What is the Home Office on?

 

Who are they kidding?

Tough on crime Tories turn a blind eye to wide scale  'controlled' drug and alcohol use in all our prisons. Just testing I asked the Home Secretary last month to list all the prisons that are free of illegal drug use. She could not find one.  But there are some 'drug-free' wings she told me. I did not bother asking about booze. The answer is the same.

Ford is an open prison. The inmates can stock up at the local supermarkets. The Government and Prison Authorities have long turned a blind eye to drug abuse because it keeps the lid on possible violence. Reprehensible it may be, but that's the reality.

Who was the genius who decided to breathalyse  prisoners on New Year's Eve? Is it in anyone's interest to provoke a riot?  I am looking forward to seeing how the Government will try to spin this.  Will they fess up to their tolerance of drugs and booze? Unlikely. Will they admit that their prison cuts are unworkable? Impossible.

The Tories pontificated on prison policy in opposition. It's easy to do. It's tricky being in Government.

 

Mail myth

The Daily Mail complains of a New Year's Eve lavish party thrown by the Speaker.

All cobblers. Tickets were on sale for £22. £11 to a London children's charity and the other £11 paid for staff serving the drinks. Even at nil cost to the public purse the Mail cannot resist pursung their anti-Speaker and anti-MP vendettas

Battlefield

The editor of Agenda John Osmond has just published this generous review of my book 'The Unusual Suspect'. He begins:

Paul Flynn’s life and political career have been carried on amidst so much turmoil and at such a frenetic pace the main impression is of a perpetual battlefield. The (still) Labour MP for Newport West, now in his mid 70s, remains constantly at war, whether it be with Tony Blair, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, his party, the Parliamentary whips, the Tories, betrayals of his nation, the monarchy, nuclear power, the refusal to legalise drugs, foxhunting, bull bars on 4X4 vehicles, the Common Agricultural Policy, the manifold stupidities of bureaucracy, banal political ambition, or, and most poignantly of all, the trials of his personal life, including his longstanding arthritis affliction and  the brave struggle of his wife Sam against cancer.

This article is from the current issue of the IWA’s journal Agenda, issued three times a year. To receive Agenda and get unlimited access to the IWA’s online archive, click here.

As his memoirs The Unusual Suspect, published earlier this year reveal, to all these struggles and torments Flynn brings the same combination of irreverence, candour, humour, sheer bloody-mindedness and raw guts. Certainly, Flynn has an uncertain eye for political advancement which, undoubtedly, is why it has never happened to him in any conventional sense. Naturally, too, he is never one to pull a punch.

He first came to widespread attention in January 1995 when he fell out with one of the earliest expressions of New Labour project. This was Tony Blair’s decision to send his son to London’s Oratory school, a grammar school in all but name. As Flynn told him at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party:

“You have betrayed the ideals of our party and undermined the struggle that our party is having in the country. We cannot preach against privilege and then insist on it for our own families.”

“Tony Blair looked shocked”, Flynn records. “That was the end of the friendly relations that I had enjoyed with him since 1987 when we were both junior shadow ministers”. Henceforth, “The role of conscience of the party had been bestowed on me. It was to be mine for a long time.”

Flynn’s acerbic judgements are not confined to the Labour leadership. Lembit Opik is dubbed “a clown and a turkey whose speciality is valuing mindless political populism over intelligence”. Tory Nigel Evans is “a tabloid newspaper made flesh”. Nicholas Soames is “a serious politician struggling to emerge from his globular mountainous shape”. Labour MPs Richard Caborn and Ian McCartney, who were given donations from the nuclear industry, received “cash for comrades”. Peter Hain is compared with Shapeshifter, a Star Trek character “who liquefies at the end of each day and sleeps in a bucket to emerge in any chosen shape the following morning”. Former Defence Secretary John Hutton trained himself to be a Blair clone: “He dressed like Blair and abided by the commandments of Blairism. He even started to imitate the way that Blair speaks, starting every other sentence with ‘Look’!”......

(Plus lots more)

 

Comments

[Gerald]

Paul I bought your book at the launch in Caerleon and found it informative, humourous and touching. I'd recommend it to anyone whether they agree with you politically or not. Your other book "Dragons Led by Poodles" I borrowed from Newport Central Library a few years ago and also enjoyed, but, it seems to have disappeared from the shelves in there and is not available in any bookshop. Is there any chance of getting it re-issued as it was full of lessons for the leadership of the Labour Party? It would be a pity if the leadership made the same mistakes again or if the membership allowed them to do so.

[Jane]

Your book is on my list but I have to wait until the price drops a little. I look forward to reading it as all the reviews in the broad sheets etc are very positive. I am sure it will be honest.

Regrettably the Open Prison estate is in disarray due in the main to the high prison population. I speak with some experience as I was on the local parole board of an Open Prison some years ago before the system changed. At that time Open Prisons were a privilege and almost all of the inmates were extremely low risk to abscond or contravene the rules. The Open estate is meant to be for such prisoners as it is a regime which seeks to bridge the gap between institution and community for long serving prisoners and an institution for prisoners who can be trusted. Jonathan Aitken and Lord Archer immedictely spring to mind as they were housed in open conditions for much of their sentence. such a regime does not require a huge number of staff. With the pressure on beds then inappropriate inmates who are obviously not risk assessed properly are sent to Open Prisons hence we have the problems. One only has to look at the statistics from the Justice Department to see how many prisoners abscond and are sent back to closed conditions. I am with Ken Clarke in trying to reduce the prison numbers - it is ridiculous the number of people we incarcerate whilst recorded crime has fallen. It is shameful how we compare the number of citizens we incarcerate compared to other European Countries. I am with you on the stupidity of trying to take breath samples on New Years Eve. Knowing that there were insufficient staff if the situation got out of control should have been paramount. Further, I am sure the prison management knew of the contraband and really they should have provided additional staff on auch an occasion. Hopefully the investigation report will look at this.

The Mail is unbelievable. Their article today which I have read online is preposterous. Firstly, they condemn people who use their own money to go on holiday and try and smear the Speaker - they do so hate him as well as the Blair family. Our written media is becoming a worldwide joke. The Telegraph violating the relationship between MP and constituent is no longer a broadsheet. It seeks also to make the news rather than report it. The Mail is handy though for MPs who want to gain money from their memoirs. I wish the same MPs pushed to legislate to control the media. We want a free press but not a press that seeks to diminish Parliament. The IPCC are useless too as are the rules which they follow.

A Happy New Year to all....

[Neil Yates]

"Even at nil cost to the public purse the Mail cannot resist pursung their anti-Speaker and anti-MP vendettas."

To be fair, they weren't anti-MP when they were paying you for your autobiography.

[Paul Flynn]

Neil Yates, You are repeating another tabloid myth invented by Matt Withers In Wales on Sunday. Let me repeat again. I DID NOT RECEIVE ANY MONEY FOR THE SERIALISATION OF MY BOOK IN THE MAIL ON SUNDAY.
I had nothing to do with deal. Three of my books have been 'bought' by newspapers. I never profited on the basis that I am already paid for doing a full time job. But I very interested in enlarging the readership of the books. In the case of the MOS that's six million readers.

I ignore Wales on Sunday and Matt Withers because they are not in the business of serious journalism. But if you believe this nonsense, perhaps other do.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Jane for your informed opinion. I have a theory on the New Year breathalyser tests that would not be wise to publish. Perhaps when we have a statement in the Commons I will raise it.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Gerald. It's very gratifying to hear that you enjoyed 'The Unusual Suspect.' It makes it well worth the effort of writing it.

Dragons led by Poodles was written for a specific moment to expose a rigged election campaign. Perhaps Amazon have some copies.

[Kay Tie]

"I have a theory on the New Year breathalyser tests that would not be wise to publish."

I think there's something decidedly odd about the story and I'm sure there's something not being reported.

[Paul Flynn]

Could you send me an e-mail Jane on paulflynn@talk21.com