The sight of Gordon Brown telling an interviewer about his “friend” Tony Blair would be laughable if it were not for the fact that this man will, in all likelihood, be our Prime Minister by this time next year. As if we were all unaware that it was Brown supporters who have, in recent weeks, tried to get the skids under Tony Blair and hasten his departure. Black is white, up is down and Brown loves Blair. Welcome back to the world of Labour spin.
After the enormous self-inflicted damage of the efforts to oust Tony Blair, the Labour PR machine is spinning like a top on steroids.
The same spin machine that is working behind the scenes to stop the families of servicemen killed in Iraq setting up a peaceful protest outside Labour’s annual conference. The decision may have been made by the Labour-run Manchester Council, but we can all guess who is pulling the strings.
But the spin machine is going to have to work even harder to convince anyone that Blair and Brown are anything but deadly enemies, or that anyone likes the idea of our Chancellor slipping smoothly into the nation’s top job.
Tony Blair had charm and an aura of niceness. Even the imposing Margaret Thatcher had an air of Churchillian leadership. Gordon Brown just has the image of a miserable conniving Scot who has taxed us like no other Chancellor in history. Baby or no baby, he is in no way loveable. And yet, without a vote from the rest of us he is almost a shoo-in for Prime Minister. We suggest he enjoys his brief stay at Number 10. Come the next election, even Labour spin won’t protect him from the electorate.
Company is all take and no give
It would appear insurance giant Norwich Union and its parent company, Aviva, are more than happy to take the money off British customers, but less happy to pay British workers. The firm has today announced plans to get rid of another 4,000 workers - 1,000 of the jobs are being “outsourced” and sent to India.
Norwich Union quite cheerfully admits it aims to send 7,800 jobs to the Indian subcontinent by the end of next year. That’s an awful lot of British families with a big hole in their monthly income.
And the decision comes as many other firms have decided to move their call centres from India back to the UK, because customers are increasingly fed up trying to explain their problems to disinterested robots with a limited grasp of English.
But customer wishes and worker welfare are clearly an irrelevance for Norwich Union, a company happy to take money out of this country but less happy about putting anything back. One is left with the distinct feeling that if this huge insurance company could move the rest of its 36,000 employees to cheap nations like India, it would.
Labour spins like a top
After the enormous self-inflicted damage of the efforts to oust Tony Blair, the Labour PR machine is spinning like a top on steroids.
The same spin machine that is working behind the scenes to stop the families of servicemen killed in Iraq setting up a peaceful protest outside Labour’s annual conference. The decision may have been made by the Labour-run Manchester Council, but we can all guess who is pulling the strings.
But the spin machine is going to have to work even harder to convince anyone that Blair and Brown are anything but deadly enemies, or that anyone likes the idea of our Chancellor slipping smoothly into the nation’s top job.
Tony Blair had charm and an aura of niceness. Even the imposing Margaret Thatcher had an air of Churchillian leadership. Gordon Brown just has the image of a miserable conniving Scot who has taxed us like no other Chancellor in history. Baby or no baby, he is in no way loveable. And yet, without a vote from the rest of us he is almost a shoo-in for Prime Minister. We suggest he enjoys his brief stay at Number 10. Come the next election, even Labour spin won’t protect him from the electorate.
Company is all take and no give
It would appear insurance giant Norwich Union and its parent company, Aviva, are more than happy to take the money off British customers, but less happy to pay British workers. The firm has today announced plans to get rid of another 4,000 workers - 1,000 of the jobs are being “outsourced” and sent to India.
Norwich Union quite cheerfully admits it aims to send 7,800 jobs to the Indian subcontinent by the end of next year. That’s an awful lot of British families with a big hole in their monthly income.
And the decision comes as many other firms have decided to move their call centres from India back to the UK, because customers are increasingly fed up trying to explain their problems to disinterested robots with a limited grasp of English.
But customer wishes and worker welfare are clearly an irrelevance for Norwich Union, a company happy to take money out of this country but less happy about putting anything back. One is left with the distinct feeling that if this huge insurance company could move the rest of its 36,000 employees to cheap nations like India, it would.
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