Losing on the Home Front

The battle for the Afghanistan is being lost on the Home Front.

Tonight's Newsnight proved the increasing unpopularity of the war. 64% of the population believe the war is not winnable. Only 30% disagreed. 63% want the troops brought home this year. The Iraq war was unpopular before it started but public opinion softened later. I know of no precedent in our history for a war that had so little public support. The opposition can only grow as the fallen are returned to Wooton Bassett in numbers that grow inexorably.

Today's evidence of the deepening treachery of President Karzai destroys the purpose for which our soldiers lives are being sacrificed. He has trampled on previous agreements to install his placeman to control future elections. We rail against corruption but we are backing an incurably corrupt regime.

How can it continue?

Provocative Present

It was a curious choice for a present. He was surprised and could have been seriously aghast.

Michael Mates MP has been involved in Ulster for for 55 years. He went there as a solder in the Ulster Rifles in 1955. He once threw Ian Paisley out of Stormont for a semi-riot that took place. Michael has been a stalwart contributor to the peace process since 1990.

Yesterday was his final day of his membership of the British-Irish Assembly. He is standing down at the next election at the age of 77. Kind speeches were made about his work and he was presented with a present. it was a wrist watch.

The audience shuddered. His brief ministerial career came to murky juddering halt over a watch. He was thought to have been too close to a Cypriot businessman. The evidence was a watch he gave as a present. It was inscribed 'Don't let the buggers get you down.'

Mates yesterday did not explode at this reminder of his foulest hour. He joked that there was no inscription about 'getting anyone down.' Happy retirement.

Reassured

I have calmed down a bit down from my irritation at the way the Mail on Sunday packaged the extract from my new book. They have promised this week to give me advance warnings of both the extracts and the headlines.

The reaction from self-confessed Mail readers has been very reassuring. Many have been in touch. They have read the extracts and they said they have ordered the book. That is exactly the point. Paradise would be lots of people seeing the serious messages of the book.

Crumbling

Today was a day of bliss for Labour MPs.

The Guardian headline  was poetry. It said that Tory support is 'crumbling'.  The reason seems to be dis-illusion with the Tory calamity tactics which produces a foul-up a day. There are changing views on Gordon Brown. The more he is unfairly attacked, the greater his popularity.

Comments

[HuwOS]

Yup, to be honest unless GB has been beating junior staff black&blue then this whole false bullying palaver is likely to actually benefit him.
Many don't like him, many don't think he's a good leader but for those who aren't simply rabid there is a principle of fairness that is outraged by ludicrous attacks from incredibly dubious sources.
Aside from that, the reminder that he gets angry and shouty and frustrated is a reminder that he is a man, its something real about him that people can relate to on some level, unlike the terrible rictus grin that deforms his face when he tries to be blairlike.
It will be interesting to see how the polls go, over the next week.
Wouldn't vote for him in a fit myself but for people who choose their candidate by their perception of a party's leader, Brown has jumped ahead of Cameron in the being a real person stakes.
Although it is incredibly distressing that politics has devolved to the meaningless american marketing type style choice.
Although if this election is going to be related to cola wars, it'll be a cola war without a pepsi nevermind a coke.

[Paul Flynn]

It is extraordinary HuwOS. The orchestrated attack on GB on his sympathy letters to relatives of the fallen backfired in his favour because the attacks were seen to be unfair. His interview on his personal tragedy created sympathy. The hysteria on his alleged bullying has backfired on some of the accusing charity. the Western Mail published a complaint that concern was expressed in 2007 that the charity was being used to deliver cases to n agency. This complaint was repeated in other papers. Who knows what the situation will be in May?

Politics is fascinating.

[Kay Tie]

"The orchestrated attack on GB on his sympathy letters to relatives of the fallen backfired in his favour because the attacks were seen to be unfair."

I thought they were unfair. The bullying is in a completely different category.

"The hysteria on his alleged bullying has backfired on some of the accusing charity."

No, the bullying spin machine has been set on the charity. If you listened you'll have heard that the charity boss said that blanket denials of bullying is an inappropriate way to deal with allegations of bullying. That's been lost in the deliberate fog.

You've admitted that you never heard of Damien McBride. You're in no position to tell us about what is and isn't poison emanating from the Number 10 spin machine.

[HuwOS]

Kaytie you really need to take your hate head off sometimes.

"If you listened you'll have heard that the charity boss said that blanket denials of bullying is an inappropriate way to deal with allegations of bullying. That's been lost in the deliberate fog."

If that had been all she had said it is highly unlikely it would have attracted any complaints.
But then I guess it wouldn't have attracted much attention to her, her lead generating charity or business either and having seen and heard her it is hard to conclude anything other than attention was what she wanted.
Well she has that now and hopefully someone will explain to her how stupid she has been.

A sensible person would have figured that out immediately her patrons started resigning, even then Mrs Pratt was still in attack mode, when Sarah Cawood resigned
"Her role as a patron has been disappointing and she has not got involved in spite of making many promises," she said."Appointing her as a patron was with hindsight a mistake."

The indications are that no one has yet managed to talk sense into Mrs Pratt as Max Clifford has taken her on and seems to be encouraging her to dig herself even deeper.

It is hard to know what is the best outcome for her at this stage, although it looks like it would be better for her to have been lying than to have been telling the truth.
If she was lying, she was just smearing a politician and no big deal, people will forget it about it in a relatively short period of time but if she was telling the truth about contacts from Downing street with allegations of bullying then her breach of confidence by making that public without permission will leave her, the charity and her business hung out to dry.

[Kay Tie]

I'm sorry, Huw, but you must filter out the chaff thrown up by the spin machine. Look what it did to David Kelly: he dared to cross the (then) Prime Minister and he was subjected to such pressure he killed himself. The way politics is conducted is monstrous.

Lest you think I am some fanatic supporter of these charities, I must say that the revelations from the spin machine are not surprising: the voluntary sector has become corrupted. But the machine wants us to mix these issues up to blunt the revelations. Let us come back to these horrible fake charities in the future.

[Paul Flynn]

I did not know Huw that Max Clifford is advising the charity chief. His reputation is threatened. It is true, KayTie that the tactics of Damien McBride were unknown to me at the time. But I have not known any Government that was subjected to divisions based on personalities.

[dave]

not knowing the facts it is typical of people to attack the messenger and ignore the fact people may be suffering bullying by gordon brown and his henchman.

only today the chancellor spoke of the labour machine attacking him for speaking the truth on the financial crisis.
trying to drive him out for ed balls to take his post.

i am not saying he uses his fists or makes personal threats but the labour machine has attacked instead of assuring staff and the public that there are policies supporting victims of bullying and bullying will not be tolerated.

i would rather have seen labour showing there is no person who can get away with bullying and support was there if anyone wanted to come forward than denial of any wrong doing.

people who bully in the work place usually dont realise they are making fellow workers lives a misery.they are more interested in meeting targets or getting the job done than fellow workers feelings.
they would say they were driven and focused on their work not a bully.

what is more annoying is the victim is moved rather than the bullying being addressed most of the time.

[HuwOS]

Bullying is of course serious dave, the problem is there have been no credible reports of any.
What there was, was one book which may or may not raise any real questions and one other person seriously breaching any proper,ethical or normal behaviour for a bullying support organisation with dubious and spurious claims which were later refined to be clear that any allegations made had nothing to do with Brown at all. Of course the reality of any situation is that we will probably never know whether nbh ever actually had any contacts from anyone working in government in relation to bullying at all.

The public statements from Labour have included
“There is zero tolerance for bullying in the Government as a whole, and certainly at the centre of government,”
which is by any standards a very strong statement of position.

[Kay Tie]

"which is by any standards a very strong statement of position."

Alastair Campbell similarly made a strong statement of the position on the Iraq dossier that we all know now that he knew he was lying. Of course, many of us knew this then, too.

[HuwOS]

Yes he did, the principle difference is that then they were the ones presenting a dubious case with no credible evidence, this time it is others presenting not even allegations about bullying but allegations about allegations about bullying.