9/11 'Truth'

Most readers of this will never have heard of the 9/11 'Truth' movement. These are the nutcases people who think that the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 in the US were some sort of inside job. There is a whole theology around this belief, with different factions who, as is traditional for such groups, hate each other. Some of them are deeply unpleasant, with overt anti-Semitism and all of them base their theories on bad science, bad logic, quotes out of context, unsourced rumour, political extremism and, well, lies. So, who cares? People believe in all sorts of nonsense. What makes this conspiracy theory different? It is simply this; the 'Truth' industry gives Al Qaeda and its spawn a pass. According to the conspiracists Islamic Terrorism either does not exist, or if it does it is much less culpable in terrorism than the US government. Their nuttiness becomes dangerous when it leaks into mainstream politics, where it often fuses with general anti-Americanism or a dislike of George Bush. By trying to move the focus from real terrorists to imagined conspiracy, idiots like Michael Meacher MP risk weakening the fight against people who would kill you and everyone you know if they thought it would advance their cause one centimetre.

If you want to revise your opinion of how stupid people can be then just enter '9/11 conspiracy' into Google and sit back.

NICE Blind?

Another odd decision from NICE, that's the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence if you haven't deciphered the acronym. Hot on the heels of their no-win, no-fee approach to Velcade, they have evaluated another drug, this time for a condition that causes blindness, and decided to limit it to 20% of potential patients and one eye each! Inevitably, the Scottish equivalent is having none of this and Scots will all be able to be treated for both of their eyes. Again we have ask why NICE evaluates drugs differently from the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, and why the result always seems to be Scots getting treatment that the English and Welsh are denied.

John Baron, local MP and Health spokesman was less than impressed:

This decision is very odd and disappointing given that Gordon Brown’s constituents are going to get Macugen and Lucentis on the NHS, but patients in England are not – as SW Essex PCT has recently confirmed. It also goes against the ethos of the NHS that patients are expected to go blind in one eye before they receive treatment.

Before NICE makes its final decision, it ought to re-examine how it came to this view and should listen to the Royal College and the RNIB – and examine evidence from north of the border.

It is vital that our NHS continues to make available the latest breakthroughs in medical technology to all who use its services. I am therefore concerned that Macugen is the latest in a long line of exciting new drugs that are available free on the NHS in Scotland but not in England. If we have a National Health Service, it must be truly ‘national’.

John is right. Something's up.

Labour Selection for Basildon

The Labour party have started their selection for the new parliamentary constituency of Basildon and Billericay. There is currently a Basildon Seat and a Billericay seat. In the future there will be the aforementioned Basildon and Billericay constituency and a South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency. Angela Smith, the sitting Labour MP for Basildon will probably go for the latter while John Baron, the sitting Conservative MP for Billericay will almost certainly defend the former. So, the Labour Party are, very decently, trying to find him an opponent.

According to the Electoral Calculus website, the numbers look like this:

Basildon and Billericay
Region: Essex
MP John Baron (CON)

Electorate	64,873	Turnout	60.20%
	2005 Votes	2005 Share	Prediction
CON	16,454	42.13%		44.94%
LAB	12,867	32.95%		29.18%
LIB	4,830	12.37%		9.86%
OTH	3,096	7.93%		11.39%
MIN	1,805	4.62%		4.62%
CON Majority	3,587	9.19%	Pred Maj	15.77%

Basildon South and East Thurrock
Region: Essex
MP Angela Smith (LAB)

Electorate	71,108	Turnout	58.95%
	2005 Votes	2005 Share	Prediction
LAB	17,363	41.42%		36.68%
CON	16,902	40.32%		43.51%
LIB	4,960	11.83%		9.44%
OTH	2,446	5.83%		9.78%
MIN	250	0.60%		0.60%
LAB Majority	461	1.10%	Pred Maj	6.84%	CON Gain

It looks like John's opponent has their work cut out. Oh, and Angela's in trouble.

Wickford, Europe

We are just starting the procurement process for a development partner for Wickford Town Centre. That's one of the four town centres in Basildon District that we are rebuilding, and the start of the formal tender process brought a number of press enquiries asking if we were particularly looking for a mainland European company for the Wickford project in order to give the town a 'continental feel'. Er, no. It's because the OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) process that we must follow makes any tender Europe-wide. We may or may not end up with a non-UK, or even a non-EU, developer, but I can't guarantee patisseries and espresso bars. Sorry.

Biter Bit

Tony Blair has given a speech in which, he complains, at length about the media. Apparently the modern rolling 24-hour news cycle is like a 'feral beast' and is damaging in its relationship with politics. Well, he has a point. Politics and politicians are trivialised, issues ignored and any perceived mistake can quickly degenerate into a process story that leaves any actual policy behind. But whose bloody fault is that? Here is clue:

We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media. In our own defence, after 18 years of Opposition and the, at times, ferocious hostility of parts of the media, it was hard to see any alternative.

Let us remind ourselves that for years Tony Blair's media guru was an ex-tabloid journalist who was renowned as a bully and a liar and who saw that the actual business of government played second fiddle to the next day's headlines. Blair and Labour created the current climate, spinning and spinning until it all finally spun out of control. The media got tired of being manipulated and the lies got to big to manage, but by then cynicism and disdain for the political process had been built into the system. Now we all have to live with Alistair Campbell's and Tony Blair's legacy and it is a bit rich for one of principal architects to start complaining.

'It is not a whinge about how unfair it all is.' Yes it is.

Beating the Far-Right

Across the channel the far-Right is in trouble. As the second round of French parliamentary elections approaches it appears that they will make their worst showing for years, and the reason is not hard to discern: mainstream French politicians are listening to their people's concerns in a way that leaves the extremists no ground to colonise. Sarkozy's UMP hasn't resorted to bigotry, but they are representing legitimate fears about immigration and national identity that had previously been left to Le Pen's National Front to exploit. Meanwhile, in Britain, there are signs that the Labour Government are getting the same message, with Ruth Kelly telling immigrants to learn English the latest in a serious pronouncements that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. It seems to be having the desired effect on this side of the Channel to, with the BNP making no progress in May's local elections.

Here in Basildon, the Conservatives have never had a problem with taking on the BNP, sometimes against the advice of other Tories who don't actually face that party in elections themselves. So, we act to scotch rumours about asylum seekers in Council houses, have a policy making local connections a consideration for getting a Council house and fly the Cross of St. George and the Union Flag above the Council offices.

To beat the far-Right, take away their issues.

Politics Almost Working

Basildon Town Centre project's procurement of a development partner came to Basildon Council's Cabinet last Thursday. As previously posted the principle of rebuilding Basildon Town Centre for the benefit of the local community is not the subject of any disagreement by any party, political or otherwise. However, there are different views on the previously published Development Framework and this meant that the Labour opposition on the Council did not feel that they could support everything that was proposed. To be fair though, they did vote for the parts of the recommendations that they felt they could instead of rejecting the lot. We have a Conservative majority on the Cabinet, so the procurement was approved anyway.

The bit in the Development Framework that local Labour Party don't like is where we propose to demolish and rebuild elsewhere both the current Council offices and the local theatre. These were built by a Labour Council in the 80s, funded by a mechanism that is now illegal, and are both unfit for their primary purpose. The offices are too small, cramming staff in like battery hens. Part of one floor is actually uninhabitable in summer due the heat trapped by the greenhouse roof and the building's position cordons off one end of the Town Centre. The theatre has a full-size stage but only around 400 seats in the auditorium, which makes it very difficult to get enough bums on seats to pay for the sort of show that could make best use of the facility. Previous attempts to run the place as a fully-programmed professional theatre were a financial disaster. It is currently is performing good service as a community theatre, but that role only requires a fraction of it current footprint. Despite these demerits, the Labour Party wants to retain both buildings and we have had to agree to differ, so that the project can go forward with a degree of political unity. On the basic proposition of rebuilding Basildon Town Centre there is no argument. Everyone wants this project to happen.

Pretty good for local government work.

Trashing the Green Belt

Not enough houses are being built, supply is outstripping demand, ergo: build on the Green Belt. Sounds plausible doesn't it? Minette Marrin certainly thinks so, writing in the Sunday Times. Her diagnosis is that despite huge demand for houses, despite the guaranteed profits that can be made by housing development, it is the reluctance to release Green Belt land that is the sand in the gears of the housing market. In fact, the problem is more technical, more boring, and a little less useful as the basis for a column in a Sunday broadsheet. As previously posted on this blog, the government has bolloxed up the process by which local authorities organise planning and development. By introducing the fiendishly complicated and legally flawed Local Development Frameworks in place of the tried and robust Local Plans they slowed down the release of land for housing to a snail's pace. That is the problem, not the use or otherwise of Green Belt. Ask a professional planner, or just try to find one with a good word to say about LDFs. The recent Planning White Paper has suggested some reform the LDF process, which is at least an admission that it is less than perfect, but it still only proposes tinkering around the edges. Bottom line: it is not a choice between Green Belt or housing shortage, it is a choice between a bureaucratic nightmare of a process that takes years to deliver and going back to something like the way things used to work, with 'work' being the operative word.

The Unpublished Iraq Dossier

Our excellent Member of Parliament, John Baron, was one of the few Conservatives not to support the Iraq war in the commons vote. We disagreed at the time, albeit amicably, but I must say that he had a shrewder idea of the likely aftermath of invasion than, well, just about anyone and certainly me. John hasn't let up on the way parliament and public were convinced to war since the vote, and quite right too. That parliament and people were misled, at the very least by flawed intelligence, is a matter of record. What has never been got to the bottom of is how this travesty could have occurred and that is what John is after.

He is is calling on the government to publish the draft Iraq dossier of 9^th September 2002 written by John Williams, a press officer at the FCO – which recent evidence shows John Scarlett requested prior to producing his own first draft on the 10^th September. For some reason, the government is reluctant to do so despite a ruling against it by the Information Commissioner. To further press the government to do the right thing John has submitted an Early Day Motion, no. 1607, which has already received cross-party support.

That this House believes that decisions regarding British involvement in wars or conflicts must be based on reliable intelligence and accurate public information; further believes that the September 2002 dossier, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, played an important part in making the case for military intervention in Iraq; notes the existence of an early draft of the dossier written by Mr John Williams, a press officer at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, at the request of Mr John Scarlett, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, on 9th September 2002, one day before Mr Scarlett produced his own first draft; further notes that there is no evidence that this document was disclosed to the Hutton Inquiry, which examined allegations that intelligence assessments were exaggerated by press officers; further notes that the Government has refused, despite parliamentary questions and a Freedom of Information request, to publish the Williams draft; further notes that the Information Commissioner has overruled the decision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to withhold the document, and that the Government has appealed against this ruling; further believes that the truth about the production of the dossier needs to be known; and calls on the Government to publish the Williams draft to help hon. Members and the public make an informed judgement about the influence of press officers in the presentation of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

We shall watch what happens with interest.

Brown Nose

Writing in the Telegraph today, Denis MacShane gave us an article that is beyond satire. The former Home Office minister was dissecting styles of government, so 'Mrs Thatcher bunkered herself away from the Treasury and Foreign Office and brought in acolytes to tell her that Europe was a plot against Britain, that the reunification of Germany should be opposed and that South African apartheid should be supported' and 'John Major lost control of events and his party early on'. Then he moves on to Tony Blair 'who did not know how to make the Civil Service work for him' and 'paid more attention to his Number 10 praetorians or to preferred junior ministers than to most holders of high Cabinet office'. Having trashed the last three Prime Ministers, at least in terms of how they worked with the civil service, we finally get to the point:

By contrast, Mr Brown, down the road in the Treasury, seemed to achieve equal political success in the economic and social field, but by working with civil servants. Mr Brown, the only intellectual in the continental sense of the word in the Cabinet, was as technically clever as they were. He could advise as much as get advice.

Now he is taking a mammoth risk. He is saying to Britain's state service professionals: "I am prepared to trust you. Will you put your talents at the service of the nation to keep economic prosperity and social investment moving steadily forward?"

and

His press chief will also be a professional civil servant, in contrast to David Cameron's £400,000-a-year appointment of a News of the World editor who had to resign in disgrace after his chief reporter was jailed.

As if David Cameron as Leader of the Opposition could actually employ a 'professional civil servant'. The Conservatives are in opposition, you clown. The civil service works for the government of the day, or to be more accurate for 'Edinburgh's most famous son' as Brown is buttock-clenchingly described. MacShane ignores Margaret Thatcher's commitment to cabinet government and the wide respect in which she was held by the civil service, belittles John Major, who was as collegiate as you can get, weasels about Tony Blair, and then characterises Gordon Brown as the one the civil service comes to for advice. His thesis that Brown is taking some sort of risk by asking the professionals to, you know, do their jobs is laughable. Brown is the the man who ignored officials when they told him his policies would destroy Britain's pensions and was described as having "Stalinist ruthlessness" and a "cynical view of mankind and his colleagues" by the former head of the civil service. Brown isn't taking a risk on the civil service, it is the rest of us who are taking a risk on Brown.

The only thing MacShane's article needed was 'job application' as a title.