Sir Stuart Bell says New Labour is dead!

Sir Stuart Bell has just told the BBC that New Labour died on general election night. It won't be an expensive funeral. No flowers, please. Just a contribution to the ex-cabinet ministers' wake. New Labour was always a steamy sleazy policy-lite political con. Sir Stuart Bell probably took it as long as he could.

Conservative candidate pilloried for views!

Woe betide anyone thinking of standing for Parliament with traditional views. Especially if these views touch on the subject of homosexuality. If any candidate so much as squeaks, the politically correct hyenas pounce. Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, Philip Lardner, has been suspended for what are considered "deeply offensive and unacceptable" comments about homosexuality. He apparently posted them on his website. I haven't seen them so don't know how "deeply offensive and unacceptable" they were. But what I do know is that there is an insidious undercurrent of Stalinist put-downs every time someone of traditional values expresses an opinion on the subject.

Catholics are portrayed as being a suitable target for shutting up. If David Cameron believes so much in the family, why on earth try to silence people in such a manner. The people of North Ayrshire and Arran can make up their own minds. If they vote for Mr. Lardner, what will Cameron do with him? Put him on the naughty step, so all and sundry passing through the Palace of Westminster can see what happens if you speak your mind - and that mind is out of favour with the liberal elite?

This is very worrying. Are those who feel they have a contribution to make in public life to be silenced if their views are contrary to others? Homosexual practices are not acceptable to many as an ideal basis for a lifestyle. Are they to be pilloried for thinking this way? It is all rather Stalinist. I find it distasteful.

David Cameron gave some wishy-washy response to a question about the Pope's visit. So did Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg. They didn't exactly embrace weasel words, but I guess a fox wouldn't find such sentiments unhandy. If this instant attacking of traditional values doesn't stop, we will end up in some sort of 1984 mind state. Thank goodness for the internet. Some of us can speak up.

When Julian Lewis was attacked by that pompous prig Alan Johnson, his opinions were traduced big time. Johnson just abused the airwaves with something he thought passed for democratic comment. It was nothing of the sort. It was just plain bullying. Alan Johnson has the veneer of a nice man but essentially he comes across as a political bully. Julian Lewis made some points about homosexual relationships. Immediately he was pounced upon. Now everyone is entitled to speak their mind in a free democracy so long as it is not unlawful or inciteful. Also, I would add unpleasant. I can't see anything as such in what Mr.Lewis said. He went on to say "On the other hand (though no-one seems to have noticed), I voted in favour of the civil partnerships bill". Alan Johnson didn't notice.

No, Johnson seems to be an anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-free speech former trade union official who is far more comfortable trying to belittle his opponents by besmirching them than he is protecting their democratic rights. This election is certainly proving to weed out the political pharisees.

Gordon Brown? Can he hang on?

All of a sudden the talk is not so much of us having a hung parliament but whether Gordon Brown can actually hang on. Hang on to what, exactly. The New Labour greasy pole? That's a tall order. No, it seems he may be able to do a kind of John Major 1992. This is all deemed possible by the British public settling for the devil they know, rather than plump for someone else, namely David Cameron.

There's a saying in Yorkshire, or at least there was. It's "There's nowt so queer as folk". This queer just means odd or peculiar and not the more recent usage. In fact, I haven't heard the word queer for ages, so perhaps nobody in Yorkshire says this anymore. Perhaps they should. We should all sit up and wonder if we are not all going a bit peculiar. How can a man who Richard Littlejohn describes as being sociopath have any chance? In fact, Littlejohn says in the Daily Mail, "For the entire time that New Labour has been misleading, bullying and cheating the British public, Gordon Brown has been at its dark heart, first as chancellor, then as prime minister. Brown's Britain is a failed state, led by an unelected Scottish sociopath and a gruesome gang of crooks, liars, political pygmies and smearmerchants. He has bankrupted the country, smashed our once gold-standard private pensions system, sold out our sovereignty to Europe and destroyed the special relationship with the U.S. over the release of the Lockerbie bomber for the sake of a squalid, sectarian squabble with the Scottish Nationalists. We have a ruinous welfare culture which rewards the feckless and a taxation system which punishes enterprise and the traditional family. Economically, he peddled us a false prospectus and has succeeded in beggaring the country for generations to come."

So, who could possibly think of voting Labour? Apparently quite a few. What on earth could they possibly get out of it? Well, I suppose plane-grounding strikers, a train-stopping union, bonus-grabbing bankers, climate change zealots, gravy train europhiles, equalities quango merchants and grumpy health service know-it-alls could make up a coalition of the politically corrupt and try to hallucinate the nation.

On, and there's talk of Blair going on the election campaign trail. The cherry on the cheesecake?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1261026/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-The-pygmies-sleazebags-whove-wrecked-Britain-I-nearly-Labour-MP.html#ixzz0jYld2fTY

Mandelson's pot calls Byers' kettle black!

Peter Mandelson has some front. He calls the greedy antics of Byers, Hoon and Hewitt grubby. Here's a man who has ducked better than the most activated duck and dived better that a gold medallist at the Olympics. They say that oil and water don't mix. Well, Mandelson disproves that theory as much as he disproves nearly all the others.

New Labour is probably the most vile political vision to have been afflicted on the British people. In fact, it is something nobody should revere or praise. It is a deluding concept that turns people into rampantly greedy people, who lose all sight of reality. My big fear is that the poison that the New Labour chalice has in it will have infected too many voters come polling day. It has already befuddled the mind of Stephen Byers, who has the brass neck to suggest that his "caught-on-camera" remarks were all not really meant. Byers says he is a "cab for hire" but it sounds more like he is a car that's been "inadvertently" found in a red light district. Very seedy indeed!

Whatever Mandelson says, whatever the Labour Party does, it still signifies that this Blairite version of a quack doctor's remedy for carpetbaggers is utterly contemptible. I suggest that if any Labour candidate comes knocking at the general election they are given short shrift in good measure. My fantasy is that all of them receive ZERO votes. If only!

Blair seen as a liability

When was it ever different, I said to myself on seeing this piece in The Times. Apparently senior Labour figures have voiced concerns that Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry in the coming weeks will wreck any prospect of him helping the party at the general election. Helping them out? They'd be far better advised giving him a wide berth. The man is generally seen as being trouble on two legs. Blair's entourage are none too pleased with their hero being asked to explain his fibs and foibles. There is growing criticism being voiced within the former Prime Minister’s inner circle about Gordon Brown’s decision to hold the inquiry with public hearings in the run-up to the election. It was nicely put by a stooge as “The whole f***ing thing is Downing Street’s fault.” And these people used to run the country?

These Blairite types want him to "nuance" his testimony at the inquiry. What's new. He's nuanced everything since he knocked on his housemaster's door seeking attention. He nuanced his politics, he nuanced his religion, and he's currently nuancing his lucrative business career. He nuanced the Labour Party and no doubt nuanced all the mirrors in his house "Well, yeah, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is, yeah, the greatest nuancer of all?" "Oh, you are, Great Nuancer!"

Gordon Brown has had his Granita days. Tony Blair is not much use to the election or the future. New Labour dies a death in May!

No wedded bliss under New Labour regime

In some ways the New Labour regime mirrors the US Episcopal Church as some kind of secular PC alternative. They are all for a bizarre idea of equality, thrusting alternative lifestyles at us in place of married bliss and generally failing to help the disadvantaged and the wronged because they have a blanket approach to it all.

New Labour heard that some sub-continental brides had been sold into marital slavery and abuse in order to obtain cash dowries for the grasping grooms. At first this was dismissed because no self-respecting New Labour apparatchik could bring himself/herself to accept anything untoward from the Asian community. Then they were forced to admit that forced marriages needed acting upon. Of course, being New Labour, they couldn't construct an act that dealt with the problem. No, they had to include every race, creed and human being possible into their law. So it is that totally innocent people get caught up in this legal minefield.

The Home Office is diligently applying the rules and regulations with vigour. British bride Amber Aguilar, from Friern Barnet, north London, faced the dilemma of having to choose between her career ambitions in the UK or living abroad with her Chilean husband because of the policy. The ‘heartbroken’ 18-year-old chose to live with 19-year-old Diego Andres Aguilar Quila, who had to leave the country recently after his student visa expired. The Home Office has been labelled heartless. I'd say they were just a bunch of jobsworths with a penchant for momentary lapses into jobsworthlessnesses (like losing computer data!).

It is not what Britain should be about. The sooner this lot go the better for all of us!

BNP given succour by Labour's failures

This quote from BBC Newsnight on the BNP in Stoke-on-Trent -

"Dave Gore is a 40-year-old tradesman. He has just been made redundant. He says there is work out there but immigrant workers have pushed wages so low, he refuses to do it. He has voted Labour all his life. Now he is getting ready to vote BNP for the first time. "Labour took us for granted," he says. "They've done nothing for us. Now I'm going to give the BNP a chance."

Give the BNP a chance! That's what New Labour has given us. Because of their poncy behaviour with the banks, sucking up to dodgy corporatists and generally paving the way for self-engrandisement (Blair's multi-million pound financial caravan is a good example!), we have been left with an underclass that is bitter and resentful, together with an artisan class that is fearful and demotivated.

Perhaps Gordon Brown might do the decent thing and hand the keys of No 10 back in the morning! Oh, and Darling's borrowing bonananza. It won't be an extra 7% on income tax at payback time. It will be Denis Healey's squeaking of the pips for all of us. OUCH!

Geert Wilders sends Islamic extremists wildly wild

The presence of far-right maverick Dutchman on the shores of the UK has sent certain Muslim fantatics into vituperate overdrive. 20-odd pyjama-clad bearded wonders came onto the streets to wave placards displaying such choice slogans as "Islam will dominate the world" and "Freedom can go to hell" which I take as a pun on the Freedom Party's name.

We are told by the high and mighty New Labour Regime that they are appalled at Wilders being here. Personally I don't find his views attractive, but I do believe in free speech, the right of personal viewpoints. The sort of right that allows hotheads to salivate about Taliban-inspired Shariah law.

New Labour huffs and puffs about Wilders but remains sanctimoniously silent about the incitement offered by these 20 bawlers. More hypocrisy, more double standards. New Labour to a tee!

New Labour's healthy hypocrisy

New Labour is a political creed devoid of political fibre or philosophy. The only thing that holds it together is spin, subterfuge and a social climbing desire. Mostly it has an obnoxious self-righteousness about it.

David Cameron was recently lambasted by Alan Johnson because the Conservative leader dared to suggest that the NHS was being strangled by bureaucracy. Johnson sounded like a maiden aunt had been raped. He talks of 'deceit' and enters an arena for tittle-tattle and innuendo. Also, that sleazy minister Ben Bradshaw, the one who thinks Anglican prayers should have a decent element of buggery as a subject matter, came out all prissy about the Conservatives approach to health care.

Both these ministers are so wrapped up in big government that they can't see the little problems growing into much bigger ones. Now they've got a new report on their hands. The Care Quality Commission (another quango) has said that one in eight NHS trusts has been told it must urgently improve the care it provides. We're back to hygiene and safety again. Mike O'Brien, a health minister, blithely comments that the report states good things.

When it comes to the NHS this New Labour shower are a mixture of ostriches in a sand pit and Croesus on speed. Now there's a mind-boggling thought!

Harriet Harperson bites back!

She looks stunned and stupified here. Whatever she may say, The Sun's belated divorce from New Labour has stung her. And I'm not sorry really. She's a woman who believes in equality on her terms. Equality to get the best expenses, equality to get the best schools for her children, all that kind of equality. Hypocrisy is a word that comes to mind.

What is the point of New Labour now?

Gordon Brown has given a conference speech that went down well with the apparatchiks, not so well with the old school rank-and-file and it gave The Sun its final nail in the coffin. They just need to find a good hammer to drive them home!

Last night Newsnight showed Jeremy Paxman wandering around the conference enquiring about the purpose of New Labour. He found a votes office with nothing much to do, a number of expensive show stands conveniently paid for by willing councils and compliant unions and he sensed a rally format without much verve or nerve to rouse the crowds. Tony Blair was a man who could fill a hall on platitudes and revised beatitudes. No need for a moral compass, he had God on his side (or possibly at his side!). He had New Labour certainty which basically translated as Tony Blair certainty. Blair could easily have been the leader of the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrats. If it had served his purpose for power, he might easily have fitted into UKIP, the SNP, or the Green Party. Blair could mould a message to suit the circumstances. But he's gone. We've got Gordon Brown now, floundering around like a beached whale. What is his purpose?

New Labour was a fiction. It still is. It doesn't stand for anything. It doesn't create policy. It hates votes, hence the sheer boredom of being in the votes office! However, it loves control, it loves manipulation, it loves messing about with things. New Labour strikes me like its a child that cannot stop fidgeting. The old adage was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!". New Labour turns this around. They fix things or people in such a way that they end up bust, broken or bewildered.

If I were a socialist I'd be wondering what on earth the Labour Party had to offer me. As a democrat, I find their aversion to free votes baffling. If I were a trade unionist I'd be thinking about how far I could stretch loyalty and credulity. As a voter I was never conned. I knew what they were about in 1997, but have no idea now.

It seems to me that the country, as The Sun thinks, has just lost favour with the New Labour magic. The Blair pixie lost his sparkle and the Brown straw man couldn't find it. However, the Tories and Liberal Democrats are not seen as easy replacements. They will have earn their votes.

It's just that, as we approach the general election, the question as to what the point of New Labour is still remains unanswered. My guess is that many will drift away. Radicals will see the Liberal Democrats or Greens as an alternative. Those who only had cupboard love for the Blair experiment will bounce back to the Tories and other minor parties will get the intellectual socialist support.

So I've probably answered my own question. There is no point to New Labour!

Weasel wordsmith Mandelson!

Listening to Lord Mandelson on the Today Programme one wonders if he believes the British public will be conned by his slippery ways. He uses the mantra "wise spenders, not big spenders", and goes on to denounce the Tories by wildly fantasising on what a Conservative government would do. All fantasy. He suggests Conservatives will introduced private health, cut costs like some crazed hedge-cutter on speed, and generally spite the poor.

If anyone has done these things or attempted to do these things then it is the mortgage-fiddling Mandelson and his New Labour government. If we believe him, we are fools indeed!

Supreme foolishness!

The New Labour disease is a vile thing, often manifesting itself in manipulation. That is in this organisation's case an uncontrollable spasm in the hands causing the outfit to mend things which were not broken. In fact, they chip bits off, then imply it needs mending. It is a terrible disease, the only cure being a GENERAL ELELECTION!! If only.....

Archbishop Cranmer has a wonderful post about this new Supreme Court thing. Please read it, it says it all.

Just as a rider, this on the "Judiciary Communications Office" website, rambling on about why their Lordships have been booted out of the House of Lords (as judges that is) -

"As members of the House of Lords, this means that they not only sit judicially, but are also able to become involved in the debate and subsequent enactment of Government legislation (although, in practice, they rarely do so). Creating a new Supreme Court will mean that the most senior judges will be entirely separate from the Parliamentary process."

If they rarely got involved and the whole system worked for 1,000 years, what mindset thought better? Oh, the manipulatively diseased mind of New Labour, of course!

Life peers no longer to get life!

Keen to keeping the meddling and the messing about with the constitution ticking away, the government has decided to include a measure in a Constitutional Reform Bill for the right of life peers to resign from the House of Lords - something hereditary peers have been able to do since 1963. This is due to go before Parliament on Monday.

The bill will also bring an end to the hereditary principle. The fourteenth Mr.Brown is keen to kick out the last remaining earls, countesses and other "heriditaries" as New Labour mockingly calls them.

It's all a mean-spirited device. I would far rather have a few lords left, like the Earl of Onslow and the Countess of Mar giving sage advice and providing pertinent points about badly-drafted bills than an elected bunch of self-serving apparatchiks. Mandelson and Brown talk about democracy but they have been the worst abusers of democracy this country has ever seen or had the misfortune to endure.

I cannot for the life of me see which life peer would want to resign from the House of Lords in order to fight an election to be able to sit in the House of Commons. The fourteenth Earl of Home resigned his title in order to become prime minister in 1963 but that was because he had no choice in holding his title. Viscount Thurso has not ceased to hold his hereditary title but he currently sits as a Liberal Democrat MP (John Thurso) because he is not one of the remaining 92 heriditary peers in the House of Lords. Life peers had a choice whether to receive the title or not.

Which life peer right now wants to scarper and stand in the general election next year? Finding one would be as difficult as searching for a needle in a haystack. The miscievous Lord Mandelson just stoked an imaginary bonfire with his usual wit. Asked last month by the Financial Times whether he might renounce his peerage and stand again as an MP, Lord Mandelson said, "It's not legally possible to do that. I am trapped. I believe it is for life." The peer, who insisted he was "teasing", added, "Of course, you could always change the law."

Well don't change the law. Leave things well alone and bother yourself with getting the helicopters to Afghanistan. Nobody is going to die because the 2nd Baron Strathclyde is the Conservative leader in the Lords but they will die in Afghanistan if the military advice is ignored for squalid political cheeseparing!

Strutting is preferred to stripping!

I can't get to terms with New Labour's perverted approach to life. On the one hand they promote gay pride marches and "encourage" firemen, policemen and ambulance staff to attend in the hope that these organisations will take some comfort in seeing garishly clothed people prancing up and down city streets. All this in broad daylight, some of the marchers dressed in very skimpy and sexually provocative outfits. In the New Labour world this is seen as normal. Those even faintly disturbed by such antics are deemed homophobic in need of social awareness training.

On the other hand, they get themselves in a high state of moral outrage over burlesque dancers. The proposed Policing and Crime Bill could see burlesque categorised as sexual entertainment. In which case, it will be adult entertainment requiring a sexual entertainment licence. No doubt a hefty fee will be wanted by the authorities. Ruby Rose founder of the Burlesque Women's Institute "It is an art form and if you start banning or licensing art forms, you've got to go across the board and look at everything. I've never yet seen anything that offends so I really don't know why it's caused such a problem". But she would need a shrink to delve into the average mind of New Labour.

I am amazed. Burlesque is hardly a problem. It's a private matter behind the closed doors of a theatre. However, the matter of provocative gay pride marchers is a problem because it is out in the open, with some people being forced to attend.

I'm not in favour of censorship but an uneven hand is very bad for lawmaking. People can have gay pride marches but surely they can be conducted without offense or coercion.

Burlesque

New Labour's political soufflé collapses in the middle

New Labour was always a fictitious philosophy. It pandered to short-term thinking and quick fix politics. As I've been musing, what is New Labour for, exactly? It isn't for socialism, it isn't for the "class struggle", it isn't for radical change. There are still republicans, socialists and secularists in parts of the party, but it is mainly made up of silver-tongued managerial types keen to spread money around (even in a recession) without too many questions being asked or answers being sought.

New Labour was Tony Blair's concept in the main, along with Mandelson and a few others, who saw great merit in a frothy electoral programme aimed mainly at seducing the British public. It was almost devoid of principle and utterly lacking in sound policy, but what the hell, in 1997 the country was craving change and this grinning, smooth talking politician was just in the right place at the right time.

It comes as no surprise that several Labour MPs are thinking of defecting to the Liberal Democrats. This party is being ably led by Nick Clegg and has some very good front bench spokesmen. Vince Cable is an excellent opponent of the government's lacklustre financial management. I am not a natural supporter of the LibDems, but I think they show a far better respect for social policies and are generally far more "robust" on the financial front.

Gordon Brown must have some problem with them. He has never referred to them as the Liberal Democrats, preferring to say "THE LUBBER-RULL PARTY", as if being dismissive. Now they are appearing to be an effective party and it is no surprise to hear that many Labour MPs are thinking they may well be better off under the leadership of someone who does put principle before party.

My own preferred political solution would be for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to be the two main parties. Perhaps it may be happening. The LibDems are made up of a sizeable chunk of former Labour Party people as it is (Shirley Williams, etc), so it may take one or two more mass defections for this to come about.

It is certain that nobody is rushing to order the Gordon Brown soufflé, as it has gone horribly soggy in the middle.

Gordon Brown's "friends" start writing on the wall!

The walls around Downing Street are getting a good lashing of political graffiti on them. David Blunkett has come out to say that he thinks Gordon Brown should "draw a line in the sand" and get back to "old-fashioned politics". Too late for that now. Gordon Brown is fast becoming a spent force. In fact, he was never really the choice of the Labour Party. He just bullied them into accepting him as Buggins to Blair. It was his turn, he claimed. In fact he reckoned he should have been there instead of Blair. They just wanted the grumpy sulking to stop.

Now Brown is being cautioned against bullying. Charles Clarke has entered the fray to say that he has become "ashamed" of being a Labour MP. In some ways it's hard to know what Labour MPs are meant for now. Socialism is a dead concept. New Labour is hardly socialism. The Red Flag is in some cupboard getting dusty and the likes of Jacqui Smith and Tony McNulty see making easy money a better option. I get the impression that McNulty would explode with indignation if he were asked to embrace socialism.

Stephen Byers has popped up to add his ten cents. It's becoming very clear that Brown should be circling the wagons rather than running down to the beach with a stick to draw lines in the sand. David Cameron is waiting to take over. He says that Gordon Brown is "rapidly running out of political authority". That's fairly generous. Most of us feel he's completely out of gas!

The question is - do we have to wait a whole year for a general election with the Prime Minister in the meantime YouTubing us messages and giving the House of Commons' spiders a dose of unfair competition? May be might just run away!

Darling gets 50% of top earners' takings!

I've not contemplated the budget in any great detail, but have chanced to read that those earning over £150,000 will have the top slice cut in half. Not exactly an Old Labour tactic, more an Up-To-Our-Necks-In-It Labour reaction. Forget about Sats and league tables at schools. All school leavers will have to use every ounce of grey matter figuring out how to pay back the dire results of Gordon Brown's reckless abandonment of Prudence. Because we are all involved and will all be involved for a very long time.

Those about to get the big bucks and bonuses creamed off the top of their pay packets may feel aggrieved. If they ever voted for this lot, then it's one big fat free range chicken coming home to roost. They should know that it always ends in tears for Labour.

The Confederation of British Industry puts it quite well when it says that this budget does not set out a "credible and rigorous" path to recovery. No, it doesn't. Gordon Brown has not been credible in much of this. Ever since the sub-prime fiasco came tumbling apart, he has sought to suggest it was all the fault of others. They were involved, certainly, but his "light touch" allowed those who should have known better to turn blind eyes, to keep quiet about dodgy dealings or to bury their heads in their hands.

He knew the economy was all going pear-shaped long before he eventually admitted it publically. How anyone could think that a further five years of a Labour government is worth contemplating, I do not know.

Weasel McBride!

You have to hand it to these toerags in the New Labour coterie. Instead of a fullsome apology this half-witted apparatchik starts his resignation statement by attacking Paul Staines. Why on earth? Because his grubby little plans were found out? Come off it, McBride! Are you not man enough to make a proper statement?

His first words are, "I am shocked and appalled that, however they were obtained, these e-mails have been put into the public domain by Paul Staines."

No, no, NO!! We are shocked and appalled that you see fit to write such a set of weasel words and think for one minute that this is enough. It is not!

McBride's resignation statement.

e-muck on the web!

Gordon Brown must be wondering what politics can do to him next. I get the impression that he hasn't got the right kind of control over these No.10 apparatchiks. He goes about now expressing "much regret" and says he is calling for a tighter aides' code of conduct. My goodness, has the man seen this code? It's as tight as it should be.

The Easter break was a time of self-imposed restriction for me. No blogging over the festivities. But it's a hell of strain when we've got such a Jekyll and Hyde prime minister. So I'm back in harness, raring to go. Lance Price, a former BBC reporter turned New Labour spin doctor who spun himself out of a job, thinks there are too many bloggers like me. Those on the right, that is.

We are only here to carp at the Government. Well, yes, but also no. I don't see this as an attack blog, more of one that highlights palpable corruption, spin and deceit. The very fact that these made-up stories, that the creepy Damian McBride thought was good stuff, were being hatched inside No.10 is something we should all be concerned about.

Gordon Brown sounds like a man who is like a startled rabbit in the headlights of McBride's car. All something he knew nothing about until it suddenly came round the corner. But I can't take that on face value. People like McBride don't act like this unless they think or assume that their boss will be pleased as punch with the outcome.

What is wrong here is that the seedy corruption that is New Labour (oh, for the Old Labour decency of men like Eric Heffer!) is all below the belt stuff. Frances Osborne, the shadow chancellor's wife, should never have had such digusting stuff made up about her. Have a go, politically, at her husband if you want, but keep out of the gutter, please!

The leery face of Derek Draper rises out of all this. I imagine Mr.Draper has a very good side to him, otherwise he would or could not possibly get past Kate Galloway. But this episode shows up the unattractive side of the New Labour machine. I hardly dare suggest there is an attractive side. In fact, if I racked my brains all night, I'd be hard pressed to come up with anything decent this shower has done.

Far from being criticised, those of us who blog from the right should be given some credit. In this, the credit goes to Guido Fawkes for uncovering this scandal. It's his sort of reporting that puts him at the top of the bloggers' list (No.2, I think). We've had no words of regret from Draper or McBride. Gordon Brown is trying to distance himself from the stormdrains.

The Conservatives are right to demand a fullsome apology from the prime minister. This time he just has to say sorry.