The crusty towel of disgrace! Excellent. There's always something special about a Home Sec going, always that extra piquance, a hint of shame with a residue of disgusting arrogance. Personally, I reserve a certain place for Charley Clarke but still, days when they go are to be cherished.

Out with the old scumbag in with the new.

Still, she was particularly unpleasant to look at. Now her and her husband can spend more time watching porn together.

What about the Ginger Dwarf and her triple flipping fingers?

(the Soap Music playing)
Where will Mr. Jacqui Smith, find the money to watch blue movies, now?

Will Jacqui Smith, put an expense claim for the towel that she just threw in?

To find answers for these and more, tune into Soap tomorrow.

PORN?

It's not porn, at least according to the BBC. The Gobbels broadcasting service calls it an 'adult movie'

Shameful.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8079205.stm

I always suspect that those who fall like this must have had some redeeming features. Maybe they were poleaxed by their subconscious desire for honesty and truth.

Also, the figures who suffer loss and humiliation because of their misdeeds are usually minor miscreants.

The Blairs of this world sail ever onward and upward.

He, by all reports, is destined to reveal to the great religions of this world the true light of a God they can all worship together.....or something like that.

What is so special about her choosing today to resign, rather than choosing to resign some weeks ago?

Has somebody changed the universal constant of gravitation around Whitehall; it took so long for the penny to drop?

Of course claiming for "adult movies" from the taxpayer is a bloody cheek, but let's be grateful to see her go for better reasons - we're losing a desperately nasty authoritarian whose extremism and lack of principle fitted her well into the Blair/Brown cabal.

Anyway, I can't help liking this, from a comedian recently on R4: "The ten pounds of porn on the public purse was money well spent. Never before has the whole nation laughed loudly for such a small sum".

Perhaps, given the upcoming game of cabinet musical chairs Mrs Smith was deemed 'unshuffleable'.

The same cannot be said for her husband's five knuckles.

"We're all lying in the gutter - and some of us are looking at the Stasi".

Good riddance, o putrid servant of inhumanity!

Could not care less about her or her husband's viewing material, and am actually slightly concerned about the hoo ha it has caused.

I am much happier to see her go because of the shocking erosion of civil liberties her and her forbears have presided over, her arrogance and general belief that the population must be watched and controlled at all times!

Alasdair Cameron, second that.

Good news. However, I seriously doubt her replacement will be any more inclined to call a halt to the relentless onward march of our surveillance/security state and the shameless promotion of a phoney 'War on Terror' to justify it.

Perhaps she didn't fancy what was coming in the reshuffle?
A job for which was fully qualified, junior minister for scones and fairy cakes.

NeoLabour will soon be running out of extremenly abrasive swill to fill this fascist plinth.

Lets play: What ID/database/secret inquiry/law subverting/immigration hostile(caveat:unless your Jack Straw)/dirty police excusing, toxic freak will they shove into the job this time?

My money is on Millibung Jr. - To beef him up for the inevitable "stateman" career path he and the others before him will never deserve.

God forbid Yezel Blearz.

that goes without saying!

Alasdair Cameron:

The "hoo ha" about her claiming ten pounds on expenses for porn films is because of her anti-sex stance. She poured millions of pounds of taxpayers money into fake charities that campaigned against lap dancing and striptease. Eaves: 3,608,395 pounds of taxpayers money (1,200,000 pounds from the Home Office) out of its total funding of GBP 5,220,603; Fawcett Society: 62,886 pounds (42,000 pounds from the Home Office).

Reason, do you have links for websites with further details about this hypocrisy?

I've rather given up judging people since having my daft ideas. If correct Dundee could make pots of money from them, I'm from Dundee, and you'd be able to see everything anyone had ever done whether with a tea towel, I've used one myself, or with a gun or whatever. If a ghost is a simple accidental replay of past events just what would they do if they knew that with new technology they were going to be caught anyway soon enough and nowhere to hide? They might even hand over their expenses to a newspaper and let themselves be "exposed". In such a world those who get their linen aired in public first could be the very lucky ones. Maybe Brown isn't quite as mad as he makes out, maybe he just knows a bit more of what is coming up being a son of the manse and all, he seems very unwilling to step on someone's toes right enough. As I say I never judge anyone anymore, it's a fools game now. http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/01/06/crackpot-or-genius-has-a-shell-boffin-stumbled-on-a-scientific-breakthrough/

@Reason: On second thoughts - I thought her husband was responsible for hiring these videos, not her?

Abe Rene

She is the MP and the expense claim was made in her name. Her husband is not responsible for making the expense claim! He is not an MP! It doesn't matter who hired what, it is who made the expense claim that matters.

See:
http://fakecharities.org/
Heading under: Identity politics

You can look up their accounts under the Charities Commission website.

Ms Jackboots Smith exits left of stage to strains of These Boots Are Made for Walking. Who comes next? Has Brown got any wheels left on the government train?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRkovnss7sg (very appropriate lyrics)

Good riddance to her for all the repressive anti-terror and surveillance legislation she has introduced.

Regarding her anti-sex stance and how she used her position you might find this article interesting (some of the comments are worth reading as well).

Title:
How the government uses dirty data to legislate morality

Extract 1:
When it comes to sex and censorship, Government's insistence that laws are "evidence-based" is little more than hot air.

The statistics quoted in support of any given case are frequently misleading, partial, and - according to one expert in this field - subject to highly unethical collusion of interest between government and researchers.

Extract 2:
A constant concern in any academic research is report selection: This is where researchers and policy-makers carefully handpick the papers and evidence that they will use to support their case. As already noted above, when it comes to sexual conduct, the Government seems very interested in the work of avowedly partisan bodies such as the Eaves project and the Poppy Trust.

URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/10/dirty_data/

Good riddance to her for all the repressive anti-terror and surveillance legislation she has introduced.

You say mary.

Trouble is; we the people are left with these draconian laws regardless of the perpetrators', presence or absence.

Fact is we are the most; watched, followed, criminalized nations in Europe, and gradually getting to be No 1 police state across the globe. Funnily enough not many people understand the changes that our society has undergone, and carry on as though there still exists a modicum of self governance.

Kafkaesque laws, that have been passed, somehow are not understood/digested by the population at large, hence the apparent lack of interest in Craig's torture articles.

mary, it is not the monkey, which we ought to be paying attention to, it is organ grinder whom ought to be under our watchful eyes, and studied very closely!

Reason @3.20 I thought there was a typo on your figures for EAVES but you are right. I looked uo their accounts on the Charity Commission site and their most recent show income and expenditure over £5m. They have newly received £3.7m for their Poppy project which deals with trafficked women. They also work with the victims of domestic violence so both are worthwhile and necessary schemes. Do you know if there are any controls on these large sums of expenditure by this NGO?

http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/press.php

Did you ever get any response from Tom Watson re the Damian McBride case?

Because it seems that he too is slipping off into the shadows:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3663538/resigned-to-catastrophe.thtml

I love this comment from 'Verity' via that link to the Spectator

"So once she loses her seat and she no longer needs a home in her constituency, will the whole family be moving into her her primary residence, her sister's boxroom?"

mary

I don’t know anymore than you do about any controls on the large sums of expenditure by Eaves.

You are right, dealing with trafficked women and victims of domestic violence may be suitable use of taxpayers money, if it is subject to appropriate checks and controls. Campaigning for changes to laws on lap dancing and striptease is NOT a suitable use of taxpayers money. This is especially important as Eaves gets 70 percent of its income form the taxpayer.

Derek P

Yes, more example how dirty data is used to legislate morality. Eaves produced the discredited Lilith Report a “dodgy document” on Lap-dancing, in 2003. The Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column admits it contains errors: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/jan/12/corrections

@Reason

It is certainly her who is responsible as MP. But I wondered whether the matter was nothing more than a careless slip, e.g. if there had been a bill for 'home video' and she hadn't realised what that meant. Put it another way: if someone used £10 of taxpayer's money for watching Mary Poppins, I doubt whether anyone would have batted an eyelid.

But the assault on civil liberties, of course, is another matter.

Abe Rene

This arose as she has designated the spare room in her sister’s house as her “main residence”, so she could then claim that the house in her constituency was her “second home” and hence claim all manner of expenses including two washing machines in as many years).

It doesn’t matter whether it’s porno films or Mary Poppins. The house in her constituency is, of course, her “main residence” which she should pay for out of her own pocket.

@Reason

As they can only be in one house at a time, and watching movies (blue, pink, or black) is not per se performing their parliamentary duties, they shouldn't be claimed for under ANY circumstances.

Un like you, I see no grounds whatsoever for optimism on the civil liberties front.
The exchange of one mminister for another means nothing unless the actual policies are changed positively.
Where is your evidence for that happening?

@Reason

Hangabout, even MPs need R&R, don't they? Allowable perks are a matter of opinion. I suggest that videos of Mary Poppins should be regarded as necessary for the efficient performance of parliamentary duties. Just think, they could give our Chancellors and PMs valuable lessons about runs on banks..

Now Jacqui Smith has done us all a favour, what chance is there that Jack Straw will face the choppers block.He seems to be keeping a low profile of late or could it be there is a more tangled web being spun by some member of the black widow family that could well seal his fate.

I agree that videos of Mary Poppins should be regarded as necessary viewing for parliamentarians as it did feature a run on the bank!

Granted she didn't originate the sustained New Labour assault on civil liberties, where does it come from? Who or what is pushing this agenda?

Well NuLab are in the final phase of their existence and will no doubt be trashed in the elections this week. Maybe this will be the satisfying result of the DT "expose" ?

Whoever takes over her job, it matters less, the game is up! I hope that when a general election is called, the winning party or parties have the balls to throw out most of the nonesense laws created by a pointless bunch of parasites.

Malcolm Pryce,

Joe Biden 47th Vice President of the
United States wrote the guts of the US Patriot act in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing.

The Patriot act forms the basis of the US version of the assault on civil liberties.

Bush probably gave it to Blair and told him to implement it in the UK.

I've no idea who was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, nor who instructed Joe Biden - who calls himself a Zionist - to write it.

Good question though.

You could also check out "The Power of Nightmares, The Rise of the Politics of Fear" particularly "The Shadows in the Cave"

Its a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis and was available on Google Video the last time I looked.

Tony

"Granted she didn't originate the sustained New Labour assault on civil liberties, where does it come from? Who or what is pushing this agenda?"

Malcolm Pryce

I also wonder that question.

She got right up my nose, but - as others have said - I quite agree that her NuLab replacement will be no better. Less irritating hopefully. We need to keep a sharp eye on what might happen to our constitution. Tony Blair to be U.K. President before E.U. President? :-0

One of the last interviews given by American film producer Aaron Russo may provide some clues as to the identity of those driving the agenda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nD7dbkkBIA

Granted she didn't originate the sustained New Labour assault on civil liberties, where does it come from? Who or what is pushing this agenda?

This is the fundamental issue which we should be looking at. All the rest is trimming.

My belief not only from what I've read but what I've experienced is that there is a permanent government which dictates policy to the elected government.

To me the account of Claire Short reported in the Daily Mail of the Cabinet's meeting on March 17 to discuss Attorney General Lord Goldsmith’s advice on the legality of the war exemplifies this.

Ms Short said: ‘When we arrived, there was a piece of paper in front of each of us, a few paragraphs written by the Attorney General saying the war was legal, there were no problems etc.

‘Lord Goldsmith started reading it out but we said, “You don’t have to, we can read it.” Then Tony said something like, “That’s it.” And that was it.

‘I wanted to know if the Attorney General had any doubts about the legality of the war.

‘They all said, “Clare, be quiet, stop.” No one else wanted to talk about it. I was shouted down.

Why were they all so passive on the most important issue a country ever has to face? I don't believe for one minute the decision came from Tony Blair and he intimidated all of them. From what was said it appears they all knew that they had to acquiesce but may not have liked it.

It's important to support our politicians in this time of need. Send your message here - because we all know how hard it is alienating voters and fiddling your expenses.

www.dearjacqui.co.uk

That's why they bumped off John Smith in my opinion. He wouldn't have put up with being their gimp. But what do I know? I'm 'crazy'. Tony may not have made the decision to join in with the invasion of Iraq, but he is clearly on the other side of the fence. Just a question of how high up. It certainly isn't easy to know who in the cabinet knew what exactly. Russo talks a lot of sense. Any Joe Bloggs can figure out what is really happening if they ask themselves enough questions with an open mind. Global government and control is the agenda.

I don't know if anyone has seen this or not, but check this pic out:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/282/12665matrix22jpgnl8.jpg

It's from 'The Matrix' (1998), dvd release 1999. I own the dvd and checked it myself. You can only see it by slowmotion and pause and twisting your head upside down. It's the scene where he is first arrested and interrogated. However, it is there alright. Check it out yourselves. 'The Matrix' probably began filming in 1997. So, 9/11 was planned a good 4 years in advance at least. If you don't believe the relevance of the expiry date and think it may be a coincidence, then check the passport birth date as well by typing it into wikipedia. It is pretty heavy. So, someone powerful having a pis take or a warning? I'm not sure, but would say a warning myself. This does all link in nicely with Jacqui Smith as she has steadily led us deeper into a Matrix style society.

Anyhow, everyone best stop all this fruitcake conspiracy talk, as we will soon have a pillar of society mysteriously appearing on the thread telling us the official narrative with Presidential authority, trying to disrupt discussion and cause arguments and saying we all belong in the loony bin. Odd that.

NL2, your comment on Straw made me chuckle. He certainly is keeping a low profile isn't he... Maybe the thief has quit all second jobs and is working hard on his expenses receipts.

Maybe this is me being too obvious, but it's worth listing the roll of NuLab home secretaries:

Jack Straw
David Blunkett
Charles Clarke
John Reid
Jacqui Smith

Truly an appalling list (with perhaps the exception of John Reid, who was only in the post a year and is not as morally deficient as the others, in my view)

"Not as morally deficient as the others"? A classic Glaswegian red mafia thug. He was Blair's rottweiler over the Iraq invasion.

sorry to 'bore' you again Craig but I thought this article (below) should be of interest, considering who is doing the talking.......

......so you're right, however much one loathes Jaqui Smith, her leaving is unlikely to make much difference to the onward march of the surveillance state.
We know we don't like the growing resemblance of the UK to Orwell's 1984 nightmare state. Do you think that NuLabour politicians like it any more than we do......or is 'the government', whoever they are at a particular time, in the grip of other forces......and that these 'other forces', who are the real power in the land, will always succeed in finding venal careerists to do their bidding? Indeed are the top rank of every political party where they are because someone has recognised this venality in them?
Ultra-paranoid?
Well, where is the political figure 'of substance' (i.e. highly placed whore) who has stood up against these horrors?

Leading Democrats Say Congress And The Senate Owned And Run By Bankers

http://infowars.net/articles/june2009/020609Bankers.htm

"the exception of John Reid, who was only in the post a year and is not as morally deficient as the others, in my view)"

Jason

In their order of being "morally deficient"...

1)Straw
2)Reid
3/4)Blunkett or Clarke
5)Smith
6)Caligula

Blunkett in third!

Hmm, a leftist who spent the weekends on a country estate and fathered a child with another man's wife???

Ha. Shows the calibre all round.

Please note George, that it is opinion, so I don't take it too kindly that you present your list as some kind of Universal Truth.

Jason

Where did I say it was a "Universal Truth"?.I am open to contenders for the number 6 slot.

We should chuck all of them out, like Ollie Cromwell said:

Gentlemen! An immovable Parliament is more obnoxious than an immovable King!

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go! -- Address to the Rump Parliament (20 April 1653)

@George

You might deny being in possession of a Universal Truth, but I think you have struck upon the path to one. Where can we position these NuLab people in the spectrum of moral awfulness? They are clearly idiots, and yet they are maintained in place: to whom are these idiots useful?

You have to withdraw Caligula as a datum - he was mad, bad and dangerous to know, but he was his own man. We need to place Straw, Reid, Blair, Blunkett, Hoon etc. along some other scale, the scale of notoriously ghastly puppets. My suggested datum would be the sonderkommando. Wiki: "They were forced into the position, and accepted it because it meant a few more days or weeks of life, as well as moderately less disastrous living conditions."

Maybe I watched too much "Yes, Minister" in my callow years, but amidst all the commentary on the dog's breakfast of economic, constitutional and civil liberties mayhem I am surprised that there seems to be absolutely no mention of the role of civil servants. There's no shortage of conspiracy theories about neocons, bankers, new world order, even the Matrix and giant lizards. Politicians always take the rap for events that are, in many cases, well out of their control anyway. But what of the Civil Service?

Do we really believe the idea that - for example - Home Secretaries unswervingly pursue party policy (I nearly wrote 'manifesto' - how silly) and that a neutral, obedient Civil Service do their bidding? Or is there a credible argument that the case for, say, ID cards and retrenchment on civil liberties has been accepted by the mandarinate and evidence is presented to each incoming Home Sec. in such a way that they feel obliged to go along with it? When you look at the numerous and diverse (and variously able) holders of political office over the last 30 years, with ostensibly differing views, how come we see such a high level of continuity in key issues of policy?

If you want to create a conspiracy theory, who has the continuous influence on 'decision makers', are the gatekeepers of evidence, statistics and 'experts', control what actually gets implemented and how? And how transparent is this whole process?

Craig, you have a huge and privileged insight into how all this works - at the very least in matters of foreign policy. Can you comment? Or does omerta hold sway?

slacker,

Too big a subject for a comments thread, but certainly the senior civil service is a force for solcial inertia that can weigh down any but the most powerful and determined politician.

"Too big a subject ..."
Accepted, but IMHO any process of significant reform must also increase transparency in the role of the senior civil service. More public debate needed?

@slacker

Bernard Donoghue was an adviser to PM James Callaghan. His diaries give a good insight into the influence of "the machine" (Civil Service).

It seems probable that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had no knowledge of the police investigation initiated by her Permanent Secretary, which led to the arrest of the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green MP. At the time, I was astonished how little fuss Parliament made of the matter.