Brown Says The D-Word And Says It All

Deluded Brown let slip the D-word during PMQs, leaving voters again bothered and bewildered but not bewitched, highlighting the confused state of the State and the state of his mind. Iconic images of strikers, bankrupt Britain and soon more troops for Afghanistan. Welcome to the crazy world of Gordon Brown, cross-over politics and the rise of economic nationalism. 

Telling MPs: "We should agree as a world on a monetary and fiscal stimulus that will take the world out of r... depression ...",  the saviour of the world and banks said it all. How depressing for him and the country.

For so long Downing Street in collusion with the BBC has tried to play down the looming recession, clinging onto a soft landing of the downturn to mask incompetence. Now the world is latching onto Brown's Depression, thanks to US site Drudge featuring the Times take on the 'slip'.

The Orange Party is heartily sick of the silliness of this spinning strategy, as the recession turns into a full blown depression. Brown has dug a deep hole and now he's fallen in it. Trying to sprinkle a bit of fairy dust on a deepening problem for fear of panic only made matters worse. 

Strikes over foreign workers are now being deliberately played down as just another 'industrial dispute' with talks of a "breakthrough" and "calling it off", to take off the heat. As if it was that simple. 

At the heart is the age old issue that in times of hardship, what may be good for the country in the long term isn't necessarily good for people now, struggling with debt, scared about their jobs and how to make ends meet. 

Economic nationalism is rising, as highlighted today by David Cox, while the government buries its head in the sand, hoping it will all go away. It won't. Brown and the gang are living in the past with ideas suited only to the failed and false 'boom' years, hopelessly out of date and out of touch with the fears and anxieties of ordinary people. 

When times are tough, it's human nature to circle the wagons, man the barricades, protect yourself and no fine words about 'for the good of the country' will help. 

It's throwing left, right and pseudo liberals into a tizz. Free trade for goods across national boundaries is a good thing for the economy and the country. But ignoring the realistic fears of people worried about their jobs, struggling with debt, is a bad thing. 

The government is on a high-horse urging voters to shun protectionism and avoid a US-style Great Depression but it's the intensity of the argument which is disturbing, performed with an almost fanatical religious zeal.

The only way to prevent protectionism is to lessen the pain and hardship, so it will triumph over the vested interests of individuals. There's no evidence of that in the government's misguided and confusing rhetoric. 

Whatever the outcome of the 'jobs for British workers' dispute, the fine balance between government and people has been crossed. It will flare up again in another time and another place.

Fighting the corner is Brown's unelected deputy, Mandleson, from the safe sanctity of the House of Lords. Waving that flag of anti-protectionism and stoking the fires of anger, he's already backed the bosses and now trying to play the xenophobia and racism card. 

That pale pink hankie is like a red rag to a bull for backbench Labour MPs and workers on the picket lines, thankfully swiftly put down by Labour backbencher, Jon Cruddas and angry workers.

Traditional political divides are all over the place and no more so than in the confused and double standards of a once "Labour Party" now left with pseudo-liberal left-overs from a bygone age. 

Jamie Oliver's messianic and highly laudable food campaign to "Bring Home the Bacon" throws it into perspective. Supporting UK pig farmers and condemning vile EU pig rearing practices for profit is a good thing. But buying British bacon as a cure all, er, where does that fit in the weird world of protectionism? 

The current mess will not magically go away with the odd bail-out, debt guarantees and printing money. It's impossible to run up a budget deficit big enough to keep all the people in work. 

Over in Obamaland, the great Messiah is having to back track over his 'Buy American" clause in the trillion dollar bail-out rescue package because it smacks of that dreaded word 'protectionism'. 

Yet the clause was inserted deliberately by his own Democrat Party as they used the rescue to bundle up and push through all Democrat pet policies in one fell swoop. The BBC got its knickers in a twist over that one - but hey there's a get out clause. Apparently he was showing his "sensitive side". 

Meanwhile MoD spinners are hard at work as round the corner is a massive US troop surge for Obama's war and Brown set to be the new president's poodle in the bloody, hopeless and unwinnable war in Afghanistan.  

The spinners will have a hard job convincing voters. How strange that Bush, Blair, Iraq and invisible WMDS = Bad Thing. Now Obama, Brown, Afghanistan, invisible Taliban = Good Thing? 

The depression recession has been a wake up call for the left, right and pseudo liberals, all trying to come up with solutions. 

As the arguments rage, it's  difficult to make sense of a crazy, mixed up political and economic world. But the occasional political polemic sure as hell helps. 

Picture: Private Eye front cover,  Issue 1229 

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Mandy And Brown Stoke Fires Of Anger

Unelected ex-EU fat cat Mandelson, who wormed his way into the heart of government, has the gall to 'speak for the country' with an attack on hard working souls scared stiff about jobs and how to make ends meet. 

The workers revolt is nothing compared to the revolting spectacle of Brown's high and mighty deputy, fanning the flames of angry protest, with Brown behind him. 

As wildcat strikes spread across the country for the second week, Brown has condemned the unofficial action and little else. But he would have say that wouldn't he - he's the prime minister. His weak and limp dronings are part of his natural defence to bury his head in the sand, to 'do his best for jobs' as his misguided "British jobs for British worker's" is thrown back in his face. 

It is his privileged and powerful deputy Mandelson, accusing the strikers of 'protectionism' against EU neighbours which sticks in the throat. Having the downright cheek to suggest workers here should try to get jobs abroad, no doubt forced to wrench themselves away from families and live in squalor, to support Mandy's self-serving EU interests. 

Tell that to the lads on the picket lines who saw their jobs thrown away by a foreign company who used every trick in the EU rule book to bring in cheap labour and then tore the rule book up in their face. 

The Orange Party has warned this is the winter of our discontent as first it was clear the government can't help protect and create jobs and now it seems it won't. 

The government has been spinning around duping the public, refusing to even admit the looming recession. Now, as the chickens come home to roost, it is stuck in the past, trying to cling on to failed 'boom years' policies while the country falls apart round its ears. 

Mandelson is protecting his idea of 'protectionism' and spinning it around to jobs but protectionism has nothing to do with jobs. Its about free trade and most would agree that free trade within the EU is essential, especially in times of deep recession. But that should not mean a jobs free-for-all. The only people who suffer are the working backbone of this country.

Telling workers if they don't like it they can lump it and go and get jobs elsewhere in the EU, cuts no ice with workers with families and commitments here - and nor should it. What next for the unelected peer who has no voter  to fear? Tell them all to 'get on their bikes'?

Even the neo-liberal trade agreements so beloved of this former EU top dog, allows in cheap imported goods, while UK manufacturing is destroyed. Cheap imported goods is one thing - cheap imported slave labour quite another. 

The strikes are not politically motivated or whipped up by agitators, as a quick glance at the messages on the coordinating website BearFacts show. It is a bitter cry for help by solid workers who feel abandoned by the government in a bitter recession. 

What started as an industrial dispute over illegal jobs contracts at the Lincolnshire Lindsey Oil Refinery has now erupted into full-blown anger at the way this so-called 'Labour' government treats its own workforce with utter contempt. 

Mandelson may genuinely believe in free markets across Europe and bully for him but joining the EU never meant screwing the country's workers, nor an ever-expanding, heavily beaurocratic EU, whose leaders are bent on creating a military and financial super-state for their own power and glory. 

How can two grown men be so politically naive? Local and EU elections are round the corner, so too a general election. Their arrogant actions merely boost the BNP which is already using the dispute to whip up support. 

Backbench Labour rebel MPs led by the likes of Jon Cruddas and Frank Field are speaking out and speaking sense: “Stakes could not be higher,” warns Field. “The men and women on these picket lines are not just fighting for their jobs, they are asserting their national identity. Anger should be directed at this Government.”

Cruddas is shouting from the rooftops with warnings about the dangerous rise of the BNP. 

The Orange Party has stated time and again that none of this mattered during the false boom years with easy credit and easier jobs. Now with a deep Depression hanging over the country, it exposes a government floundering around in disarray, hopelessly out of touch and clinging onto the past. 

Picture: Workers brave blizzards at the Lindsey Oil Refinery (BBC). 

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Cruddas And Perils Of Political Language

Labour's last of the few MPs standing, Jon Cruddas, has fired off a broadside to Brown, warning he needs a new language to explain what the government is doing about the recession. Political code for 'Brown has lost his marbles'? 

Downing Street spinners will not be happy bunnies. Battered Brown's blubberings over the Heathrow commons vote and whether he can weather the economic storm are already causing consternation, with speculation it will be men in grey suits or white coats who will come and take him away. 

That prompted the Orange Party to  ask if we are seeing the green shoots of an early election. 

Cruddas has piled on the dismay for Downing Street. His observations,  reported in today's Independent, are sharp and refreshing, including a back-handed compliment to Cameron who he thinks "is doing well". But they should come with a health warning. 

Cameron's Angry Party is starting to capture the public mood and the voters in a clear, simple and straightforward way, in contrast to the robotic dronings of Brown's NewLabourSpeak and that's to be applauded. 

But that connection with a new language is exactly what Blair in the early years achieved, now copied with huge success by Obama. 

Such a figure may not be always benign, as Oborne has pointed out: "there is a frightening prospect that he will be able to adapt the techniques of manipulative populism to his own purposes".

Dave is a pretty straight sort of guy. But in the hands of a slick, smooth talking spinner who talks the talk while lording it up, that would be dangerous. 

Brown and the gang have dug themselves into a messy hole of their own making. No amount of clever language will get them off the hook. And nor should it. Cruddas should be careful for what he wishes.

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The Evil MPs Do Will Live After Them

Government supporting MPs should be wrestling with their conscience as they are set to saddle the country with massive debt for years to come. Today's commons debate had to be prised out of the government after Monday's shambles of an election Budget exposed a shameful record of reckless borrowing and irresponsible spending. 



Today's PBR debate was a chance for MPs to see sense, do the right thing for the country or face a Shakespearean tragedy: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."



As the smokescreen cleared, the message was loud and clear. The PBR showed up a decade of incompetence and mismanagement with more to come.

Labour MP, Frank Field, was in no doubt about the shambles of the pre-budget report and how it had been leaked and spun around, proclaiming: "The package therefore raised some fundamental questions about the Government’s competence in running a crisis economy."



A dire warning the economic crisis could drag on for a decade was delivered by one of the commons Captain Sensibles, the LibDems Vince Cable. He warned that tougher action is needed, though the Orange Party would beg to differ on his borrowing solutions. 



For the Tories, Cameron and his side-kick Osborne, are in no doubt this budget is a reckless gamble which is going to bankrupt the country. A borrowing binge and a tax bombshell.


Today Woolies and MFI went bust, while politicians wasted valuable commons time pratting around with a leaked treasury memo showing the government thought about a future increase in VAT. 


Left-wing Labour MP, Jon Cruddas, said it just left the Tories splashing around in the shallow end. 



Brown has his eye on votes, not the well-being of the economy. His deputy Lord Mandelson is behind every cunning political move. 


Today's debate on that Budget showed some MPs only bothered about clinging onto their seats, as they decided to take the country down with them.



On Monday, the government has very kindly condescended to a vote on the Christmas VAT election giveaway, to try to wrong-foot the Tories once again. 



Playing party politics with people's lives and livelihoods is not the way to run the economy or the country.

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Brown Shows Inhuman Side Over Baby P

Brown has shown his truly awful colours with a disgusting attempt to play down the tragedy of Baby P and accuse the opposition of making political capital out of this shocking case. 

The Commons bear-pit of PMQs is usually played out for the media sound-bites and point scoring but here is an issue which has genuinely shocked the whole country. There's not a living soul who isn't both shocked and disgusted by this whole case. 

Cameron was absolutely right to raise this issue in the commons with some very valid and reasonable questions. Why has no-one resigned? Why has no-one accepted responsibility and why is there only an in-house inquiry? 

There are very serious questions to be asked, not least over how this dreadful thing could happen again in the same borough as Victoria Climbie and after the Lord Laming inquiry and recommendations.

The response from Haringey children's services department, the minister for children, social workers, health visitors and hospital doctors has been verging on complacency. 

Time and gain we have had to suffer the crap of platitudes that everyone has done what they could and it was all just a terrible tragedy. No-one has had the common decency to even apologise.

The prime minister's commons response (see below) was equally robotic, uncaring and full of incomprehensible NewLabourspeak. 

Why couldn't the government come out and capture the mood of the nation - one thing Blair was very good at - however unpalatable that may be. Clearly Brown is incapable of that. The response of the prime minister wasn't human. 

Instead of reflecting that shock and outrage, he trotted out useless statistics. Then he had the audacity to accuse the Conservatives of making political capital out of the death of Baby P. 

Cameron lost it. But who can blame him. Any right thinking person would have lost it in those circumstances. It shows he's only human. 

Watching this sickening spectacle of Brown made you wish for once the Speaker Michael Martin would intervene as he often does to help dig the government of a hole. But by that time it was too late to save Brown's skin. 

It has taken a true Labour MP, Jon Cruddas, to stand up for common sense and tell the BBC the case of Baby P was "beyond politics" and "David Cameron was absolutely right to raise it."

The Baby P case shows the government up for what it really is. For years it's helped create a social services culture of political correctness and nannying with the laudable but laughable aim "putting the family first". 

It is quite clear to everyone they should put "the protection of children" first and make sure robust management is in place with well-qualified staff to see that through, as Lord Laming recommended. 

There's something very wrong and disturbing to have a government whose child protection policy has been exposed as a sham. And which has created social, now children's services departments incapable of action and suffering a woeful lack of staffing and resources. 

Maybe that's why Brown couldn't deliver a more human response.

UPDATE: Schools secretary Ed Balls popped up with a surprise announcement of an independent inspection of children's welfare services at Haringey - just before the evening TV news bulletins. Now that's playing politics!

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Brown Keeps Enemy Close As Mandy Moves In

Arch Blairite, uber plotter, architect of New Labour and all round bad egg, Peter Mandleson, is back in the cabinet after a few years plotting behind Brown's back in Brussels and making sure his man Tony gets the top job of the EU presidency.

As Brown rearranges the Titanic's deck-chairs  with a cabinet shuffle, Mandleson's appointment to a beefed up business job, comes as a shock and much of the media, including Murdoch's Cameron supporting Sun, and the Mandy bashing Daily Mail will have a field day. 

With 'Mandy' Mandleson, it's a case of Brown keeping his friend close but his enemies even closer. But he should watch his back.

There's no love lost between Brown and the Prince, now Lord of Darkness, who was plotting behind the scenes and out in the open, in the Blairite leadership challenges to Brown. Brown even tried to prise Mandy out of his EU commissioner job, only to be told he had no authority to do so. 

To ease the pain of Mandleson and as a sop to the Party, popular left-winger, Jon Cruddas was at one time being spun as tipped for 'promotion'. 

But Cruddas, who wowed delegates at the Labour Party conference and is seen as one of the few true Labour voices that could mount a serious challenge to the New Labour gang, has been kept out of the loop.

It's third time lucky for Mandleson, as he said himself this afternoon but third time unlucky for the rest of us. The disgraced minister was in and out of Blair's government like a yo-yo. He held two cabinet posts before quitting over dodgy dealings and was finally given the plum job as EU trade commissioner.

The feud between Brown and Mandelson goes back years, ever since the odd couple fell out, when Mandelson backed Blair for the Labour leadership in 1994.

Elsewhere, most of the cry babies in the cabinet look to have kept their top jobs after threatening to quit en masse if Brown tried to move them. And Ed Miliband, tipped here as a possible chancellor, is climbing up the greasy pole, heading up a new energy and environment super-department. 

A tinkering at the edges sees a few other insignificant changes of insignificant faces as Brown tries to head off the increasingly powerful challenges from both within his own government and from the Conservatives and SNP.

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The Sun Shines On Cameron

Brown might as well start packing his bags - it's all over bar the shouting and the voting - the Sun has called it for Cameron.

In a fiercely worded editorial, Murdoch's newspaper has finally nailed its Cameron colours to the mast after a conference speech which received (almost) universal acclaim.

The Sun leader chimes with many of the views expressed here yesterday, that Cameron does indeed have a plan to be prime minister and is ready to govern.

But while many still suspect a vote for Cameron is a vote against Brown and New Labour, the Sun is in no doubt that Cameron is the man to lead the nation. 

And it would be the nation - there is no way Cameron's Conservatives can make any inroads in SNP Scotland. 

But the Sun has no such doubts - he's the man and he's ready, willing and able:

"This was a powerful, coherent speech, addressing hard economic questions with sensible solutions ... Far from looking like a “novice”, Mr Cameron delivered the most confident and compelling speech of the political season ... But with this nail-hammering performance, he showed he is more than qualified to give it a try."

You could see it coming. Sun leaders and editorial comment have been getting more and more fiercely critical of Brown and his government.

But this is not about Brown or any of the smug arrogant prats that make up his government. They deserve derision. Any leadership challenge from anyone, except Cruddas, would make no difference to this doomed Party.

The mythical 'man on a bus' is replaced by 'Sun readers' but the outcome is still the same. Anyone who thinks the Sun doesn't matter is either naive or too blinkered with Party loyalties. 

Murdoch was the man who boasted he clinched it for Blair when the newspaper finally came out in support in the 1997 landslide election and Blair left us with his hand of history on our shoulders. Just pray the Sun doesn't make that same mistake again. 

But for many voters in England, with the Sun and the Times, it will be a case of follow my leader.

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Johnson Can Swing It For Labour

The battle between New Labour and True Labour, highlighted by the Orange Party on a number of ocassion,  may come to a head with a Johnson-Cruddas ticket, the only way forward for the Party to challenge and expose the weaknesses of the Conservatives. 

What the Conservatives, SNP and most of the media liberal elite fear most, is a true Labour Party fighting an election under a true Labour banner.

Both Conservatives and SNP know they are not 'winning'. It is New Labour that is 'losing', because the public's fed up with Brown and the New Labour project.

Both parties want Brown and New Labour, in whatever guise, to limp along and self-destruct. The heir-to-Blair, Miliband, would be a gift for both parties and an election disaster for Labour.

Johnson is working class with his roots in the Labour movement. Like fellow Hull MP, Prescott, he's bemused by the whole New Labour project but was happy to go along for the ride. 

With big business Labour donors deserting in droves, the trade unions have a new confidence not seen since Blair and the gang highjacked the Party and finally crushed any influence they had left in them. 

Voters have seen through the New Labour sham. But turning to the Conservatives in England's Labour heartlands is a hard decision, so too with the SNP in Scotland. 

The LibDems are going nowhere. Thoroughly pointless Clegg, blustering around, is a liability.

Miliband and the Blairites are crawling out of the woodwork,  the few Brownites left are  trying to cling on to power. 

The next few weeks will be critical for the Labour Party ahead of September's Party conference. 

Johnson would be a 'safe pair of hands' until a general election in the Spring.

With Johnson at the helm, along with Cruddas (and McDonnell), the Labour Party would have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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Gordon Gets The Glaswegian Kiss

With the Labour Party in disarray in Scotland, riddled with sleaze allegations, the people of Glasgow East have sent a clear message to Westminster. Brown is now down and out in Glasgow East.

They are fed up with Brown and his cronies who have no place in the hearts and minds of the people of this area. 

This is much more than a disastrous result for New Labour. It should mark the end for Brown. Glasgow East was a solid Labour stronghold where the Party runs in the blood of the people. Even with a lack-lustre candidate from the SNP in John Mason, Labour couldn't pull it off. 

The SNP majority was 365, an incredible 22.54% swing against Labour on a turnout of 42.25%. In 2005, Labour recorded a majority of 13,507 over the SNP on a turnout of 48%. This SNP victory and Labour's utter humiliation will go down in political history.

New Labour's recent attempts to spin evidence of a Brown bounce has evaporated. If you can't win in Glasgow East, with no Conservative or LibDem opposition to speak of, you can't win anywhere. 

And it's also a well-deserved and stunning victory for Alex Salmond who played his charisma card by fielding a boring SNP candidate who wouldn't take the limelight away from him and the SNP movement. 

But, like the turn towards the Conservatives in England, this was more a vote by people fed-up with Brown and New Labour rather than a vote for the other parties. 

The brutal fact is that Brown once again bottled it. He had a golden opportunity to pull a rabbit out of the hat ahead of the by-election. Back-bench true Labour MPs like Cruddas and McDonnell were showing him the way and shouting it from the newspapers. 

Just one big popular policy announcement would have done it. A cabinet reshuffle to clear out the dead wood would have done it. A clear announcement over troop withdrawal from Iraq, while not directly relevant to voters in Glasgow East, would have galvanised the Party and kick-started the campaign. But nothing happened. 

In the end, the arrogance of the New Labour Westminster elite was their downfall. They may have hijacked the Labour Party but they cannot highjack the people of Glasgow East.

Now a humiliated Brown will be forced to go cap in hand to the unions at the National Policy Forum to plead for cash to keep the Party afloat. 

With the devastating result of Glasgow East still fresh in everyone's minds, the unions will drive a hard bargain, if indeed they want to continue to prop up Brown and his New Labour gang at all, ahead of September's Labour Party conference.

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