In defence of Nadine Dorries, MP

It's funny to be writing this, but I somehow feel I ought to because this particular MP has been both courageous and insightful. Unless I am much mistaken, she has little to be ashamed of and much to recommend herself. To catch up on matters political I listened to a large chunk of Iain Dale's Play UK talk radio show. Iain's got great radio presence, but the calls are jarringly bad audio-wise. Anyhow, one early caller was apopleptic about Ms Dorries' intervention in the MPs' expenses issue- where she accused the Telegraph of running a witchhunt against MPs because they favoured parties such as the BNP and UKIP. That's the gist of things, anyway. I merely want to comment that I think she is right, essentially, in saying that the Telegraph's campaign is politically motivated. It follows on from my thoughts expressed earlier.

I think it stems from McBride and Andrew Porter, who rumour has it have that most intense of relationships- drinking partners.

The more I hear and read about expenses, the more I see it as an effective technique for smoking out the "conservative sleaze" meme on which the Labour party founded its 1997 election victory. Watching the Mckenzie-Kirkbride scandal unfold, and Douglas Hogg's "moat" and other issues, one is reminded that for Labour "Tory sleaze" was about staining the characters of their opponents, exposing them as not "one of us". Even if Labour MPs were the most dishonest bunch in the world, they would always know how to slip inside, or into the slip stream of, the mob baying against corruption. The essence of Labour politics has always been the management of the mob- for right or wrong- and it's always been the failure of Conservatives and Liberals to analyse and absorb those techniques which has left them with two left feet when the "public" is on the march. Only Maggie had a deft two-step; a kind of Joan of Arc chic routine.

To come back to Dorries and the McBride connection, I notice that a small but notable part of the Telegraph's expenses story against Dorries was the allegation that she had claimed for hotel expenses in London when Parliament wasn't sitting, and added to those claims a mini-bar drinks cabinet. Well, I seem to recall that one of McBride's smears to Draper involved allegations of hotel hi-jinks. Could it be that the Telegraph and McBride had actually collaborated in the development of that story? Did the Telegraph know about the hotel claims and extrapolate over a jar or two the possibility of Dorries' engaging in a little nookie on taxpayers' expense?

When McBride constructed his smears he was doubtless doing so from background information which he deemed might make it convincing. Having failed miserably and spectacularly thanks to Guido Fawkes, could McBride have turned to Porter and asked for the nuclear option? To enrage the mob by blowing up the whole issue of MPs' financial behaviour, trusting in the native party-machine cunning of Labour embezzlers plus the Telegraph's cunning selectivity and timing to manage the fallout so that the Tories finally saw most of the damage. Given the building perception of Labour incompetence and sleaze, McBride and Labour, and probably even Gordon Brown, had nothing to lose.

So back to Dorries. Why did she accuse the Telegraph as she did? Well, not I think because the Telegraph are BNP supporters. I think because she was desperate to raise the issue of the Telegraph's connivance against her and colleagues. Raising it now, so that it can be examined later. Raising it now because it's the closest thing to reality and a real understanding of what's been going on in secret behind closed doors or shouted conspiratorally over the hubbub of a throbbing bar.

It might be more accurate to describe the Telegraph as doing Labour's business, but who would believe that? Didn't the Telegraph, after all, begin with Government ministers in their expose? The reality seems to be that the Barclay brothers and their Telegraph editorship want a more pliable, clubbable alternative to the prospective Cameroons embodied in the Mckenzies and the Dorries. They want nu-Labour lite, Mcbride and other pragmatists; corporate socialism which has them at its core. One cannot say exactly what they want but one can say that they want influence.

So maybe they do want the BNP, after all.

He's got a point

Richard North says that the issues run deeper than expenses.

Yes, but.

People are looking to make political change, not an ideal world.

It's surely obvious that MEP's expenses afford worse abuses than Westminster's, but the difference is we can get at our MPs and that's where concerned people have to begin.

Only when we've got tough on our MPs will any of them scrutinise MEPs- ditto for the newspapers.

Concern about Parliament equals resistance against Strasbourg.

The issue about expenses relates to the housing crisis- so many MPs becoming land owners through taxpayer's money- especially nuLabourites on the make. How could MPs scrutinise inflationary issues when they relied on the rise in house prices to maximise the value of their taxpayer afforded second homes?

But actually, Richard would have more of a point if he tried to put meat on the bones of Hannan and Carswell's Plan. I just don't think Richard likes Hannan very much...

Labourgraph at it again...

This blog has never in its lifetime been a fan of the Daily Telegraph. I hate to use words like "infiltrated" because such words have no class- but then again nor does the Telegraph or its New Labour allies. So to use the word about the Telegraph is probably apt. They have been ever more compromised by associations with New Labour attack dogs and their poodle chums at the BBC, and all the mutts involved are thoroughly wormy.

For a moment back there (ooh, three days ago) I was half-tempted to believe that it had got its mojo back. Alas not. The DT is about to launch a fresh attack on Tory MPs over expenses.

It is evident that MPs are rich targets, but consider how the DT have attacked- first New Labour, the Government. Yes, that was sensible as their core readers are Conservatives who like the smell of Labour reputations smouldering in the morning. But the DT knows that Labour is already damaged goods. What they are doing by raising the whole expenses issue the way they are is levelling the playing field. They are enabling a new tabula rasa to emerge, with Gordon Brown able to claim a kind of twisted moral leadership; a one-eyed man in the land of the blind he will assert with his grotesque sense of entitlement.

It seems somehow inconceivable that Gordon can bludgeon his way out of his desperate mess of a government, but there is this uncomfortable sense that he could that's rather like the feeling most horror films give you about two thirds of the way through. He's not dead yet. Much more so than with Tony Blair, who was somewhat closer to Frankenstein's creator than the monster himself, I feel the need for that final killing mechanism; to mix marques, that stake through the heart that shows the monster is really through and that you can relax in your seats. The true horror of horrors is that the ending is beyond your control- so this horror story probably still has some way to run

Confession- I once debated to reinstate the death penalty in the UK. And won. Ok, we were 17 at the time, but...

Actually, why am I confessing that? I still believe in it and stories like one about a brutish, totally evil Serb who stabbed his wife to death make me certain I was right. Yes I know there's the thing about the wrongful conviction scenario, but people rarely consider that for the highest penalty the evidential requirement would, could and ought to be of Mnt Sinai proportions. Consider the case of the evil Serb. Is there any doubt about it?

Damage limitation

The BBC's article about "key people" involved in "smeargate" is rather hopeless. We get to hear about McBride, Draper and Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines), but that is all. What about Tom Watson, Charlie Whelan and Gordon Brown? Limiting the scandal to the former three is confining it to the status of backroom vs blogger spat (and btw what's going on with Draper's photo- the last time he looked like that was surely around the time that things could only get better?). Whelan was apparently copied in on the emails, and helping to fund Draper's Labour List through his union position at UNITE. Tom Watson is parliamentary secretary at the Cabinet Office, "proppa blogga" and co-author of a Cameron spoof video with Sion Simon MP which went viral through its very awfulness and unpleasantness. The medium, the nature and the origin (the Cabinet Office) of the dirty tricks campaign were right out of the heart of Watson's political territory.

Nadine Dorries writes today that Radio Five Live said in advance of an interview that they "were being leaned on by lawyers with regard to any reference to Tom Watson MP and before I went on, would I just be aware of that". Sounds like a cover story to me- because Watson is unquestionably worthy and uncontroversially part of the context of the scandal of the smear campaign. Could the BBC really be as submissive to nuLabour as not to realise that? Mention of him need only be reference to his position next to McBride in Gordon's bunker. Apart from that, he was either copied the emails or not- but why would he need to be if he could read them over McBride's shoulder. And isn't Watson's proximity to events and authority over those responsible key too?

All of which does not explain for a moment why Whelan and the Prime Mentalist Minister were left out of the equation. What would explain it is the BBC's soft heart towards their cherished nuLabour project.

Obamateurism

"It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There's a lot of -- I don't know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing -- and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics."

(from his press conference in Strasbourg). (hat-tip Lubos Motl)

I couldn't be Baracked

Barack was in Prague today, home of this blog but rarely mentioned in it. I had too much to do to go and see the One make his speech in the castle, but watching the speech I see the hazy sunshine somewhat spoilt the vista of the Golden City behind Obama's shoulder (though it did look very golden as a result). The speech was an odd one really, mostly about nuclear disarmament. He talked a lot about the power of peaceful protest- didn't mention Ronald Reagan once, or the US military build up, or the star wars project which all combined to help crush Russian morale and free the dissident movement in then Czechoslovakia.

The first three or four minutes were nice, tailored, script-written homilies to local colour and US ties. The next twenty were triagulating politics trying to garb itself in dopey peacenik idealism. The mulitlateral schtick went down wellish. He refrained from too much global warming schtickiness, possibly out of respect to sceptical Klaus the Czech President. Not too much about the "road to hell" (aka trillion $ stimuli) either.

All in all he didn't destroy the brand, but he isn't developing it either. I have grave fears about where his leadership, such as it is, will leave the US and the world three or four years down the road. Road to hell? Road to nowhere? Or just plain old schtick creek without a paddle?

Coincidences (Irish edition)

So, Democrat Barack Obama's in power and Hillary is talking about talking to everyone Bush wouldn't talk to.

Gordon Brown confers a knighthood on Teddy Kennedy.

The world economy is in crisis, and the Irish is more than most, with unemployment in the South rocketing.

Martin McGuinness calls British troops in Northern Ireland a "major threat".

Two days later two British soldiers are killed and six wounded in a terror attack on a UK Northern Irish base.

Watch Russia

To some it might sound belated to say this, to others pretty much an odd point to make. Nevertheless Russia is certainly shaping something up and it is not pretty. Consider:

Today Iran hails their close ties with Russia as a leading weapons supplier. Yesterday Kyrgistan issue an "eviction note" to a US military base key to the US' efforts in Afghanistan.

To that we could add last August's invasion of Georgia, the ongoing threats and posturing over the US' plans for radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic and the divide and "conquer" strategy applied to the supply of natural gas to Central and Western Europe via Ukraine.

That's without even mentioning Alexander Litvinenko and Ana Politskaya.

What we can see is a combination of intimidatory "testing" of the resolve of Western nations, and the strategic undermining of their positions in areas where they have, wittingly or by blind necessity, declared an interest.

Those seem to be the knowns. What are the known unknowns? How bad the Russian economy is, how deep the revival in their technology, science and military has been, and who they have secretly formed alliances with (Iran would be on my list of suggestions). All I can say is that a lot can be hidden in the vastness of the Russian territorium and populace. And this enigma is a mystery I don't wish particularly to see unriddled (cf Winston Churchill's original)

And again.

I am nothing to do with finance, and even little readjustments in financial arrangements stress me out- I even hate taking precautionary measures to my very basic financial set-up, like opening a second major bank account (why should I? Bank accounts are safe and boring, right?). So it's strange to contemplate that ever since the financial crisis even reared its head in 2007 I've been of the same opinion, which I am more and more convinced is the right one. You identify the dodgiest banks or sections of banks, liquidate them, hand on any left-over viable assets along with the accounts held in those dodgy banks to banks with a reasonable chance of survival having been less egregiously risk-oriented and bonus-fixated.

Here comes the difficult bit- you then identify the prime-movers behind the risk-taking and prosecute them for failing in their fiduciary duty to shareholders and for recklessly and knowingly defrauding the financial system. This last part is not covered by Roger Ehrenberg's post, but the first part is.

He concludes his post:

"sometimes the most complex problems can be addressed with the most simple solutions"

Hear, hear. I simply agree with him.

"The Government needs to get tough. The nation's top bankers must be called to a private room and be forced to put their cards on the table – fully disclosing their exposure to sub-prime liabilities in the UK and elsewhere. It should be made clear that any executive who withholds information, which it can later be proven they knew, will be subject to criminal prosecution.

Once the exposures are clear – or clearer – we need further consolidation. The weaker banks that have made the worst decisions must be subsumed by stronger, more prudent institutions. That's how capitalism works, or is supposed to work. But ministers and regulators are blocking this fundamental purging process, preventing credit markets from rebooting and storing up untold problems for the future."

At last my own preferred outline articulated. Link here

Since we need a "tough government" and not a stalinist one, we had better get a new one. Fast.

Olympian Games

It's entirely predictable that the Olympics have become mostly about politics. In fact, it seems to me they've become a touchstone for who we are.

To take four (maybe five) nations, it seems clear the Olympics tell us a lot.

China's been face-spending from the start (normally they try and save face - this time they're spending it). All the chicanery with the opening ceremony (something I never, ever watch but heard about this time), and all the kerfuffles about their gymnasts, speak volumes about the nature of the Dragon, weaving a spell of invincibility through aggressive trickery.

Then there's Russia- who simply aren't trying to win the Olympics, but find them convenient for invading other people's lands. A country who've had enough lean times to know you can't eat, drink and be merry on old Gold medals from fixed events past.

The USA meanwhile, are taking it easy while sizing up the Bear. Not straining to beat the little yellow people they are just strolling along through the endeavours of their nuclear threat (Phelps) and their excellent missile defense (the entire basketball team). The trickery of the Chinese doesn't bother them none (well, they're not admitting it), and they can see that the Chinese mainly do well when there are judges involved in awarding medals.

Just a little aside now to look at the Australians. As ever their culture is defined by the glance sideways at Britain- and they never get much beyond that; part envious, part contemptuous, part lustful, part (maybe) affectionate.

Finally the Brits. It's golden time for the British competitors. Evidently we concentrated out lottery cash and made it worth people's while to stay in training continuously. And then the advertising revenue follows... But somehow it gives me only that instinctive pleasure I get from British success in anything, and sporting success from anyone, combined. Pleasurable yes, but... it's this hilarious success built on gambling which is so unreal. Truth be told, not many countries sail wondrous varieties of boats, or row in crews, or invest in all the cycling gear, or care about the Olympics the way we do. Not that it's wrong- it's actually good. Yet to build self-esteem on this flimsy and fake international festival seems to be so much bullshit. Is it me, or do things seem to be falling apart? The center apparently is partying in Peking, and cannot hold. The Russians are in Georgia, the Taliban is rising, the Pakistanis revolting, the economies on which we are founded dissolving in debt. Only Iraq is good- and they were nearly banned.

An authority speaks (a little less delusionally than is usual)

"Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia's attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even -- though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities -- the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives. Yes, we will continue to have globalization, economic interdependence, the European Union and other efforts to build a more perfect international order. But these will compete with and at times be overwhelmed by the harsh realities of international life that have endured since time immemorial. The next president had better be ready."

I readily agree that Russia has confirmed that it is what it seemed to be - a despotic power still. The amount of money sloshing around there is frightening though, as a backdrop to this. I have to say I had to restrain myself at the sight of Bush waving his little US flag at the Olymics, as if it matters. But then, in the back of my mind I always think of Drake's game of bowls, and in truth there's nothing like staying calm.

I think that Kagan's notion that the EU will simply sail cautiously through is very optimistic- the EU has gathered together in weakness, and is like a herd of ruminants which has suddenly discovered there's a tiger in the bushes; the tiger is wounded by history and pretty hungry too.

A good day for burying.... what!?

The opening of the Olympics in that bird's nest (not that this sports fan cares much) and Russia invades Georgia. George Bush has a quiet word in Pute's ear (as they watch the opening ceremony in Beijing) and stares into his honest eyes on what the Chinese believe is one of history's luckiest days (08/08/08), which also happens to be that on which leading Democrat John Edwards admits to his affair with some woman whom nobody would care about had Edwards not been the "values" candidate playing happy families and "rock" to a seriously ill spouse, and had he not lied about it repeatedly in a brazen post-Clintonesque way.

It ought to be the silly season.

Gorilling news

Well, I am very pleased to hear that Gorilla numbers are higher than they've been saying for the last 20 years.

One personal observation I made while I lived for a spell in Africa was how much better at living alongside nature Africans (Kenyans specifically) were than they were generally perceived to be. Flora of all kinds and forna of all except snakes were pretty much welcome. They don't like things eating their cows or their crops, but outside of direct provocation, Africans are pretty harmless to animals. One reason why Africa is less developed is that Africans like widening their eyes to nature, and going with its flow. But that's by the bye, I guess.

Can we burn the fiddlers yet?

"Swedish unemployment suddenly jumped from 5.9 per cent to 8.1 per cent"

Seasonally adjusted?

Anatole Kaletsky sounds an optimistic note concerning the world economy. Personally I'm a pessimist, but mainly relating to the UK economy. Others around the world will continue to grow as the banks reign in UK spending and the housing market goes way way down.

Yet what is interesting to me about the Swedish statistics is that they are so dramatic. I suppose it could be a routine matter, relating to the end of university courses in June/July, but if so then why is it highlighted?

The more I see of statistics in governments, the more I question. Of course I know there are lies, damned lies, etc, but I think that that very truism has been exploited to the limit. After all, when statistics are massaged- and dahhling they obviously are- you're left to "trust" the masseurs. But the truth is that at the end all statistics mean something concrete to someone somewhere and are not just means of manipulating paltry currents of franchise- ie. voters.

An interesting thing that Kaletsky points to is the division between economists and financiers- the latter being the pessimists- " The consensus view among economists, as opposed to financiers, at present is that the United States is experiencing, at worst, a mild recession"... . It occurs to me that that's because financiers are the ones who are performing the sums and to whom these sums have real-life consequences. Declining fortunes are real-life enough. Future income opportunities are real-life enough.

It all brings me nicely to Richard North's post about data manipulation. It rather disappoints me (naive as I must be) that people resort to crude data manipulation. It's a brutal but effective way of coralling those you distrust and dislike, and it doesn't require a terrible deal of intellect. Most boring and most damaging- I think it will be seen as most criminal too, in the long run.

„because there is no-one who has a monopoly of patriotism, there is no one who can claim that he has a monopoly of the sovereign will of the people... I hope that all of us who are signatories to this memorandum always must bear in mind the mother and the child who goes to sleep without food, the people who have been brutalised, the divisions and the hate speech... I hope that that is the world of the past“

The admirable Morgan Tsvangirai speaking at a press conference carried by the BBC. Truth-telling is not a quality associated with African leaders. Tsvangirai sounds about as good as I've heard. The world of the future, perhaps?

Congratulations Tsvangirai, congratulations Zimbabwe.

The billion dollar bluffs

Iran's leadership must be laughing in its boots at the results of their missile trickery the other day. Oil hits a new high, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac plunge towards the rocks (these laughably named mortgage lenders).

Did you know that Osama Bin Laden targeted high oil prices in his scheme to lay the West low? Well, he did (yes, I read Drudge too).

I wouldn't mind putting a little flutter myself- on the bearded one actually being harboured in Iran. The old Sunni-Shia-elite two step.

Character observations

It's interesting to observe politics and ask oneself who makes a good leader, and why.

As GW Bush approaches the last stretch of his presidency, Andrew Roberts writes an historian's assessment of his time in office. He opens with one of those so-easy-to-mess up accounts where he is actually describing another President, also unpopular at the time, but now well regarded. He focusses mainly on the international agenda, as has the President most of the time. What emerges is a nascent narrative of success, concealed by personal unpopularity.

Potentially Bush's Presidency could become seen as a rare triumph for humanity in politics- achieved in the teeth of the failing political machine of Congress and under the incurious eyes of the fouth estate. I like this idea. I watched Adam Boulton interview the President and his wife last weekend, and I found myself wishing there'd been more of Bush to be seen over the last few years in such settings. It has always been the hostile press conference, or the stiff formal occasion, that has been Bush's staple and his responsibility. In the Boulton interview, the high pitched guffaw which I am sure has got the goat of many a BBC journalist (eg. Matt Frei??) was in evidence, and with it, a quick and fundamentally sound mind sought to get a high vantage point to deal responsibly and with vigour and optimism with the relatively reasonable probing of Sky's top man. It was both fun and real- qualities generally appreciated by ordinary people but so uninteresting to the studiously polticised elite.

So much for character- Bush's character and his personality are at one, which is his fundamental strength.

By contrast Gordon Brown has received many a sympathetic treatment from the BBC. At one time the in depth cosy chat with Andrew Marr was virtually bi-weekly, as Gordon sought to recreate the image of Uncle Harold (Wilson) to reassure voters and burnish his credentials as a man of depth. The whole thing was image-based, even after Gordon had pledged an end to spin as he entered Downing Street.

Now Guido Fawkes and the Conservative media team have given Gordon a complete makeover of their own. Fawkes (who is evidently quite a brilliant man) highlights the Conservative take up of his idea and says "Destroying the reputation of Gordon was easy once they tried - because he had a false reputation"