Phone Hacking, The BBC, Left Wing Conspiracies and Boris!

There are a lot of blogs and articles surrounding the staggering resignations, deaths, arrests and revelations surrounding the Met and its Press Office run almost entirely by ex-News Corp journalists and their incompetent handling of two investigations; the utterly absurd judgement and ignorance of the Prime Minister; the shameful opportunism of Ed Milliband; with regard to the News Corp hacking issue. There are hundreds of articles and new revelations popping up every day. So I wanted to a somewhat different angle to this, and run down a tangent.

Though first, it seems that the Prime Minister is on the very brink of being dragged underwater and his Premiership drowned (I say that, with a lasting smirk on my face) as it emerged that not only was Coulson brought into Tory Party HQ, but also Ex-News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis, who is one of the people who have been arrested so far, was an adviser to Coulson after Coulson began work for the Tories. This is particularly toxic for Number 10, because Wallis has already brought down Met Chief Sir Paul Steve Stephenson and Deputy Met Chief John Yates after it was revealed that the Met had employed Wallis as a PR consultant. This will be worth following, because even Tory blogger Iain Dale makes the extraordinary suggestion that Cameron could be brought down by this scandal. This is echoed with Tory blogger Mark Thompson offering up Theresa May as a replacement for Cameron, after betting agencies were taking 6-1 bets on Cameron being brought down, down from 100-1 two weeks ago.

Anyway. Onto the main point.

At Prime Minister’s questions last week, Tory MP for Beverley and Holderness, Graham Stuart asked the Prime Minister if the police would also be investigating what he refers to as a “criminal conspiracy” at the heart of the previous Labour Government and the Murdoch Empire, into the desire to undermine Tory Peer Lord Ashcroft in the run up to the General Election.

I think it necessary to evaluate the character of Graham Stuart MP directly, as to discern whether his little outburst is worthy of our attention.

When Graham Stuart was at Cambridge, he was the Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. His term also coincided with a scandal, in which voting for his election was seen as suspicious and irregularities in the outcome meant that eight of his colleagues in the CUCA resigned in protest. Eight!

As well as having a face you just want to slap, and being a little bit untrustworthy at election time, he also managed to acquire the services of the repair men to resurface his private road leading up to his luxury mansion, at a usual cost of £2,500….. for free. There are potholes on the public roads around the town that he lives, but instead the resurfacing was used for his private estate.

But even if he had to pay for the road (which he didn’t), he would be able to, with the money he saves on his fortune, through his expense claims, which he thinks are perfectly legitimate. According to his forms, that I have spent the past couple hours of my apparently boring life reading through, he claimed half the electricity bill, half the rent on the flat which comes to £1400 a month, half the council tax, food, internet, phone, mobile phone, digital camera, tripod, an Egyptian cotton satin sheet worth £40, £240 on bed linen from John Lewis which he says represented “good value for money“, four £86 pillow cases, £8,500 on food between 2005-2009, he claimed £85 from a company called “Freestye Design” whom design company logos. I wondered why he’d be using a company like that. When his expenses were released, he said:

“if anyone has any questions or queries about individual claims they are more than welcome to email me or contact my office and I will do my best to answer them.”

So that’s exactly what I did.
He didn’t reply.

So, given that this man has a bit of a dodgy typical Tory character, one has to examine his question. The point he was trying to raise, was that Tom Baldwin, Head of communications for Ed Miliband, had obtained information about the Tory Lord’s tax affairs illegally. It’s an odd charge to make, given that no one is likely to feel all that sympathetic toward a Lord, worth over £1bn at the heart of a Government (who, indeed, is the largest donor to the Tory government) whose mantra is “save save save!!” Money must be saved everywhere, disabled people must lose out, children must lose out, everyone who isn’t rich must lose out…….. except for Lord Ashcroft, who isn’t contributing to the save save save mantra, because the “illegally obtained information” showed that he is classified as a non-dom, which means he doesn’t pay any UK tax on his fortune made abroad. Yet, he is part of a legislature, that insists the UK is on the “brink of bankruptcy“. He is hardly likely to foster the sympathy of a public, in the same way that the hacking of Millie Dowler’s phone gained. The Tories are actively trying to divert attention away from themselves, because not only did David Cameron appoint Andy Coulson (they clearly want, and desperately need an Alistair Campbell), but Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London referred to the hacking scandal last year, as a Left Wing conspiracy. Whenever a Right Winger uses the term “left wing conspiracy” to refer to something they do not like (it happens alot in America, who, any time a gay guy says he wishes to get married to the love of his life, some lunatic Republican insists it’s all part of the “gay agenda“), I often want to bang my face against a wall and weep for the sanity of that particular section of humanity. Take Janet Daley writing in the Telegraph yesterday:

…..that great edifice of self-regarding, mutually affirming soft-Left orthodoxy which determines the limits of acceptable public discourse – of which the BBC is the indispensable spiritual centre.

Firstly, she does what most right wingers do, and suggests the BBC has a horrid left wing bias. She will no doubt point to some illogical evidence to back up her point, whilst ignoring all evidence to the contrary. The BBC, to me, has no real bias. It is almost impossible for a media organisation to be objective when objectivity itself is impossible with regard to politics. For example, whilst Daley will claim that Euroscepticism doesn’t get treated as a legitimate political view on the BBC, it is equally as important to point out (which she doesn’t) that the BBC personality who presents all their Westminster shows, is Andrew Neil, a man who was in the Conservative Club at the University of Glasgow, was a Conservative Party Research Assistant, and stood side by side with his former boss; Rupert Murdoch at the launch of Sky in the 1980s, before becoming a writer for the Daily Mail. It is almost impossible to become more right winged, before morphing into Margaret Thatcher. And he presents all of the BBCs Westminster coverage. The Daily Politics, sees Andrew Neil flanked by Labour MP for Hackney, Diane Abbott (never been a minister, or taken particularly seriously in politics) and Michael Portillo, a former Tory Defence Secretary, Shadow Chancellor, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, and potential leadership candidate. The balance is tipped very much in the direction of the Right on this one.
The political editor at the BBC is Nick Robinson. One quick google search shows that Robinson, during his time at Oxford, was not just a member, but President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. He was National Chairman of the Young Conservatives. Before the 2010 election he compared Cameron to Disraeli. After the election when the coalition agreements were being debated and drawn up, he referred to a Lib/Lab coalition as a “Coalition of losers“. And contrary to the views of the those of us on the Left, on his blog Robinson says of Cameron:

David Cameron prides himself on being bold when big moments occur – challenging for the Tory leadership in 2005, calling on Gordon Brown to have a snap election in 2007 and that “big, bold and generous” offer to form the Coalition in 2010.

What Robinson has done there, has metaphorically kissed and caressed a photo of David Cameron.

Daley is so blissfully ignorant to the fact that the past two years has seen the political discourse dominated by the desire to see deep public sector cuts rather than tax hikes for the wealthy; it has seen the emergence of the desire to revert back to the Capitalism that indeed failed and brought the World crashing down with it from both Labour and the Tories, and it has seen the discourse in the media and from the mouths of politicians everywhere throw spear after vicious spear at the hearts of anyone on benefits or in a Union. The NHS has been attacked, the Welfare state has been attacked, Universities have been attacked, the public purse has been attacked, and yet the very people who caused the mess in the first place have been given vast pensions and allowed to go free. A Guardian poll yesterday showed the Tories ahead of Labour, which all suggests that the public discourse and its limits are very firmly in the court of the Right Wing. A left wing discourse would, above all, launch a sustained attack on the very need for public sector cuts in the first place, it would be calling for a complete reinvention of the economic system as opposed to ignoring the inherent flaws which WILL lead to another crash, it would be unequivocally supportive of the Unions and public sector workers rather than painting them as out of touch, greedy, and overpaid, it would be constantly presenting the information surrounding Corporate tax avoidance and the obscenely high cost to the taxpayer rather than attacking the single mum who claims a few quid more than she perhaps should. As a left winger, it is an insult to hear the discourse of the political landscape in this country referred to as left wing. But that is the superb nature of right winged discourse, unless we’re throwing anyone with an Asian complexion out of the country, privatising the NHS, and shooting the families of Union leaders in the face, they will insist the Country is too left wing. Boris Johnson did that when he claimed the coverage of Phone hacking was all part of a left wing conspiracy. The same Boris Johnson who will now, in his short term as Mayor of London, see the arrival of the third Met Commissioner on his watch. Not a great record. So that’s Boris, Cameron, The Met, Lord Ashcroft (who we are now supposed to feel sympathetic toward) and Graham Stuart MP, who have not had the greatest of records pertaining to the phone hacking scandal.

Back to Ashcroft. In 2005, he commissioned two polls by YouGov and Populus. The polls were huge, and were set up to help the Tories target marginal seats, therefore it is most certainly in the public interest. He commissioned them and paid for them through his company which is based in Belize, which means he didn’t pay any VAT on them. The Guardian estimated that he owed £40,000 in unpaid VAT. Ironically, Vince Cable, now part of the Tory government funded by Ashcroft, said at the time:

“This is quite serious. We are now not talking just about Ashcroft’s non-dom status, but about systematic tax avoidance in funding Conservative party activities such as polling.”

- So why on Earth should I care that a man who sort to keep his tax details private whilst funding a Party who would almost certainly allow his abuses to continue as they gutted the public purse, had his details extracted illegally? There are levels of poor conduct within the journalist arena, and those conducted by Brooks and Coulson and the Met (the Chief of the Met had a meeting with the Guardian to urge them to drop the phone hacking investigation last year) and in-directly, David Cameron, is far far worse than those by Tom Baldwin.

Graham Stuart MP should quit his ramblings and just go back to his mansion, and lay on his Egyptian Satin tax payer funded sheets.

The saga continues…

Labour’s new generation

BBC News: “Defence Secretary Liam Fox, what are your thoughts of the leak of this letter, today?”
Liam Fox: “As a result of the terrible legacy left to us by Labour”.

What the hell? This has to be some sort of record. Usually it takes a Tory or Lib Dem, on average, about 2 minutes before they try to defend their ridiculous ideological cuts to public services, with the words “terrible legacy left by Labour”, however the Defence Secretary today not only managed it in less than two seconds, but also managed to fit it into an answer to a question that wasn’t actually asked. That’s almost impressive. I am going to start every answer now, with “due to the terrible legacy left by Labour”, even if it isn’t warranted. “Jamie, where are the car keys?” …. “Due to the horrendous legacy left by the Labour Government, I have put the keys on next to the phone.“

It was inevitable that the Conservative Party and it’s Right Winged friends in the Media would immediately begin to paint Ed Milliband Red the moment he won the Labour Leadership race. It is true, that Ed is further to the Left than his brother, and runner up to the Leadership, David Milliband, but Ed is certainly not far left unionist old Labour. Not by a long shot. Both have claimed in interviews very recently that they consider themselves socialists, but then defined what they believed socialism to mean, and both pointed out that the job of contemporary socialists is to admit that Capitalism is a fact of life now, and try to fill in the caps that capitalism leaves open to injustice and inequality.

I am waiting to see substance in the form of policy, from the new Labour leader, if he is going to win my vote in five years time. I would rather throw myself in front of a train than vote Conservative, and after the Lib Dems gave my vote to the Tories this year, even though my vote was an anti-Tory vote……. I wont be voting Liberal Democrat every again. As I suspect, a hell of a lot of others wont be voting Lib Dem again. They are a dead party, being propped up by the Tories. But in order for Labour to win back my vote, they have to really present a progressive alternative. I do think Ed is a better choice than David. David to me, whilst more charismatic than Ed, is too much of an extension of the Blair years. He represents the centre ground far more, and whilst Ed is certainly not some sort of Leninist as the Sun seems to be suggesting; he is a little more to the Left.

Their father is the ex Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband. Having a Marxist father would drive Americans insane with rage. Luckily, we’re not mad Americans, and we think far more rationally. My own political stance is far more in tune with Miliband Snr than both of his sons. As a boy, Ralph had stood at the grave of Karl Marx, in London, with his clenched fist raised, and vowed to fight for the rights of those less fortunate. Clearly living in a Marxist household, would have had profound affects on both Milibands, whom have since developed their own opinions. I cannot imagine their dad would have voted for either of them at the leadership election.

Ed’s speech was intriguing. I quite liked this:

Every day out of power, another day when this coalition can wreak damage on our communities, another day when we cannot change our country for the better.
And let us resolve today that this will be a one-term government.

The Conservatives (as pointed out in my previous blog) are winning the propaganda war because they have shaped the political discourse away from the fact that it was the private sector that caused the economic mess, and have somehow managed to blame the entire thing, on the Labour Government. The root causes of the Financial sector meltdown, can actually be traced back in a perfectly straight line….. to the last Tory government, curiously. This new Labour party needs to provide a different understanding of the problems, and bring the discourse away from the Right.

The Tories spent the last election campaign blaming Labour for not closing the roof when the sun was shining; in other words, not saving money when times were good.

This was a nice little addition:

The old way of thinking said that public services would always be second-class. But we defied the conventional wisdom.
I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in portacabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining.

I had to disagree with Ed when he said:

This new generation that leads our party is humble about our past and idealistic about our future.

Firstly, both Miliband brothers had been in the previous Labour cabinet, and spent months sticking up for the way the Party was being run. Gordon Brown was the best man for the job, they both chanted constantly. My issue is, I consider myself an idealist. I was a Party of the left, to be run by thinkers and intellectuals, not the same old politicians we all despise. I don’t want a leader to simply be pandering to the popular opinion and conventional wisdom of the time. On immigration, I was a truly progressive politician who does not give in to the “I was born here don’t you know!!! Bloody pakis taking over!!” bigoted idiots, and then claim they aren’t bigots, just ordinary people worried about jobs. They are bigots. They are also only capable of responding to the conventional wisdom. The reality of migration, as I have said previously in blogs, is that it cannot be solved by closing Britain. The only way you fight immigration is firstly accepting that Britain’s colonial history has sent shockwaves through the centuries, that are still felt today throughout the Middle East and Africa. And secondly, accepting that Nation States and Capitalism are massively incompatible. And thirdly, you have to have a genuine commitment, internationally, to fight global poverty and inequality. Mexicans try for a better life by illegally crossing the border into America, because the balance of equality has tipped far away from them. Since the opening up of trade in Mexico, the Mexican class of poor has expanded, the Middle Class has contracted, and American business interests are flourishing. There are no health benefits, and no educational or societal benefits, and so the poor in Mexico are suffering. And then Americans wonder why they want to leave. They weren’t given any choice. It wasn’t a case of being freed. They have become trapped. And it is a similar story across the World. It is the root cause of mass migration. This is what needs to be conveyed to the public, if Labour want to be truly idealists and progressives.

I also liked this line, of Ed’s speech:

This generation wants to change our society so that it values community and family, not just work, because we understand there is more to life than the bottom line.

I have been waiting for a politician to point out that life is not just about what you do for work, for a very long time.

He then took a well deserved swipe at the Coalition’s debt reduction plans, with:

You see, it’s obvious really, when you cancel thousands of new school buildings at a stroke, it isn’t just bad for our kids, it’s bad for construction companies at a time when their order books are empty.
It’s not responsible, it’s irresponsible.
We must protect those on middle and low incomes. They did nothing to cause the crisis but are suffering the consequences.
I say the people who caused the crisis and can afford to do more should do more: with a higher bank levy allowing us to do more to protect the services and entitlements on which families depend.

He made a point, that struck a chord for me. Recently, my grandparents have become far less mobile. They are in the mid-80s, and they are in and out of hospital almost on a weekly basis. They cannot walk to the shop, and it’s a struggle for them to even wash their clothes. They have a new care worker, who spends most of the day washing for them, making sure they keep as mobile as they can, going to the supermarket for them, cleaning the house, cooking the food, she does absolutely everything, she’s on call at night. A real credit. People like her, are heroes in my estimation, and society should reward them. She is paid next to nothing. Miliband said:

What does it say about the values of our society, what have we become, that a banker can earn in a day what the care worker earns in a year? It is wrong.

If you’re a free market fundamentalist, it is perfectly fine that a banker or a businessman who spends most of the week playing golf, can earn in a day what a person who is actually providing a real social good, earns in a year. It is the height of human freedom apparently. If you are like me, you see something massively wrong and skewed in a system that allows that. And that is why you, like me, are not in the Conservative Party.

The Tories pointed out that Ed is only the leader now, because he received the backing from the Unions, and just how dangerous this is. They claim Ed Miliband must now be in the pockets of the Unions which apparently is a disaster. The media tends to agree. I wonder, why is it a disaster to have won the votes of the Unions, yet no one in the media bats an eyelid, at the fact that when David Cameron tried to argue the case for sudden and quick cuts, he presented a letter signed by a bunch of business leaders; one of whom was a man named Paul Walsh, owner of Diageo PLC, who according to a Guardian Report, have actively avoided tax for years. And a huge number of signitures on the list, including J Sainsbury, Philip Harris and Simon Wolfson, are all members of the Conservative Party! Why is that any different, or any better? why is a Country run in the interests of big business, based on long stressful soul destroying hours for fuck all pay, consider the height of a wondrous free society? Sir Peter Bonfield CBE, FREng, C.U.N.T of BT saw BT share price go from £14, to £5, under his control. He then left BT with over £6,000,000 whilst thousands of workers lost their jobs. Why are we listening to these people? The are the old, grey haired generation that has left my generation with no affordable homes, and a fucked climate. Thanks for that. I for one, am not going to pay attention to the old generation, for another second.

Finally, my favourite part of Ed Miliband’s speech, said like a true progressive:

Here is our generation’s paradox: the biggest ever consumers of goods and services, but a generation that yearns for the things that business cannot provide.
Strong families.
Time with your children.
Green spaces.
Community life
Love and compassion.

Overall, I have quite high hopes for this new generation of Labour. Although something tells me they aren’t going to be all that different to the last lot.