Have You Blood On Your Hands, Mr Campbell?

Blair's shameless spin doctor-in-chief, Campbell, has become the story once again, savaged by dead sheep at the Chilcot Iraq war whitewash run by Brown's placemen. Will he put his neck on the line or finger his old pal Blair for taking the country to war on the back of a pack of lies? No chance.

Will any of Brown's cronies have the guts to ask searching, forensic questions? Campbell is bound to back up the Blair line. Playing cat 'n mouse with Chilcot will be a pushover.

Wasting no time, the arrogant old bruiser has already fingered Blair's old foe Brown as a key player in the "inner circle" of disastrous decision-making.

TV highlight of the week is the surly spinmeister's appearance at the Chilcot sheep dog trials not under oath and his hand in beefing up both the 'sexed-up' and 'dodgy' dossiers.

Second only to warmongering Blair, Campbell is the big bogeyman close to the heart of decisions to dupe the public and parliament with an illegal war.

WMDs, sexed-up and dodgy dossiers at dawn but Campbell is a dab hand at Iraq inquiries and can make mincemeat out of Chilcot.

Campbell has already wriggled his way around a commons foreign affairs select committee inquiry, the intelligence & security committee’s investigation et Al. There's no reason to believe Chilcot will be any different.

Downing Street’s ex-director of communications and strategy was made a disgraceful laughing stock with his hand in the 'sexed up' intelligence of the 2002 September dossier and Blair's forward, presented as 'beyond doubt' that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, ready for use within 45 minutes.

The disgrace of the second 'dodgy' dossier in February 2003, revealed by Channel 4 News, which plagiarised an old graduate student thesis cut and pasted from the internet to make it more scary, was used to promote the dodgy case for war.

And it was Campbell again at the centre of the outing of government WMD expert and whistle-blower Kelly, who died under mysterious circumstances after he dared to tell the truth about the WMD claim.

But the Orange Party has a feeling the outrage over Campbell's part in the hounding of Kelly before his death may be ruled outside the inquiry remit, already covered by the disgrace of the Hutton inquiry whitewash.

The exposure of Campbell’s dirty tricks began on BBC Radio 4 at 06:07 on 29th May 2003 when BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan spilled the beans to bleary eyed listeners over the 'sexed up' dossier, later pointing the finger at Campbell.

Heads rolled as war broke out between the BBC and Downing Street, ending with the death of Gilligan’s source, Kelly, who had dared to use the "C" word.

The shame and scandal continues to this day, seven years and hundreds of thousands of lives lost later.

Blair has been left to wander the world with his ill-gotten gains with blood on his hands and guilt on his shoulders. Campbell still has his feet under the Downing Street table but without the power Blair gave him to call the shots over civil servants.

The excellent Channel 4 Iraq inquiry blog has a few hard-hitting questions for Campbell, urging twitter users to ask their own. One of the Orange Party's favourites: how do you sleep at night?

As the dust settles, the old Tucker will still be In the Loop, destined to become a disgraceful footnote in a scandalous and shameful episode of New Labour history.

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Will Darling's PBR Dupe Voters?

The general election phoney war is about to hot up with Dreadful Darling's dumbed-down pre-budget report. It's all hands to the pumps of the sinking ship with a blatant package of politicking and posturing. But lurking beneath lies the dreadful state of the public finances. Beleaguered Brown's hopes of hanging on to power rests with the PBR. Will voters be convinced?

The public could be forgiven for thinking it's just business as usual. Nothing of the sort. Tomorrow's pre-budget is all about the election not public finances. Until the struggling Supreme Leader names the day, everything has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

What is needed is a clear, bold message on how to tackle the country's obscene deficit and lay bare the full horror of the country's dire economic mess. Instead a one-off tax on bank bonuses has been mooted along with ubiquitous 'efficiency' savings, which will bring in peanuts for the overall debt burden.

The pre-election budget will be more about shoring up New Labour's collapsing vote. Destined to go down as Darling's last joke on the public, the over optimistic government and past treasury forecasts are set to be exposed.

The key to cutting debt is cutting public spending. But there will be no public spending review until after the election. What the government would actually do is under wraps. Any 'cuts' are set to be hidden in election hot air.

Moody’s 'AAA sovereign monitor', published today, shows the UK hanging onto its triple-A credit rating by the skin of its teeth. The UK entered the crisis in a vulnerable position and is now facing an “inexorable deterioration of debt affordability,” warned Moody.

The UK’s fundamentals are dismal and don’t support the ratings,” said Citigroup's Mark Schofield. “Only if some pretty draconian fiscal measures are in place will the UK keep hold of its AAA rating.”

But Darling has already signalled he will put off much needed measures to slash the biggest budget deficit since the War. Shockingly, the government doesn't have a convincing plan for getting out of its own fiscal mess.

Cameron is right. “If you have a government that doesn’t have the courage to tackle the deficit, that’s the risk of the double dip,” he said. "The country has been the first in and the last out of recession of the major economies because of the policy errors of the last decade or so."

Dreadful Darling is fighting a lonesome, losing battle sorting out the fiscal mess inherited from Brown. Caught between the spinning devils and the deep blue sea of an incompetent treasury, Brown and his sidekick Balls call the economic shots. In the bunker, Mandy and Campbell control the spin.

The PBR package will have been been well-crafted with populist voter appeal and a dash of Brown sauce, aimed at drawing a well worn line between 'fair' New Labour and Cameron's Conservatives only interested in helping 'Tory toffs'.

The Struggling Supreme Leader is playing for short-term gain, paying lip service to cuts, going heavy on measures to strengthen the spinner's narrow dividing line.

Campbell's simplistic class warfare jibes, bashing 'Tory toffs', is a masterclass in exploiting public anxiety about the Tories only out to serve vested interests.

With Tories painted as on the side of a privileged few, Brown is trying to appeal to New Labour's core vote and tap into public anger at the fat cats.

The 'Eton' jibe plays well with New Labour's core voters but not to a savvy electorate. After all, Harman, Darling and Balls were all privately educated at toffee-nosed schools. Blair's own privileged public school education was kept under wraps.

What will stick in the throats of voters is any party which is seen to be on the side of vested interest, be they the political elite, the fats cats, the cronies, City bankers or country landowners. Darling's PBR is part of that plan.

The Tories have already begun the fightback with a debt ticker beamed onto the side of Battersea power station to switch the PBR focus back to that horrendous debt. Something the Orange Party was suggesting way back in February.

New Labour's general election focus will be on Tory voters who deserted the party in droves to follow Blair's hyped up hope and promise of a promised land.

But the politics of false hope lies in tatters. The discredited government is trying to salvage something from a decade of disaster and failure. Oborne has already delivered a damning indictment on a "rudderless economy and a once great Treasury that's now not fit for purpose."

"Darling", he said, "should be forced to own up to the Treasury's consistent failure to grip the nature and scale of the economic recession. This failure is on such a scale that it amounts to negligence."

Brown has been even more misleading. As the only G20 nation in recession, the PM and former chancellor has built up a disreputable reputation for not telling it straight. Anything ministers say will not be believed.

With Malcolm Tucker aka Alastair Campbell now back in the Downing Street fold, a line from The Thick of It springs to mind:

A dying government? Cabinet minister Nicola Murray was in no doubt: "Dying? You bet. Its hair is falling out. It's coughing up blood. And the kids are trying to change the will."

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Who Killed Dr David Kelly?

The official 'suicide' of government weapons expert, Dr David Kelly, has been called into question by a group of doctors hoping to overturn the controversial verdict and a new documentary which sheds fresh light on the mysterious death of the scientist whose body was found in Oxfordshire woods six years ago this week.

Kelly's death came just days after he was at the centre of a government witch-hunt for the source of embarrassing leaks over now discredited Iraq weapons of mass destruction.

The Hutton Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death and the controversial suicide ruling led The Independent to clear its entire front page with one giant word - WHITEWASH.

The death in 2003 prompted reporters to ask prime minister Blair the chilling question whether he had "blood on his hands" as Kelly's apparent suicide came days after he was grilled in the commons and exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the "sexed up dossier" on Iraq’s alleged WMDs.

Now the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death are set to return to haunt the government in a two pronged attack by leading doctors who question the suicide verdict and US television investigators who claim Kelly was writing a book exposing the murky world of anthrax and “suicides” of five government germ warfare scientists from around the world.

Many have long argued Kelly's death wasn't suicide with the more likely explanation that he was murdered by enemies in the course of his work as a weapons inspector.

The Orange Party doesn't believe government agents were part of a dastardly assassination plot. More likely part of a bungled botched-up attempt to cover-up his death as an apparent suicide.

LibDem MP Norman Baker in a forensic investigation for his book The Strange Death Of David Kelly reaches a similar startling conclusion putting him at odds with Blair's spin doctor Campbell, and his part in the 'dodgy dossier' that was used to justify the Iraq invasion.

Claims that this had been "sexed up" sent Campbell into a spin, waging a fierce campaign against the BBC, eventually leading to Kelly's death.

The 90-minute documentary, Anthrax War, by investigative journalist Bob Coen already aired on Canadian public television, claims Kelly's death may have been linked to the secret world of germ warfare research and adds to the calls for a full and proper inquest into Kelly's death.

The film exposes Kelly's links with Dr Walter Basson and his notorious work for the South African apartheid regime using chemical and biological weapons research to ethnically cleanse the black population.

The assassination scenario is strengthened by revelations that a team of 13 specialist doctors who worked closely with Baker have compiled a detailed medical dossier that rejects the Hutton conclusion that Kelly died from loss of blood. Those revelations in the Mail on Sunday also claim they think it is highly likely he was assassinated.

Reports in today's Sunday Express reveal Kelly, an expert in biological warfare and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, was writing a highly damaging book before his mysterious death.

That was due to reveal the claim that he'd warned Blair that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction as well as lifting the lid on the scandal of his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Following his death, Kelly's computers were seized and many involved in probing the mystery of Kelly's death, including Baker, have also found material on their computer had disappeared.

Critics have long regarded the Hutton report as a 'whitewash'. Blair remains acutely sensitive to the accusation that he has 'blood on his hands' over the scientist's death.

The only official verdict came from the Blair commissioned Hutton Inquiry, which concluded that Kelly died from loss of blood after cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

In a highly unusual move, a coroner's inquest into the scientist's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, which is now set to be challenged by the doctors.

The Hutton Inquiry included the chilling testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.

Anthrax War which will be screened privately in London on July 17, the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death, includes this extract which centres on the biological weapons expert following an anthrax scare after 9/11.

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Phew, What A Stitch-Up

A phone hack 'scandal' is rocking Cameron's boat in the dog eat dog world on the Street of Shame. Dirty Digger's in the frame after coughing up to gag the victims. Cameron's spin doctor is in the thick of it. It's payback time and New Labour cronies are milking it for all it's worth. This smells like a stitch-up.

A hairy old hacking hack's tale with a good dose of political bitching and a Fleet Street battle thrown in for good measure.

Blair's ex-spin doctor Campbell was in like a shot blogging for all he was worth while the Guardian "bombshell" was still hot off the press. The old hack couldn't contain himself - Gotcha. Methinks the man doeth protest too much.

At the centre is the shock 'revelation' that newspaper hacks on the News of the Screws went to illegal lengths a couple of years ago with phone hacks to try to dish the dirt on the high and mighty, all well-publicised at the time.

And to cap it all, there's the shock 'revelation' that NoW boss, Murdoch, paid off victims with a wad of cash to keep schtum.

How on earth does a hungry hack gets a scoop? Not by sitting on their bums all day. Hacking mobile messages is just the newest simplest trick in the book, making "thousands of calls" until you strike gold with an easily cracked voicemail PIN. Any tabloid hack worth their salt would give it a go - as long as the boss is shielded from any come back.

Hacking into voicemail messages at the centre of the Guardian claims is small-fry. GCHQ does much more with a massive eavesdropping operation. The Royal Mail has a special unit to intercept post. Spooks pass on juicy titbits to the tabloids when they fancy another 'Squidgygate'. If the government can get away with it why not hacks? As long as it's in the public interest not just to interest the public.

But hold the front page. Who was the News of the Screws editor at the time? Step forward Andy Coulson, now Cameron's right hand media man. It's McBride and Smeargate all over again. Or is it?

Shurley shum mishtake. McPoison was working alongside Brown while hatching a squalid plot to smear top Tories. Coulson? This happened years ago in his other life at the NoW before he was a twinkle in Cameron's eye.

Coulson quit when the newspaper got in a right royal pickle caught in the act in a hairy old hacking affair, saying he took “ultimate responsibility”.

As for the pay-off. More likely no-one wanted their dirty washing hung out in a public court case and this was a chance to make a fast buck on the back on a bit of dirt.

But quick as a flash Prezza got stuck in - calling for heads to roll and the Old Bill to get stuck in. The BBC was lovin' it, giving Prescott all the time in the world to rant away all a-huffin' and a-puffin' his way through his spin-doctor script.

Yates of the Yard has been called in do his duty with another pop at the nasty Tories. Not be left out, Mandy has joined the fray calling for a fresh police probe.

And this is the same Prescott caught lording it up at Dorneywood when he was supposed to be running the country (Mail), caught with his pants down with his secretary (Mirror) and caught on two loos (Telegraph). Having a go at the NoW he seems to have got his wires crossed.

Prezza and Campbell will no doubt keep pumping away. Others are jumping on the bandwagon in a game of ya boo sucks. After all, the mighty Murdoch empire is backing Cameron in the race for Downing Street.

The heat is on. But those calling for Coulson or Murdoch's head should be careful what they wish for. There's a lot of muck out there waiting to be raked up.

Cameron is said to be "relaxed" about the whole thing. Only hard evidence linking Coulson directly to phone hacking would bring about his certain downfall. Hacks cover their tracks.

But still smarting from the Guido/NoW McBride smearing scandal, revenge is a dish best served cold by a New Labour supporting Guardian in cahoots with the BBC. If the pressure is relentless and something truly fresh turns up, Coulson may have to go.

To its credit Murdoch's posh paper, The Times is reporting New Labour calls for Cameron to sack his trusted aide but it's no big deal at the old Thunderer. The Mail, Mirror and Telegraph? Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

Spin doctor Campbell is no stranger to dirty tricks spinning for his New Labour cronies. He's there large as life in a wonderful expose by none other than author of the Guardian 'revelation' - Nick Davies in his book which blew the lid off Campbell's Fleet Street cajoling, Flat Earth News.

Meanwhile outside the cosy Westminster village and the Street of Shame the public doesn't give a toss. They are worried about hanging onto a job, paying the bills and making ends meet.

Now thanks to Telegraph hacks they know which MP is spending their taxes living the high life with dodgy second homes deals. Now thanks to the stirling work of hacks and the blogoshere they know which fat cats are milking the system, screwing taxpayers for all they're worth.

And now thanks to leaks to the media they can see through the spin of this discredited government and economic mess. And decide for themselves who is best to run the country.

UPDATE 6pm: Yates of the Yard has ruled out a fresh probe into the hacking hacks.

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Will Mandy Drop Brown After Iraq U-Turns?

With more U-turns than a drunken driver deluded Brown's long-awaited Iraq war inquiry is set to descend from fudge to farce changing at every twist and turn. Now the shabby stitch-up deal between Brown and Mandy to protect his boss Blair has been exposed. Brown could be cast adrift after serving His Master's manipulating purpose.

For arch political plotter Brown, the problem was intractable. Go for a full blown cover-up and risk the wrath of backbench Labour MPs and many in the Party or bow to Mandy on a promise to prop him up in the fag-end days of his premiership.

In the end the struggling Supreme Leader chose his own political survival over the Party and the people.

The outcome of the shabby deals has left the Iraq inquiry a confusing mess and left McCavity Brown looking foolish.

Playing out in the full public spotlight it was difficult keeping up with U-Turn Brown.

Standing up in parliament and announcing the inquiry would be held in secret to cries of a stitch-up. Now some bits could well be held in public.

It would not apportion blame. Then his own foreign secretary directly contradicts this, telling MPs exactly the opposite.

The inquiry is not a full blown legal public inquiry and does not have powers to subpoena witnesses under oath. Now it seems it can ask witnesses to make a formal promise to tell the truth.

The country was duped and taken to war on a lie. Everyone knows that. So why take such a suicidal line on something which gets right up the nose of many backbench true Labour MPs, military chiefs and families of the war dead and injured?

Brown was out-manoeuvred and out-classed as he caved in to Mandy pressure. A squalid little deal was struck to get Mandy support for increasingly beleaguered Brown and part of a Mandelson plan to protect Blair and his bid for the EU presidency.

John Kampfner, in the Spectator, blows the gaffe on the Prince of Darkness in a brilliant piece of incisive writing. Mandy's boss Blair has a lot to hide. Inquiry revelations could damage his plan to become EU president. Demanding a secret inquiry was part of the deal for supporting beleaguered Brown during the failed Blairite plot to oust him. In return he gets to be top-dog.

Now the inquiry is being dragged screaming into something resembling what it should have been in the first place. McCavity can turn around and say he kept to his part of the deal and it's out of his hands. But that won't keep Mandy or Blair sweet.

The inquiry outcome into the disgrace of a war is still set to take a full year until after the general election but could still blow both Blair and Campbell out of the water.

The power behind the throne will not be a happy bunny. Brown's last hope will drop him like a ton of bricks when the time it right.

Any spin of 'winning' yesterday’s vote on a Tory motion was a hollow victory. True Labour 'rebel' MPs have been let down and were expecting more than this sham, disgusted by the whole charade. It still leaves a bitter taste and a festering reminder of a fag-end government which spent billions of pounds and lost dozens of lives, fighting an illegal war.

A bunch of faceless cronies and government props will still be locked away behind closed doors. The issue of the legality and how the wool was pulled over everyone's eyes and the smokescreen of WMDs will be buried under the usual smokescreen of secrecy.

The shameful legacy of events leading to war has left many with blood on their hands, not least a disgraced two-faced ex-prime minister Blair and his "taste for war" and the squalid part played by New Labour chief spin doctor Campbell over sexed-up dossiers, invisible WMDs and the death of government scientist, Dr David Kelly.

There is still raw anguish of the families of brave servicemen and women whose loved ones were sent to a bloody war ill-equipped and duped into the Iraq killing fields on the back of a pack of lies and deceit. The dreadful legacy is still fresh in many people's minds.

The whole shameful episode needs the disinfectant of the public spotlight. The stitched-up secret inquiry with a whitewash outcome in a year's time would have put the clocks back to the bad old days of New Labour lies, deceit and spin. But now there's a chance it may have some real teeth after all.

But Brown has lost control of the inquiry and with it his power continues to ebb away.

The casualty could well be Brown. Mandy doesn't need him any more. Billy no mates Brown could be left to face September's leaving party conference all on his lonesome. Time to make that dignified exit and do what he's adamant he would never do - walk away.

Meanwhile another war rages in the new Vietnam of Afghanistan as over-stretched troops struggle to keep up with the doomed US surge to root out invisible Taliban.

Few had the guts to challenge war-mongering Blair in his Iraq war. Few have the guts now to ask what the hell we are doing out there in this bloody, hopeless and winnable war.

Picture: Front cover Private Eye

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Can Cameron Convince He's The Man Who Can?

Ahead of the curve, Mr Fix-It is turning his sights on some serious people politics to break the stranglehold of government and Downing Street in the wake of MPs' scandalous expenses. Will this herald a new era of politics or is Mr Ambition doing a Blair and Obama, making election promises for the sake of the sound bites, peddling his personality disguised as people power? 

Voters disgust over MPs' expenses has left a bitter taste. Parliament has prostituted itself to a New Labour ruling class. A bunch of crooks and spivs in a fag-end government have been exposed clutching at straws and in denial in a desperate bid to cling on to power to the bitter end. 

All parties are falling over themselves to be the big reformer and Cameron is setting the pace. 

The Tory leader has been way ahead leading the way, dealing with the rotting mess, dealing with the scandal, tapping into the public mood with measures which chime with voters and grasping the agenda back from the grubby paws of Downing Street.

Dave is billed as 'the man who can' but at heart he remains Mr Ambition. The public was disgusted by the moat and duck house but clearing out Tory grandees and Thatcher old guard from Cameron's conservatives suits him down to the ground. 

This is one smart kid on the block sure but we've been there before. Is the heir to Blair showing his true colours? 

No one can hold a candle to past master Blair. But Cameron is proving to be every inch a smart apprentice. 

Flying high on the back of scandal and sleaze, the device, used so effectively by Blair and Obama, is simple. Contact and convince. Capture the public mood. Say what the public want to hear. He who wins over the hearts and minds wins the votes. 

In the US, Obama's election promises have been blown out of the water because they were just that - electioneering promises. Now Americans are getting an uneasy, queasy feeling of being betrayed by a man they put the hopes and dreams and trust in with blind faith.

Cameron can work the crowds but the Orange Party would not tar Dave with the same broad brush as Blair and his new US counterpart. Cameron is in it for the pleasure and the passion of the politics. Both Blair and Obama were in it to win it for themselves. 

Today in the Guardian the Tory leader promises to deliver a "radical redistribution of power from Westminster" in response to voter disgust over MPs' expenses. From "the political elite to the man and woman in the street". Few would disagree with such fine words but actions speak louder. 

At the heart of the rhetoric though is the one issue which New Labour has either failed to grasp or it is not in its interest to do so. 

And that is the power and influence of the government in general and Downing Street in particular on the working of parliament and the State. 

For New Labour, its government is the State, with parliament playing second fiddle to a premiership turning into a presidency. 

Among Cameron's proposals is a plan to curb the powers of Number 10. A strange position for any future prime minister to crave for less power rather than more. 

Introducing fixed-term parliaments, ending the right of Downing Street to control the timing of general elections is welcome. That gets to the heart of the Supreme Leader’s stubborn refusal to bow to the will of the people and go to the country.

But of all the measures, the Orange Party would single out the limiting of the royal prerogative which allows a prime minister, in the name of the monarch, to make major decisions without the backing of parliament.

That device was used by Blair with full, devastating and scandalous effect as he moved towards his president style of government - from keeping it in his back-pocket to satisfy his taste for war, to throwing out displaced islanders of Diego Garcia to create a secret Gitmo, to using it to promote his spin doctor Campbell and side step and override the civil service. 

Publishing the expenses claims of all public servants earning more than £150,000 is another thorny issue which has to be addressed. Why must it be  left to the dogged determination of Private Eye to expose the expenses scandals of Sir John Bourn at the National Audit Office?

In one fell swoop Cameron has managed to switch the agenda away from the airy fairy PR referendum electoral reform mumbo jumbo revealed by New Labour leader-in-waiting Johnson, in Murdoch's  The Times. That not only fell on voters deaf ears but hasn't a cat in hells chance of being implemented in the next generation parliament. 

The Orange Party wants to believe Cameron won't just turn into another Blair or Obama promising the earth and delivering nothing. Mr Ambition sure but he is finding that golden bullet of trust and leadership and has honest anger and a passion for politics on his side. 

Moreover Cameron seems to be protecting himself from the temptation of using the Downing Street machine to tighten a grip on power even before he's elected. That iron grip has been the hallmark of a discredited New Labour brand and that's a healthy start. 

But Dave should play down the "people power" bit. Don't start down the path of the People's this and the People's that. The people have seen through that sham. They've been there before with Blair and now Obama. You cannot fool even some of the people some of the time with all that the Man of the People hype. 

The general election when it finally comes will herald a new dawn in politics. It has to for the sake of democracy.  A trusted straight politician who for once actually delivers on their promises, a pretty straight kinda guy who is just that would make a refreshing change.

 

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