Chris Moncrieff questions Gordon Brown's choice of advisers
As the Budget approaches, Chris Moncrieff rounds up issues facing Gordon Brown and the country.
The entire Labour edifice appears to be collapsing and crumbling at the feet of the Prime Minister.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson tells us to stop moaning while today’s Budget, however tough it may be, and we are told it will be, will do little to stop Labour hurtling to defeat at the next general election.
That is not necessarily my view. Even some Cabinet ministers are privately saying that Labour can look forward to an electoral thrashing next year (or whenever Gordon Brown chooses to go to the country) on a scale similar to that inflicted on the Conservatives in 1997 and again in 2001.
The current state of the economy is enough on its own to send most governments reeling to defeat. But add the “smeargate” affair to that and you are in a whole new ball game.
The Prime Minister may hide behind the veneer of being a son of the manse. But why does he appoint people, or use people, who are outwardly so different from himself? Or are they?
I wondered for years, for instance, why Brown employed Charlie Whelan as his press contact when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Whelan was, and is, raucous, noisy, vulgar, insulting and sometimes worse. I have more than once been at the receiving end of his sneers.
Why did the Prime Minister appoint someone like Damian McBride as a close aide in 10 Downing Street?
If he didn’t know what this chap was like, he should have asked someone.
And why was Derek “Dolly” Draper, another Labour activist, allowed to get in on the act?
It is inconceivable that Brown knew nothing of the calibre, or lack of it, of these people.
No wonder Alice Mahon, a decent former left wing Labour MP, has resigned from the party in disgust.
But there are new and surprising developments as each day passes. Now we hear that Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, has been plotting against his own colleagues, possibly rivals, for the leadership when it comes up.
Balls has denied this lock, stock and barrel with all the force at his command.
Whatever else, a team of people with water cannons at the ready should set about cleansing the Augean stables of the Labour Party before it is too late – if it is not too late already.
* The pointless Advertising Standards Authority seems to have boobed again. The po-faced thought police who comprise it have banned the Courage brewery advertisement, which shows a nervous-looking man holding a can of beer and anxiously contemplating the rear view of a stout lady in a tight new dress.
A caption in the picture says “take Courage my friend”.
Hells bells! It is only a joke, which should be treated as such.
But the nannies on the ASA have solemnly ruled: “We considered the combination of the text and the image of the man with the open beer can and half empty glass of beer was likely to be understood by consumers to carry the clear implication that the beer would give the man enough confidence to tell his partner that the dress was unflattering.”
Heaven help us! What piffle!
The astonishing fact is that reportedly just three – yes just three! – people bothered to register a complaint about this advertisement. So if I produce six people (which should be no problem) to say they have no adverse view about the advertisement, will the ASA reverse that ruling?
I doubt it.
What is more, the ASA have furnished Courage brewery with far more publicity than they could ever have expected if they had simply ignored this advertisement.
In short, why is the ASA allowed to exist at all if this is the best it can do?
* The job of Home Secretary has proved to be a political graveyard for many competent politicians over the years.
But the present incumbent, Jacqui Smith, is different from all her predecessors. She seems to be digging her own grave, with perverse relish, more speedily than even the Prime Minister can sort out his much-needed cabinet reshuffle.
Incompetent? I would say so. Unreliable? You can say that again. Greedy over her expenses? Certainly.
A woman who cannot control her husband from his penchant for watching dirty movies or his desire to write to a local newspaper saying how brilliant she is without admitting that he is her husband, should not be allowed anywhere near the Home Office. In short a disastrous example of over promotion for someone who is a natural backbencher or at best, fit to carry the bags of a junior minister.
Prime Ministers do not normally care to satisfy the desires of the media baying for the blood of a politician.
But one trusts that in this case Gordon Brown will see the error of his ways in putting this woman on the front bench and despatch her to oblivion.
* It is not only the Home Secretary who was at fault in allowing the arrest of Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister, on trumped up allegations that he published leaks which allegedly (and nonsensically) damaged national security.
Her actions (or inactions) were bad enough but the Speaker of the Commons, Michael Martin, is probably even more culpable for allowing the police to search Green’s Commons office without a warrant.
Then, displaying precious little gallantry, the Speaker attempted to blame the whole affair on the relatively new Sergent-At-Arms Jill Pay. These people are handsomely paid by us to defend our rights, not to allow the police to trample all over us.
But unfashionably, I do have sympathy for the police who are coming under intense attack over the handling of the G20 protest. What happened to those people who smashed their way in to the Royal Bank of Scotland with what appeared to be a battering ram? You don’t hear much about them. So to suggest that this was a peaceful campaign, worked up into a frenzy by the police, is very wide of the mark indeed.
One is perhaps compelled to the conclusion that some of the protestors were taunting the police so much that they were even hoping for a violent reaction, while their friends with cameras conveniently stood close by.
* The Bishop Of Lincoln, Dr John Saxbee, addressed a meeting the other day giving his reflections on his first year as a member of the House of Lords.
He commented afterwards: “Sadly, they are more interested in how expenses claims are managed than in how Bishop’s contribute to the Parliamentary process”.
Well, there’s a surprise!
