Queen Used As Election Pawn

The Queen is being used as an election pawn in a party political broadcast to parliament. The shameful charade of New Labour's 'Queen's Speech' is set to test the water with a manifesto and "smoke out the Tories". An insult to the public and total waste of time.

'Announcing populist measures to "smoke out" the Tories on policy, Brown has signalled the start of a bitter election campaign,' thunders The Times. Not in a news conference. Not in a party political broadcast. But through the age old tradition of Wednesday's official opening of parliament.

The Queen's Speech has been reduced to a glorified New Labour press release with Pussycat Peter's paw prints all over it.

Reading from a prepared script, it's left to Her Maj to set out her government's 'legislation' for the coming year. But none of the measures will see the light of day. Not least because of looming across the board spending cuts.

Missing from the 'manifesto' will be the budget and pre-budget report, increasingly used to set policy with key announcements.

Using a Queen's Speech in this way is an insult to voters and affront to parliamentary democracy. The Orange Party isn't turning yellow but LibDem leader Clegg has a valid point.

The "glitz and glamour" of the Queen's Speech, he said, would be "based on a complete fiction" because there were only 70 parliament days between now and the last date to dissolve parliament.

That kinda blows out of the water commons cheerleader, Harman's insistence that "the majority of the bills in the forthcoming Queen's Speech would become law before the general election".

Laws take, on average, 240 days to pass through all stages. If Bottling Brown finally gives the public what they want and calls the election before going all the way to the wire, then time is even tighter.

Then strict election broadcasting laws kick in. Parliament grinds to a halt. The commons won't see MPs for dust as they scurry off to begin the election battle proper.

Tough times call for tough measures to tackle jobs and the recession, a decaying social culture and downright distrust of the political system. Instead an election gimmick is being used to sound out the public mood, shore up the struggling Supreme Leader's precarious position and try to wrong-foot the opposition.

Mention parliament to voters and only one thing springs to mind - the disgrace of the MPs' expenses scandal.

Clegg has called for the Queen's Speech to be cancelled and replaced with emergency reforms to "clean up politics".

Parliament could usefully use its time to clean up its act with a fresh start ready for voting day, instead of trying to water down Kelly with an MPs' expenses stitch up.

Using precious time to restore trust, sounds a pretty sensible idea. "The one gift this failed Parliament can give its successor is a fresh start," said Clegg.

Battling Brown has finally fired the election starting gun but it feels like the parties have been limbering up with an increasingly bitter campaign for donkey's years. A weary public is fed up with all the dithering and dilly-dallying.

Using a Queen's Speech as a party political tool ahead of an election isn't new. But this one smacks of party politicking like no other. Voters will see through another shameless New Labour smoke and mirrors sham. Using taxpayers cash to get some free publicity is a cheap stunt.

Using the speech as rearguard action to whip up flagging support from core voters in the vain hope of preventing total wipe-out is a dodgy way to dupe voters.

As Clegg said, it will serve as "little more than a rehearsal of the next Labour manifesto" and "an attempt to road test policy gimmicks".

The floundering ship is sinking fast in an ocean of failure and disaster. Half-baked unfunded policies are now the order of the day in a stagnant Whitehall. It's a sure sign of election time when U-turns come thick and fast.

Voters feel in their bones that it is time for a change. Beleaguered Brown has lost public confidence. Cameron is the PM in waiting. Isn't it about time the fag-end government showed the electorate some respect?

Instead ministers are left with little to do but dish out dollops of Brown sauce to an election battle weary public.

Top picture: Private Eye cover 1964. Mid picture: Private Eye

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Hollow 'Victory' For Team Brown

Team Brown is spinning a "resounding victory" at Glasgow NE, to prop up their lamentable leader. But the reality is bad news for Brown. Behind the hype lies record voter apathy.

A very different message from the spin has been sent to Westminster. Voters are deserting the Party in droves with two-thirds not bothering to vote.

With 'comfort', 'resounding' and 'victory' all in one sentence, the BBC proudly proclaimed: 'Labour has claimed a "resounding victory" after comfortably winning the Glasgow North East by-election and seeing off an SNP challenge'. The figures tell a different story.

If New Labour could not win in safe Glasgow NE they could not win anywhere. Resounding sure, resounding voter apathy is more accurate.

Out of 62,475 eligible voters the turnout was a pathetic 32.97%. Around 40,000 didn't bother, preferring to stay at home rather than stomach New Labour. A record low for a Scottish by-election and 12.8% down on the 2005 general election.

In the end, New Labour won Glasgow North East with a majority of 8,111. Only a third of those eligible cast their vote.

New Labour spinners are shouting from the rooftops they got sixty percent of the vote. They got sixty percent of a very low turnout.

Beleaguered Brown's future was riding on the outcome of yesterday's by-election, triggered after disgraced commons speaker Martin quit in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal.

Glasgow NE is rock solid Labour. Unite union cash was poured into the campaign. The Martin Mafia tried every trick in the book with a demolition job on the SNP candidate. Voters should have been be out in force.

Instead they stayed at home. Only around 15% of voters in a New Labour safe seat could be bothered to come out for them.

Of the votes, more than 6000 were postal votes, around one-tenth of eligible voters. A staggering 30 percent of actual votes cast. A shocking number of voters were registered to cast their ballot by post, highlighted yesterday by the Orange Party, more than double since the last general election, raising fears of election fraud.

Now the SNP has called on the Electoral Commission to investigate whether New Labour abused the postal vote system, after a sudden surge of 1,100 postal votes less than three days before the deadline.

Everyone and their dog had been in Glasgow banging the drum for Brown.

The struggling Supreme Leader even put his neck on the line with a final push for votes, writing a personal letter to 4000 households in a last minute blitz on wavering voters.

On voting day, New Labour swung into action mounting a huge get-out-the-vote campaign with more than 450 MPs and activists flooding the seat.

Glasgow NE was always about the general election and propping up Beleaguered Brown. All that was needed was a ringing endorsement for the struggling Supreme Leader.

Reading from a script prepared earlier by Downing Street, winning candidate Bain was well on message: "This is a resounding victory for Gordon Brown and Labour ... They have backed Gordon Brown in his efforts to secure our economic recovery."

Like heck. Voters preferred to stay at home rather than prop up New Labour. Voters who did bother have re-elected a Party that left their area to rot in one of the biggest deprived slums in Europe.

The result may put off Brown plotters ahead of the general election. But the Glasgow NE result was neither a Brown endorsement nor a New Labour dawn outside one safe seat.

The only crumb of 'comfort' for a fag-end government was it managed to hold on to a seat it was always destined to win anyway. Take that away and what is left is a very hollow victory indeed.

Top picture: New Labour 'victor' Willie Bain

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Watching A Wounded Dog Die

Beleaguered Brown's sparse news conferences should come with a government health warning. The struggling Supreme Leader was on the ropes with ropey replies to hungry hacks baying for blood.

Opening salvos about that "letter" showed no signs of abating, carried over the usual 24 hour news cycle. No wonder spinners are spooked. A sorry spectacle signalling the dying days of a fag-end government.

Brown's personality once again has become the story, despite New Labour lackeys trying it on with a sympathy card and attacks on the Sun. Whipping up pity does not win votes.

First Mandy then Brown mouthpiece Whelan have been wheeled out to call all the kettles black, pushing the line that Brown is being unfairly 'smeared' by an election mode Sun.

Instead of shutting down a damaging story, Brown floundered without answers which would appease a public firmly on the side of a mum who has lost her soldier son.

The Sun's transcript of Brown's phone call to an angry and distressed Jacqui Janes shows a woman genuinely insulted by the letter and concerned over the lack of equipment for troops. And that makes a mockery of all the political fancy talk of "listening to the people".

The Orange Party said yesterday - the only view that counts is that of a grieving mum. Not the Sun nor a Downing Street dirty ops brigade trying to flood newspaper comments pages with the 'line to take'.

The pressure at Bunkered Brown's news conference - the only one in four months - was relentless. Afghanistan and mixed messages over 'mission' creep showed up the woeful lack of a compelling case for war and the presence of troops in the Afghan killing fields.

Is Kelly being stitched up over MPs' expenses? A vulnerable UK AAA credit rating? Unchecked immigration? Water off a duck's back. Buried deep was a question on a Downing Street petition calling for Brown's resignation. Buried somewhere was a significant policy announcement over the NHS.

A Party which cannot get a policy message across is doomed to failure. Shallow, insincere Blair could play the crowds, deal with a hostile press and capture a public mood.

The party game of will the Party dump Brown raised its predictable head, with Miliband’s apparent decision not to be seen as a rat deserting a sinking ship for Brussels.

Some have intimated Miliband made the decision over the EU foreign minister job all on his lonesome for the sake of his family. What rot. He'd jump at the job given half a chance. Both PMs call the shots here. For whatever reason decided in smoke-free rooms, Bananaboy is tied to Pussycat Peter's apron strings and at the PMs' beck and call.

Does that mean Mandy will finally cast off Brown like an old boot and make his move with a Miliband? And is Boney Blair still in with a chance as president of the EUSSR?

Whether it's the 'letter', Afghanistan, the economy or another fine mess, these are all messes of Liability Brown's own making. A man convinced of his own rectitude, bent on screwing up the country before the new lot get their feet under the table.

As Oborne pleaded: You may be doomed Mr Brown but stop dragging us down too:

"Gordon Brown's only motivation in office now seems to be to try to guarantee that Britain is ungovernable if Cameron wins power. Not only is this tactic reckless and shameful, it means that the British people will pay a devastatingly high price for the last six months of Brown's profligate government."

Watching a wounded dog die is not a pretty sight. Someone must put him and the country out of their misery. The questions remain: who, what, where, when, how? Or maybe why bother, when the old dog of a New Labour project has reached the end of its life.

Mid picture: Sun front page

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Lousy Jobs 'Promise' For Lost Generation

The general election season has kicked off with a lousy government jobs promise which doesn't add up. Real jobs have become job "opportunities" to spin the numbers and fiddle the dole figures.

Brown's 'Backing Young Britain' in Birmingham has a shallow ring to it. All part of the election fightback, where once again young people desperate for jobs are lulled into a false sense of security in a numbers game.

The government is pledging 85,000 "opportunities" to help get young people into work. 45,000 young people will be "helped" to find jobs in retail, tourism, leisure and hospitality.

'Opportunities' and 'help' are hardly real jobs created in a real world. It's a sham.

The figures are part of a pledge from big business eager to prop up the New Labour feel good factor and mask the ravages of deep recession depression.

Numbers includes a pledge by retailer Morrisons to give extra "training" to its under 25s. There are "opportunities" galore, including apprenticeships with companies such as Centrica, Carillion and Royal Mail. In fact more than 150 employers, including Microsoft and Pfizer, are said to be supporting the Backing Young Britain campaign.

What is the point of adding up pointless promises when at the end of the day profits will be put before people?

Sure as eggs is eggs, the announcements come with all the trimmings. Plans to help young people with training and employment are part of a £5 billion investment. £1 billion will be spent on the Backing Young Britain campaign to create 100,000 new jobs for young people and a further 50,000 jobs in "unemployment hotspots".

But what is needed are real jobs in a real economy, not half-baked worthless non jobs in a rerun of the bad old days of the shabby 'New Deal' where youngsters were just moved off benefits onto 'training' and ubiquitous 'work experience' to keep down the youth unemployment figures.

Those meaningless programmes did very little to help young people get meaningful work or meaningful qualifications.

Official figures reveal the jobless rate among 16 to 24-year-olds has soared to a staggering 20%. The current 920,000 classed as unemployed is likely to top the one million mark, bringing with it problems of crime and downright disillusionment.

Youngsters are bearing the brunt of the rising tide of unemployment, which increased to 2.4 million last month. 3 million people have not had a job since New Labour came to power over a decade ago. A further 2 million have never worked.

A whole generation is set to be lost to rising youth unemployment. Unions and businesses groups are urging ministers to do more to help jobless youngsters.

Double counting taxpayers cash already promised and spinning 'opportunities and help' as real jobs is not the answer.

As the election draws nigh, a desperate Brown is trying to persuade voters to doff their caps in gratitude to a government which is claiming to have got the public through the worst of it. But opinion polls show voters are not taken in by the hype.

The Lockerbie storm has laid bare New Labour lies and deceit. A PM who cannot be trusted with the truth over Lockerbie cannot be trusted with the economy or the future of young people desperate for real jobs in a real world.

Bottom Picture: Brown Backing Young Britain in Birmingham

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Another Useless Booze Cruise Gimmick

'Booze Asbos' join a long list of useless gimmicks as a government drunk with power fails to get to grips with a problem of its own making. The New Labour booze cruise is viewing a rosy world through the bottom of a beer glass with the eyes of a drunk.

One top copper told the Guardian he and other colleagues were becoming increasingly fed up with government initiatives: "There's a never-ending series of announcements, and not one thing has changed."

Magistrates too have rubbished the Asbos. The orders duplicate existing laws and are unlikely to help solve problems caused by drunkenness.

Courts can now ban anyone from drinking in certain pubs and bars. Drunken troublemakers can be fined up to £2,500 under the 'booze Asbos'. Anyone slapped with an order will be sent on a useless "positive behaviour intervention course" (sic) costing offenders up to £250 a pop.

It's easy to blame boozers as they plunge into depths of despair and sink into oblivion. Throwing money at more "courses" and passing the buck back on magistrates is not the answer.

A failed New Labour booze project is at the heart of the country's out of control alcohol problem brought on by lax licensing laws coupled with easy access to cheap booze — all part of the shiny new New Labour brand.

Back in April, leading experts lined up to roundly condemn round-the-clock drinking and availability of cheap alcohol in supermarkets.

Royal College of Physicians president, Professor Ian Gilmore, told MPs he firmly blamed the government for the deteriorating situation, saying health department strategies on the one hand were useless when, with the other hand, the home office brought in 24-hour drinking laws.

Doctors and academics were desperate to tell MPs just how bad it is. The scary spectacle is all too familiar. Decent folk too scared to go out on the streets, police and ambulance crews struggling with the carnage and hospital staff at their wits end trying to cope.

Costly and useless 'education' initiatives have been miserable failures because no-one had the guts to speak out and the problem got out of hand. No-one was brave enough to challenge the false assumptions of relaxed licensing laws or cheap alcohol pricing and the devastating effects which were starting to show themselves.

To attack those policies was to attack the very heart of a misguided New Labour project. The devastating effects were brushed under the carpet as warning voices were branded part of a reactionary backlash to the wild and wonderful 'modernising' policies.

For the government, to admit failure would be to admit the failure of a central plank of policy. Instead the country was dragged down a slippery slope with hugely wasteful PR education campaigns.

A message on a bottle to 'drink responsibly' does not make a blind bit of difference to someone blind drunk. Only an outright ban of advertising, marketing and sponsorship would have results.

MPs were told cut-price supermarket booze is at the heart of the problem leading to the surge in binge drinking, sparking a trend for young people to drink cheap alcohol at home before heading to bars and pubs.

Crime and disorder linked to alcohol cost the UK billions of pounds every year. Not surprisingly, the new 'Asbos' are backed by the booze industry with ministers happy to pay lip service as they rake in fat profits out of people's misery.

For a government using the price of alcohol as a tool for stealth taxes and firmly in the pockets of the drinks and supermarket industries and powerful lobbies, realistic solutions are hard to stomach.

Alcohol sales should be restricted to stand-alone licensed premises for the over 18s, quite separate from the supermarkets with a return to the "off-licence" and public house as the only alcohol outlets.

Central to any cultural change would be a reversal of the relaxed 24 hour drinking laws brought in to try to copy a Mediterranean wine drinking culture on a cold, wind swept island in northern Europe.

Martin Plant, professor of addiction studies at the University of the west of England, didn't pull any punches when he told MPs: "Supermarkets at the moment are displaying the morality of the crack dealer. What they are doing is completely irresponsible. Cheap alcohol kills people."

Wishy-washy measures won't tackle the booze culture. It is the duty of a responsible government to bring in controls which reflect the prevailing mood of public opinion. But realistic and responsible solutions have been roundly condemned as retrograde.

The disgusting spectacle of binge drinking affects everyone. Booze is one of Huxley's "chemical crutches" which people turn to in times of desolation and despair. From the gin places of Hogarth to the current sad and destructive spectacle seen on the streets night after night.

Civil liberties group, Liberty, has dismissed the booze Asbos as a 'gimmick' that fail to get to the root cause of the problem. Policy director, Isabella Sankey, said: "How many times can you spin a new 'crackdown' without tackling the causes of offending behaviour?

"It will be jelly bean Asbos for sugared-up kids next. Surely its time to call last orders on endless new legislation."

Over the last decade, government policy has led to an increase in binge drinking and the booze culture. The Orange Party doesn't blame the boozers. It blames those at Westminster who hoodwinked the public and sailed off into the sunset on their barmy booze cruise.

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What's New Pussycat?

Peter the Pussycat is due to arrive back in dear old Blighty to take a firm hand on the tiller of the sinking ship after swanning around with his uber-rich pals in the Med while running the country on his BlackBerry. With a decade of spin and illusion set to go down the pan, it's now all down to unelected Mandy to carry the torch for the dying New Labour brand.

What's new pussycat? It's a sure sign of the silly season when Guardian readers have to suffer a carefully placed puff for Peter as he takes a leaf from Brucie's book to proclaim: "I'm in charge".

Baring all to Decca Aitkenhead, the other Supreme Leader tells how he used to be the "hard man" of New Labour but now "I'm just a pussycat."

New Labour was Mandy's baby. He's not going to let it die without a fight. If that requires a makeover from hard man to kindly pussycat, so be it.

Nothing is placed in the press by Peter without a purpose. The latest spin is just part of the new manipulation strategy to paint the New Labour gang as underdogs in the run up to the general election.

Given the chance of a taste of power, New Labour types always return to type. McCavity Brown is holed up plotting away. Have-a-go Hattie got stuck into the Seventies banging on about women's rights. Now it's the turn of powerful Pierre weaving the magic wand of illusion.

The Orange Party well remembers the deep red rose slowly turning into a more user-friendly lighter shade - a telling and ominous sign of the 'all style and no substance' which has been a hallmark of the last decade.

A hijacked Party was kept going by the superb showmanship of Blair, sinister spin of Campbell, shifty skulduggery of Mandelson and political strategy of Gould.

On the side-lines was deluded Brown, propping up the project with some crafty accounting. He hasn't back stabbed, bullied, smeared and plotted to fulfil his dream of being an elected PM just to let Cameron snatch it all away from him. But the New Labour project is much bigger than Brown. He's expendable. And Mandy will do what it takes.

So it's now down to manipulating Mandy who seemed intent on proving to Guardian readers how much he's changed since he was Blair's "very hard-nosed, uncompromising hard man - sometimes the hit man."

"I think probably the nicest thing I've experienced slightly in contrast to my previous time in government ­ is how warmly my Cabinet colleagues have embraced me." Pull the other one, Peter.

He really should get out more instead of lording it up with the rich kids. But then that's the beauty of pulling a masterstroke and worming your way into an unelected and unaccountable position of power. There are no irritating voters to bother about. No nasty local constituency party. In fact no one to stop you swanning around playing at Mr Big. Nice work if you can get it.

But before Mandy gets completely carried away with his new pussycat persona, the Orange Party would sound a word of caution. Not everyone in the Labour Party loves you, Peter. In fact most would be happy to spit on your grave.

The fag-end government with Brand Brown floundering away is a discredited laughing stock. But to be fair to poor Peter there really isn't anyone with the brains, skill, charm and downright political cunning to carry forward the torch of the New Labour brand.

But the New Labour parrot isn't just resting. It's downright dead. The FT reports how even New Labour MPs have given up the ghost and are not putting themselves forward as a ministerial bag-carrying PPS.

After what seems like a lifetime, voters have finally woken up to the con and won't be taken in by any more spin and hype. Exposed and standing stark naked, soon New Labour will be just a sad and embarrassing footnote in history with an economic and morally bankrupt country as its legacy.

The Labour Party may have died with John Smith but the Orange Party is still clinging to the belief that somewhere buried in the bullshit is a true Labour Party bursting to get out. But it will take the wake up call of a landslide Tory election victory for the Party to finally wake up and see sense.

What is certain is that a leopard cannot change its spots and born again Peter the Pussycat won't be invited to that Party.

Bottom picture: Private Eye

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You Can Do It Gord, Just Walk Away

Battered, bruised and bullet-ridden, a forlorn Brown has opened his heart to Guardian readers saying he could "walk away from office" tomorrow. So why doesn't he?

Admitting he's been "hurt" by personal attacks on him, redacted Brown plays the sympathy card but in politics, crocodile tears rarely work. The public can see through the sham.

There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who say they're going to do something, those who just get on with it. And those who are so bunkered, blinkered and deluded with their own self-serving sense of importance they can never see the truth even if it jumps up and slaps them around the face.

So into which category does the struggling Supreme Leader fit?

In an effort to capture the media high ground, Brown today has a stab at making his case in the Guardian, the very newspaper which not so long ago came out and called for his head.

Skilfully designed to keep their man in the public spotlight and sway opinion polls, Brown actually argues the case for stepping down rather than stepping up to the mark.

Casting coups to the wind, Brown admitted flaws in his leadership, particularly how he presented himself to the public.

"I'm not as great a presenter of information or communicator as I would like to be," said YouTube Brown, adding that he is not skilled at political manoeuvring. But that's a joke. It's the one skill he does have which will be his political downfall.

At a stroke this gets to the heart of the problem facing the Party. Voters are turning to the Tories exactly because Silly Billy Brown is the leader of a fag-end government and a discredited New Labour brand with all the smug arrogance that comes with being in office for far too long.

Dismissing the recent coup attempt by Blairite ministers and backbenchers shows up a mind more interested in petty party politics rather than having the good of the country and the Party at heart.

The threat from the Blairites was a smokescreen and Team Brown know it. Without the overt support of their man Blair it could never succeed.

According to Oborne the deal has been struck between Cameron and Blair: Dave wouldn't stand in the way of Tony's quest to be EU president - if Tony promises to keep his nose out of Brown politics and give the Tories a clear run.

But the threat to the Brown camp is there. It is real. It comes from true Labour Party backbenchers who ducked out of the coup attempt in the misguided belief they could change both Brown and policy from within. Now reality could set in at September's Labour leaving Party conference.

Brown just doesn't get it and never will. He's stuck in the past. Way back to the days of John Smith. But times have changed and so too what is expected of a political leader in the new dawn of a very politically savvy public.

A political party needs someone at the front who's got a bit of personality, a bit of charisma and someone who's language connects with ordinary people.

Blair showed how it could be done. Obama followed and Cameron is having a stab at it. That's why heir-to-Blair Cameron will succeed where Brown never can.

How back-seat Brown must hate Dave's Blairish charm. Someone with the very qualities he despised in Blair now showing themselves in Cameron. Someone who has the very gift he so clearly lacks.

The danger comes when the language is exposed as a sham of empty hollow words, a shaman with a messianic message. Only fooling some of the people some of the time. For Brown, without trust, hope fades away, without charm, rhetoric bores the pants off people.

The real tragedy of Brown is it's all a con. Brown is personality driven. Bringing back Lordy Mandy, celebrity goats like Surrallan Sugar and now his own Campbell style spin doctor in the shape of suave Simon Lewis.

Amazingly the Mandy line is developed with gusto for Guardianistas. Apparently the Labour Party had "finally come round" to Mandelson, with Brown adding that he felt "there's a great affection for him now" (sic).

There's a "common purpose" (more sic) between Mandy and Billy no mates Brown apparently, oblivious to the harsh reality of life that Mandy is propping him up but only while it suits him.

When the price is right, he'll cast him off like an old sock.

Meanwhile the long-suffering public are left having to put up with all the clap-trap for months to come. Nothing but spin and hype in a phoney election war.

Revealing the three pronged election strategy - success in handling the economy, tackling MPs' expenses and nasty Tory cuts - all three claims are riddled with lies and deceit.

Sadly the poor prime minister said he found it hard to focus on strategic planning "as you have to deal with immediate events, like if a bank's going to go under". But isn't that what voters expect from a leader?

So that's it. A world-weary Brown. A prime minister who would rather hide away in the bunker, plotting how to wrong foot his opponents rather than deal with life's little irritants - the very irritants which have a real effect on real people in the real world.

Totally lacking the ability to inspire, Brown's tragedy is that you cannot teach an old dog news tricks. Just walking away with some dignity now would give him some respect. The Party and the country would breath a collective sigh of relief.

But will he do it? Will he heck. Busy, busy, busy plotting and penning political suicide notes as deluded Brown tries to get back in Guardian readers' good books.

Top picture: Guardian (redacted). Mid picture: Mail

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