Have You Blood On Your Hands, Mr Campbell?

Blair's shameless spin doctor-in-chief, Campbell, has become the story once again, savaged by dead sheep at the Chilcot Iraq war whitewash run by Brown's placemen. Will he put his neck on the line or finger his old pal Blair for taking the country to war on the back of a pack of lies? No chance.

Will any of Brown's cronies have the guts to ask searching, forensic questions? Campbell is bound to back up the Blair line. Playing cat 'n mouse with Chilcot will be a pushover.

Wasting no time, the arrogant old bruiser has already fingered Blair's old foe Brown as a key player in the "inner circle" of disastrous decision-making.

TV highlight of the week is the surly spinmeister's appearance at the Chilcot sheep dog trials not under oath and his hand in beefing up both the 'sexed-up' and 'dodgy' dossiers.

Second only to warmongering Blair, Campbell is the big bogeyman close to the heart of decisions to dupe the public and parliament with an illegal war.

WMDs, sexed-up and dodgy dossiers at dawn but Campbell is a dab hand at Iraq inquiries and can make mincemeat out of Chilcot.

Campbell has already wriggled his way around a commons foreign affairs select committee inquiry, the intelligence & security committee’s investigation et Al. There's no reason to believe Chilcot will be any different.

Downing Street’s ex-director of communications and strategy was made a disgraceful laughing stock with his hand in the 'sexed up' intelligence of the 2002 September dossier and Blair's forward, presented as 'beyond doubt' that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, ready for use within 45 minutes.

The disgrace of the second 'dodgy' dossier in February 2003, revealed by Channel 4 News, which plagiarised an old graduate student thesis cut and pasted from the internet to make it more scary, was used to promote the dodgy case for war.

And it was Campbell again at the centre of the outing of government WMD expert and whistle-blower Kelly, who died under mysterious circumstances after he dared to tell the truth about the WMD claim.

But the Orange Party has a feeling the outrage over Campbell's part in the hounding of Kelly before his death may be ruled outside the inquiry remit, already covered by the disgrace of the Hutton inquiry whitewash.

The exposure of Campbell’s dirty tricks began on BBC Radio 4 at 06:07 on 29th May 2003 when BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan spilled the beans to bleary eyed listeners over the 'sexed up' dossier, later pointing the finger at Campbell.

Heads rolled as war broke out between the BBC and Downing Street, ending with the death of Gilligan’s source, Kelly, who had dared to use the "C" word.

The shame and scandal continues to this day, seven years and hundreds of thousands of lives lost later.

Blair has been left to wander the world with his ill-gotten gains with blood on his hands and guilt on his shoulders. Campbell still has his feet under the Downing Street table but without the power Blair gave him to call the shots over civil servants.

The excellent Channel 4 Iraq inquiry blog has a few hard-hitting questions for Campbell, urging twitter users to ask their own. One of the Orange Party's favourites: how do you sleep at night?

As the dust settles, the old Tucker will still be In the Loop, destined to become a disgraceful footnote in a scandalous and shameful episode of New Labour history.

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Fearless Field Fields Frank Flanker

Unofficial minister for the poor and pain in Brown's backside, Fearless Field, has ruffled a few feathers appearing alongside Dave at a Tory election event.

New Labour cronies will come to regret the day they cast off Field like an old boot.

Field is one of the few Labour politicians, the Orange Party has time for and not just because he's been a thorn in Blair and now Brown's side ever since the Party was hijacked by the New Labour elite.

The former welfare minister and one of the government's most vocal critics is famous for being well, frank. But then Field has never been one to go with the New Labour flow. One of the few politicians at Westminster willing to stick his neck out and speak the unspeakable.

Now Field has done the unmentionable by appearing alongside Cameron at an election event.

Making a guest appearance with Tories is not the way to win friends and influence people as ructions continue over the struggling Supreme Leader's lamentable leadership.

Cameron heaped praise on Field according to The Times, and told the audience that Tory ideas, including those of Iain Duncan Smith, were built on foundations laid down by Field.

Field has long argued the welfare state should be more than a money-redistribution system, drawing the link between family breakdown and 'more instability, more crime, greater pressure on housing and social benefits'.

Sadly you can count the number of politicians like Field on one finger. If only there were more people like him in Parliament.

Field's work in the area of welfare and poverty elimination are well known and well respected but always at odds with New Labour.

Fearless Frank was famously asked to "think the unthinkable" by Blair. When he did and put forward a raft of sensible welfare reforms, Field was shot down in flames because they were just not vote-winners.

How New Labour must regret that they didn't take up his ideas when they had the chance.

Field is a rare breed of politician putting his principles before party dogma and the party whip. So unlike the self serving arrogance of the new breed of politician which infects Westminster.

Last June, Field blogged that he believed the Party would not win the election with Brown as leader, floored Brown in the 10p tax revolt and was one of the few Labour MPs to publicly back Hoon and Hewitt's calls for a secret leadership ballot of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Lately he popped up as part of a cross-party group of around 20 MPs and peers backing a campaign calling for curbs on immigration. At the heart is Field's long held view that unless restricted, current immigration rates will impact on public services and quality of life.

Field's crime and what makes him unpopular with some New Labour MPs is that he dares to criticise the government. Good on him.

A grammar school boy and graduate of a top red-brick university rather than one of the posh school educated and Oxford elite in a privileged position of power.

A man after the Orange Party's own heart with his heart in the right place.

Top picture: The Times

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Pharma Firms' Fake Swine Flu Scam

A fake swine flu scare was flammed up to line the pockets of drug firms leaving taxpayers with a £1.2 billion bill and 132 million doses of unwanted vaccine. Now an investigation demanded by Euro health chiefs is underway as the swine flu scam is set to reach epidemic proportions.

A mere six months ago and the country was gripped by swine flu fever, the world on the brink of a global disaster and ministers milking it for all it's worth. A dose of swine flu was just what spin doctors ordered.

Now the Council of Europe is accusing several major drug firms of deliberately flamming up a 'false pandemic' so they could make a fortune selling vaccine.

Useless health secretary Burnham is in The Thick Of It* but can hide behind a cherry-picked bunch of 'advisors'.

With fears over swine flu reaching fever pitch, Burnham and his chief medical officer crony, Donaldson, gravely predicted 100,000 new cases a week and up to 65,000 deaths, branding anyone who dared to disagree "extremists".

Ominously the Council's health chief says firms planted 'their people' in the World Health Organisation and other influential organisations to spread alarm.

The Orange Party never believed this swine flu fever was kosher.

There's nothing like a global disaster of epic proportions to whip up a media frenzy and bury bad news and this was nothing like a global disaster.

Thoroughly pig sick of the swine flu hype and as noted at the time: "Whipping up a fake crisis does wonders for pharma firms profits, set to make a packet out of anti swine flu vaccines."

Shock news of 'deaths from swine flu' was far too simplistic. How could a death be directly attributed to swine flu and not an underlying medical condition? Swine flu hot lines were swamped with spikes coming predictably on miserable Mondays and an excuse to bunk off work.

Over-hyped and way over the top, the BBC proclaimed: 'Too late' to contain swine flu. "The deadly swine flu virus can no longer be contained, says a WHO official, as the health agency raises its alert level."

All scary stuff. But swine flu has turned out to be a damp squib and soggy handkerchief, milder than seasonal flu and the usual winter bugs.

The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare, claims Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, accusing the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.

Wodarg has branded the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century'. "We have had a mild flu," he said, "and a false pandemic."

Ominously Dr Wodarg also claims that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed 'their people' in the 'cogs' of the WHO and other influential organisations: "In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide."

Last year, the Mail revealed that government swine flu adviser, Roy Anderson, also holds a £116,000-a-year post on the board of GlaxoSmithKline, maker of anti-flu drugs and vaccines.

The Mail reports the company, which still employs Anderson, said he had declared his commercial interests and had not attended any meetings related to the purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the government or GSK.

The country’s most senior doctor, chief medical officer Donaldson, unexpectedly quit last month, stepping down two years too late according to junior doctors amid accusations of an over-reaction to swine flu and being too close to government.

The swine flu scam has left Burnham sitting on more than £1 billion of unwanted vaccine with enough stockpiles of anti-viral drugs and cute face masks to set a new fashion trend and pharma firms laughing all the way to the flu vaccine bank.

*The Thick Of It, series 2 episode three: Hapless minister Hugh Abbot gets in a pickle over a hand-picked advisor.

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Battered Brown's "Savaged" Sunday

Billy-no-mates Brown's bad election hair day continues a pace with bitter foes crawling out of the woodwork in the wake of the botched-up 'curry house plot'. The wounded dog is being "savaged" from all sides but refuses to lie down and die. Week one started with a whimper and ended with a bang. Seconds are out - round two.

Round one of the foggy phoney election war went to freshly scrubbed-up and airbrushed Cuddy Cameron but shouldn't have. Daft Dave's mix up over marriage tax was a muddled mess.

With delicious irony, Team Cameron has Mandy, Hoon and Hewitt to thank for the struggling Supreme Leader now hostage to his own cabinet. Plotters have nothing to lose, spilling the beans with every twist and turn.

Downing Street's line to come out fighting with a united front is as silly as Bunkered Brown's feeble attempt to dismiss the plot as "silliness' in today's News of the Screws and his rallying call on Monday to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Every political journalist worth his salt was working their contacts book to get the background on the botched up coup bid.

Beeb Robinson blew the gaffe on lily-livered cabinet ministers' last minute back down, confirming early on there was more to this than a couple of bitter old Blairites.

As Oborne righty pointed out, H&H achieved mission impossible: "A dramatic and irreversible shift in the balance of power at the top of government."

The Orange Party surmised at the time, the coup bid had 'Pussycat Peter's pawprints all over it'.

Fed up and frustrated, Gordon 'is the only toy Mandy has left to play with', as Battered Brown and sidekick Balls' obsession with 'core voters' wrecked all the hard work put into his beloved New Labour project.

Downtrodden Darling couldn't get in fast enough like a ferret up Brown's trouser leg after deals were struck, gleefully warning in The Times that under New Labour the country now faces its toughest spending cuts in 20 years. Savaged by Darling with savage spending cuts, a sure fire vote winner, eh?

Dreadful Darling should be fronting a TV advert for confused.com. The tired old New Labour 'cuts' line has been up and down more times than Glenda Slagg's knickers.

All grist to the mill for fresh-faced Cameron looking comfy today on Marr's sofa, grasping the immigration nettle and promising faster and deeper cuts. Dave's a dab hand at kissing babies. And looks genuine. But then so did fresh-faced Blair.

The coup bid brought good news. Big Balls has been cut down to size and put back in his box along with his old class war election attack line. So last year and so misguided after the Gang of Four's successful 1997 political strategy of winning over vast swathes of Tory voters.

The silenced true Labour left are left to lick their wounds and resurface after election defeat without posh school educated Bully Boy Balls. But that is then. This is now.

Savaging continues with Blair's defence secretary and snow plot man Buff Hoon delivering a damning indictment on Bunkered Brown blocking vital helicopters for Iraq and Afghanistan. 'Hoon savages PM over Afghan war' screams The Sunday Times.

Hoon is set to be one of the first politicians to be savaged by a dead sheep at the Chilcot Iraq war whitewash. Would he really blame himself or finger his warmongering pal Blair?

Leaked letters reveal how, as chancellor, Brown repeatedly prevented Hoon from ordering life-saving battlefield equipment, paving the way for a new Vietnam but without the helicopters. Just another New Labour minister with 'blood on his hands'.

TV highlight of this week is Blair's surly spin doctor Campbell's appearance in front of the Chilcot sheep dog trials and his hand in the sexed up WMD dossier. A more mellow Campbell than when he bullied his way into Channel 4 News in the wake of the dodgy dossier scandal but he still knows where they live.

WMDs and dodgy dossiers at dawn with the old Tucker making mincemeat out of Chilcot. But the Orange Party has a sneaky feeling the outrage over Campbell's part in the outing of government scientist Kelly before his mysterious death may be ruled outside the inquiry remit.

Today ex-New Labour chief, Watt, bit off a bit more of Battered Brown with more explosive savaging. Soon there won't be anything left of Bitten Brown to savage.

Spilling more beans on Bottling Brown's 2007 election that never was, the former Labour Party general secretary rounded on the PM as "unfit for office" and "reducing Number 10 to a shambles".

A man with a big axe to grind, stabbed in the back over Donorgate, Abrahams and dodgy donations sure but politics is all about timing.

Watt’s bombshell comes just days after the bid to oust Beleaguered Brown and the outing of cabinet ministers behind the botched plot, fuelling further speculation over the vexed question: Is deluded Brown bonkers?

Meanwhile cash strapped New Labour continues to highjack the airwaves, with taxpayer funded blatant political propaganda dressed up as government 'information' as part of the sham to prop up a good news feel good factor.

But the Tories have got wind of the sham. Spending on biased and misleading bids to blow the trumpet for failed New Labour policies with backdoor electioneering now stands at a record £214m.

After community coppers and Balls' doomed diplomas, the public now has to suffer the con of £1m or so spent on the latest TV adverts with an all star line up of propaganda from the 'direct gov' website.

But the Tories are having it far too easy, sitting back and watching a party tear itself apart. Just as a searing light is shone on Cameron's Conservatives, up pops another fine mess of Brown's own making.

Is there any hope for long suffering, election weary voters stuck with watching a wounded dog die with an unelected lame duck PM of a fag-end government? The Sunday Times has thundered again an election must be called now to put the country out of its misery and end the plotting, bickering and petty political posturing.

With everyone and their dog savaging a lamentable leader, for cash rich Tories, things can only get better.

Top picture: Gerald Scarfe, Sunday Times. Mid picture: Private Eye cover

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Hattie's Driving Me Crazy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Back Him Or Sack Him

Beleaguered Brown's leadership is on the line with two ex-cabinet ministers calling on their MPs to back him or sack him. But will a secret ballot sort out the struggling Supreme Leader "once and for all"?

The leadership plot blows out of the water last ditch bids to shore up Liability Brown's paltry position.

The coup bid timing was amazing. Blair's old health secretary Hewitt and defence secretary Hoon texted New Labour MPs urging a ballot while Bunkered Brown was still on his feet at PMQs.

The first couple of weeks in January were always the most dangerous time for the struggling Supreme Leader. No cabinet minister or crony has the guts to call for the PM's head, so it's down to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Labour loyalist, Barry Sheerman, delivered a Christmas cracker over the break, summing up the mood of the Party and repeating his call for Bunkered Brown to quit.

Time is tight but with an election still officially months away, plotters could install a Blair prop and still fight the election to the carefully planned timetable grid.

With Mandy pulling the strings, Banana Boy Miliband or the Tories worst nightmare of 'Turnabout' Johnson could even pick up a few postal votes.

Cash-strapped New Labour goes into the campaign with the lead weight of Billy-no-mates Brown around their necks dragging them down, with only cabinet couple Balls and Cooper for comfort.

Rumours had been swirling around Westminster on Tuesday that a cabinet minister was on the brink of quitting. Fingered Jowell was forced out of the woodwork to dismiss rumours as "utter rubbish".

As always, Mandy holds the key to Brown's future. Did the H&H letter have Pussycat Peter's pawprints on it?

Significantly Mandy came out of hiding on the very day the leadership rumours started, after spending the Christmas break sulking, dismissing talk of a plot as "pure journalistic invention". So it must have been true then.

Now will Mandy stamp hard on the plotters and try to rally the waiverers like he did last year, wield the knife or simply sit back and watch the coup bid unfold?

The leadership letter, unheard of so close to a general election, fell to bitter Blairites Hewitt and Hoon. Both have Brown axes to grind. Hewitt was Blair's health secretary and left after Brown's successful plot to boot out Blair. Hoon was Blair's defence secretary, passed over for a top EU job by Brown.

There is already speculation that Hoon and Hewitt wacked off the letter as part of a plan to force big beasts like Darling, Mandelson or Straw to force out Brown.

But so far calls for a secret ballot has been backed by only the usual suspects of former education secretary Clarke and former welfare minister Field - neither of them the PM's bosom buddies.

Forget the small fry. Which cabinet ministers will rally to Brown's side, how long will they dither and who will be noticeable by their absence?

The H&H letter contains a glaring admission of a Party in disarray: "As we move towards a General Election it remains the case that the Parliamentary Labour Party is deeply divided over the question of the leadership ... The continued speculation and uncertainty is allowing our opponents to portray us as dispirited and disunited."

Battered Brown looks set to weather the storm and cling on until the bitter end. But a failed coup bid leaves a wretched Party deeply divided with a PM hostage to his own cabinet.

Downing Street will be busy hatching cunning plans to come out fighting with a 'united' front.

But an unelected leader who cannot command the unswerving support of all his parliamentary MPs and ministers in the run up to a general election confirms what voters already know. A Party 'dispirited and disunited' with a lame duck prime minister of a fag-end government.

As the Tories sit back and watch the New Labour sport of tearing itself apart, Cameron's campaign slogan springs to mind: We can't go on like this.

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