My, my…

The chancellor, Alistair Darling, today became the most senior member of the cabinet to admit he had smoked cannabis “occasionally in my youth”.

The shock admission, from the minister best known as a “safe pair of hands”, came after the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, revealed that she had dabbled with the drug during her university days.

The disclosure - made while Ms Smith discussed the prime minister’s announcement yesterday of a review into whether marijuana should be reclassified back to class B after it was downgraded to class C three years ago - prompted an avalanche of similar admissions from her cabinet colleagues.

Look I know that with a Ministerial post comes a measure of collective responsibility, nevertheless who would expected this turn in the Labour’s “I’m Spartacus” moment.

More to point:

To the astonishment of colleagues, the transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, also admitted today that she had smoked the drug as an undergraduate.

Ruth Kelly’s office confirmed that she had smoked cannabis “in her youth”. A spokeswoman said: “She recognises that it was foolish and a silly thing to do, and she stopped.”

No, I can’t quite picture Ruth skinning up on the cover of an album of Gregorian chants either, but then frankly who cares.

Yes, there’s a stench of hypocrisy around this - talk to most ordinary people who’ve toked in the past and even if they have given it up, most will happily admit to enjoying it and that the worst side-effect they ever encountered was waking up the following morning to an empty fridge.

Much more important, in terms of misinformation and propaganda is that the paragraphs that follow these less-than-stunning revelations:

The home secretary is due to formally announce the review next week as part of a wide-ranging drugs inquiry that in part reflects concern about skunk, a stronger form of cannabis being blamed for an increase in mental health disorders.

Now, I will dig out something I can post in full, but having taken a look at several research papers on the subject of cannabis and mental health, the most striking think about these statements in the press is the wholesale absence of two very important words that appear routinely in the research literature:-

Pre-existing Liability.

Every single research paper I’ve read that examines cannabis use in the context of claims that increases the risk of serious mental health problems such as schizophrenia and psychotic disorders notes that the increased risks that have been identified are found only in those with a pre-existing liability towards those disorders, a predisposition that researchers strongly suspect has genetic origins.

Got that? The current state of play in the research is that there is an increased risk of mental health problems arising out of cannabis use in individuals who possess a genetic predisposition toward experiencing such problems.

The precise genetic and biochemical factors that come into play and the prevalence of such pre-existing liabilities in the general population are both, as yet, unknown, although researchers have identified at least two promising lines of enquiry on the causative factors, both of which require more research before anything definitive can be said.

So far as I can see from the published literature, our current understanding of the precise relationship between cannabis use and mental health problems amounts to a couple of promising hypotheses which suggest that an as yet unquantified segment of the general population might be at greater risk of developing certain psychological disorders for which they have a genetic predisposition if they toke on a regular basis, especially while an adolescent.

If that’s the medical argument for reclassifying cannabis upwards, then one might just as easily justify classifying peanuts as a class A substance on grounds of the increasing prevalence of of peanut allergies in recent years on much the same basis but on the back of considerable more solid research evidence.

Politicians toking during their university days - who cares anymore.

Propaganda and misinformation on the real scale and understanding of the risks involved in cannabis use - that’s the real scandal here.

Time for a video… (NSFW)

I see that ‘Desperate Dale’ has been at the [mad] cow pie again this morning:

Five Labour Councillors Defect to Ealing Southall Tories

Tom Watson MP, Labour’s by election campaign manager in Ealing Southall, has just had the shock of his life. Five Labour councillors in Ealing Southall have just defected to the Conservatives and the Independent by-election candidate, Gulbash Singh, will this morning abandon his own campaign to become Ealing Southall’s next MP and instead join Tony Lit’s campaign.

The defection of Cllr Gurcharan Singh and his cronies has hardly come as much of a surprise to the Labour Party in Ealing Southall or to Tom, personally. It was expected that Singh would find some way to take his ball home if he didn’t pick up the Labour nomination, as was acknowledged here on July 3rd:

There is speculation that another veteran Ealing councillor, Gurcharan Singh, may run as an independent after he failed to make the Southall shortlist.

…by Iain Dale.

The main question being asked by local Labour activists this morning is that of quite what kind of deal the Tories have made with Gurcharan Singh in return for his crossing the floor and taking his mates with him. Sunny at Pickled Politics, who appears to have been first with news of Singh’s defection, some seven hours before Dale’s pip started squeaking thinks that Singh may well have been offered a clear run at another parliamentary seat, which if true, should have Tory Associations the length and breadth of the country scrabbling desperately to select their candidates before they get landed with Singh and his own personal brand of sectarian, communalist, politicking.

Oh, and Tom Watson was linking to Sunny’s article when I got up at 7am this morning, which shows how much of surprise it was to him, despite Dale’s efforts to spin this as a ’shock’.

The reaction to Sunny’s article of a number of Dale’s usual cronies and hanger’s on is well worth noting for its errant ignorance and desperation to maintain Dale’s fiction that Singh’s defection is a coup for the Tories. Sunny, I happen to know, in not a member of the Labour Party, or of any political party for that matter, and has been highly critical of the Labour selection process that resulted in Virendra Sharma taking the nomination, even to the extent of making the observation that ‘The only one [candidate] who has brand recognition is Tony Lit’, a comment that was leapt upon with relish by…

… Iain Dale.

Nevertheless, Praguetory seems to think he know’s what going down in Southall much better that Sunny, after all he’s in Prague and Sunny is in South London and has extensive contacts throughout the Southall area, thereby cementing his well-earned and deserved reputation as the Tory blogosphere’s premier global village idiot. However, its another visitor from Dale’s dope show, ‘Henry Chevalier’, who surprising beats even Praguetory in the ‘making-a-complete-arse-of-himself stakes with this remark:

 

“…an extremely divisive and factional councillor…”

In terms of issues around wholly unacceptable discourse, it turns my stomach to see a member of the Indian Diaspora councillor community described in terms that could have come direct from The BNP Handbook of Racist Clichés. What next? Members of the Black councillor community described as “aggressive and intellectually under-equipped”? Members of the Jewish councillor community described as “conspiratorial and corrupt”?

From which one can only assume that ‘Political Correctness for Dummies’ has become a number one best-seller amongst clueless Tory activists since Cameron took over the leadership of the party - Sunny, who happens to be Asian himself, a minor detail that Henry seems not to have noticed, is describing Singh as a divisive and factional councillor because that’s precisely what he is, as the late Piara Khabra knew and understood all too well, hence his backing, before his death, for an all-women shortlist to select his replacement.

 

Khabra, who would have been 84, maybe 85 years of age had he lived to his planned retirement at the next general election, knew and fully understood the Tammany Hall-like nature of communalist politics within South Asian communities in Britain, and especially in Southall, having benefited from it himself in pushing through the deselection of the previous incumbent, Sidney Bidwell, in 1992. In truth, Khabra’s open support for an AWS selection for his replacement had as much, if not more, with a desire to break the constituency away from the communalist machine politics of some his would-be successors, particularly Gurcharan Singh, as it was his support for increasing the number of women in parliament or desire to see the first Asian female parliamentarian elected in the UK. This is well-known amongst both Labour activists and within the local Asian community, although obviously a facet of the local political scene lost on Tory bloggers who, as usual, seem content to run off at the mouth even when they haven’t got the foggiest idea what they’re talking about or what their party leader might have got them into in return for a bit of short-term and very marginal political gain.

 

Before getting too excited over Gurcharan Singh’s defection, Tory activists and bloggers would have done well to make a few inquiries into Singh’s background both locally and in the wider political context of his links and connections to political groups in the Indian sub-continent. Had they done so, they might just have run across this press release from the ‘World Muslim Sikh Federation’, which has its UK office in Southall:

Meeting to finalise the structure and faculties for a proposed University being set up by the Government of Pakistan in honour of Guru Nanak took place in Lahore on 15th and 16th June 2007. The meeting was attended by Sikh representatives from across the globe and included Sardar Avtar Singh Makkar , president of SGPC, Sardar PS Sarna the president of Delhi Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Sardar Bishan Singh President of Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee along with members of Evacuee Trust Board Pakistan.

Representatives from England included Councillor Gurcharan Singh the former mayor of the London Borough of Ealing and Sardar Anup Singh Choudry a former London lawyer and member of World Muslim Sikh federation.

And here, pictured at this very meeting, only last month, is Cllr Gurcharan Singh - he’s the one on the far right of the picture.

So you know who’s who, the others pictured with Gurcharan Singh are (from right to left); Anup Singh Choudry, Sardar Bishan Singh, P S Sarna, Avtar Singh Makkar.

Trying to unpick fact from propaganda when dealing with the politics of the North-Western part of the Indian sub-continent, and especially around the Punjab and Kashmir can be a nightmare of heavily contested sources and opinions but what can be said with some degree of certainty is that the World Muslim Sikh Federation, which is based in Southall, is widely regarded as a Khalistani secessionist group whose leader, Manmohan Singh Khalsa, is currently barred from visiting India by the Indian government for reasons that should become clear from the next quote:

LAHORE: World Muslim Sikh Federation (WMSF) Chairman Manmohan Singh Khalsa called the partition of India and Pakistan “unholy”, and lamented that their forefathers had decided on a coalition with India.

Addressing a seminar on Sikh Question in Context of Geo-Political Position vis a vis India-Pakistan Relations, the Sikh leaders said “not following the directions of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1947 was a blunder.” He said the Sikh movement for an independent Khalistan was still alive and hoped for full support from the Pakistani government. He believed the Sikh community of India at the time of partition should have struggled for an independent state.

And some of his associates have shall we say, some rather interesting opinions. on future of India:

At the seminar commemorating Guru Nanak’s birth, the U.S.-based Council of Khalistan President Gurmit Singh Aulakh declared that India would perforce be split into six parts, Kashmir would be liberated from India and that the Sikhs would rise against India. Apart from Sarna and Aulakh, on the dais were Khalistani ideologues and Dal Khalsa leader Manmohan Singh Khalsa, along with American Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee Convenor Dr. Pritpal Singh. Manmohan, who also heads the World Muslim-Sikh Federation, spoke in favour of Khalistan at the seminar and later told mediapersons at Nankana Sahib on November 30 that he was working for a separate Sikh homeland. In the seminar’s audience was another Khalistani leader, Ganga Singh Dhillon, who heads the Nankana Sahib Foundation. Also on the dais was Chandigarh-based Khalsa Panchayat Convenor Rajinder Singh, known for his moderate Khalistani politics. Both Manmohan and Dhillon are blacklisted by the Indian Government.

In September last year, a 15-member International Advisory Council to the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (P.S.G.P.C.) was set up with Dhillon as the Chairman. The Dhillon-led Council inducted Pritpal (known to have close links with the Dal Khalsa and Babbar Khalsa), the Dal Khalsa’s U.K.-based Kesar Singh Mand and Manmohan Singh Khalsa, and U.K.-based Joga Singh from the Babbar Khalsa. Amongst the Indian members of the advisory council were Amarinder Singh and Paramjit Singh Sarna. Though Amarinder did not join the council, Harwinder Sarna did attend the council meeting held in Lahore on November 17. The meeting was also attended by Dhillon, Manmohan and Pritpal.

In all, the Indian government seems to take rather a dim view of Manmohan - when they’re not blacklisting him personally they seem intent on banning organisations with which he’s associated. The Dal Khalsa was proscribed by the Indian government for 10 years from 1982 before being permitted to start up again and a number of sources suggest that he was also, at one point, closely associated with the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) (the word ‘mouthpiece’ has been used to described his relationship with the ISYF) - as was Dr Jasdev Singh Rai, who’s standing as independent candidate in the Ealing Southall by-election.

The ISYF is currently one of two Sikh organisations proscribed by the British government under the Terrorism Act 2000, the other being the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), which puts them in rather interesting company alongside the usual collection of Irish Republican and Unionist terrorist groups (IRA, INLA, UDA, UVF & LVF, amongst others), ETA, the Tamil Tigers, several branches of Islamic Jihad, three different Kashmiri terrorist groups - or should that be freedom fighters, Mrs Warsi (???) - and, of course, Osama and the boys from Al Qaeda. Not surprisingly the ISYF is also proscribed in India, and since 2004, in the United States of America.

And is is perennially the case, whenever there is talk of Khalistani secessionism and links to alleged (and proscribed) terrorist organisations in the North Western India, then talk of the malign hand of the Pakistani security services (ISI) - who are also cited as having played a instrumental part in supporting the development of the Taliban - is never too far behind.

A significant number of listed Punjab terrorists are currently known to be residing in the U.S. and Canada. A number of ‘Khalistani’ front organisations are extremely active in lobbying, propaganda and mobilisation of funds. These organisations include the Council of Khalistan, headed by Gurmit Singh Aulakh; the Khalistan Affairs Centre, headed by Amarjit Singh, who has a close association with the I.S.Y.F.; the Sikh Youth of America [S.Y.A.], under the leadership of J.S. Kang, John Gill, Jasjit Singh Fauji, and others; the American Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee [A.S.G.P.C.], headed by Pritpal Singh, a terrorist who was involved in several operations, including the Ludhiana bank robbery; the Dal Khalsa International [D.K.I.], coordinated by Ajit Singh Pannu; the Nankana Sahib Foundation Trust, headed by Ganga Singh Dhillon, who was closely associated with the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee [P.S.G.P.C.]; and the World Sikh Organisation [W.S.O.].

Links between such elements and Sikh terrorist leaders in Pakistan have retained their vibrancy and these have been consolidated through linkages between the American Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee [A.S.G.P.C.] and the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee [P.S.G.P.C.]. Linkages have also been forged between Kashmiri militant fronts in the U.S. and the Sikh Youth of America [S.Y.A.] and Babbar Khalsa, with the latter organisations paying out sums of money to the Kashmiri groups to target individuals identified by the Sikh extremists.

A rash of similar organisations and activities extends across Europe. The two factions of the B.K.I. (headed by Wadhawa Singh and Talwinder Singh Parmar respectively) for instance, have a presence in the U.K., France, Norway, and Germany. In the U.K., Mohan Singh Dhillon floated the Sikh Muslim Federation and was reported to have visited Pakistan to arrange meetings of Muslim militants of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (P.o.K.) with Sikh militants, to wage a ‘guerrilla war’ against India. These activities and interactions are supported, encouraged and facilitated by the I.S.I. Top Khalistani terrorists in Indian jails maintain active contact with many of these foreign-based groups.

Another interesting report linking Manmohan Singh Khalsa to a few interesting characters, and which makes the Pakistani government connection, appeared in The Chandigarh Tribune on November 2002:

Islamabad, November 21
In a significant development, President Pervez Musharraf today held a closed-door meeting with representatives of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC) and US and UK-based radical Sikh leaders. The meeting lasted 40 minutes.

Interestingly, neither Mr Alwinder Paul Singh Pakhoke, senior vice-president of the SGPC who led the jatha of 52 pilgrims, nor any other Indian Sikh leader was invited for the meeting.

Though the Sikh leaders refused to divulge what transpired at the meeting, sources said General Musharraf agreed in principle to convert Nankana Sahib, the birth place of Guru Nanak Dev into a Model Town. He also agreed to a face lift to Sikh shrines in Pakistan.

In another development, he offered to give due representation to Pakistani Sikhs in government jobs. Not even a single Pakistani Sikh holds a government post.

Sikh leaders from other countries, including Mr Gurmeet Singh Aulakh, president of the US-based Khalistan Council, Mr Manmohan Singh Khalsa, UK-based Dal Khalsa leader, Dr Ganga Singh Dhillon, president of the Nankana Sahib Foundation (USA), Mr Avtar Singh Sanghera, UK-based Babbar Khalsa leader, Mr Lodhi, president of the World Muslim-Sikh Federation, and Mr Sahib Singh Peshawar, Mr Mastan Singh and Mr Naam Singh, all Pakistani Sikhs, attended the meeting.

And if that weren’t enough, there’s also this snippet of information from an article linked earlier:

The Amarinder-Sarna entourage had brought along noted singer and former Akal Takht Jathedar Prof. Darshan Singh. Brought along to sing ‘kirtan’ on the occasion, Darshan chose the occasion to also deliver a speech that sang paeans in devotion to Amarinder’s contribution towards the Sikh cause. Darshan has in the past been closely associated with the Khalistan movement. One of Darshan’s most controversial pronouncements has, in fact, been quoted by Aulakh in a recent essay deploring a section of U.S. Sikhs who had ’sold out’ to India as also in a statement released from Washington in the aftermath of the Lahore seminar. Darshan, along with Dhillon, Manmohan and Aulakh, had met Musharraf in November 2000 in Islamabad in connection with the proposed pro-Khalistan ‘Nankana Sahib Resolution.’ But, Paramjit Sarna had at that time refused to go along with that delegation to meet Musharraf.

While Amarinder and Sarna have little compunction in linking up with the P.S.G.P.C. in the interest of the ‘Sikh cause,’ its background seems to have been lost on them. Set up in 1999, the P.G.P.C.’s first head was a known anti-India hawk, Lt. Gen. Javid Nasir (retd.), the chief of the I.S.I. at the time of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. Apart from its objective of securing the maintenance and development of Sikh shrines in Pakistan, the P.G.P.C. was aimed at providing a platform for the remnants of the Khalistan movement outside India. Khalistani elements like Dhillon have been for long been associated with the P.G.P.C.

That last snippet throws up another interesting name associated with the World Muslim Sikh Federation, Prof. Darshan Singh, who has some rather interesting opinions:

On 25th January Prof. Darshan Singh Khalsa’s book Virtues Commune was launched at an impressive ceremony hosted by World Muslim Sikh Federation. The guests included Councilors and prominent persons of both communities.

In his opening speech Sardar Manmohan Singh Khalsa paid glowing tributes to Prof. Darshan Singh. He said that Professor Sahib has rendered singular service to Sikh Community as Jathedar, Sri Akal Takhat Sahib. Sardar Manmohan Singh also thanked Pakistan Government for looking after Sikh Gurdwaras in Pakistan in an excellent manner. Recalling his recent visits of Pakistan he gave various examples of the tremendous goodwill of Pakistani people.

Follwing these opening remarks Mr. Nazar Lodhi formally launched the book. Mr. Lodhi spoke of interfaith work that Muslim Sikh Federation has done in past several years.

Prof. Darshan Singh Khalsa, the writer and chief guest of the evening said that the misunderstandings between the two great communities were created by Brahimin’s Chanakya policy of intrigue. He said that by deliberate cleverness of Hindus the acts of traitors Chandu, Gangu, Sucha Nand, Lakhpat and Hindu hill Kings were not brought into light. Rather an effort was made to spread a word that the torture was ordered by Muslims Emperors on Sikh Gurus and the Sikh people. He also talked about the genocide of Sikhs particularly from 1984 to 1992 by the Indian Government.

Now I don’t know about you but this whole business of a ‘policy of intrigue’ and the ‘deliberate cleverness’ of a ethnic/racial group sounds rather too familiar in a very Western, and contemporary context, especially when this ‘review’ concludes with the following remarks:

He also highlighted the uniformity of principle of the two religions. He said Sikhs and Muslims both worship one God, whereas Hindus worship 33 crore gods and goddesses. Both Sikhs and Muslims do not believe in idol worship. On the other hand, Hindus worship idols made of stone and marble. The Sikh Guru never claimed to be God, like Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

Definite a bit of blatant cosying up to Islam going on there and in the context of clear links with a country, Pakistan, that had its own fair share of issues with Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism.

Digging even further into the complex series of connections surrounding the World Muslim Sikh Federation threw up yet another controversial figure - Labour Peer, Nazir Ahmed, a man whose had a rather chequered run of late:

On February 23, Lord Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for a man going by the name of Israel Shamir. “Israel Shamir” is, in fact, a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite also known as Jöran Jermas.

The gist of Shamir/Jermas’s speech at the meeting can be gleaned from its title, “Jews and the Empire”. It included observations such as: “All the [political] parties are Zionist-infiltrated.” “Your newspapers belong to Zionists . . . Jews indeed own, control and edit a big share of mass media, this mainstay of Imperial thinking.” “In the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble — and that is Jewish supremacy drive . . . in Iraq, the US and its British dependency continue the same old fight for ensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East.” “The Jews like an Empire . . . This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance . . . Simple minds call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but it is actually love of Empire per se.” “Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England . . . they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important in order to turn the tide.”

And then there was…

Labour’s most prominent Muslim peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham, urged support for the Conservative Party during the last general election. The claim comes from Labour MP for Dewsbury, Shahid Malik, who has provided evidence to the Labour Party that Ahmed campaigned for his opponent, Sayeeda Warsi in 2005. Warsi is now the vice-chairman of the Conservative Party and a rising star of Cameron’s new look A-list of black, Asian and women candidates .

Malik has passed his concerns to the Labour chief whip, Jacqui Smith, and they will also be brought to the attention of the party’s National Executive Committee. The revelations could lead to the Muslim peer’s expulsion from the Labour Party.

Warsi, since then, has been appointed the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and has drawn widespread condemnation from both inside and outside her own party over her views on Kashmir and support for engagement with Hamas.

And only a few weeks ago…

A Muslim peer compared Salman Rushdie to the September 11 hijackers today as the row over the author’s knighthood escalated…

Interviewed in Le Figaro newspaper in France, the Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham added fuel to the row when he hit out at Mr Rushdie.

“This honour is given in recognition of services rendered to Great Britain,” he said. “Salman Rushdie lives in New York. He is controversial man who has insulted Muslim people, Christians and the British. He does not deserve the honour.

“Two weeks ago Tony Blair spoke about constructing bridges with Muslims. What hypocrisy.

“What would one say if the Saudi or Afghan governments honoured the martyrs of the September 11 attacks on the United States?”

And guess what..?

Self-determination as a human right and its applicability to the Sikhs was the theme of the speech given by Ranjit Singh Srai, a lawyer and co-ordinator of the Human Rights Advisory Group of the Panjabis in Britain All Party Parliamentary Group, at the World Muslim-Sikh Federation convention on Human Rights in South Asia held on July 24 in London…

…As part of his speech, Ranjit Singh Srai had read out a message by Lord Nazir Ahmed, a member of the British Parliament who was unable to attend the convention. Lord Ahmed in his note had called for the need of the Sikhs and Muslims of the subcontinent to work together in upholding the human rights of the people and expressed his hope that the conference would develop a stronger understanding between those who were peacefully engaged in struggles for self-determination, what he called “the most crucial human right of all”. Lord Ahmed reaffirmed his support for the establishment of Khalistan at a time when Sikh leaders in India are being targeted for calling for independence. He criticised India’s militarization and forceful suppression of self-determination movements in Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab and the state terror unleashed on the people of these two regions. Lord Ahmed’s message was well received. It carried an appeal for those concerned with the region to make common cause: “Durable peace, justice and the rule of law in South Asia is vital to the greater security of the world; we must work together to defeat those that threaten these ideals…. until India reverses grotesque challenges to civilised standards, we will work together to help ensure there is no UN Security Council seat for India.” wrote Lord Ahmed.

Manmohan Singh Khalsa and Nazar Lodhi, officers of the World-Muslim Sikh Federation, thanked speakers and guests alike and pledged to carry forward their work to promote human rights in South Asia.

So, at a meeting organised by a Khalistani secessionist group, we have an apparent advisor to an all-party parliamentary group reading a message by a Muslim peer in support of separatist movements in both the Punjab and Kashmir, movement that include several organisation proscribed under Britain’s anti-terrorism laws.

Interestingly, Lord Ahmed does not appear to be a member of the Panjabis in Britain group - which includes amongst its members an interesting mix of Labour (John McDonnell, Harry Cohen, etc), Tory (Dominic Grieve, David Willets) and Lib Dem (Simon Hughes) MPs, nor is it clear whether Ranjit Singh Srai still serves the group as a human rights advisor to the group. He is, however, the sponsor of another all-parliamentary group, Parliamentarians for National Self Determination, which is not currently on the approved list as, as a result, provides no membership information other that that of its Chair (Ahmed), Vice Chair - Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru) - and Ranjit Singh Srai, who ‘provides administrative assistance (organising meetings and events, preparing minutes, assisting with the preparation of position papers, liaising with other groups and organisations)’.

However an article in The Asian Age claims that others attending the launch of this group, which drew protests from the Indian High Commission and from Lord Dholakia, Chair of the Lib Dems Friends of India group, included:

Mr Simon Hughes, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Daniel Hannon, member of the European Parliament from the Conservative Party, Mr Peter Wishart, MP of the Scottish Nationalist Party, and Mr Kashmiri Singh, general secretary of the British Sikh Federation.

While this article in Panthic Weekly shows that both Kashmiri and Khalistani groups attended and addressed the meeting alongside groups supporting self-determination in Kosovo, Chechnya and Kurdistan, prompting Lord Dholakia to comment:

“When examining home-grown terrorism, we need to consider the pronouncements often made by responsible people in our community in this country. I refer, for example, to those who exploit the situation in the subcontinent by advocating self-determination of some states in that part of the world. Those are the breeding grounds of emotions and hatred and do nothing but damage the stability of some people in this country and the stability of communities.”

So what have we learned from all this?

Well, for starters, that the Tories much trumpeted new acquisition, Cllr Gurcharan Singh, keeps what many both inside and outside the Asian communities in Southall would consider some rather curious and maybe just a little bit unnerving company of late, company that is all the more curious for his having been reported in 2005, by the Sikh Times, as stating:

‘There was a phase after the Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple when the Sikhs really felt hurt by the army attack and demolition of the highest Sikh shrine. They thought the Government of India had deliberately humiliated them. But things have moved on. No rational sikh will raise the demand for Khalistan.’

In which case, what’s he doing knocking around with the - by his own definition - ‘irrational’ members of the World Muslim Sikh Federation, who seem to do little else but raise the demand for Khalistan?

Mmm… food for thought, eh?

A much more nuanced interpretation of Singh’s remarks might well be thought to be that no rational Sikh would raise the demand for Khalistan in Southall and expect to be elected - the general unpopularity of Khalistani groups in Southall is well known to both Labour party activists in the area, and to those in touch with the local community, a community in which many will take a very dim view of Singh’s apparent association with the likes of the World Muslim Sikh Forum and the P.C.G.P.C.

This, together with Singh’s reputation as ‘a factional, power-hungry operator’ and a divisive element in the local party goes a long way to explaining why the mood amongst local Labour activists in Ealing Southall is running somewhere between sanguine and relieved (and why progressive members of the local Asian communities are positive rejoicing as his decision to cross the floor.

Better still, one of the Tory candidate’d Tony Lit’s, big selling points - other than being a mate of Dave’s and owning a few well-tailored and expensive suits - was that he came into the campaign relatively free of any associations with known local power-brokers, communalist/sectarian factions or connections with the complex and sometimes bewildering politics of North Western India, an advantage that’s evaporated overnight courtesy of a pretty reckless act of political opportunism by the Tory Party, who’ve succeeding only in tainting both their candidate and campaign with political associations that go strongly against the grain of much of the local community. Much of the smart money locally suggests that whatever the Tories might gain in votes from Singh’s defection will be more than made up by voters switching away from Lit because his party’s now public association with a man who hang’s out with Khalistani nationalist groups.

If you’re in Southall over the next few days and you want to find out where Tony Lit is campaiging, just follow the trail of blood and look for the guy with the Armarni suit and a serious limp whose mumbling about his mate Dave having shot him in the foot.

That’ll be Tony…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the most interesting thing about an otherwise rather dull shuffling of the deckchairs by David Cameron is the extent to which his two new appointments to the House of Lords, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and Sayeeda Warsi, have been greeted with a wholly uncritical and, one might argue, even disingenuous response by the MSM.

The BBC leads the way by quoting Cameron:

“Two of the big challenges facing this country today are security and community cohesion and we now have two leading experts in these fields in Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and Sayeeda Warsi.”

Before adding a little biographical detail:

Former Joint Intelligence Committee head Dame Pauline will be elevated to the House of Lords as a working peer, as will Ms Warsi, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin who was Conservative Party vice-chairwoman.

Meanwhile, according to Nick Robinson (about whom I shall have more to say in while):

He’s making Pauline Neville Jones, a career diplomat and former head of the Joint Intelligence committee, a life Peer so that she can become Shadow Secretary of State for Security. Thus, were he so inclined, he could claim that he has a former chair of JIC in his Shadow Cabinet whereas Gordon Brown only has a former deputy Chair of JIC (Admiral West - made the most junior minister in the Home Office last week)

And he’s relieving Sayeeda Warsi, a British Born muslim of Pakistani origin of the search for a safe seat by making her a working peer and putting her straight into the Shadow Cabinet in charge of community cohesion. She’ll be the first Muslim to sit around any party’s top table. Brown, you may recall, hailed his promotion of two young Muslim MPs last week - one became a junior minister, the other a whip.

The Telegraph takes an interesting line - its Chief Political Correspondent, Toby Flood, is effusive in his approval of Neville-Jones’ appointment:

And the inclusion of Dame Pauline Neville-Jones into the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Security Minister and Mr Cameron’s National Security adviser shows he too believes in a having a team of “all the talents” - the idea of involving those outside parliament in providing advice.

Curiously, however, Warsi’s elevation to the peerage fails to merit even the briefest mention from Flood and even though she does get top billing and quick biography from George Jones here (the same article also profiles Neville-Jones and refers to her having chaired JIC ‘between 1993 and 1994′) and a headline to herself here, this last article is, shall we say, rather interesting in the manner in which it juxtaposes two different piece of information:

David Cameron yesterday stepped up the Tories’ modernising drive by becoming the first party leader to appoint a Muslim to an Opposition shadow cabinet.

Sayeeda Warsi, 36, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin who has been nominated for a peerage, was named the 10th most influential Asian woman in a poll this year. At the 2005 election, Mrs Warsi, who is married with one child, was the first Asian woman to be selected by the Tories to fight a parliamentary seat. She will be responsible for community cohesion.

But Mr Cameron’s attempt to regain the political initiative with a wide-ranging reshuffle is undermined by the release of a poll today which shows that 40 per cent of Tory activists are dissatisfied with his performance as leader. In January Mr Cameron’s approval rating was 82 per cent.

Got that? Modernisation = Female Muslim Peer = pissed off Tory activists, and if that weren’t clear enough, the Telegraph goes on to big up the two ‘big beasts’ of the Tory right:

By contrast David Davis, the shadow home secretary, and William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, have the highest approval ratings at 86 per cent in the survey.

The Times heads his report by noting that Cameron’s reshuffle was not without its trade-offs:

David Cameron has tried to make his top team more representative of modern Britain, appointing a woman Conservative Party chairman and axing a fellow Old Etonian.

Aww shame - poor old Dave’s down to his last dozen Old Etonians on the Tory front bench, but otherwise the appointments of Neville-Jones and Warsi are dealt with uncritically:

Mr Cameron appointed Sayeeda Warsi, a 36-year-old lawyer, as the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as National Security Adviser. Ms Warsi, who is a vice-chairwoman of the party but not an MP, is the first Muslim in such a senior role.

So much for the, notionally, right-wing press, what about the ‘lefties’ at the Independent and Guardian?

The new faces include Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who becomes the Tories’ spokesman on security and Mr Cameron’s personal adviser on national security. She will become a life peer.

Sayeeda Warsi, 36, who will also receive a peerage, becomes shadow minister for Community Cohesion, the first Muslim to hold such a senior post in the Conservative Party. The two appointments mirror Gordon Brown’s decision to bring in outside experts.

Can Warsi really be considered an ‘outside expert’ as a former Tory PPC, One of Cameron’s ‘A-List’ and Tory Party Vice-Chair?

And again, Neville-Jones’ stint with the JIC gets another mention:

DAME PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES, 68, becomes spokesman for security. She is a career diplomat who chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee in 1993-94. She was critical of the Blair government’s use of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. She once said the head of JIC needed to be “someone who can go and tell the Prime Minister ‘The facts don’t fit’.

Even the Guardian is in uncritical mode:

David Cameron last night drafted a Muslim and a former intelligence chief into his shadow cabinet in a reshuffle which demoted several controversial spokesmen and showed his sensitivity to bad headlines. Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative party vice-chairman in her 30s, becomes the first Muslim member of the shadow cabinet as new spokesman for community cohesion. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, in her 60s, joins as shadow security minister and national security adviser to Mr Cameron in the autumn of a career dominated by service in the Foreign Office.

And yes, you guessed it, Neville-Jones credential are backed-up, yet again, with a reference to her having chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee:

Pauline Neville-Jones

The former head of the joint intelligence committee and political director at the Foreign Office has been handed a peerage and drafted straight into the shadow cabinet as security spokeswoman after impressing David Cameron on one of the party’s policy commissions.

A line that - looking beyond the broadsheets, even finds its way into the distinctly Cameron-unsympathetic Daily Mirror:

To match Mr Brown’s appointment of expert outsiders, Mr Cameron named Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, ex-head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as his national security adviser.

In truth, there’s rather more to both Neville-Jones and Warsi than one would ever suspect from the uncritical and even rather obsequious media coverage of their appointments:

Neville-Jones’ is universally described as a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, with some newspapers adding ‘helpfully’ that she served in this role from 1993 to 1994, which is technically correct but hardly an exacting account of her tenure in the ‘hot seat’, which lasted for all of five weeks from December 1993 to January 1994, including Christmas. During her tenure as head of the JIC, the exact dates of which I haven’t managed to track down as yet, there were possibly only two events that took place of any real significance to the UKs security agenda; the Downing Street Declaration and the Irish government’s decision to life a 15 year long broadcast ban on the IRA and Sinn Fein.

The precise length of Neville-Jones’ tenure as Chair of the JIC appears to a matter upon which the BBC, in particular, seem rather reticent, given that a brief comment that I posted to Nick Robinson’s blog yesterday evening, which casually mentioned that she’d spent only five weeks in that position, including Christmas, has failed miserably to make it past the Beeb’s censors, er I mean moderators - quite whether that’s down to Nick, personally, or an unknown and unidentified BBC employee is uncertain as its not entire clear whether Nick does his own moderation or has a personal scutter to do it for him.

UPDATE: Mmm - curiouser and curiouser. When I checked for comments on Nick’s post around lunchtime, there was one or two comments from last night and a handful of largely uncritical comments from this morning. Now not only has my own comment surfaced but also a slew of others, many of which were critical of Cameron’s reshuffle, all from yesterday evening. Not sure quite what to make of that…

Neville-Jones went on from there to become Political Director at the Foreign Office, leading the UK delegation to the Dayton negotiations, which brought about the end of the Bosnian War, during which time, and in an usually sharp display of irony, she was dubbed, Pauline Neville-Chamberlain, by members of the American delegation due to her appeasing stance toward Serbian President and indicted war criminal, Slobodan Milosevic.

She was also, for a time, Milosevic’s banker, along with former Tory Foreign Secretary, Lord Hurd, after both joined Nat West markets after leaving the Foreign Office in 1996 on salaries reported to be in region of £250,000 a year, during which time they enjoyed a very nice breakfast in Belgrade with Milosevic, following which the Nat West obligingly bailed out the beleaguered and cash-strapped Serbian government by assisting with the sale of Serbia’s post and telephone system (PTT) for a mere £10 million arrangers fee, while picking up another nice little earner by way of a contract for debt management services, a trick that Nat West then attempted to repeat at a later date with the Serbian electricity industry only to be cut short in their efforts by the Kosovan conflict and the removal of the Milosevic regime from power.

An article by Francis Wheen, first published in the Guardian in 1998, provides some illuminating insights in to Neville-Jones’ dealings with Milosevic:

Pauline Neville-Jones’s performance last week was even more shameless and disingenuous. Why, Snow wondered, had Britain done nothing sooner about Kosovo? ‘I don’t hold responsibility for that,’ she said, apparently forgetting her earlier admission that the Foreign Office had been well aware of the looming conflict throughout her term as political director. When Snow asked if the Foreign Office was now worried that the fighting in Kosovo would spread to Macedonia and elsewhere, she reminded him that she had retired from Whitehall some time ago: ‘I don’t honestly know precisely what they think today.’ Yet I have it on excellent authority that Dame Pauline was given a thorough briefing by the FO only hours before the broadcast…

At the Dayton peace talks, where Neville-Jones was the chief British representative, she argued energetically and successfully for an end to sanctions against Serbia.

What no one at Dayton knew, but Hurd has since confirmed, is that at the same time she was ‘in touch with NatWest Markets’ about the possibility of a job in the private sector. Hurd himself had become deputy chairman of the bank shortly after resigning as foreign secretary, and Neville-Jones joined him as managing director in July 1996,whereupon they jetted off to Serbia to cash in on the abolition of sanctions. At a ‘working breakfast’ in Belgrade, Milosevic signed a lucrative deal whereby NatWest Markets would privatize Serbia’s post and telephone system for a fee of about $10million. For a further large fee, they agreed to manage the Serbian national debt.

Post-Slobodan, Neville-Jones picked up gigs as Chair of the Audit Commission and a governor of the BBC, in which capacity - and trading heavily on her Foreign Office background and, inevitable, brief stint at the helm of the JIC - she played a significant and unusually active role in the Hutton Inquiry, during which she was heavily critical of Nick (oops) Andrew Gilligan’s reporting and expressed ‘unease’ about David Kelly’s expertise. Her intervention in both the inquiry, and in internal recriminations within the BBC in its aftermath have been cited by Greg Dyke as having played an instrumental role in bringing about his sacking as Director-General.

Embarassingly, it was later revealed that at the same time she was taking the establishment line in attacking the BBC during the Hutton Inquiry, she was also serving as chairman of the part-privatised British arms contractor QinetiQ (which was formerly DERA, the MODs Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) on a salary of £133,000 per year, which was making tidy sums of money by supplying equipment for Humvees and Black Hawk and Apache helicopters in use by the US military in Iraq.

Based on past form, one would hardly be surprised if were be discovered that Neville-Jones has since diversified her personal holdings into agro-chemicals and propane.

One more thing to watch around Neville-Jones appointment is that she is reportedly a supporter of the introduction of ID cards, which on the face of it puts her at odds with her new boss, David ‘Basher’ Davis - unless, of course, this hints at early preparations for a Tory volte face on their public commitments to repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006, should they take control of the country following the next general election.

Sayeeda Warsi’s appointment is, much like that of Neville-Jones, more interesting for the stories that the MSM are studiously avoiding than for the uncritical biographical information currently being supplied.

Take, for example, Warsi’s unsuccessful attempt to take the seat of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in 2005 and her campaign, which featured the now familiar Tory tactic of using different leaflets to target different parts of the community:

A campaign leaflet issued last year when she stood for Dewsbury, and in which she is seen wearing a Western business suit, focused on mainstream Tory issues including Europe — “Sayeeda Warsi believes in putting Britain first”. In a second leaflet, in which she wears a shalwar kameez, her concerns are homosexuality, which Labour is accused of promoting, and the “illegal” war in Iraq, which she says “may lead to further military action in places such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran”.

Warsi denied issuing different leaflets to different areas:

Mrs Warsi says that both leaflets were sent to all homes in the constituency and that she did not tailor her views according to the audience. She told The Times: “I felt it was appropriate to have some leaflets dealing with certain issues and other leaflets dealing with other issues, but they all went to all the electorate.”

But, frankly, such practices were widely enough documented in other constituencies to suggest that one’s best course of action would be to take her denial with a sizeable pinch of salt unless she can provide evidence in support of her protestations of innocence.

As for the views expressed on homosexuality in her campaign leaflets:

In her leaflet Mrs Warsi, the Conservatives’ first female Muslim candidate, says: “Labour has scrapped section 28 which was introduced by the Conservatives to stop schools promoting alternative sexual lifestyles such as homosexuality to children as young as seven years old… now schools are allowed and do promote homosexuality and other alternative sexual lifestyles to your children.

“Labour reduced the age of consent for homosexuality from 18 to 16 allowing school children to be propositioned for homosexual relationships.”

Later in her leaflet Mrs Warsi is quoted saying: “I will campaign strongly for an end to sex education at seven years and the promotion of homosexuality that undermines family life.”

Seemingly, Tory Central Office forgot to mention that her own party leader at the time, Michael Howard, had joined the leaders of other major parties in signing a charter promising not to play the homophobia card during the election campaign.

When challenged about the leaflet, Warsi’s response was typically bone-headed:

Mrs Warsi, who has a seven-year-old daughter, stood by her leaflet last night: “It’s a statement I make as I believe it. It is factually correct. Everything in this leaflet is fact.”

Warsi seems to suffer from the usual bigot’s complaint of failing to understand the difference between a fact and a opinion, thus the mere acknowledgement of the existence of homosexuality is categorised both a material fact and as the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality - buy one queer, get one free - as if to suggest that the gay community would cease to exist if only children were brought up in total ignorance.

Presumably in Warsi’s queer-free utopia, anyone who grew up to experience a sexual attraction to an individual of the same gender would go through no more than a moment’s easily dismissed confusion about their feelings.

And, of course, equalising the age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual relationship puts ’school children’ at risk of being propositioned by predatory queers - the only kind of course - because a gay or lesbian sixteen year old is entirely incapable of understanding their own sexual desires and initiating a sexual relationship of their own volition, for which one can only conclude that Warsi must believe that with homosexuality goes an inherent retardation in intellectual and emotional development that’s lacking in heterosexual teenagers.

Warsi, who’s cabinet responsibility is community cohesion (except queers) is also, as the Times article linked earlier demonstrates, not averse to pandering to other prejudicial ideas in her own community:

Sayeeda Warsi, a rising star of David Cameron’s party, said that almost 900 “innocent people” had been “locked up for 14 days” under anti-terrorism laws. In reality, 36 terror suspects have been detained for more than seven days. Of the 10 who were freed without charge, none was held for 14 days.

Mrs Warsi, 34, the Conservative vice-chairman with responsibility for cities, asserted that the tightening of anti-terrorist legislation had turned Britain into “a police state”.

The claims appear in an article that she wrote for Awaaz, a newspaper read by Asians that is distributed in the West Yorkshire towns and cities that were home to the July 7 suicide bombers. Readers were told by Mrs Warsi that the Government’s anti-terror proposals were “enough to tip any normal young man into the realms of a radicalised fanatic”.

Sentiments that rather seem to echo Jenny Tonge’s controversial remarks about understanding why a Palestinian would become a suicide bomber, which got her fired from the Liberal Democrat front bench in 2004.

The Times article continues:

Her article asks: “If terrorism is the use of violence against civilians, then where does that leave us in Iraq?” It continues: “Let me give you some facts and figures. To date, 895 people have been arrested under the terror laws, 23 have been charged. So effectively 872 innocent people have been locked up for 14 days.” Yet Home Office figures reveal that 296 of the 895 people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 before September 2005 were charged, either under the Act or with offences including murder and the possession of firearms and explosives.

Warsi’s, again, having trouble understanding the meaning of the word ‘fact’:

The maximum detention period was not extended from seven to 14 days until January 2004, since when only 36 of 357 arrested terror suspects have held for more than a week; 10 of the 36 were released without charge, of whom 8 were held for less than 10 days. The other 2 were held for 11 days and 13 days respectively.

And her response when confronted with the facts?

She had believed that her detention statistics were correct at the time she wrote the Awaaz article, she said, adding: “I don’t believe that I have to justify everything I write, line by line and word by word.

Oh boy, is she going to be in for a shock when she finds out what ‘fisking’ means.

“It may offend people sometimes but I will speak from the heart and speak the truth. And if speaking the truth is upsetting community relations, then I hold my hands up to that.”

Except, of course, that the statistics she quoted weren’t true, she merely claims to have believed them to be true at the time, and therefore is under no obligation to justify her arguments when her ‘facts’ prove to be inaccurate.

Basically she’s deploying the Blair Defence, the same one used to blow off criticism of the false prospectus presented to parliament in support of the Iraq War - we did nothing wrong even though it was found that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, because we believed he had them at the time we put the dossiers in question to Parliament.

There is a distinct stench of tokenism, misguided expediency and ill-considered one-upmanship surround both appointments.

Despite the media turning a blind eye to Neville-Jones’ track record, it was actually the denizons of Conservative Home that were quickest out of the traps with their concerns about her inclusion in Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet in their rolling coverage of the Cameron reshuffle:

5.56pm: James Forsyth highlights this article by Dr Brendan Simms about Pauline Neville-Jones’ antiquated approach to foreign policy. She was dubbed “Pauline Neville-Chamberlain” by the Americans for her constant appeasement of the Serbs (she opposed intervention in Bosnia and later did business deals with Slobodan Milosevic).

And neither of the two appointment seem to have been interpreted as a good sign for the future.

Pauline Neville-Jones and Sayeeda Warsi’s appointments signal the return of realpolitik/ the establishment view on foreign policy. James Forsyth has two excellent posts explaining why on the Spectator blog. Warsi has spoken foolishly about Britain being a police state and Pauline Neville-Jones was part of the Hurd-Rifkind establishment view during the 1992-1997 period of deadly non-intervention. Thank goodness we have Kouchner and Sarkozy over the Channel.

The only political value in parachuting Neville-Jones into the shadow cabinet, other than the rather childish game of one-upmanship being played out by media commentators rests in her having established herself publicly as a critic of the Blair government’s use of intelligence in the run in to the Iraq War, while having been outside politics (and the Tory Party) at the same time. This makes her one of the few outlets that Cameron has for mounting a critique of the government’s actions prior to the 2003 invasion who is not fatally compromised by the gung-ho stance of the Tory Leader of the time, Iain Duncan Smith, although he credibility for that role is hardly helped either by the background to her dealings with Milosevic or the Sir Humphrey-ish establishment line she took in giving evidence to the Hutton Inquiry.

Handing Warsi a peerage and a seat at the cabinet table may well one-up Brown’s Muslim appointments, but based on past form she looks to have all the propensity for public gaffs of Boris Johnson without any of the self-deprecating, Bunterish, public schoolboy act to get her off the hook when she eventually drops a bollock.

What limited appeal she seems to have in Tory activist ranks stems largely from the forthright manner in which she voices her opinions, which is precisely the quality she’s going to have to curb as both a member of the House of Lords and of the Shadow Cabinet if she’s not to be seen as an accident waiting to happen, a concern that Iain Dale is certainly aware of:

Some will see this as the most controversial and risky appointment of the reshuffle. Sayeeda is prone to speak her mind and will need to learn the constraints of collective responsibility, but she knows that.

Dale’s comments are particular interesting inasmuch as he then goes on to observe that:

No doubt her appointment will be viewed with some ambivalence by the more traditional elements, but she’s not there just because she’s an Asian woman - she’s there because she has talent. It’s up to her now to show everyone what she can do.

Which, ot be fair to Iain, is a very diplomatic way of noting that parts of the Tory Party still have some considerable way to go when it comes to embracing Cameron’s efforts to rid the Tories of the ‘nasty party’ reputation on immigration and race relations. What’s not entirely clear from Iain’s remarks is whether he’s aware of Warsi’s views on homosexuality or recalls the furore that surrounded the leaflet she put out in Dewsbury in 2005, unless he’s making a subtle allusion to that in his reference to her needing to “learn the constraints of collective responsibility”.

One way or another, both Neville-Jones and Warsi are going to be enticing targets for the opposition, particularly if Brown is successful in quickly putting to bed the spectre of Iraq, leaving Neville-Jones open to flak over her dealings with the Milosevic regime.

Warsi, meanwhile, can expect to find herself under fire from Labour’s Eustonista’s over her comments about policing and Islamic radicalism, and could well find herself getting ’shot’ at from both directions if those remarks find their way into the hands of the Daily Mail and Mad Mel Phillips, especially if either camp can recall the comments made by Warsi in the wake of the July 7th 2005 attack on London on the BBC’s Politics Show:

“We have a community in Britain, a Pakistani and Kashmiri community, who holds a very, very strong view about Kashmir and the scope of freedom-fighting in Kashmir …..It would concern me if … the definition of terrorism was to cover maybe (the) legitimate freedom-fight in Kashmir.”

Comments that, again, had to be rapidly disavowed by Michael Howard, which drew this reaction from MPACUK:

MPACUK Comment: Kashmir Freedom Fighters to become ‘terrorists’ says Conservative Zionist Leader Howard. British Muslims from Kashmir prove once again thier incompetence in lobbying the Government or opposition. This is what happens when Muslims do not join political parties to fight their cause from the inside. MPACUK salutes Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim women who joined the conservatives for the sake of Islam and is fighting this battle while the rest of us sleep.

London - 10 August 2005 - Mr. Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative party, disagreed with comments made in a BBC programme on 20/07/2005 by Ms. Sayeeda Warsi, vice-chairman of the party, stating that new anti-terror laws following the 7/7 attacks in London should not stop support for “(the) freedom fight” in Kashmir. She had further stated that “It would concern me if … the definition of terrorism was to cover maybe (the) legitimate freedom fight in Kashmir.”

The Conservative Party leader in his letter dated 29/07/05 to Hindu council UK disagreed with those comments and stated that the Conservative Party policy does not support either terrorism or freedom fight in Kashmir and wholly supports a negotiated solution between Pakistan and India which is also the policy of the UK Government.

Quite right too - Howard, that is, not MPACUK, however one waits with baited breath to see quite how putting Warsi in charge of community cohesion will play out within Britain’s Hindu and Sikh communities.

And let’s not think for minute that her views on homosexuality went unnoticed either, as those are bound to resurface at some point in the not too distant future.

In fact, one wonders whether it might not just be better to get all this done and dusted as soon as possible - perhaps Iain could arrange for her to share a couch on 18 Doughty Street with Peter Tatchell, Nick Cohen and Mad Mel and get the pain out of the way as quickly as possible.

On the face of it Cameron’s efforts to ape Brown’s ‘government of many talents’ has the look of a disaster in the making and these appointment could easily be thought to be the biggest boners pulled by Cameron on this occasion were it not for the unbelievable decision to leave the wholly ineffective Andrew Lansley - a man who couldn’t even land a decent verbal punch on Patsy Hewiit, with the health portfolio and facing Alan Johnson, in what has to be the biggest mismatch since the days when chucking Christians to the Lions passed for mass entertainment.

Now what were the odds on Cameron not making all the way to the next General Election as Tory Leader?

Hewitt leaves Cabinet health job

Patricia Hewitt will not be health secretary in new Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet.

She was widely expected to lose her post after increasing pressure over NHS deficits and doctor training schemes.

It is not yet known if she will be given another job in government, or will return to the backbenches.

File under ‘least surprising announcement of the day’…

Mad Frankie ‘The Welfare Reform Messiah’ Field is at it again in the Torygraph.

Gordon Brown’s flagship tax credits programme “brutally discriminates” against two-parent families and actively discourages single parents from forming stable relationships, a damning report says today.

Frank Field, the former Labour minister, has produced findings that show how the Government’s campaign against child poverty has “stalled” by making it more financially attractive for lone parents not to seek partners.

His most telling conclusion is that a single mother working 16 hours a week, after tax credits, gains a total income of £487 a week, while a two-parent family on the minimum wage has to work 116 hours for the same income.

 

The report is a serious embarrassment for Mr Brown, who has championed the role of means-tested tax credits in tackling poverty and helping low-income working families.

Mad Frankie’s full report can be downloaded here (.pdf), which I’m not going to fisk in detail this time, mainly because I can’t be arsed to wade through all the bullshit. But what I will look at is this headline claim that that “a single mother working 16 hours a week, after tax credits, gains a total income of £487 a week, while a two-parent family on the minimum wage has to work 116 hours for the same income”.

So lets start with the single mum with two kids, working sixteen hours a week on current minimum wage rate of £5.35 an hour.  She has an annual income from employment of £4451.20, which equals £85.60 a week on which she’ll pay no income tax or NI because she’s below the lower threshold. On top of that, using a pretty standard online tax credit calculator, she is entitled, in the first instance, to tax credits amounting to £6685 per annum, giving a weekly income from tax credits of £128.55 and a total weekly income of £214.15.

Oops, we seem to missing something here. The little matter of an extra £272.85 a week, which Frankie claims our single mum is getting. Where does that come from?

Well, the answer is simple. In addition to supplementing earned income, tax credits also subsidise 70% of the child costs incurred as result of our single mum going out to work, which is what the 272.85 per week is.  So what this tells us is that our single mum is paying £389.78 per week for child care, the princely sum of £20,268.85 per year, i.e. £10,134.43 per child - and one has to assume that both are aged under 4/5 and therefore not in full-time education.

That seems rather a lot of money, especially when one considers that our single mum works only 16 hours a week. Mmm… a bit more maths seems necessary.

Let’s allow our single mum an hour either side of her base childcare requirements for the time taken in getting the kids to the child-minder/nursery and travelling time to and from work - that’s not an unreasonable figure - so her childcare needs are for 24 hours per week per child and the hourly rate she’s paying is, therefore, £8.12 an hour.

That’s a pretty decent nursery school her kids are going to there, with or without claiming the additional nursery education grant of £1248 per year she’s entitled to once any of her kids reach the age of three, even if we not looking at a Montessori school. By way of contrast, the registered child minder who looked after my daughter before she started full-time education  and still handles the morning school run, so that both myself and my partner can get to work on time, charges a cool £2.50 an hour for her services.

And while were on the subject, let’s not forget that this additional £272.82 per week of income that Frankie has thrown into the calculation without any explanation has zero impact on the living standards of our single mum, because no soon as the money comes in, its also paid out to cover the cost of childcare and is also leave our single mum to find £116.85 per week out of the rest of her income, to cover the 30% of childcare costs that tax credits don’t pay for, which eats up 91% of her income from tax credits, giving her a net gain of £11.70 per week, an effective increase in her hourly rate of £0.73 per hour.

(If that leaves you thinking ‘regressive effect of marginal tax rates’ then, like me, you’ve been reading Messrs Dillow and Worstall for quite long enough to have come to understand what they’ve been going on about for ages)

What about our ‘brutally discriminated’ against two parent family slaving away for 116 hours a week in their minimum wage McJobs?

Well is one takes into account the totality of single mum’s income, which at the quoted £489 per week amounts to £25,428 then, ostensibly, such the parents in such a family would need to be working for 116 hours a week at minimum wage, giving a gross income of £32271.20 per annum, in order to pull down the same annual income after tax and NI… but this also presupposes both that this two parent family incurs the same childcare costs as single mum and make no tax credits claim of its own.

This is a patently unrealistic scenario - or more simply, a load of bollocks.

Instead of taking Mad Frankie at face value, lets look at a more realistic scenario - a two parent family with a single wage earner in the same minimum wage McJob, with all other factors (housing benefit, child benefit, etc) being treated as equal and, therefore, excluded for simplicity.

Straight away, we can toss out the childcare costs, so the income that two-parent family needs to hit for parity in living standards is not the full £25K+ but single mum’s net income after she’s coughed for someone to look after the kids, which amounts to £97.30 per week.

Fortunately, that’s still below the lower threshold for income tax and NI, making our next calculation very simple. The number of hours that our wage-earner in tow-parent family must work to achieve parity in base living standards with single mum is £97.30 divided by minimum wage (£5.35) which equals 18.18 hours a week, and if we allow single mum a couple of hours per week for all the to-ing and fro-ing to the nursery and back, both couples probably work about even.

Even if we factor into the calculations the estimated 30% premium in income necessary to deliver strict parity in living standards between a lone parent and two-parent family (two, it seems, cannot really live as cheaply as one) then that leaves our wage earner needing to work a matter of 24-26 hours per week at minimum wage (allowing for the small tax and NI contribution he or she will make) to break even with single mum.

But that’s not the end of the story…

You see, that all presupposes that two-parent, one wage-earner, family don’t put in their own claim for tax credits. If they do, then their annual earned income of £6577.48 (after tax/NI) gets a further top up of £5898 in tax credits, giving a total annual income of £12,475.48, or £239.91 per week - and no child care costs.

So our two-parent, one wage-earner family are brutally discriminated against by the tax credits system to the tune of an extra £142.62 per week of net income over and above what single mum has to look after her two kids, give or take the extent to which two-parent family get screwed over by marginal tax rates resulting from the loss of housing and council-tax benefits due to their increased income.

Oh, and lets also not forget that its extremely likely that a portion of the £20K+ that single mum is paying out in childcare costs is going to find its way back directly to the Treasury by way of income tax and NI deductions from the earnings of childcare staff or corporation tax paid by the nursery, its is commercial business.

As with his previous efforts to rubbish New Deal, Mad Frankie the Welfare Reform Messiah barely struggles over the starting line before he finds himself with his trousers round his ankle for putting up a piss-poor analysis based on shoddy evidence, or no evidence at all. Frankie’s report doesn’t show his working out, he merely provides references to information published elsewhere - the 116 hour joint working week claim is actually cited as being from a House of Commons Library Note, dated 16 May 2007 and appears to stem from answers to written questions tabled by Frankie himself.

In fact, a look at Frankie’s recent House of Commons activity shows a long stream of written questions (at an average cost to the taxpayer of £140 per question) most of which relate directly to his two recent papers for Reform, so one could be forgiven for thinking that he’s getting a fair chunk of the research for these papers done at our expense.

As for what Frankie would like us to do about the supposedly brutal discrimination that two-parent families face under the present tax credits system - the one that leaves them £140 a week better off than a single parent -  well this is what he suggests.

Working Tax Credits increase the incentives to work for first earners in a couple while decreasing the incentives to work for the second potential earner. This comes about because Working Tax Credit is only available to households with at least one earner but is then means tested against the income of both adults. Hence, if the second adult were to get work too, payments would be reduced. According to IFS evaluations of the impact of the former working families tax credit (which was structured similarly to WTC), on the employment patterns of couples, showed that it
increased employment amongst parents whose partner did not work and reduced it for parents where the other partner did work.

One way of reducing child poverty would be to remove the bias against two parent families by re-weighting the tax credit system to take account of both the extra costs of two parent households and to encourage work of both parents in those households.

This is patently nonsense, as what the detailed like-for-like analysis of Frank’s headline claim actually demonstrates is that the big disincentive for ’second potential earners’ within two-parent families is not the impact of increased earned income on entitlement to primary tax credits but the high marginal tax rate arising out of  the requirement that working families meet 30% of their childcare costs, a disincentive that, of course, largely disappears once all children in a family are in full-time education.

This suggest that the better solutions would lie in either the provision of more free childcare, either by means of greater statutory provision/subsidy or by increasing tax incentives to employers who provide free childcare to employees or, more radically, by tackling the issue of  high marginal tax rates head on by means of replacing the present welfare system with a Citizen’s Basic Income.

Mad Frankie is now two for two in producing policy research papers on welfare reform in which his arguments fail to stand up to scrutiny due to very basic and obvious flaws in analysis and the presentation of incomplete and misleading data as supporting evidence, from which I can only reasonably conclude that he is committing what would, were he an academic and not a politician, be the near-unforgivable sin of choosing and presenting his evidence in such a selective manner to support his own preconceived views on welfare policy, rather than deriving both his analysis and policy from substantive evidence. Not so much evidence-based policy making as policy-based evidence making.

Given the timing of the publication of these papers to coincide with the transition in Labour Party leadership from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown and his past history with the latter, who is widely held to have been responsible for blocking Frank’s proposals for welfare reform during the period from 1997-8 in which Frank served as Minister for Welfare Reform in the then Department of Social Security and his aspirations of becoming Social Security minister, it is difficult not to see this as a continuation of an ongoing personal vendetta against Brown.

Moreover, the obvious and abject falsity of his comparison of single mum and two-parent family seems less an attempt to advance an argument for substantive, evidence-driven, reform of the welfare system and more an attempt to smuggle a personal moral position on the desirability of marriage onto the agenda in the guise of welfare reform and little more than variation on the general theme of Tory promises to reinstate the married couples tax allowance, which serve the same basic purpose and, in coming from a policy group led by Iain Duncan Smith, derive the same basic source.

Yet again, Field demonstrates that he’s little more than a busted flush and the Labour MP most likely to fuck off and join the Tory Party before the next general election - and if any Tories are looking in, you can have him so far as I’m concerned. As for quite what the laudatory reaction his papers for Reform are getting from within Tory ranks has to say about the general standard of economic literacy in the party, I’ll leave that to you to decide, but Alan Walters it ain’t…

Nevertheless I am looking forward to his next paper, the subject matter of which will no doubt be as extensively trailed in much the same string of £140 a time written questions in the House of Commons as the last two.

Personally I’m looking forward to what I expect will be a devastating critique of the Common Agricultural Policy in which fearless Frankie proves without any shred of doubt that apples are really bananas and that that is completely unfair to the grapefruit.

Apropos of my guest appearance, this week, at Iain Dale’s Dairy, its seems that David Davis’ Dandie Dinmont (or Cameron’s Chihuahua, if you prefer) is finding a simple exercise in English comprehension a little too difficult to cope with.

Let’s finish up from last Tuesday and his efforts to spin last week’s blanket coverage of Gordon Brown’s policy statement on the prospects for further anti-terrorism legislation into yet another ‘clunking fist’ non-story.

Patrick Hennessy was the first to fire a broadside against me, but he was quickly followed by Ian Kirby (News of the World), Nick Watt (Observer) and Marie Woolf (IoS). They all denied that Brown’s spin team had leant on them. I explained that I knew that one paper had indeed been leant on and had assumed, because all their stories were more or less identical, that it had happened to the rest of them. But it still left open the question of why none of them had approached the opposition parties for a quote.

Dale appears to have some rather unorthodox ideas about the meaning of the phrase ‘left open’ given that both Hennessey and Kirby responded directly the question of why they didn’t seek quotes from the opposition parties:

HENNESSEY: “I didn’t think the story needed a Tory or Lib Dem reaction”

KIRBY: “On this story, I knew there was no need for a response because Shadow Home Affairs spokesmen would be falling over themselves to air their opinions on Saturday night and Sunday”

In short, its not our job to ask the opposition what they think, its their job to get off their arse and tell us when they’ve got something to say - after all, they’re the politicians.

If there’s an open question left from last week it is only the question of why Dale persists with the wholly unsubstantiated allegation that the Brown camp leant on a newspaper to try and prevent the opposition getting a look in, in the face of comments from four political editors/journalists, all of whom wrote up Brown’s policy announcement for their respective Sunday paper, all asserting that no such thing took place. After all, if its reasonable to assume that what goes for one newspaper goes for them all, as Dale has stated repeatedly in trying to defend his original story, then its also reasonable to assume that when four newspapers all deny that any such thing took place one should start to question the veracity of your original ’source’ - why, for example, would Brown’s PR minders choose to lean on only one newspaper and not all of them if they were actually minded to lean on anyone at all?  It just doesn’t make sense.

(To be clear, I checked on all the main Sundays but for the Sunday Sport and Daily Star Sunday - I figured that there were simply not enough tits or ‘girl-on-girl action’ in the story to interest either - and all ran with much the same material and without any quotes from the opposition, including the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express.)

Still, not being one to let questions like that interrupt a stream of propaganda, Dale’s back today to claim vindication for last week’s embarrassing faux pas on the back of a story by Nick Watt in the Observer, which he claims makes his point about why the should have spoken to his lord and master:

Tony Blair has been forced to issue an unprecedented apology to David Cameron after a Tory anti-terrorism initiative was unveiled by Gordon Brown weeks after the Conservative leader passed on the idea in private to the Prime Minister. An embarrassed Downing Street gave the Prime Minister’s apologies to Cameron’s office last week after the Tory leader expressed his anger when he found his idea trailed by Brown as a new tool for tackling terrorism. The extraordinary gesture from the Prime Minister to the leader of the Opposition was made after Brown called last weekend for a privy council review into whether telephone tap evidence should be admitted as evidence in court.

A series of Sunday newspapers, including The Observer, carried Brown’s comments as a sign of
how he will adopt a tough approach to tackling terrorism. A furious Cameron instructed his office to contact Downing Street last Monday to find out what had happened, because he had suggested the idea to Blair in a private meeting in No 10 two weeks earlier. Cameron was particularly upset because the meeting with Blair was meant to establish a cross-party consensus on dealing with the terrorist threat.

The Tory leader’s office and Downing Street refused yesterday to comment on their exchanges. But The Observer understands that an embarrassed Blair instructed senior officials to convey his regrets to Cameron after sympathising with Tory complaints that Brown’s intervention had at least given the impression that the terms of the Cameron/Blair meeting, held on private privy council terms, had been breached.

If the issue here is that privy council terms have been breached then that’s hardly ‘unprecedented’ - during the run in to the invasion of Iraq, former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, walked straight out of a private briefing at Downing Street, held on the precisely the same Privy Council terms, and blabbed the content the meeting to the waiting press more or less on the doorstep of number 10, but as Watt’s story goes on to explain, things are rather more complicated on this occasion.

Brown emphatically denies doing anything wrong because he knew nothing of Cameron’s proposal when he made his comments last weekend. ‘Gordon has been thinking through how you build consensus on these issues,’ a source said. ‘It has been in gestation for some time. We only realised subsequently that this had been proposed by David Cameron to Tony Blair.

Reid’s comments and Blair’s apology will raise questions about the state of communications between the Prime Minister and Chancellor just weeks before Brown takes over in No 10. Brown’s anti-terrorism initiative, which he has been working on for months, was virtually identical to the plan outlined by Reid in the Commons. This suggests that the Home Office and Downing Street incorporated Brown’s ideas on phone taps without telling the him they had been suggested by Cameron. Brown is understood to believe that the Tories may be playing fast and loose. He has been examining the idea of holding a privy council inquiry on telephone tap evidence for some time and has been consulting outside the government. There are fears that some of Brown’s thoughts may have been passed to the Tories during this consultation. There will also be questions about whether Cameron’s cordial relations with No 10 will be maintained once Brown takes over.

So the actual issue here is that both Brown and members of the opposition have been thinking along much the same lines without realising it because neither Blair or Reid, both of whom will be gone in less than three weeks time, could find it in themselves to communicate properly with either side, unless, of course, your name is Iain Dale in which case you try to spin the story like this:

So all of them missed a real story last week, just because they didn’t pick up the phone to David or Clegg. Credit to Nick Watt for getting the story this week, though.

But let’s move on from that because it raises some serious questions about Gordon Brown.

Huh? Does it? Watts’ article clearly suggests that if there’s fault to be found here then that fault lies with Blair and Reid for playing both ends of their discussions with Brown and with the opposition without telling either that they’ve been  thinking along pretty much the same lines. So why the questions about Brown?

Why, for example, did he make a policy speech and then brief newspapers on an issue he clearly wasn’t fully briefed on himself? Why did he not pick up the phone to Number Ten or the Home Secretary to check on the latest state of play? Why did he freelance on an issue of national security when he must have known that Reid was about to make firm proposals only a few days later? In short, why did he play politics with terror?

Quite what planet Dale’s on here is anyone’s guess, because it certainly isn’t the one described in Watts’ story. In the first instance, if anyone could be said to be ‘playing politics with terror’, or rather ‘terrorism’ to at least make some sort of nod in the direction of English grammar, then it would appear to Blair and Reid who appear to have been keeping Brown out of the loop on the substance of their discussions with the opposition.

One might also reasonably question quite what the opposition are doing holding talks with both in the full knowledge that neither will be in office at the end of the month and without ensuring that the man who will be in office, and the next Prime Minister, is fully appraised of developments. It’s not as if they can claim not to know the score here or that, come the 27th June, it will be Gordon Brown they’ll be dealing with to try in order to take these proposals forward rather than either Brown or Reid, so why the hell haven’t they made absolutely sure, themselves, that Brown was in the loop on these discussions. Let’s face it, even without a contested election for the leadership, you’d have to be a complete half-wit not to think that the question of anti-terrorism policy wouldn’t come up as Brown tours the country fulfilling his schedule of hustings with Labour Party members.

And as for ‘playing politics’, isn’t that precisely what Dale is doing here in desperately trying to spin this as an anti-Brown story when it seems patently obvious that its Blair and Reid at fault.  Okay, so Dale’s rather limited in his options at the moment given that three of the only four policies that the Tory Party have got (married couples tax allowance, not building new grammar schools unless they are going to build them and calling Brown ‘Macavity’) are completely inapplicable, leaving him only the ‘referring to Brown as clunking’ policy to play with, but even then this is still a piss poor effort on his part.

His actions have made a growing cross-party consensus more difficult to take forward.

Have they?

So far as I can see Brown’s stated position differs only from that of the Tories in his apparent support for 90 day detention in terrorism investigations, and from that of John Reid only in his support for the use of telephone intercept information in court, on which his position appears to be identical to that of the Tories. A more astute and media savvy spokesman than Davis would have responded to Brown’s statement not by whinging about not getting the credit he feels he deserves but by commending Brown for coming around to his own party’s point of view and expressing optimism for future discussions with the new Prime Minister. After all, it hardly looks much like you’re serious about building a consensus on further anti-terrorism legislation when you start pissing and moaning over who thought of what first.

He should be grateful that the Conservatives and LibDems haven’t taken their bats and balls home completely. His new Home Secretary will have quite a job to do in rebuilding relations.

Aside from noting that the opposition ‘taking their bats and balls home’ would blatantly amount to playing politics with terrorism, the one concrete thing to emerge from this whole situation is the knowledge of precisely how little difference there actually is between Brown’s position and that of the opposition, especially the Tories. Far from putting the onus on the next Home Secretary to rebuild relations, all the Tories have done is put themselves in a much weaker position by making public the full extent to which both they and Brown are looking at precisely the same measures for the upcoming anti-terrorism bill.

Having nailed their flag to the mast by claiming much of what Brown announced last week as their own, how can they now back out of those ideas without clearly appearing to put exclusively partizan interests ahead of Britain’s security?

They can’t.

All the next Home Secretary need to do is press ahead with everything that the Tories have already ‘fessed up to supporting and they’ve no way of backing out. As former US President, Lyndon Baines Johnson is alleged to have observed, “If you got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”, and all the Tories (including Dale) have actually done this week is gift-wrap their bollocks and deliver them Gordon Brown on a silver platter.

The only noteworthy thing to emerge from this whole episode is the Tory’s (and Dale’s) complete lack of political and media savvy.

Unlike some  - and that’s not a set for a dig, Neil - I have to confess that I’m entirely sanguine when it comes to the manner of Gordon Brown’s ascension to the leadership of the party.

Yes, a contested leadership election would have been much more consistent with the party’s democratic traditions, but in the absence of credible challengers from any other wing of the party I really can’t see that John McDonnell’s failure to make the ballot actually makes that much of difference in the grand scheme of things.

Sorry, but in terms of party democracy, there are much more important things to tackle.

We need to rebuild and reinvigorate the grass roots membership of the party, and more importantly, do so in a manner that enables us to construct a meaningful relationship between party members/activists and our elected representatives.

What has done most to damage party democracy during the Blair years is the all too obvious mistrust that the Blairite wing of the party has harboured towards the constituency section and the grassroots membership, which has been perceived throughout as a repository of dangerously off message left-wing ideas.

One only has to look at the position paper put out by Hazel Blears in support of her challenge for the Deputy Leadership to see this in action. She devotes three pages of the document to outlining her views on ‘Building the Labour Party’, which is, itself, rather an odd turn of phrase to use when referring to an 100+ year old organisation, and much of what she has to say concerns itself with the suggestion that CLPs should mutate into community development NGOs and the value she perceives in semi-detached networks such as the Labour Supporter’s Network - one has to wonder quite what the membership figure for LSN are at the moment, I’ve never seen any published.

One of the more telling comments in her paper is this:

Our activities will be transparent – local communities will be encouraged to take part in selecting candidates, in helping with elections, in discussing policy, and in debating with local representatives and ministers.

Okay, so a bit of help on the doorsteps come election time is always welcome and one cannot quibble with consultations on policy and between local communities and elected representatives at any level, but taking part in selecting candidates? Is Hazel suggesting that prospective councillors, MPs and MEPs should take part in US style local primaries as part of our internal selection procedures?

This seems little more than a variation on the same old frustrating theme we’ve heard from the Blairite camp over the last 10 years - the one in which CLPs and activists cannot be trusted to select their own candidates without being watched over by the party machine for fear that we might put forward prospective councillors, and especially MPs who, heaven forbid, might show a disturbing and unwelcome propensity for doing things like ‘thinking for themselves’.

Such concerns might have has some foundations in fact back in 1995/6 but are things still still the same today, but for the odd isolated pockets of what, for want of a better word, one might call the ‘Old Left’ tucked away in a small number of Labour heartland constituencies?

I don’t think it is.

If one looks at the evolution of the Bloggers4Labour network over the last couple of years - and its worth noting that on its own this network is far more extensive that anything the Tories can put up - one has to say that there’s little evidence to gleaned from it to suggest that the grassroots of the party are firmly in the grip of the old-style left wing. Centre-left, certainly, and to some degree to the left of the Blairite wing of the party but by no means to a degree that would advocate or support dragging the party out of the centre-ground towards where a significant part of the labour movement stood during the early 1980s.

Bloggers may not be entirely representative of the grassroots as a whole, but if one looks at the B4L network one finds pretty much all strands of Labour opinion represented amongst its members and, more to the point, one finds finds a clear will to engage seriously in politics and policy to a far more extensive degree that one tends to find in the loose blogging ‘collectives’ associated with other parties.

The shift in emphasis from presentation to policy that’s expects to come with Brown’s ascendancy to the leadership is one that I suspect will suit most Labour bloggers down to the ground - not because we’re all ‘Brownites’ but simply because there is a genuine appetite within the Labour Blogosphere to discuss and debate real politics and the nitty-gritty of policy-making.

Yes, in all probability- well, certainty - the course that the parliamentary party will be charting towards the next general election will already have been set by Brown and his aides/supporters and will start to unfold over the talismanic ‘first hundred days’ as Prime Minister - so, in that sense, the lack of a contest has deprived us of chance to debate policy.

But so what?

Many Labour bloggers have done little else but talk about policy over the last couple of years and what matters in the long run is whether or not any of the debates, discussions and ideas that have been spawned, developed and thoroughly worked over come to work they way into and influence the ongoing development of Labour policy beyond the first raft of Brown-led initiatives.

There may have been little or no scope for party members to try an influence policy at this stage, but that’s not that much of an issue. The transition from Blair to Brown was always going to be a evolutionary rather than revolutionary move with no real prospect of  the party moving significantly to the left - for all the Blairite-wing seem content to hold this up as their favourite bogeyman. What we’ll see from Brown is a continuation of many of the policies that have been developed over the last 10 year - and rather more emphasis on some of the successful economic work that been rather downplayed under Blair. Some of the more idiotic and ill-thought out Blairite ‘initiatives’ - one can barely consider the policies - will fall by the wayside. If nothing else Brown should move quickly to rein in the Home Office and put an end to dumb-ass press release Friday’s by placing a much steadier and more diplomatic hand on the policing and security tiller.

But most importantly of all, irrespective of the detail of policy, what I’m looking for from Brown is something that I think he can deliver that Blair never could due to his lack of real roots in the party, a sense that Labour’s policies in government belong to a distinctively Labour narrative understanding of the world of the kind of progressive society that the party wishes to create and support in future. Blair, whose approach to political theory and philosophy amounted to little more than treating the massed canon of progressive (and sometimes not so progressive) thought as a political pick n’ mix counter to shore up ideas rooted in little else but shiftless tabloid populism, could never deliver such a coherent narrative thread.

Brown, who has real roots in the party and comes from a solid Presbytarian background as influential, in its own way, as Welsh Methodism has been in the development of the Labour movement, should be capable of providing just such a narrative thread and I think it vital that he quickly establishes such a narrative, which will go on to inform and shape future policy development and, to a considerable extent, the kind of input into the policy-making process that might stem from activists.

With that firmly in mind, the absence of a wide-ranging policy debate tied to a Leadership contest is not something I see as a drawback - it may well be beneficial in the long run for the party to have avoided such a debate, which could easily have proved divisive had it taken place without the benefit of understanding the kind of Labour narrative under which that Brown intends to take the party forward.

Getting back to Blears and questions of engagement with the grassroots - and to give her a little credit as well - she does suggest a need to beef up the role National Policy Forum - with the usual unedifying caveats about measuring ‘representation’ in terms of population demographics - which would be a welcome innovation. But again, the emphasis rests firmly on engagement through defined hierarchical structures and in closed and carefully managed environments what to suit, overwhelmingly, the interests of the PLP, rather on direct engagement in the kind of freeform discussions and debates that routinely take place amongst bloggers. Its all very well talking about trying engage the ‘facebook generation’ but to do that effectively politicians have to take a leap of faith and talk to us inhabitants of the electronic frontier on out terms and within our established social mores - which inevitably means facing off with the MSM and fighting back against the established media culture which, for too long, has done little else but prevent politicians engaging in open and constructive debate and promote a dumbed-down political culture obsessed with trivia, personalities and scandal to the exclusion of meaningful public and political discourse.

Blears tops off her position paper with this:

Tomorrow’s Labour Party will be a focussed election-winning machine. But it will also be a sociable, enjoyable, fulfilling place to be for its members. It will reflect the full diversity of our communities. Voluntary activity will be rewarded by personal development as well as communal benefit and social progress. The Labour Party will be a modern party at ease and at home in modern society, and ready for whatever the future may hold.

Enough with the bloody managerialist misson statements already, lets just stick to something along the lines of…

The Labour Party is a progressive, democratic socialist, political party that exists to promote social justice and equality for all.

Simple. To the point. And does what it says on the tin.

For reasons lost in the mists of alcohol, I get the occasional e-mail from the Lib Dems telling about the all wonderful things they’ve been doing (yawn!), the latest is which comes - apparently - from the Emperor Ming himself…

I am shocked that the Labour and Conservative front benches in the Commons have joined forces to vote for a special exemption for MPs from the Freedom of Information Act. This brings Parliament into disrepute.

Liberal Democrats have led the opposition on the floor of the House of Commons and I have decided to launch a national petition so voters can show to the House of Lords (who debate the bill next), Gordon Brown and David Cameron how they feel.

Please visit www.ourcampaign.org.uk/foi to sign our petition and lobby a member of the House of Lords. Please also forward this email to your friends and colleagues.

Thank you for your support.

With best wishes

Ming Campbell
Liberal Democrats

Shocked, eh?

Follow the link, and you’ll find that Ming has a few suggestions as to how we can help defeat the bill.

1. Lobby a Lord

2. Link to their campaign website - they even have a nice animated gif for this purpose.

3. Help the LD’s to advertise - by donating money to the them…

4. Sign the petition on their website…

Sadly suggestion no. 5 doesn’t make the LD’s list…

5. Turn up in the House of Commons and vote against the fucking thing…