Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Another day when Brownie Central was in overdrive, after Monday’s instantly forgettable launch of Brown’s longest ever list of things he cannot and will not ever be able to guarantee or enact amusingly titled Building Britain’s Future, we had a day when it seemed like all his ministers where only able to tell Brownies.

Just as a quick aside ,I was looking for some information on the Gordon Brown relaunch No. 94 on the BBC website, but found no stories about it to link about. So after two days the relaunch has already sunk and disappeared without a trace, so you will have to live with the Labour Propaganda masquerading as HMG’s policy.

Back to the real story, of course a Brownie should never, in polite or at least political, circles be referred to by its real name a “lie”. A lie implies in some way that a politician might be in some way dishonest or perhaps even not telling the truth, whereas a Brownie is just a twisted and tortured look at the world from Gordon Brown’s point of view where anything that might hurt the Tories becomes a “truth”. The Brownie is then used for long enough, often enough and against all the facts until the lie appears to become the truth.

Onto yesterdays political fantasies that Brown’s Ministers were spinning. First we had Mr Balls,  who certainly lives up to his name, judging by the amount he was churning out yesterday on every available radio or TV programme, trying to shore up Brown’s disintegrating relaunch. Unfortunately he soon became embroiled in a wee spat with Fraser Nelson of the Spectator. This came after Fraser was not quite Politically Correct and called Balls a Liar,  here is what Fraser had to say

Here is the Balls Lie on the Today programme this morning.

• LIE no1: “We have acted in the downturn, that will mean that the economy is stronger, we’ll have less unemployment, less debt…”

Less debt? No, this was not a mistake. He repeats it here.

• LIE no2: “Alistair Darling in the budget set out plans which show the deficit coming down, national debt coming down.”

So today, a new Brownie – no, okay, it’s a downright lie – is born. Labour wants us to believe that debt is coming down. Let’s look at the Budget 2009 plans for debt.

Fraser, as is his want, these days then rips into the whole lies about debt, cuts vs investment that Labour is peddling as the truth.

Now Fraser after calling Balls a liar was on the receiving end of a phone call from the man himself shortly after this, complaining about being called a liar.  In the phone call Fraser said that Balls who was hopping mad did the following.

He instructed me to “take that post down now”. I thought he was joking: has there been some change to the constitution where ministers now have power over the media? But he was deadly serious. “You should not call me a liar,” said Balls. I told him that if he doesn’t want to be called a liar, “he shouldn’t tell lies”. His defence is that his point about debt is a Brownie, not a lie – okay, he didn’t put it quite like that. But when he said “debt” he referred to the “ratio of national debt to gross domestic product” which is forecasted in the Budget to start falling in eight to nine years time. Now the Budget, of course, has a “horizon” running out in 2013/14: there are literally no plans beyond that. It is a lie to suggest otherwise.

Fraser of course did not take the post down and it has been the subject of some mirth out in the blogosphere particularly after Fraser made the very good point that

If you’re reading this, Ed (and I suspect you will be) then we have a serious point to make. Five years ago, you could lie like this on the radio and get away with it. Space is tight in newspapers, no one would devote hundreds of words and graphs – as we did – to expose a lie for what is. But the world has changed now. Blogging has brought new, hyper scrutiny. Blogs have infinite space, and people with endless energy, to expose political lying – no matter how small. Your claims can be instantly counter-checked, by anyone. If you stretch the truth, you can be exposed – by anyone. And if you plan to base a whole election campaign on a lie, as you apparently intend to do, then you’re in for a rude awakening

Balls, of course, as the Education Minister doesn’t quite get what all this new fangled technology is all about, he doesn’t yet realise, along with his fellow ministers, that today we can find out facts in a fraction of a second from almost anywhere. This ability destroys the concept of the the political lie as it can be exposed almost before the liar has even finished uttering it.  As the Sunday Times put it

“We don’t care if the commentators or the economists turn against us… This is all about shoring up the base in the northern heart-lands, which we lost in the European elections. We don’t want or need them to understand the nuance of the argument. We just want them to hate the Tories again.”

Enough about Balls and Brownies and onto some Bull as dumped on us by Labour Leader in waiting Alan Johnson. Having been put in the Merry Go Round position of Home Secretary he has discovered the toxic issue of ID cards and immediately realised what everyone but Gordon has realised, that it is not a vote winner, and it certainly isn’t going to protect us from Terrorism.

So in a grand fudgeannouncement Johnson has said that ID cards will no longer be compulsory. Sounds great but what does this mean. On the 4th July 2007  Gordon Brown said

Gordon Brown has affirmed his government’s commitment to identity cards as he called for all-party action against terrorism. In his first prime minister’s questions since assuming the leadership, Mr Brown urged MPs across the House to back the government’s anti-terror proposals.  He voluntarily confirmed that he would continue to push for ID cards as the backbone of any anti-terror policy. There had been quiet speculation the new prime minister would abandon his predecessor’s controversial plans for a national identity database and ID cards.Instead, he called on MPs across the house to approve planned ID legislation, amid repeated calls for a unified response to terror. It is “vitally important” the “message is sent out to rest of the world that we will stand strong, steadfast and united in the face of terror,” the prime minister said. ”

So a  Backbone of any anti-terror policy has now been diluted to a policy of it might be useful for young ‘uns to get served in a pub. What does this say for Brown’s Integrity and Vision?

However, and there always is a however with one of Labour’s announcements, it soon became apparent after this was touted across the airwaves that the central bone of contention about ID cards was not being removed. The National Identity database was not being phased out but would now be fed by Passport data and any other sources they see fit to use.

This is a typical Labour sleight of hand. Appear to be sorting out something but actually down the back passage they are sneaking it in via the back door, just so much more bull from the least transparent and honest government we have ever seen.