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I voted with the government on 42 day detention. I didn’t like myself for it. I’d dithered for a week over whether to vote against or abstain. In the end, I decided that I should vote for it to save Gordon Brown for the nation.
Had he lost Gordon’s position would have been untenable. The Labour government, which I want to go on, would have been damaged.
So though I think the proposals are daft and probably unworkable even as the reserve power they’ve supposed to have I voted for them.
I’ve urged throughout that we should kick 42 days into the long grass (along with a lot of other parts of the Blair legacy, like ID cards) sadly Gordon took it up through a Presbyterian sense of duty. Once he’d made it a matter of his authority there was no alternative but to support him with gritted teeth and a feeling of never again.
Tony Blair got away with his trick of throwing himself off a cliff and asking the party to catch him on several occasions. This is the last time it’s tolerable from Gordon. But he is allowed one.
Now he’s got the bill through the commons it’s time he turned his full time attention to the deteriorating economic situation that needs to be tackled by someone of his stature and experience. Though 42 days will be like the tar baby he’ll be stuck with it!
The economy won’t be easy but the achievement of the last eleven years is now threatened by inflation. It hits a nation crippled with debt, where the living standards and take home pay of the bottom fifty percent haven’t improved enough to let them face a higher unemployment, the greater costs and the negative equity which are now coming.
Gordon needs to build houses, to borrow to spend to stimulate and to get interest rates down massively. That means he’s got to eat a lot of his own words. He’ll have to say that we’re in a new ball game. Different approaches and greater fairness are essential, so we have to impose sacrifices with tax increases on the top earners, the wealthy and all who have benefited so massively so far. Then get on with a Keynesian programme in place of monetarism and market economics. The tax rebate for all on the standard rate is a first step in the right direction.
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I asked for nothing and got nothing for voting to save the government. My vote did it but the rumours that I will become Baron Haddock of Grimsby, Governor of Bermuda, Minister of Fishing or a member of the Order of the Brown Nose (First Class) are untrue. I’m just at the start of my political career. It’ll be twenty years before I start thinking of things like that!
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Flash news David Davis is to stand down and fight Haltemprice on the 42 days issue. Madness. The Liberals should stand against him. It’s a marvellous way of rubbing salt in Labour’s wounds.
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We’re making a mistake in promoting Polyclinics. From what I hear from Grimsby doctors they’re against it. It’s another blow to localism like in closing the post office, the store and now the doctor’s surgery. It will force people to stagger further for treatment. It won’t help the old and the young people it’s supposed to help. So why the hell?
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Mitchell log goes widescreen. As the first purchaser of a Flip video (Price £100) in the House of Commons, I’m now trying to get back into television (why did I ever leave?) by the back door.
My Flip reports on Facebook and YouTube will almost certainly drive WebCameron into oblivion and win over its viewers. Both of them.
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