Obsolete

The undemocratic task force.

In a way, it's almost verging on chutzpah for Kenneth Clarke, former member of the Conservative government which foisted so many unpopular and regressive policies on Scotland first as an experiment to now be offering solutions to a problem which he had a hand in cultivating in the first place. One of the main reasons why Scotland finally achieved devolution and a parliament was undoubtedly the poll tax, levered first on the nation which had steadfastly refused to become a part of the Thatcherite revolution and therefore deserved the contempt with which it was treated, but we should perhaps let bygones be bygones. On the whole, Clarke and his "Democracy Task Force's" paper (PDF) on the West Lothian question is worthy of praise, praise of which more in the final paragraph. It's just that it comes to such a simpering compromise in its conclusion that's unlikely to be accepted, and that will do very little to staunch the sense of grievance which some feel about where the power now lies in the UK.

First though the conundrum itself. Devolution in Scotland has left the unhelpful constitutional problem of Scottish MPs being able to vote on legalisation that affects only England and/or Wales, the Welsh assembly not currently having the same powers which have been devolved to Scotland. This problem wouldn't be so bad if the MPs in Scotland were spread more equally across all parties, but the Labour party has overwhelmingly had Scotland as its personal fiefdom for quite some time. This is gradually starting to be broken, with both the Scottish Nationalists themselves and the Liberal Democrats making gains, and could be much extended at the next election with Labour's collapse in popularity and with the SNP in power in Edinburgh, but at the last election Labour had 29 Scottish MPs, the LDs 12, the SNP 6 and the Tories a very lonely 1. Added into the problem is that most of the Scottish Labour MPs are either one of two things: mostly completely loyal and therefore unlikely to rebel against the Labour whip; or either ministers or former ministers, not to mention the prime minister himself. This has led to bills affecting only England, such as the votes on tutition fees and foundation hospitals being carried only by Scottish Labour MP votes. With the Tories likely to sweep the board in England at the next election, but with certain victory still in doubt, it's feasibly possible that Labour could still cling on to a majority but only through their Scottish seats, with the Tories the defacto party in power in England.

One of the other factors which the Clarke report doesn't touch on much is that the Conservatives already have won the popular vote in England, as they did at the last election, yet because of first-past-the-post still received 100 fewer seats than Labour. This will undoubtedly be even more pronounced at the next election, with the Tories likely to wipe out Labour almost completely south of a decent chunk of the Midlands (London is a different matter), yet the Conservatives continue to oppose proportional representation because they realise that even though the system works against them, they'll still be able to get a decent majority if they win well, let alone if they win big. This was more defendable when the vast majority voted for either Labour or Conservative, but that is no longer the case when the Liberal Democrats won over 22% of the vote last time round, not to mention the votes the other minor parties received despite there being next to no chance that any of the candidates would actually win any seats. The report however meekly dismisses proportional representation out of hand, with the simple response that "[W]e do not favour either practice [PR or US-style separation of powers] in the UK as British political culture would take a very long time to adapt to either practice." This simply isn't good enough.

The Clarke solution is instead of pure "English votes for English laws" a poor substitution for it that would make very little overall difference. Rather than simply barring Scottish MPs from voting on legislation which doesn't concern their own constituencies, the task force proposes that Scottish MPs would be barred from taking part in the committee stages and report stages of a relevant bill, while being allowed to vote on both on the second and third readings. This would still however leave non-English MPs with the ability to vote down a bill at the crucial third stage. Clarke is rather pleased that this would still leave the UK government with an effective veto if it felt that the bill damaged UK interests as a whole by urging its members to vote down the amendments made to it in committee stages at the third reading.

If this sounds complicated, then it is. If you're reading this in the first place then you're likely to have some sort of remedial interest in politics, but for those out there that don't this is about as confusing as it gets, like attempting to explain what colour something is to a blind person. It also falls down because it ignores the simplest solution, if we're also going to reject PR: that English votes for English laws makes the most sense and would be easy to institute. The other argument made by some is for an English parliament, or full English devolution, but this isn't a solution or option which I've ever been tempted by: what's the point of establishing yet another devolved instutition when we have a perfectly acceptable one already in use, if only it can be acceptably modified to make it work both more fairly and better than it currently does? The break-up of the union this also might herald is also a red herring; Scotland still seems unlikely to go independent any time soon, however much some both north and south of the border might like it to, and any changes on the constitutional level over the West Lothian question are hardly likely going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

It is of course Labour that is stalling any solution on either front. It didn't shoot down Clarke's "solution" for the exact reason that it keeps their strangehold on Scotland and also potentially England in tact. It's the best of all worlds in short-term polticial terms: the West Lothian question has been answered, but things carry on as before. That this trickery won't trick English voters themselves doesn't seem to enter into the equation. It's strange however why the Conservatives are still so mealy-mouthed with their policy. They could have proposed something that would have made everyone except the Labour party immensly happy, yet they've done the opposite. You can understand why they reject PR, as they fear that it could keep Labour and the Lib Dems in a coalition for potentially all-time, especially when they can still win big as long as they're slightly more popular than Labour under FPTP, yet on this they have potentially everything to lose. The best thing that can in fact be said for Clarke's task force's report is that it's short and to the point, unlike so many other policy documents. That it took four years to produce rather dampens down even that accolade.

Related posts:
OurKingdom - The Madness of Ken Clarke
OurKingdom - Cameron wanted English nationalism, not the West Lothian question, answered
Paul Kingsnorth - A radical answer to the West Lothian question

Labels: Conservatives, constitutional reform, democracy task force, democratic deficit, devolution, English votes for English laws, Kenneth Clarke, proportional representation, Scotland, west lothian question

7/02/2008 11:59:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Taking your ball while sending someone else home.

You're fired!

The sacking of James McGrath, Boris Johnson's chief political adviser, probably tells us less about whether he's racist, whether Boris is racist or whether it was a politically correct decision made out of blind panic than it does about Johnson's determination to not go down the route that did damage over time to Ken Livingstone - his tendency to make off the cuff remarks which he then refused to apologise for.

As to whether it was racist, to begin with, my immediate thought was that no, it wasn't, and that it was a ridiculous decision to force him out over it. However, as Sunny reminds us, the remark which McGrath came back with in response to Darcus Howe's own daft comment that some from Caribbean nations might return following Johnson's election, was the old response to any complaint from an ethnic minority - if you don't like it, you can always get out and go back home, as if here wasn't their home. With McGrath himself hailing from Australia, it's quite possible that he isn't aware of this sort of legacy, and that it was a simple off the cuff response to what was a hardly a penetrating critique of Johnson. I still don't believe it was racist, but I can quite understand why some have been offended or at the least perturbed by it.

It's curious then as to why Johnson, McGrath and David Cameron, whom Johnson apparently personally consulted before acting didn't just do what his predecessor Ken notoriously serially failed to do - to simply apologise and make clear that no offence was intended. Instead, what they did to begin with was to shoot the messenger, McGrath firing off a response to the-latest.com and Marc Wadsworth's piece that objects to the title of the piece, "Blacks should 'go home if they don't like Mayor', and which is probably warranted, as it doesn't provide the context that the actual text does. Doubtless the Johnson campaign didn't object so fiercely however when the Evening Standard did this on a number of occassions during the contest itself. The next step was to legally threaten the Guardian, and then finally once McGrath was history, Johnson's own statement said that his comment "was taken out of context and distorted."

The whole incident is reminisicent of Cameron swiftly moving to sack Patrick Mercer after he made similarly misjudged but also not racist comments about what routinely happens in the army. More offensive in that was what was not so well covered: that Mercer also said that ethnic minority soldiers sometimes covered up for their own laziness by claiming that they were discriminated against. It's not so much the merits of each case however but the ruthlessness with which Cameron acted in both cases - Mercer was out before anyone could defend him, and so it was also with McGrath. This certainly doesn't seem to be because Cameron was worried about the impact of being accused of giving succour to racism, no matter how relatively benign, but because it affects what he's really after: power.

It's not a new revelation that the Conservatives were terrified that Boris was going to do what Boris does best and make a huge cock-up during his campaign for Mayor, hence why he was so careful and covered by his advisers and spin doctors during it. With him now Mayor, they're similarly worried that in the two years to the next election that he's going to do something that will allow Labour to paint the entire Cameron revolution as either a sham or as incompetent; what they didn't expect was that one of his own advisers would make it, or do it so quickly. Hence his almost immediate ejection, even if it would raise the Tory roots in short-lived anger over "politicial correctness". Much was the same over Patrick Mercer, but it was quickly forgotten. Johnson and Cameron's thinking and hope is that it will be the same this time round, and there's nothing to suggest that anything else will be the case.

McGrath's "crime" is probably far less inciteful that another of Livingstone's jibes, which is actually remarkably similar, when he said of the Reuben brothers, "[P]erhaps if they’re not happy here they can go back to Iran and try their luck with ayatollahs, if they don’t like the planning regime or my approach." Some at the time suggested that was another of Livingstone's antisemitic remarks, as the Reubens were Jewish, which was slightly far fetched. As far as I'm aware, Livingstone again didn't apologise. In both cases, a simple "sorry" and a clarification would have sufficed rather than a instant dismissal. What is apparent however is that Cameron and Johnson don't really care that much about racism; what they care most about is their own political careers. Anything that threatens them must be liquated post haste.

Labels: Boris Johnson, Conservatives, David Cameron, James McGrath, Ken Livingstone, London Mayor, Marc Wadsworth, political correctness, racism, racism rows

6/23/2008 09:46:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

The Morning Bore, courtesy of Francis Maude.

While going through TheyWorkForYou for the previous post, I couldn't help but notice this spectacularly asinine question from Francis Maude:

Francis Maude (Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office & Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Cabinet Office; Horsham, Conservative)

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many copies of the Morning Star (a) the Cabinet Office and (b) 10 Downing Street purchase each day.

Tom Watson (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; West Bromwich East, Labour) | Hansard source

None.

This was almost certainly asked purely so that the likes of the Mail or the Express could then publish a spurious article about how Gordon's a communist because he has the Morning Star delivered to his den every day. It doesn't matter that the Morning Star, while espousing a definite socialist (some would say Stalinist) platform, unlike any other newspaper in the country, has a wide range of voices from the left in its pages; anyone who reads it is obviously a red.

A far more interesting question would have been to ask how many copies of all newspapers are delivered to both the Cabinet Office and 10 Downing Street, but that wouldn't have provided a "gotcha!" moment in quite the same way. Francis Maude, you are officially a twat.

Labels: Conservatives, Francis Maude, Gordon Brown, Morning Star

6/04/2008 10:56:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Letwin only adds to the vacuity.

You have to hand it to the Conservatives, they really have improved their spin game. Provoked by articles in the Grauniad arguing that the Conservatives have very little in the actual way of policies and that this needs a lot more scrutiny, Oliver Letwin responds with an article which doesn't outline a signal actual specific policy, although it is flowery, and unlike the prose of the Blairites, almost approaching pleasurable to read. It somewhat proves the point: if a Labour MP, especially one in the cabinet wrote something similar, it would be monstered and rightly so. Letwin's piece has attracted just 25 replies, although comments on CiF have been closed since 2pm for an upgrade, and while the vast majority are critical of how Letwin only outlines broad themes, none are as vituperative as you might expect. The most offensive is someone who rather amusingly just leaves the word "twat", which Letwin might see the funny side of himself.

Perhaps you can't blame Letwin for doing so. Of the few outlined policies that the Tories have announced, very few could be defined as "progressive", itself a word that can increasingly be used to mean the opposite of what it originally did. Letwin mentions welfare and families as where the Tories will be instituting change, but putting unemployed youngsters in "boot camps" and bribing middle class families with £20 a week is neither progressive nor likely to achieve what the Conservatives say they want to.

At the moment, we seem to be sleepwalking a Conservative government with little real knowledge of what it intends to do. Letwin has done whatsoever to alter that.

Labels: "progressive", Conservatives, death of Labour, Oliver Letwin, politics, we're all doomed

6/03/2008 10:45:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

On yer chain-gang!

As Labour prepare yet another doomed comeback, it's instructive to examine exactly what it is that's going to be replacing our current overlords in a couple of years' time. If you thought that New Labour was heartless, callous and Machiavellian, you ain't seen nothing yet:

A future Conservative government will bring in "boot camps" for unemployed young people aged between 18 and 21 who refuse to take a job, Chris Grayling, the party's welfare spokesman, will say tomorrow.

In a significant hardening of Conservative policy towards welfare claimants, he will announce the abolition of benefit payments for any able-bodied person under 21 who is out of work for more than three months and who refuses to go on a compulsory community service programme or a "boot camp" training course aimed at improving their work discipline and giving them basic skills to get a job.

It's about time that someone broke down the barrier between the unemployed and the criminal classes, because, let's face it, they're one and the same. Both are robbing from the taxpayer and both only understand one thing: the cold steel. Thought that boot camps were only for those that broke the law? Think again!

To be slightly more serious, who can honestly say that they're surprised that it's the weakest in society who can look forward to getting whacked again once we're back under the security of a Conservative government? They've got off slightly under Labour, despite all the rhetoric about getting tough on welfare and the triangulation policies that have already led to Brown stealing some of the Tories' original idea, but the unemployed, single mothers and foreigners can all be assured that the old guard are back in town. Nasty party doesn't even begin to cover it.

You can also rest assured that this would just be the rolling out of it to begin with. The "healthy" young (the so-called NEETs can almost always be defined by their depression, desperation and profound pessimism about their chances of getting anywhere, and mostly they're right to be) are the easiest to demonise: after all, if you can't find a job within 3 months when you're that age, they might as well be put down and save the taxpayer the money entirely. It doesn't seem to matter that this is the equivalent of the bringing back of the workhouse, getting the poor to sing for their supper rather than allowing them to sit on their arses all day, as that's clearly what they do with their time. The Tories would put them to work on "community service programmes", doing all the jobs that even the immigrants won't do: cleaning the graffiti that they probably sprayed up in the first place off, washing out drains, cutting the grass, picking up rubbish, and all for much less than £70 a week! As we're so often reminded, there's the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, the aspirational and the feckless, and the feckless will be made to face up to their lot in life by receiving far, far less than minimum wage for doing so.

The community service programme will be what the lucky get off with. "Boot camp" training course, it just sounds so inviting, encouraging and bound to enthuse, doesn't it? It's just what these kids need, discipline, a jumped-up man with a thin moustache screaming at them when they put a foot wrong, ensuring that they get the "basic skills" needed for a job. First question: can you read what this tin says? If yes, please report to nearest supermarket for the rest of your life. If you work hard enough, you might even get to become manager in 20 years time! Now that's an aspiration we can all respect.

If you thought Labour wanted to privatise everything and use PFI to build everything, then again, the Tories are prepared to go that little bit further. It's quite obvious that the welfare system just isn't working at the moment: the Jobcentre Plus is providing jobs mainly for the private sector, so why don't we just square the circle? The private and "voluntary" sector can pick up the slack straight away, and we all know that they'll be far more efficient and realistic with the unemployed than the current lot, who tend to get attached to those they're working with. There's no room for sentiment in big business, and when there's the dirty great big carrot of £5,000 for every young person they stick in a dead-end job which makes hell look like an attractive proposition, they'll soon forget there's an actual person they're dealing with and instead turn it into the conveyor belt one size fits all system which it should be. Doubtless, these firms won't be providing the Tories with funds in the mean time, or be directly offering money to Tory shadow ministers studying the portfolio. That would be an unthinkable slur and allegation of corruption.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Conservatives under Cameron have looked at New Labour under Blair and found a lot of it that they like. Just one problem: it's not quite right-wing enough, and the Conservatives are determined to be even less subtle than the Blairites. All the things Blair wished he could have done they will be straight on to push through, and this welfare package is just the beginning. Inheritance tax will be next, then a huge expansion of the "academy" system, directly bribing the middle classes, a huge prison building programme, a major rise in defence spending, tax cuts for those who declare that they are "one of us", while all will be forgotten about those they're currently trying to appeal to over the 10p rate. As for tackling tax avoidance, which some studies suggest takes far more from the exchequer than the welfare system even does, that won't even get a mention. The Conservatives are the new, real Blairites. And Labour only has itself to blame.

Labels: Chris Grayling, Conservatives, our new overlords, the new Blairites, Tories, unemployment, welfare reform

5/26/2008 09:14:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

All change at Crewe.

Just like how it was a foregone conclusion that Labour would win the general election in 2005, the question was only by how much, it was much the same in Crewe and Nantwich yesterday. The swing to the Conservatives was slightly less than 20%, but the more stark figure was the majority of over 8,000. Mid-term blues, economic woes and everything else besides, to go from having a 8,000 majority in one of your safest seats to being beaten by over 8,000 votes three years later is nothing short of a catastrophe.

While the above and the horrendously bad Labour campaign strategy are the main reasons for the loss, it's the crystallisation of everything that has been wrong with New Labour which makes this defeat different. At long last, the hollowness of Labour's words has been exposed, and by, in the unpleasant euphemism, Labour's "core". New Labour's election strategy has been simple and up till now effective: firstly, stress economic competence and how wonderful the end of boom and bust has been, as well as the spending on public services; second, be as authoritarian on law and order as possible without pissing off the Grauniad-left too much and without pleasing the Sun/Daily Mail enough; and lastly, make clear how awful it would be if those Tories got back in.

All three of these things were in evidence in Crewe, except the economic confidence line had been reversed. Rather than stressing how wonderful everything is, which would be suicidal, the decision was to put that Brown and his puppet Darling would make everything all right again after the "global" circumstances have calmed down. This has always been a specious line when Northern Rock has been one of the biggest casualties of what used to be called a crisis of capitalism rather than a "credit crunch", and this was brought home by the anger in Crewe about the 10p rate, hitting home just as the bills are beginning to pile up. All of Labour's huffing and puffing over criminal justice policies in the past few months, the Daily Mail bribing over cannabis, Jacqui Smith's advocating of the police behaving in exactly the same way as the "yobs" themselves and the continuing, bizarre, obsession with 42 days, none did anything to placate the electorate, and nor did the blatantly xenophobic and insulting playing up of how the Conservatives don't support ID cards for either foreign nationals or us lucky normal citizens. Last, the playing up of the "toff" card was the substitute for "don't let the Tories wreck everything" ploy and it was both so pathetic, so desperate and so vacant that it should have been the final straw for the activists themselves.

The loss could have been mitigated somewhat if Labour had bothered to notice just one or two things. If you were going to do a personal attack, don't be so staggeringly obvious and unsubtle. Instead of targeting Timpson for being well-off or a "toff", attack him for being another identikit Tory politician in a sharp suit in either his 30s or 40s who doesn't seem to know what he's talking about other than what he's told by the higher-ups. Timpson's winning speech was stunning in its crassness and triumphalism; some might say he's entitled to be after such a campaign, but all I saw was the sneer which so often also appears to be on the face of George Osborne, who he more than resembles. It was impossible to do this though because of Labour's biggest mistake: Tamsin Dunwoody herself. If Timpson was unpleasant, then the fourth(?) generation of the Dunwoody political clan was both charmless and sour. Again, perhaps being given such a poisoned chalice excuses her mood somewhat, but being so directly to interviewers as she was is not going to help you win over the floating voter. Gwyneth herself might have had those qualities also, but she made up for them through her independence and contempt for New Labour, neither of which her daughter obviously had, as the campaign made clear. After all, what is more contemptuous, imposing a rich boy in a suit on a working-class town or a party which is meant to be all about equality and the dead-end of meritocracy sticking another Dunwoody on the ballot and expecting the electorate to not notice the difference?

Moreover, Labour missed the most gaping, open goal since the footing slipped from under John Terry on Wednesday. In one of his rare forays into the hostile world of the normal person, or at least those inclined to give him a harder time than others seem to, David Cameron was faced by an almost Paxman-esque local who demanded, three times, whether the Tories would reinstate the 10p rate. Each time Cameron refused to answer, for the reason we all know being that he and the rest of his party couldn't give a stuff about it in actuality but are playing on it because of the damage it's caused. How did Labour fail to seize on this, and not make clear that the hole had been filled (somewhat) and that the Conservatives were not even offering any solid policy on what they would do other than keep public spending at the same level as Labour initially before moving towards "sharing the proceeds of growth"?

Granted, doing either of these things was not going to win the seat for Labour. With a better run campaign however, it could have at least stopped the swing being so damaging that it really does look as if it's curtains, if not for Gordon Brown immediately, then definitely for Labour itself. Credit due to Cameron, he has the same knack as Blair occasionally did for capturing the moment, and his declaration that "this is the death of New Labour" is now going to be next to impossible to shake off. Coming with another wounding performance in the Commons on Wednesday, where Brown walked straight into Cameron's trap, for all his lack of difference with the Blair vision of a modern politician, Cameron now looks almost unassailable as the next prime minister. As others have stated, this result is still not a vote of confidence in Tory policy; it's still far too sparse for that. What it is however is a sign that voters now think that Cameron and his party are worth a go, so fed up have they become with Labour and also, sadly, Gordon Brown himself.

I say sadly because I still think that Brown had the qualities to be a great prime minister. Unlike Blair up until his messianic streak took him wholly and Major entirely, Brown does believe in what he's doing, and always has. He's however stumbled into the top job and not found it like he thought it would be; no longer can he play like he's still in opposition like he did at the Treasury, running an insurgency against Blair and his worst attempts at pitiful and needless reforms, making the right arguments and often winning. He can't distance himself any longer from the government as a whole; he is the government, and his continuation of the worst of Blairism while not making the changes he's promised has brought both the party and himself to the brink, although it was always Blair that did the damage in the first place, and continues to do through the memoirs and constant recollections.

Again then we go through the suggestions, advice and in some cases, pleas from both outsiders and insiders on what he needs to do. Again there is no sign that Brown is really listening. Both John McDonnell on the socialist left and Compass on the soft left urge and urge again that they stop the dismal triangulation and return to Labour's roots. Last week's draft Queen speech showed that Brown has no intentions of doing that, and he's hardly going to rip that up and start again. It would actually make him even weaker if he did that, welcome as it would be. The least worst thing he could do would be a reshuffle: acknowledge the walking disaster that is "Wacky" Jacqui Smith and sack her; get rid of Hazel fucking Blears and send her to the gulag; perhaps move Jack Straw to be chancellor; and swallow his pride and bring back some of the old big beasts, like Alan Milburn, Charles Clarke and Frank Field, if only because it's better for them to be inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in. Then more or less do what was suggested after the local elections, by getting rid of ID cards, bringing the troops back from Iraq, scrapping 42 days and most radically of all, abolish tax credits and raise the very poorest out of tax altogether while helping the reasonably well-off that also benefit through taking away in the first place less, all raised by either a windfall tax on the obscene oil/gas profits and/or by taxing the rich and especially the super-rich more.

All of this would completely wrong foot the Tories. They could play it as desperation and it might work but it would also truly show Brown to be listening. However, as we've seen time and time again when politicians have promised to listen, all they've done is carry on just as before. With no real chance of a leadership challenge, and with even the possibility of one only turning the electorate off more with the party gazing at its navel, Crewe and Nantwich along with David Cameron seem to have written Labour's epitaph.

Labels: Conservatives, Crewe by-election, David Cameron, death of Labour, Edward Timpson, Gordon Brown, policy, politics, Tamsin Dunwoody

5/23/2008 10:22:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

The final words on Dorries (for now).

Unity provides all the necessary information on why Cameron shouldn't be allowed to get away with calling Gordon Brown a ditherer after his machinations over the abortion bill, but most sweet after last night's votes is Nadine Dorries' response: to carry on as if nothing happened.

Following yesterday's attempt in the House of Commons to reduce the upper the limit for abortions from 24 to 20 weeks, Nadine is to join forces with Labour MP Frank Field in a cross party to campaign to reduce the number of abortions, tackle teenage pregnancy and improve sexual health. During yesterday's debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, MPs voted on an amendment tabled by Nadine to reduce the upper limit for abortions from 24 to weeks to 20 weeks.

Nadine said, "While I am clearly disappointed that we were unsuccessful in the vote on reducing the upper limit for abortions, I believe we have achieved a great deal in making more people aware as to what the methodology of an abortion actually involves. Following the campaign I believe we have also brought into the public domain important information such as the viability of a foetus below 24 weeks, the issue of foetal pain and the long term consequences in terms of mental health for many women who choose to have an abortion. The vote may have been lost, but I feel we certainly won the arguments.

I have a great deal of sympathy when people say politicians - and MPs in particular - are out of touch with the views of the public. Opinion polls consistently show that the public wants to see a reduction in the upper limits for abortions, which is already one of the highest in Europe, yet yesterday the majority of MPs defied the views of the majority of their constituents and voted for the status quo.

However, I will continue to campaign for a reduction of abortions in the UK and the broader issues of tackling teenage pregnancy and improving sexual health, particularly amongst young people. I am delighted that following yesterday's vote I received a telephone call from the widely respected Labour MP, Frank Field MP, who told me that after listening to my speech in the House of Commons yesterday evening, he changed his mind and decided to vote for my amendment. We have decided to establish a new, cross party group to continue the campaign to tackle issues surrounding the rise of teenage abortions and pregnancy."

You have to admire Dorries' chutzpah: she couldn't even get the 200 supporters she repeatedly claimed she had to vote for the 20 weeks amendment, yet she and those who, um, decided that it wasn't worth the effort after all were the ones who won the argument. And indeed, they're right. When it comes to repeating mendacious bullshit, ignoring all the evidence from the studies in this country which show that the viability of the foetus under 24 weeks has not changed over the last decade or more, claiming that foetuses feel pain on the evidence of one doctor while others vehemently disagree and bringing up the issue of mental health when pregnancy has such a major effect on a woman's psychology without even considering the moral implications of seeking an abortion, Dorries and her band of followers are second to none. They can be truly proud of lowering the already base tone of politics in this country to its almost lowest ebb. Perhaps it doesn't need to be mentioned that Tony Blair too believed he had won the argument over 90 days detention; he never recovered from that defeat.

It also does little to add to Dorries' claims of overwhelming public support for a reduction when Marie Stopes yesterday unveiled their latest survey which showed that 61% of women of child bearing age supported the right to seek an abortion between 20 and 24 weeks. Previous polls reached different results, but this one asked specifically in which circumstances in which it would be acceptable, reflecting the real issues why someone might still need an abortion at such a period into pregnancy, rather than just abitrarily asking which limit they supported.

Most hilarious of all though is that Dorries will be continuing to attempt to find a "middle way". The "middle way" was Cameron's chatroom sofa supported 22 weeks; it failed by 71 votes. Maybe, just maybe, if Dorries hadn't been allowed to run the campaign, that vote might have been successful. As for Frank Field's new found relationship with Dorries, you couldn't be happier for such a wonderfully matched couple. If he really was impressed by Dorries' speech, so aptly described by Dawn Primarolo as "assert[ing] many things to be facts that are not," and completely overbearing in the emotional, factless sense, with her continuing to draw on her suspicious witnessing and involvement in late-term abortions, then he really has gone crackers. Either that or the old goat fancies her.

Round one goes against Dorries then. The next round might just concern her seat itself.

Labels: 20 reasons for 20 weeks campaign, abortion, Conservatives, David Cameron, Frank Field, liars, Nadine Dorries

5/21/2008 09:40:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Euphemisms and the same old same old.

Just when it doesn't seem that it can get any worse for Labour and Gordon Brown, out comes another a new poll that shows that the collapse in support for the party is continuing. The latest Guardian/ICM poll puts Labour's support at 27%: the lowest since the the poll series began back in 1984, with the Tories in front by 14 points, at 41%. Although it seems unlikely that would be the outcome at the general election, as Labour surely can't go any lower, it still suggests that the days of hoping for that almost mythical hung parliament may well be over: a result on this scale will gave the Tories a landslide akin to that of Labour's in 97. The country has also firmly turned on Brown, with 51% ranking John Major as a better prime minister, with 67% saying the same of Blair.

Some of that must surely be directly related to probably temporary anger about the 10p rate, or the listlessness consuming the government as the Tories look increasingly confident and like they're enjoying themselves for the first time in years. Osborne's response to last week's mini-budget was pure posturing without any real answer, but Cameron's skill at the dispatch box cannot be denied, running rings round Brown, the man who previously smacked down a succession of shadow chancellors, now apparently bereft of any answer other than to repeat the same old "achievements" with promises of how he'll lead us through the economic storm.

It's little wonder this is the case when the best thinking inside the mainstream Labour party is by Peter Hain, who's managed to work out that the party has to appeal to both Labour's "core" and to the "aspirational", rather than either one or the other. The problem is that Labour at the moment is appealing to neither, and has no apparent idea of how to do it. Hain's main points are about how to win back support in Wales, where the party was decimated in the local elections. The answers to that ought to be obvious, based on the reading of the results. Rather than going to the Conservatives, the Labour support either stayed at home, turned to the nationalists, Plaid Cymru, or to left-wing independents that may once have been associated with Labour. They didn't go because Labour wasn't speaking to the "aspirational" among them; they went because they stopped talking to them entirely, taking them for granted just as Hain's former colleagues in the cabinet have for the last 10 years. The 10p rate was the final straw.

What we're using here is euphemisms. It no longer seems politically-correct to refer to the "core" vote as working-class, or to the so-called "aspirational" as the middle classes, because that's what they are, and if anything, the euphemisms are far more patronising than the former labels. Equally meaningless is "progressive", which really deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history. When both Hillary Clinton and David Cameron call themselves "progressive", when neither are in the slightest what was once meant by the term, it's time to abandon it. It's partly because the old terms have become insults, when they shouldn't have. The Sun and others disparagingly decry "Lefties", while some of us who consider ourselves lefties consider "right-wing" to mean much the same. Also guilty are the third-way proselytisers, who tried to tell us that right and left were obsolete, purely because they themselves didn't believe in either but in reality tended to be to the right of what the rest of us still understood as the political spectrum.

I raise these issues because they seem especially pertinent when considering the by-election campaign in Crewe and Cameron's claim for the Tories to be the true new progressives. Despite such revolting apologia from Hopi Sen and others of the usual suspects, the Labour campaign, if it can be called that, targeting the Tory candidate Edward Timpson as a "toff", hounding him with young activists dressed up in tails and top hats, is a sign of the sheer desperation and political bankruptcy of the party in 2008. We might all still quite rightly be obsessed with class in 2008, but to openly and cravenly use your opponent's wealth and upbringing as the main reason for why he shouldn't represent a working-class constituency is to admit that you have nothing else to say or, that if you tried, you'd be haplessly beset by the fact that your arguments would count for nought. It's all well and good to cry that they've done it before or are still doing it, but that's the equivalent of the child excusing his behaviour by saying his friend did it first. The child description is perhaps apt: the Labour smearing and leaflets attacking "Tory-boy Timpson" for his mansion and opposition to foreign workers getting ID cards is petulant and juvenile. The starting point for the Labour fightback ought to have been Cameron's appearance there last week, when he was filmed prevaricating weakly in front of a real person who asked what he would do about the 10p rate. They could say that Labour has now mostly fixed it, and that what the rest of Cameron and the gang are offering is the same old Thatcherism wrapped up in a kinder face, as epitomised by his speech on the economy today.

The reason why even that though would be next to impossible though is because it does almost seem as if history is repeating. After Blair became Labour leader after the death of John Smith, he spent the best part of the two years before campaigning for the election began to come across much as Cameron has, as the caring, different new generation of politician prepared to listen, having what Jon Cruddas has referred to as "emotional literacy". This means talking about Britain's "broken society" in much the same way as Labour might have done if out of power, but adding in the same old dog whistles of family breakdown which can be cured if you bribe the middle classes, use of the voluntary sector rather than the state, and believing in society, it's just not the same thing as the state, as if anyone ever said it was. The harsher side of the rhetoric however doesn't filter through: just the vacuousness does. New Labour offered the "new realities and the new paradigm" with the face of Blairism, far kinder than the old nasty Conservatives who said what they meant. Cameron has learned this is the way to do it now, except his vision is to the right of Blair's version.

That's what's so perplexing about the political environment at the moment. We've only just gotten rid of Blair and all he stood for, yet the public apparently wants his heir apparent rather than strange fusty old Gordon. There's no doubt that the public have not yet embraced the Conservatives; what they have embraced is change. Brown hasn't been enough of a change, yet Cameron is no change at all except in the aesthetic department. There's still the best part of two years for this to fully pan out, but if the Conservatives don't win Crewe on Thursday then it will be astonishing. The question will then be whether Brown can survive any further setbacks: at the moment there is no obvious alternative, but defeat in Crewe will only bring the spectre of defeat ever closer, and we all know what they can entail. The sad fact may well be that Labour is already doomed, but it no longer seems impossible that it won't be Brown who'll lead them into that dark night.

Labels: "emotional literacy", Conservatives, Crewe by-election, David Cameron, death of Labour, euphemisms, Gordon Brown, opinion polls, Peter Hain, politics

5/19/2008 08:49:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

The hounds of love are calling.

All together now, everyone say "awwwww":

The Hounds of Hell are chasing me.

Her arguments debunked, the only thing left to Nadine Dorries to resort to is pure emotional blackmail, and to claims that her opponents are victimising her.

We received another unpleasant parcel in the post today. Nasty web sites set up, email account and post bag bombarded, people crawling all over my expenses, which they are entitled and I am very very happy for them to do...

Come now Nadine, let's not mess about with euphemisms, spit out exactly what was in this "unpleasant" parcel. See, the trouble is, when you either lie or be blatantly dishonest, or refuse to apologise to others when you've accused them of things they haven't done, it tends to make it more difficult to believe them when it comes to everything else. As Unity says, incidentally, if there is a moron out there sending Dorries dog shit or something similarly nasty, then don't, because as Dorries is attempting to do with this post, it then blackens everyone who is arguing against her pitiful campaign. It is worth questioning though where these "nasty" web sites are; as far as we're aware there are two that Dorries might claim are "nasty", one set-up to hold comments for her posts when she removed them from her own blog, and one which has now been dead for months. All the rest have been exposing her claims with at times remarkable restraint.

Scary, threatening angry and downright nasty phone calls. A message smeared on my window.

As said, I'm not going to say that Dorries is either making it up or lying about this stuff, but it would make it easier to believe if she provided some evidence beyond just a blog post, or indeed, informed the police of what's been happening.

This is all meant to destabilise or distract me.

I have a very clear message to those who are attempting to do this – back off. You will not stop me, you will not undermine me, you do not scare me. In fact, you make me much more determined than I ever was before. You give me strength.

And then just to rub in how she doesn't care for anyone else's opinion or indeed, the facts themselves, she once again posts the image of Samuel Armas with the doctor Joseph Bruner, lifting the baby's arm and gently putting it back in the womb, not the other way around, as both she and the photographer, Michael Clancy, continue to propogate. It would be difficult for an anaesthetized mother and/or child to move in such a way, but again, this just shows the sort of impervious to reason individual we are dealing with: despite formerly being a nurse, despite attempting to claim that she is arguing on the basis of science, she continues to use the most base pro-life propaganda for her cause.

You can almost understand why someone might send her their dog's defecation, can't you? It would also help if she and the others didn't have such apparent contempt for their opponent's points of view, as Simon Hoggart wrote in his sketch on Tuesday:

Dari Taylor, a Labour MP, made a moving speech in favour, describing how it might have meant she could have had the baby she yearned for. The effect was, I fear, slightly spoiled by Ann Widdecombe and Nadine Dorries - both vocal opponents - talking loudly on the Tory frontbench while she spoke.

Dorries herself reaches for the emotion and expects everyone to listen, and weep along with her at the tragedy of babies being brutally put to death, and then demand action. When someone else does the same thing, her intention is to drown it out. Yet it's us, "the hounds of hell", which are chasing her. Maybe it's actually her conscience trying to tell her something.

Labels: 20 reasons for 20 weeks campaign, abortion, Conservatives, cunts, emotional blackmail, fucking liars, liars, Nadine Dorries, Tories

5/14/2008 09:05:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

The lying lies and dirty secrets of Ms Nadine Dorries MP.

By her own admission, Nadine Dorries MP is a liar. Back in March she presented an known urban myth as an emotional case for why the current abortion limit of 24 weeks should be cut to 20 weeks, and when this was pointed out to her, she responded by making arguments that only exposed her ignorance. Dorries has a long record of never apologising and never admitting that she has made mistakes: last year she accused Ben Goldacre of "a serious breach of parliamentary procedure" after he downloaded information from a parliamentary committee's website which Dorries thought he had obtained from a committee member, something for which she never apologised for and when asked when she was going to do so on her blog she removed the comments sections. She additionally, after accusing Caroline Flint among other MPs of having been "bought by the abortion industry", a claim rejected by the parliamentary standards commission, not only refused to apologise to Flint after she confronted her but crowed about not doing so on her "blog".

Dorries is therefore the perfect figurehead for the "20 reasons for 20 weeks" campaign, a coalition of Conservative MPs with single token Liberal Democrat and Labour supporters, along with religious, mainly Christian anti-abortion organisations. Like her, they rely on abusing, misinterpreting and distorting available information for their views, or alternatively, on the evidence of individual doctors which has been called into question by others. As well as that, in order to not come across as opposing abortion in all circumstances, something which would result in their campaign becoming an even damper squib than it already is, they instead claim to be pro-choice but feel that the current limit is too long as more foetuses survive beyond the 20 week mark.

The only problem with this is that little by little, their real views are being exposed. The already noted lone Labour supporter of the 20 weeks campaign, Jim Dobbin, is in fact in favour of a 13-week limit, but regards the current campaign as being a step towards that. He is also, coincidentally, opposed to contraception. The Christian Medical Fellowship openly states that this is just the first step towards the abolition of the right to abortion altogether. CARE currently has a news article up on their web site expressing their horror at the European Parliament passing a resolution which states "that women have a right to access safe and legal abortion, and calls on all member states to decriminalise abortion 'within reasonable gestational limits'". Christian Concern for Our Nation, whose website is the most clap-happy and even more religiously inclined than the Evangelical Alliance's is, urge their members to pray for "a great miracle" when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill goes through the Commons. Coincidentally, a founder member of CCON is the man behind the 20 weeks' website, directly linking Dorries, who has mostly eschewed religious dogma in her personal campaign, with them. The LIFE charity only supports abortion where the life of the mother herself is threatened. The Prolife Alliance, as one would expect, is also completely opposed to abortion (PDF).

Perhaps those organisations might then be surprised to learn that Dorries herself, when a Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hazel Grove, campaigned on a pro-choice platform. It's not clear whether Dorries at the time was in favour of the limit as it stands, or whether it's just another example of her being wholly disingenuous, as she claimed, when questioned on her current views last year on the Spectator website, to favour a 9-week limit, even lower than that of Dobbin. She was also formerly a director of BUPA, one of the companies she now accuses of being part of the "abortion industry".

Unfortunately for Dorries, the shit over her underhand means is likely to hit the fan if not this weekend, then certainly next week. Dorries' website and blog is funded from the incidental expenses provision, the rules of which clearly state that such funds should not be used for campaigning on the behalf of a political party or a personal cause: Dorries' website is chock-full of her doing just that, the most egregious examples her vindictive posts on female pro-choice Labour MPs. A complaint to the commissioner for parliamentary standards is in the offing.

Meanwhile, Dorries has been highly vexed by the latest research published in the British Medical Journal, as reported today in the Grauniad and elsewhere. Like in the Epicure 2 study, this found that while the survival rates of babies born at 24 and 25 weeks is improving, there was no statistical improvement in those born at 23 and 22 weeks. At 23 weeks 18% survived; at 22 weeks none did. Her response to this peer-reviewed study, which completely blows her argument that neo-natal survival rates are increasing out of the water, was to say:

"I think this report insults the intelligence of the public and MPs alike. No improvement in neonatal care in 12 years? Really? So where has all the money that has been pumped into neonatal services gone then?" She called the study "the most desperate piece of tosh produced by the pro-choice lobby."

As BD says, the study actually does show that neonatal care has improved, just at 24 and 25 weeks. As those against lowering the limit have consistently argued, this research backs up the point that the viability threshold has been reached, and that those that have survived at 22 weeks are extremely welcome but overall rare anomalies and blips. They do not support lowering the current limit as it stands.

That though, despite the 20 weeks' campaign's insistence, has never been what they really thought. They want abortion restricted no matter what the science and evidence suggests, and if it takes one step at a time and hiding their real arguments behind pseudo-scientific bluster, so be it. Out of all the MPs that this blog has covered over the last few years, it's safe to say that none (with the exception of dear Tony) has been as underhand, as genuinely unpleasant, manipulative, vindictive and dishonest as both Dorries has been and apparently is. She is both a disgrace to politics as a whole and a liability to the Conservative party. The crushing of her current malignant campaign will be just the first step of the fightback.

Related posts:
Laurie Penny - 24 reasons for 24 weeks

Labels: 20 reasons for 20 weeks campaign, abortion, Conservatives, cunts, fucking liars, liars, Nadine Dorries, Tories

5/09/2008 09:48:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

"We're all fucked. You're fucked. We're all completely fucked."

However much spin Labour loyalists and supporters put on last night's local elections results, and the very likely victory of Boris Johnson in the London Mayoral contest, whether it's Gordon Brown's "disappointing" to Hopi Sen's "pretty bad", none of them can surely really see this as anything other than the last gasp of Labour in power.

The threshold for a "bad" Labour night was to lose 200 councillors; they managed to beat that by another 131, losing control of 9 councils in total. Despite the Conservatives still offering very little in genuine difference to Labour except Blairism/neo-Brownism with even less pity and crocodile tears, they grabbed an astonishing 44% of the vote, Labour receiving their worst result since, appropriately, 1968. This isn't just the sort of result that would give the Tories a election victory, it would give them a landslide akin to New Labour's in 1997, the sort of result that no one, not even the most slavering sycophantic Conservative could claim that they would deserve.

Yesterday's vote also exposes another of the myths that has built up around the most ghastly of the Blairites. Those who argue for the ever more assiduous targeting of the so-called "super marginals", courting the "aspirational" voters especially in the south-east and elsewhere have just had their entire world turned upside down. Their whole plan rests on those in the Labour "heartlands" turning out whatever the weather, political or otherwise. Yesterday Labour lost 6 councils in Wales, were turned out in Southampton, and also took a battering in Nuneaton and Harlow, the voters either staying away or going elsewhere. These are the people that New Labour has taken for granted, in some cases perhaps stealthily helped, as La Toynbee often argues, but who have had the 10p rate show just how much Brown really cares for them when he needs a short-term political boost. Along with the fuel bills and food prices hitting at the same time, they were already being walloped, and then their pay slips came through. How could the doubtless hard-working activists persuade them to turn out or stay loyal? Labour can't win in the super-marginals anyway; to pursue such a policy now would be suicide. Sadly, don't rule out such madness when Brown has decided that the solution to all his problems is to get ever more PR advisers.

Prior to the vote, Labour were making all the usual noises about this being a disaster, hoping that like 2004 and last year that the results would actually turn out to not be as bad as they first briefed. This time round the results were even worse than they had predicted, yet they still went through with the plan, picking on the slightest good result, like almost taking back Liverpool, which they couldn't even manage despite an Audit Commission report which gave the Lib Dem-led council the worst rating for financial prudence in the country. It was painful watching a succession of both the worst and least worst in Labour trying to put on a brave face, from the egregious Tessa Jowell and Geoff Hoon through to the likeable and affable John Denham. The only two who spoke honestly were John McDonnell and Charles Clarke, one an actual leadership candidate and the other a rumoured possible one.

None of them however have any real idea where to go from here. The response is the same it has been over the last 3 years: that "we" will listen. Blair promised to listen after the last election; he instead went knowing for certain that he was doing the right thing and everyone else was wrong. Brown promised change and to listen; he has done neither and has no intention of doing either, except to those opposed to the very values he is meant to represent. Ruth Kelly is currently on Newsnight trumpeting how the great unwashed (i.e. the public) will come back to Labour because they'll find the Tories out for being nothing more than a marketing exercise with no policy behind it. How on earth does she expect anyone to be able to tell the difference?

Over on Justin's they've been discussing what might turn the tide. The truth is that nothing will now. While Labour's share of the vote couldn't possibly be as bad at a general election as it was yesterday, if the Tories don't at least get a workable majority then they might as well, to turn Tony Blair's comment on its head, get out of politics completely. The hope will have to remain that either Brown turns it around somewhat or that the Tories don't manage completely to convince, resulting in the almost mythical hung parliament that might finally force PR onto Westminster, the one thing that will help to re-engage and give a choice beyond the current staleness of two parties that have hardly a cigarette paper between them.

Similarly, Neal Lawson is convinced that this is the death of third way, for the same reasons I think it's the death of the fatal super-marginals thinking. He's wrong because he hasn't yet realised that the Conservatives under Cameron are the new third way, the inheritance of the same radical-centrist dead end, and that's why the likes of Simon Heffer so loathe what has gone on, striking out at Boris in lieu of going after the leadership itself. The only real difference between Cameron's third way and Blair's third way is that the Tories are going to do what Blair wished he could: raising the inheritance tax threshold, directly bribing the middle classes, further attacks on the trade unions, but all with the same kindly wet face that only a ex-PR man educated at Eton can provide.

In this, the real blame lies not with Brown, but with Blair. It was he and his acolytes that created this situation, and left Brown to pick up the pieces after he hung on for too long, Brown too cowardly and without courage to get rid of him when he should have done, far earlier. Brown has had a go, it worked for a couple of months, then it all went pear-shaped, the real Brown rather than the one the adoring Guardian columnists had created unable to pull it together. Now Blair's real heir is getting ready to take over. Labour can't say it hasn't had the chances to change. To paraphrase Richard Mottram, the party now really is completely fucked.

Labels: Conservatives, death of Labour, Gordon Brown, local elections 2008, New Labour, politics

5/02/2008 09:35:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

The Sun, tabloid journalism and Cameron's Conservatives.

If there's one thing that Gordon Brown can perhaps cling to when everything else appears to be falling apart, it's that Rupert Murdoch is clearly no nearer to making a leap of faith with the Conservatives. Today's Sun leader is hardly enthusiastic about George Osborne's speech yesterday, billed as the Tory bid to seize the initiative, but which seems to have been lost in the maelstrom:

Tell us, George

SHADOW Chancellor George Osborne is a clever politician who talks a good game, but where are the promises?

He tore into Gordon Brown yesterday, claiming the PM’s economic record had collapsed in a “heap of rubble”.

He blamed Labour for hammering hard-working families, fuelling inflation and turning its back on the poor. Rattled ministers know there is some truth in his charges.

Taxes are too high. Spending is out of control. Borrowing is excessive.

It is the Opposition’s job to attack the Government when it gets things wrong.

But if the polls are accurate and the Tories are heading for power, we want to hear precisely what they intend to do about it.

By that "we" you can detect the quivering hand of Murdoch himself.

It can be far too easy though to give Murdoch more power and influence than he actually has, and also to not notice his cautiousness in deciding whom to back. Despite it's self-promotion, it wasn't the Sun "wot won it" in 1992, and its decision to back Blair in 1997 was taken when it was already more than certain that Labour were going to triumph by a landslide. We're still very far from that happening in reverse whenever we next go to the polls, and Murdoch is hardly going to humiliate himself by making his decision too early.

Even with all of that in mind, it has to be remembered that it was Alastair Campbell himself who made clear that it was the image of Neil Kinnock in a light bulb on the Sun's front page that made him and those around him determined to ensure that history would not repeat itself. It's by no means clear yet who Murdoch is going to plump for in the US election, having previously held a fund-raiser for Clinton, even while his Fox News network continues to skewer the Democrats wholesale. It again might be because as yet, with the Democratic contender not yet decided, the whole election is far, far too close to call. McCain doesn't offer anything other than more of the same, but Murdoch has hardly been concerned by the previous 8 years of the Bush administration and its myriad failings, meaning it would be foolish to write off any of them as of yet.

Unlike Blair and also Brown, who not so long ago appeared alongside Murdoch on the same panel in Davos, the Cameroons have yet to put any specific feelers out towards the Murdoch camp. Indeed, when you'd expect them to be aiming to capitalise on Labour's problems and deficiencies, it's not Dave or Osbourne that are appearing in print in the Sun with their policies outlined, but rather Brown himself on the worthy but not especially relevant to the average Sun reader topic of combating malaria. The closest they've perhaps come to hitting the Sun's buttons was Cameron's appearance alongside Helen Newlove, and even that didn't come to close to a promise that the Tories would adopt her and the Sun's agenda for fixing "Broken Britain".

Perhaps this can itself be linked to the Sun's increasing crisis of identity. In its Thatcherite heyday under Kelvin MacKenzie, you certainly knew where it stood, just as you know now where the Daily Mail stands. It employs the crude talk radio hosts Fergus Shanahan and Jon Gaunt as columnists, but its distance from their stance was highlighted during the recent debate over capital punishment, where both supported its reinstatement while the leader line opposed it, despite "99%" of its readers also expressing their enthusiasm for the old black cap. It increasingly seems more at home decrying the latest hate figure from the world of celebrity, whether it be Heather Mills or Paul Burrell than it does attacking a political adversary. Its campaigns against paedophiles, the Human Rights Act and "Broken Britain" aside, the whole paper seems less confrontational and even whisper it, liberal. This is undoubtedly down partly to changing attitudes, and the Sun is nothing if not a barometer of its readers, but the increasing turn away from open propaganda is still surprising to note. The one remaining area where this does remain is in its unwavering support for foreign military adventures, regardless of the costs that the war in Iraq especially has inflicted. The laughable claim when the British army withdrew from Basra that the Mahdi army had been fought into ceasefire has since been proved to be a fantasy, but it didn't stop Tom Newton Dunn, the Sun's defence editor from scooping reporter of the year at the British Press Awards.

Whether the Sun as a brand is in terminal decline is far more difficult to measure. It's increasingly clear that it's only its price cutting in Scotland, London and the south-east that is keeping it above the 3 million sales mark, and its website, despite its attempt to draw in users with its MySun social network, is well behind the Mail's in the ABCe rankings. Rebekah Wade may be a piss-poor editor, but there doesn't seem to be anyone angling her for place, and Murdoch despite embarrassments over her past performance both in and out of the chair doesn't seem worried in the slightest about the paper's overall placing. After all, it continues to deliver a healthy profit, something other papers are increasingly finding difficult to achieve.

As noted previously on this blog, what is increasingly clear is that the most vituperative, slanted, invasive, judgemental and downright unpleasant "journalism" no longer comes from the paper of "Gotcha!" and "THE TRUTH" fame but instead from the supposedly more mild-mannered mid-markets Mail and Express, both of whom seem to attempt to outdo each other in which can demonise immigrants more, invade the privacy of both celebrity and "commoner" alike and state that black is in fact white. Both also coincidentally, despite Brown's wooing of Dacre, are right behind the Conservatives under Cameron, with the Express front page today more or less blaming the fact that it gets dark at night on the Supreme Leader. By those calculations, the Conservatives, despite recruiting ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson as their spin supremo, are not yet worried by the Sun's failure to come on side. They might start panicking more when the time has further ebbed away, but for now it seems the Conservatives are happy not to be assiduously courting Uncle Rupe and his super soaraway flagship.

Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, George Osborne, Gordon Brown, media analysis, politics, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, tabloid analysis

4/15/2008 08:07:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

The state of play.

There's nothing quite like a good media feeding frenzy over the apparent imminent demise of the Labour government as we know it. Cabinet ministers are literally at each other's throats, with the Telegraph alleging in an article which was later mysteriously pulled that Jack Straw and Ed Balls had almost come to blows over who was responsible for youth crime, while the former is apparently greatly perturbed by the continuing obsession with extending the detention limit for "terrorist suspects"; there's a potential civil war breaking out between "old" and "new" Brownites over their master's newly installed spin doctors; and all while the man himself is according to some briefings by nameless individuals sinking into "clinical depression", breaking three mobile phones a week in fits of pique, and possibly even faced by a potential leadership challenge.

The one that will probably hurt the most is that article in the Mail, his wooing and friendship with Paul Dacre apparently unable to stop such wounding old jibes as being "psychologically flawed" from re-appearing alongside newer even less flattering accusations. The most dispiriting recent criticism however though will be the one from Rory Bremner, because it passes the Homer Simpson challenge of being funny and true: "[I]t's a bit like having an uncle who's been building something in the shed at the bottom of