IT Waste Tastes Of Snake-Oil

Billions of pounds have been squandered on New Labour's love affair with big expensive IT projects, as gullible ministers were taken in by slick IT salesmen. Now the wheels have fallen off a decade of disaster after taxpayers cash on doomed projects was thrown down the drain.

The white heat of information technology was too hot to handle as ministers stood by and watched IT projects crash and burn, throwing good money after bad to prop up a decade of incompetence.

Time and again the chickens came home to roost, as many of the big IT projects ending up as embarrassing financial fiascos.

Mesmerised ministers were happy to be strung along by slick IT salesman and consultants who promised the earth and delivered nothing. Maybe hoodwinked New Labour liked spending billions of pounds of our cash to make them feel important.

The Independent makes a splash today exposing the £26 billion IT waste with a catalogue of botched projects. Along with a plea to save the whale. Botched IT projects have left taxpayers with an almighty bill for computer systems that have suffered severe delays, run millions of pounds over budget or have been cancelled altogether, reports The independent.

IT consultants have been able to milk the system dry and make a fortune, as off-the-shelf systems were abandoned for bespoke solutions - taking twice as long and twice as expensive.

Nice work if you can get it. Creaming off a fortune and stuffing the place with 'warm bodies' whose job was to keep projects going for as long as possible. Yet banks, supermarkets and stores never seemed to be beset with the same problems as the public sector.

Whitehall is littered with the debris of doomed IT projects. The Orange Party has lost count of the number of times it has highlighted the shambles from way back in May 2008. Taking the lead from vociferous Craig's 'Plundering the public sector' and 'Squandered' with special reports from Private Eye.

The frustrated public accounts committee had actually run out of words to describe the mess.

The Independent has complied a shocking list of New Labour's IT spending spree. From the ill-fated farms subsidies scheme, costing the DEFRA about £350m and leaving farmers more than £1 billion out of pocket. Through to the MoD's defence information infrastructure project, currently running more than £180m over budget, 18 months late and set to cost £7.1 billion.

But the big daddy of all disasters is the NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer, flagged up by the Orange Party and others as one the most shameful examples of how the government has squandered away public cash.

The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world, costing a staggering £12.7 billion, is years behind schedule. Yet ministers steadfastly squandered billions on the useless NHS white-elephant.

Both the Tories and Labour's Left have seized on the project as another example of government waste and have called for the whole project to be scrapped. Minister's attempts to "ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system" have come "crashing down around their ears".

Tax-payers' cash has gone down the drain and into the pockets of IT consultants, leaving doctors and hospital chiefs trying to get to grips with an unworkable IT system, filthy wards and a third rate service from debt ridden hospitals forced to pay off crippling PFI loans.

But the government was happy to write blank cheques for these enormous disasters, as time and again the commons spending watchdog warned of delays after delays, describing projects as "fundamentally flawed" and blaming ministers for "stupendous incompetence" in managing them.

The Independent has found that the total cost of New Labour's 10 most notorious IT failures is equivalent to more than half of the budget for the country's schools last year.

Ministers have been responsible for presiding over one expensive IT disaster after another and blamed for 'stupendous incompetence'. Taxpayers are left with huge bills for bungled projects. Another fine mess of New Labour's own making. What have ministers got to show for years of wasting taxpayers cash? As the Orange Party has said before and The Independent says today: Egg on their faces and a very expensive bottle of snake oil.

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It's Grim Up North And In Brown's Bunker

It will be grim up North for years to come as cities limp out of recession. And the country faces a "decade of pain" after years of Borrowing Brown's spending binge. A phoney election war is being waged while the country goes down the pan.

The gulf between rich and poor cities is set to widen. The struggling North may even face a second crippling blow to recovery, warns think tank Centre for Cities, which points to the widening economic gap between the haves and the have nots.

Nowhere is this highlighted more than in a tale of two cities, with Bath and Hull (opposite) shown up starkly by the Independent as among the best and worst.

Hull - home to heroin, home secretary Johnson, fish and chips and Prescott. Bath - with cool spas, good transport links, a strong private business base and a well-fed, well-educated, middle-class elite.

It's hell in Hull and grim in Grimsby. Cities and towns, including Barnsley, Doncaster and Stoke have seen a drastic jump in unemployment. It will take years before jobs return to pre-depression levels.

The gap between unemployment in Labour's industrial hearlands and the wealthier South has already more than doubled in a year. Soaring from 4.8 to 8.4 per cent in Hull - but only from 1.4 to 2.1 per cent in Cambridge.

The outlook is grim for youngsters on the wrong side of the divide. Figures out this week are set to show unemployment topping 2.5million - with nearly a million 16 to 24-year-olds on the dole. The grim survey is more grim evidence of the grim economic devastation caused by Borrowing Brown's grim recession. Grim cities hit hardest were already suffering before struck down by savage recession.

Private sector jobs have been slashed after the 'boom' years' growth propped up by ballooning debt, relying now on the sham of public sector non-jobs. Cities are paying a high price for a decade of New Labour's failure and incompetence with young people bearing the brunt.

Recovery will be long and hard. Without a surgical strategy, there is no end in sight for this painful tale of two types of city.

Centre for Cities chief executive, Dermot Finch, said: "Figures this month will likely show the recession is technically over - but it won't feel like that in many places for a long time."

Back in the 'Barmy' Bunker, the country faces a "decade of pain" as the cost of Borrowing Brown's spending spree stifles economic recovery, warns leading economic forecaster Ernst & Young ITEM Club. Growth this year and next would be far lower than government forecasts. And they claimed massive debts mean the country faces a decade of "painful readjustment" as taxes rise and public spending is slashed.

Chief economic adviser, Peter Spencer, said: "We are no longer in a position to borrow - the massive debts that we racked up in the last decade now need to be repaid."

Official figures due later this month may well confirm the country pulled out of recession in the final months of 2009 but ITEM put this down to emergency measures such as the 'cash-for-bangers' scrappage scheme which have propped up spending.

No doubt the government will make a song and dance with the boast that the country is coming out of recession depression. But that's nowhere near recovery with little growth in what will be a "challenging year" ahead, notes Bloomberg.

"Once the effects of these temporary stimuli have worn off, it is difficult to see where the growth is going to come from in the short-term," said Spencer.

The Orange Party has long believed the key to the country's recovery and salvation is manufacturing. The ITEM report said the economy faces stagnation unless the economy changes from borrow-and-spend to being more export driven.

But with manufacturing decimated, saving the economy with an export-led boost is a forlorn, false hope.

What is clear is that the country is no longer in a position to borrow. ITEM added that it "remained concerned" over the UK's dire public finances, with net borrowing set to soar to a record £178 billion this year.

Those massive debts racked up in the last decade of deceit now need to be repaid. The Bank of England will have to stop printing money sometime to halt rampant inflation.

Manufacturing is on its last legs. The government cannot borrow and spend to fuel an economic revival. The public just doesn't trust New Labour's half-baked election 'pledges'. When they got there, the treasury coffers were bare.

Election weary voters and struggling businesses need a general election now. Only then can a fresh start be made on the tough decisions needed to set the country on the rocky road to recovery. Fat chance.

Unemployment graphic: Sun

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Airbrushes At Dawn

Freshly scrubbed up Dave has been given yet another make-over, this time by New Labour's dirty tricks department. Naughty boys.

Not content with highjacking the airwaves with blatant propaganda, it's now airbrushes at dawn, as the cash strapped Party stoops to conquer election weary voters.

Poster boy Dave with the slogan "we can't go on like this" (above) was a gift to photoshoppers.

The mydavidcameron website has been on a photoshopping spree having a field day with a whole host of doctored images poking fun at smoothy chops.

Even the struggling Supreme Leader, always keen on policy over personalty, got in with a few lame jokes of his own (sic) at PMQs. How we laughed.

New Labour has been wetting itself with a spoof version of the Cameron poster on its official Party website to prop up their lamentable leader.

But they hadn't reckoned on Guido, who reveals their Cameron picture was airbrushed. But not by the Tories, by New Labour.

As Guido observes: "On the original poster Dave is wearing heavy make-up but you can still see stubble, lines and skin pores. After Labour have manipulated the picture it looks as if he has been very clumsily airbushed. Deliberate manipulation to make the slogan work…"

Martin pointed out on his WSJ blog: "Brown’s attack is based on manipulation of an image by his own side eager to prove that their opponents had indulged in fakery, which this time they hadn’t."

How long will election weary voters have to suffer the sham of a phoney war in the vain hope the public will be brownbeaten into submission?

The Orange Party noted here on Sunday how cash strapped New Labour continues to use taxpayer funded blatant political propaganda dressed up as government 'information' as part of the sham to prop up a good news feel good factor.

Government spending on “good news” campaigns, reported The Sunday Times, about policing, education and jobs, has jumped by almost 50% during the past four years and now stands at a record £214m.

The Tories have got wind of the sham and so too the Telegraph.

Spending on biased and misleading bids to blow the trumpet for failed New Labour policies with backdoor electioneering is nothing new. Local councils have been at it for years with ratepayer funded propaganda sheets dressed up as newspapers - stuffed through the door to line the bird cage.

It's a year since the Orange Party highlighted the real spin behind the government's Real Help Now website. Blatant party political propaganda using taxpayers cash to prop up discredited policies.

And they are still at it. With a general election looming. And with taxpayers cash.

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 'Directgov' website.

It's going to be a long hard slog to election day.

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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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