Ladies and gentlemen, be upstanding, let your chest and pudenda swell with national pride…

WE’RE NUMBER ONE!

Number one with a bullet, in fact. Finally, we’ve rediscovered the thing we’ve been historically best at: inflicting misery, death and pain. Britain, the world’s most successful merchant of death.

We can’t manufacture anything else worth a damn but if you want to kill somebody, we’re your go-to guy with very, very few questions asked.

I can’t shake the simultaneously amusing and horrifying image of Gordon Brown fluttering his eyelids coquettishly at Saudi torturers, bending over and looking back over his shoulder with a finger to his pouting lips as King Abdullah counts bank notes onto the nightstand. Picture David Miliband in a tight dress breathlessly mouthing ‘I want to be loved by you‘ to Ehud Olmert.

Anyway, to celebrate this historic day I’m going to try to sell a carving knife to the nutter up the street. What could be more symbolic of British success?

When the history of this unedifying period comes to be written, it will be these vignettes of Campbellesque bullying that will crystallise the age, and speak of a ruling elite that never engaged in debate where character assassination would do. I suppose we should be grateful that they’re currently limiting the personal attacks to public figures like Chakrabarti, who are practised enough to take it, as opposed to the likes of David Kelly, who patently wasn’t.

Read the rest

Apparently, if I’m reading David Davis correctly, you can derogate from Magna Carta for up to 21 days quite happily. Twenty-eight days is a seemingly tolerable ‘necessary evil’ even though it’s never been used properly. Twenty-nine days and upwards is a resigning issue.

Nope, I’m still none the wiser.

How’s that whole Tory mayor thing working out for you?

This by election is ‘about a fortnight‘.

(Via Unity)

I can see why people might be angry about Culture Minister Andy Burnham’s pubescent masturbatory fantasy about David Davis and Shami Chakrabarti. What baffles me is why anyone should be surprised.

You see, what you have with Burnham’s stiff-socked innuendo is merely the latest expression of the quasi-homoerotic bitchy machismo on which New Labour was largely built. It’s embodied in the likes of preening, bouffanted tit and former health minister, Alan Milburn and his contempt for his female colleagues. There’s dossier-groping Alastair Campbell and his desire to ‘fuck‘ Andrew Gilligan.

It’s there in the effete fist fight over what the Prime Minister should wear. Were these people bullied at school? Couple a free-floating itch for control with an implicit immaturity towards sex and this is what you get - schoolboy jokes about political opponents in a magazine for the so-called ‘progressive community’.

I don’t doubt that saltier versions of Burnham’s smear are doing the rounds amongst the passive-aggressive drinks of water that constitute the New Labour high command. Burnham was just the one who chose to make a prick of himself over it in public by thinking the sniggering, back-slapping immaturity would go down well outside his emotionally-retarded political circle. Could he, if you’ll forgive me, make it stand up in court?

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.

Gordon Brown still burbling on to no clear purpose…

…we have given people new rights to protest outside Parliament…

No, no, no, no, NO! You merely gave us back the rights you took away in the first place, jackass. You flicked the switch back on you’d previously turned off yourself.

Don’t try and make out it was some magnanimous, generous, unprompted gesture. You gave us back the old rights, after everyone protested and said what authoritarian idiots your government were over it all. You didn’t create new ones, oh wannabe Father of the Nation.

Tony Blair, January 2006, launching the short-lived and laughed-out ‘Respect Agenda’:

My view is very clear: their freedom to be safe from fear has to come first. Yes, in theory, that is what is supposed to happen through the traditional court processes. In practice it doesn’t. We are fighting 21st crime with 19th century methods.

Gordon Brown, June 2008, burbling on for no clear purpose:

It could be said that for too long we have used nineteenth century means to solve twenty first century problems. Instead we must have twenty first century methods to deal with twenty first century challenges.

Tomorrow’s world will save us. Modern, modernity, modernising. Shiny, lovely, shiny, modern. It always has and it always will. Get out of the way or risk getting mowed down, Old Timers.

Someone should explain the difference between ’shoulda’ and ‘coulda’ to New Labour’s foremost minds.

All is revealed.

So, then, this David Davis vs Kelvin MacKenzie/Miss Great Britain/John Smeaton/A.N. Other Tangential Diluter thing…

One has abhorrent views on homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty and spoke in favour of, and voted for, 28 days internment. One lives in Rupert Murdoch’s colon and has views too repellent and numerous to relate here. One is famous for punching a burning man. One is Miss Great Britain. One is running on a completely unrelated issue from 42 days internment.

Any way for them all to lose?

Whatever else comes out of David Davis’s by-election, you have to admit he’s managed to achieve that which has eluded men and women for thousands of years: in a mere five days he’s come to symbolise all things for everybody.

Everyone with a cause seems to find an affirmation (not to mention an opportunity) in Davis’s actions. He should get in quick and start a religion. With these powers of persuasion and commanding of attention he could be running the planet by the end of the month.

(In other news, Darth Vader has announced he does not see the need to detain rebel suspects for longer than 28 days. Vanity or mid-life crisis? X-Wingers agonise over whether to support the Lord of the Sith… blah… blah…)

This is one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages. It’s just awesome…

The genesis of a “Sun versus the Tories” by-election was a 40th birthday party thrown for Rebekah Wade, the tabloid’s editor, on Thursday night. The Sun, the principal media cheerleader for Gordon Brown’s contentious 42-days detention proposals, was outraged by David Davis’s resignation. A characteristically unrestrained leader in the tabloid yesterday, headlined “Crazy Davis”, fulminated against the former shadow home secretary’s “shabby act of treachery” and “petty grandstanding”.

Ms Wade and her team had on Thursday afternoon already been discussing a cunning plan to convert this print attack into a full-blown campaign battle, by approaching Rachel North, one of the survivors of the July 7 bombings, to stand against Mr Davis.

Rachel North?

Now, I’m sure those at the Sun are under the greatest of pressure. Editor Rebekah Wade has to take orders from the singularly ruthless Rupert Murdoch after all. And those taking orders from Wade must be aware of her temper and what can happen when things go wrong.

So, with that in mind, how the hell did they come up with the monumentally wrong-headed idea that Rachel North would be an ideal pro-42 day candidate to go up against David Davis?

Did they not have ten minutes to peruse her blog?

Has not one of them caught her during her many television and radio appearances?

What about her appearance in the movie Taking Liberties?

Or her appearance before the Home Affairs Committee.

Or her article in a RUPERT BLOODY MURDOCH NEWSPAPER where she said…

I told the committee that I was against extending the 28-day detention period. No evidence had been put forward to show that it was necessary and while the police and security services said they thought it might be useful in future, I did not think that was sufficient grounds for shredding habeas corpus.

Rachel’s been one of the most vociferous and articulate (not to mention prominent) defenders of civil liberties in this country in the last few years. It’s hard to think of a worse suggestion for a candidate to go up against David Davis. My three year-old daughter’s free, I suppose.

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 have to say I’m a bit non-plussed with David Davis’s resignation. Sure, it’s brilliant to finally see an MP give up his career on a point of principle and a very fine principle at that.

But the thought strikes me that he would very likely have been the Home Secretary within two years. In the intervening time he could have pushed his cause hard in the shadow cabinet and the wider party, and then dismantled all of New Labour’s half-cocked authoritarianism once he was in the big chair.

Now? Well, who knows? He’ll have to hope that some of his principles rub off on his successor(s). Can he now expect a big job in a Tory government?

And if Labour don’t field a candidate he risks looking a bit of a berk. In that event, would he get the debate he’s calling for? Or the all-important media coverage needed to broadcast that debate? You’d have to doubt it.

Update 13/6: A good spot by Matt T:

Did Davis support the 28 day extension?

…

Yes he did, and worse, he argued for it on the same grounds that Labour now argue for 42 days. This makes his whole position ludicrous in my view. I have no idea why 42 days destroys the Magna Carta, but 28 didn’t. It’s a stunt. The idea that David Davis wil protect your civil liberties is a fantasy. One might argue that’s he changed his mind, but to me the issue is this - we can talk about and once every 4/5 years have a 1/40m say about it, but he had a 1/600 odd say and chose an extension - worse he argued in favour of it.

Update updated: And then I read something like thing from gone-native New Labour megaphone Michael White, and I swing the other way:

Most politicians dislike the sort of behaviour Davis has displayed. It may please those voters who want their MP to stand up and be counted, but such unpredictability unsettles the trade.

The trade? I look at court gossips White or the BBC’s Nick Robinson and I wonder if they even remember why MPs are elected in the first place. They seem to think that Parliament exists solely as entertainment for the complacent time-rich middle-classes.

Update update updated: There’s more:

He has called for the return of the death penalty, backed section 28, and wants to scrap the Human Rights Act. What exactly is liberal about that? Magna Carta is all very well, but justice in this country depends on more modern protections, which do not all have his support.

What I want to know is, if the Democratic Unionist Party hates homosexuals so much, why was it so willing to grab its ankles for Gordon Brown yesterday? Was it mere experimentation or the symptoms of a deeper ‘abomination’?

In future, a minister will be able to interrupt an inquest to kick out the jury, dismiss the coroner and declare the proceedings secret. Why? One reason might be that the soldier, say, lacked body armour, bullets or boots and the coroner was expressing naive disapproval. You can’t have a jury hearing a case like that. They might talk. It wouldn’t be in the public interest for such matters to get out. Oh no, it would damage confidence in the Government.

Oh, and if the new coroner “misbehaves”, he or she can be “revoked” as well. “Misbehaviour” isn’t defined but we can assume it would be misbehaviour to criticise ministers or the ministry or suggest the death was somehow avoidable or unnecessary or possibly even undesirable.

Quite a change, that.

read the rest

‘Brown wins crunch vote on 42 days‘

Well, at least Brown will have two constituencies of cast iron support tonight - lazy coppers and al Qaeda. He’s made the former’s jobs much easier and he’s doing the latter’s for them. Good effort.

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.

No doubt the new mayor of London will employ every ounce of the patented Boris bluster when George Bush visits town this month.

As Beau Bo D’Or points out, he’s going to need it:

It’s admirable honesty from Johnson and he should be saluted for it. The thing is, it much harder to say things to people’s faces. Will Boris stand by his all-to-accurate precis of London’s guest?

(Don’t forget Operation Manticore.)

In Britain in recent years, the public has arguably been more interested and involved in major global and domestic political issues than ever before, but at the same time has never been more apathetic about and disillusioned by the political process. Something is clearly amiss; I would equate the political situation to a sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert, at which The Boss sings acoustic cover versions of the hits of Bananarama.

read the rest

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?