Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

Perhaps Mandelson is right, they are missing the spin doctors of old.

Darling says he will carry on spending the money he hasn’t got – Brown says he will cut spending.

Mr Brown will deny he is redrawing his favourite “dividing line” – contrasting “Labour investment versus Tory cuts”. However, he has come under pressure from Cabinet ministers, led by the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, to change his language on public spending amid fears that Labour could lose the argument.

Looks and sounds like a Labour government without any clear direction.

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Soviet styled re-education just isn’t the answer

Soviet Russia under the communists had huge leviathan re-education projects housed in labour camps to solve their social and criminal issues, someone in Great Britain is trying to drive us the same way, that same someone hasn’t noticed that after the fall of communism Russia was still a land fed on a diet of vodka.

I think I am in complete agreement with South Shields Cllr. Ahmed Khan (here, here, here, here, and here – sorry but he doesn’t use Twitlonger as much as he could, and I love the final comment)  in opining that the new DBOs (Drinking Banning Orders) just won’t work, the view is similarly held by a proportion of magistrates and policemen who are sick and tired of more lame “initiatives” being introduced during the final months of this already dead Labour government.

Half the trouble with the Russians, of course, was that the vodka fuelled crime, and political dissent, was little more than a reflection of the behaviour of some of it’s leaders. After long periods of repression, pogroms, war, and ruthless control, a bunch of Stalinists could well have been forgiven for soaking themselves every now and then before repeating the process over again until the general populace became entirely sick and tired of it all. The tradition appears to have followed into the post communist regimes when Boris Yeltsin carried the flag on behalf of a nation, and by now, a culture.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-z9wfueMAw&fmt=]

So, should we now expect that British politicians will get a better result than the Russians?  You know, those who have thieved from the public with their grandiose expenses claims, taken us to war on the most flimsy of reasons, repressed us with anti-terror laws that chip away at our liberties, watched over us with millions of CCTV cameras, banned us from smoking in public places, told us was is good for us to eat, waged war on motorists, tried to impose ID Cards upon us, dumbed down education to keep our kids out of the labour market, mortgaged us all to the hilt for the next few generations, and generally indulged in some anti-social behaviour of their own. Not bloody likely, as Cllr. Khan suggests, those who indulge in the drunken behaviour will continue to mirror the behaviour of their leaders and thumb their noses at everybody else.

These initiatives and re-education schemes are not designed to work, they aren’t designed to help the streets, they aren’t designed to help law enforcement, they are designed for one reason and one reason alone, and that is to satisfy Labour ministers’ needs to show that they are appearing to be “doing something”, it’s called “getting on with the job”.

Meanwhile, those at the bottom of the pile just won’t even notice – just like Soviet Russia really.

To add insult to injury with this messy little story, the Scottish government wants to impose a minimum price on alcohol, stupid people! Don’t they realise that they cannot, it would be illegal, their power to do so was ceded away to Brussels a long time ago.

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No deals done over Megrahi release

I wish I knew which Oil-for-Prisoner deal Guido is harping on about, it clearly isn’t true, Jack Straw says so!

Update

A source close to Jack Straw told The Times that the move to include Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement in 2007 was a government decision and was not made at the sole discretion of the Justice Secretary. “It wasn’t just Jack who decided this. It was a Government decision. Jack did not act unilaterally.”

Update

Thurs. Sept. 3rd.

Guido is busy putting two and two together and Guardian report draws Alex Salmond closer into the web of possible commercial deals. Salmond of course “has never met any of them and never discussed it with any of them,”
Check the tags before you contact the lawyers please.

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Virgin Experience days for lightweights

Seems the Prince of Darkness thinks that Labour do not have any heavyweights with political experience to fight the next election, with too many SPADS culled over the last year or so. Is this why we are seeing so much of our MP in South Shields right now?

A party official echoed Mandelson’s concerns. “This is almost a virgin team,” he said. “It is the first election since before 1997 that will not be fought by a combined Blair/ Brown team . . . Nobody knows how it’s going to work.”

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Hello, hello there.

Curly, calling Tom Harris, Curly calling Tom Harris.

WELL, of course it wasn’t — what a bloody stupid question!

The conspiracy theories go something like this: senior members of the government (the PM and Mandelson) give a nod and a wink to various members of the Gaddafi clan that they’ll guarantee Al-Megrahi’s release provided some lucrative Libyan contracts come in the UK’s direction. Then Brown phones Salmond and/or MacAskill and gives them their orders. In response, the First Minister and his justice minister tug their forelocks and tell Gordon and Peter: “Of course, boss — anything you say.”

But maybe I’m wrong. In which case: come on, Kenny, fess up! Did you genuinely take this decision on your own or are you merely doing what your Labour Party masters tell you?

I think we should be told.

Well now, does this answer your question?

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Conservatives should not expect any favours.

I am delighted that 36 year old Fraser Nelson has taken over as editor of the Spectator, following the departure of Matthew d’Ancona, his forthright views on the economy and his political acumen will not be lost on an incoming Conservative government. For those who only get to read his short snippets in The News of the World you will know that he has some fairly traditional views for a young man, and that Cameron and the Conservatives cannot expect a comfortable ride from him after the next general election.

I have always been struck by his tenacity and his nose for a story or angle that will cut deeply into a politician’s skin. Who can forget that memorable moment when he well and truly rattled Gordon Brown long before anyone else realised that Labour were planning “cuts”?

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Why super surgeries?

The supermarkets and most shops don’t close over the Bank holiday weekend, the police service doesn’t shut down, the fire brigades carry on working, the newspapers still publish, the hospitals are open, so why is that some the larger super surgeries in the NHS closed yesterday evening and don’t re-open until Tuesday?

I was at my local surgery in South Shields a few days ago to request a repeat prescription of essential medicines for myself and was quite happy to be told that they would be available in about 48 hours, but lo and behold, when I returned this morning to collect I found that the surgery is closed until Tuesday. It would have been nice to have been warned about it on Wednesday when I was last there. Besides, there are about a dozen GPs working there and heaven knows how many other administrative and support staff, it beggars belief in this modern age that somehow they couldn’t schedule enough staff to maintain even a small service on a Saturday (they are normally open on a Saturday morning).

I think we’d all be justifiably upset if the supermarkets decided to close today, or if the TV stations decided to shut down for the weekend.

Just another small factor that should be included in any sensible debate about the modernisation of the NHS, especially as most of our politicians seem to think that pouring money into it ad infinitum is the answer to all of our ails.

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Educational quote of the day

Having 98.4% students passing their exams is impressive, but what does it mean? To pass, students must gain grade E or above. An A*-C is ‘good’. In last year’s Edexcel maths exam 36/100 got a C; 9 an E. Get roughly one out of three answers right and you’re ‘good’ at maths; get less than one in ten right and you’ll still pass. Something’s not quite right.

Sophie Shawdon at The Adam Smith Institute (took her exams last year.)

South Shields MP David Miliband said: “Today is about celebrating the successes of our young people.

“It is important that all students receiving their exam results today know how proud of them we are.

With the national pass rate edging closer to 100% (Only 1.4% of students failed GCSEs this year) it is time that we started to seriously re-evaluate the effectiveness of the current system especially as students are about to be kept at school until they are eighteen.

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Just which planet some of these folks are on

Dr Charles Tannock, a former consultant psychiatrist, who has been a Conservative London MEP since 1999 thinks it’s a good idea to charge people £10 to see their GP and then fine others for failing to keep appointments!

I’m all for having a debate about the NHS, but ideas like this are not going to help either raise money for the service or raise popularity for the Conservatives, Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary is right to give the proposal a very wide berth.

Isn’t there a general election on the way?

Whilst one little know Conservative MEP makes a nonsensical proposal we learn that a slightly better known and largely disliked politician, the Prime Minister, is prepared to try and take £15 per week in benefits away from some of the poorest in society. By removing their right to hang on to surplus cash in exchange for a reduction in their housing comfort, Labour’s leader is instantly blocking a simple remedy to poverty, in a scheme which actively encourages some competition in the housing market. Those who avail themselves of slightly lesser home comforts can at present keep up to £780 a year of their housing allowance, which to some people can make a massive difference.

Which planet is he on?

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I’m starting to worry for one of them

Daniel Finkelstein seems to have taken Mandelson’s bait, and swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I’m beginning to worry about the poor boy. Commenting on Conservative MEP Dan Hannan’s interview with Reason TV given about a month or so ago (before the NHS intervention in the USA) he says:

Dan uses his internet audience to lionise Powell, so let me use mine to disagree vigorously.

Enoch Powell’s most significant intervention into the public debate was wrong – the violence he foresaw did not happen – and grossly offensive – he cited with something close to approval, and certainly without demur, dreadful stereotypes of immigrants and their behaviour.

I think many immigrant families would find Dan’s endorsement of Powell threatening and unpleasant, even though I am sure that was not his intent.

Da Fink only needs to refer to Guido’s posts this morning to unravel the truth of the matter, instead of barking out the customary knee jerk reactions whenever the name Enoch Powell is mentioned, this is exactly the sort of “dog whistle” politics that Mandelson and the Labour Party is looking for. Dan Hannan has a far more liberal view on immigration than Powell or Mandelson could ever have combined!

Mandelson must be feeling pretty disappointed with his own words:

“Yet again, we are seeing the two faces of the Conservative Party. The one they want to present to the public and the one which attacks the NHS and praises Enoch Powell.”

now that Guido has added an additional rejoinder:

When Enoch Powell died Tony Blair led the tributes:

“He was one of the great figures of 20th-century British politics, gifted with a brilliant mind.”

I wonder if Finkelstein is about to eat humble pie too, and will Sunny Hundai at Liberal Conspiracy be joining him at the table?

Hannan’s interview (for the record)

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx0ktkr9s8I&fmt=]

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