And the award for best actor goes to…not Gordon Brown

I do wish Gordon Brown would stop insulting our intelligence.

After Alistair Darling’s complaints about the "forces of hell" – in the form of the Prime Minister’s aides - being unleashed on him after he warned the recession would be worse than feared in 2008, yesterday we were treated to two counter-lies from Gordon Brown.

First, Mr Brown went on breakfast television to deny any responsibility or knowledge of the briefings against his Chancellor.

And then at Prime Minister’s Questions, he made a point of snuggling up to Darling in a farcical attempt to pretend they were best friends.

As David Cameron aptly put it in the House of Commons chamber, “any closer and they will start kissing.” Quite.

At the risk of becoming desperately repetitive, I do wish Gordon Brown would finally find some courage and call the election. Please?!

Shallow attempts at Durham-ing up support

I see Gordon Brown’s and his Labour party pals are in Durham on the latest leg of their General Election campaign tour of Britain – paid for by you and me.

Today is the ninth so-called “away day” where, following a short Cabinet meeting and a stage-managed Q&A session in front of a sympathetic and stage-managed audience, individual ministers will fan-out on a series of visits aimed at attracting more votes for this breathtakingly bare-faced Government.

Each of these all-day stunts costs the taxpayer something in the region of £200,000 a time – and that’s before you add in the amount lost to the public purse as a result of paying Cabinet members a full-day’s salary whilst they are not doing their jobs.

On the day we discovered this Labour Government became the first in our nation’s history to borrow money in January - £4.3 billion of it – and increased the total bill for UK borrowing this year to £4,800 for each and every family, it does leave something of a bitter taste in your mouth.

Not that it will bother Gordon Brown and his cynical band of political opportunists one little bit.

Time for transparency

In the midst of a flurry of other high profile political stories this week including the Labour Housing Minister saying he believed that, for some people, having their home repossessed could be "the best option," you may have missed Conservative Leader David Cameron launching the Transparency section of the party's draft General Election manifesto.

As people in Keighley and Ilkley are very well aware, billions of pounds have been wasted by this Labour Government through costly bureaucracy, public sector non-jobs and an explosion of unelectable quangos. We can't go on like this.

The Conservatives have therefore committed to introduce change that will do more for less.
This means transforming the way the state goes about its business, using decentralisation, accountability and transparency to reduce dramatically the cost of Government.

And we will also committed bring the operation of Government out into the open so that everyone can see whether you are receiving good value for money.

A David Cameron-led Conservative Government will therefore:

• Put all national government spending items over £25,000 online.


• Put online the salaries and expenses of the 35,000 most senior civil servants.


• Abolish any quangos that do not: perform a technical function; perform a function that requires political impartiality; or act independently to establish facts.


• Open up Government data and publish datasets in full and online.


• Call a moratorium on the creation of new Information Computer Technology (ICT) projects; no ICT project will be commissioned without first seeing if it can be done for free or at very low cost.

These are very sensible but necessary changes that we need and which will, hopefully, receive the support of residents across Keighley and Ilkley.

And, remember, they will only be introduced if you choose to elect a Conservative Government.

PR for GB

Gordon Brown’s “death bed conversion” - as others have described it – to the need for a revised voting system takes his cynical and shallow approach to self-preservation down to an entirely new level. Not that we should be surprised, of course.

The 1997 Labour manifesto promised a referendum on ditching the current first-past-the-post system – before this commitment was ditched in the wake of their landslide victory. And the idea re-emerged in subsequent manifestos before, again, not being delivered.

And now, with only weeks to go before Parliament is dissolved and a General Election is finally held, Mr Brown has arranged for MPs to have an urgent vote on the matter.

So why now? Well, as ever with our illustrious Prime Minister, it is because he senses an opportunity.

Despite the Conservatives continuing to hold a multiple point lead in all the weekend polls, the fact that the current electoral system is skewed against my party means a hung Parliament is obviously possible.

And, how might Gordon Brown be able to persuade the Liberal Democrats to prop up a minority Labour Government should no party win an overall majority?

You’ve guessed it - with a promise to have a referendum on their pet project of a new method of electing MPs.

It’s pathetic really, particularly given the huge list of problems he has created – such as the largest budget deficit in history – and should be seeking to put right.

But forget your problems and my problems – it’s the Labour Party’s problems which matter most to Gordon. As ever.