Leadership Contest and A New Poll

Labour's leadership contest is hotting up faster than the weather, though things may cool off with regard to both by the bank holiday weekend. The long range forecast indicates we're in for a long, hot summer of infighting followed by an announcement either very shortly before or during the party conference in September.

We're in for along, hot summer of Labour infighting - who'll be the first to feel the flames?

As a result, our latest poll - created just last week - was beginning to look distinctly elderly as various seemingly sure-fire contenders have backed away and other surprise candidates have stepped up to the mark so we've created a new, up to date version which can be seen on the left of the page. If you've already voted, you can now vote again and either stick with your previous choice or go with one of the new names - we'll keep tabs on total votes and see who looks favourite among readers in a few weeks, even if the list needs further updates.

Clegg and Cameron - when love ends

Ever made the mistake of putting off something your partner wants to do - maybe a holiday, moving in together, marriage, something pervy - for so long that eventually they decide you're never going to do it and move on? And then you're wracked with remorse so you contact them and beg them to come back, promising you'll do anything they ask in future, but it's all too late because they've found someone else who does do whatever it was you wouldn't?

Well anyway - let's just hope Clegg makes the right decision. The Liberal Democrats would be so much better off with Labour, rather than being Cameron's bitches. You go, girl!

Results in!

Yes folks, it's the moment you've been waiting for - the results of the latest Acid Rabbi poll are in, and an amazing five people took the time to vote so you can bet your own grandmother this will tell you something truly meaningful about popular opinion in Britain today!

We asked:

"Is David Cameron...

A: An honest man who will do his best for Britain?

B: A transparent ballot-whore who will say anything if he thinks there's a vote in it?

C: A sort of cross between an arse and a potato?"

Answer A received a grand total of no votes at all, leading us to believe that - unsurprisingly - no Tories read Acid Rabbi. Answer B got 80% - four votes, which suggests not everyone's taken in by the shameless liar. Answer C - our choice - scored 40%, two votes, due to the fact that we allowed people to vote twice and made the results pretty much useless as a result.

How will you vote on May the 6th?

Ah well - let's hope the vote on May the 6th isn't too different. Even another Labour term has to be better than DavCam and his gang. Anyway - now vote in our new poll: How do you intend to vote int he General Election - Conservative, Labour, LibDem, Green, UKIP, Fascist Scumbag Party (also known as the BNP) or by writing "Fuck Off" on a brick and chucking it through a House of Commons window?

The Leaders' Debate: a mere sideshow trifle

This was, without doubt, the worst Kraftwerk gig I've ever watched.

The circus was well and truly in town for one night only in Manchester last night, with three clowns bringing joy and light into the lives of the benighted serfs that inhabit the God-forsaken hole. David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg each performed a hilarious comedy routine with much slapstick, custard pie throwing and tipping of buckets full of brightly coloured confetti into one another's pants. The crowd went wild - or at least, they would have done, but "pre-arranged rules" and in all likelihood cattle prod-wielding security ensured they remained rooted to their seats and kept shtum. A Question Time audience would have jeered themselves hoarse.

The general consensus is that the boy Clegg, who looked about 20, did rather well for himself - he looked calm and relaxed and even cracked a semi-joke or two at the others expense. Cameron was caught by surprise on a number of occasions by presenter Alastair Stewart, who wasn't taking shit from anyone, when he was cut off mid-flow and left gawping "but...but..." like a semi-sentient goldfish. Brown, bless his little tartan socks, tried his best and forced a smile or two, but as is his downfall he came across as dour, moody and tired. Opinion polls today seem to agree Cleggy delivered - the LibDems are showing a marked upturn, while Labour and the Tories dive downwards. It'd not enough to win them the election, but if Nick can keep it up they may well be in for their best result in decades.

The leaders discussed a variety of issues, including Acid Rabbi favourites immigration (none of them taking quite as liberal a position as we would - ie; let people go where they want when they want - but it's apparent each party has some reasonably solid ideas. Sadly all ideas based on dealing with widespread public worries by limiting immigration rather than educating them so they understand immigration is more likely to solve than cause problems, but there you have it. Clegg pulled a real trick on this one by being the only participant to actually say something nice about immigrants, a fact that will do him no end of favours since the majority of British people are not racist) and MP's expenses, which took the form of the usual "we're really, really sorry" with a noticeable lisp on the 's' in sorry which is hissed out by their devious, forked tongues. This one was always going to play well for Clegg as the LibDems came out of the expenses scandal in far better shape than the other main parties. Cameron and Brown made all the usual noises but it was evident that the stage, which looked rather like it had been cobbled together from 1988-vintage Countdown sets (and thinking of it, doesn't Alastair Stewart look a little like a cadaverous Richard Whiteley?) had become a very uncomfortable place.

The economy took up a fair chunk of the show and Mrs. Rabbi, who is a woman and thus has a keen eye for details such as this, noted that the cost of Parliament for 2010 could have been reduced dramatically had the three amigos chosen to wear something out of their wardrobes or an off-the-peg BHS suit rather than each spending something probably not far off the average British family's monthly income on some admittedly fine-lookin' threads. Clegg - easily the cutest of the three, says Mrs. Rabbi - wore a smooth charcoal grey number with a LibDem yellow tie and he wore it well, looking relaxed, comfortable and even cool. Cameron, as ever, looked like a boiled potato in a regulation dark blue Tory suit with blue tie but having been born in Savile Row's finest it was a boiled potato dressed with the very finest mayonnaise. His shoes looked like they probably worth as much as a healthy pair of kidneys on the black market (and who knows? Being a Tory, they may well have been made of kidneys ripped from the lithe young body of a working class teenager). Brown went for dour-yet-dependable black. That he - a man who is not in the very best of shape - looked notably prime ministerial is token of his tailor's admirable skills. He wore the Red Tie of Socialism, which he possibly sees as a suitable replacement for flying the Red Flag that his predecessor ripped up and burnt back in 1997. Sadly, he was unable to sound prime ministerial and came across as slightly confused, sad and wishing he was elsewhere.

That got us thinking - what did the gig actually achieve, especially when so many important matters - technology, the Middle East and so on - were not mentioned? Well: Clegg persuaded a few undecideds who vote according to how good a candidate looks on the telly that they should go with him and Cameron and Brown convinced a few others that doing so might not be a bad idea. That was about it, really. But it's not even nearly enough to make a LibDem government a likely prospect - while the Daily Telegraph claims that if the General Election was held today, the LibDems would win 159 seats (Labour would win 165, the Tories 294), Clegg's inability to throw himself headlong into political scraps will ensure last night's performance is forgotten by all but a few pundits and bloggers by the 6th of May so if anything it just makes a hung parliament look more probable. Secondly, what did it cost? ITV, perhaps because they took the unusual decision not to screen any adverts for the full 90 minutes, spent little - the set probably cost about a fiver and whereas Stewart is doubtless not on minimum wage whatever they paid him will be seen as a bargain in return for 9.8 million viewers (plus however much other channels pay them for the right to show the debate) - but whatever they spent will have been covered by their own budget, which is made up of what advertisers pay them. How much, we wonder, did it cost us, the tax-payers?

It was obvious that in addition to their posh suits and shiny shoes, each leader had been subject to a whole host of image consultants, stylists and who knows what else over the last few weeks. Their voices may have faltered as they argued around tricky points, but visually all three men were stunning. Clegg, who had been jotting down notes throughout, made a great show of reciting the names of those who had asked questions (including Joel, the rabbi's son who drove Nick Griffin into a corner during his notorious Question Time appearance and wouldn't let him out again, a lad who will probably be presenting programmes of this type in a few years' time) and thanking them - perhaps it was insincere and a calculated attempt to make him look more human, but coming at the end of 90 minutes in which he had shown himself to have infinitely better manners than his rivals it was PR gold and charmed the crowd. Brown, perhaps realising suddenly that this was his last chance to show he too cares about the proles, made a last ditch effort and shook hands with a few members of the audience. Cameron stood staring ahead, as if trying to work out whether or not his performance was sufficiently poor to put his party behind Labour in the polls - it wasn't, though we're not going to pretend you didn't do a piss-poor job last night, posh boy.

Many bloggers are calling the debate a gladiatorial contest but we disagree. While entertaining, it was nothing more than an mildly amusing circus routine. Some people will have decided who to vote for last night, but let's credit the public with some intellect - most people don't vote according to how nice Clegg, Cameron or Brown's suit looks, how shiny their shoes are or how accomplished a performer on stage they are (though I have to admit, had one of them showed up in paratrooper boots, combat trousers and a Crass t-shirt they'd have earned a lifetime's party membership fees from me). Even in these days of gym-joining narcissism, botox and celebrity-worship, the majority of the electorate vote for the candidate representing the party that supports the views they share and the causes they believe in. The Liberal Democrats scored some valuable points last night, the Conservatives lost some and Labour flogged a dead horse but all three demonstrated their belief that the public are a bit thick with loyalties that can be bought for a few shiny trinkets.

Harman appeals to Arnie to shut down prostitute-ratings website

Punternet is a website which allows users to rate prostitutes - including some from London - which has got Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman all hot under the collar.

OK, so it's a bit on the tasteless side, but hasn't Harriet realised yet that however much she dislikes the concept of prostitution it's been around for a lot longer than she has and isn't going to go away? Has she been talking to Jacqui Smith, whose Policing and Crime Bill sought to transfer blame from prostitutes onto clients and as such was widely attacked by feminists, women's rights groups and prostitutes (the latter surely being the experts in these matters) who believed it would lead to an increase in violence towards prostitutes as punters took more aggressive and violent steps to hide their activities, while at the same time making it harder to establish and run lapdancing clubs so that women with no alternative way of making a living would be forced to turn to prostitution instead?

Harriet Harman - has appealed to the Terminator for help in getting rid of website Punternet.
Image from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 licence.

Harriet, who in also being able to call herself Lord Privy Seal, Leader of the House of Commons, Deputy Labour Leader, Party Chair of the Labour Party and MP for Camberwell and Peckham has almost as many titles as Count Mandelson of Transylvania, told the Labour Conference that the website is "degrading." Of course, it's not really any different to a site which allows people with faulty cars to look at user ratings for various repair firms - somebody supplies a service for a price, people want to know they're going to get a good deal. It's seedy, but not especially degrading - certainly far less so than being forced to sell yourself, putting yourself at high risk of contracting any number of diseases, risking violence and murder every day just to be able to support yourself and feed your children or your drug habit. Perhaps it might be better to have a long, hard look at society and see if there are any ways that we can help the women and men who are forced to live like this? Like, maybe, free childcare so women with young children can get jobs, benefits that pay enough money to actually live on or drugs made freely available on the NHS for users who agree to attend programmes designed to help them kick the habit?

Oh, maybe not - that'd be expensive, wouldn't it? Plus we'd run the risk of being forced to stop pretending that our society has opportunities for all, or perhaps we'd discover some very big and costly-to-repair holes in the welfare net, holes that allow thousands of people to fall through, vanishing from society forever in some cases? Or maybe there'd be no choice but to increase the rights that immigrants - such as those thousands of illegal immigrants who have to sell sex because they're nor permitted to get proper jobs and enjoy the sort of protection that mere, simple humanity seems to suggest we ought to offer them; and that's going to really stir up the Daily Nazi/Scum-reading hordes that Harriet's failing, falling government so desperately needs if they're to survive the coming General Election intact (which appears to be all they can hope for - they've long lost all hope of winning it). There's even a chance that the population might cotton on to the belief that our current system of Government and partisan politics has made a bit of a hash of things and dear old Blighty is looking a bit, well, shit as a result - and we can't have that, can we? We might have to change. Perhaps it's best to just throw a blanket over the whole sordid thing instead and pretend something has been done about it - that's a far cheaper way to try to scrape back a few votes.

Punternet is registered in California, which is a bit of a problem for Harriet because the United Kingdom Government has no say in what goes on in the USA (unlike the other way round - the US Government can demand all sorts of things, such as the extradition of naive UFO buffs suffering from acute learning difficulties). So she can't do a lot about it.

But she knows a man who can, or might at the very least - Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, and has contacted him asking for the site to be shut down. "It won't be too difficult for the Terminator to terminate Punternet," says Harman. "If he doesn't, I'll be back."

You what? Harriet, please - just shut up and fuck off.

Note: We're not back yet. We just couldn't resist an opportunity to tell Harriet Harman to shut up and fuck off.

Straw repels Evil

It's no secret that Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Secretary Of Whatever He Tales A Fancy To Peter Mandelson don't get on, and now the gloves are well and truly off.

Mandelson, who not long ago got involved in a bit of a spat with the eminently dislikable Tory George Osborne (it never came to much, but served very well at taking a bit of the flak being directed at parliament by the media after the expenses scandal) and who has been forced to resign from the House of Commons on two separate occasions, is a bit of a mixed blessing as far as Labour's top brass are concerned - he's an extremely clever politician (he was largely responsible for Labour's election win back in 1997) and always gets what he wants, so if he wants what you want and he's on your side you're onto a winner. Unfortunately, he has one very slight drawback - he's the spawn of Lucifer, the public loathe him (except those in Hartlepool, for some odd reason - they kept voting for him as their MP) and he gives the impression that sooner or later he's going to stab the entire Cabinet in the back and annex the party as his own personal kingdom.

"Argh! What fools we have been!" Jack Straw wards off The Evil One.

Now, if you're a Cabinet minister, you get paid a very tasty £144,520 per year along with all sorts of perks such as the notorious second homes allowance and, in some cases, even grace-and-favour (translation: free) accomodation; so it's no wonder that those lucky MPs who have found their way into the Cabinet are pretty damn keen to stay right where they are (though to be fair, there's an never-proven rumour that some of them want to keep their positions so they can use them in Britain's best interests). Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, while more than happy to let Mandelson prowl the Commons' corridors provided he only drank the blood of those they sought to dispose of, have both given unitentional indications that they consider him a man of whom one should be wary - which could be why Mandelson got a Life Peerage thrust upon him and was shuffled off to the House of Lords, which is the nearest British politics comes to hammering a stake through the heart and burying the body in a welded-up coffin, because unlike Hereditary Peers - who have been able to resign and contest by-elections since 1963 when Tony Benn changed the law and gave up his Viscount title so that he could stand as a socialist (becoming one of the most popular MPs in history) - Life Peers are, or have been, quite literally stuck in the position for life. This was not the first time that a figure considered dangerous by the Government has been quietly got rid of in this way.

However, as we blogged last month, the Government changed all that. In their efforts to revamp the House of Lords, which hasn't been viewed in a very good light by the electorate - who see it as an out-dated and unfair institution - for many years, they brought in new legislation which was very much the equivalent of digging the coffin up, pulling out the stake and saying "Here's my jugular, Vlad - it's party-time!"

The Devil - though he stayed put for the moment - was free to ride out anytime he chose.

Jack Straw seems to be the most worried about the nature of what Labour has unleashed upon the world, because he's just shipped in several tons of industrial strength garlic and is about to hang it from every rafter, wall, ceiling, hook and anything else in the Commons that a bulb of garlic could ever be hung on by announcing he's creating a new law that will force any Life Peer who does choose to resign to go into quarantine for five years during which they will be unable to stand for any elected position. This means that Mandelson would be in his early 60s by the time he once became eligible, close to retirement age and - since the general trend seems be for younger MPs and party leaders in particular (Menzies Campbell, ex-Liberal Democrat leader, was commonly thought to be too old even though he was just 66 when he left the position) - this could well end any chances he has of leading the party.

Minister backs "primaries"

Now, we're not often in favour of anything that aims to make Britain more like the USA because it's very obvious that we have a far better way of doing things over here - for example: no death penalty, TV that's only 98% rubbish, ginger beer, Marmite, real cheese instead of yellowish stuff in an aerosol can and so on; while they have corndogs, the KKK, Kid Rock and Sarah Palin. No contest really, is there?

David Miliband. Despite appearances, he is not in fact 13 years old and is fully eligible to act as Foreign Secretary.
Copyright-free image from Wikipedia.

But, every now and again you come across an American idea that seems to make a lot of sense and you can't help but wonder if we ought to copy it (not least of all because everything we copy from them we also make a lot better - ie, rock and roll, techno, graphic novels and...erm...other things). One example is the primary election, whereby constituents get to choose from a list of prospective candidates from each party who will then contest the coming election; instead of only being able to vote for a candidate chosen by the party as is currently the case.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has come out in favour and praised the US Democrats for the way in which they involve people who are not party members in the decision making process. However, any system which allows non-party members to take such an active role is likely to attract limited support from many politicians as it might lead to a fall in numbers of people who bother to join, a good source of party income: Labour's membership list numbers some 166,247 people, so with current membership renewal fees standing at £19 for the unwaged or £38 for those lucky enough to have hung on to their jobs in Brown's Britain, this equals a minimum of £3,158,693 for the party's coffers even if they all paid the reduced rate (in 1997, membership stood at 405,000 - which would have been £15,390,000). You can be sure of one thing - they ain't gonna be keen on losing over three million quid.

The Conservatives have been playing with the idea, which is unsurprising as they're doing their best to look as different as possible from Labour just so they can appeal to those voters who don't follow politics particularly closely but want to give their support to anyone but Gordon - it's surely significant that the recent "Totnes Primary," in which Tory Dr. Sarah Wollaston was chosen as candidate by the constituents, came so soon after the Norwich North by-election in which Labour's decision to rid themselves of popular MP Ian Gibson proved misguided when the Tory candidate won twice as many votes as the Labour candidate, a disaster for the party which has been partially blamed on Labour supporters choosing not to vote for a party-picked candidate they didn't want.

Neal Lawson, of left-wing group Compass, is not in favour and attacked Mr. Miliband who, we says, is one of those responsible for driving the party "to its death." He added, "This would be the death knell of the party." We can understand Mr. Lawson's wish to keep the party alive, of course - after all, he obviously loves it enough to have allowed it to become a very large and important part of his life.

It would be a little sad to see Labour die - just like it's sad when an elderly relative dies. After all, when it was performing at its best, Labour was undeniably a great institution which achieved an enormous amount in its efforts to improve daily life for a vast percentage of the population. But when you know dear old Great Aunt Maude has been fed up to the back teeth for the last twenty years since her legs gave up the ghost and put her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, severely limiting her opportunities to go out on the piss with her mates, don't you feel that, despite the sadness of her passing, just a little happier knowing that she's gone to a better place where she'll suffer no longer? Maybe it's time to put Labour out to grass too, let it spend its last few years peacefully dozing in the sun. It might seem unfair that it cannot keep soldiering on forever; but new parties, spawned in response to the new needs of the modern world, will arise with new ways of doing things. That's just the natural order of things.

Whatever. Increasing constituents' participation in this way, by allowing them to choose for themselves who they want to represent them in Parliament, is quite simply more democratic. The cost to any particular party - be it a reduction in funds or even a threat to their very existence - is of very little importance in comparison. Anything that increases democracy and gives citizens more say in the way that their country is run is worthwhile.

Exclusive: Mandelson has reconstructive surgery

The Archimandrite Mandelson, leader of the Starveling Cult and probable Most Evil Man in the Universe (Darth Vader lists him as a reference on his curriculum vitae and claims he was "the bestest teacher what I ever had" on Rate My Teachers.com), is already known for his chilling appearance and bloodthirsty ways. Some years ago he famously had his genetic code altered so that his eyes became a terrifying red colour; he has also had his skin lightened and is believed to have had a number of changes carried out to his genitals, allowing him to inject any combination of an assortment of different chemicals - including truth serum - into his partners.

As if all that isn't freaky enough, a recent photograph appears to show that the First Secretary of State - who is widely said to have been the architect of New Labour - has had further surgery in order to radically redesign his hands so that each finger is now tipped with a smaller, fully-functioning hand of its own. This leaves him with a total of 40 fingers and ten thumbs.

Don't worry - we're not going to make you look at a photo of his genitals.

News has come in today revealing that Lord Mandelson is a member of around 35 separate Cabinet committees that have been created in order to cover matters related to economic, domestic and foreign policies. There are 44 committees in total, of which Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a member of fewer than Mandelson, leading Conservative MPs to criticise what they term the unelected minister's "powerbase." "It is obvious that Peter Mandelson is the real unelected prime minister pulling the strings at No 10," says a Tory party spokesman.

Acid Rabbi nipped down to Westminster where he was lucky enough to bump into one of the Lord's many under-secretaries who, once we'd finished with the thumb-screws, was happy to act as an unofficial spokesman as long as we guaranteed anonymity since he was afraid his boss would punish him. "It's no secret now that Lord Peter sits on almost all Parliamentary committees," he told us. "He's involved in all sorts of things from those that discuss Africa to the Olympics to immigration. Basically, once he reached ten of them he found he was spreading himself a bit thinly, so he's had the reconstructive surgery on his hands so that he can keep a finger in 42 pies simultaneously."

Acid Rabbi - undoubtedly the finest investigative journalism on the Internet.
Yarmulkes off to Iain M. Banks, who we hope won't be offended at us nicking his ideas and adapting the cover of The Algebraist (having some idea of his politics, we suspect he won't).

Brown loses another friend

If one of your friends suddenly decided they no longer wanted anything to do with you, began verbally attacking you and went off with the hump you'd probably just think: "What's crawled up their arse and died?" and lose little sleep over it. But what if another friend then did the same thing, and then another and another and another until you had no friends left? Unless you happen to be possessed of the most incredible ignorance and arrogance in equal measures, sooner or later you'd have to stop and ask yourself: "Maybe it's me...perhaps there's something about me or something I do that people dislike?" Either that or you'd start washing a bit more often and experiment with some other types of deodorant.

Gordon Brown can't possibly have failed to notice that he's not very popular these days, but is he wondering why?

Who could ever be so arrogant as to do anything but, you may wonder. How about Gordon Brown? In just one week, three of his mates have done the dirty on him. First there was Lord Malloch-Brown, one of Mr. Brown's GOAT (Government Of All Talents) ministers, rapidly enobled and brought into Government soon after he took over the reins of the Labour party. Malloch-Brown, once believed to have been one of the PM's closest allies, originally put his decision to quit down to "personal and family reasons" - often translated from politician-speak into English as "I'm pissed off but don't want to say why just yet" - but just a few days later delivered a harshly-worded condemnation of Brown's leadership and the party's current policies which he compared to those of Latin American and South-East Asian nations.

Within a few days, fellow GOAT and Health Minister Lord Darzi, a top surgeon, also signalled his intention to leave the gang. Though he has so far kept relatively quiet concerning his thoughts on Mr. Brown and is claiming his decision was made so that he can return to his patients and research, Conservative Andrew Lansley and LibDem Norman Lamb both suggested there might be more that the Lord is choosing to leave unsaid. Another GOAT, Lord Digby-Jones went last year and a fourth, Lord Carter, has said that he too will quit. Out of a flock originally numbering five, only Lord West remains.

Hazel Blears was highly critical of Gordon Brown's YouTube appearance, which she compared unfavourably with going out and meeting the voters.

A number of MPs have also quit over the expenses scandal and taken the opportunity to throw their metaphorical drinks in Gordon's face as they left the clubhouse. Hazel Blears, standing down after it emerged that she had enjoyed stays at some of London's most fashionable (and expensive) hotels and lined her own pockets at the tax-payer's expense rocked the boat more than most, choosing as she did to go just a few days before June's elections in which Labour staged their worst performance in party history. Other female MPs have compared him to a Mafia boss: "Personally he's very warm, charming and friendly," says former Environment Minister Jane Kennedy, "but when dealing with his politics he engages with a darker side of himself and he believes the end justifies the means."

Even Alistair Darling, the man who stepped into Gordon's old job as Chancellor of the Exchequer, has criticised his leader's style. "We have got to make sure that ... we sharpen ourselves up, that we have a clear message of what we are about," he said back in April 2008, leading the Conservative George Osborne to claim Mr. Darling's comments were "an unprecedented attack on the Prime Minister by his most senior Cabinet colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer."

Yesterday, James Purnell - the ex-Cabinet Minister whose resignation on Election day was very nearly the cause of a party leadership challenge, which Mr. Brown avoided by the skin of his teeth - admitted that he had been considering leaving the Government since last December after he lost faith in Gordon and his ability to successfully lead Labour into the next General Election. Purnell was the most senior MP of the eleven who departed from the Cabinet in June this year, when he publically called for Mr. Brown to step aside and allow a new leader to come forth. His resignation letter to the PM included the statement "I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely." That's about as close as most politicians come to saying: "You're shit and you know you are." In an interview with The Guardian, Mr. Purnell attacked what he called Labour's "small c conservatism," adding that there is a "need to open up New Labour, reinvent it and then eventually move beyond it." With Brown at the party's helm, moving beyond New Labour looks highly likely to happen next year - unfortunately, it'll be David Cameron in control and his handmade John Lobb brogues are going to be stomping the accelerator harder than a copper stomps a newspaper vendor in an effort to speed as rapidly as possible away from it.

David Cameron's got a tank full o' lies and he's ready to go.

Even Lord Mandelson, a man who owes his job and numerous titles almost entirely to Mr. Brown, has been disparaging. In June, he offered the PM some advice if he is to remain Labour leader, saying that he needed to be seen as "being decisive. Secondly, in listening to people and respecting official advice you receive. And thirdly, introducing a bit of humour and jollity to your work," which suggests rather transparently that these are things Mr. Brown has not been doing thus far. Advice from Mandelson on avoiding being knocked from the top spot is a bit like advice from a cobra on the subject of how to avoid being bitten by a snake - he knows precisely what you've been doing wrong because he's an expert in spotting weaknesses.

Today brings news that Lord Sainsbury, the supermarket baron who has financed Labour for years and ex-PM Tony Blair's most loyal and trusted Minister, is turning his back on the party after donating around £4.5 million in the two years since Mr. Brown came to prominence. Last month, Lord Sainsbury set up the rather Orwellian-sounding Institute for Government which has since been serving as a training facility for Conservative would-be Ministers, with staff who have been preparing senior Tories for the Civil Service. According to The Times, Lord Sainsbury "found his plans constantly thwarted" during his eight years at the Department for Trade and Industry. "It wasn’t that civil servants were trying to frustrate you — the Yes Minister myth — but after a bit you realised you were being asked to work a system designed for a previous age when the problems were much less complicated," he says. The paper also says that the Institute's visitor's book reveals that 15 permanent secretaries - including Cabinet Secretary and most highly-ranked civil servant Sir Gus O'Donnell - have attended meetings held at the organisation which occupies a house overlooking London's St. James' Park. Losing a supporter of Lord Sainsbury's calibre is evidence of a discontent even deeper than previously thought running through Labour.

Anyone else would have got the message by now. The Labour party is, as a whole, evidently deeply unhappy with and distrustful of Gordon Brown and his leadership which is liable to lead to a general feeling of resentment and apathy. A political party characterised by emotions such as those stands little or no hope of winning any election and Labour looks set to repeat June's dismal performance when, if all goes according to Mr. Brown's plans, we go to the polling stations next summer.

Fuhrer Blair for European Presidency

European Minister Baroness Kinnock, speaking in Strasbourg, has announced that Parliament is backing ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair (hmm - I accidentally typed Gordon Brown then...do my fingers know something I don't? Ed.) for one of the most powerful posts in the European Union. She has not named the exact post, but many observers are certain she refers to the Presidency of the European Council.

Baroness Kinnock has announced that the Government will back Tony Blair for one of the EU's most important and powerful positions. Many observers are certain she is referring to the Presidency of the European Council.

Whether Blair can stand for the position currently depends on the outcome of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Once that is complete, the Treaty will come into force and Mr. Blair will be free to enter the contest for the post. As a well-known and high-profile figure, he would likely enjoy strong support from many politicians throughout the Union.

During his time as Prime Minister, Mr. Blair introduced a vast amount of new legislation which, when combined, was effective in dramatically reducing the civil liberties held by British citizens. Among the new laws were those that made it possible for the police and Home Office to put a citizen indefinitely under house arrest, without that citizen being informed of what charge was being made against them and without the right to appeal.

He also whipped up ethnic fears, either deliberately or unintentionally depending on your point of view, by claiming that "several hundred people" in the UK sought to commit acts of terrorism against British nationals. Though he did not narrow down precisely who these people were, Islamophobia in the wake of Al Qaeda's World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks and the bombings in London on the 7th of July 2005 led to a general consensus that the shadowy group was comprised of Muslims either born here or immigrants - this has in turn led to a wave of attacks on Muslims themselves, their property, their businesses and mosques (and anyone else thought to look "a bit foreign," including Hindus, Sikhs and Jews). Mr. Blair also lied to the British people, in a brazen attempt to swing popular opinion in support of his desire to go to war in Iraq, when he claimed that British intelligence had infallible evidence that Saddam Hussein controlled weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed within 45 minutes. Investigations carried out by UN inspectors subsequently failed to find any evidence whatsoever that these weapons ever existed, and Blair was forced to admit that they would not be found.

When he went along with the USA's extraordinary renditions, Blair made Britain party to the torture of terrorism suspects. In making possible the extrajudiciary transfer of suspects between states, the USA was able to have prisoners interrogated in nations that use torture without carrying out human rights abuses themselves. An example is that of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Muslim with dual Syrian-Canadian nationality who was detained by the US Immigration and Nationalization Service at John F. Kennedy Airport in 2002 while returning to Canada following a holiday in Tunisia. After two weeks of interrogation, he was sent to Syria where he was tortured over a ten month period and eventually forced to sign a confession linking him to Al Qaeda. He later receiving the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in recognition of his efforts to draw attention to his own and case and those of other people, and the US House of Representatives apologised for the suffering he had undergone in 2007.

There had long been suspicion that British airstrips have been used as a staging post by US aircraft transporting detainees to the various facilities around the world where they are tortured, leading to accusations that the Government colluded with the CIA in allowing torture to take place. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - which was, to a large extent, drafted and put into place by Britain in a direct response to the widespread atrocity and human rights abuses that took place throught Europe during World War 2 and the Shoah - expressly prohibits the use or sanctioning of torture with no exceptions or limitations. Blair's Government hotly denied the accusations made aginst them, though campaigners continued to claim that around 400 of these flights had landed here and were, in time, successful in proving that at least two had done so. This led to the Government recalling previous statements in which they denied the claims. Although the British Government has not officially sanctioned torture, in passively co-operating with the US Government and its extraordinary rendition flights it is nevertheless guilty by association of breaking human rights conventions or at the very least failing to take steps to prevent human rights abuse.

Even a former head of MI5, Stella Rimmington, accused Blair's Government of exploiting the paranoia post-911 to restrict civil liberties when she said that the draconian new legislation was forcing the British population to live under an increasingly repressive regime. "It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks," she said, "rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state."

Britain, which constitutes just o.2% of the European landmass, contains 20% of the continent's CCTV cameras and the average Londoner will be filmed by around 300 different cameras each and every day. While few of us would oppose all cameras (since they were added to Cambridge parks, there has been a noticeable decrease in robberies), many people are worried about the next generation of monitoring devices. Cameras have already been fitted with directional microphones, allowing the operators to listen in on private conversation, and it is reported that Government scientists are developing "gait recognition" software allowing the cameras to identify anybody moving in a "suspicious manner." Facial recognition software has already been developed and, according to some sources, will soon be used in cameras used to monitor the public. No other modern government has been as successful in quietly introducing the widespread monitoring of its citizens. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000, the Government has given itself the right to carry out surveillance by any means on any type of communication. Taken to extremes, this could mean private conversation taking place anywhere - including within homes.

The Terrorism Act 2000 allowed the police to hold a suspect for seven days, without making a charge against them. Later attempts were made to increase this to 90 days but were defeated in the House of Lords, as was an extention to 45 days. It currently stands at 28 days, effectively making it possible for a citizen to be imprisoned for almost one month without being told why they are being detained. Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, the Government can deploy military forces anywhere within British borders during peacetime. It also allows them to sieze public or private property at any time without compensation. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 allowed peaceful political protest to be outlawed in any defined area, seriously restricting the democratic right to express dissent or opinion - this law has been used to ban protest within a one kilometre radius of Parliament ever since, preventing all protests other than those given express police permission. Permission is very rarely given.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 makes it possible for the Home Office to impose a strict control order against any British resident. Under this law, the subject can be prevented from engaging in certain employment, prevented from using telephones and the Internet, be restricted from free movement, be electronically tagged and closely monitored and forced to regularly report at a designated police station - all without trial. Innocent until proven guilty? Shami Chakrabarti, of the human rights pressure group Liberty, said: "If protecting the public is the top priority then Control Orders do not achieve it. Dangerous terrorists should not be in their living rooms but convicted and imprisoned. Innocent people should not be subjected to years and years of community punishment without trial. Control Orders are the worst of both worlds and the new Home Secretary should take this opportunity to learn from the mistakes of his predecessor."

The Counter Terrorism Bill of 2008 sought to establish secret trials without jury if the Home Secretary deemed this to be in the interests of the public or national security. This meant that a suspect could be on trial without them or their lawyer being given access to or knowledge of the evidence being used against them, effectively making it very difficult or impossible for them to formulate a defence or appeal.

During his years as leader, Tony Blair's Government did more to remove the civil liberties enjoyed by British people than any other in history. He made it possible for peaceful, democratic protest to be quashed before it can even begin. He created a means by which the Government can remove and retain property from private citizens, without having to pay them anything in return. He enabled the Government to use the nation's army against its own civilians at any time. In exploiting the paranoia that resulted from terrorist attacks, he created fear and hatred of an ethno-religious group and in doing so allowed that group to become a scapegoat for many of society's ills which were then no longer seen as the fault of the authorities or of Parliament. That, in turn, raised xenophobic feeling amongst certain sections of society and allowed the far right to become a force in British politics for the first time since their defeat at the hands of the working classes, ethnic groups and those who oppose political oppression when Mosley's fascists were routed at Cable Street in 1936, just before this country went to war to defend and preserve the rights of its own citizens and those of other nations.

That's a Nazi cap and Hitler moustache, just in case you were wondering what Blakey from On The Buses has done to deserve being compared to a dodgy old totalitarian dictator such as Tony Blair.

So what we have here is a politician who has significantly restricted the rights of his country's inhabitants, prevented them from protesting against those restrictions (or, indeed, anything else they feel sufficiently strongly about), demonised one of the nation's ethnic groups, driven his nation to conflict with foreign powers, complicitly sanctioned and allowed the use of torture in direct contradiction of human rights conventions, removed British people's right to a free, fair trial and paved the way for the rise of racist, far-right, even fascist, politics. He now seeks to become leader of Europe in its entirety. Does that remind you of anyone?