The peculiar irony of New Labour's endgame

Marina Hyde writes an interesting article in the Guardian today, which reflects on the fact that

The peculiar irony of New Labour's endgame is that it was all foretold by an accidental prophet named Tony Blair. "My project will be complete," he once declared, "when the Labour party learns to love Peter Mandelson."

Today we saw Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool installed, in all but name, as the No 2 to Gordon Brown. Unfortunately he is surrounded in the Cabinet and his party by a bunch of Toadies, Has-Beens, Never-Beens, and those who have simply been promoted way beyond their capabilities. Truly a Government of absolutely no talent.

The article also reflects upon the issue that

"We are witnessing the final self-destruction of what those who ­created New Labour were given to calling 'the Project', apparently oblivious to the Orwellian overtones of the phrase. Then again, perhaps they weren't ­oblivious – after all, the Project appeared to be closely modelled on the Party, which, you will recall, 'seeks power entirely for its own sake'"

This is so true of Gordon Brown and his party who cannot see the damage they are doing to our country. They cannot see that they must, instead of trying to save their own skins, save our country from the abyss that it is rapidly descending into. They need to unite together and throw us a lifeline by getting rid of Gordon. As Marina says

The Project is complete. It was never about ideas, as became ­depressingly clear to many of us well before the 1997 election. The Project was the formal expression of the gut instinct for survival in power. Its sole aim was to make Labour ­electable, and the manner in which it realised that ambition has now left it even more ­unelectable than it was before its inception.

The problem is that not only is Labour unelectable, as has been amply demonstrated today, but that they are also not fit to Govern. When they rely on 7 Lord's a Leaping and a plethora of non-entities, all led by someone who has no aim but to further himself as a man of history, it is time to call for the Grim Reaper to dispatch this malfunctioning and self-destroying Government. As Marina Hyde says as the end of her article

Think not of it as a murder, but a fated suicide.

Let us only hope it is not a long-drawn out affair as our country is in need of change.

Misery. It's Gordon Brown as Kathy Bates. And Westminster as Lilliput | Marina Hyde | Comment is free | The Guardian:

Stench of death

The Times has these Stories

Now for the longest assisted suicide in history

Anatole Kaletsky writes:

In 1983, when Michael Foot's Labour Party tried to bring Britain back to the true path of socialism after what it believed was a brief and misguided detour into capitalist economics under Margaret Thatcher, its election manifesto was described as “the longest suicide note in history”. In the same spirit, the death throes of the Labour Government that started with Gordon Brown's arrival in No10 and reached its terminal phase in last week's Budget, could be called the longest assisted suicide in history.

and

Stench of death reminiscent of John Major’s last days in office

Peter Riddell writes:

Gordon Brown’s premiership faces a lingering death as painful as that experienced by John Major in 1996-97 unless he gets a grip quickly. Long-serving MPs were drawing parallels last night between the two: the willingness of government backbenchers to defy their leader, a loss of prime ministerial authority and open fatalism about the party’s electoral prospects.

That's just one paper and one day!

I'm sure there will be many more days like this after the defeat on a Liberal Democrat motion, A car crash of PMQ's and another embarrassing slip by Gordon Brown.

He must go, and go soon, before he destroys our country.

Calling International Rescue

Yesterday via his sidekick Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown delivered the final Budget for Nu-Labour. In true form Gordon is lumbering under the impression he is an economic genius when, in fact, he is the man that has dug us into the biggest hole Britain has ever been in, wants to more than double the depth of the hole and left us with little hope of being rescued.

Gone yesterday were all the hopes of Tony and his cronies and back came the 70's style socialist budget that will once again destroy this country of ours. All the work that the Tories did in the eighties and early nineties has been and will be destroyed on the back of Labour's profligacy and ineptitude.

Our debt for the country will double in less than three years to one Trillion pounds on the most favourable of forecasts. This is the biggest gamble in the history of the nation taken by a man who supposedly based his thinking on Prudence.

No wonder George Osborne described the plans as

"a huge unexploded tax bombshell timed to go off under a future economic recovery".

Osborne then went on to describe the position of our country as follows

"He's giving £20bn in giveaways and taking back £40bn in higher taxes, including the major rise in National Insurance, a tax on the jobs and incomes of middle Britain," he said.

"It is confirmation of the time old truth that all Labour chancellors run out of money and all Labour governments bring this country to the verge of bankruptcy.

"Stability has gone out of the window, prudence is dead, Labour has done it again."

"That means the chancellor is borrowing more on the nation's credit card than all previous governments put together."

Not only is he taking on all this debt in the forlorn hope it can pull him out of the biggest hole this country has ever been in, but he is doing it without the proper due process of Government.

Has he forgotten that he is not a one-man band, Yesterday was not a Pre-Budget Report but a full blown Budget. Potentially it was the budget that will lumber this country with it's biggest ever deficit and Gordon wants to pass it off as a minor issue barely worth 90 minutes of discussion in Parliament. This is truly a disgrace and must be remedied.

Nobody is saying that no action is required but whatever action that is taken should be subject to proper and full scrutiny by both House's, Some of the changes may even be illegal unless presented to Parliament as Iain Dale asks here.

John Redwood will also be asking the questions about where the discussion and debate are and records his thoughts here.

In summary this nation is currently in a very deep hole, covered in the proverbial, Gordon is trying to make the hole even deeper, deeper than has ever been seen, and covering us in a truly unbelievable amount of the proverbial, and he has no ropes long enough to extract us from the hole and no ideas on how we will survive in the murky depths of the hole and no idea of the true depths the hole will eventually plumb.

It looks like we will again be calling in International Rescue, in the form of the IMF, to extract us from the hole at a later date and to burden yet another generation with the results of Socialism.

Drivers face disqualification for speeding twice

Good, let us only hope that anyone under 23 is not only disqualified on the first offence but also made to resit their test before being allowed back on the roads. This might stop the carnage and waste of young lives and their innocent victims on our roads all over Britain , but particularly in Aberdeenshire where I live.

Drivers face disqualification for speeding twice - Telegraph

Whats killing 15-19 year olds around the world

What's the biggest killer of 15-19 year olds around the world?

Not AIDS, cancer or any other disease, its something much more simple.

According to The Lancet its Road Traffic Accidents.

Shocked me, I know that it's always hitting the headlines round this area but this is worldwide.

How much do we spend educating kids about this? I'll bet its a fraction of what we spend of Drugs and Sex education.

I drive about 25,000 miles a year and see the results of crashes too often and it's mainly youngsters in modified cars.

Education of the dangers of driving and in particular speed and drinking must be hard hitting to be effective, there is no point just saying don't do it, it must be graphic and preferably personal to a particular area/school.

Most schools round here have had a teenager die in a road accident in the past few years, pictures and stories about these accidents should be used to try and make kids understand what is going on. Show them the results and make them think.

Remember the car in the wrong hands is a lethal weapon, not just to yourself but especially to others.

Road safety here and here.

The Scotsman - ? is world's biggest killer of teenagers

Twice as many Scots die from drink than in rest of the UK

As a resident of Aberdeenshire I might feel better about these results than some others in Scotland. Apparently:

Fifteen of the 20 local authority areas with the highest alcohol-related male death rates were in Scotland, with Glasgow top of the league with 83.7 deaths per 100,000.
The figures also revealed wide variations across Scotland, with Aberdeenshire reporting a death rate only a sixth of that in Glasgow.

But it is a Scottish disease that is killing nearly 2400 people a year here. To put this number in context it is is about 8 times the number killed in road accidents, which is much more widely reported on. Drinking too much is often joked upon in Scotland but the truth behind the jokes is appalling.

Don't forget this disease has no respect for wealth, creed or colour.

The stark statistics above are the most visible part of the damage that drinking can create - but behind the figures are real lives that have been destroyed and grieving families devastated.

The Scotsman - Twice as many Scots die from drink than in rest of the UK