Another nail in Labour's coffin!

According to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, Labour wanted mass immigration to make the UK more multicultural.

If this report is correct, it is conclusive proof that Labour has created the conditions for the increasing (albeit, small) rise in the BNP's support in some parts of the UK.

You reap what you sow.

Brown forced to tell the truth at last

Thanks to Tim Montgomerie for this.

A warning from another victim - lock all your doors!

I seem to remember reading a report a few months ago that the recession would lead to an increase in crime levels as more people were forced to thieve to survive. Well, it seems to be true.

Last Thursday morning at about 5.40am a little toe rag tried our front door and found it unlocked - don't ask why but both Mrs Ted and I thought we had locked it - and walked off with our laptop and many precious photos that had been carefully copied to CDs but stupidly stored in the same bag. A few other items of minor value went too but fortunately the thief missed my car keys, wallet (containing my credit/debit cards and various other invaluable items) which I keep (or used to keep, conveniently) in a drawer in the kitchen.

The local police were very quick and efficient in collecting all the details and examining the "crime scene", as well as giving us a pack of information about how to improve our home security. (We have already had new locks fitted, marked everything with our post code and house number and taken to removing our valuables to our bedroom every night.)

The worst aspect of this experience though is, as those of you who have suffered something similar will know, the feeling that you somehow want revenge on the individual that has violated your home. My wife is finding it difficult to sleep - not because she is afraid of it happening again - but because of the loss of our precious photographs. That CD was probably thrown in a skip by the evil little specimen who committed this crime without any thought for his victims.

"Tough on crime: tough on the causes of crime." Yeah!

Oh come all ye faithful!

All those of you that believe in the benefits of the nanny state introduced by this Labour government should read THIS advice provided by the NHS to young people.

What the f**k is going on? I don't know if I'm coming or going.

Grand closing down sale - Ozzie-style!

Rumour has it that the Conservative Party have commissioned the same advertising agency that created the following campaign ad. Just substitute "Bonkers Brown" for "Krazy Kevin" and you can see how this might work!

Remember who wrote this?

"There is only one thing to admire in this Government---their bare-faced cheek. After bringing in the biggest tax rises in peacetime history, they try to paint Labour as the tax-raising party.

Listening to the Tories nowadays, you could be fooled into thinking that someone else has been in power. Hearing John Major, Kenneth Clarke, and Brian Mawhinney, you could be excused for believing that it was someone else who put up your taxes TWENTY-TWO times, adding £2,120 to the tax burden of the typical family.

That, of course, is exactly their game. They want to airbrush out the past, forget their broken promises, ignore the damning facts. And that is why they are again peddling the Great Tory Lies about Labour's tax plans.

I believe that you have suffered enough from the Tory tax betrayal. Hard-working families like you have been hit hard by the 22 Tory tax rises. That is why I have pledged that a New Labour Government will not raise either the basic rate or the top rate of income tax. They will remain unchanged under the next Labour Government. I am determined to ensure hard work is rewarded, not penalised.

Cutting bills for families

And because of this, my tax-cutting goal is to bring in---when the country can afford it---a new 10p starting rate. That will enable everyone to keep more of their hard-earned money. And it will encourage the unemployed off welfare and into work, saving us all cash.

I also intend that our taxation policies will be fair. Which is why we will cut VAT on heating to 5 per cent, the lowest level possible. That will cut family bills and help pensioners more than most. And don't forget that, but for Labour, VAT on heating would already be at 17.5 per cent. It was only our campaign and votes which stopped the Tories doubling the Cold Tax as they intended.

I have also promised that VAT will not be extended to food, children's clothes, public transport fares, books and newspapers. They will be the Tory targets if they retain power. These are my cast-iron guarantees on tax-based on our principles of encouraging work and promoting fairness.

The Tory tactic now is to make sure the facts don't get in the way of their smears.

So, without hesitating, they dream up a whole raft of new scare stories. And yet again, they won't let their record stand in the way.

Since 1979, it is the Tories who have raised national insurance no less than FIVE times. National insurance on working people stood at 6.5 per cent when the Tories came to power. It now stands at 10 per cent. By the Government's own admission, that change cost you Pounds 5.3 billion in extra tax last year. The equivalent of an extra 3p on income tax. That's a massive back-door tax rise. BUT you won't catch the Tories mentioning that fact. And they are trying the same trick on mortgage tax relief.

They ended higher rate relief, and then cut it in successive years from 25 per cent to 15 per cent-an extra tax bill for homeowners of over £500.

These cuts came despite a manifesto pledge to "maintain mortgage tax relief."

But just as with extending VAT and their tax cut promises, their pledges were worthless. It is a record of tax betrayal which would have most people squirming in embarrassment. But not the Tories. They know no shame.

Labour will only make promises that we can keep and not make promises that we cannot guarantee to deliver. We have published our spending commitments and we have also said how we will pay for them. And they do not require any tax increases except for the windfall levy on the excess profits of the privatised utilities.

The truth on finance

That is to pay for our programme of getting 250,000 jobless youngsters into work. When we are in Government we will have a chance to see whether the Tories have been telling the truth about the nation's finances.

We have every reason to be suspicious. At the last General Election, they hid from voters how bad the economy was. They underestimated by billions of pounds---either deliberately or through incompetence---just how much money was to be borrowed. Money that would have to be repaid by taxpayers.

Only weeks before the last General Election, Chancellor Norman Lamont forecast in his Budget that Government borrowing for the next year would be £32 billion. It wasn't. It was £45 billion. He was out by £13 billion. And he got every borrowing forecast wrong for all following years.

It has come to a staggering Pounds 66 billion more than he said. You can understand why I need to be cautious.

John Major knew he was being wildly optimistic. He just didn't care---provided the Tories won.

My suspicions that the Tories are not telling the whole truth again have only been increased by their decision to phase in the public pay awards. If the economy is going so well why can't the money for nurses be paid in full now? I fear the Tories are covering up the true state of this country's finances.

I am not going to behave like the Tories. I will not tell fairy tales, or make promises I cannot keep. But I will act on the priorities .

That is why I have said that the pay of top people---such as Government ministers and judges---should be frozen this year. And it is why I have said I cannot promise we will find £60 million of public money to build a new Royal yacht.

That is why we are phasing out the private schools' assisted places scheme to cut class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. That is why we will cut red tape in the NHS to release more cash for patient care. And that is why we will tackle the waste of youth unemployment.

I will only promise what I can deliver. And unlike the Tories, I will deliver my promises on tax."



Yep, you were right! This is an article by one Gordon Brown MP, published in the News of the World on Feb 9th, 1997. As JD, the commenter on the Coffee House blog says: "In view of the present situation, some of the lines are particularly ironic. Swap a few words around (e.g. 'Labour' for 'Tory', 'Brown' for 'Major') and they fit current circumstances amusingly well."

Pope thinks Brown shits in the woods!

It appears that Gordon Brown is going to be nominated by the Pope for a Nobel prize for Economics. (No, it's not April Fool's day yet!) Well, you might well ask why would that be? Could it be that the Holy Father has recognised that Gordon Brown is the real representative of God on Earth?

Not everyone would agree with this as the Pope has a bit of a dodgy record on picking winners - ie he gets most things wrong - for example, he thinks the use of condoms actually causes AIDS! But I'm sure he has good reasons for his support of our glorious leader. (But see THIS just to be sure!)

This might not be a view shared by more worldly folk. According to this article in the Guardian which reports that Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said: "We need to send good psychological signals from (the G20 meeting in) London and not engage in a competition for unrealisable growth packages. We have already done our part."

Another stealth tax from Labour

Do you realise that fuel duty is about to rise by 2p/litre? Have a look at this and add your comments.

You can also vote on whether you think that this rise is being pushed through very quietly ahead of an exceptionally late Budget.

Nelson doesn't turn a blind eye!

At the risk of giving you Harrisitis, I would refer you to Fraser Nelson's post on the Coffee House blog where he makes some interesting connections with the aforementioned Labour MP's article in the Mail on Sunday.

"Why is it Left wing to allow millions to live on benefits, and let children get each other pregnant? Tom Harris asks this question in an excellent article in the Mail on Sunday today." says Fraser

If I am going to "big up" anybody I think it has to be Fraser as he is continually emphasising the problems that Labour's dependency culture has created. He concludes by saying:

"I hope that Tom keeps going on at this. Unlike many other Labour MPs it does bother him. It is, in my view, the most important topic in Britain right now and it is horribly under-debated. If left and right really clash with each other on how best to solve this problem, how best to make work pay, then so much the better. We must grasp that we are paving a road from school to welfare dependency and we should not be so surprised when so many millions choose to take this road."

And, yes, I know the picture is of Horatio Nelson!

"Britain capitulates to terror"?

I'm not always at one with Melanie Phillips but her article on the Home Secretary's decision to ban a Dutch member of parliament, Geert Wilders, who has made an uncompromising stand against the Koranic sources of Islamist extremism and violence, and who was due to give a screening of Fitna, his film on this subject, at the House of Lords on Thursday is very disturbing.

As she points out: "This meeting had been postponed after Lord Ahmed had previously threatened the House of Lords authorities that he would bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the Lords if Wilders was allowed to speak. To their credit, the Lords authorities had stood firm and said extra police would be drafted in to meet this threat and the Wilders meeting should go ahead. But now the government has announced that it is banning Wilders from the country."

She goes on to say: "So let’s get this straight. The British government allows people to march through British streets screaming support for Hamas, it allows Hizb ut Tahrir to recruit on campus for the jihad against Britain and the west, it takes no action against a Muslim peer who threatens mass intimidation of Parliament, but it bans from the country a member of parliament of a European democracy who wishes to address the British Parliament on the threat to life and liberty in the west from religious fascism."

This a very worrying development. On the one hand we are deploying our armed forces to fight the kind of Islamic fundamentalism that we see as a threat to our national security and on the other we are repressing the right of our Parliament to hear from a democratically elected politician in a European country. It can't be because we don't want to upset the Muslim voters in Blackburn and other similar seats held by Labour MPs, can it?

Lord Turner: new international standards on finance would have made little difference

Interesting little snippet via the FT Westminster blog suggesting that Lord (Adair) Turner, chair of the Financial Services Authority, believes:

"...international standards and better co-ordination would have made little difference to the course of the credit crisis. It would not have improved the Federal Reserve’s regulation of Citigroup or the FSA’s regulation of Northern Rock."

This is despite the fact that Gordon Brown has made huge political capital out of his desire to reform the international system of bank regulation. He has regularly implied this could have prevented the downturn... and it was something he has been arguing for (apparently) for over a decade.

Apparently, No 10 responded by saying the PM had actually said: "we did need better global co-operation".

So no disagreement there, then?

Inflation targeting has been a failure

Fraser Nelson, on the Coffee House blog, has written an impressive piece explaining why Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was wrong to pursue his strategy
of inflation targeting. His central argument, as I understand it, is that "....inflation targeting was right for the 1990s when the Tories introduced it. But it was wrong after 2000. And it was Brown's arrogant belief that he had cracked it, found the philosophers' (or economists') stone, that inflation targeting was the be-all-and-end-all, that led us into the economic calamity now unfolding."

As someone who was very sceptical at the time Brown made the Bank of England "independent" and who was concerned that we were returning to a "one club" economic policy similar to Nigel Lawson's reliance on linking sterling to the value of the deutchmark in the late 1980s, Fraser's conclusion makes me think my gut instinct was right:

"So this wasn't "market failure" as Brown pretends, but government failure - the failure of government to regulate the supply of money. The same basic failure that lay behind the entirely avoidable 1930s depression. Truth is that the BoE had the wrong instructions: inflation targeting was right for the 1990s when the Tories introduced it. But it was wrong after 2000. And it was Brown's arrogant belief that he had cracked it, found the philosophers' (or economists') stone, that inflation targeting was the be-all-and-end-all, that led us into the economic calamity now unfolding."

The tragedy is that the damage that Brown (once hailed as the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer for 250 years) and his supporters have done to the country will take many years to reverse.

Peter Mandelson is a head banger - it's official!

Poor old Peter, brought back into government by Gordon Brown to counter-balance his lack of emotional intelligence (remember his propensity to throw mobile phones against the wall?) now finds himself frustrated with Labour's inability to forge a united front on the third runway at Heathrow. Apparently, the Prince of Darkness was so angry he actually banged his head on the Cabinet Room table.

If tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph report is to be believed ".... an unnamed minister, expressing concerns over the runway, said: 'I realise the point I am making is irrational.'....There was then, sources said, an "audible thump" as Lord Mandelson, an enthusiastic supporter of the project, banged his head on the polished wood of the large, oval table....".

Oh well, never mind. It ain't going to happen anyway if the Conservatives win the next election. The latest YouGov poll in the Sunday Times puts the Conservatives on a 13% lead over Labour and the ComRes poll in the Sunday Independent has them 9% ahead. Both polls represent significant moves back to the Conservatives and suggest that Brown's so-called bounce is about as dead as a dead cat bouncing on a... well, a concrete runway.

Labour Says: "We're Done For - Let's Tax Some Nasty Capitalists"

Is it just me or is the only thing that the rump of the Labour Party can think of doing when the chips are down is to introduce a windfall tax on some giant multi-national companies?


Their latest target is the energy companies who have made "obscene" profits on the back of the rise in oil and gas prices. The usual left-wing nutters have been out in force today saying that it is wrong that these companies should be allowed to make these enormous amounts of money for their "privileged" shareholders - never mind that so many happen to be mainly pension funds and small individual shareholders - just the sort of people who we need to save for the long-term to provide the funding for future pensions and prosperity.

According to these socialist economic illiterates the money should be used by the government to invest in energy conservation schemes. Given that the chief promulgators of this very short-sighted proposal appear to be trade union leaders - many of whom attended the Warwick II Labour Party/Union policy development conference this weekend - perhaps this is where Harriet Harman's suggestion on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday that "one million green collar jobs can be created" came from?


This is the politics of La-La land and shows that many on the Left are both economically and intellectually still living in a 1970s world where it was the workers against the capitalists (ie the Tories). Don't they realise that if there is not some very major capital investment in the "real" energy infrastructure of this country (not bloody pointless wind farms) the lights will be going out in more ways than one?

Where do these unionised pygmies think all this money is going to come from?

• The government? (The government does not have any money except that which it raises in taxation. How much more tax do they want us to pay as a percentage of GDP?


• The energy companies? (If they are not able to make sufficient profits to allow them to invest in replacing and developing new sources of energy and generating capacity they will not do it - at least not at anything like the rate that is required - and, being global companies, could easily go elsewhere.)
  

In simple terms - and it needs to be simple so these Labour neanderthals can understand it - if the Government decides to implement these windfall taxes then the energy companies will be less likely to make the investments that we so desperately need. (NB: As usual John Redwood has put the point much more succinctly!)

If Brown thinks he can save his own neck and that of the Labour Party by going through with this, then we will all be doomed to a very miserable existence in the future.

The Poverty Of Labour's Policies

Reports today show that yet another key aspect of Labour's failed social experiments has been a failure. The number of children and pensioners now living below the Government's self-defined poverty line has risen again. Not much of a surprise there. As they describe it themselves - "It's like running up a down escalator". (See Gordon Brown running up the escalator on the left!)

But with all the other economic indicators going the wrong way - falling house prices coupled with the spectre of negative equity, lay-offs in the construction industry, factory gate inflation at 20% plus, energy, fuel and food prices rising faster than ever - it's no wonder that confidence is ebbing away.

It's no wonder, too, that the poor are getting poorer under this Labour Government. They have over-taxed, over-spent and over-reached themselves . They have created this unholy mess themselves and now have no way out. It's time for them to go.

Mike Smithson over on Political Betting has asked us to imagine the imminent demise of Gordon Brown which is actually quite attractive - apart from his last question!

What Are Your Policies, Mr Brown?

Back in August 2007 I wrote THIS about everyone carping on about the Conservatives having no policies. OK, probably not an original thought to be found in any of the piece EXCEPT the bit where I said the following:

"As far as I can see they (Labour) have done most of the things they set out to do in 1997 and most of it is all buggered up now and they have no new ideas. They're tired...."

None of that has changed since last August - in fact, it's far, far worse now for Brown's Labour Party - and there will be worse to come as the economy becomes much more difficult to revive, stagflation takes hold, unemployment starts to rise, house repossessions explode and the level of tax income starts to fall and Alistair Darling has to borrow even more. What happens to Brown's Golden Rule then? What happens to his reputation for financial prudence then? No more boom and bust, eh?

In the aftermath of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election disaster for Labour we are hearing their desperate ministers and MPs (those still loyal to Brown, at any rate) switching back to the only kind of spin they can now deploy which can simply be summarised as follows:

"The Tories have got no policies - but those they have got are uncosted and will result in draconian cuts of public services."

Apart from the simple fact that none of this true, it demonstrates how desperate that Labour has become. They must not be allowed to get away with this and be firmly and swiftly rebutted.

As Conservatives continue to roll-out their policy programme they must constantly remind voters that the Labour Party has no new or original ideas of their own and those they do have are just a continuation of the stale and outworn experiments that have failed and will fail again.

Most of all, they must remind people that Labour has lost all sense of principled government and are just desperate to hang on to power - even by the skin of Gordon Brown's finger tips - and there's not much of that left now! (And yes, this really is a photo of Gordon Brown's fingers!)

Life's A Lottery - But It Depends On Who You Know!

Just a small anecdote to add to the discussion about the school places lottery.

Our 11-year old was automatically disbarred from going to the nearest comprehensive (less than a mile away) because our house is, literally, on the wrong side of the road. The main alternative (two and half miles away) has a very poor reputation and so we made the decision to make our main preference a school that is a 40 minute bus ride away. It has a strong record in terms of academic achievement and the wide range of sporting and extra-curricular activities that it offers. (Much like the grammar school I attended in the 1960s!).

Fortunately, our child has been offered a place for September 2008. I suppose it was not surprising really, as the school is in a rural area and it has compensated for falling rolls over the last few years by widening its catchment area.

And the point of this "anecdote"? Well, we happen to know a (physics) teacher at this school who has given us an insider tip. Apparently, there is a clear distinction between the overall performance of pupils that opt for French and those that are placed in the German set. The teachers believe that the parents of pupils most interested in their children's education persuade them to take French. The children of those parents who don't bother to express a preference are placed in the German set because all the French places have been filled.

QED: Children whose parents are interested in their education are likely to do better than those who aren't. Don't know if it's true but "Vive la France"!

The Taliban's Trojan Horse?

If you have been bemused why the Archbishop of Canterbury has raised the possibility of sharia law being an "optional" way for Muslims to deal with their disputes in Britain then you will be even more horrified by the potential consequences.

Read this article by Martin Parsons on the Conservative Home blog to understand how we are already walking into pre-planned trap that has been laid by this weak and incompetent Labour government.

Not only are they selling us out to the EUSSR but they are actively preparing us to accept a major and tragic change to our centuries old and hard fought rights. Osama bin Laden must be laughing in his cave or wherever he is..... hopefully with his 72 virgins in tow!

We must get rid of this Labour shower - they have done enough damage - let's stop it now.

The Wisdom of John Redwood

I know John Redwood has never been the most popular of politicians and on occasions has been controversial to the point where he has become vilified by both friend and foe.

But I do commend you to read his very prolific blog output as it often contains many nuggets of wisdom that should not be ignored by anyone interested in politics.

As an example, read this about the black holes in Labour's economic policies. Frightening stuff from the "Martian"!

It's the Economy Darling (Stupid)!

Hope Alistair has read this Daily Telegraph article here.

If this doesn't convince those that think that throwing - sorry, investing - taxpayer money at every problem has been a disastrous experiment that should be stopped immediately, then I don't know what will.

We're doomed! Doomed, I tell you!

Time to kick this Labour spin machine out and get back to good old fashioned sound money policies.