clawsfour

Getting pumped up

The real scandal about George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor, is not that whether he did or didn't solicit a donation from an impermissible donor - although his own admissions seem to bring the decision down on the did rather than didn't side of the fence - but his scandalous economic policies.

George Osborne says "high petrol prices are a scandal". But what the Tory hypocrite in waiting doesn't say is that he wants to pump up the prices at the pump himself.

The real question Osborne and Cameron should be answering is not "Why are you touching up Russian oligarchs for cash? Has Lord Overseas Ashcroft run out of money?" but "WHY DO YOU WANT TO PUT 5P TAX ON UNLEADED PETROL TODAY?"

With BP anouncing profits of £70m PER HOUR, it is mind-blowing that the Tories want to squeeze the ordinary hard-working families with this new Tory Tax.

Cameron's (oil)slick PR machine thought a green tax would win headlines but it would in fact add millions of pounds to British families’ tax bills because of changing oil prices. If Mondeo man is still the person politicians want to win over to win elections, then Cameron and Osborne may want to explain why Mondeo Man will be paying £3.50 a tank more at the pump under the Tories.

As the Labour Party say, "When times are tough and people are worried about their cost of living, this just shows the risk of putting a headline-seeking novice in charge".

It's either inappropriate or it isn't...

The most important thing about the mega-yacht-gate affair that is engulfing soon-to-be-ex Shadow Chancellor Osborne, is not the fact that he didn't solicit a small donation from one of the world's wealthiest men. Or that he did. Neither scenario is particularly important.

The key thing, and the reason he is most likely to lose his job, is the spotlight Osborne has turned on Lord Ashcroft, the Tory Party's campaign bank-roller. Once again questions are being asked about whether Lord Ashcroft is a UK resident. The deputy chairman of the Conservatives is accused of using a chain of companies originating in his home country of Belize to donate nearly £5m to Conservative Party campaigns. Osborne has denounced such activity by his robust defence of his own position in recent days including......

"At the end of that conversation Mr Rothschild mentioned that Leyland Daf, a UK trading company owned by Mr Deripaska, was interested in making a donation to the party. Leyland Daf is well known to be a company recently purchased and owned by Mr Deripaska.

Mr Feldman said that he was not sure if such a donation was appropriate. He told Mr Rothschild that he would have to seek advice on the matter. Later that day it was decided after consultation with senior party officials that it would not be appropriate to accept such a donation. There was no futher contact from Mr Rothschild or Mr Deripaska and the matter was considered to be at an end."

Either it is inappropriate to channel money through UK registered companies - the reason Osborne says neither he nor the Conservative Party Chief Executive considered accepting a donation from a Russian Billionaire through his his UK registered and trading company - or it isn't. Which means either Lord Ashcoft's money is inappropriate - or it isn't.

Which means George Osborne is either Shadow Chancellor, or (as now seems increasingly likley) he isn't.

Maybe the decision of Lord Ascroft to bequest £900m to charity will also include the Tory Party - a charity case if ever there was one.

No nepotism please. We're British.

I must be just be feeling a little irritable this morning. Not enough caffeine.

Anyhow I've just seen that the blessed Harman is proposing that MPs should not be allowed to employ their own children. This is a direct response to a couple of minor scandals swirling around the Tory party - or rather scandals swirling around minor Tories.

A good plan. Closes the loophole, teaches the Tories a lesson. Win, win. NO IT'S NOT! For goodness sake.

Politicians are held in pretty low esteem - unfairly - we all know that. The way to recover esteem is not to introduce bonkers legislation (see post below for my views on that) as a sticking plaster but to have fair legislation which creates transparency around the activities of MPs.

Banning working age children from working for MPs is just mad. What about step-children or foster children. What about nieces and nephews, spouses, parents. The bloke you met in the pub last week. A long-lost mate from Friends Reunited.

There should be proper audit controls of expenditure of public money. Where a Member of Parliament chooses to employ a member of their own family, they (and their family member) will have to accept that there is likely to be scrutiny form quarters other than just the Audit Office. But to ban people employing a family member is just wrong.

Crikey, next Harman will be saying that the Monarchy shouldn't be hereditary. Hmm - now there's an idea.

A Doctor for the Apple

Apologies to non-Apple non-Mac users, but bear with me.

When Apple launched it's new (relaunched its old) online service MobileMe at the same time at launching the new 3G iPhone, there was, frankly, a complete shambles. The service didn't work, then it did, then it didn't then bits of it did. Over a period of about five days the Apple brand went from towering heights amongst its loyal core support to, "where can I buy Microsoft?"

Now Steve Jobs, Apple's MD, has responded with this internal memo - presumably designed to to placed in the appropriate media.

Team,

The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour.  There are several things we could have done better:

– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple's standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.

– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts.

– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store.  We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.

We are taking many steps to learn from this experience so that we can grow MobileMe into a service that our customers will love.  One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services – iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe.  Eddy's new title will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report directly to me.

The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services.  And learn we will.  The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.

Steve

Now who else do we know who would benefit from saying

The recent past has not been our finest hour.

10p tax rate, and car tax plans not up to usual standards of fairness - we needed to spend a bit more time with our calculators.

It is better to make sure things work right than launch new ideas.

And it is bonkers to launch so many new ideas at once. At least one will go wrong and obscure the rest.

I need someone to get a grip on this. Where is Alistair Campbell?

But the bottom line is when it comes to a free and fair society, there is only one choice. Labour.

100 days is a long time in politics

100 days of Boris. Who would have thought it?

I am appalled to hear that Ken Livingstone has already started on his campaign with some of his former Tankies to be reselected by Labour to run again as Mayor (will he run as an Independent AGAIN?). However, it is worth just reflecting of his first 100 days compared with Boris. It would be even more interesting to compare the first 100 days of Ken as a Labour Mayor.

I've taken the Ken list pretty much unedited from the archives of the Mayor's office. He obviously struggled to make it to a nice round 100 achievements in 100 days. That's why you find things like "Appointed Nicky Gavron Deputy Mayor" creeping in as an achievement.

For Boris I've had to rely on Conservative Home. And even there I had to leave out the more platitudinous (if that's not a word it should be) - Boris turned up for work, Boris brushed his hair without help, etc.

Some blogs appear fascinated by the fact that some of the 100 days list from Ken's time have disappeared from the current site. Who gives a shit. If I was an incoming Labour Mayor I would certainly remove  information referring to the previous incumbent. It's available on the archives - if I can find it, so can you - if you need it.

More interesting in some ways is what Conservative Home consider as achievements during Boris' first 10 days. Not much in quantity, for sure. And in quality? 7 out of the 22 achievements are appointments. No bad thing in itself. Bringing in your team is probably the single most important thing a Mayor can do in his or her first few weeks.

But the rest is littered with not very much. The two stand out items are probably increasing the living wage, and cancelling the oil deal which has been funding cheap fairs for the poorest on London transport.

Anyhow here's the list. Anyone with Ken's list for his first 100 days as a Labour Mayor.....

The world turned upside down

Johnson endorses Obama campaign

Says it all really.

Lies and damn lies

Of, course when you're a bit down in politics everyone wants to put the boot in on all sorts of issues.

Take this piece from the Times. Its only a small article but it is punching above its weight when it comes to the irritating misuse of facts. The article headlined "Cutbacks still leave Labour with £19m debt" goes on to compare the current state of indebtedness of the Conservative and Labour Party. The facts drawn from the article are these [comparative statistics shown in square brackets are from me].

Labour Party debts last year £24.5m
Labour Party debts now £19.0m
[reduction of 22 per cent]

Conservative Party debts last year £9.9m
Conservative Party debts now £7.75m
[reduction of 22 per cent]

Now unless I am missing some fundamental, both parties have reduced their debt by the same percentage and Labour by considerably more in real terms. And this is supposed to be a piece of factual reporting not an op-ed column. So the the words accompanying these minor titbits of information - available for all to see on the Electoral Commission web-sits - were the following:

The Labour Party still owes almost £19 million to creditors... the cash-strapped party finished last year with debts of £18.9 million... The party still owes £15 million to other businessmen... ...the party would have no spring conference next year in a cash-saving measure. Donations from wealthy businessmen have slowly dried up...

Whereas the single paragraph given over to the reporting of the Tory Party debt, begins as follows:

Meanwhile, David Cameron slashed the Conservatives’ debts.....

Such balanced reporting. Hey ho.

25 Jul 2008

Tony Woodley, General Secretary of the Unite Union, has declared that saying, "Blairism is dead" is the route to electoral success.

If this is the thoughtful response of the so called left to last night's by-election shocker, then let's hope they don't win any positions at this weekend's National Policy Forum.

It is the absence of Blairism, not its imposition, which has characterised Brown's first year. And the results are self evident.

A wee message

Gordon Brown will still be Prime Minister when the by-election result in Glasgow East is declared in an hour or so's time.

People at the count are now predicting an SNP win by 1,000 or more. This will be a very serious set back but it was a campaign based solely on the SNP saying let's send a wee message to Gordon Brown. It looks clear that the message will be sent.

The main thing now will be how Labour responds.

If it is yet another series of policy announcements then the message won't have been understood. What is required is not yet more policy but current policy effectively delivered. On top of that a clear statement of Labour values - maybe by way of a little pledge card.

And someone needs to get a grip of the narrative coming from Labour. Where the hell is is Ali Campbell?

Alex Salmond must be furious at Mason gaffe

News from the Glasgow Campaign reveals that the SNP candidate has called on Margaret Curran to say she'll resign her position as an MSP

Responding to the calls from the SNP's candidate, Councillor Mason, Labour MP David Cairns said:

“Alex Salmond must be furious at Councillor Mason’s latest blunder. This is breathtaking hypocrisy from the nationalists. Will Councillor Mason be calling on Alex Salmond to resign his seat as the MSP for Gordon so he can provide a strong voice in Westminister for Banff and Buchan?

“Margaret is a phenomenally gutsy woman and will be a full-time fighter for the East End. She will be fighting full-time on the issues that really matter: crime, jobs and regeneration.”

A spokesperson from the Scottish Labour Party said:

“Margaret has already made her position very clear. She is taking nothing for granted because she respects the people of the East End. If she wins this by-election, she will become the MP for Glasgow East. She will continue for a period as the MSP for Glasgow Baillieston, which is entirely contained in Glasgow East. She will draw only one salary and, unlike the First Minister, will operate only one constituency office. She will decide when to relinquish her duties as the MSP when she has discussed it with the local party and the wider community.“