Tory apologies

The Conservative leader is saying "sorry" over past policy mistakes at least once a week. It shows how wrong the Tories have been over the years.

David Cameron has apologised for Section 28. He said the party "had got it wrong" when it introduced the homophobic piece of legislation back in 1988-89 (look here for the Daily Mail's ludicrous reminder of "WHAT SECTION 28 DID"). Now, either:

1) This is a genuine Road to Damascus conversion, in which case fair play. Or:

2) the Tory u-turn is part of their political calculation to appear as a 'modernised' party (note that Cameron personally voted to keep Section 28 in the Commons as recently as 2003) .

In any case, when you look at the bigger picture, are people seriously ready to vote for a Party who keep getting it so wrong? The pattern is eerily familiar. First they support something obnoxious and backward, then they fight tooth and nail to keep it and smear whoever opposes them, and finally -years down the line- they offer a grovelling apology over their "past mistake".

From opposing the abolition of slavery the 1830s to Margaret Thatcher dubbing Nelson Mandela's ANC "a terrorist organisation"; from their entrenched homophobia of the 1980s and 199os to the poll tax; from drumming up support for the Iraq war to their hysterical anti-minimum wage scaremongering, the examples of the Tory Party getting it severely wrong over the years and then saying "sorry" are countless.

Quite worrying, as they prepare to return to power.

Mandelson's "bold policies"

From 'inevitable' to 'impossible'. The Baron of Hartlepool and Foy and his plans to part-privatise Royal Mail.

Peter Mandelson, 14 January 2009: " A strategic partner for Royal Mail would bring a 'gale force of fresh air' to the state-owned company's management culture";

26 February 2009: "Royal Mail privatisation is 'only credible option'";

1 March 2009: "Some may be weary of taking decisions. But that simply signals that we're ready for a rest and inviting electoral defeat";

Peter Mandelson today, 1 July 2009: "There is no prospect of the partial sell-off of the Royal Mail going ahead in the current circumstances. [The state of the economy] has made it imossible to complete a deal on favourable terms".

Littlejohn and Michael Jackson

Daily Mail columnist slams Jackson-induced hysteria!

Just like we're all canny football managers during the World Cup and why-the-fuck-did-he-select-Peter-Crouch, with the death of Michael Jackson everybody is passing judgement on music. Soul, Mowtown and dance, they know it all. Even Littlejohn. "Elvis, he wasn't", the unexpected music expert pontificates in today's Daily Mail, "Nor was he Sam Cooke, James Brown or Otis".

Then he informs you that "Mob grief proves Britain is more wacko than Jacko". Just in case you were wondering, the same paper today is lined with one Michael Jackson-related revelation after the other: "Tribute to Michael at emotional awards ceremony", "Who was buying drugs for Jacko?", "So what was the truth about Jackson's sexuality?", "The last pictures", "Michael Jackson's father cut of of will", "Jacko's nanny reveals", "I saw in his eyes he was dying", and a further selection of Jacko-centred pieces.

Could it be that Littlejohn was referring to his own beloved paper?

New Labour moments (part 2)

Here's another roll of honour of New Labour's finest achievements during twelve years in office:

- The Hinduja scandal. In January 2001, it was revealed Mandelson had phoned a Home Office minister on behalf of an Indian millionaire seeking British citizenship while sponsoring the ailing Millennium Dome. Mandelson was forced to resign from his post as "Secretary of State for Ireland" as he himself had dubbed it. Seven years later, he was rewarded with a life peerage.

- House of Lords. In its 1997 manifesto ('Britain deserves better'), Labour promised to remove the hereditary peerage from the House of Lords, a unique aberration amongst Western democracies. So what did they do? Did they turn it into an elected chamber? A regional one, perhaps? No. Tony Blair thought the perfect idea would be to mix hereditary peers (92 of them), bishops and hundreds of personally handpicked ones (see below).

- Cash for Honours scandal. A number of wealthy businessmen making secret loans to New Labour prior to the 2005 elections magically got nominated for peerages (see above). A criminal investigation led to the arrest of Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy, later released on bail. "Trust damaged", said the public administration committee's report.

- "Good day to bury bad news". The tragic attack on September 11, 2001 gave Labour a chance to practice "spin at its worst". A Labour aide's memo said: ""It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?".

- "Ending boom and bust". "Through rigorous discipline we will not return to boom and bust". This succession of epic proclaims accompanied an unsustainable debt-financed growth, followed -in fact- by the worst crisis in 60 years. "I only meant no more Tory boom & bust", was Brown's justification, obviously thinking that Britain's population consists of 60 million cretins.

- The David Kelly affair. A "Best of" of Labour's culture of secrecy, political bullying and lack of transparency, this was obviously going to become Tony Blair's lowest moment in government. Anybody out there still thinking Dr Kelly committed suicide?

- The FBU strike. At the end of 2002, firefighters began the longest industrial dispute since the miners' strike in 1984. As they asked for their first wage revision since 1977, Tony Blair said that their demands could cause "terrible damage to the economy". He never said that about 'non-doms', City bonuses, or an economy built on fake credit.

- Civil liberties. From one Terror Act to the other, detention without trial under Labour rose rapidly from four days under the Tories to fourty-two days under the Counter Terrorism Bill 2008. Continuous lies over rendition flights were another fine moment.

-2/3 of all EU debt. Blair and Brown would routinely boast about Britain's "golden age" and "consumer boom" but, under Labour, personal debt was allowed to spiral out of control. In 2006 it was revealed that 2/3 of all EU credit card debt was British. I guess you know what happened after.

- A party of strong values. From Mandelson's now ultra-famous "intensely relaxed about the filthy rich", to John Hutton's ode to City bonuses "we need more millionaires" to Caroline Flint's "if you want a council house find a job" and James Purnell's "there should be no free-riding", this is how Labour has become a "party of strong values".

- The Lisbon treaty referendum. Whichever your views on Europe, the 2005 Labour manifesto promised a referendum on the new EU constitution. "This is a Government promise", said Tony Blair. Oh yeah.

- Poverty. Despite promises and proclaims, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the poorest fifth of the population has experienced no growth in real earnings. Nearly twice as many people have relatively low incomes as 25 years ago. Income inequality has risen since Labour took power and is now higher than at any time in the last thirty years.

[READ PART ONE HERE]

Ten New Labour moments

A small selection of Blair and Brown's most repulsive political acts.

Referring to the new wave of City bonuses and Downing Street's reluctance to introduce regulation on hedge funds and private equity, John Harris wrote in the Guardian that this is "Labour's final betrayal".

'Final' though implies the existence of a long list. So we decided to wade through New Labour's monumental list of lies, mistakes, u-turns and nails in the coffin. Shortlisting twelve years of toxic decisions proved exceptionally complex. However, here's a small selection:

- The Iraq war. Blair's infamous 45-minute claim, the dodgy dossier, the farce of seeking a second UN resolution when a decision had long been taken, a country blown to smithereens, a million demonstrators shunned like a shred of arse paper. The Iraq fiasco will forever mark Tony Blair's legacy.

- Tuition fees. Whatever your views on the cost of Higher Education, the brazen about-face performed by Tony Blair and his subordinates was a textbook exercise in how to foster apathy. "We will not introduce top-up fees", said Labour's manifesto in 2001. Three years later, Blair tripled them.

- Private Finance Initiative. The mother of financial black holes whereby a hospital costing £87 million ends up, over time, draining the taxpayer of £400 million in order to line the pockets of private firms. Ten years on, the government is having to nationalise the losses. "Opaque and dishonest", is how Vince Cable branded it.

- Final Salary Pensions. Government leaflets gave a misleading impression of the security of final salary pension schemes, but 400 of them collapsed between 1997 and 2005, leaving 125,000 old people in financial ruin. The High Court found the Government responsible.

- The 10p tax rate fiasco. A massive slap in the face to low earners. A kick in the nuts to the tune of £232 a year for any childless person making under £18,500. Some claim this remarkable act of political ineptitude kickstarted Gordon Brown's downfall.

- "Ethical foreign policy". People say that New Labour's first term was their best. But look at how the hypocrites were showering mercenaries and dictators with arms, from Sierra Leone to Indonesia. Meanwhile, taxpayer-funded London's Arms Fair continues to be the largest in the world.

- The Walter Wolfgang moment. A frail 82-year-old WWII survivor was manhandled out of the 2005 Labour conference in Brighton and barred from re-entering courtesy of the Terrorism Act 2000. His crime? Having shouted "nonsense!" during Jack Straw's speech.

- The 2000 London Mayor elections. With Ken Livingstone a clear favourite amongst Londoners and party activists, Blair decided to stop him with some old USSR-style control freakery. First he set up a central commitee to veto candidates and then he shunned the promise of a one-member one-vote selection system. In Blair-land the vote of one MP was to be worth the same as 1,000 rank and file party members. Finally, Livingstone got kicked out of the party. New Labour still lost. One of Blair's biggest humiliations.

- Air traffic privatisation. Another textbook u-turn and further indication of New Labour 's strong beliefs. In 1996, the Labour conference said that "Our air is not for sale". Sure.

- The ID card scheme. £5.6bn to run this useless, gargantuan scheme. And the figure keeps going up. And the government tells you dole handouts are a burden on the economy.

- The Trident nuclear arsenal. Forget hollow talks of non-proliferation. Forget the politics of fear: how is a £20bn-plus (£16.8m per missile) nuclear fleet going to protect the population from suicide bombers on buses?

- The Bernie Ecclestone donation. £1m and Formula One was handed a reprieve from the tobacco ads ban. "I'm a pretty straight sort of guy", Blair famously said about it.

[READ PART TWO HERE]

Letts and the issues that matter

(h/t Bob Piper)

That ridiculous Cambridge-educated Harry Potter lookalike, Quentin Richard Stephen Letts, has now written four articles (4) in a week about Bercow's election as Speaker of the Commons.

It just shows his grasp of issues that matter to the common man.

Because no doubt, in every pub in the country, in ever working men's club, mess room, shopfloor and university corridor, people are talking about nothing else. Bercow, Bercow, Bercow.

If he carries on this way, Quentin Once-We-Had-An-Empire Letts is going to bore the shit out of Daily Mail readers. And then no amount of titties selected by editor-in-chief Dacre will be enough to offset Letts' tedious ramblings.

'Chavs' don't mean working class

The continuous equation between 'chavs' and 'working class' is a crass insult to the latter.

This online piece called A Brief History of the Chav opened my eyes to the extent of today's biggest misconception: the equation between 'chavs' and working classes.

The word 'chav' made its first appearance around 2003, unifying a variety of regional expressions such as 'kevs' from the West Midlands, 'scallies' from the North West, Scotland's 'neds' as well as many others. As websites on the subject sprung up and books were being published, it appeared that the initial criteria to define the term 'chav' were more a question of attitude rather than class.

'Chav' was essentially a naff anti-social individual associated with feral yobbery and pack mentality, as well as 'lad culture' and the extreme fetishism of material goods (fast cars, expensive sound systems or jewellery).

Things started to change when right-wing tabloids homed in on the subject. 'Chavs' became synonymous with dysfunctional council estate dwellers and the term was widely deployed when reporting stories about underclass citizens breaking the law or cheating the system. By trying to push a specific political agenda, tabloids routinely sneer at chavs, intended as benefit scroungers and "the feral underclasses". Ironic really, if you consider how extremely popular certain red tops are amongst 'chavs' across the country. The Sun in particular, with its brand of proto-cheeky macho yobbery, epitomises the concept that "chav is always the other, never myself". And so a benefit fraudster is referred to as a 'chav', but a tax dodger isn't.

However, the mistake is perpetrated by left-wing commentators such as John Harris and Johann Hari, as well as the Fabian Society. When articles like "Stop using the word 'chav': it's deeply offensive", or "Who are you to laugh at chavs", condemn "class hatred" and snobbish attitude towards 'chavs', they automatically accept the equation 'chavs'/lower classes.

Well-meaning though it may be, the progressive approach backfires as a mildly patronising one. A lot of working class people have nothing to do with 'chavvy' lifestyles. Many, for instance, wouldn't be able to afford stupidly expensive sports cars and they would certainly not piss their wages on souped up engines. Most of them are hard-working and law-abiding people.

Instead, the term 'Chavs' crosscuts all classes and ethnic groups. The word lends itself better for someone like brawl-loving spoilt aristobrat Prince Harry or a loaded, Porsche-crashing alpha male, than it does with many working class kids.

Like the feral family portrayed in the recent film Eden Lake, their four-bedroom two-storey terrace complete with nicely trimmed backgarden is hardly ''deprived" material. What makes them "chavs" isn't so much their social status, but their inability to use their brain power constructively along with a vicious "not-my-son" mentality of packs and ringleaders.

'Chavs' should remain what it always was: a class-blind term to describe the human products of Britain's cultural decline. The rise of mindless consumerism, the cult of flashy mobile phones and 'wicked' bi-turbo 'motors', the fetishisation of arrogance and aggression, the obsession with in-yer-face celebrity bullies, the fascination with coming across as thicker than you actually are and wha*eva: all of the above may have more to do with the "chav phenomenon" than someone's reliance on a council flat.

Michael Jackson dies

Can you believe it? A world without Jacko.

Reports are piling up. According to several US websites, legend Michael Jackson, 50, was rushed to hospital in Los Angeles earlier today after suffering a cardiac arrest.

TMZ were the first ones to break the news: "A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest", they wrote on their website.

According to the LA Times, "Pop icon Michael Jackson is dead". According to a 3:15 pm update, "Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Times".

In Europe, France's Le Figaro reports the popstar wasn't breathing when they took him to hospital and Italy's la Repubblica's main headline is "Michael Jackson is dead. A heart attack killed him". According to Germany's Spiegel, "Michael Jackson ist tot", with the added news that "Der King of Pop is gestorben".

British sites are, as always, extremely cautious. The BBC and The Guardian are simply talking of "Michael Jackson taken to hospital", though BBC News adds he "was not breathing when paramedics arrived". The Sun online, however, reports: "Jacko Dead".