The Berlusconi bribe

Yet more sleaze associated with New Labour. This time it results in 4 and a half years. By an Italian Court of all places!

The Times reports:

David Mills, the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, was given a jail sentence today for accepting a bribe of $600,000 (at the time £350,000) from Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, to give false evidence on his behalf in corruption trials.

Judge Nicoletta Gandus sentenced Mills to four years and six months in jail and ordered him to pay legal costs of €25,000 (£22,000), though Mills hopes to avoid prison by stringing out the appeals process.

Throughout the trial Mills exercised his right under Italian law not to appear in person and he was not in court to hear the verdict.

See more here

The Draper Tapes

IPSOS Poll: Rogue or Trend

Either way its good news.

Ministry of Justice

Have a look at what they do. Its a real mix and a lot. Surely prisons dominates it all. Still the department may give the smaller bits within it a bigger voice at the cabinet table than they had previously. Apparently the judges quite like the new arrangements which is intereting given the level of anger when the new department was created.

Flash Gordon

He looks tired, the vultures are circling, the media delirious, the economy disastrous, unemployment growing etc etc. Surely Brown has decided to hang on until the last minute (ie mid 2010) for an election. He should, he will lose. Woolworths woman doesnt like him that is certain.

The Bankers say sorry (sort of)

I am not sure what the politicians thought they could achieve other than publicly telling off the bankers and getting them to say sorry. The lot above have all left and are retired millionaires. It must be hell.

In any event the former bankers spent the weekend with PR advisors who cunningly told them to be contrite. (Genius).

Now Crosby has quit as Deputy of the FSA. Good move or push. He would have dominated the headlines for days. However it means the story moves closer to No.10 and means the press will go and attack other former senior bankers who are now doing qaungo jobs. (I know you ahve no sympathy for them and neither do I).

Still just what can the politicians do to get the bankers back? Stop the bonuses. It would feel good but would it be good? i dont know but the future is not as bright for bankers as it once was.

Transport: Tory Trains

Here is a brief summary of the eight key planks of what she is saying the Conservatives would do with regard to the railways:

•A high speed rail line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds - to dramatically improve journey times;
•Creating a "passenger champion" - a powerful consumer-facing regulator;
•A reformed Network Rail - with a new supervisory board, giving passengers a stronger voice;
•Better cooperation between track and train - strengthening and extending the duties placed on Network Rail to work closely with train service providers;
•Longer and better franchises - with 15-20 year franchises being made the norm to give greater certainty and to encourage investment in new capacity;
•Innovation in Rail Improvements - with funding for smaller scale capacity enhancements being made contestable and opened up to other providers;
•Ending Whitehall meddling - radically scaling back the detailed involvement of the Government in areas such as timetabling and buying new rolling stock; and
•A moratorium on building on disused rail paths - conserving any disused railway lines still in public ownership to keep alive the prospect of reopening these lines in the future.
Theresa Villiers hailed the plans as a providing both a long-term vision for the railways and practical solutions to passengers' everyday concerns:

“By building a new high speed line connecting London, Birmingham Manchester and Leeds, the Conservatives will take a major step forward in transforming the UK’s transport infrastructure. But we also recognise the need to tackle the issues that plague out existing railways and which Labour continue to ignore. We will put passengers first by introducing a Passenger Champion with a mandate to hold Network Rail and train franchise operators to account when they fail.

“After twelve years of disappointment under a Labour Government people know the only way to see Britain’s railways improve is through a change of Government. Our rail review shows the Conservatives have forward looking ideas to make the changes people want to see.”

Click here to download the pdf of the full rail review, Getting the Best for Passengers.

The Government are outlining their strategy today. The Tories outline doesnt look bad nor does it look radical.

The Polls

Well the latest set end with a jump for the Lib Dems. Overall Gordon Brown and co and in decline again and the dead cat bounceover (even then they were 5% behind). Its all over for Labour isnt it?

A Recipe for disaster

Zimbabwe update 2: Is this going to work - No

The BBC has a good website covering it all. There is this even better independent website.

The Zimbabwe Situation - News update

Zimbabwe's NEW Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has vowed to stabilise the country's shattered economy and end political violence. Wel congratulations to Morgan. He has taken a huge risk. I would imagine that Mugabe will try and stop everything Morgan and co do to imporve the country and then blame it on Morgan.

Mugabe has brought in opponents before and then destroyed them.

It is a big big risk for the MDC. I think the international community will sit back and wait to see if anything has in fact changed before ploughing money in.

Mugabe lives on. Bummer.

BJ4BW - ONS states the facts

Brown and co. won't like this and nor should they. It is tricky. we do have millions of brits working in Europe and elsewhere. Thats difficult to explain to the unemployed who see Europeans coming in to do jobs in their local community.

Its all highlighted in the Times;

The UK’s official statistician weighed into the debate about foreign workers yesterday by highlighting the growing numbers of immigrants getting jobs while the British workforce declines.

On the day that figures showed the number of people unemployed at a 12-year high, the Office for National Statistics chose to reveal that the number of foreign workers increased by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year while the number of British workers fell by 234,000 to 27 million.

More here

Boris Blunder - Minor Incident

According to the Evening Standard Boris Johnson launched a furious F-word attack against a senior MP in a telephone call.

The Mayor of London also accused Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the all-party Commons home affairs committee, of "bullshit", say sources.

The two men clashed over the accuracy of evidence given by Mr Johnson over when he first spoke to Tory leader David Cameron about the arrest of shadow immigration minister Damian Green during a police leak inquiry.

The Mayor used the F-word 10 times, according to minutes of their conversation allegedly taken and later circulated to committee members.

However, Mr Johnson's aides said he had used the F-word no more than two or three times. They also stressed that the Mayor had regarded the talks as private.

- This will all be very annoying for Boris because it keeps the spat going in the media and takes away from more important questions that the Home Affairs Select Committee should be covering. Clever, if cheeky, of Vaz. It does show Boris doesnt like him, but then there are few politico's who do.

Bloggers Rule

Obama Calls On HuffPo from AlleyInsider on Vimeo.

This does seem to be the first time the blogosphere has been favoured over the printed press. Tough question too.

Hmmmm

Tim Shipman has an intersting story in tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph. Here's the start of it:



"American spy chiefs have told the President that the CIA has launched a vast spying operation in the UK to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks being launched from Britain.



They believe that a British-born Pakistani extremist entering the US under the visa waiver programme is the most likely source of another terrorist spectacular on American soil.

Intelligence briefings for Mr Obama have detailed a dramatic escalation in American espionage in Britain.

Casualties of Chaos

It is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of all this chaos. It appears to be madness on the global stockmarkets at the moment as people have lost confidence and expect a whopping recession.

Surely things have to settle soon.

Steady as she goes

These three so called "big beasts" have a difficult job on their hands. They have to do enough in policy terms to not be accused of being a vacuum (which they aren't) but they don't want to do too much otherwise Labour will steel all their policies and badly implement them.

Secondly they have to watch the Labour attack line on them lacking experience on the economy. (Cameron did well in his conference speech dealing with that - they must maintain it).

Finally they have to make sure the Tory fringes don't get too excited otherwise there could be a bit too much gossip and moaning that could detract from Labours collapse. Over confidence would be a disaster.

If these issues can be handled then good polls should be maintained and a Labour loss realised at the next election.

Only 18 months to go!

Word Game

Mildly interesting stuff from the BBC on what the key words were at the political conferences:

The battle lines for the next general election are clearly drawn in the conference speeches of David Cameron and Gordon Brown.

The prime minister made "fairness" the key theme of his speech, mentioning it 22 times. Mr Cameron did not mention it at all, perhaps to avoid fighting Mr Brown on his own terms.

The Conservative leader instead made "responsibility" and "character" the twin themes of his own speech (20 and 10 times respectively), words that were barely used by Gordon Brown.

Mr Cameron, along with his Lib Dem counterpart Nick Clegg, clearly sense that Mr Brown is vulnerable on the issue of taxation. They each mentioned taxes at least 10 times, while the prime minister did not say the word once.

There is an additional fight going on over who is the party of change. Cameron said it 20 times, Brown 17 times and Clegg nine times.

Zimbabwe unity cabinet talks fail

The BBC notes that - Talks between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have failed to reach agreement on a unity cabinet.

The two signed a power-sharing deal nearly three weeks ago after disputed presidential elections in June.

It was agreed that Mr Mugabe - Zimbabwe's leader for three decades - would remain president while Mr Tsvangirai would become prime minister.

Both sides said they would meet early next week to resume negotiations.

A spokesman for Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the discussions had been "frank and realistic" but that negotiations remained deadlocked.

Mr Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, said differences remained over who should hold the finance and home affairs portfolios.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has confirmed he will continue his efforts to mediate the deadlock in Zimbabwe.

Mugger Mugabe will never give in will he? His tenacious ability to cling to power is incredible.

Will the Mandelson gamble pay off for Brown?

I doubt it but it could take some of the media spotlight off Brown and buy him a tiny bit of time. On the other hand Mandy could do for him if they fall out again. I think it would be a historical first if Mandy had to resign from Cabinet for a third time. So many possibilities.

Marginal Murder

The News of the World has conducted one of its marginal seat polls, in 192 Labour-held constituencies – details here. Taken Wednesday through Friday, it indicates Cameron is on course for a 78-seat majority with a 15-point lead. As is normal when a party is ahead by such a margin, the Tories are credited with better policies across the board. The Tory vote is slightly harder in the marginals – 62 percent say they’re certain to vote, v 56 percent for Labour supporters.

The poll would have the following effecton cabinet attendees. Anyone with less than a ten percent majority is in trouble.

Rank, Swing, Incumbent, 2nd, Constituency
1, 3.37%, Jacqui Smith, Con, Redditch
2, 4.66%, Tony McNulty, Con, Harrow East
3, 6.52%, Margaret Beckett, LD, Derby South
4, 7.02%, Jim Murphy, Con, Renfrewshire East
5, 8.25%, Alistair Darling, Con, Edinburgh South West
6, 8.27%, John Hutton, Con, Barrow & Furness
7, 9.58%, Jack Straw, Con, Blackburn
8, 9.59%, Liam Byrne, LD, Birmingham Hodge Hill
9, 10.76%, John Denham, Con, Southampton Itchen
10, 11.82%, James Purnell, Con, Stalybridge & Hyde
11, 11.94%, Nick Brown, LD, Newcastle East & Wallsend
12, 12.15%, Geoff Hoon, Con, Ashfield
13, 13.12%, Shaun Woodward, LD, St Helens South
14, 13.37%, Ed Balls, Con, Normanton
15, 16.99%, Alan Johnson, LD, Hull West & Hessle
16, 17.48%, Douglas Alexander, LD, Paisley & Renfrewshire South
17, 17.58%, Hazel Blears, LD, Salford
18, 20.04%, Ed Miliband, Con, Doncaster North
19, 20.33%, Hilary Benn, LD, Leeds Central
20, 20.38%, David Miliband, LD, South Shields
21, 20.56%, Paul Murphy, Con, Torfaen
22, 21.79%, Gordon Brown, SNP, Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath
23, 23.14%, Yvette Cooper , Con, Pontefract & Castleford
24, 23.26%, Harriet Harman, LD, Camberwell & Peckham
25, 23.67%, Andy Burnham, Con, Leigh