UK PM says Hain’s fate is out of his hands

Permier Gordon Brown has said of Work and Pensions and Welsh Secretary Peter Hain’s ‘poor administration ’ of the donations for his deputy leadership bid "He took his eye off the ball and he has apologised. The matter must rest with the authorities, who will look at these matters,"

Now Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is being counter attacked with a claim he did not declare £487,000 of donations.

As soon as you look at the details of the attack on Osborne it is quite clearly what amounts to a bogus attack. The money was in fact declared in good time when it was donated to the Conservative Party. George Osbourne just didn’t declare that he had received it from the party a second time in the Register of Members' Interests, apparently after checking with the party weather he should or not and being advised by their experts that he didn’t need to. There is a clear paper trail, so why the fuss.

Presumably as a cynical, but partly successful, red herring to take heat off Hain.

Now, regarding Hain, I must admit, at first sight, it did look like a cock up rather than anything more sinister.

That is until you look at the donors. One of them was an organisation called the Progressive Policies Forum (PPF) that appears to have channelled more than £50,000 to Mr Hain.

It was created 3 months after Hain announced he was running for New Labour’s deputy leadership as a limited company. The sole director is a solicitor and it has never filed any accounts with companies House. A key figure in Hain’s campaign, John Underwood, a former Labour communications director, is thought to be strongly associated with the PPF.

So we have a limited company that appears to have done nothing and have no reason for existence, except as a proxy to funnel money to Peter Hain.

Where did this cash the PPF ‘donated’ actually originate? Apparently from people like Rumanian born diamond dealer, Willie Nagel. Coincidentally it seems he had previously been approached by Underwood for cash - but had said he would not contribute unless it was kept private.

Then there was Isaac Kaye, ex South African, now with Irish citizenship, an ex supporter of South Africa's Afrikaner-led National Party, who’s company has been raided by the police.

This begins to look rather familiar. In fact it looks a lot like another try at the same trick of concealing the identities of the real donors.

One that resulted in the New Labour donations scandle that Gordon brown admitted had been illegal. That was over a ‘laundered’ donation from David Abrahams and forced the resignation of New Labour's General Secretary, Peter Watt.

New Labour set these rules up. Why set them up in the first place only to try to circumvent them. Were the rules ill thought out? They made their bed now they lie in it ;-)

So it is clearly not a case of just being a bit late in declaring his donations. He still has John Underwood to throw to the wolves if need be, but if It was illegal enough for Abrahams to take the bullet then it should be illegal enough for Hain to do likewise.

Quote of the day

" The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God - and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."

John Adams

Gordon Brown to push for transplant organ harvesting without explicit consent

The matter of presumed consent over organ ‘donation’ will probably see some considerable posting onthe net and I have seen a couple of good posts already. Never-the-less it seems Gordon Brown has now shown his true colours and inclinations at last, in a wider sense, over the matter.

In his own words Gordon Brown is throwing his weight behind a presumed consent form of organ ‘donation’ where unless the ‘donor’ registers an objection then their organs may be ‘harvested’, or more correctly, requisitioned by the state.

Personally it would make me just a little uncomfortable if I felt those who had charge of my medical care, when I was most vulnerable, were not just working for my best interest - but were also scouting for potential organs and might view me as a valuable resource in that respect.

God forbid they have targets or we might be in danger of seeing something similar to the sudden increase in young babies being taken into care when adoption targets were set for social services.

It conjures up a cartoon image of a starving man on a desert island looking at his companion and seeing a roast dinner instead.

No one can help but feel for those who are in need of a replacement for a failing organ It is an emotive issue and such a scheme would undoubtedly increase the supply of organs. There again so would re introducing the death penalty for murder and then harvesting the organs that become available as a result.

Just because it might solve the problem does not necessarily make it desirable, right or acceptable. Efforts to find other solutions have not really been pushed properly.

Patients’ groups have indicated they are "totally opposed" to the idea because it would take away patients' rights over their own bodies.

Joyce Robin of Patient Concern said "They call it presumed consent, but it is no consent at all," "They are relying on inertia and ignorance to get the results that they want."

She pointed out that the Government had made very little effort to persuade people to register as donors. "Where is the big media campaign, where are the leaflets? Why, when I go to see my GP, doesn't he ask me about organ donation? These are the things they should be doing - not taking away our right to decide what happens to our bodies."

John Locke said: ”Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.”

Not according to Gordon Brown it seems - The fact that he is apparently willing to support such a scheme says a lot about the way he thinks.

In a way it is another for of taxation - to be paid in flesh.

He clearly believes that the state, though he would no doubt wish to euphemistically couch it in terms of ‘society’, or even that much abused term ‘the community’, has a greater right to an individual’s private property than the actual owner. Especially when said owner is unable to express an opinion, be that property bricks and mortar, cash or their own person.

What next? Once the state has established the precedence in having a proprietorial interest over the individual’s own body, regardless of their personal wishes? Will it then be happy to permit you to fail to maximise it’s effectiveness by not taking enough exercise, or for you to damage it by over eating, or drinking any alcohol?

That might make the organs less likely to be of use and you to be an unreasonable drain on the NHS taking precious resources that could be used on something more sociably useful such as another manager.

To presume consent is to take without consent and to presume the right to do so.

Quote of the day

” Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant relatively little to the wealthy.

The rich in Ancient Greece would have benefitted hardly at all from modern plumbing : running servants replaced running water. Television and radio? The Patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading actors as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets - all these and many other modern developments woul have added little to their life.

The great achievements of Western Capitalism have redounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive perogative of the rich and powerful.”

Milton Friedman

Indian car giant Tata launch a one Lakh ‘people’s car’

And Talking of environ-Mental-ists…

The Indian car manufacturer Tata have developed what is billed as the world’s cheapest car. £1,290, brand new all in. They are dubbing it the ‘People’s Car’ - or should that be a Volks Wagan? ;-)

It is small, cheap to make and has a tiny engine so it will be cheap to run. I caught the announcement on Sky News last night.

Much of the story was taken up with environ-Mental-ists bleating about what a disaster it was.

Now if it had been released in the US, or Europe, it would have been hailed as environmentally sound, low emission etc. Just the sort of thing that would be encouraged with low vehicle tax in the UK. But because it was in India and it’s price might allow Indians to actually buy it - well that was bad.

Their attitude struck me as dangerously paternalistic and unpleasantly patrician - in it’s best light.

The presenter pointed out that it would hardly be any worse than a motor bike and there were huge numbers of those in India. But the talking head seemed to think people who didn’t have a bike might buy one and increase pollution. They also suggested that oil reserves were running out and seemed to imply, in a self satisfied tone, that this would hasten it.

After some more discussion the presenter suggested that surely market forces would address the issues raised and the talking head was clearly aghast suggesting that market forces were the ‘last thing’ it should be left to.

This just about sums these people up Authoritarian, Paternalistic patricians who feel they should be in charge because they are the chosen ones who have the holy word direct from Gaia. Who think nothing of flying off to a conference in Bali, but criticise the ordinary people for wanting to have a holiday, or improve their lives.

One gets the impression they would just love a resource limited Malthusian world where they were the privileged overlords who could enjoy the benefits of modern society whilst the vast but diminishing bulk of humanity lived short, dirty, environmentally non impactive lives in mud huts.

UK Government Gives the go-ahead to a new generation of nuclear power stations.

I have been mean to Gordon Brown and New-Labour of late, highlighting bad stuff – but finally, something that makes sense! The Government are to give the go-ahead to a new generation of nuclear power stations.

I suggested that if they were actually serious about reducing carbon emissions they should stop playing around, get serious - and commit to a comprehensive nuclear generation program. It seems they have done just that and I applaud them for it.

Now they should estimate what it will take to cover all the countries power needs and cover it by at least half as much again.

Hopefully the state will interfere as little as possible, apart from encouraging it and setting up a sensible framework for it to operate within that does not stifle.

In the future we should be looking to encourage the development of technologies that can power cars and air travel with hydrogen that could be cracked from seawater by Nuclear, or renewable power.

If James Lovelock supports it then the environ-Mental-ists should ease up with their anti lobbying and consider how much cake they can keep if they want to eat it too.

Unfortunately Government is a bit like that advert where they joke that there is a clever/dumb balance and for every clever thing there has to be a corresponding opposite.

So I am now waiting for them to balance things up with something stupid ;-)

Of course if that were really true we would be seeing much more clever things happening to balance up all the stupid things they have done already ;-)

Quote of the day

” Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.”

Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)

Darling wanted to be seen as tough on something - but he mistakenly picked tax fuelled energy price rises

I feel a case of déjà vu coming on…


It seems Gordon Brown’s Darling glove puppet Chancellor desperately wanted to engineer some ‘tough’ sound bite publicity, presumably to counter his less than 'tough, decisive, or even competent' image built up by his failures and ill fortune in the real world.


After Rises in Wholesale gas prices prompted the energy company Npower to announce price increases last week in the order of 17.2% for gas and 12.7% for electricity, increasing typical bills by £95 for gas and £64 for electricity, he seized on it.

The Chancellor, in an effort to glean some much needed positive publicity and portray himself as the citizen’s champion summoned Alistair Buchenan, of the energy watchdog (OFFGEM) for a meeting of Alistairs about soaring power bills.

A bit short in the joined up thinking department he unfortunately appeared to fail to take into account the treasury contribution to these headline increases.

Half of them, all told, allowing for three main green taxes - including a ‘green levy’ imposed under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) emissions trading scheme. Oh - and not forgetting VAT.

Quote of the day

" New-Labour " Dictatorship is a constant lecture instructing you that your feelings, your thoughts and desires are of no account, that you are a nobody and must live as you are told by other people who desire and think for you”

Stephen Vizinczey