Why I owe Gillian Duffy an apology - and Murdoch owes us all one

Today it's been revealed that the entire Gillian Duffy incident was created by Murdoch, who has switched from backing New Labour back to backing the Conservatives, just as he did under Thatcher.

It's normal in an interview by a TV station for them to remove their mike from the lapel of the interviewee at the end of it. Sky News - owned by News International, a Murdoch company, didn't do that with Gordon Brown.

Murdoch used to back Thatcher in elections in return for getting her to allow tax avoidance and tax cuts benefitting him and his firms and deregulation of media ownership so he could expand his business empire.

Then he allied to Blair and New Labour with the same deal. Now he's gone back to the Conservatives again - and his TV stations and newspapers have followed suit.

It also transpires that the Sun newspaper offered Mrs Duffy tens of thousands of pounds to say she hated Gordon Brown and would vote Conservative. She turned down the bribe and stuck to her principles. While I'm standing as an independent candidate because i've little time for most of 'New Labour's policies I can only admire her for that - and I used to be a Labour voter, like her.

Time to end the hysteria about "them immigrants" and deal with the reality

Much is being made in the media of a Mrs Duffy's hurt feelings over Gordon Brown saying she was a bigot after she complained about 'the immigrants'.

It looks a lot like the Blairites have set Brown up here, but apart from that what about the feelings (not to mention the lives) of "the immigrants", many of them genuine refugees fleeing torture or death or people who lived in dire poverty and came here to work hard and earn a living?

I doubt they’ll feel good that people in Britain frequently talk about being sick of all immigrants.

If anyone thinks that prejudice against all immigrants and refugees is any better than prejudice against all black or Asian people, or all people of a particular religion they’re wrong.

In the 1920s and 1930s unthinking hatred of Jews was considered normal and rational. Refugees and migrant workers are the Jews of today. Unthinking hatred of them is considered acceptable by too many people.

Mrs Duffy has a point on free immigration from Eastern Europe to the UK, but then there are also a million British immigrant workers in other EU countries; and Poles come here partly because they have a surplus of skilled trades-people - plumbers, carpenters, joiners and electricians - and we have a shortage of them as our government hasn't made companies and tradespeople take on apprentices.

I'm not opposed to a referendum on whether to leave the EU either. I'd vote to stay in, but would accept whatever the majority decided.

I disagree with many of the things Gordon Brown has done and said, on PFIs and PPPs, rail privatisation, Iraq, unfair taxes, Afghanistan and many other issues, not least sending genuine refugees back to torture or death to pander to unthinking hatred of ‘immigrants’. On this he was right though. Mrs Duffy’s comment was unthinking prejudice, probably based on ignorance and endless rants containing completely made up “facts” from the Daily Mail, the Sun, the News of the World and too many politicians of both the main parties who have fed the hysteria about immigrants which has boosted the pathetic BNP.

It’s time to end this hysteria and deal with reality. Other than within the EU, Britain already has one of the harshest immigration policies in the world. Immigration is caused by mass poverty and mass hunger caused by ‘free’ rather than fair trade, by natural disasters, by dictatorships (often backed by our own governments) and by wars.

Scotland, with a low birth rate and ageing population, would not have enough people of working age to pay the pensions of its pensioners if it wasn’t for immigration.

Most refugees and migrant workers don’t live on benefits either – they work. People applying for refugee status (asylum seekers) aren't allowed to work while waiting for their claim to be heard, are deported if it's rejected and mostly work if it isn't. While waiting for their claim to be heard they get much lower benefits than unemployed British citizens do.

For some of the sources on these facts and more details see http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/election/immigration/ and Thirteen Myths about Asylum Seekers

The future business, the big society and efficiency savings – political euphemisms and what they actually mean

Morlocks - Is Gordon Brown's policy of only travelling forwards through time ignoring the seriousness of the Morlock menace?

Listening to the party leaders’ election campaign speeches reminds me of great euphemisms from the near and distant past, like “strategic interrogation” and “tactical questioning” (both used as euphemisms for torture by Coalition forces’ press officers in briefings to journalists in Iraq).

“The Future Business”

Good to hear that Gordon Brown is “in the future business”. That’s lucky because as yet no means of travelling backwards in time has been discovered, though it may risk losing him the Dr. Who vote.

I also have a policy of travelling linearly through time - and solely in a forwards direction.

It’s hard to imagine that any candidate or party leader is likely to say “No – i disagree – we should go backwards into the past as fast and as far as possible and damn the inconvenience, the dangers, the costs and the sheer impossibility of doing so –it’s the only way to counter the Morlock menace, which the other parties and candidates are dangerously complacent about”.

What Gordon is really saying is “don’t judge us on our record in government, judge us on what we promise we’ll do in future.”

“The Big Society”

David Cameron’s Big Society policy of encouraging volunteer work would be great if he was suggesting it as an addition to well funded public services rather than as a replacement for them. (Volunteers do some amazing work and are often as good as professionals at it – sometimes better).

The reality of the Conservative ‘encourage volunteering’ policy though is that the wealthy and well educated will be allowed to set up their own schools and run their own local services. Having done so are they likely to be willing to pay enough tax to fund public services for others which they won’t use themselves, but are for people who aren’t so fortunate? I doubt it. The usual conservative ideology is to ask why those struggling in poverty or on low incomes don’t do everything for themselves.

As a result state schools and hospitals will become hugely over-stretched and under-funded – like those in America, while those who can afford it get private care or run their own schools – a two tier health service and a two tier education system.

‘Big society’ in this case is just a euphemism for ‘small, underfunded public services, which most of the well-off but selfish people i represent don’t want to pay for so unwashed oiks can use them’.

To be fair Alastair Darling has also said that if Labour are re-elected there will be a 25% cut in public spending, cuts, in his own words, bigger than those under Thatcher. So neither main party can be trusted not to cut vital public services.

“Efficiency Savings”

While talking a great deal about necessary cuts and efficiency savings none of the leaders of the three biggest parties – Labour , Conservatives or Liberal Democrats – have said a word about scrapping Private Finance Initiatives or Public Private Partnerships, which are the equivalent of hugely over-priced hire purchase schemes, resulting in increased costs along with service cuts.

None of them have suggested renationalising the railways, nor even ending massive public subsidies to the privatised rail companies.

Nor has there been any suggestion of cracking down on huge cost over-runs on British Aerospace contracts for the Ministry of Defence, nor of ending the ‘Export Credit Guarantees’ which ensure that if BAE sells arms to a foreign dictatorship which then doesn’t pay for them taxpayers foot the bill.

No “efficiency savings” in the world could save taxpayers as much money as scrapping these three main areas of waste. Every government and opposition in history has claimed it could save huge amounts of money but running public services more efficiently – what happens in practice is some cuts and un-necessary reorganisation which merely causes temporary chaos.