Election Budget From Santa's Little Helper

Santa's little helper is set to deliver a crucial pre-election Budget as Brown's chancellor unveils an election manifesto in the battle for the economic high ground. The centrepiece, a widely-leaked silly little VAT sop to woo voters and tax rises later for high earners, will do nothing to help the economy, as the country plunges deeper into debt and recession.

Darling's pre-leaked, pre-election, pre-budget report has little to do with economics and everything to do with posturing politics. 

As Bruce Anderson observes in today's Independent - Brown is not after economic recovery, he's after votes. 

Designed to capture headlines, it is probably the government's last big shot before a snap election in Spring 2009 or later.

The Orange Party is in no doubt that further interest rate cuts are vital and, coupled with affordable tax cuts and tax breaks, is the only way out of this mess of the government's making. 

But that should never come from a foolish and misguided idea of borrowing more. The boom years were created on the back of debt in the public purse and private pocket. To continue is a false, foolish economy. 

Today Darling has some explaining to do. Why is next year's spending and income gap around £100 billion? Why is there no pot of gold left in the kitty? Why do the IOUs pile up? Why has the government squandered billions? Where's the drive on government waste? Whatever happened to prudence?

Yesterday's leaked paltry VAT cut is a sop to woo voters. A few bob off the price in the shops is pointless and will do nothing to help the economy or help people struggling with debt.

Rises in income tax for high earners, which only kick in after the next election, are insignificant. As left-wing Labour MP, John McDonnell, reportedly pointed out it's "hardly a revolution". Nothing is being done about disgusting tax loopholes and tax advantages enjoyed by the very rich.

Clearly the government couldn't afford to cut direct taxes now, so instead it's offering a temporary VAT cut and even that comes with the pain of tax rises later. 

Brown is borrowing billions for a cheap election bribery stunt. We get the gifts and then have to pay for them. Christmas giveaways are not the answer for a country riddled with debt and that's at the root of the current crisis. 

Brown and New Labour were the architects of the impending economic disaster and saddled the country with reckless levels of public debt and state borrowing. 

Pre-election giveaways will be there - fuel allowances, treats for the poor, some relief for small businesses. Today's measures are nothing short of election bribery. A shameless stunt which won't come cheap.

Brown will have to be forced to announce he needs a fresh mandate for his reckless political economic package. The wheels have been set in motion and the decks cleared for an election. 

Today's budget bribery is a general election manifesto, the latest salvo in the phoney war before a mandate and the campaign proper.

Much depends on how Darling's pre-election budget giveaway is received and perceived by voters, the media headlines and how the Tories play this one, using the election slogan: "However Gordon wraps it up, it's still a tax bombshell".

The Orange Party has made repeated calls for a 'Captain Sensible' approach. That could come from the Conservative's Cameron and Osborne, the LibDem economist, Vince Cable or the now castrated voice of the true Labour Left. 

There is no easy way out. Massive government borrowing will only make things worse. But opposing the government's borrowing plans at a time of crisis, leaves opposition Parties wide open to attack.

Brown's track record to date has been anything but honest. In collusion with BBC News, their behaviour at every twist and turn has been shameful. 

Thanks but no thanks to Brown as chancellor and now prime minister, the country is particularly badly placed to cope with the recession. 

The culture of boom and good times riding on the back of debt, runs deep and is difficult to shift. It will be a long uphill struggle to drive home that message from wherever it comes.

In times of crisis, people look to government. But scratch the surface and you get pointless public sector jobs, a misplaced public spending spree and silly Christmas giveaways. All funded by debt which has to be paid off some time later. None address issues of government waste and squandered public spending. 

Honest Joe doesn't always win general elections. But honesty is the best economic and political policy. Being honest with the electorate and offering sober, sensible solutions, however harsh and a clear idea how they will be paid for, which the whole country can get behind, could eventually pay off. 

Brown has been quick to accuse others of playing party politics. Party politics is what today's pre-election bribery Budget is all about.

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Clarke Tightens Blairite Grip On Brown

Clarke's anti-Brown outburst in the New Statesman wasn't new. He's said it all before. But this time, Clarke and the gang can smell blood. 

Either him, or one of the Blairites, like Milburn, Byers, Blunkett et al, often carefully placed in the Blair-loving Murdoch's Sunday Times. 

What is revealing is the Blairite hold on the Party and the timing - anyone would think the conference season is about to get underway!

With Brown weak and at an all time low and a public spat between his supporters Darling and Balls, the Brownites are rapidly diminishing.

The BBC's Nick Robinson puts it into context with a clever little sketch in today's political blog.

But even that just scratches the surface. 

The Clarke outburst isn't so much about a leadership challenge or using Clarke as the stalking horse. It is all about influence and manipulation.

The suggestion of a true Labour coup, reported here in July, fronted by the likes of McDonnell, doesn't seem to have materialised. 

But that is what is on the minds of rank and file Labour Party members, as the conferences get underway. And that is what New Labour fears most.

With any change of PM, regardless of constitutional issues, there would have to be a general election sooner rather than later and New Labour would be annihilated. 

So the strategy, for Clarke and the Blairites, is to try to keep Brown going - but to make sure the Blairite policies remain at the forefront of the government. 

If you can't beat Brown, Blair him.

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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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New Labour V True Labour Battle Begins

The battle for control of the Labour Party has begun. Blairites and Brownites are jockeying for position. The real fight is over ownership.

As the Orange Party predicted this will be a summer of discontent.

On the one hand, New Labour, in its many disguises and reincarnations, trying to cling on to power and become electable again.

On the other, True Labour, never happy with the way the Party was highjacked back in the 90s.

There's no love lost between the two sides. They've always made very uneasy bedfellows.

The Milibandwaggon has caused some outrage in the Party with his election manifesto in the Guardian and TV and radio election broadcasts. Many in the Party don't like this upstart heir to Blair. He is just too full of New Labour flannel.

Now True Labour have raised the stakes with MP John McDonnell throwing his hat into the ring and calling for a leadership election.

Why is it worth listening to this "left-wing Labour rebel"? Because he's neither left wing - nor a rebel. That's just a label used by some, to scare off voters.

Many in the media class will probably try to freeze him out. After all, they are part of the New Labour elite.

In the Guardian (CiF) McDonnell writes:

"If Miliband, Harman, Purnell, Johnson or any others fancy their chances as leader of the Labour party why don't they just explain why and have a go? Writing articles, holding press conferences and having your friends brief the media are clearly designed to stake a claim for the leadership, so why not be straight about your intentions?"

McDonnell continues:

"There just can't be another coronation for the leader of the party. Our members and the electorate just wouldn't put up with another one. I am up for a leadership election at any time but it has to be about beliefs, about a political analysis of the world and about the political solutions we can promote to regain control over the destiny of our planet."

A letter of support for McDonnell is currently doing the rounds of the Labour Party. If that letter is published in a national newspaper as promised, it will be interesting to see just how many grass roots members and indeed MPs lend their support.

And more importantly where popular cabinet minister, Alan Johnson, stands on this issue.

The Party knows New Labour can't win the next election. No matter what face they put up front, the Conservatives and SNP will wipe the floor with them.

In the Scottish and English Labour heartlands, with True Labour, they may have a fighting chance. And that's what really worries Cameron and Salmond.

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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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Brown Needs White Rabbit Or White Flag

If Brown wants to survive he's going to have to do something big and something real. Something which captures the public's imagination and turns public opinion. Like a magician, he needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat, or give up. 

If Brown doesn't do this soon, ahead of the Glasgow East by-election, he might as well back up his box of tricks and go home. 

Cameron's conservatives are having it too easy. They are reacting to Big Issues as they come up, unfolding hard policies slowly to a tightly controlled pre-election grid. The LibDems are going nowhere under Euro-boy Clegg. 

True Labour back-bench MPs are starting to pull their own rabbits out of the hat and maybe put their hats in the ring. 

Frank Field's comments in the Daily Telegraph read like a manifesto and are remarkably similar in tone if not content to a lament by John McDonnell in the Guardian recently.

John Cruddas put forward his white rabbits in yesterday's Sunday Mirror, as "a last chance to revive (Brown's) Government". 

At the moment Brown and the New Labour elite are just clinging on to power. A long-awaited cabinet resuffle won't help. Just the same old faces - but younger. 

After a decade, the New Labour Project is coming to an end and voters can see through the sham. Coming up with wasteful white elephants or just sticking green labels on things won't help. 

Brown was part of, but not one of the main architects of, the New Labour Project. 

He started out his premiership with a white rabbit when he scrapped the supercasino plan. But that was all. 

Brown still has time to pull another white rabbit out of the hat. He could call time on New Labour and pick up just one of the ideas from Field, McDonnell or Cruddas. There are plenty of white rabbits to choose from. 

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A Dream Ticket For A General Election?

Two MPs from different political parties have come together in a common cause. Vincent Cable and John McDonnell united by the Heathrow expansion protest and Boris Johnson there - by proxy. Not a New Labour MP in sight.

Apart from Heathrow, they are against New Labour's plans to set up another huge expensive, unaccountable and unelected quango, this one to nod through its big planning projects.

It was Brown who promised a "bonfire of the quangos" way back in the 90s. New Labour hit on a cunning quangoland plan. Simply changed the name so they don't appear on the statistics and hey presto - a bonfire!!

The political trio have different ideologies but something unites them. They are honest, not part of the ruling Political Class. People you can trust. And they speak with English accents.

Johnson has yet to prove himself as London mayor, but as the Yorkshire saying goes: "he's not as daft as he's pudding looking". Cable is a real economist and not one of the LibDem New Labour wannabes. McDonnell is a rare breed, a Labour MP who used to work for a living.

These three give to their respective Parties what has been sadly lacking in recent years. It's what all Parties need. Conservative - with a caring complexion, LibDem - with a dose of economic reality and Labour - freed from the sham and shackles of New Labour. A general election with Johnson, Cable and McDonnell - now that would be a good, clean, honest fight.

Meanwhile Steve Hilton leaves as Cameron's spin master. No surprise here. Hilton's job was to make Cameron's Conservatives 'electable', not to get them 'elected'. He's done his job, well. The Party certainly will use different people for different times.

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