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01/02/2010

Polly Toynbee's warning to Labour: Get rid of Brown or you are toast

The year isn't 48 hours old and two Labour MPs - Barry Sheerman and Greg Pope - have called on Brown to go.

Polly Toynbee uses her first Guardian column of the year to slam Gordon Brown's record and to predict defeat if he stays as Labour leader:

"There is nothing to celebrate in the dismal year ahead. The Labour party is sledging down a black run, eyes tight shut, the only certainty the electoral wall at the bottom of the hill....

The delusional tone of Gordon Brown's new year message says it all: "I believe we can create a new decade of prosperity with opportunities fairly shared amongst those who work hard and play by the rules." Just about every word of this raises questions about his record that he can never answer: GDP has fallen by 5% in the last year, taking us back to 2005; growth in his time was profoundly unfairly shared – over half the population saw virtually no growth at all; GDP per capita is a fraudulent measure that disguises how almost all growth went to the top 10%, and most to the top 1% – while he and Tony Blair did no more than see that the back half didn't fall too far behind...

The cabinet is frozen by individual self-interest – shame on all of them. They want Brown gone, but none dares wield the knife without the others... The country doesn't much like the Conservatives, but voters will throw Gordon Brown out – unless Labour does first."

Posted at 07:51 AM in Gordon Brown, PollyWatch | | Comments (16)

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12/31/2009

Sunny Hundal celebrates Rush Limbaugh's hospitalisation

Screen shot 2009-12-31 at 07.28.24The above Tweet from Sunny Hundal is typical of the ugliness of his Liberal Conspiracy website. It's not the first time it has celebrated something bad happening to a centre right personality.

Responding to the recent very brutal attack on the Silvio Berlusconi their blogger Unity posted a YouTube clip of the attack. The full text of the post was: "Obviously one should never condone the use of violence against anyone, least of all man in his seventies... But – be honest – given a clear shot, you would… wouldn’t you?"

'Sunny H' himself commented:

Screen shot 2009-12-31 at 08.53.38 There follows a long discussion about whether it is appropriate and tasteful to respond in this way, of whether celebrating Thatcher's death is a good idea and the like. We are going to see the very worst of the Left when (and I hope it's some time away) Lady Thatcher dies.

Blogs cannot always be responsible for their comments but they can be responsible for their approved authors like Unity.

Here's another of Unity's posts:

"In 1983, 62% said that they thought that sexual relations between adults of the same sex were wrong. Today that figure has fallen to 34% and if, as the evidence for religious belief suggests, difference in attitudes between generations account for most of the change then, even though its not as good as it might be, there ís probably nothing much that couldn't be quickly sorted out with a decent flu pandemic."

Such hymns of hate speak for themselves.

Tim Montgomerie

Posted at 09:02 AM in The Left on the Web | | Comments (25)

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Brown spends more on spin than Blair

Screen shot 2009-12-31 at 07.35.45The Telegraph reports that "the Government’s annual PR bill is now approaching a quarter of a billion pounds a year, despite the pledge by Gordon Brown when he came to power in June 2007 to deliver the “end of spin” and a “new type of politics"." This spin bill comes on the top of the return of spinmeister general, Alastair Campbell.

Conservative frontbencher Nick Hurd MP told The Telegraph:

“Gordon Brown’s promise of the end of spin has been exposed as a sham. He now spends more taxpayers’ money on spin than Tony Blair. Labour has bankrolled a vast spin machine, politicised the civil service and created a corrosive culture of deception at the heart of Whitehall. Instead of spending the public’s money on front line services, a quarter of a billion pounds a year is now spent on the wages of spin under Brown.”

Tim Montgomerie

Posted at 07:40 AM in Gordon Brown, Waste, waste and waste | | Comments (0)

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12/30/2009

Charles Clarke makes another plea to Labour to ditch Gordon Brown

CLARKE Charles The Blairite former Home Secretary Charles Clarke has today made another intervention in which he calls on his Labour colleagues to have the nerve to ditch Gordon Brown before the general election.

He writes that "most senior Labour leaders have had little faith in Gordon Brown’s leadership for a considerable time" and suggests that a snap 21-day leadership election is "quite possible".

He also reports regretfully that the "Damian MacBride style of politics is not dead" inside Downing Street. 

Iain Dale has posted the full text of his article, but here is his conclusion:

"In Parliament and elsewhere an overwhelming majority of Labour opinion believes that in this position Labour’s chances would be significantly improved if Gordon Brown were to stand down. Over Christmas there have been signs that this strength of opinion is understood in the Cabinet. The New Year will be the time to ensure that the overwhelming feeling which does exist is turned into the action which brings about the necessary change. The price of failure is just too high."

"Doing nothing now may seem the easiest option. But Labour should learn from the Tories, who have had many whole decades in power: political parties need the killer instinct to hold on to office. David Cameron’s Conservatives are relying on Labour failing to learn that lesson. From the beginning of 2010 we need a renewed Labour Party which can offer the people of Britain a genuine and positive choice at the ballot box."

9.30pm Update: Thanks to Gareth Quinn in the comments below for highlighting this priceless tweet from John Prescott:

"I helped deliver 30,000 leaflets in Hull over Xmas as Charles Clarke prepared his mistletoe & whine. He really is the ghost of Xmas p****d"

Jonathan Isaby

Posted at 06:40 PM in Gordon Brown, Labour leadership race | | Comments (17)

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RMT boss Bob Crow promises to make 2010 "a year of concerted trade union action"

Picture 14 The Telegraph reports the New Year message delivered by the appalling Bob Crow, leader of the transport union, the RMT:

“The growing militancy and confidence of the trade union movement will increase in 2010 and as far as RMT are concerned whoever win the election it will be business as usual in the fight for workplace and social justice.

“We are facing a tough year ahead but if we make 2010 a year of concerted trade union action there is no doubt we can mobilise a fightback which can stop the attacks on jobs, services, pay and conditions dead in its tracks.”

More here.

> Before Christmas we revealed that the unions were building a £25 million war chest to "unleash hell" on a Conservative Government.

Jonathan Isaby

Posted at 07:40 AM in Lurching Left | | Comments (35)

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12/29/2009

Labour's decade was worst for economic growth in whole post-war period

The FT has the report:

"The UK in the first decade of the new century recorded the lowest economic growth of the postwar period and the worst returns for stock market investors since the 1930s, according to a Financial Times analysis of official and market data. Information provided by the Office of National Statistics to the FT shows that gross domestic product, on average, rose by 1.7 per cent annually in real terms throughout the so-called noughties, Britain's weakest period of economic expansion of any since the 1940s. Manufacturing was particularly hard hit and, on average, after adjusting for inflation, output actually contracted over the decade by 1.2 per cent annually."

It's the same economic failure with EVERY Labour government. It's time for ToryBear's great video again...

Posted at 07:39 PM in Labour failure, Video | | Comments (13)

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The Director of Public Prosecution's socialist past

DPPattack Yesterday Mr Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, criticised Chris Grayling's suggestion that householders may need more rights to protect themselves from intruders.

It is not the first time Mr Starmer has distanced himself from Tory policy. He has also defended the Human Rights Act against Tory plans to replace it.

Mr Starmer has a history of left-wing activism. As a student he edited a publication called Socialist Alternatives. Judicial activism worries conservatives and Starmer was seen to have taken an activist stance last year when he adopted new guidelines that appeared to accommodate assisted suicide. When The Guardian profiled him after his appointment in August 2008 he was reported as a "Labour supporter".

Mr Starmer is another example of Labour's dominance of "appointment-land"; a dominance that will continue even if the Labour party loses its Commons majority next year.

Tim Montgomerie

Posted at 09:14 AM in Politicised charities and appointments | | Comments (33)

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12/28/2009

Patient French made 50% more than Gordon Brown on gold sales (and only sold half as much)

Gold-bars The Times describes Mr Brown's reverse Midas touch as "the definition of calling the bottom of the market".

David Robertson writes:

  • Britain lost over £6bn: "Gordon Brown’s decision to sell the bulk of the Bank of England’s gold at historically low prices has cost the country $10 billion (£6,260 million)."
  • Patient France have made more profit by waiting and selling less gold: "It is made even more galling by France’s decision to hold on to its reserves and start selling only in the past couple of years. This year France sold 73.4 tonnes raising $2.5 billion. That was on top of 113.5 tonnes sold last year at an average price of $872, raising $3.5 billion. The French have made 50 per cent more than Mr Brown by selling half as much gold."
  • Britain now sits below Venezuela in the gold reserves league table: "Mr Brown’s firesale means that the UK now ranks 16th in the world for gold reserves, according to the World Gold Council. It is between Venezuela at 15th and Lebanon at 17th."
  • The gold sales were probably part of Labour's scheming to join the eurozone: "At the time of Mr Brown’s gold sale in 1999 there was speculation it was part of a plan to ensure that the UK was prepared for entry into the European Union’s single currency."
  • The sales were against good practice by central banks: "Other central banks were also unhappy with the decision to sell as they had agreed to limit their collective sales to 500 tonnes a year."

Is there a more powerful example of Brown's incompetence?

Tim Montgomerie

Posted at 08:44 AM in Gordon Brown, Waste, waste and waste | | Comments (5)

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12/27/2009

The British Left is developing better and better online products

There is more evidence today that the Left is getting its online effort together.

Screen shot 2009-12-27 at 14.43.53 LeftFootForward is a notably different offering to, for example, the nasty immaturity of Sunny Hundal's Liberal Conspiracy.  It is an intelligent blog that examines all Tory policy.  We are also seeing Alex Smith build a more credible LabourList after the disaster of Derek Draper's stewardship.

Screen shot 2009-12-27 at 14.43.02 Yesterday Hillary Benn MP launched the 'BackTheBan' website to harvest the email addresses of the many supporters of the foxhunting ban. It's not a complicated product but it will probably gather a few thousand email addresses in the months to come for party fundraising efforts.

Screen shot 2009-12-27 at 14.26.59Today a Labour MP, Jon Cruddas, and a Labour candidate, Chuka Umunna, have launched 'Tory Stories' - a blog dedicated to highlighting alleged failures of Tory councils and councillors.  The Times' Sam Coates describes the blog as "carefully researched".

Time will tell if ToryStories can translate its initial offering into regular analyses that win local and national media attention but there are clearer and clearer signs that the Right's dominance of the internet is being challenged as never before. The 38 Degrees website is also one to watch.

Should the Tories win the General Election we can expect the Left to rebuild on the web. They will fight every 'Tory cut' online and on a local and national basis. The trade unions have a £25m war chest to fund such campaigns.  The danger for the Labour Party is that all this online activism will create an energised left-wing that will be difficult to manage.

Whatever the truth about the Left's latest online offerings it is absolutely the case that we on the Right must raise our game in 2010.

Tim Montgomerie

Posted at 02:47 PM in The Left on the Web | | Comments (31)

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The UK pays £7,457 for every Briton that receives healthcare from Ireland but Ireland only pays us £2,606 for every Irish person that is treated by the NHS

The terrible deal for UK taxpayers was revealed by Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley:

"NHS funds are always precious. For the Government to carelessly enter into an arrangement like this is a betrayal of the trust we have placed in them to use those funds wisely."

Posted at 12:37 PM in Waste, waste and waste | | Comments (2)

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