The EU Doesn't Do 'No'

People in the Irish Republic have seen through the EU's new Treaty/Constitution and said No, slow down, you are moving too fast and too far. But Brussels doesn't take 'No' for an answer. 

Here, neither will Brown. The ROI stood up to Brussels and the Irish Referendum vote may slow things down a bit but it won't make the slightest difference in the long run. 

There's bound to be some small print somewhere which says the EU can just go ahead and ratify the new Constitution/Treaty anyway. 

After all, the EU can take its pick of Europe's manipulators and bureaucrats to get round this one, including our own Peter Mandelson. There too much at stake here for them to let a little matter of  a referendum of the Irish people get in the way. 

Brown and the other EU leaders will meet soon and do just that. It's a warning sign that the EU has got too big for its boots and is happy to trample over democracy. There's a warning from history here which all EU leaders should heed!

But at least the people of the ROI had a chance to voice their fears. Fat chance here. Any chance of a UK Referendum has been scuppered. The new Treaty/Constitution is being ratified  by a mixture of New Labour skulduggery and muddled LibDem thinking.

The empty argument that people in the Republic Of Ireland (ROI) should be grateful for the benefits the EU has brought them has been exposed as condescending nonsense. Why should they be grateful? They're Members and (unlike the UK) just reaping the benefits. That doesn't mean they had to vote for a major change to the Constitution.

And, given the chance, UK voters would probably agree. People don't like all the red tape coming down from Brussels and are very wary about the speed of further expansion, moves into pan-European defence and plans for a permanent EU President. 

The message is clear. Just leave things as they are for a while. Enough is enough.

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Irish Ayes Aren't Smiling

People in the Irish Republic have seen through the EU's new Treaty/Constitution and said No, slow down, you are moving too fast and too far. They've stood up to Brussels, but Brussels doesn't take 'No' for an answer. And here,  neither will Brown.

The Irish Referendum vote may  slow things down a bit but it won't make the slightest bit of difference in the long run. There's bound to be some small print somewhere which says the EU can just go ahead and ratify the new Constitution/Treaty anyway! 

After all, the EU can take its pick of Europe's manipulators and bureaucrats to get round this one, including our own Peter Mandelson. There too much at stake here for them  to let a little matter of the Irish people get in the way! 

But at least they had a chance to voice their fears. Fat chance here. Any chance of a  UK Referendum has been scuppered by a mixture of New Labour skulduggery and muddled LibDem thinking.

The empty argument that people in the Republic Of Ireland (ROI) should be grateful for the benefits the EU has brought them has been exposed as condescending nonsense. Why should they be grateful? They're Members and (unlike the UK) just reaping the benefits. That doesn't mean they had to vote for a major change to the Constitution.

And given the chance, UK voters would probably agree. People don't like all the red tape coming down from Brussels and are very wary about the speed of further expansion, moves into pan-European defence and plans for a permanent EU President. Just leave things as they are for a while. Enough is enough.

Meanwhile Blair has popped up again. This time to try to justify his ludicrous decision on the Olympics and no doubt meet his pal Bush in London over the weekend. As noted previously, Blair is after only one thing - to make sure the idea of a full time permanent EU President is set in stone and he gets the job.

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Did Davis Jump Or Was He Pushed?

David Davis' decision to quit as a Conservative MP and force a by-election in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency should come as no surprise. Davis may have been a senior member of the shadow cabinet, but he was never part of the Conservative political elite. He was just too working class to be part of Cameron's Political Class.

Did he jump or was he pushed? Is he just fighting for his principles or was it time for a change at the top?

The Conservative leadership campaign between Cameron and Davis focused on what kind of person should lead the Conservative Party. Cameron won hands down. Davis even asked at the time whether the Party wanted him or an 'heir to Blair'. Cameron's presentation skills won the day.

In the early days, he was used as the Cameron attack-dog. Just like Prescott was used by New Labour, Davis is working class and the perfect balance for Cameron's New Conservatives. 

He was used to help Cameron become 'electable' - part of the 'all things to all people' strategy. Davis was tough on crime - but Cameron showed the caring side. The device was used so effectively by Blair, all by himself.

Cameron's Conservatives are now clearly 'electable'. Now though it's time for Cameron to get 'elected' and he wants to move on. Different times require different people. 

Davis had been quiet recently. At one time he was popping up all over the place with a 'hard-line' approach. Recently he's been reduced to end quotes in newspapers. 

You could feel during PMQ's on Wednesday that Cameron's heart wasn't really in the 42 day detention debate and there's a sense that Cameron might be wavering on this issue. Conservatives 'soft on terror' is hardly a vote winner. Davis on the other hand was firmly against the bill and its attack on civil liberties. 

Davis says he will fight the by-election on the 42 day detention issue of civil liberties and that is a noble cause. But what happens if no-one stands against him? All a bit pointless really.

The timing of this announcement should have been a gift for the canny Brown and his New Labour strategists.  But no-one is listening to them and nobody cares. 

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Brown's Pork-Barrel Politics

Brown today repeated his claims that he didn't offer bribes to force though his 42 Days Detention Bill. But he would say that wouldn't he? That's the Brown style. He tries not to touch it, sign it, meet it or be phographed with it. But voters can see through the pork-barrel politics. 

The government may have won the 42 Day vote but Brown and New Labour lost miserably, scraping through by just nine votes. Exactly the number of MPs from Northern Ireland's DUP who voted for these draconian measures.

This ended up being nothing about 42 days and everything about fudges and bribes and Brown's leadership. Brown needed to win big, just to show that he is in charge. And he didn't. What should have been a vote on principles over civil liberties was a vote of confidence in Brown.

Now we'll just have to wait and see who gets the knighthood, whose post office is suddenly saved, what financial boosts come to the Northern Ireland economy and bizarrely, with a rumour of lifting the EU trade ban with Cuba as part of the deal, who goes off on holiday to Cuba. 

Brown could take that much-needed holiday there. It's the hurricane season in Cuba. Wild and windy weather and the storm clouds are gathering. It would be safer there in Cuba than back here in Blighty. 

The term 'pork-barrel politics' is used when government spending is used for projects to benefit particular constituents or campaign contributors. That means bribes.

The phrase originated in the US when gifts of salt-pork in a barrel were given by slave-owners to their slaves. How apt. Brown's Detention Bill supporters should take note.

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X- Files Conspiracy Or Cock-up?

Top secret files get lost on a train. Strange that the files, a 'take' on Iraq and terrorism, got lost at the same time the government was trying to push through its 42 day terrorism detention plan. You can't make it up.

Strange that they were just left lying around on a commuter train. And strange that whoever found them handed them in to the BBC. Why not the newspapers, where they could have made a fortune? Or more importantly why not to the police?

At one point in the initial reporting, BBC News let the cat out of the bag - describing the person who supposedly left the files on the train as 'one of those shadowy spooks'. Good to know that Smiley's People are alive and well. 

And everyone at the BBC seems to have read the damn thing.

So was it a plant to embarrass the government with its poor record on security breaches? Or part of the deliberate dark arts to just to bring 'Iraq, terrorism and that Al K. Ida bloke'  all into the same sentence. 

Or was it just some absent minded civil servant and a very public spirited BBC viewer. 

Conspiracy or cock-up? The truth is always out there.

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Private Pickle Over Polyclinics

Health secretary, Alan Johnson, has been keeping his head down, since his empty promise to 'Deep Clean' hospitals and get rid of those nasty super bugs. Now he's in a pickle over poly-clinics, facing the wrath of doctors and patients over New Labour's plans for private super-surgeries.

Johnson, the former postie, is just delivering the message. The privatisation plan is the brain-child of one of Brown's GOATS, Prof Lord Sir Baron Ari Darzi of Denham, (no kidding), the surgeon-turned-health minister who's now taken the knife to the NHS.

The British Medical Association is due to hand in a petition to Downing Street today signed by hundreds of thousands of patients (over a million according to the BBC/Telegraph) objecting to the 'threat to close' their local GPs' surgeries.

There's something reasuring about popping down to your cosy GP surgery when you're not well and having a chat with a doctor who knows you and your family history. It makes you feel better already.

Not so with this latest Big Idea. These are mega-clinics - up to 25 GPs in a huge building - and no doubt all run and owned by private health care companies.

When will it all end? Will Brown ever listen to the warning signs or is he just in self-destruct mode?

After the 10p tax fiasco and the 42 days detention debacle, Brown is now set to do battle with the doctors and more importantly the patients.

Picture: Tim Sanders

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DUP Saves Brown's Skin

The government has won the 42 days detention vote but Brown and New Labour have lost miserably, scraping through by just nine votes - exactly the number of MPs from Northern Ireland's DUP who voted for these draconian measures.

This was never about 42 days and everything about Brown's failing leadership and the death throes of the New Labour Project.

The New Labour spin doctors did their sums. With the fudges and bribes, it looked like it could scrape through. So what should have been a vote on principles was a vote of confidence in Brown.

The DUP had the financial interests of Northern Ireland and the local economy in mind when they voted. 

But Brown and his cronies gambled that enough Labour MPs would want to avoid causing further destruction of the Party to vote with him. They didn't. But Brown needed to win big, just to show that he is in charge. He didn't and he isn't. This result will be one more nail in Brown's coffin.

A vote for the Bill will not to save the skin of the prime minister bent on self-destruction.

And he played it all out in the media - most notably in Murdoch's Times last week and any other media outlet that would listen to the empty arguments.

Whatever way he tried to spin it, this was 42 days Detention Without Charge or Trial. The most serious threat to our traditions of civil liberties since before the signing of the Magna Carta.

The proposal has been criticised by not only Conservatives, LibDems and backbench Labour MPs, but also the director of public prosecutions, the former attorney general and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. 

It doesn't stand a chance of getting through the House of Lords but Brown make it clear he would not back down.

Echoing Blair and his justification for talking this country to war in Iraq, Brown is on record as saying: "I will stick to the principles I have set out and do the right thing." 

Because he thinks it's right, doesn't make it right.

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Ministers 'Failing' Schools Gimmick

Schools secretary Balls' latest academy plan for 'failing schools' is a cheap gimmick, a government wheeze to privatise state education and put it in the hands of the 'education' business.

New Labour has squandered millions of pounds on education over the past decade and little has been achieved. How embarrassing.

The much vaunted 'flagship' plan for academies is stalling. It's not working fast enough for its architect, Lord Adonis. So schools are being unfairly stigmatised as 'failing' as a pathetic excuse to hand them over to the vast army of education consultants and bureaucrats in privately managed academies.

This has nothing to do with raising standards or performance and everything to do with the half-baked ideas of politicians who are systematically undermining English state schools to save face and put their own political self-interest over the education of children.

The cull is targeting one in five secondary schools in England, so in two years time (election time?) almost one in 10 secondary schools will have academy status.

The teaching unions are rightly indignant and reject the "focus on failure and closure". These schools are not failing. They just haven't met the ridiculous and unrealistic targets set by this government.

The education of our children should not be in the hands of politicians looking for cheap headlines and education consultants after a quick buck. Academies and trust schools are part of the problem, not the solution.

Maybe Edward Michael 'call me Ed' Balls (independent public school and Keble College, Oxford) and Andreas 'Lord' Adonis (independent public school and Keble College, Oxford) should listen to what the real and realistic education professionals have to say, starting with the Campaign for Real Education.

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Playing The Claim Game

We live in an expenses culture. It's not right. It's being abused. Claim for everything you can and everything you think you can get away with. Welcome to the Claim Game.

Many people use expenses as a perk and to boost income. Some are just more blatant and downright dishonest about it than others. 

It happens the world over in the world of business. But it's a different matter when public money is being used to fund the junkets and lifestyles. 

MPs, SMPs and MEPs are elected and accountable. Their expenses have to be written down somewhere and made public (unless they've been shredded). It is right they should be exposed but often they're just playing the system and will use the defence that 'they haven't broken the rules'. With Euro MPs that's even easier. There are no rules! 

With MPs and the like, what you actually claim for is often justified as spending as part of the job. Sort of. Not so for the Euro MP's gravy train. There anything goes. Just bung in a claim. No checks, just wait for the cheque. 

And it costs a fortune. Add up the expenses which can be claimed for all MPs, SMPs and Assembly Members (it's big). Then add in the Euro-MPs (it's very big). And finally the quangocrats and top civil servants (it's obscene). No wonder some London restaurants charge the earth. It's the expenses junket. 

The outrage recently has been on those elected and so it should be. But it's the non-elected, non-accountable civil servants and quango chiefs who can best easily get away with it. Fat chance of getting hold of their expenses. Unless you keep chipping away at it like Private Eye.

There's a plus side. Examining expenses are a great way of getting rid of people you don't like. Something dodgy usually turns up. People in the public eye are often exposed in this way. 

Maybe the recent expose of Conservative MEPs was a useful way of clearing out the deadwood. Peter Hain was never liked by the Labour Party. And Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, just wasn't independent enough. Expenses do have their uses.

The answer isn't just bleating about making expenses transparent and independently accounted. You can still play the Claim Game and be within the law and not break the rules.

The matter will only be settled when those in public office are actually instructed to only claim for real and legitimate expenses and they are only reimbursed when they can prove the spending really was part of the job.

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The English Question Answered

Sooner or later someone is going to have to grasp the nettle and sort out the 'English Question'. What kind of democratic representation should we have in the 21st century?

The present system has been described by Labour MP, Frank Field, as "one of the festering sores in English politics", with English voters becoming increasingly resentful of the present system that allows a range of "fiscal discriminations". 

And the Conservative's Ken Clarke, is looking at the same issue. 

The New Labour government is being, not surprisingly given the Scottish grip on the Party, rather quiet on this vexed issue. 

But this shouldn't be about nationalism. It should be about democratic structures and representation. Yes, it creates resentment, anger (and a headache) but that doesn't mean it can be hidden away. Sooner or later it will come to head. 

The problem is the simple democratic legacy. England doesn’t have a parliament. And whatever solution is put forward, this lack of an English parliament has to be settled once and for all. 

And the fact that Labour MPs, representing Scottish and Welsh constituencies, can vote through laws for England that do not effect their own constituents, is causing a growing backlash among English MPs and voters. 

An actual structure is becoming clear. Westminster, the Mother of all Parliaments, represent the United Kingdom - and that remains sacrosanct. MPs from all over the UK sit at Westminster.

But that UK parliament should only deal with matters which have not been devolved to the four nations. 

What has to be made clear is exactly what powers are devolved to the national parliaments and assemblies and what must remain for the UK as a whole to decide. Defence is obvious. So too must be national security, strategic transport, immigration policy, national taxation and the NHS. 

The Scottish parliament should be given more devolved powers. The Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies should move faster towards their own parliamentary status and the London Assembly must be considered as part of this devolution. 

But in the end, it is the UK parliament which should decide which powers are devolved.

And it would be an English assembly first, then parliament later, which also sits at Westminster, but clearly separate from the UK parliament, to decide English matters. 

That's the structure. Pretty clear and straightforward. Such a structure is inevitable anyway. 

The real problem isn't this structure or the cost. The problem is over the representation to the parliaments and assemblies which have evolved piecemeal over time. 

There's no way round this. England will have to produce another tier of government in the form of English members of parliament (EMPs) - similar to those in Scotland. 

But there's no reason why a present UK MP for an English constituency, sitting in the UK parliament, cannot be the same person as the English parliament MP.

It has to happen soon. Before it all turns nasty.

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Gordon Is An Oximoron

He pays tribute to the dead but does nothing about the wars. He's a guardian of civil liberties but happy to bring in internment without charge or trial. He believes in the voice of the people but refuses an EU Referendum on a major constitutional issue. He's careful with public money but happy to borrow billions, fix the books and plunge this country into debt.

Brown's  oximoronic spin plunged to new depths last week with the sight of pale, tired New Labour ministers at an 'olympic-sized' swimming pool. There to justify the forthcoming Olympic fiasco, all dutifully reported by, er, the BBC's cricket correspondent. 

As if throwing a few bob at swimming can make up for the £7 billion or so to be spent on the 2012 London Olympics. Like Brown, his New Labour cronies stood on the side but none of them dared dip their toes in the water.

Tonight's Channel 4 Dispatches - 'Gordon Brown:Where Did It All Go Wrong?' will be a chance for some New (and True) Labour politicians to explain, well, where it all went wrong.

And this week, 42 days has been plucked out of thin air (why not 43 or 37?) to be spun as a test of Brown's leadership. With enough bribes, compromises and fudges, Brown may scrape through - and the BBC will no doubt gleefully report that Brown has 'survived a test of his leadership'. Has he heck. He's playing with fundamental liberties for short term political gain. 

Meanwhile, as a legal challenge to the non UK Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution gets underway in the High Court, the Irish Republic (ROI)  may well say No in its Referendum. In the UK people would be happy just for a chance to vote either way. 

And guess who's due to drop by on his farewell world tour this week? Yes Brown's new buddy George 'special relationship' Bush. But unlike his contradictory stances in the past, this time Brown won't dither. He will he meet him, be photographed with him, touch him, sign him.

Maybe Bush will be here to offer Brown a job when he quits as PM (does Enron need a new accountant?). But we''ll probably have to wait until after the September Labour Party conference before he's prised out.

Just like his predecessor, the public school boy Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Brown is a contradiction in terms. And that's why people don't like him.

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Death By Numbers in Afghanistan

A milestone has been reached in the 'number of serviceman killed in Afghanistan'. Duly reported by the BBC and the newspapers of record. Reduced to a tally of the dead. Death by numbers. 

Why do we just accept it? Our servicemen continue to die, along with hundreds of civilians in far off lands. We care about the dead, but does anyone care about the wars anymore?

For nearly half a century after Suez, any idea of UK interventionism was not an option. Until recently. Liberal interventionism came back with New Labour and Blair. But only if the US said it was OK. And only if Blair "knew it was right". 

Taking a nation to war is bad enough when the State is threatened directly. The only justification for war must be if the UK is directly under threat by a foreign state. It hasn't been since 1939. 

Pull all operational troops out of Afghanistan. Nobody seems to know why we are there. Fighting Tommy Tailban. But who are they? Fundamental Islamists, sure - but also mainly Afghans. 

The British were there in Victorian times fighting somebody or other. Then the Soviets tried and beat a hasty retreat. Now it's us (again) and the US. What are we doing there? Well, certainly protecting the poppy fields from destruction. After all, more than 90 percent of the UK heroin comes from these fields. Protect the poppy with pride!

And pull all operational troops out of Iraq. See what happens? The tribal groups will realign and eventually federate. Look at the Kurds. They seem to be peacefully getting on with it. Baghdad is a problem. And here the solution is for a UN agreed creation of an independent city state. With a UN peace-keeping force.

We don't have an Empire anymore! Heroin from the poppy fields of Afghanistan is a really bad thing. No general worth his pips would try to fight two wars on two fronts. We just don't have the money to wage any wars let alone two at once. 

Think of the money we'd save. Billions of pounds. We're a tiny island off northern Europe for goodness sake, not a world superpower. We could use some of the cash to help pay off our increasing national debt (and maybe use some for schools and hospitals and staff) and to treat our servicemen with the dignity they deserve. 

And why doesn't some one ask what are all our troops doing stationed in Germany (don't they know the Cold War has ended). And in southern Cyprus (since when have the friendly Turkish EU wannabes been a threat?).

It is time for a reality check. Realise that we can't afford billion of pounds fighting wars in foreign countries. Wake up to the fact that Muslims really don't like western Christians invading their country. Liberal interventionism shouldn't be on the whim of a UK prime minister because he thinks he's right. There's a place for liberal interventionism but only with full UN approval and only then if the UK parliament and people agree. 

The problem is Brown is simply carrying on with Blair's New Labour policy. They've dug themselves into a hole and can't get out. You'd have to do something with all the troops, the sailors and the aircrew and vast army of MoD staff. And there's the huge defence, catering and supply contracts. Pulling out will cost a lot of very rich and powerful people an awful lot of money. 

This isn't anti-war. This is just common sense. 

Meanwhile you can now make up our own news report. "Another British serviceman has been killed in____ This brings the total number of UK troops killed since 2001 to ____. 

Death by numbers.

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Our 'Secret' Guantanamo Bay

Guantanamo Bay sparks outrage in the west as the US government uses a leased base in Cuba to hold and interrogate terrorist suspects. The UK's own GITMO at Diego Garcia would cause equal concern, if only more people knew or cared.

Diego Garcia isn't a Brazilian footballer. It's a tiny island in the Indian Ocean which belongs to the UK. But we've leased it out to the US since the 1970s because they never had an Empire. 

The locals were forced out, so that the island could be turned into a US military base. Now the islanders live in poverty in Mauritius, more than 1,000 miles away. 

The New Labour government is happy to voice concern over Guantanamo Bay and how it's used to get round international law. 

And it still seems strange that the US has a military base in Cuba, when it spent years trying to kill Castro and wreck the economy . 

But unlike Dieigo Garcia, you can easily get to Guantanamo Bay and look at the eerie barbed wire and fences from a distance. 

But you can't drop by Diego Garcia, even with a UK passport, which should give you a right to visit all Crown Territories. 

The UK has a token force on island, which has a huge airstrip but it's mainly full of US military and an army of migrant workers to do the dirty work for them. 

Displaced locals must have some rights under UK law. After all this is Crown Territory. 

But they've been forced out, so the US can use the island for refuelling and long range bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, amid reports of notorious rendition flights and prison ships to the island, to hold and interrogate international terrorist suspects.

In 2004, Blair issued an Order of Council stopping the islanders from ever going back. This 'royal prerogative' was Blair's device to do what he wanted, without recourse to Parliament, the Crown or anyone. 

Through this Blair and New Labour have exiled a whole population from a British Overseas Territory. 

The plight of the islanders and with it the future of the UK/US military base is the subject of High Court and House of Lords appeals. But don't hold your breath on this one.

The case of Diego Garcia show just how hypocritical New Labour can be. What a waste of a beautiful island and what a shame for its people.

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