Gordon Doesn't Announce New Inquiry
It's shaping up to be a bad week for Gordon Brown (see, I told you we'd have to start all articles like this).
First, despite being as big a control freak than Blair, a man who hauls in errant ministers for a hairdryer session if they step out of line on the Today Programme, he's officially the last person in the Party to know that they've been accepted illegal dodgy donations from a dodgy millionaire with a list of previous as long as the queue outside an ID Card centre and of such a retiring, quiet character that he crops up at Blair's Sedgefield tear-fest back in June.
Second, the Lib Dems demonstrate that sacking an unpopular Scotsman is worth 10% in the polls. Labour appear to be trying to demonstrate that hanging onto one is worth 10 years in opposition.
Third is all the bad news that's been buried under, er, the other bad news - the rip off over QinetiQ (who was running the Treasury?), the bodge up at HMRC (who created HMRC and encourage the outsourcing that pushed up costs, then put pressure on to reduce costs), the severe criticism from the top brass about Brown's parsimony towards the armed forces, the impending retreat from Capital Gains Tax reform in the face of angry suits at the CBI, the evident lack of experience and competence in Milliband and Darling, the fact that only Killer of the Yard and co. still support his idiotic 56/58/whatever days detention offer and finally the Daily Mail turning on him. Any I've missed?
If Mr. Brown appoints a couple of judges or bishops or Lords to investigate this little lot, we'll run out soon. I suggest holding a larger inquiry into the performance of the Government, to be conducted by every mentally competent British person over 18. We could call it a 'General Election'.
Still, at least everything was done in good faith, eh?
New Labour/Tories/Lib Dem
I remember spotting that one
I remember spotting that one as a bad deal at the time.
I forgot Government regulated rail fares going up 7% and Northern Rock. I'm having an extension built onto my brain to store all the cockups.
They may all be the same, but my old MP Vince Cable is on his feet putting the boot in. I'd prefer him to either of the other two candidates.
"Alert! New Housing Bill
"Alert! New Housing Bill Sells Out Fourth Option"
"Last night whilst many eyes were focussed on the latest party donations scandal the Housing Bill was debated in Parliament. The Government launched the Bill with a fanfare of claims announcing that we are to build 3 million new homes. Gordon Brown said in June""Councils will be able to build homes again."
"This now looks as though it was just spin again. Our hopes have been dashed by the publication of the Government's new Bill. The Defend Council Housing Campaign has explained that the Bill means the Government will continue to discriminate against councils building new homes while offering public money to profit making private companies with little protection to either tenants or taxpayers. Profit making private landlords will be able to apply for social housing grants while councils cannot unless they set up arms length companies. At the same time councils will be pressurised to put public land into public/private partnerships that will build private not council housing. A new definition is also introduced for low cost housing which introduces for the first time in our history a means test for access to council housing"...
http://tinyurl.com/2xght5
"The first combat squadron
"The first combat squadron of MV-22 Ospreys (Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, known as \"The Thunder Chickens\") is now deployed to Iraq after decades of development. US$15 Bn development costs, US$100Mn each and without any arma ment they can move at 300 Km in fast forward and are incapable of combat landings due to rotor / downdraft problems"...
http://tinyurl.com/3y3q9r
"Lack of fuel may limit U.S.
"Lack of fuel may limit U.S. nuclear power expansion"...
http://tinyurl.com/25fu8g
"India, facing uranium fuel shortage, presses on with nuclear power programme"...
http://tinyurl.com/242jfr
"Two units at Narora atomic power plant in Uttar Pradesh are shut down for annual maintenance work while the newly commissioned Kaiga unit 3 in Karnataka and one unit of Kalpakkam atomic power plant near Chennai are facing closure for want of fuel, Chairman and Managing Director of NPCIL S K Jain said recently"...
http://tinyurl.com/2chkxz
Arms expert Scott Ritter
Arms expert Scott Ritter says the U.S. plans to attack Iran. Metro Times asks why he’s so sure.
"Scottish Labour's leader
"Scottish Labour's leader has apologised for the funding row which has hit her party - as it emerged that Labour had received a second illegal donation"
"Wendy Alexander said she "deeply regrets" that her leadership campaign accepted a payment from businessman Paul Green which broke donation rules"...
http://tinyurl.com/2qpwgg
"Jon Mendelsohn and the
"Jon Mendelsohn and the Secret Tape"
"Unfortunately, for Jon Mendelsohn and his partners, the “businessman” was, in fact, an undercover reporter for The Observer of London"
http://tinyurl.com/2ykpzj
I may be a bit stupid but
I may be a bit stupid but what I would like to know is what has happened to all the money that Northern Rock has had over the last few weeks. It's about 30 billion now isn't it, what have they done with it all?
Well that's lifted my heart
Well that's lifted my heart for the morrow, so beautifully written too.
"The lies" "Labour in
"Labour in meltdown: Part one"
"During her leadership contest, Alexander spoke of her Labour "values" and called on colleagues to re-connect with voters. It is difficult to match her words with the deeds of taking cash from a tax exile, switching donors, and soliciting donations to avoid public disclosure"...
http://tinyurl.com/yrmgd6
"The new scandal"
"Labour in meltdown: Part two"
"While there is no record of Lockhead ever making a donation, the owner of a rival transport group is a well-known SNP supporter. Brian Souter, who runs Stagecoach, donated about £500,000 to the Nationalists in the run-up to the May election."
"A spokesman for Lockhead said: "He has not supported Wendy Alexander's campaign."...
http://tinyurl.com/226vue
More insight into Mr Bean
More insight into Mr Bean from the fuhrer bunker:
At moments, Gordon Brown must feel that his premiership is turning into a prison sentence. Much of this is David Cameron's fault. According to reports from No 10, the Prime Minister spends Monday to Wednesday morning brooding about the forthcoming Prime Minister's questions, and Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning brooding about his failure. As he also insists that every important decision should go across his desk, a backlog of in-trays is piling up like jumbo jets over Heathrow during an air-traffic controllers' strike. The PM is not only miserable himself; he is a source of misery in others. Working in Downing Street increasingly resembles being a courtier in Dunsinane during the final acts of Macbeth.
But as everyone realises that dave might be the next choice we have this:
David Cameron sounded, if not actually disgruntled, very far from being gruntled at his press conference this morning. The Labour donations scandal has contributed to his handsome lead in the polls, but has also left him more exposed. The greater the expectation that Cameron will be our next Prime Minister, the greater the scrutiny, not all of it kind or fair, to which he and his party will be subjected. So Cameron was at pains to say, while handling questions about donations: "All parties do make mistakes...All of us make mistakes. There are innocent mistakes...There's no system that is perfect and I'm certainly not saying the Conservative party is perfect."
The Conservatives haven't changed then in case you were wondering, caveat emptor eh?
"New Labour/Tories/Lib Dem
It's shaping up to be a bad
It's shaping up to be a bad two and a half years for Gordon Brown.
Bruce Anderson: Gordon Brown may hold the loyalty of his party, but has lost for ever that of the public
"Gordon Brown cannot recover. He has lost the battle for the new. "Time for a change" is the most effective slogan in British politics. If the voters start to believe it, the Government is in mortal peril. But Mr Brown thought he had his answer: "Yes, and I am the change." That has not worked.
Nor have his attempts to project a new Gordon: values-based, big-tented, listening to the public. That has gone beyond recall. The old Gordon has returned: domineering, paranoiac, only heeding advice from about six people, all of whom are state-registered echo chambers. This is a man who wants to control everything and listen to no one. Gordon Brown's approach to government comes from The Lord of the Rings: one ring to bind them all, in the land of Gordor.
Most voters have not yet realised what a bizarre regime he is running in Downing Street. As time passes, more will be revealed. His style of government guarantees demoralisation and incompetence. A Prime Minister who is simultaneously authoritarian and inefficient will not win admirers. At least in Stalin's Kremlin, the firing squads ran on time."
I am in link overload *cheers* George.