Labour donor scandal merits a string of resignations that just won’t happen

Is there really a need for The Wilted Rose any more?  When I started this blog in the summer Labour were flying high – and I felt like having a real go at them.

The Labour Party is doing more than enough to bring its poll rating down to a ridiculous 27%.  After 10 years, you’d think a Government would have done enough to at least count on the loyalty of at least 30% of the voters (I do not use the word electorate since only between 60 – 70% bother to vote)?

Not if they’re the Labour Party.

Northern Rock, the 25 million lost Revenues & Customs records, and now DonorGate II.  What next, may I ask?

It is time that we take a sober look at this.  A donor gave to the Labour Party, illegally via intermediaries (who didn’t even, apparently, know), whilst mysteriously having the objection to his £60million development withdrawn by Douglas Alexander.  Mr Alexander must resign.

He gave to Harriett Harman (via his Secretary who didn’t know).  She took it, and did no due diligence.  Ms Harman must resign.

Mr Benn and Mr Brown and Baroness Jay all knew what was going on with David Abrahams.  But how come no one seems to have told Ms Harman or Mr Alexander?  Mr Benn is at least in the clear.

Worse still,

(i) Mr Abrahams received a letter from Mr Brown’s fundraiser, Mendellsohn (not Mandelson), thanking him for the donation.  Mr Mendellsohn must resign.

(ii) The big donors – which Mr Abrahams is  (despite Blair’s ex agent, John Burton’s, assertion that Abrahams couldn’t afford it) – get looked after and meet the main people in the party.  It was well know that he was donating via intermediaries.  Mr Brown denies it.

At least Alistair Darling does not appear to be mired in this controversy, although Mr Darling should resign over his incompetent handling of Northern Wreck and HMRC.

It is time, too, for the man who heads up this not-fit-for-purpose organisation, the Labour Party, Gordon Brown, to resign.  At least then Labour might have some decent poll ratings again, and the next election won’t be a foregone conclusion, and this blog can really feel that it is not kicking a Government that is well and truly down.

But we know that won’t happen.  Mr Brown will cling onto high office and he will shield the hapless Harman and dopey Darling; and, unlike that Titanicesque MS Voyager that sunk in the Antarctic, they will go down with the sinking ship that is the Labour Government.

Posted by Mountjoy 6.59pm

Labour is now institutionally corrupt

While the Australians seem to have had a collective bout of political suicide by electing Rudd’s Australian Labor Party, the UK’s Brownian Labour Party is proving itself to be as sleazy as ever.

In fact, ‘Labour Party sleaze’ is now unnecessary.  All one has to say is ‘Labour Party’. 

We hear that a Labour man in the north east (the future Lord Abrahams of Newcastle, no doubt) donated through two of his employees to hide his identity.  Why he should wish to do so is anyone’s guess.

Why the Labour Party was happy to act as accessories in this illegal act, resulting in its General Secretary’s resignation, is simply due to the fact that the Labour Party is now institutionally corrupt.

It is sad, though, that we have to wait another two and a half years before we get rid of this Labour Government.

Posted by Mountjoy 8.43pm

Labour at an all-time low – and quite rightly too

In the midst of this crisis of lost records, Northern Rock, and general Labour incompetence, the Labour Party is at an all-time low in the opinion polls.

A YouGov poll for C4 News on Thursday puts Labour at 32% (a 9-point Tory lead) and an ICM poll in tomorrow’s Guardian on 31% (only a 6% Tory lead, due to a remarkable Lib Dem comeback).  Hat tip: Conservative Home.

With the LibDems on 21%, at the expense of both major parties although it is certainly a “LibDem Leadership Bounce”, it may be the return to three-party politics.  Particularly if the LibDems can take on Labour as they did over the Iraq War, but on other issues such as civil liberties and the economy, and capture Labour seats in the north.  To achieve this the LibDems should vote for Chris Huhne, rather than ‘Calamity’ Clegg.

In Scotland, Labour is being obliterated by smooth operator Alex Salmond, whose party is now ahead of Labour again in several opinion polls (with an impressive Tory recovery in Scotland).  The likes of Alistair Darling (Edinburgh, SW) and Des Browne (Kilmarnock) should watch their seats – and majorities - very carefully as they will have a major Tory and SNP challenge, respectively.

This Labour Government has the smell of death, as sure as John Major’s Government had in 1997.  Alas, it will not be until 2010 that the British people have the chance to vote Labour out but this moribund Government cannot now recover.  The British people gave Blair another chance (by not turning out for the 2005 election to vote him out), but now they have three impressive alternative parties to vote for – the Tories and Lib Dems – plus the SNP in Scotland.  Plaid Cymru alas appears to be in bed with Labour in Wales.

It is time for a new approach to tactical voting.  If a Tory can defeat a Labour MP, vote Tory; and, in quite a number of seats either the LibDems or SNP can beat an incumbent Labour MP, and it is up to voters to make their minds up in those seats how they should vote if they wish to get rid of this Government and their Labour MP.

Labour MPs details lost too … and Gordon’s green ?

And we hear that Labour MPs with children have lost their details too amongst the 25 million people’s records lost.  Well, at least they will be ‘in touch’ for a change, and know how it is in the real world, as opposed to Westminster.

Off to Cardiff for a few days to the RENT Entrepreneurship conference, chaired by fellow blogger Dylan Jones-Evans who points out that environment firms in Wales are under threat because of Government cuts.  So much for Brown’s green crudentials [sic].  Posting may, therefore, be light unless some news breaks (Darling resigning, for example) and I feel compelled to blog.

Does anyone have any idea what happened to the layout of my blog?  It changed suddenly a week ago, and it is inexplicable.  Which of you did it?

Posted by Mountjoy 10.16am

Why does calamity follow Alistair Darling like a stalker?

So what is it about Alistair Darling, that calamity seems to follow him like a stalker?

Not only is the hapless Chancellor of the Exchequer (reaping his predecessor’s mistakes, mainly) mired down in a scandal over Northern Rock, but now 25 million records have been lost by Revenue & Customs.  Leading to the resignation of the Head of R & C.

Trying to blame a “junior member of staff” (why did the Head of R & C resign, then?), Darling was lined up with the rogues gallery of the Labour Front Bench, including Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith, Andy Burnham and others.  Brown is in for a bloodbath at PMQs tomorrow.

There is only one option now for Mr Darling – to resign, before it gets any worse.  However, the worst could be that Brown chooses Ed Balls as the new Chancellor.  Now that would be a calamity.

Posted by Moutnjoy 9.45pm

Labour creates de facto united Ireland

What a way to celebrate my birthday – although I have managed to get my broadband re-connected after 3 months and I believe I have secured a new job in Belfast, the prospective buyer of my house has pulled out (ostensibly, due to scumbags in the media and press talking the housing market down).  Then I learn that Labour scumbags are going to force me, and many others, to carry a passport (not having a driver’s license) to travel by ferry or aeroplane to or from Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the UK. 

This is a despicable act by a Labour Party – which is still as pro-Irish unity as ever – which promised that a united Ireland could only be created by consent of the people of Ulster. 

This is a Labour Party which has endangered the union between England, Wales and Scotland by betraying the Scottish people and forcing them to elect an SNP government.  In time, the Scots may vote for independence rather than face the prospect of being governed by Labour.

And now, because of Labour’s pathetic border controls (if I wanted to, I could easily find someone in Wolverhampton, Birmingham, London or elsewhere to help smuggle people in), British born people are being forced to carry passports or driving licenses (if you have one) in order to travel between Ulster and Great Britain.

This is absurd, given that one can travel between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland without a passport.

Ireland is hardly the source of illegal immigrants or Al-Qaeda type terrorists (I do not use the offensive “Islamist” slur favoured by tabloids and the Labour Party), so this is just a lie in order to appease those who wish to see a united Ireland by stealth.

Of course unionists, especially the Democratic Unionist Party, have fought tooth-and-nail against this new measure; but when does democracy mean anything to the Labour scumbags whose lies held up devolution in Ulster for so long, and so unnecessarily led to the destruction of the Ulster Unionist Party?  Now, when there is real progress and apparent success in the political process, we are slapped in the face by having to carry ID in order to travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Another reason never to vote Labour and to hope for the swift defeat of this iniquitous Brownite Government.

Posted by Mountjoy 1.58pm

Jacqui Smith, spinner par excellence

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has been caught out trying to bury bad news about 5,000 illegal immigrants.  She gave a robust defence in Parliament today and won some of the hearts (if not minds) of MPs. 

However, Ms Smith, who Black Country parents will be pleased to know no longer is a teacher, is alas in charge of our security and borders.  It is rather worrying that she can’t be a bit more upfront about the truth.  But then the truth and Labour Politicians long ago parted company.

Ms Smith takes the view that she is right to withhold evidence because she chooses to.  But it is in the public interest to know what is actually going on.

This, and her support for Sir Ian Bliar, not to mention her disappearance during the social breakdown crisis around the time of the murder of Rhys Jones, when neither she nor the Prime Minister would say a word, does not augur well. 

A major gaffe will arise within the next 6 months that will end her front bench career, just as it has done for Blunkett, Clark and others.  It will not be long but we won’t miss this Home Secretary, just as much as the parents of her former pupils don’t miss her.  What is more worrying is who her successor might be.

Posted by Mountjoy 7.13pm

Ed Balls sleaze row

According to the Telegraph, Ed Balls did not declare employment as a fellow at the Smith Institute, after he became an MP.  He worked for the Institute between 2004 and 2005.  He has been a very naughty boy, especially since his mentor Gordon Brown promised no more sleaze after Blair.

I do hope that Balls will do the honourable thing and resign but won’t hold my breath.

Posted by Mountjoy 4.46pm

Why GB needs more grammar schools

What, then, is the biggest crisis facing Great Britain today?  What irks the people of England, Scotland and Wales most strongly?  Is it tax, especially inheritance tax?  Is it the NHS?  Or could it possibly be immigration?  Or maybe crime?

All of these things are in some way irritants, and indeed they may cause temporary or event-centred unease or problems.  You might feel your pockets emptied by tax; you may have to wait or receive substandard treatment for health problems; you might feel that your country has changed ‘irrevocably’; or you might not feel safe on the streets. 

When I say event-centred, I mean that they may not play on your mind all the time or mess up your future – or your kids’ future - and make you resort to this.  Yes, opting out of state schools, and going private.  There is nothing more despicable than not being able to count on a good education.  If you have some spare cash (or can release equity from your home), i.e. if you are not working class or lower-middle-class without such resouces, you can do so.

It is despicable that working class kids, or lower-middle-class kids, whose parents simply can’t afford to go private, have to put up with the substandard education that is on offer.  They can’t afford to move into the catchment areas of the ‘good’ schools … and their kids may never go to university.  Worse still, they may end up in the ‘unemployable’ or ‘unskilled’ underclass that is called NEETs when they’re young and LTU (long-term unemployed) when they’re older. 

This is not a problem for many parents, though, in Kent, Trafford, Buckinghamshire and several other local authorities where intellectual idiocy – and so-called progressiveness – did not result in the abolition of grammar schools.

The three main political parties have, frankly, idiotic policies which are based on the mantra that selection is inequitable, and a vote-loser.  In fact, educational selection – and offering bright kids from working-class homes like mine or lower-middle-class homes who can’t afford to go private – is a vote winner as sure as the right to buy your own council house was.

And it is also socially just. 

Communities who wish to have a grammar school should be allowed to create one, whether it’s funded via philanthropy such as an innercity academy currently is, or whether it’s a Co-operative School as proposed by the Tories. 

It works effectively in my native Ulster, where very many working-class kids get a first-class education and many go to University.  If I had been brought up in Birmingham or London I would never have got to University.

If the political argument on lower taxes has been won, it is time for the argument on academic selection to be won too.  The future of our kids, rather than a few hundred pounds in the pockets, is far more important. 

Posted by Mountjoy 12.39pm

Go now

Defeated by a vote of no confidence 15 to 8.  You would think that anyone with one iota of honour would resign, as a result of such an overwhelming vote, but then who would describe Sir Ian Bliar as a man of honour?

After the despicable case of Jean Charles De Menezes’ murder, Bliar is too busy clinging on, like his namesake, to office.  It is the money that he is only interested in, now that his reputation is in tatters.

Jacqui Smith, the bosomed Home Secretary, has supported him but she is discredited by her association with him.

Bliar should resign now, or he will eventually be forced out. 

Posted by Mountjoy 5.34pm

So much for Bank of England independence

So now we hear that Alistair Darling and Mervyn King have had a public spat, with Darling disputing the very believable series of events recounted by King.  Basically, Darling refused the emergency funding that would have allowed Lloyds TSB to take over Northern Rock, and which would have stopped the first run on a bank since the 19th century.

As a result of the spat, which has included some stupid Labour MP on the relevant committee accusing King of talking ‘when he shouldn’t', Brown and Darling are considering not reappointing King as Governor of the Bank of England.

All I am going to say, as I am enjoying my entrepreneurship conference in Glasgow too much to write a long spiel, is whatever happened to Bank of England independence?  ‘Do what we say and don’t criticise us’ does not engender much confidence.

Still, maybe there’s some hope that the Bank will reduce interest rates, to help return confidence to the housing market, although I am okay; as after two months I have finally sold my house; but I still worry about the so-called independence of the Bank. At least King had the guts to stand up to Darling and Brown – his successor, alas, probably won’t.  We’re all losers, as a consequence…

Posted by Mountjoy 6.30pm

Raising the school leaving age is unnecessary – and cruel

Ed Balls’ decision to raise the school leaving age is a despicable act by a Government desperate to reduce the employment figures.

We live in a country which is one of the worst if you are a child: you’re either murdered in the womb, then you may have your education ruined by a disastrous system, and maybe if you’re lucky you will avoid being shot or knifed.  Not to mention the disgraceful age of criminal responsibility being so low – 13 and 14 year old kids locked up in prison for throwing stones. 

It is not only unnecessary; it is also cruel.  Many kids do stay on until they’re 18 but for many this is not an option and employment offers a chance for them to finally have something to do.  For others, jobs are not on offer or they have little confidence.

This is Labour at its worst and most socialist.  Vote them out, soon, please.

Posted by Mountjoy 10.05am

Will Liam ‘Hardy’ Byrne resign?

Yet another post on why some numbskull holding public office should resign.

Liam Byrne, the Oliver Hardy of the double act that is Liam Byrne and Caroline ‘Stan Laurel’ Flint, has got himself into a fine mess this time.  Would you believe Byrne has been done for using his mobile while driving.

Three points on his licence, £100 fine plus £35 costs, is all he got for this despicable crime.  What would have happened had a young boy or girl walked out onto Tyburn Road and being killed or seriously injured due to Byrne’s negligence?

The law is not there to be ignored.  Stopping people using mobile phones while driving is to protect the public from drivers’ clear inability to concentrate on driving while holding a mobile phone. 

Had a child been killed or maimed due to Byrne’s actions, the story would be different today.  Instead, he just has egg on his face. 

Byrne should resign.  There is no point a minister, whom the BBC reports has “campaigned vigorously on road safety”, flouting laws that his own Government has introduced.  His boss, Jacqui Smith, has full confidence in Sir Ian Bliar but has she full confidence in Byrne???

The law either applies to ministers or it doesn’t; if it doesn’t they’re not fit to be ministers.  Nick Scott was quite rightly deselected from Kensington & Chelsea over his drink-driving activities – it is time for Byrne to be removed from his office because he drove while on the phone, which is potentially just as dangerous for a child on the receiving end of a car with a driver not in control.

Why new Bliar should resign

What is it about people clinging to office when years ago they would have done the decent thing and resigned?  No resignation for Merv ‘The Swerve’ King yet or from Alistair Darling for their stupidity…

… so we needn’t expect Sir Ian Bliar to resign either, just as it took a long time for his namesake Tony Bliar to step down.

A man has been murdered by the police.  An innocent man, shot in the head.  His crime?  Going about his daily business, and because some of the police are too stupid (and institutionally racist; thank you MacPherson) to tell the difference between an Asian and a Brazilian.  And the stupidity and incompetence extends to all the ludicrous mistakes that were made – for example, allowing Mr De Menezes to go down to the Tube rather than arresting him beforehand.  And those in the control room hadn’t a clue what they were doing either.

And this is the Metropolitan police who are supposed to protect London from crime and terrorism, and they shoot an innocent man in the head like this?  Not to mention the lies they told on the day since it has become clear that they knew they’d shot an innocent man sooner than they’d claimed.

If Bliar doesn’t resign, maybe the Police Authority will push him.  Let’s hope so for the sake of the reputation of the Met.

Posted by Mountjoy 1.53pm