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.

Dale Destroys Labour's Latest Lies

The latest PEB from Labour represents a new low in hate politics, exploitation and smearing propaganda, even for them. This is it:


Fortunately, Iain Dale, having highlighted it in the first place, in one of the most apoplectic posts I've ever seen him write on his blog in the two years or so I've been reading it, quickly destroys the claims too. A GP has emailed him cataloguing the lies underpinning the most dishonest campaign video in British political history. Read it here.

Well done to him and to Mr Dale for knocking it down before it has a chance to gain any kind of traction. I trust this will be all over the MSM tomorrow - with the story being not only the Labour lies and filth about Conservative health and child support policy, but the abject bankruptcy of the Labour election campaign as a whole.

Mind you, they are totally desperate so they will probably get even worse.

Labour's Latest Campaign Tactic: Just Sick

A lame one liner from Brown in the debate was the first sign that Labour's campaign troglodytes have, quite simply - and completely - lost the plot. I've seen this image on a couple of blogs now this evening. I dismissed it, though, thinking it must be just another Toryish blogger agitprop spoof. Not so. A little trip to Labour.org reveals that, yes, believe it or not (and I still can't believe it), it's for real.

Brown said during the EU bit of the debate: "They'll turn Great Britain into Little Britain". Just another pathetic, throwaway Brownist soundbite and, as always, instantly forgettable. You would think.

But no. Know this: it wasn't just a prepared line for Brown to chuck in. It's part of what looks like a new, concerted campaign tactic, with the diabolically unethical picture below as its visual support:

This was published hours before the debate. Given the hideousness of the image, not least because of Cameron's experience as a father caring for a severely disabled son (now sadly deceased), but also its exploitation generally of disability for cynical political purposes, it's just incomprehensibly sick - and the Labour party must be held to account for it. Severely.

You have to ask, what kind of thought processes are at work in the creation of a thing as brutally horrible as this? Damaged ones, I would say. Very damaged.

Did Brown not know about this either? He said the line in the debate, so one should conclude that, just like with his leaflet smear campaign against the Tories and the SNP, he knew full well about it.

That alone should be enough to bury him in totally justified, universal condemnation.

And I thought we'd seen the worst of him, the lowest.

Not yet, it seems.

=Update=
And...pulled. Don't expect we'll be seeing that particular line of attack again from the corrupt Labourists (a couple of whom were stupid enough to leave comments here). Good, but the harm to what's left of their reputations - and to the disabled - has been done. The grim last gasps of a heartless regime, and party, rotten to the core.

Right Target, Wrong Ammo

If you want to take out a troublesome enemy tank, in this case an obsolete knockoff Russian T62 (also known as the Liberal Mk1 Main Battlebus), you don't use a bunch of tracer bullets. However accurate the rounds might be, and however many you loose, not only are they simply going to bounce off the turret of the lumbering, sputtering war machine (in this case the 360 degree swivelling Nick Clegg), they will give away your position too. The newspapers that profess a bluish bent have done just that with their suspiciously timed, well-aimed but poorly armed, poorly co-ordinated full frontal assault. Over the top, chaps!

No, what you need to do, tactically, is to bide your time, choose the correct ordnance and then open fire with the radar-guided, state of the art heavy guns. A battery of that nature would be (would have been/will be?) decisive; the fireworks delightful and the result, devastating. So Iain Dale and John Ward are dead right in their assessment, that the attack was ill-conceived, will backfire and the Tories should have nothing to do with it.

Having said that, I recognise the possibility that a charge of hypocrisy might be coming my way. Well, so what? It would be unfounded. What I deposit here is personal opinion. And I stand by my opinion that nothing has happened to alter my long-held view that Nick Clegg is a two-faced, overhyped, establishment lightweight that no one in their right mind should ever consider as prime ministerial material. He's benefited from the anti-politics thang, for sure, and the TV media's desire for a Close Run Thing (hung parliaments mean higher ratings), but that's it. On policy he's nowhere. At least with Labour you just have universally bad ideas, most of which have been discredited already after thirteen lost years, and involve, if we were to have to suffer five more lost years of them, plunging an increasingly authoritarian UK into social and economic oblivion.

With Clegg's Libdums, you get either conflicting policies, badly thought-out policies, unfundable policies or policies (and these are the really interesting ones) that will lead us to being kicked off the UN Security Council, subsumed by a federal EU and relegated to third rate power status (see Simon Hughes). I'm not entirely certain anyone in this country is quite ready for any of that particular brand of 'change', or ever will be.

But it's up to the Tories, and the pisspoor papers (if they can get their heads out of their collective fundaments) to make people see that.

PS:
One online rag really does provide a case in point:

Nick Clegg dossier reveals his Martian roots

DAS BUNKER, Whopping, Tuesday (MSBBC) — Your Super Soaraway SUN has found the blueprint for Nick Clegg’s top-secret TV debate strategy in the back of a CAB, revealing he is a MARTIAN INVADER.

It reveals the Lib Dem leader STOLE DNA from David Cameron to DUPLICATE his style and cover Britain in a ROBOT ARMY OF CLEGGS, with BlackBerrys to be installed in all citizens.

“It’s very SLOPPY to just leave it in my CAB in a locked and alarmed SUITCASE,” said the cab driver, Andy Coulson,” and I thought people should know. That’s why I SOLD it to The Sun.”

Clegg DISGRACED himself in the television debate last Thursday, winning a mere 37% in BIASED COMMUNIST POLLS, while TORY SUPERSTAR Dave “Dave” Cameron topped the charts with a SURGE to 31% — despite foolish commentators claiming Clegg was less terrible than GORDON BROWN attempting to SMILE or the picture of DAVE CAMERON someone had PHOTOSHOPPED onto the screen.

“I used my PSYCHIC POWERS to talk to ADOLF HITLER after the debate and he would DEFINITELY vote Lib Dem now,” reveals luscious, pouting MYSTIC MEG in her political opinion column on Page 3 today.

The Tories have responded by DISTANCING themselves from the Liberal Democrats’ WASHED-UP, SOCIALIST POLICIES and put out new posters blaming the recession on the people responsible: POLISH ASYLUM TERRORISTS on THE DOLE.

“The Conservative Home web forum got out MS Paint and came up with some great stuff,” said Tory webmaster Andy Coulson. “Though they thought we should distance ourselves from those WISHY-WASHY, NUT-CUTLET-EATING LIBERALS at the Daily Mail, who are SOFT ON VOLCANOES and soft on the CAUSES of volcanoes.”

An article in the Völkischer Beobachter on Sunday by Andy Coulson REVEALED Clegg’s SPANISH wife, RUSSIAN grandfather and MARTIAN allegiance, and how he would definitely fail a proper Tory BRITISHNESS test.

“Fuck,” said Rupert Murdoch, speaking to his editors about the ACTUAL poll numbers.

I mean, shocking scaremongering!

+Update+

This is what Clegg really said (just in the spirit of accuracy, you understand - no smearist I):

“Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche.”

“All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still.”

“A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.”

Hmm. The change we need.

New Day, Same Old Story

Yesterday, we were greeted with the second morning in a row of that nauseating LibDum father and son double act (the Cable and Clegg show) on the BBC. Full coverage of two very dull press conferences. Today, it was the turn of the Marx (as in Karl) brothers: Mandy, Balls & Burnham. The BBC provided them with as much live airtime as they wanted to spread what I can only call, having read (bits of) the Conservative manifesto (it was free!), outright, barefaced, scurrilous, amoral, wickedly misleading lies. From start to finish, you had the three of these strangers to reality, let alone the truth, dishing out scaremongering propaganda that simply wasn't true. None of it. Nada. Not a thing. Labour's dirty tricks are big news for the BBC.

I didn't have time to wait for the Q/A section. Was there one? Or has the BBC finally given up even the pretence of impartiality now and decided to allow any attacks on the Tories, however perfidious and, in this case, outrageously smearing, in some cases personally, to go unchallenged altogether? It's a fair question and the answer to it, if the past two mornings of its coverage are any evidence, is disturbing.

Don't get me started on the Today programme. Suffice to say, its editors appear to be attempting to maintain some kind of 'balance' - by at least allowing a few, you know, Conservatives actually to answer the critics wheeled on, conveyor belt-style to trash policies, especially good ones. But the agenda is crystal clear. Treat the Tories like they've been in power for thirteen years - and treat Labour like the official opposition. Clever. But a nightmare to listen to and watch, a sign of how corrupt and contaminated the BBC really is, and bad news for the Conservative party.

Even I'm beginning to think that the political bias of the BBC, ever-more flagrant, and the hard-nosed commercial agenda of Sky/Murdoch (hung parliaments sell papers and boost viewing figures) is beginning to influence the direction of this general election campaign. If these factors influence the outcome, then the outcome will be meaningless and the country will have been betrayed. That much is at stake so wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more complaining from the big boy bloggers from now on, too? Or don't they care?

If you think I'm exaggerating, just ask yourself this question: where is the BBC's coverage of a Tory press conference? If there isn't any coverage in the next few days, maybe then people will begin to realise what is happening; it's not just tinfoilhattery on my part.

I'm assuming the Tories have planned a few press conferences. They have, haven't they? Well, if they haven't, they damn well should!

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.

Incoherent Brown's Latest Smears Fool No-One

So today we have the first counterpunches from the sputtering Brown smear machine, on the back of some dumb remarks about Labour's debt crisis and out-of-control deficit spending by a bunch of tame Keynesians in a brace of suspiciously timed letters to the Financial Times. Well, more power to them but I prefer to listen to the previous day's crop of economists who rightly warned that we need to bring Labour's economic chaos under control now, or risk an even deeper crisis going forward. And as for Lord Mandelson of La La Land's latest slimy nonsense on the BBC a few minutes ago about businesses telling him that cutting the so-called stimulus now would be 'daft', well, Sir Richard Branson's comments two days ago pretty much shoots that drivel down in flames - and he's a pretty good businessman! Oh, and top work over Redcar Corus, Mandy. That was really slick. What a useless piece of vastly overrated spinning nothingness Mandelson really is.

But Brown. My God, this man is a piece of work. Let's just have a quick look at some of the latest, increasingly desperate claptrap coming out of his gawping piehole today. His claim, first of all, that this crisis was caused by the banks, suggests that he's retreated into the kind of cowardly, "bunker" mentality that caused people to realise how unsalvageably flawed he was, and totally unsuited to the office he took by default, in the first place. For the record, it was his policies and his light-touch, hopelessly inadequate system of regulation that allowed the banks to behave with such recklessness in the first place. It was his actual encouragement of the property bubble and the massive personal debt bubble that left people so exposed when the bust came. His behaviour, and blinkered, hateful arrogance in suggesting that he had 'abolished boom and bust', virtually guaranteed that when the bubble burst, Britain would be the most exposed major economy in the world and the British people would be the biggest losers. The point is, his ridiculous claim that this was 'all the banks' fault' is palpably ridiculous - and was proved as such long ago.

But that's just he start of it. Instead of stopping the digging while the hole wasn't too deep, he brings out the JCB. This is the Telegraph's report of his, quite frankly, lunatic remarks:

2010 must be the year of growth. It must not be the year when the economy dips back into recession.

''Instead of admitting the mistakes of private banks and institutions in causing the recession, the well-financed right-wing are not only trying to blame governments for the crisis but trying to use legitimate concerns about deficits to scare people into accepting a bleak and austere picture of the future for the majority, and then to use what's happening as a pretext for public services to be marginalised at precisely the moment they should become smarter and more personalised.

''They are using the talk of action on debt to conceal the hard fact that their real position is that they remain wedded, as they have always been, to an ideology that would always make government the problem and deny people the helping hand that government can be.''

While seeking to ''frighten'' voters about the scale of the debt, Conservatives failed to mention that growth would automatically cut into the UK's deficit and bolster investor confidence, said Mr Brown.

''Instead of helping the recovery in our country, Conservative dislike of government, bordering on hatred of government action, would risk recovery now,'' he said.

Never had I really understood how unhinged this guy actually is until I heard this stuff. Aside from the truly awe-inpiring level of economic illiteracy on display, there's the spiteful reference to the 'hatred' of the 'right'. With the former, someone needs to bellow this at the fraud relentlessly: it's not rocket science, Brown, it's basic economics: rising debt means rising inflation; rising inflation means interest rate hikes; interest rate hikes mean higher credit costs with the inevitable consequences of increased business failures, personal insolvencies, higher unemployment, worse public services and, you guessed it, a recession. Not growth, Brown, a r-e-c-e-s-s-i-o-n. Do you think it'd get through that four inch thick skull of his in the end? No, me neither.

Of course, though, we know the ulterior motive here. Brown does not give hoot-one about the catastrophe his "policies" would cause over the next few years, all he cares about, in his fevered political calculations, is the time when he finally, finally!, has to face the electorate. He thinks he can buy votes and sod the future. We are, quite simply, with Brown, back to square one. It's 2008-9 all over again. The guy is incapable of any other mode of thought or operation.

Only this time, with this horribly divisive speech, he's shown a little more of the true, tribal, irrational, Tory-hating core that we know is what fundamentally defines this appalling man. And this is where we see the incoherence:

...their real position is that they remain wedded, as they have always been, to an ideology that would always make government the problem and deny people the helping hand that government can be

This is a smear, obviously, but the scale of the misrepresentation is only topped by the scope of its implausibility. It hardly warrants scrutiny (it certainly doesn't bear any). However, I'll have a crack - again, just for the record. Clearly, as with most smears, it's what's omitted that's most revealing. For instance, it's not 'government' that the Conservatives have ever seen as 'the problem' (as far as I can discern, Tories aren't anarchists), it's big, inefficient government. Further, though, you notice how he confuses (and I don't believe this is deliberate - I think he actually might not understand the distinction, which, if true, is most revealing) the term 'government' with the term 'state'. Government makes policy and enacts law accordingly. The instruments of government (like the MoD), and taxpayer-funded institutions of public service (like the NHS), of which there are many, are what is generally understood, at least in the real world, to be 'the state'. When the instruments of government, public service institutions and government itself have been permitted to become so bloated, inefficient and unaffordable that they begin to cause, overall, more harm than good, then yes, they must be pruned, reformed and reset so that once more (or, in the case of some state institutions, 'for once') they can fulfil their putative functions. To deny any of this is to defy rational thought. But that's what Brown does, in choosing smear and mere narrow-minded tribalism over common sense and, simply, the truth. Plus ca change? Not really: this is Brown we're talking about.

The only difference this time is the incoherence. We're used to the Tory-hating smears - they go with the Brown territory. But combined - and total - confusion over the economy and the difference between government and state is something fairly new, at least to me. I can understand the economic incoherence. Given the state of the British economy after a decade of Chancellor Brown and three further years of him as First Lord of the Treasury, it's not hard to see where that comes from. But this government/state thing: I feel that he really, genuinely, doesn't see a difference; he thinks they are one and the same. Government is the State; people are merely units of that State whose sole purpose is to service it in order that it can provide for them.

Oh my God! Brown really is a socialist! So that's what's been bugging me all this time...

New Labour might have fooled some of the people some of the time, but Brown is fooling no one. His brand of state socialism, masquerading as some kind of government altruism, is not what Britain needs just now, thanks very much (did it ever?). Bring on the election so we can have done with it.

Times Toon Inspired Labour's Hopeless Attack Vid

I've just noticed where the inspiration, if it can be called that, for Labour's truly pathetic attack video on David Cameron and George Osborne came from. It was this witty cartoon by Peter Brookes of the Times which was published last Wednesday.
It's also occurred to me who must be responsible for it. It's got to be that juvenile horse's arse, the "Right Honourable" Sion Simon, MP. After all, that particular piece of parliamentary Labour trash has got serious form for useless, bad taste anti-Tory YouTube efforts. The fact that he has been Britain's Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Creative Industries since June is simply unbelievable. Never mind, he won't even be an MP for much longer. I take some comfort from that firm belief.

My advice to him? Keep the videos coming, mate. They only help the Conservative party.

And just for good measure, here's what he's best at:



It doesn't get any worse than that. Well, it does actually. Here was his justification for it on Sky at the time (2006):



Ah yes, I remember it well. What a prick.

Denis MacShane Makes a Tit of Himself (Again)

Rentagob

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Does he support kaminski’s homophobic language?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who could argue with that?

Millipede, Take Note

Tory Councillor Harry Phibbs has come out fighting with an excellent rebuttal in the Grauniad of the fool Millipede's well-documented smear assault on the Conservative party's new EU grouping, complete with a thinly veiled, extraordinary accusation that Tories support the murder of Jews, as Iain Dale highlighted so well this morning.

This quote from the Phibbs article struck me as particularly apposite, however, given Labour's current domestic problems with the bigots and racists it has helped to create:

[Labout continues] to sit alongside the Slovak Social Democrats (SMER), who share power with the neo-Nazi Slovak National party, which is open in its admiration for Jozef Tiso, the wartime ruler of fascist Slovakia. It is as if Labour councillors had entered a coalition with the BNP.

Just so. Perhaps the penny has finally dropped: extremists and weirdos of every stripe are to be found snuggling-up together under the socialist, rather than the conservative, umbrella.

Mind you, I imagine Miliband, the son of a committed communist intellectual, himself follows the old teaching of Lenin when launching one of his offensive political assaults on reality. "A lie told often enough becomes the truth," said the bald architect of both Bolshevism and the Soviet Empire.

Newsflash, banana boy, Lenin was wrong.

Tories Finally Confront Labour's Lies

Hattip to Prodicus for this. The Tory rebuttal of the barefaced lies in Labour's pre-manifesto, published earlier today in the Brown-loving FT, for instance, pulls no punches. It also contains some policy substance. It's certainly worth the read...

TORY PRESS RELEASE: Labour’s discredited choice

In ‘The Choice for Britain’, Labour claim that by 2015 they would:

Claim: ‘have raised the living standards of those on middle incomes.’

Reality: Only this week, Gordon Brown himself admitted that the middle had been squeezed under Labour. The average family pays £1400 more per year in tax thanks to Gordon Brown’s stealth taxes. That’s before the rises in income tax, NICs, VAT, Fuel Duty, VED, and corporation tax that Gordon Brown is planning. (source below)

Claim: ‘have delivered low inflation and kept interest rates as low as possible.’

Reality: Britain’s low interest rates are thanks to the biggest recession since the war, deeper than the recession in America, which is hardly something to be proud of.

Claim: ‘have more than halved the deficit as a proportion of national income.’

Reality: Labour’s plans will leave the deficit at 7% in four years time (OECD), the same as when Denis Healey took us to the IMF in 1976 (Budget 2009, Table C16). And the national debt will have doubled to £1.4 trillion by 2013/14 (Budget 2009, Table C4).

Claim: ‘have helped to create at least one million new skilled jobs.’

Reality: In 2009, employment levels have fallen at record rates. There are now 664,000 fewer jobs in the economy than a year ago (ONS, Labour Market Statistics, September 2009).

The Government’s own projections show unemployment remaining above pre-recession levels for at least the next ten years (DWP, Jobcentre Plus Workload Projections April 2009).

Claim: ‘have built on our record, investing in frontline services such as schools, hospitals, and Sure Start Children’s Centres.’

Reality: Labour plans to halve investment from £44 billion this year to £22 billion by 2013-14. (Budget 2009, Table C4)

Claim: ‘have a national social care service with personal care for all.’

Reality: Labour have provided no detail on what a National Social Care Service will look like nor how it will be paid for.

The Government’s plans provide less than £2,000 per person - or £37 per week. But official data shows the average unit cost of home care per person per week for older people (i.e. not high need, just the average cost) is £135 per person per week (Personal Social Services Expenditure and Unit Costs: England 2007-08, NHS Information Centre, Table 6.1, p.39). £36 would buy only about 2.5 hours of home care per week.

Claim: ‘expand the supply of affordable housing and give more help to first-time buyers.’

Reality: Under Labour, the number of first time buyers across the UK has plummeted from 501,500 in 1997 to 194,400 in 2008 (Hansard, 30 March 2009, col. 972WA).

Housebuilding, including social housing, is at its lowest levels since World War II, with just 90,430 starts in England in 2008-09 (DCLG, Live Tables: Table 208 and 244, Housebuilding, May 2009).

Claim: ‘have reformed our democratic institutions and given people a greater say.’

Reality: Gordon Brown broke his promise of a referendum on the European Constitution and transferred whole swathes of powers to unelected Quangos and regional assemblies. Only 1 in 5 people believe Parliament works well (http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2453&view=wide).

Claim: ‘have met our energy emissions targets reducing climate change.’

Reality: In each of the last three Labour manifestos they have pledged to cut UK carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2010 - but they will miss their target by a wide margin. Despite Labour’s rhetoric on tackling climate change, the reality is that on the Kyoto Agreement basis carbon emissions have fallen by just 3.6 per cent since 1997. As a UN report has noted, ‘all the reduction took place prior to 1995′ (DECC, 2008 UK Greenhouse Gas emissions, provisional figures, 26 March 2009; UN, Human Development Report 2007/2008, 27 November 2007).

Claim: ‘have kept crime down and given communities new powers to improve their quality of life.’

Reality: Under Labour, violent crime is up by 68 per cent and fatal stabbings are the highest since records began (Home Office, Crime in England and Wales 2008-9, 16 July 2009, Table 2.04; Home Office, Crime in England and Wales 2008-9, 16 July 2009, Table 3.10; Home Office, Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2007-08, January 2009).

Under Labour, there are 10,000 incidents of anti-social behaviour every day (Hansard, 21 January 2009, Col. 1486WA). The policies that Gordon Brown announced in his conference speech were all re-announcements.

Labour claim that by 2015 the Conservatives would:

Claim: ‘cut £5 billion from targeted investment in the recovery this year alone, and risk turning the recession into a depression.’

Reality: We have never said spending should be cut in 2009/10. At the budget we said spending should increase by £25 billion instead of £30 billion, with the remaining £5 billion being used to provide relief to the hidden victims of this recession - pensioners and savers. And leaked Treasury documents show that the Government themselves admit they are going to have to cut departmental spending from April 2010.

Claim: ‘target investment on a tax giveaway of £200,000 to the 3000 wealthiest estates.’

Reality: Inheritance tax is a tax on aspiration. And as we have always said, it is a fully funded tax cut, paid for by a tax on super-rich non-doms

Claim: ‘put jobs at risk opposing our fiscal stimulus, racking up a higher bill to pay for the hundreds of thousands more on the dole.’

Reality: It is Labour’s mismanagement of the economy that has millions of jobs at risk. The reality is that Labour’s plans for a tax hike on jobs just after the next election to pay for their discretionary ‘fiscal stimulus’ could slow the recovery and lead to thousands more jobs being lost. Our proposals for radical welfare reform will help to get thousands of people off welfare and into work.

Claim: ‘make life harder for families at work by cutting back on Sure Start and tax credits.’

Reality: This is not true. We have never said that we will cut Sure Start. On the contrary, we will bolster the scheme by making it more health-led: by refocusing money earmarked for ‘outreach workers’, we will be able to increase the number of health visitors. Labour has cut the number of health visitors by 13 per cent since 2004 - which means almost 2,000 fewer staff (Hansard, 3 March 2009: col1474W).

We have merely asked whether those earning more than £50,000 should receive tax credits. We have said that we will reform the chaotic administration of the tax credit system.

Claim: ‘scrap our guarantee of a job or training place for young people out of work for a year.’

Reality: This is a straightforward Labour lie. We have never said that we will scrap the Young Persons Guarantee.

Claim: ‘put the NHS at risk by mortgaging the assets of local hospitals.’

Reality: We will not put the NHS at risk. We want to give foundation Trusts far more freedom to innovate and to adjust the way they provide services in response to their patients’ wishes locally. They will not be able to borrow irresponsibly because, like the private sector, they will only be able to borrow to the extent that they can back it up with assets. And, while management and lenders will lose out as a result of failure, we have pledged to ensure that patients do not.

Claim: ‘put special interests before patients’ interests - scrapping Labour’s guarantees for patients, including the guarantee to see a specialist within two weeks if your GP suspects you have cancer.’

Reality: Labour’s top-town targets aren’t in the best interests of patients. The problem with targets is that they only focus on the procedural side of care and ignore the actual result of a treatment. So, for example, hospitals have been more concerned with treating cancer patients within a certain timeframe than making sure those patients get the right treatment that best helps them live longer. We will make sure hospitals focus on improving cancer survival rates, which are currently amongst the worst in Europe (Lancet, 21August 2007, EUROCARE-4 study), so that patients get treatment that is amongst the best in the world.

Claim: ‘cut the equivalent of 3,500 Police Officers from our streets this year alone

Reality: This is a Labour lie. There is plenty of scope to spend money more wisely without cutting front line services. Under our plans, there would be more police on the streets, fighting crime and catching criminals. We will make better use of the police officers we already have. We actually have more police officers than a decade ago, but they spend more time on paperwork than on patrol (Hansard, 21 April 2009, Col. 604WA). In government, we will immediately return more police officers to our streets by slashing the paperwork that keeps them at their desks.

Claim: ‘make it harder to use DNA evidence in catching criminals.’

Reality: We do not oppose the use of DNA. DNA is one of a number of important law enforcement tools. What we have said is that the DNA of innocent people should not be retained indefinitely. In December 2008, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the current blanket and indiscriminate retention of DNA profiles of people not convicted of offences was a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore illegal. We have announced that we would adopt a system similar to that used in Scotland, where the DNA profiles of those not convicted of an offence would only be retained for those charged with a crime of violence or a sexual offence. In these circumstances, DNA profiles could only be retained for a maximum period of five years. Labour’s attack is designed to cover up their failure on crime.

Claim: ‘stand in the way of new green industries by opposing wind farms up and down the country.’

Reality: Conservatives control more councils than Labour - particularly in rural areas where more applications are made for controversial wind farms. As a result, there will be more Conservative councils making objections. It would be wrong to take that to mean that Conservative councils don’t support wind energy.

In January 2009 we published out Plan for a Low Carbon Economy, which set out the policies to make Britain a world leader in moves towards creating a low carbon economy. We will introduce a new entitlement for every home to be fitted with up to £6,500 of energy efficiency improvements; we will create a new national recharging network, enabling Britain to lead the world in electric and plug-in hybrid cars; enable biogas, methane produced from farm and food wastes, to replace up to 50 per cent of our residential gas heating; and provide government backing for a new network of Marine Energy Parks - all of which would create new green jobs.

Claim: ‘isolate Britain on the fringes of Europe.’

Reality: Britain is a large net contributor to the EU budget, one of its major economies, the third largest state by population and arguably the EU’s leading military power. Those assets mean that Britain’s voice, under any government, cannot be ignored. The Conservative Party has maintained strong ties with the governing parties in France, Germany and Sweden. The Conservative Party is by far the most influential British Party in the European Parliament.

A more comprehensive and devastating fisking of Labour's flimsy promises and mendacity I couldn't imagine. I think the Tories are finally going to play hardball after patiently putting-up with a trainwreck Labour conference full of hateful lies and smears.

About time.

Cowardly Cowardly Scotland

That Patricia Scotland woman - you know, our Attorney General: where is she? While her political career goes into a tailspin (no one elected her anyway so no sympathy from yours truly will be forthcoming), she's gone into hiding.

Ollie Cromwell has once again snuffed-out any hopes she might have had of skulking back to work tomorrow morning as if nothing had happened. His new surgical dismemberment of any possible defence she might have tried to launch, this time over her expenses fiddling, has put paid to that idea. (See Guido for highlights.)

Meanwhile, the Downing Street smear operation has gone into overdrive, making sure the UK Border police raid on the poor Tongan woman caught up in the middle of all this was splashed all over our gutter press, complete with rumours of homosexuality, infidelity and "open relationships". Shock horror. Anna Raccoon has said it all in her excellent post on this new Labour low. She comments:

My sympathies lie completely with Ms Tapui. She is a foreigner living in a foreign country. She is legally married to a solicitor, she has the legal right to live in the UK, she worked for the ultimate legal guardian of our laws; whilst ignorance of the law is no defence, she had more reason than anyone to assume that she was doing nothing wrong in applying for a job as a cleaner. The fault, under a statutory liability that she devised herself, lays entirely with Baroness Scotland who failed to scrutinise and retain copies of, the correct papers – for if there had been copies of correct papers, there would be no problem – and thus failed to give her the friendly advice she might have expected from such a quarter, that she was not entitled to work and should not continue to seek employment.

Baroness Scotland has ‘received the full support’ of 10 Downing Street. Ms Tapui’s privacy and physical integrity has been invaded in a most humiliating fashion.

The Sunday papers today contain a multitude of photographs of her smashed front door courtesy of the UK Border Agency, who proceeded to pick their way through the detritus of her personal life and papers.

‘Chief Reporters’ have been dispatched to pick through those indelible details of personal life left on the Internet by those who frequent salacious and explicit sexual chat rooms and forums.

Good, that. Really good.

It's interesting, isn't it? A pattern seems to be emerging; the bunker's smear tactics have never gone away. You can just imagine it, can't you? The sotto voce conversation, strictly off the record.

Brownite goon 1: "Have we got anything on the cleaner?"
Conspiring civil servant: "We'll know after the raid."
Brownite goon 2: "Get me Maguire. Get me Dacre!"

Nice. Although it seems the smearists might have got a little ahead of themselves with this very fishy release of Scotland's fiddled expense claims. That smacks of chaos.

Meanwhile, Scotland has disappeared. A lot of people will be very pleased to hear that.

The upshot of all this is that she's gone. Law broken. Incompetent. Trougher. Found out. Career over. End of.

--Update (sort of)--
Just spotted this little paragraph in the Mail's 'orrible coverage of this story:

Yesterday, Lady Scotland’s detached house on a leafy Chiswick street remained empty. All the curtains were drawn, although a dog could be heard barking when the doorbell was rung. Neighbours said she had not been seen in days.

Someone should break down her door to see if she's alright. Check on the dog at the very least. Don't wait for the smell...

--Update (sort of) 2--
Still no sign of her. The picture on Guido's site is funny. The last time he did that the result was carnage for Brown's inner circle. I wonder what the result will be this time.

One thing, though: it's very hard to take aim and fire if the target has disappeared. I'm telling you, someone had better check that house of hers. Curtains drawn, dogs barking - doesn't look good. Somebody, please, break down her bloody door!

Robinson Misses Point (As Usual)

Brown: "Supplies Getting Through"

Mediocre BBC politics pundit Nick Robinson, of whom I generally think very little, misses the point entirely, as usual, about the problem with Gordon Brown.

The latest rumblings about the underfunded, underequipped and understaffed mission in Afghanistan (what was that mission again?) caused by the resignation of some Scots trougher MP and ex-tartan Rupert called Joyce, in response to the smearing of senior officers among many other things (like that total moron, Ainsworth, being promoted over his head by Brown), have nothing to do with Brown's "leadership of the war effort", as Robinson (not the Sun) characterises it, but everything to do simply with Brown's leadership - period.

The resignation of a junior ministerial aide would matter little if it weren't for the fact that Eric Joyce is a former army officer and is echoing, in public, concerns and criticisms many in the military make in private. Fortunately, for Gordon Brown, he has a speech already written as a reply to his critics.

The prime minister is much more worried about losing the backing of the military, and of papers like the Sun, which have attacked him for showing no leadership of Britain's war effort - than he is of losing Eric Joyce. He is most concerned though about losing the argument.

Today, he will try to convince his own MPs, the military and the public of the value of his war mission, to describe what success looks like and to prove that our troops are not being left under-resourced.

If he does not begin to do that, he has a much much bigger problem than the resignation of a junior member of his defence team.

Not so, and Joyce's own letter did not really make the point very well either, though I am certain that he wanted it to. Brown's "bigger problem" is the most fundamental a leader can have: no one thinks he can lead. Today's speech, if it is the same, pre-written one as Robinson claims it will be, will merely further confirm how inflexible and convinced by his own sense of righteousness, but at the same time, moved by dishonest and unprincipled pragmatism and total, paranoiac insecurity Brown is. So full of contradictions and serious character flaws is this man that leadership of a MacDonalds would be a severe mental challenge for him. Leadership of a major Western power (let alone during a war)? Exactly!

But that, folks, is our Prime Minister. I don't think the troops will be paying much attention to him, unless he's planning on announcing his resignation. Do you?

The Sunday Times Weighs In

As if the smearing of General Dannatt were not bad enough, the true nature of this government's attitude to the armed forces has now been revealed. Aside from the terminal incompetence, the cynicism of Labour's parliamentary leadership simply takes your breath away.

Perhaps the Sunday Times, an erstwhile pro-Labour rag, sums it up best in its fresh leader on the subject (although it fails to mention one of the most extraordinary statistics - that the last four years of fighting have led to 14 thousand UK casualties). No wonder Labour tried to bury it. I've lifted the most damning part of the column. You can read the rest here.

Although governments can get away with such political cowardice for a while, taking no decision can be just as bad as taking the wrong one. Eventually, inevitably, the issues will return and the earlier failure to take a decision and look to the future will have damaging consequences. That is where we are now in Afghanistan. The failure to provide our troops with adequate equipment is the direct responsibility of a government that buried its head in the sand for more than a decade.

No government can predict specific circumstances. But what they must do is regularly take a panoramic view of defence needs. The last strategic review was conducted in 1998. “In corporate life no enterprise would persist with a 12-year-old strategy without at least re-evaluating it fully on a regular basis,” Mr Gray writes. “Few who would expect to prosper would even try to do so.” With the sole exception of John Hutton, who commissioned the Gray report, every defence secretary since 1998 — Geoff Hoon, John Reid, Des Browne and now woeful Bob Ainsworth — should hang their heads in shame. They are responsible for the situation in which failure at the Ministry of Defence is, according to Mr Gray, “endemic”.

Above all, this is the responsibility of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Mr Blair took us into war without ensuring that our troops were backed by a defence administration and equipment suitable to their needs. In his liberal interventionist foreign policy he willed the ends but not the means. As for Mr Brown, his behaviour has been cynical in the extreme. His response to the warnings of shortages given by Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, was not to take heed but to allow a defence minister to attempt to smear the general over his expenses.

In 2002 the Dutch government resigned when a report found it had sent soldiers into combat without the necessary equipment. It says much about the prime minister that his only response has been to suppress the report.

Brown's government of all the smearers is falling apart - and he's on holiday. The storm clouds have been gathering for him for ages. I think that storm has just broken.

Swimming In Smears

"Medic!"

Uncle Bob has already blogged brilliantly about this latest piece of Labour filth, so I'll keep my scornful rant brief: New Labour are the most corrupt, twisted and morally empty group of incompetent wasters this country has ever had inflicted upon it. You still have doubts, after everything that's been written, blogged, proved and resigned over? Well, here's a bit more for you, this time from the ST. Read on...

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted to the Ministry of Defence, and uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, asks for publication of any correspondence between Gen Dannatt and Hadyn Parry, the chairman of the Help for Heroes charity.

It comes after Labour MPs and ministers were accused of using FOI laws to make trouble for Sir Richard by unearthing his expenses claims, after he publicly criticised the lack of resources given by the Government to the troops in Afghanistan.

Whilst the MoD would not disclose who was behind the Help for Heroes FOI request, which was submitted in June, Conservative MPs claimed it looked like fresh evidence of a smear campaign.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "There is no target that Brown's bullyboys will not pick upon to protect themselves or divert attention from their catastrophic management of the military. New Labour is now the most corrosive and corrupting influence in British politics."

Whoever submitted the FOI request could have been seeking to find out whether Gen Dannatt had claimed expenses from Help the Heroes following his unpaid work on the charity's behalf.

Mr Parry described Gen Dannatt's work for the charity as "exemplary". He said: "Sir Richard has done a tremendous job for the charity. His work has been exemplary – beyond reproach.

"He has never submitted any expenses claims, nor have any of the other charity trustees, because we want as much money to be spent on charitable work as possible."

Last week it was revealed that, on a tip-off from inside government, several FOI requests were submitted to expose the 58-year-old general's expenses. Kevan Jones, the Veterans Minister, was named on political website Guido Fawkes as the figure behind it. But he dismissed the accusation as summer tittle-tattle and heaped praise on Gen Dannatt.

Mr Jones last night denied again that there was a smear campaign, saying: "I do not know anything about this Freedom of Information request, nor do I know anything about Freedom of Information requests that were put in as part of a campaign against Sir Richard."

When allegations of a smear campaign first emerged a month ago, Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, sent a note to all his ministers – Mr Jones; Quentin Davies, Defence Equipment and Support; Bill Rammell, Armed Forces; Lord Drayson, Strategic Defence Acquisition; and Baroness Taylor, International Defence and Security – warning them not to brief against General Dannatt and demanding "complete support" for military commanders.

But last week it emerged that a minister had discussed "chasing" Gen Dannatt over his expenses in an attempt to smear him. Requests were allegedly made under the FOI Act, with the backing of the unnamed minister, to find out the extent of entertaining by the general, who retires as Chief of the General Staff next week.

It was also alleged that a minister had called Gen Dannatt a "complete bastard" for making so many public statements critical of the resources given to the troops in Afghanistan.

Wow! That list of "ministers" reads like a who's who of utter Labourist mediocrity.

Not content with their usual, now-predictable, contemptible attempt at rubbishing anyone who dares to speak the truth, a method perfected by Alistair Campbell and Mandelson (the truth in this case, as Dannatt has bravely implied on many occasions, is that total Labourist incompetence and, one is forced to suspect, their underlying hatred of the armed forces, has cost the lives of many British soldiers in Labour's foreign adventures), now they are willing to drag into their appalling smear campaign a charity set up to help the ones who make it back from the front merely wounded, but who are then abandoned by their own country (another Labour triumph).

Who needs the Taliban when you have an MoD occupied by these uberhoons? Just when you thought they couldn't get any worse...

Brown: I Don't Make Personal Attacks

*Sigh* Where to begin? No, nutter Brown. You leave it to your hired thugs to do that. McBride, Wheelan, Draper (sort-of), Watson etc, etc, etc. You're too cowardly to do it yourself. You like to hide. Plausible deniability and all that.

“I do not make personal attacks on people. I have tried to avoid doing that during my political career. But equally I understand that the language of politics can sometimes descend into people making quite crude accusations.”

Remember, folks, this is the man who "always tells the truth," according to him (who, in the entire world, "always" tells the truth, incidentally? So, as Fraser Nelson pointed out, this was another lie).

But wait, this is the man who ousted Blair after a long and sustained assault from his spin machine on his former boss. This is the man who had an advanced smears operation, complete with a pre-purchased web domain and a place-man at the Mirror (Geordie smearist, Kevin MacGuire) just waiting for the green light. And all running from number 10, ffs! Who would give that green light, do you think? Why, Brown of course.

It never ceases to amaze me. Either he believes the population really is that stupid, in which case he has nothing but contempt for us and deserves precisely the same, or he really believes what he is saying, in which case "pathological" is the only word that can adequately describe his lying.

Hattip, Morus.

Mexican Stand-Off

SO the Labourists have decided to go after George "Ozzy" Osborne over his expenses claims. They've started by getting unknown constituency loyalist , Laurie Burton, to make a complaint to the standards authority, according to Sky.

The complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner came from the chairman of the Labour Party in Mr Osborne's Tatton constituency, Laurie Burton.

In a letter to Mr Burton confirming that he will investigate the complaint, John Lyon said: "In essence, your complaint is that between 2001 and 2003 Mr Osborne wrongly identified his main home for the purposes of his claims against the Additional Costs Allowance, and that from 2003 Mr Osborne claimed for mortgage payments that were not necessarily incurred contrary to the rules of the house."

Mr Lyon said he would write to Mr Osborne and ask for his comments.

There could be one of any number of reasons for the suspicious timing of this complaint: revenge for the Tory's huge success with the "Brown is a liar" theme, with Mandelson (who's caused huge problems for Osborne before, lest we forget the Russian yacht incident of 2008) its chief schemer. Or it is the opening salvo of a tit-for-tat exchange which will escalate and could go nuclear, resulting in vast political casualties and further constitutional fallout.

There are other possibilities, for example that this is yet another cynical, desperate Labour ploy (the complaint will most likely not be upheld) to hijack a political news agenda increasingly dominated by further terrible recession data, a growing government funding crisis, the prospect of another bank failure and the dishonesty of Gordon Brown. It will fail because, first, of the suspicion that this is a weak complaint: why, for instance, wasn't it made sooner. Second, Labour are playing a seriously dangerous game by encouraging an ethical arms race, given the scale of their own misbehaviour. This will just look like hypocrisy (which is most-likely why they've hired a mouthpiece form outside parliament to do the dirty work. They really do think we are that stupid).

So, "flat-footed" and "desperate" are the words I would use to describe this latest move from the smearist wing of the Brownite-Mandelsonian tendency. Mexican stand-offs are usually fatal for all involved. I wonder whether someone in Labour has just pulled the trigger that ends-up, when the gunsmoke clears, with 500+ corpses of MPs' careers scattered around the village. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime at the very least someone with some kind of vision and nerve in the Labour party should tell Brown once and for all: this kind of crap doesn't work any more.

McBride Is Back Shock!

The latest Labour lievert reveals that Damian McBride could well still be alive. There have been reports of sightings in several hundred London pubs and YouTubeland Ireland. First revealed by Plato on her peerless site (she thinks the makers must be on LSD), this video, apparently aimed at the Conservative party (though this isn't certain from the actual movie - it could just be people in suits generally who are the class enemy and hate-target), shows all the trademarks of a classic McBride smear job.

Joking apart though, I mean, really! It's a total joke if Labour imagines this style of attack - the McBride/Campbell/Mandelson tactic of make-it-up and make-it-stick - which has been totally discredited so many times (viz Crewe by election for example) will deliver them a fourth term. You can't lie your way into office more than three times. Not even we're that stupid.

Fraser Nelson rips this mudslinging labour lievert to entertaining shreds in his review of it in the Speccy:

"David Cameron would leave young people like me on the dole" runs the first - palpable nonsense. It grows progressively more absurd. Then, finally: "What David Cameron would do is give £200,000 to 3,000 millionaires." That's a lie, rather than an exaggeration. He's referring to inheritance tax, the "millionaires" he refers to would be (how you say?) dead and rather than "give" money, Cameron would propose that the state would not take it from them. The word "lie" is often overused, so let me put it this way: if this claim were made in a document regulated by the London Stock Exchange, then Mr Brown would go to jail. But this, alas, is the type of person we're dealing with: someone who plotted his way to No10 and who tries to stay in power by spreading lies and smears about his opponents.

Exactly. And Iain Martin follows up with a stinging blog post in the Daily Smellygraph, stating:

Fraser's right: the smears get ever more ludicrous as the film goes on. If it had gone on any longer I suspect the following claims would have been made.

Small child, sobbing. Standing in front of rabbit's cage: "David Cameron would restrict the supply of carrots. Your pet would die." (cue creepy music and close up of petrified looking rabbit).

Tense looking mother of two. Standing in front of school gates: "David Cameron would close all schools. Apart from Eton." Cut to shot of public school boys beating up comprehensive school pupils in rags.

Elderly war veteran. Sitting on floor: "David Cameron would make chairs expensive. Under a Conservative government only he and George Osborne could afford them."

So it's becoming pretty clear that the real 'brains' behind the hate-fuelled strategy of negative campaigning belong to the person who has done more damage to virtually every aspect of British life since he swindled and plotted his way into high office than any other man in our history: G. Brown.

You can make your own mind up about the video and the labour tactics, but one thing is absolutely obvious now, especially after this latest scandal, the only campaign it will be possible for the Tories to run against this overpromoted, corrupt old Scotch thug is a negative one.

There is nothing positive to say about him.

Minister for Digital Engagement to Resign?

Digital Engagement

Chances are this story is going to run and run. It seems inconceivable that the so-called Minister for "Digital Engagement" (Minister for Smears, in other words) did not know about the email smear campaign against senior Tories and dissenting - or "right wing" as the smearists prefer - bloggers run by Damian McBride and Derek Draper, further that he was not a part of that campaign, something which politicalbetting.com suggests is simply impossible.

There will be blood over this sorry saga. What makes it far more serious and damaging for Labour is that it is emanating from No10 itself. The blood spilt must be some of Brown's most precious.

I for one believe that the Minister for Smears is on his way out for the simple reason that this government's sole priority has always been, and is always, to protect Gordon Brown. They've had their work cut-out in doing that and a huge machine comprising umpteen press advisors, managers and analysts (all employed as civil servants and funded by the taxpayer) has grown and grown. It has one objective: not to win the next election so much as to keep Brown electable. It is utterly ruthless and nothing and no one will be permitted to interfere with that central motivation. Especially not ministers.

Nixonian? Sure. Desirable? For Labour, oddly, they seem to think it is. For Damian Green and for other innocent, competent people who oppose this disastrous government, perhaps not.

The problem for Labour is that Brown is at the centre of this storm whether they like or not. It will not be possible to cull those who are, in some cases quite literally, closest to him without the prime minister himself being heavily implicated.

Simply put, his people have gone way too far and they've attacked some smart people - the wrong people: people who know how to fight back.

The machine is out of control - and someone has to take responsibility. Watson (below) will be forced to, but I know and you know that the buck stops with Brown.

Fat Minister: Too Much Digital Engagement