The Great British Petroleum Silence Shame

The US won't stop pushing the British government and BP on the Lockerbie Bomber's release

Anti-Britishness over BP in the United States was futile and immature.  But anti-Britishness was rare across the pond over the oil disaster and came from the few and not the many.  It leaves you to wonder if we Brits would be so erudite in our words for our transatlantic cousins if Exxon was spewing oil into the Solent which ended up engulfing pretty much the whole of the south coast of England.  Answer: probably not.

This anti-British malarkey seems to have been played up in the press over here.  What is beyond belief is how some elements of the media backed BP, with some critical of Obama’s dealings with the oil giant.  It was only a few months ago Obama could do no wrong in the eyes of virtually everyone on the island nation, with the 44^th President more popular here than the states of Uncle Sam.  But now, because of an oil firm HQed in the Georgian splendour of St James Square in London that has 40% of its shareholders living in the USA, a notoriously bad modern history of disasters across the pond and the failure of its outgoing CEO to live up to his pledge three years ago of being laser like when it comes down to health and safety compliance, the love for Obama has madly been lost in Britain like a brief summer fling.

The response of the Obama administration and most politicians in the US has been firm, fair and reasonable.  Even more so was the request by US Senator Robert Mendez and friends who called for Blair, Jack Straw, Tony Hayward, Alex Salmond and Kenny Macaskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary who, so-everyone in the British government says, made the final decision to release the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, to attend a Senate hearing over why he was released last year and if BP’s lobbying and offshore drilling contract in Libya played a part.

This hearing was scheduled to Thursday its been cancelled as everyman refused to attend citing the narratives they realised they wouldn’t be able help or they were not the right person for the Senators to speak to.  How do you know until you have been asked the questions?  When the issue involves the release of the man convicted for murdering 190 Americans, many from Mendez’s state of New Jersey, it is hard for a reasonable person not to heed his call when he says: “It is a game of diplomatic tennis that is worthy of Wimbledon, but not worthy on behalf of the lives of the families who still have to deal with this terrorist act and the consequences of the loss of loved ones in their lives.”

David Cameron’s trip to the US last week was overshadowed, entirely of his own making, by the Lockerbie saga.  He first turned down a request by five senators to meet and discuss Megrahi’s release with them on his two-day trip because his team said he did not have the time.  In the end, he u-turned and made the time as the clamour in the US became so great, making him look silly for declining in the first place.  He should have said yes in the first place.

If it is true, as Kenny Macaskill has said that he granted Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds and that’s the only reason, why is everyone so afraid of heading to Capitol Hill to explain this?  Instead it makes the release of the Lockerbie bomber stink and the reasoning seem all the more implausible, especially to those in the United States.

David Miliband’s camp confident of Balls backing

Ed Balls: the backing David Miliband's camp seem confident about securing

David Miliband’s team are confident that Ed Balls will back David’s leadership campaign over his younger brother Ed.  Ed Balls’ campaign appears to be floundering after he lost the backing of the two largest unions Unite and Unison over the past five days, coming a distant second to Ed Miliband.

Figures from Labourlist put Balls firmly in fifth place having only won a handful of constituency Labour parties (CLPs) and the backing of one union, the Communications Workers Union.

Speculation has been rife that Balls will soon pull out of the race, which he defiantly tried to quash Sunday on BBC Radio 4 saying he would fight on until the end.

The figures below from Labourlist (usually breaking accurately CLP votes before the Labour Party website calls them) have Balls far behind Abbott and Burnham in joint third place.  The unions were meant to be Balls potential stronghold but they have unanimously gone for Ed Miliband.  So who, when the time comes will he back?

Labour List Leaders board:

1. David Miliband: 81 MPs, 6 MEPs, 157 CLPs, 2 TUs

2. Ed Miliband: 63 MPs, 6 MEPs, 146 CLPs, 5 TUs, 2 SSocs

3. Diane Abbott: 33 MPs, 20 CLPs, 2 TUs

4. Andy Burnham: 33 MPs, 1 MEP, 40 CLPs, 1 SSoc

5. Ed Balls: 33 MPs, 14 CLPs, 1 TU

Ed Miliband has had a very good week.  Just a fortnight ago his brother was in a commanding lead amongst CLP nominations but by this week whilst most CLPs have backed a Miliband, David’s lead is down to 11.  David has the backing of most MPs and MEPs – his strongest area – but Ed has the largest majority of Trade Unions with his older bro being backed by two small unions.

Now amongst the closest thing we have to a rank and file membership opinion poll that we can ascertain, David has a slight lead, but Ed appears to have won more of the solid Labour seats (where there will be more Labour party members within those CLPs).

David Miliband’s campaign has always been concerned about Ed Miliband winning a large enough majority of the second preferences (those voting in Labour’s leadership election can rank the candidates in order of preference – the person who first receives 50% of the vote wins) to pinch David to the post in a vote which is bound to go to a second round (David at present looks set to win the first round but will have some distance to go to cross the 50% victory line).  Ed Miliband is not far behind and looks to be closing.  The fear is those who put Abbott, Burnham or Balls as choice number one will not put David as their second choice – he is the outlier , the progressive, new-Labouresque candidate.

Balls’s is backing would be boost to either Miliband campaign, adding all-important momentum.  Balls being more to the left, you would envisage him joining Ed with a promise to take the keys of the Treasury for the office he has coveted for so long.  But, David Miliband’s camp are said to have had positive conversations with Balls’s team when their paths have crossed at hustings and there is said to be a good vibe between both sides.  It is that Balls sees Ed Miliband as the man responsible for the election defeat as it was he who wrote the manifesto that led them into the election.  Winning Ed Balls is backing would certainly push the momentum back in David’s court but will the price be putting someone who has a history of being heavy-handed with colleagues and a single-mind on the economy in charge of the most important office in Whitehall?

Jack Straw: I regret 90 and 42 days detention

Cherie: many laws during the Labour government which could qualify as the World's Worst Law, but not the Human Rights Act

Jack Straw the shadow Justice Secretary and former Home and Foreign Secretary during Labour’s thirteen years of power has said he “regrets ninety days and forty-two days detention” which the government tried to push through the commons.

He told a Progress and Labour Lawyers audience in Portcullis House in Westminster that he believes there is a case for 28 day detention and quoted shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson who told him that when a group of Afghans were held under the Terror law, it helped build the case against their attempt to highjack planes for an attack which would have been on par with 9/11.

Straw told the audience it is always difficult to balance liberty and order and stressed at several points that the right of life was the greatest right of all and should be protected “from terrorists who try to take the lives of others” and that’s what they faced when in government.  Straw admitted they did not “always get it right” but on balance Labour in government made “the right decisions” when dealing with terror legislation and human rights.

During the event the panel, which included Cherie Blair and former Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer, the case was made for the Human Rights Act and the Labour Party’s record of championing human rights.  Jack Straw highlighted the party’s laws to help gender, sexuality, religion and race equality legislation.  He said that from 1979-97 the Conservatives failed to bring in one bill which addressed these areas.

But Cherie Blair in her address corrected Jack Straw in her opening address pointing out that the Tories did bring in the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995.  Mrs Blair argued that robustly for the Human Rights Act saying on several occasions that it helped “the little people” against the power of the state.  She criticise the likes of the Mail and the Telegraph, the latter she said described the 1998 Human Rights Act as the worst law in the World.  Cherie said that there were many laws brought in by the last government that could qualify “as the World’s worst law” but that was not one of them.

When asked if Labour had lost the mantle for human rights to the Liberals and Tories this went unanswered.

Mandelson’s Labourless book launch

Barely any of New Labour’s top brass turned out for the launch party of Mandelson’s book “The Third Man”.  Held in Foyles book shop London James Purnell was one of the only former cabinet ministers and individual from the Labour hierarchy in attendance.  Baroness Royal – former leader in the Lords was there and so was Charlie Falconer (Blair’s school mate and former Lord Chancellor) along couple of others but no Blair, Brown, Prescott or any of the current leadership contenders.

Was I there.  Umm my invite got errr lost in the post.  But I did run into a notorious BBC political journalist in a bar off Shaftesbury Avenue who spilled the beans.  Not surprising the leadership contenders kept a wide birth but considering how influential he was in the party it is surprising that John Prescott, Charles Clarke, Jack Straw did not go.

That Mitchell not Webb Shop

Down the aisle of Waitrose who should I peep...

Can you believe it.  Not only does Princess Beatrice shop in the Waitrose Finchley Road, but guess who was there today.  On the day his comic partnership is back on the beeb David Mitchell was shopping with a mate in Waitrose Finchley Road.  Who needs the Ivy when you have the fame hotspot of the supermarket world.

Mandelson’s Memoires Round One: The Spinster’s Coalition of history

Mandelson's book out Wednesday

Mandelson.  Think of him and the image of a wryly, cunning fox comes to mind.  Of a politician who is impressively perceptive, astute to the movements of his rivals and allies within his party, who as act of being the come back kid, who has a way of blundering in his quest of self-profiteering.

He has done well.  A Labour man through and through, who finds himself living off Regent’s Park with a penchant for palatial yachting holidays and fondness for fine fabric (note the shoes).

But with his book just a day away from full publication his account ties himself in a knot.  The immediate headline: Nick Clegg’s coalition dealings, but less obvious is his criticism of Brown.

He could not see Brown staying on; neither could Blair who told Mandy and Gordon, and more importantly, neither could Nick Clegg himself.  More subtly within the extract in The Times is the line “Gordon had been firm, he had broadly been in listening mode”.  This was Mandelson’s take on Gordon Brown during a secret meeting with Nick Clegg and his then Chief of Staff (now Chief Secretary to the Treasury) Danny Alexander.  It took place the Sunday before Gordon Brown resigned, just two days before he left Downing Street for good.  It was over the discussion within in Brown’s Commons chambers about his stepping down.  Mandelson had thought this was inevitable from the outset of dealing with the Lib Dems, he admits it would be the “price of him stepping aside”.  But the criticism of Brown’s approach and mentality is clearest in that he was “broadly” in listening mode, not simply listening mode then.  Before that he describes his relentless task of manning the phones to minority coalition victory.  It all makes Brown seem a bit pitiful and with the benefit of hindsight a misguided folly of power.

His account of the last days of Labour rule over Whitehall is a contradiction in the most blatant of terms.  He seems resound that the post-election arithmetic points to a Lib-Con pact and that Labour’s position could be undermined in the electorate’s eyes if they stay on.

Clegg, as Mandelson states, told Brown he has “no personal animosity whatsoever” “towards him but that “it would not be possible to secure the legitimacy of the coalition… unless you move on in a dignified way”.  Mandelson “tried to advise Nick away from pushing too hard at this meeting” he writes.  But Mandelson told Brown on Friday, according to his account, that beyond the weekend if no progress was insight by the start of the end of it they would run out “of political rope”.  It seems odd not to let Nick push that issue on what is the last day before you see the talks ending.  Indeed, he is then very critical of Clegg on the Tuesday describing how “brutally” he told Brown “the reality is your party is knackered after thirteen years of power”, but this is a criticism of most governments in power at that time and there would be frustration on both sides (even if Nick did, which he definitely did, play the two sides off against each other) and maybe shows Clegg’s frustration with Labour’s negotiators.

Mandelson’s account highlights who he is: very good at sticking to his line.  I am drawn to picking up the book Wednesday, but that is for the two names not mentioned: Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.  Their role in the negotiations would be the most interesting element he could mention, especially that of Balls, who the Lib Dems described as being heavy handed and a turn off.  If that is backed-up by Mandelson it could be very damaging to his leadership campaign.  The disappointment in the serialisation is how he whisks over the fact that Brown broke constitutional protocol by going to the Palace before a working government/coalition agreement had been finalised.  This was pure politics to poison the Lib Dems chance of power and what they can get from the Conservatives or push the Tories into a last minute minority government.  Not mentioned perhaps because this was the Prince of Darkness’s last hurrah.  Somehow I doubt we’ll know more about this in “The Third Man”.  It would not be very Mandelson if we did.

Miliband’s momentum expected to get boost of Cruddas backing this week

David Miliband has a decisive lead

The momentum for the Labour leadership is clearly with Miliband senior.  Allies in his campaign are confident this week that one of the darlings of the Labour left, who was tipped to stand himself, John Cruddas, is likely to come out and back David Miliband for the leadership.

It could be as bigger turning point Miliband as Ted and Caroline Kennedy’s backing of Obama’s Democrat candidacy, ending their long-term support of the Clintons’.  It will be a further blow for his brother Ed and the other two candidates in a week that it was revealed David raised more money in major donations for his campaign than all the other candidates four times over.

In US politics, raising more money than your rivals is the key to clinching the nomination.  It’s only part of the story this side of the pond, but last week the Electoral Commission released figures showing David Miliband raised £185,265 so far, with Ed Balls second on £28,419 and his brother Ed third raising £15,000.  Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham received no major donations.  Only donations above £1,500 have to be declared.

Miliband’s week ended with a polished performance.  He chose to outline his vision for the Labour at the memorial lecture for the party’s founder Keir Hardie in Wales.  The significance will not have been lost on him.

His immaculate use of prose was text book Obama.  He starts near at the top of his speech “We meet at a difficult and serious time.  A time of lost hopes and lost power, of broken dreams and impending nightmares. We confront a government weak in principle but sure of purpose.”

Look at the similarity in style with Obama’s address at the end of the Democratic Convention in August 2008: “We meet at one of those defining moments – a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.”  The only difference Obama faced 75,000 supporters in front of him at the Invesco stadium as he made his pitch for the Presidency against McCain

Miliband goes on to list people he feels are in a rut: “All over Britain today, teachers and pupils are dreading the news that their school will not be rebuilt; care assistants are wondering if their job is safe; pensioners are concerned about cuts in police numbers; and businesspeople are asking whether ideology has triumphed over common sense in the drive for austerity”.

Indeed at Denver Obama did the same saying “Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach. These challenges are not all of government’s making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W Bush.”

Miliband goes on to say in true Obama style prose: “we lost the trust of the people and ceased to be the repository of their hopes for a better tomorrow… Our inspiration can come from the past; our focus must be on the future; because our task is not to debate a better yesterday, but to build a better tomorrow.”  This differs from Obama’s Denver address who did not dwell on the past (except for pointing out that middle America’s income rose during Clinton’s Presidency rather than drop in real terms during the era of Bush Jnr).  Instead he defined the Democratic approach to society and the economy in his own gaze.  Miliband’s difference in this respect is obvious – he was speaking at an event in honour of the leader to link his vision.

This is a game changing speech as it refreshes his candidacy as being something different from the past thirteen years of Labour government.

He portrays himself as not being the heir to Blair and New Labour which many have caricatured him as being.  Instead Miliband described New Labour as “a kind of paternalist authoritarianism that manifests itself in big things and in small.  In devolving power to Wales and then trying to fix who its leader should be.  In my friend being told that a father could not take three children with him to the swimming pool.  In a preference for procedure and policy over politics.”

This is a clear break from the nanny-statism which Labour has been labeled with and return to a more social democratic liberalism for his party.  His clamour for human rights and equality for all also signs of a move away from the anti-liberal Terror Bills of the Blair era which were scorned at by both Tories and Liberals.

The speech won him the public support in the Guardian of Jon Cruddas who described it as “the most important speech by a Labour politician for many years”.  This week if Miliband’s allies are right and he does support David it is a massive blow.

David Miliband has shown vision for the party, has the finance to run a well co-ordinated campaign and has come over in the hustings I have seen as the most prime-ministerial.  But it is far from game, set and match.  He will still have to work hard to win Union support – a third of the Electoral College where his brother and Balls will be strong contenders.  But they too will need to develop a real vision and show signs that they will renew the party with something new, before David runs away with the leadership.

Beatrice: The Peroni Princess

And next they were queuing up in Waitrose

Those of us who frequent the Waitrose at Finchley Road in London may not be aware that it is one of the few stores that would truly deserve to have the royal crest and emblem: By Royal Appointment, above its door.

On Friday evening, whom should I spot in the checkout queue but none other than the fifth in line to the throne, Princess Beatrice.

Keeping a relatively low profile and minus her once round the clock police protection all she had was a male friend a few years her senior (probably her boyfriend Dave Clark who lives in nearby Hampstead – pictured) to help her cart a massive trolley load of food fit for barbeque.

Far from champagne sipping, one look set to be drinking quite a few bottles of Italy’s finest Peroni (on offer no less), two boxes of twelve were loaded.  Perhaps the freeze in the civil list has meant more “civil spending” as the Princess also bought Waitrose Essential range mince beef.  Her Uncle will no doubt be disappointed she overlooked his Duchy range organic meats which the store stocks.

So where is my photographic evidence to back up the story you might ask.  Well I did get out my trusty N96 phone but it seems it is the mobile equivalent to the gaming world’s N64: a classic, but past it.  I couldn’t get the camera to load in time, take it subtlety enough from across the store and procrastinate with the checkout lady as I got the damn thing to flash whilst she who looked at me like I was mental holding my phone out over and above her head.

The good news I don’t have a restraining order from the supermarket and I will be back on the snoop next week.  Friday evening’s in Waitrose… who knows’ who you will meet in the frozen food section.

The deficit is due to Labour says Ernst & Young Budget Preview

Gladstone's original Red Box will be out for one last Budget on Tuesday

The deficit in public finances is due primarily to the rapid increase in spending from Labour’s second term in office until 2007 according to a Budget Preview.

Just two days before new Chancellor George Osborne delivers his financial game changing budget, Ernst and Young’s ITEM Club’s report on the state of public finances states that the “high deficit can be partly explained by the impact of recession” and the “modest fiscal stimulus” but primarily it is “the mismanagement of public finances in the period from 2001-07”.

The reason why Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB) is  “so bad” is because the “government embarked on significant and sustained increases in public spending without a ssimilar expansion in the revenue base.”  In other words E&Y’s ITEM Club team is saying, like many British households, city financiers, banks, businesses and individuals (hell also students) they spent more money than they had coming in. The net effect was that by last year PSNB minus investments was equivalent to 11.1% of GDP.  So, one in every ten pounds produced in our economy last year was borrowed money by the government, ballooning the national debt and creating interest payments last year the size of the defence budget.

Ernst and Young’s analysis also shows that if the coalition government want to eradicate the structural budget deficit (stop spending more than the amount the government receives in taxation) – which they have made clear they desire – they need to make £48bn worth of spending cuts by the end of this Parliament.  That’s double the amount the newly created Office of Budget Responsibility forecasted of £24bn tax raises or spending cuts needed by 2014-15.  E&Y’s forecast is based on the commitments of raising the income tax level personal allowance to £10,000 and restoring the link between average earnings and the state pension.

To date the government has said it plans to cut nearly £10bn since its May inception ranging from nearly a billion shaved from the Business department to Thursday announcements of a further £2bn saved from cancelling a hospital and no new Stonehenge visitor centre.  But more must come and the government seems to be trying to soften up Brits to prepare for some belt tightening judging by Osborne’s round robin tour of the weekend media.  Expect universal child benefits to go and winter fuel allowance for all retirees to be scaled back just to those who need it – Nick Clegg’s dubbed progressive cuts.

But taxation is likely to go up.  Speaking to economists in the City last week the impression is that VAT will be raised (though not instantly like last year’s reduction) to 20% from 17.5% this would be more in line with Europe’s rates of VAT (Germany’s is 19%).  This would raise an extra £10bn for the government’s pot as would an Obama-esque bank of levy of 0.1% of banks assets would conservatively raise around £5bn more liberally £8bn.  That’s a good start from two quite politically easy taxes to implement.

But more taxes and certainly spending cuts will come.  So whilst Peter Spencer, chief economic advisor to the Ernst & Young ITEM Club believes “The government’s focus on spending cuts rather than tax rises is in my view the right one:  experience shows that this is the most likely course to yield a successful outcome without damaging the UK’s long-term growth prospects.”  The coalition has someway to go to get the populous on side.

Contenders divide in Labour Leadership race

The love of Labour may not have been entirely lost.  After lacklustre turnout just over a month ago a packed auditorium in Westminster filled the pews as the five candidates took to the podium for first of countless hustings to take the reigns of her maj’s opposition.

Next Labour, renewed Labour, change the real buzz word has to be choice as round one highlighted real differences between the contenders over Trident, immigration, Iraq and welfare.

David Miliband put on a polished Prime Ministerial performance, learning perhaps from the leaders’ debates he turned and listened intently to the other four.  His only slip up was in posture with his brother he leaned backwards turning his head up as his brother spoke (like Cameron in the ITV debate) making him appear grandesque and some what pompous.  But it was his bro who appeared the most nervous and was outmanoeuvred at the beginning by his brother.

Ed had both hands clutched on his podium for the first twenty minutes a sign that he was uneasy.  It was not made easy by a cheeky question from Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman who asked why Ed felt he needed to run against his brother after David had announced his candidacy first: what’s wrong with David.  His response: I think David would make an excellent leader and Prime Minister.  David’s response: if I thought Ed would be the best leader I would be running his campaign.  Ouch, a blow that a comradely cuddle between the brothers at the end seems far from a patch up.   Bizarre that Ed would be so gracious, but he also made out that he was there to take part in the debate about the future of the party making it seem like he was there as talking head rather than a real contender.  He also said it was good to see Diane there, casting Abbott in the same camp.

Odd Ed Miliband remark two was his talk of the mistakes made in the election campaign and the need change.  But he was the man charged by Brown to sort out the manifesto and run the campaign with Douglas Alexander.  How can he say it was completely wrong?  Indeed, his big bro said that he was not the sort of person to turn round a month later and argue that everything he campaigned for a month ago was wrong.

For Miliband Junior his shining glory came towards the end in the heated exchange between himself and fellow Ed over supporting the Iraq War in 2003.  Balls stuck to his guns and said he would support the government again and tried to claim Ed Miliband was shrouding his true views at the time.

Ed Balls, the only one to talk without any notes, focused most of his energy in party tub-thumping deriding the coalition and making remarks about how the Tories pander to the BNP on immigration (funny couldn’t you equally claim that’s what Margaret Hodge did in Barking?) and that cutting the deficit relentlessly is a mistake.

Diane Abbott received the greatest amount of applause and appreciation in the Church House Assembly Hall.  Casting herself in an Obamaesque light, talking of her unexpected and tough climb up the political ladder in Britain she said she had been discounted and was as a leadership contender but here she is.  But she is there because of the patronage of David Miliband, who politically knows that having another leftist candidate dilutes the vote of Balls and his brother.  Abbott has a great personal story which will be an asset, but her politics hardly appeals to the centre and those C1 voters who fled Labour to the Cameronian embrace.  Her story of immigration could have been matched by the Milibands, but they kept quiet on their parents’ story.

Whilst Abbott’s unilateral nuclear disarmament and the ridiculousness in keeping Trident won rapturous applause from an event co-sponsored by a disarmament group, David Miliband counterattacked with a solid argument saying Britain needed a deterrent and that if you did not have trident and were reliant on a land and cruise missile defence you would need to rearm as Britain does not have enough of these weapons and you need fewer warheads with Trident.  Abbott did not come back with a repost.

The rounds now continue with further hustings and TV debates this summer.