The Change Makers

New Labour’s leaks and media mismanagement are reaching a fantastic torrent. Like a leaky old-boat careering downstream at a great rate of knots, the good ship New Labour's lurching to the right is a gruesome pleasure to watch.

Even though the unfortunate incident with ‘dear Walter’ has been perceived by most as an example of control freakery, it’s not very good control freakery is it? That they have made such an arse of this is telling. New Labour’s post-Mandy, post-Campbell media management is useless. I mean, how convinced were you by the cuddly John Reid’s attempts to joke-off the incident?

But there are two things that everyone seems to have missed in this. First up, what would have happened if the tv cameras hadn’t settled on the skirmish at the back of the hall? A worrying thought for delusional Labour Party activists everywhere. But – much more importantly - what was it that caused the ire of the harmless octogenarian? Amongst all the focus on the stewarding people have forgotten what Straw said. Jack started with the comic: “I want to begin with my own tribute to my predecessor, Robin Cook.”

He then went on to say that people who blame the London bombings on the Iraq war are the modern equivalent of Nazi sympathisers.

That’s just an incredible thing to say. As the Labour Party sheds its own integrity like a snake sheds it skin, all you can do is gawp in amazement. Read the full nonsense here.

More embarrassing leaks from the People’s Party yesterday with the Sunday Herald’s story about the comments by a senior adviser to the Prime Minister that a new nuclear power station be built in Scotland, at Dounreay.

According to reports, a senior adviser to the Prime Minister told Labour officials at a secret meeting at the Scottish Executive headquarters that building a new nuclear power station at Dounreay would be the ideal way of undermining their Liberal Democrat coalition colleagues.

What a great idea!

Friends of the Earth Scotland's Chief Executive, Duncan McLaren, said:

"Proposing a new nuclear power station, especially at Dounreay, is the height of environmental and political stupidity. Labour members of the Scottish Executive should immediately distance themselves from such ill-considered advice. The idea smacks of a style of London-centric politics we'd all hoped had been consigned to the history books. Nuclear power remains uneconomic, unwanted and unnecessary. We'd hope that Scotland's political elite treats the idea with the contempt it deserves."

Full story here.

But does Duncan really expect such utterances from the Scottish Executive?

As Anarkismo writes: “What is surprising is not that Mr. Wolfgang was silenced as he was. Such silencing of dissent and protest is what we have come to expect from Blair's regime. What is surprising is that Mr Wolfgang was the only heckler.” More here.

And its not just die-had leftists that are amazed by the stony-silence of the Labour faithful. Thinking along the same lines, the affable Tom Shields wrote: “In common with another aged person at Brighton last week, the Buffer had this terrible temptation to heckle a speaker at the Labour Party conference. The temptation came during the bit of Blair’s speech where he renewed the pledge to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our brave American allies and to keep up the good work in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was, it seemed to us, a cowed silence as Blair justified his war. Decent Labour people, who in their guts must know he’s nuts and who you might expect to raise a voice of protest, just looked the other way out of loyalty or self-interest.”