Obviously it was the Police - Yates of the Yard - who asked for the injunction on the BBC story. Not the government. Certainly not the Labour Party.
Yates is getting rattled. So rattled his people have stopped leaking to Tory bloggers, even if they are in the same grand lodge.
Thar she blows! Go swivel Yates! Maggie would want the party of government to win on this one.
This weekend the General Committee of the CLP considered the itemised bill of the phoney war and decide on the shortlist for selection of the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate who will try to reclaim this lovely leafy seat for Labour at the next election.
The final shortlist in alphabetical order of family names:
Naheed Arshad-Mather MBE
Councillor Nargis Khan
Jenny Lennox
Lucy Powell
Dr Yogesh Virmani
These are the same names that would have gone forward after the Branch Party nominations. Of the affiliates only the Co-op Party and SEA involved significant numbers of the selectorate. Unison, the T&G and GMB didn't even manage to affiliate.
I was not invited to the GC meeting on Sunday night. I should have been included in this body and also probably in the EC as a GC/EC member of Manchester Central re-organised into Manchester Withington. This was supposed to be guaranteed under transitional arrangements, and rightly so.
Regional Office did not resolve this query, and has yet to respond to the request that strange venue choices be re-visited.
Unlike Iain Dale who claims an EXCLUSIVE but says nothing and pussyfoots around alleged names he allegedly knows I can reveal that the BBC has been injuncted from revealling that every member of the Bullingdon Boys (Class of 1987) has been promised, by big D, a modest K or an immodest P - at some stage - for maintaining their generous contributions to the old alma mater. An Alma Mater which is now planning to move on from smashing up restaurants to again smashing up communities and livelihoods.
MEANWHILE, SADLY: Guido is pissed and incoherent. It's Friday night and Guido's an amateur.
Oxford Student recently carried an analysis, while The Independent gave a guide to the dramatis personae of the spiked picture.
Meanwhile the "MP for Bullingdon" is one Mr Baldry (right).
Himself once in trouble for organising a bad boys Dining Club for one of Keith Vaz's mates at the Palace of Westminster, is here seen in the house praising the wardens of Bullingdon Prison.
Matching faces to names: (1) Sebastian Grigg, (2) David Cameron, (3) Ralph Perry-Robinson, (4) Ewen Fergusson, (5) Matthew Benson, (6) Sebastian James, (7) Jonathan Ford, (8) Boris Johnson, (9) Harry Eastwood, (10) Spy?
1. Cameron: Local Oxford agency Gilman and Soame have mysteriously withdrawn copyright on lucrative Bullingdon Club images. Tories say have not spiked it. Crick has had the spiked picture repainted. As Roy Hattersley said the snap proves Cameron is in fact an aristo toff and part of a rich boys ASB Club. G&S say they have made a decision not to release "school photos".
2. Blair: Minor league toffs looking a bit squiffy, with a TB hand signal.
Not on the site immediately, but soon come, a series of emails showing how George Osborne has completely lost control over all his colleagues.
They are now promising spending, tax cuts and policies which hopeless George and dopey David just will quite simply not be able to deliver.
Blair nailed them on their married tax fudge at PMQs and Harman nailed Willets on Newsnight on the same matter. Both his brains AWOL. Their only real policy in tatters already.
That's Guido's story, HERE. Hain's Special Advisor. Discovered doing too much electioneering on the firm's time Guido says he's walked the plank.
Guido is also pursuing some other SpAds for similar offences, notably one of Hazel Blears'.
All of which I think is fair enough. Mr Hain - surely one of the entertainingly least safe pair of hands on the planet - is on Question Time with Dimbleby tonight.
UPDATE: Guido has admitted he was telling lies.
Sion B'Stard and John McDonnell debated the issue of Private Equity on Newsnight this week. SB'S was gung-ho for it. JMcD was rightly wary about the Labour Party accepting support from asset strippers and profit takers on quite this level.
NCP, The AA, Birds Eye and Debenhams are all businesses now within their ownership. One-in-six workers are now employed by their concerns. And Sainsburys and British Airways are targetted. Sion B'Stard is clearly a Tory whose contribution was muddled and unprincipled laissez faire. John McDonnell meanwhile had his media reputation enhanced by another principled and competent contribution.
Michael Meacher of course asked a rather bumbling question - with a rescue from a the speaker to begin - about the sector at PMQs yesterday. Great minds think alike? Tony Blair was able to advise Mr Meacher that his leadership bid was doomed.
The last time I used this graphic was to describe the fractured mess of the local Lib Dems in Manchester. But it also seems perfect to describe the fractured mess of the New Labour project and "another fine mess" that is the2020vision of our very own Stan and Ollie.
Gordon Brown (and the Labour Party) will benefit most in my opinion from being challenged from the left and centre left, not from his fellow neo-liberals for whom the personality question heads off the policy one which should have primacy.
We could now have McDonnell for the Left, Brown for the Centre Right, and Clarke for the Right. There is plenty of space between McDonnell and Brown, and plenty of nominations to go round, to see a Centre Left challenge too. Obviously not meaning the non-starter Meacher.
Just seen this war artwork previewed on Channel 4 News. In our very own Central Reference Library. As part of Manchester's newest International Festival. A cabinet holds proof sheets of family-supplied portrait stamps of the British military dead of Iraq.
These men and women fit the usual Royal Mail Philately criterion for being on a stamp. Not royal, but are dead.
Clearly exceptions are made from time to time for someone who catches a catch on the field in Brisbane. As McQueen says: "Why not someone who catches a bullet in the field in Basra?"
Neither the MoD nor Royal Mail are keen to progress the idea.
ALSO: Catching up soon I hope with War Art seen over recent months at Stockport Art Gallery, Cornerhouse, and Liverpool Tate.
Remarkable start to the Reading - United replay. Goals on 2, 4 and 6 minutes. And there was me predicting 4-0 at full time.
The Co-op Party nominated Councillor Nargis Khan and Naheed Arshad-Mather MBE. Dr Jane Evans, Jenny Lennox, and Lucy Powell were not eligible.
CWU backed Nargis Khan and Lucy Powell. USDAW backed Lucy Powell. Amicus' three branches including my own GPMU branch are yet to go public.
The Socialist Education Association ballot was won by a single vote by Lucy Powell.
More supporters' endorsements for any candidate are always welcome. Who will win most handsomely in Withington? Who will knock the grimace off the Lib Dem face the best?
Select YOUR ENDORSEMENTS from the Withington Menu top left or by clicking here, read the ground rules, and click comment to leave your 100-word endorsement(s).
UPDATE: This post replaces the earlier effort, the comments, and the apologies. More anon. Including that Student news.
Iain Dale asks "Who do so Few Candidates Have Blogs?" but we know he means "Why?"
Jake "the fake" Berry (right) - who stood and placed third last time in City Centre ward, Manchester - has one I tell Iain. Here's the link. I note that Jake already thinks that like a Tory think tank and that he should be an dot-org not a dot-con.
This candidate used to say he lived "in Manchester", later "on the outskirts of Manchester", but now presumably will have changed to "the environs of Rossendale" or some such?
No, alas it hasn't. It still has him moving to Manchester and living on the outskirts thereof. All the while Jake has of course lived in Cheshire, on the Liverpool side of the M6 I believe.
Incidentally the Conservative home analysis of Jake's selection commented on his spolling, grimmeur and sin-tax and this may account for more nice but dim Tories not having blogs. And Iain's own headline shows that factor up.
Perhaps it's a clever play on words that maternity units are in fact a "hug" rather than a "huge" issue in Rossendale?
Certainly the local government candidates Dave/id was communing with in Benchill, Wythenshawe may not be starting theirs anytime soon.
CAPTIONS: Picture top is we think of another Jake Berry.
This one here may be an out-to-lunch Jake Berry who is set to be absolutely HUG in Rossendale.
The previous story reminds me of events on Sunday morning at LoL HQ. Dogs barking at what they believe are some disreputable characters skulking outside. Turns out they are Libdemologists dropping leaflets for a street surgery by their new carpet bagging candidate for the local elections. This guy stood as a local man in Fallowfield in 2004 and as a local man in Brooklands in 2006. Now he is a local man in Chorlton for 2007. This time it may even be true, who ever can tell with these geographically fluid Libdemologists?
Hopefully Cllr John Leech MP will accompany the candidate and local people can mount a demonstration against the Hospital Hoaxer.
Anyway, the one who is a dead spit for Frank, looking if anything rougher than usual, claimed to be "a handsome man" and also that your blogger looks more like the character then he does. Ouch. Very witty. Not. How very insulting! I hope he isn't going to go complaining about my satire when he has just accused me of looking worse.
The people of Chorlton Park probably don't want Shameless behaviour on their streets. Quite right too. But things can only get worse if one councillor is an absentee and two more are doing next to nothing. We certainly don't want their shameless politics to spread to the streets of Chorlton.
Jewellry as above "Shameless Dog" can be bought from Thomas Mann.
Hat tip to Lord Dale for linking with this rather coy report. THIS ONE is less so. In true Liberal fashion Mr Pavier (above boasting of big pumps) blames the "friends" who dobbed him in for "smearing him" rather than chastising himself for his lewd textography.
The picture above shows one ex-stoner getting down to grass roots with a current model in Benchill, Wythenshawe. As used in news reports in The Times and elsewhere. The picture (right) steps back a little. The friend "shooting" Cameron has been widely identified. In the cells too for breaching his tag conditions and separately for being a junior stoner.
But Dave's other associates and the local people identified to stand for the Cuddly Nu Tories in the May elections have not been named.
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