Academies Giveaway A Desperate Act

Schools are being given away to the highest bidder by a desperate government in a belated bid to boost its stalled academies sham. Ditching the £2m set-up fee, school secretary Ed Balls has been forced to own up to a miserable failure. The fag-end government has resorted to freebies to foist on the public a flagging flagship of its failed New Labour brand.

Teaching unions have branded plans to scrap the £2m up front set-up costs for academy sponsors as a "sign of desperation" just to keep the discredited scheme going.

Balls says academies are moving into a "new phase", NewLabourspeak for failure.

At £2m a pop, only wealthy charities and sponsors could beg or borrow the cash, now a non-starter in recession depression.

Making it easier for private sponsors to rule the roost in English state schools, is a shameful way of playing politics with pupils.

The government is bent on privatising schools by the back door and bent on switching "failing" schools to its discredited costly PFI academies sham, handing control over to big business backers and government sympathisers.

Far from getting to grips with a class divide with any kind of level playing field, New Labour academies spin has made things worse with extra cash pumped into academies having a divisive impact on other schools in that area.

Protests from parents who have to put up with the hype of shallow academies and heavy-handed plans for more, often fall on deaf ears.

Many academies have been oversubscribed - creaming off the best kids to make them look good, leaving the dross to rot in underfunded and under-resourced bog standard comps.

Ramming dodgy ideals down gullible young throats so sponsors can get off on a high school high is despicable. Increasing the number of undemocratic, unaccountable schools makes a mockery of any pretence of listening to local opinion.

Schools are left to fight a government obsession with league tables, to produce record GCSE results, to stave off closure and meet unrealistic targets.

Refurbishment is out of the question. There's not the money to be made or favours to dole out.

What's the cost of building, equipping and staffing a new school, £10m? £170m has been squandered on ubiquitous management consultants to help them bid for shiny new schools under Building Schools for the Future, with little to show for it, according to figures obtained by the Tories under FoI.

So 170 new schools could have been built or refurbished, instead of throwing more money at New Labour cronies in a management consultancy money-spinning venture.

The then schools supremo, Andrew Adonis, surprised many when government moves to privatise state schools and hand them over to undemocratic business backers, were revealed last year with plans for a huge expansion of the flagging academies programme.

The Orange Party is incensed by the idea of more New Labour academies spin and a further 'focus on failure and closure' with a ruthless switch to discredited academies.

What was a twinkle in Blair's starry eyes became a byword for sleeze. City academies were at the centre of the 'Cash for Honours' political scandal when academy business backers were given peerages in return for New Labour Party loans.

Academies are nothing more than a shabby sham with smoke and mirrors accounting to hide away public spending and debt. The programme is a not-so-clever way of building schools under the discredited PFI scheme, to keep the building off the public balance sheet.

Pupils are handed over to an army of non-elected education consultants and bureaucrats in privately managed academies, out of the control of the local education authorities. Pupils are 're-educated' to suit dodgy ideals. Targets are manipulated by sympathisers to suit their own ends.

The government has already earmarked 638 schools in England as 'failures' under the National Challenge programme. They face funding cuts and a switch to the academy programme, unless they meet unrealistic GCSE targets and toe the line. Expanding the academies programme further will result in more schools branded as 'failures'.

But desperate times call for desperate measures if the fag-end government is to press ahead with its private plan to build shiny new temples to New Labour.

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Is Brown On Drugs For Depression?

Startling claims the struggling Supreme Leader suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and depression raise doubts whether deluded Brown is fit for purpose. Is Brown 'on drugs for depression'?

The prime minister is a man too ill to be holding the Office. That is the stark conclusion of a senior civil servant, according to blogger and journalist, John Ward, who claims Brown is suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder as well as drug controlled depression.

The Orange Party often lapses into adjectival reporting with a deluded Brown here and a struggling Supreme Leader there and has long pondered and posted whether it will be men in grey suits or white coats who will come and take him away. But that's born out of sheer frustration, rather than any evidence of Brown's mental condition.

On his website notbornyesterday.org Ward claims there are signs the PM is taking powerful drugs to control both depression and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Ward bases his claims on a tip-off from a senior civil servant that Brown has recently been given a "long list of forbidden foods", spilling the beans that Brown had been banned from eating and drinking several specific things like cheese, Chianti and over-ripe avocados "because of the drugs he's on".

Apparently certain foods are banned for people taking MAOI drugs used to treat major depression when other anti-depressant drugs have failed. The MAOI drugs can be potentially dangerous if the patient eats or drinks the wrong thing.

A high-ranking treasury official told nby "In both a physical and mental sense, the Prime Minister is a very sick man, seriously disabled."

Another government source claimed "He is now on pills which restrict the foods he can eat and what he can drink. He is losing the sight of his good eye quite rapidly. It's a mess, and nobody knows what to do".

Rumours about Brown's health and mental state are nothing new. It's on record he's already blind in his left eye and has been losing sight in his right.

Back in 2004, Simon Heffer writing in the Spectator saw the writing on the wall. The prospect of Brown becoming PM, he wrote, should fill all sane people with dread. Brown, he observed, displayed many signs of Asperger's Syndrome. Rude, socially disorientated with obsessive topics of conversation, insisting on rules, insisting on routines.

The signs are there. Ballooning weight brought on by bunkered Brown's junk food binge. A gift for satirists with a demented YouTube video. The constant clunking fist and jaw clenching habit at PMQs and embarrassing need to churn out tractor statistics with every parliamentary answer.

An obsession with "just getting on with the job", "global problems require global solutions", ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Nothing can be proved. Downing Street can deny, spin or dismiss it all as anti-Brown smears. But Ward points out that "Brown's entourage must be sending out strict dietary requirements ahead of his regularly catered public engagements; one could even monitor what he eats on such occasions."

"It's a farce and utterly disgraceful," says Ward. "There isn't a mandarin in Whitehall who's unaware of Brown's condition ... yet won't lift a finger to bring it to the public's attention. We are being let down at every turn by the spineless Establishment running this country."

If true then why hasn't it all come out? Is it Westminster's best kept open secret? Fed-up and frustrated bloggers are forever moaning about the 'prime mentalist'?

Fleet Street editors have a habit of keeping schtum with a pact for the sake of a high office of state or the high ranking elite - until someone spills the beans or there's a deliberate timely leak in an Edward and Mrs Simpson moment.

Significantly, bully-boy Brown's rule by fear, smear and blackmail with a ruthless cabal of 'reservoir dogs' was quick to come out in the press - but only after Guido's McPoison scandal and Smeargate revelations. And they're still at it, smearing the new Army chief.

Upside down loyalty comes from some Labour MPs, resigned to a savage beating at the general election, mistakenly believing if Billy-no-mates Brown is down and out, that beating would turn into a total wipe-out. It suits the Tories to keep Incapability Brown. They'd do anything to leave liability Brown where he is.

His temper tantrums, throwing things around and screaming at secretaries "Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me", are reported more as a joke rather than symptoms of an underlying mental state and cause for concern. Are many a true word only spoken in jest?

The die is cast. Alea iacta est. The battle for hearts and minds and votes has been lost. Opinion polls cite boring Brown's ever dwindling popularity for a fall in Party ratings. The Sun has called his leadership into question over the handling of the Afghan war which rightly captures and reflects the public mood.

Bouncy Brown reportedly returned refreshed from his long summer hols. But Macavity Brown had a miserable first week back – the handling of the al-Megrahi controversy, the handling of Brown's War. Lurching from one disaster to another.

The pressure on beleaguered Brown is mounting as the conference leaving party and general election draw closer. The Guardian's Matin Kettle has already kicked off the Brown coup season.

Two-faced Brown's double-dealing over Lockerbie prompted the Orange Party to ask: Can Brown survive the Lockerbie storm? While not touching directly on Brown's mental state, Peter Oborne asks those questions in Saturday's Mail, reaching the conclusion that Brown is simply not up to the job.

The issue now is whether the country can afford "yet more of Brown's weakness, dithering, dishonesty and evasion." It is time he says, Gordon Brown, was cut adrift.

Evasive, indecisive and unpersuasive - how can such a Prime Minister govern, asks Matthew d'Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph. His damning character flaws have been laid bare.

Battered Brown is clinging on to power in the vane hope he can fulfil his lifelong ambition to become an 'elected' prime minister. But Oborne reckons Brown may be approaching his Cromwell moment: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!'

Heffer, in his 2004 article, referred to Brown as a conviction politician "so convinced of his rectitude that he seems to think those with a different opinion must require psychiatric help."

As Paul Merton once quipped on Have I Got News For You: "You've got to feel sorry for the man - he's waited all this time to become prime minister only to realise he's not up to the job."

That's enough to drive anyone round the bend.

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Cpl Brown's Dad's Army Fightback

Corporal Brown and his Dad's Army ministers are on a suicide mission to convince fed-up voters the unwinnable Afghan war is worth the loss of so many lives. Today battle-scared Brown will try to rally the troops after coming under unfriendly fire from his own side with a warning to get a grip on his war.

Brown and his bunch of ministerial misfits have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of voters and they know it. But the struggling Supreme Leader is standing firm in shifting quicksand, despite the damning indicment delivered with precision by defence aide, Eric Joyce.

Voters are giving Brown his marching orders. He's the political casualty of his own hopeless, bloody unwinnable war.

The Sun's launch of its 'Don't You Know There's a Bloody War On campaign' is driving home the message. Downing Street and the MoD are left fighting a futile rearguard action. The public is fed up with Brown's War. Trust and his leadership have been blown to shreds.

Despite the best efforts of spinners to play down Joyce's resignation, this was a major blow for Brown. Joyce is a Labour loyalist and ex-major who rose through the ranks and was quite a feather in the cap for the government when elected as MP.

No aspect of Brown's handing of the unwinnable war was left untouched as bungling Bob Ainsworth's bag-carrier delivered his bombshell and quit in disgust over the government's Afghan 'strategy'.

Joyce's decision to quit had been on the cards for a while. Only last month he criticised the government's decision to appeal against compensation awards for two wounded soldiers. But the timing was devastating, coming on the eve of Cpl Brown's major fightback speech to try to win back a few votes.

The Party conference is round the corner. Joyce's views chime with the growing unease among rank and file members over the war and with backbench MPs who are hoping to hold onto their seats.

Joyce questioned the government's arguments for the presence of troops and the price being paid for propping up fraudulent elections.

The government could no longer justify the growing Afghan death toll by saying the war would prevent terrorism back home. What's needed now is an exit strategy with a time limit set on deployment. Troop numbers should be cut substantially in the next parliament. The Orange Party goes further - pull out now before it's too late.

Opinion polls cite Brown's handling of the war and woeful lack of leadership as one of the main reasons for his flagged popularity. But don't expect any straight answers today from war-mongering Brown or clueless Ainsworth.

Time's running out and so are the excuses. All there's left is the weak illogical argument of mission impossible: "to protect the British people from the threat of international terrorism".

But if that's the case why not spend the billions of pounds from the war chest here at home on national security and shoring up the borders, rather than shooting at an invisible 'enemy' in a far off land?

It doesn't make a jot of sense. But then this is a war served up with a big dollop of Brown sauce where the real casualties are Afghan civilians and the boys who come home in a box.

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Battle Of Two Berks In Bucks

A battle of two berks is shaping up in Bucks with UKIP's Farage challenging Tory turn-coat speaker Bercow for the general election seat. Election battle lines are being drawn up. This contest is sure to put the cat amongst the pigeons.

The Telegraph today reveals commons speaker and token Tory Bercow is to be challenged at the election by UKIP leader Farage, still basking in his Euro MEP victory.

Farage's decision to stand raises all sorts of interesting issues. There won't be an official Conservative candidate so will Tories be allow to campaign and vote for Farage?

On top of that, commons convention has it that the other main parties do not put up candidates in a sitting speaker’s constituency. So put that in the New Labour and the LibDem pipe and smoke it.

The Orange Party has no time for patronising slimeball squeaker Bercow. But then little time for UKIP either.

But speaking about Bercow, the Orange Party will agree with Farage on one thing: “This man represents all that is wrong with British politics today. He was embroiled in the expenses saga and he presides over a Parliament that virtually does nothing."

The commons got a spiv for a speaker after discredited Martin was forced to quit in shame over the MPs’ expenses’ scandal. In like a flash stepped 'Tory' Bercow with the backing of a majority of New Labour MPs and to the irritation of Tories.

If Bercow does get his cumupance it would mean the joy of another commons election for a new speaker. Only this time the Tories would be in the speakers' driving seat.

In the MPs' expenses scandal, the Telegraph disclosed how Bercow flipped his designated second home claiming full whack on allowances. He later agreed to hand over £6,500 to the taxman after lawfully avoiding paying capital gains tax on buying and selling properties.

Farage is no stranger to allowances, heading a party propped up by £2m of public money from the European Parliament. But that's the Party not the back-pocket.

UKIP has a lot of support among Tories - and the Telegraph. Nevertheless Farage, faces an uphill task trying to win over one of the safest Tory seats in the country with a whopping 13,325 majority.

Bercow, Farage or the Monster Raving Loony Party? A tough call but the smart money's on Farage.

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Leaked NHS Jobs Cut Plan A Sick Joke

A leaked NHS jobs cut report has spread around the media like a rash. The government has been quick to put the patient out of its misery. NHS life is safe in their hands. But patients are getting in the way of political posturing.

The dear old NHS would need to slash its workforce by nearly 140,000 to achieve planned £20 billion savings by 2014, according to the consultants report, leaked to the Health Service Journal (HSJ).

Repeating the tired old argument, this would mean the NHS losing 10 per cent of its workforce. The hard-hitting McKinsey report makes clear cuts would hit front-line staff as well as administrators, coupled with a recruitment freeze and slashing medical school places.

Politically, the report fall-out has something for everyone. There's a nasty government drawing up secret plans to slash spending and jobs in the sacred cow and blowing out of the water claims the NHS is safe in their hands.

But on the other hand, the government has stamped on it in a full media maelstrom without a by-your-leave, to show a caring side. You pays your taxes and takes your choice in the "free" NHS.

There's something fishy about the whole thing. Government health minister, Mike O'Brien, was quick to jump on the caring bandwagon saying ministers have rejected the shocking proposals. Well, at least until after the election.

But the HSJ points out that although the department of health said the report was “purely advice and does not constitute government policy”, it bears the department’s logo and has been shared in secret among senior NHS managers.

The much-repeated mantra of willy-nilly jobs cuts is not the answer to NHS savings or a cure all for the NHS.

There is however an enormous amount of waste and some jobs should go to deliver better patient and medical care. But that should not detract from front-line services.

A start could be made on ridiculously well-paid management, the vast army of administrators, the billions of pounds squandered on a useless NHS computer, the millions wasted on useless public health campaigns - and the millions of pounds spent on IT and management consultants.

The Orange Party is starting to feel quite queasy. Health secretary Andy Burnham should come clean. Just how much cash was thrown at consultants to produce a report which comes up with the bleedin' obvious and the same old answers? And all that for ministers to reject the political hot potato out of hand and say they're busy doing nothing.

The NHS has lost its way and lost sight of its original remit. Once a byword for "free" medical care for all at the point of delivery, billions of pounds are now squandered on top-heavy bureaucratic management and inefficient over-arching structures.

Cash which should be going into medical and patent care is being used to prop up and massage the egos of government ministers and quango cronies playing politics with the NHS and people's lives.

The general election season has opened with bang. The NHS is a key battleground for the high ground but not the only one.

New Labour's dreadful record on jobs, education and the handling of the Afghan War will pop up to take centre stage in the battle for hearts and minds and votes, as a poll in today's Sun reveals.

And there's still nine months tops to go before long-suffering voters have the chance to put the final nail in the coffin of a discredited fag-end government.

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Lousy Jobs 'Promise' For Lost Generation

The general election season has kicked off with a lousy government jobs promise which doesn't add up. Real jobs have become job "opportunities" to spin the numbers and fiddle the dole figures.

Brown's 'Backing Young Britain' in Birmingham has a shallow ring to it. All part of the election fightback, where once again young people desperate for jobs are lulled into a false sense of security in a numbers game.

The government is pledging 85,000 "opportunities" to help get young people into work. 45,000 young people will be "helped" to find jobs in retail, tourism, leisure and hospitality.

'Opportunities' and 'help' are hardly real jobs created in a real world. It's a sham.

The figures are part of a pledge from big business eager to prop up the New Labour feel good factor and mask the ravages of deep recession depression.

Numbers includes a pledge by retailer Morrisons to give extra "training" to its under 25s. There are "opportunities" galore, including apprenticeships with companies such as Centrica, Carillion and Royal Mail. In fact more than 150 employers, including Microsoft and Pfizer, are said to be supporting the Backing Young Britain campaign.

What is the point of adding up pointless promises when at the end of the day profits will be put before people?

Sure as eggs is eggs, the announcements come with all the trimmings. Plans to help young people with training and employment are part of a £5 billion investment. £1 billion will be spent on the Backing Young Britain campaign to create 100,000 new jobs for young people and a further 50,000 jobs in "unemployment hotspots".

But what is needed are real jobs in a real economy, not half-baked worthless non jobs in a rerun of the bad old days of the shabby 'New Deal' where youngsters were just moved off benefits onto 'training' and ubiquitous 'work experience' to keep down the youth unemployment figures.

Those meaningless programmes did very little to help young people get meaningful work or meaningful qualifications.

Official figures reveal the jobless rate among 16 to 24-year-olds has soared to a staggering 20%. The current 920,000 classed as unemployed is likely to top the one million mark, bringing with it problems of crime and downright disillusionment.

Youngsters are bearing the brunt of the rising tide of unemployment, which increased to 2.4 million last month. 3 million people have not had a job since New Labour came to power over a decade ago. A further 2 million have never worked.

A whole generation is set to be lost to rising youth unemployment. Unions and businesses groups are urging ministers to do more to help jobless youngsters.

Double counting taxpayers cash already promised and spinning 'opportunities and help' as real jobs is not the answer.

As the election draws nigh, a desperate Brown is trying to persuade voters to doff their caps in gratitude to a government which is claiming to have got the public through the worst of it. But opinion polls show voters are not taken in by the hype.

The Lockerbie storm has laid bare New Labour lies and deceit. A PM who cannot be trusted with the truth over Lockerbie cannot be trusted with the economy or the future of young people desperate for real jobs in a real world.

Bottom Picture: Brown Backing Young Britain in Birmingham

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Can Brown Survive Lockerbie Storm?

As the Lockerbie plot thickens, double dealing Brown and his shady bunch of ministers are lying and tying themselves into knots. The struggling Supreme Leader may have returned to the fray refreshed from hols but Cameron is waiting in the wings ready to stick in the knife. The prime minister's position is looking precarious. All roads lead to Brown, thunders The Times.

Lockerbie's dirty little secrets are beginning to unravel, albeit slowly. What is becoming clear is there's more to al-Megrahi's release than just a shabby deal over oil.

More likely is a need to put a stop to al-Megrahi's hugely embarrassing appeal which could have cleared his name and laid bare the dirty secrets of the whole Lockerbie outrage.

Al-Megrahi’s release had been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop his appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get hold of Libya's oil and gas.

The decision to drop an appeal against conviction was part of a deal. That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

The heat is on beleaguered Brown with documents showing he wanted al-Megrahi to die a free man. It seems easier for the government to take the flak and suffer the fall out from the 'oil for prisoner' row than open up the can of worms of the al-Megrahi conviction.

The Orange Party has long held this view and outlined the case here. Both the Mail and Jon Snow at Channel 4 News are coming round to similar conclusions.

Everyone knew there was something decidedly dodgy about the decision to release al-Megrahi. Macavity Brown's silence just made matters worse.

A simple and straightforward: "I didn't want him to die in prison" and the country would have moved on. Instead the public has suffered silence, manipulation and media management, passing the buck on to the Scottish government and treating the public like fools.

Yesterday's publication of some of the correspondence between Westminster and Holyrood didn't take the heat off Brown, it just threw up even more awkward questions over his handling of the affair.

Now the fag-end government and wretched prime minister stand accused of double-dealing, something they vehemently deny. But then they would wouldn't they?

Over the Pond, the Lockerbie fall-out is the final straw in strained US relations. The NY Daily News pulls no punches, branding the PM: Brown the Betrayer.

Both president Obama and secretary of state Clinton have publicly condemned al-Megrahi's release.

With nine months tops to go before the general election, both Brown and Cameron want to get on with doing what they do best - point-scoring at every opportunity.

But Cameron is not going to let this go easily. The Tories say Brown needs to be "straight" with the public accusing the government of "double dealing" and calling for an inquiry.

For the Tories it's a gift and boils down to trust - something sadly lacking in two-faced Brown and his deluded government.

Lockerbie is another nail in the coffin of the public's lack of trust in a government which wriggles and spins at every twist and turn.

Picture: Gerald Scarfe, Sunday Times

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