'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.

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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.

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Headless Chickens Leave Voters Cold

Ministers are floundering around sending out a staggering array of mixed messages to capture headlines and bewitch voters. But running around like headless chickens leaves voters bothered and bewildered. 

Hardly a day goes by without more spin and confusion. The Orange Party is starting to get a headache. God knows what the public must be thinking. 

A couple of treats over the last few days bring all the spin into sharp focus. 

First up slippery Jack Straw who, having failed to get secret inquests in his anti-terror bill, to rounds of applause from anyone concerned about civil liberties, suddenly pops up with the same cunning plan to allow inquests behind closed doors with the pathetic excuse of “national security”. Everyone knows this is just a way of avoiding coroners' stinging criticism over troop weapons shortages. So why the confusing flannel?

Yesterday's prize went to Mandelson's junior minister, Baroness Vadera with her ludicrous headline grabbing statement that she saw "green shoots of recovery". Hastily retracted, Vadera eats shoots and leaves. It grabbed the headlines but not in the way either she or Mandy intended. 

Today it's the Heathrow runway sham. At a stroke blowing the government's pretence of any green credentials out of the window and forcing backbench Labour MPs, particularly in the marginals, to write their election suicide notes. 

Today also it's Blair-boy Miliband whose suddenly woken up, smelt the coffee and decided the 'war of terror'  wasn't such a good idea after all. Where on earth has he been all these years? Seven years of New Labour foreign policy thrown out of the window. Where was the weasel-worded wonder boy's conscience then?

And if that's not all, the public has to suffer the ridiculous sham of the school league tables, now a totally meaningless yearly farce.

Meanwhile back in Brown's deluded world, he's running around like a headless chicken trying to look busy doing nothing, as the economy crashes around his ears, creating false hopes on the jobs front as every new announcement is swiftly rounded on and exposed as a sham. 

Still to come is Mandy's plan to sell off Royal Mail. He's sticking to his guns but faces a full-scale backbench rebellion, throwing the whole mess into a confusing spotlight. 

So much of the spin has Mandelson's paw prints over them and its starting to get up the nose of backbench MPs. 

Did Brown really know what he was letting himself in for when he allowed Mandelson to flee from the clutches of the EU and run for cover in his government? It seemed like such a good idea at the time and for a while the master of spin did his job, managing to head off any coup against Brown and paint the supreme leader in a good light. 

But, as the Orange Party warned at the time, Mandelson always came with a health warning. Too much spin is bad for the government's health. Tories, LibDems and SNP will be laughing all the way to the ballot box.

UPDATE: Backbench true Labour MP, John McDonnell, has been suspended from the commons for five days. His crime? Running off with the sacred mace and attacking Hoon over the Heathrow runway with the words: "You are a disgrace to democracy." Thank god there are still Labour MPs with the guts to stand up to these morons.

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Disgraceful Sneaky Aldermaston Sell-Off

Arrogant government ministers have put two fingers up to parliament, slipping out the sneaky fire sale of the UK's nuclear bomb factory as a crafty way of boosting treasury coffers and bypassing MPs. 

Opposition MPs are furious over the secret sale which makes a mockery of any claim the UK has an 'independent' nuclear deterrent.

The government is tight-lipped over how much it got for its stake in the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), as news of the sale slipped out just before parliament broke up for the long Christmas hols.

The sale to a US firm was announced in a single one-paragraph statement posted here on the firm's website:

"BNFL is delighted to confirm that it has today agreed the sale of its one third shareholding in AWE Management Limited to the Jacobs Engineering Group".

This underhand behaviour from the government is a disgrace. The fact that something of such strategic importance could happen without a by-your-leave to parliament beggars belief. 

Opposition MPs are furious, accusing the government of burying the sale. And there's anger the UK would no longer control the site where controversial Trident nuclear warheads are produced, maintained and due to be replaced.

The sale means we no longer have any stake in the production of our own Trident nuclear warheads. The other two thirds of AWE were already in private hands, split between American defence giant, Lockheed Martin and the UK firm, Serco.

There are concerns too that this was a knock-down sale at below the market price and is the thin end of the wedge, as the government steams ahead with sell-off sales to claw-back some cash in the face of a recession borrowing binge.

Other state assets ear-marked for quickie sales include Ordnance Survey, Met Office  and Forestry Commission. 

As with the planned part-privatisation of Royal Mail, these sales have the paw prints of deputy prime minister, Mandleson, all over them.

And, like the sale of Royal Mail, the whole issue of back-door privatisation and indeed the hugely expensive and morally corrupt Trident missile programme are dear to the hearts of the Orange Party and many backbench Labour MPs and trade unions.

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Brown Spins Over Iraq To Duck The Flak

When the going gets tough, the tough get going - in Brown's case to Iraq for more photo-ops for the Downing Street Christmas album, a chance to grab a few headlines and escape some hard questions in the final commons punch-up before the hols.

In a parting shot and final insult to parliament, the saviour of the world chose to announce troop withdrawals on another whistle-stop tour of Baghdad and Basra. 

The announcement has been widely expected and predicted in the run up to the general election. For months the Orange Party has been pointing out that the UN mandate for foreign occupation ends in a few weeks time and the actual announcement left for political advantage. 

But it is a major announcement of the final pull-out nonetheless and that should have been made to parliament. 

So what else is happening today that made that quick trip to Iraq so important? 

Oh yes, harsh questions in the commons at PMQs. Unemployment close to 2 million and rising - the nightmare for this government hanging over its head, now at their highest since New Labour took over in 1997.

Many face a bleak Christmas as the recession (or BBC downturn) starts to bite. The TUC, is warning today that half a million people are likely to spend their second Christmas in a row on the dole because of a rise in long-term unemployment.

The sharp rise is much more than expected and that's using the government's own preferred method of fiddling the figures.

Unemployment is set to rise to over 3 million next year and into 2010 and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, according to a member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, reported today by the Guardian.

So just what is the government doing about it? Planning to sell-off Royal Mail and put thousands more jobs at risk. 

Mandleson's plans for a sell-off dressed up as 'part-privatisation' will not go away especially among backbench Labour MPs, furious at the betrayal of a central plank of Labour Party policy and manifesto commitment. 

No matter how Mandy the Mailman tried to spin it, this is a backdoor sell-off with disastrous consequences for jobs. 

At the moment the outrage is coming from backbench Labour MPs. Soon it will filter up to some pay-roll MPs in lowly government positions and then to the cabinet, where former postie, Alan Johnson, won't get away with just a bemused smile. 

Questions would be asked in the House - if only Brown could be bothered to turn up. 

11am UPDATE: Labour MP Jim McGovern has resigned from the government in protest at Mandelson's Royal Mail part-privatisation plans. McGovern, PPS to business minister Pat McFadden, whose department would overseeing the changes said: "In his statement Pat McFadden said he welcomed an expression of interest from the Dutch postal company TNT, for me it simply beggars belief that we would employ the services of a company from abroad to tell the Royal Mail in this country where they are going wrong."

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Taxpayers Bill For Royal Mail Sell-Off

Taxpayers look set to be saddled with Royal Mail's £7 billion pension burden for years to come with some crafty accounting, as the government plans a back door sell-off, putting thousands of jobs at risk. 

The struggling £22 billion pension fund is the stumbling block to the government's obsession with the privatisation of Royal Mail. 

That comes to a head this week with the publication of the year long Hooper report, now with business secretary Lord Mandleson, widely leaked to prepare the ground and  soften up the public. 

The report, claiming 'inefficiencies' with a remedy of 'radical surgery', will give the government and Mandelson just the excuse they need for a partial sell-off, once the stumbling block of the massive pension debt is removed with a neat accounting trick. 

With that £7 billion pension black-hole dumped on the taxpayer, the government can press ahead with a sell-off dressed up as a 'partnership' with private operators and neatly side step any manifesto commitment that this vital public service will not be privatised, making a mockery of a 'universal public service'.

Outraged postal workers are already threatening strike action in the run up to Christmas over depot closures and changed working practices, inflamed by recent reports of posties made to walk faster on their rounds while callous bosses enjoy obscene salaries and bonuses. 

Time and again the myth of privatisation as a cure all for economic ills carried out with so much glee by the so-called 'Labour' government has been exposed as a miserable failure. 

The Hooper report will be published with the usual fanfare of government spin but no matter how it is dressed up, this will lead to switching the huge pension asset and liability to taxpayers who will get nothing in return, as a vital and strategic public service is prepared to be sold off. 

What is needed is investment not a half-baked sell-off. If pushed through, the casualties will be the hard working and dedicated postal workers, a raft of large-scale job losses and the loss of a 'Royal' service we have come to rely on over the years. 

But with a general election coming up and trade union cash vital, Mandelson may be forced to rethink his private plans. 

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