Venturing out for Ventura?

I saw Jesse Ventura a couple of days ago on Larry King's CNN show. Jesse was one good form. Talking a lot of sense and speaking with a directness that some other political persons lack. He was up against a couple of seasoned characters who were more or less for the status quo. Jesse told King that he was considering running for the US Senate. What I missed, or they never talked about, was the guy he could replace. None other than Senator Norm Coleman, the man who took on, and was bested by, George Galloway. George showed Norm no respect, and it seems Jesse won't either. Well, in Jesse's case, it may be more a matter of settling scores over the war, keeping tabs on the spending, and getting Congress' nose out of people's lives.

I sense a powerful tide in America this year for such policies. John McCain is stratching around in the Republican chicken coop trying to look like the candidate who will keep the status quo in safe hands. He wants the lobbyists on side, the analysts to stay analysing, and the spending kept in the hands of the few. Barack Obama will be his challenger. Hillary is a bit like the last guest at the wedding feast who stays on for the leftovers and won't let the bride get away with the groom! She has said a few things, though. One is that Obama won't be able to court the white working class voters. Now there she might be right. I'd say pity to that, but politics is a cruel sport indeed. Just ask John Major, or more topically, Gordon Brown!

So we have McCain operating in a lacklustre way to keep the Republican tent in an upright position, Obama trying to fend off Hillary with one hand and gather around as many of the disaffected with the other. Could both lose out to a middle way candidate? Bob Barr is on the warpath. Jesse Ventura is keeping his powder dry for a big bang on filing day in Minnesota. Ron Paul has an army of enthusiastic volunteers, all far more excited about the election that McCain's troops ever will be. What of the third run? Ventura came through as Governor on only a bit more than a third of the vote. It's not impossible for the presidency.

My guess is that when the final Democratic primaries are over, even if Hillary is still in, the third party movers will be shaking. If they can get around a common cause candidate, then that person could really shake, rattle and roll!

Henley Tories pick accountant for by-election

Henley Tories (that's Henley-on-Thames not Henley-in-Arden) have chosen John Howell, a former partner at City accountant Ernst and Young, to be their candidate at the forthcoming by-election to succeed (hopefully!) Boris Johnson. Mr Howell was chosen from a shortlist of three.

All that remains now is for a date to be set. And someone to win, of course!

Blair launches his faith foundation

Tony Blair, now a Roman Catholic, is still, to my mind, a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character. That may sound terribly uncharitable and even downright unChristian, but I do think he has a few "issues" to confront. As an Anglican, apparently of the High Church tendency, he never really gave much support to Catholic issues. His ambivalence on homosexuality, abortion, and general moral matters seemed paramount in the New Labour pantheon. His wife, Cherie, and his children are all Roman Catholics. However, Blair thought it inappropriate to convert to Rome whilst Prime Minister. I cannot think why. Maybe he was under excruciating pressure from the secularists in the party, who are a bedevilment of control freakery. Maybe he felt the British public would rise up against him with Cromwellian fervour, seeking his head on a plate. I may find his politics unsavoury, but I do think Blair has his moral compass in the right direction. He's just a bit hazy with the pointing skills.

His new organisation is simply styled The Tony Blair Faith Foundation. It has three aims - to promote faith as a force for good, improve awareness between religions and tackle poverty and war. The last one is a bit hard to take. For those of us steadfastly opposed to the War in Iraq, both on the right and left of politics, this can only be taken seriously if he apologises for usurping international law with dodgy dossiers and fake facts. Incidentally, John McCain was talking recently of his understanding that every intelligence agency believed Saddam Hussein had WMD. If McCain had bothered to contact the Swedish embassy in Baghdad at the time, he'd know this was nonsense. It suited all concerned in the stoking up of the battle cry to believe such stuff. Regime change had never been a legitimate reason for declaring or for waging war. Tony Blair was sailing very close to the wind indeed!

Tackling poverty? He could take on the generals in Rangoon for a start. They seem quite at home with suffering and destitution and that was before the present calamity. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe's thugs are dragging Christians from the very altar rails of their churches. Some Catholic Mugabe has turned out to be! No regime change here. Just platitudes and pleasantries.

I wish Tony Blair well in his endeavours. All of us who profess the Faith would support such laudable action. Maybe he has had a Road to Damascus vision of how to confront the ills of society. It's just a pity that he gave us ten years of New Labour government, a lot of which was at odds with Catholic thinking. A more public admission of previous policy errors would give a lot of credence to his current ambitions.

It's the EU's way or it's the way out!

The European Union is fast becoming a haven for the undemocratic, the bureaucratically minded, and the plainly corrupt. I'm not sure which camp I put Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP in. Probably a mixture of the first two. I'll be charitable and suggest that he's not corrupt. That's not to say that the others get off that lightly. There are plenty of corrupt characters floating around the Brussels edifice, some elected, others there by knowing which jobs get the biggest brown envelopes stuffed! Corbett is leading the European Union assembly’s political establishment in attempting to push through changes that will silence dissidents by changing the rules allowing Euro-MPs to form political groupings. Of course, their troughs will have silk rims to allow their snouts to escape unnecessary bruising when they rush to gobble up the cash savings!

Corbett’s proposals will also give the President of the Parliament sweeping powers to approve or reject parliamentary questions. A kind of censor-in-chief. The whole thing is disgraceful. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, claimed that the move goes hand in hand with the denial of popular votes on the new EU Treaty. "Welcome to your future. This shows an EU mindset that is arrogant, anti-democratic and frankly scary,” he said. "These people are so scared of public opinion they are willing to set in stone the right to ignore it. Freedom requires the governing elite to be held to account. They must be getting very worried if they are enacting such dictatorial powers for themselves." Very worried indeed.

Democracy has never been seen as a popular vehicle for the powerful. Those that are creating this United States of Europe do so by stealth rather than open debate. They have caused democracy to be the servant of their world rather than the master. We have been foolish in allowing it to happen.

Gordon and the garden gnomes!

Gordon Brown's not exactly like a cat with nine lives. He's more like a bear that's run into the last chance saloon after being shot at by blue-rinsed hunters and chased by his own kind. He's a sorry picture indeed, as the bartender tries to calm him down. He's not quite Yogi, he's not really Pooh, and he doesn't normally go to Paddington station. However, he does seem lost. He's definitely a bear with a sore head, but has the bartender got the cure for him?

John Major famously strode into the garden of No 10 and announced that he intended to have a "put-up-or-shut-up" leadership election. What followed was a bit of a damp squib. Gordon Brown only has a wet and windy garden to look at today. Hidden in the flower beds are some uppity gnomes, all ready to spout contradictory ditties. Some think he's great. One or two want him gone. Another thinks he's "absolutely convinced" that Brown is the "best person" to be Prime Minister. The last straw probably!

The truth is that Gordon Brown miscalculated his time as PM. He was outclassed and outrun by the crafty Blair. The Granita deal was his downfall. He was OK as Chancellor, but Blair was the "Leader of New Labour" and this has meant Brown's place was always to be second. History has shown that British prime ministers that "take over", rather than get "elected", always hit the buffers. The reason is clear. The precedessor has flogged the train so that the new driver gets little or no head of steam. What happened for Macmillan/Home and Wilson/Callaghan will happen for Blair/Brown. The same could be said of Thatcher/Major. Although John Major won the 1992 election, it was not really a vote of confidence for him. It was a rejection of Neil Kinnock. John Major's exit from Downing Street was postponed for five years, but thankfully that meant no Kinnock premiership.

Gordon Brown may have time to quieten the gnomes or they may just be able to topple him. My guess is that he is stuck with Harold Macmillan's truism. "Events, dear boy, events". Those events look like leading him the Callaghan way, with Cameron taking over. The only difference was in 1979 there was clear blue water between the Tories and Labour. The people knew who was what. Now it's all a blur. If Cameron doesn't quite make it on his own, he'll have to cosy up to Nick Clegg. A coalition would at least be better than a continuation of this New Labour charade!

Dave's New Blue Crewe

I've been pondering why it is raining so much seeing as it is a Bank holiday week and half-term for the schools. C'est la vie, probably. I've had to think of alternatives for days out. Days in with two small children are not necessarily as easy, at least for me! Gordon Brown must be thinking along similar lines. "Why is it raining, politically that is, such dire stuff all the time?", he contemplates. It could be called a deep depression. Or stormy weather.

David Cameron is basking in the sunshine! Crewe and Nantwich saw to that. It must have been terrible having to play down the prospects of the Conservative candidate, all the while knowing it was going to be a big win. "We're with you, Mr.Cameron" - "It's time for a change!" - "This lot's lost the plot" and so on. Walkabouts in Crewe were never like this, at least not for 25 years! That's when the last by-election win from Labour happened for the Tories.

The BBC seemed to get in a muddle. Was it the Ilford North by-election or the Mitcham and Morden one? There is a subtle difference, but the BBC failed to elaborate, switching from whichever one seemed best. At Ilford in 1978, the Conservative candidate, Vivian Bendall beat someone called Tessa Jowell! That was a gain from Labour. It was also won despite a challenge from Tom Iremonger, the former Conservative MP for the seat who had been unseated by the electorate and deposed by his association in 1974. The Mitcham and Morden seat, in 1982, was different in that the sitting Labour MP, Bruce Douglas-Mann, had defected to the SDP, resigned, and then came second to the Tory, Angela Rumbold. It has always been seen as a gain from Labour. However, the Ilford result probably sits better with the commentators as it is 30 years ago and was the by-election that signalled the end of the Callaghan government.

So David Cameron is chirpy and upbeat. Now he needs to set out his stall a bit better than a window dresser would. We need to see the goodies. Are they well made, or will it be cheap stuff from China. The latest policy of getting youngsters to work sounds good but seems to be more stick than carrot. A lasting approach would be making the carrot a bit tasty. Unless there is someone or something to spark their imagination to stay in work, these kids are going into a revolving door under this policy.

David Cameron hails the end of New Labour. I can't wait! The way forward is sound policies and a sense of hope.

Gremlins and viruses and all things horrible!

I've had a difficult week dealing with slowdown on my computer. Apparently some evil virus hit me. It was bad enough worrying about MRSA in the local hospital. Now it's online MRSA, a very much more distracting, disturbing and downright distrastrous disease for computers. I can't imagine the brains that are minded to sit around all day devising ways to upset others. The internet is a great tool. That some should be keen to cause havoc, well!!

Of course warped minded people exist. It would be only those wearing rose-tinted specs that thought otherwise. The Burmese generals have warped minds. Robert Mugabe's mind is bent to various degrees. It goes on. Hopefully these rulers will be brought to book some day. I have little hope of the hackers and virus spreaders being put in a dock anywhere soon.

So my week has been worrying about computers. I thought of getting a new one. My wife told me that all new ones have Windows Vista on them. "We don't have Windows Vista at work," she declared. "Oh!?! Why not?" She wasn't to sure, but it had something to do with her boss and his desire to keep things secret. Obviously he doesn't want his intellectual property compromised.

Having browsed the internet I was concerned to see the negative press. Is it right that Microsoft can dig deep into our computers to see what we are doing? And surely it should remain that we buy computer programmes rather than leasing them? Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick? What I am concerned about is being got at both ends together.

I've seen that there is an organisation called The Free Software Foundation, which has been "fighting" for essential freedoms for computer users since 1985. Over 20 years and the internet is still prone to problems. Maybe we just have to live with it!