Do you remember what Labour were like in power?

Now aren't you glad they have gone?

Why cover up for them?

Amid all the disquiet over the payment of large sums of compensation to some British residents released from Guantanamo Bay, it seems that one question is not being asked: 'Why is this coalition government helping to cover-up the possible misdeeds of the last Labour government? Surely a full public investigation into which ministers knew of the torture, which authorised it and which lied to cover it up would assist in a) bringing the guilty to justice and b) showing the public quite how duplicitous some members of the last Labour government were.

To my mind by not investigating the alleged crimes of the last Labour government, questions arise as to the actual differences between the last Labour government and this coalition one.

Hazel Blears has form in being slippery

Yes but when did Hazel Blears made the decision?

Ed Miliband on this blog

No I haven't got an intreview with Ed Miliband, I think I may be insufficiently on message for Ed, but I thought I would look back at my previous postings about ed Miliband.

26 January 2008 - 'Democracy Gordon Brown style'

'What I find interesting in this video is quite how smug and self-assured Ed Miliband is, he makes David Miliabnd look almost human. It is also quite clear that Ed Miliband has not read the Lisbon Treaty. Hilary Benn states that "... it was very different in character... it was, that's my view and we live in a democracy. OK" Sunday lunch at the Benn family house must be fun.

...

Ed Miliband's promise of a "vigorous debate" looks like bullshit to me.'

June 20008 - 'An extremely large, extremely powerful idiot'

'A good letter that makes some serious points but I must take exception with one part of the letter:

"we've taken the brightest and best, the finest intellects of our age, put them in a room together and created an extremely large, extremely powerful idiot.


"brightest and best"? In no particular order I give you for your consideration - Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Harriett Harman, Hilary Ben, David Miliband, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown. Brightest and best, really? Has the UK sunk that low?'

31 July 2008 - 'Which is the least trustworthy?'

'David Miliband or Ed Miliband, tough choice isn't it? You can also "enjoy" the equally viable Hilary Benn.

I know I have posted this video before but since David Miliband is accused of wanting to be our Prime Minister, I think it only right that the public see him in all his glory. '

5 October 2008 - 'Climate Change, the Labour government and the BBC'

'I am getting really angry now, the moron Brown has decided to promote the oleaginous Ed Miliband to head a new department of Energy and Climate Change. This probably means the end of any remnant of sensible debate over energy provision in the UK and the last nail in the coffin of any pretence of debate over the matter of Climate Change. The BBC have covered the story with the headline "Greens welcome new climate dept" and comments from Green groups but nary a word from anyone who knows the truth about Climate Change. '

16 October 2008 - 'My advice to you all...'

'My advice to you all is to BUY A GENERATOR. As our Climate Change and Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by middle of this century.

To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey "The lamps will be going out all over Britain; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

This government's eco-stupidity seems to know no bounds, unless this is just another piece of scorched earth politics.'

25 Decembefr 2008 - 'Bloody Victoria Derbyshire again'

'Ed Milliband is allowed to spout the usual highly selective statistics and avoid answering tough questions, whilst Victoria Derbyshire is as usual too weak an interviewer to try and get him to answer the questions.

However at around 09:46 for a few minutes even the vile VD realises that Ed Milliband is not answering questions about public sector pay rises and election bribes and pushes a bit harder than I would expect her too. Maybe listening to Ed Milliband made even her realise that this Labour government are not all they say they are.'

Peter Lilley wants an answer from Ed Miliband - somehow I doubt he'll get a meaningful one'

'"Dear Secretary of State

You recently slipped out, without notifying Parliament, a massive revision of the estimated costs and benefits of the Climate Change Act.

I hope that on consideration, you will agree that changes amounting to nearly £1 trillion require both discussion in, and explanation to, Parliament. This is particularly important given the extraordinary way the government treated its own original estimates of the costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

You will recall that your original estimates of costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill showed that its potential costs (1) at some £205 billion were almost twice the maximum benefits of £110 billion. This was embarrassing for you because the reason governments are required to publish an Impact Assessment giving estimates of costs and benefits of any Bill is to enable Parliament to “determine whether the benefits justify the costs” (2)...'

8 June 2009 - 'The Cabinet and their pasts'

'Ed Miliband - "a Labour party researcher and rose to become one of then Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidantes and chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers. Miliband was elected Labour Member of Parliament for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North in the 2005 general election. "'

13 September 2009 - '"There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade"'

'"There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade."

So apparently said Ed Miliband today on the Andrew Marr show. Would you care for a small wager Ed? '

26 September 2009 - 'Ministers back PM pre-Conference'

'So the only Ministers prepared to back Gordon Brown in public seem to be his closest ally Ed Balls, one of the few ministers who those who know of him detest as much as Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, the living piece of slime that is Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown's general election campaign manager Douglas Alexander - impressive?'

14 September 2009 - 'Climate Change - Story 2'

'

"Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: “The overwhelming body of scientific information is stacked up against the deniers and shows us that climate change is man-made and is happening now. We know that we still have a way to go in informing people about climate change and that is why we make no apologies about pushing forward with our new Act on CO2 campaign.” "

"deniers" that is such a scary word as it hints at future action to stop "deniers" from being able to deny the truth of climate change. Are we being lined up for a return to the Spanish Inquisition? Where denial of the given truth is just not allowed. Of course Ed Miliband makes no apologies, he's a Labour minister and they don't need to apologise for anything. I presume that the junior, but slimier, Miliband is positioning himself for a role in some supranational eco-body post the general election; whatever happens the earning power of these power crazed loons must not be affected. '

15 December 2009 - 'Ed Miliband is innumerate' '

"The hon. Gentleman knows that we have published our own home energy efficiency plan for 700 million households to be insulated by 2020 and we have said that we will pilot it in the low-carbon transition plan, which we will be announcing shortly. The problem with the hon. Gentleman's position is that he says that we can give £6,500 to everybody on day one. I do not know how he will pay for every household to have that. I asked him in my speech to clarify-perhaps he can advise us now-how he will pay for that £6,500 on day one."

700 million households? Either there is more immigration than even Migration Watch think might be possible or Ed Miliband has no idea what he is saying. Bear in mind that Hansard is the official record and if Ed Miliband (or an official) had gone to Hansard and said I said the wrong figure I believe they would have let him change it for the record. Maybe Ed Miliband and his team just don't care about the official record or the truth; or more likely they know that this figure is no more ridiculous than many other figures published by this Labour government. As I blogged the other day

"But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."

That's from 1984 and I know that resorting to 1984 parallels is somewhat trite, but with this Labour government it is just so perfect.'

2 February 2010 - 'The return of Azad Ali

'I see that Azad Ali is back in the news. It seems that the simply delightful civil servant who used his personal website to justify the killing of British troops in Iraq appeared at the "Progressive London" conference organised by Ken Livingstone along with Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband. So much for community cohesion or are this labour government so desperate for votes that they are willing to cosy up to people such as Azad Ali? '

14 March 2010 - 'not supported by solid science'

'Climate Change of course; the story is in The Times and is that

"TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.

The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.

The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that they should not be published again."

The article also contains this interesting section that I think needs wider dissemination (my emphasis):

"The rulings will be an embarrassment for Miliband, who has tried to portray his policies as firmly science-based. He had commissioned two posters, four press advertisements and a short film for television and cinema, which started appearing in October last year in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks.

They attracted 939 complaints — more than the ASA received for any advertisement last year. The deluge posed problems for the ASA, which is not a scientific body, so it decided to compare the text of Miliband’s adverts with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Based on that comparison, it ruled that two of the DECC’s adverts had broken the advertising code on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims."

So even when compared to the increasingly discredited IPCC report, Ed Miliband's department's claims were found to have broken the advertising code "on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims". When will the 'warmists' stop lying to us? '

5 May 2010 - 'Who should I vote for

'More generally vote anything but Labour, as the first priority is to rid this country of Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw et al. But before you vote for any party other than the Conservatives, remember that any result other than a Conservative majority government risks a Labour Prime Minister and it is likely to be one of those I mentioned above or possibly worse a smug David Miliband or an even smugger Ed Miliband. '

20 June 2010 - 'Newsnight Labour leadership debate

'Has Ed Miliband developed a speech impediment or has he always had a slightly camp lithp? Also has he put on weight and why the ... odd ... pauses?

...

Ed Miliband saying we should look forward and not discuss the past reminds me of a school swot whining "It's not fair".'

29 August 2010 - 'Unbelievable comment of the day - 'Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight'

'Yesterday's Guardian contained a hysterical piece by Nicholas Watt, their chief political correspondent. It has many unbelievable lines, here's a few:

'David Cameron believes David Miliband has a better chance than his brother Ed of reaching out to middle Britain Photograph: David Miliband poses the greatest threat to the Conservative party of all the candidates in the Labour leadership contest, David Cameron has said in private remarks that could change the dynamic of the campaign just days before millions of ballot papers are posted.

...

A well-placed source told the Guardian: "David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband."

Ed Miliband, who is thought to be slightly behind his brother in first preference votes, but who hopes second choice votes will propel him to victory, is likely to be irritated by Cameron's remarks, which echo those of supporters of Tony Blair: his backers believe that his elder brother is being supported by what they describe as the "Blair machinery".

Tory high command believes David Miliband is flawed and lacks the easy manner of Tony Blair, who was regarded by Cameron and George Osborne as unbeatable. But Downing Street believes that the senior Miliband, who this week told the Labour party to abandon its "comfort zone", stands the best chance of reaching the sort of voters wooed by Blair.

Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight, but showed the influence of his mentor, Gordon Brown, this week when he in effect attacked his brother with a warning about remaining in the "New Labour comfort zone".'

Hmmm might it be possible that this leak is designed to confuse the Labour leadership election.


Meanwhile in Ed Miliband related news, I read that:

'One of the country’s biggest unions last night threatend to withdraw funding from the Labour party unless Ed Miliband is elected as leader next month.

Paul Kenny, the General Secretary of the GMB union, said other unions will follow suit if David Miliband or Ed Balls were chosen to succeed Gordon Brown.

The warning, which senior Shadow Cabinet members will view as blackmail, came a week after Lord Prescott revealed that Labour were 'on the verge of bankruptcy'.

He said that the party was bring kept alive by 'trade union contributions, high-value donations and the goodwill of the Co-op bank'.

Asked by The Times if his union would withdraw funding from Labour if Ed Miliband did not win, Mr Kenny said: 'If the new leader offers us more of the same, many unions — including our own — would have to consider where we are at.

'Ed Balls and David Miliband represent where we’ve been. They are not without talent. I would not rubbish them. But if the direction of the party went off chasing some right-of-centre ground . . .'

He added: 'Ed Miliband is not ashamed of Labour’s core values. It’s not about a big society. It’s about a fair society.''

Hmmm, 'Ed Balls and David Miliband represent where we’ve been'. That's odd I could have sworn that Ed Miliband served in the last Labour cabinet and wrote a large part of the 2010 Labour manifesto that lead to a Labour defeat. Am I wrong?

In even more important news, I read in The Mirror that: Lily Allen has tweeted

'Why did David Miliband cross the road? To get to the middle. Vote Ed.'

So Lily Allen is on Ed Miliband, hmmm.

There are more postings on Ed Miliband on this blog, take a look.

The Dr David Kelly story continues to intrigue ...

The Mail report that:

'Dr David Kelly: The damning new evidence that points to a cover-up by Tony Blair's government

...

Against this shadowy background, we have conducted a rigorous and thorough investigation into the mystery that surrounds the death of David Kelly. And our investigation has turned up evidence which raises still more disturbing questions.

Our new revelations include the ambiguous nature of the wording on Dr Kelly’s death certificate; the existence of an anonymous letter which says his colleagues were warned to stay away from his funeral; and an extraordinary claim that the wallpaper at Dr Kelly’s home was stripped by police in the hours after he was reported missing - but before his body was found.

Until now, details of Dr Kelly’s death certificate have never been made public.

But the certificate was obtained by a group of leading doctors who have spent almost seven years investigating the case; doctors who believe it is medically implausible that he died in the manner Hutton concluded and are alarmed at the unorthodox way the death certificate was completed.

Near the top of all British death certificates is a box headed ‘Date and place of death’, in which a doctor or coroner should declare the exact location of a death, if it has been established.

Dr Kelly’s certificate gives his date of death as July 18, 2003. It then states in reference to place of death: ‘Found dead at Harrowdown Hill, Longworth, Oxon’.

Why was the word ‘found’ used? Why was the crucial question of ‘place of death’ not answered? The death certificate should be precise about the time, cause and location of death.

The doctors who have investigated the case believe the failure to answer this question leaves open the possibility that Dr Kelly died somewhere other than Harrowdown Hill, the wood where his body was discovered. If this was the case, they are concerned the law may have been subverted over Dr Kelly’s death.

Any such irregularity would inevitably add to the pressure to reopen the case. Indeed, earlier this month it was revealed that Justice Secretary Ken Clarke and Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who have the power to undo Hutton’s 70-year gagging order and demand a coroner’s inquest into Dr Kelly’s death, are poised to re-open the case.

To this day, the location where Dr Kelly died remains a mystery — yet it is surely the most basic requirement of an investigation into any violent or unexpected death.

Nor was the question of the location of death raised at the Hutton Inquiry.

Amazingly, Chief Inspector (now Superintendent) Alan Young of Thames Valley Police, who headed the investigation into Dr Kelly’s death, did not even give evidence to the Hutton Inquiry.

Significantly, it emerged via a Freedom of Information request in 2008 that a police helicopter with heat-seeking equipment which searched for Dr Kelly on the night he disappeared did not detect his body.'

There is plenty more meat in The Mail story and do read it. I think there is even more to emerge...

So is Nick Clegg willing to break his word on supporting the party with the biggest mandate?

The news that Gordon Brown is to stand down as Labour leader sets in motion two things: one a Labour leadership election, or on previous form the coronation of someone unsuitable and two the formation of a Labour/LibDem government.

At 16:05 today I posted on Guido Fawkes that: 'I get the horrible feeling that the LibDems will end up propping up a Labour government that has changed leader. If so who wants to stay and who wants to flee the country? The two ‘beaten’ parties form a government; if Labour had come first and Conservatives and LibDems formed the government you know that riots would ensue and the BBC would be casting aspersions about ‘legitimacy’ but this way round there will be no protests.'

The BBC are in seventh heaven, they will gladly sacrifice Gordon Brown for a Labour/Lib Dem government that will continue the mismanagement of the economy and change the electoral system to ensure they are in permanent government.

You have to admire the way that Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown and the BBC have played the last four or five weeks. As soon as it became clear that Labour could not win the general election they boosted the Lib Dems, then talked up the possibility of a hung parliament and then questioned how the Lib Dems could possibly work with the Conservative party.

So the second and third parties in the general election will stitch together a government and who will protest? I am so sick of this f**king country, it's left-wing commissars and state propaganda broadcasting service - I want out as it's me and other taxpayers in London and the South of England who will end up paying the price of Labour's failure and to support the rest of England and the Scottish and Welsh.

Of course the markets that had been cheering up with the likelihood of a Conservative government (aided formally or informally by the Lib Dems) have now taken fright and the pound has dropped a cent against the US Dollar and almost a cent against the Euro since the announcement.

Where is the Treasury's release of documents?

Back in March The Telegraph reported that

'Gordon Brown has been ordered to release information before the general election about his controversial decision to sell Britain's gold reserves.

The decision to sell the gold – taken by Mr Brown when he was Chancellor – is regarded as one of the Treasury's worst financial mistakes and has cost taxpayers almost £7 billion.

Mr Brown and the Treasury have repeatedly refused to disclose information about the gold sale amid allegations that warnings were ignored.

Following a series of freedom of information requests from The Daily Telegraph over the past four years, the Information Commissioner has ordered the Treasury to release some details. The Treasury must publish the information demanded within 35 calendar days – by the end of April.

The sale is expected to be become a major election issue, casting light on Mr Brown's decisions while at the Treasury. '

Today is May 1 and I have not seen the release of gthis information. Has the Treasury disobeyed the Information Commissioner? If so, why? This information belongs to the people, if it's release is delayed until after the general election then this is a major scandal. I want every blog, every newspaper, every journalist to ask just one question of every Labour politician between now and Thursday - What have you got to hide that is so serious that you have not complied with the ICO?

Meanwhile gold reached $1,179 on Friday.

What about UNITE?

On Monday Harriet Harman spoke about 'Lobbying and Paid Advocacy' and this was part of what she said:

"From 1 October last year, the Government now publish, for the first time, on a quarterly basis, details of Ministers' meetings with outside interest groups. It is therefore fully transparent which organisations a Minister has met and what the meeting was about."

Are the meetings between Gordon Brown (a Minister) and Charlie Whelan (a representative of an outside interest group - UNITE) reported in this way? If not, why not?

That's convenient, 20 years not 15

The news that the Government have decided not to reduce the period for publishing secret government papers from the current 30 years to 15 years as proposed by the government review but instead have opted for 20 years, does not surprise me. It is now 13 years since Labour's 1997 election victory and Labour would rather release information relating to the last years of the last Conservative government than anything surrounding their early years in power.

The BBC reports that "the new 20-year rule will be phased in over 10 years by doubling the amount of old records released each year". So I assume that in 2011 we will have released 1981 & 1982, in 2012 - 1983 & 1984 etc. which means that 1997 papers will not be released until 2017. How convenient...

“correct that the Government has both economic and social objectives for migration policy”

Last October I wrote about the revelations of Andrew Teather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett. He claimed that he had proof that Labour's relaxation of immigration controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".

A key passage was that:

"He wrote a major speech for Barbara Roche, the then immigration minister, in 2000, which was largely based on drafts of the report.

He said the final published version of the report promoted the labour market case for immigration but unpublished versions contained additional reasons, he said.

He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.""

At the time the claims of Andrew Teather received less attention than they deserved, the BBC in particular chose to all but ignore them.


Later in October I recorded how Phil Woolas chose to respond to a question posed by Chris Grayling - "I do not know to whom or to which reports the hon. Gentleman refers."


Today the story moves on to another level as The Telegraph reports that following a Freedom Of Information request by MigrationWatch:

"a previously unseen document suggested that Labour’s migration policy over the past decade had been aimed not just at meeting the country’s economic needs, but also the Government’s “social objectives”.

The paper said migration would “enhance economic growth” and made clear that trying to halt or reverse it could be “economically damaging”. But it also stated that immigration had general “benefits” and that a new policy framework was needed to “maximise” the contribution of migration to the Government’s wider social aims. "

This story needs to be investigated further and the Labour government pursued over it but I fear that David Cameron still thinks that he can become Prime Minister by being nice and not aggressive. Maybe he will change his mind, today's PMQs would be a good place to start, but I don't think he has the stomach for a proper fight with Gordon Brown and his team.

Meanwhile the BBC have once again chosen to ignore the story on their news pages but do have a magazine type piece entitled "Did immigration transform Britain by accident? " that claims precisely the opposite of what has been revealed recently. David Goodhart claims that

"At no point in the last 12 years does there seem to have been a general discussion in cabinet about the country's immigration strategy.

I have discovered that the final decision to open Britain's labour market to Eastern and Central Europeans was taken by a small group of officials and special advisers before an EU Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels.

It is emblematic of the insouciant way in which the great demographic transformation has occurred.

An accumulation of small decisions, all of them perfectly rational and sensible in their own right, has led to a mighty big - and pretty unpopular - outcome. "

David Goodhart also lists the five main reasons that immigration increased:

"What is more, between 1997 and 2003 there were, I think, five significant government decisions.

First, there was the abolition of the primary purpose rule, very unpopular with South Asians in particular, the repeal of which did have the effect of significantly raising the inward flow of spouses.

Second, there was the introduction of the Human Rights Act, which among many other things made it harder to restrict the number of asylum seekers.

Third, there was a liberalisation of student visas which more than doubled to over 130,000 a year. The government has just announced plans to restrict abuse of the system.

Fourth, there was a similar liberalization of work permits.

Fifth, opening the British labour market to people from the new EU states, seven years before any other big EU member. Instead of a few tens of thousands, more than 1 million people came after 2004. "

Oddly I do not recall the BBC reminding people that "there was a liberalisation of student visas which more than doubled to over 130,000 a year" when they reported the Labour government's plans to restrict abuse of this system just last week.


The massive increase in immigration into the UK over the last 13 years is nothing short of scandalous but, if true, the revelations that it was a deliberate policy of the Labour government may take us towards prosecuting leading government ministers for criminal activity.

Only Lord Ashcroft?

The BBC are in full attack the Tories mode at present and this piece is typical. It's entitled "Tax attack on Tory peer Ashcroft" and reports

"The Lib Dems have said new laws should be brought in immediately to remove MPs and peers who do not pay tax in the UK from Parliament.

Mr Cable, standing in for Nick Clegg at prime minister's questions, accused Tory peer Lord Ashcroft of not paying tax in the UK on overseas earnings.

The Conservatives have said they will pass a law requiring all MPs and peers to pay tax in the UK if elected.

For Labour, Harriet Harman said peers and MPs must "set an example" on tax.

When he was made a Conservative peer in 2000, Lord Ashcroft gave an undertaking that he would pay taxes in the UK but has since refused to comment on his tax status, insisting it was a private matter.

As well as being deputy chairman of the party, Lord Ashcroft is one of the Conservatives' largest donors. "

The entire piece is about Lord Ashcroft's tax affairs, so I assume he is the only 'non-dom' politician in the House of Lords? Hold on though, didn't I read recently about Lord Paul, the major Labour donor who has just been made a Privy Councillor, isn't he a 'non-dom'? Lord Paul in case the BBC have never heard of him has many links to Gordon Brown and the Labour Party, here are a few:

" * Lord Paul’s Caparo gave £45,000 to Brown’s Leadership campaign
* Caparo Industries, a company in the Caparo Group chaired by Lord Paul, gave donations of £25,000 and £20,000 to Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign (Electoral Commission).
* Pledged to bankroll Labour’s election campaign
* In August 2007, Lord Paul said to Channel 4 News: ‘all I know is that if there is an election and the money is wanted, whatever I can pay, I will pay...I am a believer in Gordon Brown and his leadership.’
* When he was asked how much he would be ready to give Labour, he said: ‘As much as I can afford.’ (Lord Paul, reported in The Daily Mail, 22 August 2007)

According to The Sunday Times, ‘other top donors non-domiciled for tax purposes include Lord Paul of Marylebone whose companies have given £400,000 to Labour and who has been appointed Blair's unofficial envoy to the Indian subcontinent’ (Sunday Times, 24 February 2002).

According to The Mail on Sunday, Lord Paul funded Gordon Brown’s private office in opposition: ‘Lord Paul, whose fortune is estimated at £450million, funded Mr Brown's private office in opposition and has pledged to “give whatever he can afford” to help ensure Labour is re-elected.’ (Mail on Sunday, 9 September 2007)

A news story on the Caparo Website reveals that Sarah Brown presented Angad Paul, Lord Paul’s son, with a prize in September 2007:

‘Angad Paul, Caparo Group chief executive officer has received the GG2 Leadership and Diversity award for Entrepreneur of the Year in recognition of his dynamic role in the expansion of the group. ‘Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, presented the award to Angad, in a ceremony attended by over 800 dignitaries at the prestigious Grosvenor House Hotel in London on September 10th.’

(Caparo Website, 11 September 2007;)


* Lord Paul bought 6,000 copies of Gordon Brown’s book Courage to distribute to secondary schools (The Times, 25 August 2007).
* Caparo Group donated £15,700 to Keith Vaz between 1993 and 1997. However, Vaz failed to declare one of these payments which totalled £3,000 (The Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2001; )"

Maybe the BBC would like to consider some other Labour supporting 'non-doms' whilst they are looking into Lord Paul - Sir Ghulam Noon, Lakshmi Mittal, Sir Ronald Cohen,
Ron Sandler. In the meantime, here's a written question and answer from Hansard 02.12.09:

"Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Prime Minister whether (a) he and his predecessor and (b) officials in the Prime Minister's Office have had meetings with Angad Paul in each of the last three years. [303112]

The Prime Minister: My officials and I have meetings with a wide range of organisations and individuals on a range of subjects."

Might they have something to hide?

I note that it is being reported that:

"Gordon Brown’s government was on a collision course with the UK Information Commissioner last night after ministers decided to block the release of key Cabinet discussions in 1997 covering decisions taken in the run-up to devolution.

Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner, said he was “concerned” that ministers will now try to routinely block the publication of Cabinet minutes.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, vetoed the release of the documents, citing the convention of collective Cabinet responsibility. "

Anyone would think that the Labour government had something to hide.

You might like to take a look at Jack Straw's speech to the Campaign for Freedom of Information's
annual Awards ceremony, 7 June 1999 for a bit of light relief at this point.


Having pondered that you might like to also remember that

"in February 2009, Straw used his authority as Justice Secretary to veto publication of government documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act: in particular, those pertaining to early government meetings concerning the (back then, forthcoming) Iraq War."

A great believer in Freedom of Information; well maybe more in theory than practice.

Pulling rank, Labour style?

I see that Ed Balls winning of the selection contest for the new Morley and Outwood seat is coming under renewed scrutiny.

The current Rothwell Labour MP, Colin Challen, has claimed he is being pushed out of Parliament to make way for cabinet minister Ed Balls to contest the new merged constituency. Colin Challen has made a submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life that goes against what he originally said when he announced he was standing down as an MP in order to take up a job after the next election with Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the Treasury's global warming report. Do bear in mind the connections between Ed Balls, ex of the Treasury, Nicholas Stern and Gordon Brown.
Colin Challen's submission in a letter, marked "strictly private and confidential", to Sir Christopher pointed out that the manner of a politician's departure from Parliament can sometimes be "unusual". It is claimed that he said:

"An MP who – like me – is effectively 'pushed out' in a selection contest, eg, after a Boundary Commission review, is no less entitled to view the matter as a form of redundancy as is an MP who loses their seat in a general election. I am happy to talk to you about this if you wish, but it is very politically sensitive."

Oops that may have let the cat out of the bag. Rothwell Today reports that:

"Mr Challen, who is currently in the South Pacific, was unavailable for comment.

A spokesperson for Yorkshire and the Humber Labour Party said: "The selection process in the new Morley and Outwood Constituency was conducted in a normal and fair way in accordance with Labour Party rules as set down by the NEC."

Mr Balls was unavailable for comment."

Somehow I don't think this will make the BBC news. I wonder if Ed Balls will be asked any questions regarding this matter by anyone.

All on one day?

I have just taken a look at what "written answers" were laid before parliament on the last working day of the last session. Take a look there seem to be well over a thousand, were none of them ready until the last day of the session or were at least some released on this day so as to minimise attention to the news contained?

Loyalty to "the Party" is all

The UK in 2009 is resembling more and more the Soviet Union in the 1970s. This Spectator piece reveals via John Kampfner "The price of Mandelson's support" for Gordon Brown thus:

"Not known until now is one vital part of their negotiation. Mandelson – on Blair’s behalf – set down specific conditions for the Iraq war inquiry. The deal, I am told, was explicit. Not only would the hearings be fully in private, but that the committee would, as with Hutton, be manageable. Brown was instructed to ensure that the members of the inquiry would, in the words of one official “not stir the horses”. Brown readily acquiesced. He was not in a position to do anything else. It was a done deal, even before James Purnell sent alarm bells through Downing Street with his resignation on the night of June 4.

Which in turn begs a further question. Why should confidentiality in the Iraq hearings be so important to Mandelson? Again, John supplies the answer:

Mandelson’s involvement in this affair is more complicated. He has personally less to hide than Blair, Campbell and the others who were intimately engaged in the war planning. His motivation hinges around preserving the Blair Brand that he was instrumental in creating. He agreed a year ago to join Brown’s cabinet in order to ensure that the Brand was not sullied. He agreed to prop up the prime minister earlier this month in order to ensure that the Brand was not completely destroyed.

A mystery solved, then – and another shameful chapter in the New Labour saga written. The terms of the Chilcot Inquiry – already unravelling – were initially traded in return for loyalty: no more or less. Gordon revealed that more or less anything was for sale in those fateful hours; Peter revealed where his deepest loyalty still lies. And, to the huge relief of the Conservatives and dismay of many in the Labour ranks, the Brown premiership was salvaged"

"...and that is not going to be allowed to happen"

What a curious turn of phrase that was that Gordon Brown used at the end of his "answer" to David Cameron's sixth question at PMQs today.

"These are exactly the public services the Conservatives would cut, and they would cut by 10% savagely; and that is not going to be allowed to happen"

"Not going to be allowed to happen"; what does Gordon Brown mean by that?

"Not going to be allowed to happen"; if the Conservatives look like winning a general election will Gordon Brown not allow that election to happen?

"Not going to be allowed to happen"; do Gordon Brown and his gang have plans ready to prevent the Conservatives from ever taking power again?


You can read the exchange in Hansard here although they report the threat thus:

"Those are exactly the public services that the Conservatives would cut savagely, by 10 per cent. That is not going to be allowed to happen."

News update

Iraq inquiry update

I see that some generals have called for the recently announced in-private inquiry to be held at least partly in public. General Sir Mike Jackson has said that:

"I would have no problem at all in giving my evidence in public." He said Mr Brown's decision that the proceedings be held in private fed "the climate of suspicion and scepticism about government", adding that the Prime Minister ought to consider requiring witnesses to give evidence on oath.

"I do not see why it could not have gone for a halfway house with sessions in public and then having private hearings when it comes to intelligence," said General Jackson. "And they do have to look at the intelligence that Blair used in the run-up to the war... which at the end turned out to be fool's gold."

Also Air Marshal Sir John Walker, the former head of Defence Intelligence, said:

"There is only one reason that the inquiry is being heard in private and that is to protect past and present members of this Government. There are 179 reasons why the military want the truth to be out on what happened over Iraq."

In addition Major General Julian Thompson, who was highly decorated for his command of the Royal Marines in the Falklands, said:

"I do not see why this has been based on the Franks inquiry into the Falklands. At that time the Cold War was on and protecting Western secrets in things like communication was used as the reason to hold the inquiry in secret. That is certainly not the case now. Also, the Falklands was essentially a failure of intelligence.

"Here we are looking at something much more serious: the allegation that a British government manipulated intelligence to take part in an illegal war.

"There is no reason why the public should not be able to hear the witnesses and judge what they say for themselves. We should not have to depend on a group of people handpicked by the current Government. A report from a secret inquiry will look like a whitewash."

Secrecy, whitewash and cover-up would seem to explain Gordon Brown's inquiry.

The composition of the Iraq inquiry

The Guardian reports that the members of the Iraq inquiry are:

"Sir John Chilcott, the former permanent secretary at the Northern Ireland Office, who was a member of the Butler inquiry into intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Other inquiry members are: Sir Roderic Lyne, the foreign affairs private secretary to John Major in 2003; Sir Martin Gilbert, a historian much favoured by Brown; and Sir Lawrence Freedman, who was credited with writing large parts of Tony Blair's speech in Chicago in 1999 making the case for liberal military intervention, and has described the Bush administration's conduct of the war as "dysfunctional". The final member is the crossbench peer and chair of the judicial appointments commission, Baroness Usha Prashar."

So that all looks fair and straightforward. Maybe an inquiry is needed into how Gordon Brown selected the members of the Iraq inquiry.

The Iraq Inquiry - Bob Ainsworth didn't sound very convincing

When the BBC put up tonight's 5pm PM programme, do take a listen to the interview with Bob Ainsworth. Eddie Mair (not Carolyn Quinn as scheduled asked the questions I would have wanted asking and Bob Ainsworth tries to first defend the indefensible and then attack the interviewer "dripping with sarcasm" was, I believe, the charge laid against Eddie Mair. I did like the way Eddie Mair repeated the point that this inquiry would be in private, would not apportion blame, could not compel witnesses to intend and witnesses would not be on oath in a less sarcastic voice; a nice touch.

This Iraq inquiry is designed to try and push the Iraq issue out of the election equation and so regain at least some of the voters who have left Labour for the LibDems, to help convince the Muslim vote that Labour is still the natural home for their votes and to ensure that the real truth behind the Iraq war does not come out.