Labour lies about rats in rubbish

One of the least appealing aspects of the Blair-Brown administrations – in a very long list of unappealing things – is the institutional dishonesty which these two men and their advisers have brought to government. The dishonesty comes with added hypocrisy since both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, in their different ways, have expressly laid claim to a religious and moral basis to their lives.

This dishonesty is not just morally wrong. One is left gaping sometimes at the political stupidity of lying about subjects on which you are bound to be found out sooner or later, particularly things which, however important, are not matters on which governments fall. Governments are entitled to make some mistakes, to experiment, to assess the consequences, and to accept they got it wrong. What loses the votes is the persistent feeling that we are being lied to daily on every subject.

Looking forward to the Summer of discontent

The Summer of 2008 is set to be a pleasing re-run of the final months of Callaghan’s government in the Winter of Discontent of 1978-79. We will all suffer, but none more so than Gordon Brown, and it will be worth putting up with our hardships to see the growing misery of our unpleasant leader. It will last longer than Callaghan’s, but then Callaghan was guilty only of mistakes and of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gordon Brown deserves all he gets, and there is a real pleasure in watching him having to chew the ashes of his ambitions under the glare of the media spotlight.

Gordon Brown makes an honest man of Tony Blair

I speak relatively, of course. Tony Blair was the most dishonest man ever to have been Prime Minister. Gordon Brown wants to outdo Blair in everything and he is certainly catching up fast on this front. Blair begins to look like a model of decency and propriety next to Brown.

The three big events of recent weeks – the election that wasn’t, the European charter and the pre-Budget statement – have all undone the appearance of statesmanship which Brown managed to acquire in his first few weeks. It was in truth a pretty baseless kind of statesmanship anyway – Brown gave up his holiday to go and look at some damp houses, turned up to hear the experts’ recommendations on sick cows, and found himself hailed as a good man in a crisis.

All that is thrown away now. In each of the three cases, the damage has not so much derived from Brown’s lack of judgement (the election) or because many people disagree with him (Europe and CGT) but because of the patent dishonesty, the open contempt for democracy and the sheer unpleasantness of the man.

Gordon’s Alive?

“No Flash. Just Gordon”. A brilliant slogan which pithily encapsulates so much about Gordon Brown. It was presumably intended as a dig at Mr Brown’s predecessor – all light and no heat, flash in the pan, would you buy a used car from this man?, that sort of thing. What was the chap’s name, Blair, that’s it.

It works at so many other levels, though. For many of us, Flash Gordon means Brian May’s remix of Flash’s Theme which appeared in Queen’s Greatest Hits, with Brian Blessed’s Vultan exclaiming

Gordon’s alive?

What do you picture? I see a wooden box, and a large man removing the stake through his heart at dusk to walk the earth until dawn, bringing misery and despair wherever he goes. Towns flood, cattle die of disease, and dark aliens bring indiscriminate terror.

Risk adversity at the swimming pool

The point of a council swimming pool is to teach youngsters how to swim, from flapping around in arm-bands and their mothers’ arms, to jumping and and larking about as teenagers. In that safe environment, they can learn how to cope when they go to Marbella with their mates, or fall off a boat, jump into a quarry or get swept away in a fast-flowing river. The whole point is to replicate everything about the experience except the actual danger of the open water.

The worst thing they will find at a council swimming pool is a dreary-voiced functionary telling them what not to do. Three boys were thrown out of Harlow pool last week because they were wearing the long shorts which are fashionable at the moment. The drag of the material could hamper their swimming apparently. But if that is what they are going to wear in real life, then surely that is what they should swim in at the council pool. Many dangerous situations in fact arise when they are fully clothed.

Government misses all primary school targets

“Four out of ten pupils could not read, write and add up properly by the time they left primary school this summer, the Government said yesterday.

Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, hailed the test results as the best ever”

The Times, from which this quotation came on 8 August, is strangely uncritical of the fact that 40% of our children leave primary school illiterate and innumerate, and did not even seem to notice the hubris in Adonis’s reaction. New Labour has had more than ten years to make good Tony Blair’s commitment to “education, education, education” and we no longer notice that its creatures boast even about its failures.

Ringing Tone

When both my phones ring at once, it is usually an auto-dialler. I answer one of them and a man with poor English asks for me by name, in an accent hailing, at a guess from somewhere between the Himalayas and Sri Lanka.

“Who is calling him?” I ask. The answer is incomprehensible. “Can you speak English?”, I ask, as politely as the question allows. It is probably an offence to imply that someone’s spoken English is not up to scratch. He reads me my address and ask if that is where I live. I express unwillingness to answer in the negative or affirmative before he identifies himself. He mutters something and hangs up, having presumably concluded that his marketing time is better spent elsewhere.

They are an evil characteristic of the last decade, these people. A patently dishonest man, keen to get at my private information, trying to sell me something I don’t want, and which he is unlikely to deliver, in an accent which is not the one he was brought up with.

I had enough of that from Tony Blair.

Home

David Cameron Lit out without comment

If David Cameron really wants to show that he and the Conservative Party intend to bring honesty back into politics, he could start by giving direct answers to direct questions.

I avoid politicians on television as a rule. Blair made lying respectable, in that politicians no longer even pretend to be telling the truth, and Brown makes Blair look almost honest – it takes a while to work out what the falsehood is with Brown whereas it was usually obvious with Blair. The sight of any one of them makes me shout imprecations at the screen, which spoils the programme for everyone else.

Since David Cameron has no policies which can be distinguished from Labour’s, he needs some other point of difference, something which encourages people not to lump the whole pack of them together. He could have chosen to be open and straightforward – a unique selling point in British politics and one which could win votes.

Losing liberties to dim minions

I am not sure if Tony Blair was naive or self-serving in saying “I told you so” in this week’s Sunday Times. It seems unbelievable that he still cannot see why Parliament, reflecting a widespread view, denied him the powers which he and the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke sought to detain foreign nationals suspected of plotting terrorism.

Grey for Brown

Always keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse (Belloc)

After weeks of fine weather, it has barely stopped raining since Tony Blair’s resignation speech confirmed that Gordon Brown will be Prime Minister, possibly for three long years until May 2010.

Even those of us who despised almost everything about Blair feel a metaphorical chill to match the weather. It was not that there was ever much doubt about Gordon Brown’s succession, but hearing Blair actually say that he was off somehow killed the last ray of hope.