Well, New Labour have gained a little bit of ground on the Tories in the Hove Election Poster Count as I found while taking the kids to the dentist today:

Conservatives: 11 (up 1)
New Labour: 4 (up 3)

All the four posters were along Portland Road which is one of the main arteries through Hove.

The Tory one was another of those handwritten “what if a bloke on early release attacked you daughter” ones which we all know is code for “we’re going to abolish the early release system and good behaviour in prisons along with it“.

Interestingly, and opposite to my prediction that we’d never see the poster again, two of the New Labour posters were that “WARNING: TORIES WILL CUT £35BN FROM PUBLIC SERVICES” one, which I though had been comprehensively exposed as a semantic trick, sorry, lie. The posters must have already been at the printers when Tony was exposed as a liar.

The other one was once warning the Tories will introduce charges for NHS services which is also stretching the truth to breaking point, I’d say. The Tory policy is to offer half the cost of an operation if a person decides to go private. I’m not defending the policy, I think it’s a bloody rubbish idea, but the poster doesn’t reflect the truth as far as I’m concerned.

Does the Advertising Standards Authority have jurisdiction over political campaigning? After all, ASA’s code states:

Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation.

I’m not sure either of the New Labour posters would stand up to that kind of scrutiny.

I don’t want to look like I’m siding with the Tories - I’m not - but you’d think New Labour would have enough real ammunition to bury them without resorting to shabby, and easily debunked, untruths.

The Guardian: BBC scoops party leaders for live TV first

This is the nearest British voters will get to a US-style debate with each leader appearing consecutively in the 90-minute special to be hosted by Question Time regular David Dimbleby.

“We did talk about a live debate but it became perfectly clear that particularly Labour had no interest,” said Helen Boaden, the head of BBC news.

Hilarious.

You really do have to wonder about a man with the moral certitude enough that he can order other people to bomb women and children to raw and bloody shreds but doesn’t have the strength of conviction to front up and stand by his party’s policies against his opponents on live television.

And the way the BBC have bigged this up is almost as funny. You could film these goons taking questions a week apart from each other, edit the footage together and still achieve the same effect.

Treating the public like dickheads has quite clearly started early this election.

(Link via Honourable Fiend.)

…and other such hackneyed analogies.

Well, there we go. Blair announces May 5 as the date for the General Election.

The Election Roundup Blog put together by Nick Barlow and counting me among its contributors has been launched.

Anybody wishing to contribute by sending us stories, recommendations or offers of spending a day putting an election roundup together, should contact us at generalelection@gmail.com.

My own constituency, Hove, is a key marginal in the upcoming election so things could get pretty interesting here in the next few weeks. I’m going to try and blog proceedings if only in a half-arsed way.

I’ve already been keeping an, admittedly unscientific, watch on election spending in the constituency by keeping a count of election posters I see aound and about. The count now stands at:

Conservatives: 10
New Labour: 1

According to a piece in the FT yesterday on the constituency, the Conservatives have 11 posters up in Hove. One more for the full set then.

The Tories have to turn over a majority of 3,171 which they seem to regard as doable and have wheeled out the financial big guns. In the FT piece, Tory candidate Nicholas Boles reckons they will have spent “£80,000 on his campaign come polling day” - not ignoring the £10,000 spending limit imposed when the election is called. New Labour seem unwilling or unable to match those sums. Their candidate, Celia Barlow, says she “can’t pretend that the money’s comparable”. The Lib Dem candidate Paul Elgood, in surely an admission that the seat in unwinnable, says “I have no money,” and “it’s hand-to-mouth stuff.”

There’s an unofficial New Labour blog over at www.hovelabour.org which I want to plug, not least because I’ve been a bit antagonistic over there (and over here) in recent weeks. The site’s main man, BB, seems a decent chap still to be sullied and embittered by politics. I’d plug the Tory equivalent but there doesn’t seem to be one, at least not yet.

More to follow once the campaigns kick off in anger.

The Guardian’s Election 2005 blog is up and running.

If you’re lucky, you might spot somebody familiar on their Blogwatch.

Nick Barlow is putting together a crack team to blog the General Election.

The site is already coming together at an undisclosed location. The plan is to do a daily roundup of the best of the election coverage much like Tim Worstall’s weekly Britblog roundup.

Anybody wishing to help should head over to Nick’s place and enlist.

Jamie might have said he wants to put himself above party politics but New Labour made sure they got their mileage out of him today.

Just look at the photo - fresh fruit and orange juice to the fore. And their big announcement just happened to coincide with Oliver delivering his petition, did it?

New Labour: Treating the British public like dickheads since 1994.

For those who are regarding today’s announcement as if it were the second coming, here’s some quick maths:

The £220 million that is going straight to schools and LEAs is to be spread over three years (maybe the criticism about pensioner Council Tax relief only being for a year has bitten), so that’s:

£220,000,000 / 3 = £73,333,333

There are around 21,000 state schools in Britain, so lets see, on average, how much each school will get for each of the three years:

£73,333,333 / 21,000 = £3,492 per school per year

Not much, is it?

Now, I realise some schools are already spending 50p or more per head and so some schools will receive less than others. But it’s still going to be paltry amounts whichever way you slice it. This money is supposed to source better produce and train people to cook it.

If this bought your vote today, you’re an idiot.

So I’m doing another online poll for YouGov and it’s yet more questions about the forthcoming election - who do you plan to vote for and so forth.

And then this question is presented:

Given just these two choices, which would you prefer after the next general election?

- A Labour government led by Tony Blair

- A Conservative government led by Michael Howard

Can’t I have seppuku instead?

It’s just as well I’m being paid for 60p for the pleasure.

Now don’t get me wrong, as much as I like to rain fire and brimstone down on the New Labour project, and as much as I feel that, as a vehicle for progressive values, the wheel are pretty much off that wagon, Kemosabe - I loathe the Tories almost beyond words and measure.

I remember the hot gush of jubilation when Thatcher was brought low and will drink for a week - but not before pausing, of course, to tramp the dirt down - when she is finally consigned to that circle of Hell put aside just for her.

(To demonstrate my variance in hatred, when Tony goes I plan merely a long lost weekend)

Of course, the Tories are to blame for the state we’re in now - the New Labour project, with its obsession with installing the culture of the market in every aspect of our lives and its regard for human life as an abstract concept, being merely Thatcherism with a few 21st century knobs on. I yearn for the day, sometimes seeming close, others days further off, when Michael Howard and his misathropic, morally bankrupt bunch of feudal throwbacks finally sink into utter and richly deserved oblivion.

That said, as gratifying, nay arousing, as it is to see this shower of conceived-with-weak-sperm honkers tearing themselves to pieces right now, couldn’t they have made a show of being a proper opposition, y’know, just for a few weeks?

We’re now faced, in the coming election, with the equivalent of a Manchester United v Hemel Hemstead Over-65s Consumptives cup final. With an added, endless gloatful, braying commentary from the likes of the odious, stick-at-naught Milburn and thin-skinned cry-baby headkicker, John Reid. It’s going to be fucking terrible.

Et voila, another massive New Labour majority with all the horror that that entails.

Got some more election spam from New Labour - can’t find it online unfortunately. This time it’s from the formerly respectable John O’Farrell, whoring his slender celebrity with a “you may not agree with everything that has happened since 1997, but…” schtick. That’s one big fucking “but”.

Hello,

I once got a computerised letter from the New Statesman that said ‘Dear John O’Farrell, subscribe now and get a free copy of Things Can Only Get Better by John O’Farrell’. I’m emailing you as a fellow supporter, don’t worry you don’t have to buy the book.

Anyway, as a Labour activist who has helped the party lose elections at every level, I have been asked to say why I’m going out leafleting for Labour for the general election and why I hope you’ll volunteer to do something too. Everyone agrees the election, whenever that may come, is going to be the closest since 1992 and it is perfectly possible that the Tories could defy the polls to win power as they did in 1970. A major factor between now and polling day is how many Labour supporters we can mobilise. As Voltaire said; ‘All that is necessary for the Tories to triumph is that Labour Party supporters do nothing.’ (Okay, it’s a very loose translation.)

Like me, you may not agree with everything that has happened since 1997, but come election time we cannot risk throwing away all the fantastic achievements of the past eight years. If we sit back and do nothing now, we’ll be turning our backs on all the millions who’ve had their lives radically improved by the minimum wage or Working Families Tax Credit not to mention the millions of people in the third world who’ve benefited from the massive increase in overseas aid.

This isn’t emotional blackmail. Oh all right, it is emotional blackmail, but what the hell?

It is vital that we get our leaflets through millions of letter boxes over the next few weeks - otherwise those rabid Rottweilers waiting on the other side of the door will have nothing to rip to shreds. But if you think those dogs are scary, just imagine Michael Howard on the other side of that front door in Downing Street the morning after the election…

Go on, click on the link now…

http://labour.org.uk/volunteer

John O’Farrell
Author and Broadcaster

P.S The Labour Party machine has dragged me in to harass you into campaigning. So I’ll be emailing you from now until the election. If your friends and family would like to sign up, they just need to follow the link:

http://labour.org.uk

I like John, he’s written some amusing books and his column for the Guardian has a few wry grins in it, but is he really the best New Labour can do? What about all those people who queued to get into Number 10 in 1997? Isn’t Noel Gallagher available? Where are stalwarts of Cool Britannia when you need them?

Peter Hain is bleating again about how, because the forthcoming election boils down to a scrap over marginal constiuencies, those of us who don’t want to vote for a mass murderer will be guilty of letting the Tories in via the backdoor. A situation for which, because of New Labour’s craven retreat on electoral reform, they only have themselves to blame.

He’s like a stuck record - every time he pops up in the press or on TV he’s banging on about this. I know this is pure conspiracy theory but it’s as if he’s viewed by the high command as the cabinet’s nearest thing to a liberal. So he’s wheeled out time after time to squawk his argument like a parrot to win back the sandal-wearers and the muesli-munchers, and then they throw a cover over his cage to make him go quiet until the next time he’s needed to show what a clever boy he is. You suspect though, like a parrot, that Hain’s making the noises but is unwitting of any meaning of what he’s saying.

After all, do parrots really think they are pretty boys? Likewise, does Hain really think those of us who have had the guts to look at the photographs of the blasted bodies in Iraq, or read the reports about how the country’s resources are now a free buffet for foreign interests, will vote New Labour this year?

We could spend all day eviscerating Hain’s lachrymose twaddle but it’s a lovely sunny bank holiday, we’ve heard it all before, and I don’t want to add to the already unedifying spectacle of him down on his knees begging Guardian readers - a maligned section of society that New Labour seem to enjoy spitting on during the good times - to come back. It’s also pretty sickening to see a former spitfire anti-Apartheid activist defend the political assaults on our liberties and the military assaults on women and children. No doubt he’d say he’s been on a “political journey” - see also Alan Milburn - a euphemism, like “collateral damage” to make the gorge rise.

But if it rains later here’s a parlour game: read Hain’s “Baby, come back” letter, make a count of all the liberal-left erogenous zones he twiddles in an attempt to get us bleeding hearts moist and then list them in the comments here. There’ll be a big fat link to the website of the winner which should boost your visitor count by two - me and my mum.

PS: Hove Labour - in my own constituency - reckon their majority at the election might be as little as 739 votes. Make that 738.

Now, I’m quite clearly not as intelligent, wily and - indeed - mendacious as Gordon Brown, and this announcement has got me foxed:

The Guardian: Pensioners to get cash for care

Pensioners will be handed direct control of the care they receive if Labour wins a third term, ministers will pledge today.

Older people will be given the cash equivalent of the support to which they are entitled to so they can purchase the best services their money can buy.

Around £6bn could be transferred into “individual budget accounts” in what Labour is calling a revolution in care provision.

Surely, removing £6bn from the system to allow pensioners to purchase their own - probably private - care is six times worse than this:

BBC News: Howard and Blair clash over NHS

Mr Blair said the Tories wanted to take £1bn out of the NHS for a voucher system which would give people who go privately half of the cost of their operation - a charge later denied by the Tories.

It seems to me that both plans are the same in principle. But the New Labour one is worse because it take more money out of the NHS. And instead of providing the care for pensioners, the New Labour proposal put the responsibility for their care in the hands of the pensioners themselves who may be old, frail, uninformed and open to being ripped off by the first shonky care home or provider that rolls along.

I’d argue the money is best left in the system in both cases - it’s money that can be used to improve the levels of care, infrastructure, salaries or whatever within the NHS.

This is a very dry, dull subject and well done for getting this far, but it does go to the heart of the political debate in the UK at the minute. New Labour dress a conservative policy - the money is going to go to private operators, surely? - up as virtue while beating up on the Opposition for proposing something extremely similar.

Can you get a cigarette paper between the two parties on the main issues?

As I’ve been travelling the leafy highways and byways of Hove, or at least staggering from one drinking establishment to the next, I’ve kept a running total of the election campaign posters I see. The count so far runs at:

Conservatives: 9
New Labour: 1

I also notice from the one other piece of New Labour campaign material I’ve seen, the glossy takeaway menu-alike that came through the letterbox, that New Labour - at least in Hove - have dropped the “New” and are now merely “Labour” again. Whatever can it mean?

As if proof were needed that New Labour are a humourless bunch of smug fucks, I got some “comedy” pre-election spam from them today:

Today we are introducing a new feature to Labour.org.uk , the “Michael Howard Bandwagon Watch”. We’re inviting visitors to spot bandwagons Mr Howard or his candidates are boarding, nationally or locally. And you are also invited to send in your predictions as to what bandwagons Mr Howard may chase in the future.

Submit your predictions here:

http://labour.org.uk/bandwagon

Here are the current top ten favourites for his next bandwagon:

1. Howard pledges new “ATM bill” to deal with people who take too long getting money out of cashpoints.
2. Howard to ban hosepipe bans.
3. Howard to double limit on items allowed in “six and under” supermarket queues.
4. Howard says Premiership abuse of referees has grown under Labour, and promises a new “Graham Poll” bill.
5. Howard pledges to press Channel Four to move The Sopranos to 9pm.
6. Howard urges The West Wing to have a Republican President - preferably one who will meet him.
7. Howard to outlaw “push polling” - except by the Tories in this campaign.
8. Howard calls for royal wedding memorabilia profits to go to charity.
9. Howard pledges new bill to force pop stars to sing lyrics clearly.
10. Howard pledges streamlining of choice in coffee shops.

Make your own suggestion here:

http://labour.org.uk/bandwagon

Thank you,
The Labour Party

Who the hell wrote this for them? The scriptwriters from My Hero? Christ, it’s like Oscar Wilde had never been born. If you’re going to try to be funny then BRING THE FUCKING FUNNY. Don’t waste my time with this sub-6th form rot. I’m going to have to have my toes surgically uncurled.

If you overheard two students having that kind of conversation in a pub you’d wince in the certain knowledge that come closing time some burly bastard is going to kick seven shades of white paint out of the annoying little pricks.

Alan Milburn, along with his campaign, has finally gone round the bloody pipe.

Picture him in the New Labour campaign office. Everybody else has gone out for lunch. Alan sits, glancing across the room at a computer. Somebody has left their email account open. Alan’s been told to stay away from the computers of late - he just gets upset. But he’s got a cracking idea. It’s been swirling around his head for weeks. “Sod it,” he thinks and moves over to the computer. From his jacket pocket he pulls a fistful of screwed-up scraps of paper - a bus ticket, a cappucino receipt, a 1997 pledge card, a picture of Gordon Brown that he cut out of a newspaper and drew a pair of devil’s horns and a beard on, and more. On each of the pieces of paper, written in tiny handwriting, is a single sentence. Meticulously, with his tongue poked between his teeth, he types each sentences into the computer. “Howard pledges…”, “Howard urges…”. Alan’s shoulders shake with silent laughter. His heart is hammering in his chest. “They’re going to be so pleased,” he thinks, hugging himself. Sweating heavily, he hits the “Send” key just as the rest of the team enter the office, back from lunch.

Time to deprive him of not just his job but his liberty as well.

If he was running a cake shop he’d be bust in a week.

Well, if my - admittedly unscientific - observation of Tory election spending is anything to go by, they regard the New Labour-held constituency of Hove as very much Game On.

There are four Tory campaign posters within five minutes walk of my house in the slightly shabby ‘burb of Portslade. Two of them are those inflammatory “handwritten” jobs.

The first is the one that runs “Is is racist to…” - I can’t remember the rest of it, something about “rivers of blood” and “nig-nogs”, I think. Definitely a pitch to fans of 1970’s sitcoms.

The second is one that runs “How would you feel if a bloke on early release attacked your daughter?” The Tories, you see, want to remove any incentive prisoners have for good behaviour by ending the early release scheme. An better poster would be: “How would you feel if, under a Tory administration, a bloke attacked your daughter because of the emphasis on punishment not rehabilitation in our prisons and the bloke received no treatment for his violent tendencies?” A bit wordy but nearer the truth I think.

The Tory 1989 criminal justice white paper said that prison was “an expensive way of making bad people worse”. But since the rise of Blair, the debate on crime as taken an outward shift to the right, to the point where Howard has to announce ludicrous measures like plans to abolish the early release scheme to avoid being outflanked on the right.

Anyway, I digress. The remaining two posters are friendly photographs of Conservative candidate, Nicholas Boles. The posters don’t give much away about Nicholas but his website gives a few more clues.

He does seem something of an arriviste as far as I’m concerned. As an Oxford and Harvard graduate, director of a centre-right think tank and former member of Westminster City Council he seems very much like one of the pod people rising through the ranks of New Labour. We’ll see how all that endears him to some of the rougher parts of the area. He neglects to mention where he was born or where he’s from - if he had local roots you’d imagine he’d play them up.

A generic cookie-cutter pol, then. He certainly seems to be going out of his way not to offend. Or recommend himself.

Hove are going to have a new MP after the election anyway as the current New Labour incumbent, Ivor Caplin junior minister for civilian deaths or somesuch, is stepping down. The NL election candidate is Celia Barlow. She has rather more of a hinterland than Boles but nevertheless - as a Cambridge graduate and former news editor at the BBC - is another establishment figure from outside the area.

Like Boles, she too is gung-ho that Brighton & Hove Albion football club be allowed to build a stadium at Falmer. Trashing an area of oustanding natural beauty to provide bread and circuses is a vote winner on both sides it seems. Who knew votes could be bought that cheaply? Well I did actually, but it makes me no less diappointed.

Seeing both these candidates with no connection to the area wearing their Seagulls scarves and extolling the cause of the common man is hilarious. I’m reminded of Jack Straw, who a few years ago, described himself as a “football enthusiast”, as if any true fan of the game would decribe themselves in such a ridiculous way.

Celia entertained Tony Blair in Portslade last week, so he must be still seen as a vote-winner with somebody. I’m not sure if the visit was widely trailed or not - it certainly passed me by, denying me a role in Operation Henman. He also didn’t have a look around my daughter’s primary school which is a shame - she’s under instructions that, should she ever come across him, she’s to boo him.

New Labour must be sweating on the seat for Blair to come - Peter Hain was here the other week as well.

Celia’s election spending is somewhat less than Boles so far, at least in deepest Portslade. I’ve seen no posters but received a leaflet through the door which I initially took to be a take-way menu and almost binned.

It’s also interesting to note that neither candidate mention the Iraq war on their websites. Hove has an active peace movement - an opportunity for votes missed I would say.

In Summary: Bore Draw

UPDATE: A bit slow on the uptake but I made the connection: one day a few weeks ago there was a massive police presence in Portslade. So much so, my initial thought was that it was some kind of siege. In fact, as it turns out, it was Tony paying his visit. Five minutes from my house and everything and I didn’t get the chnace to shout anything rude. I wonder who footed the bill for the security?

We’ve heard so much in recent years about the Tories being such a poor opposition to the Government but boy, how the tables have turned in recent weeks. The Tories have had so much clear ground to extol their own particular culture of fear that you’d think it was New Labour floundering in electoral obscurity.

So, another Groundhog Day for Alan Milburn. But imagine him not as a disgruntled TV weatherman but more of a Pastor Niemöller figure.

Picture Alan hauling himself out of bed this fine Sunday morning. His normally lustrous bouffant is tousled and slightly greasy. He is unshaven and looking a little more haunted, hunted around the eyes. He isn’t sleeping well these days. He goes downstairs, still yawning, picks the Sunday papers up from the doormat and is met with:

“Howard stirs race row with attack on Gypsies”

See Alan standing in his hallway, stunned. They’ve got him again. Almost robotically, he starts to chant, adding to his mental list:

First they came for the asylum seekers, but I was not an asylum seeker, so I said nothing.

And then they came for the Gipsies, but I was not a Gipsy, so I did little.

The newspaper falls to the floor. He puts his head in his hands and begins to weep. Between shaking sobs, he thinks the day he himself is taken away will be a blessed relief.

Here, the relationship between elector and government has come to mirror that between customer and high street bank. we don’t much care for it, and resent being ripped off, but changing to another when they all seem to be offering much the same deal seems like too much bother when there’s tell to be watched.

The Independent’s Matthew Norman is the main reason to buy the newspaper on a Friday (as Mark Steel is on a Thursday). His air of weary disappointment and contempt for our political masters is delicious. It’s a shame the Independent website puts his stuff behind their subscription wall.

Norman’s central thrust this week is that while Tony Blair, Peter Hain and the like pay lip service to the evils of voter apathy, it actually plays well for them electorally. After all, in 2001 New Labour were returned to power with a 167 seat majority on a 59% turnout, the lowest since 1918. The reason? A “culture of contentment”, came the unusually articulate euphemism from John Prescott.

I mean just look at yesterday’s “WARNING: THE TORIES WILL CUT £35BN FROM PUBLIC SERVICES” debacle. Once ITN’s Nick Robinson had established that Tony Blair was a liar (googlebomb courtesy of Tim Ireland), the whole argument descended into the kind of protracted score-draw that made even a political obsessive like me turn over to Ready Steady Cook. Something about a semantic argument between the difference between cutting spending and spending less.

New Labour supporters will have have gone “Tory Bastards!”, Tory Supporters will have gone, “Labour Bastards!”, us tactical voters will still be chanting “stay on target” and the rest will have gone, “What’s for dinner?”. Anybody who doesn’t plan to vote will not have been swayed one way or the other and New Labour can still look forward to its third majority.

And I bet, like most of these “poster launches”, the “WARNING” one is never seen again.

Jesus Christ. Is is me or is there nary a day goes by when we don’t have another half-baked, ill-thought out and invariably populist piece of shite announced by New Labour in its frantic attempt to curry favour before the election?

They’re like panicky Alan Partridge feverishly pitching evermore ludicrous ideas (Monkey Tennis, Arm Wrestling with Chaz and Dave, Intercity Sumo) in a desperate attempt to save his career.

Imagine Alan Milburn sitting at a typewriter in a basement somewhere. He hasn’t slept or eaten for days and is surrounded by ashtray after ashtray of fag-ends. He stinks of sweat. He hammers away at the keys, periodically ripping the paper out of the machine, thrusting it into the hands of whichever cabinet minister has drawn the short straw, and gasping, “here, give them this.” Like a little boy who’s left his homework until five minutes before it’s due to be handed in, any old shit will do.

So today we have Health Secretary John Reid announcing that “New community matrons” will help children “draw up personal health plans to improve their quality of life“. The accompanying bumpf is called “Delivering choosing health” - a title, whose construction says it all, ie. What the fuck?

Now, it doesn’t take Jamie Oliver to tell you that children could not give a flying fuck about healthy eating. They love eating shite. I almost expect the news that Turkey Twizzlers are being banned from school dinners to be met with an exponential increase in ASBOs.

And the private companies who supply school dinners care even less. My own daughter attends a school supplied by Scholarest. Needless to say, she takes a packed lunch. I look forward to seeing John Reid telling these outside contractors to stop serving warmed-over mechanically recovered chicken’s doings and start slashing their profit margins so they can serve decent food. I don’t really - expect parents to be told it’s their fault.

Ruth Kelly can cry crocodile tears and promise higher standards in school dinners but there’ll be no more cash to add to the 37p a head that currently pays the bill.

According to the “Delivering Choosing Health” (PDF, 600k) glossy, “3 out of 10 boys and 4 out of 10 girls are not doing the recommended one hour per day physical activity.” If New Labour want to tear kids away from their PlayStations, Hollyoaks and masturbation, why the hell did they give the ok to the sell off of school playing fields?

Instead, we get some infuriatingly empty, transparent, here today, and dare I say it, gone tomorrow piece of guff about children being in charge of their own health. What a load of old (or, rather, New) bollocks.

You can prove it yourself. Set up a Google News Alert for “Delivering Choosing Health“. Google will send you an email everytime the initiative is mentioned in the news. Don’t expect to be inundated.

UPDATE: Here’s what the Number 10 website has to say about the initiative:

Healthy kids equals healthy nation, says Reid

Teaching children to eat well and encouraging them to exercise is vital if Britain is to become a fitter country, according to a new Government report.

The Government has published ‘Delivering Choosing Health’, a plan which sets out practical benefits for local communities.

There will be a range of actions to help children make healthier choices, Health Secretary John Reid said.

Youngsters, with support from their parents, will draw up personal health plans for life setting out how they will eat the right kind of food and how often they should exercise.

Community matrons will play a key role in supporting kids to help them lead healthier lifestyles.

Schools will also begin piloting the use of pedometers to encourage their pupils to think about the amount of exercise they take.

John Reid said:

“We know how important it is to make sure healthy habits start young.

“That’s why we are taking a range of actions to get kids involved in making healthier choices about the food they eat and how much exercise they take.”

I know I’m going on about it but this kind of horseshit is why I’m so sick to the back teeth of this shower. Instead of proper school meals and physical education it’s an onus on parents and pedometers. Pedometers! I wonder if they’re special New Labour ones that double-count your footsteps? Parents are going to help children draw up their health plans. What of the sows and their porcine broods I saw entering McDonalds in Brighton on Saturday? They quite clearly have their children’s best interests at heart.

It’s this bogus idea of putting power into the hands of the people. As if New Labour were ever in the business of divesting real power to anybody. It plays well in the media, giving a nebulous notion that people have control over their lives. But the majority, with their soaps and lottery and Turkey Twizzlers, are too lazy, ill-educated or lulled to the point of cultural narcolepsy to give a toss.

If people really cared about their health and the health of their children there’d be organic greengrocers on every high street instead of fast food outlets. But they don’t and there aren’t. No amount of gentle, half-arsed prodding by the Government is going to change that. Which is why “Delivering Choosing Health” is utterly redundant except as a big butterfly net to catch naive floating voters.

But Reid’s plan sounds so rosey, so very New Labour. A cunning splicing of tradition and modernity, grown in a vat in a febrile laboratory. Matrons. It’s a lovely word that conjures a lovely image. I wonder if they’ll be warm, buxom and well, matronly? Pedometers. A fitter, healthier generation, marching in step into the future, groomed for their optimum positions in the economy, little computers counting their steps to greatness.

Number 10 Press Briefing: 11am Monday 28 February 2005:

Put to the PMOS that the Prime Minister had said in a “Woman’s Hour” interview that there were “several hundred people plotting” a terrorist attack, and did that therefore mean there would be several hundred house arrests imposed, the PMOS replied: no. The Prime Minister had used the same phraseology last week in PMQs, and he made clear that with regards to the extreme end of the control orders, we envisaged that it would only be used against a very few people.

The Guardian:

No 10 also made light of the prime minister’s remark. But talk of “several hundred” active plotters - made on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour - is far in excess of what intelligence officials estimate.

The Times:

A Downing Street official said Mr Blair’s claim was based on the few hundred people being monitored by the security services, some of whom would be subject to the new control orders. However, one senior security source told The Times that the figures were based on numbers from MI6 of people who travelled to training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, prior to September 11.

Of that group of 200 or so, only 40 to 50 were regarded as a “moderate�? or “serious�? threat, and of that group up to 15 had disappeared from Britain altogether. That left around 25 or 30 who are known to be in Britain, with some of those in prison in Belmarsh.

Telegraph:

Tony Blair said the police and security services were keeping watch on “several hundred” people they believed were engaged in or plotting or trying to commit terrorist acts.

Restrictions on their liberty would be used “only in the most limited circumstances”, he said.

The Home Secretary later denied that the Government was planning to impose control orders on that number of suspects, suggesting that Mr Blair was referring to many cases in which action had already been taken.

Ha ha. This “hundreds” tosh was only ever going to have a shelf-life of a matter of hours even with those bovine enough to take the Prime Minister at his word.

No doubt this will just fade away. Maybe we’ll get a “so sorry, we were given the wrong figures” later on if someone can be bothered to query Blair on yet another queasy instance of his serial mendacity. In the meantime let’s hope at the least it’s made one or two more voters realise just in what kind of contempt they are held.

icNorthWales: Imagine Labour winning and Blair losing his seat

SENIOR Plaid Cymru figures last night backed an audacious bid to challenge Tony Blair at the general election.

Detailed plans were being kept under-wraps but the aim is to link up with disillusioned Labour supporters and a celebrity candidate to oust the prime minister from his own Sedge-field constituency.

One of the brains behind the plan is Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Adam Price.

…

Mr Eno is the only household name linked to the plan.

It’s a nice warm fuzzy little dream. You’ve got to hope they’ve someone a bit more prominent than Brian Eno, though. While Eno made some lovely noodly ambient music a while back and was in Roxy Music for about five minutes, I doubt very much if he’ll inspire Sedgefield voters to turn out and help him knock Tony off his perch.

Unless he killed himself during the campaign.

Just who would be popular enough to bring Blair down, I wonder? Nick Knowles for the lonely housewife of a certain age vote? The one that looks like a thumb from McFly for the just-come-of-voting-age knicker-wetter and the lonely housewife of a certain age vote, perhaps. Maybe they could tip Jack Straw a few quid and get him to rush through a passport for Martin Sheen.

In other news, New Labour to Adam Price: Bada-bing!

Like the six new pledges he unveiled today, Tony’s stops on his “whistle-top” tour were short and devoid of meaning to the point of abstraction. Are we supposed to believe that meaningful dialogue has taken place between Tony and the electorate as opposed to some dumb stunt like Phil Collins playing both Live Aids?

If he was going to do it right he should have announced his pledge card on an Ian Botham-style sponsored walk or, more becoming with his image, a touring passion play.

There’s an idea. How about:

The First Station (Wandsworth): Tony falls the first time
Tony, the card you have been carrying is very heavy. You are becoming weak and almost ready to faint, and you fall down. Nobody seems to want to help you. The soldiers are interested in getting home, so they yell at you and try to get you up and moving again.

The Second Station (Kettering): Tony falls the second time
This is the second time you have fallen on the road. As the card grows heavier and heavier it becomes more difficult to get up. But you continue to struggle and try until you’re up and walking again. You don’t give up.

The Third Station (Warwick): Tony meets the women of Warwick
Tony, as you carry your card you see a group of women along the road. As you pass by you see they are sad. You stop to spend a moment with them, to offer them some encouragement. Although you are have been abandoned by your friends and are in pain, you stop and try to help them.

The Fourth Station (Leeds): Tony falls a third time
Tony, your journey has been long. You fall again, beneath your card. You know your journey is coming to an end. You struggle and struggle. You get up and keep going.

The Fifth Station (Shipley): Tony’s clothes are taken away
The soldiers notice you have something of value. They remove your cloak and throw dice for it. Your wounds are torn open once again. Some of the people in the crowd make fun of you. They tease you and challenge you to perform a miracle for them to see. They’re not aware that you’ll perform the greatest miracle of all!

The Sixth Station (Gateshead): The Resurrection
We adore You O’ Tony and we praise you … Because by Your Holy Card You have redeemed the World.

***

And of course it doesn’t take a genius tell you that these pledges are so broad as to mean nothing. The pledge card will have the six platitudes and the underlying factors that shore them up can then be bent, twisted and otherwise invented - much like the backtracking and wriggling over WMDs - until Tony can stand up and say he’s fulfilled each pledge.

You could end up living in a ditch, waiting five years to see a doctor and he’d still tell you you’re better off.

PS. This graphic is a photoshopper’s dream. Tim?

“Your family better off”

Erm, could you be a bit more specific? If Gordon Brown came up to me and pressed a pound coin into my hand, my family would be, by definition, better off. You could make everybody in the country slightly better off for a relatively paltry £60 million.

“Under this Labour government, families are indeed better off.”

Tick. Pledge One done.

As someone whose family’s life has been made considerably more difficult under this Government (a story for another time), I’d like to see a few more details.

Revolution: Labour’s controversial anti-Howard posters worth £300k

The Labour Party’s controversial posters attacking Michael Howard racked up the equivalent of almost £300,000 in advertising spend as it took the top place in the first Ads that Make News survey of 2005.

So just who was Michael Howard trying to appeal to with his odious blackshirtery this afternoon?

One statistic that’s been bandied about in the last few days (as recently as the PM show on Radio 4 this evening) is that one in three people (read: bigots) are concerned/worried about the issue of asylum.

So generously taking this statistic at face value, that’s a third of the electorate getting steamed up about foreigners. That’s leaves two thirds who just don’t care or know the facts and aren’t worried.

In the News of the World survey on January 16, the support for the Tories in the UK’s 120 most marginal seats is 32%. Which fits quite neatly with the one in three concerned about asylum - Howard’s preaching to the converted. He’s shoring up his core vote.

Those people who read the facts about asylum seekers and immigration aren’t worried about these twin bogeymen. Daily Mail readers, Tory voters (and let’s face it, quite a few johnny-come-lately New Labour voters) and other ignoramuses who would rather be told how to think are worried about a mythical tide of filthy foreigners who want to bleed the welfare system dry and give us all AIDS.

There is also the chance that this rancid little piece of button-pushing might well backfire. It may have the unintended consequence of galvanising the lacklustre Labour vote that the New Labour high command are reportedly so worried might stay at home on polling day. Disillusioned Labour voters might drag themselves out, hold their noses and vote to keep Howard and his morally bankrupt little crew out of power.

It’s not much of a choice and a worse reason to vote Labour - because they’re slightly less evil than the Tories - I have yet to hear. Labour might spoil it all when they announce their own asylum policy but after Howard’s display today I might just have to change my plans and get out of bed on polling day after all.