Prescott v Taxpayers Alliance

Earlier today, Guido Fawkes blogged 'Prezza Loses BBC Battle' in relation to John Prescott's letter to the BBC's Helen Boaden in which he asked:

I would therefore be keen to hear your views on the Guardian’s revelations and whethertheTaxPayers’ Alliance’s should now be referred to on air as “a group with close links to the Conservative Party” or some similar on-air clarification.

Boaden replied with:

"..whilst it is clear to me that the TPA is a conservative (small "c") organisation I do not think it would be accurate or fair to describe it on air, as you suggest, as "a group with close links to the Conservative Party.

I do accept that the TPA's publicatons and policies come from a distinctive political position and think we should try to avoid our output giving the impression that it is an impartial body."

Now I don't know about you but this seems rather a tame battle, Guido ended with:

Prezza is Twittering that this means “we’ve had some real success”. How?

Well, he asked if there could be an on air clarification about the TPA, and he has got one, not the one he wanted but this was 'real success' because it is another step on the road to the TPA being exposed as what they are. Once there is enough evidence I'd hope

One of the reasons that the BBC may have been reluctant to call the TPA "“a group with close links to the Conservative Party” may be the amount of anti-BBCfeeling within the right wing, and this is the sort of story about BBC 'bias' that would be jumped straight on by right wing rags like the Mail. The fact that they are right wing is pretty incontrovertible and is a logical if not entirely satisfactory compromise by the corporation.

The Taxpayers Alliance - A funny kind of independence

The most annoying campaign group/Tory front will be facing a quite considerable dilemma after the general election if everything goes as it looks likely to. If the Tories form a government, the Taxpayers Alliance will have to decide whether they continue to keep up the façade of being an independent campaign group that will campaign against anything the government of the time does, or admit to being a Tory front and not actually take the new government to task at all.

The signs look ominous, looking at the TPA's last set of press stories which they have whored themselves out to,  three of them are the same story, based on councils not picking up rubbish over the Christmas period. All of these stories are in right wing rags, and attacking Northampton, Walsall, and Oxford councils. A quick bit of research reveals that Oxford is run by a Labour council, Northampton by a Lib Dem council, and Walsall by a Tory council. Yet why does the TPA never seem to mention in its blogs or press releases the sort of stuff that Jon Cruddas and Chuka Umunna are now flagging up on Tory Stories is done by the Conservative party. There are very few if any negative mentions of the Conservative party across the TPA’s blogs.

This all comes back to one simple issue, the TPA don't want to admit that they are a Tory front organisation, even though it is painfully obvious, from the right wing rags they appear in (Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph) to the way that they never mention anything that the Tories are doing wrong in local government, to the fact that they are run by the likes of Andrew Allum who "led the student Conservative groups both in Imperial College and across London and sat on the national committee of the student wing of the party." and  “From 1998 to 2002 Andrew served as a Conservative member of Westminster City Council.” “He left the party in 2003” but hasn’t been too critical of it since. Matthew Elliott’s profile on their site shows their obvious connections with the Tories: 

“In 2006, the TPA won the ConservativeHome “One to Watch” award and in 2007 the Bumper Book of Government Waste was awarded the Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award. In November 2007, Matthew was presented with the Conservative Way Forward ‘One of Us’ award by William Hague and in December the TPA won the Stockholm Network's prestigious Golden Umbrella award for Innovation. In 2008, the TPA was named 'Pressure Group of the Year' by the readers of Iain Dale's Diary”

With all of this evidence, how can they not admit that they may be independent in name, their whole existence is to highlight what Labour have done wrong, while ignoring all the Tories are doing wrong in local government and taking all the plaudits they can from the Conservative party. That’s a funny kind of independence.

Is a Labour-Tory coalition unthinkable? Of course it is you fool

Martin Kettle seems to have lost it, as today in Comment is Free he decides that - contrary to all previous thinking - a Labour-Tory coalition is possible in the next general election. Where to start?

One significant option seems perversely unexplored – the big one: a deal between the two largest parties. That's right, between the Conservatives and Labour. Merely to state this possibility is doubtless to invite derision, and worse. For many on both sides a Conservative-Labour deal is in every respect the politically unthinkable.

It's unthinkable because it will never happen, and vice-versa. Can you imagine the reaction of the grass-roots of either party? Despite the fact that they have both moved closer to the centre in recent years, most Labour voters/members/politicians despise the other party.

It is nevertheless worth asking and answering, calmly, one simple question: Why not? The question deserves to be taken seriously for three main reasons. The first is that British elections are becoming increasingly fragmented. Votes and seats are shared between more parties than before. No large party can today count on automatic 40%-plus support as both Labour and the Tories once did. Inter-party deals have become common in the devolved authorities and local government. The trend would become more pronounced under a reformed Westminster electoral system.

The second reason is that some of the ancient differences between the main parties have blurred. This is sometimes misrepresented as "the parties becoming all the same", which is untrue. Nevertheless, some of the extremes of the past have been abandoned and some of the differences of today are more nuanced and pragmatic. Like football fans, British political parties retain a tribal culture, but the parties, like the football clubs, have learned they must adapt or perish.

The third reason is that, on occasion, needs must. There are practical arguments why, in some circumstances, an arrangement between the biggest parties might be the most viable option. A government of this kind might also do a good job, and might even be popular, too. Opinion polls certainly suggest as much.

The question also deserves to dismissed becuse of three main reasons...

1) Labour hate the Tories

2)Tories hate Labour

3) Despite at the top being closer than ever, at grass-roots level they are ideologically as far apart as ever

The idea is just crazy, both parties are closer to the Lib Dems ideologically so they are the perfect coalition partners.

I'd like to state categorically that this will not happen, if it does, I'll eat my face.

The most inspiring left wing leader

Johann Hari recently wrote a piece that interested me entitled “Amid dark times, meet the most inspiring people of 2009” including left wing Bolivian president Evo Morales:

“When Evo Morales was a child, the indigenous peoples of Bolivia weren't even allowed to set foot in the capital's central square, which was reserved for white people. Today, he is the President, and for the first time in his country's history, he is diverting the billions raised from the country's natural resources away from the pockets of US corporations. It is building schools and hospitals for people who had nothing, and poverty is being eradicated in a stunning burst of progress”

Much of this is true, public services investment has increased from 6.3% of GDP in 2005 to 10.5% in 2009 and as the report from CEPR states:

“It is worth nothing that this would not have been possible without the control that the government gained over its natural gas production and reserves”

There also appears to be a reduction in inequality in the years to 2007 with the Gini coefficient falling from 60.2 to 56.3.

Before reading I knew next to nothing about Morales but soon after I came across a blog post by Hersey Corner also about Morales in which he argued:

“That's one way of putting it. Another is that, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Morales has embarked upon a programme towards almost unlimited socialist state control. He has already nationalised gas, oil, mining and telecommunications and begun Zimababwe-style land reforms. Other sectors of the economy, including electricity and the banks, are already being lined up. When one opposition leader spoke up against Morales, a mob of the president's supporters ransacked his house.”

The first point is simply an ideological point, and as a right winger the Heresiarch is likely to take this position, one that I strongly disagree with. The nationalisation has been used to combat poverty, reducing the number of Bolivians living in extreme poverty from 37% to 31% The second point is a serious accusation but there seems little evidence to back it up with.

Morales has grown the Bolivian economy:

                                           

“Bolivian President Evo Morales, who nationalized the energy industry and rewrote the constitution, heads for re-election Dec. 6 bolstered by an economy projected to grow faster than any other in the hemisphere this year.”

He won that election with 63% of the vote and his party Movement Towards Socialism won large majorities in both the houses of the Bolivian parliament.

According to this Guardian report opponents of his regime are concerned that:

“The charismatic Aymara leader would become more radical and polarising and usher in an authoritarian personality cult.”

It’s not clear why anyone would think that apart from a western neo-liberal suspicion of socialist countries in the developing world. It’s been seen before in the criticisms of Hugo Chavez’ Venezuelan government and it’s completely unfounded.

There is actually an argument to say that he hasn’t gone far enough, Mike Gonzalez writes in this CiF piece:

“While the past four years have brought great advances in the recognition of indigenous rights and culture, the communities remain poor. The next Morales government has a responsibility to reward their support with a more forceful redistribution of wealth and to continue the progress towards the "21st century Latin American socialism" that he and other Latin American presidents will be attempting to define at next week's conference of Alba, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America.”

This “more forceful re-distribution of wealth” seems to be beginning with the new constitution and the redistribution of land that comes with it. This can only be a good thing for reducing inequality, something that has been needed for a long time. I wouldn’t go as over the top as Hari has done in his piece, the job is not yet done, but Morales seems the only man who can do it

Completely insane

When it comes to Daily Mail comments, there's funny, there's strange and then there's downright insane. This definitely falls into the latter category. I'm not quite sure what Weary, England is trying to say here about Jan Moir's latest piece of rubbish. Something to do with these lessons being a form of brainwashing which will get your kids taken away because mum and dad had a pillow fight.

I think he/she wants an end to MODERATION and then start with more EXCESSIVISM. Or possibly the other way round. 

It's one of the worst written things that I've ever seen. Yes, even worse than Littlejohn.

The Sun on Tiger Woods crashing into a tree - He's having an affair!!

Whereas the Guardian have written a normal article based on facts. The Sun have taken it into their own hands to publish unfounded accusations.

Many other newspapers have covered the story, including the Express, the Independent, and the Times and none of them have given these accusations the light of day.

So where did the Sun get the accusations that firstly, Tiger had a row with his wife and secondly, rather more seriously that he has been having an affair. The Sun claims:

Reports in the US claim he has been cheating on her with party hostess Rachel Uchitel, 34.

“Reports in the US” seems to be a sneaky way to print wild allegations without substantiating them whatsoever.

The Independent also prints the allegations, but unlike the Sun they don’t make them the centre of the story, in the last line printing…

Rumours about the golfer's private life surfaced this week with a tabloid newspaper speculating about marital unrest, but it had little evidence to substantiate its outlandish claims.

Note how a respectable newspaper doesn’t engage in wild speculation and even the claim of marital unrest is said to be “unsubstantiated.” Even though the Independent is a quality paper, if they had found out through sources that they trusted and believed that Woods was having marital problems or even an affair, it would have featured more prominently in the story.

None of the American sources that claim this affair, such as this, this and this have any actual evidence to back it up and the Hollywood Gossip names the newspaper the National Inquirer (which first made the allegations) as “the unreliable tabloid”

Even the Mail and the Express have not gone as far as claiming an affair, with the former claiming an argument, and the latter – surprisingly – having the decency not to print unsubstantiated allegations.

It just makes you wonder, how low will the Sun sink?

Police brutality

Whatever inquiries such as this one say, makes little difference. The sort of brutality dished out at the G-20 protests was not officially sanctioned, it was individual police officers ignoring instructions and deciding that they could do what they wanted.

The inquiry comes up with a number of suggestions such as this one:

The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an "approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent".

All well and good, but if the individual police officers continue to act as they did at the G-20 protests, i.e. pushing over a man walking along with his hands in his pockets, there will be no change. The assault of Ian Tomlinson was not done as part of a policing stratagy of brutality, it was done because police officers felt that in the middle of a crowd, protected by removing their ID they could do what they like. Until the average police officer is made accountable to the public this sort of thing will keep happening.

Public order training should be overhauled, with a new emphasis on schooling the 22,500 officers trained for protests in communication and diplomacy rather than riot scenarios. "Time spent on suppressing mass urban disorder should be reduced and time spent on planning and keeping the peace should be increased," O'Connor said.

This and any other measure brought in will have no effect until the police are taken to account and remeber that they (like politicians) are public servants.

And since the Met seem not to like the proposals anyway

Although the Met is expected to endorse today's report, O'Connor's findings will be seen as a damning indictment of a style of policing protest pioneered by Scotland Yard in the last decade. Senior Met officers are known to have lobbied hard against some of O'Connor's proposals, at one stage even hiring lawyers in an unsuccessful attempt to oppose one of his key recommendations.

What chance is there of any change? Only time - and another big protest - will tell. I'm not confident.