For teachers, pupils and parents at five successful schools across the length of England, the news that Gordon Brown was to single them out by name in his first major education speech was a welcome recognition of their dedication and hard work.

Local newspaper headlines on the morning of the speech last Wednesday suggested that the Prime Minister was to praise these institutions as beacons of excellence whose initiatives and ideas should be replicated across the education world.

But today The Times can reveal that Mr Brown never praised the schools in the speech and that at least five local communities may have been the victims of a sophisticated government spin operation.

read the rest

(via Political Betting)

When is a 1,000-man troop withdrawal not a 1,000-man troop? When it’s a New Labour troop withdrawal, obviously. Once again, they’ve been caught double-counting. Five hundred of that 1,000 were announced last month. Two hundred and fifty troops are already home. When is a promise to make an important announcement to Parliament not a promise to make an important announcement to Parliament? When an important announcement is made in Baghdad in time for the lunchtime news bulletins. It wasn’t even made in Basra in front of British troops.

That new kind of politics we were promised is looking more and more like a cut and shunt job; the worst of Blairism welded to Brownite ruthlessness. Just why the announcement couldn’t wait to be made on Monday to Parliament hasn’t been explained, not least by the woeful defence minister Bob Ainsworth, the fall guy on this occasion, with his slippery delivery and anti-charisma. He makes Defence Secretary Des Browne look like JFK. (Not that Tory shadow Liam Fox was much better debating Ainsworth on the Today programme this morning - I have a seven year-old daughter who can debate better if the Tories are truly stuck.)

You have to wonder if there isn’t something pathological - obsessive-compulsive - about this. New Labour have been caught out time and time again doing this kind of stuff and yet they still can’t help themselves; this ‘culture of bullshit as routine’ as Charlie Whitaker puts it. I suppose they stick with it because it’s tried and tested and to a large extent it works. Most people have largely forgotten it by the time they reach the voting booth, if they make the effort at all.

But it adds a little more to the background radiation of contempt for and by politicians. It gently contributes to the slow, sad death of politics and engagement rather than inciting something stronger and healthier like the public standing up and declaring they’re sick of being spoonfed this horseshit.

This feverish twisting will no doubt become more febrile if Brown calls a general election next week. I’m in two minds about an election myself. It’d be nice to see Gordon face a vote seeing as how he didn’t have the cojones to face an internal debate and vote within his own party. On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that Gordon might be in a hurry before economic chickens come home to roost and American cruise missiles decide to migrate to Tehran for the winter.

You can see how this seemingly headlong rush towards an early election (symbolised by Baghdad boasting and other portents; cancelling an audience with the Pope, asking for TV slots on Monday evening…) reflects Brown’s regard for democracy and the political niceties. The electoral rolls aren’t properly updated until December 1 and the problems over postal voting have yet to be resolved. Going to the country before both are sorted could disenfranchise up to one million voters according to John Turner of the Association of Electoral Administrators speaking on Five Live last night.

But why worry about it when you’ve got a country to run? Surely a few hundred thousand people denied their democratic right is a price worth paying? Let’s just hope that they don’t all live in the 39 super-marginal constituencies where this government is going to live or die. That would be a rich irony.

UPDATE: More from John Turner in the Scotsman, on The Politics Show, The Times and elsewhere.

I think I’m in love (probably just hungry)
Think I’m your friend (probably just lonely)
Think you got me in a spin now (probably just turning)
Think I’m a fool for you (probably just learning)
Think that I can rock and roll (probably just twisting)
Think I wanna tell the world (probably ain’t listening)

Come on…

Think I can fly (probably just falling)
Think I’m the life and soul (probably just snorting)
Think I can hit the mark (probably just aiming)
Think my name is on your lips (probably complaining)
Think that I have caught it bad (probably contagious)
Think that I’m a winner baby (probably Las Vegas)

Come on…

Think I’m alive (probably just breathing)
Think you stole my heart now baby (probably just thieving)
Think I’m on fire (probably just smoking)
Think that you’re my dream girl (probably just dreaming)
Think I’m the best, babe come on (probably like all the rest)
Think that I could be your man (oh, probably just think you can)

Come on…

I think I’m in love, I think I’m in love

(With apologies)

Adam Boulton:

Under Tony Blair Labour dramatically changed the way Westminster did business just by shifting around the parliamentary timetable.

…

The net effect was that the Prime Minister, and MPs needed to spend less time in Parliament.

Gordon Brown is carrying on with these reforms - perhaps surprisingly since he has said that he wants to place parliament at the centre of the national debate. Almost all fixed points in the diary have been moved to the beginning of the week.

…

Far from being held to account more frequently by parliament, the new timetable actually seems to free up the government to behave more like a Presidential administration.

Smooth. An orderly transition of power, I think you could call it. Bloodless, you might say.

Imagine you’re fighting two wars. Neither of them seems to being going very well unfortunately. Cock-ups, conspiracies and downright childlike incompetence masquerading as malice have managed to serve up a bloody banquet of bugger all.

You’re losing the media war as well. Stories of your cock-ups, conspiracies and downright childlike incompetence masquerading as malice are rife.

So, what are you to do? Roll up your sleeves, stamp out the cock-ups, debunk the conspiracies and evict the downright childlike incompetence masquerading as malice? Nah. Why bother when you can just choke off the sources of tales of your amateurism? If it’s not in the papers, who cares?

Sorted.

Previously on A ‘new’ politics…

Upon his ascendancy to the throne (not needing anything so vulgar as an election), the rightful heir to the Prime Ministership of Great Britain said: ‘I have listened and I have learnt from the British people… I have heard the need for change… This change cannot be met by the old politics.’

‘To build trust in our democracy, I’m sure we need a more open form of dialogue with citizens and politicians to genuinely talk about problems and solutions. It is about a different type of politics, a more open and honest dialogue,’ he said.

Thus a ‘new’ politics was born.

And now, A ‘new’ politics continues…

(more…)

Spyblog:

A flurry of repressive Labour government Secondary Legislation passes unnoticed by the mainstream media and opposition politicians.

The old NuLabour trick of “burying the bad news” in a flurry of announcements which overwhelm the limited analytical resources of the mainstream media and the opposition political parties, is a practice which seems to be continuing under the supposedly “more accountable” style of government under the micro-meddling Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

BBC: MPs angry at written statements.

The number of written statements issued by the government in the final days before Parliament’s summer recess has angered opposition parties.

But what’s this?

Commons leader Harriet Harman said the timing was for “practical” reasons.

You bet it was done for practical reasons. Give the spin doctors a few days off, maybe? Give the likes of the redoubtable Harman a break from media scutiny, perhaps. Bless them, they’ve been in the job a whole month - they must be knackered.

Most people will probably think this a minor point, a detail of process and thus not worthy of attention. But it’s worth reading if you are at all under any lingering impression that Gordon Brown is on a mission to fix our broken democracy.

Time to start keeping another list. This is number two. Number one is this:

Gordon Brown yesterday tore up Blairite plans for a supercasino based in Manchester… the prime minister had not discussed it with the cabinet.

I’m no fan of super-casinos nor a constitutional expert, but wasn’t there an act of parliament laying this down in law? (Which Brown voted for.) You know, democratic process ‘n’ shit?