Tom Harris spots a cunning stunt

"I strongly suspect that this video owes more to special effects than to precision engineering, but it’s nevertheless a truly incredible spectacle. Enjoy"

This is a quote from that doyen of Labour MP bloggers. Is he stupid or has he been so stupefied by 12 years of Labour spin and lies that he can't spot an obvious illusion?

What am I saying! He's a Labour MP - of course he's stupid and he can't be anything other than stupefied. He sees a cunning stunt but thankfully, most people now seem to realise that the illusion of a Labour government ever being good for this country is history. What a bunch of stunning..... chaps!

Take it away Tom....

This nice little pastiche about Iain Dale's favourite Labour MP blogger does not quite hit the mark for me but there was one reference about the nation's eating habits that struck a chord.



A couple of weeks back I commented on one of Tom's musings that he and the Harris family were about to settle down to a takeaway whilst watching some DVD box-set - I think it was Braveheart III or some other twaddle. I simply made the point that it appeared that he and his family - just because of his previous numerous references to them eating takeaways and watching DVDs - were not following the Government's guidelines on healthy eating. I also expressed my real concern that this was bad for their health and he should consider the benefits of preparing their own food at home. Strangely, my comment did not appear on Tom's blog!

But he's a lovely man isn't he......?

Tom Harris to stand down!

It is with a mixture of sadness and relief that I read the news on the Press Association's website that Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South (maj. 10,365), and former Minister of Transport is to stand down at the next general election.

Sadness, because he has provided so many of us with the opportunity to both slag him off for his myopic and distorted views on the failures of this awful Labour Government (despite his valiant yet doomed spin operation) and to ridicule his juvenile obsession with Dr Who, Star Wars and his strange taste in popular music.

Relief because this will mean that he will not be popping up on the airwaves every few minutes pontificating about anything and everything. The world of politics can only be a better place for his going.

It is reported that he is to retire to his estate in Croatia where he has already established a sanctuary for old (Labour) donkeys.

Labour MP speaks out against the benefits culture!

Those of you that follow Glasgow South MP, Tom Harris' blog, will know that he can be an acquired taste but recently he has shown signs that he has a "sensible head" and is prepared to debate in a relatively non-party political way on a number of fundamental issues that he has himself dubbed as 'important to Daily Mail readers'.

So his article in the Mail on Sunday today comes as no surprise. I applaud him for having the guts to write it and I commend you to read it too.

You can also link to his blog HERE - but I warn you that you won't agree with everything he pontificates upon - and he does pontificate at times! The comments are usually entertaining, though.

Labour MPs frightened by David Cameron

Tom Harris, my favourite Labour MP blogger, has stuck his neck out again. This time he is agitated by David Cameron's promise that the number of MPs sitting in the House of Commons would be cut by at least 10% - around 60 seats would disappear.

But dear old Tom Harris, sitting on an 11,000 majority for Glasgow South is not happy. "This kind of promise - like the one made by his predecessor, Michael Howard, before the 2005 election – is lazy and cynical. Also popular, which is why he made it."

Well Tom, we have to ask you what's lazy about looking at the current system and deciding it needs changing? Not just because it has an inbuilt bias for the Labour Party. (That would be cynical - and Labour doesn't do cynical, does it? My arse!)

No, the real reason is that the HoC has been packed with a raft of journeymen (and journeywomen - don't want to offend Harriet!) since 1997 who would better placed to be local councillors and union representatives for the increasing numbers of people in the state sector.

It's time for change. If this country is going survive the Brown-induced recession we need less central government and more people who are capable of dealing with local issues.

Just think how much more efficient the economy would be if half of the current Labour MPs returned to their old jobs after the next general election. I'm sure this would be a very popular change for most of the electorate.

The ignorance of lemming-like Labour MPs

It's probably unfair to single out this post by Tom Harris MP on his eccentric blog to illustrate the ignorance of the foot soldiers of the Labour Party - or is it the blind obedience of lemmings falling over the cliff? - but I'm going to do it anyway!

There’s a certain kind of smugness and self-satisfaction about Harris's post that makes me feel quite queasy about the way Labour regard their electoral prospects. They think that by continually harking back to events of the 1980s and early 1990s they can discredit and ridicule any new ideas that the Conservatives put forward to the electorate. This type of spinning and Mandelsonesque manipulation of the facts may have worked pre-1997 but it is well past its sell-by-date. But this is all they have left in their armoury after 11 years.

The Great Leader and his acolytes are the ones who have been responsible for the disastrous economic mess that we find ourselves in - note, I didn’t say Gordon Brown has caused it but certainly his policies over the last 11 years have put the UK in the worst possible position to deal with it.

The only defence Labour appears to have is to say that nearly 30 years ago when the Tories came into power faced with the economy wrecked by a Labour government in only five years of power is that unemployment touched nearly 3 million. Since they came back in 1997 they have squandered all those hard won improvements of the ’80s and ’90s by an irresponsible tax and spend policy.

Now we have the former “prudent” Chancellor - the king of the stealth tax - with his “golden rules” - the man who claims to have reduced the national debt - telling us it is “the right thing to do” to borrow even more in order to make some relatively small and misdirected tax reductions. Some say this will end up with the taxpayer being lumbered with well over £100 billion to be paid back over the lifetime of our children and grandchildren.

Oh bliss! What irony! The man who told us he would only ever borrow to “invest” over an economic cycle to maintain economic stability. The man who told us we were best placed to weather this global crisis is now claiming to have the blueprint that the rest of the world should follow.

It is fairly likely that the number of unemployed in the UK will reach 2 million in the next few months and be possibly over 3 million withn the next year. I suppose, to be even more cynical, you could add in the 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit. “Labour’s not working”?

Labour MPs should also remember too that at the end of the 1980s the Labour Party (including Gordon Brown) fully supported Nigel Lawson’s strategy of shadowing the deutchmark (against Thatcher’s better judgement) which led to the Major/Lamont debacle in 1992 and the higher tax and borrowing levels than were planned.

What did for the Conservatives in 1997 was not the economy - they had sorted it out by then which allowed the Glorious Chancellor to build up his war chest for excessive spending in subsequent years. No, what did for the Conservatives was so-called “sleaze” and the electorate being ready for “change”. Sound familiar? Who says history never repeats itself - no matter how much the Labour spin machine tries to re-write it?

Despite Tom Harris's assertion that David Cameron does not really care about people being unemployed as a result of the deep recession we are being thrust into because of Brown's incompetence what he has actually said is: “…the Conservatives have a moral obligation to help people who are laid off, or are at risk of being so.”

That sounds like “compassionate Conservatism” to me and today's proposals from Cameron and Osborne demonstrates they have the vision and commitment to articulate this into sensible and effective policies which, no doubt, Brown will rubbish and then plagiarise as his own.

George Galloway says something sensible!

"No more loathsome piece of flotsam has floated to the surface of Scottish New Labour than the lumpen piece of wood that is Tom Harris.”

Not often I can say that "Gorgeous George" has got it spot on this time!

Tom Harris prepares for reshuffle

"Just taking a short break from blogging before ministerial duties, reshuffles and conferences start to take up more of my time...." is how Tom Harris MP and Minister for Transport explains his absence from blogging for the next few days.

Now, I wouldn't presume to have had any major influence over his decision but it's interesting that he has taken this action following some of my comments on one of HIS recent posts:

"I keep coming back (to your blog) only because you write such amusing tosh. This particular example clearly demonstrates that you watch Dave TV. How deliciously ironic."

".....you really should get out more and understand how low the Labour Party - and Gordon Brown in particular - is held in the public esteem. We are at laughing stock phase at the moment and will soon move into the anger and hatred stage. Mark my words..... "

"Just to cheer you up even more, Tom, I thought you'd be interested in just one of the comments on Iain Dale's thread on the SNP picking their candidate for Glenrothes ahead of Labour. ... I'm one of those card carrying active members of the Labour party in one of the safest seats in country (one of the 20 odd we would not lose even with a Glasgow East swing). Its completely true that there is a malaise that has gripped even the party membership. I always wondered what it would be like to be a Tory in the mid-90s with the electorate as a whole having nothing but apathy for you. Now I know. I thought you'd like to know too, Tom."

"Still, I'm sure the party conference will see you surge back (even lower) in the polls. Ed Balls will make the speech of his life urging the faithful to re-adopt Clause Four, Alan Johnson will surge in popularity as he moves a motion to increase the powers of the Unions' block vote while David Miliband amazes everyone by agreeing to be publicly hung, drawn and quartered for the sake of the Party. Gordon will be symbolically crucified on stage but rise again on the third day and all the delegates will return to their constituencies to prepare for an inevitable drubbing in the local and European elections next spring. Stranger things have happened......."

It would be nice to think that Diablo's incisiveness and wit had given the rather louche Mr Harris pause for thought while he considers his political non-future but, as he reveals himself, he has rather more lofty things on his mind - "I’ve got the third season of The Office, plus 30 Days of Night and goodness knows how many books to get through before then."

Nice one, Tom!

Labour Minister Says "It's Maggie Wot Lost It For Us!"

No, I don't mean Margaret Curran, the fifth choice candidate, admittedly, but experienced and relatively capable MSP who stood as the Labour Party candidate for Glasgow East. She did the best job should could with the very limited political capital inherited from the previous MP David Marshall who retired on "health grounds".

But it turns out that it's actually all Margaret Thatcher's fault. Why am I not surprised given the Labour Party's propensity to re-write the history of the 1980s and still deny the favourable economic legacy they were left by the Conservatives in the 1990s?

That much vaunted, but economically illiterate, Labour blogger Tom Harris MP, Minister for Transport has been writing in the New Statesman about what caused his party's rout by the SNP in this particular by-election. True to form, as a loyal and unreconstructable Labour 'droid he has put his finger on the 'real' reason why a 13,500 majority at the last general election in 2005 was over turned with a 22.5% swing.

" ....there’s no doubt that the SNP played a clever card by publicising the government’s apparent willingness to grant Baroness Thatcher a state funeral; memories are long in Glasgow and she remains a hate figure without rival for almost everyone over the age of 35."

So Maggie Thatcher won it for the SNP. That's the reason why the Labour Party lost its third safest seat in Scotland (and its 25th safest seat in Great Britain). You couldn't make it up! But Tom did. What an arse!