Churning pawns

Good news hurts

Parliamentary life is a queasy breathless rush for the ambitious. New ministers will be panting with excitement at their calls to office. The sacked will be destroyed by unjust rejections.

Tony Blair always told his sacked ministers that they had done a good work but he ‘needed their job.’ The jobs were being churned to ease tensions between Blairites and Brownites and to allow a release of pressure to those who were bursting with ambition.

I have never heard anyone agree with his or her own sacking. The process is generally irrational. The pawns fall off the edge of the chessboard to make way for shiny new ones.  I was so incensed by the unjust sacking of the Bridgend MP Win Griffiths in 1998; I paid a tribute to Win’s great work in a question to Blair at Prime Minister Questions. Win had been the ideal minister, involved, hard working and able. The only reason for his sacking was internal base politicking.

The sacking of Kim Howells follows a long series of errors and stumbles described here last December. SEE BELOW. His habitat for years has been the last chance saloon.  He has been given the consolation of exile to the gulag of the security committee. It reports to the PM and members are bound by vows of silence. It was as badly informed as everyone else on the Iraq War so it does not have even the frisson of 'being in the know'.

The sacking of Tom Harris this time is inexplicable except in terms of the need to create vacancies to reward the anti-Blair plotters of last year.  Caerphilly’s Wayne David and Rhondda’s Chris Bryant were in the thick of the conspiracy to replace Blair with Brown.  Chris must feel schizophrenic about publicity. The good news is contaminated with a rehash of the story of the embarrassing advert he put on a Gay website.

An article on this subject with a detailed critique of Gay sites appeared in the Guardian the day after the story broke. It was critical of Chris. He blamed me for it because someone named Paul Flynn wrote it. Although I protested that my knowledge of these sites was nil, he was not convinced. I tried to cheer him up and said these scandals are soon forgotten. ‘Within 20 or 30 years, no-one will remember it.’ Perhaps, I was being optimistic. Two years later I introduced him to the Guardian writer ‘Paul Flynn.’ They did not get on well.

Chris has become a skilled Commons performer and he will do well as Deputy Leader of the House.

Post recess tension

Taking the emotional post recess temperature of all three major parties proves that six weeks in an eternity in politics.

The Tory backbencher will be edgy. They started the recess in B.C. (Before the Crash) with hopes high and a record poll rating. An election success looked certain and the media insisted that Brown would go and an election could be imminent. Power beckoned. 

Now in the epoch of A.C. (After the crash) their poll lead has halved and their frontbench team look vacuous and financially illiterate. They are frightened witless of Peter Mandelson and are unnerved by a new political narrative. B.C. it was Labour sliding to an inevitable landslide defeat. A.C. Nobody knows. Labour had a powerful dose of political Viagra.

The Labour backbenchers have moved from B.C. despair to A.C. hope. The nerve jangling disloyalties of the dirty dozen damaged the party needlessly by playing the media’s game of attacking Brown. Any new narrative is better than the B.C. one. Even those who are not pals of Mandelson welcome his brilliant communication skills.

The halving of the Tory lead means that Labour MPs heading for wipe-out at 24 points can expect to secure their seats at 31 points. The re-shuffle gives a hope of dumping disastrous policies on Afghanistan and nuclear power and a chance of applying Labour values to the stern challenges ahead.

The LibDem  backbencher is soporific, hypnotised by the inevitability of their doom as the eternal bridesmaid. Their pride is the adoration of Vincent Cable is tempered by their disappointment in a third failed Leader. Nick Clegg is a pale shadow of Cable, sans gravitas, sans eloquences, sans conviction. All they have to look forward to in any internal election that could be won by Lembit Opik. Sob!

Cowardice

Judi Hewitt of North Wales animal rights, is trying to get 5,000 signatures against the Welsh badger cull by the end of November. She will then present this petition to all the AM's at a meeting she is having with them.
 She has been doing house-to-house calls and has already got 700 on her own.  PLEASE can anyone, help with this. If you e-mail Judi she will send you a petition as an attachment to download or via the post, if we all can just fill in one page each (35 to a page) she would have her target in no time.  Her contact details are judi.nowar@homecall.co.uk or call her on 07789 156022.

The decisions to slaughter badger in Wales is a surrender to farmers. It has never worked and cannot be effective.

This is animal abuse of a massive scale in the service of political cowardice.

Kim Howells

The mysterious award of Welsh MP of the year (2007)went to Kim Howells because, “It’s quite unusual for a Welsh MP to play a major diplomatic role on the international scene."  Well yes, but which part of that role deserves  a prize?

Was it his comment in  July 2006 when he said that  calling  for a cease-fire in Lebanon was a "meaningless gesture"? Only Israel, USA and the UK failed to demand a ceasefire. It would not have been meaningless for the children buried alive at Qana, the thousand killed and the million whose homes were destroyed in the subsequent invasion.

Was it his  flippant dismissal of the 7th February 2006 of a warning that his Afghan drug eradication programme would lead to the alienation of Aghans and the deaths of more British soldiers ? He describes the questioner as a muesli-eater. Then 12 had died. Now it's 120.

Was it for announcing that Arial Sharon was dead, when he is still alive?

Was it for the serial failure of his anti-drugs policy and repeated assurances that drugs production in Afghanistan was falling. It cost British taxpayers £250 million to engineer a 60 % increase in heroin production to the highest level ever. The price of the drugs on the streets of Britain is the lowest ever.

Was it his impassioned speech on Britain's 'shared values' with Saudi Arabia? ....bribery, torture, anti-democratic, feudal...?

If this really  the best performance of any Welsh MP?  I'm puzzled. is this a Cardiff-centric decision? As a former Communist he has moved seamlessly from a  Blairite to a Brownite minister doing what he was told and clinging to office.  Can anyone tell me what Kim the minister  has achieved  except his own survival?.  Has he made any significant impression or reform in any of his  jobs?  Any suggestions?

 

 

Comments

[Adam]

A bit off topic, but I'm sure it will interest you Paul.
Britain's most senior commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, has made similar comments to Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, but publicly to the Sunday Times.

War on the Taliban Cannot be won, says army chief
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882597.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7653367.stm

This just underlines the futility of the sacrifice our soldiers are making. It also shows that the likes of Gordon Brown, and Des Browne, are wrong in their belief that we are succeeding and should just be patient.

Brigadier Carleton-Smith believes the only solution is a political settlement with the Taliban.

[Graham Marlowe]

Paul, you wrote "The Tory backbencher will be edgy"

Personally, if I were a Tory, or even a LibDem or an SNPeer or anything other than Labour I would be feeling quite chipper.

Brown has had to buy the loyalty of those neanderthal Blairites by importing or promoting a load of the third-raters into his government. Brown has turned back the clock 10 years, and old tat that we had thought had crawled back into their holes have crept out again.

No government of all the talents this, no Jon Cruddas because he is a left winger, but room for twerps like Tory turncoats Quentin Davies and Shaun "Wheres my butler?" Woodward, even that whey faced little creep Sion Simon, whose main claim to fame is making a prat of himself on You Tube.

Brown's desperation is manifest, and I can't wait for the next election to see them all dumped back into the obscurity they so richly deserve. Though I have been disenchanted with Labour for some time, I have never felt the anger and hostility I feel this week.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Adam. That's a very significant comment.
We are hopefully facing up to the futility of the Helmana operation. The insurgents almost always triumph in these situations. Our only practical plan is to feign victory. consolidate some of the gains and exit.

[Paul Flynn]

Fair comment Graham. I agree with much of what you say. Politics is a dirty business. Rewarding the turncoats is one of the shabby deals.

At the start of the recess I was optimistic about a change of fortune. That has happened although in a totally unexpected way.

[Graham Marlowe]

I don't honestly think this is a change of fortune, Paul. It is like giving chemotherapy to a dying patient. It will buy Brown a few more months but that will be it. He will be heavily punished at the next election, not just by non-Labour voters who are sick to death of "the project", but by genuine Labour voters who feel angry and betrayed.

[Cai J.]

Paul, your analysis of Kim Howells record in office is both unfair & flavoured with the distinctive tang of sour grapes.

Perhaps you feel there were more deserving candidates for Welsh MP of the year?...I wonder who that could be... Perhaps if you devoted more time to your job rather than airing your grievances about members & leaders of your own party then your chances of winning would increase.

It is the self righteous so-called left wing of the Labour that is the true problem of the party. People like yourself & Dianne Abbott who yearned for Brown's arrival but then turned against him the minute he came to office revealing the reality, which is that you will never be content in office as it means taking difficult decisions & living in the real world.

Brown has dismissed one of his most able, competent & charismatic ministers. It is either simply poor judgement or part of a strategic undermining of Milliband's Foreign Office team. Either way, in my opinion it is a loss for the Government & for the country.

[Graham Marlowe]

Cai J: I may not agree with everything Paul says, but lets get one thing straight: IT is NOT the left wing of the Labour Party that has bought shame and disgrace on it. Every scandal there has been in the past 10 years has been bought about by right wing "Labour" MPs:

Blair himself (Eccelestone)
Stephen Byers (his adviser wanting to bury bad news on Sep 11th, Railtrack and literally getting caught with his trousers down in a hotel)
Blunkett for messing about with women and doing favours for them
Mandelson for his "mortgage application"
Alan Milburn for feathering his nest while Health sdecretary and after his sudden resignation running off to "consult" for one of the companies that benefitted from Milburn's NHS "reforms"

Lord Levy is hardly a figure on the left of the party

and the list could go on, but would get rather boring.

All Paul and Ms Abbott are guilty of is being naive in thinking that Brown would return the party to it's traditional position: the fights Brown had with Blair over various things, like Frank Fields "welfare reforms", his apparent rejection of the Freud report in March 2007 (Freud is a millionaire investment banker - lets hope his lost lots of money recently) and the lukewarm support for the war in Iraq did indeed give the impression he would return to sense, after the manic Blair years. For a time even I was taken in: he talked of his "moral compass" and an end to spin etc, but now we know that with the return of Mandelson he has no morals at all and as for an end to spin - bringing back Campbell shows that he has lied yet again. After Hain had to go Brown bought in 38 year old James Purnell, privately educated in France, and apart from a few months with the BBC has never done a days work outside politics in his life, and hey presto Brown allows Purnell to institute Freud in full, withjout even taking the precaution of doing a pilot. Brown has allowed Miliband to go around being gung-ho even hinting at further military adventures.

Brown, far from rejecting much of Blairism has embraced it. Could it be, when they were pretending to hate each others guts trhey were really as thick as thieves?. Indeed, we know that Brown talks frequently to Blair, and by mandelson's own admission (if Mandelson can be believed at all) Brown discussed Mandy's cabinet return with Blair - hardly the action of a man who is a bitter enemy of his predecessor.

Brown has been exposed as a liar, a ditherer and a totally inadequate leader - it is embarrassing to see him leading the troops over the top to certain massacre -not just the view of somebody on the left, but of the country as a whole.

[Paul Flynn]

Cai J. you are clearly new to this blog. You are wrong on every knee-jerk conclusion you make on my reaction to Gordon Brown and events of the past year. Have a look through recent posts.

Kim has been the most enthusiastic supporter for the Helmand mission and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. IT IS MY JOB to speak out when our soldiers are being ordered into an impossible war. It's my job to tell Kim and other ministers where their love of office blinds their sense of right and wrong. All these issue I have taken up in debates in parliament with Kim and I have yet to have any convincing replies from him. The last debate we took part in, he refused to take an intervention from me on his conduct.

You ignore the accusations made. Would you like to defend Kim's work as a minister? What good has he done apart from surviving as a junior minister for a long time? Perhaps he or you will tell us sometime. In the meantime, I cannot think of any thing. He has slavishly supported Government policy on Iraq, Helmand, Colombia and Lebanon. That's the way to survive in office. History will judge the UK to have been wrong in all four areas of works. What' the point of being a minister/politician unless you work to avoid harm and, even, do good?. Charismatically doing harm is no recommendation.

Sour grapes is a pretty empty accusation. MPs who measure their worth by awards gained are sadly deluded.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Adam. Absolutely right. I have been pursuing this line all week and had the chance to raise the issue at Prime Minister's questions yesterday.

[Cai J.]

Well Paul, you obviously thought enough of that accolade to mention it in your blog. There is a difference which i think you fail to acknowledge between being inneffective in office & pursuing policies that you don't agree with. Howells has been effective in every ministry he has served in, but i think you are aware that there is little room for policy change in the Juniour Minister position.

Columbia is a classic example of the hypocrisy of your faction. Still under the delusion that FARC are freedom fighting socialist heroes, you are blind to their violence & instead condemn the democratically elected government. Whilst ignoring or even praising Chavez & Castro despite their oppression of freedom of speach & Political decsent etc. As for the Helmand mission, what exactly are you against? The expulsion of the Islamo-Facsist Taliban & AQ? The attempted erradication of the poppy harvest? The rebuilding of infrastructure? The education of girls? I agree mistakes have been made in Afghanistan, but these would be solved by commiting more troops not less. A pull out now would abandon the populous to the same fate that they suffered before & give yet more room for Terrorist training.

[Paul Flynn]

I do not want to bore regulars readers of the Blog rigid because the answers to these questions have been repeated here many times.

Kim has defended the Helmand mission and constantly said that drugs elimination is working.

The Government's view stated at the time in March 2006 was the hope that the mission would last three years without a shot being fired.

I compared it in 2006 with the futility of the charge of the light bridge. In 2006 only 2 British soldiers had died in action in Afghanistan,. Now it's 120. The number killed in the Charge of the Light Brigade was 118. The mission could continued for '38 years" or even for 'generations.'

The Colombian episode was a disgrace and Kim has apologised. Read what the Trade union movement has said about Kim's consorting with known torturers. Who supports FARC?

Drugs policies that Kim supports are leading to the Colombiaisation of Afghanistan. What I am against(for starters) is sending British soldiers to die in an attempt to bomb a country into democracy.

Yes I know that Junior Ministers have little power and influence, less than some backbench MPs. The least that can be asked of them is that they do no harm. On Helmand and Lebanon, the evidence is that harm was done.

My latest EDM on this subject sums uo the position and the likelihood that wwe will do a deal with the Taliban with the next five years;

"That this House salutes the courage and professionalism of British forces in Afghanistan; records its sorrow at the 120 deaths on active service; regrets the groundless optimism on the possibility of military victory; welcomes the British Ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles' warning that a British troops surge would identify the UK even more clearly as an occupying force and multiply the number of targets and the judgment by military chief, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith that the UK is not going to win this war; notes that seven years of warfare has resulted in a glut of Afghan heroin on British streets at the cheapest price ever and the control by a strengthened Taliban of almost half the territory of Afghanistan and a loss of hearts and minds support following the accidental deaths of thousands of innocent women and children in bombing raids; and calls for a new practical peace strategy that could consolidate gains made, end the bloodshed and establish stable government."