Peter Oborne knows nowt!

I've long since thought many in the secular press were gearing up the anti-Catholic rhetoric. Peter Oborne in today's Daily Mail shows how very biased and bigoted the secular mind can be. He knows precious little about the Faith of the Church yet feels free to opine. Fair do's, but it only shows him up to be a typically careless opinion maker when it comes to church affairs. I suppose having a conscience that is being sorely tested is largely lost on him! The fact is many loyal Anglicans, who believe firmly in the traditional sacramental ways, are feeling got at by sniping and silly epithets.

I would have thought he was worthy of better things.

Libertas or Jury Team? It has to be one of them!

The European elections on Thursday are going to be a watershed for British democracy. In the wake of the expenses scandal, the three main parties are going to get a battering. I see that UKIP and the BNP are favoured by some and UKIP's sun is rising. However, the sun goes down at night time and that's usually when UKIP's plotters are seen about town. In today's Daily Mail Peter Oborne says it all. He says -

"Both party leaders have protected more senior MPs. For example, Brown gave a clean bill of health to Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, Work & Pensions Secretary James Purnell and Chancellor Alistair Darling. Yet all three are tax-cheats whose conduct, if replicated by an ordinary member of the public, would undoubtedly lead to a criminal investigation. These men should not be allowed to remain in British public life.

Cameron is guilty of the same inconsistency. While being tough on some backbenchers, he seems blind to the fact that a number of his Shadow Cabinet have been guilty of loathsome and amoral conduct. I would never vote for a political party which includes Francis Maude (who claimed almost £35,000 for for a mortgage on a London flat a few minutes' walk from a house he already owned and then rented out) or Alan Duncan (who submitted thousands of pounds of expenses for his garden before agreeing that the spending 'could be considered excessive')."

If only this scandal was not promoted by the general public as being about duck houses and moat cleaning only. It is about cynical manipulation to keep acolytes in place and to feed a few MPs to the electorate to stave off the full effects of a political lynching. Oborne suggests -

"It goes without saying that it is impossible to support a racist party such as the BNP. Also, UKIP, the most obvious choice, can immediately be ruled out because one of its MEPs is facing prosecution for fraud. This leaves those of us seeking politicians of integrity and decency with just two possible parties: Jury Team and Libertas.

Jury Team is a new political movement set up by philanthropist Sir Paul Judge, who has an outstanding record as a businessman and has donated generously to many charities. His own integrity is beyond reproach and his list of candidates standing next week are independent figures (his team includes Esther Rantzen and former anti-sleaze MP Martin Bell) who are determined to clean up politics.

Meanwhile, Libertas was founded by charismatic Irish businessman Declan Ganley who, in a referendum, persuaded Irish voters to reject the Lisbon Treaty which would have given Brussels many more powers. As a result, the British people already owe Ganley an enormous debt of gratitude. Equally, the European political class hate him - spending hundreds of thousands of EU money on a propaganda campaign linking him with a CIA plot devised by U.S. neo-conservatives to weaken the EU.

Significantly, this smear campaign has failed.

At a time of moral squalor and decay in Westminster and Brussels, both Libertas and Jury Team offer voters a hugely refreshing - and, perhaps, the only proper - alternative on Thursday."

I will be supporting Libertas. It was a tough choice, but in this respect Libertas is fighting for transparency in the European Parliament and the EU instutions. Jury Team would be a better bet for Westminster elections. But that's my view. I'm still a conservative thinker and politically driven in conservative ways. Just as Tories are not necessarily Conservatives, I am now a conservative that is not completely Conservative.

"Gordon's for me", says Harriet Harman!

Very strange things are happening at the top of the New Labour edifice. The cracks are appearing and various characters are out night and day with pots of glue and sheets of brown paper. Or is it vinegar and brown paper?

Harriet Harman is the latest to sound off about her loyalty to the hapless leader. She has publicly declared that she is not remotely interested in the leadership. So if, Gordon Brown falls on his sword, let's hope there are those capable of holding her back. Known as Harriet Harperson for her slavish adherence to all things sexually equal, she is the complete opposite of a soft-boiled egg. She's soft on the outside and pretty hard inside. A perfect political operator and one Brown should be wary of.

It is said quite often that Gordon Brown is grumpy and moody. It is now being reported that he often flies into rages, is unpredictable, can be extremely morose and prefers to maintain close contact with only a small coterie of close companions. Is this the type of man we want leading the country? Is Gordon Brown really stable enough to cope with the complexities of a financial meltdown? It depends on who you believe.

The Cabinet is coming to the Brown rescue by saying he's the best man for the job. Whilst falling short of saying they'd die for him, they seem quite happy and pleased about it all. Has the prime Minister ever bellowed at one of them? Has he cowered them into submission?

It doesn't add up. Peter Oborne reported in the Daily Mail that Brown was getting increasing bunker-bound. Oborne says, "The fundamental fact is that Brown has lost control of a very large part of the Labour Party. For a control freak who deeply resents it when he fails to get his own way, this is intolerable. This powerlessness explains the recurrent reports emanating from Downing Street that Brown's personal behaviour has become erratic. He is prone to fits of rage, and there are reports that only last week he had to be taken to one side and calmed down by Peter Mandelson after a TV interview went wrong." Somebody witnessed that, unless Oborne is making it up, which I very much doubt. So can the likes of Alan Johnson still say he's the only man for the job?

Oborne goes on to say, "Worryingly for Gordon Brown, the conspirators do not just have their candidate. They have their chosen time. Next month's local and European elections are the moment of maximum risk for the Prime Minister. A truly disastrous performance at the polls - as seems very probable - will prompt many more MPs to come forward to call on Brown to go." So that will be that, then?

It is a very sad situation where we have a man in power with obvious qualities, and Gordon Brown does have those, but that his twin flaws of anger and vindictiveness are now outweighing the positive aspects of his nature. Perhaps the Cabinet have just had enough of being browbeaten.

If he goes in June and a new leader is in place, Labour could well get back in contention. I still think it hard for them to win an outright majority, but they could be in with a chance as far as a minority or coalition government is concerned. At the moment, they are doomed to go down like the Titanic.

The Labour Party made the grave mistake of accepting as fact that Gordon Brown was the only choice after Blair. Patently that was an absurd notion. Then, once in place, Gordon Brown made the catastrophic mistake of not calling a general election. He just bottled it. If he had gone to the country he could have won well. Any subsequent problems over the credit crisis would enable him to say he was backed by the country. As it is he isn't and won't be. We have a prime minister who finds decisions hard to make and who is very much becoming emotionallly unstable.

Harriet Harman is fooling nobody apart from herself.