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.

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?

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.

(more…)

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.

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?

read the rest

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.

(more…)

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.

What, where, when, why and how?

Mr Brown told Labour MPs: “I understand how difficult it is when food prices and fuel prices are rising.”

“It is difficult out there and I understand that. People want to know we get it and understand their anxieties.”

He understands, understands, understands. How does he understand? Does he pass amongst his people in disguise to eavesdrop on their petty concerns like a king in a fairy tale? Has a courtier appeared before him crying, ‘Sire, the people beg you feel their pain?’ How is he going to let people know he ‘gets it’? Currently we’re hearing it third hand, filtered via an MP-to-journalists game of Chinese Whispers.

And the forelock-tugging Denis Macshane might have thought he was doing his master a favour when he said…

…that Mr Brown’s approach had been “more humane, more human and much more sympathetic”…

…but he makes the Prime Minister sound like the Tin Man learning to cry in the Wizard of Oz or himself sound like a roboticist who’s made a breakthrough in getting his mechanical creations to mimic human emotion. The thought that Brown has been clanking around Whitehall in the last few weeks squawking ‘WHY. DO. YOU. CRY. HU-MAN?’ is a compelling one.

Has the Prime Minister been practising his humanity and sympathy? Has he had coaching? Or has he possessed them all along but has only now found a use for them? The thought that the Prime Minister has begun expressing these sensibilities only after being badgered into it isn’t very comforting. There’s a Blairite artificiality and expediency about it.

Still, panic over. Vague assurances and nebulous emollients win the day and Labour MPs’ hearts yet again. Go back to bed, Britain.

The 10p rate losers must be feeling very honoured this afternoon. The government are moving heaven and earth for them. The momentous shift should happen sometime around 2009 in plenty of time for a general election.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper told MPs an inquiry into helping low paid families with children will now include those without children.

Is there anything that can’t be booted into the long grass with a review by these guys? Back in the age of nuclear paranoia they would have lobbied for the four minute warning to be reformed to a four month warning giving time for an inquiry to report back after the local elections.

Gordon Brown can deny this is hurting people all he likes. New Labour can say that ‘most’ people are better off. The fact is that a Labour goverment is making some of the poorest people in this country even poorer. On a day when Alistair Darling threw £50 billion at the banks and coming from a government only happy to bend over for anyone with a suit and a fat cigar, it’s all the more twisted.

Still, the parliamentary vote on this next Monday is going to be framed as a vote of confidence in Gordon Brown’s leadership which will tuck it all up nicely. I’m sure all those disgruntled Labour backbenchers will find bags of confidence between now and then.

If we’ve seen anything in the last eleven years of this government it’s that the majority of Labour backbenchers are chokers, bottlers, happy to give, give and give on a sort-of-promise of getting something or other in return at some point in the future. That’s why predictions made by the likes of Jackie Ashley in today’s Guardian are as likely to come true as Gordon Brown launching a pop career:

If the rebellion over the 10p tax rate abolition continues to gather pace and the rebels hold their nerve, they can get rid of Gordon Brown as early as next week.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be exciting to watch - people who think politics is dull need a punch up the bracket. But it’s fantasy. We’ve seen this - the outrage and the rebellion before the standing down and the taking orders - happen before all too often. Ashley herself says why:

For after the 10p vote will be plenty more possible crises, not least the vote over the 42-day detention proposal. On both, I am 100% against the official government view and, with every instinct, on the side of the Labour rebels. But disaster is looming and the real parliamentarians have carefully to weigh in the balance what they now do, and ask how much likelier it will make a Tory landslide a year hence.

Labour has to knuckle down and swallow the vestiges of its dignity and its pride and its dignity. Make the proles poorer and lock the Muslims up for longer or look what will happen. Backbenchers might not like the policies being handed down from on high but it’s power right or wrong. Whatever happened to conscience? The parliamentary whips had it taken out and shot.

(more…)

On a low income? Unmarried? Childless? Feeling the pinch under a Labour Party that’s forgotten why it exists in the first place? Don’t despair, poor person, help is at hand. You too can enjoy the prosperity and aspirations currently out of the reach of the likes of you. This is all it takes:

Get knocked up.

Yes, get knocked up. Then you’ll be a family and all your troubles will be over. You may be a single-parent family but you’ll still be a family. Your relationship might not be ready for a child but you’ll still be a family.

You might have to give up your career hopes but you’ll be a family. You might not be one of those ‘hard-working’ families we hear so much about but you’ll be a family. You might be more of a burden on the state but you’ll be a family.

We like families. We want to give them money. We don’t like childless, barren women or relationships. We want their money. So, go on, pop one out.

Well, it was only a matter of time. Got a bunch of uppity backbenchers? Find their weak spot and squeeze. As usual, it’s an appeal to their baser instincts:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has warned Labour that squabbling over the abolition of the 10p income tax rate raises the risk of electoral defeat.

Shut your mouths or it’s your jobs, in other words. It was a favourite trick under Blair when things were looking dodgy. If you’re not cop, you’re little people, as Harrison Ford’s boss in Blade Runner says when the former steps out of line.

And it’s not like New Labour aren’t averse to taking money off the poorest in society. Indeed, it was one of their first acts when coming to power in 1997, cutting the benefits of single parents. Sure, dissenters piped up (they were called ‘the usual suspects’ and ‘the arkward squad’ in those days) but the parliamentary party rolled over as it would do so many times in the future. And the New Labour message was sent:

In 1997, the Blairs spent new year in the Seychelles as a guest of billionaire Richard Branson.

In that year’s message Mr Blair fired a warning shot to left wing Labour MPs unhappy at plans to cut benefits for lone parents, emphasising the need for “hard, work, discipline and determination” in the year ahead.

Just swap single parent benefits for the 10p tax rate, the reflected glory of Richard Branson for Edward Kennedy’s, Blair’s grotesque appeals to a Protestant work ethic with Brown’s empty ecumenical inclusivity, and it could be 1997 again.

Who’s to say New Labour MPs won’t fold again now that the Foreign Secretary has reminded them what’s really at stake? You can’t effect change if you’re not in power. The fact that you might not like that change is a secondary consideration.

Q: What’s got 512 balls and screws single women?
A: New Labour.

So, parliamentary private secretary Angela Smith has retracted her threat to resign over the abolition of the 10p rate of tax after arm twisting from the egregious Geoff Hoon:

Smith’s change of heart came after Geoff Hoon, the chief whip, warned her that her departure would hand a gift to the Tories. A government source indicated that ministers thought Smith, MP for Sheffield Hillsborough, had been naive. “I don’t think Angela quite realised what she was doing. I don’t think she quite realised the severity of it,” the source said.

It’s clear now that somebody failed to have the same little chat with Gordon Brown - or so bravely speak anonymously to the press - when as Chancellor he decided he was abolishing the bottom rate. For want of a nail the kingdom was lost, and all that.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s giving one of those newly-fangled webchat things on April 17.

I’ve got a reasonable record on getting my questions asked of (if not exactly answered by) the Greater Good on these occasions. Margaret Hodge, David Miliband and even Tony Blair himself have failed to give adequate answers to questions submitted by me in the past.

So, let us address our concerns to the Home Secretary. I’ll award some form of prize for the best question submitted in the comments that actually gets asked of the Home Secretary.

The Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband on the matter of the abolition of the 10 per cent tax rate making people worse off:

When you make a big set of changes in the tax system, some people do lose out. That is a matter of regret.

Strong words, I ‘m sure you’ll agree. But who will be doing the lion’s share of regretting, I wonder? Miliband Minor or the likes of Victoria Forester?

As it is I always try to buy the cheapest own-brand groceries but it’s never enough. I’d love a fresh wardrobe but I can’t remember the last time I bought new clothes.

What does the term ‘Labour Government’ mean to you? Does it mean this? Making poor people poorer? It’s like the 75 pence pension rise all over again. Gordon Brown insists that not making these people worse off would be ‘playing to the gallery’.

Apparently that term means ‘the general public, usually considered as exemplifying a lack of discrimination or sophistication‘. That’s us he’s talking about, the people at whose pleasure he serves. I’d say he’s right in the sense that we show those qualities when choosing our leaders.

People on lower incomes would be no worse served by choosing who they vote for with a pin and taking their chances. There are some of us who still retain the ability to be surprised by this kind of thing. That is a matter of regret. How does one foster a blind spot to all this? Is it a do-it-yourself lobotomy or something? I for one would probably be a lot happier.

(Link via RickB)

Update: The view from higher ground:

The amounts lost by childless low earners in this week’s tax changes are relatively small - about £230 a year at most - and relatively easily defended.

A ‘relatively small’ sum for who? Times columnists? It’s a lot of money to most. Alice Miles is on safe ground because she’s speaking over the heads of the proles. This isn’t an argument for the likes of them.

A heads-up from CAAT:

We thought you would like to know that the judgement of the CAAT / Corner House Judicial Review of the Government’s decision to stop the Serious Fraud Office investigation of BAE’s Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia will be announced at 10am on Thursday 10th April.

Set your alarm.

I’m in two minds about this:

A major review of the military’s role in British society says that encouraging more state secondary school pupils to join the cadet corps would improve discipline among teenagers while helping to improve the public perception of the army, navy and air force.

Improve discipline among teenagers? If you think teenagers fighting in pubs is bad now, wait until they’ve had some military training. Pub brawling seems such a factor in army life, one wonders if they teach it in boot camp. Why do you think people are warned not to start trouble in pubs in Hereford?

The review was conducted by MP Quentin Davies who gave an example of loyalty and honour himself when he defected from the Tories to New Labour without calling a by-election.

Davies believe[s] the virtues of discipline, physical exercise and team spirit outweigh any concerns over the use of firearms.

Yes, Quentin, tell us about physical exercise, discipline and team spirit, do.

Davies wants secondary school pupils to receive basic military training as a means of developing greater affiliation with the armed forces.

That’s a redundant requirement when you think about it. New Labour, with its flagrant disregard for the armed forces - sending them to war without the proper kit, failing to look after them properly when they’re injured, botching their inquests when they’re killed - has done great things for ‘developing greater affiliation’ with the military.

Public support and sympathy for the military must be at an all time high. If only the government equivalents were. When the anti-military crowd are wringing their hands over the treatment of soldiers you know that no further pro-military propaganda is required.

Cadet training will have its advantages, mind. It’ll pinch off the flow of whining liberals within a generation. It’ll ease prison over-crowding as well. Getting young people to shoot foreigners abroad instead of Britons at home should take the burden off the criminal justice system.

As the solider says in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life:

Here is better than home, eh, sir? I mean, at home if you kill someone they arrest you, here they’ll give you a gun and show you what to do, sir. I mean, I killed fifteen of those buggers. Now, at home they’d hang me, here they’ll give me a fucking medal, sir.

It all makes perfect sense. We need to stamp out violence and gun crime on our streets by teaching kids about fighting and guns.

The government’s Promoting Prosperity website for the Progressive Governance Summit is up with an introduction from the man himself:

‘By logging onto this website you have a chance to put forward your ideas on how to tackle some of the biggest challenges of our times. I urge you to add your voice to the debate. We are listening.’

Finally, a chance to be heard. A chance to speak. No more pissing in the wind or whistling in the dark.

Except.

When you click to go to the discussion page…

Oh dear. He is listening, honest. You’ll just have to shout.

(It should be noted that the Progressive Governance Summit is this weekend.)

Update 4/4: The site’s now down. Does anyone have the password?

In related news, Iain Dale does concentration camp jokes. That’s where Ken Livingstone went wrong when he called that Evening Standard reporter a concentration camp guard. If only he’d joked about the whole organisation being Nazis it would have been much funnier.

Won’t someone give the argument for 42 days internment some soup or something? It’s looking very sick. I’m worried it won’t last much longer. When you look at the calibre of some its carers, no wonder it’s looking neglected.

Take Home Secretary ‘Jacqui’ Smith for instance, I’m not sure I’d trust her with a goldfish let alone national security. This following is an exchange from yesterday’s the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Bill. It’s also a welcome example of the Opposition doing some, you know, actual opposing.

One of the reasons Smith wants an extension to internment powers is because terrorists encrypt data on their computers which can take time to decrypt…

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend has considerable expertise in information technology, and she is right of course—not just in the examples that I have given but in other ways—to say that technology is becoming more sophisticated. Notwithstanding the changes that we have made to the law to help investigators to crack encrypted information, it is becoming more complex, and terrorists are learning lessons and using that technology.

David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): To deal with this problem, in 2000, a criminal offence of withholding passwords and encryption keys to hard drives was passed into law. The offence of using such things for terrorism has been increased recently. How often has that offence been used in terrorist cases?

Jacqui Smith: I do not know the answer to that question, but I will make sure that the right hon. Gentleman gets a response. However, what I was saying was that notwithstanding that change in the law, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) was making an important point about the development of technology. What we know about terrorists and their plots is that they are increasingly making use of those developments in technology.

David Davis: I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way a second time. Her argument is that the terrorists are using more and more complex techniques, which are difficult for the state to deal with, yet she cannot tell us whether the state has used the proper legal apparatus and criminal charges to overcome the problem. If she cannot make that judgment, how on earth can she judge how many days she needs?

Jacqui Smith: I am sorry that I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman again.

Not as sorry as she’s going to be, one hopes. Still, with a level of debating skills like that you can see how she’s risen as far as she has. Sleep easier, Britain. Get well soon, 42 days. You’re in the best hands.

(Via Simon Carr)

Well, who knew? I’m shocked. You might need to sit down, I’ve got some terrible, unexpected news:

The UK’s treatment of asylum seekers falls “seriously below” the standards of a civilised society, a report says.

The shock is, of course, that we even needed an Independent Asylum Commission to tell us this.

Any half humane person with an eye on the news could tell you that we hate foreigners if they’re poor and in need and not multi-millionaire tax-dodgers. The stories are legion. Google ‘Yarl’s Wood‘. Google ‘home office dawn raid’. Google ‘home office iraq waiver‘. Spend five minutes on the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns website.

Only those who’ve made that sociopathic leap that allows them to regard human beings as merely figures in newspaper headlines or in focus group polls need beating over the head with a copy of the Independent Asylum Commission’s report.

‘We are a country with a basic instinct of fair play - the system denies fair play to asylum seekers not out of malice but because of a lack of resources,’ says Sir John Waite, co-chairman of the Commission. It’s cock-up rather than conspiracy then, to coin the cliche. ‘Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice’ is another aphorism.

It’s just that, we’ve created an atmosphere in which we regard anyone needing help - whether it be refugees or benefit claimants - as suspect and worthy of our hate. And that’s what it is - it is hate. Contempt. An urge to regard and treat these people as less than human, unlike us.

With that in mind, the above ‘excuses’ don’t convince. When we have a system where our wounded soldiers have to catalogue their bodes like slaughtered livestock, literally having to choose their choicest cuts, those designated less worthy of our empathy by our ‘basic instinct of fair play’ have no chance.