This Shitty Government!
THE TELEGRAPH: The 50 per cent tax increase has reneged on New Labour's central promise - not to punish the rich. A key architect of Blair's victories says the party's over now.

Is the party over for New Labour? Image courtesy of The Telegraph
RIP New Labour. Born July 21 1994; died April 22 2009. Cause of death: drowning in a sea of debt. New Labour passed away surrounded by its family and loved ones. It was survived by a shattered party. Memorial service scheduled for May 2010. No flowers.

The obituary writers have been hard at work since this week's Budget statement. The facts seemed clear enough. New Labour, which was born the day Tony Blair was elected leader of the party 15 years ago, had been laid to rest by Alistair Darling with a minimum of ceremony.

The Chancellor sometimes has the look and manner of an undertaker, although on Wednesday he was wearing a natty, colourful new shirt and tie that were highly inappropriate for a funeral. This was a death in suspicious circumstances if ever there was one.

Tony Blair was absent from the scene, but New Labour's godparents, Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson, were present and looking suitably solemn. Denial and disbelief are not uncommon at times of great emotional suffering, so perhaps they could both be forgiven for their refusal to accept the passing of something that had once seemed so vigorous, so full of promise. Will the Last Person to Leave Gordon Brown's Britain Turn Out the Lights? >>> By Lance Price | Friday, April 24, 2009

Fanatics Are on Rise and Labour Let It Happen
Cartoon courtesy of The Sun
THE SUN: BRITAIN recently disgraced itself by banning democratically elected Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country.

His planned “crime” was to screen a short documentary at a private viewing in the House of Lords.

It’s worth raising today after the £2,500 hand-out to sinister Jordanian Abu Qatada and the imminent arrival of Ethiopian terror suspect Binyam Mohamed.

Wilders’ film links horrific acts of terror with verses from the Koran recorded in taped rants by terrorists before their slaughter of the innocents.

I haven’t seen the film because it has been blocked* on the internet.

But neither had Labour MP Keith Vaz when he went on TV to justify the veto.

Vaz said he didn’t need to. Nor did he need any precedent for such draconian censorship. Every decision should be considered on its “merits” — by people like himself, of course.

Our cringing surrender to this authoritarian, book-burning mentality was ordered by mealy-mouthed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith under pressure from Labour peer Lord Ahmed.

Lord Ahmed, who warned of mob demos, is the Pakistani-born Labour donor who once ignored protests and invited rabid anti-Semite Israel Shamir into the Lords.

Some extreme interpretations of the Koran teach that Jews and homosexuals are fit only for extermination — which is why Hitler was so popular in parts of the Arab world.

Wilders’ visit would have gone unnoticed but for Jackboot Jacqui, whose Government has prostrated itself to accommodate Islam’s nastier fringes.

She famously tried to detoxify events like 7/7 by describing them as “anti-Islamic activities” — as if the killers were shooting THEMSELVES in the foot!

Labour’s refusal to act against extremism allowed such vile religious perverts as Abu “Hookie” Hamza to flourish.

It gave oxygen to rabble-rousing imams who brainwashed thousands of young British-born Muslims, not least the 7/7 murderers.

It turned a blind eye to migrants who refuse to assimilate and instead colonise whole suburbs and cities where welfare has become a way of life.

It encouraged multi-culturalism which, far from spreading tolerance, has entrenched primitive tribal customs, including forced marriages and honour killings.

As a result, our security services are at breaking point keeping tabs on an army of shadowy troublemakers who flit back and forth to Pakistan — many to be trained in OUR mass murder.

Of course, Islam extremism is rife in all EU countries.

In Geert Wilders’ Holland, the penalty for criticising Islam is death — as filmmaker Theo van Gogh shockingly learned. >>> By Trevor Kavanagh | Monday, February 23, 2009

Hat tip: Winds of Jihad >>>

*You can view Fitna here:

VIDDLER: Fitna



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Revealed: The Full Extent of Labour's Curbs on Civil Liberties
THE INDEPENDENT: Audit report highlights 'permanent erosion' of freedoms since 1997

The full extent of state powers to detain people without charge, cover up Government errors, hold the DNA of the innocent and share personal data between public bodies has been revealed in a devastating analysis of the erosion of civil liberties in Britain over the past decade.

Almost 60 new powers contained in more than 25 Acts of Parliament have whittled away at freedoms and broken pledges set out in the Human Rights Act and Magna Carta, according to a new audit of laws introduced since Labour came to power in 1997. The dossier, compiled by the Convention on Modern Liberty, criticises police powers to detain terror suspects for 28 days without charge, new stop-and-search powers handed to police (allowing them to stop people without reason at airports and other designated areas), and restrictions on the right of peaceful protest.

It is the first time such a picture of the erosion of rights under Labour has been published. The rise in surveillance in Britain is also documented, including new laws allowing individuals to be electronically tagged, and the legal interception of letters, emails and phone calls. >>> By Michael Savage, Political Correspodent | Friday, February 20, 2009

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Liberty in Britain Is Facing Death by a Thousand Cuts. We Can Fight Back
THE GUARDIAN: It is shocking how many curtailments of freedom have been imposed. Each one may be small but the cumulative loss is vast

For 30 years I have been travelling to unfree places, from East Germany to Burma, and writing about them in the belief that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world. I wanted people in those places to enjoy more of what we had. In the last few years, I have woken up - late in the day, but better late than never - to the way in which individual liberty, privacy and human rights have been sliced away in Britain, like salami, under New Labour governments that profess to find in liberty the central theme of British history.

"Oh, these powers will almost never be used," they say every time. "Ordinary people have nothing to fear. It affects just 0.1%." But a hundred times 0.1% is 10%. The East Germans are now more free than we are, at least in terms of law and administrative practice in such areas as surveillance and data collection. Thirty years ago, they had the Stasi. Today, Britain has such broadly drawn and elastic surveillance laws that Poole borough council could exploit them to spend two weeks spying on a family wrongly accused of lying on a school application form. The official spies reportedly made copious notes on the movements of the mother and her three children, whom they referred to as "targets", and watched the family go home at night to establish where they were sleeping. And this is supposed to be modern Britain?

Let's be clear: though the Stasi headline is irresistible, such Stasi-nark methods do not yet make a Stasi state. The political context is very different. We don't live in a one-party dictatorship. But nor is this just "an isolated case", as ministers always protest. Almost every week brings some new revelation of the way in which our government has taken a further small slice of our liberty, always in the name of another real or alleged good: national security, safety from crime, community cohesion, efficiency (ha ha), or our "special relationship" with the United States.

Liberty comes last. As Dominic Raab writes in his excellent book The Assault on Liberty, this government "has hyperactively produced more Home Office legislation than all the other governments in our history combined, accumulating a vast arsenal of new legal powers and creating more than three thousand additional criminal offences". At a press conference today, the organisers of next week's Convention on Modern Liberty - whose moving spirits include the columnist Henry Porter and the democratic activist Anthony Barnett - will present a first attempt to catalogue the liberties we have lost, in a list compiled by the University College London Student Human Rights Programme.

Other free countries, including the US, have overreacted to the threat of terrorism, violating their own basic constitutional principles and legal standards. The peculiarity of Britain is that we have nibbled away individual liberty on so many different fronts. We have been complicit in American-led torture of our own people; at the same time we have eroded free speech in ways unthinkable in the US; and we have become what Privacy International calls "an endemic surveillance society". >>> Timothy Garton Ash | Thursday, February 19, 2009

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This Government Is a Pack of ...
THE TELEGRAPH: Leading bishops in the Church of England have launched a withering attack on the Government questioning the morality of its policies.

Five of the Church’s most senior figures said the Government now presided over a country suffering from family breakdown, an unhealthy reliance on debt and a growing divide between rich and poor.

The Bishop of Manchester accused Labour of being “beguiled by money” and “morally corrupt”.

The Bishop of Hulme said they were “morally suspect” and the Bishop of Durham said they had reneged on their promises.

They were joined by the bishops of Winchester and Carlisle who claimed ministers had squandered their opportunity to transform society and run out of steam.

The bishops said Labour sacrificed principled politics and long-term solutions for policies designed to win votes. One described the Government as “tired” and another said its policies were “scandalous”.

Meanwhile, in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron accused Gordon Brown of leading Britain to the “brink of bankruptcy”. Bishops Deliver Damning Verdict on Britain under Labour Rule >>> By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent | Saturday, December 28, 2008

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Jackboot Jacqui’s a Nazi Piece of Work
Swastika courtesy of Google Images
MAIL Online: George Orwell's 1984 was supposed to be a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism, not a blueprint for government.

No one seems to have told New Labour. Barely a day goes by without another assault on our civil liberties, another extension of state snooping, another exciting ruse for meting out punishment for the most trivial offence.

This week’s outrage is the news that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is creating a whole new vigilante class of quasi-policemen, drawn from the ranks of Town Hall jobsworths, security guards and car park attendants.

They’ll be allowed to wear uniforms, patrol the streets with dogs, confiscate property and hand out fixed-penalty notices for everything from littering to under-age drinking.

It’s emerged that there are 1,400 of these Accredited Persons out there already, and their numbers will soon swell into the thousands.

They have the power to stop cars, take photos of people, demand names and addresses and issue fines.
For now, they wear badges sewn onto their tunics by their employers.

But the Home Office wants to see a uniform standardised across the country. How about peaked caps, jodhpurs, jackboots and black shirts with swastikas on the sleeves? Jackboot Jacqui’s a Nazi Piece of Work >>> By Richard Littlejohn | August 29, 2008

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More Bulldust from NuLabour! Harman Pushes Discrimination Plan
Watch video: Harriet Harman sets out plans to MPs >>>
BBC: Equality minister Harriet Harman has set out plans to allow firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority job candidates.

She said firms should be able to choose a woman over a man of equal ability if they wanted to - or vice versa.

The new Equalities Bill will also force public sector employers to disclose the gender pay gap in their organisation.

The plans, which will be adopted in England, Wales and Scotland, will also ban all age discrimination.

Setting out the plans in a Commons statement, Ms Harman said the proposed bill - due later this year - would "address the serious inequalities that still exist" in the UK. Harman Pushes Discrimination Plan >>> | June 16, 2008

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NuLabour Found to Be Discriminating in Favour of Islam
THE TELEGRAPH: Christianity is being discriminated against by the Government in favour of Islam and other minority faiths, according to a landmark Church of England report.

The damning critique of Labour, which is endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, says ministers are only paying "lip service" to the Anglican Church while "focusing intently" on other religions.

It claims Gordon Brown's Government is failing society and lacks a moral vision for the country.

And in an end to decades of tension between the Church and the Conservatives, the comprehensive study praises the Tories for their "strident" approach to combating poverty.

Instead it says it is Labour which is failing to acknowledge the breakdown in society and excluding vital religious voices.

The report urges the Government to appoint a minister for religion, who would serve as the Prime Minister's faith envoy and utilise the untapped reserves of volunteers in churches and charities.

It states: "We encountered on the part of the Government a significant lack of understanding, or interest in, the Church of England's current or potential contribution in the public sphere.

"Indeed we were told that Government had consciously decided to focus...almost exclusively on minority religions."

The highly critical report, titled Moral, But No Compass - a twist on Mr Brown's claim to have a "moral compass" - carries significant weight as it has been endorsed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and expresses the views of three-quarters of the Church's bishops.

It echoes claims made by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, last week that the decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness and has created a "moral vacuum" which radical Islam is filling. Christianity 'Discriminated Against by Gordon Brown's Government' >>> By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent | June 7, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Archbishop of York Blames Labour Government for Selfish Society >>> By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent | June 5, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Bishop of Rochester [Accused of] 'Doing the BNP's Work' >>> By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent | May 29, 2008

TIMESONLINE:
Church Attacks Labour for Betraying Christians: Strongest criticism of government in decades >>> By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | June 7, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Malaysian President Abdullah Badawi Calls for British Muslims to Live Under Sharia Law >>> By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent, In Kuala Lumpur | June 9, 2008

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Big, BIG Brother and His Small, Small Sister, Jacqui Smith!
THE TELEGRAPH: Routine journeys carried out by millions of British motorists can be monitored by authorities in the United States and other enforcement agencies across the world under anti-terrorism rules introduced discreetly by Jacqui Smith.

The discovery that images of cars captured on road-side cameras, and "personal data" derived from them, including number plates, can be sent overseas, has angered MPs and civil liberties groups concerned by the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance tactics.

Yesterday, politicians and civil liberties groups accused the Home Secretary of keeping the plans to export pictures secret from Parliament when she announced last year that British anti-terrorism police could access "real time" images from cameras used in the running of London's congestion charge.



A statement by Miss Smith to Parliament on July 17, 2007, detailing the exemptions for police from the 1998 Data Protection Act, did not mention other changes that would permit material to be sent outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to the authorities in the US and elsewhere.

Her permission to do so was hidden away in an earlier "special certificate" signed by the Home Secretary on July 4.

The certificate specifically sets out the level of data that can be sent to enforcement authorities outside the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) by anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police. It says:

"The certificate relates to the processing of the images taken by the camera, personal data derived from the images, including vehicle registration mark, date, time and camera location." New Anti-Terrorism Rules 'Allow US to Spy on British Motorists' >>> By Toby Helm and Christopher Hope | April 21, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Government to Quiz Households on Sex Lives and Salaries: "Day by day, the liberty and privacy of the British public is being undermined by Labour's surveillance state. People will be shocked that taxpayers' money is being spent on intrusive surveys. Now state spies want to log and record who sleeps with whom and how often. Not even the Stasi went this far." - Eric Pickles, the shadow communities secretary >>> By Lewis Carter | April 21, 2008

SOME OTHER NEWS:
Barack Obama's Hopes Fade in Blue-Collar Ghost Towns >>> By Alex Spillius in Clairton | April 21, 2008

Can Barack Obama Survive His Remarks? >>> By Janet Daley | April 21, 2008

TOWNHALL.COM:
Yes, Barack Obama, We Are Bitter >>> By Mary Grabar | April 20, 2008

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Has This NuLabour Governemt Got Cotton Wool for Brains, or What?
Photo of ‘the Marlboro Man’ courtesy of Google Images
DAILY MAIL: Smokers could be forced to pay for a Government tobacco licence in order to carry on buying cigarettes under draconian proposals being considered by ministers.

Government advisers have drawn up plans for a smoking permit - similar to the one needed to watch TV - which all smokers would have to carry.

Health experts have welcomed the move, pointing out that Britons are more likely to die from smoking-related diseases than those in any other European country. But the idea has triggered a furious backlash from smokers' groups, who claim it is evidence of a "bully state".

Under the plans, anyone who refused to pay for a permit would be banned from buying cigarettes from any outlet.

Although a licence could cost as little as £10 a year, forms would be made deliberately complex to deter people from applying.

Smokers could also be forced to obtain a doctor's signature, declaring their health was not at "massive risk" from their habit.

The scheme is the brainchild of Julian Le Grand, a professor at the London School of Economics, who heads the ministerial advisory board, Health England.

Yesterday, he claimed the idea would help many smokers break the habit if they had to make a decision whether to "opt in". Smokers could be forced to buy £10 licence just for the privilege of lighting up >>> By James Chapman

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

This Stupid, Craven, Untrustworthy Government!
Jacqui Smith and her craven associates really are the giddy limit! She, along with her other ridiculous cronies in the cabinet, want to re-brand Islamic terrorism as “anti-Islamic activity”. This woman is out of her depth in her position. She clearly doesn’t understand the so-called religion of Islam – the old name for it, Muhammadanism, would be a more accurate term – since she doesn’t seem to understand that the correct term for ‘Islamic extremism’ / ‘Islamic terrorism’ is the JIHAD.

Surely this woman must know by now what the word ‘Jihad’ means ‘struggle in the way of Allah’ to conquer the whole world for him. In other words, it’s a ‘holy war’; and no amount of re-branding will change that FACT! Or could it be that Jacqui is practising a little dissimulation for the purpose of winning the Muslim voters over to NuLabour?

By the way Jacqui, there is absolutely NOTHING “anti-Islamic” about “Islamic terrorism”; indeed, the Jihad is the essence of Islam! - ©Mark

DAILY MAIL: Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.

Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

In her first major speech on radicalisation, Miss Smith repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic".

In one passage she said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief.

"Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic'.

Another section referred to enlisting the Muslim community against "anti-Islamic activity".

Her words were chosen to reflect new Government strategy on labelling the terrorists and their recruiting agents.

The shift follows a decision taken last year to stop using the phrase "war on terror", first adopted by U.S. President Bush.

Officials were concerned it could act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, which is determined to manufacture a battle between the values of Islam and the West.

The strategy emerging across Government is to portray terrorists as nothing more than cold-blooded murderers who are not fighting for any religious cause.

Al Qaeda inspired terrorism is instead being described by key figures as "more like a death cult". Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims >>> By James Slack

THE TELEGRAPH:
Tories attack Islamic terrorism re-branding

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

NuLabour’s ’Battie Hattie’ Puts Her Foot in Her Mouth Again!
Photo of Harriet Harman, the feminist Minister for Women, courtesy of the Daily Mail
DAILY MAIL: Men staying at home to bring up their children should become the cultural norm, Harriet Harman, the Minister for Women declared.

Fathers should demand flexible working hours after their children are born, she continued.

Miss Harman - dubbed "Harriet Harperson" by some for her feminist views - added that mothers and fathers should both expect to spend equal amounts of time working and raising children.

Her call for fathers to work less comes amid growing pressure from ministers on mothers of young children to take jobs.
The Government says the only way for couples to ensure their family stays out of poverty is for both parents to work.

Ministers have long pressed mothers of babies to return to their jobs or find work - to the point where at one stage mothers who decline to do so were described as "a problem".

Miss Harman said: "It must be the cultural norm for both mothers and fathers to work flexibly, so they can balance earning a living while bringing up their children. Men staying at home to look after children should be cultural norm, claims minister >>> By Steve Doughty

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Brown Betrays Stay-at-Home Mums!
This government is about as inept as any government could be! Children need mothers at home. It makes a huge difference to their development. Children do not, cannot, raise themselves! Hence, our government should enable and encourage mothers to stay at home to care for their children. Apart from children benefiting from stay-at-home mums – we can see the results of decades of the neglect of the rôle of conventional motherhood everywhere around us – the country benefits from them, too. Mothers who stay at home are far more likely to have more children. And the fact is that the United Kingdom needs children, children called Jack, Timothy, or Christian! The demographics are turning against the indigenous population. If things go on as they are, it won’t be long before an Islamic flag, depicting the ‘sword of Allah’, will be hoisted above Downing Street. What are our politicians thinking about? How idiotic it is for any government to to demean the rôle of motherhood! – ©Mark

DAILY MAIL: More than eight million women who took time out of work to care for their children have lost their chance of a full state pension after a Christmas u-turn by the Government.

Ministers have dropped plans to give women with a partial pension entitlement the chance to make up the shortfall before they retire, it emerged last night.

The decision was slipped out in the Lords as Parliament adjourned for the holiday break, to the astonishment of peers who had been promised action earlier this year.

The Government had offered to back an amendment to the Pensions Bill that would have allowed women to make up shortfalls in their state pension entitlement by paying in extra cash.

But in what the Tories claimed last night was a 'betrayal of stay at home mums', ministers said they have now decided not to back the scheme. Betrayal of stay-at-home mothers: 8m women lose state pensions after Government u-turn >>> By Benedict Brogan

Mark Alexander (Paperback)

Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Playing Nanny to Pregnant Women
THE OBSERVER: · £120 grant to buy fruit and vegetables
· Brown rejects 'nanny state' criticism
All expectant mothers are to be given a one-off payment of around £120 that they will be encouraged to spend on fresh fruit and vegetables as a way of protecting their children from diseases and incurable conditions later in life.

The plan for a 'health in pregnancy' grant will be outlined by Health Secretary Alan Johnson this week in his first major speech outlining how the government plans to tackle the yawning health divide between the richest and poorest in England and Wales.

The payment - the first by a government that is allied to a specific health target - would be given to women when they are seven months pregnant. It would be linked to them receiving professional health advice on how to maintain a proper balanced diet, and give up drinking and smoking. The move comes as the government's record on improving public health will come under fresh scrutiny this week when Sir Derek Wanless, a former government adviser on the NHS, publishes a major report that will criticise lack of progress on tackling increasingly unhealthy lifestyles which have led to Britain's obesity epidemic. The report is expected to highlight poor eating habits, people's increasingly sedentary routines and the growing number of overweight people as areas where more determined action needs to be taken.

The pregnancy measure, to be introduced in 2009, is likely to prove highly controversial as women will be free to spend the money on drink or cigarettes. Sources told The Observer that the government accepts that some of the 630,000 women who become pregnant each year may choose not to spend the money on healthy food. There is also little published research to show that a financial incentive, combined with nutritional advice, is sufficient to persuade mothers from the most deprived areas to change their lifestyle. Pregnant women to get cash for good diet (more)

Mark Alexander

Sleaze: Muslims Funding NuLabour
What sort of democracy do they call this?

DAILY MAIL: Labour is involved in a new "sleaze" probe it has emerged.

It followed allegations that a Muslim businessman used a "front" organisation for secret donations.

The Electoral Commission confirmed it is investigating a group called the Muslim Friends of Labour, which gave the party £100,000 a month between April and June.

It is the first such inquiry since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June.

Glasgow-based Imran Khand is alleged to have injected large sums into the organisation. But as his cash did not go direct to Labour, his identity remained secret.

Until recently the organisation donated only small amounts, but it is now the party's second biggest non-union donor. Sleaze investigation over Muslim funds for Labour (more) By Ian Drury

Mark Alexander