Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser for the Labour party said that Gordon Brown, his hapless successor, could never beat his Conservative opponent, David Cameron, at the next general election.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, which published extracts of his controversial memoirs today, Lord Levy, once dubbed ‘Lord Cashpoint’ in the media over his financial links with the party, also claimed that Blair was ‘disappointed’ at the performance of the Labour government under Brown since taking over.

Read the article.

Is it the same Mail, along the rest of the right-wing dominated media, that had attacked Lord Levy for his links with Labour? Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised about all this. Most of what Levy wrote about was probably shown in the public domain already. But the puzzling thing is many so-called centre-left politicians or commentators choose to write for the right-whinge Mail newspapers. I’ve never heard of any conservative-supporters write for the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror.

The real ‘issue’ here is that Lord Levy, one of Blair’s closest friends, never got on well with Brown, hence the interview, which to me at least, smells of hypocrisy. I would love to see the reaction on his face when Labour eventually loses power.

Public sector staff across the country went on a 24 hour strike yesterday against what they saw as a ‘derisory’ wage settlement. Many government services were either disrupted in most cases or shut down completely.

Teachers took to the streets to protest against a two per cent wage increase. Some unions wanted around four per cent. The strikes were part of a long-running campaign for better pay and conditions. Most of the media were playing up the prospect of a ‘summer of discontent’, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his battered cabinet, already reeling from the 10p tax debacle, now faces, according to some newspapers, sees this as one battle too far.

What I cannot understand is why the government wants to continue picking a fight against some of the most poorly rewarded people in the UK. For the last eleven years, public sector staff have been forced to accept lower wage claims, lower than those demanded of the Conservatives. At a time when there are major concerns about growing inequality in the country, the issue of low pay need to be properly addressed, and staff to be fully appreciated, not regularly patronised. The government has consistently refused to tackle this problem, so the public sector unions need to start taking proper action, not by asking their members to vote for regular 24-hour stoppages, but by taking indefinite action.

Two things would have to happen if the unions were to succeed. The first is that they would have to officially end their long affiliation with the Labour party, and the second is that the strike legislation put in place by the previous Conservative government would have to be continually broken. Unfortunately, due to their leaders’ cowardice in the past, they weren’t in a position to change the situation. The unions can only win if they start to break free from these shackles.

The Chancellor Alistair Darling recently supported a package of proposals that will virtually put more cash into the City’s banking fat cats.

He lent his support to plans from the Bank of England to pump £50billion into the money markets to prevent the current credit crisis spiralling out of control and causing more damage to the ‘beleaguered’ banking sector. Under the scheme, banks will be able to ‘swap’ any major mortgage debts for government securities. The scheme will run for a period of one year, and may be renewed over a period of three years.

We shouldn’t be surprised about this. This is where ministers’ priorities truly lie. If the banks ask for more government cash, yeah, of course they can, no questions asked. But if ordinary working class people want to see the 10p starting tax rate restored, or at least have some compensation for the loss of that rate, no, no, no way, Jose.

The government is in trouble over its decision to abolish the 10p tax rate which will mean around five million households living on fixed incomes losing out (as I posted earlier). Under pressure from fellow MPs, a compensation package totalling up to £1billion is being put forward by panicky ministers in a bid to head off a damaging revolt. But the package won’t be enough for many people on low incomes who have seen their bills soar in real terms over the last few months. The government is paying the price for being completely dishonest with the public on taxation in general.