Ever since New Labour surrendered the formulation of its immigration policy to the malevolent vagaries of a succession of right-wing tabloid editors, that policy has been distinguished by a petty, disturbing vindictiveness. Almost as if a delight was being taken in pouring further misfortune on the unfortunate.

There’s the dawn raid, adding that extra frisson of terror to the lives of men, women and children whose only crime is to want to come and live here, and who, more often than not, have seen plenty of terror already.

There’s detention centres like Yarl’s Wood, whose foul conditions are roundly condemned by anybody with an ounce of human feeling.

And then there’s the latest twist of the knife - the naming and shaming of businesses and their owners who have employed illegal immigrants. As if a five grand fine wasn’t enough of a kicking for some for these small businesses, the government want to bring potential ruin to them as well.

We now have a handy little list of businesses for Daily Express readers and other assorted racists to boycott, pillory and spit at. I’d be interested to see the takings of some of these businesses in say six months.

It probably goes without saying that a system with a little less aspiration to being a cross between the Sweeney and a meat processing plant and a little more to basic compassion would mean risking the vestiges of New Labour’s popularity. The way things are going, the type of flat-faced little Englander who gets a semi on over this kind of thing are going to be the only constituency this supposedly left-wing government has left.

All these supplementary miseries are completely unnecessary to the running of an asylum system but someone somewhere is designing these little additional details. And he probably toddles off to his wife and kids and considers it a good day at the office. You get the feeling that these people love their job.

This is, of course, all about ’sending a message’. Terrify asylum seekers by kicking their doors in at 5am and word will get out and maybe others will take the hint. Ditto interning them without charge and dignity.

The ‘naming and shaming’ has a nice mafia ‘do not fuck with us’ angle, like sending Luca Brasi’s body armour back accompanied by the fish. Nice little curry house you’ve got here, be a shame to ruin it by letting some poor sod earn a few quid.

A truly awesome piece of lateral thinking from ‘moderate’ New Labour mouthpiece, Luke Akehurst:

Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: “Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects”.

Really, it’s really just an extension of New Labour philosophy - we all have a role to play. We all have our rights and responsibilities. Terror victims, now is your moment. Ask not what the government can do for your pain, ask what your pain can do for the government.

Maybe New Labour could find a nicely disfigured one to front up. Not too disfigured mind, a photogenically disfigured one. One that Gordon Brown can put his arm around without looking too disturbed.

Or how about one still shaking with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Preferably a woman, who can be guaranteed to break down in tears at a debate. You know, to catch that easily manipulated vote. That’d show those cowardly Tories, I’d wager.

Keep an eye on Akehurst. With a easy way with suffering and misanthropy like that, and a child-like view of the terror debate, he’s got the makings of a future New Labour prime minister.

(Link via BlairWatch)

Update: Akehurst responds to being handed his arse by Rachel North:

I think Rachel’s position just goes to show that experiencing something first hand doesn’t necessarily lead you to come to the right conclusions about how to deal with it.

Those pesky terror victims and their first hand experience not necessarily leading them to the right conclusions, eh? If only we could refine terrorism as a brain-washing technique then no-one would be protesting against 42 days internment.

You see, Rachel is the wrong kind of victim, that is one who refuses to be used and, indeed, one who refuses to be a ‘victim’ full stop. In Akehurst’s universe we have to file her away with the wrong kind of snow and bad AIDS and find the ‘right’ kind of ‘victim’.

Still, the ability Akehurst shows in being able to hold two contradictory positions at once shows further Prime Ministerial credentials.

Update updated: More credentials. Akehurst is a …

Public Affairs consultant (specialising in advising defence and aerospace companies).

Jesus, was he grown in a New Labour laboratory or something? ‘Gentlemen, we have created the perfect candidate…’.

Remember the widely reported last minute concession made to anti-42 day MPs that those suspects held longer than 28 days only to be released without charge would get three grand a day compensation? It’s news to Gordon Brown:

Asked if the compensation was going to be £3000 per day, the PMS said that the Home Office had been making clear that those were not numbers that the Government recognised.

Well, Home Office Minister Tony McNulty certainly ‘recognises’ the numbers:

McNulty told BBC television late Tuesday that suspects who are held for 42 days but eventually freed without charge could be paid compensation of 3,000 pounds.

We haven’t heard much mention of Gordon Brown’s fabled moral compass of late and one wonders where he’s mislaid it. I think it’s probably being used as a propeller on a light aircraft somewhere.

A land of ‘tolerance and inclusion’*:

The first Iraqi interpreters to be offered refuge in Britain are living in fear in squalid tower blocks in Glasgow, The Times has learnt.

They complained of living among drunks and drug addicts, being abused and spat at, and of feeling isolated and unable to work. One girl of 9 had had her hijab torn off by one of her new neighbours.

Abdul, 71, one of three Iraqis who risked their lives working for British troops in Basra and were resettled in April with 15 dependents, advised others in a similar position to stay in Iraq.

One can only hope that Abdul’s advice to others that they’re better off risking death squads in Basra rather than neds in Glasgow was hyperbole born of despair.

We wrecked your country, ruined your life and left you on a sink estate to rot. Don’t you find it all - what’s the word? - liberating?

* Copyright G. Brown.

I was wondering if the government’s tactics to win the vote on 42 days internment might be applicable in other walks of life. After all, these people are exemplars who have risen to the highest stations in British life. Why would it be wrong to follow their example?

For those just coming in, the government, worried about losing the anti-terror legislation debate this evening, and having comprehensively lost the argument, have had to resort to buying votes. It’s called ‘making concessions’ by those in the trade who like to glamorise these transactions, but it’s really old fashioned pork-barrelling, bribery and whoring.

Everyone’s principles have a price, or at least that’s the government’s thinking. I suppose they jettisoned theirs so long ago and so cheaply they think everyone else is just like them. Unfortunately, it turns out they might be right.

Still, it’s useful to know just what price some MPs put on a thousand years of British liberty and common law. Could come in useful later down the line - maybe we could club together and buy an MP of our own.

DUP MPs are collectively worth around 200 million quid but there are bargains to be had apparently. According the BBC’s Nick Robinson one Labour MP has been offered money for a miner’s compensation fund. Why that MP isn’t asking why the money isn’t there already hasn’t been explained.

Another has been promised that Gordon Brown would oppose sanctions against Cuba. So much for the world statesman and champion of democracy. Who knew the major issues of geopolitics were so malleable, so reasonably priced? I’m just sorry there isn’t a Labour MP standing on a platform of free jetpacks for all.

It really doesn’t seem to have occurred to Gordon Brown in his scramble to look hard that if he had a rock solid, utterly convincing, based in evidence case for 42 days he’d have little opposition and none of this tawdry haggling and dragging politics through the shit once again would have been necessary.

Still, as I said, this is an approach that could help us all in our daily lives. Exam students, instead of making arguments and forming conclusions in essays, should merely staple a tenner to their answer papers. Or a note with ‘IOU One Blow Job’ written on it.

Job interviews. Bringing up children. Getting them into a good school. Negotiating a promotion at work. All that effort. All that stress. All that tiredness. All gone with the wave of a ‘concession’.

It would certainly take the bowel-shaking tension out of forming human relationships. Forget charm, wit, wooing, personality and the wonderful mix of emotions involved in finding a partner. Merely ascertain at what price your potential life-partner would consider putting out.

It comes close to soliciting prostitution, obviously, but all’s fair in the lofty matters of love and war (on terror) as any government minister would tell you. Whispering ‘Hulloo darlin’, how’d you fancy making concessions?’ in a sexy Gordon Brown voice will no doubt have the object of your desire weak at the knees.

Minister for Bread and Circuses, Andy Burnham has a new idea. He’s dipping his toes into populism to see if it’s warm enough:

England’s swimming pools could be free to use by the time of the London 2012 Olympics, the government has signalled.

Fair enough, I suppose, we all like something for nothing. Mind you, I bet the operative word in that sentence is the ‘could’. That this is an aspiration rather than a target is something I’d bet a kidney on.

The thing is, what about people who can’t swim, or like me, can’t stand it? To get into my local piss-pot of a swimming pool - which they’re demolishing, incidentally - costs the equivalent of a couple of pints.

(There is wildlife there as well which you can view for free but your enjoyment will vary depending on how much you actually like cockroaches.)

I’ve absolutely nothing against Mr Burnham’s and hope it makes a lot of people happier, but couldn’t I have the beers instead?

Part of the American Dream, or at least used to be before you needed millions and millions of dollars to do it, is that anybody can become President.

After watching Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s unbelievably poor appearance on Question Time last night, I wonder if we’re not importing the idea into Britain. You read and listen to the political gossips touting Miliband as a future Labour leader and Prime Minister and you realise: Yes! It’s perfectly apparent that literally anybody could become Prime Minister.

Just what qualities mark Miliband as a leader, I’m not sure. Maybe he’s saving them for a rainy day, or at least for when it rains harder than it is right now. What does mark him as special though is his example. You watch him and it gives hope for us all. Who couldn’t be that feckless and inarticulate and evasive and mealy-mouthed and weaselly?

Shyness, as a great man once said, is nice. However, shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you’d like to.

Take the Home Secretary, previously something of a wallflower, for instance. According to state-funded gossip-monger Nick Robinson, Jacqui Smith put in a stunning performance at the National (security) Theatre - in her play 42 Days - last night that was acclaimed by everyone who saw it:

Shares in Smith soared last night. As Labour MP’s and peers poured out of the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting all were agreed that Jacqui the home secretary had put in the performance of her life. Some went further and claimed that this was the best ministerial performance in the past year or two.

Jacqui got talent! An gushing account like that makes even this bitter cynic want to hurl roses in Smith’s direction. The question must be asked, however: who would have thought it? This is a Smith previously unheard and unseen by the public. Persuasiveness? Passion? Where the hell did they come from?

Previously of the talentless, plodding, deeply unimpressive, vague, and the imperiously ‘because I said so’ and ‘will this do?’ school of politics, it seems Jacqui is blossoming. Why has she not displayed it before? Why has this talent, this amazing performing ability, been kept from her public all these years? She usually phones in her performance, as they say, and now she pulls it out of the bag.

We always thought she was a Keira Knightley when it turns out she’s a Katherine Hepburn. Yesterday she was simply maaarvellous daahling! It must be true - it’s all in Nick Robinson’s account of a private meeting he wasn’t at relayed to him by members of parliament not-at-all-worried about their job prospects and expenses.

So, don’t keep it behind closed doors, Jacqui. Let the paying public have a gander. New Labour want to make the arts more accessible and here’s an ideal opportunity. Don’t be shy, Home Secretary. Make us believe. If there’s something you’d like to try, ask me I wont say no, how could I?

UPDATE: A theatre critic writes…

‘Ms Smith’s attempt this morning to publicly repeat her reportedly bravura private performance of last night was bound to be something of a disappointment. A clearly tired and lacklustre Ms Smith failed to reproduce the moving and inspirational act that was reported in such glowing terms by the BBC’s Nick Robinson and members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

‘Indeed, with her public appearances continuing to be drowned out by the boos of her harsher critics, it remains to be seen if Ms Smith’s private performance for her fans was a one-off or hyped by over-emotional lovers of political theatre.’

A flash of shocking insight from new government research:

According to government figures, the number of 11- to 15-year-olds drinking regularly fell from more than a quarter in 2001 to about a fifth in 2006. However, a third said they drank to get drunk.

However, a third said they drank to get drunk. Which makes me wonder if the government were entertaining the vain hope that there was another reason as to why 11- to 15-year-olds drink.

Did Whitehall boffins examine just what it is that 11- to 15-year-olds drink? Were they surprised to find that Britain’s kids aren’t savouring Mouton Rothschild ‘55? Did they have their fingers crossed that these children drink merely to savour the malty undertones of Stella Artois?

Anyone who claims they drink stuff like Stella for the taste is a liar anyway. God knows I’ve never made the claim - I’m not a completely tasteless idiot. Stella might be advertised as ‘reassuringly expensive’ but the 2-for-1 deals you can get in Tesco and Sainsbury’s make even a hardened old soak like me fall to my knees and weep joyous tears of thanks.

Look at the way it and beers like it are packaged. It’s a delivery system. It’s artillery designed for an assault on the grey lowlands that is modern living. You ride it like Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove to get where you want to be as fast as you can.

To look for any other reason as to why and how children drink is like expecting an unexploded cluster bomb to double up as a nursery. Sometimes things have only one reason, one purpose, to exist.

The government plans to give parents guidance on how much their children should drink is at least an admission that you can’t and won’t stop kids drinking overnight. A change of mindset is needed but just how you do that when 11- to 15-year-olds look to their elders see a large number of us also rolling around out of our skulls is a tough one. Take Michael Rock, Chairman of Conservative Future, the Tories’ youth wing, for example. He spent last Saturday having a drinking competition.

That the government doesn’t have the imagination or ideas to suggest or provide alternatives to getting pissed at age 12 is the depressing part. But then I’ve come to realise that modern government is much like being at the centre of a herd of wildebeest trying to cross the African savannah. You expect those on the fringes to get picked off by predators or fatigue or or disease or just sheer bad luck. And, of course, we can’t discuss individual cases.

Those at the centre of things will be fine and the tragedies are too far away to have any real emotional impact on them. I’m not condemning them - we all have to hide from something to get by day after day after all. We’re all in denial about something - it’s the emotional armour that allows us to get out of bed in a morning whether you’re the Prime Minister or a parent losing their son to boredom and cheap beer.

It’s just a question of keeping moving forward and hoping that nothing too serious threatens the herd as a whole. The rest of us just need to keep jostling to make sure we don’t find ourselves on the edge, whether that be jobless, homeless or legless. Rescues are rare and not guaranteed.

So what to do? Wine appreciation on the National Curriculum, anybody? Tupac Shakur as the new face of Vimto?

Yes, yes, well done, Tories. Well done, well done. The thing is, I can beat my seven year-old daughter at chess with ease but to jump around the room in victory looks, well, a bit graceless. You know what I mean?

Any Tory who thinks they are winning rather than Labour losing needs to stop jumping around and take a bit of breather. The fact that so many people were so readily willing to switch their votes shows once again the molecule-thick divide between the political parties in this country.

This isn’t some massive ideological swing behind the ideas of the Tory party. It’s the political equivalent of the electorate switching to a new washing powder. The new brand isn’t much different from the old one, it’s just that All New Cameron smells a little fresher and produces a bit more froth.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.