Mandy And Brown Come Over All Green

The deluded prime minister and his despised deputy have come over all green, with Mandy getting a dollop of green custard and Brown talking hot air about green jobs for green people. 

Green is the new Brown and Mandy too. But is anyone that green to be take in by this latest green sham? 

Anti-Heathrow protester, Leila Deen, took the business secretary and his minders by surprise as she slimed business secretary Lord Mandleson with a  large helping of ego-friendly green custard, as he arrived at the launch of an eco-friendly low-carbon summit in London. 

"The only thing green about Peter Mandelson is the slime coursing through his veins," she proclaimed, protesting at reports that Mandelson met lobbyists from Heathrow owner BAA before the government gave the controversial go-ahead for a third runway.

Brushing aside the protest and the custard, a slimy Lord Mandelson dismissed the slimy incident, as an "adolescent protest". 

But it could have been much worse than cuddly custard and that does raise questions about the security of a government cabinet minister. 

“It's not right that someone like Peter Mandelson can stand up and talk about being green,” she retorted.

Silly sausage. It may not be right, Ms Green-Deen but in the real world of politics that's what politicians do. Jumping on the eco-bandwagon used to be a sure-fire vote winner. But it does seem the government has not caught up with the times. 

The protest came as the Supreme Green Leader was due to call for an international 'green New Deal', creating 400,000 new green jobs over the next eight years, to boost his green credentials as he scratches around for some green shoots of recovery. 

Now even with the Orange Party's rusty abacus this is a lot of hot air. 400,000 jobs over eight years - that's around 50,000 people a year lagging lofts. A drop in the ocean with 3m unemployed. It's so pointless it's hardly worth mentioning but it does grab a headline or two. 

In eight years time the New Labour project will be a faded twinkle in Mandeson's eye. 

What's needed and what isn't happening, is action now. More hard cash and funding for green projects, along with better regulation rather than empty green gestures and a lot of carbon-friendly hot air. 

Harking back to Obama, Green Gordon reckons more and more countries are already including 'green' measures in their fiscal stimulus packages as a way of creating jobs and growth.

But Obama's fiscal stimulus has already been branded a load of earmarking, pork-barrel waste and not just from disgruntled Republicans.  Nevertheless he has the luxury of years in office and he's riding high in the popularity polls. Brown is a dead duck. 

The last New Deal was a sham, creating useless, meaningless jobs, far removed from the real world and this would be no different. Talking the green talk cuts no ice with voters worried about jobs and making ends meet now. 

Cleanly living on another, much greener planet, Green Gordon delivers the same, tired old mantra: "That's why I want to create a global 'green new deal' that will pave the way for a low-carbon recovery and to help us build tomorrow's green economy today."

If the government wants to create thousands of jobs and tackle fuel poverty, the best way is to invest now in renewables and serious energy efficiency programmes. But that would require a very public investment on a very pubic accounts balance sheet. 

Once again the government is harking back to its failed policies of the boom years as it massages its green ego. 

Regulation, government grants and subsidies and direct government action is the only way forward to 'green' the economy in times of recession depression.

Pictures: Business secretary Lord Mandelson gets slimed (Sky News)

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Scandal Of Second Homes Secretary Smith

The chickens are coming home to roost for greedy government ministers, with the home secretary now caught shamefully fiddling commons expenses, claiming her West Midlands family home is her second home, while lodging with her sister in London and claiming that is her first home. 

The Mail on Sunday claims home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has received £116,000 in allowances while lodging at her sister’s house. This is on top of the taxpayer-funded security, which the paper puts at around £200,000 a year. 

The revelations are the latest to hit the home secretary who also clams £40,000 a year for parliamentary assistant husband, Richard Timney, who was caught out writing glowing free puffs for his wife in the local newspaper, without disclosing the family connection. 

The Mail reports Smith claims the maximum parliamentary second-home allowance, currently a tax-free £24,006 a year on the detached house in her West Midlands constituency, where her husband and two young children live and which she bought for £300,000 five years ago.

Smith claims she has done nothing wrong and her spokeswoman said "Jacqui has documentation to prove that everything is completely above board. It has been cleared by the Commons Fees Office". But the Orange Party is at a loss to understand whether this office scrutinises and clears expenses claims or merely makes a note of them.

Smith is not the first cabinet minister to be caught using their MPs' homes expenses in a squalid rip-off at the taxpayers' expense. 

Brown's favourite cabinet couple, Ed Balls and wife Yvette Cooper were let off the hook  after it was claimed they had been able to "maximise" their taxpayer-funded second homes allowances, by claiming their London home was their main home.

Once again it exposes the "morally dubious practice" of ministers on the take in what is nothing short of a commons scam.

The Orange Party could never understand how Smith suddenly popped up from nowhere and was handed the poisoned chalice of home secretary in the first place, when she stands no chance of holding onto her Redditch seat at the next general election. 

Since taking the powerful position, Smith has been snapped in a bullet-proof vest on the streets of London with armed police officers to show the streets are safe, while her political advisor has been slammed by a commons watchdog after ordering the release of misleading crime figures. 

At the same time as pushing through hugely distasteful and expensive ID cards, her department found time to get involved with the heavy mob's unwarranted raid on the commons offices of opposition spokesman, Damian Green. 

In other circumstances ministers caught playing these dirty tricks would be forced to resign but with ministers now so wrapped up in their own arrogance and self-interest and with the full backing of Brown, it seems anyone in a position of power caught fiddling expenses can easily ride out the storm. 

Picture: Tractor Stats

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Well-Stuffed MPs Return To Palace Of Plenty

Well-fed MPs drift back to Parliament today after a record-breaking 24-day festive holiday at the taxpayer expense, as people suffer the worst slump for nigh on 30 years. Meanwhile home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has a lot of explaining to do about her bogus figures. 

While shops go to the wall, UK manufacturing falls at its fastest since 1981, numbers on the dole the highest since 1997, MPs have lost their conscience and connection with ordinary folk.

Job losses seem to have escaped the public sector fat cats with meaningless job titles, now part of a long overdue crusade by many national newspapers. At the top of the public sector food chain stand the country's MPs, ring fenced and cushioned from the recession and the growing band of 'payroll MPs' flushed with promoted egos and self-importance. 

What a difference a job makes. On the one hand, the government offers top whack wages, generous benefits and gold-plated pensions to its card carrying Common Purpose quango lackeys, while in the real world of real dwindling jobs, it's all wage cuts, unpaid overtime and short-time working.

The grotesque contrast between the harsh world of struggling ordinary folk in the economic crisis and the cosy comfort of the political elite, is most evident in the closeted world of MPs and their lifestyles, as they look set to continue to squander our money. 

While occupational pension schemes are being closed down, MPs' pensions remain protected. Hard-pressed families struggle with debt, but MPs have their mortgages paid for them by the taxpayer. People are tightening their belts but MPs' generous expenses system allows them to squander taxpayers' cash on furniture and home improvements. 

Peter Oborne, writing in the Mail last week, put his finger on what he called a national disgrace: "MPs who put private profit above public interest are treating voters with contempt as they milk their expenses system." Yet still nothing on MPs' expenses has been published.

Top of the dishonesty pile must come home secretary, Jacqui Smith, who seems to have put on a bit of weight over Christmas, according to the picture above, to face questions over more bogus figures and face accusations of becoming a bit of a big fat liar. 

Last year, she was forced to admit that immigration numbers were made up. Letters to newspapers sucking up to her while attacking the Tories were actually written by friends or relations.

That's on top of the revelation that the home secretary misled MPs over knife crime statistics. And there's the not so very small matter of Tory opposition spokesman Damian Green, who looks set to be cleared over trumped-up home office leak allegations.

Meanwhile Brown faces his first real test of the New Year as he tries to look busy doing nothing and prepares to spin his way around the go-ahead for a third runway at Heathrow with a decision on the controversial scheme, opposed by environmentalists and west Londoners, expected in the next few days.

More than 50 Labour MPs are opposed to it, along with the Conservatives. But Brown is behind the scheme and, backed by deputy prime minister Mandelson and a very powerful Heathrow lobby and advertising campaign, the government is set to wriggle its way around the pollution and noise with the promise of a new high-speed rail link on top of another runway.

The high point on the horizon? Some political commentators are bending over backwards to toe the Downing Street line that Brown has ruled out holding a spring election. He's done nothing of the sort. He lives and breathes election strategy and how to wrong-foot the Tories. 

Last week team Brown spent around £200,000 of taxpayers' money on a pre-election tour of the north. Mandelson's minion, Derek Draper, who has set up a New Labour propaganda blog, with contributions from, er, Mandy and Brown's bully Charlie Whelan, is already in a pickle over 'moderation'. Brown's personal Downing Street website a flagrant breach of the civil service code, would not look out of place in North Korea. 

If that's not all blatant electioneering, the Orange Party is at a loss to know what is.

Photo: Tractor Stats

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Quick Now Knackered Of The Yard

The home secretary's favourite copper has been forced to make an unprecedented apology to the Tories, in a wake up call for the Met and the political police. Now the only question is how quick will Quick go?

A direct police attack on Her Majesty's Opposition had blown out of the water any pretence the Met is not a highly politicised arm of the current government.

Now assistant commissioner, Bob Quick, head of the counter-terror squad, has issued an "unreserved" apology to the Conservative Party after his outburst accusing the Tories of behaving in a "corrupt" way and mobilising the press against the Met.

Publicly the Tories have drawn a line under it, privately they must be seething.

Quick was clearly peeved with Mail on Sunday hacks sniffing around his wife's luxury car hire firm run from the family home but too quick to lay the blame. Absurd and churlish comments were to be expected. But to accuse Her Majesty's Opposition of behaving in a "corrupt" way was at best naive, at worse an inexcusable affront to democracy.

Only a fool would directly accuse the Tories of being in some way behind the Mail on Sunday expose without a shred of evidence. Mail journalists don't need Tory politicians to do their dirty work.

But the Conservatives are not a two bit political party that police can trample all over. They are officially Her Majesty's Opposition and, as such, parliament affords them rights and privileges.

Slowly the Met is having to wake up to the fact that the official Opposition has just as an important right and part to play in democracy as the government of the day.

But that of course is what is getting up the nose of the government and its pals at the Yard, which is no stranger to corruption claims against it. Accusing someone else of being corrupt is a bit rich coming from the Met.

To make matters worse, Quick's absurd and damaging outburst re-ignited the whole Damian Green affair which all key players now hoped will just go away. It called into question the political bias of Quick, a keen supporter of the home secretary's 42 day detention, who is also heading an inquiry into the alleged home office leaks which sparked off the Greengate scandal.

No politician wants Green's part in that affair to drag on for much longer. There's too much at stake for the government's credibility. Many are expecting any allegations against the MP to be dropped, leaving parliament and MPs to deal with the vexed questions of the unwarranted police raid on the sanctity of parliament.

The government's cosy relationship with the Met is so over the top it's almost laughable. But times when police could pander to politicians are changing and the Met should get used to it.

Mayor Johnson fired a warning shot over the bows, when Blair's poodle and namesake Sir Ian Blair was forced to quit as commissioner because he'd lost the confidence of the Conservative London mayor.

Top jobs in the Met will no longer be handed out as rewards and favours to faithful supporters who suck up to government and to keep them in line. The 'cash for peerages' scandal showed where that corruption can lead.

That, commander Quick, was corruption. What is starting to happen now is called democracy.

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Mandy's Smoking Gun

The divide between Cameron's Conservatives and Brown's Old for New Labour became clearer today as the two Parties square up for the general election. The power behind the throne, Lord Mandelson, is working overtime preparing the groundwork. 

Time and again Cameron rammed home Thatcher's housewife message of thrift while at the same time condemning borrowing Brown and relentlessly attacking the government's miserable failed economic policies.

Yet within all that talk was the clearest call for a general election - the clearest indicator yet that the Tory Party believes an election is just round the corner. And strategically for the Conservatives it makes sense to make that call now.

Today's push poll in the Times is reported by many as showing the gap between the Parties is narrowing with a four-point Tory lead.

If the government is so good for the country and with the economy it should be riding high in the popularity stakes. But as yet it isn't. That's despite the monumental propaganda exercise over the leaked PBR, Queen's Speech and Mandelson's efforts to portray Brown as the saviour of the world. Only crafty Balls has managed to capture the high ground over Baby P. 

Yesterday's commons vote on the Harman motion was a turning point for the Tories. A parliamentary issue had degenerated into a tribal political squabble, as the government kicked the Green inquiry, stuffed anyway with its own supporters, into touch. 

But there were only four votes in it despite the heavy handed pressure from the whips. That brought gasps from the Tory benches. That was too close for comfort for the government. Now both Parties know it doesn't take much to tip backbench Labour MPs over the edge.

Today's silly little smokescreen over cigarettes saw a bemused health secretary, Alan Johnson, trying taking some credit for the watered down line on smoking but behind him and every minister these days lurks the shadowy hand of the king of the castle - Lord Mandleson, stepping in from the shadows to protect small businesses.

Mandy's charm offensive knows no bounds. He's the small businessman's friend but only as long as it helps capture that crucial middle vote which traditionally sways to the Tories. 

Conservatives know the economy is Brown's Achilles Heel. They'll continue to drive home their message as the country sinks deeper into recession with dreadful consequences in the real world economy.

Westminster is starting to go over all Christmasy. In the New Year Brown begins his meet the people tour of the country, the long-awaited Iraq troop withdrawal begins, followed by the visit by then president Obama in April, as government spinners try their best to capture the media and convince voters. 

The Orange Party was formed in May as an independent voice in the dying days of the New Labour Project, knowing that it probably had just one year left to live, to May/June 2009. But that was before the return of the charming Mandleson.

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Whose Parliament Is It Anyway?

MPs right to launch an immediate cross-party inquiry into the Greengate scandal is being stifled by a government trying every trick in the book to put a lid on the whole affair.

As MPs meet for the first time to fully discuss the outrage, the future of parliament is at stake. MPs should tell government ministers and their political police poodles to stuff it.

The heavy-handed anti-terrorist police raid on senior opposition spokesman, Damian Green's private commons office has made a mockery of the elected House, left democracy in tatters and the country appalled and afraid we are slipping further into a police state. The Greengage scandal exposes a government which preaches tolerance at the expense of justice, truth and freedom.

But this is showing all the signs of descending into a squalid party political squabble over the future of the speaker and the right of parliament to investigate the twist and turns of this monumental blunder and affront to civil liberties.

MPs do not hold a divine right to rule, they are elected. Their overriding job is to uphold the rights of parliament, not their Party, not the speaker, certainly not the police and not the government of the day. And that truism holds just as much for the prime minister and his home secretary as it does for a humble backbencher.

At the centre is the role of the police, the government, the commons ringmaster, Michael Martin and the right of MPs to mount an immediate cross-party inquiry.

The motion to hold back on an inquiry until the police investigation is over, tabled by leader of the House, Harriet Harman, has its own delicious irony. As a civil liberties lawyer in the 1980s, Harman herself was found in contempt of court in a landmark battle with the home office, the outcome of which is used as a legal precedent to this day (harman v home office [1983]).

Some of the government's own backbenchers are accusing ministers of trying to kick the row into touch, well aware that a police investigation could take months to complete, bringing the MP's inquiry hard up against a general election.

There are enough top legal minds at Westminster to form a committee, round up the usual suspects, subject them to forensic questioning and bring this matter to a swift conclusion. With full parliamentary privilege and no issues of national security here, that should be held in public.

But asking the key players what they knew and when they knew it, is just what the government does not want to happen. Already a likely committee of seven, stuffed with government supporters, has led the LibDems to threaten a boycott, joined this afternoon by the Tories.

The discredited speaker is toast, despite last-ditch government smokescreens. A letter from Met commissioner Bob Quick, to the home secretary Jacqui Smith, posted here, flatly contradicts the speaker's version of events. Someone is clearly telling porkies. Now the only question left to resolve is does he jump or will he be pushed into cosy retirement in the Lords.

With the top job at the Met up for grabs, the issue has become more political than ever. The convenient ongoing police inquiry, as feared by the Orange Party earlier, as this debacle unfolded, is a neat move to allow the government to hide behind that inquiry with little comment.

The opposition, with LibDem support, has been joined by outspoken voices from the Labour backbenches. But government ministers, backed by the powerful whips, hope they can rely on the huge gang of payroll MPs to steamroll through their wishes.

The New Year bring a whole different ball game, as Brown sets off on his 'meet the people' tour of the country as part of his election campaign. By then Greengate will take a back seat, as party politics and electioneering move into top gear.

Parliament reflects the will of the people through its elected members. It is for parliament to decide when and how to hold an inquiry, what to do about their discredited speaker and how to stop the police from descending further into a mere political tool of government.

That is not something to be decided and engineered for political advantage on the whim of a government of the day nor by party political bickering or misplaced tribal loyalties.

Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop, jokingly described the Greengate scandal as the most important challenge facing parliament since - Magna Carta. Only Hislop probably wasn't joking.

5pm UPDATE: Blair's former home secretary, Charles Clarke, intends to vote against the government over the outrageous plan to put off the commons inquiry. Clarke has told whips the vote is a "House of Commons matter" - commons code for voting against the government, according to the Westminster Mole. With a packed House, a full Tory and Lib Dem turnout and a good number of angry backbench Labour MPs, it is set to be a knife-edge vote this evening.

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What A Cop Out, Mr Speaker

Brown's Queen's Speech took a back seat, as the commons speaker threw Serjeant at Arms, Jill Pay, to the wolves, blaming her for the heavy-handed Greengate police raid - it wasn't me it was her, guv.

Pay, has only been in the job a couple of months, as part of New Labour's 'modernising', and now her future seems to hang by a thread.

Many have seen through the sham. She's been made a scapegoat as the government continues to stamp out the opposition, clampdown on dissents and throw the law at the leakers, as it tries to capture the media and voters in the run-up to the general election.

The government's speaker, Michael Martin, laid the blame squarely on Pay for allowing the heavy mob to search the office of a senior opposition spokesman in the sanctity of the commons chamber, without a search warrant.

When anti-terrorist police arrested MP Damian Green, Martin expressed regret saying: "The Serjeant at Arms called me, told me the member's name and said that a search might take place of his offices in the House. I was not told the police did not have a warrant ... I must make it clear to the House that I was not asked the question of whether consent should be given or whether a warrant should be insisted upon. I did not authorise a search."

So that's all right then is it? Why didn't the man have the common's common sense to make sure there was a warrant, just to be on the safe side? Mr Speaker gets off the hook and the poor woman cops for the lot.

It was disclosed this morning that the police had failed to get a warrant but no mention was made of claims that Pay had been told the DPP approved of the raid.

The DPP deny being consulted by the police, so that begs the question did the police lie to the Serjeant at Arms?

It is hoped Pay has a chance to defend herself when senior MPs meet to investigate the scandal.

Nothing was going to get in the way of Brown's Queen's Speech debate on the government's nondescript watered-down legislative programme up to that election. So a full-scale debate on the row will now have to wait until Monday.

Former Conservative leader, Michael Howard, said MPs on all sides felt "outrage" at the arrest of the shadow immigration spokesman. 

Brown predictably used the police inquiry to get off the hook, saying that he was not going to comment on an ongoing police inquiry. His hapless home secretary, Jacqui Smith, is due to make a statement tomorrow.

In the commons, Conservative leader, David Cameron, said: "It's no good for the prime minister to hide behind 'I was only supporting the independence of the police' ... People want to know whether our democracy, our right to know and our right to expose are safe with this prime minister."

But former defence secretary, John Reid, re-ignited the party politics, echoing Brown's earlier statement warning the Tories that no MP is above the law. 

Now party politics is exactly what will happen as the government presses home its spin that the home office whistleblower at the centre of the leak to Green was a closet Tory.

The Orange Party is more than happy to let the MP at the centre of this outrage have the last word for now. 

Speaking on a point of order, Green, told the commons it would be a "bad day for democracy in this country" if MPs could not expose information that ministers preferred to keep hidden.

The MP added: "Those who have the real power in this country - ministers, senior civil servants and the police - are also not beyond the law and beyond scrutiny ... An MP endangering national security would be a disgrace. An MP exposing embarrassing facts about Home Office policy which ministers are hiding is doing a job in the public interest."

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Spintime For Little Hitlers And Democracy

Take your seats for the greatest sham on earth. The Queen's Speech and Greengate. Democracy and a police state. The government is taking us for a spin today and it could be a bumpy ride. What will Her Maj think of it all? 

First up the Queen's Speech - poor woman having to read out all that crap. Even the BBC have been reporting this as "Brown's Queen's Speech". 

And what a sad little speech it is. Out go the 18 bills so trumpeted by the prime minister in the spring as he desperately tried to cling onto power. In come a dozen or so bills, mostly nondescript, most just regurgitated and spun around, after all the troublesome ones mysteriously disappeared in a puff of smoke and mirrors. 

The BBC (bless) has been billing the Speech as a focus on crime and something called 'fairness'. Well there's always a little police bill in a Queen's Speech somewhere. And fairness? One would have thought the government would have got its act together over fairness, or have they just been practising for the last ten years? 

Mandy's pawprints are all over this. All dutifully leaked to the BBC this morning. All carefully choreographed. All to centre on the economy. What else but the economy? It's the only straw left for Brown to grasp. No doubt something will have been cobbled together to grab the headlines. All deliberately positioned for electioneering as the Orange Party has so often pointed out before. 

And that leak. The mole-hunters have crawled out of the woodwork with the acting chief of the Met saying ministers knew nothing about the arrest. Anyone would think he was after a job. 

Meanwhile is it a showdown or climbdown in the commons? The Orange Party was putting its money on a government climbdown and no showdown but that was before Mandy spun round again, accusing the Tories of every dastardly deed under the sun. 

The hint of a government climbdown was well-rooted in spin. After all, minister didn't want to be knocked off course at the start of the Queen's Speech debate, with former shadow home secretary turned civil rights campaigner, David Davis, the leading the fray, over Green's heavy-handed treatment.

Leader of the House, Harriet Harman looked to be brokering some kind of deal. She's a civil right lawyer with a lot of past experience in fighting the home office. And Mr Speaker keeps putting his hands up - it wasn't me, guv - it was that woman in tights - the new Serjeant-at-Arms, Jill Pay, who let the heavy mob into Parliament. How it will play out this afternoon is anyone's guess. 

The Tories and LibDems should go for broke and screw these little Hitlers once and for all, demanding the head of the home secretary, or at least get her arrested for wasting police time. 

Any successful motion of no confidence in Mr Speaker could bring down the government and bring forward that general election that everyone has been playing in the phoney war. 

But that would make the Queen's Speech rather pointless, leave Her Majesty speechless and certainly not amused. 

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