Heads Full of Straw

There have been several announcements by various Departments around Christmas, which prove the spirit of Scrooge is far from dead.

First, Chris Grayling from Justice, stopped Christmas parcels for all prisoners just to show how tough/ambitious he is. Then Ian Duncan Smith, condemned the Church charity administering the nation’s food banks and accused them as ‘scaremongering’ and being ‘political’.  Also the unemployed will have to work 35 hours a week for any benefits and anyone appealing against an Atos assessment will lose all benefits for months eventhough Atos are wrong 40% of the time. Cameron has created a phoney war on a wave of Bulgarian and Romanian scroungers when there is no evidence to show they exist.

Today, we have a bullish stance in denying anyone who is non-EU free medical care at A&E departments. The Government has successfully introduced the catch phrase ‘health tourism’ in an attempt to portray foreigners as wilfully getting ill and injured in the UK just to rip off ‘hard-working taxpayers’.

The cumulative effect of these policies is to convince Middle England that the Conservatives are striking out against hordes of lazy, grasping foreigners and scroungers. It simultaneously diminishes us as a nation where Britishness used to imply humanity, generosity and tolerance. And as a country we were proud of that reputation. Now there is little protest to police randomly checking everyone’s immigration status at train stations.

Now rattled by the threat of sustained electoral support for UKIP and assisted by a largely small-minded and embittered press, Ministers feel free to be as mean and nasty as they wish, despite what the actual cost of these services are. All figures show a tiny amount of benefits being claimed by migrants and much more paid in tax proportionally than UK residents.

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt’s estimate of a cost of £2Bn to the NHS from migrants turned out to be closer to £80m. Labour has mainly bottled it on these issues. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: "We are not against improving the recovery of costs from people with no entitlement to NHS treatment."

These headlines turn in reality into dishing out huge bills to elderly, vulnerable and poor people. It also means doctors asking to see your passport. But most of all it means another aspect of the NHS privatised. There is a reason for opposing this policy of imposing health costs: it is simply wrong and against the first principles of universal healthcare.

"Now He Belongs to the Ages"

In the late 1970s, my old headmaster would lecture us on world affairs in his reactionary Home Counties manner. When it came to South Africa, he would always say tritely, “it can only end in a bloodbath.”

That view was commonly held in Britain then given its proximity to the police murder of Steve Biko and mass shootings of Soweto students. But it figured without the extra-ordinary leadership and political guts of Nelson Mandela. At the time he was a rather forgotten figure, about halfway through his prison sentence for sabotage and conspiracy: hard labour, two letters per year and one visit.

When he emerged from prison in 1990, South Africa was in deep flux and greybeards from the ANC sought direction and counsel from the great man. He told them the solution to a political future for South Africa was for, “both sides to compromise their fundamental beliefs.” They looked at him like his brain had gone soft in custody. But those apparently contradictory words proved to be visionary and saved his nation from what appeared to be inevitable carnage and conflict.

I heard Mandela speak from South Africa House in Trafalgar Square in 1996. The crowd was close to hysteria and erupted when he addressed them. It was an extra-ordinary and exhilarating speech. We are constantly disheartened listening to obviously disingenuous words of so many politicians. Here was finally one who meant what he said and had the courage and persuasive skills to achieve it. By that time those leaders who had described Mandela as a terrorist had long been sidelined to the wrong side of history.

Throughout the apartheid era, black South Africans were treated with brutality and violence and denied the rights of voting, to chose where to work, live and who to marry. People should always have the means to re-claim and defend those rights. Mandela resisted with unyielding determination that oppression his whole life and delivered freedom and peace to his country - South Africa's "greatest son."

Not Inconsiderably Disagreeable

Koyaanisqatsi is a Native American word, which means world out of sync, out of balance. It would seem an apt term for the state of capitalism, particularly the energy market, in Britain when former Conservative Prime Minister, Sir John Major, suggests windfall taxing the energy companies and using the money to help the poor with their bills.

Although Major as PM expressed his desire for, "a nation at ease with itself"the policies of his Government (1990-7) did little to heal the deep social divisions caused by unyielding Thatcherism. He may have held a vision of England of old ladies cycling to church, village cricket and friendly dark-beamed pubs selling warm brown beer. But during his tenure, the unfettered banking sector thrived as many areas saw major industries exterminated while social housing stock withered. He was never a proper 'One Nation' Tory neither did his contempt for Labour politics diminish after office. So it is all the more surprising that he is indicating a redistributive method to solve the issue of "excess" profits of energy companies.

There were many personal flaws of Major's leadership qualities which resulted in the slow strangulation of his administration but being privileged and remote wasn't ever one of them. Major grew up in Brixton in the 50s in abject poverty and despite their respective faults both his predecessors, Heath and Thatcher, rose from very modest backgrounds and understood from an early age the pressures of tight family budgets.

It is impossible to say exactly why Cameron resists every call to tell any industry that their super profits are "unjustified" but his class is under focus again. Norman Tebbitt put it succinctly on the traditional test of a leader's credibility: knowing the price of a pinta. "It's not so much that Cameron and [George] Osborne didn't know the price of milk, but that they didn't know emotionally that the price of milk was important to people," he said in a Guardian interview.

And the same could be said of energy bills. When the big six companies all announce rises around 10% almost every year, then to millions of consumer's the reaction is not simply tutting to themselves, "bloody typical". To many, up to their eyes in debt, there is an immediate mental calculation of what they will have to do without.  John Major recognised that in all too many cases it means an inenviable choice between, "keeping warm and eating." These companies' culture of disposal labour and corporate dominance make it possible that an employee can be given a powerpoint presentation in his hospital bed just five days after a heart attack and given his cards in front of the rest of the ward.

It is a perception problem 'for-whose-side-are-you-on' not just for the front bench but also the party. Gove showed his callousness for people reduced to relying on foodbanks by saying they were for thoe who did not have the skills to manage their money. Last week, the unsinkable Dennis Skinner was shouted down by Tory backbenchers as he relayed the pathetic tale of constituent David Coupe reduced to abject poverty by an Atos assessment. He died of cancer waiting for his appeal against loss of benefits after being deemed fit for work. The circumstances were bad enough but to be berated by the Government side showed them either lacking any self-awareness or compassion.

Ed Milliband's masterstroke in pledging a freeze on energy bills for 20 months has left Cameron in a blue funk. At PMQs, he wailed Ed was a "conman" and was slapped down by the Speaker for questioning his honesty. He then chucked his green credentials in the bin to shave a couple of quid of some bills and destabilise the Coalition further. He even used some useless adviser's suggestion to try and turn the blame of Millband for what he did as Energy Secretary five years ago. Even the Telegraph called it  a "dreadful performance."

The economy went into steep decline following the banks' crash: Cameron had the opportunity to ensure the sectors responsible paid their fair share and that cartels and monopolies were not allowed to succeed. His instinct is clearly against that and he claims the economic crisis was simply "Labour overspending". The economy is out of balance, and hard-pressed families are feeling deep stress about the unaffordable contribution they have to make. Cameron is not the man to re-adjust it because he has no idea what those pressures feel like. I mean, what's the problem?

She's the Model

If you absorbed all you knew about Germany and its people from the British press then “relaxed” and “charming” would be very low on the list of likely adjectives. Yet this was the unanimous view of a group of us who visited Berlin last weekend. An immensely welcoming city identified by mutual respect and social tolerance.

The general election had been held the previous weekend and delivered another term of coalition Government for Chancellor Angela ‘Angie’ Merkel (pictured). The campaign was not, like UK, characterised by rancorous arguments and wholesale misrepresentation of policies, like we witnessed during the recent Conference season. The main parties in Germany argued over the practicalities of strengthening the economy. The basis of German industry and public services is co-operation between unions and bosses. The idea of a Secretary of State for Education describing teachers as ‘militants’ like Gove did this week, would be treated with the ridicule it deserves.

It appears to me that the Germans are simply more grown up than us, more unafraid of presenting themselves as an intelligent, self-aware, discerning people. The UK appears to be increasingly suffering the cultural cringe, which we used to mock Australians for.

Over the weekend, I also found it easy to deny myself the sometimes dubious pleasure of British newspapers for a few days. It was hugely dispiriting to read on the plane home the reprehensible and boorish articles by the Daily Mail about the Labour leader’s, Ed Milliband’s late father, Ralph. It was clear to me that it was not the realm of opinionated journalism but blatant propaganda.

The headline sought to establish a slogan that Ralph was a man “who hated Britain.” Not only was it a weak and personal attack on the integrity of the Milliband family but also contrary to the record of history which clearly shows Ralph raced to join the Royal Navy, served with distinction for three years and lived an exemplary peaceful life as an academic and family man.

But he was also a life-long socialist. The Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, saw an infantile opportunity to attempt to portray Ed as a Communist himself with a hidden agenda. Dacre clearly views his readership as so gullible and malleable that they might be persuaded by that clearly preposterous assertion. But it is not as if the readers would be toying with the idea of voting Labour in any event. Ed’s deviousness, would, according to the Mail, include stifling press freedom. This entire pointless melodrama has so obviously been contrived to falsely show Ed as wishing to control the press ahead of the imminent Parliamentary decision on Leveson.

In a truly bizarre and trenchant editorial on Tuesday, Dacre accused the Leader of the Opposition of having, “driven a hammer and sickle through the heart of the nation so many of us genuinely love.” It sounded like someone who was both very angry and drunk. Alistair Campbell captured the Mail most succinctly as having, “the worst of British values posing as the best.”

It is doubtful whether this newspaper would sell much in Germany. People would be surprised and dismayed to read the recurrent themes of Communist/Fascist conflict. Younger generations have put that behind them and the country thrives because it has a confident, outward looking aspect. While we in Britain have come expect, since Thatcher’s days of social division, that politics and media should be spiteful and wantonly divisive, Germany has quietly built a balanced society and from their derives its integrity and dignity as a nation.

Cost of Freedom

The revelation that DPM, Nick Clegg, approved the pointless destruction of a number of the Guardian’s hard drives shows how confused liberals have become over state security.  For a life long advocate of civil liberties to endorse intrusion into a newspaper’s officers by MI6 to suppress the news of widespread illegal spying by US and UK agencies, is perhaps Clegg’s most hypocritical stance yet.

But the Conservative Right on either side of the Atlantic, is no less contradictory. For too many years they have adhered religiously to the Bush/Cheney philosophy of fighting terrorism should supersede individual freedoms for the sake of domestic security.

The Edward Snowden revelations make them condemn the man not the outrageous disregard for privacy, by NSA and GCHQ, they have exposed. Placing security over rights to liberty, should only really apply when there is a clear and present danger and not for all time.

Some commentators and politicians have been citing incidents in Yemen and closing embassies as justifications for NSA’s intrusion into US citizens emails and phone calls. But this was all carried out in secret. These voices were not calling for enhanced powers against the public prior to the news that it was going on anyway.

In the UK, we have some safeguards through ECHR but rely heavily on a British ‘sense of fair play’, which is hardly bulletproof. Much depends on the liberal instincts of the Home Secretary and PM who invariably have been scared witless by spooks’ secrets and are pliable to almost any infringement of civil rights in the name of security from terrorism. If that means agreeing to detain, threaten and confiscate the possessions of a journalist’s partner at a UK airport under terrorism legislation, then so be it.

In the US, there is of course the Constitution. And although many Conservatives have got themselves in a blue funk about public protection, the document will always remain the cornerstone of US law. In the UK, all we have, in finding the right balance on freedom and security, is the fallibility of the Home Secretary and political weakness of the Prime Minister. 

The Home Sec was wrong to say she has no ability to question the operations of police and security services. It is the Home Office which makes the law so has an interest in how it is applied, in the case of David Miranda, wrongly. The Terrorism Act 2000 applies to “someone involved in committing preparing or instigating acts of terrorism.” It is simply not acceptable, nor legally sound, to broaden its scope to include holding information for publication which could, in the opinion of MI6, potentially be of use to terrorists.

The only people who are not confused are the top rank civil servants and senior spooks who are clear freedom of press and individual liberty is expendable when covering up illegal phone-tapping and intervention on emails. Every party appears to have their own version of patriotism. But the patriotism which upholds civil liberties first appears, since 9/11, to be denigrated by those who fear terrorism more. In fact they would, like the Home Office, advocate that questioning the legal excesses of the police amounts to "condoning" terrorism itself. 

A Tangled Web

Britain has recently become quite good at sport.

Last summer, the Olympics were an almost embarrassing success and in the last few weeks there have been famous wins for the Lions Rugby team, in the Tour de France and the Ashes.

But football is still there, lurking like some deviant, drunken, cash rich, cousin who is certain to upset the party in some way. While the other sports thrive on sportsmanship and fair play, the essence of football appears to be to deceive, lie, corrupt or actually cheat. The influence of money in the game is all pervasive and infects even the most routine routine judgements. Club football towers over international competitions.

There is no better example of the game's moral descent than the petulant and self-obsessed talent of Liverpool striker, Luis Suarez, currently earning £6m p.a. We first learned of him when his deliberate goal-line handball for Uruguay kept Ghana from making the World Cup semi-final. He did not regret his action and say it was all 'heat of the moment'. He said his red card was, "worth it" and mocked his opponents, as he made, "the save of the tournament."In the last ten minutes of any match, which Liverpool are not winning, Suarez can be seen throwing himself into the penalty box like a spiteful adolescent. He is currently serving a second ban for biting an opponent and was also banned for racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra.

The once mighty club of Liverpool, in following purely commercial interests, has degraded themselves and been transformed from a club that neutrals would respect for their integrity, into the worst example of moral expediency in sport. Unless you count Leeds United.

The West Yorkshire club's steep decline into the lower leagues was deeply disturbing for the fans of the club - they were paying for a recession which was not of their own making. A succession of self-interested 'saviours' of Leeds threatened its demise. The lowest point was probably when, former Chelsea chairman Ken Bates (pictured), took over and installed the woeful Dennis Wise as manager. The club spiralled down even being deducted a total of 25 points for its poor administration. One match was delayed because the fans had to pay cash as the club had no card-paying facilities.

Bates's regime has been synonymous with opaque business deals - for some while no-one knew who owned the club which did not prompt the FA to ensure it was a, "fit and proper person". In modern football the administrators yield meekly to the strong arm of commercial pressure.

Bates banned the Guardian and the local BBC from press conferences at Elland Road for asking questions about how the club was run. He called the fans "morons" and defamed the former club director Melvyn Levi in his programme 'notes' over several months. And he sold many of the best players, usually for an undisclosed fee.

His status as a Monaco resident for tax reasons has finally precipitated his very welcome exit from the club. The new owners, GFH Capital, allowed Bates to stay in the titular, self aggrandised
role as club "president" but baulked at his expectation that the club would pay £500k to the costs of his private jet between Leeds and the South of France. Bates said, "I did it in the best interests of the club."

Although Leeds fans still have to contend with the unfettered ravages of capitalism which means they can never compete at the same level they used to, at least they no longer have a Chairman who treated them and the club with such contempt. However the sport proudly holds itself in disrepute.

Behind the Curtain

News is about people.

The colossal scale of internet and phone interception, mainly against unknown targets, carried out by the NSA in the US and our very own GCHQ provoked screaming headlines around the world. But the secret attempts to smear the Lawrence family by undercover Met police hit home more directly.

Neville (pictured) and Doreen Lawrence lost their son, Stephen, to a racist gang of thugs and were consistently denied justice by a police force shown to be institutionally racist. It was hard to say at the time, in 1999, when the Macpherson report was published. The senior cops, far removed from the canteen culture and Policeman's Balls accepted some managerial repositioning on diversity but resisted Home Sec Jack Straw's bolder statements on change to rank and file attitudes.

We already know there was barely any enthusiasm for finding evidence in the Lawrence murder case and the assailants seemingly became immune to prosecution. What we didn't know, until now, was there were, simultaneously, mighty efforts made to dig dirt on the family and monitor all their friends and house visitors by the Met Police's Special Demonstration Squad. They even corrupted the trust between the Lawrences and Family Liaison Officers. The stated justification of preventing public disorder has been used by tyrannical regimes for decades.

It would appear that Jack Straw was deceived throughout by a Special Branch campaign, presumably through the friendly tabloids, to destroy the Lawrence's family name by formulating false links to criminality. Straw, said yesterday, the secret operation was, "a perversion of police resources, priorities and principles." Duwayne Brookes, Stephen's best mate, now a Councillor was set up on a charge of criminal damage. He was well used to this hostile treatment having been falsely accused of two petty crimes carried out within Eltham police station on the night of Stephen's murder.

Neville Lawrence said the family's decisions throughout was to, "use the courts". It is the ultimate irony that it was the police, the upholders of the law, who were pursuing an obsession to taint the Lawrences as criminally dubious while the family themselves maintained their faith in a corrupt Criminal Justice System.

We have already learned of the revelations of undercover police forming long-term relationships, fathering children and using dead children's identities. There will be more to come: there were about 130 officers leading double lives to trap families and protestors into criminal charges for what appears to be political motives against liberals, environmentalists, campaigners and civil rights activists. This operation amounts to an assault on democracy.

As Straw has said, the critical question is, "how high up" the knowledge and authorisation went. An investigation chaired by a judge would struggle to uncover these deep layers of official deceit. The offer of the current Home Sec to leave it to other police and one barrister to determine the truth is derisory. Small wonder Neville Lawrence has dismised this offer out of hand as "unacceptable". The police have not even felt it necessary to apologise to the women whose lives have been ripped apart by this serial undercover operation when they fell into relationships with spying officers and so could not have given "informed consent".

Chief Constable Mick Creedon, Head of Operation Herne, which will not report until at least 2016, hardly fulfills our confidence by his blase attitude to human dignity and happiness. In an inteview with the Guardian, he said he did not feel like exposing the whole scale of surveillance and duplicity: "'The way the world is now, that will fizz around the internet networks instantly,' he said, adding that he saw little benefit in "raking up" the issue with parents who would otherwise remain oblivious."

Creedon already appears to be unable to seek the transparency which would properly expose these outrageous actions and we will be waiting years in any case. Few could seriously expect one of their own to bring down a fellow senior officer. I mean, when did that last happen? The precedents are not all inspiring.

Loony Tunes

When Jeremy Hunt (left) said, yesterday, the Conservatives were "united" in their approach to the EU he probably meant it, regardless of what the general public think of growing civil war in his party.

He probably believed it when he said it was the Labour Party who had the real problem. He probably even believes in all that guff about the "global race" and how a pointless legal change about an in/out referendum will be an expression of the will of the people.

With all this posturing he is convincing no-one. But that is the style of this Government, it has never felt  like persuasion, getting down and dirty, was necessary. It has felt leadership commands deference from the public and its core supporters. To call them "mad, swivel eyed loons" captures the gap between the ground troops and the officer's mess rather well. If anyone of Thatcher, Heath or Major's administration had so insulted the activists pounding the streets, he would have been sacked on the spot. All that is denied but even if Feldman did say it, Cameron would feel frankly, you know, sort of rather embarrassed to give a chap his marching orders when they are all such good chums going way back.

The disunity within the party is virulent and worsening, any damn fool can see that. The reasonable voices are being drowned out by the whack jobs. Geoffrey Howe's bit in the Observer was a throw back to how a politician used to write articles, unafraid of writing intelligently, with full historical context. The other side are not listening: they are imbued with purpose derived from their political momentum. They appear to have forgotten disunity plays very badly with the public who rate the EU about 10th on their priorities well behind, jobs, growth and living standards.

At least when John Major went to war with his "bastards" it was a simple argument to follow. The Maastrict Treaty brought us a little closer to EU politically - they hated that. Cameron's position cannot be summarised in less than about 1,000 words and is so full of twist and turns, humiliating contradictions and bare-faced hypocrisy.

But suffice it to say, a vote on a referendum will not be passed in the Commons, if it did it would not bind the next Parliament, if Cons won the election (ha!) Cameron would vote to stay in. Also the much repeated "renegotiation" with EU is doomed because any of the other 27 countries can veto any aspect of it and any concession granted will be judged by people like John Redwood and Peter Bone who won't be satisfied until the Channel Tunnel is dynamited.

Cameron is now like the prefect who everyone has discovered has a father "in trade". His authority is dwindling by the day, his Defence Secretary casually mentions he would support leaving the EU, gets a "now, look here" talking to, then the next day disavows the Government's policy on gay marriage.

Cameron's problem is that he expects people to follow by mere dint of him being leader. Now they are leading him into political oblivion.

Future Buried in the Past

Everyone is allowed to express a little extra kindness to the recently departed. It is only a truism to say that eulogies are not objective.

But the death today of (Lady) Margaret Thatcher has prompted the most fawning statements from her political offspring in the modern Conservative Party. Former Cabinet member, Lord (Ken) Baker said when she left office, the UK was the strongest economy in Europe when clearly (West) Germany had outperformed Britain since the late 1960s.

David Cameron went even further by claiming, “she didn’t just lead the country…she saved it.” To be a British saviour is a quality only really attributable to Churchill.  Such prosaic tributes and nauseating hyperbole give a highly false impression of such a domineering figure in Britain’s history.

Former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, did not cow to the obsequious mood and said, “her legacy was fundamentally wrong.” He pointed to the sale of council houses as root cause of a chronic shortage of housing now. Her tax and industrial policies created the underclass of benefit dependency and as a female politician she did nothing for women’s rights whatsoever.

The Conservatives’ toadying tributes all point to her political demise in 1990 as PM as being prompted by the introduction of the iniquitous flat rate local ‘poll’ tax. One or two suggest she had gone too far over her opposition to policies over the European Union. The truth is she had lost her mental faculties to be able to carry out the onerous task of being Prime Minister. Increasingly eccentric public performances in Parliament were matched by delusional behaviour around the Cabinet table as chronicled by her Deputy Geoffrey Howe when she sacked him in fit of pique.

Many of the political class who are describing her as a great patriot are deeply selective of her version of it. Certainly she, by her powerful political will, enabled the Falkland Islands to be recaptured in 1982. But equally in her determination to break the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984-5 strike, she ensured the price the country paid was the loss of energy self-sufficiency.

There are few political figures who have attracted such adoration and opprobrium in equal measure. Former French President Francois Mitterand captured both sides when he said, “ She has the eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe.” Dr Jonathan Miller said, “ her odious suburban gentility and sentimental, saccharine patriotism, cater to the worst elements of commuter idiocy.”

It is not altogether easy to find many of Thatcher’s achievements made simply for the good of her fellow man. But she did introduce harm reduction measures and needle exchanges to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS in mid 80s. Her scientific background overcame what appeared to be a highly toxic media issue at the time.

However her political philosophy was heavily influenced by Neo-Conservatives Keith Joseph and the discredited Enoch Powell. Her view that there was “no such thing as society,” will be her epitaph – these words constitute a philosophical heartlessness based on economic consumerism and acquisitiveness as the sole path to the nation’s happiness.

She detested her predecessor’s, Ted Heath, “One Nation” approach and he hated her back. At a formal photograph of former PMs, he was asked if he could stand further to the right of her, “Not sure that’s actually possible,” he grumbled. Her unyielding support for Chilean tyrant General Pinochet during his arrest in Britain in 1998 showed she was morally fallible. 

But her impact on the Conservative Party is still immense. In the Shires of rural Britain, David Cameron is still compared highly unfavourably to her 23 years after she was deselected by her backbenchers, as were the other four party leaders in between.

In many ways Thatcher’s greatest mark has been on her own party, the Conservative Party have only been victorious in one election since she won easily in 1987. All subsequent leaders have been trying to emulate her dominance and conviction but have simply come across as divisive.  

That ultimately is Thatcher’s legacy: a nation uneasy with itself and a party trying to recapture the elusive past.

You Don't Belong Here

There is a long, long convention that Ministers say, "it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases." The principle reason being that any detail of a simple issue case, when put up against a multi-faceted policy, can come back to bite them in the butt.

But you get the feeling that the Conservatives are feeling a little desperate about the election of 2015 already and are seizing recklessly on any case of immigration or welfare payments which can perpetuate the idea that foreigners and the poor are scroungers and if not borderline criminal then actually criminal.

The murders of six children in Derby by their feckless, reprobate father, Mick Philpott had so many sickening aspects it was often hard to follow the case. After so many biased news stories against welfare recipients it was hardly surprising the Mail felt able to make the twisted and foul judgement that their murderer was not intrinsically self-obsessed and evil but simply a "product of welfare UK".

DWP Minister, Esther McVey, refused to endorse such socially divisive views on Channel 4 News on Wednesday. But next day, Chancellor George Osborne, coincidentally in Derby, started hinting heavily that the deaths were caused by a certain "lifestyle" as if it were a predictable consequence of giving the undeserving poor any money. It was perhaps intellectual laziness but more likely some talking points prompted by back room Svengali, Lynton Crosby, as was, one suspects, Cameron's recent speech castigating the non-existent threat of scrounger immigrants.

Osborne's vitriolic speech this week on benefit changes means the Mail has now been gifted the lead on the debate, always an invidious place to be. But Crosby, IDS and Cameron are firmly of the view this flagellation of the poor  is popular with the non-poor partly because reading these papers for so many years has given the impression that any claimant is a chancer and an enemy within.

The Mail yesterday included a story of a woman who claimed she could live on £1 a day, "anyone can do it," she blithely wittered. There are vast amounts of human interest stories of, for example, dying people being declared fit for work which these papers refuse to print. These editors are more content giving voice to the confused drivel of a single woman pinching soft fruits from hedgerows as a sustainable "lifestyle" for hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

We can expect many more bitter attacks between now and the elections, the Tories look like getting a drubbing in the locals next month particularly in marginal areas like Derbyshire. However this demonisation can only be a diminishing return as more people reflect on the harsh, unyielding judgmental language on poor families from privileged and insincere men.

March them Down Again

David Cameron surpassed himself yesterday by his own low standards of political strategy.

By suddenly dissolving the all-party negotiations over Leveson, he has handed himself an inevitable political humiliation on Monday's vote. He has also made the issue of press standards a party political one when it never should have been.

It is hard to unpick his precise reasoning. On the face of it, he did it because, after three months since Judge Brian reported, frustration has grown among backbenchers. Some have laid amendments on other legislation, such as the Defamation Bill and it was just a mtter of time before one was passed.

Dave first threatened to act like some constitutional vandal by dumping those Bills entirely, accusing the opposition members of hijacking the legislation and "grandstanding". But it never looks good, even for the PM, to waste hundreds of hours of Parliamentary time. And last time I looked, the democratic principle allowed MPs to lay amendments and if they were successfully voted for, then the Executive had to bow to the will of Parliament.

He may be taking bad advice from the somewhat inexperienced group of No.10 SpAds. He may just think he will be celebrated as an advocate of press freedom when others, like the DPM, wish to 'shackle' it. Good luck with that. I get the feeling he was just bored of the whole consultation bit and just wanted to exert his authority.

In the ensuing media discussions, the PM's position was supported pretty much uniquely by former executive editor of the NOTW, Neil Wallis (pictured), who called the body representing the victims of his old newspaper's harassment and bullying, nothing more than, "fanatics" and "ayatollahs". Wallis himself will not face charges and he even penned a weepy article about how weally woughly he was tweated by the Criminal Justice system. But the same day Wallis was making clear his trenchant views on various news sofas, the former Ethics Editor of the Press Complaints Committee was arrested for allegations into phone hacking at the Sunday Mirror.

Cameron's position, such as it is, is to have a Royal Charter on regulation but not backed by statute. That means its governance would be held by the Privy Council, in other words senior Ministers whose decisions are not accountable nor even recorded for the public. His boast that it would deliver the "toughest rules on the press we have ever seen" is not saying a lot as we've never had any effective ones before. He will present some proposal on Monday for a late sitting where this whole bally thing can be sorted out.

As one journalist mentioned yesterday, the newspapers who feel a paranoid threat about any form of regulation rarely publish the opinion polls which show overwhelming public support for these measures. Between now and Monday we can expect screaming editorials and opinion pieces which will convince no-one. Patrick Kavanagh in the Sun today said the free press, "has been the defender of the ordinary citizen against the rich and powerful." 

Many ordinary citizens, like the McCanns and Dowlers, had their personal lives destroyed for the sake of circulation figures for the rich and powerful press owners. He even had the gall to use the Hillsborough "cover-up" as a compelling reason for a free press when it his newspaper which printed hateful lies about the Liverpool fans which perpetuated the idea that they were to blame and not the police. 

Some of the comments are frankly laughable. According to the Mail, it is Hugh Grant, their bete noir, who is instructing the shadow cabinet at every stage, "cravenly trying to appease a faded film star with a rackety sex life."

In essence, unfettered press freedom has not enhanced democracy it has damaged it. Whatever the outcome we have been reminded Cameron seems to lack those deal making qualities one could assume a PM would have. The art of the possible they used to call it.

Helter Skelter

So one by-election never sets the future for success. But it can be a damn good indicator for failure.

There used to be a convention of the PM not getting involved in any by-election as any unexpected failure would personally damage their standing. Cameron has never been one for sensible convention and has blithely ploughed his own furrow to disaster.

He even agreed to the Whips office setting up a PMQ where he took a swipe at the less than honest former MP for Eastleigh, Chris Huhne. "I hope all my hon. Friends will join me on the campaign trail in Eastleigh—what I would say to people in Eastleigh is that if they want a straight-talking candidate who does exactly what it says on the tin, Maria Hutchings is a local mum and a fantastic campaigner, and she would make a great Member of Parliament."


The Tories started as odds on favourites and with every Ministerial appearance lost more ground in the polls. The candidate did not help her case by slating state education as not good enough for anyone wishing to become a surgeon.  She was then obviously micro managed by central office which only antagonises the voting public as much as not turning up for debates. She was also advised by that master tactician, IDS to emphasise Huhne's singular quality as a "liar" forgetting that is an attribute most people would asign to any MP.

This seat was only no.12 on the Cons must-win list for the next General Election so to slip to third behind UKIP and the scandal ravaged Lib-Dems was truly a catastrophic outcome. What we are witnessing now is a split on the right equivalent to the one on the left thirty years ago which took over about fifteen years to fix. UKIP are still on the rise and in Nigel Farage they have an excellent communicator who sounds straightforward and succinct when his opponents wriggle and dissemble. Local and Euro elections beckon and Nige can't wait.

But you wouldn't know they were  problem to listen to, Conservative Party Chairman, Grants Schapps's synopsis. His first point was the electorate have voted for a pro Europe candidate when most voted for a Con or UKIP. The issue of the EU is most important to three percent of voters. He also reminded listeners that in 2010 the Conservatives "went on to win the General Election." Er...you didn't and there's the rub.

The remainder of Schapp's nonsense was aimed at the Labour Party who were a distant fourth although held their own while LDs and Cons both lost about 15 points. If his conclusions on the result were so wrong-headed then his suggestion for a remedy could only be utterly worthless.

Osbourne was unable to find any way of changing tack on the economy when UK lost its AAA rating a week ago and now it looks like the Conservatives are entering a whole new episode of division and electoral failure from which there appeears no path of retreat any longer. They keep citing Mrs Thatcher and her determination to stick to the task. What the current PM is confusing is political resolution and pure bloody mindeness based on unassailable arrogance.

Get Back...You Dogs

Ian Duncan Smith does not like the term 'bedroom tax' .

His offended sensibilities notwithstanding ("nonsense!"), the bedroom tax is now in common parlance for the much derided change in housing benefits due next month. The policy, voted for by Conservatives and Lib-Dems, means a 14 percent cut in benefits for anyone in social housing on housing benefit with a spare room.

It makes no difference if the room is occupied by foster children or less regularly by children from separated parents or even members of the armed forces on active duty.

On the Andrew Marr Show he showed his notorious tetchiness citing "a million empty bedrooms". His limited power of argument was further exposed on LBC. It does not seem to occur to IDS nor his acolytes that these million rooms are in a million homes. The policy appears to suggest the lower classes should be able to pack themselves into houses regardless of family ties and relationships.

The choice facing these families is stark and false: to accept the cut or move house when no-one is suggesting there are sufficient numbers of smaller rentable property available. Polly Toynbee in the Guardian expressed it in manageable terms, "in Hull the bedroom tax hits 4,700 families with a spare room, and only 73 small properties free". I would have thought the cost of moving would negate any financial 'advantage' in any event.

IDS's department has also instigated a forced labour programme for young unemployed which was deemed unlawful last week by the Appeal Court (IDS reportedly "astounded") in a case brought by Cait Reilly, a Geology graduate compelled to stack shelves in Poundland. In a display of exemplary Philistinism, Duncan Smith elevated the social contribution of shelf stackers above Geology graduates. His spiteful sniping at those, "who think they are too good for this sort of thing" may be driven by his own lack of a degree.

And almost as an aside, he referred to the human 'right to family life', in respect of deportations as if it were some deviant ploy rather than the cornerstone of society.

IDS may be talking tough to placate the Chancellor who think he has a soft middle and is due a demotion. No matter, the result is to consider and treat people like ignorant, selfish and contemptible commodities.

The Wrong People

Time is relative, particularly in politics.

In nearly five years, given favourable General Election results for Cameron, there will be a referendum on whether UK remains in the EU. Yet there is no real clarity on where the country will be in 12 months yet, the Tory front bench would have us believe the PM has played a masterstroke which will be paying political dividends way over the political horizon.

Not only do I doubt it, I would suggest the whole phoney edifice of Cameron's tough eurosceptism will unravel before the manifestos are published in Spring 15. The reasons why Dave chose to make his tactical speech were manifold but none of them included personal conviction nor the national interest.

He wanted his speech to sate the hunger of the Minotaur that is his backbench. It won't. Events will change the poltical weather, they will demand more and he won't be able to conjure anything. This is the end game now even if it is half way through the Parliament.

Cameron wanted to kill off the threat of UKIP by this speech. It won't. They are now an established political force with a charismatic and seemingly omnipresent leader (pictured). They will do well in local elections in May and very well in Euro elections a year later.

There are many other issues on which the right of the Tory vote prefer Farage over Cameron such as immigration, law and order and gay marriage. Dave may be tempted to woo their vote further but knows it means for Labour to appear more mainstream, all Ed Milliband has to do is stand still.

The whole issue of the eventual vote depending on the outcome of negotiations lacks the broad message which will be easily digested by the electorate. I can't envisage much uproar on the shop floor and in the pub over the Euro arrest warrant. The unilateral position by Con UK plc is also likely to be easily outflanked by other EU leaders. Why should la belle France, for example, agree to new rules on industrial competition which can only harm its own relative competitiveness? She won't.

The economic "freedom" which the PM is seeking includes the right to work in excess of 48 hours a week. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said in a less than convincing display in explaining the detail,  that such restrictions were harming the working of the NHS in his constituency (Richmond, N. Yorks). He was suggesting that staff on the minimum wage would be "free" if they were able to put in ten or twelve hours a day 6 or 7 days a week. Some might call that drudgery.

It all seemed so different when Dave became leader in 2005. He would redefine the "nasty" party, the party which, like the Republicans in the US, was only against things. Hoodies would be hugged, a mature debate on drug reform, an environmental policy meant voting blue equalled turning green, or whatever the slogan was.

The waving of dispatch papers yesterday and ringing endorsement from Douglas Carswell and Liam Fox may make Cameron feel he may yet unite his troops. He won't. And for the voting public he has finally rid himself of those last pesky modernising credentials which made him different in the first place.