I Was Born with a Scowl on My Face

In a pitiful attempt to appear 'down wit de Yout' the Prime Minister anounced his latest plan on reforming MPs' expenses on Youtube, rather than explaining himself to Parliament. I am not sure who is advising the PM on communications after the recent beheading of Damian McBride but this was a very avoidable error. He has obviously been ordered to accentuate that sickly and almost randomly applied grin. See how much of this you can bear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBXj5l6ShpA.

Simon Hoggart in the Guardian, as ever with 'le bon mot', described it as "the smile a 50-year-old man might use on the parents of the 23-year-old woman he is dating, in a doomed attempt to reassure them."

Brown's intentions were about as genuine as that smile. He announced a vote next week on moving to an attendence allowance from the current second home payments system. All MPs know this is a highly party political matter and throwing in the (reasonable) requirement of full declaration of other jobs was obviously meant to entrap the Tories. In the interests of balance here is Tory Chief Whip, Eric 'Donut' Pickles making a damn fool of himself on Question Time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYl6WW5ypRE&feature=related

It is nonsense on stilts to think PM will get a vote through in a week. It would be just about possible if there were a close to unanimous view of what should replace the current arrangements. But it is far from clear how the introduction an Euro Parliament style £150 per day tax-free allowance, on top of a fair salary, will gain anything like popular support.

Brown said the main objective would be to, "save money." But there is no chance the relevant sums can be done in time to prove that point. Even if they arrived at a figure of £150 and an MP attended for 160 days out of 365 then (s)he would be entitled to £23,000 or exactly the same as the current second home allowance.

The unanswered questions on how it would work in practice are legion. For example, Ministers (and their shadows) are often away from Parliament on official business. Will those days count? Will that principle apply to backbenchers? How much of a day will count as one day? What about sick leave? How will the Fees Offices with only five staff cope? What are the equivalent situations in other countries? What assessments have been made on their fairness, value for money or public support? Of course, Brown may have timed his announcement before the apocalypse of public opinion descends when a million MPs' receipts are published.

The one area where all parties are agreed is the abolition of second home allowance for Cabinet ministers who take a 'Grace and Favour' home. Geoff 'Mogadon' Hoon could not believe his luck when the Fees Office confirmed he could get his full allowance, rent out the property and then live in luxury for nowt. Not all in the Cabinet have the same brass neck as Hoon but when a Government has been in power too long the inner cries of a Minister's conscience seem to get fainter and fainter.

Life: But Not As We Know It

Damian Green's (left) revelation that the police had threatened him with a life sentence for receiving leaked immigration statistics was greeted by Labour members with a mixture of incredulity and embarrassment. PC Plod's attempts to intimidate an experienced MP with such ludicrous threats takes the farce of this inquiry to new levels. (It reminded me of the CIA's heavy-handedness with Monica Lewinsky who said both she and her mother were looking at 20 years in jug for mere possession of a stained dress.)

Jacqui Smith now says it was just an operational matter, as she attempts she take giant strides out of the spotlight. But she made a fierce defence of the police operation at the time as, "necessary" to halt the "systematic leaking" of "secret" material from her Department.
The DPP declared this week, "the information leaked was not secret information or information affecting national security, it did not relate to military, policing or intelligence matters. It did not expose anyone to a risk of injury or death. Nor, in many respects, was it highly confidential." Clearly the police are not able to deploy sufficient intelligence to assess whether there were national security issues. They should have taken a cursory look at the 'evidence' and told officials to sort out their own mess. To proceed with an arrest of an MP and search his offices without first consulting DPP or anyone in Government, who could realise the immense political fallout from such action, was a crass error.
Of course, the Home Secretary has insisted she was not party to any of the correspondence between officials and police. The original letter from Director of Security in Cabinet Office, Chris Wright, which initiated the police action was also copied to Jon Evans of MI5. It is pretty much unheard of for that level of exchange to be carried out without any Ministerial knowledge. If she is not lying then there is no better evidence to show she does not control her Department. Either way she is close to the exit door.
Monday afternoon should see her Waterloo when she reads statements on Bob Quick's resignation (Sun headline next day was, 'You can't quit quicker than a thick Quick quitter') and on the current policy on the issuing of student visas. Her refusal to address the Damian Green arrest, this highest of profile cases, will be self-defeating. She is handing political ammo to her opponent, the tenacious Chris Grayling. Oppostion members will not find it hard to turn questions on Bob Quick to the arrest of an MP. Speaker Martin will struggle to rule these questions 'out of order' when he himself was compelled to make an extra-ordinary statement to the House to explain why his office let Sargeant Thick tramp his size 12s all over Parliament. Smith's stonewalling of questions on Green promises to be a humiliating spectacle for terminally anxious Labour bankbenchers. It won't be long now.

Quick, Quick Slow

I had a feeling the 8.10 slot on Radio 4's Today show was going to be good this morning. Jim Naughtie's focus was, naturally, on the previous day's huge counter-terrorism operation in NW England. But first, they had deal with top plod, Bob Quick's accidental leaking of the secret operational plans to No.10 photographers, as he disembarked from one of the Met's gas guzzlers.

In a dismal attempt at finding 'news balance', the Beeb rolled in Labour's David Winnick whose Radio 4 media role is simply to steady the ship, and implore us to stay calm and carry on as normal. (Stephen Pound MP performs a similar function but always with good humour). But before Winnick could set out why, "this is not a resigning matter," Bonkers Jonkers came on the line to announce Quick had fallen on his sword.

In present day politics, this was a pretty rapid resignation but it was clear last night BQ was as much use to the Met as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking contest. He is notoriously short-tempered as he displayed amply by calling the Tories "wholly corrupt" for accusing them (falsely) of feeding the Mail stories about his wife's business. I could never really take him seriously in such a senstive role and considered his surname as some kind of ironic soubriquet.

Jacqui Smith is probably quite happy to see him go as the findings of Damian Green MP arrest investigation are to be revealed this month. Quick was the flatfoot who decided to escalate an internal disciplinary matter for the Home Office to a constitutional crisis by arresting an opposition spokesman and searching his House of Commons office without a warrant.

I expected the outcome of the Green affair to be a finger-pointing exercise between Ministers and the fuzz. Quick can now be Jacqui's scapegoat.

Unless of course they insist on making a defense of their indefensible actions. That course of action would be perverse, idiotic, putting party before principle and ultimately self-defeating. So, I guess, no real reason why it won't happen.

Tabloid Tyranny

Michael Parkinson seems to be the sole public figure who has the moral courage to speak about Jade Goody as she was. The 'lad from Barnsley' had clearly had his fill of the intense media hypocrisy over the recent veneration of Ms Goody. "Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it’s not the passing of a martyr or a saint, or, God help us, Princess Di," said Mike.

By stating this simple truism guarantees him some highly negative press - I am sure he can take it. But Parky had a wider point to make by describing the tabloids' elevation of a once vilified non-entity as, "all that’s paltry and wretched about Britain today”.

I saw the Observer's take on the funeral last Saturday and it read like a pretty well-written Private Eye sketch. Did Max Clifford really describe it as a "perfect funeral?" Did legions of fans wear the Goody perfume as their own personal tribute? Did the floral tributes include the words "Minging" and "East Angular"? Did the funeral director (http://www.albins.co.uk/) start selling Jade Memorial candles? Did her tagged husband have to back home by 7 because of his recent conviction for assault?

All true, I'm afraid.

Tabloid editors, helped by publicists such as Max Clifford, can now create a parallel reality where a person's worth is to be judged exclusively on their level of fame. No-one now dares repeat the bullying racism Jade dished out on Big Brother to Shilpa Shetty.

It certainly feels like a new low for tabloid journalism. OK magazine cannot be beaten for most ludicrous exaggeration of the impact of Jade's death, "A nation mourns its brightest star." And the Sun's plea for the family to left alone was pure double-think. The media backlash against Parkinson for speaking his mind promises to be equally absurd. More evidence, as if it were needed, that we live in a post-ironic age.

Woolly but not Liberal

The outwardly benign immigration Minister, Phil Woolas (left), made the unusual step this week of choosing the New Statesman to set out in the simplest terms Labours pernicious policy on asylum seekers.

He had intended to exploit the 'gaffe' by London Mayor, 'Bonkers Jonkers' who had argued for a possible amnesty for illegal long-term asylum seekers. Woolas's argument (and indeed Home Office immigration policy) was clearly aiming to appeal to the least tolerant and most ignorant elements of Labour Party support. He spoke of the Government preventing asylum seekers from "going to the front of the queue for jobs and benefits." Using such bloke-down-the-pub vernacular obscured the reality for tens of thousands of people in the UK. Those asylum seekers who have been rejected are not entitled to benefits and are also denied the right to work. They're not even in the queue. He also asserted an amnesty would increase people trafficking but offered no supportive evidence.

I'm not sure why any Government press officer would have suggested the "Staggers" as a suitable publication for Woolas's pitiful logic and pitiless outlook. Unsurprisingly, the piece attracted severe criticism from the readership. Johnson, on the other hand, emerged as pragmatic and compassionate for having suggested a realistic resolution to this intractable problem.

In the States there was a similar but bi-partisan move toward amnesty in 2006 when the McCain-Kennedy Bill was laid before Congress. The Bill was killed by both sides; hope for some peace of mind for families who had lived, worked and paid tax in US for 20 or 30 years was destroyed by political pip-squeaks spouting the same nonsense as Woolas.

But there is an altogether more sinister consequence to Labour's 'tough, no nonsense' immigration agenda. The shameful Home Office policy of finding any pretext, however remote, for declaring dangerous places 'safe for return' reached a new low this week.

Darfur is synonymous with the ethnic cleansing of the Sudanese Africans by the Government backed Arab militia, the Janjaweed. In the last six years over 200,000 people have been murdered in Darfur, five million displaced - the whole population terrorised.

The 3,000 Sudanese people who have made it to the UK have found this country is not a safe haven for the persecuted and are now threatened with deportation. Last week failed asylum seeker, Adam Osman, 32, was flown back to Khartoum. He had pleaded to our UK Border Agency, he could expect a very hostile 'reception' from the police if he were deported. He was spotted by security police at the airport who followed his car to his house and on arrival, shot him dead in front of his family.

There is now institutional cynicism in the Border Agency, asylum seekers are seemingly all deemed bogus. Woolas and UKBA officials must be aware the President al-Bashi of Sudan was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court earlier this month. To proceed with any more deportations would effectively make our Government accessories to further killings of persecuted peoples.

Still an Apprentice

It is not news to learn Ken Livingstone wishes to be London Mayor again. It is also hardly a revelation to discover the London Labour Party has been trawling the lists of members for a suitable figure to prevent Ken being the candidate again.

Alan Sugar is the latest name. But we've been here before. Greg Dyke was proclaimed by the Evening Standard in 2007 as the perfect 'stop Ken' candidate. This is nothing more than wishful thinking. Had Dyke been selected or if the LLP really loses its marbles and selects Sugar then Ken will, as before, stand as an independent, split the opposition vote and win.

I'm not sure there is much political acumen being deployed when a party is even contemplating adopting Sugar or 'Sir Alan' as he fastidiously prefers. He has a few positive attributes; high public profile, successful, decisive. But to even appear as a competent candidate for such a responsible position requires political skills Sugar patently does not have.

The following quote captures his approach to problem-solving, "Common sense prevails that someone like me who tends to cut to the chase, so to speak, would be the right kind of person to look after a city like London .... I've always been one of those people that walks in the office in the morning and says 'this is what we're going to do'."

A job like London mayor is not simply about strong, unbending leadership. It requires experience in judging what is good advice and having the humility to take it. How would Sugar's billious and often personal attacks on his colleagues lead him to make the right choices on nursery care provision?

Ken has a long way to go to climb back into the Mayor's seat especially when 'Bonkers' Johnson has been preceived to be making a fair fist of the job so far. Livingstone ran a pretty lacklustre campaign last year and yet came quite close (53% to 47%) despite Labour going 'below sea-level' in the simultaneous local elections. William Hills are offering Ken at a tempting 14/1 for 2012 while Boris is evens and Sugar a measly 10-1.

Sir Alan enjoys the political insult too much to succeed but certainly he has a memorable turn of phrase. Asked about Lib-Dem MP Simon Hughes's chances in 2004, he looked deadpan as usual and exhaled, "If thirty-five years in business has taught me one thing - you can't polish a t*rd."

Shut That Door

It may be a relatively rare event but Jacqui Smith, our beloved Home Secretary, was entirely right to deny entry to Britain to Dutch MP Geert 'Mozart' Wilders. His prescence has been deemed, "a threat to public order", although it is unlikely to have prompted riots around the House of Lords where he was due to show his hateful anti-Muslim film, Fitna.
In reality, the Government was stating clearly there are limits to freedom of speech. Although as a nation we are generally tolerant of a very wide range of political views, Wilders extremist claptrap goes way beyond what is acceptable. A ban on entry to the country is always a difficult judgement to make for a Minister, as it necesarily involves a degree of subjectivity. But Wilders's egomania and rampant self-publicism made it in an easy choice for Ms Smith in the end.
It is of no surpise to learn Wilders established his own political party (PVV) somewhat predictatably called the Freedom Party (reminiscent of fellow fascist and now dead drink-driver, Austrian MP Jorg Haider). There is no way a political loon like Wilders could fit in the structure of a mainstream political party, like many political extremists he could not stomach anyone's leadership but his own.
His film Fitna, is an Arabic term for "division between peoples" which appears to be his life's ambition. The case put by Wilders in his 17-minute short is no different from Al-Quaida - the Koran is a complete justification of terorist violence. It is not subtle, it is not remotely persuasive it is just polemic for the sake of it. His production of the film has stirred state lawyers in Netherlands to begin a prosecution against him for inciting hatred. He made it easy for them when he said, "I don't hate Moslems, I hate Islam".
The Dutch Prosecutors responded, "in a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to draw a clear line... the court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders."
His manifesto contains such wacko ideas, Lord Sutch would have struggled to accommodate Wilders in the MRLP. His idea of prison reform is forcing five prisoners to every cell - public media output should be restricted to one channel presumably showing pictures of the glorious leader holding Aryan babies together with some stirring classical music.
Naturally, Wilders also wants to ban the Koran. So much for his advocacy of freedom of speech.