Blair, Berlusconi and Jowell
Over the last 18 months British newspapers have been carrying small stories of accusations by Italian magistrates that David Mills, husband of Tessa Jowell, Culture Minister, has been taking bribes in connection with the financial affairs of the Italian Prime Minister. In the time-honoured hypocrisy of the British press they failed to carry out any independent investigations into the charges, and they carefully avoided the implication that Jowell had anything to do with the allegations. The contrast with the repeated calls for the resignation of George Galloway over unproven stories about his former wife could not be sharper.
But following an article in the Sunday Times Jowell has admitted that she signed documents on the remortgaging of her London home, which allowed £350,000 to be brought into the UK from Italy via various offshore accounts. This is alleged bribe money and also a mechanism for avoiding UK taxes. At the time of writing it looks as though Jowell will go the way of Mandelson and Blunkett.
However the real story is curiously skated over. Mills was one of the key people acting as the bridge for Blair to build a political axis with Berlusconi against the Franco-German domination of Europe. The main function of the axis is to serve the interests of Bush and the Americans by preventing a stronger Europe from emerging. The billionaire media tycoon runs Italy through a coalition with the neo-fascists and the extreme right-wing Northern League. The axis played a key role in persuading a number of European countries to be involved in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The investigation by the Sunday Times, a paper that is almost a house journal for New Labour, might be part of the conflict between the media empires of Murdoch and Berlusconi; ie a warning to Blair that the axis is only there to serve the interests of US big business. Berlusconi is facing a difficult re-election. Prodi's Olive Tree Alliance is pushing him close and the smell of corruption grows stronger over his government. His own behaviour is getting stranger. He has recently compared himself with Jesus Christ. However his sense of self-preservation hasn't left him and he has begun to distance himself from Mills. This might prove difficult as Mills has emerged as the chief architect of offshore company schemes for him and his rich buddies to avoid paying taxes. Nobody would be surprised if Blair does the same.
However, there are two key political questions to be answered by those who refuse to challenge Blair's leadership of the Labour Party:
- What are the benefits that Blair derives from his relationship with Berlusconi brokered by Mills-Jowell?
- And how come such a couple of right-wing millionaires were allowed to gain any influence in the Labour Party?
Kelly and Education
Back in November my old friend Jon Trickett, MP for Hemsworth, wrote an interesting article on the Education White Paper [pop-up warning] in the New Statesman. Jon, a former leader of Leeds City Council, is married to a headteacher who has joined forces with another former Leeds Council leader, George Mudie (who coincidently is also married to a headteacher), to oppose the so-called reforms. Their case is that the proposals will increase inequality in education and lay the foundations for the wholesale privatisation of education by a future Tory government.
They and their supporters have come under enormous pressure to support the proposals. The sort of pressure that elsewhere would be classed as severe antisocial behaviour. Blair and Kelly's argument is that the proposals are from the 2005 election manifesto.
Jon asks the question: "Whose manifesto?"
In fact, as Jon proves in his article, the proposals are drawn from the Tory Party's manifesto. And not just the proposals -- even some of the wording is the same. No wonder the Tory leader says he can support the White Paper. He wrote the Tory Party manifesto and should really be credited for the White paper.
Kelly has cosmetically altered some of the proposals to offset some of New Labour's backbenchers' anger, but on all the main proposals she has stood firm with the Tories. In particular, despite all Brown's talk about decentralisation she will maintain the right to block any influence local authorities have on education. Blair expects to push his legislation through with the help of the Tories. This is the first overt sign of a right-wing coalition.
Kelly has refused to acknowledge whether she is a member of Opus Dei. She says this is a private matter. The question of whether she is a member of this extreme right-wing Catholic sect (and several sources have claimed she is a supernumerary member) is not as important as her failure to come clean. The sect opposes stem cell research and has positions on women in society which oppose the Labour Party. Her hiding behind privacy on this matter is the equivalent of holding secret your membership of the Freemasons. She is thus able to pursue her "secret" beliefs using her public powers. As in the case of the relationship between Berlusconi and Blair, leading members of the Labour Part keep their mouths shut.
Snippets
Colin Burgon
It is nice see retired schoolteacher Colin Burgon, now MP for Elmet, begin to criticise Blair. His short article in the Guardian, over the Prime Minister's failure to separate himself from the repeated attempts by Bush to undermine the democratically elected government of Venezuela, does show the beginning of some independence of thought. It also shows the influence of his nephew, Richard, who has done some sterling work to help children's hospitals in Cuba.
Keith Wakefield
Keith Wakefield, the Leader of Leeds City Council Labour group, shows signs of memory loss. He opposed proposals from the council's "peculiar" coalition to put the Council's sports facilities into a trust. However when running the Council he argued that letting the facilities be run by private enterprise wouldn't make any difference to the users. At that time the Liberal Democrats criticised him.
The Coalition of the Green Party, Tories and Liberal Democrats revamps New Labour's proposal for separating sport from the Council in order to gain access to lottery funds. In this they were following government policy. It is another example of Leeds' "peculiar" coalition's inability to challenge New Labour.
Instant millionaires
More than 3,000 hedge and investor fund managers gained bonuses of over one million pounds. Some payouts were as high as three million. None of these people made a single thing or developed a single new product. However their companies such as Goldman Sachs have enjoyed a close and friendly relation with New Labour.
Another group of New Labour friends who made instant millions were the US private investment group Carlyle. They were allowed to buy into the government's defence company QinetiQ in 2003. Its privatisation this year showed a gain of £250 million. New Labour arranged the privatisation to try to exclude any members of the public from benefiting from the sale of their assets.
Kim Howells
Kim Howells, the New Labour Minister responsible for the Middle East, has always loved selling people out. His career started with his attempts to undermine the miners' strike while working as a research officer for the union through to his recent secret allowing of a registered sex offender to work in a school.
He has now come out in favour of returning suspected terror offenders back to countries with records of torture. He says he used to be sceptical but now he firmly believes that "no-torture" agreements will work. He attacks Amnesty International because it approached a Jordanian human rights organisation to monitor the returned prisoners. This, he felt, undermined Government policy. In other words he didn't want any to find out whether anyone was actually tortured.
Nan Sloane and the Witchfinder General
Nan Sloane is the Regional Labour Party Director for the Yorkshire Region. One of her famous predecessors was Lady Gould of Potternewton, who was nicknamed "Witchfinder General" because of her vigour in expelling members of the old Militant group. Ms Sloane has carried on the tradition by supporting some of the most right-wing and dodgy politicians in Yorkshire against those who wanted democracy.
Private Eye has outlined her uncanny ability for "backing the wrong horse" in the corruption scandals on Doncaster Council. In Leeds she intervened in one ward to prevent the de-selection of the Lord Mayor elect. However she was unable to save ultra-Blairite (and prodigious blogger except on this matter) Stuart Bruce from de-selection.
Blair, Cameron, Campbell and denial
The recent leadership elections of Cameron and Campbell show a common theme with Blair. That is a strong sense of denial of reality -- "we are living in the best of all possible worlds" -- and only a little tinkering is needed for things to carry on as they were.
The reality is somewhat grimmer, with global warning, the collapse of Iraq, the increasing attacks in Afghanistan, the crisis in Palestine and the failure of oil production to keep up with growing global demand. The sooner these are faced up to the better chance humanity has of surviving.
-- Half-Celestial Khan
