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

Read More...

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. 

Read More...

Will The Queen Be Left Speechless?

The Queen's Speech looks set to be written on the back of a fag packet as Downing Street continues to strip out unpopular vote-losing bills or anything that could cause a commons confrontation. Though a Greengate confrontation could be just what is on the cards, as MPs gather on Wednesday. 

Downing Street has described Wednesday's Queen's Speech as "work in progress", though "spin in progress" would be more appropriate in these heady days of Mandelson management. 

The forthcoming legislation is a pale shadow of measures Brown announced earlier this year in his Queen's Speech by proxy. 

That draft, unveiled in the spring, surprised many with a detailed list of at least 18 bills, covering everything from reforms to hospitals, schools, police and welfare.

Slowly it seems unpopular legislation has been shelved or watered down and amalgamated in other legislation.

One of the earlier casualties was the Big Brother surveillance in the Communications Data Bill, to hold details of all phone calls, emails and internet visits.

The latest casualty, on the orders of business secretary, Lord 'call him Moses' Mandleson, according to reports, is to drop plans for more draconian anti-smoking measures with more restrictions on the sale of cigarettes and packet advertising. 

Not content with closing down our cherished pubs with a smoking ban, the new tougher anti-smoking measures would have marked the end of the corner shop. Another example of using 'sin' as an excuse for political and social control. 

The Orange Party believes a stripped down Queen's Speech, which sets out the government’s proposed legislation up to a June 2010 general election date, is the latest sign an early election is on the cards, despite efforts of New Labour and its supporters to dampen down speculation. 

The new list of bills before Parliament is being spun as a way to put more emphasis on efforts to help the economy. In reality it cuts down commons time to allow ministers to hit the campaign trail and get across its political message. 

After the shambles of the pre-leaked pre-budget Budget, the government has been forced to rethink its strategy, though what will eventually be in the Queen's Speech may have to wait until details are leaked for political advantage.

As the outrage over Greengate shows no signs of abating, speaker, Michael Martin is expected to come under fire on Wednesday, with MPs demanding he explains his actions at the start of the Queen’s Speech debate.

The Tory leader has called on the prime minister to at least show some concern, let alone outrage or condemnation. Both the prime minister and home secretary are refusing to apologise.

The role of the speaker has been brought into focus, with the vexed question of who allowed the political police, as servants of the Crown, to enter and search the MP's office, in the sacrosanct precincts of the Palace of Westminster. 

With comparisons made today to US president Nixon's ruthless and illegal pursuit of political opponents, the issue now centres on the Watergate adage - what did ministers know and when did they know it?

Private Eye cover: October 1964, The Queen reads speech for Wilson's first Labour government.

Read More...