Alastair Campbell takes on John Bercow as the former speaker steps down after ten controversial years presiding over the House Of Commons, during which his private life became public and he was burnt in effigy as the Brexit debate turned toxic
Ten years as the speaker of the House Of Commons has made John Bercow famous and, for some, infamous. Eloquent but verbose, a proud and forthright politician from humble beginnings, Bercow’s growing national and international recognition was taken to a height unknown by previous speakers thanks to three years of Brexit.
October marked the end of his tenure residing over the House, his replacement as speaker and the end of Prime Minister’s Questions being much more exciting than it had the right to be: his orthodoxy for conduct, and those polysyllabic cries of “order” that characterised his dominion over the chamber, were a welcome respite in an hour of unabated cattiness and backstabbing.
In a Commons bitterly divided across party lines, rancorous and often paralysed, Bercow has been above all else a champion of parliament itself, first defending the rights of Brexiteers, then their opponents. He has also fought tirelessly against discrimination and for the rights of the LGBTQ community, receiving a PinkNews award for his tireless campaigning this year from Nancy Pelosi.
Here he grapples with Alastair Campbell on the slow torture of Brexit and accusations of bullying, while defending the actions of his old tennis partner Boris Johnson and the sincerity of Jeremy Corbyn. Now, to borrow his own catchphrase, it’s Bercow’s turn to do some “chuntering from a sedentary position”. He’s not bad at impressions either…
We all knew perfectly well that the billionaire right-wing press barons and their lackeys in the Tory party would attempt to smear the hell out of Jeremy Corbyn during this election campaign.
They hate his policies so much they’re absolutely fixated on trying to destroy his reputation with anything they’ve got, and his early involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process is seriously the best they can come up with, because they know it feeds into the anti-Irish bigotry that still unfortunately exists in Great Britain.
In this article I’m going to set the record straight by detailing 9 things that every voter should know about the Corbyn-IRA smear campaign. 1. Condemning the IRA bombings (part one)
The right-wing propagandists really seem to believe that people will mindlessly lap up their reality-reversing lies rather than quickly checking things for themselves (see video)
“I condemn all the bombing by both the loyalists and the IRA” – how much clearer could this be? pic.twitter.com/Ggxh90M0lM
Anyone who says that Jeremy Corbyn has “never” condemned the IRA bombings is lying through their teeth. In 1994 Corbyn signed a parliamentary motion on the 20th anniversary of the IRA pub bombing in Birmingham which described the attack as a deplorable terrorist atrocity.
Adams and McGuinness were not the IRA, they were leaders of the democratic political party Sinn Féin, which is the political wing of the Irish Republican movement, not the now-disbanded terrorist faction.
People who share these pictures are either so blinded by anti-Irish bigotry that they can’t differentiate between a political party and a terrorist organisation, or they know the difference perfectly well, but they’re sharing the pictures in order to feed into the anti-Irish bigotry of people they consider to gullible and easily led.
4. Peacemaker
In 2013 Jeremy Corbyn was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for his efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. You can read his acceptance speech here.
5. The Loyalists
The right-wing smear merchants are always desperate to bring up the fact that Corbyn met with Irish republicans, but they’re a lot more reticent about the fact he also met plenty of Loyalists too in his campaign for peace.
Corbyn met with Gary McMichael and David Ervine (Ervine was a jailed loyalist terrorist turned politician for the PUP), and he also spoke regularly with Ian Paisley who, according to his widow Eileen, considered Corbyn to be “likeable”, “courteous”, “polite” and “a gentleman”.
In light of the indisputable fact that Ian Paisley was a fierce opponent of Irish republicanism, why on earth would he say such things about a guy, who according to the Tory smears, was undermining the loyalist cause by promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict?
6. Openness vs Secrecy
Corbyn spoke openly to Irish republicans and Ulster Loyalists during the 1980s. Nobody is denying that.
People who attack Corbyn for openly talking peace, whilst refusing to condemn Thatcher’s secret negotiations with the IRA, or the succession of lies she told to the British public are clearly as happy with secrecy and lies from right-wingers as they are furious with openness and honesty from left-wingers.
7. Abject Tory hypocrisy (that councillor)
If right-wingers really honestly cared about criticising politicians with links to the IRA, why is it that they’re perfectly happy to have an ex-IRA terrorist and arms smuggler serving as a Tory councillor in Croydon?
You can find more details on this ex-IRA Tory politician in this article, or by Googling “Maria Gatland” for yourself.
8. Boris Johnson’s super-hypocrisy
Of all the people resorting to IRA-Corbyn smears, the crap-haired buffoon Boris Johnson surely has to be the most hypocritical.
Not only did Boris share a picture of Corbyn with a member of Sinn Féin to “prove” that he met the IRA (refer back to point three and draw your own conclusions about whether Boris is being intensely thick or sickeningly disingenuous) he also claimed that this picture of Corbyn and McGuinness in the 1990s (while the peace process was really beginning to move forward) was proof that Corbyn is untrustworthy!
Even if you agree with Brexit, only the worst kind of political tribalist could possibly try to argue that Boris brazenly lying to the British public like that in order to swing the vote was acceptable and trustworthy conduct.
9. Sheer bloody desperation Perhaps the most important point of all is the sheer desperation that these Tory-IRA smears demonstrate.
They don’t have any positive policies of their own to promote. They don’t have any coherent criticisms of Corbyn’s policies. So all they have left is a sickening smear campaign in the desperate hope that a combination of public fact aversion and anti-Irish bigotry is enough to put people off voting in favour of Labour’s transformational manifesto.
They don’t have a single legitimate argument in favour of themselves, or against Labour’s policies so they’re resorting to the dirtiest muck-slinging tactics possible.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Margaret Thatcher about that kind of politics:
“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” – Margaret Thatcher
Greek workers who every day havebeen resisting and fighting the savage
austerity programme imposed on them by the EU Troika
May Day greetings to the working people of the world at a time when the world capitalist crisis is deepening and is everywhere driving forward the world socialist revolution.
The current crisis of capitalism is its deepest ever and the workers of the world must make sure that it is its last crisis, by carrying out socialist revolutions.
This crisis erupted in 2008 with the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. This rapidly spread to the world’s banks revealing to all that they were deep in fraud, and had no real money just promises to pay. This forced those who had boasted that they had resolved the capitalist crisis, such as Labour PM Gordon Brown, (he sold off most of the UK’s gold reserves as worthless metal for euros!) to mount bank rescue operations that cost the working class and the middle class over £1 trillion.
The banks had collapsed, and capitalism was broken so Brown and Obama organised that they should all be bailed out, at the expense of the lives and living standards of the working class of the UK, the US and the world.
To add salt to the gaping wounds of the crisis, both leaders organised Quantitative Easing programmes where hundreds of billions of dollars and pounds were electronically created and handed over to the banks as free money.
To keep this bankrupt, out-of-date system going, the masses of the UK, the US, the EU and the rest of the world were plunged into poverty on a scale not seen since the start of the 20th century.
Unemployment in Greece is 26% for adults and 60% for youth. Spain and Portugal are no different, while whole continents are starving.
All over the capitalist world the only jobs available are low-paid, part-time or temporary, constituting the worst kind of wage slavery. Capitalism badly needs burying. The world needs socialism.
But Brown and Obama, followed by Cameron and Osborne have seen to it that the working class and the middle class have been pauperised, plunged into unrepayable debt to the point where millions are living off food banks, while London has become the home of the world’s billionaires, with its centre being cleared to cater for them!
The working class has been put on notice that the NHS and the Welfare State are on the way out, and workfare and zero-hours contracts, ie back to the early 1900s, is now the future.
The tightrope of the crisis is drawn so taught that Osborne and other Tory leaders are warning that even a bank rate rise, or an end to Quantitative Easing could cause the new housing bubble that is developing to burst, with history repeating itself – to paraphrase Marx, as a tragedy in 2008, and a farce in 2014.
The working class in the UK and the rest of the world must take the power and establish socialism.
All of the major capitalist countries are now battle grounds where the working class, led by out-of-date Labourite reformist and Stalinist leaderships, is battling against savage austerity programmes, with the arrogant ‘Bullingdon Boys’ gang in the Cameron cabinet insisting that it is to be permanent austerity for many years ahead.
Workfare, zero-hours contracts, the end of the NHS and welfare benefits, and homelessness is the future. Get used to it, the working class is being told. This class war at home is the source of imperialist foreign policy to carry out regime changes abroad, to grab the oil and gas resources of the planet and slaughter millions in the process.
Advanced countries, such as Libya and Iraq, have been ruthlessly levelled in this cause. Millions have lost their lives, and no expense has been spared. We have seen the slaughter of hundred of thousands of Syrians by NATO’s Islamists and other stooge forces, in a desperate attempt to reorder the Middle East and its vast oil wealth for the benefit of imperialism and Israel.
However, we are not in 2008, and 2008 is not going to be repeated. The working class of the world has had enough of capitalism and its crisis, and will not put up with it in 2014. We are heading for socialist revolutions!
It was the intense hostility of the US and UK working class to the imperialist war in Syria that was behind the government’s defeat in the House of Commons when it sought permission to go to war.
The working class would not have it and Cameron and then Obama were foiled. Their goose in Syria has been well and truly cooked at the hands of the Syrian people, their army and the workers of the US and the UK, who are now looking forward to the re-election of President Assad.
However, such is the depth of the imperialists’ crisis that having been turned back in Syria, and rescued by Putin’s plan to get the Syrians to give up their wmds, their thanks to Putin was to organise a coup in Ukraine, using the fascists of the Right Sector as their stormtroopers.
This operation cost in all some $5bn, for dragging Ukraine into the EU in order for it to be plundered at their leisure, while at the same time NATO was to advance militarily into the Black Sea region and the Caucasus.
Every Russian and Ukrainian worker knows that imperialist policy has always been to turn east to grab the enormous resources of the USSR to relieve the crisis of the imperialist powers and restore capitalism there.
The signal for the coup was when President Yanukovych refused to hand over the Ukraine to the EU and US bosses. The workers of eastern Ukraine in particular have shown that they have not the slightest intention of allowing the EU to do to them what it has done to the Greek and other workers.
We send our revolutionary greetings to the workers of Ukraine who are defying the coupist government and are setting up soviets all over eastern Ukraine to organise the removal of the Kiev regime and replace it with rule though workers’ and peasants’ Soviets.
This revolutionary movement will spur on the Russian workers to reconstitute the USSR by revolutionary means, as part of the world socialist revolution.
The movement of the Ukrainian workers will also encourage the working class of the European Union to rise up and overthrow the EU, replacing it with the Socialist United States of Europe by expropriating the EU’s bankers and bosses and bringing in a socialist planned economy throughout Europe. Once again, the EU and US bosses want to get their hands on the gigantic resources of the area of the USSR.
In the same way they also want to overthrow the Chinese revolution, so that they can dominate Asia.
In fact, Obama has marked off the Pacific region as the major theatre of operations for the US armed forces, and is currently visiting the region to strengthen the US alliance with South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and other south east Asian states.
The fact is that the world crisis and the imperialist attacks on the working class, the oppressed nations, and Russia and China have created a common front of the working class and poor of the world.
The workers of the world must support Russia and China in the face of imperialist threats and attacks. Our slogan must be that the enemy is at home, and that the victory of the Syrian, Ukrainian or any other people is our victory, while our goal is to smash capitalism and imperialism on a world scale.
We also send our greetings and salute the epic and heroic struggle of the Palestinian masses for their state with Jerusalem as its capital, with no settlements and with all Palestinians having the right to return.
The workers of the EU, in particular must march arm-in-arm with the Palestinian masses and establish unity in action to impose a complete economic and cultural boycott of Israel, and to make every effort to break the blockade of Palestine.
An international boycott must be imposed until all Palestinian prisoners are released and until the Palestinian masses win a complete victory. We also salute and greet the workers of South Africa.
As the capitalist crisis has deepened so the international bankers and bosses and the South African bosses have sought to tighten the screws on the South African workers to step up their rate of exploitation.
There has been a huge change in South Africa. The working class and a number of trade unions, such as NUMSA, have had enough of the situation that has been established since the end of Apartheid.
This has seen South African capitalism being run by the ANC-CP-COSATU alliance. South African trade union leaders and ex-trade union leaders such as Cyril Ramaphosa have enriched themselves, becoming billionaire capitalists while the masses continue to live in extreme poverty.
The ANC-led alliance has run capitalism for the bosses, while the conditions of the masses have not changed at all. The South African masses have had enough of this.
The massacre of the Marikana miners by the ANC government and police was the last straw for the South African workers. The black masses now want to see a workers government that will nationalise the banks and the industries including the mines, as well as handing over the land to the rural poor.
New unions have emerged out of the Marikana massacre such as the AMCU which is leading a major strike of the platinum miners, against bosses who are based in the City of London.
The South African working class is now marching forward to a socialist revolution that will revolutionise the whole of Africa, and create the conditions for a United Socialist States of Africa.
The South African socialist revolution is on hand and its revolutionary leadership must now be built up rapidly.
The revolutionary partner of the South African working class in Africa is the massive Egyptian working class. The Egyptian working class brought down Mubarak and also the US-backed Mursi regime, when 18 million workers marched against it when Mursi refused to carry out the policies that workers wanted to see.
The powerful Egyptian trade unions will come into all-out revolutionary conflict with the regime to be led by ex-General Sisi as soon as it is installed, creating the conditions for the revolutionary leadership to be rapidly built up.
Alongside the South African trade unions and the South African revolution, the Egyptian workers will transform Africa and greatly influence the Middle East, in a much bigger way than the ending of Apartheid inspired the Palestinian struggle to go forward.
A revolutionary leadership in Egypt will enormously weaken the Zionist leadership of Israel and further loosen the hold of US imperialism on the Middle East. The Palestinian masses are now getting ready for an all-out struggle to establish their state.
This will take place as part of the struggle to drive imperialism and its stooge regimes out of the Middle East and to establish a Socialist Federation of Middle Eastern states that will use the enormous wealth of the region to benefit the working class and the Arab masses.
The workers of India and Sri Lanka are also advancing. They understand that only socialism can satisfy their requirements. The essence of the present situation is that the deepening of the world crisis of the capitalist system is driving forward the world socialist revolution rapidly, in leaps, in every corner of the planet.
What is required in 2014 is the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to lead the world socialist revolution to its victory.
In the UK, the task for 2014 is the building up of a mass movement of revolutionary workers and youth in the WRP and the Young Socialists that can rapidly build a new and revolutionary leadership inside the trade unions.
This will mobilise the unions to call a general strike to bring down the Tory-led coalition and bring in a workers government that will expropriate the bosses and the bankers and bring in socialism.
Building the revolutionary leadership is vital since the present TUC leaders have been examining the practicalities of calling a general strike for the last two years, greatly frightening themselves in the process, as they have stood by and watched as the Tories have pauperised workers and destroyed whole chunks of the Welfare State.
The British workers, like the workers of the world, require a revolutionary leadership to win the struggle for socialism.
• Build the Fourth International in every country in 2014!
• Forward to the British socialist revolution!
• Forward to the victory of the World Socialist Revolution
WARNING:What you’re about to see is controversial, and may be alarming to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Sources:
£10 trillion in public funds – MoneyWeek calculations based on historical welfare spend
UK Total Debt as a percentage of GDP – Debt and deleveraging: Uneven progress on the path to growth, McKinsey Global Institute, 2 January 2012
500,000 pensioners in 1909 – BBC article: The state pension turns 100, 31 July 2008 Average life expectancy – World Bank data, 31 October 2012
An estimated £5 trillion government debt – IEA article: True level of UK government debt exceeds £5 trillion, 12 November 2012
£120 billion net borrowing – Office for National Statistics: Public Sector Finances August 2012, 21 September 2012
MP Douglas Carswell quote – The End of Politics and The Birth of iDemocracy
James Callaghan quote – British Political Speech, Blackpool 1976, 28 September 1976
America, Japanese and Weimar Republic total debt – Global Financial Data, Bridgewater’s An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings report, February 2012
Salaries and pensions slashed up to 40% – The Guardian: Greece is ripe for radical change, 8 November 2012
Euro zone discussed capital controls – Reuters, 12 June 2012
For the calculations of UK debt, and more information about the charts, click here.
This is quite old but I wanted to put this on here. I Would also like to take this opportunity to thank Dave Walkden for this Masterpiece, how to destroy the opposition.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard: a “badass” champion for women around the world.
” No matter what you think of her politics, there’s much to admire in the manner in which Julia Gillard, the prime minister, sets about Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition “
The Prime Minister’s 15-minute speech condemning misogyny and attacking Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s history of comments about abortion, women’s roles in the home and their ability to wield authority has impressed political pundits in the US and Britain.
Political rivals … Julia Gillard walks past Tony Abbott. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
“In an impassioned 15-minute smackdown in front of the House of Representatives, the country’s first female leader gave a scathing speech calling out opposition leader Tony Abbott’s extremely misogynistic comments, actions, views on abortion and single women, all while pointing in his face.”
Jezebel also highlighted some of her “choice quotes” including:
No holding back … Prime Minister Julia Gillard replies to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s motion to dismiss the Speaker Peter Slipper. Photo: Andrew Meares
– “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the house of representatives, he needs a mirror.
– “I was very offended personally the Leader of the Opposition said abortion is the easy way out.”
– “I was offended when he stood next to a sign that described me as a ‘man’s bitch.'”
Online political magazine Salon said US politicians such as Todd Akin, who said “legitimate rape” did not result in pregnancy, and Allen West, who was blasted after telling a Democrat she was “not a lady”, could learn something from Ms Gillard.
“If only the US could borrow Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to take on Congress’s misogynist caucus,” Salon said.
“We wonder if Gillard takes requests: Todd Akin, R.-Mo., and Allen West, R.- Fla., to name just a couple, could certainly use a similar treatment.”
“No matter what you think of her politics, there’s much to admire in the manner in which Julia Gillard, the prime minister, sets about Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition,” columnist Alex Massie wrote.
“Anyone who admires the cut and thrust of parliamentary theatre and debate will enjoy these 15 minutes.
“Mr Abbott does not look best amused. But then he’s just been carved to pieces so he wouldn’t, would he?”
“In short, Gillard didn’t have a leg to stand on during Australia’s Prime Minister’s question time,” Ms Barnett wrote.
“Defending the indefensible is a pretty tough job and could still cost her dear. But what she did have was an impressive set of insults to launch at the high and mighty Abbott – which has completely and cleverly shifted the focus of the entire news story ever since.
“Watching a female Prime Minister tear apart the male leader of the Opposition with such aplomb, composure – but most importantly armed with a brilliantly impressive set of insults – backed up with dates and times of when each shocking comment was said – was the best card Gillard, ever the political animal, could have played in such a situation.”
“[It’s] certainly not like anything you’d see in U.S. politics,” journalist Joe Weisenthal wrote.
“In addition to the intensity of the speech … you can really see Abbott get increasingly uncomfortable as the speech goes on.
“He starts by smiling at the charges of being sexist to appearing deeply uncomfortable.”
THE TRANSCRIPT
Thank you very much Deputy Speaker and I rise to oppose the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition. And in so doing I say to the Leader of the Opposition I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the Government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.
The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror. That’s what he needs.
Let’s go through the Opposition Leader’s repulsive double standards, repulsive double standards when it comes to misogyny and sexism. We are now supposed to take seriously that the Leader of the Opposition is offended by Mr Slipper’s text messages, when this is the Leader of the Opposition who has said, and this was when he was a minister under the last government – not when he was a student, not when he was in high school – when he was a minister under the last government.
He has said, and I quote, in a discussion about women being under-represented in institutions of power in Australia, the interviewer was a man called Stavros. The Leader of the Opposition says “If it’s true, Stavros, that men have more power generally speaking than women, is that a bad thing?”
Advertisement
And then a discussion ensues, and another person says “I want my daughter to have as much opportunity as my son.” To which the Leader of the Opposition says “Yeah, I completely agree, but what if men are by physiology or temperament, more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?”
Then ensues another discussion about women’s role in modern society, and the other person participating in the discussion says “I think it’s very hard to deny that there is an underrepresentation of women,” to which the Leader of the Opposition says, “But now, there’s an assumption that this is a bad thing.”
This is the man from whom we’re supposed to take lectures about sexism. And then of course it goes on. I was very offended personally when the Leader of the Opposition, as Minister of Health, said, and I quote, “Abortion is the easy way out.” I was very personally offended by those comments. You said that in March 2004, I suggest you check the records.
I was also very offended on behalf of the women of Australia when in the course of this carbon pricing campaign, the Leader of the Opposition said “What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing…” Thank you for that painting of women’s roles in modern Australia.
And then of course, I was offended too by the sexism, by the misogyny of the Leader of the Opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as Prime Minister, “If the Prime Minister wants to, politically speaking, make an honest woman of herself…”, something that would never have been said to any man sitting in this chair. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside in the front of Parliament and stood next to a sign that said “Ditch the witch.”
I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that described me as a man’s bitch. I was offended by those things. Misogyny, sexism, every day from this Leader of the Opposition. Every day in every way, across the time the Leader of the Opposition has sat in that chair and I’ve sat in this chair, that is all we have heard from him.
And now, the Leader of the Opposition wants to be taken seriously, apparently he’s woken up after this track record and all of these statements, and he’s woken up and he’s gone “Oh dear, there’s this thing called sexism, oh my lords, there’s this thing called misogyny. Now who’s one of them? Oh, the Speaker must be because that suits my political purpose.”
Doesn’t turn a hair about any of his past statements, doesn’t walk into this Parliament and apologise to the women of Australia. Doesn’t walk into this Parliament and apologise to me for the things that have come out of his mouth. But now seeks to use this as a battering ram against someone else.
Well this kind of hypocrisy must not be tolerated, which is why this motion from the Leader of the Opposition should not be taken seriously.
And then second, the Leader of the Opposition is always wonderful about walking into this Parliament and giving me and others a lecture about what they should take responsibility for.
Always wonderful about that – everything that I should take responsibility for, now apparently including the text messages of the Member for Fisher. Always keen to say how others should assume responsibility, particularly me.
Well can anybody remind me if the Leader of the Opposition has taken any responsibility for the conduct of the Sydney Young Liberals and the attendance at this event of members of his frontbench?
Has he taken any responsibility for the conduct of members of his political party and members of his frontbench who apparently when the most vile things were being said about my family, raised no voice of objection? Nobody walked out of the room; no-one walked up to Mr Jones and said that this was not acceptable.
Instead of course, it was all viewed as good fun until it was run in a Sunday newspaper and then the Leader of the Opposition and others started ducking for cover.
Big on lectures of responsibility, very light on accepting responsibility himself for the vile conduct of members of his political party.
Third, Deputy Speaker, why the Leader of the Opposition should not be taken seriously on this motion.
The Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition have come into this place and have talked about the Member for Fisher. Well, let me remind the Opposition and the Leader of the opposition party about their track record and association with the Member for Fisher.
I remind them that the National Party preselected the Member for Fisher for the 1984 election, that the National Party preselected the Member for Fisher for the 1987 election, that the Liberals preselected Mr Slipper for the 1993 election, then the 1996 election, then the 1998 election, then for the 2001 election, then for the 2004 election, then for the 2007 election and then for the 2010 election.
And across these elections, Mr Slipper enjoyed the personal support of the Leader of the Opposition. I remind the Leader of the Opposition that on 28 September 2010, following the last election campaign, when Mr Slipper was elected as Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition at that stage said this, and I quote.
He referred to the Member for Maranoa, who was also elected to a position at the same time, and then went on as follows: “And the Member for Fisher will serve as a fine complement to the Member for Scullin in the chair. I believe that the Parliament will be well-served by the team which will occupy the chair in this chamber. I congratulate the Member for Fisher, who has been a friend of mine for a very long time, who has served this Parliament in many capacities with distinction.”
The words of the Leader of the Opposition on record, about his personal friendship with Mr [Slipper], and on record about his view about Mr Slipper’s qualities and attributes to be the Speaker.
No walking away from those words, they were the statement of the Leader of the Opposition then. I remind the Leader of the Opposition, who now comes in here and speaks about apparently his inability to work with or talk to Mr Slipper. I remind the Leader of the Opposition he attended Mr Slipper’s wedding.
Did he walk up to Mr Slipper in the middle of the service and say he was disgusted to be there? Was that the attitude he took? No, he attended that wedding as a friend.
The Leader of the Opposition keen to lecture others about what they ought to know or did know about Mr Slipper. Well with respect, I’d say to the Leader of the Opposition after a long personal association including attending Mr Slipper’s wedding, it would be interesting to know whether the Leader of the Opposition was surprised by these text messages.
He’s certainly in a position to speak more intimately about Mr Slipper than I am, and many other people in this Parliament, given this long personal association.
Then of course the Leader of the Opposition comes into this place and says, and I quote, “Every day the Prime Minister stands in this Parliament to defend this Speaker will be another day of shame for this Parliament, another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame.”
Well can I indicate to the Leader of the Opposition the Government is not dying of shame, my father did not die of shame, what the Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of is his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it. Now about the text messages that are on the public record or reported in the – that’s a direct quote from the Leader of the Opposition so I suggest those groaning have a word with him.
On the conduct of Mr Slipper, and on the text messages that are in the public domain, I have seen the press reports of those text messages. I am offended by their content. I am offended by their content because I am always offended by sexism. I am offended by their content because I am always offended by statements that are anti-women.
I am offended by those things in the same way that I have been offended by things that the Leader of the Opposition has said, and no doubt will continue to say in the future. Because if this today was an exhibition of his new feminine side, well I don’t think we’ve got much to look forward to in terms of changed conduct.
I am offended by those text messages. But I also believe, in terms of this Parliament making a decision about the speakership, that this Parliament should recognise that there is a court case in progress. That the judge has reserved his decision, that having waited for a number of months for the legal matters surrounding Mr Slipper to come to a conclusion, that this Parliament should see that conclusion.
I believe that is the appropriate path forward, and that people will then have an opportunity to make up their minds with the fullest information available to them.
But whenever people make up their minds about those questions, what I won’t stand for, what I will never stand for is the Leader of the Opposition coming into this place and peddling a double standard. Peddling a standard for Mr Slipper he would not set for himself. Peddling a standard for Mr Slipper he has not set for other members of his frontbench.
Peddling a standard for Mr Slipper that has not been acquitted by the people who have been sent out to say the vilest and most revolting things like his former Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Senator Bernardi.
I will not ever see the Leader of the Opposition seek to impose his double standard on this Parliament. Sexism should always be unacceptable. We should conduct ourselves as it should always be unacceptable. The Leader of the Opposition says do something; well he could do something himself if he wants to deal with sexism in this Parliament.
He could change his behaviour, he could apologise for all his past statements, he could apologise for standing next to signs describing me as a witch and a bitch, terminology that is now objected to by the frontbench of the Opposition.
He could change a standard himself if he sought to do so. But we will see none of that from the Leader of the Opposition because on these questions he is incapable of change. Capable of double standards, but incapable of change. His double standards should not rule this Parliament.
Good sense, common sense, proper process is what should rule this Parliament. That’s what I believe is the path forward for this Parliament, not the kind of double standards and political game-playing imposed by the Leader of the Opposition now looking at his watch because apparently a woman’s spoken too long.
I’ve had him yell at me to shut up in the past, but I will take the remaining seconds of my speaking time to say to the Leader of the Opposition I think the best course for him is to reflect on the standards he’s exhibited in public life, on the responsibility he should take for his public statements; on his close personal connection with Peter Slipper, on the hypocrisy he has displayed in this House today.
And on that basis, because of the Leader of the Opposition’s motivations, this Parliament today should reject this motion and the Leader of the Opposition should think seriously about the role of women in public life and in Australian society because we are entitled to a better standard than this.
David Cameron’s party has been busy removing all copies of speeches and press releases made between 2000 and May 2010 from the internet. This means they no longer show up on Google.
The party has even fiddled with the code on the their website to remove the speeches from archive.org, a library service that creates a back-up copy of almost all websites in existence on a regular basis.
Deleting the speeches from the internet makes it much harder to find out what David Cameron and other Conservatives pledged to do before coming to power.
Christopher Furlong / Getty Images
Which will probably make life a lot easier for the Prime Minister in the run-up to the 2015 general election.
So we collected a few of the speeches and press releases that are now substantially harder to find.
Just to help you remember.
1. November 2009: Cameron pledges there will be no major changes to the structure of the NHS.
“With the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS…So yes, I’m proud to say the Conservatives will stop these pointless, retrogressive re-organisations and closures.”
2. May 2006: Cameron tells an audience at Google that the search engine is giving people power.
Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Unfortunately you can’t find this speech on Conservatives.com anymore.
(Here it is.)
“What Google has achieved is truly amazing…. You’ve begun the process of democratising the world’s information. Democratising is the right word to use because by making more information available to more people, you’re giving them more power.”
3. October 2007: George Osborne commits to increasing state spending.
Matt Cardy / Getty Images
Before the financial crisis Osborne tried to reassure the public that the Tories didn’t want to slash the size of the government. But now the conference speech isn’t on his party’s website.
(Here it is.)
“I have committed us to two per cent a year spending rises for the next three years. This will mean real increases for our public services.”
4. February 2010: Cameron pledges to let the public kick out MPs halfway through a parliament.
Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
The government is belatedly introducing a watered-down version of this law. But now you’ll struggle to find his original speech, which used to be here.
(Here it is.)
“When it comes to the firing, we’ve said we’ll introduce a power of recall to allow voters to kick out MPs mid-parliament if they have been proven guilty of serious wrongdoing.”
The Big Society was the core vision of the Conservative manifesto for the 2010 general election, proposing a mass devolution of power to the people. But the public didn’t buy into the idea and it lost momentum when David Cameron came to power.
But most pre-election mentions of the bold plans have now been erased. Along with this speech.
(Here it is.)
“The first step is to redistribute power and control from the central state and its agencies to individuals and local communities. Where it doesn’t make sense to give power directly to individuals, for example where there is a function that is collective in nature, then we will transfer power to neighbourhoods.”
6. March 2007: George Osborne praising the internet’s ability to make politics more accountable.
Andrew Parsons / Getty Images
Knowledge is power, except when the knowledge is contained in a speech that is no longer indexed by a popular search engine.
(Here it is.)
“We need to harness the internet to help us become more accountable, more transparent and more accessible – and so bridge the growing gap between government and governed”
But worst of all they’ve deleted the records of David Cameron’s April 2006 trip to the Arctic to raise awareness of climate change.
Andrew Parsons/PA/Landov
Won’t someone PLEASE think of the huskies?
Andrew Parsons/PA Photos /Landov
UPDATE: A Conservative spokesman gets in touch.
“We’re making sure our website keeps the Conservative Party at the forefront of political campaigning. These changes allow people to quickly and easily access the most important information we provide – how we are clearing up Labour’s economic mess, taking the difficult decisions and standing up for” hardworking people.
Although the problem with this explanation is that the Conservatives have tried to remove the speeches from all search engines, not just their website.
This file lists the parts of the site that the party has chosen to remove from search engines and archive services.
Below are the three deficit claims – the mess. The evidence comes from the IMF, OECD, OBR, HM Treasury, ONS and even George Osborne. The claims put into context are:
CLAIM 1 The last government left the biggest debt in the developed world.
After continuously stating the UK had the biggest debt in the world George Osborne admits to the Treasury Select Committee that he did not know the UK had the lowest debt in the G7? Watch: Also, confirmed by the OECD Those who use cash terms (instead of percentages) do so to scare, mislead and give half the story.
Its common sense, in cash terms a millionaire’s debt would be greater than most people. Therefore, the UK would have a higher debt and deficit than most countries because, we are the sixth largest economy. Hence, its laughable to compare UK’s debt and deficit with Tuvalu’s who only have a GDP/Income of £24 million whilst, the UK’s income is £1.7 Trillion.
Finally, Labour in 1997 inherited a debt of 42% of GDP. By the start of the global banking crises 2008 the debt had fallen to 35% – a near 22% reduction page 6 ONS Surprisingly, a debt of 42% was not seen as a major problem and yet at 35% the sky was falling down?
CLAIM 2 Labour created the biggest deficit in the developed world by overspending.
Firstly, the much banded about 2010 deficit of over 11% is false. This is the PSNB (total borrowings) and not the actual budget deficit which was -7.7% – OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook March 2012 page 19 table 1.2
Secondly, in 1997 Labour inherited a deficit of 3.9% of GDP (not a balanced budget ) and by 2008 it had fallen to 2.1% – a reduction of a near 50% – Impressive! Hence, it’s implausible and ludicrous to claim there was overspending. The deficit was then exacerbated by the global banking crises after 2008. See HM Treasury. Note, the 1994 deficit of near 8% haaaaaah!
Thirdly, the IMF have also concluded the same. They reveal the UK experienced an increase in the deficit as result of a large loss in output/GDP caused by the global banking crisis and not even as result of the bank bailouts, fiscal stimulus and bringing forward of capital spending. It’s basic economics: when output falls the deficit increases.
Finally, the large loss in output occurred because the UK like the US have the biggest financial centres and as this was a global banking crises we suffered the most. Hence, the UK had the 2nd highest deficit in the G7 (Not The World) after the US and not as a result of overspending prior to and after 2008- as the IMF concur.
CLAIM 3 Our borrowing costs are low because the markets have confidence in George Osborne’s austerity plan and without it the UK will end up like Greece.
Yes, the markets have confidence in our austerity plan and that’s why PIMCO the worlds largest bond holder have been warning against buying UK debt.
The real reason why our borrowing costs have fallen and remained low since 2008 is because, savings have increased. As a result, the demand and price for bonds have increased and as there is inverse relationship between the price of bonds and its yield (interest rate) the rates have fallen. Also, the markets expect the economy to remain stagnate. Which means the price for bonds will remain high and hence, our borrowing costs will also remain low.
Secondly, the UK is considered a safe heaven because, investors are reassured the Bank of England will buy up bonds in an event of any sell off – which increases the price of bonds and reduces the effective rate. Note, how rates fell across the EU recently when the ECB announced its bond buying program. Thirdly, because, we are not in the Euro we can devalue our currency to increase exports. Moreover, UK bonds are attractive because, we haven’t defaulted on its debt for over 300 years.
David Cameron would like people to believe the markets lend in the same way as retail banks lend to you and I.
Overall, when the facts and figures are put into context these juvenile deficit narratives and sound bites (“mere words and no evidence”) simply fail to stand up to the actual facts. The deficit myth is the grosses lie ever enforced upon the people and it has been sold by exploiting people’s economic illiteracy.
So, David Cameron when are you going to apologise?
Cameron is playing the blame game to depress confidence and growth to justify austerity. Secondly, to use austerity as justification for a smaller state to gain lower taxes. Thirdly, to paint Labour as a party that can not be trusted with the country’s finances again. Therefore, we Conservatives will win a second term because, people vote out of fear. The latter strategy worked the last time in office (18 years) and will work again because, in the end, elections are won and lost on economic credibility. Hence, as people believe Labour created the mess they won’t be trusted again.
Finally, as the truth is the greatest enemy of the a lie I urge you to share this on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, text and email etc etc. So the truth can be discovered by all. Finally, have no doubt, people have been mislead by the use of the following strategy:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” Joseph Goebbels
Glen's Blog (Its a Rant not a Blog!) 