The Labour line that noone won the election is really winding up Sky's Adam Boulton

Why are no Conservative shadow ministers as firm with BBC interviewers as even minor Labour ministers such as Ben Bradshw are with Adam Boulton?

Baby Ben Bradshow holds his seat

Baby Ben Bradshow holds his seat, the BBC will be happy...

Labour sleaze

The Times report that:

"A multi-millionaire ally of Gordon Brown pretended that a small flat occupied by one of his employees was his main home so he could claim £38,000 in expenses from the Lords.

Lord Paul, one of Labour’s biggest donors and a friend of the prime minister, has admitted he never even slept in the flat, despite stating it was his main residence.

The one-bedroom flat was occupied by a manager from one of Paul’s hotels who confirmed last week that the peer had never lived there while claiming the expenses.

Paul, who has a family fortune of £500m, was actually based in London, where he has lived for more than 40 years.

By saying his main home was his manager’s flat in Oxfordshire, he was able to claim cash allowances which are available only to peers who live outside the capital.

Last week Paul argued that he had been entitled to claim the flat was his home as it was “available” for his use. He said he could have moved the manager out for the night if he stayed there, but he never did so. “I don’t say that I stayed the night — I said that it was available to me,” he said. "

During the last days of the John Major this would have been headline news on the BBC, but now NOTHING. Presumably Ben Bradshaw will claim this is still indicative of pro-Conservative BBC bias...

Now do you see why the NHS IT project is so over-budget?

The Register's readers have been going through MP's expenses and have spotted that:

"minister of state for health services, Mike O`Brien... oversees Connecting for Health and NHS IT ... made out a cheque for £60 in response to an invoice from Domain Registry Services. Earlier that year, as El Reg reported four months earlier, Domain Registry Services was a fraud - and O'Brien attempted to stop the cheque.

(O'Brien has a degree in history and politics and was a solicitor.)"

Also spotted was that

"Ben Bradshaw, the latest media minister, and the man behind the man behind Digital Britain. Bradshaw's staff were trying to "connect the wrong end of a Scart lead to a digital TV box", we discover. Bradshaw billed £20 on expenses for the TV engineer."

With such intellectual giants running the country's IT projects is it any wonder we are in the mess we are?

Digital Britain - more taxation and extra costs

So every telephone line will bear a charge of £6 a year. That's £12 a year for me, why? Why am I being taxed to provide broadband to others? Why should my pensioner neighbours who don't have a computer, and don't want one, have to pay £6 a year to help the government out? The government promise a world class broadband system; 2MB
world class my arse.

Now to the Labour plans for radio in this country. The BBC report it thus:

"Mr Bradshaw told the Commons that the government intended to upgrade all national radio stations from analogue to digital by 2015."

What it actually means is that all existing radios will be useless, my pensioner neighbours will have to buy a new radio; and why? My car, and most people's cars, will need new radios; why should people have to buy new car radios? Apparently the freed-up FM spectrum will be filled by new ultra-local radio stations, comprising small local commercial and community stations. Currently digital radio accounted for 20.1% of radio listening and DAB remains the most popular digital platform, accounting for 12.7% of digital listening. So this most democratic Labour government plan to force the 90% of people who don't listen to their radio via DAB to change their platform. They expect us to replace our home radios, our car radios but hey it's only money; presumably MPs will get their DAB radios FOC.

Does this Labour government have any idea? (Part 2)

14 months ago this Labour government unveiled the expansion of National Health Service priority treatment to all returning soldiers. The care was intended to treat soldiers' injuries and ill health sustained as a result of active service.

Now, Health Minister, Ben Bradshaw has admitted that the Department of Health has no idea if a single veteran has received priority treatment. In answer to a Parliamentary Question he said: "The Department does not collect information specific to veterans' access to the National Health Service, nor on how many receive priority treatment".

Well done Ben Bradshaw, well done the Labour government. Send our armed forces to fight your wars and then not live up to your promises to equip them adequately or give them the priority hospital treatement that you promised them.

Dirty NHS

I have blogged previously about how dirty NHS hospitals are and how Gordon Brown's "deep clean" initiative is little more than a piece of froth and spin.

Now I read in The Telegraph that:

"More than a quarter of health trusts in England are failing to meet basic hygiene standards, official figures show today.

The Healthcare Commission reports that no improvement has been made on a year ago.

In total, 103 out of 391 trusts admitted they did not achieve the minimum requirements, brought in by the Government to help combat the hospital superbugs, MRSA and Clostridium difficile.

Patients groups and politicians said that it was "shocking" that one in four still did not meet the standards, despite ministers' pledges to tackle cleanliness.

More than 8,000 deaths were related to MRSA and C. diff. The report shows that
26 per cent of trusts failed to keep facilities clean, did not have adequate infection control or follow guidelines
on decontaminating reusable equipment.

Only 40 per cent of trusts claim to have met all the Governments standards, which include patient care and confidentiality as well as hygiene, a slight fall on last year.

The commission warns that even fewer trusts may be deemed to have met all the criteria by the time it finishes spot checks this year.

The failings come despite a £50 million "deep clean" of every hospital in England, designed to curb superbugs. "

The telegraph article does include an "excuse" and an "explanation" from Ben Bradshaw but I am tired of Ministers like him who are just a walking excuse for the mismanagement of the country and so if you want to read his pearls of "wisdom" you'll have to read them in The Telegraph as they wont get house room here.