The beginning of the end?

Last night, the Conservative Party won the Crewe and Nantwich By-Election - which was largely expected - with a 17.6% swing - which wasn't - and returning their biggest by-election victory for 30 years.

I now believe it's true that every government has a shelf life and I think the Labour Party is now seeing its shelf life expire with dire danger of pretty nasty mould setting in. It's almost inevitable, given that political parties offer so little in terms of alternative to the electorate, Labour having long abdicated any pretension to Socialism, that what they offer becomes tired and worn out after ten years in government. Maybe a period in opposition is always necessary to renew, to replenish to look at what society REALLY needs, without the pressure of having to manage on a day to day basis...and I think within a couple of years Labour will get that opportunity.

In the aftermath of the local elections fiasco and now last night's humiliation, it was predictable that Labour figures would rally to the stricken Prime Minister's aid. "It's all about the economy" said inspiring deputy leader Ditzy Harman, "it was a bad night for Labour"

Well it was that all right, Harriet, and the state of the economy and rising prices certainly doesn't help the government's cause but really, Harriet, its all about YOU and Jacqui Smith and Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw and all the others in the Cabinet who look like second raters. The shining talents who fill the British electorate with a desire to vote for almost anyone else.

Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown



To some extent it's inevitable. I accept that with 18 years out of power, the promise of a brand new Labour government in 1997 was exciting and fresh. We had, back then, a charismatic young leader who seemed to have his finger on the pulse of the nation, a dry morose Chancellor who appeared to be the perfect counterpoint, the steady hand on the tiller. We had a feisty bearded Foreign Secretary who promised us an 'ethical foreign policy' - how short lived was that? Then came Iraq and the realities of power, the decline in Blair's standing, the increasing public sulks of Brown, the dignified resignation of Robin Cook - but we had politicians who seemed capable, who inspired confidence.

I am almost of the Machiavellian view that Brown has surrounded himself, like emperors of old, with mediocre courtiers who are not capable of overthrowing him. Harman is a clueless joke, Jacqui Smith is clearly not up to the job, Ruth Kelly has failed in almost every role she's been given, Jack Straw is way past his sell by date, as is Hoon. Brown himself I have dissected at length. He is a walking tragedy - for himself and for the country. He sulked and glowered for nearly thirteen years because Blair 'had his job' - and now he clearly is not up to it. This government is pathetic. It dithers and dawdles, seems to be dragged along by events and consists of time servers,a bunch of clueless plodders.

The Labour Party is in clear need of renewal, drastic surgery, rather like Harold Macmillan's old 'night of the long knives'. They can't get rid of Harman, she was voted into the Deputy's job, but the likes of Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, Straw, Hoon and co should be dumped and new young energetic talent who can really perform as Ministers given a chance. What has Labour got to lose? If it doesn't dump the dead wood it will be out on its ear -big time - at the next General Election...and even if that is two years away, I fear it might already be too late. Brown should go too - possibly in favour of David Miliband - but I'm not convinced that Labour has the balls to do that.

David Miliband

Soon, I'm sure, the British public will be singing the praises of David Cameron, it's new 'refreshing' Tory leader - only to find that the Tories, when in office, are the same old crew they always were.

It may be too late but Brown has to do something..and fast. And for once the Clinton formula "It's the economy, stupid" simply won't be enough.

How cheap and shallow can this woman get?

I'm sure Tony Blair must be deeply in love with his wife. Anything less and surely by now he would have arranged for a very nasty accident. The publication of Cherie's memoirs of her husband's time in office only serves to confirm the view that here is a woman with no taste and no judgment.

It only goes to prove that there are only some things in life which come with education. Others are simply ingrained. Mrs Blair is an intelligent woman from a poor background, apparently constantly frightened that she will one day again be impoverished. She is a High Court judge and the wife of a former Prime Minister of the UK. Yet in almost everything she touches this woman behaves like a 'scally' of her native Liverpool, without class, without grace and totally without taste.



She seems incapable of recognising the contempt which her behaviour has attracted across the spectrum, from her acquisitive shopping trips on foreign soil, through the furtive attempts to purchase accommodation, the crude manner in which she clearly harbours grudges against anyone she sees opposing the interests of her husband, and now to these seedy, squalid memoirs - a kiss and tell of her husband's days in office.

The interesting thing about the publication of Cherie's memoirs is the reaction of many women journalists who have ripped them to shreds. One female journalist in 'The Times' said that a constant assertion by men down the ages is that a woman's temperament makes her unfit for high office because she is driven by heart not head, is irrational, illogical and angrily nurses slights in a way a man does not. Cherie, said the journalist, is the very epitome of such a stereotype.

I'm not suggesting - heaven forbid - that we return to the days when a woman was a man's chattel and Cherie Booth is clearly a woman of strong and independent opinions. I wonder, in fact, if his dependence on her is greater than the other way round because surely, if Tony has any cojones at all, it is about time he asserted himself and said 'You are cheapening me - and yourself - with this mindless rubbish. If you can't develop some class at least shut up and don't embarrass us in front of the whole country!"

The lunatics are making a bid for the asylum!

Lunatic Asylum UK has today seen more evidence of demented behaviour by the consultants who advise the government. There is a major issue here over the MMR three in one vaccine and the take up on it. Health advisors maintain that there must be a 95% take up by parents in order for vaccination to be effective and currently the take up is only 85%.

Sir Sandy Macara, former head of the British Medical Association, and now a health sdvisor to the government, has maintained that a way of dealing with the take-up problem would be to deny child benefit to all parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated.




Mary Creagh, the left wing MP for Wakefield has suggested that children be banned from starting school until they have been vaccinated.



Are these people mad? Have we finally abandoned any concept of freedom of choice in this country. It now seems to be government by decree. I accept that there are concerns about the take up level but, hell's teeth, there are even more concerns about the three-in-one injection and that's why so many parents are cagey about allowing their children to be vaccinated.

In any event to suggest depriving children of schooling or parents of child support is not the way to go! There needs to be visits, certainly, by health professionals and a programme of persuasion but not this!!

Sir Sandy's proposals, even if they were morally justified, are utter nonsense. There are more middle class parents who have fears about the MMR vaccine and who don't qualify for child benefits. So if this ludicrous proposal was accepted it would target the poorest families on child support.

There might, on the surface, seem to be little between the Dangerous Pictures Act, mentioned in an earlier post, and these proposals. But there is. Both represent a really worrying mind-set by this Labour Government that they know whats best for us. Individual freedom of choice is now simply pushed out of the way in favour of forcing us to accept proposals they KNOW are good for us! It really is a disturbing trait.

OK these ideas are just that - ideas. But at least one of them comes from a wing of the Labour Party for whom I used to have some respect, the Fabians but passionate zeal to improve our society - or so these people think - is now pushing the concept of individual choice out of the window. I hope there are people in the Labour Party who, very soon, wake up and smell the coffee. It could soon be too late!

The nightmare of Burma

The news filtering through from Burma becomes increasingly more horrifying. The death toll from last week's cyclone is estimated at 100,000 with thousands more homeless and hungry. It would not surprise me, given that representatives of World Vision who were in the Irrawaddy Delta said that thee region affected housed nearly 2 million people, if that toll did not rise even higher.



Compounding the problem alarmingly, we have one of the world's most secretive military regimes anxious, even given the scale of this disaster, not to lose face and to prove they are still in control. The regime is paranoid about foreign aid workers being allowed in for they are frightened of their own security, terrified that the situation could be forced out of their own control.

Now, added to the cyclone damage, there is fear of disease on a massive scale if the necessary food and medicines do not get through. The Burmese junta has said they are prepared to accept the aid but not the aid workers to help disperse it efficiently.

This is unacceptable. It is quite clear that the Burmese government does not have the resources to cope with a tragedy on this scale and that thousands more will die unless they can be compelled to change their policy.

A lot of pressure is being put on them by the United Nations and by western governments to accept foreign help, but I suspect this will only make the regime more stubborn, more intransigent.

It has been suggested at aid be flown in and dropped at key sites without the permission of the Burmese government. Although, on the surface, this is an attractive proposition it fraught with danger and the likelihood of failure. It could provoke a military confrontation and that's the last thing needed in this situation.

It is frustrating to watch a nation suffering in this way , more than they need to do, because of the ridiculous posturing of its government. But I don't see an easy way round this and, it seems to me, the best approach is to work with Burma's greatest ally, China, in persuading the Burmese Government to open its borders to foreign help. It needs to happen soon or what is already a major disaster will assume cataclysmic proportions.

Honey, I'd like to say you're a winner, but............

Is this photograph possibly the ultimate give-away? Not an original question as it was asked by Michael Dobbs in the Washington Post from which I took the picture.

Look at the expression on Bill Clinton's face as his wife bravely takes the plaudits for narrowly scraping home in the Indiana primary. By now they knew she had been comprehensively beaten by Barack Obama in North Carolina. It's a face that seems to say 'you gave it your best shot but the game's up'.

And surely it is. Hillary Clinton has vowed to fight on, even though her defeat in North Carolina lost any momentum she had gained to that point. She cannot gain enough delegates from the primaries to come and surely the so-called 'super-delegates' cannot possibly support her candidacy over Obama's now.

She has fought a brave and gritty campaign, even if her populism has gone to ridiculous lengths over recent weeks out of , one senses, a feeling of desperation.

Is it not time for the 'barons' of the Democratic Party to step in and suggest that, to continue is going to harm the Party and that the time is now ripe for her to concede defeat and unite behind the man who clearly has the most support. If stubbornness and personal pride prevail for another month or more, are the Democrats not handing the Presidential Election to John McCain on a plate?

Believe a child? More than me jobs worth!!

Many years ago David Lean produced a marvellous movie about the building of a bridge by British prisoners of the Japanese and the obsessive desire of their commanding officer to produce something of splendour - forgetting in the process that he was aiding the Japanese war effort. The film gave rise to an expression defining a state of mind - that where the obsessive desire to do your job according to the rule book completely transcends any acknowledgment of why you are doing it - even if what you do brings heartbreak and misery. The 'River Kwai' syndrome.

The 'River Kwai' syndrome can be found everywhere in our society involving people who shut out common sense in favour of the rule book and never is that more true than when it comes to children.

We have had another case highlighted in the newspapers today where the mighty wheels of officialdom took two children away from their parents for nearly a YEAR because some dumb officials in Leeds 'followed the rule book' on child abuse. It transpired that no abuse had taken place whatsoever and two small children were deprived of their parents love and attention for no valid reason. It will take a long time for those kids to get over that.



The situation began, apparently, when a 10 year old girl was taken to hospital by her mother after a small amount of blood was discovered in her underwear. This occurred a number of times and the child was subjected to EIGHT vaginal and anal examinations which proved nothing. Despite this, social services took her and her eleven year old brother away from the parental home for eleven months. During this time the little girl proclaimed adamantly that no one had ever laid a finger on her but it seems that in the current climate of child abuse obsession, we believe children only when they say they HAVE been molested. And if they don't say it, we get experts to show them pictures, drawings and dollies with their private parts marked so that the kids end up believing they must have been abused.

If you think thats an exaggeration read what happened to the children in Cleveland many years ago, when 121 kids were taken from their homes in midnight raids because of the misjudgments of two paediatricians in a Middlesbrough hospital.

Surely when tests have proved inconclusive and the child herself proclaims adamantly that she has suffered no abuse, don't you at least give the family the benefit of the doubt. Oh no, social services will say, because the child could have been coerced to protect its parents...and anyway, there is so much abuse rampant in our society that we couldn't take that chance!

Fortunately for the parents of the two children , a new guideline on sexual abuse has just been published by the Royal College of Paediatrics, and, after reading it, some of the doctors who had confidently, it seems advised that sexual abuse had occurred, withdrew their recommendations plus the parents obtained the expertise of an American consultant in the field. It would appear, following her assessment, that it is likely that the child was suffering a form of eczema which occasionally bled.

But no one knows for certain. There was no trace of semen or any factor which could prove sexual interference nor any definite proof of eczema. But what horrifies me is that the word of the little girl that she was happy and safe at home seems to have been completely ignored. Officialdom in Britain today would rather sacrifice the happiness and sense of well being of two small children, rather than risk leaving them with parents when there is even a minimal chance of child abuse.

Surely this is child protection gone completely barmy and once the child abuse ball begins to roll there appears to be no stopping it. Sometimes people in responsible jobs have to take a deep breath and weigh up options as to which will cause the most distress to all concerned. That doesn't seem to happen. They read the rule book, go through the procedures, and a child can plead for ever that she has fond, loving parents and it won't matter a damn. You see I'm not even sure if the child's welfare was paramount here. I think it was the welfare of the inexperienced medics and the Leeds social services who were watching their collective arses. Risk believing a child? More than me jobs worth, mate!!!

Well done Albion!! First title for 87 years!

Now some people might say this was a more light-hearted topic than usual. Not a bit of it! When the late Bill Shankly was once asked about his passion for the game of football and the journalist was rash enough to suggest that it was not, after all, a matter of life and death, Shankly fixed him with a steely glare and said 'Dead right son - it's a bloody sight more serious than that!'

Well I'm not sure I'd go that far but my joy that West Bromwich Albion has won the Championship title is unrestrained. The team was more or less promoted last week but today they made not only a certainty of promotion, but ensured that they finished in first place to take the Championship trophy.



Unbelievably, although Albion has gone up and down divisions, even sinking as low as the old third division at one time, this is the first title the team has won since they took the old First Division title in 1921. They have been promoted and relegated many times in that period but promotion has always been via second place or via the play-offs.

I have greater hopes for their Premier league survival now than I have when the Albion has reached the top flight on other occasions in recent years. The Club has a manager who knows what he's doing and a playing style which is a joy to watch. The team needs to be reinforced to survive in the Premiership but I believe the team has more strength in depth than on previous occasions, a manager who knows what he wants and has bought well. I just hope, now that he has proved he has got what it takes, that manager Tony Mowbray is not lured away to some richer club in the close season.

But I have high hopes for my beloved Baggies in the Premiership. They will struggle at first, no doubt, but I believe they have the team, the support and the ability to make a real stab at staying there this time around.

Well done the lads!!!!!

Well they asked for it!

This morning , Britain's governing Labour Party is surveying the wreckage of the local elections, held yesterday. The results for Labour could hardly have been more stark. It has fallen, unbelievably, into third place behind the Liberal Democrats, with a pathetic 24% of the vote. The Conservative Party is riding high on on 44%. If these results were converted into a General Election result, then Labour would be virtually wiped out.

But we know there won't be a General Election any time soon and if there were the results would be nothing like as stark. Local elections are used as a means of sounding off on national issues. But even so the results could hardly have been worse. Privately the Labour Party was calculating that a worst case scenario would be a loss of 200 seats - and it looks as if they are on target to lose more or less 200.

There may be worse to come. The flagship of the Mayoralty of London, held for 8 years by Ken Livingstone, might be lost to Boris Johnson, which would not only be a disaster for Labour but also for the people of London.



There is no point in the Labour Party trying to gloss over this defeat, no point in trying to minimise the damage. It is extensive, though not yet mortal. And one man above all has to carry the can for it- Gordon Brown. His Premiership has been marked by indecision, stutter, bad decisions and rank incompetence and, if there were some ready candidate in the wings I would urge Gordon to go.



But there isn't and Gordon won't go. But somehow the Labour Party has to get back, if not to the image of a party of visionaries created prior to Tony Blair's initial success in 1997, at least to a position of calm, competent government with a record of delivery. At present, Labour's successes - and there have been a number - are being obliterated by the dithering and the mistakes.

We have a Prime Minister who cannot connect with the public - unlike his charismatic predecessor - and, in my opinion, some people in top Cabinet positions who are just too lightweight for the jobs they have. There needs to be a reshuffle, there needs to be new steel in the government and, most of all, the Prime Minister needs to show that he is in control.

Last night's results are hardly the best of springboards for doing that but it should be a wake up call for a government which, on current form, is stumbling and bumbling to a massive defeat at the next General Election.