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Dubai brings out the worst aspects of both the Anglian Puritan and the man of taste in me. Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar. Kitsch. A shameless whore. A female colleague who holidayed there earlier this year plummeted in my estimation; megawatt air conditioning in interiors designed by Saddam Hussein's decorator, waste and conspicuous consumption, Filipino slaves, tacky Jimmy Choos and footballers' wives; I don't think there's a single book in the entire Sheikdom - Dubai is not the sort of place for people who can read without moving their lips. My personal Hell would be an eternity spent in an air-conditioned Dubai hotel with nothing to read. You can tell I don't think much of the place, can't you?So it's with a certain pleasure that I read of Dubai's current financial problems. Even though Dubai owns a fifth of the Stock Exchange, P&O and Travelodge. And even though its unlikely to become a ghost town, with the waters of the gulf and the sands of the desert reclaiming, covering and purifying all that ghastly vulgarity, it doesn't stop me imagining the fate of these American towns that grew overnight on the back of the silver rush, with opera house but no sewers.
The Guardian carries details of Liam Byrne's wizard new plan to counter criticism at the size of Labour's State - he's going to hide it. Anonymous office blocks in Slough, Swindon and Croydon will be used to shelter thousands of Whitehall civil servants disguised as commercial sector staff, and the use of PO box numbers and 0845 numbers will hide the whereabouts of the rest of the central State. Labour hopes that by dispersing the State's functionaries, the degree of power held by the State will be less apparent. Um, it won't work, Liam. You see, people judge the intrusion of the State into their lives by its effects, not its town of origin. Choke-off the powers of the central State, and the machinery of the State will wither on the vine. Wherever it's located.
As Comrade Ashton sizes up her new office suite in Brussels and contemplates her potential £250k package, the questions about her time as Treasurer of CND keep rolling in. The answers to these questions lie not in the hands of the Brussels bureaucrats but in the Kremlin. Just suppose the FSB decided that now was the time to make public details of the funding channelled by Soviet bloc nations to seditious Western networks such as Comrade Ashton's CND? Or just suppose they decided to hold the evidence back until they needed to gain an advantage? Can the EU really ratify the appointment of a woman now so open to blackmail from Russia?There is little doubt that Soviet money was channelled to CND; if not from Russia then from East Germany, the Czechs, the Hungarians or others. Comrade Ashton's future lies in Russia's hands.
There is broad consensus outside of our main party leaderships as to what lies at the heart of the rot in our political system; A Parliament dominated and bullied by the Executive, central party organisations corrupted by foreign bribes and influence, self-serving narcissists as MPs with no sense of morality grasping after political power, distortion and manipulation of the truth and suppression of evidence by party and State bosses, the foetid stench of the political class fouling the waters of democracy. I've said before that a healthy democracy needs both a strong Parliament and a strong government, and that strong government and weak Parliament over the past decades have been disastrous for the interests of the British people. Yet one of the most significant Parliamentary reports of the past ten years has gone almost unremarked by both the MSM and the blogosphere; the Reform Select Committee's report. It's measures can be implemented by the House immediately. It will radically curtail the powers of the whips and boost the powers of backbenchers. It will transfer power from the Executive to Parliament and redress the present imbalance. The Commons will become stronger and more independent. MPs will become less reliant on central party structures and more responsive to their constituencies. And for all these reasons it probably doesn't stand a chance in Hell of being supported by Brown, Cameron or the Squeaker. Shame on you all.
If allegations made by a senior police officer that arrests have been used to 'harvest' DNA are proven, then government action is urgently required to rein in the antidemocratic excesses of the secretive ACPO cabal. There is one figure that these seditious conspirators refuse to provide, and it is this; how many convictions have resulted primarily from the DNA records of unconvicted persons? The true answer must be negligible - even infinitesimal - otherwise they would trumpet it. That police officers choose to ignore evidence when it doesn't suit them will be no news to many, but that they do so on an issue of fundamental liberty for tens of thousands of citizens is almost criminal. We really must grasp this monster firmly and slice off its head.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to the latest poll showing Cameron's lead down to single figures, but what's clear is that the British public are still against Labour rather than for Cameron. And every week seems to expose some new uncertainty, some new flaw, that hurts Cameron. His despicable photo-op at the crosses for the dead, his ruling out (as Ben Brogan points out) of an In-Out referendum because the Outs would win, and the slow leaking of central Statist policies that leave his trumpeted Localism nowhere, together with rumbling dissatisfaction in the shires, now from the 'Suffolk Swedes', will all serve to erode the Conservative vote.Iain will no doubt deliver another homily on the importance of 'discipline' on the right, but if Dave continues along a manifesto path that many of us can barely distinguish from Labour's, how long can this last?
Sir John Chilcot will formally start his inquiry tomorrow, on terms of reference which exceed the narrow non-judgemental remit wanted by Brown's government. At some time before the election, Blair himself will be called to give evidence. A year ago, observers poo-poohed the idea of Blair ever facing legal charges over his lies and deceptions, but notes of uncertainty are creeping in. The leaking over the weekend of detailed evidence from senior military officers and others that directly contradicts the mendacious assurances given by Blair to the Commons are damaging beyond doubt. And there will be more of the same to come. I've just read Robert Harris' 'The Ghost' in which Blair - Adam Lang in the novel - faces war crimes charges from the International Criminal Court; the Jack Straw / Peter Hain character who eventually leaked the killer document demands remorsefully;'Name me one decision Adam Lang took that wasn't in the interests of the US' .. He held up his thumb. 'One: Deployment of British troops to the Middle East, against the advice of just about every senior commander in our armed forces and all of our ambassadors who know the region. Two' - up went his right index finger - ' complete failure to demand any kind of quid pro quo from the White House in terms of reconstruction contracts for British firms or anything else. Three: Unwavering support for US policy in the Middle East, even when it's patently crazy for us to set ourselves against the entire Arab world. Four: The stationing of an American missile defence system on British soil that does absolutely nothing for our security - in fact the complete opposite: it makes us a more obvious target for a first strike - and can only provide protection for the US. Five: The purchase for fifty billion dollars of an American nuclear missile system that we call independent but which we wouldn't even be able to fire without US approval, thus binding his successors to another twenty years of subservience to Washington over defence policy. Six: A treaty that alows the US to extradite our citizens to America, but doesn't allow us to do the same to theirs. Seven: Collusion in the illegal kidnapping, torture, imprisonment and even murder of our own citizens. Eight: A consistent record of sacking any minister - I speak with experience here - who is less than one hundred per cent supportive of the alliance with the United States ..'
In the novel Blair faces exile in the US, one of the few nations that hasn't signed up to the ICC and its extradition arrangements. I won't give any more away - except that Harris captures with absolute accuracy Blair's reaction on the news of the ICC charges. Well worth a read. With no EU post to protect him, and his co-conspirators facing losing power next year, with no diminution of the British public's appetite for a trial to bring 'closure' to this disastrous episode, and with evidence increasingly emerging, Blair has every reason to feel nervous.
Hugh Orde's comment to the BBC that chief constables will resign if the police come under democratic control is good news. The current crop of police bosses ill-serve the nation and our democracy. Whilst Orde and his ilk imagine a police service accountable to no-one but 'the law', a priestly caste divorced from the society that employs them, free to determine their own priorities whilst swallowing our taxes, this vision is a million miles from the sort of police most of us want. Hugh, my dear; our nation is a democracy. That means that the people have control. We will not sede power to an unaccountable cabal of State police bosses. So go. My own preference is for the return of local Watch Committees, mostly directly elected but with local magistrates co-opted, that directly employ and direct local forces for bread-and-butter policing. Cameron's plans are flawed, I think, but even they are better than the current arrangements. I want to see local communities 100% behind their police, to see the police back living in those communities, and beat officers free of the cloying Blairite micromanagement from old monsters such as Orde and his Home Office puppetmasters. This will never happen if Orde and his ACPO cabal get their way.
Had Gordon Brown called an election after sneaking into the Labour leadership, and had his first Queen's speech been that delivered yesterday, we would now be facing a further eight years of Labour government. As it is, the British public has become so inured to Brown the coward and Brown the liar that those bold promises will bounce off the sceptical carapace of public opinion. It was all too late.Mandelson's Brown's Queen's speech was the last desperate fling of a doomed government. It was Brown's Ardennes Offensive, with all his remaining Panzers and all his remaining fuel flung into one last-ditch offensive to break Cameron's advance. The counter attack came almost immediately, with Sir Christopher Kelly launching a devastating and unexpected attack on Brown's exposed flank that left Labour stumbling for more lies and excuses. In today's news it has already been supplanted by a blown-down tree in Cumbia. For hundreds of MPs this will have been their last State Opening; this Rotten Parliament already consigned to the obloquy of history. Next Autumn, next State Opening, offers the chance for a new age for Parliament - if Cameron finds qualities in himself that have not so far been apparent.
