'Maggie' Mandy's Last Post

Striking posties are being set up as election pawns by a government hoping tough talk is a vote winner. Delivering the attack is still smarting Mandy, egging on postie-bashing bosses and blocking a deal.

The strike is now set to go-ahead despite last ditch talks. A sign of a fag-end government drifting and dithering around with no political direction.

But Dithering Brown still has time to get off the fence and tell Maggie Mandy to call off the dogs.

The Orange Party is still retching from Mandy's cringe-making pantomime at Brighton, trying to be one of the boys.

Now Maggie Mandy's throwing a strop, squaring up for a battle with posties to smash the strike, still smarting after the Communication Workers Union helped spoil his Mail sell-off plans.

It's pay-back time. The CWU is taking a hammering with all the spin Mandy can muster. But the CWU is fighting back, branding Mandy's bosses-backing line "blantantly untrue and extremely unhelpful".

Mandy's at the wrong end of the pantomime horse if he thinks attacking the posties would boost the dead-end government's appeal to voters.

Is there really any public sympathy for the smug arrogant bosses at Royal Mail? The Orange Party has nothing but the deepest contempt for sharp-suited fat cat Crozier at the helm with the slick patter of a dodgy used-car salesman.

The bitter dispute is tearing the Party apart. Split down the middle between New Labour cronies and true Labour trade unionists. In the commons Tories tried to milk the divide and Bunkered Brown for all it's worth.

Party loyalty is at breaking point. What does Royal Mail do? Hire thousands of 'strike-breakers' for a pittance and order Mail managers to break their contracts and work on the front-line.

Labour MP John McDonnell has already warned: 'This may be part of an election strategy, for Brown and Mandelson to be seen as tough by taking on a union."

Has Bunkered Brown or Maggie Mandy been down to Mount Pleasant? It's not pleasant. What an insult to claim posties are stuck in the past. They're protecting a cherished public service.

Thousands of jobs have gone over the last few years while the firm racks up a whopping £321m operating profit.

Postal workers are caught in the jobs trap. Firefighters and refuse workers too are up in arms as bosses have them over the jobs barrel and force through cheap below the belt working practices.

It's starting to have all the hallmarks of the 'Winter of Discontent' that put an end to Callaghan's Labour government. Yet this political and industrial mess can be sorted.

Make a start by putting £1m plus a year Crozier and his greedy bunch of Mail robbing side-kicks in their place, instead of letting them play tough guys and union-bashing bosses.

Ex-postie union leader, Al Johnson, could mediate, instead of leaving workers up the Swanee.

Maggie Mandy too should get out of Thatcher's '80s and move with the times. Royal Mail is a publicly-owned company. He's responsible for it with a plumb cabinet job.

Dithering Bunkered Brown and Maggie Mandy could still get on the blower to fat cat Crozier and give him notice to strike a deal with the CWU and sort it out. Otherwise sack him.

And when the lads are back at work - sack him anyway. After all Mandy has been quick to point out this is a 'damaging dispute'. The damage is being done by using postal workers as an election pawn to dig up the festering remains of a withering Party.

Read More...

Brown's Depressing Interview

Cheeky Andrew Marr has popped the question - is Brown popping pills? The grilling brought a petulant reply from the prime minister and caused some consternation from the commentariat.

Brighton on the Rocks is turning into one helluva leaving party, with a Party that has lost the will to live. New Labour has lost it. Get over it. What Bumbling Brown was droning on about in his BBC interview, no one knows or even cares.

A fag-end government with a lame duck leader has lost the right to be listened to. All Beeb viewers were left with are lingering doubts over the health of the lamentable leader and why he looked so pale and sweaty.

Commentators have been quick to ask whether it was right to pose the question: Is Brown popping the happy pills? Too right it was.

He wasn't elected but Brown is the prime minister. The guy's nominally in charge of the country. Decisions over sending troops to their deaths in the Afghan killing fields and wrecking the economy need a clear head, not a clouded judgement.

If Brown is on anti-depressants that could affect his judgement then voters have a right to know.

The Orange Party's gripe is that Marr's question was too woolly and could have been more tightly framed. Brown's health may well be deteriorating but he's still a very canny politician with years of ducking and diving under his belt.

Casting aside any of his concerns about "innate liberal bias" at the BBC, Marr asked Brown: "A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?"

Judging from Brown’s reaction, that question wasn't in the script.

Brown replied: "No. I think this is the sort of questioning which is all too often entering the lexicon of British politics" and went on to deftly duck the main question and deny his sight is deteriorating.

Rumours have been swirling around Westminster since blogger and journalist, John Ward, claimed Brown is suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder as well as drug-controlled depression.

The Orange Party posted at the time this raised doubts whether deluded Brown is fit for purpose.

There's been growing MSM speculation over the PM's health since Matthew Norman raised it in The Independent. The rumour should have been dealt with clearly. Clearly it wasn't.

When the eyesight question was put to Brown during a US interview on NBC's Nightly News, the UK media seized on it with glee. When a similar issue is raised in Brown's own back yard, there's some shock horror.

Health aside, generally it's the performance what matters - and that was depressing. Arrogance and petulance came to the fore.

Despite grandstanding on the world stage, all that will be remembered is the Obama snub in the UN kitchen. While back in Blighty, Brown is propping up his crony government with a Scotland scandal whitewash.

Once again life's little irritants just keep getting in the way of 'getting on with the job'.

But a PM and Party leader who cannot get a political policy point across and cannot connect with voters is a dead man walking.

With suicide laws now a bit befuddled, Martin Ivens over at the Sunday Times asks: Will Mandy push Gordon over the cliff?

Tired, pale and sweaty despite the slap, no wonder no decision has been made to put up Brown against Cameron in a live car-crash TV debate. Tricky Dicky Nixon and smoothy chops Kennedy all over again.

Should Cameron be asked a similar question? It's doubtful Dave's on anti-depressants. He's on too much of a voter high.

Read More...

What's New Pussycat?

Peter the Pussycat is due to arrive back in dear old Blighty to take a firm hand on the tiller of the sinking ship after swanning around with his uber-rich pals in the Med while running the country on his BlackBerry. With a decade of spin and illusion set to go down the pan, it's now all down to unelected Mandy to carry the torch for the dying New Labour brand.

What's new pussycat? It's a sure sign of the silly season when Guardian readers have to suffer a carefully placed puff for Peter as he takes a leaf from Brucie's book to proclaim: "I'm in charge".

Baring all to Decca Aitkenhead, the other Supreme Leader tells how he used to be the "hard man" of New Labour but now "I'm just a pussycat."

New Labour was Mandy's baby. He's not going to let it die without a fight. If that requires a makeover from hard man to kindly pussycat, so be it.

Nothing is placed in the press by Peter without a purpose. The latest spin is just part of the new manipulation strategy to paint the New Labour gang as underdogs in the run up to the general election.

Given the chance of a taste of power, New Labour types always return to type. McCavity Brown is holed up plotting away. Have-a-go Hattie got stuck into the Seventies banging on about women's rights. Now it's the turn of powerful Pierre weaving the magic wand of illusion.

The Orange Party well remembers the deep red rose slowly turning into a more user-friendly lighter shade - a telling and ominous sign of the 'all style and no substance' which has been a hallmark of the last decade.

A hijacked Party was kept going by the superb showmanship of Blair, sinister spin of Campbell, shifty skulduggery of Mandelson and political strategy of Gould.

On the side-lines was deluded Brown, propping up the project with some crafty accounting. He hasn't back stabbed, bullied, smeared and plotted to fulfil his dream of being an elected PM just to let Cameron snatch it all away from him. But the New Labour project is much bigger than Brown. He's expendable. And Mandy will do what it takes.

So it's now down to manipulating Mandy who seemed intent on proving to Guardian readers how much he's changed since he was Blair's "very hard-nosed, uncompromising hard man - sometimes the hit man."

"I think probably the nicest thing I've experienced slightly in contrast to my previous time in government ­ is how warmly my Cabinet colleagues have embraced me." Pull the other one, Peter.

He really should get out more instead of lording it up with the rich kids. But then that's the beauty of pulling a masterstroke and worming your way into an unelected and unaccountable position of power. There are no irritating voters to bother about. No nasty local constituency party. In fact no one to stop you swanning around playing at Mr Big. Nice work if you can get it.

But before Mandy gets completely carried away with his new pussycat persona, the Orange Party would sound a word of caution. Not everyone in the Labour Party loves you, Peter. In fact most would be happy to spit on your grave.

The fag-end government with Brand Brown floundering away is a discredited laughing stock. But to be fair to poor Peter there really isn't anyone with the brains, skill, charm and downright political cunning to carry forward the torch of the New Labour brand.

But the New Labour parrot isn't just resting. It's downright dead. The FT reports how even New Labour MPs have given up the ghost and are not putting themselves forward as a ministerial bag-carrying PPS.

After what seems like a lifetime, voters have finally woken up to the con and won't be taken in by any more spin and hype. Exposed and standing stark naked, soon New Labour will be just a sad and embarrassing footnote in history with an economic and morally bankrupt country as its legacy.

The Labour Party may have died with John Smith but the Orange Party is still clinging to the belief that somewhere buried in the bullshit is a true Labour Party bursting to get out. But it will take the wake up call of a landslide Tory election victory for the Party to finally wake up and see sense.

What is certain is that a leopard cannot change its spots and born again Peter the Pussycat won't be invited to that Party.

Bottom picture: Private Eye

Read More...

Silly Billy No Mates Brown

Casting caution and Blears to the wind, Silly Billy Brown has come up with another YouTube video, with an impression of Rory Bremner. And Billy-no-mates Brown has popped up on Facebook with only Mandy for a new best friend.

Silly Billy Brown's excruciating YouTube video was always going to be a gift to satirists and Rory Bremner has got all the ducking and a-divin' down to a tee. As some politicians have remarked already, 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune' would be funny if it wasn't all so damn true.

Now to cap it all, Billy-no-mates Brown has a Facebook page paid for by taxpayers, with only Mandy the Magnificent signing up to be Brown's new best friend. How many more cronies and yes men will have their arms twisted over the next few weeks to join the Brown party?

Today it's still the battle of the cuts and chancellors as sour-graped Balls pushes out Darling and takes time out from his busy schedule ducking responsibility for the Sats fiasco and Baby P scandal to offer a few words on the spat which should be taken at best with a large dollop of Brown sauce and at worse as a pack of lies.

Cut through the crap, tell it how it is. Voters are big enough to take it. That's what shadow chancellor Osborne's masterclass in The Times has done, with a refreshing call for honesty over dishonesty. Now it's New Labour on the back-foot as the schoolboy Mr 10% jibe heads nowhere.

Still bored? Then the Orange Party recommends Philip Johnson's excellent demolition job on the festering New Labour project and a portrait of Brown as a man convinced of his own rectitude.

To surmise that Brown will disappear up his own false rectitude isn't so far off the mark.

Today the struggling Supreme Leader is due to announce details of the long-awaited inquiry into what ranks as the most disgusting and shameful of all Blair's legacies - the Iraq war, as part of the born-again-Brown campaign.

If there's even a whiff that will be held in secret and doesn't have powers to subpoena witnesses under oath - it's a sham. Another pack of lies, deceits and cover-ups which will do nothing to assuage true Labour rebels and LibDems.

A shameful piece of party politicking that will bring only disgust from the families of servicemen and women sent to war ill-equipped on the back of a pack of lies.

YouTube: Clip from 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune', C4

HatTip: Dizzy

Axe graphic: News of the World

Read More...

Mandy And Millie Show A Ratings Flop

The over-hyped Mandy and Millie Show has turned into another ratings flop for Team Brown. Voters tuned in, turned on and turned off.

The game of Party political personality posturing was exposed as a pathetic ploy to capture the news. But it seems there's little else left in Downing Street's sad old spinning world.

Fresh from gracing Her Maj with his lordy presence, Mandy The Unelected found time in Da Bizy schedule to pen a few words of support for the other Supreme Leader for Labourgraph readers, while banana-boy Miliband let it be known to Guardianistas he's available for offers, if battered Brown ever finally gives up the ghost.

It's a sad state of affairs when suffering voters have to put up with petty political bickering from an odd couple in a fag-end government propped up by peers. Voters gave them the boot in the Euro elections. But will they give up? Will they heck.

The Telegraph interview with Peter The All Powerful and the Guardian with the UK's absent foreign secretary Milibland have so much in common anyone could be forgiven for thinking it was all part of a dastardly plot.

Both managed to capture the news agenda for a short while until the electorate dozed off. Both figured high in the BBC political stakes. And both had absolutely nothing fresh to say on domestic or foreign policy. And who accused the Tories of reducing political debate to personality not policy?

Letting his new found glory go to his head, Mandy shocked the nations with the revelation that there will be another attempt to topple Brown from a “small group who keep coming back”. But the newly anointed prime-minister-in-all-but-name insisted he would not "lose any sleep" over it. Weasel words from someone safely tucked up in his ermine-lined pyjamas.

Meanwhile the boy who would be king has been sending shock waves around Westminster admitting he nearly quit the cabinet.

Well knock me down with an over-ripe banana. All rather strange coming from a foreign secretary who one might be forgiven for thinking, perhaps, he should mention a few foreign policy thingys.

Either put up or shut up. Perhaps when he's found some moral backbone, he will consider having a proper grown up go.

What next? Some strange Brown bear stuff in the woods?

Just what is the point all this palaver? Clearly both believe voters are interested in all the clap-trap.

Both are pushing the new mantra that the economy might come out of recession far sooner than some dull economist expected. The only weapon left in the depleted armoury of spin. A hollow strategy to rebuild Brown's battered reputation and try to give the rotting brand some new found street cred.

At a stroke it shows them up. Totally out of touch with the real world and real people who are worried sick about rising unemployment and making ends meet.

As James Forsyth points out over at the Spectator, apart from this line on the economy, there is little domestic policy message in either interview.

The Tory 'cuts' v New Labour 'invest' line didn't work after all that Brown sauce was exposed as a lie.

So it's left to the only hope left, the economy. Bring it on, dragged screaming from the depths of recession depression to cheer everyone up as Things Can Only Get Better with New Labour.

And all that hard on the high heels of Tears for Blears bleating on about how she was sorry for everything. Everything that is expect her expenses fiddle. Hazel: you now realise what everyone in Salford already knew. Your'e a sham.

The Orange Party made the point earlier that the Zzz-Team is sending voters to sleep. Now there's next week's Brown mini-me manifesto to look forward to.

All timed for the two up and coming by-elections in Norwich North and Glasgow North-East and a few nasty shocks in store at September's leaving Party.

Can the Labour Party ever wake up from its self-serving self inflicted insomnia? Waiting in the left-wings is an idea for a radial new manifesto from the Campaign Group.

Among the policies are: the restoration of trade union rights, more council houses, an end to public service privatisation, scrapping the Heathrow third runway, freezing and then abolishing student fees, scrapping Trident and ID cards and electoral reform.

For those in Brown Town, these are called policies.

Issues and a change of political direction that need to be debated and addressed. Policies from a true Labour manifesto which puts the frighteners up the bunch of saddos clinging on to their cushy jobs in a discredited New Labour brand with nothing better to do with their time than prop up themselves and bunkered Brown, boring the pants off voters with long-winded newspaper articles.

Read More...

Zzzz-Team Sends Voters To Sleep

Bullet-ridden Brown is wearing Mandy's crown. The Zzzz-Team has begun a fantasy fight-back sending voters to sleep. Dreaming up anything to cling to power, Brand Brown has a smug grin until the next time.

A mighty mandate for government change was delivered in the Euro election wipe-out but after beating off a limp challenge from lily-livered MPs, vengeful voters have to put up with the clap-trap for a little longer.

Bruised, beleaguered, battered and broken, it's not all bad news in the Bunker. Beaming Brown lives to fight another day in a fag-end government of the living dead, propped up by a self-serving bunch of yes-men henchmen.

The Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) was Brown-beaten into submission in a carefully stage managed show of sweetness and light for the Dear Leader. Paul Waugh over at the Standard has a blow by blow account of the gory details.

Some put their heads above the parapet. Few wanted to be cut lose from their cushy jobs as lowly ministers and pay roll MPs. In the end greed, self-serving interest and blackmail won the day.

Few had the guts to stand up to the bully boys. Team Brown played the final blackmail card: stick with me or lose your cushy seats. But there's no reason for the Dear Leader to look so smug.

New Labour MPs must be kicking themselves. Todays poll for the Independent shows starkly what many including the Orange Party were saying all along. With Johnson at the helm, the Party stood a fighting chance of beating off the inevitable Tory landslide saving some dignity and some seats with a well-hung parliament.

Now if this squalid spectacle is allowed to run its dozy course, bully-boy Brown is well and truly stuffed and MPs will only have themselves to blame. They blew it and now they and the country have to live with it.

And things can only get worse. Listeners had to put up with the mind-numbing garbage of banana-boy Miliband gabbling away on the Today programme. Spewing out the Party spinning line made for excruciating listening.

To cap it all, even the smoke and mirrors economic recovery miracle was wheeled out as an example of what New Labour can do. And all that from the boy who would be king. No wonder the Party would rather just curl up and die.

The only bit of reverse ferret policy to come out of the whole sorry mess is that it seems Mandy's back-door plan to sell-off Royal Mail may disappear up its own fudge in a move to keep the backbenchers sweet.

Lessons have been learnt. Next time there will have to an organised, cabinet-level coup led by someone the Party takes seriously, instead of fannying around going off half-cock.

Have another go they will. New Labour will do what it always does in time of trouble - tear itself apart.

A couple of bloody noses in bye bye election defeats, more of the ruthless smearing tactics of the Downing Street reservoir dogs and here we go again. Brown will be breaking out into a sweat and the knives will be out perhaps at September's Party conference.

For now it's Carry On Regardless Up Their Convenience as broken Brown and his cabinet cronies dream up anything just to cling on to power for power's sake.

But what has become clear is that the fate of the struggling Supreme Leader won't be decided by voters, parliament or the PLP. Power lies in the grubby little paws of an unelected and unaccountable First Secretary of State rewarded with a whopping bunch of ministerial underlings for saving battered Brown's skin.

Mandy is lovin' it. He's got what he's always wanted. All the powerful pleasure of being prime minister without responsibility. No Party spin line, no speech, no strategy, no policy, nothing will come out of Number 10 unless it has the blessing of the blessed lord Mandy.

When Mandy decided to move against Brown he will. The power behind the throne is wearing the crown. It's third time lucky for Mandelson.

What a sad day for democracy, the Labour Party, the parliamentary process and the country, when the fate of a prime minister is decided on the whim of an unelected First Secretary who's living up to his grand title and putting himself first.

Read More...

Democracy Dismantled In Last Gasp For Power

Democracy has been dismantled while a squalid game of petty politics engulfs a fag-end government and people and parliament are left in limbo. Mandy is left lording it up as the winner and voters forced to take a back seat. 

The party is over for the New Labour Party on the horns of a dilemma in a lose-lose situation, driven only by a last gasp lust for power.

As a broken Brown government ignores parliament and the people for a self-serving game of cat and mouse politics, Brown is left a hostage to his own cabinet and a hostage to his former foe. 

Mandelson, the architect of New Labour, has managed to achieve what ruthless politicians can only dream of - absolute power with absolutely no accountability. 

The Party is paying the price after Mandy's intervention to save the skin of the ex-Supreme Leader.

The parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meets for a showdown tomorrow, angry and frustrated at the autocratic and dismissive style of Brown's leadership.   

But the PLP is stuffed with lowly ministers and pay-roll MPs who've taken the Downing Street shilling to toe the line. 

It would take an honest and honourable member to put the Party and the people above their own lust for power and greed. A PLP revolt stands little chance of toppling the regime unless MPs get off their backsides and show that it's parliament not the iron grip of government that should call the shots.

Not since the 1950s has there been such a government of the unelected and unaccountable with so many unelected peers entitled to attend some cabinet meetings. 

Not since the rotten boroughs has parliament been forced to bow to corrupt peer patronage. 

Not since god knows when has there been one man with a fancy title of First Secretary of State who holds so much power and influence and the fate of a prime minister in his vile and grubby hands. 

The stuffing has been knocked out of Brown's waning authority. He's left in limbo land with a collapsing compromise cabinet stuffed with a motley bunch of cronies and yes men, with unelected Mandelson calling all the shots and pulling all the strings. 

Hope for democracy is on the horizon with the opposition motion this week of no confidence, by Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties and looming support from mainstream Tory, LibDem and backbench New Labour MPs. 

But even if the motion is allowed through, expect a rerun of the 42 days detention debacle, when the Northern Ireland DUP held all the cards with a squalid game of pork-barrel politics set to repeat itself. 

Today the Sunday Times exposes the bitter rift between Brown's henchman Balls and Mandelson, while a leaked email swirls around in which Mandy attacks the "angry and insecure" PM fresh from his disgraceful and embarrassing performances in Normandy (right side-bar). 

Things should only get worse but in an undemocratic autocratic regime, anything that crops up no matter how damaging makes no difference to the arrogant power-crazed political elite. 

Looming in the background are the "terrible" European election results, due out later today, set to show a disaster for the government with the shocking undemocratic state of affairs where the ruling government of the day will be left with an impotent political voice in Europe. 

In a democracy, if the Party came behind UKIP, or dropped below 20 per cent of the national share of the vote, the game should be up.

But even with this likely blow and government set to take a hammering, the spinners are already preparing briefing notes ready for the automatons to be wheeled in front of the TV cameras reading from the carefully-crafted spinning script.  

At the heart is the intractable dilemma for the Party. Stick with Brown and hope things will get better, which they know in their hearts it can't before spring 2010, while bunkered Brown clings on until the bitter end. Or cut their losses now, instal Blair prop Johnson and the inevitable general election in the autumn.

Despite the best efforts of Downing Street spinners  that all is hunky dory in Brown town, it is clear that both the PLP and grass roots members are split right down the middle. 

Dave must be delighted. In lose-lose New Labour land only the Tories are winners. Cut Brown loose now and a general election will see a small Tory majority. 

Limp on and an increasingly angry and frustrated electorate will punish the now discredited New Labour brand,  leaving the Tories with a landslide from which it will take a decade to recover. 

New Labour just doesn't get it. The Party could salvage some dignity, respect and a few seats if only Brown had the good grace to go and the Party had the guts to let the people have their say instead of forcing them to take a back seat.

But Mandy is having a lovely time. The power behind the throne is now wearing the crown. Why spoil the party for the sake of the Party.

Read More...