Blair's Legacy

We Owe America?!

2007-07-31T17:09:00.001+01:00

According to Gordon Brown, "we should acknowledge the debt the world owes to the United States for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6920877.stm

No, we shouldn't.

I didn't see the US stepping in during the IRA's 1969 - 1997 campaign. In fact, the US still fails to see the IRA as a Foriegn Terrorist Organization (although the Real IRA does appear on the list), and much IRA funding came from American wallets.

I haven't seen US soldiers deployed to Spain to assist in the fight against Basque Seperatists, or sent to Japan to help fight Aum Shinrikyo.

The War on Terror has so far only hit Afghanistan (which is still a mess 6 years after the initial invasion) and Iraq (which only became a war on terror when Sadam was ousted and the borders became open to al quieda).

So who, exactly, owes a debt to America for this grand crusade?

The hundreds of servicemen killed in a war that had no justification? The thousands of Iraqi civillians killed in the daily bombings? The people left surviving?

A report by Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi NGOs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6921617.stm) stated that "the government was failing to provide basics such as food and shelter for eight million people." Aid efforts are being hampered by corruption and mismanagement and now Iraq faces a new humanitarian crisis. In the meantime, disaffected Muslims in the West are turning to Islamic fundamentalism, training for jihad and bringing the War on Terror back to our own streets.

Thanks, America.

Open Government?

2007-07-30T09:48:00.000+01:00

Norman Lamb, Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk and Shadow Secretary for Health, is quoted by the BBC as saying: "The government introduced the Freedom of Information Act. It is remarkable to see how resistant it is to complying with it."

The reason Mr Lamb, like a number of MPs, is annoyed with the Government is because of the number of written statements issued by the Government prior to the annual Parliamentary holidays. Over a hundred were released in a move that shadow Commons leader Theresa May described as showing "disdain" for MPs.

The statements include: details of the cost of Tony Blair's fairwell tour (£1.5million); details of how many claims are still outstanding at the Child Support Agency (£3.5billion); costs of chauffer driven cars for ministers last year (£6million); information about an Immigration reform programme and tax arrangements for flood victims.

The fact that this information has been released as written statements, rather that announced in Parliament, means that there is now no way for MPs to debate any of the issues or question ministers. Since some of the information was requested by MPs, and their requests previously denied until now, there is a suspicion that the Government is using the recess as a means of burying news and circumventing the democratic process.

As Norman Lamb commented, "Fundamentally I believe in open government and I think secrecy breeds suspicion."

Story on the BBc's website here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6918266.stm

Out-Of-Hours Shambles

2007-07-27T16:29:00.000+01:00

According to the Daily Mail, As many as 35 people died last year because of failings in out-of-hours care by GPs, figures have revealed.

Complaints about the service have risen by almost a fifth, with common criticisms including a failure to diagnose a condition properly and delays in visiting patients.

The full article can be seen at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461363&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ito=1490.

Speed Cameras (yet again)

2007-07-27T16:26:00.001+01:00

June 2007, the dying days of the Blair Government, and the police decide that they're not content with having the highest density of traffic cameras in the World, and now want to revert to hiding cameras from the motorist to catch even more offenders.

Before speeding cameras were introduced, the UK had Europe's lowest incidents of accidents due to speeding... so why do we need all these cameras? And how come we've got more than countries who should be envying our safety record?

A leading insurance company has decided not to increase the insurance premiums of motorists with up to 6 points for speeding so all their sophisticated analysis suggest that speeding does not make dangerous drivers as they believe that more than 30% of drivers in the UK have 6 points or more and it is the norm.

A simple calculation will show how much money the Police Forces are collecting and the reason for their enthusiasm to put up more cameras. It is difficult to rationalise a driver slowing down for a camera one cannot see or isn't aware aware of. One wonders how long the enthusiasm would last if the money collected did not go to the Police and they recieved no credit for 'catching' motorists.

Can the Government and the Police at least try to be a bit more honest with the motorist and simply say "We need to tax you more to help pay for the Police Force and we do not want to face the political fall out of asking for another £50 to £100 per car so we will continue with the charade of speeding cameras, making drivers feel like a criminals, have a convoluted method of collecting the money, make you feel you live in a Police State and generally miff you all off?"

Lost In Translation

2007-07-27T16:10:00.000+01:00

The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article755994.ece) and the BBC have both described how the UK spends around £100m per year in translating and interpreting for British residents who don't speak English.

The costs broke down to: £25m spent by local councils, £21m spent by the police, £10m spent by the courts and £55m (a conservative estimate) by the NHS. One community centre funded by the Home Office offered its services in 76 different languages.

Why?

It is against our interests to have people living in this country but unable to speak our language. It encourages seperatism, keeps people of ethnic backgrounds in secular ghettos, and acts as a drain on our resources. Surely we'd be better off spending the money teaching people how to speak English so that they could then interact with the rest of the population and do simple things like help their kids with the homework or get jobs. Because, lets face it, unless you're able to ge a job as a chef in an ethnic restaurant where you don't have to interact with the customers, its highly unlikely that you'll be able to get a job, so up goes the unemployment figures and up goes the number of people living on, and dependant on, benefits.

As the Times article says: "The evidence is plain to anyone who visits Brick Lane in the East End of London. In the Bangladeshi community... English is a foreign language. Restaurants, shops and doctors’ surgeries all cater to a population that speaks Bengali or Sylheti. Even the street signs are in Bengali. The language barrier is reinforced by multiculturalists whose zeal to translate everything has given people a disincentive to speak this country’s language.

Every year Bangladeshis sit at the bottom of rankings of educational achievement. Their society persists in economic stagnation that locks many people into the catering industry. Drug abuse and crime are on the rise in the East End. Functionally illiterate young Bangladeshi males, with no hope of employment, can choose between extremists in the mosques or the gangs in the streets."

By pandering to the ethnic populations of Britain and making it easier for them to get by with little or no knowledge of the language, we are, in fact, making things harder for them. How can they possibly embrace life as a British resident if they don't interact with the rest of the population? How can they be made to feel a part of a society that they are unable to contribute to?

Far from creating a permissive, multi-cultural society, all Blair managed to do was create a number of micro-societies, each unable to communicate with each other.

Transport

2007-07-27T15:50:00.000+01:00

Congratulations have to be given to Blair and Prescott for the superb job they did with the transport system.

The BBC recently highlighted the fact that it only costs £500 to transport a container load of goods the 10,000+ miles from China to the UK. To then transport the same container a couple of hundred miles within the UK will then cost you a further £1500.Because that makes sense.

No wonder the Chinese manufacturing industry is hammering ours if they don't have the same kind of overheads British companies have to face.

Criminal Tagging

2007-07-27T15:31:00.001+01:00

As the jails become overcrowded the Blair Government looked for a cheap alternative. The cost of tagging criminals is only a fraction of that for providing a cell.

As a result, the UK has more than twice the number of tagged criminals than the rest of Europe put together. In 2006, we had over 60,000 criminals roaming the streets roaming our streets.

There is no evidence that tagging acts as a deterrent to crime (anyone who's seen Lindsay Lohan's most recent brush with the Californian authorities will know that she was arrested for drunk-driving and possession of cocaine despite having been tagged). Re-offenders are at a record high. The really tragic disasters are the 6 murders and 4,000 other offences carried by 'tagged criminals' -- criminals that should ahve been taken off of the streets and prevented from being able to carry out these crimes.

It wouldn't be a problem if the Government only tagged petty criminals (with jails as overcrowded as they are, I can see the reasoning behind keeping a vandal or a speeding motorist out of the cells) but pressure on judges by the Government mean that serious violent criminals and suspected terries are let out of custody... and then the Government is surprised when some disappear and most just ignore the 'tagging curfew' since there is no effective policing of the system. If there was a 'one strike and you're in' policy that put curfew breakers back in jail, maybe the tags would be effective. But, sadly, there isn't and most tagged criminals admit they are consistent curfew dodgers.

Worse, the system has no clue where the criminal is once they have left their house; it only knows that they have left the building. What sort of security is that? After a decade of increasing surveillance and diminishing privacy and civil liberties, you would have thought that keeping track on convicted criminals would be a key thing. Especially since tagging is supposed to be a crime deterrant -- how much more effective would it be if your tag could place you at the scene of a crime at the time that the crime took place?

But, no, that would be too easy. So, instead, we have a system which leaves at least 15,000 criminals (at any one time) to their own devices and free to commit crime. Is not the first responsibility of our Government and Courts to protect us from criminals?

Blair's Broken Society

2007-07-27T15:05:00.000+01:00

We live in a broken society, according to Iain Duncan Smith and the Centre for Social Justice.

As quoted in The Times (full article available at http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article2075194.ece), Iain Duncan Smith says:

“I have been visiting many of Britain’s most difficult and fractured communities… I have seen levels of social breakdown which have appalled and angered me.”

One of the places Duncan Smith has visited is Glasgow, where 50% of income is unearned (i.e. it comes from benefits) and a third of people of working age are economically inactive. The same picture is being painted across the UK. Family breakdown is attributed to some of the reason for the growing gulf between rich and poor: children from broken homes are 75% more likely to fail school, 70% more likely to get a criminal record, 70% more likely to develop a drug dependancy, and 50% more likely to suffer alcohol problems…

…and Blair and Brown have spent the last decade encouraging this. A couple with two earners and a combined income of £35,000 would be £5,500 pounds a year better off if they split up, thanks to Brown’s crazy tax credit calculations.

Forget Cash For Honours, What About Passports For Terrorists?

2007-07-27T14:42:00.000+01:00

In July 2005, just weeks after the 7/7 bombings that left 52 people dead, four men attempted a second wave of bombings across London. One of the four, Muktar Said Ibrahim, had been known to MI5 after being spotted at a suspected terror training camp in the Lake District in Spring 2004. Before that, he had been to the Sudan to learn how to fire rocket-propelled grenades.

And yet, despite being known by the security forces; despite having come to Scotland Yard’s attention three times in a year; and despite being charged under the Public Order Act for distributing extremist Islamic material, he was granted a British passport and allowed to travel to Pakistan (at the same time as two of the July 7th bombers) where he received more training for his coming jihad.

Poverty Target Will Be Missed

2007-05-23T12:41:00.000+01:00

According to a report recently published by Barnado's, the government is on track to fail to fulfill its own targets to halve child poverty by 2010.

Eight years ago, Tony Blair pledged to drastically reduce child poverty. While the number of children living in poverty steadily fell during the late '90s, the progress that had been made has now stalled and estimates suggest that the government need to earmark an extra £3.8billion to meet the targets that it set itself -- less than half of the cost of hosting the 2010 Olympics.

The report also claims that children in poverty suffer more health problems than their counterparts from more affluent families, attain worse examination results and are more likely grow into an adult life consisting of unemployment and debt. Since the NHS is currently facing an unparralleled budget crisis, which is only going to grow worse with out current population growth rates, surely it would make sense to invest the money and nip future problems in the bud?

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6682029.stm

Tony: Then & Now

2007-05-18T10:17:00.001+01:00

There's an interesting article on the Telegraph's website detailing the differences between the Tony before power and the Blair that we know today.

As an example:

On Oct 30, 1994, Mr Blair said:

"I support the Prime Minister's establishment of the Nolan inquiry into standards of conduct in public life, but its remit is narrow.

In at least one crucial respect it is seriously flawed, as the funding of political parties is excluded from investigation. Yet this issue best symbolises the decline in standards in political life. This is not a partisan point. There is legitimate concern from all sections of the population that the governing party is being funded from undeclared sources of private and corporate wealth, much from overseas. The Conservatives' unwillingness to declare the names behind large donations is hard to justify. We would ensure that all donations above £5,000 had to be declared, and that corporate donations were subject to shareholders' approval. Of course, trades unions give money to the Labour Party and sponsor MPs. We must nail the lie that this is remotely equivalent. Money is given openly and declared in our accounts."

Now

Labour is embroiled in the so-called "loans for peerages" scandal, with Scotland Yard investigating whether the party sold honours or other favours, such as lucrative government contracts, in return for money. Tony Blair has admitted exploiting a loophole in the party funding rules he introduced after coming to power in 1997 to secure £14 million in "secret" loans to fund Labour's general election campaign last year. He then nominated for peerages four of the businessmen who made loans - but did not inform the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission of their financial link to the Labour Party.

(see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=TFKD0Y131IEHJQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/03/31/nblair131.xml&page=2 for the rest of the article)

Iraq: A Legacy Of Failure

2007-05-18T09:53:00.000+01:00

At least six of the ten years of Tony has been spent at war. Apart from our usual presence in hotspots needing UN intervention, most of our fighting has been done to support America and cement our special relationship with them.
Blair had visions of Britain being the bridge between America and Europe: we're tied to the EU but remain America's largest foriegn investor. We're physically closer to Paris than Pennsylvania, but we're culturally nearer to New York than Nuremberg. It made sense for Britain to bridge the gap between the two powers and help negotiate treaties between the two that ensured commonality in purpose.

Unfortunately, the Iraq war happened. Taking sides with America alienated us from our two biggest rivals in the EU, as France and Germany's concerns at the UN were swept aside and ignored. To make things worse, Tony displayed no control over the US -- Bush was going to war despite lack of evidence of any involvement in terror and lack of public support from both sides of the Atlantic, and he was taking us with him.

Rather than help build a bridge between Europe and the US, Blair helped enlarge the divide. And he did so by capitulating to Bush so cravenly that he lost respect amongst his voters, respect from our EU allies. From that momoent, we no longer had a truly special relationship with the States, we were simply at their beck and call.

As Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Head of the Chatham House think tank, has stated "The post 9/11 decision to invade Iraq was a terrible mistake and the current debacle will have policy repercussions for many years to come," he said. "Tony Blair's successor will not be able to offer unconditional support for US initiatives in foreign policy and a rebalancing of the UK's foreign policy between the US and Europe will have to take place." (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=C2NMURAQ3TVQFQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/12/19/wpal119.xml

Judges "May Be Forced Into Lighter Sentences"

2007-05-17T09:57:00.000+01:00

As the Home Office has now been split into two seperate entities, their are fears that the new Ministry of Justice will lead to shorter prison sentances being passed on convicted criminals.

Because of the way that the split has occured, the Prison Service and the Courts Service are now included in the same budget, meaning that the ministry will have to chose between cutting staff levels within the Courts system or setting shorter custodial sentances.

Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, has some concerns quoted in the Tlegraph article available at the following link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/08/njudges08.xml.

One interesting aspect that is revealed within the article, and something that is indicative o fLabour policy ni general is the fact that due to prison overcrowding the Government has already been attemptting to persuade judges to pass shirter sentances, but these moves have been largely ignored because recent legislation has also required them to pass indefinate sentances on a wider variety of offenses. It's almost like the Government doesn't really know what its doing and is someone else can make sense of their conflicting decisions....

Brown Admits Mistakes

2007-05-16T09:26:00.000+01:00

Even Gordon Brown admits that the Blair years have been full of mistakes. Embarking on his own leadership campaign (surely, the most one-sided race since Roadrunner last led Wile E. Coyote through Acme Canyon), Brown has hinted at a review of ID cards, admitted that mistakes have been made in Iraq and vowed to end the cult of celebrity.

The Telegraph reported on the launch of Brown's leadership campaign (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/12/nbrown12.xml) where he distanced himself from the spin and image obsession of Blair's New Labour and said that he "had never believed that politics was about celebrity."

Of course he didn't.

You might be churlish enough to think that the reason Brown wants to end the cult of personality is because the man lacks one of his own, that it has been Blair's persona that has carried the Labour Party through the last couple of General Elections and that the party is going to struggle to win a fourth successive election with Gordon Brown at the helm. But, as shadow Chancellor George Osbourne pointed out on a recent edition of The Politics Show (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6640417.stm) Brown has not been adverse to using spin himself.

For example, announcing the last Budget as being a tax cutting exercise when figures reveal that the drop in income tax was more than matched by rises in a hundred other taxable items. Or his announcement that his government would build 100,000 environmentally friendly homes when the same announcement was made a year ago by housing minister, Yvette Cooper.

The problem Brown is going to face is a simple one. I don't know about you, but I can't help but think of Dad's Army when I think of the Labour Party. Tony Blair is Private Joe Walker, the black-marketeer. He's a likeable enough bloke, but you wouldn't trust him with your rations (or your sister) for fear that he'd sell them off. Brown, on the other hand, is Private James Frazer - the wild-eyed, tight-fisted Scot who makes regular pronouncements of doom. One you might not trust but you'd vote for him believing that his dealing might be dodgy but he'd get things done (even if experience would suggest otherwise). The other? You wouldn't even sit next to him in the pub, let alone let him make your decisions for you.

The Telegraph also highlights an interesting issue about the Brown/Blair relationship. According to an updated biography about Blair due for re-release soon, Brown spent last Summer fearing that Blair had reneged on his deal to stand down and allow Brown take over the reins and consequentially indulged in “sulks, tantrums and rages.”

Blair might have had his faults, but at least he didn't act like a toddler when he didn't get his own way. Is Brown really the man we want representing the UK on the World Stage?

Things Can Only Get Better...?

2007-05-16T09:23:00.000+01:00

On the 13th of May, 2007, The Politics Show revealed the results of a survey it had commissioned. Over 4,000 UK wide residents responded and were asked their opinions on a variety of topics regarding life under Blair. The results can be seen at the show's website, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6640411.stm) and included:

Education and Schools: 70% thought it was worse under Blair

Public Services: 36% thought public service was worse under Blair, despite massive increases in government spending.

Better Off: Although Blair and Brown keep claiming that we are a more propserous nation after a decade of Labour rule, only 40% of people in Scotland and only 34% of English residents agreed.

Crime: 56% of all UK resisdents agreeed it is worse since Blair came to power.

Rural Post Offices: 1,000's have closed during the Blair era. Couple this with the closure of local schools and you get a growing picture of countryside life being destroyed.

Rural Schools: 1,000's closed down under the Blair era. More have had their playing fields sold off. So much for the concept of "healthy in mind and body" for our young population. No wonder we have the most obese children in Europe.

Tony & George: Endless Love

2007-05-14T11:46:00.000+01:00

"Meet The Neets"

2007-05-11T15:36:00.000+01:00

Neets, if you were unaware, is an acronym referring to people between the age of 16 - 24 who are "Not in Education, Employment or Training." There's now over 1.2 million of them in this country, representing a fifth of people in that age group who are literally sitting around doing nothing all day.

As the Telegraph reported (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/15/neets15.xml):

"Among their ranks are the troubled, the badly educated, and the feckless and work-shy. In the 16 to 19 age bracket, 11 per cent are classed as Neets - double the proportion in Germany and France."

This is clearly going to be a massive problem for the UK and these people will be a huge burden on the working taxpayers:

"The research... calculates that this "lost generation" is costing the country £3.65 billion a year - enough to fund a 1p cut in income tax. Indeed, the Government's own figures estimate that each new Neet dropping out of education at 16 will cost the taxpayer an average of £97,000 during their lifetime. The worst will cost more than £300,000."

And all of this despite an election manifesto which, in 1997, promised great reforms to the Welfare State and making it clear through the Welfare-To-Work scheme, that indolence would not be an option.

"In reality, this "get tough" approach is not quite what it seems. When a young person signs on to the New Deal, they spend four months talking to their personal adviser about options. If a job is not found, they are given a "package of full-time help", such as a remedial skills course or work experience, and paid a "training allowance". If the young person is still without work after that, they make a new claim for the jobseeker's allowance - and the whole process starts again."

Six Years of Fighting, No Victories

2007-05-11T15:06:00.000+01:00

One would expect Tony Blair to be an expert on the subject now, having spent most of the last 6 years fighting them. Certainly he is an expert at losing them and wasting the Nation’s blood, finances and international standing.

A look at history would have given him a hint of things to come our previous exploits in Iraq and Afganistan were pretty disastrous and Blair has waited a hundred years managed to top those.

The USA exploits on foreign soil were no more clever. The Vietnam war indicated that the USA cannot win any prolonged war ‘clinically from the air or with their modern technology’ and so any prolonged conflict was bound for failure. As the body counts continue to rise, so Bush and Blair’s approval ratings continue to slide.

Voting: Minority Rule?

2007-05-11T15:04:00.000+01:00

Blair won the 2005 General Election with 35.3% of the total votes cast. However, as there was only an estimated 61.3% turnout on Election Day, this means that Blair was re-elected to office with the votes of just 22% of the eligible electorate. In what way can Blair and Brown claim to have a mandate from the nation to run the UK as they sees fit when less than a quarter of the populace have given them their approval?

The fact that they are willing to ignore public opinion and pursue policies that are unpopular and against our interests (the continuing war in Iraq, for example) proves how little regard they have for the electorate, despite the 2005 clear message that the vast majority of the UK don’t support them.

Perhaps this is why Blair has done nothing to change the “first past the post” system and given us something more representative of public opinion.

Voting: Devolution Does Not Apply To England

2007-05-11T14:59:00.000+01:00

Despite devolving decision making and tax raising to the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, Scottish MP’s are still permitted to vote on English matters.

While it is fair to say that representatives from all of the home nations should have a say in the running of the United Kingdom as a whole, is it really fair that the Scottish be allowed to play a part in decisions that only affect the English and not vice versa?

For example, why should the MPs for Aberdeenshire have the ability to vote on matters concerning the local NHS Primary Care Trust for Oxfordshire while Oxford's MP can't have similar input in decisions about Aberdeen's NHS?

Of course, this position suits Labour’s purposes and protects their interests – having lost an average of 7% of English votes during the last election, they are no doubt aware that an English Assembly would not be a Labour dominated one.

Now that the SNP has gained control of Scotland, it will be interesting to see if (a) they persue independance and (b) if they do, will English affairs be left to English representation.

Voting: An Unlevel Playing Field

2007-05-11T14:57:00.000+01:00

Blair still refuses to change the ward boundaries to provide an equal number of voters per seat and reduce the Labour advantage.

In the 2005 election, Labour received 9,562,122 votes compared to the Conservatives, who received 8,772,598 and the Liberals, who received 5,981,874. The number of seats allocated to the parties after the election is unrepresentative of the views of the nation: Labour only won 35.3% of the votes, but got 55.2% of the seats in the House of Commons while the Tories won 32.3% of the votes, but only 30.7% of the seats. Even more disproportionably, the Lib Dems won 22.1% of votes but only 9.6% of seats.

Surely it is time to redraw the boundaries and create a level political playing field?

Stealth Taxes on Motorists

2007-05-11T14:56:00.001+01:00

Blair and Brown have added yet another stealth tax to the motorist's burden. Not content with the revenue provided by speed cameras, and as widely reported in most newspapers including the Daily Mail (see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441094&in_page_id=1770), motorists are to be charged a £15 surcharge in addition to their fines to compensate victims of crime.

The surcharge is to be added to all court fines but, because the UK's judical IT systems are incapable of a task as complex as sliding costs attached to severity of crime, someone caught going 5mph on an empty motorway at 1am is going to pay the same £15 surcharge as someone found guilty of assault or corporate manslaughter.

A spokesman for Victim support is quoted as saying "There is no such thing as a victimless crime" and this seems to be Labour's way of making sure of it: speeding motorists are about to find themselves being regularly mugged by the system.

Labour's Transport Policy

2007-05-11T14:49:00.000+01:00

When Blair came to office he told us that Labour were going to reduce the number of car journeys, partly as a means of meeting targets for global warming and improving the environment, then promptly handed the keys to the Department of Transport to John Prescott to make sure that it wouldn’t happen.

On 6 June 1997 Prescott said: "I will have failed if in five years time there are not... far fewer journeys by car. It's a tall order but I urge you to hold me to it."

By June 2002, car journeys had risen by 7%.

During this five year period, while on his way to the Labour Party Conference to give a speech about public transport, Prescott was chauffeured 250 yards from his hotel to the conference venue.

As part of Prescott’s Integrated Transport Policy, road charging (debates on which led to the London Congestion Charge) coupled with increased and improved public transport was supposed to price motorists of the road, reduce the number of journeys made by car and get the public more reliant on buses and trains.

Instead, we have seen increased costs for rail users, a railway that seems to be becoming more and more unsafe as the years progress, and a nation increasingly unwilling to give up their cars despite increased road tolls, fuel tax and “Safety Camera” fines.

Did we ever expect John Prescott to do something for his money?

BBC2's program “Are We Nearly There Yet” (broadcast on the 6/3/06) commented 'After the complete collapse of the Government’s 10 year Transport Program they never had any tangible ideas to take its place'. They further added that Government’s ability to govern should be judged upon the effectiveness of their transport program as this is the one program with a relatively flat playing field without outside influencers i.e. it is not dependant upon Social factors etc. So this looks very much like another Blair disaster, or should I imagine a co-ordinated public transport scheme that is inexpensive, efficient and environmentally friendly.

Our "Special" Relationship

2007-05-11T14:48:00.000+01:00

Blair has placed a new level of loyalty on the ‘Special Relationship’ with the USA, including following Bush blindly into war, using more and more American consultancy firms in the public sector and awarding contracts to US firms. This all seems to be to the detriment to the UK.

A reading of history might have been a bit more useful e.g. the USA did NOT enter the WW2 to help out the UK – in fact the Senate voted twice on the issue and firmly rejected the idea. They only entered the war after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and as Germany and Japan were allies, they were dragged into the European conflict as well.

Although the Americans did trade with us and supplied us before their eventual entrance into the war, they didn’t do it out of charity. We paid for all supplies sent to the UK, including those that didn’t make it to our shores due to ships being torpedoed by German U-boats. The Americans did loan us money to help us fight our joint enemies and it took us 60 years to pay back the loan and the interest. We no longer owe them anything, but Bush and Blair are both quite intent on perpetuating the myth that we do.

There is no evidence of a special relationship between the USA and the UK, just the USA doing profitable business with the UK as and when it suits their interest. Anyone who reads something else into the relationship is either niave, stupid or has a personal agenda.

Of course, I’m sure that there’s no connection between the fact that Tony Blair has made himself a hero in American eyes and the millions he expects to make on the lecture circuit in the US after he’s stepped down from office.

Sleaze

2007-05-11T14:45:00.000+01:00

Labour came to power by claiming that the incumbent Conservative government was one more interested in corruption and sleaze than in actual politics. Cash For Questions, the failure of a few backbenchers to declare interests, and a series of marital infidelities all allowed Labour to claim the moral high ground.

Since then, they’ve been waging a campaign to show the Tories that they can do it bigger and more often.

From lying to the Commons about a £1million donation from Formula One supreme, Bernie Ecclestone, to the row over payment for peerages, the David Kelly “suicide,” to Lord Irvine’s £650,000 redecorating bill being handed to the tax payer, to Prescott and Mandelson’s activities, to Byer’s dirty tricks campaign after the Railtrack fiasco, to Jo Moore’s “Good Day” memo, to accusations of fiddling NHS tables to make government policies look more effective, to spending £49 million pounds from the public purse on propaganda advertising to make the Government look good ahead of elections… the list is almost endless.

Rail Fares

2007-05-11T14:44:00.000+01:00

Rail fares now increase higher than the rate of inflation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/20/nrail20.xml

The Nation's Railways

2007-05-11T14:41:00.000+01:00

Although it was the Conservative government that instigated the privatisation of British Rail, privatisation didn’t come into effect until November 2007 which means that Blair could have stopped it. The abolition of the British Railways Board by the Transport Act of 2000 was the final coffin in the nail for British Rail and swept away its last vestiges of influence.

By 2006, not only had rail passengers suffered continuous increases in rail fare, but the amount of subsidies handed over by government to the train operating companies (for basically doing the same job as British Rail) amounted to three times the annual subsidy that British Rail had received -- for an example, the Economic & Social Reseach Council claim that Stagecoach, which successfully bid for South West Trains, the first franchise, is being paid £27m per year more in subsidy than the amount required to give a reasonable rate of return. (see http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/about/CI/CP/the_edge/Issue1/railsubsidies.aspx?ComponentId=1905&SourcePageId=6805

Public Enquiries

2007-05-11T14:39:00.000+01:00

Blair is (or was) very fond of announcing to the populace the setting up of ‘transparent Public Enquiries’ but, unfortunately, not so keen on providing them with any authority or legal standing. As an example, you have the enquiry into Dr Kelly’s death where the enquiry was given less legal powers than an ordinary Coroners Court.

As a further example, we have recently had a fatal train crash in Cumbria that bore striking similarities to the Potters Bar disaster, and indicate that the lessons learnt from the ensuing, year long Public Enquiry have still not been learnt nearly four years after its findings where published.

Politics Is A Four Letter Word

2007-05-11T14:27:00.000+01:00

Politicians now rate below Estate Agents and Traffic Wardens. Blair's cynical use of spin and half-truths has turned us into a nation that sees its elected representatives as corrupt, lying, self-aggrandising incompetents who are more interested in power and the wealth it can bring than in actually running the country to the benefit of the people.

Blair has made politics a dirty word.

Speed Cameras

2007-05-11T14:26:00.000+01:00

There are more and more speed cameras used to raise Police Revenues. We are, of course, told that these are “Safety Cameras” and there to encourage people to drive in a more responsible manner in areas known to have prolific number of accidents.

If this is the case, why do some areas of the country also have roadside signs indicating the number of accidents on that stretch of road over the past 3 years? If these are any less effective in promoting safety, why haven’t they been replaced with cameras? If they are more effective than speed cameras, surely revenue generation can be the only real excuse for maintaining and increasing the number of cameras on the sides of Britain’s roads.

Police Officers, meanwhile, seem to be able ignore the speeding laws as long as they are “‘practising’ their driving skills” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/4559173.stm) although there is no record of public Learner Drivers being excused any speeding fines when practising.

Surveillance Cameras

2007-05-11T14:24:00.000+01:00

The average UK citizen might be caught on CCTV 6 times a day, but the number drastically increases when you wander into a metropolitan area.

There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK. This means that for every 14 people, there is a camera.

A more worrying way to put it is, Britain accounts for 1% of the world's population but 20% of the world's CCTV cameras. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23390407-details/UK+has+1%25+of+world's+population+but+20%25+of+its+CCTV+cameras/article.do)

It has been suggested that the average Londoner is caught on CCTV around 300 times a day. We are spied on more often and more comprehensively than people living in totalitarian dictatorships. With our privacy and civil liberties being systematically violated on such a regular basis, and the government enlarging the scope of data it collects about us, can anyone really claim that we live in a free country?

Suspended Officers

2007-05-11T14:21:00.000+01:00

According to The Metro (http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=42559&in_page_id=34) 276 police officers, as of March 2007, were on suspension or 'gardening leave' while being investigated for alleged wrong-doing.

The total bill to the tax payer for this amounts to around £8million per year.

icLiverpool, a short while later, (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=suspended-officers-cost-police--500k&method=full&objectid=18850236&siteid=50061-name_page.html) mentioned one police officer who had spent 774 days suspended on full pay before being jailed.

Can Blair really claim to be tough on the causes of crime when even our police force can't be trusted?

There are, of course, two things that we need to consider here, other than the drain on funding that the tax payer provides to the police.

Firstly, to what extent is this just the tip of the iceberg? For every one of the 276 officers currently suspended, how many more are being investigated and how many are getting away with their own wrong doing?

Secondly, with crime rates rising across the UK, you have to wonder how much is due to police officers being more interested in lining their own pockets than in solving crimes?

Cash For Honours

2007-05-10T13:53:00.000+01:00

When the Government is acting so shady that Scotland Yard is called in to investigate, you know that they can’t be up to much good. When is a donation not a payment for a peerage?

The Trident Affair

2007-05-10T13:51:00.000+01:00

Tony Blair has backed the replacement of the Trident Missiles at a cost of billions spent with the Americans, a completely unrealistic idea of what we as a nation can afford or the effectiveness of such a weapon. It did not stop 9/11 for the USA, and as the July 2005 bombings showed it has no bearing on the type of threats facing the UK in the future.

One cannot see how any nuclear weapon will have any effect on mobile terrorists, or cells of dissidents living within the UK unless Blair is intending to nuke British cities.

Trident gives a few politicians a very expensive membership to a rather elite club, but who would seriously consider nuking any nation? Only the USA has used the Atom bomb and it is not a credit that the UK should want associations with. So, if it is no longer an effective deterrent and we would not use it, why even think about buying such a technology?

There seems an indecent haste to do this deal – why? Apparently, we urgently need a replacement although we only ever have one submarine at sea at a time and the USA have extended their own nuclear deterrent program by many years. Surely, if the much lauded “special friendship” between the UK and US exists, then the US would retaliate with a nuclear strike on our behalf should we find ourselves under nuclear attack.

If, at the furthest extremes of possibility and probability, we were ever to nuke someone, it would most likely be because America wanted us to. Why, then, should we pay them vast sums of money and further widen our record-level national debt just for the privilege of doing their dirty work for them?

We don’t even get to own the weapons – we actually only lease them. They are maintained by the US, who also make the hardware, control the software, make and supply the spares, and aim them at American enemies. So much for our own independent Nuclear Deterrent. Our only involvement is to pay for it.

Would we not be better spending the money equipping our own security forces or even build another 100 hospitals and schools? Or is Tony Blair so intent on keeping his place at the Big Boys' table at the UN that he’s prepared to squander billions of our money on pointless posturing and sabre-rattling?

£1.5million spent to allow Health Department staff go idle

2007-05-10T13:47:00.001+01:00

While the UK's NHS trusts are being forced to slash their staf numbers because of rising budget deficits, the Health Department currrently has 85 bureaucrats on the payroll that have no jobs to do. Discribed in the Health Department's annual business plan as being "displaced" (i.e. they have no work to do and no job to go to within the department) the cost of paying for these 85 people not to work amounts to £1.5 million over a six month agreement -- the equivilant of employing 53 junior doctors.

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is quoted in The Sun (see: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007170357,00.html) as saying: “It is a cruel irony that while (Patricia Hewitt) demands hospitals leave posts without people, she employs people without posts."

NHS: Car Parks

2007-05-10T13:45:00.001+01:00

Thinking of becoming ill? You'd better work out if you can afford to first. While deciding which hospital you'd like to contract a superbug at, you may want to work out which one is going to charge you the most while you languish in the waiting room waiting to see a consultant whose running behind schedule because their golf game toollonger than expected.

Last year, the NHS took £95m in car parking fees with some hospital trusts earning over £2m each. Cancer sufferers, particularly those with regular treatements and the need for regular hospital visits, are paying hundreds of pounds per year in car park charges. Since cancer sufferers are often unable to work because of their illness and treatment, thus reducing their earning capacity considerably, doesn't it seem barbaric to tax them hundreds of pounds for their hospital visits and taking away from them money that could be better used in paying the bills?

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6468251.stm

Superbugs

2007-05-10T13:40:00.000+01:00

The Daily Mail recently reported that the Office of National Statistics had stated that the number of deaths attributed to MRSA in England and Wales had nearly doubled between 2001 and 2005, from 1211 to 2083. (see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=437817&in_page_id=1770

This is, of course, one way of keeping operation waiting lists down: who wants to be operated on in an NHS hospital when there's every chance that you won't make it back out alive? No wonder the private alternatives blatently advertise themselves as being clean....

The BBC reported in April on the continuing rise of superbugs in NHS Hospitals, as detailed in the Health Protection Agency's own figures.

"More hospital patients in England are getting the deadly Clostridium difficile bug, figures show.
Health Protection Agency (HPA) data showed 55,681 cases were reported among over 65s in 2006 - up 8% in a year.

For the full report, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6593225.stm

Meanwhile, Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield has told housekeeping staff to turn sheets over between patients rather than wash them in order to try and save some of its £500,000 annual laundry bill.

Good Hope had a £6million pound budget deficit in 2006 and was consequentially subjected to an Audit Commission review. With items costing 0.275 pence each to wash (note: yes, less than a third of a penny), the hospital is hoping to cut its deficit by re-using dirty sheets.

However, one thing that should be noted. Good Hope recorded 36 cases of MRSA between April 2006 and January 2007 and, despite visits by a Government Task Force, is still failing to meet its superbug infection targets. The fact that it is reducing its hygiene regime to cut costs must sureley mean that they're less likely to meet these targets in future.

See the Daily Mail article at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=448395&in_page_id=1774

Saving The NHS

2007-05-10T13:37:00.000+01:00

In 1997, Blair warned the electorate that they had “just 24 hours to save the NHS.” He was going to slash waiting lists, recruit more staff and radically restructure the Health Service.

What he did was restructure the waiting list system so that rather than going straight onto a waiting list, you had to first see a consultant to get approval for treatment. So, rather than have 100 people on a waiting list you’d have 50 people on a waiting list and 50 waiting to be put onto the waiting list and while the same number of people would end up waiting the same amount of time to be treated, Labour spin was able to technically argue that the waiting lists were now much shorter.

As for recruitment, things have gotten worse. We are now faced with a looming NHS recruitment crisis (http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1245914,00.html) with an imminent shortfall in doctors and nurses, at a time when NHS trusts are shedding jobs to try and minimise their debts.

According to statistics from the Department of Health (http://news.excite.co.uk/uk/28488) the forecast deficit for 2006-2007 is £1.32 BILLION. However, regional trusts have been building cash reserves by making staff redundant and holding back on training and public health budgets to compensate for the debt in a bid to break even. 37,000 NHS jobs are expected to be lost in 2007 and by 2011 we are predicted to have a shortfall of 1,100 junior doctors, 1,200 GPs and 14,000 nurses.

In other words, in order to balance the books we are losing staff we can’t afford to lose and the ones we are keeping are not receiving the training they need, while cuts in public health budgets can only lead to more widespread illnesses meaning a future strain on already thinly-stretched resources.

While telling the BBC One's "Politics Show" how his legacy was going to be long-lasting, Tony Blair explained that "When we came to power, people used to die on waiting lists waiting for their heart operations. People don't do that any more."" (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6557439.stm).

He didn't mention how many people were now dying as they waited to get put onto the waiting list. Nor did he mention, as the Royal College of Nursing pointed out (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6560497.stm) that 22,300 NHS jobs have been lost in the last 18 months due to NHS budget deficits.

In fact, staff shortages are so acute that student nurses are being left on their own with patients, despite guidelines that state that (apart from those in their final year of training) they should always be monitored, meaning that patient safety is being compromised as people are left in the care of untrained, unqualified and unsupervised staff. (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6552249.stm)

The Dome Debacle

2007-05-10T13:34:00.000+01:00

John Major had originally conceived the idea of the Millennium Dome as a relatively small-scale, Festival of Britain event. Then Tony got elected, threw a bunch of money at it and vastly increased the size, scope and funding of the project.

Open for just 12 months, it received a total of 6,500,000 visitors, of which 6,000,000 had been to see the Festival of Britain which only ran from May to September. By the time the New Millennium Experience Company was officially liquidated in 2002, audits reported that the total cost of the Dome had been £789 million pounds. Of this, just £189 million was recovered from ticket sales: the rest was paid for by funding secured from the National Lottery.

The dome has since been given to the Anschutz Entertainment Group to redevelop into an entertainment arena, which will see music and sporting events take place from July 2007, a number of bars, restaurants and a multi-screen cinema complex. However, it has been reported that one of the conditions for the AEG taking on the project (despite being given the building and land) was that they be allowed to build a super casino there, and that since Prescott failed to deliver his promises they will be halving their investment in the project.

40% of Service Family Accomodation is Sub-Standard

2007-05-10T13:33:00.000+01:00

In March 2007, the National Audit Office published a report entitled "Managing the Defence Estate: Quality and Sustainability" which stated that over 40% of Service Family accomodation was below Standard 1, i.e. was of substandard quality (see page 14 of the report, which can be found at http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/06-07/0607154.pdf)

A short while later, the MOD claimed that AWOL cases since 2003 were possibly not due to disallusionment with the Iraq War, or mental health issues, but that "Anecdotal evidence suggests that most AWOL is caused by soldiers’ domestic circumstances, e.g. family problems, rather than wishing to avoid military service." (see http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/DefenceNewsDailyarchiveSaturday17March2007ToFriday30March2007.htm)

Perhaps if some of the massive investment the UK has made in fighting unjust wars (and proposes to spend on an unneeded Trident system) was spent on housing our troops we'd have a more effective fighting force.

The National Lottery: Unfair Funding?

2007-05-10T13:32:00.000+01:00

Not even the National Lottery is safe from political influence - Labour seats have received over 10 times the amount of Lottery funding that Conservative seats have obtained. This cannot simply be a statistical blip, can it?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/16/nlottery16.xml

Britain Becoming A Police State

2007-05-10T13:30:00.000+01:00

As well as the increase in violent crime and overcrowded prisons, The UK has seen a systematic increase in the number of activities now deemed to be illegal, meaning that more and more of us are becoming criminals.

In the nine years between his election in May 1997 and August 2006, the Labour government introduced a total of 3023 offences including fox hunting, the sale of meat on the bone and the use of mobile phones while driving. As the Telegraph pointed out in an article on 2006 (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1219484.ece), legislated offences include: “It is now illegal to sell grey squirrels, impersonate a traffic warden or offer Air Traffic Control services without a licence. Creating a nuclear explosion was outlawed in 1998. Householders who fail to nominate a neighbour to turn off their alarm while they are away from home can be breaking the law. And it is an offence for a ship's captain to be carrying grain unless he has a copy of the International Grain Code on board.”

One can’t help but wonder what positive results such laws really bring to the average voter back in the real world.

Worryingly, of the 3023 newly-created offences, only 1169 were debated in Parliament and introduced by primary legislature. (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1219484.ece

This means that 1854 criminal offences have been introduced to the UK without being first debated in Parliament, bypassing the entire process of democracy and representation. The 1169 laws that were debated in Parliament more than doubles the amount introduced by the Tories under their last nine years in office under both Thatcher and Major, who between them introduced roughly 500 offences through primary legislature.

Jo Moore & 9/11

2007-05-10T13:29:00.000+01:00

At 2:55 on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, after both World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon had been hit by attacks, Jo Moore sent an email to the press office of her department which read: "It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury."

Classic Labour spin in action.

Jail: Unfit For Human Consumption?

2007-05-10T13:28:00.001+01:00

The Home Office announced in January 2007 (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1997589,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1) that it had reopened a prison wing that had been condemned as unfit for human inhabitation less than a week before to ease overcrowding and to house remand prisoners.

Surely being a remand prisoner means that you have yet to be found guilty, in which case do these people necessarily deserve to be housed in squalor? And will this open the floodgates for prisoners demanding compensation because their human rights have been abused?

Jails: Overcrowding

2007-05-10T13:19:00.000+01:00

Our jails are becoming increasingly overcrowded, to the point where it now difficult to find room for people as they get convicted. As the crime rates have continued to increase under Tony Blair’s leadership, so, accordingly, has the number of people needing to be sent to jail.

Couple this with the fact that between 1992 and 2004 the reconviction rate among former prisoners rose from 51% to 67%, meaning that the concept of penal reform is carrying less and less weight. We are now getting to the point where, as a recent situation with a paedophile exemplified (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6300565.stm), convicted criminals are being handed Get Out Of Jail free cards simply because there is nowhere to put them, while early parole to ease prison congestion is leaving criminals with the message that future transgression won’t necessarily be met with just punishment.

It used to be said that if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Now it’s “If you can’t do the time, don’t worry. You’ll be out soon anyway.”

The NHS IT Debacle

2007-05-10T13:16:00.000+01:00

According to SourceUK's website 7th March 07 (http://www.sourceuk.net/article/0/6/latest_dispatch.html) “NHS’s IT programme started at £2.3bn, has risen to £12bn+, but independent experts estimate will end up over £32bn.” I guess one wonders how many hospitals or nurses this represents? Or whether the program will just disappear at the end of Blair’s term?

One may ask, have any Government IT initiatives ever been delivered on schedule, on budget and met their objectives? I suspect that one of these days someone may look at the DirectGov project, which cost tens of millions a year and has been overtaken by technology with no measurable benefit and is now miles away form its original objectives!

Gordon Brown

2007-05-10T13:14:00.000+01:00

Gordon Brown, the Man who would be King, whose great dealings lead to him selling our gold reserves off and losing £2bn in the deal. (see The Times' article from March 2006 at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/china/article695733.ece)

The man whose idea of keeping deficits off the Government’s books has invented PFI whereby the NHS can line the pockets of private investors to the tune of £52bn for hospitals that cost only £8bn. Couple these two facts with the UK’S record (and widening) deficit and ask yourself: would you trust this man with your investments?

Iraq: 36 Lies

2007-05-10T13:13:00.000+01:00

There is an interesting article detailing the 36 lies that led to the Iraq War, which can be found here: http://middleeastreference.org.uk/ios030711.html

Iraq: Weapons of Mass Distraction

2007-05-10T13:10:00.000+01:00

There is no evidence that Iraq ever had weapons of mass destruction, or that the scaremongering seen before the conflict started was based on genuine intelligence rather than mere tub-thumping to get the western populations behind an unjust war. Certainly, no WMDs have been found since the coalition forces assumed control of the country, and certainly no evidence that Hussein was ever capable of launching them with only 45 minutes notice.

The alliance with the USA resulted in the total destruction of a nation that had no war with the UK, despite what we were told to the contrary. Instead, it made Britain political pariahs in the international arena as we bypassed the United Nations resolutions arguing against invasion and went ahead and did it anyway. It has also fueled anti-western sentiment amongst some elements of Islamic society, and gave the July 7th bombers an excuse to attack the London Transport System.

Iraq: The War In Error

2007-05-10T13:06:00.000+01:00

In spite of over 1m voters taking to the streets in protest, with no mandate form the UN, and with only suspected (and suspicious) evidence with regard to Hussein’s capabilities and intentions, Blair decided to go to War.

Round Two of The War on Terror kicked off in 2003 with three main objectives: to oust Saddam Hussein and his baath party, to remove his weapons of mass destruction, and to free the Iraqi people. There were, and are, problems associated with these aims.

The removal of Hussein destabilised the country and created a power vacuum that has still to be filled. Iraq, though enjoying a long history, is actually an artificial country created by Britain who had been ceded the area of Mesopotamia by the League of Nations after the first world war. As such, it has no single ethnic basis but instead consists of a variety of racial backgrounds including the Kurds, Assyrians, Mandeans, Iraqi Turkmen, Shabaks and Roma.

Once Hussein was removed, these factions were free to resume their quarrels with each other which now consists of daily bombing attacks on populated areas, and has helped propel the number of Iraqi civilian deaths to nearly 65,000 in the last four years.

Freedom for the Iraqi people apparently doesn’t stretch as far as the freedom to go shopping without worrying that you’re going to get blown up while British commuters have been brainwashed into having the same doubts when travelling on the Underground or flying. Billions of pounds have been wasted in order to turn a nation into a bloodbath with no obvious benefit for anyone other than we (and, by that, we should say “The Americans”) now have control of one of the most lucrative set of oil fields available, which means that we shouldn’t be short of petrol that Blair can tax us on.

If one can find anything that the Blair Government have done to genuinely benefit this Britain, could it even go partway to balancing the real cost of this disastrous episode in British history?

Sailors Selling Stories

2007-05-10T12:58:00.000+01:00

It was not enough for our armed forces to be embarrassed by being caught unawares by the Iranians, we had to suffer the Iranian Government out-thinking the UK Government and dominating the public stage. This was, of course, followed by the farcical handling of the situation at home when the MInisters could not decide whether the members of the armed forces should or should not publish their stories, public apolgies in the House in the Commons etc.

Surely this is simple.

All ranks in the forces should not be able to publish their stories for ten years. This will prevent any future prisoners being able to tout their stories around the media like recently-evicted Big Brother housemates.

MPs, of whatever flavour, should resign if guilty of a serious misjudgement.

What are MP's employed for anyway? Most do not seem to actually do anything and generally have very limited knowledge of what they are supposed to be managing: most of the real knowledge (and, hence, the real power) is wielded by the unelected masses in the civil service. If an MP has poor judgement and poor management skills then all the political speak does not change the fact that they are unfit for the post and only disaster will follow.

Immigration

2007-05-10T12:55:00.000+01:00

Business leaders and MPs have been claiming for a while now that immigration has affected the UK job market by driving down the wages of the lowest-paid elements of our society by adding an influx of people willing to work for less pay. While the Government has always dismissed these claims, Lord Turner (one of Blair's personal advisors) recently told Tony exactly the same thing during a private seminar.

Lord Turner's assertions are more difficult for the government to brush aside as he was previously the head of the Low Pay Commission.

Just as worrying is the added pressure that migrants are placing on schools, housing and the NHS -- the country is ill-equiped to cope with our own, natural poulation growth, let alone the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants (both leal and illegal) every year.

And Blair's response?

"To counter the growing concerns, Mr Blair is planning a PR offensive on behalf of migrants" (Daily Mail, 31st March 2007: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445778&in_page_id=1770

I fail to see how a PR offensive is going to make people happier about having to accept lower wages, the inability to get on the housing ladder, the over crowding of schools or the growing lack of resources available from the NHS.

Fake Passports

2007-05-10T12:53:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reported, in March 2007, that: "An estimated 10,000 British passports were issued after fraudulent applications in the space of a year - and al-Qaida terrorists have successfully faked applications, the Home Office admitted" (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2038442,00.html)

With the Government's own resources unable to cope with the threat of identity fraud (especially as seen lately with the DWP sending thousands of pensioners' personal and bank details to the wrong people) can we really trust that the identity card scheme isn't going to get corrupted?

What safeguards are there that the identity card scheme will be any more successful in catching and preventing fraudulant applications? And, if these safeguards exist, why are they not currently being used in checking passport applications? If there aren't any safeguards, and the whole point of identity cards in the first place is to help in the war on terror by allowing our security forces to identify threats, why should we bother to continue with this costly exercise and the systematic tracking of honest, law-abiding citizens?

Identity Cards -- A Pointless Exercise?

2007-05-10T12:49:00.000+01:00

How do you stop terrorists? Easily - just treat everyone like terrorists and sooner or later you're bound to stumble across one.

The electronic storage of personal details is an increasingly risky business. After the Department of Work and Pensions accidentally sent out thousands of people's personal and bank details to the wrong people, this Government's record in electronic security is questionable, and its strategy of progressively increasing the use of information technology has resulted in bloated, over-funded, under-achieving projects.

The issue of identity cards has been on the political agenda for a few eyars now, and proponants espouse the same view each time the need for them is brought into question. ID cards will help us in our war on terror, help reduce benefit fraud and enable the police to identify criminals. It has also been mooted that they will enable the NHS to determine who is, and isn't, eligible for treatment -- if you don't have one, you don't go on the waiting list because you may be an illegal immigrant over here on a hospital holiday.

Identity cards will be available, voluntarily, from 2008 and mandatory from 2014. Which begs the questions: in the intervening 6 years, just how many terrorists do they expect to sign up for biometric ID cards? How many benefit cheats are going to spend the money to get one, especially if the cost alone would eb enough to make the DSS wonder how you could possibly afford one? How many criminals are willingly going to enable the police catch them more easily? How many pensioners are going to be refused hospital beds because they thought paying for winter fuel was more important than an ID card in the last years of their lives?

I would imagine that the answer to all (except, possibly, the last one depending on how close the NHS was to bankruptcy at the time) would be: none. Which, in turn, forces us to ask what, exactly, the point of the scheme is? The only people who will sign up for this are going to be ordinary, law-abiding citizens with nothing to hide. It's not going to reduce crime, prevent terrorism or reduce fraud, it's just going to make the average person easier to track as they go about their day-to-day business.

A Third of People to Refuse ID Checks?

2007-05-10T12:48:00.000+01:00

As the BBC website revealed, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6526225.stm a third of people will refuse to submit to ID checks which, again, makes you wonder what powers the police will be given to deal with these refusals, and if this will lead to another spate of laws introduced to make more and more of us criminals.

Falling Number of Home Owners

2007-05-10T12:47:00.002+01:00

The number of people owning their own homes fell in 2006 and it is the first time since before the second world war that the number of homeowners has declined.

Figures in the Survey of English Housing by the Department for Communities and Local Government have revealed that rising house prices are pricing first-time buyers out of the market. Instead, there is an increasing number of properties being bought specifically to be rented out to people who can not get onto the property ladder with 2.5million people now living in private rented accomodation, the highest figure since Labour came to power in 1997.

See the Daily Mail's article at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444799&in_page_id=1770

Planning

2007-05-10T12:47:00.001+01:00

Travellers are now permitted to build on greenbelt land without Planning Permission, at a time of housing crisis when most people are unable to get permission to build on brownfields land. One of the results of this is the largest illegal campsite in Europe firmly established in the South East.

Is it about time someone asked 'What are the rights of the populace born in the areas which Travellers decide to target?' or, 'Why, when local people cannot obtain planning permission, can complete strangers have preference in spite of the protest of the local populace and Local Authorities?' or 'Why do the Travellers not have the same powers to ignore the laws in their country of origin?'

Stamp Duty

2007-05-10T12:46:00.001+01:00

One aspect of moving home, which has affected both house prices and house shortages, is the progressive increase in Stamp Duty since the Blair/Brown regime came to power.

On March 22nd, 2007, The Times reported that Stamp Duty had increased by 31% since 2005 (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article1554614.ece) while four days later, Property Finder revealed that the average Stamp Duty paid had increased from an average of £543 to £5,009 since 1997 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6483697.stm.), an increase of 922%.

As moving house now costs, on average, £9,500 in addition to the purchase price, many people are staying where they are and generating the housing shortage that we see today, in turn driving up prices for the property that is available. More critically, as the average house price can no longer be realistically met by the average salary, the increase in moving costs simply put potential first-time buyers further away from the first rung of the property ladder, or add to their financial burdens.

Housing Shortages

2007-05-10T12:44:00.000+01:00

In 2001, levels of home building had risen to 165,000 but Government indications suggest that 200,000 homes need to be built each year to meet requirements. The failure to build sufficient housing to cope with need has, in part, played a significant role in driving up house prices.

Of course, Blair doesn’t have any trouble finding housing for himself: he’s just bought number five.

Rising House Prices

2007-05-10T12:43:00.000+01:00

House prices in the UK have risen by 199% since 1995/1996 (see: http://www.ukpropertyshop.co.uk/news/373.shtml) and rose by 5.43 percent in 2006 alone, far outstripping the rate of inflation. Of the ten most expensive areas to buy property in the UK, the “cheapest” (Bath and North East Somerset) had an average house price of £253,364.
This means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to get on the first rung of the property ladder.

With the average UK salary now standing at £22,500, it is impossible for people to get mortgages to cover the cost of buying a house. In 2001, 40% of under 30 households were buying with a mortgage and 33% were renting privately. By 2006, the situation had changed with 34% buying and 41% renting.

It is also interesting to note that the property in 236 postal codes in the UK have an average price at such a level that they are above inheritance tax levels compared with 117 postal codes just five years ago. This means plenty of paydays for the government when their owners die.

Gambling & Poverty

2007-05-10T12:39:00.000+01:00

One benefit of increased gambling is that it means increased revenue from taxation. Since many of our industries are now being exported, the creation of a new service industry helps create a new revenue stream for the Government.

Unfortunately, it is widely perceived that it is mainly the poorer elements of society that gamble -- those that are most desperate for the money that can be won are usually those who can least afford to lose what little money they've already got. (see The Guardian's article, "It's simple. More gambling means more child poverty" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/gambling/story/0,,2043578,00.html

But since none of them are likely to become major contributors to party funds, I'm sure this isn't much of a concern. Of course, as a stealth tax on the working class it also means that Blair and Brown can leave the middle classes alone so as not to jeopardise their votes in the next election.

Gambling & Crime

2007-05-10T12:37:00.000+01:00

During New Labour's deregulation of Gambling laws, allowing the building of a Super Casino and 100 smaller casinos around the country, they regularly pointed to the success of America's Atlantic City - a town which has been transformed by the gambling industry.

The Casinos of Atlantic City have been said to have helped regenerate the area, bringing wealth and jobs to a city that was largely lacking in both. However, they have failed to also point out that the casinos have brought with them compulsive gamblers, elevated bankruptcy rates (twice the average of neighbouring areas) and crime such as money laundering: Atlantic City showed a jump in crime when gambling was legalized. The city went from 50th in the nation in per capita crime to first (source: http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/03/Chapt11.html). Las Vagas, meanwhile, revolves around the Gambling industry and is notable for the fact that it has the second busiest crime lab in the USA after the FBI labs at Quantico.

Peter Mandelson

2007-05-10T12:35:00.000+01:00

Probably the only Cabinet Minister to be ‘sacked’ twice and still be given a cushy European job for his efforts.

In 1998 it was revealed that Mandelson had bought a home in Notting Hill in 1996 (i.e. prior to Labour winning the 1997 election) with the assistance of an interest-free loan of £373,000 from Geoffrey Robinson. Robinson was also a Labour MP in the Government the new government, but was subject to an inquiry into his business dealings by Mandelson's department. Mandelson failed to declare his interest in the affair and this led to Mandelson's first "resignation" (i.e. sacking).

Ten months later, he was brought back to government as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and in 2001 forced to resign again after it was revealed that he had been lobbying a Home Office minister for passports for a couple of Indian businessmen who were being approached to be the main sponsors of on of the Millennium Dome zones. At the time, the two brothers were being investigated in India for their (alleged) participation in a scandal that had taken place in Indian politics during the 1980s -- specifically, one that was about government corruption and politicians being given kick-backs in return for their "correct" decisions.

Nowadays Mandelson is British Commissioner of the European Union for Trade and has a great seat on the gravy train.

John Prescott

2007-05-10T12:33:00.000+01:00

Probably the most ineffective Cabinet Minister ever with the knack of getting overpaid whether he has job or not. Some of Prescott’s “highlights” while Deputy Prime Minister have included:

•Throwing a punch at a protestor who'd thrown an egg at him.

•Having his council tax paid for him out of the public purse. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4607110.stm)

•Having a number of sexual infidelities and harassment allegations, including his affair with Tracey Temple.

•Keeping his £134,000 a year Cabinet salary, chauffeured Jaguar car, his grace-and-favour flat at Admiralty Arch and the official country residence Dorneywood, in Buckinghamshire, despite losing his department. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=392986&in_page_id=1770)

•Being photographed playing croquet at Dorneywood when acting Prime Minister while Tony was away on holiday. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=388046&in_page_id=1770)

•Going on holiday to Phil Anschutz' ranch in America. Phil Anschutz is a gambling magnate and the man trying to convert the Millenium Dome into a Super Casino. Prescott had been chairman of the Cabinet committee responsible for developmental planning in the UK at the time. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/09/npresc09.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/09/ixuknews.html)

•Despite being Acting Prime Minister during the airport terrorism crisis of August 2006 (Tony was away on holiday, again) it was actually John Reid who chaired most of the meetings and key cabinet committees. Prescott was incredibly quiet throughout the period. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=400058&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=)

Failure To Meet Environmental Targets

2007-05-10T12:28:00.000+01:00

According to the BBC’s “Dispatches” (5/3/07) The Labour Government have failed to meet every environment target they have set to date and will only achieve 30% of the their self-set target by 2020. This will leave an almost impossible legacy for any Government trying to achieve the 2050 targets. These targets, of course, conveniently forget the contribution made by air travel to global warming and the Government’s policy to increase air traffic.

As “Dispatches” concluded, if Blair is judged on his environmental credentials them he will have been deemed a failure. Their program strictly concerned itself with 'Greenwash' i.e. the misleading and 'whitewashing' actions of Government and corporations on the subject of Green Credentials.

I wonder how they would have judged Blair on Transport, Security, Foreign Policy, Education and how many other ways his term in office could be deemed a failure…?

Education: The Last Chance Saloon

2007-05-10T12:23:00.000+01:00

It's always interesting to see when two people have diametrically opposed views. In a recent edition of BBC One's "Politics Show", Tony Blair claimed that his legacy as a prime minister would last and that the "final building blocks" of reform were being put in place before he staepped down.

As an example of how the country as improved since he became leader, Blair pointed to the school system and "he said only 80 schools in the country had 70% of their pupils getting five good GCSEs when the government came to power but "the figure today is over 600"." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6557439.stm)

Meanwhile, David Frost of the British Chamber of Commerce has called the education system a "national disgrace" and pointed to the fact that less than half of young people leaving school (43.8%) were doing so without at least five good GCSE grades. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6560199.stm).

The question has to be, who do you believe? The man at the forefront of British industry who has listened to his members' fears about failing education standards and their knock-on effect in recruiting suitable staff, or the man who is prepared to lie in order to take us to war?

"Education, Education, Education"

2007-05-10T12:21:00.000+01:00

A case of ‘never mind the quality feel the width.’ As with the NHS there is a postal code lottery with regards to the quality of schools and education that a child receives. Some schools are now holding actual lotteries to determine which pupils are to be given a place.

While A level successes increase and more pupils go on to study degrees, the variety of tertiary education opportunities available has now digressed to the point where subjects for study seem to be being invented to attract students to institutions that need to make the numbers up to justify their existence and so offer relatively pointless degrees. You can now go to university to study subjects like: Floristry and Floral Design; Football Studies; Stress Management; Embroidery; Garden Design; Refrigeration and Air Conditioning and Death and Society. Subjects which, frankly, could mostly be learnt from an apprenticeship rather than a three year course which eventually leaves the student with spiralling debt and a degree that binds them to a work field they could have joined three years earlier.

As students take more and more degrees that Industry does not want, no one bothers to ask what the economy or the nation requires so we have unemployed degree level students having wasted their time and money.

The general level of education has reached a point where the better Universities do not trust the exam results and want to set their own entry test and the Private schools have their pupils sit the International Test as opposed to the UK schools exams as they are better valued by employers and Universities.

Small and Medium sized businesses also claim that they are struggling to attract good people to work for them because too many people suffer from a combination of poor education and lack of vocational experience. (see http://www.tenongroup.com/Press/2006/Press060103.asp for a report)

Stealth Taxes

2007-05-10T12:18:00.000+01:00

As well as the highest National debt ever, the UK is also suffering from a record level of Stealth Taxes. As tax on fuel has increased, the UK now has the most expensive petrol in Western Europe.

The abolition of the married couples’ allowance (and replacement by Child Tax credits), the increase in stamp duty, the Company Car tax, the tax on pensions, the diversion of National Lottery funds to pay for public sector projects, the re-evaluation of council tax bands, the sale to mobile phone operators of licences for the use of blocks of transmission frequencies which were previously used for public services (As an example, in 2004 the Government held the UK 3G auction. This cost 3, Vodafone, BT, One2One and Orange nearly £22.5 billion (a total of £22,447,400,000) which they will then recover from the consumer over the 20 year contract period) and the auction of television frequencies after the switchover to digital are all other forms of stealth tax.

While Blair and Brown can claim that the UK is currently enjoying the lowest level of income tax it has had for decades, the increase in number of stealth taxes, and the revenue they generate, has meant that even as far back as 2001 tax increases were equivalent to a 10p increase in the rate of basic income tax.

For examples of UK stealth taxes since 1997, see: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/garbagegate/item2/stealth.htm

The Drugs (Policy) Don't Work

2007-05-10T12:14:00.000+01:00

According to a recent report by the UK Drug Policy Commission, "The United Kingdom has the highest level of dependent drug use and among the highest levels of recreational drug use in Europe." (http://www.ukdpc.org.uk/docs/UKDPC%20drug%20policy%20review%20exec%20summary.pdf) with addiction rates in the UK being double those found in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Between 1994 and 2005, there was a 111% increase in the number of drug-related arrests.

The UK's drug policy seems to be having no impact. In fact, drugs are now so easy to get hold of that prices are dropping -- for example, heroin prices have fallen frmo £70 per gram in 2000 to £54 per gram in 2005. This may have been affected by the "liberation" of Afghanistan, which allowed the poppy farmers to resume the opium cultivation that the Taliban had previously outlawed.

Even taking into account the re-classification of cannibis, which should (theoretically) have had an impact in the number of recorded offenses, our drug culture is prevelant and prolific with 14 year olds now reported to be using drugs on a daily basis (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6566237.stm) and a quarter of people aged 26-30 having tried a Class A drug at least once.

With Blair and Brown's cynical spin-and-stealth system of government, I'm only surprised that they haven't yet legalised drugs. Decriminalising them would be one way of massaging crime figures to make them look better, and if they were legal Brown could tax them....

National Debt

2007-05-10T12:13:00.001+01:00

We now have the highest national debt ever. According to the Government's statistics website, Statistics.gov.uk, at the end of the 2005/6 fiscal year general government debt was £529.1 billion, equivalent to 42.1% of GDP.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=277

Rising Crime Since 1997

2007-05-10T12:12:00.001+01:00

Tony Blair came to power promising that he would be “Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.” However, 2006 crime figures reveal that he has broken this promise.

Violent crime has doubled since 1998 and now stands at a recorded number of 1,220, 198 offences in 2006 compared to around 600,000 offences in 1998. Similarly, sexual offences, drug offences, robbery have all seen dramatic increases in the number of reported incidents.

However, even these figures may be misleading – according to the BBC's news website (in an article dated the 6th of March 2007) the introduction of “on the spot” fines mean that not only do repeat offenders escape getting sent to jail, but the offences don’t have to be entered into the police national database.

The BBC article can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6421547.stm while the UK's crime statistics can be seen at the Home Office's website, http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk

Congestion Charges

2007-05-10T12:09:00.000+01:00

The Congestion Charge was introduced to London to, as the name implies, reduce congestion. With 230 roadside cameras, and a number of mobile camera units, noting registration numbers of vehicles travelling in and out of the zone, the system cost £200 million to set up and costs roughly £100 -- £115 million annually to run.

The system was originally projected to have paid for itself within 3 years of going live, however the Congestion Charge has been, in a way, too successful – there has been a vast reduction in vehicles travelling within the charge zone, meaning that Transport for London (the organisation that runs the system) has been unable to generate any revenue and has been running the system at a loss since its introduction.

This effectively means that the Charge itself is not contributing to any improvements on road services, or subsidising alternative means of transport, and money that could be used for such schemes is being diverted to supporting the administrative costs. This means that drivers are basically getting charged for the privilege of getting charged.

A TfL report in 2004 predicted that only seven out of 13 government aims for Transport in London were going to be met by 2010, and that one of the aims that would NOT be met would be a reduction in congestion in London as a whole. This is primarily because while traffic levels in London are still increasing, drivers are keeping out of the Congestion Chare zone but simply driving though other areas of London instead so that the congestion problem has not been solved, merely displaced.

Indeed, studies suggest that London has exported much of its congestion to suburban towns in Greater London and within the M25. These towns are now becoming car parks for commuters who then catch trains into the centre of London, creating congestion problems elsewhere, increasing journey times and reducing parking facilities for local residents.

An overview and history of the London Congestion Charge can be found at Wikpedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge

Confidentiality

2007-05-10T12:08:00.000+01:00

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) gave out private and confidential information, including bank details, relating to 26,000 pensioners. (see The Telegraph's article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/10/npens10.xml.)

In an age where we’re increasingly warned about identity fraud and the measures we need to take to make sure we’re not victims of it, it now seems that there is no need for crooks to sift through the mail to steal an identity. Instead, you just wait for the Government to send you a few thousand.

The fact that the government is planning on a centralised database to contain ALL of your personal details should be enough to worry anyone.

Britain's Children

2007-05-10T12:05:00.000+01:00

UNICEF recently reported that British Children have the poorest life of those in any of the developed countries.

According to the Health Survey for England of 2004, obesity in children aged between two and ten rose from 9.9% in 1995 to 13.4% in 2004. A joint target was set between the Departments of Health, Education and Skills and Culture, Media and Sport to halt the year-on-year increases by 2010 but an MPs report has stated that there has been no concrete action taken since then, as reported by the BBC in January 2007 (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6294577.stm for details)

In the meantime, Scottish children are becoming overweight to such an extent that resultant diabetic conditions are now rampant enough to have been labelled an ‘epidemic’ by doctors, as reported on BBC Scotland and in The Scotsman in March 2007 (see The Scotsman's website for the article at http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=343582007)

The UNICEF report looked at 40 indicators over six categories: material well-being, family and peer relationships, health and safety, behaviour and risks, and children's own sense of well-being. The only category where the UK didn’t appear in the bottom third was Health and Safety.

UNICEF's report, Report Card 7, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries, can be found and downloaded at http://www.unicef.org.uk/publications/pub_detail.asp?pub_id=124

Cherie Blair, Queen of the Freebies

2007-05-10T12:01:00.000+01:00

Socialism is supposed to be about the fair distribution of property and wealth. Cherie Blair’s attitude, however, seems to follow the capitalist system.

In 2003, Cherie was invited to a Melbourne shopping centre and told to take a few items for free. She took 68 items.

In 2005, while her husband was visiting President of the United States George Bush officially, she gave a private speech in Washington's Kennedy Centre where she was paid £30,000 for her appearance.

Again in 2005,Cherie embarked on a charity speaking tour of Australia and recieved a £102,000 fee for after-dinner speaking. One £82-a-head dinner raised £81,270 of which (according to Consumer Affairs Victoria) only £6,690 of the total funds raised went towards cancer research.

In 2006, the Labour Party paid a £7,700 bill for her personal hair stylist, Andre Suard, during the 2005 General Election campaign. This amounts to £275 per day for the month leading up to the election, more than some prospective MPs spent on their campaigns.

And, as if to demonstrate exactly what Cherie thinks of her status, in 2006 she was granted an audience with the pope. Although Vatican convention dictates that women meeting the Pope should wear black, Blair chose to exercise the "white privilege," something which is only granted to the wives of Catholic monarchs.

Links:

"Cherie under attack: from fur in flight to freebies" at http://politics.guardian.co.uk/cherie/story/0,12713,1409010,00.html

Labour MPs accuse Cherie Blair of 'cashing in' at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/06/05/ncheri05.xml

Charity in Trouble Over Blair Tour at http://politics.guardian.co.uk/cherie/story/0,,1600795,00.html

Labour defends Cherie's hair bill at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4929026.stm

Bombings

2007-05-10T11:59:00.000+01:00

Tony Blair oversaw the greatest bombings and terror alerts on our mainland in the UK’S history. The July 7th bombings of 2005 saw 52 commuters die (coincidentally, the same number of UK deaths in the Afghan war) and over 700 injured. Two weeks later a second series of explosions occurred on the London Underground and a London bus, but the main charges failed to explode.

The July 7th bombings were notable for a number of reasons: they were the first suicide bombings in Western Europe; they were the deadliest bombing of London since the Blitz of World War Two; it was the deadliest terrorist attack on UK soil since the Lockerbie disaster and more people were killed than in any Provisional IRA attack that occurred during the Troubles.

Responsibility for the attacks has been claimed by people claiming to represent al-Quida, and the motivation for them has been retaliation for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Blair's Legacy

2007-05-10T11:57:00.000+01:00

According to Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the real legacy of Blair's time in power will eb one of "war and waste."

The Lib Dems have put together a dossier detailing some of the Labour Government's failings since assuming control of the UK in 1997, and point to: 160% rise in personal debt (now estimated to be £1.3 trillion), the gap between rich and poor being wider than it ever was during Thatcher's reign, the increase in carbon emmissions, the increase in class sizes, the ever-increasing NHS deficits and the fact that violent crime has doubled in the last decade.

See: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20070430/tuk-labour-s-legacy-is-war-and-waste-6323e80.html

The Afghan War

2007-05-10T11:52:00.000+01:00

On October 8th, 2001, less than 4 weeks after the 9/11 attacks on mainland America, American and British forces began an aerial bombing campaign that was to be the precursor for a war that is still ongoing. The Afghan invasion had two goals: to oust the Taliban in retaliation for letting al-Qaida train there and to capture Osama Bin Laden, the man held responsible for 9/11. However, there have been reports that America was planning an invasion of Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks, which suggests that they either knew that the USA was going to be attacked or that they were using those attacks as a handy excuse for the war which provided allied forces a “moral” reason for participating in a coalition invasion.

The invasion of Afghanistan was the start of a worldwide War On Terror which only seems to have toured the Middle East so far, and then only visiting the countries George W. Bush has a personal issue with. Since then, UK forces have suffered 52 deaths and (in 2006 alone) 85 casualties as hostilities continue. This, of course, pales into insignificance when compared to the estimated 5,000 – 7,000 civilian deaths that have occurred since Operation Enduring Freedom began.

The removal of the Taliban government has returned voting and democracy to Afghanistan, with 2005 seeing the first freely elected legislature since 1972. It has also seen the return of opium production, something banned under the Taliban regime and previously punishable by death. Opium now accounts for between one to two thirds of the nation’s GDP, while warlordism and banditry are rife.

The people of Afghanistan must be rejoicing.

Tony: Bovvered?

2007-04-29T11:52:00.000+01:00

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

2007-04-14T11:49:00.000+01:00