By NICOLA BARRY

Published: 05/05/2010

JUST when you think Gordon Brown cannot sink any lower in the opinion of the voters, he does exactly that, in spectacular fashion.

Every time he opens his big mouth, he forgets his microphone is still on.

However, bear in mind that his comment about Gillian Duffy could have been so much worse, especially if it has been made by a woman.

We really know how to bitch. Our prime minister, on the other hand, does not. Men call women bitches when they don’t get what they want from them. So, if a woman turns a man down for a date, she’s a bitch. If she races up the career ladder faster than he does, she’s a big, fat bitch and so on.

Women are far more likely to go for the jugular and drop some interesting bombshell about the target of their gossip.

Bitching is fine, provided you are with people you know and trust. In the case of the PM, the voters are not in that category.

As a result of all the fuss, Gillian Duffy is heading for mega stardom. She might even be the Susan Boyle of politics. An ordinary wee wifie, a widowed granny from Rochdale, suddenly thrust into the media spotlight from nowhere just like SuBo.

Suddenly, Gillian D has been revealed as a major player in the general election campaign, with the prime minister wanting to shake her hand for the TV cameras. Her name is now known nationally – possibly internationally. She is, if you like, notorious.

All because Gordon Brown, in a toe-curlingly embarrassing moment, dared to describe her as “a bigoted woman” after the poor soul raised the taboo subject of mass immigration.

Brown, who is also a poor soul these days, managed to forget for a moment that he is our servant and we are not his.

Mrs Duffy’s concerns are not difficult to comprehend. There are those who say she is not a racist; that she was just questioning Westminster’s immigration policy. Of course, there are thousands of Eastern Europeans here in Scotland and in the rest of the UK; people who have come here to find work. But Mrs Duffy’s choice of words was plain unfortunate. She talked about “flocking eastern Europeans” and it isn’t hard to see why Gordon Brown took this as a slur.

Many of these immigrants work far harder than Scots. They pay taxes. They have a right to our respect. However, whatever you think of what she said, you will probably admit that her sentiments are shared by a lot of other people who are too scared to say the words out loud. And, to question government policy on this matter is to leave yourself wide open to accusations of the R word.

No one can dispute the fact that parts of this country – and the north-east is no exception – have been all but swamped by incomers from abroad. Whether skilled white-collar workers or students seeking higher education, Eastern Europeans have been abandoning their homes in their thousands, in search of a mythical promised land. And to say so does not constitute racism.

Since joining the European Union in 2004, well over 1million Eastern Europeans have come to the UK, thought to be the largest single migration movement in history.

They have good reason to come here. Times are tough at home, with unemployment reaching an all-time high. Yes, membership of the EU has brought economic benefits but not fast enough for the country’s disconsolate army of jobless.

True to their reputation, most immigrants from Eastern Europe work extremely hard and are prepared to do anything in order to earn a living. Their output is, by all accounts, prolific, their work ethic admirable. Those who have not been able to find jobs have been prepared to fill the most menial job vacancies around just to earn a crust. The jobs no one else seems to want. Others have converted derelict buildings into delicatessens or similar businesses.

Whatever anyone says in Mrs Duffy’s defence, to dismiss all these honest folk as a “flock”, implying they resemble sheep, following each other and baa baa-ing, is an insult to their integrity.

As political parties continue to debate the way forward for immigration, many politicians and would-be politicians cash in on our worst fears, on the insecurities of many white, working-class people who say they feel under siege.

But, in 2010, look around you and listen to your friends and neighbours and you will soon hear someone moaning about the invasion of foreigners. They do sound hostile, aggressive and, I’m afraid, racist.

Politicians tell us that unfettered immigration from the extended EU and beyond has stretched this country to breaking point, turning even the most liberal of citizens into something approaching rabid fascists. The popular argument is that people feel like strangers in their own country – an exaggeration, of course – but, it would take a twisted individual not to have some sympathy for their logic. Hence Mrs Duffy’s comments.

You can almost hear the BNP chortling with glee every time a court case comes up involving illegal immigrants and every time you see pictures of foreigners gathering at Calais, trying to reach the UK and its unquestioning benefits system.

I am beginning to sound racist, but, believe me, I’m not. This is what Labour has reduced us to.

Perhaps we are over-reacting to Gordon Brown’s gaffe. After all, if you lined up the number of people in this country who had muttered something about somebody else – the queue would stretch from here to China and back again.

Yet, even here, in Scotland, this simple, straightforward woman has touched us deeply. Could it be that Gillian Duffy, widow and lifelong socialist, is the psychological boost we all need to help us ride out the recession, at a time when we are all worried about our jobs and lifestyle? Or, is it simply the fact that an underdog has finally come up trumps and shown our scandal-ridden politicians where to get off?

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Jim Ferguson

Conservative tax reform to aid self employed

Wednesday, March 31 2010

Mark Prisk, the Shadow Business Minister, has announced that a Conservative Government would undertake a full and fundamental review of small business taxation, including IR35.

The aim will be to provide a simpler, clearer and lasting tax regime, so businesses can plan with confidence.

“For the last 13 years, Labour have constantly meddled with the tax rules for freelancers and self-employed, Prisk said. “IR35 has especially proved to over-complex, uncertain and often unfair”.

IR35 has cost business £73 million over 10 years but it has barely raised revenue for the Treasury. Prisk criticised Gordon Brown for making it harder to be self-employed at a time when Britain should be open for business.

“This is why a Conservative Government would mandate the independent Office of Tax Simplification to undertake a fundamental review of current arrangements with the aim of providing a clearer, lasting and fairer tax regime”.

This announcement is in addition to previous plesges to simplify the tax system, cut Corporation Tax for small firms, and make small business rate relief automatic.

“Small businesses cannot afford 5 more years of Gordon Brown”, Prisk added. “Only the Conservatives have the energy and the ideas to get Britain working by boosting enterprise”.

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Tuesday, March 30 2010

Previously unpublished papers reveal the true scope of Labour’s dependency on union cash.

Following Conservative pressure, the Government will publish the previously confidential minutes and papers of the Inter-Party Talks on the Funding of Political Parties.

Francis Maude, Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, led the Conservative delegation in the Talks. “Gordon Brown wrecked the opportunity to clean up politics because he wanted the unions’ votes to become Labour Party leader”, he said. “These documents expose the Labour Party’s addiction to union cash”.

The Talks were chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips and were suspended without substantive agreement in October 2007.

Peter Watt, then Labour General Secretary and a delegate on the Talks, has subsequently written how the Talks failed since “the Labour Party could not resolve its internal issues”, “my own party was the biggest block to reform” and Gordon Brown “repeatedly warned the Prime Minister [Tony Blair] that he would block any attempt to reduce the unions’ power.”

Peter Watt also notes how the Liberal Democrats were bought off by Labour:  “[Labour] managed to clinch a deal with the LibDems by promising that Menzies (Ming) Campbell would get a taxpayer-funded car and driver if the reforms went through.”

The newly published papers today reveal the true extent of the union funding of the Labour Party:

• Many union members would not pay a political levy to the Labour Party if given a choice.
• Some trade unions affiliate more individuals to the Labour Party than they have union members paying a political levy (only money from the political levy can be used for political purposes).
• From 2001 to 2006, the unions gave the Labour Party £45 million in cash.
• Trade unions pay £1 million a year to the Labour Party at a local and regional level, tying in local Labour Party branches through binding “Constituency Development Plans”.

Sir Hayden Phillips drew up detailed option papers on how the political levy could be reformed to give union members genuine choice. The Labour Party objected to these proposals. This was the key stumbling block that led to the Talks failing.

It’s wrong that union barons, not rank-and-file union members, decide how much to give to Labour”, Maude added.

“A Conservative Government will seek an agreed long-term settlement that would introduce an across-the-board cap on donations to end the big donor culture. As part of that reform, union members must have real choice on whether they want to pay a political levy and where it goes.”

Interesting to see how easy it was to buy off the Libdems.  I suppose some things never change.

Jim Ferguson

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Monday, March 29 2010

The Conservatives have announced that a Conservative Government will stop Labour’s tax rise on jobs by cutting waste.

Stopping the planned increases in National Insurance Contributions will result in 7 out of 10 working people being better off.

A Conservative Government will take immediate action to start cutting Government waste, in order to spend £6 billion less in 2010-11 than Labour’s plans.

“The re-election of a Labour Government under Gordon Brown – with more debt, waste and taxes – will bring us a new recession”, George Osborne said, speaking alongside Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond.

“Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs. We will cut Labour waste to stop it.”

Former Government advisers Sir Peter Gershon and Dr Martin Read, now members of the Conservatives’ Public Sector Productivity Advisory Board, advise that savings of £12 billion across all departmental spending are possible in-year without affecting the quality of front line services.

Having identified these savings the Conservatives can now commit to stop Labour’s tax rise on working people and jobs at the same time as reducing the deficit faster:

Labour are planning to raise Employees National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for everyone earning over £20,000. We will stop this increase altogether for everyone earning under £35,000 by raising the primary threshold at which people start paying NICs by £24 a week, and raising the Upper Earnings Limit by £29 a week.

Relative to Labour’s plans everyone liable for Employees NICs earning between £7,100 and £45,400 – which is 7 out of 10 working people – will be up to £150 better off a year under the Conservatives. Lower earners will get the greatest benefit as a percentage of their earnings. Nobody will be worse off.

Labour are also planning to raise Employers NICs for everyone earning over £5,700. This is a tax on jobs that will undermine the recovery. We will raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying NICs by £21 a week, saving employers up to £150 for every person they employ relative to Labour’s plans. This will reduce the cost of Labour’s tax rise on employers by more than half.

Read George Osborne’s speech in full

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Wednesday, March 24 2010

David Cameron has responded in the House of Commons to the Chancellor’s presentation of the last Budget before the general election.

He said Labour “have made a complete mess of the British economy and they are totally failing to clean it up”.

Cameron set out the big argument in British politics: Labour say “don’t do anything before the election, let’s just sit tight and keep our fingers crossed”, and the Conservatives say “we need real action to get our economy moving – and urgently”.

Highlighting new policies that copied existing Conservative proposals, such as the stamp duty cut and new university places, he said the “only new ideas in British politics are coming from this side of the House” and that “the only thing Labour bring are debt, waste and taxes”.

The figures that stands out above any other, he said, was that Labour have “doubled the national debt, and they’re going to double it again”.

Outlining the Government’s failure Cameron criticised “all those schemes that they launched with great fanfare” for failing to help enough people. He also drew comparisons on the state of the economy when Labour came to power to the present – including the huge increase in the debt and deficit, and a falling down the global league tables in terms of competitiveness, tax and regulation.

We need a credible plan to deal with Britain’s record debts”, he said, criticising the Chancellor’s repeated hope to halve the deficit by 2014 as giving us a deficit “almost as big as when Denis Healey went to the IMF in the 1970s”.

Moving on to the delay in dealing with the deficit, he said “the risk to recovery is not in dealing with the deficit now, it’s in not dealing with the deficit now”. Cameron said that “every family knows that when your debts mount up, you need to start paying them off or things will only get worse”, and that it is time for the Government to learn the same lessons”.

“The Prime Minister and Chancellor faced a choice – between bold action in an election year or playing politics. Once again, they chose politics.”

Cameron also emphasised the need “to show the world that we are back open for business”, saying that because Labour “flunked the difficult decisions on spending, they are raising tax after tax after tax – all after the election”. “These are the ticking tax bombshells timed to go off the day after the election and that will destroy our recovery.”

He said that the greatest risk to Britain’s economic recovery was another Labour government. “No one has yet thought of a question to which the answer is five more years of this Prime Minister”, he said.

“We need a credible plan to cut the deficit. We need an unleashing of enterprise across the nation. We need a plan to boost employment through radical welfare and school reform. If ever there was a time when this country needed a radical change of direction it is now.”

He concluded that Britain needs a Conservative government “to clean up the mess made by this Labour Government”.

“Britain needs new energy, leadership and values to get this country moving again. That’s the argument we’ll take to the country the moment the Prime Minister has been forced by the law of the land to call the election he has avoided for so long.”

Read David’s speech in full.

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Surely even Cash Gordon must know the risk he is putting the United Kingdom under by not ensuring adequate protection of sensitive military sites. !

Jim Ferguson

By Gordon Thomas

LONDON – British security chief Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, has warned the Brown government that the country’s most sensitive military and security bases have been “seriously damaged by Google’s Street View.”

Agents with MI5 are satisfied that thousands of images have been downloaded by U.K.-based Muslims, suspected associates of al-Qaida. The images show close-ups of Britain’s atomic weapons research center and the nation’s doughnut-shaped eavesdropping center at Cheltenham.

MI5 has found its buildings across Britain included in the “Street View” service.

Google has been warned that placing any of the images on its website contravenes the Official Secrets Act. The penalty of any breach can carry lengthy prison sentences under British law.

“This week Google has removed most of the images. But the damage has been done. The images are now in the hands of suspect terrorists,” Evans has told the government.

One site is at Menwith Hill, in the north of England near Harrogate. Its giant “golf balls” are linked to satellites and are clearly visible. The image shows the access roads to the “golf balls.” The U.K. shares the base with America’s National Security Agency.

The golf ball shapes are the very core of the base’s role as a global eavesdropper. Known as radomes, each shape is positioned on a carefully aligned course known as the “Runway,” which allows them to intercept messages from communications from space.

Coated in toughened Teflon to shed the rain that constantly develops across the North Sea, the “golf balls” are each equipped with computers which interdict the networks as they bounce their messages around the world.

Another image that would be of “high value to a terrorist group is the Hanslope Park base near Milton Keynes, where MI6 officers analyze data from GCHQ,” said an intelligence source.

One of the most guarded entrances in London – Thames House, the headquarters of MI5, clearly is pinpointed.

“Until recently the Google Map published information only on major British cities, [giving] no more than a broadspan view of the area. Now it has clear images of almost every street,” said the intelligence source.

Another facility – secret until now – is the SAS Counter-Terrorism training center in Pontrilas in Herefordshire.

The Google site has photographed it to reveal there one of the SAS aircraft used for special forces training exercises.

Another top-secret facility on the website is the exterior of the new ORION Laser Research Facility at Aldermaston, the atomic weapons research center in Berkshire.

Across the Irish Sea, on the edge of a Belfast housing estate, is the Ulster facility of MI5′s Loughside headquarters. It is from there that the Security Service monitors Irish extremists.

“If they didn’t know where we were they most certainly do now,” said an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland.

The Special Boat Service – classified as Highly Secret in Ministry of Defense manuals – has on the website an easily readable sign in red outside. It reads: “Prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act. Loitering, sketching, photography forbidden.”

Faced with the full fury of MI5, a Google spokesman said that, “if mistakes are made we will remove the images. We are unaware of any official concerns about security. But we are happy to discuss any issues as they arise.”

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Tuesday, March 16 2010

Michael Gove has spoken about “Charlie Whelan’s New Militant Tendency” in a speech setting out how dependent the Labour Party is on Unite – Britain’s biggest trade union.

His speech marked the launch of a new document that shines a light on how Unite has taken advantage of Labour’s near bankruptcy and the departure of Tony Blair to gain an unprecedented grip on the party.

Under the political direction of Charlie Whelan, Unite is using its financial and organisation muscle to drive government policy and build a Labour Party very different to the one that appealed to Middle England and won three general elections. Instead, with Gordon Brown as leader, there has been a reversal of much-needed public service reforms, a return to industrial militancy and a regression into atavistic class war rhetoric.

“There can be few more powerful forces of conservatism opposed to the flexibility, freedom and choice of the post-bureaucratic age than the Whelanist Tendency now in control of the Labour party”, Gove said.

“Labour’s re-unionisation has put them in bed with the past at a time when it is crucial that this country wakes up to the future.”

The document sets out in detail the way in which, in the three years since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Unite has spent more than £11 million of its members’ money on buying influence within the Labour Party.

This extends from placing a key union operative inside 10 Downing Street to taking effective control of many cash-strapped constituency Labour parties and installing Unite activists and officials as prospective Parliamentary candidates.

Gove said that “the last thing we need is a political system where genuine participation in democracy is out-muscled by union power”.

“This election will decide the future of this country and Labour represents a move backwards, not forwards”, he added.

Read Michael Gove’s speech in full

You can read our dossier on “Charlie Whelan’s New Militant Tendency” in the document reader below, or alternatively click here to download a copy in PDF format.

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catholic leader responds to Jim Murphy’s speech appealing for religious voters’ support

By Katrine Bussey

The Pope could give Labour “hell” over its record on family matters, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland said yesterday.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien hit out in the wake of a speech by Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy in which he attempted to appeal to religious voters.

Cardinal O’Brien accused the government of making “a systematic and unrelenting attack on family values”.

With Pope Benedict XVI due to visit Scotland later this year, the churchman revealed he had told Labour Holyrood leader Iain Gray that “he could really give you hell for what you have done in our country over the past 10 years”.

Cardinal O’Brien has criticised government policies on stem cell experimentation on human embryos, civil partnerships, same-sex adoption and abortion.

He said: “There’s a whole series of measures which have been legislated for over the past 10 years which are against basic Christian standards.

“I feel on behalf of my own Church and peoples of other faiths as well, that I am entering into this daily contest, fighting for the standards by which we stand as Christians here.”

Cardinal O’Brien said he had met the Pope in Rome recently and also said he had spoken to Mr Gray about the pontiff’s visit to Scotland.

He said the Labour Party had “accepted some praise” for playing a role in attracting the Pope to Scotland.

Cardinal O’Brien continued: “I said to Iain Gray ‘when the Pope does come I hope he emphasises to you the Christian teaching when he’s here, that’s what John Paul II did when he was here’.

“And in some ways I said to him he could really give you hell for what you have done in our country over the past 10 years, demeaning family and married life and these other things that have been happening over the past 10 years.”

Mr Murphy said on Tuesday night that “faith has always been important to Labour”.

The Scottish secretary, who was delivering the Progress lecture, stated: “In the US, faith has long played a central part in politics.

“Not surprising for a country where 60% of people say that God plays an important part in their lives.

“But it’s wrong to think that it plays no role in British politics.”

Mr Murphy, a Catholic, added research from the time of the 2005 general election suggested Labour support was strongest among religious people.

The Pope was invited to the UK by Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a private audience, and earlier this month the Catholic Church confirmed Scotland would be included in the visit which is expected to take place in the autumn.

Pope Benedict XVI’s visit will be the first since predecessor John Paul II’s visit in 1982.

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PM claims by bullying charity challenged by Labour

Gordon Brown his said any anger is usually directed at himself

Labour has gone on the offensive over Gordon Brown’s temperament after an anti-bullying charity said it had been contacted by staff from his office.

The prime minister’s Parliamentary aide called for evidence of the calls from the National Bullying Helpline.

Charity boss Christine Pratt has said she spoke out in anger at government denials of staff mistreatment in No 10.

The Observer had reported that civil service head Sir Gus O’Donnell warned the PM about behaviour towards staff.

Labour MP Anne Snelgrove – who is the prime minister’s Parliamentary private secretary – said the charity “needs to demonstrate that these questions really have come from staff at Number 10″.

“Why is she [Ms Pratt] going public with this rather than taking it up privately if these phone calls were genuine?”

In ‘denial’

The charity’s chief executive told the BBC that its helpline had been called three or four times by Downing Street staff in the last three or four years.

Ms Pratt added: “Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown’s office.

“Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline directly and I have spoken to staff in his office.”

She said she would expect any employer in this situation not to “go into denial, but to look into it, to follow due process”.

Outright denial could “compound the stress of those who believe they are being bullied”, she said.

“We are not suggesting that Gordon Brown is a bully, what we are saying is staff in his office working directly with him have issues, and have concerns, and have contacted our helpline.”

What Labour had hoped would be a one-day story is getting wind in its sails BBC deputy political editor James Landale

Downing Street said it had never been contacted by the charity about the allegations, a No 10 spokesman adding that it had “rigorous, well established procedures” for “staff to address any concerns over inappropriate treatment or behaviour”.

“The civil service will continue to have a no tolerance policy on bullying,” the spokesman said.

Warning claim

Reports of Mr Brown’s alleged mistreatment of staff appeared in extracts from a book by the Observer’s chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley.

The book includes details of incidents where it is alleged Mr Brown grabbed staff by the lapels, shoved them aside and shouted at them.

Downing Street says the reports are “malicious allegations” that are “without foundation”.

I have not seen any of that behaviour in all the time I have been at No 10 or an MP Labour MP Anne Snelgrove

Responding to the allegations, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: “I don’t think he so much bullies people as he is very demanding of people.”

Other members of the cabinet rallied to the prime minister’s defence, with Home Secretary Alan Johnson saying that in 17 years he had “never” heard Mr Brown raise his voice.

A Cabinet Office statement said: “It is completely untrue to say that the cabinet secretary ever gave the prime minister a verbal warning about his behaviour”.

Mr Rawnsley told the BBC his source for the story was “24 carat”.

‘Non-political’

BBC deputy political editor James Landale said Ms Pratt’s claims had “put paid” to Labour’s hopes that “allegations about Gordon Brown’s temper would fade once the Sunday papers were forgotten”.

“What Labour had hoped would be a one-day story is now getting wind in its sails and disrupting even further the party’s election plans.”

Mrs Snelgrove questioned why the National Bullying Helpline had “popped up out of the blue when all of this is happening around Gordon”.

NICK ROBINSON’S NEWSLOG The woman who told the BBC her National Bullying Helpline was called by three people who worked with the prime minister is now at the centre of a political storm Read Nick’s latest blog in full

She added: “Life is too short to work for someone who is a bully and I would not be working for Gordon if he was a bully.

“I have not seen any of that behaviour in all the time I have been at No 10 or an MP.”

Tory MP Ann Widdecombe is a patron of the charity, whose website also displays a statement of support from Conservative leader David Cameron.

Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business recommends the helpline to businesses.

The charity says it is non-political, and the BBC has found no evidence of any political involvement by Ms Pratt or the helpline.

Ms Widdecombe said it would be “quite a good idea” for Sir Gus to take “an informal look” at workplace conditions at No 10.

But she criticised Ms Pratt’s decision to go public, saying the helpline was supposed to be confidential.

Labour is starting to disintegrate and the Prime Minister is in denial. His shocking agressive past is now catching up with him and his latest attempts to persuade the public have failed. Being a strong leader is one thing. Being an aggressive bully is quite another and no one in high office can be allowed to treat people in such an appalling way.

Its time for Brown and his cabal of misfits to go once and for all. We dont need him and we dont want him.

Jim Ferguson

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