Blairwatch - Chronicling the Demise of the New Labour Project

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?

It's been a bad week for Gordon Brown (incidentally, there's a new law that states that every article for the rest of the year has to start with these words).  Luckily, according to a transparent planted story (full of 'senior officials' and 'insiders') in the Observer, he's getting some heavyweight talent on board to sort it out:

Geoff Hoon, the chief whip, and Jack Straw, the justice secretary - two veteran Cabinet ministers known as 'greybeards' - are being promoted as key members of the new inner circle. 'Geoff is in No 10 all the time when he's not in parliament,' one Labour insider said. 'Jack Straw is involved.'

Now, Straw is no longer in the Blair inner circle, if he ever was, and is also actually quite bright, but of low-to-dubious morals.  Hoon is, of course, but he's a mental midget who shouldn't be anywhere near anything important.  Of course, the actual contents of the story are irrelevant (it is the Observer, after all), it's the hidden hand behind it that fascinates.

So what to make of this?  Is it the Blairites spinning it as their guys riding to the rescue (see Martin 'I Never Saw A Blairite Arse I Didn't Want To Lick' Kettle all-time-classic article the other day) or the Brownites spinning that they've got it under control and are in charge of events?  Beats me, although given that it's the Observblair and the Blairites are evidently running an anti-Brown campaign, I veer towards the former.  Remember, these people are like particularly virulent undead - stake them through the heart, cut their heads off, stuff them with garlic and they'll still be writing snarky pieces for the Guardian about how they were Right all along and how Gordon just needs to be More Like Tony and it'll all be well.

Tony's decided that he does 'do God' after all. He praises the American system where politicians talk openly about God - or rather right wing Christianity - indeed it is obligatory.

But the chilling quote is this

To do the prime minister's job properly you need to be able to separate yourself from the magnitude of the consequences of the decisions you are taking the whole time.

Tony may 'do God', but will he ever 'do consequences'?

Meanwhile, God's more traditional spokesmen are also giving interviews such as this thoughtful piece on Rowan Williams (pdf):

The Archbishop is scathing, accusing them of being connected to “the chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity.”
In today’s world it is easy to see why people would believe such an idea; America seems so intrinsically involved in everything. The Archbishop recognises that: “We have only one global hegemonic power at the moment.” But, he propounds, “It is not accumulating territory; it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.” Far from seeing this positively, he describes it as “the worst of all worlds,” saying, “it is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly that’s what the British Empire did – in India for example. It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together –Iraq for example.”

So far, neither Tony or The Almighty has explained why God was telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope that going to war in Iraq was wrong, but was telling Tony to go bomb the bastards.

And that is why we should keep religion out of politics.

 

 

Another minor New Labour chicken has come home to roost:
Up to 10 ambulances had to queue outside a hospital because doctors had run out beds. Paramedics were forced to treat patients in the back of the vehicles as they waited near the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH). NNUH was of course one of the first PFI hospitals, and the public sector was seriously taken for a ride by the contractors, who left us with the risks and the costs, so much so that Edward Leigh, the (Tory) doyen of the Public Accounts Committee, described the refinancing deal thus:
"It is hard to escape the conclusion that the public sector staff managing the project were not up to the rough and tumble of negotiating refinancing proposals with the private sector ... The unacceptable face of capitalism" while the local MP Richard Bacon opined:
"What is shocking and unacceptable is that the Department of Health allowed a contract like this to be signed, which put the public sector in such a weak position." There's also been the small matter of a bit of a shortfall in the money department - from 26th April last year:
The Trust Board has today received an update on the financial position for 2006/07. Following the publication of the national tariff and pay awards for 2006/07 and the welcome reinstatement of our PFI smoothing payment by the SHA, the previous projection of a £22 million financial shortfall has been reduced to £14.8 million.

The Trust is taking a range of measures to deal with this hugely challenging deficit; careful cost control, service redesign, and reducing an overall pay bill that accounts for 60 per cent of our budget. Naturally, there are very serious concerns about jobs. We believe that if we took no other action to reduce pay and other costs we would need to lose approximately 450 posts during this year.

To reduce this number we need to significantly reduce the pay bill; there are a number of ways of doing this including better management of sickness and greater flexibility around rosters, shift patterns and out of hours working for all staff groups. Inevitably there will also be job losses; we expect that a significant number of these will be lost through normal staff turnover but sadly some redundancies may be inevitable. We will endeavour to minimise these through other measures to reduce pay costs such as those set out above.

Of course, given that we've been ripped off by PFI again (what is a 'smoothing payment' anyway?), it would be nice if we actually got back the same number of beds as before.  Er, no.  There's an interesting report out there from 1999 that shows how poor bed provision planning was at the time, and includes a useful table:
Norwich Hospitals
1995/6 - 1120 beds
1996/7 - 1008 beds
Original PFI plans - 809 beds
Thankfully for the patients of Norfolk, who might well have run out of ambulances to be treated in otherwise, the hospital has since increased to 987 beds, or 88% of the number under the bloody Tories, for crying out loud.  As an exercise for the reader, I'd love to know how much this cost.

The place is famously way out of town with inadequate transport links, something that Charles Clarke apparently blamed the Tories for and said (in a letter that deserves reading in the light of the last ten years of his career) he'd try and reverse (but since PFI was the only show in town and those nasty Tories, who'dhavethoughtit, were keeping the facts from him, and anyway we can't break contracts, can we?  Would cost a fortune):
I have started assembling evidence and campaigning on four aspects of the new hospital where I believe we can make a difference.

1. To keep 24-hour accident and emergency facilities located in the city centre, along with some outpatient services if possible.
2. To test the assumptions about bed numbers and campaign for an adequately sized hospital.
3. For significantly upgraded and cheap public and private transport facilities.
4. To ensure proper use of the city centre sites.

However, come opening time, too small, out in the sticks and with inadequate access, the great and the good were quick to applaud it all.  Tony Blair went there to look at some digital radiology stuff in 2002, according to the suspiciously rosy wikipedia entry.  Lord Hunt, Patricia Hewitt, Rosie Winterton - they couldn't stay away either.  And now they're treating patients outside.  Good work, fellas.  Trebles all round!

Unity from Ministry of Truth has emailed to say that he's having domain issues and is now on

http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/

so anyone who enjoys splenetic exposure of hypocrites and bad science needs to update their bookmarks.

[via the Register]

 

Here we have two CD-R's for auction. They are not blank, but seem to have some sort of database written to them. I found them in my local courier firm's sorting office, addressed to

"Her Majesties Audit Office - Child Benefits Section"

Satire isn't dead, it's just on eBay.

Ahem.  More seriously, the Tories appear to have caught on (after ten years of apparently believing that Tony Blair won elections because he was good at his job) to the fact that New Labour can't run a whelk stall.  No ideological society or project can - loyalty to the cause is ranked higher than actual competence and, just like Stalin, anyone with any competence is actively excluded, resulting in pissed off doctors, teachers and other professionals while 'radicals' like Lord Adonis fuck things up in complete safety from inside the walls.  In the case of HMRC, the place has been outsourced, cut about, merged and even had its building sold to a tax haven company - even a working organisation is going to suffer there while management are distracted with the latest edict from the centre.

There's only so long that you can keep up the pretence of competence without it cracking.  We're seeing New Labour ideological failures coming thick and fast (don't miss the report on the QinetiQ privatisation).

The only problem is that the Tories started all this, so yet again they're slightly stuck between their ideological Thatcherite roots and actually doing the right thing and holding the Government to account.  It's good to see them pressing the ID card button repeatedly, since the likelihood of the wheels falling off that is approaching unity and I want to see massive public opposition start to grow.  In which cause, no2id are asking for cash to fight it, I've stuck my hand in my pocket and blown the moths out of my wallet, and the more the better.  We're doing the country a favour.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
As occasionally happens on blogs, a random comment on a wholly different topic (the return of refugees to Iraq, which whatever your views has got to be seen as positive) matches up with something important we're already interested in.  In this case, a piece on the estimable SST (required reading, I think) brings in another snippet illustrating how urgent getting Iraqi employees of British (and indeed US) forces out of the area has become:

However, there are around 50,000 Iraqis who will never be able to go home. These are the educated – in large part professional – Iraqis who collaborated with the US armed forces and US-sponsored contractors either as interpreters or as professional aids. Most of them are in Amman now. When they go back they will be killed by the Sunni and Shii militias. Their savings are running out. There were three attempts already on the life of a good friend of mine, an Iraqi American engineer who has spent the last four years in Basra, working with British military engineers on the barely-existing infrastructure there. He will leave with the British. He has a place to go, but those stuck in Jordan are stranded.

A brand new fiasco from the government which says it's determined to stamp out identity theft:

Darling says 25m records 'lost'

Alistair Darling has blamed mistakes by junior officials at HM Revenue and Customs after details of 25 million child benefit recipients were lost.

The Chancellor said information, including bank details of 7m families, had been sent on discs to the National Audit office by unrecorded delivery.

Mr Darling said it was "an extremely serious failure".

Well that's a bit of an understatement!! It is indeed "an extremely serious failure" and shunting the blame onto junior ministers isn't good enough. Apparently the Government had been aware of the problem for nine to 10 days and said nothing.

As if we needed another reason to scrap the National Identity database and the ludicrous ID card scheme, New Labour helpfully provides us with one.

More from Spy Blog

I think we've all come to terms with Tony's utter belief in his decision to go to war in Iraq. He'll probably defend it to his dying breath. However it's still difficult to read or hear any of his pronouncements on his legacy. Remember that? The L word was the driving force behind the last year in office, where he was clinging on by his fingertips.

Tony Blair has admitted for the first time that he ignored the pleas of his aides and ministers to deter President Bush from waging war on Iraq because he believed that America was doing the right thing. And he has acknowledged that he turned down a last-ditch offer from Mr Bush to pull Britain out of the conflict. - Source

Various accounts have come out and I think pleading, begging and groveling were a more accurate description of his inner circle. What remains terrifying is how one man could ignore all the advice he was given and push the nation into war.

Mr Blair confirmed openly the belief of many of his closest supporters that he never used his position as America’s strongest ally to try to force Mr Bush down the diplomatic rather than the military route.

What's changed?

The Clunking Fist has also shown the same dogmatic tendency, with the briefing against  Lord Malloch Brown, the duffing up of Admiral Lord West on the Prime Ministerial sofa and the happy slapping of the Boy Miliband shows that nothing has changed, nothing has improved.

 

 

 

 

How intelligent are the intelligence services? Their track record is hardly perfect and it would be unrealistic to expect that.

But they continue to amaze with, well, their inability to get the basics right. Take our new intelligence chief, Alex Allan, 56,  head of the Joint Intelligence Committee. How dumb is this?

The most senior British intelligence official, appointed yesterday to oversee MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, has a website revealing his home address, phone numbers and private photographs of himself, family and friends.  

 

This is significant, not just for the content, but as a sign that there has been a fundamental shift in power: The Dollar hits a record low after hints that China may switch some of it's reserves into other currencies.

A vice director of China's central bank, Xu Jian, was also quoted as telling the conference that the dollar was "losing its status as the world currency".

Ten years ago, would a quote like this have had any impact?

 

 

There must be, stories like this are magically appearing:

At least 2,000 people in the UK threaten national security because of their support for terrorism, MI5's chief says.

Ah.  When's the Queen's Speech again?

In the past 12 months, MI5 had found links between an increasing range of countries and terror plots in the UK, he said.

In Iraq, Algeria and parts of East Africa, especially Somalia, he said, the "al-Qaeda brand" had expanded and now posed a threat to the UK.

We're winning in Iraq, there's no link between Iraq and UK terrorism and we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here.  Do try to keep up.  An expanding al-Qaeda brand plus this weekend's military re-coup in Pakistan doesn't give me the warm fuzzy feeling that we're doing just fine with Dubya and the boys in charge of the WoT.  It almost makes you think that those leftie wussy do-gooder terrorist loving liberals who opposed the Iraq War and the use of torture and secret prisons by the US might have had a point when they opined that this was, um, counterproductive.  Surely not?

More from the Independent/Times snippeting of Andrew Seldon's book on Blair.  OK, obviously we're getting the tasty bits, but indulge us:

Tony Blair turned down a last-minute offer from President George Bush for Britain to stay out of the Iraq war because he thought it would look "pathetic", according to a new book on Mr Blair's tenure.

Quite right too.  After all, the one adjective we never use about Tony Blair's foreign policy record is 'pathetic'.  We usually don't have enough space after running through murderous, larcenous, imperialistic, neo-colonial, neo-conservative, kleptocratic, illegal, ill-judged, dodgy, wasteful, detrimental, deceitful dishonest, two-faced, insincere, untruthful, mendacious, double-dealing...

Any more?

Could it be that Kim Howells actually got something right when he spoke of the UK's and Saudi Arabia's "shared values"? No, I don't think so either but bear with me.

Mr Howells said: "Some commentators will focus on our differences and ask how we can talk of shared values." But, he added, "we both face the same threats and insecurities ... The case for working together to safeguard our security is stronger than ever."

On the face of it, it would seem not, and this is yet another asinine statement from the Foreign Office minister who has few equals when it comes to talking utter crap. What could we possibly have in common with a despotic regime like Saudi Arabia that beheads its subjects and even forbids women from driving? But when you add New Labour into the equation, one can't help wondering if he doesn't have a point. With New Labour in power there are indeed some values that are shared by the two kingdoms. State corruption is one; unaccountable government is another and supporting America's wars is yet another. And let's not forget the shared enthusiasm for torture and the erosion of civil liberties (not that Saudi Arabia has any civil liberties to erode). So perhaps Howells' statement would have been more accurate if he had emphasised the shared values of New Labour and the House of Saud because I doubt that the people of the UK really do have the same values as that despotic regime.

There's another part of Howells' statement that doesn't stand up to scrutiny and that's the bit about "The case for working together to safeguard our security". We were told that the reason why the police investigation into BAE corruption with Saudi Arabia had to be halted was because of the co-operation and intelligence we were getting from the regime in The War Against Terror (TWAT).

Tony Blair at the time made no mention of the arms deal. Instead, he said that the Saudis had privately threatened to cut intelligence cooperation with Britain unless the fraud inquiry was stopped.

Mr Blair went so far as to say that Britain's national security would be at risk unless the fraud inquiry was abandoned.

Now we are hearing that the Saudi government did indeed supply the UK with information which might have prevented the attacks of July 7 2005.

King Abdullah said that "no action was taken" on information sent to Britain before the 2005 attacks, which killed 56 people including the four bombers.

"It may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy," he claimed.

Well, until we get a proper inquiry into 7/7, we won't know if that's true. Britain is of course denying that any such information was received (in which case we may as well re open the BAE corruption investigation) and the ill-advised state visit is now looking like a bit of a shambles with even David Miliband finding he has more pressing engagements than talking to the Saudis. King Abdullah has now hilariously accused Britain of not taking the War on Terror seriously, this from the country that spawned Bin Laden and 15 of the 9/11 hijackers.

So in the light of all this, it would seem then that Kim Howells is yet again talking crap.

Why do they do it?

Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain has apologised after ministers admitted that 300,000 more immigrants were working in the UK than first thought.
...
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stressed that ministers had used the earlier 800,000 estimate "in good faith".

The point here isn't the immigration (quite the reverse, the country clearly hasn't collapsed under the weight even if the Government's figures were total hogwash), it's that yet again New Labour rely on the 'good faith' excuse and expect to get away with it.  Bullshit, you screwed up again.  Either find some way of improving, resign or preferably admit to us and yourselves that in a country the size of Britain there are some things you will never know, so don't create policy on the assumption that you can know everything.

He went into the garden and began muttering ‘Iraq’ and ‘it’s all my fault’ - source "In the end Blair would always support the president. I found this very surprising. I never really understood why Blair seemed to be in such harmony with Bush. I thought, well, the Brits haven't been attacked on 9/11. How did he reach the point that he sees Saddam as such a threat? Jack and I would get him all pumped up about an issue. And he'd be ready to say, 'Look here, George'. But as soon as he saw the president he would lose all his steam." - Colin Powell - source

Looks like it's one to be read.

 

 

Just noticed this on TfL's website (yes, I know, I'm sad), but not on any major news yet:

Under Transport for London's plans, the people and the assets of the two Metronet companies, BCV and SSL, will be transferred into two Transport for London nominee companies, which will be managed on a standalone basis whilst the long-term structure is agreed with the Mayor and Government.

Lest we forget, the whole PPP shambles is entirely down to Gordon Brown's bullheadness, coupled with appalling mismanagement and idiocy by the Metronet constituents.  Any renationalisation of transport is a good thing, in my book, as is any rollback of the PFI state.  More power to TfL's elbow on this one.

Let's start with the good news. The surge is having an effect on the the small al Qaeda in Iraq (al QI). Relations between them and bin Laden have been tense for a long time. Zaquawi, the sadistic Jordanian, alienated many people by his cruelty, to the extent that frequent messages were sent to him by bin Laden and Zawahiri asking him to tone it down as he was losing support.

Faced with this, the tribal leaders started having second thoughts about tolerating the presence of these people. Something the US has skilfully exploited and has been quietly doing deals with the tribal leaders. Meanwhile, al QI are very much on the defensive. Their tactic of slaughtering the Shia to provoke a civil war is backfiring badly. Their calls for open revolt have, like every other call from al Q, fallen on deaf ears.

And now, another indignity; a very public telling off from the boss. The latest bin Laden tape doesn't focus on his grand visions or flights of fancy through world history but sticks to mundane matters, issues that a CEO normally never touches.

Mistakes were made, he admits referring to Zaquawi's 'kill the shia bastards' policy and makes a call for unity. This is a bit rich coming for someone who described the shia as one of the three enemies, but he also says that individuals should give way to group leadership and that people must be able to make concessions in order to find common ground. Also he stresses the need to bring tribal leaders into the fold.

Interesting. He was never close to the Jordanian and many were surprised when Zaquawi knelt before bin Laden's throne, something that he must be kicking himself for. But it is clear that they are in considerable disarray and their entire strategy has failed. The US is beginning to learn how to tackle terrorist groups and is making real progress in one key area, to separate the terrorist element from the local population, in this case a very heavily armed population.

This is good news but it has little to do with the insurgency. Most jihadists in Iraq are nationalist in their thinking and have political objectives such as removing corruption, changing political systems in their own countries. al Q is very different, seeking an almost messianic pan-national goal. This is also another division that is being understood and exploited.

Without al Qaeda, it may be possible, eventually, for the Sunni and Shia groups to work more closely and to work out common areas of understanding, policy and tactics. Pragmatism and nationalism may win the day. This may be partly what al Sadr is up to in his mysterious regrouping and there are signs that militia groups see the need to unite, but to unite without the apocalyptic sadists of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Will a man appear who can unite the Shia and Sunni? Well, Iraq is the homeland of Saladin and should a new Saladin arise with a message of pan-national unity that crosses religious divides, he would be a far greater challenge than any number of fragmented militias.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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*Andy adds*

Hey, we're back! May the debating continue!

I guess most of us knew that Blair wouldn't be satisfied with his job of Middle East peace [sic] envoy for very long. It doesn't give him the power he is used to wielding and it means that he has to face a few realities about the plight of the Palestinians and facing up to realities was never Blair's strongest point. So it shouldn't be surprising that Blair would use his current job as a launch pad for a more ambitious role. Worse still, Gordon Brown is supporting him all the way.

Tony Blair would be a "great candidate" for any big international job, Gordon Brown said today amid speculation over who would be the first president of the European council.

It follows a claim in the Financial Times that Mr Blair was being "heavily promoted" for the job by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

It's hard to imagine a worse candidate for the job. Nevertheless, Blair has been trying to raise his profile by ingratiating himself even further with his neo con masters. He's just given a speech at a charity dinner in New York in which he sounded more like mad Melanie Phillips than ever as he tried to compare Iran with Nazi Germany in the 1930s (video here).

“Analogies with the past are never properly accurate, and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading but, in pure chronology, I sometimes wonder if we’re not in the 1920s or 1930s again.

Funny, I've been wondering the same thing myself only I see the threat coming not from Iran but from the deeply insane psychopaths in Washington and their sycophantic followers who have already destabilised the entire region. Of course Blair couldn't resist referring to September 11 2001 in a pathetic attempt to associate the Iranian regime with that atrocity.

Mr Blair went on: “I said straight after the attack of September 2001 that this was not an attack on America but on all of us. That Britain’s duty was to be shoulder to shoulder with you in confronting it. I meant it then and I mean it now.”

He added: “America and Europe should not be divided, we should stand up together.

So Blair is as hawkish as ever and seemingly determined to plunge us into yet another war. By becoming president of the European council he presumably thinks he can help bring about another disaster.