JOANNA LUMLEY'S STUNNING VICTORY OVER GORDON BROWN

Joanna Lumley celebrates her historic victory with Gurkha veterans brandishing a kukri Gurkha knife




Yesterday Joanna Lumley scored a stunning victory over Gordon Brown, when he lost an Opposition motion in the House of Commons to allow retired Gurkha soldiers to settle in Britain. The denial of residency to 36,000 former Gurkhas who served in the British Army before 1997 made Britain look meanspirited and Brown misread the mood of the nation - again! Joanna Lumley has led the Gurkha Justice Campaign because her father served with the 6th Gurkha Rifles fighting the Japanese in Burma in the 2nd World War and his life was saved by a Gurkha.

The Liberal Democrat motion was supported by David Cameron and MPs of all parties, including 27 Labour MPs and the result was totally unexpected. To quote Ann Treneman in the Times:

"For a split second Opposition MPs could not believe their eyes. They stared, goggled eyed, as the tellers for the Gurkha vote lined up before the glittering mace at 4.15pm. It had been a hell of a debate, the highlight being a blatant Labour bid to buy votes, all watched over by a luminescent Joanna Lumley.

But now everyone could see, from the order the tellers stood in, that Labour's jiggery pokery hadn't worked. ... As the vote of 267 to 246 was read out, Nick Clegg's back was slapped so much he began to list.

The government front bench looked ill. Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, had the stunned look of a rabbit with myxomatosis. He was speechless, possibly for the first time in his life."

They say that problems come in threes and this is the third recent disaster for Gordon Brown and his second unintentionally comic moment in a week. The first was a short video on You Tube in which he announced his ridiculous solution to the problem of MPs expenses - a £150 daily attendance allowance. The rest of the working population turns up for work in return for a salary, and we all know that our MPs receive a generous salary package including expenses for second homes etc etc.

This half baked scheme has had to be dropped due to lack of support from David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and only minor measures remain, eg scrapping 2nd home allowances for Greater London MPs and requiring MPs to submit recepits for all expense claims and declare outside earnings - which they should do anyway!

We have nots forgotten the fiasco surrounding, Damian McBride, one of 84 Labour publicly funded political advisers, most of whom focus on inventing dirty tricks and lies about the Conservatives instead of dealing with our acute economic crisis.

Gordon Brown and his incompetent Labour Government are doomed and 2010 cannot come soon enough for me and millions of British people. I intend to do my bit by standing as a Conservative candidate in the Bedford Unitary Elections on Thursday 4 June. Thank you Joan Sygrave for your kind response to yesterday's Gurkha Blog.

"Here here to you Councillor. Keep up the great work. Good luck with your election - well not that you need good luck - you clearly work very hard.

Best wishes Joan Sygrave - Peterborough"