“He stabbed his brother in the back”…

One narrative the Tories are keen to push is the notion that Ed Miliband “stabbed his brother in the back” to become leader of the Labour Party. I’ve heard some ridiculous things in my time, but this claim that Ed “stabbed his brother in the back” is rubbish. Did David Cameron stab David Davis in the back to become leader of the Conservative Party, or does this rule only apply when two brothers contest a party’s leadership?

If I were to play my brother at chess and I win the game, have I “stabbed my brother in the back”? No, I beat him fair and square. This narrative that Ed Miliband used nefarious means to become leader appears to have been drawn from either a notional understanding of classical Greek tragedy or the Cain and Abel story, yet the idea itself is worthy of a bad Whitehall farce scripted by Lynton Crosby.

Today, Michael Fallon resurrected this notion in his attack on the Labour leader. Fallon claimed Miliband would “barter away” Trident to get into Downing Street because he “stabbed his brother in the back”. Talk about lazy thinking. I’ll return to Trident in a moment. Yet, even Fallon’s fellow Tories have criticized him for personalizing the election discourse.

Fallon, the MP for Sevenoaks, read Classics and History at St Andrew’s University, which would explain the appeal of this sub-Classical narrative. While he was Deputy Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Fallon claimed mortgage repayments on his Westminster flat in their entirety. This was against Parliamentary rules.

Jon Swaine writing in the Telegraph in 2009 wrote:

Between 2002 and 2004, Mr Fallon regularly claimed £1,255 per month in capital repayments and interest, rather than the £700-£800 for the interest component alone. After his error was noticed by staff in the Commons fees office in September 2004, he said: “Why has no one brought this to my attention before?”

There’s more:

He began making the excessive claims after buying the Westminster flat for £243,000 in June 2002 and designating it as his second home.

Various other household expenses he claimed for after September 2004 included a £250 per month cleaning bill, which Mr Fallon reduced from £300 after being asked for a receipt.

In addition to his expenses claims, Fallon is also

…paid as a director of three companies. His salary from one, a money broker, is reportedly £45,000. He also pays his wife from his taxpayer-funded office expenses to work as his secretary.

The main issue with Trident is that it is expensive and that it isn’t actually owned by Britain.  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament states that “it is technically and politically dependent on the United States”. Richard Norton-Taylor writing in The Guardian in 2009 states that it would cost the country £130 billion to renew. That figure increased to £350 billion by 2012. The Tories are fond of telling us how the country can’t afford the NHS or other public services, yet they would be prepared to fork out billions of pounds on something that will never be used. The real beneficiaries of the renewal of Trident are weapon’s manufacturers and the Tories who have a financial stake in its renewal.

The idea that this country needs a nuclear weapon to guarantee its national security is an over-dramatization. I’ve just heard Fallon making a speech in which he claims that the world is a “dangerous place”. Well, excuse me, but it’s always been dangerous. Possessing weapons of mass destruction won’t make it safer.

Dirty Tricks and British Politics: something and nothing

Damian McBride: he likes a drink. Can’t you tell?

The Damian McBride story has landed into the laps of the Tories at just the right time. For the Labour party it’s the wrong time. But do the Tories really have anything to crow about? Not really.

The Tories use dirty tricks all the time and the press says nothing. Dr Julian Lewis infiltrated the Labour Party in 1976 and spent years taking CND to court in a bid to prove that it was being funded by the USSR. Lewis wrote the following in a letter to the editor of The Times in 1983:

You are quite correct, however, to challenge CND claims of non-partisanship. Last year’s political complexion of what you term to be “clearly a left-wing front” was mild compared to the new team of 26 officers and national council members just elected at Sheffield.

How strange that The Freedom Association (which bankrolled Lewis’s effort to infiltrate Labour), for instance, should describe itself as “non-partisan” yet have such close relations with the Conservative Party, UKIP the Libertarian Alliance, the Taxpayers’ Alliance and even the United Kingdom’s security services. The stench of hypocrisy is overpowering.

Back to McBride. He is certainly a nasty piece of work. But The Cat wonders if McBride wasn’t encouraged to release his book in time for the annual Labour Party  conference this week by certain people. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

The right-wing press is cock-a-hoop. Here’s what the Telegraph said:

Mr McBride’s book has awakened the party’s painful memory of the rift between disciples of Mr Brown and those MPs and activists who were loyal to Mr Blair. Mr McBride was a fanatically loyal supporter of Mr Brown, a man whom he says in some ways he “loved”.

Mr McBride left the government in disgrace in 2009 when it emerged that he sent a Labour colleague emails containing unfounded smears about Tory MPs for a website called Red Rag.

He now claims that this colleague, Derek Draper, has suggested that Mr Miliband may also have sent compromising emails and would “have problems” if they ever came to light.

The article then adds:

He now claims that this colleague, Derek Draper, has suggested that Mr Miliband may also have sent compromising emails and would “have problems” if they ever came to light.

Mr Draper was not available for comment on Saturday night.

However, a Labour source who knew both men said: “You can criticise Ed Miliband for many things but running a Damian McBride-style smear operation isn’t one of them.”

Derek Draper: he’s the one who looks as though he sleeps in a hedgerow and who’s married to Daybreak’s Kate Garraway. He was also involved in “Lobbygate” and “Smeargate“.  The latter, Smeargate, was  an attempt to smear senior members of the Tory party and can be seen as Labour’s attempt use the same Tory tactics that their auld enemy has used against them on numerous occasions. It didn’t work, but it’s an indication of the rottenness of the British political system and how deeply embedded into the system the practice of skulduggery is rooted.

The Daily Mail’s approach is more in line with one of its ‘kiss and tell’ celebrity stories. This is a description of an  interview that Nick Robinson, the former president of the Young Conservatives and the BBC’s present political editor apparently had with Gordon Brown:

The trouble started when BBC political editor Nick Robinson asked Gordon an apparently innocent question.

Assuming we won a joint bid with Scotland to stage the World Cup, whom would he support — England or Scotland?

Gordon gave the ‘clever’ answer he’d prepared: ‘I’ll be supporting the hosts!’ Nick shot back: ‘Even if they play Scotland?’ Gordon smiled and said: ‘Scotland will do very well.’

This interview took place in India in 2007, and Gordon thought it had gone well. I knew otherwise. Sure enough, as we crawled through the Mumbai traffic back to our hotel, one of our press officers rang me to say the Scottish papers were very excited and we had a major problem.

‘OK, mate,’ I replied calmly, holding the phone as far away from Gordon as I could, ‘take it easy and keep me posted’, as if he was telling me the cricket score.

‘What’s the problem?’ Gordon said. ‘Nothing,’ I lied.

‘I heard someone say “problem” — what’s the problem?’ he said, getting slightly irate.

I sighed. ‘OK, now don’t go mad. We’ll just need to clarify that interview so it doesn’t sound like you’d support England over Scotland.’

Yawn. This has the feel of stale bread… the taste of cold tea that’s been left on someone’s desk overnight. If you really want to read the rest of the article, click on this link.

Sure the dirty tricks were conducted inside the Labour Party, but this kind of thing happens in all political parties. I mean, how do you think Nick Clegg became leader of the Liberal Democrats? Through honest, upfront means? Get real. Then there was the knifing of Thatcher by her colleagues. What do you mean you haven’t heard about  it?

The dirty tricks that we should be concerned about are ignored by the mainstream media. When Julian Lewis’s involvement in the Reg Prentice case emerged, the press nary batted an eyelid and focussed on Prentice’s defection from Labour to the Tories in 1977 instead.

As the Leveson Report has shown us, even the British press can’t be trusted to report on the things that really matter. Why? Because most of the press is in the pocket of Tory party.

Saturday’s anti-war demo

In the days leading to the anti-war demonstration on Saturday and immediately after the Commons vote, which saw the government defeated, we have been treated to a deluge of macho language from politicians and right-wing hacks alike. As most readers will know that at times like this, I am fond of quoting Gil Scott-Heron’s powerful poem, B-Movie:

Clichés like, “itchy trigger finger” and “tall in the saddle” and “riding off or on into the sunset.” Clichés like, “Get off of my planet by sundown!” More so than clichés like, “he died with his boots on.” Marine tough the man is. Bogart tough the man is. Cagney tough the man is. Hollywood tough the man is. Cheap steak tough. And Bonzo’s substantial. The ultimate in synthetic selling: A Madison Avenue masterpiece – a miracle – a cotton-candy politician …Presto! Macho!

As you many of you already know, B-Movie was written about Ronald Reagan, the macho president of the United States, who borrowed themes from his filmography to impress the gullible public of the need to do this or that thing. Again, we have politicians and their friends in the media using the most extraordinary macho language. I kept hearing words like “diminished on the world stage”, which almost suggests a form of emasculation. Then there is the phrase “standing tall”, which conjures up an image of a Wild West gunslinger. But if the dominant ideologues are that worried about their big tough image, then perhaps they need to spend some time on a psychoanalyst’s couch rather than pursuing unnecessary wars that have the fig leaf of legitimacy that is conferred upon them by the laughable phrase, ‘International Law’. “But look” they’ll say, “there’s a ban on the use of chemical weapons”. This generally overlooks the US and Israel’s recent use of white phosphorus and the American’s use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Where’s the irony?

And so, on Saturday, I went to the anti-war demonstration organized by CND and the Stop the War Coalition. I wasn’t expecting much. In fact, I wasn’t expecting a massive turnout for this hastily convened march and rally.

I arrived in time to join the head of the march on Victoria Embankment. The march snakes its way towards Westminster Bridge, where I can see dozens of gawping tourists,with their cameras at the ready to take snaps of us as we march by. I pass, what I believe to be a small group of German tourists, one of whom remarks “I think they are marching against all wars”. His tone is half-mocking. Only morons are in favour of wars, mein freund.

We’re on Whitehall and we pause briefly outside the gates of Downing Street… on the opposite side of the road. We’re not allowed anywhere near Dippy Dave’s London residence and besides, he’s apparently holding a barbecue for his MPs at Chequers, which is designed to do two things: admonish those who voted against the government and reward those who voted the correct way.

As I said, this is a small march of perhaps around 1,000 or so people. Still, it isn’t that bad a turn-out for a quickly arranged demo. I can see bourgeois SWP splitters and café owners, Counterfire, posing in their designer clothes and mingling with the less bourgeois marchers.

It’s unlikely that this march will attract any attention from the BBC, which has been quick to march in lockstep with the government, the intelligence services and the Military-Industrial complex. In the media, anti-war voices are rare, while pro-war macho voices are ten a penny.

We arrive at Trafalgar Square and I can see a small number of Guy Fawkes masks… they’re so passé. The compères for the afternoon are Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn and Kate Hudson of CND and Left Unity. The first speaker is Counterfire’s  Lindsey German, whom Corbyn introduces as a “brilliant advocate for peace”. Her speech is an uninspiring tickbox list.  She says “UKIP are not welcome on this march” but to be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen any UKIP members. I have seen a couple of conspiracy theory types, both of whom were carrying placards with the words “9/11 was an inside job”. Given their love of conspiracy theories, perhaps they’re Kippers?

Andrew Murray is up next. He is animated and his speech is passionate. He’s certainly more interesting than Lindsey German and the best speaker of the afternoon. But as I look around the square, I am struck by the absence of anything cultural. Where is the street theatre? The sound systems? The scratch bands? I’ve heard no dubstep since I’ve been here. It’s weird.

Natalie Bennett follows Murray and while she makes some good points, she is a terrible orator. Someone with a great deal of experience of this kind of thing is Tariq Ali, who seems to be a professional protester. These days, he hasn’t got much to say that I haven’t already heard. Someone from the back heckles him with a loud hailer. I turn around and I recognise the heckler. I used to work with this guy!  He’s immediately surrounded by more serious types who like their speeches formulaic and unchallenged. “Listen to what they’re doing to your mind”, he protests. I’m not sure what he means. Perhaps he’s suggesting that these people mould one’s thoughts. If so, then he’s mistaken. I can think for myself, thanks.

Tony Benn comes on and he looks and sounds frail. I have trouble hearing what he’s saying. He was a pretty bad cough too. Usually, you can rely on Benn to put in a rousing performance but I think those days are behind him now.

A poet arrives on the platform. Wow. Culture. But it’s brief. We need more of this kind of thing. I decide to leave when the President of ULU rocks up. he’s pretty dull, probably not used to public speaking or has taken his oratory cues from Britain’s current crop of politicians.

When I get home, there’s no mention of the demo on the BBC News Channel (I didn’t expect it to be honest), Sky News or ITN News. The only mainstream media report of this demo can be found on the Evening Standard’s website.

PS. I’d actually taken a quite a few photos on my BlackBerry but it has deleted all of them without asking me. The photo at the top of this blog was sent to Facebook before my phone had a chance to delete anything. The phone will go back to the shop for the third time this year. I really should have taken a proper camera instead.