0040 Hrs GMT
London
Tuesday
13 April 2010.
Editor © Muhammad Haque.
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD UK Gordon Brown so! In the six years and two months of originally researched and written commentary as based on equally original diagnoses conducted by Khoodeelaar! in association with the AADHIKAR Media Foundation, we have uncovered aspects of the evidence that continues to reinforce our starting thesis and premiss. That the UK Parliament has allowed successions of holders of office in the name of the public in the UK to perpetrate cons on the people. That Gordon Brown’s actions, his utterances and his behaviour in office were showing that he was in fact fronting a Bliared regime. That the “Palace of Ghostsminster” was stuffed full of abusers of politics. Abusers of the ‘democratic mandate’ that is not voluntarily, conscientiously conferred by freely acting electors but is a fraudulence that is conned out of the mostly zombified parades of people corralled at ‘election-time’ into crowds of bureaucratised fodder programmed by programmed to cast their vote in one way or another. That the UK badly needed a truthful Parliament. That the Bliaring regime had been a serious threat and disservice to accountability in politics. That far from ushering in an era of honesty, decency, truthfulness, care and respect for people in society, Tony Bliar created the opposite and the legacy of lying and lies that eh has left will take decades to overcome. That the so-called manifestos that Bliar had fronted prior to the three elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 were collections of elaborate confidence trickery and deception. That Gordon Brown has shown no evidence that he was in an objectively demonstrable way opposing what Bliar was doing. That Brown was with Bliar all the way. That contrary to the routine hype staged periodically during the years of Bliar’s occupancy of the office of UK “Prime Minister” Gordon Brown failed to show a moral, ethical and constitution-compliant, pro-democratic independence from Bliar and Blair-fronted agenda of Big Business That the behaviour of the ‘Crossrail Bill’ ‘Select Committee’ [contrived in each of the two ‘Houses’ of the stooged Parliament] showed beyond all reasonable doubt, beyond any evidential challenge, beyond any conceptual deniability the truth that in the UK the Parliament was a bankrupt one. That NONE of the ‘legitimised’ Parties in the UK was up to the task of delivering democracy. That it was a perennial paradox of the over-the-top-hyped ‘Mother of Parliaments’ that it was an elaborate fake. [To be continued]
THE SCOTSMAN
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Blow-to--Gordon-Brown.6221156.jp
"Blow to Gordon Brown as Labour expense claim MPs win legal aid
Published Date: 13 April 2010
GORDON Brown's hopes of wresting the election initiative from the Tories suffered a major setback when Labour's manifesto launch was overshadowed by the decision to award legal aid to three of the party's former MPs charged with fiddling their expenses.
• (From left to right)Jim Devine, Elliot Morley and David Chaytor
Just hours after the Prime Minister used the manifesto launch to underline his desire to clean up politics, court officials announced that Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley would be allowed to fund their defence with taxpayers' money. Experts told The Scotsman last night that the legal aid bill could reach £3 million.
The three have already provoked fury by attempting to use parliamentary privilege to argue they are beyond the reach of the law.
David Cameron, who will present the Conservative election manifesto today, denounced the decision as he stepped up on a soap box in Leicestershire.
• Election diary
Buoyed by the fact Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield, who is also facing a trial over his expenses, has not applied for legal aid, the Tory leader said: "What a complete outrage.
The people who wouldn't even stand in the dock and answer the charges now expect all of you to pay for their defence.
"Well, I can tell you something – we are having a review of legal aid under a Conservative government.
"You can't preview and prejudice every part of that review, but I can tell you what, there won't be legal aid available for MPs who are accused of fiddling their expenses."
Gordon Brown pictured yesterday delivering Labour's manifesto pledges
Asked about the matter on Radio 4's PM programme, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, one of Labour's election co-ordinators, said: "I can understand people will be concerned about that news."
With the polls showing the Tory lead over Labour appears to be stuck at 7 or 8 per cent, Conservative strategists believe the expenses announcement could be pivotal in the election.
Mr Brown refused to reply when asked what he thought of the legal aid application last night, but Labour attempted to launch a damage limitation exercise and distance the three accused from the party.
Chancellor Alistair Darling said he was "puzzled" by the award to the three and acknowledged the public would be "hopping mad" over the decision.
A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "Mr Devine is not a Labour MP, and as of now is not an MP at all. He was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and barred from standing as a Labour candidate in this election."
Meanwhile, Graeme Morrice, who was chosen to replace Devine as Labour's candidate in Livingston, said: "I am shocked to hear of this. It is a disgrace that legal aid has been granted. That is not what legal aid is for and I think that, like me, local people will be furious to hear of it."
His main opponent, the SNP candidate Lis Bardell, said the saga was another reason not to vote Labour. She said: "Jim Devine may not be the Labour candidate here, but he was backed by the local Labour party. It's now time for the people of Livingston to have their say and choose someone who will champion the community's interests rather than their own."
• Conservative Party leader David Cameron visits Chubbys mobile food van outside Jewson's timber yard in Reading.
The Liberal Democrats also condemned the legal aid award.
Chris Huhne, the party's UK justice spokesman, said: "It's absurd that well-to-do MPs on double national average earnings, and extra expenses to boot, should be entitled to legal aid when so many more deserving cases have been refused."
The decision to grant legal aid was based on the fact the three former MPs could face a possible jail sentence, and that means they were automatically entitled to it.
New measures introducing means testing for legal aid in all criminal cases have not yet come into force.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice insisted it was up to individual courts to decide who should qualify for legal aid.
He went on: "Neither the Ministry of Justice nor the Legal Services Commission grants legal aid for individual criminal cases.
"Criminal legal aid is granted directly by the court. In any event, the court has the power to order that a convicted defendant who has the means to do so repays some or all of their legal aid costs (a Recovery of Defence Costs Order]."
The three accused men have brought together some of the country's most eminent barristers, who can charge hundreds of pounds an hour, to fight their cases. They have already told judges they should be dealt with by the parliamentary authorities instead of the courts.
Scotland Yard said its inquiry into the expenses scandal had cost £508,500 so far, with the final bill likely to be considerably higher.
Devine, 56, of Bathgate, West Lothian, is said to have wrongly submitted two invoices worth a total of £5,505 for services provided by Armstrong Printing Limited.
He faces a second charge alleging he dishonestly claimed cleaning and maintenance costs of £3,240 by submitting false invoices from Tom O'Donnell Hygiene and Cleaning Services.
Barrister Julian Knowles said the three former MPs would claim to be protected by parliamentary privilege, as covered in the 1689 Bill of Rights.
There is likely to be protracted legal argument over whether the men should face trial at all later this year.
After a week in which the Conservatives' perceived success in the argument on National Insurance failed to significantly boost their poll lead, party strategists are hoping the latest scandal plays in their favour.
Two new polls last night – one from Comres with 1,004 respondents, and the other from YouGov with more than 9,000 – both put the Tory lead at seven points.
It is estimated this would leave the Conservatives as the biggest party but 31 seats short of an overall majority.
A separate ICM poll gave the Conservatives a six-point lead, up two percentage points from the previous ICM poll.
The Tories were also hoping for a boost from a television interview last night, in which Mr Cameron laid bare his emotions and talked about how he almost quit politics following the death of his six-year-old disabled son, Ivan.
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