The Ministry Of Truth

Today, the Cameron Experiment ended.

For three years, in a haphazard and incosistent manner, PBD’s been trying to convince us that his NuTories were different from the rabid right-wing Conservative options served up at the 2001 and 2005 General Elections.

Until today PBD’s NuTories - if you’ve believed the hype - have been green, caring, touchy, feely, concerned about “society” (which therefore may actually exist after all) and generally bloody good chaps.

Today, with PBD’s poll lead all but wiped out and - unbelievably - no evidence of anybody having the cojones to put Arrivederci Gordon out of his misery, NuTories became SameOldTories.

Today, PBD stood in front of a bunch of economic wonks and did a Geoffrey Howe:

The first step is to set realistic targets for public spending.

It’s simple. Borrowing is now going beyond acceptable limits. Taxes are already too high – and Labour’s plans for even more taxes will act as a drag anchor on recovery. They’ll put people off from investing here and help to destroy jobs not create them.

So the choice is clear, and it’s a tough one – we need to restrain public spending…

So I can announce today that in order to keep spending at a responsible level and to ensure the quickest possible end to the recession and the strongest possible recovery, we will not match Labour’s new spending plans for 2010 and beyond…

But setting tough targets for public spending is only the first step.

The next step is showing how we will meet those targets and that requires a credible long-term plan. A credible long-term plan for controlling public spending has three components.

First, reducing the demands on the state by fixing our broken society.

Second, increasing the productivity of the state by reforming our public services.

And third cutting Government waste.

Even the Economics Editor of The Daily Telegraph can’t hide his opprobrium.

It was the 31st President of the Untied States of Yankee Doodle, Herbert Hoover, who first fucked up a modern recession when he raised taxes and cut spending with the Revenue Act of 1932 in response to the recession that folllowed the 1929 stock market crash.  This led to a decade-long global slump called the Great Depression which saw American unemployment rates hit 25% and was only truly reversed by a worldwide war.

Forty years of economic orthodoxy followed - the way to handle a recession is to borrow a bit more, spend a bit more and cut taxes a bit.  That way a recession does not become a depression.

Fuck that, thought That Bloody Woman, as she sent Geoffrey Howe in to bat in 1981 with instructions - despite double-digit inflation, spiralling unemployment and plummeting economic output - to slash the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement.

The ever-affable Howe duly obliged - spanking the poor bastards already struggling to pay their rent with a freeze on income tax personal allowances (at a time of 13% inflation), increases in VAT and excise duties and big public expenditure cuts.

Jim Prior got a bit huffy but wasn’t pissed off enough actually to be arsed enough to resign from the Cabinet.  A couple of Tory MPs joined the SDP.

364 economists wrote to The Times to point out that this was, er, fucking stupid and that it would make the recession become a depression.  364 economists were told to fuck off because That Bloody Woman knew best.

Cue panic on the streets of London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and pretty much everywhere else; more than 3½ million unemployed; the systematic destruction of British manufacturing.

That depression lasted five years.

And most people with half-an-inch of brain now accept that Howe probably did go a bit over the top.

Stephen Nickell, now a member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, still thinks that the budget was over the top, and that it did deepen the recession, because unemployment continued to rise for several years afterwards.

So, having no concept of history or ability to learn from past mistakes, PBD has now abandoned all pretence of seeking to reposition the Conservative Party and decided that he’s going to repeat the mistakes of Hoover, Hilda and Howe.

He’s not going to cut taxes, he’s going to cut public spending and he’s going to shrink the state.  In the middle of a recession.

It didn’t work last time.

It won’t work this time.

But at least we’ve now learnt PBD’s true colours.  After three years the mask has come off.

Vote PBD, get more Thatcherism.

Arrivederci Gordon’s Christmas has come early.

But the rest of us should be working out if we’ve got enough points to be able to emigrate to Australasia…

A Chancer is forced to resign in disgrace following the discovery of financial and regulatory irregularities.

And goodness gracious me, who do we have here floating around the edges of the latest Chancerism controversy?

Disgraced Chancer David Ross and his former girlfriend
Shelley Ross with Dave and Smanfer Cameron
at a Conservative Summer Party at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, 2006

Well, well, well…

In October, Mr Cameron flew from London to West Yorkshire and back on Mr Ross’ private helicopter. Two summers ago, Mr Ross paid for Mr Cameron’s return flight from Germany for a World Cup match. Since 2001, Mr Ross has donated £117,560 to the Tories, either to Conservative Central Office or to local branches of the Conservatives near his home in Northamptonshire.

Who’dathunkit?

You’re not fit to wear the shirt, PBD, you plastic-faced doughball.

Chancerism: a right, not a privilege

Channel 4 News.

Gideon Osborne.

It’s very important to try to keep people in their home [and] if necessary to restructure their mortgages to help them do that, and we’ll look at the detail of this scheme and support anything that works.  But the real thing you could do is keep people in work and I’d like to see much more done to help businesses in this difficult time.

If you don’t believe me, the soundbite begins at 2:25 in this clip:

Unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s a Conservative finance spokesman advocating state intervention in commerce to protect jobs.

You may remember the Tories: free market economics, 3½ million unemployed, get on your bike, let’s destroy entire communities because there’s no such thing as society, survival of the fittest, never bail out any business unless it sells arms, fuck the poor and disadvantaged proletarians, annoying woman with pompous hair.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

You know, I didn’t like Sir Ian Blair until he started locking up Tories.  Shame to see him going now, really…

A political row erupted last night after counter-terrorism police arrested the shadow Home Office minister, Damian Green, after he published leaked documents allegedly sent to the Tories by a government whistleblower.

An angry David Cameron condemned the arrest as “Stalinesque”, after Green was taken into custody at about 1.50pm in his Ashford constituency and escorted to a central London police station.

A Tory source said: “David Cameron is angry.”

I’d love to see that.  I bet his silly little voice gets all squeaky and his chubby little cheeks go all pink.  Does plasticine melt when it gets hot…?

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, told the BBC: “To hide information from the public is wrong.”

Quite right, that man: you should never try to hide embarrassing stuff.

Now Gideon Osborne (for that is George’s real name - he just hides the fact) is, of course, a former member of the Bullingdon Club, the “exclusive” drinking club comprised of wealthy Oxford undergraduates who go around kicking in (other people’s) chairs and knocking down (other people’s) tables for laughs.

That’s the same Bullingdon Club of which his chums Posh Boy Dave Cameron and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson were also members.

(Oh, and that Nat Rothschild chap: he’s the one with the fantastically popular yacht.)

The same Bullingdon Club that somehow persuaded the photographers Gillman & Soame (the copyright holder) to withdraw permission for the reproduction of the group photograph of 1986 Bullingdon members showing Posh Boy Dave and Boris in full Buller costume.

In March 2007, the photographers’ line was that it had taken a “policy decision” not to allow any school photographs they own to be published.

Of course, if Gillman & Soame had copyright issues in March 2007, you have to wonder how this…

…ended up in the Daily Mail a month later.

Not to mention in The Times and Daily Telegraph.  And probably every other newspaper, too, if only I could be arsed to search for it.

Young Gideon is on the left of the photograph looking like an extra from Brideshead Revisited.

That’s the fella!  Devilishly handsome, isn’t he?

Not - you understand - that Posh Boy Dave has anything he wishes to hide from the public.

Oh, no.

I mean, it’s not like the man who would be Prime Minister won’t even answer a simple question about his drug use, is it?

The upshot is that, while Damian Green’s arrest was ridiculous, I’ll take lessons in freedom of information from this particular morally bereft bunch of Tories when the Leader of the Opposition is prepared to allow the electorate to see photographs of precisely what he got up to when he was 19 years old.

And tells the world when he last did blow…

PBD and Gideon interact with some proles, yesterday

On Saturday I was dispirited to read on the front page of Times Online a small article by David Leppard headlined ‘Sneak’ plan for mandatory ID cards.

Being the saddo I am I wanted to look at the bill to which the article referred, so I just did a search for the article using the Times Online website’s own search facility.

No sign of it under searches for ‘ID cards’, ‘identity cards’ or ‘David Leppard’.

Yet it’s still there (via Google News) or if you know the direct URL, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5162669.ece

How curious.

Surely The Thunderer isn’t censoring itself, having inadvertently drawn attention to a matter on which the Tories remain curiously silent when not openly schizophrenic…?

Anyway, one more time in full for those with a tendency towards depression:

‘Sneak’ plan for mandatory ID cards
David Leppard

Ministers have been accused of trying to introduce compulsory identity cards through the back door, despite promises that people will not have to carry them.

Lawyers at Liberty, the civil liberties group, say that little noticed clauses in the draft immigration and citizenship bill introduce new powers to make people produce identity documents or face arrest. The bill is expected to be in the Queen’s speech next month.

At issue is a clause in the bill which says that anyone who is to be examined by an immigration officer “must produce a valid identity document if required to do so”. Failure to produce an identity card or otherwise prove identity will become a criminal offence. At present, producing a passport counts as proof of identity.

It had been thought the clauses applied only to people entering the UK at ports.

But Liberty says a separate clause in the bill extends powers of examination to new categories of people. They include anyone in the UK — whether a British citizen or not — who has ever left the country.

Isabella Sankey, Liberty’s policy officer, said: “Immigration law is being used as a cloak to introduce measures that would effectively compel us all to carry ID cards. Under these paranoid proposals if you have ever set foot outside the UK you could be required, at any time, to prove your identity and nationality.”

The Home Office disputed Liberty’s reading of the bill. A spokesman said: “The bill does not contain legislation that will require UK citizens to be issued with compulsory ID cards. It clearly states that valid identity documents must be produced on request to maintain effective immigration control.”

Launch of the ID cards scheme begins next week when marriage visa holders and non-European Union students will be the first recipients.

Airside workers at some airports will then be issued with cards — a move opposed by pilots’ unions and related groups.

The cards were proposed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. Opponents say they are expensive, unnecessary and infringe on human rights.

Cards will carry a picture and security chip containing biometric data.

If you’re wondering how the Manuelgate controversy will end (and I suspect you’re as uninterested as me, except to wonder why such a desperately poor “comedian” as Russell Brand is in employment at all), a clue could be heard on this morning’s 7am BBC Radio 2 news bulletin.

The answerphone messages were described by a BBC newsreader as being “obscene”.

Broadcasts that are “obscene” are illegal.

Ergo, broadcasters making “obscene” broadcasters cannot be permitted to ply their trade on the BBC.

But I’ll lay odds that it’ll be Brand who pays with his job rather than Ross.  First, Brand does not present two primetime BBC One shows, isn’t one of the major forces behind Comic Relief, doesn’t win Gold Sony awards, and isn’t the planned successor to Sir Terence for things like Children In Need.  Second, Brand’s contract will be a lot cheaper to buy off.

Strange how a “23-year-old glamour model” (a member of a dance troupe called the Satanic Sluts, no less) and Max Clifford are central to the way things have played out, isn’t it…?

A final thought: politicians seeking to use this pathetic non-story for cheap column inches that are not connected to economic meltdowns and/or the ineptitude of their best mates are beneath contempt.

The current roll call of shame (from the ‘quality’ press only, as I can’t bring myself to look at the redtops):

Arrivederci Gordon (New Scum)
Posh Boy Dave (Scum)
Nadine Dorries (Scum)
David Hanson (New Scum)
John Whittingdale (Scum)
Andy Burnham (albeit half-heartedly) (New Scum)
Dennis Skinner (tangentially) (Old New Scum)
Philip Davies (Scum)
David Davies (Scum)
Paul Farrelly (New Scum)
Andrew Mackinlay (New Scum)
Nigel Evans (Scum)

This game’s fun!  I should play this game more often.

Some people criticise the Conservative Party for lacking ideological coherency - or, indeed, any ideology at all.

Some people suggest that the Conservatives will simply say whatever it takes to obtain and maintain power, regardless whether or not that leads them to take philosophically contradictory positions or make themselves look silly by promising one thing one day and something else the next.

Some people, you note.

But not The Minister.  That would be cheap politicking.

I’d much rather Conservatives speak for themselves.

Tuesday 3 October 2006
George Osborne’s first conference speech as Shadow Chancellor

To those who still want us to make upfront promises of tax cuts now we say: ‘We will not back down. We will not be pushed or pulled, we will stick to our principles. We will do what is right. I am not going to write my 2009 budget in 2006′.

Surely we must have learnt from three election defeats this simple truth: we must win the argument on the economy. We will never do that if people believe that our tax policy comes at the expense of their public services.

Monday 1 October 2007
George Osborne’s second conference speech as Shadow Chancellor

We are the low-tax party…  It is a mark of our seriousness about lower taxes that I will not promise unfunded, undeliverable tax giveaways to dress up a press conference in an autumn election campaign.  For this party, lower taxes aren’t just for Christmas.  They are for life.

We will take the family home out of inheritance tax…  In a Conservative Britain you will not be punished for working hard and saving hard…  The next Conservative government will raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1m.

Taken together our measures on stamp duty and inheritance tax represent the most important reform of capital taxes for a generation…  We will take 10 million people out of these taxes on aspiration.  We will simplify the tax affairs of millions.  For millions of people, today sounds the death knell for death taxes.

I will approach each budget seeking ways, consistent with sound public finances and economic stability, to reduce taxes on businesses and families striving for a better life.  That’s the real difference between this chancellor and the next one.  He is always looking for ways to put taxes up.  I will be looking for ways to bring taxes down.

Monday 29 September 2008
George Osborne’s third conference speech as Shadow Chancellor

It’s no good talking about the big up-front tax giveaways we might like to make, or the big spending increases it might be nice to have.  Because I repeat: there is no more money…

There are still some who think that Britain can borrow to pay for big unfunded tax cuts, let me just say this: I want to cut taxes too.  I want to put money back into the pockets of families and help businesses compete.  It is the aspiration and ambition of this Party that we leave office with taxes lower than when we came in…

The country may not be able to afford upfront tax cuts because borrowing is too high.

Where has this man been all my life?  He’s comedy gold: he even contradicts himself in the same speech!

He should be Palin’s running mate in 2012.

Perhaps there are some market ideologues who think that the money men can do no wrong.  But I tell you this right now: I am not one of them…

We admire the drive and the enterprise of so many people in the business world…

But I say this too: if you take risks, then you must bear the cost.  If you pay yourself sums far beyond what anyone else does in any other walk of life, then be prepared to lose it when you make mistakes…

Unlike New Labour we are not bedazzled by big money.  We respect wealth creation but unlike New Labour we don’t fawn over it…

We will put sound money first…

No more fiddling of the rules… Chancellors will be forced to behave responsibly with the public finances or face the public consequences.

A little game I like to play: watch a politician get himself into a wholly unnecessary pickle and then go back and read their last major speech to see just how much of a hypocritical little shit he is…

Another little game I like to play: always check to see what The Really Great Journalist Jeff Randall has to say on the subject.  Just five days ago, he was calling for Mr. Osborne to put himself about a bit:

This, surely, is George Osborne’s moment…  George, get your trousers on. Liven up. Your country needs you.

Really, you couldn’t make it up.

This is one of the most profoundly depressing political stories I’ve read in a long time.

Not because it’s a bad idea - it’s not; it’s precisely the sort of thing for which the country has been crying out for years - but because Arrivederci Gordon’s useless Labour government is allowing the Tories - THE MOTHERFUCKING TORIES! - to claim the moral high ground on environmentalism and public transport.

These are the same people who spent 18 years running the rail network into the ground by refusing to invest in it, and then flogging it off in a recklessly dangerous manner to chancer-carpetbaggers that somehow means taxpayers now pay more to subsidise the railway network than ever before.

These are the same people who, frankly, my dear, gave so little a damn about the environment that they put Nicholas Ridley in charge of it for three years.

And now here’s Posh Boy Dave and The Eton Rifles saying, “Actually, you know, there might be some votes in this after all.  Might make sense to stop people flying 150 miles because the train service is so pisspoor it’s usually quicker and cheaper to do so.  Might make sense to upgrade the railways if the oil price is about to shoot off the charts for good.  Sod the ideology, feel the election night count.”

And where’s our Transport Secretary?  (That’ll be The Rt. Hon. Ruth Kelly, New Labour MP for Opus Dei.)  She’s packing her fucking boxes instead of battering down the doors to the Channel 4 News and Newsnight studios to decry the hypocrisy of it all.

The Ad Man is going to win.  And it’s time to re-investigate those emigration options.

Yesterday in Eastbourne the (at least notionally) sole mainstream political party vaguely committed to social democracy - the Liberal Democrats, for those who may have forgotten they existed - turned bright blue, deciding that the best platform on which to fight the next election is “£20 billion of spending cuts and a couple of pence off income tax”.

This is on top of the party’s existing plan to cut £20 billion from public expenditure and take four pence off the basic rate of income tax.

So that’s £40 billion in spending cuts.  Can you imagine the reaction if the Tories threatened that?  (Actually, what am I talking about?  If the Tories threatened that, there would be complete apathy in the streets. Fuck me.)

Of course, nobody’s quite sure how any this is going to be funded, given that the party two years ago ditched its commitment to introduce a 50p tax rate for those earning £100,000 or more annually.

Vince Cable keeps going on about closing “immoral tax loopholes”, but it must be nice to be able to spout bollocks knowing you’ll never have to account for it.  (Which is why I’m a bit surprised Arrivederci Gordon isn’t making the most of his final days in office by announcing some initiatives based on the rejected drafts of David Sutch’s speeches from the Seventies.)

If only Labour would elect as leader a pudgy-faced, pasty posh boy who used to wank over posters of That Bloody Woman (is Mr. Tony still available…?) then I could conscionably stay at home at the next election, secure in the knowledge that my vote really won’t make the slightest bit of difference to the outcome.