Observer says the Government has "retreated over the Post Office and ID cards" - this is a myth

Andrew Rawnsley has written an article about Labour and power not very dissimilar from my prediction that Labour are fucked but the Tories are not much better.

I am not going to dig too deep into the article, after all, you can read yourselves. But rather refute two claims that have been made in it which clearly the displays the lacking in this "journalist" who cannot even comprehend the workings of laws and bills. It is even sadder when you consider that the whole blogosphere as a collective seem to have understood the maliciousness in Labour's claims.

"Those Labour MPs who continue to invest some hope in Gordon Brown's powers of recovery have yet to see any reward for keeping the faith after the devastating local and Euro elections last month. Number 10 has made a clumsy botch of announcing an inquiry into the Iraq war and been badly embarrassed over the conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It has raggedly retreated over the Post Office and ID cards. The attempt to relaunch public service reform has sunk under the weight of its timidity. What is the message? Where is the strategy Why is there never any follow through? I only put the questions that I hear muttered by despondent members of the cabinet, the very people who ought to be supplying some of the answers."

Lets consider the Post Office claim.

Now although the Business (Buffoon) Secretary Lord Mandelson said the Postal Services Bill, which has already passed through the House of Lords and was awaiting debate in the Commons, was being put on hold until "market conditions" improved.

He also said "There is no prospect in current circumstances of achieving the objectives of the Postal Services Bill. When market conditions change, we will return to the issue."

All is jolly golly good then you might think, well not really.

Lord Mandelson, the likely next leader of Labour, will sell it anyway once the economy recovers which apparently is only months away.

Alas, they have not backed down.

Now for the ID cards claim.

ID cards will no longer be compulsory, but anyone applying for a British passport will be added to the national identity card database. The really shitty part about the whole ID cards debacle is the database and that is still to go ahead, it will the thrashed by Tories once in power but never mind.

These are not so much "U-turns" as the MSM likes to fashion they are more E-turns - in that they are just circumventing vox populi and making it seem that they have ditched the highly unpopular main route. When all that they have done is to chose another one, but this of course is rarely mentioned by the media for it is more sensationalist to write about "U-turns".