It's Brown Wot Lost It!

Murdoch's Sun has come out to shine on the Tories with an election: "Bye Bye Gordon". "After 12 long years in power, this Government has lost its way. Now it's lost The Sun's support too," screams the Sun. What a way to rain on Brown's parade.

The mighty Murdoch empire in the shape of the Sun is throwing its weight behind the Conservatives with an editorial which delivers a damning indictment of New Labour failures.

The Orange Party could not agree more, pointing out earlier today the 'underdogs' biteback would be toothless. Now the underdogs are dead dogs without the Sun to suck up to.

Instead of coming clean on a decade of failed policies, promising to put things right, deluded Brown tried in on with the 'underdogs' line, attacked the Tories and left weary delegates with a taste of his usual arrogance and petulance.

The Sun helped win it for Blair in '97 and lose it for Kinnock in '92 with the headline: "If Kinnock wins today will the last one to leave Britain, please turn off the lights", prompting the headline the following day: "It's the Sun Wot Won It". The Sun is hoping for a hat-trick.

The fag-end government with a doomed dead man walking has nothing left but a copy of the Sun for comfort. New Labour has lost it. Get over it.

Murdoch's support for Cameron's Tories should come as no surprise, only the timing, supposedly months away from the election. The Dirty Digger has been pulling back since pal Blair left the fold.

The Sun has been banging the drum for Dave since last year's Tory conference. Flashback: October 2, 2008: The Sun Shines On Cameron

The Sun has captured the public mood. Murdoch backs winners not losers. The Mighty Mogul is playing follow the reader, supporting the Party and person wot sells newspapers.

Now Cameron has to come off the fence. Talk the talk, walk the walk, stand - and deliver a real alternative.

Hat tip: Nick Robinson who very kindly held up the Sun front page for all the world to see - on the BBC 10 o'clock news. So that's Robinson and Marr in the reservoir dog's dog-house.

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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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Go For The Kill Dave, May The Sun Be With You

Pussyfooting around coming over all statesman-like isn't good enough for a prime minister-in waiting. Voters are baying for blood and want New Labour's head on a plate. Cameron should take the gloves off. He owes it to the people. 

Not the views of the Orange Party for once but those of the Sun which is not shy at coming forward and doesn't mince its words when it comes to capturing a public mood. 

Yesterday it was a round up of New Labour sleaze in Murdoch's Sunday Times, aided and abetted by the Mail's exposure of greedy McNulty and his grubby two homes turnaround. Today it's the turn of the Sun. 

The big gun of powerful political editor, Trevor Kavanagh, has been to unleashed on Cameron of all people - but only for not doing enough to wipe the bunch of New Labour misfits from the face of the earth. 

In the early days, the Orange Party found it hard swimming against the tide, exposing the disgrace of the now discredited New Labour project, cataloguing the Hall of Shame (right). 

Now it seems Murdoch has finally seen sense and the sales figures and instructed his troops to go for blood. They've been waiting a long time for this and are happy to oblige.

Kavanagh strikes a chord. But then he would. That's his job. The Orange Party is happy to lend support up to a point - and fisk.

Cameron's Conservatives know they're on a winner with the next election but are playing it canny. No fool of a politician wants a repeat of a Kinnock moment and no Party want to be handed victory on a plate by a fag-end of a discredited government on its knees with sleaze, corruption and a decade of useless misguided policies now coming back to haunt them. 

The Orange Party misses Mr Angry, as Cameron changed tack to win over the hearts and minds by explaining how he will get the country out of this mess and tries the uphill task to turn a vote against New Labour into a vote for the Tories.

Kavanagh is having none of it: 

"This election must be a fight to the death. Cameron cannot afford to leave Labour licking its wounds on the sidelines.

He must drive a stake through their hearts and scatter their troops to the wind.

Just as Labour did to the Tories in the 1990s.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown created the most ruthless political killing machine ever seen.

Having turned their rivals into a sick joke, Labour was free to drive through the hideous social engineering experiment which has changed this country for ever.

If David Cameron is to survive the most testing peacetime crisis in our lifetimes, he needs to do the same.

He needs to make Labour as unelectable as the Tories once were."

Fine but to describe the bunch of New Labour chancers who highjacked the Party as 'Labour' is a tad insulting to the Labour movement. And it was the Sun wot won it for Blair.

C4's recent Dispatches damning documentary exposed New Labour’s squandered billions with a catalogue of botched IT programs, bungled NHS spending, chaotic school demolition and scandalous Army housing. And that was before the lethal legacies of failed policies came back to haunt them at Staffordshire hospital and the Baby P scandal.

That lies at the heart of one of the areas where the Tories should continue their relentless attack, according to Kavanagh but as always it's the economy, stupid: 

"And all that was BEFORE Britain was landed with liabilities worth trillions from what must surely be criminal banking recklessness.

Now, irony of ironies, shamed former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin might actually end up in court — facing questions from human rights lawyer Cherie Blair!

Wasn’t it her hubby, Tony, who waltzed off to make millions just before the ground opened beneath our feet.

Did he know our debt-laden economy was heading for the rocks? He should have, because I raised it — in front of Cherie — at their Downing Street flat after the 2005 election.

When I asked if he was worried about mushrooming household debt, he looked at me as if I was mad.

Just as he did when I asked if he knew immigration was changing the face of Britain.

Now we are heading for economic meltdown and a population of 70 million, the biggest in Europe."

Kavanagh point out if Cameron really wants to drive 'Labour' into the wilderness for good, he has an army already at hand and spitting blood:

"They are the two million — soon to be three million-plus — unemployed. Every single one has been given a humiliating kick in the guts.

They are not the reckless and feckless who prefer life on benefits. They are decent, hardworking men and women with families to support and mortgages to pay.

Soon, we will all have a close friend or relative who is jobless, homeless — or both."

A new Labour Party, with core Labour values, will rise from the ashes, once it's purged of the New Labour brand and that will signal a refreshing return in English politics. 

For the moment though Cameron's Conservatives will have to face down the dirty tricks of the Mandy spinners, set to go into overdrive as the election gets closer, before election broadcasting impartiality halts BBC News political bias in its tracks. 

Cameron must rise above that and tap into and harness the growing public rage of those "so cruelly robbed of a living". As Kavangh says "if he doesn’t, he doesn't deserve two terms."

Picture: Trumble, Sun

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Murdoch Comes Over All Jewish

Master Of The Universe, Rupert Murdoch, has delivered a robust defence of the state of Israel with a warning the survival of the West depends on its rise or fall. Murdoch is a powerful player on the world stage and in the main stream media and his influence should not be underestimated. On this issue, His Master's Voice deserves to be heard.

Wearing one of his many media hats, Murdoch used a speech to the American Jewish Committee to deliver his diatribe against growing anti-semitism and the future of Israel, as the West continues to "reach out" to Iran and its band of international murderers.

Pointing out that he isn't Jewish, he did have the brazen cheek to try to take credit for practically inventing the word chutzpah. 

As the recent conflict in Gaza and pseudo-liberal news bias has shown, public debate is becoming poisoned by a rise in anti-semitism which many thought had been confined to the dustbin of history. 

The Orange Party has no time for the pseudo-liberal posturing of politicians and media such as the BBC and Channel 4 News, whose distorted opinions and news values get them in a right pickle. 

Blatant anti-semitic bias was vividly demonstrated in the recent coverage of the Gaza conflict, love-bombing the Jew-hating, gay-bashing preachers of hate in Iran and its web of terrorists. 

Murdoch points out: "In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace, who reject freedom and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb and the human shield."

And he asks if "we in Europe and the US can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel"?

In the US, Obama continues his misguided and dangerous policy of "reaching out" to Iran with "a new beginning", aided and abetted by his new poodle Brown, who seem oblivious to a regime that backs the thugs of Hizbullah and Hamas and is now on course to acquire a nuclear weapon to wipe out Israel. 

Murdoch gives a warning over the recent attacks in India where Islamic terrorists singled out the Mumbai Jewish Centre to torture and kill the victims in a well-planned and well-coordinated attack. That particular outrage, which was practically ignored by the western liberal media, is a test run for similar attacks in similar cities around the world. 

In Gaza, dead Palestinians serve the warped political propaganda purposes of Hamas. Only now is the true scale of the Hamas atrocities becoming known. But Iran-backed thugs of Hamas get away with this, as it rules by fear and intimidation, accountable to no-one but itself.

In the global media war, which Murdoch knows a thing or two about, he questions media coverage of the Gaza conflict.

Images of Palestinian deaths have led some to call for Israel to be charged with war crimes by an international tribunal. Why do we never hear calls for Hamas leaders to be charged with war crimes?

Why do we hear no calls for human rights investigations into Hamas gunmen using Palestinian children as human shields? Why so few stories on the reports of Hamas assassins going to hospitals to hunt down their fellow Palestinians? 

And where are the international human rights groups demanding that Hamas stop blurring the most fundamental line in warfare: the distinction between civilian and combatant?

Fine words now from Murdoch but a tad hypocritical. Where was his vast media empire at the time? Busy going with the flow to 'sell newspapers'. 

There is passionate disagreement on many social and political issues and points of view, raised by Murdoch in his Times and saucy sister the Sun but here is one powerful, lone dissenting voice in the mainstream media to counter the illiberal anti-semitism of pseudo-liberals. 

The Orange Party doesn't always see eye to eye with this megalomanic media monster whose tentacles spread across the world. But in this sense, chutzpah is probably the best word to use. 

There's a strong disapproval for a lot the Dirty Digger has done and said but on the issue of Israel and the Jewish people, there is a grudging admiration.

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Brown's Comeuppance On Party Politics

Brown's defence, when anyone or anything gets in his small-minded, arrogant way, is to accuse everyone else of playing party politics. And that started to stick in the throat. Shouting down dissident voices not playing his game stifled debate. The government is playing party politics with no interest in the country - only saving their own election skins. Today Cameron refused to take it lying down.

At last, Cameron put clear blue water between the Parties, promising his Conservatives will abandon the government's ridiculous spending plans. That takes a brave soul, knowing the political risks and backlash from New Labour supporting politicians and media.

But it's the Tories who can now accuse Brown of playing party politics, as every shred of government waste and drop of further borrowing will come under healthy opposition scrutiny.

Attacks on shadow chancellor, George Osborne, have been relentless, sparked by the Corfu scandal. Mandleson was in the frame, yet with neat footwork, spinners turned the tables and, with the BBC's help, it was Osborne who was held up as the baddy and much of  the media swallowed it hook line and stinker. 

But that was never about Osborne. It was an attack on Cameron and the whole Tory Party, with the deputy prime minister working hard behind the scenes.

While doing his job and urging caution on the economy, Brown rounded on Osborne, while swanning around Washington, accusing the opposition spokesman of party politics. For the government, Osborne was clearly doing his job too well. 

Brown was lovin' it, spending his time helping Bush dig himself out of a hole and prop up his legacy, having his picture taken at every opportunity. All with the help of BBC News and its slavish support for borrowing Brown's disastrous economic recipe.  Now that's party politics. 

Brown managed to pull off all party support for his economic measures for a while. Until the Tories and LibDems cottoned on to the con. 

They were being drawn into a reckless government borrowing plan, doomed to failure with disastrous consequences. 

Brown, forever the crafty politician, could turn round and claim their support when it all went pear-shaped. Both Parties have now seen the light. 

The Baby P case and the damning indictment of both the council and government is a shameful example, with Brown having the bare faced cheek to accuse Cameron of playing party politics during his inhuman commons performance. 

From the beginning this was all about New Labour party politics and Brown set that tone. 

This is a Labour-run council, slavishly following New Labour's failed ideals and policies. One of its MPs, David Lammy, is a rising New Labour star. And the buck stops in government, with Ed Balls' stalinist, over bearing and overreaching mega department, trying to deflect criticism and claim the moral and political high ground. 

Nothing stands in the way of Brown spin. Conflicting opinion polls add to confusion. Push polls are becoming commonplace. Polls can be seized upon to mean anything to anybody.

On the economy, the government is preparing the ground for Brown's Christmas giveaways and preparing the ground for a cut and run spring election. 

One by one, minor irritations which could cause more of a slump in popularity are dropped or shelved. 42 days has gone by the wayside and a U-turn over Post Office card contracts. Troop withdrawal from Iraq, a major obstacle in public opinion, will be sorted out by the spring.

Only a few months back, Brown was facing political annihilation. Then he was the come-back kid. But a tide of popular opinion didn't turn in Brown's favour. 

True Labour rebels were bought off with weak promises and put back in their box. The Blairite rebellion was neatly side-stepped when Mandleson was forced to escape from EU corruption allegations to the safe haven of the UK government. Bringing with him his army of battle-scarred spin doctors.

Voices of dissent are swiftly labelled "right-wing" to play up the party politics card. But the Orange Party ain't right wing. Nor are others who've seen through the sham. And neither is Bremner, Bird or Fortune, whose damning exposure of the economic sham on C4, uses Tony Benn as the voice of reason. 

The voice of sense and sensibility is getting through and that's deeply disturbing for a government desperately trying to cling onto power. But capture the media and, in a Blair move,  you capture the argument and public opinion. 

Slowly some traditionally troublesome media are being picked off. BBC News was a pushover and now firmly a government propaganda mouthpiece. The Mail was once in Brown's pocket, or the other way round. The Telegraph often reads like the Labourgraph. ConservativeHome is a trolls playground. The Murdoch stable will latch on to whatever the boss thinks will sell more newspapers. 

And where does all this lead? The government will try to cling on to power to the bitter end. But events, particularly economic ones and rising unemployment, will turn nasty next year and into 2010 and that would be a very bitter end. Brown and New Labour can't take that risk. 

So it's a spring election with a desperate need for a fresh mandate to wreck the economy and people's lives even further. 

It's been party politics all along since the summer. An endless round of party political broadcasts in the phoney war, on behalf of Brown and the New Labour Party. 

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Jenkins Final Plea On Liberty

Journalist and author, Simon Jenkins, was one of the first voices of reason to question the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Many of his views have been welcomed by the Orange Party. Now he's standing down from the Sunday Times. He'll be sorely missed. 

Recently Jenkins delivered a call to trim the fat off the London 2012 Olympics - though that was in the Guardian to which he's been closely associated for a number of years. 

Now apparently he's leaving for pastures new and the National Trust but not before delivering a final plea on liberty. 

The Sunday Times has had a New Labour makeover. It is now all style and no substance. Hard edged news reporting has been sacrificed for articles more suited to a magazine than a newspaper. 

Time and again the "Insight" page, of which Jenkins was one-time editor, is back-referenced in a nostalgic throwback to the halcyon days. 

Maybe Jenkins didn't fit in with that New Look? But who will replace him? Alistair Campbell is back at Downing Street and making a big splash in today's Sunday Times Review. Now that would be too much.

Jenkin's final missive is a brilliant piece condemning both the surveillance society and Big Brother tactics of a decade of New Labour, in which he makes a farewell pleas to MPs - defend liberty. 

Home secretary, Jacqui Smith, is firmly in his sights as the article catalogues recent GCHQ moves to tap into all mobile phone conversations, through ID cards, NHS computer records and 42 days detention.

The closing remarks of Jenkins are worth recording in full. He states they are a lesson for MPs. The Orange Party would contend they are a lesson for us all. 

"The war on terror has been a wretched blind alley in British political history. It has revealed all that is worst in British government – its authoritarianism, its sloppiness and its unaccountability. Yet restoring the status quo ante will be phenomenally hard.

"In all my years of writing this column, from which I am standing down, I have been amazed at the spinelessness of Britain’s elected representatives in defending liberty and protesting against state arrogance. They appear as parties to the conspiracy of power. There have been outspoken judges, outspoken peers, even outspoken journalists. There have been few outspoken MPs. Those supposedly defending freedom are whipped into obedience. I find this ominous."

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