New Labour Slave Labour?

Desperate and despairing youngsters could be forced out of the classroom and onto the streets as part of a half-baked slave labour plan to enlist them into community service. Working on Brown's chain gang is not cool for kids. 

Youngsters are having a hard time under New Labour, forced to stay on at school, taking worthless Mickey Mouse qualifications, without a cat in hell's chance of getting a job. 

Now help is at hand from the Supreme Leader, with a £146m community work scheme for England's 16 to 19-year-olds.

Fresh from his silly YouTube 'sensation' with a cunning political plan for MPs' expenses fiddles, the prime minister has once again upheld the finest traditions of our ancient democracy - by announcing a major community policy plan by podcast on his personal Downing Street web site. 

Launching the charm offensive in a tedious drone, Mr Cool said:  “I want everyone to have this opportunity and I want everyone to get involved.” Well bully for Brown. 

The pet project, run by 'smearing' Balls' stalinesque department for children, schools, families and back-stabbing, starting in September, includes "helping the elderly and the environment", leading to yet another useless piece of paper dressed up as a "professional qualification". 

But here's the rub: "It could eventually become a compulsory part of the school curriculum."

Forcing every youngster to do at least 50 hours of community service is all part of the Brown "good citizenship" drive, already trailed in the News of the Screws of all places, earlier this month. 

Good citizenship or indoctrination? Even Claire in the Community would be hard-pressed to dream up such a silly scheme.

Has anyone stopped to think this through? 

Forcing young people under 18 to do the work of the caring professions, unpaid, smacks of cheap labour. 

These are youngsters, under 18, going into the homes of the weak and vulnerable. Youngsters would be sent out onto the streets, cast adrift without a nod to a duty of care. 

What resources have been earmarked to back up the plan? How will hard-pressed teachers cope with the extra load of supervising and placing the youngsters without adequate and expensive support and resources. 

In the community, what extra resources will be given the social and community services already under fire as the care culture crumbles. 

People young and old will suffer in the recession depression. Extra help and training for young people is crucial. 

But where has the government been for the last ten booming bloomin' years? 

Turning a blind eye to the plight of the 16-19 year old Neets who are not in education, employment or training, they've been used as a pawn to  fiddle the dole figures. 

Young people need hope and they can get that through good, sound school education and the real chance of a proper job or meaningful further education at the end of it. 

But the plan is starting to unfold. Simple ply them with cheap supermarket booze and unrestricted licensing hours and let them sink into oblivion. Then round them up with a monumental hang-over, put them to work on the community chain gang and force them into slave labour to pay for their sins.

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Let's Hear Cries For England And St George

St George has been begrudgingly let out of his British box for the day as the nation is urged to do more than just lie back and think of England. Marking England's patron saint and the English bard's birthday should be a cause for a double celebration. But only a national holiday will stop the cries for England and St George falling on deaf ears. 

St George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday, should give the nation two very good reasons to feel cheerful and proud of this sceptred isle. 

But the Orange Party can't help feeling the flag of St George is still being hidden away, almost an embarrassment, left downcast in a cack-handed crusade against the nation. 

Government departments have been instructed to fly the flag. Church leaders too are delivering heartfelt rallying calls to ring out their bells in honour of St George. Celebrations are being held in English rebel strongholds up and down the country. 

Those pockets of English 'rebels' are fighting a rearguard action, refusing to be Brown-beaten but petty regulations still discourage local councils from flying the flag and holding street parties and celebrations, strangled by half-baked misguided political correctness, as the country is forced to buy into the shameful sham of Britishness.

The government still doesn’t get it. Respect for Englishness is just as important as Scottishness, Welshness and Irishness. 

England’s patron saint should be seen as a positive, powerful national symbol not a negative nationalist throwback. 

But it will take the recognition of his day as a public holiday, sitting alongside a St David's Day national holiday for Wales, to truly galvanise the public who are still unsure and uneasy about whether they are 'allowed' to celebrate. After all, Scotland and Ireland already have one for their patron saints. 

The Archbishop of York,  John Sentamu, reckons the time is right for St George to come on down from the football and rugby terraces and return to his rightful place at the heart of the nation, warning that it was vital for the country to find a sense of identity by looking deep into its largely Christian history using symbols such as St George. 

Today the Archbihop renewed his call for St George's Day to be made a public holiday. 

St George can be a potent symbol of modern Englishness. If it's good enough for the Bish, it's good enough for the Orange Party. 

Thankfully St George isn't dead. He's only resting. 

Not too long ago anyone flying the flag for England was instantly branded a racist as the wave of misguided multiculturalism swept the country and anyone whispering Englishness branded a bigot. 

But now the question is being asked: what's so wrong with a good old dose of English pride? Why can decent folk fly the flag or wear a cross of St George lapel pin without being branded a racist? 

Britishness can be viewed just as much a sign of exclusion tinged with racism, as the flag of St George, the saltire of Scotland or the Welsh dragon. 

Celebrations are being held today by schoolchildren and adults, men and women, minority and majority ethnic groups belonging to all faiths and religions. You cannot get more inclusive than that. 

Without this, more dangerous influences could fill the vacuum, whether it be the racist Islamic fundamentalism, the bigoted BNP or insidious institutional racism. 

Shakespeare placed St George at the heart of the national conscience. But Henry V's rallying call "Cry 'God for Harry, England and Saint George!'" still does not go down too well with the tosh of a modern, multicultural England. Apparently the Saint George's flag has too many memories of the Crusades, as if any one can remember that far back. 

Everyone needs a home. English history with its rich mix of cultures is the best way to fight the bigoted racist racial cults of whatever political persuasions.

Our children deserve a full account of the history of England, warts and all, so they can make an informed view of where the country came from and where together they are all going. 

It's time for the English to wake up. April 23rd should be a love-in for England and invitations sent out to all. The beginning of a rebellion against the false sham of Britishness. 

What hope is there if we can't celebrate “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England”?

The Orange Party will stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood, celebrating St George's Day by settling down later to the cinema treat of Henry V - the patriotic, wartime, backs-to-the wall version - with the fetchingly camp Lawrence Olivier.

On this day the last words should go to the other Will and Harry: 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

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Easter 'Bomb Plot' Bad News Buried

An Easter 'bomb plot' to blow up Britain which dominated the news headlines has turned out to be a damp squib, with the release of all the suspects buried on the day of all the budget hype. When the going gets tough, the tough get going or in the case of the beleaguered home secretary - play the terror card. 

There's nothing like a good old fashioned terror bomb plot to get the public pulse a-racing, the headlines a-spinning and ministers off the hook - and this was nothing like a good old fashioned bomb plot.

The Orange Party smelt a rat as Smith's pal, bungling Bob Quick, was forced to make a quick departure after exposing a dastardly bomb plot in the full glare of the media spotlight. 

That was swiftly followed by a massive police swoop equally played out in the full glare of the media to capture the headlines and bury Smeargate. 

Now all 12 men arrested have been released without charge. Eleven - all Pakistani nationals -  face deportation, presumably back to their tribal homelands.

Second-guessing the obvious question, Manchester police chief, Peter Fahy, defended the inquiry and said he was not "embarrassed or humiliated".

Well clearly someone should be.

The Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to press charges or hold the men any longer. Lawyers for the men point out that they have not been charged and are innocent of any crime. 

In a masterstroke of political timing, the Easter 'bomb plot' came as Smith was up to her neck fiddling expenses. The Met too was coming under fire over police G20 thuggery and the unprovoked killing of bystander Ian Tomlinson. 

In the shady, murky world of plots and terrorism, it's impossible to get to the bottom of what goes on behind closed doors. 

But what seems to be clear is that there was  no bomb, no detonators, no nothing and significantly no paper or email trail which could make a conspiracy charge stick. Innocent until proven guilty.

Of the 12 men arrested in the raids, 10 were holding student visas. The sub plot did thicken however as the sorry state of UK border security and the incompetence of government policing of bogus colleges for overseas students was exposed. 

Only on Monday, home secretary Smith had the cheek to tell MPs that Quick's "error" had not damaged the operation and the raids had been brought forward only "by a matter of hours". That was a tad prejudicial, given today's outcome. 

In a remarkable example of stating the bleedin' obvious, the BBC's "security correspondent" Gordon Corera said: "I think there will be a sense of a need to learn some lessons from this in terms of public presentation." 

Quite. And the rest.

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Balls' 'Sexed Up' Sats Cover Up

A tawdry trail of lies, deceit and cover-ups has been exposed, as the exam chief sacked for the Sats fiasco has rounded on schools secretary Balls and his side-kick minister, accusing them of misleading both parliament and the inquiry which whitewashed Balls part in the shambles.

The Orange Party had long suspected Balls of a cover-up over the Baby P scandal and the Sats cover-up, refusing to shoulder any of the blame. 

Already accused of 'running' a Number10 smear unit, the schools secretary has a knack of hiding behind the smokescreen of 'accountability and responsibility'.  Now his cover has been blown. 

The band of spinners tried to control the fall out from the summer Sats fiasco and shift the blame away from Balls. With some crafty footwork and shifty spin, the children's secretary managed to wriggle out of any responsibility.

Now in an explosive letter, Ken Boston, the sacked head of the QCA exams quango,  has rounded on Balls and his deputy Jim Knight accusing them of spin, smears and "deliberate falsehoods", saying evidence stacked up against him was "sexed up".

Ministers were let off the hook over the Sats shambles with a widely-leaked whitewash which laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government quangos and contractor. Nowhere did the report answer a simple question - what was Balls doing while the Sats fiasco was falling around his ears? 

As expected and highlighted by the Orange Party at the time, the Sutherland report, blamed the exam watchdog QCA and private contractor ETS Europe, under a tight remit drawn up by Balls, craftily crafted to get him off the hook. 

Now Boston has blown the cover, claiming the inquiry remit "protected the government from being brought to account for its role in the problems."

Disturbingly the former exam chief told a committee of MPs that accounts of his meetings with ministers were "false". Accusing ministers of putting a "protective fence" around themselves, he blasted ministers' version of what happened as "fiction".

In particular, he took issue with an account central to the Sutherland inquiry, where schools minister Knight had wrongly claimed Boston had been present at one meeting last June when the Sats tests were discussed - when he had not even been invited.

Significantly Boston also challenged the inquiry's finding - read out by Balls in the commons - that ministers had "usually pressed" him for answers about the Sats marking problems. "This too is fiction," he said.

Teachers, parents and children were left tearing their hair out, let down as the Sats fiasco unfurled. The least Balls should do now is to come to the house of commons to set the record straight. 

But with all the budget hype, this is a very good day to bury bad news. 

Here stands a cabinet minister once again accused of smear tactics, this time against a public official. If Balls has misled parliament then he has to come to the house, correct the record and apologise. If the allegations are borne out - he should face the music and quit. 

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Darling's Budget Bunkum Laid Bare

A decade of reckless and irresponsible government is set to be laid bare in today's budget bunkum, as the Laurel and Hardy comedy act are finally forced to come clean over the fine mess they've got us into. 

The treasury and ministers threw usual budget caution to the wind as a heady daze of positive spin over chancer Darling's pre-election budget was slowing dripped out to mask the rotting stench of fiddled expenses and disgraceful Tory email smears. 

No doubt the budget will be full of that widely-leaked and well-spun greenwash and hogwash. 

But the brutal fact is that as the dire state of the economy is laid bare - everyone will be much worse off for a decade to come. 

Expect lots of tinkering around the edges. But no amount of 'greenwash' or hyped-up optimism about 'green shoots of recovery' and the worst is over, can mask the depth of the horror story about to unfold.  

If would help if the country had a chancellor who could count. 

Living in his own fantasy world, Darling's pre-budget report last November, promised that recovery could be under way by this summer. Fat chance. Both his first budget in March and the PBR were about as wrong as he could get, making a nonsense of government borrowing projections. 

Add to this the ever-rising costs of bailing out the banks and the smoke and mirrors PFI accounting and the scene is set for a budget catastrophe. 

The reality is that public borrowing has soared to £95 billion, £16.9 billion more than forcast, suggesting a deficit of £150 billion next year,  a shocking 11 percent of total national output. But output is set to fall by a full 3.7 per cent. Unemployment is rising at an alarming rate.

But the chancellor will have no room for manoeuvre, after the Bank of England boss told him to stick his 'fiscal stimulus'. 

So instead the country faces soaring public debt and the worst year for the economy since the end of the Second World War.

Cash has been flowing out of the public purse like there is no tomorrow, on unemployment and welfare with the public sector still creating ever more non-jobs.

But the faster the economy shrinks, the smaller the income, delivering a double whammy.

As a result, the country is facing a future of borrowing and mounting debts on a massive scale with national debt, soaring from 42.3 per cent of output last year eventually climbing above 80 per cent when the bank bail-outs are factored in - the highest figure since records began.

Nothing can disguise the historic scale of the fine mess this hapless New Labour pair have created and the budgetary shambles the country is now in. 

The UK faces a bill of almost £200 billion for propping up its ailing banking system, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), before it was forced to back-track on the forecast. That's 13.4 per cent of the UK's entire economic output of £1.46 trillion in 2008.

But, with an eye on the elections and not the well-being of the country, Darling is expected to come up with paltry and feeble savings of just £15 billion, mainly by cutting back on Whitehall waste, neatly avoiding Tory slash-and-burn cuts and burying his head in the sand over the bold moves advocated by the centre-left.

Somewhere down the line the books will have to be balanced and that means busting New Labour's election pledges over tax rises and some serious spending restraint. 

So when the budget dust settles the questions, so astutely put by Burningourmoney's  'haystack watch', remain. Is Darling's borrowing forecasts now realistic and are his measures to cut public spending credible? Just how much is he going to raise taxes? And how will he attempt to disguise it?

It would be refreshing if just for once Darling delivered a budget which would finally lay to rest the squandering of the false boom-time good-time years, starting with bold plans to scrap wasteful white elephants such as Trident, ID cards and the quangos, while at the same time doing something realistic to eradicate child poverty. 

Brown and the Downing Street New Labour spin machine staked everything on a pre-election grid with its peak of a wildly successful G20 summit and a budget 'for the future'. 

But the G20 summit sham was swiftly exposed as a con. When the dust settles and the bones are picked over, Darling's budget will go down in history as the one which laid out in glorious gory detail just how voters have been led down the garden path, suffering from the worst public finances since the War. 

Few believe this will be an election winning budget. Few believe there'll be surprises big enough to encourage the usual glowing hyped-up morning-after headlines.

Instead expect a smoke and mirrors budget where the devil will be in the dire detail, the perilous economic state laid bare and a country left wondering how much longer they will have to put up with the struggling sham of a fag-end government run by a comedy double act, which no one finds in the least bit funny.  

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Brown Gives Us A Laugh At MPs' Expense

Never the parliamentarian, a deluded Brown has popped up in a YouTube-style video with plans for a major U-turn on MPs' expenses, neatly bypassing MPs and the commons and giving everyone a laugh.

In a blatant and disgraceful affront to parliamentary democracy, film-makers must have wet themselves as the Supreme Leader tried to turn into Mr Cool, all a-shakin' and a-movin', in one of the funniest video ever to come out of No10.

The desperate attempt to be the next big YouTube sensation saw a hapless chancellor Darling posting a message on YouTube yesterday, explaining why the budget will be all about preparing for his future.

Not to be outdone, Brown clearly had a have ago, with a video to try to wrong-foot Tories and LibDems, thinly disguised as a tightening of MPs expenses, with plans to replace the scandalous perk with a lump sum just for doing their job and turning up for work.

Fraser Nelson over at the Spectator has produced a handy 12-point guide to the comic moves on display and when the behind camera prompt cards tell a droning Brown to face piles of trials - with smiles.

Ministers and hangers-on had been breathing a sigh of relief as the rotting cancer of fiddled expenses and disgraceful Tory email smears gave way to the welcome respite of a week of well-leaked and well-spun budget hype, blissfully unaware that the scandals are in remission and the prognosis is still terminal.

But this whole charade stinks of hypocrisy. Brown's top ministers had already voted down a move to clean up and control MPs expenses and the prime minister didn't even turn up for the vote.

On top of that, the Kelly inquiry by the commons standards committee is already looking at a long-term solution to the shameful scandal not Brown's quick headline-grabbing short-term fix.

Over a decade of a reckless and irresponsible government in denial is set to be laid bare in tomorrow's Budget to nowhere, as the Laurel and Hardy comedy act are finally forced to come clean over the fine mess they've got us into.

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Smeargate II-Abandon Hope All Who Enter

Smearing Sunday has thrown up a two-pronged attack on Brown's tightly knit cabal of henchmen, as the spinners slide down the slippery slope of smears. Abandon hope all who enter.

A rotting carcass either eats away at itself from the inside or blows up and explodes. Both sickening spectacles are laid bare today in an attack by the Murdoch stable, as Brown's reservoir dogs plot to smear anyone and everyone who get in their way. 

A commons vote of no confidence could be getting closer, as shadow chancellor and one of the smear victims, George Osborne, says Brown must be "held to account" for the people around him. 

The News of the Screws turns on the screws with revelations that Labour Party boss, Ray Collins, was in on the plot to set up scurrilous website, Red Rag, at the centre of the sickening Smeargate campaign to smear top Tories. 

Meeting Brown's now defunct aide, Damian 'McPoison' McBride and ex-spin doctor, Derek 'Dolly' Draper, a month before vicious unfounded Tory sex smear emails mails were sent, the NoW now screams: New Smear Email Nails Labour Lies 

Was that before or after Brown and Dolly had a jolly lunch at Chequers? Maybe Guido, who blew the gaff on the whole sordid affair, could write a book about it. 

One thing's certain, McPoison was dripping everywhere with Brown's unofficial Mr Fix-It and former aide, Charlie Wheelan and government cyber minister, Tom Watson, firmly in the frame. 

Over at the Sunday Times in "an explosive new twist" it's revealed Brown's side-kick Ed Balls, stuck in a rut as schools, children, playgrounds and school dinners secretary, was up to his neck running a Downing Street smear unit, using disgraced spin doctor, McBride to stab in the back rivals as he plotted to have a stab at the premiership after the Supreme Leader's inevitable downfall. 

In a stark headline the Sunday Times tells it how it is: Ed Balls ‘Ran’ Labour’s Smear Unit with more on the ruthless band of brothers. 

According to a "mysterious" No 10 insider, Balls, "master of dark arts and dirty tricks", was the mastermind behind a “dark arts” operation. Blair boy spinners Mandleson and Campbell must be happy bunnies. 

The Orange Party has long fingered Balls who has a knack of hiding behind the smokescreen of 'accountability and responsibility' both over the Baby P scandal and the Sats fiasco, where his cover is set to be blown later this week. 

Smeargate is slowly unravelling, albeit slowly and for the sake of journalistic objectivity is should be pointed out that everyone denies, well, everything. 

What is clear is that Downing Street's spin that this was all just a 'prank between two blokes' has spectacularly backfired.

All roads lead to McCavity Brown, who of course didn't touch it, smell it, shake it or move it, while mercilessly ripping out his political rivals' throats, using his attack dogs to do the dirty work. 

With every twist and turn the disreputable band are being forced to crawl out of the woodwork with lame denials as the plot thickens, the rot sets in and the Blairites and Brownites tear each other apart.

The Smeargate fall out continued yesterday with long-standing true Labour stalwart, Alice Mahon, quitting the Party with a withering attack on Brown and New Labour saying she can no longer stomach how it operates and feels betrayed, citing the recent smearing scandal as the last straw which left her feeling "sickened''. 

Disgusted, fed up and betrayed, many card-carrying Party members are finally waking up to the mess the disreputable political elite of the New Labour brand have made of the country and their Party. 

As the Tories gain more ground in the polls on the back of Smeargate, the question now is can voters trust the Tories to turn off and turn around the rot? 

Peter Oborne, laying bare the media hype, spin doctors and skulduggery in the Observer isn't quite sure:

"But at this grim moment in our national life, Britain doesn't just need a change of personnel at the very top. We urgently need a new decency and morality in government and to get rid of the stinking and corrupt regime that has brought the idea of British democracy into such deep disrepute over the last few years."

The Orange Party feels it's time to unwind with a large Laphroaig and reread Oborne's 'Triumph Of The Political Class', now rushed out in paperback - followed by Dante's 'Divine Comedy'.

Picture: The inscription at the entrance to Hell from Dante's Divine Comedy

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