Joe's Jottings

In the period since the General Election here in the UK I’ve seen a fair number of blog posts and Facebook notes entitled ‘Why I’m rejoining the Labour Party’  – typically by folks who were members of the Labour Party at some point in the past decade and who left when Blair and Brown didn’t live up to expectations.  But now, given the Liberal-Conservative coalition Government, these folks are keen to get back in to the Labour Party fold and ‘fight the good fight’ against the ‘auld enemy’ – a Tory Government.  (Those of us of a cynical bent and who’ve been around in left wing politics long enough to remember the 1980s can remember when the ‘auld enemy’ was actually people within the Labour Party with whom you didn’t agree…but that’s another story.)

I left the Labour Party around the time that ‘Clause 4′ disappeared from the membership cards – the start of the great re-invention of the Labour Party as New Labour.  I’d served time as a Ward Chair, Constituency Vice Chair and been a delegate to the District Labour Party here in Sheffield.  I even considered running for election as a City Councillor, and very briefly toyed with the idea of trying for a Parliamentary seat, but eventually stayed as a local party activist and school governor.  I was a member of the Party when it was distinctly un-trendy to be so; a time when the Labour Party was in opposition, stood as much chance of getting in to power as England did winning the World Cup.

Despite the fact that I was self-employed, running my own business, the old Labour Party held much appeal for me.  Even with Clause 4 – detailed here with the ‘revisions’ - I always felt I had more to gain from a Labour Government than from the Tories.  The Labour Party was good on issues that mattered heavily to me - civil liberties, for example – and whilst some of the economic policies would be personally bad for me, I could understand the underlying philosophy.  And I always regarded it highly unlikely that Labour would drag us in to wars….

I left the Labour Party after the death of John Smith - nowadays I think there are lots of people who’ve never heard of this man, which is a great shame.  I’m pretty sure that Labour would have won the 1997 election with him as leader – without the massive changes from the new Labour experiment being carried out.  Whether the party would have had such a big majority – I have no idea – but they would still have been the Labour Party I grew up with and joined.  I think reform was inevitable, but New Labour is no longer a party of the people – more a party of the chattering classes.  I’ve often considered that left to it’s own devices the New Labour experiment would eventually move the party to either a dilute form of Gramscian Marxism or the political philosophy of the Frankfurt School - neither of which I have much time for.

After leaving the Party I was broadly sympathetic to the activities of the New Labour government in most areas – but there was a certain ‘control freak’ attitude – the ‘Big Nanny’ state – obvious in policy form the very beginning, and that made me concerned for civil liberties from very early on.  After 9/11 then it became more obvious; again, I was supportive of certain policies, but not others.  Economically, I was concerned that we were seeing a subtle form of old style ‘tax and spend’ taking place, with a bloated and increasingly ineffective public sector being paid for by various ‘one off’ financial wind falls, such as selling off gold  (ultimately a £7 billion LOSS) or the 3G Phone licenses (23 billions).  Jolly japes like this earned Brown the sobriquet of the ‘Iron Chancellor’ – but it’s pretty easy to balance the books in the short term when you get nice one off payments.  Just wait until you have to keep the books balanced when things get tight….

I was also concerned by the increasing levels of surveillance and law changes that worked against our civil liberties.  We’re now the most filmed population in the world; this technology exploded under New Labour.  Anti-terror laws bought in by New Labour were used to keep people under surveillance to see whether they were using their dustbins correctly, for crying out loud.  And let’s not get started on ID cards, vetting to work with children, the Digital Economy Bill, etc.  And then there’s the whole business of illegal wars….

I honestly believe that the 2010 election, had New Labour been re-elected, would have been a further blow to civil liberties – combined with the economic crisis I could easily see these Stasi-like powers being expanded to cover all aspects of our lives.

New Labour are no longer in power but the people within the New Labour machine, the officers, the MPs, the leadership candidates, the local members – they’re still there and they are still, in most cases, the same people who have implicitly agreed to all of these assaults on our liberties.  I’m not saying that the new Coalition Government have got it right – but I’m happy to give them a try rather than vote in authoritarianism.  To the thousands of new members of the Labour Party I say this; do you support reduction of civil liberties and economic mis-management – because by joining the Party today, unless you are joining to get some change of people and policy at the top,  you are supporting the people who were in power during one of the most authoritarian decades in the UK’s history.

Think before you join or re-join.  I have; and I’m not for joining.

Early today Israeli Defence Forces attacked a convoy of ships carrying aid that were heading for Gaza.  The details are sketchy; the IDF allegedly opened fire on the ships, wounding volunteers and damaging the vessels, and then boarded at least one ship.  The IDF claim that they were attacked by people on the ships with knives, and in the ensuing shooting (there is no evidence at all that the people on board the ships had any firearms) between 10 and 20 volunteers were shot dead.

Let’s just look at this. 

• First of all, this attack took place 40 miles out – that’s International Waters.  Israel therefore committed an act of piracy.  Even if the crew of the ship boarded did resist, I think that they were justified in repelling acts of piracy.  There is no difference in what the Israelis did to what Somali pirates do.
• If the organisers of the convoy were attempting a provocation, then the Israelis have proved themselves to be singularly incompetent at dealing with provocation.  Why not wait until the ships enter Israeli waters before stopping them?  Why not park a destroyer across the route of the convoy to force the convoy to stop or turn?

The Israelis will now no doubt spend a lot of time claiming that it was self defence – just like the many occasions when IDF members have shot dead aid workers or reporters.  Just as they did when they attacked the USS Liberty in International Waters in 1968.

There is, of course, a great irony here.  The action of the British Royal Navy in stopping the SS Exodus docking at Haifa in 1947, and the subsequent sending of the refugees on board back to Europe, was a massive propaganda coup for groups like the Hagen-ah fighting for the establishment of the Jewish State.  It may well be that this action by the Israelis will engender massive support for Israel.  The blindness to historical irony of a country so formed by history is astonishing.

This has also been the week in which the Israeli Government have expressed their fierce resistance to the idea of a nuclear weapons free Middle east as suggested by President Obama.  And let’s not go in to the business of the Israeli secret service ‘borrowing’ UK and Irish passports for the death squads to use.  Not a good year for Israeli PR…

As a child and a teenager, and right through to my mid-twenties, I felt great sympathy and admiration for Israel – they successfully resisted numerous invasion attempts from Arab nations, and stood firm against terrorism.  But in recent years I’m increasingly of the opinion that they’re becoming a serious threat to world peace.  In fact, I’d regard their antics serious enough to get them in to the ‘rogue state’ category.  Let’s face it – today’s act of piracy indicates that either the government has no control over it’s forces, or that the government has control over it’s forces and no respect for International Law.

70 years ago the world quite rightly had great sympathy for the formation of a Jewish state in the aftermath of WW2 and the Holocaust.  For the last 70 years the Israelis have traded on the guilt of the Western World in letting the Nazis get away with what they did, and with Israel’s position in the Middle East as a western ally in the Cold War and more recently in the ‘War on Terror’.  Well, sorry guys, the Cold War’s over, the ‘War on Terror’ is rapidly changing complexion and even becoming discredited, and you can’t guilt-trip Governments made up of people who were not even born until 20 or 30 years AFTER WW2.

From a one time supporter to Israel – please behave like a civilised member of the family of nations.

To my own Government – can we expect sanctions to be called against Israel?  If not, why not?

There’s an old joke about politics – politicians are people who think that:

• Ethics is a county in the south of England
• Morals are paintings on plaster
• Scruples is the Russian currency

Unfortunately it seems that this joke is rapidly becoming a reality – within 48 hours we’ve had two Chief Secretaries to the Treasury who’ve had, shall we say,  slight incongruities in their financial backgrounds.  Ignoring the red-herrings that have been tossed around about David Laws’ sexuality, the bottom line of this is that it appears that the Liberal Democrats didn’t audit the financial backgrounds of their senior members – something that both Labour and the Tories did in the aftermath of the expenses scandal.  It shouldn’t have been rocket science for the Lib Dems to do this; indeed, I would have thought that it should have been pretty easy and straight forward to achieve; after all, there were not as many LD MPs as Tory or Labour MPs, and over the years we’ve often been regaled by the Liberals with how they represent honesty and integrity against the perfidy and entrenched privilege of the other two major parties.

Well, a quick exposure to power has revealed the the LD MPs have as many financial ‘D’OH’ moments to deal with as their blue and red colleagues.

Perhaps Nick Clegg honestly never believed his MPs would play fast and loose, perhaps they genuinely didn’t think they’d done anything wrong.  Perhaps they never expected to gain power and so come under public scrutiny – but the Lib Dems are now under the same sort of withering fire from the media as Labour and Tory MPs were at the start of the expenses row.  I’ve already suggested in a previous post that Laws has bought the Coalition in to disrepute and has carried over the issues surrounding the integrity and financial probity of MPs from the last parliament in to this one.  Now that Danny Alexander appears to have dropped the ball as well, it does begin to look like there is a systemic problem at the heart of the Liberal Party which needs sorting out if they’re to retain the moral high ground they’ve previously had.

I’ve found it interesting this evening to briefly debate the issue with Liberal Democrat apologists on Twitter, whose main argument has been to try and sidestep the allegations Alexander’s financial irregularities by trying to focus attention on the tax status of the Barclay Brothers who own the Daily Telegraph, who’re publishing the Alexander information.  The difference is that the Barclay Brothers did not get elected to Government on the back of people’s despair over MP’s expenses.  Neither do they run the country.

To all members of the Liberal Democrat Party.  Fix this mess.  Audit your people, come clean, accept that some of your folks have issues that need addressing and address them.  Don’t try and bullshit us with claims of homophobia (for Laws) or feeble attempts to blame the messenger (for Alexander).  I hope that the Alexander issue IS something out of nothing, and that the situation is satisfactorily explained to us over the next day or so.

But let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.  In the meantime, how many Liberal Democrat MPs are left who can take the job on?

A little history.

One of the reasons why there has been radical political change in the UK in the last year is that the British people have finally started getting truly fed up with MPs on the ‘gravy train’ who seem to prosper whilst the rest of the country goes down the plughole.  Until 2006, it was legitimate for MPs to pay expenses / rents / fees etc. to their partners or family members.  A change in the rules then stated that you could no longer do that.

David Laws fell foul of this by virtue of the fact that between 2004 and 2009 Mr Laws claimed money back from the State - that is, us - to pay rent to his partner a total of around £40,000.  I think it’s safe to say that had this been a story involving a couple of jobless folks claiming benefits there wouldn’t be an issue of paying the money back right now – it would be more likely to be an issue of someone spending a year at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

At first glance, Laws appears to have either been incompetent with money (never good for someone tasked with the job of implementing Government cuts) or dishonest (equally a bit of a downer for someone in that job…)   And then it gets complicated – apparently the actual reason for the…misunderstanding….involving the expenses was that laws was actually gay, and he was trying to keep this quiet for respect of his and his partner’s privacy.

To date I’ve been impressed with the Coalition – both their politics and the way they’ve been implementing them. But the Coalition has come to power with a whole host of ‘issues’ around it – there are folks in both parties who don’t want it to work,  Labour are waiting for errors to exploit and people are expecting a lot from the new Government.  What folks are not wanting is a return to parliamentary expenses problems – especially when it features someone who’re responsible for implementing serious, albeit necessary, cuts.

• Laws – this is why I am bloody angry with you.  I find it VERY difficult to believe that you:
• Didn’t appreciate that your private life was going to be public at some point in the last year or so. 
• Chanced your arm by carrying on claiming after the rule change.
• Were hard-up enough to need to claim the rent back at all.
• Didn’t realise that it would all come out if you became a frontbench Minister, especially in the Treasury.

It’s inevitable that whoever implements the Coalition’s Treasury policy needs to be pretty much whiter than white – or at least as white as any politician can be these days -for whatever reasons Laws didn’t meet this criterion. 

Whether he thought he was working within the rules or not, he wasn’t.  He’s now given an open-goal to opposition to the Coalition within the Tory Party, the Liberals and New Labour.  Personal hubris has yet again laid waste a political career, but with potentially bad implications for the country.

And that’s why I’m so fucking angry with Laws – he’s managed to drag the bad issues of the last Parliament through in to this one, distracting people away from the really major issues of getting the UK back on it’s feet after a decade of mis-rule.

Now that the smoke of battle (and confusion) of General Election 2010 has cleared and we have a Coalition Government that hasn’t yet been proven to be the spawn of Beelzebub, can I make a suggestion that demonising anyone in politics – even Tories – is not a good move?

Twenty five years ago, during the Thatcher years, a few of us on the Left made the observation that it was potentially unhelpful to refer to the politics espoused by her Government as ‘Thatcherism’, even as a shorthand.  Our argument went that if you attach a name to a branch of politics in that very overt way, then as soon as the individual dies, quits or gets voted out of office then, almost by definition, that form of politics disappears from the scene.  There is a historical precedent; whilst 99% of everyone called the political beliefs of Hitler and his followers Nazism or Fascism, a few people in the 30s – often doctrinaire Communists – referred to it as ‘Hitlerism’.  Whereas we’ve been able to spot Nazism over the decades, spotting the politics underlying ”Thatcherism’ seems to have been harder - the monetarist and ‘Shock Doctrine’ policies of the Chicago School have come back repeatedly to haunt us in many ways, culminating in the years of Bush Junior Government in the US.

This last election has been truly bizarre, with people repeatedly warning me about ‘re-electing Thatcher’ in the form of David Cameron.  The irony is that some of the folks who’ve been most vociferously demonising Thatcher and the Tories were in the twenties and early 30s – in other words, when Thatcher was in power these folks were either foetuses or snot-nosed kids. 

Demonising any individual politician is fraught with danger for those doing it; unless your target is very obviously evil incarnate (in which case the vast majority of people will see it anyway and you’re ‘preaching to the choir’) then folks will just regard it as sour grapes and ‘ad hominem’ arguments.  One thing that has started happening in recent times in the UK is that people have become disillusioned with the political process, politicians and the whole schoolyard ethos that seems to have permeated British politics for the last 20 years.  The demonisation of one individual or party by others involved in the same ‘game’, so to say, has all the elements of ‘pot calling kettle black’ and people have responded to it accordingly.

It IS last century – just look at the nonsense at ACAS last night when BA Chief Willie Walsh was surrounded by a good old fashioned British ‘leftie rent-a-mob’ that seemed to belong more in the 1970s at Grunwick than in 2010.  The union chief was furious, ACAS was embarrassed and angry, Walsh commented on the disgust he felt in the situation he was in.  The demonstrators focused their chants on Walsh, and have probably significantly damaged chances of settling the dispute.  Seeing the placards from groups like ‘Socialist Worker’, for those of us who were in the Labour movement in the 80s and 90s it was like a return to old times with the ‘Usual Suspects’ – the professional hecklers and agitators who have no great desire to settle these disputes but simply seek to benefit from them.

Boys and girls, that approach is over.  It was always pointless and now people see it for what it is – egotistical tantrum throwing by typically over-privileged, under-occupied political performance artists.  If you want to achieve change in our society – get involved with genuine community groups and put your  backs in to getting some work done.  Demonising the opposition is childish and pointless.

Less than 2 hours after the closing of the Polls in the UK’s General Election, it’s clear that there have been some cock-ups in the logistical management of the election that makes most developing world elections look like the Acme of organisation.  Let’s face it – this is THE most important election for probably probably 20 years – and one might have expected that such an election would be run in the most professional, efficient and effective way possible.

Unfortunately, it appears to have been organised by people who make Fred Karno’s Army look like the SAS.  Let’s just take a look at what seems to have been happening in the last few hours of polling.

• People turning up to find massive queues at their polling station, going away, coming back repeatedly, then finding themselves being turned away when the Polling Station closes at 10pm.  Although in some places, people queueing when the Polling Station has closed have been taken in to the Polling Station and allowed to vote.
• Other people turning up to vote to find that there aren’t enough Ballot Papers and so they can’t vote.
• People in some places have been turned away an hour BEFORE the Polls closed, and have been told that they Polling Station can’t handle the queues. 

In other words – some Polling Stations have been under-resourced, badly staffed and inadequately supplied.  How can the Local Authorities and the Electoral Commission have allowed such a sorry and anti-democratic situation to arise?  After all, it should not have been a surprise that there would be a higher turnout in this election than previous ones – people have been excited by this election in such a way that I’ve not seen for some years.  We might therefore have expected the Returning Officers and Electoral Commission to take this on board and plan accordingly.

In my own polling Station I saw no more staff than usual, but did witness a higher throughput of people than I’ve seen for some time.  It was the first time I’ve actually queued to vote for as long as I can remember, despite the fact that the turnout is only a few percentage points higher than previous elections, going by the current returns.

So what’s happened?  For what it’s worth, here’s my twopence-halfpenny.

• Perhaps in some places people left it too late to vote; there were stories about people going to vote at 6pm, finding a queue, then coming back an hour later, finding another queue, then going away again and then finally getting in the queue at 9pm…..why not stay in the queue at 6pm?  Polling Stations are open for over 12 hours – perhaps folks could get their arses in to gear a little earlier if they are determined to vote?
• Returning Officers clearly have lacked guidance and possibly understanding of the Law in the way in which they have reacted to the queues – some have kept the station open after 10pm, others effectively closed it before that time, etc.
• Has there been additional time taken in distributing the ballot papers and handling enquiries about Council elections as well as the General Election?
• Has there been enough staff at Polling Stations, and has the staff been used effectively – when I voted it appeared that 3 members of staff were only capable of processing one voter at a time.  Why weren’t additional staff deployed to reduce the queues earlier in the day?
• Have some Local Authorities tried to save money by cutting staff?
• Have attempts been made to save money by printing Ballot Papers to suit the projected turn out rather than printing one paper per voter and a few hundred extras ‘just in case’.  It’s not friggin’ rocket science!

So….if any of the seats where this nonsense has happened generate narrow results then we could see challenges and possibly re-runs.  It looks like the rules have been ignored, and there’s been clear incompetence at a local level.  Let’s hope that lessons are learned and at least a few heads role where needed.

 Over the last few days there’s been some very strange stories emerging and then submerging again in the UK Media – the General Election has made the silly season come early this years.  One story about a prospective Tory candidate has been apparently blocked with a gagging order, and another story about a possible car bomb in the Aldgate area of London fell off the radar.  Combine that with military ‘Chinook’ helicopters being seen operating in the vicinity of 7 or 8 towns and cities in Britain (whether the helicopters were black or not I’m not sure) and we have a very panicky media right now.

A story that seems to be pretty popular right now is that on Friday morning, whether or not he wins an outright majority or not, David Cameron will go to the palace, tell the Queen he’s forming a Government and basically trot back to Downing Street and demand Gordon Brown vacates the premises.  The various posts / Tweets / etc. are best seen here.  Whether Downing Street will be emptied with the aid of a team of crack chinless wonders from Conservative Central Office, or whether Brown would tell Cameron to bugger off is debatable.

Just how likely is this to happen – to be honest, I very much doubt it’s likely to happen at all.  To me it sounds like a good ol’ bit of Labour FUD – Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.  If you don’t vote us in, the Tories will take over by the back door, so give us your votes.  This from the Government who have:

• Remove Habeus Corpus from the statute books for certain crimes.
• Gone to war on some very dodgy legal grounds.
• Introduced a series of laws that have repeatedly eroded our civil liberties.

Of course, something like this would put the Queen in a rather bad position – were she to be asked to allow Clegg or Cameron to form a Government before Gordon Brown admitted defeat – even if he were leading a minority party – it would put her in the insidious position of being asked to support the new boy against Labour or Labour against the new boy – not at all a good place to be.

It’s times like this that I wish we had a written Constitution in this country and a Head of State of some sort to apply it.  As it is, we’re going to be relying on common sense on Friday morning to see us through the next few days, as I believe a hung Parliament is almost inevitable.

I was 18 years old in 1979; people of a certain age will remember that year as being the start of the ‘Thatcher Years’ – the start of 11 years of Tory Government that was characterised by radical right wing policies, many originating from the Chicago School of Monetarism, jingoistic manipulation of the electorate in a popular war (The Falklands).  The economic policies ensured a destruction of large swathes of British manufacturing industry, steel and coal, and it might be argued that it was a ‘mild’ form (relatively speaking) of the shock and awe school of political change that alumni of the Chicago School had already inflicted on Chile and other countries in the 1970s.

I entered the workforce in the middle of all this, working in Education for 18 months or so before becoming self-employed in IT, and witnessed the destruction of the communities in which I’d grown up and the politicisation and vilification in the media of family and friends in the  mining villages and towns of Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.  I witnessed troops used as policemen and experienced roadblocks that prevented free travel within the UK.  It’s safe to say that those years coloured the political views of a whole generation – and still do today.

Which is why I could initially understand the surge of groups on Facebook and other online communities with names like ‘National Don’t Vote Tory Day’.

And after a while I began to think that this is rather a dumb and negative way to decide who to vote for.  To start with, it’s 13 years since a Tory Government – twenty years since Thatcher lost power when the great and the good of the Tory establishment decided that she was a liability and threw her out in a coup.  You need to be at least 31 years old to have actually been an adult under a Tory government, but it seems to be within the under 30 age group that this sort of group is popular.

As will be known to anyone who reads this blog or follows my tweets, I have little time for New Labour.  I have little time for the Tories or the Liberal Democrats either.  Which, I appreciate, means I have some serious thinking to do before the General Election.  I believe in small Government, subsidiarity and local, sustainable communities.  I believe in freedom of speech and expression, reduction in the intrusive powers of the state and controlled and managed immigration to the UK based on a points system for economic migrants and proof of oppression in the last country they were in for political asylum seekers. I believe in strong defence, continued possession of a tactical nuclear weapons capability, healthcare free at point of delivery, and a benefits system as a last ditch support for folks who genuinely need it.  I’m interested in seeing whether a flat rate of taxation would work, along with reduced red-tape for business, closer scrutiny of banking institutions, no further formal integration with Europe, repeal of the majority of Human Rights legislation and replacement with a written constitution.  And on a more personal basis, reform of copyright, patent and libel legislation to take on board the fact that the world’s changed.

In other words, a rag-bag, hodge-podge of policies which no party will offer.  But at least I’ve thought about what I believe in, and can make most of it join up.  Which is where the ‘Don’t vote Tory’ sloganising is ridiculously naive.  Wheeling out any party as a bogey man – especially one out of power for 15 years – is daft.  I demonise New Labour when, in my eyes and against the principles and policies I personally believe in, they deserve it – I’d like to feel that folks who’re signing up to the ‘Don’t Vote Tory’ sites have at least thought through their own political views and aren’t just signing up to the latest ‘slogan of the month’ based on what happened before many of them were actually old enough to directly experience it.

Slogans aren’t enough; I’d say one thing – if you disagree with a party’s politics, know WHY you disagree with them.  Think about it.  If you don’t like any of them, vote for the one that you disagree with least.  There’s an assumption of trust and competence here, which I’m not sure we can give or expect from any of the major parties this time around. 

I’m still to make my mind up.  I have significant issues with New Labour and the Tories; I was sort of leaning towards Liberal Democrat until I looked at their policies on Europe and Immigration policy, and I’m not convinced that their finances add up.  And I’m still not capable of trusting them on civil liberties and issues of Government intrusion in to the lives of citizens. 

But for crying out loud – please, please, think about it.

For a senior politician to be filmed ‘meeting the people’ is a feat of great courage that is fraught on all sides with danger.  The voter may hate your guts, may egg you, may tell you things you don’t want to hear.  And you know what?  If you’re a smart politician you smile, listen, say your platitudes, maybe even argue in a civilised and sensible, statesmanlike manner.

You then walk away, talk to someone else, smile alot and maybe kiss a baby.

A piece of free advice for all politicians in the UK….what you don’t do is, whilst still on a live mike, call the person who you were filmed being nice to a bigot.  Especially if the person concerned is a female old age pensioner who’s only saying what lots of folks in the UK may feel.

So…here’s where ‘Wee Gordon’ embarasses himself in front of the whole TV watching population of the UK.

I genuinely feel sorry for Gordon Brown on a personal level – I hate to see anyone drop themselves in the shit.  He’s not the guy for this sort of ‘one on one’ interview with the voter, particularly when it’s not at all certain what the voter concerned is going to say.  But on a political level – come on, people, this is Political Campaigning 101.  Whatever you may think in private, you don’t say it in public.

I’m gobsmacked at some of the nonsense and bollocks I’ve heard uttered by people from the Labour Party today – apparently Mrs Duffy is a plant, the whole thing’s a Murdoch Media setup, it’s a conspiracy to embarrass the PM, it was Nick Clegg’s fault, etc.  The facts are quite simple:

• Mrs Duffy made some comments about immigration to the UK that didn’t fit the NuLab policy sheet.
• Mr Brown debated the point slightly, and walked away in a dignified manner.  All good, clean, politics.
• Mr Brown neglects to take the mike from Sky News off.
• He then shows clear annoyance at whoever it was in his entourage who set up the conversation.
• And finally calls Mrs Duffy a bigot.
• And realising what he’s done apologises profusely to Mrs Duffy and the Labour Party.

Now…to all the NuLab people I know who I’ve annoyed this evening – and who probably aren’t reading this anyway… – Mrs Duffy’s comments seemed totally fair, Brown’s ‘on camera’ reaction reasoned and sensible, his off camera reaction totally out of order and poorly judged, reinforcing the numerous stories we keep hearing about the Prime Minister’s intolerance.

It was his press officer’s job to keep an eye on the mike and media presence.  It was Brown’s job to keep his mouth shut until he knew he was ‘off air’.  Unless the press officer was working for Murdoch, the Tories or the Lib Dems, and the Prime Minister was brainwashed to open mouth before engaging brain, the only people here to blame are the Press Officer and the PM.  The reporter was doing his job.  Sky was doing it’s job – they played hardball and took advantage of the situation to get a ‘scoop’, but that’s what the media does.  the media are no-one’s friends but their own.

Labour were made to look hypocritical incompetents – get used to it, folks, and stop whining like spoilt children.

So, in the broader picture, what does this debacle tell us about Labour and their leadership?

1. They don’t like hearing what the voters say when the voter doesn’t toe the party line.  Sounds familiar?  It should do.  Those of us who’ve been in debates with New Labour over recent years have come to know that NuLab is tolerant whilst you toe the line.  There is a strong hint of dishonesty and hypocrisy here.
2. The Prime Minister really misjudged the situation here- there was a camera crew around when the comment was made, let alone a live lapel mike.  The PM made an error, but this is not a politician on his first election; this is an experienced political leader who wishes to be Prime Minister of the UK.  He also exhibited petulance and bad temper – and not for the first time.  I would expect better judgement from Mr Brown and also greater competence from those around him.
3. There was clear contempt for the voter concerned – and by extension all of us.  This current election is by no means an open and shut ‘shoe-in’ for any party.  It’s there to be lost by the parties, and in the last week the leaders of all three major parties have worked hard to put their foot in it in one way or another.  But this must be the biggest cock up yet. 

The media is very much the fourth major party in the 2010 general election; it’s loyalties are split across the parties, as they always are, but this time around everything that happens gets Tweeted and blogged as quickly as it happens.  Our political leaders seem to be having difficulties dealing with this – and the winner will be the one who screws up least.

Well, it looks like the Foreign Office have managed to confirm what I’ve felt about the majority of Civil Servants for some time.  That is, they need to grow up, realise that they’re on a pretty cushy number in ‘public service’ and deliver the work that we pay them for.

Just take a look at this news story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7107656.ece  Doesn’t matter that it was Pope who was the butt of this pathetic attempt at ‘humour’.  What matters is that a visiting head of state was held up to ridicule in a briefing document that was distributed throughout the apparatus of Government.

The first paragraph of the news story tells us more than we need to know:

“Advisers to the Pope are starting to regret that he accepted an invitation to visit Britain this September after official papers emerged that suggested he should be asked to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a Benedict-branded condom range.

The document also suggested that the National Anthem be changed, from God Save the Queen to God Save the World.”

Now, to be honest, this is ludicrous; it sounds like the antics of a 15 year old editor of a school magazine who’s still under the impression that this sort of juvenile stuff is the height of sophisticated humour.  According to the powers that b, this was a ‘brainstorming document’ that shouldn’t have been released, and that individual concerned has been transferred to other duties.

In other words, he or she still has a job in the Foreign Office.  However you look at this, it’s truly pathetic.  Let’s see – there are three options:

Personal stupidity and cock up – the document was written for private consumption but some how managed to get typed up, circulated and out on a distribution list for briefing papers.  As private humour it might have been fine as an email around friends, but to get get out in to the ‘official’ world required stupidity and / or poor process.

Poor judgement and cock up- someone may well actually believe this document, and intended it to be a genuine suggestion for their superiors.  Again, how it escaped in to the real world is a mystery that again requires phenomenally poor judgement, stupidity or process failure.

Conspiracy- the document was deliberately designed to be offensive, then deliberately leaked on to the distribution list, with the intention of annoying the Vatican so much that the Pope cancelled his visit later in the year.

Whichever option, the whole busienss makes the UK look either foolish, incompetent or both.  If it is a conspiracy, then it makes us look incompetent and cowardly. 

For God’s sake, civil servants and government, get a grip, grow up and start running this country properly.  YOU chose to become a civil servant; I don’t remember pointing a gun at you.  YOU chose to become a member of this Government.  Both civil servants and Government ministers feel that they can run this country better than the rest of us – so bloody well prove it.