Cabinet Expenses Blown Out Of The Water

Brown and his cabinet are under fire after full details of their expenses were leaked to the Telegraph which has blown the lid off the sordid expenses scandal dogging greedy ministers. 

The explosive revelations lay bare the rot at the heart of Brown's cabinet and threaten to bring the fag-end government crashing to its knees in looming elections. 

 

So far Brown and 12 of his ministers are being exposed by the Telegraph including justice secretary Jack Straw, communities secretary Hazel Blears and welsh secretary, Paul Murphy.

Expenses from regular MPs from all parties are expected to be drip-fed in the coming days. 

As the explosive list was revealed, Downing Street was forced to work  overtime trying to explain away some of the claims, which included the bare-faced cheek of Brown paying his brother for "cleaning services". 

Many MPs from all parties were already breaking out in a cold sweat as  five years’ worth of expenses claims were due to be published in July, under the Freedom of Information law. 

That would have exposed the naked truth and allowed journalists and the public to cross-check who was doing what, where, when and with whom and exactly how much taxpayers were having to stump up to feed the luxury lifestyle.

But there was outrage from the media as it was revealed crucial information on the receipts would have been blacked out, making it difficult for taxpayers to get the full extent of the parliamentary scam and cross-check expenses with flipping second homes.

Now it's understood the Telegraph has seen uncensored copies of the receipts, which lay bare the extent of the fiddles  and how some MPs used every trick in the book to exploit the rotten system. 

Details revealed by the Telegraph include: 

• Brown paid his brother Andrew more than £6,000 for "cleaning services" over the course of two years and reclaimed the money from the taxpayer. He also claimed twice for the same £153 plumber's bill - money which he paid back today after the Telegraph pointed out the discrepancy to Downing Street.

• Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, claimed money for three different properties in the course of a year, and spent almost £5,000 on furniture in just four months after buying the third property.

• Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, claimed back twice as much for his council tax as he had actually paid. He later repaid the money and apologised for the error.

• Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, splashed out more than £3,000 on a new hot water system for his second home, explaining in a letter to the parliamentary fees office that his water was too hot.

Desperately trying to put a lid on the whole sordid affair and limit the damage ahead of July's publication, Brown suffered a humiliating commons defeat last week when he was forced to drop his half-baked plans  for a quick fix, announced on his foolish YouTube video,  following  a whole raft of sordid expenses scandals involving his greedy ministers.

Earlier today two homes secretary Smith was accused of further expenses fiddles amid claims she'd refurbished her family home in her constituency, claiming her "main" home was a spare bedroom in her sister’s London house, putting her job further on the line.

Wary of rivals stealing a march ahead of publication, the Telegraph is playing the whole exclusive close to its chest, with more details due to be revealed in tommorrow's splash. 

As for the mole-hunt and who leaked the damaging disk in the public interest, Benedict Brogan now with the Telegraph from the Mail will be keeping that one very close to his chest. 

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Ode To Dolly Draper

Shamed spinner Derek 'Dolly' Draper has been left wandering the wilderness after quitting as 'editor' of LabourList. Full of regret and spinning to the end, his parting shot was to call on the Party to rally round Brown. 

Set up to rival other hugely popular political blogs, Draper's LabourList had a lot going for it. But it was plans for another scurrilous site, Red Rag, with grossly unfounded smears against top Tories which led to his downfall. Smeargate exposed the lies, deceit and corruption at the rotten heart of Number 10.

ODE TO DOLLY DRAPER

So Farewell Dolly Draper.

What a strange name.

Sounds a bit like Dolly the Sheep.

Were you a New Labour clone, 

Or just following the flock?

A wolf in sheep's clothing? 

Now we will never know,

As you head off into the wilderness, 

Without even a hard drive 

To remind you of the good times.

LabourList won't be the same without you.

All those nice decent people you'd lined up. 

They'll just have to find a new Labourhome,

Or leave comments on Guido with silly names.

Red Rag was a good name. 

'Tis a pity she's turned out a whore.

Branding Tory smears as "absolutely totally brilliant"

Was not one of your better ideas. 

Getting caught out by Guido even worse. 

You gave the world Smeargate 

And the BBC has given you a nice obituary.

So shave off the scruffy beard, 

Get some proper psychotherapy 

And come back a new New Labour man.

Or just Go Forth and Multiply. If that's OK.

PS: How about some smears about peers and their dirty tranny habits.

Yours 

Dame Ian McBride

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Fall-Guy Smith Can't Take Heat Off Brown

The heat is on Smith as vultures circle and her days are numbered, in a cunning plan to take the heat off battered Brown. For the third day running the Downing Street/BBC team tried to set the agenda, leaving the disposable home secretary at the centre of the storms. 

After a bickering Bank Holiday something had to be done to prop up doomed Brown's leadership, put the spinning house in order and deflect away from the Supreme Leader with a popularist 'narrative'. 

Who better to deliver than two homes secretary Smith. The disposable home secretary was handed the poisoned chalice for that very reason, to be cast adrift. Just what the spin doctors ordered - or so they thought. 

Fighting for her political survival, each day brings another home office announcement to try to capture the headlines. But each day the disposable homes secretary manages to shoot herself in the foot and bully-boy Brown just can't manage to come up smelling of roses. 

Today the illegal DNA database topped the BBC's influential Today programme, whose running order is fixed the night before. So how do they know what's coming up. Who tips them off? 

Using a rearguard action by friends in high places, each day put Smith firmly in the firing line as each Today announcement was rounded on. That begs the questions: why this announcement and more importantly why now?

Why pop up on Tuesday with a silly little idea of a list of the banned, including a US shock jock who's only crime is to get up her nose?

Why pop up on Wednesday to tell everyone in Manchester they can fork out £60 to have their identity nicked at the shops, while Tory and LibDems vow to put the kibosh on ID cards? 

And why pop up today to tell innocent people their DNA will be on the illegal database for another 12 years?

The answer lies with the lies of Brownballs, trying to prop up a fag-end government, salvage their own political career from the wreckage and bury bad news. 

The Orange Party brings bad tidings for Brown and Balls. It isn't working.

A dab hand at ducking responsibility and accountability, 'smearing' Balls is starting to come unstuck. First his 'sexed up' Sats shambles was exposed and today, once again, over the Baby P scandal, he stands accused of simply propping up the misguided policies and bureaucracy which lies at its failing heart. Everyone's being blamed for Baby Peter's death, except Balls.

Facing fresh allegations today over her expenses fiddle, Jackboots Jacqui's days are well and truly numbered and Balls is set up for the home office helm. 

Get all the home office bad news out of the way this week, clear the desk and the air so another truly incompetent and totally unconvincing chancer can be handed a not-so-poisoned chalice. 


But all roads lead back to battered Brown. Mauled in the commons, the Tory and LibDem leaders, aided and abetted by Tory back-benchers, rounded on his Achilles heel. His deeply flawed personality, his downright stubbornness and bully-boy tactics leave a nasty taste. 

Fresh from his YouTube comedy act, being photographed in front of swastikas drove home the message. Deluded Brown's defence was to accuse the opposition of hitting on personality not policies. 

But policy gives you plenty of wriggle-room in politics. Bunkered Brown is oblivious to the stark truth that his 'personality' will be his Downfall. 

With iffy Smiffy out of the way to spend more time with hubby along with all the nasty home office stuff, that just leaves a discredited New Labour project in a no-win situation. Damned if they ditch Brown and damned if they keep him. 

Brown and his bunch of chancers living in La-La Land can't do right for doing wrong, clinging on to the vain Blair hope that things can only get better. Fat chance. It's still the economy, stupid as today The Economist slams Brown's highly political budget tax measures as "a nasty Brown mess".

Faced with  the ignominy of relentless ridicule as mistrust and betrayal turn to anger and hatred, how do you prise power from Brown's cold dead fingers? 

Take a tip from a national treasure and Gurkha Avenger. Do a Lumley. Talk him up: He's our leader, I trust him. Call his bluff: What exactly has been promised? Get frustrated: When will he deliver? Watch him squirm.

That gorgeous gal has missed her true vocation.

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Springtime For Little Hitler

Springtime for bunkered Brown just got worse with Herr Flickr featured on the front page of powerful US website Drudge complete with grinning photograph. Scary smile, shame about the swastika.

It's turned out to be just another bad Herr day for Brown - again. 

Featuring on Drudge who's taken the lead from today's Times and splashed the PM in all his uber-glory, it's not what the spin doctor ordered. 

Back in Blighty, the deluded prime minister ducked and dived during PMQs with cries of infamy, infamy, the've all got it in for me as Tories pressed home the disarray eating away at the heart of a fag-end government and goaded the Supreme Leader over his temper tantrums. 

Cameron called on Brown to call an election now and a vote of no confidence can't be too far behind. But battered Brown tried to beat off the blows by hiding in the bunker.

Clegg too was on fine form for the LibDems with a bit of fire in his belly after his Gurkha triumph - though the commons camera angle always makes him look rather small fry. 

It's pay back time from Drudge after popular US talk radio host, Michael Savage, popped up on porno Smith's banned list of people she doesn't like: "UK banning people for what they think not do" as Drudge puts it. 

Savage is threatening to sue two homes secretary Smith for having the bare-faced cheek to lump him in with a bunch of violent nasties and is adamant he's not even planning a visit. As the plot thickens, Drudge has taken up the cause and the cudgel. 

Cross Drudge at your peril, as old man Clinton found to his cost as both Bill and the dirty washing of his dalliance with Monica L was hung out to dry.

The photograph of beleaguered Brown smiling away without a care in the world, blissfully unaware of the darkness behind him, does beg the question just who is in charge of the Downing Street press office, or even Downing Street for that matter?

How on earth Brown was allowed to be photographed in front of a wall full of children’s artwork of WWII, including several swastikas beggar's belief. There are only two Hs in school history these days - Henry and Hitler. 

The Orange Party has many liberal pals in the land of the free and free speech and is starting to feel a tad embarrassed. It really does make you feel ashamed of having to suffer a buffoon in Blighty. 

Springtime for little Hitlers and democracy? The only thing left is to sing a refrain from the Producers:

"Don't be foolish, be a smarty come and join Brown's Labour Party". Or maybe not.

Brown and his bunch of chancers living in La-La Land can't do right for doing wrong. Things can only get worse not better. But the Party is damned if they ditch Brown and damned if he stays. 

Faced with a no-win situation and the ignominy of relentless ridicule, a general election now is the only solution before it's too late and mistrust and betrayal turns to real anger and hatred from voters.

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Smiffy's Iffy ID Card Con

Punters can pop down to the shops and hand over their precious identity at £60 a pop in a harebrained scheme by the disposable homes secretary fighting a rearguard action over despised ID cards. For the second day on a trot, the two homes secretary is all over the media like a rash, rolling out the £5 billion pounds wasteful white elephant in Manchester in a toxic mix of coercion and Big Sister knows best.

What have the good people of Greater Manchester ever done to deserve such a fate? The Orange Party smells a rat and wonders where the stench is coming from.

Fighting for her political future or just the fall-guy for deluded Brown's half-baked scheme? Probably a mixture of both.

In a criminal act of lunacy, Smith reckons people will be queuing up to give their fingerprints and a face scan at the local post office and pharmacy while "out doing the shopping". Charging £60 for the privilege of having your identity disappear down an IT black-hole.

So much for a squeeze on public spending. Given the bleak state of the economy any sane person would think scrapping ID cards just makes sense. 

But what do you expect with a bunch of morons in charge. If there was ever a silly scheme which highlighted New Labour's wasteful years and the sinister surveillance of Big Brother society, ID cards take the biscuit. 

But it's a case of better get in quick and make it damn difficult to scrap. Both Tories and LibDems have united to condemn Smith's costly and unnecessary folly, calling for the £5 billion farce to be scrapped, joined by sane back-bench Labour MPs and former home secretary David Blunkett.

To scrap a disliked, discredited and distasteful white elephant now would expose the failure of a decade of deceit and force arrogant ministers to finally admit maybe the economy isn't all that well placed to weather the recession depression. 

Add to that the difficulty of prising out the slick IT cronies now with their feet firmly under the cushy home office table and it's a case of Carry On Regardless Down The Kazi. 

ID cards for UK citizens are totally voluntary of course. Just tell that to air-side workers at Manchester airport where pilots need a security pass to get on the right side of the tarmac - but need an ID card to get the pass. Pilots unions say their members are effectively being forced into signing up for the cards.

Trailing national ID cards in one city is nonsense. Abandon this farcical folly, scrap the whole thing, save the country a fortune and salvage some scrap of civil liberties.

The Orange Party has always wondered how Jackboot Jacqui suddenly popped up out of the blue to be given the poisoned chalice of the home office. But showing off only her slim majority with no chance of holding onto her seat, she's ideally placed to do Brown and Balls dirty work without fear she could upstage the dynamic duo.

Second homes expenses fiddles, hubby's penchant for taxpayer porn, G20 police thugs and Gestapo tactics to stick the boot into Her Majesty's opposition, who'd want to be home secretary? 

The hapless home secretary has probably only got a month left in the job before Jackboot Jacqui is booted out by Brown and his side-kick Balls shoehorned into her place. Best to get those nasty ID cards up and running and out of the way before 'smearing' Balls is handed the reins for an easier ride.

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Sex, Lies And Another Videotape

Belated efforts to put Bank Holiday bickering behind them got off to a feeble start with Brown's education shunned, porno Smith on her high horse bent on banning everyone who gets up her nose and Obama harnessed for the Leader's Party Selection Broadcast. 

Battered Brown's bid to get back on the front foot ended on the back-burner with a much-vaunted education fightback speech turning into a rehashed damp squib. 

Ambushed as he arrived to make the speech of his life at a southeast London school, parents, angry at the closure of a local primary school, tried to block his car as it swept in through the school gates.

According to Sky, the poor old PM didn't fare much better inside. Students at the school walked out of the speech early and one girl almost fainted with a bad case of Brown flu.

Who could blame them? Brown didn't disappoint with classic Brownspeak - devoid of any policy announcement we've not heard a thousand times before in a belated bid to try to teach the Tories a lesson.

Meanwhile it's still looking iffy for Smiffy as the two homes secretary popped up on the GMTV sofa with a 'name and shame' list of people she doesn't like, trying to wriggle out of her troubled times with a nifty smokescreen of the shamed.

The nations waited with bated breath, eager to find out if hapless hubby would be among them. Sadly it was just a round up of the usual suspects. 

In a feeble effort to claim some sort of moral high ground, the porno queen had the bare-faced cheek to lecture the nations: "I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here."

The terribly politically correct banned list has someone for everyone. You name it and disposable Smith has it covered. Hate preachers, anti-gay preachers, Islamic supremacists, white supremacists and  popular right-wing US talk radio host Michael Savage, not happy to be lumped in among the nasties but no O. Bin Laden and no pornographers. 

Interestingly the hit list does include six people whose names are not being released  on the grounds that would not be in the "public interest". 

Grounds of national security yes. After all, we don't want them knowing that we know they know we know and all that. But "public interest"?  The catch-all phrase so beloved of the Orwellian Big Sister State. 

Who decides "public interest"? Whose public and whose interest? And whatever happened to cherished freedom of speech as long as you don't say or do anything here that's against the law.

Amid all that Prezza pops up all a-huffin' and a-puffin' to say Brown has "the worst bloody smile in the world." Pots and black kettles spring to mind.

Unfazed by his last foolish YouTube comedy sensation, cool Brown gets down and dirty with voters again tonight with yet another video nasty, this time a Partly Satirical Broadcast, which has already made a guest appearance on YouTube.

Strangely compelling, in a masochistic sort of way, it's a good indicator of where things are heading and how Downing Street is putting the lid on any careless talk of a leadership bid. An election broadcast totally centred on the Supreme Leader droning on about that downturn thing.

Billed as a Party Election Broadcast, some may be a tad confused. Local and Euro elections on June 4 but no mention of either local council issues or a Euro referendum here. Instead it's just boring Brown and lots of him, trying too hard to lift the spirits of recession depression. All very strait-laced and sombre, facing piles of trials with few smiles. 

What a disappointment. The Orange Party counted only one and a half smiles but did nod off in the middle. But hey folks that nice Obama guy pops up as Brown's new best friend towards the end. And which cynical sod reckoned the G20 summit sham was all about electioneering?

Using Obama stock-footage to try to win votes is a cheap trick. It won't work. 

Bad news of the day? The BBC's Nick Robinson reckons the PM won't be "defenestrated". Shame. It sounds rather painful.

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Mighty Wind Cuts Through Brown Crap

Fear and loathing of Brown's rotting government are being exposed in a raft of devastating indictments delivered with a welcome breath of fresh air. As the rotten stench which lies at the heart of government is rounded on in unprecedented attacks of unity, the lies, deceit and downright dishonesty are finally being laid bare. But it has taken a mighty mistral wind to cut through all the Brown crap.

The discredited New Labour project is dead but it won't lie down. And that underpins the dilemma facing the fag-end of a government as the deluded prime minister looks set to implode. How can you round on Brown without destroying the brand?

But some are starting to have a jolly good go. They have no choice. 

Ministers, payroll MPs and their cronies know the game is up. Faced with the now certain outcome of a ballot box wipe-out, years of power will come to an end and with them go the Common Purpose cronies who've been stuffed into the huge wasteful quangoland, used to underpin and support a decade of deceit. 

Exposing Brown will expose the deceit and spin of the Blair years project but it's a chance they have to take.

The Orange Party has never subscribed to the argument of some political commentators who polarise battles into simplistic left and right politics. At the heart though is the rotting stench of spin and corruption at the heart of number 10. 

Writing in the Mail, Peter Oborne, one of the first to expose the political lying machine and one of last men standing to lose all faith in Brown, is now calling on Gordon to do the decent thing and sit down with a whisky and revolver:  

"Nothing can save Gordon Brown: So, who will hand Brown the loaded revolver and bottle of whisky?" Like Oborne, the Orange Party reckons that could come from Mandy's smoking gun. 

Love them or loath them, the game is up for the gang of chancers who after the shambles of the social democrat's Gang of Four" in the 1980s hadn't the guts to form their own party.  Instead they highjacked an off-the peg political movement which used to be called the Labour Party. 

And that's the disgrace which is coming back to haunt those who were taken in by the spin, those who just went along for the ride and those who now feel ashamed, running around, just  plain scared. 

One social democrat "Gang of Four" of Jenkins, Owen, Rodgers and Williams came and scurried off with their tails between their legs to their true Liberal home. 

Another "Gang of Four" of Blair, Campbell, Mandleson and Gould shoe-horned into its place, with Brown brought along to cook the books. 

Now blind panic from Blairites reveal their true social democrat colours, as more crawl out of the woodwork to condemn Brown's government and look to the LibDems for sanctuary. 

Spun as a fear that the Party could lurch to the 'left', it's more a fear that the bunch of cronies who highjacked the Party will be exposed as a bunch of crooks and thrown out on their ears. 

The worm has turned. Guardianista pseudo-liberals in the shape of Blair babe Polly Toynbee who once heaped praised on Brown now bleats it's: 'Gordon Brown: no ideas and no regrets': 

"Under his leadership Labour has become a rotten, defeatist rabble ... Many said he had neither the temperament nor the political skills for the top job. I was among those who hoped he had, because you have to live in hope.”  

But the most powerful indictment of Brown and Downing Street comes from author Nick Cohen's polemic in the social affairs magazine Standpoint, as New Labour's 12th anniversary in power is marked: 

"A movement that was committed to the democratic modernisation of Britain has imposed a Prime Minister who has not won a mandate at a general election nor secured for himself the smaller but still significant legitimacy that comes from fighting a contested leadership election within his own party. "

Writing about the 'Fear and Filth at Brown's Number 10', Cohen is not for the faint hearted but should be required reading for everyone from all colours of the political spectrum: 

"The only true suffering Brown has inflicted is on Britain's idea of itself ... we accept a PM who achieved power not through the ballot box but by bullying his critics and rivals. As with any other bully, all it would take to stop him is for his opponents to call his bluff. That for years hardly any have, says more about us than it does about him. "

Cohen finds few friends in the New Labour media elite as he rumbles their cushy and cosy world. 

But many of the comments to Cohen's article feel it was like a breath of fresh air. The Orange Party goes further. His mighty healthy mistral wind cuts through the crap of a stinking Brown summer. 

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