A Future fair for all?

Labour's manifesto is entitled "A Future fair for all".

Apart from the fact that is a vacuous motherhood and apple pie sort of statement*, you do have to ask what is meant by "fair".

Is it fair for example, that a family where no one works that has 5 children can get as much on state benefits as one where only one adult works full time on average pay**?

Is it fair that the education of a whole class can be put in jeopardy by one or two disruptive pupils whom the teachers can't deal with?

Is it fair that after 114 years of universal primary education, so many people leave school with out the ability to read, write or do arithmetic?

Is it fair that someone who works 100 hours a week only may only earn 4 times the before tax equivalent of someone who has never had a job?

Is it fair that you can pay a professional*** good money to do vital work for you, only to find out that they may be working 100 hours a week, and frankly are no good to anybody after 70 hours a week?

So what does fair mean exactly?

*Who wants an unfair future after all?

**That is mean average, not modal average.

***That means lawyers, accountants, tax advisers and of course doctors. Who would want to be operated on by a surgeon who had not had enough sleep?

Ed Balls to be Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Speculation is rife in the press that Alistair Darling is history as Chancellor, over expenses, rather than failing to turn Gordon Brown's disastrous years as Chancellor into some kind of mild failure or even success.

Darling is to be replaced by Balls apparently!

Gordon Brown as Prime minister and Ed Balls as chancellor is a dream team. Well it is for the Conservative party. We have a PM who smiles whilst talking about Susan Boyle being treated at the Priory, and Ed Balls who makes Gordon Brown shine as a communicator.

What is better though is that will seal the deal. No one in Labour (who counts) will move against either because frankly they have not got the balls. (After all, Yvette, Ed's wife has him). So the dastardly duo can carry on to the election in June 2010. (There is no actual mechanism to get rid of a sitting Labour PM in a shorter time frame).

Of course they are also Labour's dream team, but that is a nightmare.

The BNP members list leak

This has been making big news. The BNP have expressed concern whilst Labour are expressing some delight as BNP activists get witch hunted out of jobs.

I do not approve of the BNP, but this is wrong and smacks of McCarthyism.

What is worse though is that Labour are very wrong if they think it is good for them. It will in fact grow support for the BNP which, as the BNP is a left wing party, is strongest in Labour areas.

The BBC has this.

Labour at War!

The Labour party is at war, according to this article in today's Daily Telegraph as bitter recriminations fly after David Miliband's Guardian article and yesterdays press conference (The BBC has this on the conference).

Well, if they are fighting like rats in a sack, all I can say is pass the popcorn, I am enjoying the spectacle!

Are Labour just a bunch of muppets?

Well, the Crown blog thinks so here.

Captain of the Titanic reassures crew

Gordon Brown, the captain of the Titanic has given several interviews today in which he sought to reassure his crew that despite hitting that massive iceberg on Thursday that he could steer the Labour party safely to another election victory. Others were a bit more sceptical.

Meanwhile Matt in the Telegraph a few days ago has this cartoon which really says it all.

Donorgate: Peter Watts to be charged

According to the front page headline of the Daily Telegraph today, Peter Watts, former General Secretary of the Labour party is to be charged over donorgate.

The interesting thing will be where else this goes, after all we know that this arrangement has been in place for years so others must have known it and indeed set it up.

Not good news for Gordon Brown.

For more on donrogate see here.

Bob Marshall Andrews on Gordon Brown

Apparently Bob Marshall Andrews has described Gordon Brown as having :

‘the jealousy of Othello, the indecision of Hamlet, the futile rage of Lear and, like Brutus, he goes to the wrong people for advice.’

For a one line character description that is fantastic!

Hat Tip to Kingbongo on politicalbetting.com.

Update 16:24

I see the original came from Michael White of the Guardian in his blog. It is a very funny line and finishes with:

"Thank God we got rid of the Macbeths."

Credit Crunch to hit consumers this Christmas

The Times reports today a severe tightening of consumer credit which will hit this Christmas, though a lot of consumers will not notice until after they have spent their money.

According to moneyexpert.com 5 million families have not paid off last Christmases debt either.

People who swap credit cards to keep charges down are likely to be in for a bot of a shock as they get turned down for new credit.

None of this makes good reading.

However what the article does not go into is the number of mortgages which were taken out on fixed rates for 3 years which are coming to the end of the fixed rate period. Those people are going to face real difficulties with a possible 50% sudden increase in mortgage repayments and few lenders keen on taking them on.

This is the demon of cheap credit coming home to roost. Many have accused people like me of being a doom monger when we expressed concern that the last 10 years of economic growth was built on borrowing. We now have to start paying that money back, and that will mean far less free money in the economy.

4 out of 5 of new jobs go to migrants?

That is the headline on the front of this mornings Daily Mail.

This harks back to the scandal in October when the Tan, Peter Hain also incidentally Secretary of State at the Department of Work and Pensions claimed that of the 2.1 million jobs he claimed had been created since 1997 only 800,000 had gone to migrants. This figure was found to be wrong and went up to 1.1 million and then 1.5 million whilst in turn the number of jobs claimed seems to have dropped to 1.7 million. Even the alleged Home Secretary Jacqui Smith managed to get embroiled in the scandal with her own dodgy figures.

David Davies has said this makes a mockery of "British jobs for British workers" as clearly this has not been the case, as well as being highly illegal.

Frank Field has called for eastern Europeans to be banned from working here. That is understandable, but wrong. You can't remove rights like that once given. However we do need to be much more careful in future.

The political issue here is this though. People will vote on the pound in their pocket at the next election, not the pound in someone else's. That is how they will decide how the economy looks. For all the claims of how the mass immigration of the last 10 years has helped the economy it has done little to make the average man or indeed woman in the street feel better off. Their wages are under more pressure whilst all their costs are rising, including council tax and the cost of housing.

Labour MP's on Drugs: Official!

There are strong indications that a few Labour MP's are using some serious drugs, possibly class A, and certainly hallucinogenic.

For evidence of this I cite this article by John Rentoul in yesterdays Independent on Sunday suggesting that some MP's may be plotting already to replace Gordon Brown with Ed Balls.

If Ed Balls is the answer, then those coming up with that answer are on serious drugs, and haven't got a clue what the question is.

Wendy Alexander to resign: Official!

Wendy Alexander, leader of Labour at Holyrood is to resign in the the next few days, or take the whole of Labour in Scotland with her.

It is clear from the front page of Scotland's Sunday Herald that her position has become entirely untenable.

The issue is related to party funding, more specifically the funding of her campaign to become leader of the Labour group in the Scottish parliament after the resignation of Jack McConnell. Wendy ended up getting the job unchallenged. However just in case she had a campaign fund organised which she used to fund a tour instead.

The crucial thing is where the money came from. One donation appeared to come from a company called CPS, but they have denied that and on further digging it turned out to come from a Paul Green of Jersey, who is not registered to vote in the UK and so not a permissible donor. That much has been admitted by the soon to be former leader of Labour in Scotland, Wendy Alexander.

Well OK, mistakes happen.

Well it has now all started to hit the fan,because it is now a question of who knew what and when. Wendy's position was that she only found about it last Thursday. That now looks a bit less credible than Comical Ali's assurances that America was about to be defeated in that famous Baghdad press conference with American tanks in the background.

Guido published this this letter from Wendy personally thanking Paul Green for his donation and sent to his address in Jersey. Wendy Alexander's team argue that whilst it came from a company entitled to donate, the letter had to go to an individual...


well the Sunday Herald's article linked to above and here just blows that apart. They have got hold of an electronic copy of a secret donor list which not only lists Paul Green as the donor, rather that the company he does not own, CPS but also clearly questions its legality. It gets worse. It looks like it was typed up on here husbands computer.

The time is definitely up for Wendy Alexander. Word has it that her brother "wee Dougie" Douglass Alexander is not going to have a good week next week either.

The Sunday Herald also has this and this on just how sleazy Labour are.

Can it get worse for Labour? I suspect it can.

It was no junior official!

The government line, spin, or more accurately downright lie, over the loss of 25 million child benefit records is that it was a junior official acting on his own against laid down, and by implication followed procedure.

This story in todays Sunday Times blows that completely out of the water as apparently there is a bot of security. There were only 3 people with the clout to have the passwords to download the data, and lets face it, they must have asked why.

This is clearly not a rogue and more a systematic failure.

Labour are doomed!

There is an interesting comment piece in the Times, from Saturday by Matthew Parris, who I appreciate is no Labour cheerleader.

However I did like this quote:

I am absolutely sure that Mr Brown hasn't got it, never had it, and won't get it. For those of us who always believed and wrote this, the prospect of writing him off is easier to stomach than for those who thought they detected buried treasure and are still half-waiting for it to be uncovered.

Brilliant!

Well, where to begin? the knives are out for Gordon!

I like politicalbetting.com, and I have to say it has a habit of having contributers who throw up some interesting stories.

Last week was not good for Labour or Gordon Brown.

Next week is set to make last week look like there best week ever.

Oh dear. (For Labour, me I'm lovin' it!)

Government to renege on renewable energy targets shocker!

Apparently according to this article in today's Guardian this Labour government is going to renege on its renewable energy targets, because it feels they are both expensive and impractical. Well, the way Labour do anything, getting out of bed in the morning looks impractical.

Climate change sceptics aside, and indeed all their arguments, the stark reality is that we are already behind India and the USA, despite the fact that we have potentially good opportunities in renewable energy. The problem here is as always a useless government.

£1 Million: The cost of the election that never was!

I have to say I am quite amused by this article in the Guardian. Apparently the election that never was cost Labour and the Unions one million pounds.

The Conservatives only spent £200,000.

And yet Labour whinge about the so called "Ashcroft money" when they are using funds which are not even theirs and piling up resources only for Gordon Brown to bottle it.

What is more surprising is that some people think that Gordon Brown did not in fact want an election. Well, I hate to see how much money he would spend on an election if it did happen, if he can tip £1 million on one he never wanted.

Another salvo fired as Labour infighting continues!

There seems to have been another salvo fired in the internal battles of Labour as Blairites seem to be taking some revenge on the Brown inner circle.

It must be said that at this stage it looks a bit low key, but the Mail on Sunday carries an article today which says that Tony Blair felt like an abused wife, whilst also serialising a book by Anthony Seldon, being a biography of Tony Blair.

The bit so far serialised covers just after the local elections in May 2006 when Labour did not do very well. It was written after many interviews with close members of Blair's team.

Needless to say it seems to have raised hackles in the Brown camp. Expect Ed "binky" Balls to be going off on one with steam pouring out of his ears.

The other interesting thing though, is this: It is clearly not very complimentary of Brown, or his team, yet was published in the Mail, albeit the Mail on Sunday. Paul Dacre editor of the Daily Mail is a close friend of Gordon Brown and that paper seems to be nice to Brown when you would not expect it to be. Its sister paper has no such hang ups. We could be getting an internal battle in the Mail camp as well.

Let slip the Dogs of War: Labour infighting begins!

Well, to be fair there are always disagreements in political parties, it happens. Also, yesterdays men (or women) are often more respected by journalists looking to sell a news paper than by anyone else.

However the result of Gordon Brown's attacks, disloyalty and general nastiness towards Tony Blair may be coming home to roost. I took the view before Gordon organised his Stalinist coronation that the only thing worse than Gordon Brown becoming Labour leader would be him not becoming Labour leader. My thinking was that his troops, and indeed he, would make make Ted Heath look like an ardent loyalist.If he did get in, then not only would he be a disaster, but it would not take long for him to be resented and derided by his own side.

We are not entirely there yet, but people who six months ago were not the usual suspects (because they are not Brownites) but will be soon known as the usual suspects have started piping up and briefing the media. So far three have been named in the media, Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke. Obviously the press reports indicate that they are only speaking out because of wider mutterings (my arse! we will see) and we will have to see how it progresses. What I can say is that if this takes hold, then Gordon is in for a much tough time in the future than he has had in the past.

The Times has this, the Observer this whilst the Mail on Sunday has this.

Lord Owen to rejoin Labour?

Today's Sunday Telegraph reports that Lord Owen has been in talks with Gordon Brown. It also has this analysis and comment here.

I can see that going down like a bucket of cold sick in Labour's ranks, understandably so. I do not have much time for David Owen.