Brown's Smoke And Mirrors Magic Trick

The spin over Brown's summit swindle is in overdrive. Media handlers must be feeling chuffed. But the $1 trillion masterstroke is an economic sleight of hand trick from the master conjurer of smoke and mirrors accounting. 

The G20 charade had to be a huge success and the brow-beaten public had to get used to Brown's $1 trillion sham to save the world. The big media manipulators at the White House and Downing Street would make sure of that. He may have a spring in his step now but any Brown 'bounce' will be short-lived.

The summit was a pointless and meaningless waste of time and money. The Franco-German split with the US and UK much deeper than some would wish to believe. 

Sure the beginning of a thaw between the US and Russia was tremendously significant. But that happened well away from the summit at another time and in another place. 

But this was blown up by Brown as an economic summit. That's how it was billed and that's what deluded Brown was pinning his hopes and dreams on for an election victory. 

The build up to $1 trillion has been hailed as some kind of 'victory' but it is simply not true. At best it's window dressing of old promised money, dressed up as new. 

The problem with a promise is that it can raise false hopes. There's a huge difference between what's promised and what's delivered to people worried about homes, jobs and businesses. That will be laid bare only in Darling's budget in a few weeks time. The jury will be the voters. A point made by an astute Peter Riddell over at the Times.

This is not the $1 trillion 'fiscal stimulus' Brown had been wandering around demanding over the last few months. In fact 'fiscal stimulus' barely gets a mention at all. It's a funding increase for the IMF and World Bank - something that had already been agreed by world finance ministers.

Burningourmoney  dubs it 'funny money'. Frazer Nelson over at the Spectator has also produced a detailed forensic analysis concluding: "The world is about to learn how illusory a Brown promise really is." The Orange Party reckons it's all a big fat lie.

Not a penny of cold hard cash has been pledged. The  IMF would print this money. No one has stumped up any new cash. It’s printing money for the cash-strapped countries on the verge of going bust after their borowing boom binge left them with crippling debt. All part of the "pure Brown-style fiscal conjuring."

A crack-down on tax havens is not a G20 initiative, it's been kicking around for a while. Banning trade barriers has already been agreed but most countries have actually increased trade barriers as the recession depression kicked in. Hedge funds should be regulated. We know that already but not a word on how.

Brown’s gold selling advice to the IMF is the most mischievous to get him off the hook. After all this was the man who single handedly sold the UK's gold reserves at a knock-down price.

Both Brown and Obama had staked their reputations on trying to get the world to sing to their hymn sheet and cough up new money. Both failed. No wonder it's been spun as a huge success. 

It all looked and sounded so good on the telly but it was supposed to. That's what media managers are for. And it looks good in some of the newspaper headlines. That's what the spinners are for. 

When reality kicks in, people struggling in a rotten economy will ask: Whatever happened about that G20 summit and the $1 trillion? What's in it for us?  The  Paul Daniels magicians answer is - not a lot. 

It was all a con. The $1 trillion sham won't save the world, won't save Brown's skin and won't save him from the unforgiving wrath of voters.  

As the clear-up begins and taxpayers are left to pick up the massive tab, Brown is just left facing the same old piles of trials but with more practised smiles. It's still the domestic economy, stupid. 

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Brown Faces Piles Of Trials With Smiles

The G20 charade is going to be a huge success and the brow-beaten public better get used to it. The big media manipulators at the White House and Downing Street will make sure of that. Away from the G for Gordon summit, the Supreme Leader face piles of trials with smiles. 

Amid all the hype and unprecedented security, little things out of sight are not out of mind. 

Obama is living up to his handle as the boring teleprompter president and he didn't disappoint but in the US it's his meeting with the Russian president which dominated the media.

That mini US-Russian summit between Obama and Medvedev, could mark the beginning of a thaw in relationships and that is highly significant. 

But all that happened behind the closely guarded walls of the US embassy and, apart from a stock press pic, well out of sight. 

The Times splashed with the meeting because it is so significant. (The Times did the same when King met the Queen - another highly significant event). Mike Smithson over at politicalbetting too has picked up on it. 

But the US-Russian meeting happened as an aside to Brown's G20 and it is not to Downing Street's advantage to push it. 

The Orange Party flagged up the hope for a much needed breakthrough in a G20 pre-piece yesterday and it may well prove to be a godsend.  

Meanwhile, as the G20 leaders meet for four and a half hours in fortress Docklands, a little piece of good news and green shoots is needed to brighten up the day. The spinners didn't disappoint. 

That came in a shocking piece of recovery 'news' with a "surprise rise in house prices", based on a piddling little spurious survey from the Nationwide which is set to gobble up Brown's Building society.

That Housepriceballs is reported with glee by the BBC. No surprise there. But under normal circumstances it wouldn't be given house room elsewhere. 

In a miraculous piece of media engineering, the spun 'good news' to help the medicine go down, hit the international wires, picked up and reported globally by Bloomberg and Reuters. Some good news from dear old Blighty for the leaders to chew over at breakfast. 

Buried in the 'good' news: "The Nationwide warned against concluding the market had turned."

So not much of a story, then?

Top prize for the biggest gaff of Brown's Best Bits goes to the deluded prime minister throwing caution to the wind and getting all carried away, proclaiming: "We are within a few hours of agreeing a global plan for economic recovery and reform". 

That was yesterday afternoon and the Orange Party is still waiting. 

Meanwhile Sarko and Merkel were staging their alternative show down the road, showing up an almighty split between US and Europe. Many at Westminster share their views. But part two's instalment today may be a kiss and make-up for the cameras? 

Love-struck Brown made a complete fool of himself drooling over the Chosen One. 

But it was the split second when Obama told the Queen he'd had breakfast with Brown that took the tea and biscuit. Her face was a picture - you could almost taste the displeasure. 

Mandleson is on top form in spinning overdrive but back in the real world, Smith, Myners, the Royal Mail sell-off and the rotten state of the economy are not dead. They are just resting. 

Both Cameron and Clegg can see that a mile off. Brown is so wrapped up in his own ego, it's beginning to hurt. 

UPDATE 5pm: As expected, after all the big talk G20 ended - in a "giant con". There was no big deal about Brown's New Deal. The $1 trillion is not the 'fiscal stimulus' Brown had been banging on about for months. It's funding for his pals at the IMF and World Bank, so cash-strapped countries can borrow from it and get deeper in debt.  

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G2 Likely Lads On Road To Nowhere

The Chosen One has landed and don't we know it, dropping by for a cup of tea and chat with the Queen, while Europe’s leaders give him the cold shoulder and voters here are preparing to give Brown the boot. 

London's locked down as the Likely Lads polish their egos in a money wasting charade, amid unprecedented hype and security. 

The Popular One is packing a weighty agenda as well his teleprompter, on his first journey across the Pond since the American public were duped into staking all their hopes and dreams on a slick snake-oil salesman from the Windy City. 

For the White House, both China and Russia are the key reasons for the London stop-over and a quickie show-case summit is neither the time nor the place to look for magic economic solutions.

Meeting Her Maj is a chance to go global with media coverage. But there will be no time for spin or a teleprompter at that meeting. Anxious about the state of the economy and her people's dire future, the Queen has already been briefed by her King. 

There'll be no manufactured and manipulated mass adulation for the Superstar this time. This is the real world. Something which the president is finding hard to come to grips with. 

In London, all police leave is cancelled, hospitals on stand-by, drains and sewers checked for pesky protestors in a £7 million lock-down. The Beloved One brings with him two aircraft, two helicopters, two bulletproof road-beasts and a 500-strong army of special agents and advisors. And a present for the Queen. And a teleprompter. And for what? 

G20 has dwindled to G2. He stands alone with his new Brown poodle and a painful fiscal stimulus, with France's Sarkozy threatening a walk-out and Germany's Merkel giving a resounding Nein.

Obama's rapid-fire tour comes with a Depression begging bowl. Brother can you spare a dime? More help in Afghanistan? A co-ordinated fiscal stimulus? Sorry, we're out of cash. And troops.

Desperate but divided on ways to lift their countries from economic misery, the London summit was doomed before it started, overshadowed by a US-European row about how to respond to the economic crisis. 

Europeans want institutional reform. The Deluded Ones want a fiscal stimulus, with trillions of dollars of borrowed money on borrowed time threatening to bankrupt their economies. 

The two students of Keynesian economics prefer to concentrate on the Master's borrow and spend economic science solution for a recession, neatly skimming over the first half, where Keynes was adamant that only came after squirrelling away cash during the boom years for that inevitable rainy day. 

Setting just the right tone for the EU-US summit in Prague at the weekend, deposed Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, helpfully warned that US economic policy has put the country on the “road to hell”. 

Away from the love-in, Obama and his Brown have split Europe, wanting to borrow and spend their way out of a recession depression. Europe wants to concentrate on regulation and controls which would not go down well with Brown's banking buddies. China, which holds the purse strings, may lend to dodgy countries but only if you ask them very nicely. 

For Obama, wearing his Bush neocon hat, it's off to meet Nato chiefs to bully them into sending more troops to kill more muslims in his Vietnam war in Afghanistan, with a dangerous expansion inside Pakistan. Then swapping for a pseudo-liberal hat, swinging over to reach out to muslims in Istanbul. Crazy guy, crazy policies.

Fresh from his sermon on the mount at St Paul's and staking everything on a vanity save the world summit, no doubt G20 minus 18 will be spun as an amazingly wonderful success for the Supreme Leader. 

But with his eye on the chance and knowing which side his bread is buttered, Obama has found time to squeeze in a meeting with Cameron, waiting in the prime ministerial wings. 

Any real breakthrough, particulary a much hoped for thaw with Russia, will happen behind closed doors. A skilfully worded and totally meaningless communiqué will be issued but there'll be no big deal about a New Deal. One of the few things world leaders are likely to agree on is that Brown's borrowing plan is not the answer. 

Deluded Brown has staked his political future on the G for Gordon summit and the endorsement of the Popular One. But the president has four years of wriggle room left. 

When the dust settles, love-struck Brown will be left alone in the world with egg on his face, with only his Downing Street photograph album and a boxed set of unplayable DVDs. And taxpayers will be left with up to a £50 million bill. 

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Expenses Mole Hunt Is Spinning Smokescreen

A senior New Labour MP, at the centre of a row over lobbists links to parliament, is also at the centre of a planted smokescreen in a pathetic attempt to spin away minister's shameful expenses. 

The spin machine is working overtime today trying to dig Brown and Smith out of a hole, putting up the smokescreen with a spurious 'expenses for sale' mole hunt whipped up by the BBC, with Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell in the thick of it. 

The mole hunt, which has been topping the news, is a blatant attempt to manipulate the news agenda away from the beleaguered home secretary and the whole sordid scandal of MPs' expenses. 

The BBC placed the mole hunt up top, throughout the morning, after Bell popped up on BBC Newsnight with allegations of an 'expenses for sales' scandal: "All of the receipts of 650-odd MPs, redacted and unredacted, are for sale at a price of £300,000, so I am told."

But what is not reported by the BBC is that only few months ago, Bell was at the centre of a row over lobbyists' links in parliament, accused of failing to fully disclose their connections to business.

Sir Stuart, one of Blair's political knights for "services to parliament", was among three MPs accused by campaign group, Spinwatch, of withholding information from the electorate and parliament about their business activities, reported by the Guardian in January. 

The MPs denied they had broken any rules and it was not suggested they had. But Spenview was listed in Bell's register of members interests only on February 11, 2009 and the website is now password-protected. 

Spenview, before password-protection, was described as "a private boutique of companies" including Spenview Communications, a consultancy firm claiming to "have represented multinational banks, accountancy firms, PR companies, property companies as well as private clients from the Arabian Gulf, UK, Russia and France".

It also claimed to "offer exciting insights into government thinking on a broad range of legislative and regulatory topics covering all aspects of commerce and business". 

Bell said at the time: "None of the people have anything to do with parliament or lobbying. This is a private family business." But he declined to give any more information.

All that came after the day when two homes secretary Smith was up to her neck in her expenses fiddle with some at Westminster calling for her scalp. The Orange Party sensed a mood that some MPs were looking for someone to be thrown to the wolves to assuage voters and unpopular and ridiculed Smith could be that fall-guy. 

Of course there's a mole. That's all part and parcel of investigative journalism. The Orange Party along with some quick kids off the political block saw that yesterday - and chose to flag it up as just part of  Smith's  sorry story. After all the outrage and anger is over the expenses scandal, not the mole: 

"That's prompting some to ask if there's a mole at work, leaking juicy titbits ahead of publication." 

Commons officials began the hunt for moley after MPs were left looking over their shoulders of parliamentary perks, forcing Brown to defend his home secretary after she claimed for hubby's penchant for taxpayer porn.

But one person's mole is another person's whistleblower. The home office is a powerful place, as Damien Green and the ONS have found. It comes as no surprise that Downing Street and the home office would stoop to spin and media manipulation. 

Meanwhile damage limitation continued over at the  Independent with a sad deflection piece by Steve Richards: 

"Believe it or not British politics is relatively clean. MPs are not especially well paid or generously resourced compared to their counterparts in equivalent democracies. Most of them work hard. They are not all in it for themselves."

Only Richards then goes on to highlight ministers who are high up on the shame-o-meter of sleaze and their whopping expenses claims, including employment minister Tony McNulty, Brown's favourite cabinet couple Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper and home secretary Jacqui Smith.  

Up there also are 'Mr and Mrs Expenses', Labour MP couple Alan and Ann Keen, and Labour left-winger Harry Cohen who claimed every penny of his maximum £104,701 allowance. For the Tories there's Carol Spelman, Derek Conway and Sir Nicholas and Anne Winterton.

Blissfully ignorant of the MPs' expenses scandal everyone is talking about and what other newspapers were screaming from their headlines, the Independent splashed on a 'magic pill' for the heart - only those pills are as old as the hills. Bless.

 

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Smith Should Fall On Her X's

MPs are looking over their shoulders wondering if they'll be fingered in the next expenses scam, while the credibility of the home secretary lies in tatters. Brown won't lance the boil as the stench of corruption fills the air at Westminster. But it's a sorry state of affairs when a beleaguered home secretary cannot make serious statements of state, without everyone sniggering behind her back.

Many in Westminster thought Smith's second home allowance claim was enough to finish her off. But that was before the revelations over employment minister, Tony McNulty, claiming for his parents' house, took the heat off the squalid Smith affair.

Instead it is the damaging revelations over two homes secretary Smith’s husband’s penchant for pay-per-view porn on the taxpayer which is increasing speculation over Smith's future as home secretary. Many want a scalp and Smith could be the fall-guy.

Already under fire and under investigation, Smith had her family's dirty washing hung out in public in another nice 'n sleazy Sunday. The sight of her No 1 letter-writing fan, husband Richard Timney, forced to come out and apologise to the assembled hacks was a sorry spectacle, with speculation it may now force him to go out and look for a proper job. 

Ministers can often ride out the storm of sleaze but only for so long and only when there's a half-respected prime minister whose inevitable backing often kills a story and the scandal that lies beneath. Brown's support for his home secretary means diddly-squat.

A culture of stick it all on expenses and stick two fingers up to taxpayer threatens to embroil the government tarred with the brush as the Party of Sleaze.

The timing of the revelations could not have come at a worse time and that may prove crucial to Smith’s survival. 

And it's getting much worse as all MPs' claims are published. 

MPs are breaking out in a sweat over the commons publication of a list of expenses claimed by MPs, with New Labour MPs caught in the 'McNulty Triangle' shown up to be amongst the most expensive and worst culprits. 

That's prompting some to ask if there's a mole at work, leaking juicy titbits ahead of publication. 

Anger has turned to ridicule as hapless ministers are rounded on, turning them into a figure of fun. But this joke of a government is no laughing matter. The damage of ridicule can be far-reaching.

The 'angry brigades' are set to take to the streets this week as police throw down a £7m taxpayer-funded security cordon, locking down the capital for a pointless  G20 charade. The home secretary could well be called on to make a public statement while at the same time having to fend off questions about hubby's choice in videos and her signed-off expenses claims. 

And how can Smith be taken seriously when launching one of her holier-than-thou crusades against pornography, prostitution and lap-dancing? 

Smith was always destined to be the disposable home secretary. No threat to Brown's leadership, she popped up from nowhere and was handed the poisoned chalice of the home office. She's not exactly Ms Popular and stands no chance of holding onto her Redditch seat at the next general election. 

MPs are now seen as fair game and it's getting right up their noses. LibDems are smug with a blanket ban on second homes expenses for their London MPs but Tories are easy targets.  Pickles has already got himself in a pickle showing himself up as another porker with his snout in the second homes expenses trough. 

Under normal circumstances, hiring a couple of porno films whilst Smith was not at home, would have aroused a little titter at breakfast.

But  that expense claim was  made  from a home secretary already under scrutiny for fiddling her second homes expenses and having the cheek to claim for everything but the kitchen sink. And that comes on top of McNulty, up to his neck in a similar scam.

The relentless exposing of ministers caught up in squalid expenses scams and sleaze are a Major sign of a government in decay. 

Public anger over MPs' expenses is reaching fever pitch but often can be batted way by ministers hiding behind the blind arrogance of commons rules with no shred of common decency. But when that anger is replaced by ridicule and satire, it's a clear sign the game is up. 

The Orange Party senses a mood at Westminster that some MPs are looking for someone to be thrown to the wolves to assuage voters and unpopular and ridiculed Smith could be that hapless victim. 

UPDATE: Figures released today show Smith claimed around £23,000 in expenses during a single year for her second home, in total claiming £157,631, that's £33,000 more than the prime minister.

Picture: Daily Mail

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Joke Government Is No Laughing Matter

Rage has turned to ridicule as hapless ministers are rounded on, turning them into a figure of fun in just another nice 'n sleazy Sunday. But the joke of a government is no laughing matter. 

The Orange Party has long pondered whether it would be the men in grey suits or white coats who would come and take Him away. 

Last week a raft of political commentators came out to view recent events as a watershed, with the old spectre of a leadership challenge, killed off with Mandy's return, now rearing its head.

Borrowing Brown's bonkers crusade for a painful cure-all fiscal stimulus had been blown out of the water leaving him at odds with the Bank of England boss, his chancellor and most of the world.  

It couldn't get any worse could it? The short answer is yes. The long answer is y-e-s. 

Brown's Save The World ego tour and hyped-up London G20 plan is in tatters. Determined to stick the boot in, Germany's chancellor Merkel wrecked his plans for a borrowing stimulus, with a resounding Nein to a New Deal.  “I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money,” she thundered. 

Dirty tricks continued with the Germans leaking a draft communiqué of this week's G20 summit, trashing Brown's discredited blueprint for a £1.4 trillion worldwide spending boost.

Both are posted up by huge US website Drudge, in a sideways swipe at Brown and Obama and for all the world to see. 

But what caught the eye of the Orange Party was a press briefing ahead of the G20 summit exposing the hypocrisy of an exhausted Brown, willing to say one thing to placate an American audience, then another for the folks back home. 

The New York Times described it as a "out of this world experience". 

The Sunday Times is continuing its relentless crusade to expose Brown's old Goat Lord Myners’ tax affairs, turning both him and his pal Brown into a couple of old cronies but that is not where the danger lies for the government.

Instead it will be the damaging revelations over two homes secretary Smith’s husband’s penchant for pay-per-view porn on the taxpayer.

Already under fire and under investigation in a two homes scandal, Smith's now had her family's dirty washing hung out in public by the Express competing with the Mail on just another sleazy Sunday.

The sight of her beleaguered husband forced to come out and apologise to the assembled hacks was a sorry spectacle and the shame is set for a front page splash in tomorrow's Telegraph. 

Under normal circumstances, hiring a couple of porno films whilst Smith was not at home, would have aroused a little titter at breakfast and deserved to have been buried inside the News of the Screws.

But  that expense claim was  made  from a home secretary already under scrutiny for fiddling her second homes expenses and having the cheek to claim for everything - including the kitchen sink. And that comes on top of employment minister Tony McNulty, up to his neck in  a similar scam.

The credibility of the home secretary is now in tatters. How can Smith be taken seriously when launching one of her holier-than-thou crusades against pornography and prostitution? Smith popped up from nowhere and was handed the poisoned chalice of home secretary. Now she stands no chance of holding onto her Redditch seat at the next general election. 

Meanwhile, MPs are breaking out in a sweat over the commons publication of a full list of expenses claimed by MPs, due out in the summer, with New Labour MPs caught in the 'McNulty Triangle' shown up to be amongst the most expensive and worst culprits. 

The problem for ministers and indeed the government is that ridicule highlighted by James Forsyth over at the Spectator. He points out a government can recover from rage but not ridicule. And the damage can be far-reaching:

"Newspapers will be falling over themselves to pick up on even the slightest minor detail of the G20 summit to poke fun. "

And that's before the Angry Brigade or whatever they're called these days take to the streets, as police throw down a £7m taxpayer-funded security cordon, locking down the capital for a pointless  G20 charade. 

Ministers can often ride out the storm of sleaze but only for so long and only when there's a half respected prime minister whose inevitable backing often kills a story dead. Not anymore. 

The relentless exposing of ministers caught up in squalid expenses scams and sleaze are a Major sign of a government in decay. 

Rage and anger can be countered by ministers and spinners with a blinding array of facts to back up an argument however weak the case. But when that rage is replaced by ridicule the game is up. 

Thing can only get better or worse, depending on your political point of view. Meanwhile the country is going to the dogs and voters are fed up with a prime minister who is barking mad and a government whose credibility is being blown out of the water. 

The chances of the whistle being blown on the phoney general election war has just nudged that little bit closer. 

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