New Labour – Page 13

Ken Livingstone agrees with Prog Gold

Published on October 17, 2008

From his interview with Socialist Unity:

Here in Britain, the local government experience has been squeezed right out. Everyone leaves university, works in some PR firm or as a researcher for a MP, and the first experience they have of managing anything is when they find they are a Cabinet Minister or a Prime Minister. So I watched Blair and Brown and everybody, except for Blunkett and Dobson and Chris Smith, who’d had strong local government experience – all these people learning and making the sort of mistakes that I made when I was a councillor in Lambeth my 20s, but on the national stage. Blair would honestly say to you that he spent his first term as Prime Minister learning how to do the job. That’s a luxury. Boris is now spending his first term as Mayor learning how to do the job. This is a luxury that you really can’t indulge. It is really only in Britain with this obsessive centralised state, that you’ve got to be Prime Minister, or virtually nothing else is worth doing. It has got worse under New Labour; in Mrs Thatcher’s time, being a Cabinet Minister you had a real air of responsibility, and were left to get on with it.

The simple fact that few if any people in Nu Labour have had any experience in the real world outside of public school -> Uni -> think tank -> cabinet minister has been a persistent theme on this blog, especially pursued by my co-blogger Palau.

It’s good to see Ken Livingstone agreeing with us. A whole generation of Labour politicians, as well as their competitors in the Lib Dems and Tories have never worked a proper job, but always been in the kind of political bubble where even if you fail you can expect a cushy job somewhere out of the sight of the public to be wheeled back in when needed.

Their entire lives they’ve been able to talk themselves out of any bad situation, either through glib manipulation or blunt rejection (not for nought is “I do not accept that” the standard phrase of a Labour minister confronted with unpleasant facts) to the point where many seem to genuinely believe their words have the power to not just hide, but reshape reality. Hence the idea that to solve a problem, you only need to make a law about it and the torrent of legislation unleashed by Labour since 1997. Everytime their laws turn out not to solve a problem, they make more. It’s a systemic, but deliberate failing in Labour, one now unfortunately emulated by the other parties.

He’s A Man With A Plan…

Published on October 8, 20081 Comment

..got a counterfeit dollar in his hand, too.

In reply to Larry Elliot’s new daily column on the economic crisis a commenter points out the utter pointlessness of UK Chancellor Alistair Darling’s belated bank rescue ‘plan’ :

cojock

Oct 07 08, 3:05am

What is being missed here is that even if banks do start lending again to other banks, against their better judgment, it doesn’t solve the problem, which is that bank capital was only part of the capital which supported the bubble of credit now deflating increasingly rapidly.

Banks outsourced huge amounts of credit risk to investors through the mechanisms of securitisation; credit derivatives (essentially a time limited guarantee); credit insurance and toxic cocktails of all three.

Even if banks’ balance sheets were restored – which they won’t be – and even if they lend at the same daft levels of “gearing” – which they won’t – there is still a vast capital hole which can only be filled by governments.

This deficit-based system of monetisation of credit is finished – and we must thank Mr Greenspan for bringing forward its inevitable demise several years.

The alternative to credit is a new approach to”equity”, using non-toxic alternatives to the Corporation as legal frameworks for investment in assets of all types, Public and Private; commecial, social or charitable in aims, and whatever the legal form.

Not only are such alternatives now possible: they are emerging in the UK and elsewhere, simply because such “unitisation” actually works better than conventional “equity”…..

I agree: the corporate model must die. Mutualisation is going to be a word we’ll be hearing a lot more of and believe it or not the Conservatives are ahead of the curve on it. Strange days indeed.

But wonky discussion of possible future economic models doesn’t answer today’s essential question – ‘Is my money safe right now‘?

Martin is sensible and banks with a Dutch bank – he’s safe, they were nationalised over a week ago. I bank with RBS, which has teetered on the cliff-edge of insolvency while Darling dithered. The answer to that question for me, as for many other British people, is ‘Who knows?’

Now finally, after a over a week of cowardice and indecision, at 5am today Darling came up with a plan; it’s a plan that’s that’s neither fish nor fowl, neither nationalisation nor a full guarantee of British banks, but a half-assed waste of 50 billion pounds that will give a thousand pounds for every woman, man and child in the country to incompetent and greedy billionaires, with few guarantees for the taxpayer.

Darling was aided in this by his Economic War Cabinet – these people:

Lord Mandy… one of the world’s foremost authorities on dodgy self-cert mortgage financing
Lord Drayson… a man well known to BOM readers for his keen understanding of markets, and the price of everything
Lord Myners… a man who is fully versed in the dark arts of short selling British bank stocks and who has produced a veritable shedload of official reports
Lord Helpus… a man who has always fancied a peerage

OMG. Mandy, two of those notorious Labour donors, and Lord Helpus. It’s a re-run of the National Economic Development Council, an entirely useless talking shop finally abolished by John Major in 1992.

So New Labour ‘s blinded by the bankers again, giving away taxpayers’ money even as those taxpayers lose their jobs and homes. For many this winter it’s heat or eat.

But can anyone protest at this government stupidity, profligacy and incompetence? No, they’re doing it whether we want them to or not. Our opinion is irrelevant.

At least the Americans got to protest a bit about the theft of their money before it was stolen. Parliament has had precisely nothing to say, let alone the voters. If this is a democracy I’m a banana.

Tits and Bums For Freedom

Published on October 6, 2008

Strange days indeed, when it takes a porn baron to keep an eye on Britons’ online liberty. Could Richard Desmond become the UK’s Larry Flynt, I wonder? He’s had a hand in politics before…

Back along I posted about the Interception Modernisation Programme and the paucity of the available information about it:

Speaking of IT clusterfscks…

Somebody tipped me off to the innocent sounding “Interception Modernisation Programme”, but what is this exactly? It’s mentioned in this “Security and Counter-Terrorism Science and Innovation Strategy” document (PDF) from the Home Office, which seems to be some sort of happy face p.r.-minded strategy overview to show how on the ball the government is in combatting terrorism through innovation and science . In this context, the “Interception Modernisation Programme” is only mentioned in an aside and it sounds like it could be anything:

Intercepting terrorist communications

Knowing the content of terrorist communications is vital to the UK’s ability to respond to terrorism. The cutting-edge interception technology required is therefore critical to building up our intelligence and to understanding the nature of the threat.

The Interception Modernisation Programme is a cross-Government programme which aims to maintain the UK’s world-class capability in obtaining and exploiting terrorist communications data. It is a key example of how Government is using innovative and ground-breaking technology to stay well ahead of the terrorists

Well, now I know, courtesy of the Daily Express, proprietor New Labour’s favourite pornographer, Mr Richard Desmond:

After the top-secret plans were leaked yesterday critics accused the Government of stalking the public. Michael Parker of anti-identity card group No2ID said: “It is a shocking intrusion into privacy. This is stalking. If an individual carried out this sort of snooping, it would be a crime.”

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said the proposal marked “a substantial shift in the powers of the state to obtain information on individuals”. And after a series of embarrassing security blunders including the loss of child benefit records for every family in the country, he questioned Whitehall’s competence to keep such data. He said: “Given the Government’s poor record on protecting data and seeing how significant an increase in power this would be, we need to have a national debate and the Government would have to justify its need.”

ALL telephone calls, emails and text messages in Britain will be monitored under new Government snooping plans. A £12billion identity database at the GCHQ spy centre could even log every website visited by computer users nationwide.

Hundreds of bugging probes will be installed in the telephone system and computer networks to monitor communications traffic.

GCHQ has already been handed £1billion of taxpayers’ cash to begin developing the database.

After the top-secret plans were leaked yesterday critics accused the Government of stalking the public. Michael Parker of anti-identity card group No2ID said: “It is a shocking intrusion into privacy. This is stalking. If an individual carried out this sort of snooping, it would be a crime.”

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said the proposal marked “a substantial shift in the powers of the state to obtain information on individuals”. And after a series of embarrassing security blunders including the loss of child benefit records for every family in the country, he questioned Whitehall’s competence to keep such data. He said: “Given the Government’s poor record on protecting data and seeing how significant an increase in power this would be, we need to have a national debate and the Government would have to justify its need.”

The plan for the biggest surveillance system in British history is being spearheaded by GCHQ director Sir David Pepper.

It is currently classified as top secret and is being developed under the title: Interception Modernisation Programme.

The aim is to set up a “live tap” on every electronic communication in the country. At present, security service MI5 carries out limited monitoring of email exchanges and internet use.

Ministers have been told that the latest computer technology lays the grounds of a massive expansion of monitoring.

The database is likely to be centred at GCHQ’s famous “doughnut”-shaped spy centre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Further details will be released when the Government’s legislative programme is announced in the Queen’s Speech in December.

The plan is even more ambitious than the Identity Cards scheme being gradually introduced by the Government at a cost of £5billion. While a final decision has yet to be taken, ministers are understood to have agreed to the move “in principle”.

No wonder the Express is worried, considering how much money Desmond’s business empire makes from soft porn and technology – and considering some of the very dodgy people he’s done business with too.

Sometimes private (very private) interests and public interest collide – so shouldn’t Desmond put some of his porn-derived cash behind the privacy campaigns, if he’s so concerned?

Can’t I Turn My Back For Even One Bloody Day?

Published on October 4, 2008

Due to a trip to IKEA on Thursday and Martin’s consequent attack of bookcase building and orgy of shelf filling, there’s been no pc access and therefore no posting since Thursday morning.

Sorry, couldn’t help it, but the bookcases do look nice.

Typically, the moment I walked away from the keyboard, Ian Blair got canned, the bailout bill passed (thus enabling the world’s biggest robbery with menaces EVAR), and WTF? What fresh hell is is this? Peter Mandelson’s back in government?

Well, bugger me three ways to Wednesday with a technicolour hedgehog. Sideways. I thought I’d lost my capacity for surprise.

We know why Brown’s done jumped the shark – he’s desperate, that’s obvious. But why would an egoist like Mandelson accept an effective demotion to accept a position under someone he’s known to loathe?

That brings me to my comment of the day, which comes from the responses to Michael White’s column in the Guardian:

Newsed1

Mandy did this for one reason.

He will become Lord Mandelson.

A man who wanted to live the life so much he took a secret loan, can’t believe his luck. No amount of spin or ‘borrowed’ money could have bought a title.

And Gordon snared a man whose self-preening is such that’s it’s worth 18 months onboard the HMS McTitanic for a lifetime of being a Lord

Mandy gets Ermine and Gordo gets the arch shit-flinger.

There’s no more to it than that.

BANG. Hits the nail right on the head.

Interested as I am in the minutiae and the niceties of politico-social etiquette, I have a small protocol question. Mandelson has a long -term partner who lives with him in Brussels. If they marry, as they are entitled to, do they become Lord and Lord Mandelson?

There Is No Obe Wan

Published on September 28, 2008

With the news this morning that the Bradford & Bingley building society is to be nationalised, no wonder people are getting exceedingly jittery and very, very angry.

The banking system as it stands is a crumbling edifice of avarice, dishonesty and jaw-dropping incompetence, on the verge of falling apart and hurting millions. No amount of panicky governmental tinkering and emergency taxpayer-funded bailouts will slow the accelerating collapse; the foundations were rotten from the start. That rock of financial security? Just shifting sand.

How tempting it is to want to wipe it all out and start again. Let’s blame it all on Gordon Brown and vote in the Tories! That’ll show Labour, the hypocritical bastards.

But although no one has clean hands in this, least of all the Tories, Cameron, his sidekick Osborne and the Conservative Party are actually precipitating the bank crash to ensure their own political and financial survival:

The Tories were accused last night of being bankrolled by a City ‘wolf pack’ after it emerged that the party was receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds from hedge fund managers who have been making vast sums of money from plunging bank shares.

After the Financial Services Authority had, in effect, barred the controversial practice of short-selling bank stocks and the Treasury was forced to draw up a rescue package for Bradford and Bingley, it emerged that a small group of City financiers who have made fortunes from falling stock markets are paying at least £50,000 a year to the party.

The Labour party should wish they had such donors. No wonder Brown & Darling banned short selling; it’s been directly enriching Tory party coffers. Remember Bush’s Pioneers’ Club?

Bush Pioneers are people who gathered $100,000 for George W. Bush’s 2000 or 2004 presidential campaign. Two new levels, Bush Rangers and Super Rangers, were bestowed upon supporters who gathered $200,000+ or $300,000+, respectively, for the 2004 campaign, after the 2002 McCain–Feingold campaign finance law raised hard money contribution limits. This was done through the practice of “bundling” contributions. [1] There were 221 Rangers and 327 Pioneers in the 2004 campaign and 241 Pioneers in the 2000 campaign (550 pledged to try).[1] A fourth level, Bush Mavericks, was used to identify fundraisers under 40 years of age who bundled more than $50,000. [2]

Nineteen of the original Pioneers became ambassadors in 2001. Three Pioneers have been convicted of politics-related crimes.

David Cameron, aping Bush, has a Pioneers Club of his very own:

Their donations entitle them to membership of an elite supporters club called the Leaders Group, which bestows invitations to functions attended by David Cameron, something that has prompted allegations that the Tory leader is supporting ‘cash for access’.

[…]

Hedge fund managers whose donations entitle them to membership of the group include Michael Hintze of CQS, who has given £662,500 and whose organisation shorted shares in Bradford and Bingley. Two other men who qualify as members of the group are Paul Ruddock, who has given almost £210,000, and David Craigen, who has donated £50,000. The pair’s investment firm, Lansdowne, was exposed last week as shorting shares in HBOS.

[My emphasis]

The Tories are profiting directly from and are implicated in bank collapses, and it’s a below the fold squib? Shows how Labour and their rapidly dwindling gang of media supporters have lost the plot: once they’d’ve been on a story like this like white on rice.

At least the Lib Dems noticed:

Yesterday critics were quick to attack Cameron for taking money from hedge funds. ‘Now we see that the same hedge fund wolf pack who brought HBOS to its knees are bankrolling the Tory party,’ said Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman.

Ah yes, the Lib Dems. Help us, Vincey Wan Cablekenobe, you’re our only hope!

Not:

The Liberal Democrats are facing an embarrassing High Court battle with a lawyer who says that the party wrongly accepted £632,000 of his money as part of a donation. Robert Mann, 60, claims that the party failed to carry out adequate checks on the money which was received as part of a £2.4m gift from the financier Michael Brown.

So much for Lib Dem fiscal integrity. There are a couple more words that suffice to sum up the totally useless Lib Dems: Nick and Clegg.

Oh gods, we really are in the shit, aren’t we, and voting won’t make a ha’porth of difference.