No this isn’t about the horrible floods, except as they’re being used by the Brown government to bury things they really don’t want us to notice.
How very convenient that the papers’re full of strong-jawed resolute Gordon overseeing natural disaster and that the usual attack-dogs, Paxman, Humphreys et al, are all off in Tuscany or Cornwall or fly-fishing in Iceland till the end of August.
Take the Guardian, for example, which couldn’t be giving Brown an easier ride; here’s Jonathan Freedland:
It’s been an intense initiation, but people are listening to Labour again
Brown’s first month, and his carefully signalled priorities, look like a success, despite the unexpectedly tough start
Gordon is sitting pretty with the media right now, which means the Brown regime can get away with being equally as politically corrupt as Blair ever was, but with hardly anyone noticing.
Item one: Brown took a leaf out of the Karl Rove playbook this week and did an info dump the day before Parliament recessed; quite a lot of important announcements were made all at once, not least the least interesting of which is that the chair of the Guardian media group has been appointed to his fourth government post. (Why don’t they just rename it the Brown Guardian and have done?)
None of these announcements can be questioned in parliament because it’s not sitting and as mentioned the parliamentary reporters are away on holiday so by the time parliament returns events will have overtaken any questions anyway.
Nod, nod, wink wink, say no more.
Item two: Leader of the House and Secretary of State Harriet Harman also tried the same trick in the Commons, waiting until the very last moment to try and ourageously push through the appointment of the odious Keith Vaz as chair of the Home Affairs Select committee, the supposedly independent, cross-party parliamentary body which oversees all executive actvity in prisons, terrorism, policing, community cohesion and so on.
It’s hard to overestimate the potential power that the Chair of a truly independent Home Affairs select committe could have to hold a rampant executive to account – so of course Brown seeks to decapitate it by disregarding the constitution and getting one cabinet puppet to interfere in another branch of government and appoint another puppet as committee chair. Simon Carr in the Independent:
{…]
…may we express some post-honeymoon scepticism about the PM’s assertions on the value of an independent Commons as well. He doesn’t believe anything of the sort.
As a result, Harriet Harman had great lumps torn out of her on the floor of the House. There was that, at least.
She had suspended Standing Orders in order to appoint Keith Vaz as the new member of the Home Affairs Select Committee (and, under the whips’ instructions, to be the next chair of it).
It’s fairly clear Harriet knew Vaz was the replacement last Monday, when the appointments committee was due to sit. But as Sir George Young said, and as its chair, Rosemary McKenna, confirmed “there was no government business to conduct so the meeting was cancelled”.
Harriet then springs her surprise motion the day before the House rises for the recess.
Richard Shepherd: “To the casual viewer, this looks like the Government choosing who shall be chairman of the Home Affairs Committee… This looks like executive control over the choices of the Chamber and bypassing the very function of the Committee of Selection. It is outrageous!”
Also, “great discredit” (Simon Hughes), “withdraw the motion” (George Young), “I suppose we have to accept [it] at face value” (Nicholas Winterton), “Will the Leader of the House give way?” (Douglas Hogg, George Young, Richard Shepherd, John Bercow.) “I’m an idiot” (Harriet Harman).
Yes, all right, you’re so pernickety. It’s true that one of those quotations has been fabricated
It was just a matter of timing, she said. She wasn’t in a position to put forward his name on Monday, she said.
She’s not a real QC, you know.
Under Vaz’s leadership, we can speculate that the committee will now come out in favour of 58-day detention without charge and that the body of the acting chairman, David Winnick, will be found swinging under Blackfriars Bridge. This is for the future.
Not only Gordon Brown is trying to put the government in charge of oversight of itself he’s rubbing salt in the wound by appointing the sleazy Keith Vaz, a man with several alleged stains on his character.
In February 2000 the Parliamentary standards watchdog Elizabeth Filkin was requested to investigate allegations of undisclosed payments to Vaz from businessmen in his constituency.[1] The following year, 2001, members of the opposition began to question what role Vaz may have played in helping the billionaire Indian Hinduja brothers – linked with a corruption probe in India – to secure UK passports.
In March 2001, the Filkin report cleared Vaz of nine of the 18 allegations of various financial wrongdoings, but Elizabeth Filkin accused Mr Vaz of blocking her investigation into eight of the allegations. He was also censured for one allegation – that he failed to register two payments worth £450 in total from Sarosh Zaiwalla, a solicitor whom he recommended for an honour several years later.
Mrs Filkin announced in the same month a new inquiry which would focus on whether or not a company connected to Vaz received a donation from a charitable foundation run by the Hinduja brothers. The results of the inquiry were published in 2002 and it was concluded that Vaz had “committed serious breaches of the Code of Conduct and a contempt of the House” and it was recommended that he be suspended from the House of Commons for one month[2].
Keith Vaz was also a director of the company General Mediterranean Holdings’ owned by the Anglo-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who had in the past hired British politicians Lord David Steel and Lord Norman Lamont as directors. Vaz resigned his post as director when he became Minister for Europe, but it was later discovered that he had remained in contact with Auchi and had made enquiries on his behalf over a French extradition warrant, Auchi even calling Vaz at home to ask the minister for advice.
And this is the man who should have parliamentary oversight of policing?
What lies beneath the superficial veneer of Brown’s strong-jawed manly Scottish probity is the same old corrupt New Labour. He can reverse the gambling bill, take his conspicuously low-key and self-denying holidays in an eco-friendly country cottages in Scotland, he can push his ‘son of the manse’, prudence and probity schtick as much as he likes, but that’s all it is, a veneer; underneath nothing has changed. It’s just another face on the same old Labour sleaze.
UPDATE: To further reinforce my point, I jjust came across this:
NI minimum wage ‘may be reduced’
Mr Brown is believed to be considering reducing the minimum wage in NI
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is considering plans which could see the minimum wage reduced in Northern Ireland, it is believed.The minimum wage is set at £5.35 across the UK, however, if the plans go ahead it will be reduced in NI, Scotland, Wales and the north east of England.
[My emphasis]
That’s only 10,272 pounds annually for a 50 week, 40 hour week year- before tax. the national average after tax is 22,202.
For comparison’s sake, MP’s salaries are over 60,000 pounds annually (and are about to rise by another 2%, at least) plus allowances of around 85,000 pounds, plus special responsibility allowances and perks for ministers.
