Hattie's Driving Me Crazy

Wannabe New Labour leader, Hattie Harman, goes down as the first cabinet minister with a criminal record, after being convicted of careless driving. But Hattie got off lightly, after charges of using a mobile were mysteriously dropped.

You don't have to be posh to be privileged but it helps.

The police probe took a whole four months, even though Hattie famously gave coppers a big clue: I'm Harriet Harman, you know where you can get hold of me.

The commons leader, privy council member, barrister and former solicitor general can add common criminal to her long list of titles with a £350 fine on her record after pleading guilty to careless driving.

But potential charges against 'hit and run Hattie' disappeared into thin air.

The CPS decision to drop a second charge of driving while using a mobile phone will leave motorists scratching their heads. How come Big Sis got off so lightly?

Harman has been convicted of careless driving but the court was told she was using a mobile at the time - a flagrant disregard of the law and public safety.

Careless driving can be punished with a fine of up to £5,000, up to nine points on a driving licence or a driving ban. But Harman was fined just £350, ordered to pay £75 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Harman already has six penalty points on her licence after being caught twice speeding in a 30mph zone. She was also today given three points on her licence which is what she would have got for using a mobile on its own. 


In the past, ministers with even a whiff of criminal charges hanging over their heads would step down while police and state prosecutors do their stuff. Not so the deputy party leader, leaving her free to do a bit of plotting.

Even Liberal Hain stood down as work and pensions secretary in the face of a police investigation and is now back in the fold.

As The Times notes: "New Labour’s deputy leader has become the first serving Cabinet minister in living memory to plead guilty to a criminal charge after admitting driving without due care and attention."

Was the minister for wimmin in court for the unprecedented moment? Nah. Hiding behind the now well worn excuse of 'business as usual', Big Sis was at a cabinet meeting in nearby Downing Street.

The siren of the sisterhood was at the centre of a police inquiry in July last year after allegedly crashing into a parked car while talking on her mobile.

Hattie had the cheek to wind down her window, reportedly blurting: "I'm Harriet Harman - you know where you can get hold of me."

The investigation into the incident took four months before the crown prosecution service brought charges in November.

The Orange Party used to have had some respect for Hattie in her lawyer days at the NCCL even though she came from the ranks of the privately educated, privileged toffs.

Landing herself in contempt of court in her 1983 battle with the home office created a landmark legal precedent. Today she's set another one.

What's left for the self-styled champion of civil liberties, equalities and pain in Brown's backside?

All the trappings and arrogance of the ruling political class. One law for decent folk and one bendy rule for the ruling elite. Right on sister Harperson.

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'Hit N Run' Hattie Drives Cops Crazy

'Hit-and-Run' Hattie is in trouble with the law for allegedly doing a runner, after crashing into a parked car while talking on her mobile. Before scarpering off, the siren of the sisterhood had the cheek to wind down her window, blurting: "I'm Harriet Harman - you know where you can get hold of me." You don't have to be posh to be privileged.

New Labour's deputy leader and self-styled champion of civil liberties, is said to have stopped briefly after the crash. But witnesses say she drove off without leaving her details, with all the arrogance of the ruling political class.

According to The Mail on Sunday Hattie was due to be questioned early last week but this was delayed due to a date at the Brighton on the Rocks leaving party.

That proved a disaster for Hattie Harperson but a money spinner for the Mafia and California's porn industry, after Hattie gave a free plug and billion dollar boost to a US porn website she wants Terminator Arnie to terminate. How naive.

The Orange Party had some respect for Hattie in her lawyer days at the NCCL landing herself in contempt of court. Even though she came from the ranks of the privately-educated, privileged Toffs. Right on, Sister Harriet.

Now just another pseudo liberal, with all the trappings of the arrogant political elite. Clinging to the tail of a dead duck Party, banging on about women's rights to grab a few saddo votes at Brown's leaving Party.

Shamed yet shameless Scotland got off scot free, despite breaking her own law, after a whitewash confirmed there's one law for us and one bendy rule for the ruling elite.

But in Cronyland no-one is kicked out of their job or even gets a slap on the wrist no matter what the sleaze or scandal.

Harperson has said she is co-operating with police over allegations that she left the scene of a minor car accident without leaving details, an offence carrying a possible six-month jail term. No doubt she'll get off scott free.

Hattie's 1983 battle with the home office created a landmark legal precedent. Now there's a new Hattie's Law: If you want to duck the flak just bark out your name. If cops want to quiz you, take a conference call.

Crime and Punishment and the ruling class. Dostoyevsky would have something to say about that.

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Who's In Charge?

Downing Street has been sent into super-spin with all the Supreme Leaders on hols. But the great ship of state has not been left rudderless. Peter the All Powerful has a firm hand on a tiller from a sunbed in the Med. The media is again indulging in a spot of summer fun asking the old favourite - who's in charge of barmy Britain? As Mr Humphries would say: "I'm free."

It's not as if the vast army of Downing Street spinners hasn't had time to plan the Great Escape. But unelected and unaccountable Mandy had a Brucie moment in Corfu to pronounce: "I'm in charge." What a disgraceful way to run a country.

Was it only a year since Dave and Sam took time out from their hols to do a a spot of modelling for the Boden summer catalogue? Not to be outdone, copy cat Gordon tried it on and loosened his tie. But somehow modelling for Greenwoods lacked a sense of style.

So what have we got this year? Gordon has been forced to do community service in his constituency as penance for screwing up the economy and punishment for rigging the Glenrothes postal vote in his by-election backyard.

It's curtains for Hattie, forced to make a sharp exit after rubbing everyone up the wrong way again, wearing the same old trousers and boring the pants off everyone with her tired old bleatings to suck up to the sisterhood. So circa Seventies.

So it's hello sailor and all hands on deck as Mandy takes a firm grip on the tiller barking orders by BlackBerry with the Mail happy to oblige with the kind of shock exclusive and surreptitious telephoto shots normally reserved for the News of the Screws.

According to the Mail, Mandy "chose to oversee Whitehall business from 1,300 miles away, armed with little more than an official BlackBerry, his own mobile phone - and a pair of swimming goggles." Why swimming goggles? Don't ask.

Will they ever learn? Everyone was thoroughly fed up with Blair and his freebie holidays with nice 'n sleazy Silvio and the Living Doll. Even more browned off with two loos Prezza snapped playing crochet at Dorneywood when he should have been running the country or shagging his secretary.

The Tories learnt the hard way, ever since Boy George Osborne spilled the beans on Mandy caught 'pouring pure poison' about Gordon. Cross Mandy at your peril, as he pulled in a few favours and with a crafty piece of spinning footwork managed to turn the tables and make out it was the boy George who was the baddy.

We're told that real Supreme Leader spent much of yesterday soaking up the sun. But at 8.30pm he was down on the waterfront to meet Hollywood magnate David Geffen and other rich pals arriving by launch from Geffen's 452-foot super-yacht Rising Sun which he is sharing with software boss, Larry Ellison, who happened to be entertaining Blair on the same vessel off Sardinia just two weeks ago.

And to cap it all, it seems Mandy had ignored a direct order from the struggling Supreme Leader who "expects duty ministers to be on duty in London or on departmental visits at all times", fuelling speculation he's plotting the Dear Leader's downfall.

Tories and LibDems are having a field day. Tory chairman Eric "two homes and proud of it" Pickles said: "You really know the country is in a shambolic state when we have an unelected official calling the shots from his holiday hideout."

Not to be outdone, LibDem, Norman Baker, waded in: 'It doesn't say much for their forward planning that Labour can't even manage to leave one person in charge of the country who's actually in the country.'

Thank goodness for Saint Vince who's been kind enough to postpone his summer break to explain to everyone what the hell has been going on with Brown's banks.

The Orange Party only took a break to escape the deadly ravages of Bore flu and the sizzling heat of the Met Office's dodgy 'barbecue summer'.

Now it seems that 'barbecue summer' was all a cunning con by the government's Met Office spinners to keep everyone holed-up in Blightly. Bore Flu was just a neat way to cut down the NEETs on the dole figures by forcing 16 year olds to work late hours at the call centres.

Meanwhile, as the body count rises in the Afghan killing fields, MPs are happy enjoying their long summer hols. The Orange Party suggests Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom as an essential summer read - a favourite at the Foreign Office but not the MoD which explains the current mess.

Mid picture: Mail. Bottom picture: Private Eye front cover

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Hattie's Flop In Carry On Up The Commons

Brown back-stabber Harman's blundering has blown any chance of her leadership out of the water after telling a barefaced lie to parliament and getting a pummelling from both Thatcher boy Hague and Cable the economic oracle. 

With the illustrious leaders out of sight of the commons cameras it was the battle of the deputies over the dispatch box. But deputy party leader, Harriet Harman, had the most to lose. 

The Labour leadership contest and general election campaign are well underway, all rolled into one big melting pot, with Hattie the favourite to usurp the throne from beleaguered Brown. 

But holding your own in the cut and thrust of the battle of commons sound-bites is one thing. Telling porkies is quite another. 

That came in a commons question about Sir Fred the Shred's knighthood which Harman told the commons was for his 'charity work'. 

Now any fool knows what most of Brown's banking buddies were given their Ks and Ps for. And Harman is no fool. This was a disgraceful attempt at New Labour spin which is forever tarring the government. 

Later Harman issued a statement saying she made a mistake. The BBC  tried to explain away the whole thing as a bit of a 'gaffe':

"It was, in fact, the case that he received his honour for services to banking". 

 

Just an honest mistake gov. Not a sordid way to worm her way  out of answering an awkward question. Even accepting the gaff line,  in one fell swoop, the so-called wonder woman turned into blunder woman. 

Elsewhere Hague showed his mettle as the accomplished afternoon dinner speaker and useless shadow foreign secretary he is, as he jibed about how he was now "a modest deputy leader, but a loyal one". 

How the Tories cheered at that one. And how young pretender Miliband looked on, barley able to disguise his relish.

Cable had a chance to speak without the hand of Clegg, up his back. He had a good line: "Will there be a Harriet’s Law about clawing back pensions?" Nice one Vince, if a tad old hat. Stick to the day job teaching us economics.

It is Brown's stubborn refusal to accept some, any responsibility for the global economic mess that should have been a gift to Hague and Cable, thanks to chancellor Darling, willing  to try on the hair-shirt over who is to blame for the economic disaster.

The Downing Street narrative on that one is changing as the battle for the Labour leadership and the next general election get well and truly underway. But Brown seems to be stubbornly digging in his heels and digging his own grave. That one will not go away, no matter how hard McCavity Brown tries to hide.

Writing in The Times, Alice Miles today described Brown as: "Humiliated, hopeless, paralysed. Time to go". 

With Harman now a dead-duck and the despised Mandelson pulling the strings behind Brown's back, most members of the parliamentary Labour Party and the cabinet just want to be put out of their misery.

The sooner Cameron gets back the better. Commons politics is really quite boring without him. 

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Stop It Children You're Scaring The Voters

You turn your back for one minute and the naughty children suddenly start their favourite Sunday sport of tearing into each other and tearing the Labour Party apart with another day of bitter in-fighting. While the cat's away the mice will play. Anyone would think they had a general election to lose. 

Why Mandy would want to pick a fight with the Labour Party beggars belief. But there he is, Thatcher in drag, causing a right Royal row, bashing the unions over his hated Royal Mail sell-off in the New Labour-loving Observer. Only it's not just the unions he's bashing or the Labour Party, it's the voters. 

The most despised man in politics just doesn't get it. Voters probably would be quite keen on some kind of Royal Mail restructuring and reinvestment, if it wasn't all Mandy's big idea. 

And all that comes as Harriet 'I'm not after Brown's job' Hardman flogs a dead horse on the BBC, where else, wringing every last ounce out of Fred the Shred's pension pot noodle, thinking she's on to a vote winner. That was so last week. 

With every twist and turn it was clear government ministers had their grubby little paws in the rancid pension pot deal and could have blocked it along with all the other squalid pension deals for their pals in the City. Just put a couple of ferrets down Sir Fred's trousers and leave the poor man alone. 

Bossy boots Harman, it seems, is getting right up Brown's nose and he wants rid.

Meanwhile a rearguard action is being fought over at the Mail with some rat spilling the beans on Brown's favourite trade union lackey, Derek Simpson of Unite (sic), and his lavish lifestyle. 

There's nothing like a fat cat trade union boss scandal to get the blood boiling among the Mail on Sunday readers. And this was nothing like a trade union boss fat cat story. It could have been written anytime about any one of New Labour's cronies. And it probably was. Anyone would think he's got a vote-splitting union election coming up. 

And where's the Supreme Leader while his Party crumbles around his ears? Telling his EU chums "Bold global action, a global grand bargain, is not now just necessary but it is vitally urgent". 

Yup, saving the world from global warming - again. The EU leaders like that sort of thing though. That nasty debt bubble just waiting to burst happened on their watch and Brownspeak gets them off the hook. 

The global leader is pinning his hopes on the last throw of the election dice to woo voters  as he sets out his global credentials to save the world, this time with a new global New Deal for the global recession when he meets the other global leader in Washington this week.  

But Brown is a dead man sleepwalking into Capitol Hill, busy working on his one hundredth draft of that speech to Congress. He doesn't need to bother. Just swing over to Fraser Nelson in the News of the Screws, who's already written the speech for him starting: "Mr President - I screwed up."

And that just about sums up Brown and his fag-end of a government.

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Hain Gets Perma-Canned

Perma-tanned Hain, has been slammed by commons watchdogs for "serious and substantial" failures in not registering donations. The former 'Liberal' turned cabinet minister is set make a grovelling apology to the House.

Hain was cleared last month by police over the late declaration of £103,000 of donations to his deputy leadership bid, sending some into a tizz, speculating on his return to government.

Now Hain has been rapped by the commons standards and privileges committee who said the scale of the rule breach caused "justified public concern".

Hain has always said he made honest mistakes. But the Orange Party was totally perplexed by the whole affair. How on earth can anyone make a mistake with over £100,000 of donations?

The commons ruling also throws into the spotlight once again the mysterious 'think tank', the Progressive Policies Forum, used to channel more than £50,000 to the Hain campaign.

Despite all the cash, Hain only managed to come a weedy fifth out of six in New Labour's 2007 deputy leader contest and initially declared £77,000 in donations. Many asked then what did he spend all that money on?

Hain got caught up in the flack of the whole sordid mess of the Abraham's affair when it emerged the property developer, who no-one at the top of the Party admitted knowing, had donated more than £650,000 to the Party using other people's names.

Although none of Hain's donations were from Abrahams, the Party was not going to let him get away with it, when commons leader, Harriet Harman, had to pay back a £5,000 donation to her own campaign, after discovering it had come from one of Abrahams' associates.

Hain eventually resigned from his cabinet post in January saying he had made "an innocent mistake". The liberal media had a field day when Hain was cleared after a police investigation, with many wetting themselves with speculation that he may even be given a job in Brown's cabinet.

What fools they are. Most Labour MPs thought Brown was off his trolley bringing Hain into the cabinet in the first place.

The Orange Party too has a soft spot for Peter, from his days getting arrested for noble anti apartheid demos and being stitched up for a bank robbery. But that was then this is now.

For the Labour Party, Hain was and always will be - a Liberal - and many Labour MPs will be glad to see the back of him.

Meanwhile Hain will have to top up his perma-tan and face MPs with a commons apology before he sinks into oblivion, with only memories of the days before he cut his hair and tried desperately to join the political elite.

UPATE: You wait for one bus then two come along at once. Jack Straw has been found by the commons watchdog of a "clear, albeit inadvertent, breach" of the rules in not registering a donation for a dinner to mark 25 years as an MP. The watchdog kindly released the Hain judgement first - to take the heat and spotlight off Straw.

Picture: Those were the days! 1969 - Hain is carted off by those fascist pigs in Downing Street in anti-apartheid demos which led to the cancellation of a tour by the South African cricket team.

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Brown Climbs Down On Expenses Disgrace

The national disgrace of MPs' expenses has forced Brown and his commons leader, Harriet Harman, to back-track on their potty plans. But why did Brown order his troops to vote for Harman's law in the first place? 

Even the Palace of Plenty was starting to see sense, with Tories and LibDems firmly coming out against a new law exempting MPs' expenses from the Freedom of Information Act (FoI).

The 'John Lewis list' and second homes allowances caused outrage among many MPs, let alone the public but Harman planned a new law to limit information on allowable commons expenses. 

As the recession bites deeper, the grotesque contrast between the harsh world of ordinary folk struggling in the economic crisis and the cosy comfort of the political elite, is most evident in the closeted world of MPs and their lifestyles.

People are tightening their belts but MPs' generous expenses system allows them to squander taxpayers' cash on furniture and home improvements. 

No wonder Harman was accused of creating one law for the rich MPs and another for the poor rest of us. 

Coming to a head in a confused commons during PMQs, where Brown apparently promised a free vote, MPs were told later that Downing Street had pulled the plug on Harman's beleaguered bill altogether, so the government will not be forcing a vote on it tomorrow.

Brown may have seen off a humiliating commons defeat which wouldn't have stood a chance of getting through the House of Lords anyway but the questions still remain. 

Why were ministers so set on an exemption in the first place? What sordid little secrets and embarrassing details were hidden away in their receipts? What indeed did they have to hide? Now presumably the people who pay their wages, the taxpayers, will soon find out. 

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Whose Parliament Is It Anyway?

MPs right to launch an immediate cross-party inquiry into the Greengate scandal is being stifled by a government trying every trick in the book to put a lid on the whole affair.

As MPs meet for the first time to fully discuss the outrage, the future of parliament is at stake. MPs should tell government ministers and their political police poodles to stuff it.

The heavy-handed anti-terrorist police raid on senior opposition spokesman, Damian Green's private commons office has made a mockery of the elected House, left democracy in tatters and the country appalled and afraid we are slipping further into a police state. The Greengage scandal exposes a government which preaches tolerance at the expense of justice, truth and freedom.

But this is showing all the signs of descending into a squalid party political squabble over the future of the speaker and the right of parliament to investigate the twist and turns of this monumental blunder and affront to civil liberties.

MPs do not hold a divine right to rule, they are elected. Their overriding job is to uphold the rights of parliament, not their Party, not the speaker, certainly not the police and not the government of the day. And that truism holds just as much for the prime minister and his home secretary as it does for a humble backbencher.

At the centre is the role of the police, the government, the commons ringmaster, Michael Martin and the right of MPs to mount an immediate cross-party inquiry.

The motion to hold back on an inquiry until the police investigation is over, tabled by leader of the House, Harriet Harman, has its own delicious irony. As a civil liberties lawyer in the 1980s, Harman herself was found in contempt of court in a landmark battle with the home office, the outcome of which is used as a legal precedent to this day (harman v home office [1983]).

Some of the government's own backbenchers are accusing ministers of trying to kick the row into touch, well aware that a police investigation could take months to complete, bringing the MP's inquiry hard up against a general election.

There are enough top legal minds at Westminster to form a committee, round up the usual suspects, subject them to forensic questioning and bring this matter to a swift conclusion. With full parliamentary privilege and no issues of national security here, that should be held in public.

But asking the key players what they knew and when they knew it, is just what the government does not want to happen. Already a likely committee of seven, stuffed with government supporters, has led the LibDems to threaten a boycott, joined this afternoon by the Tories.

The discredited speaker is toast, despite last-ditch government smokescreens. A letter from Met commissioner Bob Quick, to the home secretary Jacqui Smith, posted here, flatly contradicts the speaker's version of events. Someone is clearly telling porkies. Now the only question left to resolve is does he jump or will he be pushed into cosy retirement in the Lords.

With the top job at the Met up for grabs, the issue has become more political than ever. The convenient ongoing police inquiry, as feared by the Orange Party earlier, as this debacle unfolded, is a neat move to allow the government to hide behind that inquiry with little comment.

The opposition, with LibDem support, has been joined by outspoken voices from the Labour backbenches. But government ministers, backed by the powerful whips, hope they can rely on the huge gang of payroll MPs to steamroll through their wishes.

The New Year bring a whole different ball game, as Brown sets off on his 'meet the people' tour of the country as part of his election campaign. By then Greengate will take a back seat, as party politics and electioneering move into top gear.

Parliament reflects the will of the people through its elected members. It is for parliament to decide when and how to hold an inquiry, what to do about their discredited speaker and how to stop the police from descending further into a mere political tool of government.

That is not something to be decided and engineered for political advantage on the whim of a government of the day nor by party political bickering or misplaced tribal loyalties.

Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop, jokingly described the Greengate scandal as the most important challenge facing parliament since - Magna Carta. Only Hislop probably wasn't joking.

5pm UPDATE: Blair's former home secretary, Charles Clarke, intends to vote against the government over the outrageous plan to put off the commons inquiry. Clarke has told whips the vote is a "House of Commons matter" - commons code for voting against the government, according to the Westminster Mole. With a packed House, a full Tory and Lib Dem turnout and a good number of angry backbench Labour MPs, it is set to be a knife-edge vote this evening.

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Spintime For Little Hitlers And Democracy

Take your seats for the greatest sham on earth. The Queen's Speech and Greengate. Democracy and a police state. The government is taking us for a spin today and it could be a bumpy ride. What will Her Maj think of it all? 

First up the Queen's Speech - poor woman having to read out all that crap. Even the BBC have been reporting this as "Brown's Queen's Speech". 

And what a sad little speech it is. Out go the 18 bills so trumpeted by the prime minister in the spring as he desperately tried to cling onto power. In come a dozen or so bills, mostly nondescript, most just regurgitated and spun around, after all the troublesome ones mysteriously disappeared in a puff of smoke and mirrors. 

The BBC (bless) has been billing the Speech as a focus on crime and something called 'fairness'. Well there's always a little police bill in a Queen's Speech somewhere. And fairness? One would have thought the government would have got its act together over fairness, or have they just been practising for the last ten years? 

Mandy's pawprints are all over this. All dutifully leaked to the BBC this morning. All carefully choreographed. All to centre on the economy. What else but the economy? It's the only straw left for Brown to grasp. No doubt something will have been cobbled together to grab the headlines. All deliberately positioned for electioneering as the Orange Party has so often pointed out before. 

And that leak. The mole-hunters have crawled out of the woodwork with the acting chief of the Met saying ministers knew nothing about the arrest. Anyone would think he was after a job. 

Meanwhile is it a showdown or climbdown in the commons? The Orange Party was putting its money on a government climbdown and no showdown but that was before Mandy spun round again, accusing the Tories of every dastardly deed under the sun. 

The hint of a government climbdown was well-rooted in spin. After all, minister didn't want to be knocked off course at the start of the Queen's Speech debate, with former shadow home secretary turned civil rights campaigner, David Davis, the leading the fray, over Green's heavy-handed treatment.

Leader of the House, Harriet Harman looked to be brokering some kind of deal. She's a civil right lawyer with a lot of past experience in fighting the home office. And Mr Speaker keeps putting his hands up - it wasn't me, guv - it was that woman in tights - the new Serjeant-at-Arms, Jill Pay, who let the heavy mob into Parliament. How it will play out this afternoon is anyone's guess. 

The Tories and LibDems should go for broke and screw these little Hitlers once and for all, demanding the head of the home secretary, or at least get her arrested for wasting police time. 

Any successful motion of no confidence in Mr Speaker could bring down the government and bring forward that general election that everyone has been playing in the phoney war. 

But that would make the Queen's Speech rather pointless, leave Her Majesty speechless and certainly not amused. 

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