Bliar in Meltdown?

[jstars2]

Not normally a Mail reader but this seems to be right on the button

A Government in Meltdown

Daily Mail, 27th April 2006

If ever one day crystallised the incompetence, sleazy degrading behaviour and contempt for the electorate which are the hallmarks of New Labour, it was yesterday.

We had a Home Secretary who has allowed foreign murderers and rapists to roam the streets refusing to quit despite misleading the public he's meant to protect about his part in the debacle.

A Deputy Prime Minister admitting to a demeaning affair with his secretary with whom he had assignations at his grace and favour homes of Admiralty House and Dorneywood.

And a Health Secretary, who boasted last week that the health service has had its best ever year, howled down by nurses - yes nurses of all people - over her stewardship of the NHS.

Coming on top of the cash for peerages scandal and the Tessa Jowell affair, what a deeply unedifying picture all this presents of a government in meltdown.

But it was the incompetence of Charles Clarke, who was yesterday reduced to begging for forgiveness for the way 1,023 foreign criminals were set free rather than deported, that should most disturb us.

On six different occasions the Home Office was warned of the problem.

By his own admission Mr Clarke was told ten months ago of a 'systematic' failure - yet in that time 288 foreign criminals, more than a quarter of the total, have been let loose.

Twenty years ago a minister of honour would have quit over such incompetence.

But today's career politicians with their snouts in the trough, resign? Not a chance.

Of course Mr Clarke can't be totally blamed for the systematic inefficiency of the Home Office which clearly believes that the rights of criminals outweigh the right of the public to be protected.

Nor is he wholly responsible for the immigration policy of a government that has lost control of Britain's borders.

After all, is it unreasonable to ask what on earth all these foreign criminals are doing in this country in the first place.

Even if they'd been deported it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that they'd have slipped back into Britain illegally.

And what are we to make of John Prescott? The BBC, whose coverage of his affair yesterday was a journalistic disgrace, would argue that a man's private life has nothing to do with his job.

What craven nonsense. Mr Prescott is the Deputy Prime Minister, holder of a great office of state, wielding awesome powers over planning and housing.

He has taken advantage of a junior employee and used official government residences for his assignations.

But then this is a man who punched a protester and clung to his job even when it emerged he had dodged paying council tax (for which he has ministerial responsibility) on two of his three homes. Deputy Prime Minister? What a joke.

As for Miss Hewitt, she is presiding over an NHS enjoying record levels of investment - yet is wracked by deficits, redundancies and threatened closures. At the same time GPs are awarded a huge salary increase for doing less work.

No wonder she was barracked by nurses who fear for their jobs, her second such humiliation in three days.

And presiding over this whole sleazy show is a lame duck Prime Minister who took Britain to war on the basis of repeated lies and who cannot carry legislation without the help of the Tories.

Of course, the reality is that Blair, Prescott, Clarke, Hewitt and Jowell have to prop each other up to survive.

Out of ideas, drained of energy, lurching from one crisis to the next, New Labour has never looked more vulnerable.

[Anotherpost75]

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/mpworkaffairs/prescottR_350x300.jpg
The new Minister of Ministerial Affairs?

[jstars2]

It never rains but it pours!

BBC Breaking News, 30 April 2006

A small quantity of a Class C drug has been found by police in Defence Secretary John Reid's Scotland home, says Ministry of Defence.

[FJJP]

jstars2 - first class letter, sums it up in a nutshell. However, in the interests of accuracy, there is one aspect that I would like to correct and inform PPruners of the REAL situation.

There has been a huge amount of press emphasis on GPs being awarded huge pay increases...

At the same time GPs are awarded a huge salary increase for doing less work.
This has swept across all the media and paints a grossly false picture. Whilst I don't doubt that there are a few entreprenarial GPs out there who have managed to pocket £250K, these articles are well far of the mark when descibing the 'ordinary' GP's income.

For a start, a GP practice does not belong to the NHS. It is a partnership between doctors who have set up a practice with their own capital and contract their services to the NHS, their income derived from profits and savings generated from services provided.

Secondly, they do not have a salary paid by the NHS - they take 'drawings' out of the business, dictated by the level of profits the practice makes. The total income [NHS & private] has to fund everything - mortgage, building maintenance, gas, electricity, equipment, office supplies, staff salaries and every other business expense [inc paying tax, NI, employer's contributions to staff pensions and VAT]. From what's left, the partners have to decide how much to pay themselves after re-investing some of the profits.

The GPs for whom I work have not had an increase in drawings for two years, and the way things are going, it is unlikely they will take one this year - in fact, they are beginning to look at REDUCING their drawings as the Dept of Health [DH] are starting to renegue on some of the payments negotiated in the New GP Contract.

The much quoted figure of an additional £300M was down to Bliar's cronies not listening to the GP Council. The GPC told the DH at the time that they were under-estimating the capabilities of GPs as more work was demanded of them. The GPs rose to the challenge and did much more than the DH thought they would, hence the under-funding, leading to the defecit in that part of the budget. Rather than doing LESS work, GPs are doing MORE. Who do you think mans the Out-of-Hours service? - GPs, that's who, on their time off.

Like the letter in the Mail suggests, the Bliar Govt is in meltdown everywhere, no more so than in the NHS. If they scrapped half, YES HALF the bureaucracy throughout the NHS, they would save £HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. And I talk from a platform of knowledge, not speculation.

FJJP

[Wyler]

Now, I am more than a little right of centre and have little love for the current labour shambles BUT I think we are being led by the media yet again. The Prescott story is, IMHO, a non event. If anything, it will improve his popularity with the great unwashed.
My wife works in the NHS and it really does need a pullthrough with a christmas tree. An example: In her ward there is a very clever device for lifting patients out of bed, thus removing the risk of dropping or nurses hurting their backs. To use it all staff were required to attend a half day course. It stands in my wifes ward gathering dust because the nurses and assistants refuse to use it. The reason? They want more pay for operating it. Also, certain of the old guard regard 'sick leave' for bad backs caused through lifting part of the job spec. OK, one small example but there are many others. Some of the reforms coming in are overdue and they are working. Not surprisingly, one that is flourishing is the recruitment of more managers. The local authority now has a dentist commissar? My biggest bproblem with the Health Secretary is her snide, condescending attitude. Hopefully, she will be a little more humble after last week.
Ref Clarke and the Home Office. This has not just started nor is it a year old. This goes right to the core and has been going on for years. Instead of hounding the Minister, we should all be focussing on the entrenched Civil Servants at the senior and middle management levels. These low achieving jobsworths are the real cancer in the system. They rise to the top by way of PC initiatives and generate not wealth but beauracracy by the lorry load. Instead of seeing the Minister walk I would like to see a few coachloads of these cretins ferried to the job centre. Their replacements should be left in no doubt that they are not only responsible BUT acoountable too. Shape up or ship out.
Finally, why the hell should we suddenly get all worked up about foreign criminals being realeased to disappear and reoffend? We do it with our home grown ones all the time. Life means a few years at best and how often have you heard some released criminals referred to as High Risk? If they are high risk they should be in prison or am I missing something. The whole justice system needs a root and branch overhaul and the media need to stick to reporting the news, NOT setting the agenda and suggesting the response.

Rant over.

[Maple 01]

Daily Mail, 27th April 2006 I think I see your problem right there - "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" anyone?

If you expect the Volkischer Beobachter to say anything positive about anyone not to the right of Mrs Schicklgruber’s little boy you’ll be in for a long wait

[Anotherpost75]

Maple 01

From the Guardian stable - somewhat to the left of of Mrs Schicklgruber’s little boy.

Prescott exploited me, says tearful ex-mistress

· Emotional television statement hits at Deputy PM
· I'm a laughing stock, he tells confidants

Ned Temko and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday April 30, 2006
The Observer

John Prescott's former mistress last night tearfully claimed she had been the victim of lies and had no choice but to go public with intimate details of their two-year affair.

In a television statement shortly before her account was splashed across nine pages of a Sunday newspaper, Prescott's diary secretary, Tracey Temple, said she felt she 'had to let people know the truth. But I never, ever thought I would actually have to do anything like this.'

Her interview, accompanied by extracts from a diary which she kept, raised concerns among close Cabinet colleagues that Prescott might quit his job and in turn prompt a challenge to Tony Blair's leadership.

Temple told the Mail on Sunday she had sex with Prescott in his Whitehall office, that the couple had sex immediately after attending the Iraq war memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral, and that they had sex in a hotel while his wife Pauline was downstairs. Among the most damaging of her allegations will be a claim that the relationship was carried out in Prescott's office while staff worked outside and that they also met at his flat in Admiralty Arch, which is paid for by the taxpayer……………..

……………..The newspaper also claimed to have exposed a second affair it said Prescott had had with a married former Labour Parliamentary candidate, which took place 20 years ago - an allegation likely to prove particularly hurtful to his wife of 44 years, Pauline, at a time when friends said she was seething over the affair with Temple.

Cabinet sources told The Observer that they were particularly concerned about the possible political fallout from Prescott's troubles at a time when another top minister, the Home Secretary Charles Clarke, remained under fire over the failure to deport foreign prisoners on their release from UK jails.

[Maple 01]

Temple told the Mail on Sunday
So the source is Der Volkischer Beobachter am Sontag? I refer my right honourable colleague to my previous statement. In a previous life I remember people getting a bollocking for using tainted sources in their reports without health warnings

I think in journo terms it's a 'spoiler' - The Observer didn't get the exclusive so they get up early, buy a copy of 'Der Sturmer' and then pinch the story under the guise of reporting the report, thus saving £200,000 and looking 'cutting edge' - and if it all turns out to be bollocks they can deny everything 'cos they were only quoting :ok:

p.s. Jacko, if you're reading I'll let you have the Hilary W story for £20....

[airborne_artist]

We do need to remember that Tracey has been paid £200,000 to kiss and tell. It's in her interest to max it up. A former lover of hers is quoted as saying that she had a huge and continuous appetite for horizontal PT.

[highcirrus]

Maple 01

I get the impression that you might be missing the broader point here. Yes the right-wing Mail on Sunday may, in your estimation, be a tainted source and, yes, we all know that it has purchased Ms Temple’s story for the dual purpose of boosting circulation and knifing the Bliar administration. However, notwithstanding the foregoing, the core issue of a love affair has been acknowledge as being true, by “deputy prime minister” Prescott and it is this admission of a long(ish) running tryst that raises questions of hypocrisy, dissimulation and mendacity from a political figure who has been prepared, with remarkable alacrity, to lambast his opponents with jibes of “tory sleaze”, ever since his lucky break which occurred in 1997 and which has lasted to this present day. These questions of hypocrisy dissimulation and mendacity then lead to further questions of character and suitability of the present incumbent for the “deputy” job, which, albeit we know to be something of a jokey creation of Tony’s, in the halcyon days when he could walk on water, and take the mickey out of a British Constitution that had never formally enshrine the position of DPM, let alone made it an elected office but which office is now the disposer of considerable – and in the present case – malign power over the running of national planning policy.

Whether one is of the right or the left, surely to have such an apparently questionable (on this and many other issues) figure remain in position, is of the gravest concern to all UK voters?

[woptb]

So basically what your saying is, he had a bit on the side:confused:

[RTR]

errrr...............both sides, the back the front and orally speaking I beleive. :rolleyes:

Now for the resignation........PLEASE........... :E

[highcirrus]

woptb

No we’re not trivializing by saying he had a bit on the side – for the average citizen that’s going to be a matter resolved by personal conscience and negotiation (if found out) between spouse and offsprings. It is not a national matter casting doubt on the suitability of an individual who sets rules for the rest of us but who does not trouble to abide by such rules himself.

The nub of the matter here is that Prescott has presented himself as the solid family man, devoid of fancy (middle class) “airs and graces” and firmly loyal to his family and a bedrock of solid old style socialism and hence eminently trustworthy to formulate policy as a senior minister and safeguard the public trust.

We now find out that he is of the same ilk as “back to basics” John Major, who espoused this same political stance at the time he was “romancing” inamorata Edwin Currie and who came under Prescott’s withering fire before and after the inevitable (female) revelations.

[jindabyne]

Tony (never been able to refer to him as my Prime Minister), Cherie, Clarke, Jowell, Blunket, Mandelson, Prescott and others - what a contemptable bunch of people. And our lives are in their hands!!! As for Reid insisting that the drug belonged to a former occupier and declaring therefore that an inquiry is unecessary - tell that to the (hypothetical) young Flt Lt in a similar (hypothetical) predicament who would be summarily dealt with overnight.

Breathtaking. Out, out, the lot of them.

[Anotherpost75]

Hmmm. More from the "right wing" press? Sounds like Prescott’s been “reliable” for a number of years!

Sunday Mirror
30 April 2006

PRESCOTT EXCLUSIVE: SECOND MISTRESS TALKS
By KAREN ROCKETT

JOHN Prescott had a SECOND secret mistress. Former Labour Parliamentary candidate Sarah Bissett-Scott, 57, said she had a two-year fling with Prescott and believed she was just one of a string of torrid affairs.

She has spoken exclusively to the Sunday Mirror and branded the Deputy Prime Minister a hypocrite for presenting himself as happily married.

"I was totally bowled over by him. He did all the running but I loved him and I think he loved me too," she said. "Looking back I was totally foolish and very naive but he is a very charismatic and persuasive man.

"It started at a Labour Party Conference but I want to stress he did all the running. There was a mutual attraction.

"Many women were flirting with him. People find it difficult to believe, but he is very charismatic and attractive.

"I was new to politics and he was so enthusiastic. He might be fat and ugly now, but when I knew him was a very attractive man. Naively I thought his wife lived in the North and he lived in London. I was very stupid. He led me to believe he was leading separate lives from his wife Pauline. But why pick on me? I assume there were many other lovers."

[Maple 01]

highcirrus,

Would you have demanded the head of John Major? Would you have been equally keen to get rid of Alan Clarke? Did the Mail campaign for the resignation of Boris Johnson? So no, I wouldn’t say a minister screwing around = "A Government in Meltdown"

My point here is the BNP on Sunday is trying to stir up anything that discredits Labour whilst conveniently forgetting its somewhat more lenient stance over Tory peccadilloes, sleaze and incompetence. Their silence over the many Conservative 'incidents' 1979-87 is a matter of record. And this is my problem with journos acting as an opposition to a democratically elected government - who are they answerable to? The Press complaints commission? Bit of a joke that. Their owners? Hmmm, good chance of fair unbiased reporting? All this makes the Mail a discredited source – we know they’re working to an agenda and thus can’t be trusted with straight reporting.

[chevvron]

I can remember more than one tory minister resigning having been caught with 'trousers down'; is it just my imagination or do labour ministers simply try to get away with it ( or fake suicide as per John Stonehouse).

[JessTheDog]

Why Clarke should go:

He's responsible for a shambolic department;
His department's screw-up has put public safety at risk;
He was more concerned with downplaying the screw-up than fixing it - until he was caught out and even now the full facts have not been disclosed;
Only a resignation will demonstrate that the government takes public safety seriously.

Why Prescott shoud go:

He brought his office into disrepute (made it a laughing-stock);
He has flouted duty of care towards a subordinate - if he were in uniform he would be court-martialled;
His actions are in flagrant disregard of equal opportunities training;
He has indulged his affair using government resources;
He cannot be trusted or viewed with any credibility at all.

Why Bliar shoud go:

Presiding over a shambolic government;
Lying over Iraq (I can revisit that argument if required);
Making a catastrophic misjudgement in following Dubya's lunacy;
He ignores the sacrifices of the Armed Forces by refusing to visit the wounded and bereaved;
The public simply do not trust him and would not permit him to direct the use of military force in any future conflict.

We need a "Ministerial Office Test" that mirrors the "Service Test" and has similar stringent consequences for transgression.

[Stafford]

C'mon Maple, stop trying to hold back the tide. The whole bloody lot of them are exposed now, bang to rights for sheer hypocrisy and shambling incompetence.

It's all a media conspiracy I suppose ? Luvvies weren't too unhappy with media exposure of the now comparatively harmless peccadillos of the former Tory strain of pond life.

Just look back at Byers, Mandelson, Robinson, Irvine Vaz, Mittal, Ecclestone, Dodgy dossiers, Kelly.... Loans for Peerages etc etc etc

[Maple 01]

Why Prescott should go:

He brought his office into disrepute (made it a laughing-stock);
He has flouted duty of care towards a subordinate - if he were in uniform he would be court-martialled;
His actions are in flagrant disregard of equal opportunities training;
He has indulged his affair using government resources;
He cannot be trusted or viewed with any credibility at all.


Were you saying this about John Major in his Edwina Curry phase? All of the above accusations could be laid at his feet, or is your real problem the fact that labour are in power?

Just to turn your argument back on itself

Why Maggie should go:

Presiding over a shambolic government;
Lying over The Falklands (I can revisit that argument if required);
Making a catastrophic misjudgement in following Ray-Gun’s lunacy;
She ignores the sacrifices of the Armed Forces by refusing to visit the wounded and bereaved unless it's a good photo opportunity
The public simply do not trust her

My point being that if you use any convenient stick to beat a political opponent you either apply the same moral standards to all or you end up looking like a hypocrite, that's not much of a problem if you're a private individual, as we all are to some extent, but if a so called 'news' organisation sets itself up as the moral guardian of the country and (unelected) opposition as the likes of the Daily Mail do, perhaps we should expect honest straightforward reporting rather than agenda setting?

And prehaps the journos that work for such papers should be expected to live by those standards they would impose on everyone else - Did Piers Morgan resign on a matter of honour after presiding over the Iraqi ‘torture’ fiasco? Did Boris Johnson resign over his serial affairs when running the Spectator?

[JessTheDog]

A bit hard to criticise John Major at the time, as his affair with Edwina Currie only became knowledge many years after the event. If it had been public knowledge at the time, then there would have been significant pressure for him to go. Prescott is in a worse position because his affair was with a subordinate. If he was in uniform he would have been court-martialled and thrown out - why should the Queen's ministers have far lower standards than her officers?

Maggie did go although not over the Falklands (the Argentinian invasion was not made up, unlike WMDs ready to go in 45 minutes) although Carrington did in fact resign (more than Hoon or Bliar have done). Thatcher showed no hesitation in visiting the wounded or bereaved, presumably because her conscience was a lot clearer than Bliar's (although there are arguments that the Falklands War could have been avoided by diplomacy, the two operations are poles apart in terms of their conduct and acceptability). Bliar has visited no-one.

I don't care about the private lives of journalists - they are not in public office. Also, in any spat between the media and Westminster, the journalists have almost always been correct in the face of official denials. Gilligan was berated for a single slip of the tongue on the Today programme - a far lesser crime than the many lies concocted by Bliar and Campbell etc who are directly responsible for the deaths of over 100 British Armed Forces personnel.

[jindabyne]

Maple,

Can't speak for Jess, but yes I would've called for Major to go. However, the point you're trying to make is not at all valid as we didn't know of Major's deeds until he was well out of office.

And for me it's not a labour v conservative issue, it's simply that I don't like being governed by a team of incompetent, arrogant and deceitful fools. Also, what do you make of a (so-called) Prime Minister that clearly condones his wife's deplorable abuse of her spously position?

As I said before - breathtaking.

[Strictly Jungly]

Tony (never been able to refer to him as my Prime Minister), Cherie, Clarke, Jowell, Blunket, Mandelson, Prescott and others - what a contemptable bunch of people. And our lives are in their hands!!! As for Reid insisting that the drug belonged to a former occupier and declaring therefore that an inquiry is unecessary - tell that to the (hypothetical) young Flt Lt in a similar (hypothetical) predicament who would be summarily dealt with overnight.
Breathtaking. Out, out, the lot of them.

Succinctly put, I concur fully. I am totally fecked off with how this latest lot of incompetent buffoons let our wonderful country descend into a pit of misery whilst conducting their lives iaw a different set of rules and standards that apply to us.

Prescott,Clarke, Jowell et al please go now. I hope whoever placed these no-hopers in power are finally realising what total @rses they are and maybe exercise their voting rights correctly next time.:{

[Maple 01]

Prescott is in a worse position because his affair was with a subordinate.

And Edwina wasn't subordinate to Major? But IF you'd have known would you have demanded his resignation Jess?

But I digress, what I think we're seeing here are double standards, sadly as the interwb and PPRuNe wasn't around last time the Conservatives were in power I can't check back but I think it's safe to say that many of those leading the demands for everything from impeachment (remember that?) to resignation would have been a lot less vociferous back when ‘their’ people were running the show, understandable, but not constant or to use that most overused word, 'fair'

[jindabyne]

So, Maple, you seem to be hoist by your own petard (sp?) - ie loathe to condemn 'your' people, whilst choosing to be vociferous over those Conservatives from a long bygone era (which in itself is, IMHO, somewhat self-defeating). That stance also appears to be neither 'constant' nor 'fair' and hugely partisan. But, leaving party politics aside (difficult maybe?), do you REALLY approve of the behaviour of some or all of those in question?

[soddim]

I don't see why this sleezy lot need to be compared to any previous sleezy lot in order to decide whether they are sleezy or not. The simple test is are they in breach of ministerial standards or incompetant (or maybe both).

It would appear to me that Prescott certainly is. Clarke must either admit his incompetance or that of others in his department - in either case the heads must roll. Bliar has already lied his way out of the Iraqi lie but if neither of his ministers is forced to resign then he must because the buck stops at PM.

If one holds public office one has to accept that personal standards have to be seen to be beyond reproach.

[woptb]

So, Maple, you seem to be hoist by your own petard (sp?) - ie loathe to condemn 'your' people, whilst choosing to be vociferous over those Conservatives from a long bygone era (which in itself is, IMHO, somewhat self-defeating). That stance also appears to be neither 'constant' nor 'fair' and hugely partisan. But, leaving party politics aside (difficult maybe?), do you REALLY approve of the behaviour of some or all of those in question?

Actually I thought that as an illustration it appeared simply to demonstrate double standards rather than being a rant against the Conservative party.Neither did it appear to be a paen to New Labour.Unfortunately we have entered the land of entrenched beliefs,so adieu!

[hoodie]

And Edwina wasn't subordinate to Major?

Not at the time of the affair, no (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwina_Currie).

[jindabyne]

woptb

What illustration?

[dalek]

Quote of the day.
What the hell do women see in John Prescott. At least David Blunkett had a nice dog.

[short&shapeless]

Maple 01 - I do believe Prescott should be hoisted by his own petard.

I am sure I remember him being rolled out to 'discuss' the lack of Tory morals when in opposition (I think some of it has been shown again this last week) particularly that pr*t Mellor.

They can't use him as a battering ram when it suits then call 'foul' and 'private family issue' when he is caught having played around himself -or is that acceptable?

[Maple 01]

you seem to be hoist by your own petard (sp?)

Er, no, sorry jindabyne, woptb got the point I was trying to make, if you're going to go after one group over every minor transgression or cock-up you've got to do it to all groups, well, OK, you as a private individual don't have to, but to have any credibility as 'news' agencies, rather than mouthpieces for their owners, newspapers have a duty of impartiality, or, if they don’t want to they just go the whole hog and affiliate themselves to the party of their choice and stop presenting themselves as serious news organisations. The Daily Mail is/was notorious for one sided reporting (and they are not alone in this - on the right or left)

do you REALLY approve of the behaviour of some or all of those in question?

No I don't, and I will quite happily condemn most of the recent shenanigans, especially the bit about the cannabis find – “It’s nothing to do with me” try that with SIB! And assorted foreign crims on the loose – we’ve got enough problems with our own home-grown ones

But I get the impression that some are letting their dislike for the current government and amnesia about the last lot cloud their judgement - the start of this was a headline "Blair in Meltdown" with a story of Prezza sha**ing, where were the ''Thach in Meltdown" stories over Cecil Parkinson and all the others in the DM? It didn’t happen, and it would have been stupid to assume that a bit of ministerial horizontal PT would/should bring down the government, so why is it so different under ‘our Tone?’

IMO a newspaper trying to bring down a government is dubious in the first place, but the continual rabid ranting of the Daily Mail destroys what credibility they have should they ever find genuine concerns. They are the paper that cried ‘wolf’

[nigegilb]

Maybe if the official opposition was any good the newspapers would not have to take the task on. This Govt will be voted out by its own supporters, who cannot stand the sight of champagne socialists with their snouts so clearly in the trough.

[Maple 01]

Well that's a matter for the official opposition, but does that mean you'd be happy with anyone bringing down the government just because you don't like it? - perhaps we could have a Military coup?;) or perhaps the Church should be allowed to decide who runs the country....or.....or……er. I know, why not have an election?

And would you be equally happy to go along with 'your choice' being removed from office by whatever non-elected organisation fancied having a go?

[nigegilb]

I think the free press is one of our country's greatest assets, get a life.

[Maple 01]

Oh good, which 'free press' did you have in mind?

get a life

Good debating skills nige!

[Dave Martin]

Maple,

Print bias is a fact of life though. A massive contributing factor in Bliar getting in to power in the first place was the support he received from The Sun. You can't on one hand complain he's been given a hard time when the man used the very same media to provide him a platform so many many times previously - the Times reporting in the lead up to the Iraq war being one of them.

I agree, this is a media circus, but that's normal of the papers reporting it. Your Daily Mail reader who already believes Tony is left of Stalin will happily call for blood - the news report isn't going to make them think any different.

A bigger question would be, do Prescott's actions really preclude him from the position he holds? If I had an affair I doubt I'd lose my job, although the women in the office might not trust me any more. On the other hand, if the man proclaims the moral high ground and he is shown to be two-faced, can we trust him when he asks us to?

It isn't going to be the Daily Mail that removes anyone from office.

[nigegilb]

Sorry Maple, it's just that I have been dealing with some incredibly capable and committed journalists over the last few weeks. Without a free press warts and all it would have been very difficult to get to where we are now.

Regards,

NG

[Maple 01]

Sorry about the 'cut and paste' but I think Dave made some fair points and I'd like to respond to them

A massive contributing factor in Bliar getting in to power in the first place was the support he received from The Sun.

You could argue that the Sun only switched allegiance because they saw which way the wind was blowing, but yes, I see what you're saying

It isn't going to be the Daily Mail that removes anyone from office.

Quite true Dave, it's just in this case they are most obviously trying to engineer something out of nothing, that's not exactly what I mean. The problem is that many people quote newspapers as if they were some kind of authority.

Your Daily Mail reader who already believes Tony is left of Stalin will happily call for blood - the news report isn't going to make them think any different.

This fits quite nicely with the theory that Terry Pratchett put forward in one of his books, that people don't want 'news', they want comforting 'olds' that confirm their prejudices’.

I think all the fuss about Prezza is just another stick to beat the government with I read the DM at the day after the story broke and for a political piece about 'Politician shags secretary – shock horror' they managed to stretch the story over about eight pages and get a swipe in at the BBC too in passing. There was no startling exposé from the DM when Alan Clarke got busted (BTW I'm a bit jealous of him, both sisters and the mother.....)

Edited to add the Terry Prachett book was called "The Truth"

and to add 'no worries mate' to nige

[JessTheDog]

Elections are all well and good but we don't get a choice of who is prime minister. Bliar was elected MP for Sedgefield in 2005. That is all well and good for the people of Sedgefield, but the only other body that has had a say in the post of prime minister was the Labour Party in 1994.

So nobody wants him and there is no easy way of getting rid of him.

Elections are not entirely democratic. Labour won the 2005 election with a mere 10,000 more votes than they polled in 1992 - when they lost the election. Even in the 1997 "landslide", they received 1.4million votes less than the Tories received in 1992. If the 2005 election represented the wishes of the electorate, we would have a hung parliament.

[nigegilb]

It was MoS that broke the story about the lack of foam on XV179. I believe it is the 2nd most read Sunday newspaper. The effect of the story was instant. MoD had to respond with haste and a few weeks later we finally got the decision on foam. I think Maple is on to something. A very famous person was talking about what he had learned in life. One thing he said was never take on the Daily Mail, you will never win. The Govt is always nervous about what the Mail is saying. It owes election victories to Middle England especially women voters. Could be that support there is now crumbling along with support from traditional labour voters.

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!]

I'm sorry that this goes all the way back to page one, but, whilst I can understand:I was totally bowled over by him. :ouch:
I am more than perplexed byHe did all the running :uhoh:

[tucumseh]

I can’t recall ever admiring a Home Secretary, but it would seem Mr Clarke would be somewhat unfortunate to be sacked or have to resign for overseeing a department which “permitted” these alleged offences by immigrants. Because;

a. My local constabulary regard similar offences as so minor they don’t bother to respond or investigate, and,
b. No action is taken against Civil Servants who commit the same “offences”. Sexual assault (of minors), robbery, fraud, GBH and more have all been overlooked in my time in the MoD. In fact, it would seem committing fraud against the MoD invariably brings promotion!

So Home Sec’y, hang on in there and you’ll be ok.

Or do the decent thing. Identify the problem, fix it, and stand down.

[Anotherpost75]

BBC Website, 1 May 2006

Clarke 'Took Weeks to Tell Blair'

Charles Clarke took more than three weeks to tell Tony Blair that serious criminals were among the foreign prisoners released, it has emerged.

The Home Office says Mr Blair was briefed when officials were in a position to give him full details.

Conservative Leader David Cameron will say the prisoner blunder is symbolic of a "deep malfunction" in government.

The (three weeks) revelation comes as Mr Cameron, on the local election campaign trail in Oxfordshire, prepares to attack an "irreversible loss of authority" at the heart of the government.

And

Prescott Faces More Calls to Quit

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is facing continued pressure to quit over his relationship with his secretary.

A former Conservative minister who resigned 10 years ago over an affair said Mr Prescott should go because of his "dreadful" behaviour at that time.

Rod Richards said Mr Prescott - then an opposition spokesman - had been "one of the nastiest... judgemental people".

"At that time, John Prescott, who was an opposition front bench spokesman, was one of the nastiest, moralising, judgemental people both in public and in private, that I can recall.

"Normally I wouldn't comment on people's private affairs. In John Prescott's case I will make an exception, because I remember his dreadful, ungentlemanly behaviour at that time.”

But a parliamentary standards watchdog has said it was up to Tony Blair to decide Mr Prescott's political fate.

Two of Monday's newspapers are carrying fresh allegations about the deputy prime minister.

[highcirrus]

Well at last the latest Tory wonder-boy, Cameron, has got off his backside, turned for the moment from “green” issues, stopped conniving with Bliar over “loans” for peerages to fund his party instead of crucifying him on the issue and started laying into this bunch of shyster incompetents, packaged as “new labour” and masquerading as effective leaders of the nation. Just what the long suffering electorate wants (at least this bit off it!).

Cameron has finally accused Home Secretary Charles Clarke of "great incompetence", saying "Clarke's problem is that in July last year he was told of serious problems and he failed to take the right action." This followed Clarke’s admission that a National Audit Office report of July 2005 first alerted him (Clarke) to a possible problem of foreign prisoners being released because deportation was not being arranged.

Cameron continued: "This incompetence goes to a deeper problem within government. This is a short-term government that doesn't look at the long term."

He also accused “new labour” of an "obsession with headlines instead of sound administration", adding: "A government that lives by headline will die by headline, and deservedly so."

Keep it up, lad, you might be on the right track here for a meltdown of something other than glaciers!

PS. At least Clarke did not lie to Parliament over the issue – unlike his erstwhile ministerial colleague and Bliar groupie, Steven Byers, then Transport Secretary, who faced a series of claims that he lied to Parliament in 2001/2 - all of which claims he denied but which were subsequently proved to be true.

[jstars2]

More ministerial “competence” on display, this time by Defence Secretary John Reid, following the recent male menopausal outing of our titanic Foreign Secretary “Little” Jack Straw in his Muslim dominated North West constituency, with US Secretary of State Condi Rice and during which he presumably was able to explain away his remarkable diplomatic naivety of unilaterally dismissing any possibility of military action in dealing with the worsening Iranian situation (yes I know we all have different opinions on the matter – but diplomats hitherto have not folded all their cards just as the game has started).

Private Eye, Issue 1157

Defence Secretary John Reid certainly made an impression on his last trip to the United States.

At a presentation for American top brass, Reid thought he would warm up his audience with a joke. Following Condaleeza Rice’s trip to Britain, the minister quoted a few of the more lurid tabloid headlines about Rice’s love-in with her opposite number Jack Straw.

“This is exactly the kind of special relationship Tony (Bliar) wants us to strike up with our American counterparts,” Reid explained, “which is why as soon as this meeting is over, I’ll be taking Donald Rumsfeld to the cinema to see Brokeback Mountain with me.”

Rumsfeld’s face had to be seen to be believed.

You couldn’t make it up!

[RTR]

Is that supposed to be funny? What a pillock!

It is time these self obessed prats who think they are worthy of a place in government got a grip. They are power hungry and live for the trappings it offers.

It's surely time that a vote of 'no confidence' was taken on this pathetic band of incompetent fools who are not fit.

I hope the Thursday elections show Bliar just what the people think of him. They missed at the election but he said he had heard the people. The hell he did! :mad:

[NURSE]

As a member of NHS staff I agree it needs serious sorting out.
Doctors over the past few years the emphesis is to protect this group. Consultants got a huge pay rise as well. But was their disappearing of to do private work **** NO. Registrars,SHO's JHO's, Hours cut and they are more protected but who has take up the slack on what was once their duties Nursing staff, We now are doing more and more of the doctors job and takig on more and more responsibility. But a is this reflected in our salaries no have we got more staff to do this no. Most of my time as a nurse is spent doing what were once doctors jobs and administration (70-80% of which is pointless except you are an administrator). I admitted a patient last night and to get them sorted out took me writing on 14 seperate pieces of paper and 6 phone calls. As a nurse I'm not authorised to use the computerised admission system, all referals to other bodies like social workers,physio and OT is to be done on paper or by phone. Then adimisiter 24 seperate IV drugs to 9 patients by myself as the bank staff on with me aren't trained to do this neither was the doctor on shift(in the past he would have been).
Administration is out of control but then they now run the asylum and as predicted their numbers has mushroomed as has the emphesis away from providing care to writing about it
To save money on nights we're not allowed an HCA on shift yet when we have highly dependant patients who at tmes need 2-3 staff to move and assist them (and mechanical devices are not always the answer.) that leaves the ward completley devoid of staff. With the 4 hour A+E waiting time we have to accept patients who are not suitable for our ward as we have neither the experience, facilities or staffing levels to look after them as we are equipped and staffed for rapid turnover during week and low patient numbers at weekends. IE Saturday and Sunday on the late shift 2 staff for 20 patients.
We see all the time money wasted left right and centre money wasted and we are exhorted to work harder and take on more responsibiity for no reward. For the responsibility we have now our salaries are less than a corporal in the armed forces.
GPs saw their salaries hugely increased and along with the rest of the medical profession thier responsibilities cut. Why did nursing take on the responsibilities. well simple there are many in our heirarchy who are wannabe doctors but are were not bright enough to go to medical school and saw the jobs we took on as gettin more presteige for nurses with the hit of higher pay but did that happen no. Now with waste and cuts the workers who will suffer are those of us at the bottom we wil be made redundant not the administrators or management and those of us who are left will watch our patients care deterioate but not be in a position to do anything about it as we are snowwed under with more addational responsibilites and administration.
What is needed is a full review of the NHS wht we expect from it and what we are prepared to pay for it either through taxation or insurance. The whole Administration of the NHS needs streamlining and in some cases centralising eg 1 pay centre. And a review of roles and responsibilites of the various professions in the NHS and Legally binding minimum staffing levels based on actual dependency of patient and numbers of patients.

[Winco]

Maple,

Why are you so hell-bent on defending this government old man?
I can see nothing but lies, incompetance, deceit, and even more lies.
Its not a case of comparing them with past governments, the facts are simple........
We (the british public) have been lied to time-and-time again!
We have been taxed to the hilt.
We were assured that 'the NHS is safe in our hands' - do you believe that Maple??
And lastly, we have incompetance on a level that I cannot ever remember from a British Government. Now come on, tell us what you think is so bl$$dy good about them all?

Heavens above Maple, you need to open your eyes man.

The Winco

[flipster]

I'm sure you've all seen the Herc thread, or heard the news on R4 today, that shows yet another gov't slip-up which I'm sure the media will pick up and run with.
But it seems this administration knows no bounds to prove their ineffectiveness and heartlessness.
Nonetheless, I'm not sure the Tories, nor the Lib Dems, would be any better.
A military coup would also be suicide, as most top kneddies can't run their own service, let alone a country. (Some of them, on the other hand, would do alright but they are surrounded by a whole host of self-serving yes-men)

So what do we do? What is the future? I don't have an answer! Can anyone help?:confused: :confused:

[Anotherpost75]

Hey Maple 01, something for you here – BBC, Tuesday 2 May 2006:

Ex-Tory minister Edwina Currie says she thinks the deputy prime minister had no grounds on which to take the Mail on Sunday to the Press Complaints Commission - as he has threatened - over its coverage of the affair.

Ms Currie, who had an affair with John Major before he became prime minister, told the BBC: "If John Prescott really thought he had a case on privacy, he'd go to court."

[Maple 01]

Another two that miss the point, I’m not defending Labour ‘right or wrong’, I’m pointing out that if the Daily Mail is to be quoted as a reliable source in any debate it has to handle both major political parties equally - it clearly doesn’t, where were the vitriolic attempts to bring the Tories down when they were behaving like a bunch of cnuts? Didn't happen, did it? So perhaps it should give up any pretence of being a 'news' paper and change it's masthead to read something like 'Propaganda magazine of the Right'

As someone pointed out, everyone knows the chances of the DM printing anything positive about anything that has happened under Labour is slightly lower that Prezza turning down a lard buttie. They deliberately manipulate the smallest thing to suit their proprietor’s agenda regardless of the actual facts– not exactly a free press! So anyone who freely quotes for that rag, as several have done, are either preaching to the converted, or hoping the undecided fall for the old ‘if it’s in print it must be true’ – which is strange considering the almost universal mistrust within military circles when dealing with the British press corps. If we know they fabricate lies and distort stories about the mil what are the chances they do it about other topics?

edited because I forgot what masthead was, and to exclude Jackoniko from the general Journo abuse

[Anotherpost75]

Er, Maple 01, I think you might be on a losing wicket here, you know? Everything mentioned in the Mail article originally posted on this thread has been based on facts, none of which have been challenged by either Nu Labour or other sections of the press/media.

Maybe I’m longer in the tooth than you are, but I can certainly remember when the Tories, under John Major, received regular drubbings from the self same rag that has now got its teeth into the present shower.

Maybe you should loosen up and get with the programme? It looks like most people want to see the back of Bliar and crew.

[Maple 01]

Mike, never said the current matters were small, just in the past the Mail have used anything they can get regardless of it's relavence - come on, you must have seen that?

been based on facts

In the Saving Private Ryan/U571 stylee? ;)

Maybe you should loosen up and get with the programme? It looks like most people want to see the back of Bliar and crew.

No-one has rushed to defend the paper's integraty

Is that the real problem? That I'm not with the programme? I'm not a number....

How many of you slagged off the govenment for using single source and unvarified biased source reporting over the Iraq war but are happy to do it in your own lives?

[In Tor Wot]

Maple 01,

I understand your point about single-source reporting being unreliable, however, no-one, but a Tibetan monk on refuge on the north face of K-2, would agree that the DM has only been a single source of information - the fact that lard boy owned up to it was a bit of a clue that it might really be true!

Any paper of any persuasion will use all weaknesses/faults and report them to the maximum for their purposes - that's hardly new, most of the DPA do that for a living! As long as you understand that and are prepared to expend some grey-cell energy then you should be capable of distilling sufficient truth to make up your own mind – but then, what is truth? (could be a very, very long thread!).

I've slagged off Bliar and his cronies over their duplicity and downright deceitfulness with regard to Iraq - as did you at the time . . . .

However, the question of whether this government is in meltdown is irrelevant because to be in any distress means that you have to understand the difference between right and wrong and what to do when it's wrong.

As this government wouldn't know the word accountability if it wore a flashing neon sign and sang "I’m all for accountability", whilst dancing in Downing Street wearing a day-glo orange suit, there is little chance that they will meltdown over the recent issues.

[Monty77]

Maple

Luckily in this country we have a free press. Some sections of it are left wing and some are right wing. Some profess to be middle of the road. I would be very worried if the press did not closely monitor the government, be it Labour or Conservative. You clearly have a problem with the Daily Mail. I, in my turn, have a problem with BBC coverage of political events. It irritates me that in my opinion a corporation like the BBC is riddled by a culture of champagne Islington socialist left wing bias and is also funded by the tax payer. I can choose not to buy the Socialist Worker at the news stand. Today it is unrealistic to not pay your licence fee and suffer watching the likes of Paxman or Humphries (both of whom I admire, by the way) lashing into Conservative MPs with a ferocity they do not apply to Nu Labour interviewees.

While I'm here, 2 Shag's crime was not that he shagged a subordinate. It was that he carried on in front of his whole team of subordinates that made it clear he was boffing her, thus forcing an uneasy complicity upon them. Go to the press and you're out of a job. If he had been utterly discreet (as Major had been), there would not be such a case to answer. As it is, he has shown himself to be unfit for high office, but we all knew that anyway.

I read the Telegraph by the way, and they say it so much more eloquentky than I can

[JessTheDog]

The Daily Mail (aka Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition) has only once (to my knowledge) been the subject of a successful complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (Bliar daughter allegedly gets preferential treatment at a school) and has never been the subject of a successful lawsuit by anyone in government. Believe me, they have tried!

Incidentally, the Mail was sucking up to the Bliars along with everyone else after 1997 - it was the Wicked Witch who wrecked that particular relationship due to her snobbish dislike of the paper.

As to the "wicked media" - there is a voluntary media embargo (not without good reason, to be honest) on a Bliar family scandal that anyone with access to Google can find out.

[Melchett01]

As to the "wicked media" - there is a voluntary media embargo (not without good reason, to be honest) on a Bliar family scandal that anyone with access to Google can find out.

Jess, you can't leave us hanging like that - you have to at least give us a hint. I just googled 'Blair family scandal' and it came back, plastered across the top of the page: 'Results 1-10 of about 166,000 for 'Blair family scandal''.
:\

[Anotherpost75]

Any of this lot refer? All in the public domain and collated at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheriegate)

In 2002, Booth (maiden name of Cherie Blair) hit the newspaper headlines in the scandal referred to as "Cheriegate" because of her involvement with Peter Foster, a convicted Australian conman, who assisted her with the purchase of two flats in Bristol. Booth tried to distance herself from Foster and briefed the press office at Number 10 to go public with a statement claiming that Foster was not involved with the deal. She was caught out when Foster provided evidence that she had lied. She went public herself, tearfully reading a prepared statement blaming her "misfortune" on the pressures of running a family and being a mother. She tried to distance herself from Foster, but it was later revealed that she and Tony Blair had agreed to be godparents to the yet-to-be born child of Foster and his partner Carole Caplin (Caplin later miscarried)

Later in 2002 she apologised after seeming to sympathise with Palestinian suicide bombers saying that "As long as young people feel they have no hope but to blow themselves up, we're never going to make progress, are we?".

Her relationship with Peter Foster's then-partner, the so-called "style guru" and former model Carole Caplin has given rise to headlines in some newspapers. Caplin is credited with introducing Booth to various New Age symbols and beliefs, including "magic pendants" known as "BioElectric Shields". The most controversial of Booth's New Age practices occurred when on holiday in Mexico. She and Tony Blair, wearing only bathing costumes, took part in a rebirthing procedure that involved smearing mud and fruit over each others' bodies while sitting in a steam bath.

In 2003, after being invited to a Melbourne shopping centre and told to take a few items for free, she helped herself to 68 items. She subsequently paid £2,000 for the goods. This has left her with a reputation of "taking".

In 2005, while Blair was visiting Bush officially, she gave a private speech in Washington's Kennedy Centre where she was paid £30,000 for her appearance. She was criticized for leveraging government resources - Britain's ambassador and her husbands transport means to run private business.

In 2005 during a charity speaking tour of Australia, she was paid a £102,000 fee for after-dinner speaking, although the £82-a-head dinner raised £81,270, according to Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV). But only £6,690, or 8%, of the total funds raised went towards cancer research.

Booth attracted some criticism for her handling the case of Shabina Begum, a student at the mainly-Muslim Denbigh High School in Luton, who was refused permission to wear full head-to-toe jilbab, when the school uniform code only permitted students to wear the shalwar kameez. For her client Booth claimed that it was about prejudice, however she was criticised for her involvement in the case when Shabina was being supported by the controversial Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, of which her brother Shuweb Rahman was a member..

In 2006, Booth caused controversy when it was revealed that the Labour party paid £7,700 bill for her personal hair stylist, Andre Suard, during the 2005 General Election campaign, a sum of £275 per day for the month leading up to the election. This angered some in the party, including Ex-minister Peter Kilfoyle, who claimed the bill was twice what he had spent on his election campaign in the Liverpool Walton seat.

The latest controversy to hit Mrs Blair was when she was granted an audience with the Pope. The Vatican convention is that females meeting the Pontiff should wear black, preferably with a black veil, or mantilla. By contrast, Mrs Blair, a staunch Catholic, chose to exercise the "White privilege", granted only to the wives of Catholic monarchs. Currently, these are Queen Sofia of Spain, Queen Paola of Belgium and Josephine Charlotte, the wife of Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg. Queen Sofia exercised her privilege in a meeting with the previous Pope in 2003.

[jstars2]

In deference to the sensibilities of Maple 01, the following from the BBC rather than the Mail and indicating the same “Nu Labour” cavalier attitude towards the safety of the UK population in general that it displays towards the safety of UK Armed Forces in particular – ie doesn’t give a damn – see thread, Parliamentary Questions concerning Hercules Safety as just one example.

BBC News, 2 May 2006, Beshenivsky Suspect Not Deported

A man suspected over the slaying of policewoman Sharon Beshenivsky was considered for deportation just months before the mother-of-three was shot.

But the decision was taken not to send Mustaf Jamma back to war-torn Somalia because of the dangers he faced there.

PC Beshenivsky, 38, was shot dead last November (2005) as she and a colleague, PC Teresa Milburn who was also injured, went to investigate reports of an armed robbery at a Bradford travel agents.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the case raised more questions in the row over foreign convicts' deportation.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke is due to update MPs on efforts to trace inmates who were freed and not deported.

Mr Davis said the fact that Mustaf Jamma is not one of those 1,023 people released from prison without deportation being considered just raised more questions.

"How safe are those decisions? How many of these people have been convicted of further crimes? How many are being investigated with respect to brutal crimes like the murder of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky?" he asked.

"Has the home secretary been monitoring this problem, since it clearly exposes another group of potential offenders who could put the public at risk?"

Mr Clarke is due in the Commons on Wednesday, shortly after Tony Blair's last Prime Minister's Questions before Thursday's local elections, to make a statement on the tracking of those criminals who were released and not deported.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "This latest revelation underlines the invidious position the prime minister has put Charles Clarke in by refusing to accept his resignation.

"As long as Charles Clarke is prevented from assuming political responsibility for this chaotic state of affairs, he will continue to be buffeted by one allegation after another."

The Press Association reported that it had seen a 90-page circular setting out a strict timetable for considering foreign prisoner deportations sent on 31 March 2005 - meaning the Home Office was releasing prisoners for a year while those rules were in force.

[highcirrus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/05/03/matt.gif
Acknowledgments to Matt of
the Daily Telegraph

Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph 3 May 2006

There have been so many scandals, disgraces and resignations over the course of this Government - and, indeed, of the one that preceded it - that you would have thought every dodgy minister would by now know the form. When something awful happens, they protest their lack of culpability or, if forced to be culpable, the triviality of the offence. They are then hounded until they have to resign. They are damaged far more by the end of this ungainly process than they would have been had they walked the plank at the start of it.

The mess the Government is in now would not have been avoided had these lessons been learnt, but the damage might have been limited. Instead, the nation veers between baying with laughter and seething with contempt at a deputy prime minister who seems to regard the pursuit of casual sexual favours in much the same light as most of us regard the pursuit of pairs of socks.

As a respite from this light entertainment, we then have the spectacle of a home secretary who manifestly feels that neither his own credibility nor that of the administration of which he is a prominent member has been affected by his inability to stop our nation being awash with dangerous criminals who should be far from these shores………….

…………..It is ironic, too, that the morass of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister should have been exposed by his low behaviour towards women. No one should lose his ministerial job for committing adultery, though if public funds were misused to that end that would be a different matter. But it seems that Mr Prescott has for some years used his position in public life to recruit, or attempt to recruit, for carnal purposes women who work for his party or for the Government. We can assume that, in most cases, this was not why those women chose these particular careers.

Geraldine Smith, the Labour MP for Morecambe, says her female backbench colleagues view Mr Prescott's predatory activity with "horror and disbelief". Given what we know to be Tony Blair's views on the rights of women, it is hard to see why his deputy has lasted this long.

In fact, Mr Blair ought really to have sacked him long ago, for a variety of reasons. Mr Prescott has failed at every job he has attempted in the past nine years. His staff, even those he has not propositioned, loathe him and regard him as an oaf and a bully. Whether transport, housing, regional assemblies or environmental issues have been on his agenda, he has made a dog's breakfast of them all.

Keeping this priapic clown in a position that Mr Blair imagined matched his role as the incarnation of Old Labour has cost the taxpayer millions. It has contributed to shambolic misgovernment that has harmed the whole nation. While I have deep sympathy for the women he has harassed, nothing he did to them merits his resignation quite so much as the things he has done to the country.

It is on this that voters ought to reflect tomorrow. After all, if they find local government poor, they can recall that Mr Prescott has, during his miserable career, had much responsibility for it. If their local communities live in fear, the buck stops with Mr Clarke. Not voting Labour allows them to punish these ministers fairly and directly.

[Melchett01]

I'm not generally a malicious person and the big softy in me tends to not let wounded animals suffer when they are so obviously in trouble.

In this case, I'll make an exception and have a good laugh at watching the buggers constantly shooting themselves in the foot. Part of me really doesn't want 2 Shags et al to resign - it's so much more fun watching them squirm every day.

So come on Tone, you've done us proud on the entertainment stakes so far, what's next?

[Monty77]

Good call Melchers. Let our collective imaginations run riot. Here's my starter for one:

Mail on Sunday Headlines (Just to keep Maple happy)

AGRICULTURE MINISTER IN VEGETABLE TENT SHOCKER

The Agriculture Minister, ******, (insert Nu Labour parasite name) was remanded on bail last night (obviously can't bang up Nu Labour minister) after being apprehended interfering with a prize-winning pumpkin in the Guildford Womens' Institute Spring marquee. Government spokesmen were unavailable for comment last night (no surprises there, then). However a source close to the Government (No.10) said unofficially that a minister's relationship with his, or anyone else's vegetables were a private matter, and after all we did win the last election, didn't we?

OK. It's a start. I challenge the lot of you to come up with imaginary scenarios involving this shower of nasty incompetent idiots who are in government trying to justify why they should hang on to their well-paid jobs and outrageous pensions while poorly paid nurses are getting the sack. It's been almost 10 years. They have no excuse anymore.

[pr00ne]

Blair in meltdown?

Judging by his performance in the House of Commons today at PM questions absolutely not!

The real reason he is NOT in meltdown?

Ministers reputations in tatters, sleaze and incompetence abounds, denials and ducking and weaving…………………………………with all this David (Tony Blair) Cameron could not make him look the battered defeated PM he should be. If he cannot take this opportunity then what on earth DOES it need?

Meltdown? No way, not whilst there is not sight nor sound of a decent opposition in sight!

[Melchett01]

prOOne

I suppose you may have a point. But when you are as morally bankrupt and as contemptuous for the electorate at large, both Houses of Parliament and apparently totally oblivious to the concept of Ministerial and collective responsibility, then it's hardly suprising the recent disasters are like water off a duck's back to him.

After 9 years of successfully lying to and hoodwinking the electorate at every available opportunity, he now obviously believes his own lies. If I was as bad as him, I expect I could probably bluster my way through the incompetence, arrogance and sheer lies that this government is based on.

Where's the devil when you need him most - I reckon 90% of serving members on this site would make that Faustian pact to get rid of this fool in a heart beat. One of these days, his lies and spin are going to cost lives. Or should that be even more lives.

[highcirrus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/05/04/matt.gif

Matt seems to hit the nail on the head with remarkable consistency!

prOOne

I agree with you entirely (for a change). The problem is that Cameron is setting himself up as Bliars natural political heir and therefore (following his and his coterie’s reasoning) cannot afford to damage Bliar’s image or challenge his so-called past achievements. Unless he heads off in a completely different strategic direction, for Cameron to do either of the foregoing would undercut the logic of his chosen stance and, indeed, the calculation is, play into the hands of Gordon Brown, who, on gaining power, would use Cameron’s former stance as a rod to beat him with.

A corollary event has been Cameron’s recent collusion with Bliar, in an un-minuted, one-on-one House of Commons meeting, over “cash for peerages”, as the Tories are just as guilty as “New Labour” in this area. Cameron does not want old Tory dirty linen to be washed in public, hence the stitch-up.

I personally think Cameron has got his head up his a*se but he seems more that happy to carry on tree hugging and stroking Tone, much to the detriment of providing a robust, effective and aggressive loyal opposition.

[Anotherpost75]

This seems to be the explanation for the Tory stance, given by Dave’s mate, Boris Johnson. Seems bloody pathetic to me as I can't see bunny-hugging winning the next election.

Fed up with feeble Labour? Only you can put the boot in
By Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph, 04/05/2006

Not so long ago, there appeared in these pages one of the best letters I have ever seen. It was a letter from a retired lieutenant-colonel. I have a feeling he lived in Gloucestershire and, even without having his precise words to hand, I can still feel the incandescent heat of his indignation.

Woffle, woffle…………

He spoke with the authentic voice of Telegraph man and, like so many Telegraph men, he spoke for England. "Sir," he said (and if I paraphrase or abbreviate, I hope he will forgive me), "isn't it time the Tory party stopped pretending to be some namby-pamby crochet club?", and he went on to wring the withers of the Opposition before kicking it smartly in the fetlocks and slapping it in the girth.

He didn't want any more of this bunny-hugging nonsense. He didn't want this green what-have-you. He didn't want to see any more of Her Majesty's oh-so-loyal Opposition poncing about on bikes. He wanted to see this Labour lot turfed out on their ear. He wanted to see Tory MPs fix bayonets and close with the enemy; or, failing that, he wanted the Government swiftly decapitated with a sharpened shovel. So would the Tories kindly cease their obsession with organic marrows and solar power and get on with opposing, which, after all, was what the taxpayer was paying them to do.

Woffle, woffle……….

That brilliant correspondent had contrived, in his cosmic yawp of irritation, to express the growing sense of unreality that is felt by the voters at large. Here we have a government in a state of Babylonian decadence, with three of the most senior ministers teetering on the brink of a richly deserved oblivion. After nine years, the Blair administration would seem to lie on its back like a wounded beetle, feelers feebly waggling, and yet the Tory party seems unable to bring down the gumboot of fate.

How come they are still there, people want to know. How can Charles Clarke possibly remain in office after he has allowed more than 1,000 foreign criminals to roam the streets when they should have been deported, and when those criminals have now been shown to have used their time at large to commit further sickening crimes, including rape and, it is now suspected, the murder of a police officer?

All I can say to the lieutenant-colonel is that I know how he feels, that Opposition is deeply frustrating, and that he, and everyone who agrees with him, has their very own chance, today, to put their boots in, to vote Labour out wherever they can, and do themselves what we Tories are unable to do, since the physical task of removing the ruling party from power is left to the people and the people alone.

Of course it is maddening to see Clarke and Patricia Hewitt still clinging to power; but if anything their performance is now an electoral advantage to the Tories. And as for John Prescott, there seems no point in the Opposition trying to elaborate on the magnificent efforts of the Mail, a newspaper that pays hundreds of thousands of pounds for smut and then snarls with splendid disapproval of the pornography it has procured. What could anyone hope to add?

I urge the lieutenant-colonel to be of good cheer, and to vote Tory, because I also think there is some misunderstanding of the great green Tory transformation.

There are two ways of thinking about the environment, and taking an interest in the future of the planet. The first is to be endlessly steeped in moral disapproval, to dislike growth, spending, Ferraris, Solero ice-creams and everything that makes life worth living.

These sorts of greens don't really care about the environment, or at least they don't primarily care about the environment. Like those who oppose hunting, they are really actuated by hatred of the mental states of others. They want to parade their consciences, to control and to inhibit.

That is not the Tory approach - or at least not as I understand it. We don't believe that you have to live on tofu and rear goats in order to be good to the environment. We are optimists, and we believe that there are more solutions in technology and progress than in mass self-denial and new regulation, and that you can still aspire to drive a Ferrari, except that one day it will be a beautiful clean green Ferrari powered by a hydrogen fuel cell developed in the labs of South Oxfordshire.

We don't want to coerce and constrain; we want to help people in their very natural desire to improve the world around them, and sometimes you can achieve this by removing controls, not imposing them.

Every morning I come out of my house and am bathed by a great horrible gust of gas-smelling vapour from the boiler. Wouldn't it be better if there were no planning restrictions on the completely inoffensive solar panels I want to install; and wouldn't it be a good thing if these panels consequently became far more affordable for everyone?

The essence of the Tory approach is that there are still plenty of ways of beautifying the world and sparing the taxpayer. Tory councils have done it up and down the country. Vote Blue, go Green, save money.

[GengisKhant]

I see that our Mr Bliar is re-shuffling the Cabinet this morning......

This should be good......., any thoughts of who will go and why.....?

Mind you..., at this stage of his tenure..., a reshuffle of the Cabinet would be as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic..... !

GengisK :ok:

[jstars2]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2006/05/04/ixd04.jpg

Could be a clue here as to one likely move!:)

[highcirrus]

Nightmare on Downing Street

Daily Telegraph, George Jones, 06/05/2006

Tony Blair carried out his biggest and most brutal Cabinet reshuffle yesterday as he attempted to shore up his position after one of the worst ever local election performances in Labour's history.

He signalled his determination to remain in Downing Street by promoting trusted and loyal ministers, sacking Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and demoting six ministers, including Jack Straw and the disgraced John Prescott.

It was a defiant rebuff for supporters of Gordon Brown who stepped up their demands for Mr Blair to quit after Labour was relegated to third place behind the Tories and the Liberal Democrats and lost control of 18 local authorities.

But there was no sign that it had strengthened Mr Blair's authority, with growing calls last night from senior backbenchers for him to set out a timetable for a handover to the Chancellor.

Left-wing Labour MPs claimed they now had 50 signatories for a letter calling on Mr Blair to set an "early end date" to his premiership. They need 70 to force a leadership challenge.

At breakfast time, as the results were still coming in, Mr Blair embarked on his long-awaited reshuffle, with more than half the ministers in the Cabinet changing places.

It was an attempt to deflect attention from Labour's humiliation as the Tories capped Mr Blair's worst two weeks in power by achieving their best electoral triumph in a generation under their new leader David Cameron.

Last night the Tories had gained 300 council seats and 40 per cent of the vote - the share needed to secure power at a general election.

[Stafford]

Proone

Your stout but blind defence of Bliar does you credit. However, he is finished. The damage he has done to the Country is significant, and without question his mendacity and conniving with scum like Campbell has degraded politics and politicians in the eyes of many long suffering voters (especially protest non voters - not a tactic I approve of but that is another thread ?)

If you genuinely believe the results are not a shattering indictment of Bliar's Government's incompetence then I fear for your well being after the next general election - I hope you live in a Bungalow :ok: . Once the population recognise the grasping thief we have in our Scottish Chancellor and the damage he has wrought on sensible and legal Trusts, Inheritance and Pensions then he too will be a lame duck PM once he and his Westminster cohorts shaft Bliar.

Not an edifying spectacle but a satisfying one when one considers the hypocrisy, broken promises and rank failure of the Government

[rafloo]

The damage he has done to the Country is significant

Utter tosh.

In my area since Labour came to office in 1997, waiting lists are down, investment is up, and there are 1,439 more nurses and 657 more doctors caring for patients.

Since 1997, standards in our schools have risen across the board and there are now 500 more teachers helping children in Local Education Authority.

Unemployment is down by 58 per cent

Our streets are safer, crime is down and there are now 410 more police officers fighting crime in the Yorkshire Police Force than in 1997.

when one considers the hypocrisy, broken promises and rank failure of the Government would that be the last Conservative government? I'm think that until the Tory party can produce a Leader who is of tha same calibre as Tony Blair then they will have to wait a little while longer for government.

[Stafford]

Statistics ! Every time one analyses New Labour stats they just don't add up to the overall decay in the system do they ? Did you not see the Health Secretary's problems as voiced by NHS staff so eloquently ?

Of course, Bliars art is conning otherwise intelligent people into believing his "utter tosh". I take it you believe the "media conspiracy" theory behind the Goverments total disarray, and disbelief that they have been found out at last for their hypocrisy, incompetence and total mismanagement of the country.

Keep your delusions, for I think we have finally seen the beginning of end of Labour. Blair in particular has much to answer for to the Kelly family for a start, then we can analyse the Iraq debacle and the fact that whilst even doing the right thing (imho) Bliar's instinct as a congenital liar came to the fore and he had to pull yet another con
:* :* :hmm:

[Melchett01]

rafloo, what was it my namesake, the erstwhile Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanny Melchett said? "If nothing else works, then a total pigheaded unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through"

Well I'm glad things are rosy in your bit of the Blair Empire; shame about the rest of the country. So I take it you are happy about seeing your taxes going up year after year? And that any provision you might have made for you family when you depart for the final time may now have to be revisited following Brown's 10 year smash and grab raid?

Have you seen a commensurate increase in the standards and provisions of service that your increasing taxes are paying for? I suspect not. Of the extra 1439 nurses and 657 doctors, how many extra managers do you think there are? And how long do you think you will have the extra staff once these new contracts kick in and you local health authority can't afford to pay them? It will be the doctors and nurses that go, not the managers.

As for unemployment figures, I will grant you it has fallen in recent years; but how much of that is due to massaging statistics and re-branding? Unless I am mistaken, you can be out of work and claiming benefit but not appear in the unemployment figures - it all depends which benefits you are on. I suspect the number of people claiming benefits other than unemployment benefit is somewhat higher than officials would like to admit.

Our streets are safer, crime is down and there are now 410 more police officers fighting crime in the Yorkshire Police Force than in 1997

Well the safer streets and more police didn't keep WPC Sharon Beshenivsky alive did they - and looking at your profile that did't happen that far from your neck of the woods.

And who in their right minds who hadn't totally lost the plot would appoint Margaret Beckett as Foreign Minister? She has all the presence of a tin of magnolia paint DHE are so fond of slapping on our walls. I really can't see Bliar's attempt at creating a British Conoleza Rice as being a great success - she should have stayed where she was, out of sight and earshot.

At the end of the day rafloo, it's all about statistics as you have quoted. However, 78.3% of all statistics are made up. I know this, I was told by a Noo Labour advisor:mad:

[Tartan Giant]

Noo Labour deserved to get whacked in the local elections, and it was splendid to see - the voters are now waking up to the fact that this present government is a walking disaster through and through; lacking in all departments.

I am 'with' Stafford and Melchett01 and their like, for they can see through the smoke and mirrors of this despicable tribe of usless government tossers.

It is unfortunate we still get Noo Labour supporters who refuse to see the truth. Rafloo how can you contemplate the notion that education standards have risen across the board - what absolute tripe man!

Quote:

Failing students given pass marks
Published in Newsvote.bbc.co.uk
Indexed on Apr 24, 2006

University students with exam marks as low as 26% were given pass grades in an effort to reduce failure rates, documents reveal.
Leicester's De Montfort University raised marks for five modules of a pharmacy course in 2004, the Times Higher Education Supplement found.
In one, they were increased by up to 14 percentage points, details gained under the Freedom of Information Act show. The university said it had "every confidence" in its pharmacy course.
'Not up to it' In 2004 staff were told that failure rates of 50% could put their jobs at risk, meeting minutes show. Continue reading...

Unquote

I sent an email to BLIAr - but it will never reach the clown:

Dear Mr Blair,

Seems you have dished out some of the medicine a Mr O. Cromwell did a while back!
It's been too long a Parliament for us, and YOU should have taken the medicine too!
However, you never have had courage (Mr Clarke should have been 'fired' last week, and that charade about "he has my full support" stuff was pathetic Tony) so I can understand your fanatical grip on power - any excuse will do.

are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance? Most certainly.

Quote:

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue and defiled by your every vice.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches and like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you?
Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God.
Which of you has not battered your conscience with bribes?
Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the commonwealth?
Ye furdid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation.
You were deputed here to get grievances redressed; are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance?
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean stable by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house and which by God's help and the strength he has given me I am now come to do I command ye therefore upon the peril of your lives to depart immediately out of this place........

Go and get out, make haste ye venal slaves be gone - so take away that shining bauble there and lock up the doors."

Unquote

part of Oliver Cromwell's speech (1599-1658) when he dissolved The Long Parliament.
-------------


When a nation has to put up with a Minister proven to have been usless when the chips are down, and the PM "supports" such failings, then things must change PDQ.

Another email off to BLIAr......... and his puppets.

I refer to what Mr Blair told the News of the World: "I don't think I'm going to speculate. It depends on what happens, what the reasons are."
This equates to a pub full of proven drunks getting into their cars and driving off in full view of a posse of police cars.
Would it be irresponsible for the police to do absolutely nothing - certainly. Would their lack of positive action be culpable negligence - certainly.
The PM doing nothing and waiting to see "what happens" next is an act of insufferable political cowardice and intolerable stupidity and negligence of Titanic proportions.
-------------

This government is getting the kicking it deserves - through the latest local election results - and I hope it hurts them further.

The changes BLIAr has made was likened to moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic - a sad fact.

You cannot polish a tur^

TG

[highcirrus]

From an article by Theodore Dalrymple, rebuting a fatuous piece on Tony Bliar, written for the New York Times by Thomas Fredman. rafloo in particular may be interested in its content.

The prime minister is a poor model for U.S. Democrats, 3 May 2005

The British economy is far from healthy. Its growth rests on vast personal indebtedness secured by rising real-estate prices. It perennially produces less than it consumes. It is thus a kind of pyramid scheme that is liable to sudden collapse. Its supposedly low unemployment rate is a myth: the unemployed have simply been moved onto the disability rolls—there are now more alleged invalids in Britain than after the First World War. Half the jobs created in the last eight years are in the public sector or are directly dependent on it, and the vast majority of those jobs are not merely non-productive but anti-productive. Their only economic function is as a Keynesian stimulus that cannot long be sustained in the absence of other, genuinely productive economic activity, which these jobs preempt. Not only is the budget deficit increasing fast, but the proportion of the GDP taken up by the public sector is now relentlessly rising. As for the deftness of finance chief Brown: consider that, against all advice, he sold most of Britain’s gold reserves just when gold was at its lowest price for years (depressing the price still further) and just before it was about to double. His taxation of pension funds (in effect, a violation of the prohibition against ex-post-facto legislation) means that they yield 25 percent less than they did before he turned his attention to them. In an aging society, this is no small matter. It is building up poverty for the future.

Government regulation is increasing rapidly in almost all spheres. Hardly anyone, from the liberal professions to small shopkeepers, does not feel the increased weight of such government interference, which results not only in inefficiency but in a much-reduced quality of life. From the point of view of civil liberties, Blair’s government is the most illiberal in recent British history. It has abolished the legal prohibition of double jeopardy and wants to introduce the preventive detention of people deemed dangerous by doctors but who have never committed an offense. It has recently extended the use of absentee ballots, with the utterly foreseeable result of wholesale electoral fraud—in Labour’s favor, of course.

The Times’s Friedman says that expenditure on schools and hospitals has risen in Britain, which is certainly true: but, as in America, rising inputs don’t necessarily produce improved results. The opposite is in fact the case, as a visit to a British hospital would quickly establish.

Insofar as the Blair government has not failed comprehensively, it is because it has not yet totally undone the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s: reforms which Messrs. Blair and Brown built their careers opposing.

Friedman hopes the Democrats will learn lessons from Mr. Blair: I hope so too, but not the lessons that he hopes they will learn.

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!]

The Agriculture Minister, was remanded on bail last night after being apprehended interfering with a prize-winning pumpkin in the Guildford Womens' Institute Spring marquee. A Police spokesman later confirmed that when challenged, the minister replied "What...it's midnight already?"

[Anotherpost75]

Open warfare looms as Brown manoeuvres to oust old rival

Both camps fear battle over succession could go public and damage party

Patrick Wintour
Monday May 8, 2006. The Guardian

Relations between the prime minister and Gordon Brown's camp are described by both sides as dangerous, with only a few figures at the heart of the dispute still hopeful that the crisis can be resolved without the blood-letting that ended Thatcherism and left the Tory party unelectable for a decade.

At dispute is whether a private assurance on a handover date is any longer sufficient.

Both men were on the brink of open warfare yesterday. Mr Brown in two TV appearances and a charity walkabout gave the impression of a man on the campaign trail waiting impatiently for the prime minister to call it a day. He stuck to his mantra of wanting a stable and orderly transition, but he did so in the knowledge that forces are now organising on the backbenches, on the party national executive and in the unions to prise Mr Blair from office.

Labour at war as Number 10 condemns plot to oust Blair

By George Jones
Daily Telegraph. 08/05/2006

Labour was plunged into its worst infighting for a generation yesterday after Downing Street issued a warning of a plot by rebel MPs to oust Tony Blair and take the party back to the Left.

Demands for the Prime Minister to set a timetable for handing over power to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, were denounced by No 10 and leading Blairites as an attempt to force him out of office by the summer.

Months of internal bickering between supporters of the two men burst into the open as pressure mounted on Mr Blair to set a date when he would stand down after the party's heavy losses in last week's local elections.

Mr Brown repeatedly called on Mr Blair to plan for "a stable and orderly transition" of power but refused to endorse back-bench moves to oust him. He said a coup against Mr Blair would be "a recipe for disaster".

No 10 denounced calls for Mr Blair to name a departure date as a Left-wing plot to remove him quickly and take Labour "back to its old ways".

Blair to warn of polls disaster if he is forced out

By Jean Eaglesham. Financial Times. May 7 2006 20:34

Tony Blair risked civil war in his party by authorising cabinet allies to warn a band of at least 50 rebel Labour MPs that a forced change of leader would lead to electoral disaster.

The defiant prime minister will on Monday use a press conference and a speech to Labour MPs to stress the risks of not driving through reform. His emissaries were sent out to “spell out, in stark terms, the risks [of a rebellion] before anything crystallises that danger”, a senior Labour official told the Financial Times, adding that “he is not going to have a timetable for his leaving dictated to him”.

[Bluntend]

Tony Blair risked civil war in his party by authorising cabinet allies to warn a band of at least 50 rebel Labour MPs that a forced change of leader would lead to electoral disaster
So the Prime Minister is effectively going on the record by saying that (perhaps inevitable) defeat at the next General Election will be the fault of rebelious back benchers and not him and his cabinet. Now that's leadership...:mad:

[MechGov]

He can't go yet. He hasn't had a chance to introduce the flawed legislation to deport murders and rapists who have no right to live here. Their loss of civil liberties will be a nice earner for his wife when she sues the UK taxpayer

[jstars2]

Blair will have to face down his backbenchers
Daily Telegraph 09/05/2006

Tony Blair has clearly learnt the lesson of 1990, when Margaret Thatcher fell because she lost the support of her Cabinet. Last week's appointments were made without reference to the fitness of the candidate for the job, but solely according to the degree of their loyalty to the Prime Minister.

The promotion of Margaret Beckett from Defra to the Foreign Office is a perverse reward for her devastation of British farming; it can be understood only in the light of Jack Straw's "tarting" himself (Mr Blair's word) to Gordon Brown in recent months.

The same goes for Ruth Kelly, who has been banished from education to "communities and local government". The hapless Patricia Hewitt, meanwhile, has survived at health purely because she is loyal; and Mr Blair has in the new Defra secretary, David Miliband, a loyalist of the first stamp.

Add Alan Johnson and John Reid as captains of the guard, and the Prime Minister has collected about him a phalanx of men and women who will keep him safe.

But Mr Blair must go sometime, and the current surviving and promoted ministers must be looking askance at their good fortune. For this was such a nakedly political reshuffle that its beneficiaries are identified automatically as the ancien régime. Charles Clarke, perhaps, will be the biggest gainer in the long term: he was sacked by Mr Blair, and already Mr Brown has hinted that he will bring him back.

When will that be? MPs are said to be collecting signatures for a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a "timetable" for his departure. Although we share the wish to see the back of Mr Blair, this is an absurd suggestion, and he is surely right to refuse it. He will go, when he goes, suddenly - either at the moment of his own choosing or because he is forced out.

Mr Brown, the one man Mr Blair could not sack from his Cabinet, could, if he wished, precipitate a leadership contest at any moment by the simple expedient of resigning.

His curious reluctance to launch an assassination attempt owes a little, no doubt, to common decency; a lot more to his fear that such aggressive and selfish behaviour would alienate moderate opinion in the country; and most of all to the wish not to inherit a divided and embittered party.

But, in the end, events may be decided without Mr Brown having to lift a finger. The Parliamentary Labour Party rightly feels the reshuffle was an insult to them. Many hold to the belief that Mr Blair's departure will cause a boost to Labour's poll rating.

A direct confrontation between the back benches and Number 10, sometime before the party conference in October, is now more likely than not. Mr Blair's sweaty and tetchy performance at his press conference yesterday morning suggests he knows it.

[Anotherpost75]

Telegraph, Speakers Corner, 8 May 06

What is the point of Blair hanging on to power? Should the prime minister quit now to defuse the war that’s ripping New Labour apart? Or would his departure lead to the return of Old Labour’s tax-and-spend habits?

The point? To us, none. To the country, none. To the Labour Party, none. The fact that he continues to do so, despite the overwhelming concensus not to, shows his total disregard for anyone else's opinion - not least those in his own party. One would hope - kindly - that it's simple delusion, but more likely it's a callous and selfish attempt to pillage the country a little longer before making his home in George Bush's backyard, and paying off his cronies at the tax payer's expense.

Posted by Robert on May 8, 2006 6:55 AM

"return of Old Labour’s tax-and-spend habits?"...did they ever go away?

Posted by Seb on May 8, 2006 8:03 AM

[highcirrus]

It would seem that our dear Prime Minister’s travails continue.

Labour: now a crisis of faith
Public believe Tories would be better for health, education and law and order

The Guardian ,Julian Glover, Wednesday May 24, 2006

Public faith in Labour's ability to deliver on its core promises is collapsing across the board, with the Conservatives pulling ahead as the party with the best policies on a range of issues including health and education, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today.

The findings suggest the base of support that gave Labour three comprehensive election victories has been badly eroded by difficulties in the NHS and the Home Office and by the Conservative party's renewal under David Cameron.

The worrying picture for Labour is confirmed by a four-point rise in Tory support to 38%, the party's highest rating in 13 years, matched only during the fuel protests of 2000.

In a sign that Labour may be losing support among women voters, the poll found they are more likely than men to support Conservative policies on health, education and the economy. Although the difference is small, it is a sign that Mr Cameron's rebranding of Tory priorities is making a difference. Women were more likely than men to vote Labour in the last three general elections.

This rapid change in attitudes comes as Labour debates the best route to rebuilding voters' trust. The chancellor, Gordon Brown, has spoken repeatedly of the need for "renewal", which many see as a coded reference to a rapid change of leader.

But today's poll suggests that although voters rate Mr Brown ahead of Mr Blair on many key characteristics, including trust, competence and honesty, a switch of leaders would not automatically boost Labour support.

Labour voters - unlike the wider electorate - rate Mr Blair more highly than the chancellor as someone with wide appeal, someone prepared to take a stand on difficult issues, and someone more likely to make them vote Labour. Their caution may simply reflect loyalty to a prime minister they helped re-elect just over a year ago. But it is reflected by a possible drop in Labour support in a general election with Mr Brown as leader.

[Anotherpost75]

Tories six points ahead as scandals rock Blair

Daily Telegraph, George Jones Political Editor, Filed: 26/05/2006

The Conservatives are experiencing their most sustained electoral recovery for more than 14 years as public confidence in the competence of Tony Blair's government plummets, according to a YouGov poll published in The Daily Telegraph today.

After a string of Government blunders and scandals culminating in near meltdown at the Home Office this week, the Tories have opened a six-point lead over Labour - their largest advantage since before John Major's win in the 1992 general election.

The poll shows Mr Blair's government limping into a 10-day Whitsun Commons recess with 67 per cent of voters believing it gives the impression of being "a floundering regime".

The recovery in Tory fortunes after three bruising election defeats at the hands of Mr Blair is reinforced by signs that under David Cameron the party is catching up or even overtaking Labour on its home ground policy issues, such as pensions, education and the health service.

[jstars2]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2006/05/26/ixd26big.gif

[highcirrus]

Prescott's survival hopes recede as MPs speak out

Michael White
Tuesday May 30, 2006, The Guardian

Labour hopes of saving John Prescott's position as deputy prime minister receded yesterday as more backbench MPs publicly voiced the private fears of colleagues that further waves of embarrassing publicity would sink Mr Prescott - and could eventually take Tony Blair with him.

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, rallied to Mr Prescott's defence yesterday, leaving condemnation of his recent conduct to jittery backbenchers with marginal seats.

Britain's European trade commissioner and longstanding Blair ally, Peter Mandelson, was more ambiguous. He told Radio 4's Today programme: "All I would say about John is that he is a party man to his fingertips and whatever he does, he will do what is in the party's interests, I'm sure, and not his own." But suggestions that those words were a hint to his old rival to step down were denied, leaving Labour MPs such as Michael Jabez Foster, Derek Wyatt and Christine McCafferty, who all hold marginal seats, to link Mr Prescott's affair with a junior staff member, Tracey Temple, to falling Labour support, especially among women.

Neither Mr Blair nor Gordon Brown want to lose Mr Prescott. He is both a buffer between them and Labour's deputy leader. A vacancy for his job would trigger a divisive election that both are keen to avoid.

Labour's constitutional experts say the party's rules mean that the elected leader and deputy leader must both be in the cabinet. But the former minister Lord Whitty, who wrote the rules, will give colleagues a possible loophole.

The rules are ambiguous on whether the deputy leader has to remain in the cabinet, Lord Whitty is telling colleagues. That might allow Mr Prescott to retire from the government - he is 68 tomorrow - but remain as deputy leader, a compromise which many mainstream MPs would now support.

Unease in Labour's ranks about Mr Prescott's vulnerability has grown since the May 6 reshuffle which deprived him of his departmental responsibilities, but not the ministerial component of his £133,000 salary, titles or perks like Dorneywood, his weekend home. That was where he was photographed playing croquet on Thursday. In Mr Blair's absence, he was acting prime minister.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2006/05/30/stevebell512newready.jpg

[ShyTorque]

Good cartoon - I sincerely the mallet handle is where it ought to be!

[MarkD]

it really is the end when Red Ken comes out in your support.

[Anotherpost75]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2006/05/31/ixd31big.jpg

[jstars2]

Whitehall farce
Daily Telegraph, Toby Helm, Graeme Wilson and Brendan Carlin 31/05/2006

Ministers were struggling last night to prevent a collapse of morale at the highest levels of the Government and the Civil Service as flagship New Labour policies on the health service, criminal justice and the benefits system were shown to be in crisis.

A sense of disarray across Whitehall grew when the most senior judge, Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, highlighted the failure of community sentencing and the resulting overcrowding of prisons.

Civil servants, battered by successive crises in the Home Office and claims by John Reid, the Home Secretary, that his immigration department was "not fit for purpose", expressed private worries that ministers were "losing their grip".

On a day of unrelenting bad news for the Government, it was also revealed that:

• A computer system for storing the medical records of all 50 million health service patients will be more than two years late and three times over budget at £20 billion.

• The amount of taxpayers' money wasted through public sector fraud and mismanagement, including pension payments to the deceased and benefit handouts to failed asylum seekers, has shot up by 33 per cent in two years.

• Tax credits have been overpaid by about £2 billion for the second year running.

Senior civil servants claim privately that ministers are increasingly cutting them adrift as they try to deflect blame for their failures of leadership on to the Whitehall machine that serves them.

The Conservatives sought to exploit the sense of a "rudderless" and chaotic Government by focusing their attacks on John Prescott, the beleaguered Deputy Prime Minister, who is standing in for Mr Blair while he is on holiday in Italy (fiddling while Rome burns?).

As more Labour MPs said publicly that Mr Prescott had become "a laughing stock" and should quit his £133,000-a-year post, the Conservatives suggested that he had encouraged his former lover to breach guidance on good behaviour for civil servants during their two-year affair.

[Stafford]

Where's Proone when I need him ? Signed, Anthony Charles "Lyington" Blair

:} :hmm:

[highcirrus]

Number Crunching …. Acknowledgments to Private Eye

Interesting to note that the three times cost overrun on the NHS computer system can be insouciantly funded to the tune of £20 billion but there seems to be a major problem funding the fitting of ESF to the UK C130 Hercules fleet at a cost of approx £20 thousand per aircraft.

Joined up government?

[Tartan Giant]

That special relationship!:)
Click the link: to load the video, click the go arrow centre screen. Downloads fast and the video runs for 76 secs. Good PC skills!:D
http://www.youtube.com/v/zZlxdqeHa64
TG

[ORAC]

What job? :confused:

[eagle 86]

Isn't the PM's surname spelt BlAIr?
GAGS E86

[pr00ne]

Stafford,

Worry not, I’m here!

Blair in melt down? Labour in trouble?

I THINK NOT

Let’s look at what is actually happening. The PM has been in power for 9 years, he has adopted a management style which is alienating the cabinet and infuriating the back benches, he has lost the confidence of the electorate, he ordered the invasion of Iraq with the US in the most dubious of circumstances and the subsequent occupation has merely brought terrorism to the streets of London, the Home Office appears to be imploding, scandals are rocking cabinet and ex-cabinet ministers. The health service appears to be in a financial turmoil with jobs going and wards closing, minister after minister is avoiding responsibility, child tax credits are over paid to the tune of £2B for the second year running, etc etc etc etc…………………

In the face of all the above, what is the best that HM Loyal opposition can muster? A total repeat of Blairs tactics and strategy prior to the 97 election, a fumbling and ineffective performance at PM’s questions and a 6 point lead in the polls!

At the equivalent stage of the declining Tory administration with Major in charge Labour were 55 points ahead in the polls, FIFTY FIVE points!

David (Tony Blair) Cameron is the reason Blair in particular and Labour in general are about as near meltdown as you are lot in enthusiastically endorsing JPA!

pr00ne

[Wyler]

Sadly, Proone is right IMHO. There is NO effective opposition. You cannot get a fag paper between New Conservative and New labour. If the Tories get in then we will have 2 years of 'It isn't our fault', 'Give us time' and other fumblings as they grapple with real Government. If they were doing something different, something radical, then no problem, it would be worth the hassle for the light at the end of the tunnel. But as all we will get is more of the same, why change horses? Labour is as safe as houses until we get someone who will truly oppose and change direction noticeably.:mad: :mad: the lot of them.

[nigegilb]

Biggest problem for Tories is how to win seats in Northern cities. Difficult to see Cameron making headway with his lightweight approach. My money is on a hung parliament. Popular vote to the Tories, intriguing possibility of Tory/LibDem alliance!! Anyone give me any odds on that?

[Anotherpost75]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2006/05/29/rowson1.jpg

[JackRyan]

I would say the biggest problem for the Tories is the fact they actually won the last election (in England (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/flash_map/html/map05.stm)), because our Welsh & Scottish friends get to vote for their own as well as our MPs. These are the same regions of the UK that "receive higher levels of public spending than former communist countries (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2200150,00.html)";

We should be sickened that England is being governed by an unelected power which is transferring funds to its bordering neighbours... Oh and guess what, if an English student applies to a Scottish university he/she'll pay £3000 fees, whilst a student from ANY OTHER EU COUNTRY will pay the lower, Scottish, rate ~ £1000. Even though the university is being funded mainly through English taxation!

The Sunday Times May 28, 2006 Britain's northern 'soviets' swell on Brown handouts

The “sovietisation” of parts of Britain as a result of Brown’s huge increases in public spending looks even more dramatic when the figures are adjusted for comparison with other countries. On this basis, public spending is equivalent to 76.2% of the size of the Northern Ireland economy this year, 66.2% in Wales, 64.9% in the northeast, 57.7% in Scotland and 56.1% in the northwest.
This compares with 56.1% in high-spending Sweden, 54.1% in France, 51.9% in former communist Hungary, 51.5% in Denmark, 46% in Germany, 42.6% in the Czech Republic, 41.2% in Poland and 36.3% in Slovakia.
Sir Digby Jones, director- general of the CBI, the employers’ organisation, said that he was increasingly concerned about the “crowding out” of the private sector by a rapidly expanding public sector. “I’m very, very worried about this,” he said. “The private sector is responsible for around 62% of GDP in China — a communist, totalitarian regime.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midlothian_Question

[ZH875]

My money is on a hung parliament. If only we could .......:ok:

[nigegilb]

There is a new party called England's Parliamentary Party. I think you are right, the English are slowly realising that Nu Labour have set the whole thing up so they can enjoy the trappings of power forever. Trouble is boundary commission kicks in at the next election, to deal with some of the Labour rottenboroughs so will Gordon be tempted to go early? If there is a hung Parliament, (as opposed to hang them all), Labour might expect the LibDems to side with them. However the right thing to do would be for the LibDems to side with whichever party won the popular vote. Hence the reason why Ken Clarke has been despatched to curry favour with Lib Dems. I will be voting for whoever can defeat James Gray!!

[jstars2]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2006/06/03/ixd03big.gif

[Anotherpost75]

http://uk.altermedia.info/images/cherie.JPG
Not too sure about that one Mike, but I guess these
two could be in the frame!!

[brakedwell]

Just a minute, with BLiar out of the country on his freebie & Prescott visiting Canada (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5045410.stm) & USA, who has been running the country??
Bliar and his lovely wife flew home from their freebie hols courtesy of Ryanair. He is too mean to use BA if the poor soddin taxpayer isn't footing the bill.:ugh:

[jstars2]

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan06/bush_condi.jpg
Mike/Another - I'd put my money on
these two running the UK show - either
with Bliar away on a freebie or back in
Blighty!!

[nutcracker43]

Brakedwell

Bliar and his lovely wife flew home from their freebie hols courtesy of Ryanair. He is too mean to use BA if the poor soddin taxpayer isn't footing the bill.:ugh:

Sounds reasonable to me...would you use expensive BA if a Ryanair cheapie was available?

NC43

[nutcracker43]

Just a minute, with BLiar out of the country on his freebie & Prescott visiting Canada (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5045410.stm) & USA, who has been running the country??

Does it seem to matter?

NC43

[brakedwell]

Brakedwell
Sounds reasonable to me...would you use expensive BA if a Ryanair cheapie was available?
NC43
If like everybody else Bliar was charged £2.50 for each checked in bag, BA might have been cheaper. :*

[Anotherpost75]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2006/06/05/stevebell512ready.jpg
From the Guardian - Can the end now be near?

[jstars2]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/martin_rowson/2006/06/05/GraunDorneywoodPope10a.jpg

[Anotherpost75]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2006/06/08/gntbllaa.gif
Steve Bell - Guardian. Is this part of the handover to Brown?

[Stafford]

Even Proone, aka "Cherie", has gone quiet about the disaster that is our "Government" today, despite the odd fleeting short post to tell us we're all deluded and it's a media hatchet job.

Princess Tone now recognises that old adage, "Live by the sword, die by the sword" ?

We've only got 24 hours to do what ? NHS F:mad: d, Home Office f:mad: d, Treasury f:mad: d etc - We're all doomed I tell you.

[jstars2]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2006/06/07/bell070606b.jpg
Parallel operation "Handover" continues!

[Anotherpost75]

Polly Toynbee
Tuesday June 20, 2006
The Guardian (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,1801622,00.html)
Britain is smiling, but it looks daggers at Labour

This government has achieved something extraordinary - to be hated in a country that feels good about itself.

The times are out of joint. Parties are all wearing each others' clothes and voters have no reason to believe any of them. Nothing is what it seems. Tony Blair threatens his 47th get-even-tougher criminal justice bill while John Reid throws paedophiles to the local mobs to deal with. Gordon Brown risks his dignity by inviting the enemy Mail on Sunday in to watch football with him to flaunt his macho Eng-er-land cred while Cameron talks so softly on relationships that Brown calls him "namby-pamby". The Lib Dems swerve right and abandon their totemic 50% top tax rate just as a gaping vacancy opens on the left.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2006/06/20/stevebell512ready.jpg

[jstars2]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2006/06/23/bell512.jpg
Broon's latest attempt to rise from the ashes of the Bliar Presidency