip (especially Kippers)!!

Brown's Dishonesty Is Killing Labour

Comres verdict: Anyone but Gordon.

CON 38%(-2)LAB 23%(-1)LD 23%(+2)

Tomorrow will be painful for Gordon Brown at the make-or-break Labour conference, ahead of his make-or-break speech on Tuesday. A deluge of Sunday bad press, including rumours of his failing health (physical and mental) being stoked-up again by Andrew Marr, has been topped off by two bits of news that will turn the background speculation about how long he can cling on to the job he stole into outright rebellion. One is the latest Comres poll for the Independent, which Mike Smithson has analysed in some detail for us. The second is something from this morning that I think could turn out to be a massive own goal for Brown - he lied to Marr during that God-awful interview, according to Andrew Sparrow of the Graun.

First, the poll: it shows that not only have the Liberals caught up with Labour but that half the population, in theory, believes anyone would do a better job of leading Labour than Brown. But completely catastrophic poll ratings are one thing. Brown is used to them by now and they seem to have little effect on his delusional belief that he can somehow turn things around once he 'gets his message across'. But this lying about that stupid policy-on-the-hoof legislation for controlling bank bonuses - that's quite another matter. He said that Britain's proposals are the 'toughest in the world'. Patently unsustainable, says Robert Peston right away - the Dutch have strict caps on banker bonuses already, to name but one country. The Dutch rules are therefore tougher than anything Brown is (disingenuously) suggesting. This is just hit the hated bankers/Tories stuff (in the mind of the Left, the two are interchangable) not reasonable reform. Besides, those evil bankers were simply doing what Brown encouraged them to do for a decade, as I said earlier today. See? Dishonesty. It's the big theme with Brown.

You might well be thinking, "Brown told a big lie and he's been caught out (again). So what?" Well, it is actually pretty serious not just on its own terms - there was a time when ministers, even Prime Ministers, had to do the honourable thing and resign if they were caught lying about policy, for instance - but because it simply adds more grist to the mill (or further weight to Brown's millstone, perhaps) that Brown is not being straight with the people, that he is fundamentally a very dishonest man and that whenever he opens his mouth, a question pops straight into people's minds: what's he lying to me about this time? That is checkmate for any politician, but especially a so-called leader. It's time to bow out graciously and head off into the sunset of the American speech-making tour.

If anyone in Labour actually wants to know why they are nosediving in the polls and are about to become the third party in British politics, they need look no further than this morning's interview. People hate Brown because he keeps on lying to them. They never had the chance to choose him in the first place and they simply don't want him any more. Unfortunately for Labour, that means people in their eagerness to kick Brown hard and often will kick that party too. They are not learning though, it appears - probably because the parliamentary Labour party itself is populated by dishonourable, equally dishonest jellyfish, perfectly illustrated by the grim Scotland affair. (She still hasn't resigned, extraordinarily, despite firm evidence now emerging, thanks to Guido, that she's been lying, too).

So maybe Brown and Labour deserve each other, and the fate that awaits them. Judging by their God-awful, Tory-hating, drab, directionless, unattended conference so far, that's exactly what what the outcome of all their bluster and all their lies will eventually be.

Good.

Policy On The Hoof

Watching (reluctantly) Marr's interview with the one-eyed depressive this morning, one thought occurred to me that might be worth sharing: this dead Labour government can still do an awful lot more damage to this country in their desperation to keep up with the hated Tories and curry favour with the many disparate lobby groups that exist on that party's powerful lunatic fringe (it's a big fringe). The latest piece of policy on the hoof is an assault on the hated Tories bankers who have, or so the Labour narrative now runs, brought the country to the brink of ruin, er, by doing exactly what Gordon Brown encouraged them to do for a decade: making money out of debt.

They've also stolen a Tory policy (the super-quango which will be known as the Office of Budget Responsibility - or something, a good idea) and turned it into another piece of proposed legislative madness (the Fiscal Responsiblity Act) that apparently, somehow, will "stop" future governments from spending too much of our money (a bad idea because not only will it not work, it runs the risk of creating the situation of a government potentially having to prosecute itself. A truly Brownite solution, then). But hang on: just when, exactly, did Gordon Brown realise that he'd been spending too much of our money? Or is this Darling's handywork? It feels like Balls to me.

Just when, precisely, did the Labourists decide that they could turn legislation into commandments? Just who the hell, please tell us, do they think they are? I suspect this latest bit of bonkers Brownite bluster will never actually see the light of day and is merely intended to deflect attention, as usual, from who is really responsible for the catastrophic deterioration in the public finances - nutter Brown. It's also another bit of typical, ultra-cynical, Labourist triangulation designed to outsmart the hated Tories. Epic fail there. But there's a little more to it than even that.

Policy on the hoof, of which this is merely one example, made by this dead administration, is the most corrosive and dangerous emergent Brownite behaviour yet. The Tories need to squash it all with a clear agenda of their own. Rubbish non-policies need to be rubbished. Forget the smears - that's just Brown-Labour being Brown-Labour - focus on their knee-jerk, dishonest reactions to a disaster of their own making because when they are finally gone, we will have to live with the consequences of their making a bad situation far worse.

Personally, I think it really is time for Labour to wise up to the fact that Brown is not just a loser, he's a dangerous loser who will destroy the Labour party itself rather than give up the office he stole. He's already practically destroyed the economy so what, a man like that always thinks, has he got to lose?

Dangerous times.

The Challenge for Cameron

This is what I call top-class political journalism. Clear, cogent, cohesive and devastating. Another journalist seems to have finally understood the true scale of the damage set to be inflicted upon Brown and Labour by a country that has, quite simply, had a bellyful of them. It's worth the read...

They have no idea what is in store for them. Not really. When Labour convenes in Manchester for its annual gathering next September, its members will look back on this week's conference in Brighton as another era, another country, another world. Gordon Brown will be gone, David Cameron will be in No 10, and a new Opposition leader will be telling his or her flock not to despair – or, more accurately, to stop despairing. Factionalism, introspection, recrimination: these will be the hallmarks of the wrecked movement that once carried all before it as New Labour.

But that moment lies ahead. For now, the governing party is too busy ensuring that it will lose the general election to think of what life will actually be like once defeat is in the bag. Charles Clarke pops up to perform his constitutional role as the man who urges Gordon to go, for health reasons or something similar. Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, is fined £5,000 for employing a Tongan housekeeper illegally – with the magnificent twist that she is in breach of a law she herself steered through Parliament. Baroness Vadera, one of Gordon's closest advisers, quits as a minister. Gordon himself, apparently shunned repeatedly by the President, is initially reduced to meeting Barack Obama in a New York kitchen, thus bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "kitchen cabinet". The polls strike hammer blow after hammer blow to Labour's morale. David Cameron may not have "sealed the deal" with the public, but Gordon Brown most certainly has.

The entirely predictable corollary of these pre-conference fiascos is epically unsubtle positioning by the principal leadership contenders. Alan Johnson, whose false modesty is now starting to grate, admits that he's "not willing to rule myself out for all eventualities in the future". I'll bet he isn't. In a Guardian profile yesterday, Ed Balls was reported to have mumbled to a seven-year-old who asked "if he wants to be prime minister… that he would, if asked, adding that someone has to do the job". Again: you don't say, Ed.

Meanwhile, in New York, the other Ed (Miliband) told Mary Riddell in The Daily Telegraph yesterday that "I just think for me to start speculating about [the leadership] is a distraction and a bit presumptuous." Another big fat "yes"! Pressed on rumours that the PM might stand down before the election, the best Miliband could muster was: "I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think it would be right. Honestly." Not exactly a passionate oath of loyalty, is it? If I were Gordon reading that, I would mutter "Et tu, Ed?" into my porridge. Or perhaps just hurl the porridge against the wall, as seems to be the Prime Minister's preferred method of expressing mild irritation these days.

Mr Miliband's pre-conference mantra is that "there's no future for Labour in not being a party of the middle classes". This is true – indeed, it is obvious to the point of banality – but it is odd to hear Mr Miliband of all people say it, given that, for the past decade, he has been one of the most outspoken advocates of what he calls "fair taxes". And what Mr Miliband calls "fair taxes" is what the rest of us call "being fleeced" and "having less of our income left to us by the rapacious state to spend on our families". In his interview with The Sunday Telegraph today, Mr Brown claims that Middle Britain is top of his list: "These are the people who I identify with." Again, could have fooled us, Gordon. If the Brownites think that they will win over the electorate by reinventing the Blairite wheel at this late stage, they are in for a shock.

As, indeed, is the whole Labour movement. The shock of defeat lies not only in the loss of power, terrible as that undoubtedly is. A party driven from office must expect a whole array of traumas, great and small. For a start, the political landscape on the morning after the election is utterly transformed, and makes all pre-electoral prophecies instantly redundant.

The sheer scale of Labour's victory in 1997, the consequent tininess of the Conservative parliamentary party, and the absence of Michael Portillo from the Tory leadership race: none of this could have been foreseen at John Major's final conference as leader in Bournemouth in 1996. Most Conservatives knew they were heading for defeat. But it was 22 years since the Tory party had lost an election. It had forgotten the rank smell of failure, the ashen taste in the mouth, the sudden experience of irrelevance.

Irrelevance is at the heart of it all, and it is this that should most frighten Labour as it gathers by the sea. A party in power, no matter how divided, no matter how exhausted, no matter how useless, is still interesting: its exhaustion, its infirmity, its lack of trajectory are important because they affect all of us as citizens. If John Prescott is rude about Harriet Harman, it is a story. If Tony Blair is reported by Adam Boulton to think that Gordon Brown is a "quitter", that's a story, too.

Labour has grown used to the limelight, and has forgotten that nobody has a right to the public's attention. It is a paradox that the longer a Government lasts, even as it suffers cellular damage and approaches invalidity, the more convinced it becomes that its beliefs are obvious, that its arguments are plain common sense, that it does not have to win the battle daily. Philip Gould, Blair's chief pollster, used to quote approvingly the belief of the US strategist Dick Morris that, in modern politics, a government needs a "daily mandate". Plainly, Mr Brown believes no such thing. He exudes only contempt for his opponents and their policies, even though the polls suggest that Mr Cameron's personality and proposals have achieved considerable traction with the public.

The election of a Government does not represent a collective swoon before an ideological blueprint, but something much messier and more numinous: boredom with or suspicion of the other lot, intuitive enthusiasm for what the victorious party represents. That enthusiasm is provisional, probationary, and must be renewed constantly. Labour has completely forgotten this. It believes that Britain is a Labour country suffering a temporary bout of false consciousness. In fact, the opposite is true: after three general election victories, the scales have fallen from the public's eyes.

It will all look so different in Manchester a year hence. But let me predict this much about the week ahead at Brighton: Brown will give a decent speech, better than expected, which will include at least one killer punch (remember "no time for a novice" last year?). He will face down his internal assassins once more. The Labour Party will feel a little buoyed by its leader's determination. Then, it will disperse, go back to its constituencies – and prepare for Opposition.

All I would add is that contained within this piece is an implicit and powerful warning - for Cameron in particular and the Conservative party at large. If you unpack that warning, it might go something like this:
1. Do not take the power you will be lent for granted (again).
2. Do not lie to the people who gave you the job. Respect them by being straight with them.
3. Treat the offices of state which you will once more occupy - and the mother of parliaments - with respectful humility.
4. Seek that "daily mandate" and put it at the centre of your political philosophy.

Democracy is a continuum. Elections are merely the legal and essential expression of the need for a healthy democracy to change direction from time to time. The coming General Election, and the democratic change of direction we all so desperately crave that it will bring, is long overdue.

If Cameron follows these principles honestly and not as some sort of publicity gimmick or disingenuous 'triangulation' (stifling a debate by lying about your intentions, thus elbowing out any genuine antithesis), then there might be room for a glimmer of hope to emerge that British parliamentary democracy can become healthy once more, after the severe damage that has been done to it by years and years of Labour misgovernance and dishonesty and the daily abuses by MPs of every stripe of a system of remuneration that relied on their personal integrity to function.

If Cameron does this, he will have my vote until the day one of us dies. If he doesn't, he'll have one term and then, well, we'll need another "change of direction". We'll kick him out and continue our long, long search for a decent prime minister. (We might even give Boris a try!)

That's the challenge for Cameron. I think he's up to it. I hope I'm right.

Labour Leadership Rumours, Chapter 112

One positive thing that can be said about the Left media, I suppose, is that you do get a better quality of inside info., especially on the epic, Tolstoy-esque Brown [lack of] leadership saga. Just flipped through the web-pages of the Observer, (which is actually the same as the Guardian online but we are supposed to pretend it's the Observer when it's Sunday, which I happily do - I like the quaintness of this challenge), and stumbled upon an article penned earlier today by Toby Helm. It concerns the latest plot (allegedly) brewing against our poor, deeply depressed PM. He writes (rather well, actually - although in typical, Graun/Observer style, there seems to be some side-debate going on about how to spell the word "install"):

There are new and potentially fascinating developments on the Labour leadership front, I hear. Serious plans are being formed by some Labour MPs to install an "anti-Brown" candidate as the next chairman of the parliamentary party. It is all part of a fresh attempt to oust the prime minister before the general election.

The MPs – including several former ministers – are urging senior figures including the education select committee chairman, Barry Sheerman, to put themselves forward to replace the current PLP chairman Tony Lloyd, who is seen by rebels as too much of a Brown loyalist.

Sheerman, a very senior figure in the PLP, has turned against Brown recently and would be seen by the whips as a de facto stalking horse, no less. Crucially, the PLP election, which will take place when parliament returns next month, will be conducted by secret ballot, meaning MPs do not have to own up to their choice.

Last night, Sheerman refused to comment but friends made absolutely clear he could and would be persuaded to stand if they could provide him with evidence that he would get sufficient support. Soundings will be taken among MPs at Labour's conference in Brighton later this month.

One backbencher said a challenge to Lloyd from Sheerman would throw the party into another period of "prolonged and vicious" leadership infighting.

The rebels are clearly trying to gain a foothold in positions of authority to try to persuade people from within that the game us is up for GB.

"An anti-Brown candidate like Sheerman would be supported by the 60 to 70 or so hardliners who are known to want Brown out, that is for sure," said one Labour MP.

"The question would be, how many more would join? That would depend on how things go over the conference season. The whips will pull out all the stops to prevent this. If it happens it will be ugly."

During the last coup attempt against Brown in June, Sheerman, who described himself as a "serialist loyalist" by nature, suprised colleagues with vehement criticisms of the prime minister.

He said he believed the parliamentary party was no longer listened to and he was not sure Brown was the right man to lead the party into the next election.

Sheerman complained to Lloyd about the way MPs such as Ian Gibson, who was forced out of Norwich North seat because of the expenses scandal, had been treated by the party machine.

The rebels are also planning to field their own candidate for one of the seats on the influential parliamentary committee, which conveys the views of the parliamentary party to the prime minister in regular meetings held in deep secrecy.

Some senior Labour figures who want Brown out, believe that if they keep up the pressure, and instal their people in positions of influence at the top of the party, then they might be able to persuade Brown to leave No 10 of his own accord. One theory is that Brown might cite his declining eyesight as a reason for leaving before the election.

The difficulty for the rebels is that they still have no candidate with whom to replace Brown. Alan Johnson, the home secretary, is still regarded as the best choice by most MPs but he has insisted he will not move against Brown and does not want the job.

Another backbencher said that despite Johnson's comments, the intention was to leave him with no option. "If things go according to plan, Johnson will come under intense pressure in the next few weeks."

Ed Miliband, who was tipped as a successor to Brown by Unite's joint general secretary Derek Simpson on the eve of this week's TUC Congress, is also being talked up as a possibility although he, also, remains loyal to the prime minister.

Combine this with thrusting new Speccy editor, Fraser Nelson's, devastating article this fair morn, citing an earlier, even more devastating article by Trevor Kavanagh from the same publication, about the personal responsibility Brown bears for the decline in just about every area of British existence, and you have to say that James Forsyth's question yesterday, "Can Brown make it through December?" is looking a tad optimistic. I'm beginning to wonder whether he's going to "make it" much past the Labour Party conference.

It simply can't go on like this - not in terms of Labour (who cares what happens to them?) - but in terms of the country. Someone has to say it out loud: we have no functioning government in the UK right now. It's leading to corrosion and decline at home and humiliation abroad. And for what? So a clinically depressed, medicated incompetent without a shred of decency in him can keep the job for which he is so patently unfit right up to the bitter end.

I've said it before and I'll say it again until that wicked, unelected fool is gone: even if they don't give a toss about the damage Brown has done/is doing to the country, someone in the Labour party better wake-up to the damage Brown is doing to their party and get rid of him with all convenient speed or the electorate will never, never forgive them for putting some wrong-headed, short-term form of self-interest before the needs of the nation they are supposed to serve.

But if Helm and the others are right, then we won't have much longer to wait until Brown is finally, finally, gone.

Hallelujah!

Darling Flexes Muscles He Never Knew He Had

Darling: just window dressing?

Though flabby and out of condition, Alistair Darling is flexing his newly-found political muscle, it seems. I wondered whether he would actually try to run his own department at some stage, especially now that his position is basically unassailable after he gave his former friend and boss, Brown, an ultimatum about Balls' attempts to steal his job.

However, due to the fact that this Labour government is so extraordinarily directionless, talentless and rotten to the core, the instant consequence of Darling's inevitable move to reverse the ridiculous VAT cut - the most ineffective and expensive tax break in history - is to split the cabinet, or so the ST has just said. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic. Here are the key bits:

His comments [about reversing the VAT cut] come just two days after Harriet Harman said the planned rise from 15 per cent to 17.5 per cent on January 1 was "under review".

Ms Harman, speaking in the wake of the Daily Telegraph's campaign to postpone the increase, said the Government would be flexible about VAT – a move that was welcomed by business groups.

Leading figures in the retail and hospitality industry, including Sir Philip Green and Sir Stuart Rose, have argued it will be an "administrative nightmare" to implement the change not only on a Bank Holiday, but also at the busiest time of the year for restaurants, hotels and shops.

However, Mr Darling publicly "slapped her down", according to a Treasury source, after he made clear the reverse in the temporary cut was still set for the New Year.

Talking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, he said it would "definitely" return to its original higher level of 17.5 per cent in January

"...when you consider that it costs almost about a billion pounds a month, I was quite clear at the budget and clear when I announced this last November that the VAT rate would return to the 17.5 per cent at the end of this year. Now that remains the case," the Chancellor said.

It is understood that he was upset that Ms Harman, deputising for the Prime Minister, who in on holiday, spoke on tax matters.

In the Marr interview this morning, Darling also tried to shift the blame for the government's mishandling of the economy back onto banks that are still not lending to businesses, despite Labour assurances last year that this would not happen. Given that the Treasury's own new rules for the banks, which demand that they have double the capitalisation that they could work with previously, and mean they have no option but to hoard QE and bailout cash, it seems rather dishonest of Darling, muscular or otherwise, to try to offload responsibility for his and his governments' hopeless incompetence over loan guarantees onto bank boards hand-picked by him! No more than we've come to expect, though, I suppose. Meanwhile, through all the lies and bluster, thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost in what is a truly horrific downturn - and which could be rapidly turning into a full-blown depression.

While that might be another story, it's all part of the same problem: bad government. The fresh split and the "bad" bank behaviour provides further evidence, as if more were needed, that this government, with its constant infighting and loser leader is completely paralysed. The country needs a united government with a proper mandate to act. It needs a general election far more now than at any time in the post-war era.

You see, Darling might have muscle now, but he has no authority. No-one in this government has - and none moreso than G. Brown, who, laughably, remains our Prime Minister. This really is a crisis, even if it might not feel like one. Remember, though: it never does until it's too late. The clock is ticking on the timebomb that is a sudden and huge acceleration in unemployment, which is where all this is heading.

It's 1978 all over again, folks (or worse). Gawd 'elp us all.

A Vision Of Hell

This Sunday Times piece is the best analysis of the post Nulab stitch-up, stinking divvying-up of political power currently preoccupying the three worst men ever to have (somehow) achieved high office in British political history I think I've ever read. Tell you what, if you think these people deserve anything more than long-term incarceration for what they've done not only to this country but to the wider world, then clearly you are as utterly corrupt and wicked as they are.

If not, then prepare to be shocked:

Never forget that new Labour was built on a psycho-drama. Peter Mandelson recently described his tormented relationship between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair thus: “I was the third person in the marriage. I was the casualty.” How very Princess Diana.

Asked by The Times why Brown wanted to lay the past to rest, Mandelson laid it on with a trowel: “There is an emotion, a sentiment which you don’t see, a gift for friendship and warmth he doesn’t always bother to put on public view. He is a private man. You know from the way he has been brought up. It is a bit like me in a way. You don’t show emotions in public. I think we may come from similar backgrounds, similar maternal influences.” That must explain why they once behaved like that other famously mother-fixated fellow, Norman Bates from Psycho.

The fires still burn in the longest ménage à trois in political history. Brown and Mandelson are back in harness and the third charmer is never far from their thoughts. First secretary, lord president of the council, deputy prime minister in all but name, Mandelson is clearly relishing his recall to the centre of power. He is the last prop holding up this ramshackle government.

Saving Gordon is proving to be a full-time job: Mandelson can’t be spared to fulfil his ambition to become foreign secretary, just like his grandfather Herbert Morrison. At the time of the disastrous reshuffle it was he who saved the day, remember. A few more ministerial resignations and it would have been curtains. The former Prince of Darkness, now Gordon’s Good Angel, persuaded the last Blairites not to quit. Now he even pops into No 10 and tells the PM to stop e-mailing and go to bed.

His is a rare voice of sanity. Brown, seduced by the notion he could rerun his favourite campaign of “Beware the Tory cuts”, has been stubbornly denying that a reelected Labour government would have to make cuts too. In poll after poll the voters say they don’t believe him. Last Wednesday Mandelson finally called a halt to this nonsense. “There will be spending choices and a growing need for greater efficiency across the board, and less spending in some programmes,” he purred.

The first secretary has a nuanced message: “Trust Labour to make the right cuts; the Tories will do it heartlessly.” That doesn’t mean handing David Cameron a pass on the economy. In another interview, Mandelson peremptorily seized the Treasury rudder, ruling out a comprehensive spending review that could be mined by the Tories. The chancellor, Alistair Darling, may now offer a scaled-down version designed to publi-cise the services Labour will defend from cuts. No wonder friends call Mandelson “the supreme leader”.

There are the outlines of a fightback strategy here, though No 10’s stubbornness has cost the government an entire summer. Our poll today puts Labour 17 points behind the Conservatives. “Peter got what he wanted with the person he never wanted it with,” wryly observes one friend of Tony Blair. TB would have taken his friend’s advice from the start. But what can you do with inferior mate-rials? “If Peter wished to withdraw his support, Gordon would be finished,” adds Tony’s friend, “but I can’t see the headline ‘Mandelson ditches Brown’.”

To throw over Brown in 1994, when Blair clearly was the most electorally appealing Labour leadership candidate, was good judgment. To ditch Brown a second time would be to chisel the word “treacherous” on the tombstone of Mandelson’s own political career. He hasn’t the heart for it. Yet Mandelson’s loyalty to the third man in the marriage is not forgotten. It has even been claimed that on the night of the reshuffle he fought for the Iraq war inquiry to be held in camera to spare Tony’s blushes. Friends of Mandelson deny it absolutely and I for one believe them. He was far too busy that evening hitting the phones.

Blair has even more jobs than Mandelson has titles - Quartet representative to the Middle East, climate change czar and adviser to the world’s religions, to name but a few - but one more challenge still beckons, the presidency of the European Union. The post will be created if the Irish ratify the Lisbon consti-treaty in October. Brussels is giving them a second chance to “get it right”, having “got it wrong” in last year’s referendum. The Poles will then follow suit, though the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, may put up more of a fight.

Last year, at the meeting of the international great and good in Davos, Mandelson, then still a European commissioner, was already canvassing for Blair to get the No 1 job. TB, in the words of another close friend is “seriously relaxed” about getting the presidency. He will not campaign for the job: as a former prime minister keen on his dignity, he would only accept being drafted. His post-No 10 career is, after all, lucrative and fulfilling. The Middle East’s complex politics are fascinating and, despite their differences, Blair gets on surprisingly well with Binyamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Israeli prime minister. But to end his career as a president, able to talk on level terms with Barack Obama, would be tempting.

Glenys Kinnock last week let slip that Brown has come round to backing a Draft Tony campaign. In the past, having Blair in Brussels would have been his worst nightmare. After all, he fought for 10 years to take his crown. But with his fortunes at a low ebb and with Mandelson in the ascendant, Brown has conceded. Blair made it easy by behaving courteously towards his successor, keeping out of politics.

But even Mandelson’s powers of persuasion can’t fix this one for Tony: he will need the assent of 26 other governments too. It is by no means certain he will get it. Blair is, in the words of Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, “a political orphan” in Europe. The left think he is too right-wing, pro-American and tainted by the Iraq war. Spain’s ruling Socialist party thinks he should be on trial for war crimes. The centre right do not acknowledge him as one of their own. And yet . . .

Opinion in Europe is divided by the Little Man or Big Man camps. Supporters of a Little Man president would like a bureaucrat in the mould of Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, a man with an eye for the fine detail of intricate agreements. Many heads of government – and until recently Brown might have been one of them – dislike the idea of being bossed around by an international superstar.

Supporters of a Big Man, however, say that only a real statesman will do for negotiations with great but intractable powers like Russia and China. After the Russian invasion of Georgia and the crisis over Europe’s energy supplies, this view is gaining traction. Russia’s ruler, Vladimir Putin, for instance, would not let a man like Juncker into the room. Blair once confronted Putin to his face and would do it again.

Sarkozy of France and Italy’s Berlusconi would likely support Blair. The eastern Europeans and the Nordics like him too. Merkel of Germany is equivocal but open to persuasion. Federalists, however, are suspicious of a candidate from a country that has held aloof from the euro and the Schengen agreement on immigration-free borders. And they point to a hostile British opposition that looks a good bet for government.

William Hague for the Tories has denounced the proposal. Camp Cam-eron says stories that the Tory leader would secretly support a Blair candidacy are “absolute tosh”. “He has no enthusiasm for a president, he has no enthusiasm for Blair,” says one of his inner circle. Our poll shows British voters agree. But might federalists favour Blair in order to trip up the sceptical Tories?

Perhaps it’s all a pipe dream. But if Tony got to Brussels, favours could be returned. Mandelson would make a fine presidential chef de cabinet. And when Gordon lost the election, his chums could fix up a big international job for him, too. We might be stuck with the three of them for another decade or so. This psycho-drama could run and run.

Bastards. They have to be stopped.

Times Toon

This new toon from the Times' brilliant Peter Brookes just about perfectly illustrates what an utterly busted flush useless Brown is - and the precarious state of British democracy after 12 years of disastrous, fascistic Labour misgovernance.

It's pretty funny, too.

A Very British Coup

Just watched this 1989 classic for the first time in years. It got me thinking, if he rigs things so he doesn't have to go between now and June 2010 (or even beyond that date), then how the hell will we rid ourselves of Gordon 'Tyrant' Brown? It's a tricky one.

Tell you what, even though he's a Dennis Skinner-type loony communist, the fictional PM Harry Perkins is infinitely more desirable than Brown. At least he's honest. At least he has principles. At least he's reasonably normal. At least he's elected!

So we'll have to switch the plot lines around a bit for our little revolution. The restoration of British democracy is the goal, not the subversion of it, as in the film. That can't begin before our demagogue PM is removed and this cesspit parliament taken down with him. Any suggestions?

Anyway, here's a clip:



"I'm going to tell the truth."
"He can't do that. He's the Prime Minister."

Tee hee.

System Error?

I know some of the major bloggers have written about this already today (Iain Dale, for example) but none has really nailed Brown for the real motives behind his sudden discovery of reformist tendencies. On the one hand is his dishonest desire to distract people's attention from the fact that the system is not broken - if anything it worked perfectly in weeding out those members of parliament who are not fit for public service. On the other is his desperate wish to deflect people's attention from one of the key and most vital aspects of 'the system' that he wants to 'reform' (attack): when members of a government fail to live up to public expectations they must face the will of that public via a general election. But Gordon doesn't want one because he's scared he will lose it. Pathetic.

But there is another question that has been oddly ignored by most commentators: when did the expenses scandal morph into a breakdown in our electoral system? By all means fix the system governing MPs' handouts, but what has that got to do with how we choose our MPs? Since when will the abolition of the FPP system of voting solve the problem of crooks conning their way into government? The answer is, of course, it won't. As I said above, it is nothing more than a smokescreen. Only, that's not entirely true. Unfortunately, there's more to it, as Janet Daley pointed out a few hours ago:

Nick Robinson at the BBC is reporting that Gordon Brown will propose to change the Westminster voting procedure to an alternative vote system. If this is true, it is the most shameless attempt to rig the electoral process in living memory. What the "alternative vote" would mean is that it would be virtually impossible for the Conservatives ever to regain power. Labour and LibDem supporters could simply institutionalise their game of tactical voting: by always placing each other's party as their second choice, they would guarantee Left-liberal coalition governments forever.

Mr Brown apparently intends to present this as part of his response to the MPs expenses scandal - but the scandal had nothing to do with the way MPs were voted into office. It was about the way they behaved once they had been elected. (If there is any genuine scandal about the electoral system, it is the over-representation of Scotland at Westminister but somehow I doubt that Mr Brown will choose to address that outrage.) Reconstructing the electoral system so that a Lib-Lab coalition could never be displaced would be more likely to produce even more complacent arrogance in the political class.

What we are clearly facing is a desperate, discredited prime minister who knows that he can never be re-elected under the existing rules and so, in his last five minutes in power, is planning to lock his opponents out of office. This proposal never appeared in any Labour manifesto. It has no mandate. It is a bizarre attempt to distract attention from what should be the real debate about Gordon Brown's record, and the failure of his high-tax, high-spend policies. What makes me think that it was the brainchild of Peter Mandelson?

These people are trying to rig the system from top to bottom. No general election, no referendum on Lisbon, no accountability for members of the government accused of fleecing the taxpayer, vast ministerial powers turned over to unelected Peers and now, as if that wasn't enough, a plan to destroy an electoral mechanism that is, frankly, the only thing left that still stands between us and an eternity of socialist excess and failure. Brown and his pisspoor posse have poisoned every British institution they've ever touched and lied about the chaos they've left in their wake at every turn. Now they seek to destroy the last chance for our political salvation, too. Our solitary remaining hope? David Cameron. Oh dear.

Business as usual, then.

They Know How You Vote

"They" meaning this government (naturally) who, for some reason, quietly decided to end secret ballots at some time during its tenure between 1997 and now. Established by Gladstone in the Secret Ballot Act, 1872, (and reinforced with the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883) it goes without saying that the motivation for the legislation was to solve the problem of intimidation or bribing of voters and/or to ensure that no data could be gathered about individuals' voting choices within constituencies by central government, guaranteeing any vote is genuinely free.

But a letter to the Mail today pointed-out to me by a family member casts serious and shocking doubt on whether that guarantee is still in force. A member of the public in High Wycombe (a town very near my childhood stomping ground, incidentally but irrelevantly) brought to our attention that ballot papers for the recent local and EU elections were each identifiable by a unique number which was then ticked-off against the voters' individual polling cards by an official. I have to admit, I didn't even notice this when I voted last week but apparently it is now national practice. Previously, there was no way polling cards and ballot papers could be connected whatsoever - the vote you cast was anonymous because ballot papers were identical with no distinguishing marks. Why is that not the case now? Why should the government know (or even want to know) the names and addresses of the people who vote for them, or, more sinister, of their political opponents? Not so long ago, this was illegal.

The letter-writer makes the point about this fresh assault on our fundamental liberties quite well:

This subtle change, apparently introduced in the underhand manner to which we have become accustomed since 1997, compromises the secrecy of the ballot and spells the end of British democracy as we have known it since 1872. I was not reassured by being told that my vote could not be divulged without a court order. Public servants have a poor track record in confidential matters.

This is, of course, true - there is ample evidence to support the view that the government cannot be trusted with extremely sensitive information. But that's not really the point of principle. The point of principle is that no official, elected or otherwise, should possess or have access to the private, secret vote cast by individual members of the electorate. That there could be a database of such information is truly chilling. It suggests we have not had a secret ballot possibly for years in this country and that your government quite possibly now knows how you vote. Today, there is no such thing in Britain as the secret ballot. Labour has compromised the very soul of British democracy: the free vote.

I didn't know anything about this. Perhaps you did. If so, forgive my ignorance. But if this was known widely and I somehow missed it, then why aren't people up in arms? Where are the protests? My suspicion is that hardly anybody realises just how compromised liberty and democracy have become in Britain since Labour took power. Now we have an unelected Prime Minister clinging on to office without a popular mandate surrounded by unelected peers parachuted into government, lawmaking without legitimacy. We have demanded the general election - God knows, I have enough times here - but now we can't even guarantee it wouldn't be rigged even if those demands had not fallen on deaf ears. How? Well, if they have information on a database about who voted which way in previous elections, in a general election in, say, key marginals (which means just about every Labour seat now) how hard can it be to delay the posting of polling cards to what are deemed 'anti-Labour' households, for instance?

I know, I know: paranoid! Well, I'm not suggesting a desperate Labour party led by what amounts now to little more than a demagogic tyrant and faced with the prospect of total wipeout in the next election would resort to such banana republic measures. No, really, I'm almost convinced they wouldn't.

All I am saying, and this is the key difference between 'Before Labour' and 'Since Labour', is that if they really wanted to, now they could.

(If anyone has any more information about the piece of Labour legislation that ended the secret ballot in Britain, I'd be grateful to hear about it.)

Update:
Interesting exchange recorded on Freedom of Information helpsite WhatDoTheyKnow.com. The key part for me was this reply from the Electoral Commission about vote tracing:

James Pack
Electoral Commission

3 April 2009

Thank you for your query,

By vote tracing I take it that you mean occasions where a ballot paper
cast at an election has been traced back to the elector who is supposed
to have marked that ballot paper. This can only occur on the order of a
court.

There is no central database of such applications or cases however we
are aware of some cases where this has occurred.

Two of these related to election petitions that have involved the
scrutiny of ballot papers by the Court in camera where electoral
malpractice is alleged to see who the allegedly fraudulent votes were
cast for. We are aware that it was done in the Slough 2007 election
petition as it allowed the court to show that fraudulently registered
voters had cast their vote for one particular candidate. We are also
aware that it was done following the local elections in Birmingham in
2004 where postal votes that had been fraudulently applied for or
completed were checked to the same effect. The third case was where West
Midlands Police obtained the necessary court order following a failed
election petition relating to the 2007 local elections in Coventry. One
person was subsequently convicted of two cases of Personation at two
separate polling stations.

Kind regards,

show quoted sections

Senior Adviser (Electoral Practice)

In other words, the Electoral Commission only knows about a couple of cases of vote tracing taking place for whatever reason, and these both happened in the last five years. Curiouser and curiouser. It's 'unaware' of any others because there is 'no central database' (ie: no central file) of occasions when these (new?) powers have been used. The whole letter implies, however, that it is possible to trace any voters from 'their' ballot papers, which is outrageous given this government's record on security and its abuses of anti-terrorist legislation etc. This kind-of confirms my previous point: if Labour wanted to shaft Britain in a general election, they definitely could.

Still no joy on the new law which over-rode the Secret Ballot Act, 1872 and permitted this parlous state of affairs to emerge. Anyone know anything about it? Guess I'll have to keep looking...

Update 2:
The Electoral Commission's advisory document for the design of ballot papers in 2003 makes for very curious reading on the subject of vote tracing. For instance (and sorry it's such a long quote):

4.5 The human rights organisation Liberty has argued
that the use of serial numbers or any mark whereby
vote-tracing can take place after an election should
be stopped. They also point out that other countries
manage their elections without the use of vote-tracing
mechanisms. Liberty’s concerns are based on the fear
that some voters have that security services can trace
their votes; they acknowledge that while the fear may
be unjustified it is an understandable one. Liberty also
recognises that a consequence of the discontinuation
of the vote-tracing provisions would be the need to
re-run an election where personation was proved
where the number of personated votes was greater
than the winning candidate’s majority. However,
Liberty argues that this happens extremely rarely.
4.6 Liberty takes the view that vote-tracing does not help
to deal with allegations of personation, rather it merely
enables the result to be corrected afterwards if personation
is proved and that the discontinuation of vote-tracing would
make no difference to the prevention, detection or proof of
offences of personation. In its opinion, a real safeguard
against personation would be to require voters to provide
some proof of identity when they go to vote and Liberty
has expressed its support in principle for such a measure.
4.7 The Commission acknowledges the concerns that
underpin the case put forward by Liberty and others
against the use of serial numbers. However, we also
recognise the arguments that vote-tracing can prove, and
has proved, a valuable instrument in tackling electoral
fraud. We believe there have been six cases where vote
tracing has been ordered by the courts in the last 10
years. The key judgement is whether the benefits drawn
from the ability of the courts to trace a vote outweigh any
possible concerns held by some electors that security
services may be seeking to identify individual voters’ ballot
papers to ascertain for whom they have voted. In making
this judgement, we also recognise the wider issues of
principle about the use of serial numbers (or any other
mechanism). Many international observers of UK election
practice are astonished at the use of a mechanism
designed to allow – even in controlled circumstances –
for a link to be made between a vote and an individual.
These issues need to be considered in relation to both
traditional voting processes and the new electronic
voting methods being tested through pilot schemes.
The Commission will consider separately the wider issue
of whether providing for the possibility of vote tracing in
the event of allegations of fraud is a necessary feature
of our electoral system, given the anxieties of some
voters over the possible misuse of serial numbers to
trace their vote.
4.8 As long as the present system continues, it is clearly
important that polling station staff are able to explain to
any concerned voters how the serial numbers are used,
and the exceptional circumstances in which any link
might be made between the ballot paper issued...

Fine. So here we have a mystery about "six instances of vote tracing" between 1993 and 2003. The Commission apparently declined to comment on the 'six instances'. They haven't a clue about them, in other words, presumably because cases specifically where serial numbers were used to trace votes didn't exist before 2003. Why? Because serial numbers, as my mother (who's voted for 40 years too, anon in the comments) quite clearly recalls, were not in use. She also remembers, as she says in her email to me "saying to your father in 2005 after voting in the general election that there were numbers on the ballot papers. There were never any numbers on them before, so far as I remember."

Troughing Brit Lawmakers: The US View

Difficult to argue with any part of this first class article from excellent American newsblog, Intermex Power:

Britain's New Revolution Expected to clean out House of Commons
By Richard W. Rahn

LONDON

Imagine reading a news report that "U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi resigned this morning, and it is expected that more than half of the members of Congress will either resign, choose not to run again or be defeated in next year's election."

This statement might seem to be a fantasy or a dream come true, but it is equivalent to the headlines the British public was treated to this past week. Effective June 21, Michael Martin will become the first speaker of the British House of Commons to resign since 1695 (a mere 314 years ago). The Times of London reports the expected "departure of 325 [out of 646] members of Parliament as a result of forced resignations, retirement, and defeat at the polls would represent the biggest clear-out of Parliament since 1945."

The trigger to wholesale slaughter of the British political class was a series of revelations by the London Daily Telegraph about the abuse of expense accounts by more than 170 members of Parliament (MPs). One wealthy member charged the taxpayers for cleaning a moat around his country estate. Another charged more than $50,000 for his extensive gardens, which included $3,000 for a floating "duck island." Yet another charged more than $120,000 for his second home, including tree work. And it goes on and on.

The Telegraph "has established that many MPs - more than 200 in total - who employ relatives have been able to claim extra expenses as a result of the arrangement." At a time when Britain is in an even deeper recession than is the United States (gross domestic product dropped at an annual rate of 7.4 percent last quarter), citizens are outraged by their high-living politicians and civil servants. Until recently, members of the British Parliament were paid very modestly by and European Union standards and had small allowances for staff and expenses.

However, since the Labor Party took control 12 years ago,many MPs have begun to look at their job as an entitlement (as do many in the civil service) rather than an honor and a duty. The just-disposed speaker, a former union leader, is famously quoted as saying, "I only took what I was entitled to" (ah, but by his definition).

Unfortunately for British Conservatives, the scandal has not involved just members of the Labor Party, but also some prominent Conservative MPs. A friend who was a conservative MP during the years of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher related to me how appalled and angry - like the British public - he was about the rise in double standards by the political class over the past couple of decades. Unfortunately, this is true on both sides of the Atlantic.

The following quote comes from a Brit (Robert Colvile), but could not the same comments be made about what is happening in the United States "It is the general feeling that there are people who are using our money to fund lifestyles far beyond the average voter's - and using their position to exempt themselves from the rules. Ordinary citizens are fined for sorting their rubbish incorrectly, or making an error on their tax return. MPs reconfigure the tax system to their own advantage. ... We are hemmed in by laws and regulations they are free to ignore."

The revolution taking place in the United Kingdom has occurred because people have the Internet and a new Freedom of Information Act that give them the ability both to acquire information about how the politicos spend their money and to spread that information to others. The British press also seems to have been a lot more aggressive than much of the mainstream media in the United States in ferreting out information about official wrongdoing and abuse.

Should not taxpayers have the right to know the details of the spending by each member of Congress, including each's office allowance, expense account and nonchargeable use of government aircraft, limos, etc.? Congress has just voted to require that we ordinary citizens use smaller and less safe cars in the name of combating global warming, but do you really think the leaders in Washington will give up their large limos? Mrs. Pelosi claims she needs a private jet to go back and forth to her district in California because of "national security." Have you noticed that the blanket national-security claim is often nothing more than a cover to provide privileges and lack of transparency for the political elite?

Have you wondered why the average federal employee in the United Statesmakes about 50 percent more per year ($75,000 versus $50,000) than the average private-sector worker yet has almost zero chance of getting fired and has a very rich pension and medical insurance program?

It is unlikely that Americans would enjoy the freedoms they have today if the British had not led the way with the Magna Carta (1215) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The day the British forced their speaker to resign was the same day (May 19) that the voters of California said no (by a 2-1 margin) to proposed propositions that would have led to more government spending and increased taxes but yes (by a 3-1 margin) to a proposition that prohibits elected officials from getting a pay raise when the government was running a deficit. (Is there any doubt that U.S. voters, if given a chance, would vote for the same pay freeze for Congress?) Will a new American revolution follow the British one in dethroning much of the political class?

It's nice to know the democratic rage is catching-on again worldwide. It's nice to know the visceral, powerful, righteous anger we, the people, currently feel for our venal, petty, dishonest incumbant political representitives has begun to rub-off beyond our borders. All of it can lead only to positive outcomes.

And to think: both directly and indirectly, we owe it all to Guido Fawkes. Astonishing. Baffling!

Betrayal

The Telegraph has revealed the latest government minister to have lined his pockets at the taxpayer's expense. He is Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces minister. He "claimed nearly £6,000 for the redecoration of his designated second home, submitting bills that included rebuilding the fireplace and fitting oak beams into his ceiling," the Telegraph says.

...[he] also tried to claim £2,225 for a sofa and £1,000 for a LCD Samsung television, both of which were reduced by the fees office. According to the Green Book of parliamentary rules, MPs are not allowed to claim “the capital cost of repairs which go beyond making good dilapidations and enhance the property”.

And so it goes on - and on and on and on. I suppose it's worth noting this man is also a serial flipper who, as has become the norm, denies he's done anything wrong.

So why bother bringing it up, then? Well, this case is a lot different in my opinion. While this man was busy doing-up his house with oak beams and artex or whatever it was - paid for by us - the troops in the field for whom his department has a duty of care are badly-paid, ill-equipped, over-stretched and under-fire. They are fighting and dying in Afghanistan while he is troughing away merrily, beautifying his house so he can sell it on, turning a profit and rubbing his hands. While the lions of Britain and their families are forced to live in damp, cheap, dilapidated accommodation on ancient bases, one (probably all) of their ministers of state has been filling his bank account by playing a property game that tax* on the fighting soldiers' income has helped finance. (*It's worth remembering American soldiers do not pay income tax while on active duty, unlike their British counterparts.)

This isn't merely a disgusting insult to the armed forces Ainsworth represents, it's a betrayal. It reveals the most serious breakdown in basic morality at the heart of the British government. You would need to go back to the days of the Napoleonic Wars and the mutinies in Spithead and Nore in 1797 to find some sort of historical comparison for this kind of corruption, at least in terms of the yawning moral gulf that has opened between rulers, ruled and the guardians of the land. The rulers are filling their chests with the nation's treasure while the people and the armed forces are expected to make do and do as they're told. Naturally, 212 years on, there are differences. But the underlying symptoms indicative of the decadence of the powerful in this country are the same.

So if this Ainsworth character is not removed from his post immediately, our forces in combat would be perfectly within their rights to stop fighting as far as I'm concerned. They should go all the way and consider their service abused, the military covenant broken and refuse to fight until this parliament is dissolved and a new parliament elected. Of course, they will continue fighting because they know what's at stake. Besides, their loyalty is to the country, to the Queen and to each other, not to Bob 'Oak Beams' Ainsworth or Gordon 'D-Day Invite' Brown.

Gordon doesn't 'do' loyalty and neither does his dead, chaotic regime.

Double Dippers

As the Spectator reveals the growing rift between the governor of the Bank of England and Brown, the latter, according to the Financial Times, having been left 'fuming' at the former's 'gloomy' (honest?) predictions for the UK economy, the reality of the deep political cynicism of Labour in their plans to dupe the electorate into a false choice between Labour 'optimism' and Tory 'austerity' begins to sink in.

Given this Government's track record on forecasts, as well as some of the worrying indicators coming out at the moment - not least the Standard & Poor revelation - I don't think it's too unreasonable for King to take a sober view of things. In which case, this becomes a telling sign of how Gordo likes his independent bodies: erm, toeing the Labour party line, and helping in the great struggle against the Tories. And it's rather dispiriting if he's letting these party poltical instincts damage relations with the Bank of England at a time of economic crisis.

So once we strip away Labour's lies and spin, what is the most likely direction of this, the worst recession in British peacetime history? What is it that Brown and his acolytes would like us not to know?

Brief research on some boffin economist websites reveals the most likely outcome in all its stark truth: a so-called double dip recession. Over to them:

Total GDP contraction to date now stands at -4% on a quarter on quarter basis...Whilst a bounce back in the economy is expected going into the 2010 election, however the tax hikes and spending cuts will in all likelihood trigger a double dip recession during 2011 to 2012 as illustrated by the above graph [top of page].

What this means is that there will continue to be a major shortfall in tax revenues and therefore continuing budget deficits and hence deeper public spending cuts and therefore continuing downward pressure on prices and hence inflation may remain subdued even beyond 2010 after a temporary rise inline with the bounce in GDP.

UK Inflation Conclusion - Extreme Deflation as measured by RPI is near an imminent end, forward inflation will remain subdued despite economic recovery into the 2010, election as the risks of a double dip recession remain which would be accompanied by lower inflation.

Economist Robert Shiller, favoured by George Osborne, agrees. The Spectator again:

As for the Tories, their rhetoric may be about to get even more cheerless. One of George Osborne's favourite economists (whom he referenced here) warned today that Britain could face two recessions in quick succession. Seems like gloomy ol' King may be onto something...

It's vitally important that the Tories reveal the extent to which Brown's continued reckless overspending during a severe debt crisis will cause not recovery, but a brief respite in early 2010 - which was always his cynical plan - followed by another serious recession, leaving an entire generation exposed to negative growth and all its attendant personal, social and national pain. The only way to head off this desperate threat is for Brown to be ousted as soon as possible and his appalling, short-sighted and duplicitous, politically motivated programme to be torn-up and replaced with a new one that's genuinely designed to fix the problem now.

The Tories have to be honest with the people of Britain and warn them that Brown's short-termist economic insanity could lead to catastrophe for the British economy. The people must be convinced they cannot believe a word he says and the Tories must seek to force him out, preferably this summer, in the hope that the severe damage he has done can be confined to a single period of recession instead of the dreaded - and now eminently likely - 'double dipper', 'W'-shaped 'lost decade'. It will go much harder for us because in the absence of a Japanese-style manufacturing capacity to prop-up the deficit, the only thing Britain will be producing for the forseeable future is debt. Among OECD nations, that would be historically unprecedented - and utterly humiliating.

If you doubt the dishonesty of Brown and his glovepuppet, Darling, just remember the forecast downgrades (see below) between November 2008 and April 2009. They weren't just 'off-beam', they were lies. They're doing it again with the UK bank stress tests. We can't come through this without facing-up to reality, something the current regime ruining Britain is psychologically and morally incapable of doing. Until we are shot of them, no recovery will be possible and years of pain are almost guaranteed.

Another One Bites The Dust

Fraser Nelson reports that another Tory grandee is to fall on his sword after making dodgy expense claims.

Only this morning, Andrew MacKay said that he would stand for election again - but after a conversation with David Cameron he has now decided to stand down at the next election. The open meeting he held had several calls for him to go, and there was talk of a petition. The grassroots momentum was significant. This, make no mistake, is a personal loss to David Cameron who relied on MacKay to be his eyes and ears in the backbenches.

It's become pretty obvious that Cameron intends to purge the Tories of all those who have abused a lax system, whether their claims fell within the rules or not. The party faces a torrid time over the next week or so, but one thing is now abundantly clear, whatever you might think about the main parliamentary parties' behaviour generally, the battle between Brown and Cameron on how to deal with the issue is being comprehensively won by Cameron.

As I said a few days ago, thanks to his indecisiveness, mixed messages and perennial favouritism Brown faces the impossible task that is reshuffling a tainted and split cabinet. Another minister broke ranks today providing a front page story for the Times and further evidence of a government in total disarray not just over the expenses fiasco but over the management of the economy and home affairs, too. Caroline Flint, the over-promoted minister of something-or-other in question and friend of chipmunks everywhere apparently

...risks angering Downing Street by saying that Ms Blears had technically done nothing wrong, despite Mr Brown’s branding her behaviour “completely unacceptable” after she failed to pay capital gains tax on the sale of a flat.

Ms Flint says that Ms Blears is “one of the last people who would ever come into politics to gain some kind of financial benefit”.

So, not only wrong but wrong-headed and a thinly-veiled assault on Geoff Hoon, the Lord High Chancellor of Troughers. Combine this backbiting with the brewing tempest over the economic mismanagement apparently exacerbating an already serious situation vis-a-vis the debt crisis, with the UK about to lose its AAA status according to CNBC and you quickly see the Times is way off-beam with its characterisation of the mood within the Parliamentary Labour Party...

In a further sign of the febrile atmosphere at the top of government, some ministers are now speculating that Mr Brown could be persuaded to call an autumn election. They say that, with Labour apparently heading for certain defeat next year, the only way Mr Brown could rescue his party would be to be bold and go to the country...

They shouldn't bother talking to 'some ministers'. There is not one snowball's chance in hell that this outcome is even remotely likely. On the strength of the evidence so far, Brown will either hang on until the last possible minute of this parliament (not a chance) or he will be metaphorically assassinated (probability rising with each passing day) soon after the June 4th wipeout by the growing mass of disaffected Labour MPs faced with unemployment.

Not to see this is not to appreciate the state of panic among Labour's rank and file, or the total lack of leadership or connection from the Prime Menacer. While they are ponderous and slow on the uptake, predictably, they will eventually come to the conclusion that they chose him and they can depose Brown. Whatever they might think of him personally, they will look at David Cameron and see tough, sure, decisive - even brutal - leadership from a fairly normal human being. They will then look at Brown and see a bully who cannot see past the end of his own nose, inconsistency, dithering and, above all, a willingness to burn anyone to save his own bacon.

It will finally dawn on them that he is a liability and has to go.

Freedoms You've Lost

Believe me, there's a long list - and they all mount up!

Philip Johnson gives us a rundown of some of the things we all could do before new liebour came to power. And there I was thinking it was only me that felt better off, happier and far more free before these bastards fooled the country into voting them in, and then launched their all-out war on civil liberties. This list is certainly not comprehensive, I might add!

» Smoke in a pub or on a railway platform in the open air in the middle of the countryside, or at a covered bus stop, or in your own car if it is used for work, or in your own house if it is used as an office where outsiders may come.

» Own a horse, donkey or Shetland pony without possessing a passport carrying a picture of the animal.

» Ride off with a pack of hounds in pursuit of a fox or stag.

» Play the piano in a pub without an entertainment licence.

» Stage more than 12 events a year at, for instance, a school or church hall at which alcohol may be served without a full licence.

» Set off a firework after midnight or be in possession of a firework if aged under 18 at any time other than the period around Bonfire Night and New Year's Eve.

» Own a pistol for any purpose, including sport target practice.

» Stage a protest of any sort, even if alone, within 1km of the Palace of Westminster, without the authority of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

» Fish in the River Esk without authorisation.

» Enter the hull of the Titanic without permission from the Secretary of State.

» Import into England potatoes which a person knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes.

» Obstruct the work of the Children's Commissioner for Wales.

» Imbibe an alcoholic drink on a London Underground train or bus.

» Keep a car on your own driveway without tax, even if it not being used, without filling in a form.

» Sell a grey squirrel (though you can kill one).

Before you say you support any or all of them (and one of them is BoJo's handiwork, I seem to recall), think about the principles: civil liberties are there to protect individuals and minority groups generally from the intrusion of the state. That's why statist Labour has always found them to be incompatible with their ridiculous ideologically authoritarian view of society and the 'role' of the state in it, especially now. Johnson's conclusion:

Labour has created new offences at twice the rate of the previous Tory administration, which was bad enough in this regard, and it has done so at an accelerating pace. Now you may support some or all of these new laws. What cannot be denied is that we have had a frenzy of law-making that has changed the character of the nation in a way that many of us neither expected nor wanted – even those who voted Labour (especially those who voted Labour, perhaps).

The first thing any new government must do is audit and then abolish any and all of Labour's legislation which is deemed either offensive to common sense or impinges on civil liberties, or both. This means that those terms - common sense and civil liberties - which were once taken for granted in what once was our far more free society, will need to be redefined after the constant and determined assault on them from the Left over the past twelve years.

The next election should be fought on this ticket just as much as an anti-corruption and economic one. The next government will represent nothing less than 'regime change' (from elective dictatorship back to democracy!). The role of Europe in this disturbing trend will need to be carefully examined, too, of course.

First, though, fight for the freedoms you've lost: kick this government out!

==Update 9.11pm==
I missed this excellent piece by Iain Dale on the subject of Labour's assault on liberty and the need for the opposition parties to stand on a civil liberties agenda. I highly recommend it.

==Update 2==
Hattip to Old Holborn for this chilling video.

Remember, the system isn't regulated and the police keep your DNA even if you're innocent (like all the people featured in the clip, for instance).