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Just what tickled my fancy in the last few days…

• » Ofcom warns off free Wi-Fi providers – Another turd left behind by New Labour
• » Refugee Week – Dates for your diary…
• » Nuking the oil spill – The ‘peaceful’ use of nuclear weapons…
• » Facing both ways on nuclear power – Chris Huhne adapts to power nicely
• » BBC News – British citizenship tests: One in three immigrants fail – I'd like to see the figures if citizens took the citizenship test…

Posted from my delicio.us links.

Refugee and Migrant Justice (RMJ) is a charity that provides free legal advice and representation to asylum seekers. The organisation is facing possible closure as a result of a new system of payment of legal aid whereby payments are only made when stages are closed. In RMJ’s case this is on average six months after work is started and can take up to two years.

They are not asking for more money, just prompt payment of what they are due. The possible closure of RMJ will effect 10,000 asylum seekers in the UK who will be left without legal representation, and may be forced to return to persecution, torture, and the threat of death. Nine hundred of their clients are children.

They have been in private touch with the new ministers but, despite some sympathy in the Home Office from Damian Green, they have just received a negative response from a junior Ministry of Justice minister. So they are launching a public campaign.

RMJ has managed to get a letter of support out today, signed by various public figures, and hope that this will put some pressure on the government. However, that alone is not enough, and RMJ are asking for support. They are encouraging people to write to the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke in protest at the closure. They also want to raise awareness of the situation as widely as possible, in as many different sectors as they can.

(Here’s a sample letter to Kenneth Clarke and a leaflet outline RMJ’s situation.)

Just what tickled my fancy in the last few days…

• » Bloggerheads (UK) – Private Eye magazine (and why I don’t read it anymore) – it's also why I don't read it anymore.
• » ID cards scheme will still apply to non EU nationals
• » In the loop: How Twitter transformed political reporting – One of the beauties of Twitter is that any idiot can sign up and declare themselves an authority on it…
• » Andy Burnham’s website – ‘potentially damaging content’
• » Check out Andy Burnham’s flashy leadership website
• » BBC News – Ministers to outline ‘radical’ welfare reform agenda – Iain Duncan Smith: – ‘work actually helps to free people’
• » Video: police arrest Brian Haw for not moving aside quickly enough – Looking at the number of lads they sent along, the Met are clearly terrified of Brian Haw…
• » David Miliband: 10 things you may not know about me – ‘When not helping to cover up torture, I like to kick back with a Twirl and a copy of the Gruffalo…’ Aw!
• » I see the Miliband (D) campaign team are persisting with that photo of their man giving the two-fingered salute
• » Dachshunds Are Amazing
• » Blood & Treasure: victims of government spending cuts with whom i have no sympathy
• » Britain’s electoral system ‘corruptible and open to fraud’, say Third World observers – Telegraph
• » Judge orders Home Office to stop deportations without warning
• » Not all gay asylum-seekers sent back to face persecution – “Why do you *choose* to be homosexual when you know it is illegal in your own country?”
• » LGBT Asylum News: 98% sent back? The Independent’s article makes a bad situation worse
• » The Media’s Contempt For Public Activism… « Back Towards The Locus
• » Soldier Who Filmed Gay Taunts of Iraqi Children Investigated
• » donpaskini: Coalition axes 44,000 "Big Society" jobs – The Con-Dem evil begins…
• » Janelle Monáe – Tightrope (on David Letterman)
• » Two consecutive tweets on the Guardian’s newsfeed tell a story…
• » John McDonnell: I am not Old Labour or New Labour – just Labour – John McDonnell speaks with honesty, compassion and integrity. He is, therefore and needless to say, doomed.
• » Bob Piper : That’s cleared that up then… – "We want a properly coherent British approach to Afghanistan"…
• » Blood & Treasure: little creatures – ‘Step aside fat Nick and take your shaven headed paranoids with you. This is the era of the real British national party…’
• » Bloggerheads (UK) – To: Nadine Dorries – An open letter to Nadine Dorries
• » George Lamb to leave BBC 6 Music – Some good news at last…
• » The Curmudgeon: Principled Opposition from Eds Miliballs
• » Tory pledge to end child detention means deporting babies | Counterfire
• » I Saw The Light – This one's for Ed and Ed for coming out against the Iraq war in 2010…
• » Labour’s new motto: immigration, immigration, immigration – 'to focus any argument about distributional justice on welfare claimants is borderline obscene…'
• » Ed Balls: I want Labour to win again by showing whose side we are really on – Mirror mobile – Ed Balls: Immigration 2, Living Wage 0, Housing 0, Poverty 0…
• » Pickled Politics » What is the progressive narrative on immigration? – 'How do you deal with people’s concerns without sounding like the English Defence League, the BNP or Andy Burnham?'
• » Rise in refugee children falling into destitution – Children & Young People Now – The number of asylum-seeking children who fall into destitution is increasing…
• » Border agency breaking rules over detention of children in Yarl’s Wood
• » The Curmudgeon: The Flexible All-Purpose Do-It-Yourself Labour Leadership Candidacy Kit – Enhance your Labour leadership candidacy potential with this handy enhancer
• » Torture inquiry to investigate accusations against British agents – Bad news for Miliband (D)
• » Craig Venter creates synthetic life form – Hmmm. I think Mr Venter will find the Miliband family beat him to this about 40 years ago…
• » IRR: How good is the good news on child detention? – News on child detention must be treated with caution.

Posted from my delicio.us links.

The Lib Dems seem to be slipping into life in government with comfortable ease. Energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne, for instance, has gone from being a vociferous voice against nuclear power to, as EdF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz who wants to build four new nuclear reactors in the UK describes him, ‘a man we can do business with‘.

Meanwhile…

(Via chuzzlit on Twitter.)

Fourteen year-old Wells Botomani on life at the hands of the UK’s immigration services…

The nights are the worst in Yarl’s Wood. Doors being banged and sometimes people crying. You always think they may be coming to your door. This fear lives in me, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.

I don’t know how to get rid of it. It’s a far lesser thing, I know, but it’s the same for me and disgust.

We did this, we do this. Is it a learned behaviour, the things we do to these people? If so, who did we learn it from?

The recent right-wing establishment reaction to the peace camp and the arrest of Brian Haw in Parliament Square is fascinating to watch based, as it is, almost entirely on an aesthetic judgement rather than any consideration of just why the protesters are there.

It’s to be wondered why the Tories aren’t handing out nosegays and scented hankerchiefs to their swooning hangers-on. I wonder how much fuss there’d be if the protesters wore suits and had erected Art Nouveau gazebos instead of wearing jeans and t-shirts and living in tents (not that the judgement of a protest’s visual merits is the exclusive purview of Tory critics). Lost in all this is the irony that the government appears to be cracking down on protest just as they’re about to restore the right to protest.

Take a look, for example, at Tory mouthpiece Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph. He variously describes the protesters as ‘loons’, ‘ragtag’ and ‘grim’. He describes protest veteran Brian Haw as ‘dreadful’ and ‘demented’. Not once are the words ‘Iraq’ or ‘Afghanistan’ mentioned.

Tory press release machine Iain Dale had mentioned Brian Haw on his blog just once before yesterday (Britain’s biggest blogger couldn’t even get ‘Hawes’ name right when he finally got around to mentioning him yesterday) and doesn’t seem to have mentioned the peace camp before much either.

But as soon as his big mates send in the cops to hassle a few hippies, and never one to miss a bandwagon, Dale’s found his aesthetic sensibilities, declared that protesters should be judged on their visual appeal, and is holding the coats. He also elevated his dislike to a vendetta by finding one of the protester’s details and phoning the man’s employer. Oh, and he didn’t mention ‘Iraq’ or ‘Afghanistan’ either.

Sky News’ Adam Boulton tried to associate the protest with the death of a Japanese boy hit by a car. Leader of Westminster Council Colin Barrow talked about ‘ordinary workers and tourists who are prevented from going about their daily business’. This is cobblers. Parliament Square is, in effect, an enormous traffic island with no pedestrian access. Protests on the Square obstruct nobody unless they’re willing to risk the traffic to get there. You take your life in your hands trying to get on to it, certainly.

All of them eulogize Parliament Square’s beauty and the notion that it’s on a World Heritage site (it’s not, fact fans). I’m not really sure what the fuss is about in that regard. I’ve been on Parliament Square (protesting, natch) and in summer particularly, it’s a scrubby, patchy square of nondescript lawn. I wonder, before the protest camp arrived, how many times Brogan, Dale, Boulton, Barrow and the rest risked the traffic themselves to enjoy the Square’s ‘beauty’.

Ed Milliband has the ‘X-Factor’ says ill-informed boofhead and national embarrassment, Lord Kinnock. It’s a transparent and patronising try at injecting some populist ‘glamour’ into the younger Miliband’s campaign. Good luck with that.

Next Labour, however, have actually managed to turn its leadership contest into a very real and Cowellesque display of public humiliation…

click to embiggen

They’re showing the nominations for the leadership candidates in real time on their website. So, instead of unsuccessful candidates quietly bowing out when nominations close, we can all have good laugh at those with no mates. Like we did when we were children. So let’s have a look at the contenders.

Diane Abbot
For: Terrible hypocrite.
Against: Her hyprocrisy doesn’t run deep enough.

Ed Balls
For: Against the war in Iraq.
Against: For the war in Iraq.

Andy Burnham
For: Impeccably-preserved Northern credentials.
Against: Neo-Mosleyite.

John McDonnell:
For: Speaks with honesty, integrity and compassion.
Against: Speaks with honesty, integrity and compassion.

David Miliband
For: He’s not Ed Miliband.
Against: He’s David Miliband.

Ed Miliband
For: He’s not David Miliband.
Against: He’s Ed Miliband.

(If you click on the candidates on the leadership web-page you get little aggrandising biographies of each. Except for Abbott and McDonnell who, for some reason at the time of writing, still don’t have them almost a week after they entered the contest.)

Has Next Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham uttered the word ‘progressive’ at all during his campaign? One gets the feeling he’s not standing as a progressive candidate…

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Burnham said: “We were in denial. We were behind the issue all the time, and myths were allowed to develop. There’s still an ambivalence among some in Labour about discussing immigration. I’ve been accused of dog-whistle politics for doing so.

“But it was the biggest doorstep issue in constituencies where Labour lost. People aren’t racist, but they say it has increased tension, stopped them getting access to housing and lowered their wages.”

It’s a classic transfer of blame thing this, isn’t it? New Labour’s abject failure to address the housing shortage ’stopped them getting access to housing’. New Labour’s failure to address the rights of agency workers, living wage programmes and exploitative employment law ‘lowered wages’.

Have refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants had their hands on the levers of power recently? I’m pretty sure Johnny Foreigner didn’t dictate housing and wage levels in the UK over the last decade. I’m almost certain that was down to the Thatcherite settlement Burnham and his mates hug so close.

And where are these ‘increased’ tensions exactly? I’m not saying they don’t exist it’s just that in the obvious places the tensions seem to have eased. The BNP were destroyed at the election. Nick Griffin and his gang weren’t beaten in Barking and Dagenham by pandering to their policies but by a strong movement of dedicated people fighting those policies.

Burnham, for some reason, doesn’t want to admit all this so it’s back to blaming the darkies, fostering grievances (how many are perception rather than reality I wonder?) and making life even harder for the most vulnerable. Like I said, not a progressive candidate. He’s not asking the hard questions but taking the easy way out.

David Miliband urges Labour to move on from Iraq. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Not really the right person to be suggesting that though, is he? It’s an interesting dodge to be fair (steeped in arrogance and cowardice though it is), if not one open to the rest of us.

‘You’ve left your dirty underpants on the bathroom floor. AGAIN.’ ‘Yes, but it’s time to move on.’

‘Of course I was doing 37 in a 30 miles an hour zone, officer, but can’t we move one?’

‘I know hitting my wife has proved devisive in the past but it simply isn’t an issue on the doorstep. It’s time to move on.’

BREAKING: ‘Time to move on,’ says former Foreign Secretary David Miliband
‘Drug abuse in the southern port city of Basra is spiralling out of control as efforts to fight addiction and trafficking fail, according to health and security officials [...] Officials in Basra, 550km south of Baghdad and Iraq’s only trading hub with access to the sea, said the city had become a major waypoint on the drug route from Afghanistan to the Arabian Gulf, as a result of the security vacuum that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.’

BREAKING: ‘Time to move on,’ says former Foreign Secretary David Miliband
‘When British forces drew down from southern Iraq just two years ago, militias conducted a systematic manhunt for their former Iraqi employees. Seventeen interpreters were publicly executed in a single massacre; their bodies were dumped throughout the streets of Basra. This predictable churn of violence against those who “collaborated” with an occupying power has been repeated through history, from the tens of thousands of Algerian harkis who were slaughtered after the 1962 French withdrawal to the British loyalists hunted by American militias after the Revolutionary War. Depressing as this history is, it is not inevitable.’

BREAKING: ‘Time to move on,’ says former Foreign Secretary David Miliband
‘Following a High Court decision today, it can be revealed that former Home Secretary Charles Clarke wrote to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2005 to try and create a Guantanamo Bay-style camp in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, for one suspect, known now as HXA.’

In 1958, after being beaten in the race to be Governor of Alabama by his racist opponent, moderate Democrat George Wallace reportedly said, ‘I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again’. Wallace then used his newly declared and cynical opposition to integration to court racism and the populist vote. He eventually became Governor of Alabama.

I don’t know what made me think of him.

Anyway. Immigration, immigration, immigration. They do go on about it, Miliband, Miliband, Balls, and how they’re going to hammer Johnny Foreigner. New to the party is Andy Burnham who’s running on a ‘Fewer Darkies, More Mascara‘ platform. Diane Abbott tries to speak on the issue with a little sense and compassion while everyone agrees that her entering the Next Labour leadership contest is some kind of joke.

James Macintyre in the New Statesman went as far as to tell us ‘The problem with Diane Abbott‘ (‘She is not highly valued in the Labour party,’ apparently, although Macintyre doesn’t say how he conducted his research. Did he canvas the members?). I look forward to the problems with Mililband, Miliband, Balls and Burnham being similiarly aired.

Still, it serves Abbott right really. That’s what you get when you don’t back disastrous and bloody wars or don’t try to cover up torture or don’t come over all Enoch Powell on the subject of immigration. You can’t expect to be taken seriously with a record like that, can you?

She prats about on the telly with Michael Portillo and sent her kids to public school but those don’t add up to voting for cluster bombs and white phosphorus or trying to hide a torture victim’s mangled genitals. Her leadership bid is apparently all the poorer for it. She’s being laughed out of town while these two are a serious prospect.

Meanwhile, the Con-Dems, remain considerably and shockingly to the left of Next Labour on immigration at this early stage. Not only have they committed to releasing child refugees from internment (however that works out), they’re also promising to ’stop the deportation of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.’

Needless to say we’ll have to see how that works in practice but you have to admit it’s a step up from telling gay people to go home and be ‘discreet’. An early test of the Con-Dems’ resolve is the case of gay Iranian actress Kiana Firouz who risks the death penalty if she’s deported. Will the Con-Dems save her?

This isn’t to say the new government has gone all soft and stopped trying to look hard and tough and ruthless themselves when it comes to the notional swarthy horde poised to steal our lands. Their promise to ‘introduce an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work’ is already both looking unworkable and idiotic.

So it is going to be interesting to see how the cap “mechanism” might work: set the limit high and there’s no point in having it; set it low and Britain deprives itself of workers which benefit the UK.

In trying to please the knuckle-dragging tendency it looks like both sides could end up hurting the country. Doing the Daily Mail’s and Rupert Murdoch’s work is not, it seems, in the national interest. Fancy that.

Just what tickled my fancy in the last few days…

• » Brother speaks out on death of asylum seeker – He found out via the Internet.
• » I Made an FoI Request: Whether "Coalition: Our Programme for Government" is a binding commitment
• » Roy Greenslade: Rupert Murdoch an early visitor to Downing Street – Rupert's been to call in his debt…
• » Andy Burnham: Tosser
• » Back Towards The Locus: Tories And The Weapon’s Trade
• » Mascots launched for great British showpiece…
• » End Child Detention Now
• » No Borders Brighton: A Positive Outcome For Whom?
• » Matthew Norman: Brothers at war – it’s a Jewish thing – Matthew Norman damns the Milibands with the faintest of praise…
• » I weep for my generation…
• » “Depression? It’s just the new trendy illness! – [Insert foul insult aimed at Janet Street Porter here]
• » Love and Garbage – Human Rights and Nick Robinson – Nick Robinson is an ignorant plum
• » Points-based visa system alienates visitors to UK
• » The Ecologist: How and why to make seedbombs – An article by my mate Jan. Always have a seedbomb about your person.
• » The Liz Jones guide to prudence – Ah, Liz Jones. There really are no words…
• » Jim Bliss reviews American: The Bill Hicks Story
• » donpaskini: The unfairness of Ed Miliband

Posted from my delicio.us links.

At 11.36 this morning the mother of an 8-month old baby made a desperate plea for help on her mobile.

‘I told them please don’t send me and my baby in the van for nine hours, she is too young, I asked them to speak to my lawyer. But she just told me, “Look either you go in the van or we will take your baby in a separate van and you won’t see her until you get to Yarl’s Wood.”

Read the rest…

Children will no longer be held at the Dungavel immigration removal centre after the Scottish government appealed for the practice to end.

Some good news? The ‘progressive’ alliance acting early on a coalition commitment? As ever with these things, it pays to read a little further…

They are now due to be moved to the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, which has specialist family and child facilities and support services, later. Announcing the end of the practice, [UK Immigration Minister Damian Green] said: “This is something which many groups in Scotland have been calling for, and we are now delivering this positive outcome.

‘Positive outcome’? Moving families hundreds of miles away from their local area, friends, support (and, as Martin Burns says, their legal aid) to Yarl’s Wood?

‘They told us we were going to a hotel not a prison and then they locked us up’ … The Government rejected the recommendation that the ‘use of control and restraint against a child be treated as a serious incident and logged’ … ‘Current policy and practice… remains ineffective in preventing malaria in children returning to Africa’ … ‘No awareness of the need to give MMR vaccine to infants… Most children who are removed are sent to measles endemic areas.’ … ‘Many parents complained to us that their children were getting frequent bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting.’ … ‘Despite the appointment of a paediatric nurse, there remains a lack of paediatric medical expertise.’ … ‘There has been no attempt by UK Border Agency to gather evidence on mental health outcomes for children’ … ‘He had previously been a happy child… successful at school, but now… was plagued by nightmares, and screamed in the night’

That’s a positive outcome? Sure, children are no longer being interned in Scotland but – even as an interim measure – it’s a monstrous, misanthropic fudge. This is how it’s going to be, is it? There are pilot schemes in place in Scotland put in place to avoid this. How many times does it need to be said that refugee families with children are unlikely to abscond? Hell, even the Daily Mail put the issue in black and white. Four years ago. The Daily Mail!

It’s hard to fight the sinking feeling that this is going to be a big, fat ugly case of be careful what you wish for.

See also: National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns

Update: This from the Good Morning Scotland radio show (fast forward to 2:09:20). Alison Phipps talks about her foster daughter…

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, yes, a ‘progressive’ alliance. The bad behind, the good ahead. What a difference an election makes.

2004:

Tony Blair repeatedly intervened in a bid to deport asylum seekers to Egypt despite being told that they might be tortured and sentenced to death [...] When Mr Blair was warned by the home secretary in a private letter that there was “ample evidence from a range of sources of serious human rights abuses in Egypt”, and that there was “little scope for pushing deportations any further”, he replied: “This is crazy. Why can’t we press on?”

2010:

Two Pakistani students arrested in a series of anti-terrorism raids have won their fight to remain in the UK after successfully arguing that they would be at risk if they were deported [...] The [Special Immigration Appeals Commission] ruled that “there is a long and well-documented history of disappearances, illegal detention and torture” in Pakistan. The home secretary, Theresa May, said: “We are disappointed that the court has ruled that Abid Naseer and Ahmad Faraz Khan should not be deported to Pakistan, which we were seeking on national security grounds [...] Two weeks after their arrest, all the men were released without charge.

Not what I’d call ‘progress’, but then that’s just me. Then you’ve got torture hider David Miliband running for leader of New Next Labour on a ‘progressive‘ ticket as well. Can’t we all now agree that the word ‘progressive’ is comprehensively knackered?

See also: Is Your Favorite Politician a Sociopath?

(Thanks to @earwicga for the link.)

Just what tickled my fancy in the last few days…

• » Ed Miliband twitterfeed fail
• » BBC News – Labour leadership contest: Runners and riders – Dear Labour, you're screwed. Lots of love, Just x
• » Caroline Lucas: ‘We could have had a new politics. This isn’t it’ – Great interview with Caroline Lucas in the Guardian
• » Human Rights Watch calls for inquiry into Britain’s role in torture – That New Labour legacy is firming up nicely…
• » Prime Minister David Cameron gives first interview to The Sun – Yeah, you're smiling now but just wait until you're no use to them any more…
• » First Who Wants to Be A Millionaire Winner. $1,000,000 – What a geezer!
• » Labour: Change the Sentiment…
• » Jon Trickett: Labour’s next leader must not be tainted by past mistakes – If only he'd written this three years ago instead of buffing his career…
• » General election 2010: The defeat of the BNP – This is awesome
• » Back Towards The Locus: Obama, Drawing A Discrete Veil Over The Bush Administration’s Arse
• » Love and Garbage – The mysterious case of the 55% solution – Brilliant.
• » Craig Murray – Mordechai Vanunu Jailed Again
• » New Statesman – Adam Boulton: I can get grouchy after a long campaign – Adam Boulton, the poor baby, says reading out loud and being a courtier makes him a grouch.
• » Pope says gay marriage is ‘insidious and dangerous’ – Telegraph – Do shut up, you horrible, horrible old bastard…
• » 98 MPs Who Supported Human Rights While Countering Terrorism – current MPs who voted against secret evidence and control orders http://tinyurl.com/2bg9325
• » Clean sweep « Free Movement – ConDem Immigration Act: 'It can be expected that the new Act will reduce appeal rights, reduce safeguards…'
• » Nuclear Power Not Needed to Meet Climate Targets – Huhne « Chris Huhne – Previously anti-nuclear power Chris Huhne in first Lib Dem u-turn?
• » Cameron will scale back database state – Not all good news with the abolition of ID cards…
• » Italian student tells of arrest while filming for fun
• » Inside Gordon Brown’s war room, tension and tears as time ran out – Moving? Yes, that'll be my breakfast…
• » How to learn to live with Tories – 'It's not like we have lost an Eden…'
• » Back Towards The Locus: How Naughty Nick Went Straight
• » Craig Murray – Torture Supporter Peter Ricketts as National Security Adviser – Good news for complicity in torture fans. No doubt David Miliband approves.
• » Conservative conference: Theresa May – Theresa May on section 28 in 2002: Poofs = nonces? 'What we're looking for fundamentally is protection of children'
• » Between the Hammer and the Anvil: General Election – Hack Of The Month Award
• » YouTube – Gordon Brown leaves Buckingham Palace – GB reflecting on his audience with the Queen
• » Tory election campaign criticised by leading thinkers – Telegraph – 7,000 words? By Tim Montgomerie? Fuck that.
• » The Daily Mash – Your astrological week ahead with Psychic Bob
• » In pictures: Gordon Brown’s last moments inside No 10 – Hahahaha. Just look at Alastair Campbell's face. Hahahahahahaha. No more sweeties for you, Alastair.
• » Enemies of Reason: You’re in power now – Goodbye NuLieBore
• » The Curmudgeon: Elegy – Elegy for Gordon
• » BBC News – Red Cross confirms ’second jail’ at Bagram, Afghanistan – Has the Civil Service issued Cameron with his governmental blind eye yet?

Posted from my delicio.us links.

Meanwhile, what of New Labour? Outgoing horrorist Jack Straw was on Radio 4 this morning. After announcing he won’t be running for party leader and is retiring from frontline politics (where are the street parties by the way?), he identified what he thought the reason was for New Labour losing the election:

We lost the election in England… amongst so-called decent, hard-working families who felt, especially, if you like the working class people – C2s – disconnected from the Labour Party… They felt this argument of unfairness quite strongly particularly in respect of immigration and benefits…

Immigration and benefits. Now, what’s Straw’s thinking here? That New Labour should explain to the ‘C2s’ that there are a lot of myths surrounding the immigration and benefits issues? That there isn’t actually an awful lot of ‘unfairness’ when it comes to it? That we’re not being swamped by foreigners and benefit cheats aren’t idle scroungers or costing us billions and billions. Or is he saying that New Labour should move even further right on these matters? Give them a bit more hammer? How much further to the right can New Labour go on immigration without an alliance with the BNP? These are rhetorical questions by the way.

You see, this is the trap New Labour finds itself in. It’s already being outflanked on the left by the Con-Dems on at least two policies. Presumably, at the first Prime Minister’s Questions of this new Parliament, acting New Labour leader Harriet Harman is going to stand up and denounce the abolition of ID cards and the release of child refugees. If not, why not?

Any new leadership associated with the old regime is going to find it very difficult to fight the government on a whole range of issues. Iain Duncan Smith’s workfare policies are smashing the poor? Sorry lads, that was your idea as well, wasn’t it? What if the Con-Dems turn out to be complicit in torture? Just where will you derive your moral authority to challenge that, David Miliband supporters?

Mass Con-Dem privatisation of public services? Just where were the economic geniuses in neo-liberal New Labour going to draw the line themselves? PFI, anyone? Tony Blair wedged himself in George Bush’s colon and Gordon Brown accepted an award from Henry Kissinger (to mention two incidences of bastard courting). How do New Labour criticise the Con-Dems for cosying up to neo-conservatives and other right-wing lunatics?

Can New Labour remodel itself as ‘progressive’ (whatever that means these days) even if it wanted to? This is what puzzled me about the people who crashed the New Labour website the other night in their stampede to rejoin the party. Nothing has changed just because Gordon Brown has shuffled off to spend more time with his sulk. Does a Miliband or a Balls have the emotional intelligence to notice and care about this stuff, let alone point it out?

Is anyone untainted? Even so-called ‘standard bearer for the left‘ Jon Cruddas voted strongly for Labour’s anti-terrorism laws, very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals, very strongly for allowing ministers to intervene in inquests, very strongly for the Iraq war, very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war, and very strongly for a stricter asylum system.

In his interview, Straw said:

We can’t just rest on our New Labour laurels.

No, they certainly can’t. They should chuck those laurels in the canal and run like buggery.

So, where are we after Day 1 of ConDemNation? Leftwing claivoyancy is predicting Britain ending up as a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced adaptation of Jude the Obscure. I’m not sure yet. At this stage, I’m on firmer ground with things some people have done rather than what others might do.

Let’s by honest, the ConDems are starting from a base of such low expectations that if they can avoid causing the deaths of a million brown people they’ll be a better government than the last one by default. As Lucy Mangan puts it in today’s Guardian: ‘It’s not like we have lost an Eden.’ We’ve merely exchanged one bunch of neo-liberal princelings for another.

That said, David Cameron’s sense of humour makes Frankie Boyle’s look like Peter Kay’s. We have a Home Secretary, Theresa May, who voted against the repeal of section 28. She’s also Equalities Minister. Really. Neo-conservative William Hague is Foreign Secretary. War criminal fan Liam Fox is secretary of defence.

Admittedly, the new Work and Pension Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has a long way to go to outdo the genuine evil of his New Labour predecessor and Hammer of the Poor, James Purnell, but the smart money is on him giving it a damn good try. Then you’ve got a Chancellor of the Exchequer in George Osborne who will need to be watched closely to ensure he doesn’t deliver his figures scrawled in crayon.

Still, there’s some good on the list. ID cards and the National Identity Register? Gone already. The House of Lords replaced with a Senate elected under proportional representation. With the anti-nuclear power Chris Huhne as energy and climate change secretary and a Lib Dem abstention on any vote in Parliament, new nuclear reactors are nicely up in the air. This, however, is one of my personal favourites…

We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes.

It’s excellent, excellent news – an outward sign of a humanitarian streak (however thin) in this coalition and a minimum standard of morality that new Labour certainly couldn’t find in itself. It’s all the more sweet because I imagine many weren’t expecting the Lib Dem policy to survive coalition pragmatism. Let’s hope it actually, really happens and it isn’t a monstrous, misanthropic fudge where the children are released into the ‘care’ of the State but their parents are still detained.

I’m sure there’s more. However, and needless to say, all kinds of pustulent devils are about to spring out of the details of the coalition agreement. Of course the good stuff has got to be done – not forgetting the awful stuff in the least – before we start the applause. One of the ugly outcomes of 13 years of New Labour is the rock-bottom price of talk. Is the agreement binding in any meaningful sense or merely a list of non-enforceable aspirational bullshit to be thrown out later?

The Cabinet Room is stuffed to its brass chandeliers with a grotty assortment of the worst kind of oafs, idiots and downright bastards: tools, turds and turncoats. But the country isn’t a smoking ruin. Yet.

And so, in the end, his children were props after all. Gordon Brown closed the book on his political career by parading his sons along Downing Street for the media. A small hypocrisy amongst some real beast, I suppose. It probably had the desired effect of making a few people think better of the horrible old sod.

David Cameron arrived at Number 10 and made another of those bizarre acts of hyperbolous magnanimity he’s prone to (remember him leading a standing ovation in the House of Commons for a departing Blair?). In his first speech as Prime Minister he said of Brown…

Compared with a decade ago this country is more open at home, and more compassionate abroad…

…which makes you wonder where the hell Cameron’s been for the last 13 years. You could list the atrocities that contradict that sentence and still be here on August Bank Holiday. It’s just the kind of judgement you want from a coalition prime minister, don’t you think?

Just what tickled my fancy in the last few days…

• » No release: lives in limbo – More 'progressive' 'values'…
• » MI5 faces allegations over torture of British man in Bangladesh – And more 'progressive' 'values'…
• » chesterfield fc saltergate last match(with all best non-football action!!).mp4 – Best pitch invasion ever, 30 seconds in…
• » The Daily Mash – ELECTION FINALLY PRODUCES A RESULT – Meanwhile the prospect of a Labour-led 'progressive' coalition has been welcomed by thousands of limbless Iraqis…
• » Gulf Coast oil spill map – How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? Very big: http://bit.ly/9fuMUq
• » Craig Murray – The Vicious Cynicism of David Miliband
• » YouTube – Adam Boulton (Sky News) v Alastair Campbell (Labour) – FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! – I could watch this all day…
• » Between the Hammer and the Anvil: Election Round-Up
• » Adam Boulton Arguing With Ben Bradshaw – Jeez, chill out Tiny…
• » Zac Goldsmith to divorce – four days after he became an MP – Hang on minute, can't Cameron offer him three quid a week to change his mind?
• » The Encyclopedia Of Decency: Arise, Ye Warriors Of Decency!
• » Alfie McKenzie, the 14-year-old who voted in the general election, tells why he did it – Look at this little bastard. Savvy, informed, well read and writes like an angel. I hate him.
• » Oakington immigration centre loses safety award after detainee’s death
• » UK Indymedia – UKBA sinks to new depths of inhumanity
• » Take Back Parliament | Sign the Petition – Fair Votes Now…
• » Liberal Conspiracy » If there were no Rupert Murdoch

Posted from my delicio.us links.

Bye, bye Gordon. How many war criminals does that leave in the New Labour leadership?

It’s a measure of how the Brown premiership is and has been regarded that people went out of their way to describe his resignation statement as ‘courageous’ and ‘dignified’. People were clearly surprised, as if they expected the Prime Minister to be unable to deliver a prepared statement out loud without insulting a pensioner, shoving an aide, or screaming obscene abuse about the terrible unfairness of it all. You can see their point.

Ordinarily, the demise of a Prime Minister would be bombshell news. As it was, more people were interested in watching Adam Boulton scream at Alastair Campbell on Sky News. Gordon shuffles off and the nation shrugged. No more than he deserved. They say he’s staying until September so he can beat James Callaghan’s time in office.

Fancy needing that as comfort. ‘You know, at least I lasted longer than the man who gave the country to Thatcher,’ he’ll be able to tell himself. Gordon probably thinks (Everything I Do) I Do It for You is a better song than Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick as well.

He’ll be ok though. After helping to screw the UK presumably he’ll be off to the IMF or World Bank to help screw the rest of the world. No doubt he’ll be able to invent a righteous homily from his sainted minister father about the benefits of impoverishing developing countries. Meanwhile…

…the prospect of a Labour-led ‘progressive’ coalition has been welcomed by thousands of limbless Iraqis, torture victims and people whose DNA is now kept on a database because they signed a petition in the post office about a new bypass.

Your man Miliband (D) is the one to lead us to this promised land of progress, by all accounts. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

No cabinet ministers have declared their leadership intentions at the time of writing. One imagines such selfless creatures are waiting to see if there’s going to be anything worth leading.

A Lib-Lab ‘rainbow’ coalition certainly wouldn’t last very long (‘Can you trust the Liberal Democrats?’ says David Blunkett, sacked twice for corruption) but then it doesn’t have to: it only has to survive long enough for David Cameron to be torn to quivering, mewling shreds by his billionaire paymasters and assorted fat right-wing bloggers. Once his gizzard’s in Lord Ashcroft’s trophy cabinet the Lib-Labs can call another election.

Told you…

I’ve had a few people finding this blog while looking for the Hove and Portslade general election result. You’ll find it right here.

Now what?

9:36:06 PM: Hello, welcome to the CYGE2010TNDTLEBAG, broadcasting on Chicken Yoghurt (http://bit.ly/c7NUcb) and Twitter (http://bit.ly/dpOZHG).

9:37:32 PM: I’d like to reiterate the pledge I made earlier: if the Tories fail to win #Hove, I will trot twice around the blog in the nudey buff.

9:39:30 PM: That should be block not blog – I will trot twice around the block in the nudey buff. I’ll trot around my blog in the nude as well.

9:49:45 PM: I’m alternating between beer and water. I’ll be with you right up until my kidneys explode.

9:52:44 PM: ALERT! ALERT! Quentin Letts on Sky News. This is not a drill.

9:54:09 PM: RT @martinb9999: @chickyog I’ll do the same if Labour fail to hold #lef << Our second nudey pledge of the evening. Any more?

9:59:33 PM: Nick Robinson flushed already. Calm down, Nick, you’ll never last.

10:00:58 PM: BBC Exit Poll: CON 307, LAB 255, LD 59, OTH 29 << would mean Hung Parliament, Lib Dems boned.

10:03:11 PM: Sorry, @bigdaddymerk made first nudey pledge – if his Tory candidate doesn’t get in. Go Merk!

10:03:52 PM: If that exit poll is right I will also run around the block in the nudey buff.

9:59:33 PM: Nick Robinson flushed already. Calm down, Nick, you’ll never last.

10:00:58 PM: BBC Exit Poll: CON 307, LAB 255, LD 59, OTH 29 << would mean Hung Parliament, Lib Dems boned.

10:03:11 PM: Sorry, @bigdaddymerk made first nudey pledge – if his Tory candidate doesn’t get in. Go Merk!

10:03:52 PM: If that exit poll is right I will also run around the block in the nudey buff.

9:59:33 PM: Nick Robinson flushed already. Calm down, Nick, you’ll never last.

10:00:58 PM: BBC Exit Poll: CON 307, LAB 255, LD 59, OTH 29 << would mean Hung Parliament, Lib Dems boned.

10:03:11 PM: Sorry, @bigdaddymerk made first nudey pledge – if his Tory candidate doesn’t get in. Go Merk!

10:03:52 PM: If that exit poll is right I will also run around the block in the nudey buff.

10:12:10 PM: I’m in danger of losing interest already. More beer.

10:14:04 PM: Any early exit poll on who’s doing the best election coverage? BBC1’s getting on my wick.

10:16:14 PM: RT @bengoldacre: why exit polls are shitey http://bit.ly/9SSWPi #ge2010

10:21:09 PM: RT @BeauBodOr: Iain Dale predicts clear Tory win from exclusive Iain Dale blog readers’ election poll. Now that’s comedy #c4altelection

10:26:53 PM: This election is ending as it began, with a load of time-filling speculative bollocks. Bring back the helicopter.

10:29:05 PM: Christ, who died and made Piers Morgan Noam Chomsky?

10:21:09 PM: RT @BeauBodOr: Iain Dale predicts clear Tory win from exclusive Iain Dale blog readers’ election poll. Now that’s comedy #c4altelection

10:26:53 PM: This election is ending as it began, with a load of time-filling speculative bollocks. Bring back the helicopter.

10:29:05 PM: Christ, who died and made Piers Morgan Noam Chomsky?

10:32:19 PM: Renowned psephologists Bruce Forsyth and Ben Kingsley now being interviewed on BBC1.

10:36:25 PM: RT @Schwarzenegger: Just called @davidcameron to congratulate him on the victory…

10:37:39 PM: Alan Johnson is wearing a rosette BIGGER THAN HIS FACE.

10:42:37 PM: Jamie Kenny is liveblogging at Blood and Treasure: http://bit.ly/dbuMKv

10:45:15 PM: Anybody enjoying themselves? Must keep drinking.

10:47:16 PM: Jeremy Vine is doing his back no good at all.

10:48:44 PM: RT @qwghlm: While it’s sad for people who couldn’t vote past 10pm, polling station opening times *are* pretty accomodating (7am-10pm)

10:42:37 PM: Jamie Kenny is liveblogging at Blood and Treasure: http://bit.ly/dbuMKv

10:45:15 PM: Anybody enjoying themselves? Must keep drinking.

10:47:16 PM: Jeremy Vine is doing his back no good at all.

10:48:44 PM: RT @qwghlm: While it’s sad for people who couldn’t vote past 10pm, polling station opening times *are* pretty accomodating (7am-10pm)

10:51:01 PM: NIck Robinson just mentioned ‘legal challenges’ in connection with people being turned away. Here we go.

10:51:34 PM: Sunderland South…

10:53:17 PM: …is LAB HOLD

10:53:46 PM: RT @Marrsio: Some had been waiting for three hours. If you turn up at 7pm it is reasonable to assume you’ll get to vote, no?

11:03:11 PM: Douglas Alexander on BBC1. Doesn’t he have to be up in the morning for his paper round?

Update 7/5 @ 9.00am: Well that was a rubbish experiement – managed to break the blog for a few hours. Oh, well. Not as if my insight was in anyway useful/coherent.

9:36:06 PM: Hello, welcome to the CYGE2010TNDTLEBAG, broadcasting on Chicken Yoghurt (http://bit.ly/c7NUcb) and Twitter (http://bit.ly/dpOZHG).

9:37:32 PM: I’d like to reiterate the pledge I made earlier: if the Tories fail to win #Hove, I will trot twice around the blog in the nudey buff.