Ed Miliband

Daily Mail

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The Daily Mail has been almost universally condemned for attacking Ed Miliband through attacking his long-dead father. Ralph Miliband was a Marxist academic and activist, a Jewish immigrant to evade the Nazis and served in the British Royal Navy during the Second World War. He was accused by the Daily Mail of hating Britain when he actually hated many aspects of bigoted right-wing ideology in Britain.

There are similarities between the Daily Mail and this blog. We both have a huge online readership and influence and we both attack politicians. The Daily Mail is traditionally more open to conspiracy theories which I find refreshing.

The differences are ideological and that I often attack people who have already attacked me e.g. Tony Blair, David Blunkett and all the has-been old New Labour Home Secretaries and of course Ian Blair. My attacks on family members have probably only extended to Cherry and she was very closely associated with Tonee. I could very easily hint at obvious, acknowledged issues about the Blair ‘family’ as I’m doing right now. I very occasionally get the wrong target but I do apologise for it.

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UK politics news review

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Labour Party leader made a well-received speech at their conference at Manchester yesterday.

“They think they are born to rule.” … “Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, U-turning, pledge-breaking, make-it-up-as-you-go-along, back-of-the-envelope, miserable shower?” Miliband is here referring to class and/or private education (known in the UK by the misnomer ‘public school’) which is recognised to be much the same thing i.e. to be privately educated is to be ruling class and to be ruling class is to be privately educated[*1]. Private schools teach being ruling class, how to succeed in life by being a ***t [take your pick ;), to lie and cheat and to have an unflinching belief in your own innate superiority and righteousness.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt makes loads of money for nothing and has charged the public purse for Mandarin lessons. How do Mandarin lessons benefit his constituents or the public? Talk about benefit scroungers …

A railway omnishambles proves Miliband’s point

One of the most powerful sections of Ed Miliband’s speech came when, with remarkable fluency, he declared of the government: “Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, U-turning, pledge breaking, make it up as you go along, back-of-the-envelope, miserable shower?” Less than a day later, ministers have demonstrated exactly what he meant.

The Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has announced that the decision to award the West Coast Main Line rail franchise to FirstGroup has been cancelled after the discovery of “significant technical flaws” in the bidding process. The government will no longer challenge the judicial review sought by Virgin, the current operator, which has long argued that the process did not adequately assess the risks of competing bids (it warned that FirstGroup’s £5.5bn bid was a recipe for bankruptcy). According to McLoughlin, the reopening of the bids will cost the taxpayer “in the region of £40m”.

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How GM crops have increased the use of danger pesticides and created superweeds and toxin-resistant insects

Planting GM crops has led to an increase rather than a decrease in the use of pesticides in the last 16 years, according to US scientists.

The researchers said that the plants have caused superweeds and toxin-resistant insects to emerge, meaning farmers have not only had to use more pesticides on their crops overall, but are also using older and more dangerous chemicals.

The findings dramatically undermine the case for adopting the crops, which were sold to farmers and shoppers on the basis that they would reduce the need to be treated with powerful chemicals.

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*1. This is not exclusively so. Ed Miliband attended Oxford University after his state schooling and was born to intellectual pretend-Socialist parents. While he missed out on public school, he did have the rest of the ruling class treatment. Does it make him semi ruling class or something similar? Notably, Miliband – just like his brother David – studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Virtually all UK prime ministers follow this course. Isn’t it strange that two brothers follow the same University course? Is there something [not] going on?

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A brief post today as I can’t spare the time.

The Liberal-Democrat-Conservatives’ party conference at Brighton has finished. The Labour party conference at Manchester has started. Ed Balls scored two goals (the second is disputed by claims that he faked a foul leading to a penalty and goal) and Andy Burnham scored one against the Press XI. Ed Miliband makes a speech suggesting the return of the 50% tax rate that the ConDems’ abolished and telling the banks to sort themselves out. Two policies that I agree with. Clearly, if the banks are too big to fail then they need to be made smaller. There is not a commitment to undo the ConDems’ privatisation and demolition of the NHS.

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News review

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  • ConDem Conservative and Liberal-Democrat Conservative coalition government protects Tony Blair by refusing to release pre-Iraq war cabinet minutes
  • The corporate press promotes Tony Blair

Tony Blair’s Iraq meetings to remain secret after government veto

The government has vetoed an order by the independent freedom of information watchdog to release the minutes of cabinet meetings held immediately before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The decision was announced on Tuesday by Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, the only minister to have access to papers of a previous administration, in this case Tony Blair’s Labour government.

Grieve said he issued a certificate under the Freedom of Information Act vetoing disclosure after consulting former Labour ministers, his cabinet colleagues, and the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband.

He described the case as “exceptional” and one where, in his view, the public interest demanded the papers should be kept secret. He says he took into account “serious potential prejudice to the maintenance of effective cabinet government”.

The attorney said he also considered the fact that “the issue discussed was exceptionally serious, being a decision to commit British service personnel to an armed conflict situation”, that the issue “remains the focus of both domestic and international interest”, and that “Iraq remains very much a live political issue in its own right” with links to the “overall security situation in the Middle East and the perceived link between the terror threat to the UK and military action in Iraq”.

Grieve noted that most of those present at the cabinet meetings in March 2003 were still MPs or “otherwise active in public life”.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, had argued that the “exceptional gravity and controversy” of the matters discussed meant that minutes of the cabinet meetings on 13 and 17 March 2003, days before the invasion, should be disclosed.

One of the reasons Grieve gave for vetoing disclosure was that the Chilcot inquiry meant the invasion of Iraq was still a “live” issue. Yet the panel chaired by Sir John Chilcot is being prevented by Whitehall mandarins from disclosing key documents relating to the decision to invade Iraq.

The March 2003 cabinet minutes are believed to be among them. The continuing dispute between Chilcot and Whitehall officials over disclosure is a main reason why his report has been delayed.

In a separate move last week, the Foreign Office appealed against a judge’s ruling that extracts of a conversation between Blair and George Bush days before the invasion of Iraq must be disclosed. It argued that revealing Blair’s comments to Bush on the telephone on 12 March 2003 would present a “significant danger” to UK-US relations.

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Tony Blair and Ed Miliband

 

The Return Of The King – Tony Blair And The Magically Disappearing Blood

By David Cromwell

How many war crimes does a western leader have to commit before he is deemed persona non grata by the corporate media and the establishment? Apparently there is no limit, if we are to judge by the prevailing reaction to Tony Blair’s return to the political stage.

On July 11, it was announced that Blair would be ‘contributing ideas and experience’ to Labour leader Ed Miliband’s policy review. He will apparently provide advice on how to ‘maximise’ the economic and sporting legacies of the 2012 London Olympics.

The Guardian described the announcement mildly as a ‘controversial move’; not necessarily in the country at large, the paper claimed, but ‘perhaps especially within the Labour party’. One Guardian headline declared ‘Return of the king’.

The ‘left-wing’ John Harris did his bit in the Guardian to smooth Blair’s path:

‘He’s only 59, the picture of perma-tanned vitality and keen to “make a difference”. Could a fourth stint in No 10 even be on the cards? We shouldn’t rule it out.’

Harris declared ‘that for all his mistakes, transgressions and howling misjudgments, there remains something magnetic about his talents.’

Blairs and Milibands
Blairs and Milibands

When Blair appeared at a Labour fundraising dinner at Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, Harris noted that:

‘He was greeted by the obligatory crowd of protesters, still furious about his role in the Iraq war.’

That’s the curious thing about peace protesters; endlessly ‘furious’ about the country being dragged into an illegal war that led to the deaths of around one million people, created four million Iraqi refugees, devastated Iraq’s infrastructure, generated untold suffering and burned obscenely huge sums of public money in times of ‘austerity’. Perhaps we Brits should simply display that famed stiff upper lip and move on. Certainly that’s what Richard Beeston, foreign editor of The Times, suggested in 2009:

‘All this happened six years ago. Get over it.’ (‘The war went wrong. Not the build-up. Stop obsessing about the legality of invading Iraq. The campaign itself was the real disaster’, The Times, February 26, 2009.)

A recent Times editorial welcomed Blair’s return:

‘Labour is coming together, drawing on its best available talent and starting to get serious again. (Editorial, ‘A year in politics’, The Times, July 14, 2012)

The second coming of Blair was launched by a friendly chat on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. Marr, of course, is well-known as a totally impartial political analyst and a ‘congenial and knowlegable [sic] interviewer’ (to quote a cable from the US embassy in London to Hillary Clinton).

The PR onslaught continued when London’s Evening Standard published an interview with the former PM on the day he ‘guest-edited’ the paper. Would he like to be prime minister again one day? ‘Sure’, he replied. A supportive Financial Times interview with editor Lionel Barber proclaimed:

‘Five years after leaving power, Tony Blair wants back in. He is ready for a big new role. But what exactly is driving him? And can he persuade the world to listen?’

Unnamed ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ were quoted, no doubt passing on the Blair-approved message:

‘Friends say he is desperate to play a bigger role, not because he has any ambition to run for high office but because he wants to be part of the argument. “He would really like to be the centre of attention again,” says one long-time ally.’

A Guardian editorial did its bit to help:

‘he seems to have mellowed a touch since his book [‘A Journey’, published in 2011]; maybe he’s even learnt a little respect for international law.’ (‘Unthinkable? Tony Blair for PM again.’)

The paper continued:

‘Besides, this is no time to fret about the policy details – there is the showbiz to consider. In 2007 John Major likened Mr Blair’s long goodbye to Nellie Melba; the coming comeback must demonstrate he is more like Sinatra and Elvis. There can only be one true heir to Tony Blair, and that is Tony Blair II.’

Could the vanguard of British liberal journalism really be making an editorial call for the return of Blair? It shouldn’t be a total surprise. Recall that even in the wake of the supreme international crime of invading Iraq, the Guardian still called for its readership to re-elect Blair at the 2005 general election.

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  • South London NHS Trust is declared ‘bankrupt’ and placed in ‘receivership’. A private company may take over.
  • Insanity returns to the Labour Party. Insane, deluded, divorced-from-reality, barking mad and woofing former Prime Minister and War Criminal Tony Blair to advise Miliband on Sports Policy. At least he’s got a fairly harmless nothing position but doesn’t Miliband and the wider Labour Party realise what damage Blair & Co have done, the extent to which he is hated by so many, that he’s a Tory who pursued Tory policies? He was so hated that he left the country for 5 years FFS.
  • London couple forced to treat their son privately.
  • NHS campaigner offered job as NHS-wrecker.

    South London Healthcare NHS Trust put into administration

    South London Healthcare NHS Trust is to be put into administration after it ran into financial trouble, the government has announced.

    Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has appointed a trust special administrator to go into the trust.

    …

    As well as struggling financially, the trust also has some of the longest waiting times for operations and longer-than-average waits in A&E. However, it has low infection and death rates.

    If a decision was made to break up the trust, it would not necessarily mean the closure of all services.

    Another more successful NHS organisation or private provider could end up taking some on.

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Tony Blair returns to politics as Labour sports adviser

Former prime minister Tony Blair has undertaken his first job in British politics since leaving office, as an adviser to the Labour party on its sports policy review.

The anti-war movement won’t let Tony Blair forget about Iraq

Pay £2,000 to remove painful lump on son’s hand, NHS hospital tells couple

A couple have had to borrow £2,000 to pay for an operation to remove a painful gobstopper-sized lump on their child’s hand after NHS officials refused to pay for “cosmetic” surgery.

Bailey Payne, three, from Dagenham struggles to hold a pen because of  the lump, which has formed from a build-up of muscle tissue near the base of his thumb. His mother Maxine, 24, took him to her GP, who said the lump should be removed and referred him to Queen’s Hospital in Romford.

Doctors agreed to carry out the operation but weeks later Ms Payne and her partner Steven Jones, a lorry driver, received a letter saying the NHS would not cover the costs of the surgery. The couple lost an appeal.

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Going private? What happened when a private health company offered an NHS campaigner a job

This week, Alex Nunns, campaigner with Keep Our NHS Public, was headhunted for a job at private health firm Care UK. His proposal? A new coporate motto: ‘Providing less, for more’.

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I believe a key talent for any disrespecting Media Relations Executive is the ability to turn a negative in to something offensive. For example, it must have been a stressful time in the Media Revelations office when that tax avoidance story broke a few months ago – the one saying that Care UK had reduced its tax bill by taking out loans through the Channel Islands stock exchange. All this talk of tax havens and tax avoidance isn’t good in the current climate. But as your Media Relationship Executive I would have used a little reverse psychology, instead of denying it as your spokesman did. After all, this could put you right up there with the big boys like Goldman Sachs, Vodafone and Jimmy Carr.

Similarly, you got some bad press when it was revealed that the wife of your former chairman John Nash gave £21,000 to Andrew Lansley’s office before the last election, when Lansley was shadow health secretary. But let’s view it from another angle – doesn’t this serve to highlight Care UK’s excellent political connections? And look how it turned out: Lansley is in power and he has passed the Health Act. He has opened the door wide to privatisation, and Care UK is already inside redecorating the place.  We thought Lansley wasn’t going to manage it for a while, when all those thousands of patients and doctors started protesting and June Hautot shouted “codswallop” at him in the street. But he pulled through, sacrificed his future public career for private gain, and God bless him for that. Care UK now stands to make a fortune. This is something to boast about, for Bevan’s sake! And all for £21,000, less than it would cost to employ a Media Relations Executive for a year. (Please confirm.)

You should play to your strengths. Care UK is a true pioneer in this privatisation drive. You were the first private company to run a GP surgery in Dagenham back in 2006. And the first to face enforcement action from the Healthcare Commission because of slack hygiene procedures at the Sussex Orthopaedic Treatment Centre in 2008. And who’s to say you weren’t the first to forget to process 6,000 x-rays at your ‘urgent’ care centre in North-West London in 2012? As a Mediocre Relations Executive, I would advise not mentioning those last two.

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