Manufacturing consent

It’s Out There

Crisis? What Crisis?, Economy, Gordon Brown, Manufacturing consent, New Labour, UK elections, UK politics
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truth-lies

I’ve had a think about the No 10 email smear affair, aka Emailgate, since yesterday’s post. What I must remember not to forget as I get carried away with loathing Labour is what really matters is that the scurrilous gossip about the Tories and their family members is out there now. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s in the public domain.

Wasn’t that worth the loss of a special adviser who’s undoubtedly still on the PM’s contact list and who’ll surely find a comfy job in a convenient thinktank right up the street anyway?

Job done thinks No. 10; so far for Brown the positives outweigh the negatives. So far. Like many my first google yesterday was to find out what the allegations against the Tories were and it was the allegations that occupied the headlines all day.The machinations behind the scenes in Downing St, although reported, were paid secondary attention, but things are changing. Even the normally slavishly loyal Jackie Ashley of the Guardian is fingering Gordon as guilty.

Although we’ve seen at least one of Labour’s buttmonkey wannabes, Damien McBride go down over Emailgate (he says resigned, Gordo says fired), yet the man who’s chosen to surround himself with a troop of viciously loyal simian spinners still denies it has anything to do with him.

The whole reason McBride was employed at public expense and for political purposes was to destabilise the opposition with lies, mislead the media and divert attention from Gordo’s own flaming red monkey butt. Gordon Brown still denies all knowledge and as usual, responsibility for McBride, although McBride has been his poo-flinger in chief since forever :

He caught Gordon Brown’s eye in 2000 as the official responsible for leading the Treasury’s response to the first wave of fuel protests. According to one insider: ‘His hardline stance impressed Brown because he eventually stared out the truckers and forced them to capitulate.’

[…]

McBride took over from Ian Austin as Gordon Brown’s adviser on political press issues after the 2005 General Election.

Despite having to be replaced at one point he saw off his rival and continued poo-flinging for Gordo. Here’s a more polite sample of McBride’s output:

I just wish for once you’d try to get past your cynical, Tory, halfwit Harold Lloyd schtick to try and be a genuine journalist.’ read Damian McBride’s text message to the outgoing chief political correspondent of The Times.

‘It’s presumably cos of your inability to do so that you’re off to earn a crust at some Tory think-tank instead. Pathetic.’

Brown liked McBride and his methods so much he put McBride in charge of his wife Sarah Brown’s personal PR. How’s that working out for you Mrs Brown?

‘Journalists who then found themselves walking beside Mrs Brown struggled to avoid being tripped up as party members muscled in, trying to form a protective phalanx.

Then came the most extraordinary piece of control freakery of the day. “I want you guys on the green,” said the man from the Labour Party. “There will be six or seven guys with guns who will keep you away from her. You may be shot and then it won’t be my problem.”

It’s not as though the PM or other Labour ministers can claim that they don’t know their responsibility for ‘rogue’ advisors, either; in 2007, Labour minister Lord Davies of Oldham confirmed that ministers must answer for the actions of their advisers, telling the House of Lords:

“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment. The Ministerial Code makes clear that individual Ministers will be accountable to Parliament for their actions and decisions in respect of their special advisers.”

As if. That hasn’t ever stopped them letting SpAds like McBride off the leash. The PM knows fine well what his aide was up to. When he says he didn’t know about the planned Red Rag blog or the smear campaign he’s lying. Again.

But still. It’s out there. Proper job.

UPDATE:

Yes, that is Drapers’ proposed Red Rag blog linked to up there – there’s nothing on it yet, but it is taking (moderated) comments.

Go on, you know you want to. I did:

“Is this thing on, Dolly? No?

Ah well, I suppose you can always use it for selling menstrual products if the politics and psychotherapy don’t work out and your famous wife dumps you.”

Such larks.

Flying Buttmonkeys Rn’t Us

Blogs, Corruption, Election Skullduggery, Gordon Brown, Internet, Manufacturing consent, UK elections, UK politics, Wingnuts
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buttmnky

Why does Ray Collins, General Secretary of the Labour Party, own, on behalf of the Labour Party, the domain names

davidcameronseconomicpolicy.com

and

davidcameronseconomicpolicy.co.uk?

For negative campaigning, duh. As I’ve said before, New Labour’s studied Karl Rove’s methods very closely. But not quite closely enough.

Like pushpolling and fake leaflets a classic Rovian ploy is to buy up all your opponents’ potential domain names and park them, with page of misleading information – or just plain lies, it doesn’t matter, by the time they get it taken down the campaign’ll be over – about your opponent put up as a placeholder. A lie’s halfway around the world before the truth’s got its boots on, has always been the Rovian motto.

He may have studied Rove’s methods and he may be equally porcine, but Charlie Whelan‘s no Rove and he missed something vital that Rove never did.

Deniability.

Rove knew to hide GOP dirty domain-name tricks behind interlocking puzzles of holding companies and consultants – his hands were never actually seento be dirty. Unlike Labour, which registered smear domains in plain sight for any idiot blogger to do a lookup on, and put its name and address at the bottom of the pages too.

No doubt No 10 spins such stupidity as ‘transparency’.

The Republicans also had an army of flying butt monkeys, insane wingnut commenters, who spammed and trolled opposition blogs and launched DOS attacks against anyone posing a threat online. Again deniability; all were independent commenters, see, no connection to any party, no sir. What email lists and talking points?

Labour doesn’t have anything approaching an army of even pedestrian buttmonkeys; at most it has a few spotty, ambitious youths with Blackberries and a handful of loyal, ageing party apparatchiks with lots of time on their hands trolling the Guardian’s comment section. Labour MPs do look as though they eat plenty of Cheetos though, and most do appear to live in Mom’s basement or at least claim a second home allowance for it.

They failed at blogs and Labour’s efforts at online dirty tricks are an epic fail too. If you want to see quite how epic take a look at their spin doctor scripted, Cameron/Osborne ‘livechat’. They’re just incompetent at everything, even at being evil.

Go Go Gadget Guido

Election Skullduggery, IT is not magic pixie dust, Manufacturing consent, New Labour
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anthony_head_little_britain_150x180

I’m loving this whole Guido/leaked emails/No10 cabal thing, but for those who haven’t been following the saga of Dolly Draper and his fateful entanglement with the blogosphere it may all be a bit confusing. Who is Damien McBride, and more to the point, why is such a jumped-up poisonous little toad of a bitchy party functionary being paid from the public purse?

The meat of the emails – Frances Osborne’s nuts, George O. took drugs, Cameron had the clap and so on, all of it patently untrue – can be found at the Sunday Times too, as can background on the No. 10 relationships and the personalities of those involved. Their conclusion? Gordo’s up to his moral compass in it.

I think that the Observer has picked up best on the meta-implications of this, the first real blog-driven UK political sleaze scandal:

Smears are, of course, a staple of politics not confined to any one party, but the charge against McBride and Draper is not just one of dirty tricks but of hamfisted meddling in a new media world they did not properly understand.

The vendetta between senior Brownites and Guido Fawkes, the Westminster blogger who obtained the emails, dates back to stories Fawkes – whose real name is Paul Staines – posted about the Smith Institute and its relationship to Ed Balls, also a close friend of McBride.

Shortly afterwards journalists began being offered snippets designed to undermine Staines, including news of his drink-driving conviction. Coincidence? Staines, say friends, does not think so. His blog continued targeting senior Labour figures, and its waspish attacks got under Labour’s skin. When Draper launched LabourList, it was not long before they crossed swords – with Staines questioning Draper’s qualifications as a therapist and Draper threatened to sue.

Ah yes, LabourList. I believe ‘pisspoor”s the word. A Daily Kos wannabe without a Kos, without Kos’ commenters, or Kos’ content, run by a gang of bitchy, provincial stalinist hairdressers.

Whatever his qualifications may or not be Draper didn’t fail Hypnotism 101; to have convinced anyone that a shambling, unshaven, disaster of a walking midlife crisis was still young and hip and in tune enough with the Obama generation to start a blog community from scratch – 5 years too late – boggles the mind.

I can imagine Dolly’s spiel to Mandelson: “Yeah, sure, give me a couple of hundred grand and blogosphere will be in your power, trust me I’m a clinical psychologist now wahaha” and Mandy falling for it because he doesn’t read blogs or email and that whole interwebs thingy passed him by, he has a man to do it for him.

Labour’s public engagement with social media’s been a disaster wrapped in an embarassment, with an extra layer of mortification. Whatever they’ve tried they’ve fucked up, either because of general town-hall level stupidity or their desire to use technology purely as a channel for own personal vindictiveness and political rigidity.

There’s a whole building full of strutting, puffy flushed vain little Labour men at No 10, just like McBride, half of whom who think, like Gordon Brown, that social media means social control media. The other half see Facebook as a brilliant way to get back at people they’ve always hated; they don’t see blogging as the political movement in itself that it undoubtedly is but as a means to an end, viz, the personal and political character assassination of your opponents.

But their featherbedding and disengagement with actual life as lived by other people has blinded them to the political power that one person with a pc and intenet access can wield these days.

Despite their efforts to lock down their own residents and prohibit them from ever expressing political dissent, by recording all their emails, phone calls and internet use – and mine, if I ever want to speak to my sons again – bloggers continue to expose Labour for what they are.

It doesn’t matter they can no more physically record everything than they can drain the ocean, it’s public perception that matters – they’re watching you.

It may well one day be only those of us based elsewhere, like Guido Fawkes, who are actually able to blog about political wrongdoing, such is the thicket of New Labour new laws and restrictions being woven around citizen access to bandwidth and the right to free expression.

I disagree vehemently with Guido Fawkes on many many things, both personal and political, but what I do admire him for is for sticking to his guns, cultivating his sources and consistently coming up with the goods. Again and again he’s shown that Labour are little people with little morals, little substance, little brains and little credibility. I don’t care if he’s Pol Pot.

UPDATE I
Haha, Draper just got fired live on tv.

What Did I Tell You?

Civil liberties, creative direct action, Life under Capitalism, Manufacturing consent, Policing, UK politics, War on Terror
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This is just one of the reasons why I’ll never live in England again if I can help it.

london-police

Remember those student activists in Plymouth I posted about a week or so ago? The teenage graffiti artists arrested under terror legislation ahead of the G20?

Guess what, they’ve been released without charges:

All five were detained for a number of days under the Terrorism Act as police carried out a number of searches. At the time it was suggested those arrested were planning to travel to London to protest along with thousands of others at the G20 summit.

All five have now been released without charges under the Terrorism Act. One of the women must answer police bail pending inquiries regarding a drugs offence. The other woman was also on police bail pending what police have called “other criminal matters.”

The schoolboy was on bail until May “in connection with a separate criminal investigation” while the 19-year-old was released with no further action to be taken against him.

As I said at the time it hardly matters to police that no charges resulted. They’ve got what they wanted – potential dissidents intimidated and plenty of ‘intelligence’ against anyone else who might be so foolish as to protest:

“Computers have also been seized for examination.” say Plymouth police. ).

Yes, multiple computers with multiple users, not to mention multiple mobile phones, in 2 shared student houses. Since when have students been guilty of what their housemates read online or text to their mates?

But how very handy for the police to be able to hoover up who knows how many innocent yet politically inconvenient email or facebook friends or bloggers or LJ readers for Jacqui Smith’s handy little database of dissidents (if her husband hasn’t left the USB stick at Spearmint Rhino already

Late edit Sunday am:

I’ve been a bit absent lately and only just realised I’d put the blockquote in the above para in the wrong place. Changed it. Mind you, it’s not as though anyone noticed .

Coppers, Cock-Ups and Provocateurs

Capitalism, Civil liberties, creative direct action, Life under Capitalism, Manufacturing consent, New Labour, Police Murder, Policing
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urbanwarfaresegwayMartin was working at home last week, so I broke my invariable rule on no sinful daytime tv and we watched the G20 demo live for several hours on both News 24 and Sky.

I mentioned at the time that I thought the supposed ‘black bloc’ looked very well-equipped and well-dressed; I mentioned too that from overhead shots it seemed that police cordons were being placed so as to force the front of the crowd – those suspiciously smart anarchists, conspicuous in their new black hoodies – right into the plate-glass windows of the only unboarded-up RBS branch in the City of London.

This story from last year, via Ten Percent, might shed some light on exactly how it was a small group of masked people bent on violence found themselves perfectly placed to attack a symbolic yet oddly unprotected building and potentially provoke a riot :

The man in the T-shirt was tall, well-built and handsome, smiling but with a hint of menace. He pushed aside children and elderly people. He continued to shout slogans such as: ‘Pigs Out.’

On his back was a black rucksack and he carried a professional-looking camera with a large telephoto lens. Hardly the sort of kit for a few snaps of his day out. My friends and I, standing a few rows back, asked him a couple of times to calm down, but he ignored us.

I wondered why I was drawn to him. Was it his dark good looks or was I worried for the safety of my 70-year-old friend and children nearby? Then it dawned on me. I had met this man at a party. I tapped him gently on the shoulder and said: ‘Have we met before?’ Instantly he recognised me. ‘Hi, how are you? It’s really nice to see you here.’

My puzzlement grew. This chap wasn’t really the sort you’d expect to see shouting abuse at police officers at an anti-war demo. He was, after all, a policeman himself – and a high-ranking one at that. I’d met the police inspector at a party around last Christmas. The local mayor was there, along with councillors from other parties and journalists. I’d been asked along by a friend.

Later, we went to a local gay club, where I danced with him and a few others until 3.30am. He had a bolshie charm, was cocky and a little manipulative. He was also highly entertaining, bragging about his work in the police and how important he was.

I remained bemused about his presence at the demo. I asked if he would send me copies of his demo photos. He replied: ‘No, they’re to put on my bedroom wall.’ I then casually asked why he was shouting anti-police slogans. ‘Funny you chanting that,’ I said, ‘when you’re a policeman.’

‘They don’t have my sort in the police, love,’ he said camply, so I would assume he was referring to being gay. A few seconds later, he melted into the crowd. I wondered whether he was at the demo undercover, deliberately whipping up trouble that he could capture on camera. That would then be used to malign anti-war protesters as dangerous and violent subversives. Of course, it is possible he was there off-duty to support the anti-war cause, but it is hardly likely he would enjoy chanting slogans against the police.

More…

Of course the protestors at the G20 didn’t riot, despite deliberately targeted overt (and covert) provocation. There was no mass riot, even though a man was killed. The police, wound up to a fine pitch of nervous anticipation by their political masters in ACPO and the Labour government, had to get their jollies later elsewhere.

When the cameras are gone no provocateurs are required, just fists, boots and batons.

Deborah Orr in the Independent says that the Met is dangerously out of control, but negates her own point by saying that:

…the foul-ups of the Met have one thing in common. The police go into a situation with their minds made up, their strategies already laid out, and their justifications rehearsed in advance. They never acknowledge their mistakes, but always protect the officers who make them. So they never, ever, learn anything. The amazing thing is that they keep on getting away with it.

Police nationwide, not just the Met, certainly appear out of control – but they aren’t, as much as nicely brought up newspaper columnists might think so. Police harassment and violence against dissenters is not abberation, it’s policy; so why be amazed that violent police get away with it?

British police are the paramilitary wing of the political and economic regime. Their continued existence is predicated on the maintainance of the status quo. A lot of undereducated and otherwise unemployable plods, rank and file and senior officers alike, would have a lot of future mortgage payments to lose should the system that supports them in maintaining a compliant populace ever be successfully challenged, so they’ll do whatever it takes to protect that, human rights be damned.