TAXI FOR TWO JABS

How satisfying to see New Labour’s North East Assembly scam go down the tubes. It was a fix, a fiddle and a bit of political hood-winkery seen though by the people of the (slightly ill-defined area). Now the voters' overwhelming ambivalence to the idea has hammered the final nail into the coffin of planned regional devolution.

Like devolution in Scotland and Wales, New Labour's aim is not empowerment but propping up the union with an infrastructure of functionaries and bureaucrats. Prescott had already been forced to "postpone" plans for similar referendums in other areas. Thursday's vote - with 78% of ballots cast in the no camp -suggests there is no appetite for the idea even in the area where ministers believed there was the greatest local interest.

But what to do with the jowly former ‘firebrand’?

Blair’s been pushing him around like a bit of hefty ships cargo, first keeping him busy with a ‘Super-Dept’ containing everything left over that no other dept wanted to do. Now New Labour’s latest constitutional trifle looks like a month old blancmange - where next for the Deputy Prime Minister?

For New Labour he's like the old family dog that everybody loves but he's beginning to smell. He's too valuable to them for nostalgia Old Labour PR but they can't let him near an actual Ministry.

Civil Service Reform? Hoon's Hot Seat?

More nonsense from Two Jags in this report from Positive Action in Housing:

"Prescott claims we don't kick people out onto the street or take kids away from families yet in the last six months, Positive Action in Housing has been called upon to assist 90 destitute individuals, including single women, and the very ill. We also campaigned tirelessly to stop the detention of children at dungavel.

We are therefore surprised to hear that, in a recent speech at a National Housing Federation conference, Deputy Prime Minister talked to a packed audience about Ken Loach's film "Cathy come Home". He talked about the famous 1960s film 'Cathy Come Home,' which highlighted the issues of homelessness for the first time to a mass TV audience. Comparing this to the policy of his government today he says:

"That doesn't happen today. We don't kick people out on the street, we don't take kids away from families, we don't leave people without support." See full speech here.

You can read about just one of the couples we are currently assisting on our website at www.paih.org .