According to the Guardian, today, the Tories have beem borrowing heavily in order to fund their election campaign and could hjave to put up their former head office in Smith Square as collateral if some walthy supporters are not prepared to turn their loans into donations after the election.

There is something rather ironic about the possibility that the ‘party of business’ could conceivably go under not through its current moral and electoral bankrupcy but through good old fashioned simple insolvency.

Could that really happen? Who knows but you’d have to guess that even the patience of the Tory’s financial backers will wear thin eventually in the face of repeated electoral failures and an inability to put together anything that remotely resembles a credible challenge for government. The nightmare scenario would surely be if the Lib Dems were to overhaul the Tories into second place in the Commons and as the main opposition party, something which, if it did occur, would almost certainly leave the Tories in an impossible financial position.

One thing is certain, however. If it did happen and the Tory’s were to go bankrupt then John Hemming would still blame the DTI.

Despite Michael Howard’s incessant attacks on immigration - ‘tough on foreigers, tough on the causes of foreigners - his whole policy is rapidly beginning to unravel around him.

Howard wants to take only UN-approved refugees from UNHCR - UNHCR have refused to point blank to cooperate with such a policy, especially as it would result in Britain walking away from the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and Asylum Seekers and put us, globally, in the same category as Saudi Arabia, Libya and Noth Korea.

Howard wants limits on economic migration - the CBI, no less, doesn’t.

Howard says that Parliament would decide on the exact numbers of migrants to be allowed under his policy of immigration quotas, which as should be obvious is a completely disingenous statement worthy only of the most mendicant of ambulance-chasing lawyers - Parliament would have its say, but only by voting on quotas put to it by a Tory government and backed up by a full three line whip and guillotined debate to force the proposals through.

So, to ask a question I would have liked Paxo to ask last night, if Howard is so keen for Parliament to decide on quotas for immigration will he back up that statement by giving a commitment that should he come to power, the decision on quotas would be put to free vote in the Commons?

No, I don’t think he’ll buy that at all.

Footnote:

One of my all-time favourite films is the 1950’s version of Tenessee William’s classic play ‘Cat on Hot Tin Roof’ which features, amongst many other delights and excellent performances not least of which was Elizabeth Taylor in her prime, a bravura performance from Burl Ives int he role of ‘Big Daddy’.

I mention this because, of late, seeing Michael Howard at work’ invariably calls to mind the sight of Ives waxing loud and lyrical on the subject of ‘the smell of mendacity’ - the stench of which is perhaps the defining characteristic of the Tory’s entire campaign.

Day 6 and still no answer from John Hemming or any other Birmingham Lib Dem as to whether they’ve followed the party line and have been processing postal vote applications through their Birmingham Office.

So, today, we’ll try appealing to a wider consitutency in the hope of answer to this question.

According to John’s own testimony to the recent election court in Birmingham, the envelopes in which these applications are issued and returned are easily identified - so if anyone’s been in and around the Lib Dems office at 1772 Coventry Road, Birmingham, B26 1PD and has noticed whether they seem, suddenly to be getting rather a lot of post or, better still, has recognised application forms being delivered to this address, the hit the comments button and let us all know.

PoliticalHack, in the meantime, has nicely outed Annil Chandra - the Rover Project manager who’s being making noises in the press about forming both a worker’s cooperative at Rover and suing the DTI for negligence over the closure of Longbridge - as being the same Annil Chandra who stood as a Lib Dem candidate in the Birmingham City Council elections last year, in Bournville, a fact confirmed by a search of last year’s Birmingham electoral register which shows him to be, in true Little Britain style, then only Annil Chandra in the City.

By a complete coincidence (yeah, right!) the only other person talking publically about either a worker’s coop at Rover or trying to blame the DTI for its downfall happens to be…

… Birmingham Lib Dem Leader and Candidate for Birmingham Yardley, John Hemming, who, incidentally, has a fair of previous form for shameless political opportunism on display over at the usually excellent, but currently rather quiet, Lib Dem Watch.

Adding a little fisson of intrigue to the whole business, in the last few days the IcBirmingham website - how of the Birmingham Post and Evening Mail - has carried both Chandra’s allegations regarding the DTI and an allegation by Labour’s Perry Barr Candidate, Kahlid Mahmood, that Hemming and another Lib Dem candidate have been using an office at Birmingham City Council for campaign activities - which, if true, would be a breach of the Code Of Conduct which governs the actions and behaviour of councillors - and have, therefore been reported to the Standards Board - it should also be noted that John is, himself, no stranger to the Standard Board.

Strangely, both reports now appear to have been removed from the site as has a report regarding another Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in Birmingham who, it was alleged, was entertaining his ‘friends’ at the Council House at the taxpayer’s expense.

‘No one is going to stop me doing what I think is best for the British people’

From BBC’s ‘The Paxman Interview’

Err Michael, you seem to have forgotten about the insignificant little matter of the British electorate.

Read this

Now check the date - 26 January 1998

Now look at the signatatories…

… especially Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz

Now note this…

“if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.“

and this…

“We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council“

QED

Day five and still no answer as yet to the question of whether the Lib Dems in Birmingham are farming postal vote applications from their local supporters through their offices in Yardley.

Come on John, this is starting to get a bit like Paxman v Howard - can’t wait for tonight’s return match, BTW.

Is there a problem here, John? After all, you’ll only be following party orders if you are farming postal applications, even though you did try - and fail - to overturn the entire system yesterday.

I await your response with interest.

Just watched the BNP’s Party Election Broadcast - if you didn’t bother, here’s what you missed.

One crappy folk song (lyrics by N Griffin Esq) about a ficitious homeless ex-serviceman who gets nothing from the state while asylum seekers get a free ride to council house heaven.

One black and while film of a BNP member slouching round London trying to act out the role of a homeless drunk - hardly a reach for most of them - to fit in with the lyrics of the aformentioned crap folk song.

Three key messages…

1. One third of homeless people on Britain’s streets are ex-servicemen

2. Labour: Let in too many asylum seekers

3. Tories: See above.

All topped off with a bit of footage of Obergruppenfuehrer Nick leaving Keighley Police Station to address his local rent-a-mob, who appeared by kind permission of Morons-R-Us.

Now apart from being a dull as ditchwater there was just one slight problem with it all - bit of a veracity thing.

You see the whole business about 1 in 3 homeless people being ex-squaddies comes from a credible source - Crisis (I would link to them but their sites not working - www.crisis.org.uk) - the only problem being that the research is rather out of date… by about three to four years.

Oh, and in between, something fairly significant happened which must have accidentally slipped the BNP’s collectives minds - er, I think I’m definitely overreaching with that concept - and that happens to be that back in July 2002, your friendly neighbourhood Labour Government passed the Homelessness Act 2002, the effect of which was to compel Local Authorities to treat ex-servicemen and women as priorities for housing on their leaving the armed forces.

Its the kind of thing that makes for a pretty short debate on the hustings…

Nick: What about homeless ex-service personnel, are you going to help them?

Tony: We already have. Three years ago.

Nick: Ohhhhhhhhhhh shit…

So don’t bother complaining to the Beeb about it - unless you want to tell them how crappy it was - it was so dull that there was nothing worth complaining about.

Might as well just tell people the truth - that Labour have already dealt with the issue of homelessness and the armed forces - and ask FactCheck to look into it.

There are times when even people and cause you support manage to ‘pull a Homer’ and do something so stupid that it makes you want to tear your hair out in frustration.

‘Unite Against Fascism‘ have the right motives - Fascism should never be allowed to go unchallenged but to them and and to others like Jo Salmon who seem ready to leap on the BBC for daring to show a Party Election Boradcast - tonight - by the BNP, I have to say.

1. For fuck’s sake get your facts right before you start.

The BNP are putting up 118 candidates at this election. With that number of candidates they are legally entitled to a Party Election Broadcast provided they stay within other application broadcasting guidelines and regulations - which they will even if it means toning down their usual message, having become quite adept over the years in putting up a semi-acceptable front which manages to stay just inside the law - if you don’t believe me, you can read an explanation of the regulations from the House of Commons Library here.

2. If you’re going to run a ‘complaints campaign’ then remember the first rule is that ‘you don’t talk about Fight Club’.

Don’t put it on your website, especially not before the damn broadcast has gone out - you just end up looking like you’re complaining for the sake of it (which is what the BNP will say anyway) and the Beeb and others are unlikely to pay much attention to complaints which arrive before the broadcast goes out - they’re pretty inured to that kind of thing thanks to groups like Media Watch and the loony Christian fundies over at Christian Voice.

If you’re going to organise, use e-mail and work through your mailing lists to alert people and do it quietly. Tell people to hold fire until after the broadcast has gone out and then complain - and try to be specific, refer directly to the broadcast and its content and work on that.

Uninformed complaints lodged before a broadcast are easily dismissed - if you haven’t seen a programme how you legitmately comment on it?

Informed complaints made afterwards which refer directly to the content and which relate you complaint back to broadcasting regulations and standards have to be taken far more seriously because you then have a real argument, not a bunch of assumptions, to put forward.

3. If you’re going to complain then watch the broadcast - nothing is going to make you look quite so dumb as fireing off at the mouth about it and then having to admit, afterwards, that you didn’t actually see it.

4. Deconstruct the content and argue from there - if all you can do is say ‘its the BNP, therefore it must be wrong’ you’ll lose the argument because all you’ll succeed in doing is validating everything they’re already saying about you - that you’re the one’s who’re ‘prejudiced’ against them, that you won’t listen, that you’re authoritarian and trying to take away their rights.

Principles are fine, but if you attack them on principle and without informing yourself first you allow them to make out like they’re some sort of political Robin Hood’s promoting a message that other’s don’t want the public to hear because its ‘dangerous’ - and its a short step from there for them to claim that you’re trying to suppress the ‘truth’.

Beating fascism isn’t about taking away their platform or driving them underground - that’s exactly where these bastards thrive, down in the gutters and the sewers.

If you really want to win, then let them speak, keep them visible and then debate, discuss, educate and inform - win the argument.

Take it from an old lag who’s been at this game for more than 20 years - you don’t kill cockroaches by sweeping them into corners and sealing them up behind the skirting board - you have to let them into the centre of the room and stamp on them, however distateful that might seem at first.

It really is the only way.

On Tuesday I wrote the following in regards to John Hemming and his legal challenge on postal votes…

There are numerous reasons why John’s case is likely to fall flat on its face, not least in that he appears to have learned nothing from his previous stab at challenging the electoral system in 2002 which is cited on his own ‘Stolen Votes’ website.

I also pointed out that

Having been caught out once before on the basis of Locus Standii, you’d have thought that John would have known better this time around

and that John’s argument was

a long way from establishing that the government is directly responsible for election fraud and, therefore, for disenfranchising voters.

Hemming responded, in part with the following comments…

There is no doubt about locus [standii].

The question is whether the current regulations are repugnant not whether there is a lacuna or not which I believe is quite clear.

[Lacuna is a technical point the upshot of which is that just because your could, in theory, be infringed it does not follow that they will be - Human Rights Law deal only with actual breaches not hypothetical ones]

In refusing Hemming’s petition for a judicial review of postal voting, Mr Justice Collins has stated that it was not enough to make general allegations about fear of fraud [Lacuna] before noting that he “was not yet a victim of fraud and could not be as the general election was still to take place.” [Both Lacuna and Locus Standii]

It should also be noted that the third reason why his first attempt at a legal challenge on postal voting, back in 2002, fell at the first hurdle was:

Discretion of Parliament - The decision for some of the aspects where a review was requested was a matter for parliament not the courts.

In referring to the risk of fraud at the upcoming election, Mr Justice Collins commented that this was

‘a matter for politicians and not the courts.’

I also noted that:

as seems to be perenially the case with John, his ego has got the better of him once again and his personal vanity would not allow anyone but him to be the one to make the challenge - even if others would have been far better placed, in law, as the plaintiff in this matter.

And as John’s challenge is now done and dusted I can safely explain my reasoning which was simply that, as John has found out the hard way, you can’t build a human rights case on the back of ifs, buts and maybes.

John’s best and only realistic chance of making any sort of credible case would have been to support a case brought by any of the losing candidates from either Aston or Bordesley or, even better, by any single voter who could legitimately demonstrate that their vote was stolen during last year’s elections in Birmingham.

If, and its still a big if, John could have worked with another plantiff to have the postal voting system that was used in last year’s council elections declared unlawful then, by extension, use of same system in the upcoming election would equally be unlawful - but then, where would be the ‘fortune and glory’ for John in having someone elses name on the case.

Having said all that,I’m sure that John will be happy to pop by in the next day or so to graciously concede that I was right all along - wouldn;t want anyone to think that he’s an ungracious loser.

…

Now back to day 4 of the John Hemming challenge, which as his request for a judicial review has now bitten the dust should be rather easier for him to complete.

To remind all of you, the question that’s been put to John every day for the last four days is…

Are Birmingham Lib Dems carrying out the instructions of the national Liberal Democrat party and processing applications for postal votes from Lib Dem supporters through its Birmingham Office?

The news that B16, the Pontiff formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was once a member of the Hitler Youth has drawn some interesting reactions, not least over at Harry’s Place where the general tone has been rather conciliatory.

Twenty Five years ago, Benny’s past associations would have had journalists hitting the archives in droves to check out his story. Its perhaps a reflection of how far we’ve moved on from ‘1945 and all that’ that today the official story of his allegedly very limited involvement in the Hitler Youth Movement is allowed to pass more or less unchallenged, despite the fact that there are a number of clear historical inaccuracies in the official story.

The Guardian article provides the following synopsis of the official line which, but for doubts over whether he could have avoided joining the Wehrmacht, stays broadly on message:

His father was a police officer from a family of farmers whose career suffered because he refused to become a Nazi. The young Ratzinger served briefly and unenthusiastically with the Hitler Youth and later with a German army anti-aircraft unit guarding the BMW factory in Munich. He says he never fired a shot.

But there is no doubt that his heart was not in his military service and he deserted in April 1944, ending the war in an American prisoner of war camp.

Its an interesting if historically inaccurate story for a variety of reasons.

First it needs to be noted that Ratzinger was born in 1927 - April 16th to be precise.

Membership of the Hitler Youth became mandatory for all German boys in 1936, some seven years before his alleged desertion from the Wehrmacht. At nine years of age, Ratzinger would have become a member of the Hitler Youth and would have remained a member throughout - bunking off was not only not allowed but would have put his family at serious risk of arrest, more so in light of his father’s apparent refusal to join the Nazi Party. Ratzinger’s ‘brief’ membership of the Hitler Youth would have lasted for a minimum of seven years.

On January 26 1943, with his armies overstretched and having lost the entire 6th Army at Stalingrad - Hitler turned over the manning of all anti-aircraft batteries in Germany to the Hitler Youth. Ratzinger would have been 15 years old, still far too young to join the Wehrmacht, and could have served in an AA crew only as a member of the Hitler Youth - his ‘never fired a gun due to a bad finger’ story sounds rather too reminiscent of Clinton’s ‘I didn’t inhale’ line to be credible.

As regards his service in the Wehrmacht, unless he lied about his age he could not have joined the regular German Army, even as a conscript, until he was 18. Yet he was only 17 years of age when he ‘deserted’ in April 1944.

The question then is just what did he desert from, if not the Wehrmacht?

In July/August 1943, 10,000 boys from the Hitler Youth were recruited as volunteers into the 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, which was based at a training camp in Beverloo in Belgium. To provide this new unit with experienced leadership it was ‘filled out’ with experienced officers and men from the Waffen SS - mostly survivors of the Russian Front - including some drawn from Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler which was, effectively, Hitler’s personal Praetorian Guard, plus 50 officers from the Wehrmacht, all of who were former Hitler Youth leaders.

On completing its training in the spring of 1944 - the period of Ratzinger’s desertion - this division was stationed at Hasselt, again in Belgium, in anticipation of D-Day and finally saw action in the Battle for Caen during which British and Canadian troops were both horrified and astounded by the fanaticism shown by the unit.

If Ratzinger was one of the 10,000 volunteers in the HJ Panzer Division, as seems possible - his account of deserting in April 1944 is ‘workable’ in that he was stationed in an location which would have afforded such an opportunity - then only he knows the real reason why he deserted.

The official story is clearly intended to paint a picture of Ratzinger as a conscientious objector, something which could be true but is inconsistent with the idea that he may have volunteered for service in an SS Panzer Division, if that is indeed what really happened.

Even if he did join the Hitler Youth unit at Hasselt, as someone who claims to have been ‘unenthusiastic’ regarding the Hitler Youth he may conceivably have sickened at being surrounded by so many fanatics, causing him to desert. Even his presence in such a unit, if proven, would not be absolute evidence that he was as fanatical as those around him. His father
was a ‘dissident’ in refusing to join the Nazi Party and Ratzinger would not have been the only young German to play out the role of a fanatic simply to protect his family.

On cannot rule out a simple case of ‘cold feet’ either - the Hitler Youth Division at Beverloo received superb training in as close to battlefield conditions as possible - including training with live ammo. If Ratzinger was at Beverloo, who knows what he might have seen and experienced and how that may have influence his decision to desert…

…if indeed he did desert, as even that cannot be certain.

Again, if he was at Beverloo and being trained by veterans of the Russian Front, he would certainly have been told, in explicit details, of the consequences of being captured by the enemy and, in particular, of how the Russian had a very different attitude to those captured wearing SS Uniforms as against members of the Wehrmacht. By the end of the war, as the allies closed in and defeat became inevitable, it was standard practice for SS personnel, fearing capture, to loot the corpses of regular Wehrmacht soldiers and steal their uniforms in order to disguise their membership of the SS. On the Russian Front, an ordinary German soldier could still expect to be treated as a POW when captured but SS troops would consider themselves lucky to be summarily executed.

Ratzinger would have known all that and, crucially, would have been told to expect the same regardless of who he was captured by or surrendered to.

At Beverloo, if he was there, the importance of dumping his SS uniform if faced with capture or seeking to surrender would have been drummed into him by the veterans of the Russian Front who were brought in to train his unit - sele preservation alone would dictate that he would claim to have been a member of the Wehrmacht, on being captured, even though he would have been too young to have served in the regular German Army.

…

The offical Ratzinger story is far from satisfactory and littered with historical inconsistencies. - the question being does that really matter?

From the standpoint of his becoming Pope I don’t think it does. Even if his involvement with the Hitler Youth was far more substantive than the official history would have us believe it was still 60 years ago and is mitigated by an understanding of the extent to which the Nazis set out to and succeeded in temporarily indoctrinating a whole generation of Germany’s young people. Ratzinger would be far from the only German of his generation to be taken in by systematic Nazi propaganda and brainwashing and one were to take the view that his distant past made him unsutiable for his present role then you might as well condemn ever German over the age of 70 to walk forever with a bell round their neck and carrying a sign reading ‘unclean’.

From a historical standpoint, however, it does matter. The truth is important as is the understanding of how often the official histories fail to match up to real events as they actually happened.

Moreover, if the tacit acceptance of the official Ratzinger history, for all its obvious flaws, is to be accepted as a sign of our willingness to put the past behind us then, equally, it does suggest that rather than having come along way we, in fact, still have a long way to go before we can safely put the Nazis and the history or World War II into a proper perspective.

If the real history of Benedict XVI is anything close to what I’ve suggested it could be in this piece then the obvious rationale for the dissembling official history is the perception that it still does matter, even after so long, that he may have been an active member of the Hitler Youth - something which would, whether you like him or not, be rather a sad reflection on our own inability to let go and get things into a proper perspective.

Update:

The plot thickens.

Factual Correction - Membership of the Hitler Youth became mandatory in 1939 for 17 yesr old and 1941 for over 10’s. 1936 was the year that they banned all other youth organisations but the Hitler Youth.

There seems to be some disagreement on when B16 deserted - April 1945 is now being quoted, which would rule out any SS Hitler Youth connections.

There also seems to be some confusion about where, exactly, in the German Forces he was supposed to have served - some say Wehrmacht, others are now saying Luftwaffe, as an auxilliary.

Oh, and if his autobiography is correct he appears not have noticed either the SS unit, which was in his home town and which was actively shipping Jew to death camps…

…alledgedly.