Lammy's Double Whammy On Uni Cuts

Deep university cuts slashing student numbers have been slammed as "scaremongering" by ministers. But education minister Lammy delivered a double whammy, as New Labour tried to dig itself out of its spending cuts hole.

The full extent of £449m university cuts revealed today, with warnings thousands could miss out on university places, will come as no surprise to Sunday Times readers - nor to the business secretary and Lammy's boss, the Lord Mandy.

Who slashed teaching budgets by millions of pounds as an early christmas present for universities, leaving students worried sick if they'd be able to make the grade?

Step forward the man with more titles than daft Dick, flaunting his tough 'university spending cuts' during last week's Channel 4 News big beast interview with Cuddly Ken.

Only last summer, the Orange Party seems to recall The Sunday Times reporting that Whitehall was sharpening the knife, drawing up plans for 20% cuts in public spending, with deep university budget cuts in the firing line.

Mandy made a big deal about slashing teaching budgets by millions of pounds just before Christmas, all in the name of Progress, with a sudden promise to slash public spending on higher education by £950 million over the next three years.

Universities, said Mandy, will be fined £3,700 for every student they took on this autumn above the government limit. A warning which didn't go down at all well with university leaders then and went down like a lead balloon when reality kicked in today.

Leaders of the top universities said last month the cuts could cause a "meltdown". Furious academics condemned the timing of the announcement, warning departments would have to close, degree courses scrapped and students will have to pay higher fees, damaging the 'gold standard' of research universities "beyond repair".

Now president of vice-chancellors' group, professor Steve Smith, has warned that more than 200,000 applicants could be left without a place this summer.

But higher education minister, Lammy, is sticking to his guns, declaring the savings were "relatively small" and accusing everyone in higher education of “scaremongering".

Scaremongering? They're doing voters a favour cutting through the election spin. If £449m is small, goodness knows what big is?

Lammy should go back to school, with a top up in basic maths. Less money means fewer students unless they're all crammed into one lecture hall.

A million 18-24 year olds are on the dole. Of course there will be a big increase in applications. There's nothing else for them to do.

All a far cry from the far off days of false hope when New Labour promised to get half of young people into university, now filed away under 'empty words'.

All part of the false borrowing boom years when the good times rolled. But not a good idea when the country is going down the economic pan. Happy days.

Spending cuts from one of Mandy's many departments is all a bit rich on the day of the Mandy v Cameron cuts cat fight as New Labour unleashed the old attack dog over Tory spending plans.

But Pussycat Peter is having fun dissing Dave, even likening Cameron and Osborne to a "Laurel and Hardy duo". Now where has the Orange Party seen that before?

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Bully Boy Balls Gets His Teachers Pet

Blinky Balls has been branded 'a bit of a bully' over his demolition of parliamentary democracy, as deluded Brown's fag-end government drifts aimlessly along. But there's more to this little outburst than meets the eye. A broadside has been fired against Brown's side-kick as the struggling Supreme Leader bumbles along with post-conference blues.

Not many New Labour politicians can raise the hackles of the Labour left and the Blairite hitchhikers like 'Blinky' Balls.

But it's taken parliamentarian and party loyalist, Barry Sheerman, to say in public what every one has known in private for so long.

Only during Smeargate did Balls' true despicable colours come out, when he was exposed as one of Downing Street's gang of ruthless 'reservoir dogs'.

In the death throes of a discredited government, parliamentary democracy is being devoured in a last ditch bid to shore up power in the hands of a deluded, self important elite.

Now Balls is riding rough-shod over parliament, appointing one of his cronies to the non-job of 'children's commissioner', despite the whole of the commons committee dead set against the decision.

'Children's commissioner' for England was a non-starter anyway. A non-job with a fat salary, big office, big budget. A guaranteed gob making mealy-mouthed pronouncements to suck up to the boss.

All part of Balls' empire building in the stalinesque department of schools, children, dinner ladies, et al, before Cameron's quango-hunters go for the kill.

Sheerman has rightly asked why committees should bother vetting appointments if they were ignored. But hey, why should a little matter of parliament get in the way of a patsy.

During the MPs' expenses scandal, triple flipping Balls escaped the wrath of even the Telegraph.

Despite the Baby P scandal and SATS fiasco, Balls managed to wriggle out of blame, passing the buck with a bucket of whitewash while hiding behind the smokescreen of accountability.

But Balls, propped up by his City pals from his days at the treasury, has only one political protector and that is Beleaguered Brown.

The Orange Party reserves a particular distain for Balls, particularly when he makes occasional forays to woo the left.

There's something distasteful about a politician who's making the most of his privileged upbringing and riding on the coat-tails of one discredited PM to keep him in power, backed up by the macho Downing Street bully boy machine.

But an MP and cabinet crony who thinks he knows better than the commons, imposing his will against that of a respected and influential commons committee, is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse politics. Balls can survive only as long as Brown survives.

Sheerman's outburst over Balls came as he makes a play for the chair of the PLP which at a stroke would kick Brown into touch.

With Brown drifting along with post conference blues, Sheerman fired an opening shot in the battle to oust Brown and save the Party.

The Balls broadside was delivered with precision to take out his side-kick and stop Balls' leadership dream in its tracks.

Nice one Barry. Now all it takes is for Mandy to make his move with a march of the Millipedes. Before or after Glasgow NE?

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Speaker's Mandy Plan Destroys Democracy

Disturbing moves to dismantle democracy are underway with squeaker Bercow's plans to allow unelected Mandy to answer questions in commons. Spun as a 'modernising' breakthrough, the cross dressing merely shores up the current crony culture and deepens the divide between elected and unelected chosen ones.

What's left of democracy is already being whittled away. There's already an unelected head of state, an unelected second chamber and an unelected prime minister. Boney Blair is set to be anointed unelected president of a new EU empire.

The galling spectacle of unelected and unaccountable Mandy announcing laws in the Lords before elected MPs had time to draw breath is certainly an affront to the democratic process. But letting Mandy into the commons before he scurries back to the safe sanctum of the Lords is no solution.

The whole charade will not make unelected government ministers who sit in the upper house accountable to MPs. But the move will break the heart of the democratic process that has kept the commons and Lords apart.

Tories are already busy drawing up their shortlist of a new breed of goat to graze in the Lords to redress the balance after Blair stuffed the place with his cronies. The Orange Party doesn't expect to see much change there after the New Labour election wipe-out.

MPs who accept the speaker plan will fall into a carefully laid trap. That then becomes the acceptable norm for the protected chosen ones to call the shots, leaving elected MPs twiddling their thumbs.

The solution is to end the crony culture where pals are given a peerage and a full cabinet post. Arguments put forward by Blair and the gang that there's not enough talent in the lower chamber is an insult to elected representatives.

Voters have had their fill of pork-pie politics. They've had their fill of lies from a fag-end, discredited government disappearing up its own arrogance. For too long unaccountable ministers have been allowed to ride rough-shod over the electorate pushing through policies without recourse to the electorate.

Both unelected and unaccountable cabinet ministers Mandelson and Adonis have welcomed the move. But then they would wouldn't they?

The thin end of the wedge is racketed up a notch with plans to let both ministers appear at the bar of the House and eventually allow them to sit on MPs' green benches.

Then the distinction between elected commons lawmakers and the backstop of the upper chamber at the heart of our democratic process will disappear in a fuzzy blur of weasel-worded ermine.

The prime-minister-in-all-but-name already sticks in the throats of decent folk. There is no slicker smoother operator than Mandelson who can pay lip service to democracy.

Do any MPs really think they can get get one over on the Master before he legs it back to the Lords?

The house of lords is not accountable to MPs. That's the whole point of having two chambers to prevent the regimes of a banana republic.

Voters already have to suffer an oligarchy dressed up as democracy. Ministers who have not been voted in by the public and who cannot be removed from office by the public, makes a mockery of what little is left of elections.

What is so wrong with having the top jobs around the cabinet table chosen from the commons so that they are directly accountable to the electorate?

Black Rod will have to give up the tights and day job. What's the point of a state opening of parliament and the annual ritual of the lords and the commons coming together, when Mandy is left hiding behind the speaker's chair.

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'Underdogs' Toothless Biteback

The fightback to paint New Labour and its lamentable leader as underdogs is well underway. In the dark, dodgy world of dirty tricks, it's difficult to separate truth from fiction, leaving only a cynical synopsis of the scenarios.

A fag-end government with a doomed dead man walking has nothing left but a worn-out comfort blanket. The 'underdogs' against the nasty Tories. Politics played out as soap opera with a rerun of the old class of '97.

New Labour has lost it. Get over it. No one in their right mind buys into the conference hype. The mood at Brighton on the Rocks is dire, despite magical Mandy's sprinkling of panto fairy dust to lift the unfaithful out of the depths of despair.

New Labour's election strategy is a fightback sure, but not as we know it. Portraying Liability Brown and the Party as underdogs has been a long term strategy. Now it's time for unelected and unaccountable Mandy to put theory into practice.

A new opinion poll shows New Labour slumping third behind LibDems, down in the doldrums for the first time since 1982. Things can only get better?

Bloomberg has revealed an election timetable set up for May 6, with a “General Election Handbook Part 1,” issued to candidates and campaign chiefs. That date's likely but isn't set in stone. Events have a nasty habit of getting in the way.

What is kicking around but under wraps is a short term strategy for a snap election. Ominously that “Short Campaign Book” has not been published.

Ministers and hangers-on are now totally obsessed about that election and in total denial about the inevitable outcome, scurrying around, feathering their nests as the rats desert the sinking ship, when they should be out there doing what they're paid to do - 'govern'.

That leaves underworld spinners and attack dogs to fight the corner for the 'underdogs' from the undergrowth, with Battered Brown the Unique Selling Point.

Dreaming up rehashed policy promises they won't have to keep for the down-trodden masses, leaves the promise of a Party for the underdogs by the underdogs. Not like them Tory Toffs. Neat trick, eh?

Was Marr's pill popping question to Beleaguered Brown such an outrageous affront as Mandy and Big Al would have us believe? Or was it all part of that underdog fightback?

The Sunday spectacle was branded an "extreme right-wing" conspiracy putting the frighteners up everyone. Yet the guy who made the original allegation is an historian and a bit of a green liberal.

But it does leave it wide open for Marr to grill Cameron on his alleged drugs old history. What Tory sleaze stories Mandy has in this back pocket, to capture the 'narrative' and the media, Dark Lord only knows.

On health grounds, Beaten Brown has the ideal 'get out of jail free card' and can slip off into oblivion anytime to save the world.

Much to the relief of the Party and fed-up voters, that may even earn a few Brownie points in the polls.

On the day of yet another of Boring Brown's big fightback speeches - up pops a strange story that he's the victim of hate mail - a nasty little attack targeted by a poison pen letter writer which makes you feel sorry for him. Well almost.

This will be a 'fightback' speech to save Battered Brown's skin, not a speech for voters. The deluded leader is an underdog but also a dead dog. No amount of spinning will turn him around.

With steely Sarah to guide him on stage, the scene is set for a last-ditch speech to wearing, despairing delegates, cameras and sound-bites.

What is missing from the jigsaw is the one who can take over the helm. So who is being groomed to step into his shoes?

Up to the mark steps political underdog, Ed Miliband - better looking than banana boy David, a solid background at the treasury, now co-ordinating the campaign. Wet and wet behind the ears but clean of the expenses scandal, with Mandy behind him, that boy will go far. The question is when and how.

Cameron's conservatives are romping along nicely but still have a lot of romping to do before they romp home. With the Irish likely to bullied and blackmailed into a 'yes' vote as the Tory conference kicks in, Cameron has his own cross to bare.

Dave will have to come out of the closet sometime about his promise of an EU referendum. A gift for New Labour.

The heir-to-Blair can walk the walk and talk the talk. But time for talking and promising all things to all men is drawing to a close. The Tories old wound of Europe could be opened up with a little help from his 'friends'.

You've got to hand it to Mandy. He's The Master. Underdogs, sure but this is more about the future of his pet 'social democrat' project cooked up by the Gang of Four now falling apart around his ears. He's up for a fight - but will he again drag what used to be a Labour Party down with him?

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Voters Turn C-Word On Brown

Bumbling Brown is being forced to crawl out of the bunker to utter the C-word to trade unionists and the country. But the public is already muttering its own C-word, as an opinion poll shows ‘literally anyone’ would make a better PM. What a sorry state of affairs when the country has to wait with bated breath for deluded Brown to state the bleedin' obvious over cuts. It must be tempting just to stay at home popping the happy pills.

Today's the day the struggling Supreme Leader will finally own up to the fact his fag-end government will have to introduce some public spending cuts to get the country out of recession. No doubt sprinkled with a few choice "tough choices".

It's all a tad too late. Borrowing Brown's missed the boat. He should have come clean sooner rather than dithering around.

But instead of coming clean, the government is set to withdraw to its comfort zone of 'cuts, but not yet' - manna from heaven for the Tories.

The Orange Party suspects this is more about general election political posturing than having the future of the country at heart. It boils down to timing and when the dreaded axe should start to fall. Timing - just a neat political tactic to defuse doubts over a dreadful dithering government until after the election.

Bouncy Brown still thinks he's on a winner playing the 'Tory cuts' card for all its worth as the gloom 'lifts' on recession depression. But a savvy public have seen through the sham. New Labour-loving stooges can argue the government’s approach is right and Tory policy is a recipe for disaster until they're blue in the face.

On Friday, the Orange Party pleaded with the PM to crawl out of the bunker and come clean:

"The public is fed up with the arrogance of a fag-end government. No wonder deluded Brown's depressed. Show some leadership man. Come clean over cuts. Stop political point scoring and sitting on the fence. Let the voting public have their say and decide who to trust with the inevitable axe."

Today's Populous poll for The Times reveals a growing, grumbling 'anyone but Brown' mood in the Labour camp. But there's no-one capable of taking over the helm of Brown's sinking ship. They're swimming against the tide, stuck with silly-Billy-no-mates Brown.

Around half the population believes "literally anyone" from New Labour's top ranks could do a better job than useless Brown. Even daft David Miliband comes out top as an alternative.

Dazed voters are left a muddled mess of mixed messages with Brown's silly 0% Tory cuts vs his 0% rise. 'Nasty' Tory vs 'nice' New Labour cuts doesn't cut any ice. Mindless 'cuts vs investment' is meaningless with a £175 billion debt hanging over the country's head.

Yesterday's speech by Mandy added to the confusion, revealing a man relishing in real power behind the throne. But everyone it seems is waiting for the struggling Supreme Leader to utter the C-word.

Revealing his true dark colours, Mandelson had the audacity to claim deceitful Brown never said that voters faced a choice between 'Tory cuts and Labour investment'. The BBC's ferret, Nick Robinson, was quick to point out fibbing Mandy had rewritten the history of the government's line on public spending cuts.

Today's TUC speech will be served up with a large dollop of Brown sauce claiming Tories cannot be trusted and threaten to put economic recovery at risk. But that's at odds with what the voting public now actually think.

Time after time opinion polls show voters believe spending cuts are inevitable whoever is in power and they actually trust Tories more than New Labour to protect frontline services.

The recent IoD/TPA study showed the way with a sensible £50 billion savings shopping list which would cut spending without hurting essential public services. Throw in scrapping Trident and ending the wasteful Afghan war and it starts to add up.

There's still around six months of cuts claptrap to go before all the Brown sauce will be history. Campbell is doing his bit in the blogosphere. But only his sad, tired old Daily Mirror and the City fats cats' Financial Times are on side.

Axe-weilding Tories haven't got it all their own way. LibDems have published a pamphlet. Bless. But cuddly Cameron is a man with a cunning cuts plan. Voters are starting to like more and more what they see and hear.

What is clear in the minds of voters is that the Tories are right about the urgent need to address the budget deficit. Borrowing beyond the current 175% of GDP is reckless, unsustainable, downright dangerous and disastrous.

Public spending will have to be slashed after more than a decade of a wasteful New Labour spending spree. The questions now are where, when, why and how heavily the axe will fall.

But Bumbling Borrowing Brown can bleat on for all he's worth. Voters don't trust a man obsessively convinced of his own rectitude nor the festering New Labour project, as far as they could throw them.

Top graphic: Gerald Scarfe, Sunday Times. Mid graphic News of the World

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Mandy's After Dinner U-Turn On Pirates

Naughty nautical Mandy is at it again, threatening to cut off movie pirates in their prime. Who was he lording it up with while running the country and sunning himself in Corfu? Step forward US Hollywood mogul David Geffen. There's no business like a bit of showbiz business.

Revelations in the Sunday Times that Mandy ordered officials to draw up draconian regulations on internet piracy just days after he had a private dinner with a Hollywood mogul who is a critic of illegal file-sharing, brought howls of denial.

And a sharp intake of breath after reading such a long sentence.

There had been no discussion of internet piracy during the Corfu dinner, said a spinner.

But an ever reliable Whitehall source was quick to put the boot in: “Until the past week Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Suddenly Peter returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.”

The Times smells a rat with Mandy's U-turn a sign of caving into lobbyists.

What is it with the unelected and unaccountable deputy prime minister-in-all-but-name and his summer jaunts with the rich kids?

Everything Mandy touches ends up mired in a dodgy mess. What with Gaddafi the Younger and that Russian billionaire bloke, the fall-out is popping up all over the place. His hols should be banned as a political public health hazard.

It's all a remarkable coincidence. Mandy’s intervention comes after dinner with Geffen, the billionaire producer who co-founded the DreamWorks studio with Steven Spielberg.

The chance to cut a few deals with guests of the super-rich members of the Rothschild banking clan at the family’s luxury Corfu holiday villa was too good to miss.

Until the Mandelson edict, the most serious sanction planned against internet pirates was a tickle on the torrents. Now the clampdown, in a so-called Digital Britain bill, could see people who illegally download films and music cut off from the net with regulator Ofcom given greater powers to tackle pirates. ISPs are up in arms.

Cryptically the BBC reports: "It is believed that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has intervened personally to beef up the policy." Well shiver me Long John Silvers.

That's what happens when you leave an unelected peer with a BlackBerry in charge. Old Blairite habits die hard.

Wasn't it Blair who rushed back from a freebie holiday with Sir Cliff, the Peter Pan of Pop Song Royalties, to bang on about extending the royalty time-limit at a Cabinet which should have been discussing high affairs of state?

Will the download crack-down make it to the statute books? Many back-benchers believe anything that has the mark of Mandy has the kiss of death.

The Orange Party doesn't know what all the fuss is about. All that fiddling about with CGI effects putting black patches over one eye and dubbing everyone with rough Ooh-arrghs - just to make a pirate DVD.

Top picture: Mandelson greets Geffen on the 'Rising Sun' luxury yacht in Corfu (Mail)

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Macavity Brown's Masterstroke Of Spin

Scotland is the fall-guy in the fall-out of the release of the Lockerbie "bomber" in a masterstroke of spin. The Scottish parliament is recalled to defend its decision. But it's the UK parliament which should be recalled and Macavity Brown called to account.

You have to hand it to the New Labour government. It is pulling-off a masterstroke to get SNP arch-enemy Salmond in the frame to take the flak and smooth the way for the UK to strike oil.

A masterpiece of government spin is managing to turn the tables, blaming the Scots for the dastardly decision to release al-Magrahi on compassionate grounds.

A spectacular wave of American outrage has swept across the Atlantic. The SNP and justice minister MacAskill seem to be under fire from all sides.

But in the US, it is bunkered Brown not Salmond who's in the firing line. Influential website Drudge screams with a large picture of Brown and the question: "YOU DID WHAT?!"

Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has called for a congressional hearing into how the US government lobbied the UK over the release.

Pictures coming out of Libya splash al-Magrahi whopping it up with Gaddafi and his son.

But if pictures tell a thousand words then it is those of Blair with Gadaffi and the shameful 'deal in the desert' and Brown shaking hands with his new best friend that are the more telling.

The whole squalid charade stinks. Scotland is just a pawn in the diplomatic shenanigans. Someone's playing politics over Lockerbie. In the world of diplomatic spin, Whitehall has pulled a fast one over Holyrood.

Weekend disclosures in the Observer and elsewhere reveal Brown at the centre of detailed discussions with the Libyan dictator and a foreign office endorsing the Scots' decision. But bunkered Brown has steadfastly refused to speak publicly which once again calls into question his leadership.

Mandy too is in the frame, meeting Gaddafi the younger twice in the past four months with a "fleeting" discussion about al-Megrahi while sunning himself in Corfu.

Al-Megrahi's release was "on the table in all commercial, oil and gas agreements" and other dealings with Britain, according to Tripoli.

Misplaced outrage over the release of the Lockerbie Libyan and the wave of political posturing are hiding the shameful dealings in the aftermath of the atrocity.

Lockerbie's dirty secrets are only slowly beginning to unravel. Deals stuck over trade and oil are only part of the plot.

Al-Megrahi’s release has been on the cards for some time in a carefully orchestrated plot to stop a hugely embarrassing appeal, hide the truth over the bombing and to get a hold of Libya's oil and gas. That appeal would have laid bare failings in the original verdict and the manipulation of evidence.

The Orange Party has long held the view the casualty here is justice and the truth about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. With no appeal, only with a full public inquiry demanded by the bereaved families of some of the victims, would that truth be known. But for the moment that remains a side-issue.

The heat is on many politicians to explain their involvement in the controversial decision to release the Lockerbie "bomber", who was serving a life sentence for the mass murder of 270 people in 1988.

Former US ambassador Bolton said: "I'm appalled by the decision of the Scottish government. But I'm more appalled by the decision of the British government apparently to see commercial advantage for the UK in having this mass murderer go free. We wait to hear from Prime Minister Brown what he thinks."

Bolton may have to wait a while for tight-lipped Brown. Downing Street is sitting tight. In the spinning world, it the wrong Scot who is taking the flak and the wrong parliament which has been recalled.

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