Better Pick a Pocket.....

Saw this youtube gem on the Guido Fawkes site:

A Contaminated Moral Environment

There was nothing more pathetic this morning than watching Hazel Blears bleat on about how "the system is wrong" and "must be changed". Confronted by her own gerrymandering of the Commons expenses system, she was falling over herself to tell us that she understood that the public hated all of this, and that what we need is a committee of ordinary people to look at it all. She, of course, has done nothing wrong. It is the system that is so utterly wrong.

What utter bilge. Systems are inanimate. They are theoretical constructs. They do not operate themselves. They have no means to do so, being essentially written frameworks. There is nothing 'wrong' with the system. It offers, perfectly reasonably, an opportunity for deserving MPs to ensure that hey are not out of pocket in the conduct of their not inconsiderable duties. What is profoundly, glaringly, fantastically wrong, is the venal-mindedness of a number of MPs who have sought to deliberately abuse the 'system' to enrich themselves over and over again. This may be small beer compared to other political sleaze scandals, but it speaks volumes of the moral leadership of those who have sought and gained election and, with it, the right to legislate for our country. If Hazel Blears and her colleagues cannot see that there is nothing wrong with the system, but everything wrong with the morality of making claims that have no bearing to the principle of the system, then we are in a sorry state indeed. You cannot possibly claim that you ever thought it was absolutely fine to be shifting your nominal second home for allowance purposes, selling it for profit, and then failing to give the same story to the Commons Expenses office and the Inland Revenue. This isn't a 'system' fault. This is the moral contamination of the claimant. A claimant who understands the system is flexible and glories in it.

Hazel Blears used to strike me as a pretty straightforward MP and minister. If even she is unable to see her actions as wrongdoing; if even she is unable to exercise any level of moral judgement over her own activities, do we really have any right to believe that this parliamentary assembly has the capacity to rule and legislate in anything other than a morally flawed manner.

And it is about judgement and morality. These MPs are not ordinary employees. They make judgements that affect and influence our lives. They take us to war, and commit soldiers to fatal actions. They govern the expenditures of our health, welfare and education systems. If they cannot even identify the small-minded immorality of their own actions - and not one has come forward to suggest it is MPs actions, not an inanimate system, that is at fault - then they cannot possibly exercise the huge responsibility of government in a proper and moral fashion. Their judgement is too seriously flawed.

But a democracy gets the government it deserves. It is unique amongst societies in this. And the fascinating, awesome question that looms over the electorate in a year's time is whether, contaminated as the MPs' own morality may be, it is merely a mirror of the society from which it draws its mandate.

Leadership Challenge?

With Election Meltdown Time approaching, we will be hearing more and more of a possible leadership challenge in the ruling party. The Spectator's Matthew D'Ancona is leading his magazine with just such a story tomorrow. But leadership challenges are the stuff of fervid, speculative journalism in turbulent times - unless Brown himself decides he's had enough, I really cannot see what would be a near suicidal leadership battle breaking out in the Labour Party. Any putative leader would much rather wait now until after the general election, when they don't have to carry the can for the result. Gordon Brown still has one last duty to perform for his party, I suspect.

Incidentally, just as interesting in D'Ancona's blog piece is his explanation of why he didn't bother to approach Charles Clarke about the rumours of Clarke's possible candidacy for the leadership.

Sense of Humour Failure

Oh dear! Gordon Brown definitely didn't see anything amusing in Tory MP Stephen Crabb's question at PMQs today, asking what he was going to do about reports that a senior Whitehall figure was bullying underlings and throwing mobile phones around. Even Speaker Martin appeared to join in the levity that greeted the question, but the remarkably sour-faced PM gave a quick response and sat down - all too aware, perhaps, of the identity of the 'senior Whitehall figure'.

How the Telegraph Did Brown's Dirty Work - Again!

Harriet Harman found herself having to deny that she had any leadership ambitions following a front page splash by the Daily Telegraph on Monday, claiming she was ready to stand. The net result of her protestations of loyalty do at least mean that she has firmly ruled herself out of any leadership bid at all. Now, who could this possibly benefit? Well, it's certainly likely that one G. Brown will be quite happy to have quashed at least one potential nuisance, and how grateful he must be to the only newspaper to bother with a story that seems to have itself been firmly founded on the imagination of its writer.

The journalist who so effectively cooked Harman's goose, and carried out a Brown rescue operation, was none other than the Telegraph's political editor Andrew Porter. Porter has been under scrutiny - as has pretty much the whole Telegraph team - for his closeness to the disgraced former Brown hatchet man Damian McBride. Porter, a political leftie, was one of McBride's closest associates. It was the Telegraph, too, which sought to lance the poison of the email scandal by heading quickly into print with an early expose designed to limit the damage to the No. 10 strategy chief. It does rather seem that, even with McBride having gone, the Telegraph is still around to do Brown's bidding for him. Private Eye carried a detailed piece about "McPoison's" lobby associates, with the former Torygraph in pole position as chief muck spreader. Stephen Glover in the Independent has also written a piece lamenting the Teleggraph's lack of political judgement in getting so close to McBride. All of which is a rather sad decline for the one time paper of choice for the Tory Party's reactionary tendency. With its firmly Brownite political staff, and its politically ignorant editor, who will the last remaining broadsheet be rooting for at the next election?

Campbell and Izzard at the Nottingham Roadshow

Away from the Westminster hothouse, with its ever increasing circles of expenses fraud, its 62 seat majority government struggling to win a Commons vote, and its rapturous remembrance of the Thatcherite victory 30 years ago, the politics roadshow across the country still goes on. Last week, Alastair Campbell and Eddie Izzard joined forces with Nottingham's prospective Labour candidate at Nottingham University, and rather fortunately a former SGS politics student was there to capture the essence. His report of an interesting university meeting featuring a comic force, a spent force and would-be force, follows:

Last Tuesday night I attended a ‘University of Nottingham Labour Students’ event that managed to draw probably the largest crowd of students and professors to a political event that Nottingham University has ever seen. Packing out the Coates Auditorium, the audience (many, like myself , whom I doubt were Labour supporters) came to see the comedian Eddie Izzard host a discussion with Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s infamous ‘Spin Doctor’, and Lillian Greenwood, Labour's would-be MP. That it was billed as "Talking Politics with Eddie Izzard" may well have been the big draw for many, although it was fun to spot the many excited and amusing looking Young Labour members in their classy white polo tops.

Eddie Izzard took the stage first. He spoke of his interest in politics, advocating a very populist agenda and a strong pro-European view. He comes across very well and you could easily see him as a politician if you didn’t know about his cross-dressing ways (although because he is so open about it, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, whereas if your local MP was found wearing ladies clothes at the weekend it would become a massive media bloodbath). He is intelligent, well travelled, is at ease in front of large crowds and, coming from a non-political background, he seems to cut across all the political rhetoric that is so commonly found in Westminster.

Next, Izzard introduced the prospective Labour candidate for the Nottingham South seat, which covers the University. Lillian Greenwood, although perhaps she might become the most influential person appearing for those in the crowd, was the small fry this evening. Although it is harsh to compare her to the very experienced crowd-pleasers Izzard and Campbell, she was nowhere near as relaxed in front of the crowd and her political knowledge seemed limited to her Trade Union background and the Labour Party manifesto which she pledged to uphold if elected. But to be fair, she answered he questions well and seemed like an able and interested person who is willing to spend time and effort to try and serve this country as an MP.

The final third of the show was taken up by Alastair Campbell whom I first saw with Giles at an SGS 6th Form Politics trip to London. He is, as he was then, a very good public speaker with great experience as a Westminster insider. After a brief but amusing discussion between Campbell and Izzard in French, where Greenwood looked about as out of place as you would imagine John Prescott would be, he spoke to the audience about his background and experience in politics. Campbell had amazing influence under Tony Blair and he is a sharp and confident political operator. As a West Wing fan I can easily see bits of the Communications Director Toby and Press Secretary CJ in him, it is the way he controls the discussion and sidesteps any landmines whilst portraying a confident facade and a strong belief in his actions. One interesting point was his denunciation of the media for portraying the British National Party as a legitimate political party linked to the concession that he actually believed the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had something to legitimately add to the political discussion. Talking about the benefits of Labour’s opposition probably played well to the student crowd whereas pro-Labour ‘spin’ seemed to fall flat and sounded like it should have been reserved for Prime Minister’s Question Time.

As a finishing question Izzard was asked why he was supporting Labour and not ‘the other progressive party, the Lib Dems’. His response seemed rather naive for a ‘wannabe politician’. He effectively said he was supporting Labour because the Liberal Democrats had no chance of getting into power and that he was a realist, even proposing that perhaps a Lab-Lib coalition might perhaps be a good thing for this country so that the Conservatives would be permanently out in the cold. His ambition to run for ‘some position, on some platform, somewhere in Europe, within the next 10-15 years’ shows that Izzard still has a long way to go before he is seen as a serious political force.

Cash, SGS 1997-2005.

Something Rotten in the Heart of Whitehall?

Left-wing journalist Nick Cohen has long had the New Labour project in his sights (see "Pretty Straight Guys", his searing indictment of Blair's government), but the recent series of shenanigans from the Brown camp has sent him into overdrive. In an article in "Standpoint", entitled "Fear and Filth at Brown's Number 10", Cohen reveals from his own experiences some of the tactics used by Gordon Brown and his associates to intimidate and manipulate their opponents. Resurrecting Robert Harris's comparison of Brown and former US president Nixon, he concludes in this rather stark manner:

For all that I understand the difficulties of my colleagues in Westminster, it remains an indictment of them that until this scandal broke, 99 per cent of the public had never heard of McBride. A full-scale government propaganda operation was under way in plain view of reporters. Partly out of self-interest, but also out of fear of the consequences, most decided that it was prudent to say nothing. Put like this, my argument makes Britain sounds as if it is a police state. The servants of an unscrupulous leader concoct vile libels about opposition politicians and their wives. They plot against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, spreading smears about them almost for the hell it. Journalists on the left-wing press who speak out know that they may risk their careers.

But Britain isn't a police state or anything like one. In real dictatorships people suffer for their beliefs. The only true suffering Brown has inflicted is on Britain's idea of itself. We think of ourselves as a free, plain-speaking people - "a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit," as Milton said. Yet we accept a PM who achieved power not through the ballot box but by bullying his critics and rivals. As with any other bully, all it would take to stop him is for his opponents to call his bluff. That for years hardly any have, says more about us than it does about him.