My administration will hit the ground running…

Day 1: If you vote for a political party because a dead soap opera character told you to, you will lose your vote. And your prefrontal cortex.

Here we go. Yet another generous dollop of ‘masochism strategy‘:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to reassure the Labour Party he can lead them to victory despite disastrous results at local elections.

…

Mr Brown is giving media interviews on Sunday as newspapers speculate about various plans to oust him.

I don’t know about you but watching this defeated and defeated-looking, hang-dog, humiliated and hunched, inspiration-free ivory tower-dwelling fool beg for his job is not the way to spend a fresh Sunday morning.

The Prime Minister will once again be insisting that denial is a river in Africa. You get the feeling that he will be closing his interviews with ‘They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist…’ (It’s certainly something they should consider carving on New Labour’s tombstone.)

It’ll be a miserable, miserable, miserable spectacle, demeaning to all. Platitudes are not a breakfast cereal. Go and find something far more wholesome and nourishing. We’re off car-booting to bring home more crap we don’t need to fill space we don’t have. A bit like New Labour law makers.

And so it came to pass. A city of grown men and women elected their leader for a laugh. That, in a big way makes them far worse than the deluded souls who voted for George Bush all those years ago.

And like a zombie virus, how do we stop this contagion spreading to the rest of the country? London must be sealed off. Cauterized. Let us thank God that the supply of novelty, racist lightweights is short or we’d all be up to our neck in them, trapped in our homes as they lurch about outside craving our flesh.

If there is a way for these comedy voters to suffer for their levity without those who didn’t vote for Johnson* suffering too, now is the time to start looking for it. They chose their mayor for a laugh.

It’s hard to see the silver lining in these moments. There is a small one. All the hassle and slog of putting on what is almost certain to be a shitty Olympics now transfers to Johnson. May he live in interesting times.

Let’s hope the legion of special advisers who are going to be doing all the heavy lifting of his administration are something really bloody special. The omens ain’t good.

*Let’s have no more of this ‘Boris’ shit. London’s about to find out just how cuddly he is.

So, anybody want to play Fix The Labour Party? What should they do to avoid a thrashing at the general election? I’ll start with:

• Temporarily reinstate the 10p tax rate next week. Fix the problem long term by looking again at personal allowances for the low waged.
• Reverse the post office closures
• A scheme up and running in the next twelve weeks where people earning under a given threshold can claim a substantial refund on last quarter’s fuel bill.
• A windfall tax on energy company profits
• Implement a proportional representation voting system in time for the general election.
• Either commit troops to defending Basra or bring them home. Time to poo or get off the pot.

Rubbish or what? Any more?

Blimey. Will Howells has an unforgettable commute…

Gordon Brown in 2000:

Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter.

And so the irony of the 2008 model Brown having everything crossed that Livingstone might help save his arse is a delicious one. I hope Gordon’s gagging on it. If I was him, I’d start drinking now and not stop until the snooker’s finished.

It was also a delight to hear the now rusting Blair Babes desperately scrabbling around for a silver lining on the radio this morning. Both Harriet Harman and Hazel Blears, spewing smoke and misfiring as they wobble and parp slowly towards the scrapyard, claimed that last night’s Tory successes would mean that the opposition’s policies and positions would now come under greater scrutiny in the run up to the next general election.

Oh, yeah? Like they did in 1997? Back then policies counted for almost nothing so why should they now? You could have pretty much, as they say, put a dog in suit and the voters would have put a tick in his box just to see off the Tories. That voters are now starting to look to an empty suit like Cameron should tell us just how bad things are 11 years later.

Politically, then, Gordon was wise to stop the pay rise, because the general British attitude to offenders is as brutal and vindictive as it is pig-headed and self-defeating. If a study were published tomorrow establishing beyond the tiniest doubt that awarding the extra £1.50 would reduce reoffending rates by 60 per cent, and save an annual £6bn for an outlay of £6m, the phone-ins and blogs would still resound to that ritual hunting cry of political correctness gone mad, from representatives of the vast majority of voters who favour the reintroduction of capital punishment, however incontrovertibly proven its worthlessness as a deterrent may be.

Read the rest

If this abject waste of water and carbon wins today I, and many like me, will never ever stop taking the piss.

(Video via Mike)

You have to say that Gordon’s a trier. The day before polling in the local and London mayoral elections and he’s spraying treats around for everybody.

It was a Blairite tactic to try and be all things to all people and, while it was all too transparent for those who could be bothered to look, there was at least a veneer of arrogant calm about it. Brown, while using the same methods, comes across as having an air of sweaty desperation.

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Here’s a not-at-all-blackly-cynical Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian on Labour’s prospects after the elections this week:

What else will the Labour faithful cling to if the voters mete out their predicted harsh punishment? I have heard ministers say that a Boris Johnson victory would be a short-term disappointment, but could be a long-term boon. If Johnson makes a balls-up of London, he will serve as a poster boy for Conservative unreadiness for high office.

Can I be one of the first to thank Londoners for their brave sacrifice? You can’t make a general election omelette without breaking a few electoral eggs. And anyway, a Boris Balls-Up sounds so cuddly, doesn’t it?

It was terribly brave of you London types to volunteer for the front line. Let us know how salvaging New Labour’s electoral prospects works out for you. God bless you all. And you too, Reading and Birmingham:

Losses in Reading or Birmingham will be tolerable because they are faceless, so long as Saturday’s front pages show a smiling, re-elected Ken Livingstone.

Ah, the unknown soldiers. They fought for their country and we honour their sacrifice.

While he was on the GMTV sofa yesterday, Gordon Brown referred to skunk as ‘lethal’ three times. Journalists followed this up at the Number 10 press briefing later that day. Is cannabis ‘lethal’? The government will, of course, have copious evidence to back up the Prime Minister’s claims, yes?

Put repeatedly that the Prime Minister had used the word “lethal” to describe the use of cannabis and asked if there were examples of cannabis being lethal, the PMS said that nobody was disputing the potential dangerous impacts of cannabis and that that was why cannabis was an illegal drug.

That’s a ‘no’ then. Unless it’s some kind of patois in the vein of ‘Wow man, this stuff is lethal!’

It’s not for me to comment on the London mayoral election. Not living in the capital, it’s got nowt to do with me.

One thing though. If Boris Johnson does get voted in on Thursday, a law should be passed immediately prohibiting Londoners from making jokes about George W Bush. Only fair, I think.

It’s that time of year so here we go again:

Gordon Brown is heading for crushing reverses on Thursday night and will see Ken Livingstone swept from the London mayoralty, according to two final polls before the local elections published yesterday.

The projections would mean Labour would lose more than 200 council seats in England and Wales.

It’s the same trick year on year on year on year. Labour and their sympathisers accentuate the negative and big up the potential losses in the run up to polling day. When the results are in and they’re not as bad as ‘predicted’, ministers can tour television studios and say ‘well, of course, the results aren’t as bas as everybody said they were going to be’. Needless to say the herds of local councillors out on their ears don’t get a mention.

And we fall for it every year. The papers and the government’s opponents lick their lips but their prey will be just out of reach again come Friday morning. The likes of Hazel Blears and Jack Straw can once again go and crow on the radio and television like generals at the Somme who’ve marched their men on the enemy guns.

Children will be allowed to sentence each other for minor crimes such as vandalism under plans for Scotland’s first “kid court”.

I’m looking forward to this. I hope they empower Big Malkie from 7J to administer punishments ranging from wedgies to chinese burns. More serious offenders should have a description of the lewd acts their mothers are alleged to perform along with their mobile number written on toilet doors throughout the school.

Gordon Brown has finally done something right: This morning he’s declined to appear on Victoria Derbyshire’s racist and psycho magnet on Five Live.

Is this a sign of a turnaround in the Prime Minister’s fortunes? Does his refusal to pander to the forces of anti-intellectualism mark the emergence of a more thoughtful and considerate leader?

What in the name of all the saints has it come to, you wondered in astonishment, when the public school-educated Tory son of a 17th baronet, and heir to a large fortune, goes on telly to defend the poor from a Labour government without making you feel nauseous?

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I’m probably not about to shut up about this 10p rate of tax thing any time soon. For those who are still interested, the rest of this ramble is below the fold.

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One of my favourite George Carlin one-liners is ‘Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that’.

So take a look at this from the Prime Minister:

The Chancellor said in his letter that the Government will examine in that review all practical propositions, with the focus on potential changes to the tax credit system to allow the average losses from the removal of the 10p starting rate of income tax to be offset.

Average losses. Think of the offset of the average loss, and realise half of them will be lower than that. This ‘u-turn’ isn’t a compromise. It isn’t a fudge. It’s deceit.

While the government and its backbenchers were squabbling over whether to screw the poor and by how much, James Purnell, the Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions, made a written statement to Parliament.

In it, Purnell says that the publication of the Households Below Average Income 1994-95—2006-07 Series which was due to be published on May 2 will now delayed until… well, he doesn’t say. The ‘Take up of Income Related Benefits publication may also be delayed’.

Previous reports can be found here. They are descibed as presenting ‘information on potential living standards as determined by disposable income in 200x/0x, changes in income patterns over time and income mobility.’

Purnell puts the reason for the delay down to ‘a small but important inaccuracy in the 2006-07 data’ which might be the case. However, the timing looks suspicious. Could there be bad news in this report? You know, the kind that needs soil throwing over it?

The announcement was made at the so-called climax of the 10p tax rate bunfight when attentions were elsewhere. It also concerns the publication of just how poor the poor are in Britain and the uptake of benefits. You don’t have to be as cynical as I am to wonder if you can smell something funny.

(Political geeks wanting to dig up their own buried treasure could do worse than put The Government Says on their RSS readers.)

Over now to Nick Robinson in Downing Street…

NICK ROBINSON: There’s still a steamy atmosphere in Whitehall tonight as the combatants on either side catch their breath, lick their wounds, and take stock. It remains too early to tell whether this fight between Labour backbenchers and the Goverment over whatever it is has finally ended. It’s been many a year since we’ve seen such conflict over whatever it is and it’s been terribly exciting. Sources, who I can’t reveal for risk of ruining the air of mystery and privilege that surrounds my job as a state-funded gossip, tell me tonight that whatever it is may yet cause division and acrimony in the Labour Party for some time to come. For all our salaries, let us hope so. Back to you in the studio.

Thanks, Nick. There were unprecedented scene in Westminster tonight as, in a reversal of the conventional wisdom, the Prime Minister declared that from now on as well as history being written by the victors, the losers will get to scrawl a page or two as well…

GORDON BROWN: I don’t think I’ve been pushed about at all in the long term. What I’ve done in the long term is listen and made the right long-term decision. A week is a long time in politics so its obvious that the long term decisions I made this week about whatever it is would be different from the long term decisions I made last week about whatever it is. You may think you remember me saying there were no losers over whatever it is but my recall is fundamentally differentiated in the long term.

Rebel MPs have been quick to welcome the Prime Minister’s not-at-all incompatible with his previous statements statement today. We spoke to one earlier.

RUBBER STAMP-FODDER (LAB): Well, of course this whole terrible business over whatever it is has been bad for everyone: the Prime Minister, the government, MPs and er… yes. Fortunately the Prime Minister’s announcement papers over the cracks rather nicely or at least whittles down the number of those complaining to manageable proportions. Public empathy and attention spans being what they are, this will all be forgotten very soon anyway by the majority, especially with several other whatever it is being debated in Parliament in the coming days. That can only be good for the party, sorry, country.

And that’s the news tonight. Good evening.

Didn’t take too long in the end:

In a written statement to the Commons, the chancellor makes clear that the Treasury will assess the average loss of pensioners aged between 60 and 64 and childless working people before announcing what he will do in his pre-Budget report this autumn. He also makes clear that whatever measures are taken will be backdated to the beginning of the tax year.

And maybe a little extra on top? For loan and overdraft interest and bank charges the low waged might have to pay between now and the autumn due to being worse off. That’s what a Prime Minister with a ‘sense of what is equitable and fair‘ would do.

It’ll be interestng to see the details. No doubt it’ll be done via the massively efficient tax credit system - you know the one that pays one lot of civil servants to collect people’s taxes and another lot of civil servants to give them back - but then you can’t have everything.

You know, sometimes Britain looks a bit like the town of Big Whiskey in Unforgiven. The Sheriff’s a bastard who needs a reminder of how the law works.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to to observe the rule of law by reinstating the BAE- Saudi Arabia criminal investigation by the SFO and defending its deliberations against influence by its subjects.

Go sign, townsfolk. Pass the word to yer neighbours ‘n’ kin.

Here’s Dave Hansell in the comments on the Bank of England’s £50 billion ‘mortgage rescue plan’:

£50 billion would buy a £200,000 property for a quarter of a million families.

It’s very appealing on the face of it. What would be the catch in the government doing that and being a low or no interest mortgage broker?