Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Don’t you just love the way the Labour Party likes to keep things in “the Family” as Jack Dromey is parachuted into Sion Simon’s old seat.

All this guff by the deluded Gordon Brown about being a reformer just slithers off him, when he has payback to make to one of his toadies. Just this week Gordon Brown had this to say

And so the question today is do we make the championing of the renewal of politics and a new constitutional settlement  a central cause for this decade, or do we just talk about change without giving it substance?

This choice must be faced head on, so that we arrive at a radical, modern, open and democratic agenda to change the way our country governs itself.

As a constitutional reformer and long standing supporter of change, I admit that at times I have been frustrated by the slowness of the process of change.

Oh well, another policy announcement backtracked in short measure by Labour.

As the Times says

Some party sources say he is “on a promise” from Gordon Brown. As party treasurer in 2006, Mr Dromey dramatically intervened in the cash-for-peerages affair — which hastened Mr Blair’s departure from Downing Street — by stating he had not known about secret loans and describing them as “absolutely wrong.

The next year, with Mr Brown considering a snap election after his arrival at No 10, the Transport and General Workers’ Union — one arm of Unite — pledged £1 million to Labour’s campaign fund. Peter Watt, who at the time was the party’s general secretary, has alleged that Mr Brown had been told “Jack should get a safe seat”.

Some suspect that Mr Simon’s announcement may have been timed to help Mr Dromey. Mr Simon was one of the West Midlands Labour MPs involved in the “curry house plot” against Mr Blair in 2006. Another was Tom Watson, a member of NEC selections panel and a legendary fixer.

And of course dear old Harriet will not be worried, this time, about getting an all-women shortlist, not when Jack can add a few quid to the family coffers.

Time for a change.

All-women list will not bar path of Jack Dromey, husband of Harriet Harman – Times Online.

A new “crime” has been invented by Miss Harperson.

This is the crime of being a gender pay discrimination denier.

Whatever next can Zanu Labour imply about people?

In an answer to an otherwise innocuous question  as follows:

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister (Disabled People), Work and Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

May we have a debate about how to measure accurately the difference in pay between men and women? In one of her other guises, the Leader of the House is always very fond of quoting just one figure, but the Office for National Statistics made it clear yesterday that pay rates are an important but complex matter, and that a range of measurements should be used. According to one of those measures, men who work part time are shown to be paid less than women.

Miss Harperson had the following to say:

Harriet Harman (Lord Privy Seal, House of Commons; Camberwell & Peckham, Labour)

I have had discussions with ONS about this and it has decided on three measurements. The top-line measurement is the average hourly pay difference between all employed men and all employed women. That is the top-line measurement. Below that, another measurement is the average hourly pay difference between men and women working full time, while the third measurement is the average hourly pay difference between men and women working part time. I would not want the hon. Gentleman to be under the misapprehension that somehow men are paid less well than women. That is not the case. If one looks at men and women going out to work, we find that women are paid a fifth less than men across the average. I do not believe that per hour of their work, women are 22 per cent. less intelligent than men, 22 per cent. less hard working than men or 22 per cent. less valuable to their employers than men. That is gender discrimination in pay, but, given the hon. Gentleman’s question, it very much sounds to me as though he is a gender pay discrimination denier. It is certainly not the case that men as a whole are paid less than women, even though the hon. Gentleman might dredge up a few examples.

I have had discussions with ONS…: 5 Nov 2009: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com).