Legal Outrage: "Bloody Foreigners" Magistrate (68) Stays on the Bench

Needless to say Labour of Love think that a magistrate responding to complaints about his offensive language from colleagues with a tirade against "bloody foreigners" and Rusholme curries should not be allowed to stay on the bench.

Mr Alan Mitchell (68) rejected a recommendation that he be downgraded to the Manchester supplemental list and on review of the case by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice this old fool was reprimanded but not really disciplined.

The witnesses were colleagues including a woman JP whose remark that she was offended by his pathetic prejudice and had a husband from Iran actually triggered the latter outburst. And a Black British clerk also. Which I suppose shows something about how oblivious this character is to reality, though just about anyone would have been offended.

Mr Mitchell has we feel led something of a charmed life, leaning on his JP status more than a little to get out of scrapes, and LoL will tell at least a little more anon. Meanwhile anyone finding themselves in front of this barmy and reactionary beak would do well to object.

The Manchester Evening News report.

That YouGov Poll of Labour Members and Affiliates

Despite a drubbing for Hazel Blears Luke Akehurst rather likes this strange poll. PDF Results here

There were some very daft questions in there, like it was a first year student project. They even get Jon Cruddas' name wrong. Particular problems include the old business as usual vs leftiness lurch false dichotomy; steeped in personality over policy; no open questions at all. These questions would be useful:

If Gordon Brown were not available and in an ideal world who would you like to stand for leader of the party?
When should Blair have gone?
Will you pay any attention to what MPs do?
Are you interested in listening to a debate or have you already made your mind up?

What exactly is "too left wing" about John McDonnell's platform?
What is JMcD's platform?
Should public services be publically owned?
Will the Iraq War be an issue for you?
Will Trident be an issue for you?
What are your three biggest issues?

Is Gordon Brown too right wing to be leader?
Is David Miliband too right wing to be leader?
Is Charles Clarkes too right wing to be leader?
Is Alan Milburn too right wing to be leader?

Will you be trying to "bet" on the winner when you cast your vote?
Do you think that after 13 years waiting Gordon Brown deserves to be leader and PM whatever is going on in the world?

Not even:

Are you going to vote?
Did you vote in the last leadership election?
Did you vote in the last NEC election?
Are you actually paid up?

Clearly the results in the NEC election indicate a much more left/centre left bias in the real membership which regularly votes than in this batty YouGov polling.

Walk The Plank: Trust Us, We're The Trustees

Part two of our quarterly Board meeting proceeds last evening with yours truly in the rotating chair. Difficult decisions are duly made with a fax that arrived today from a body called the MCA sealing the fate of a short summer tour in our good ship Fitzcarraldo. We will have further discussions on that anon. Work in Liverpool, in big stadia events, and in fireworks is going from strength to strength.

The ship's berth is moving very slightly from the one pictured during the Liverpool dérive. And the world (today) has finally caught up with the Liverpool Post (friday) that the Manchester Ship Canal People are to rescue Liverpool with a £5.5 Billion investment along the river over the next 30 to 50 years. They're looking to the Towers of Shanghai for inspiration, which belies recent planning permissions or lack of them by the stuck in a rut Libdemologists.

[aside]They are saying that nothing will happen without consultation though we don't need a particularly long memory to remember the fourth grace consultation and Mike Storey and the Lib Dem horde picking the design with by far the least votes. Then messing that up anyway.

Incidentally word has reached Labour of Love that the disgraced former Council boss and big-hair scarey Mike Storey has seen his post, more or less without portfolio, swollen to more than he ever had on his plate before. Meanwhile the supposed leader has next to nothing left, perfect as he's a useless windbag. Allegedly. The sooner the people of Liverpool have a return to a Labour regime the better. There is a bye-election tomorrow, Thursday.[/aside]

More on Tower Hamlets' show (right) shortly. The lanterns produced for the Commonwealth Games finale in 2002 (above) are still turning heads and generating business, with one VIP giving the view recently that this was the best work ever made for such a stadium event.

We Trustees are immensely proud of the team and all they do. Today's Guardian Society tells us that there are around 3,500 Charity Trustees in the City of Manchester alone, which is not much less than one in a hundred (population 430,000) which is a remarkable concentration of entrepreneurial do-gooders in any one place.

Guardian Letters: Cash without Honour

RH Page has it about right I think in today's Guardian letter's page:

Whatever may, or may not, have gone on in respect of cash for honours, it seems likely that it reflects accepted practice by all three main political parties over many years. Representatives of all three parties have been questioned. Is it really appropriate that the entire mainstream British political establishment should be traduced under a law which has long lain dormant, at the behest of nationalists, with an obvious axe to grind, and certain elements in the Metropolitan police about whose motives for pursuing this matter with such vigour it is possible to speculate?

Couple of contrary views from the same source posted in comments. The one implying the Guardian has thwarted the investigation by its reporting is to my eyes hilariously silly. And Blair's Harry Worth moment proves he's not a vampire.

Guardian: Did Lord Levy Ask Ruth Turner to "Shape" Her Evidence?

That is what the Guardian are claiming today. Having successfully resisted an injunction. Still ambiguous about whether the "particular document" is/was an email or not.

UPDATE: Stories are getting more and more specific. Latest (18:00pm) have Ruth Turner not being at all comfortable with Lord Levy's account of events. Iain Dale OOZES OPPROBRIUM about Lord Levy's own cries of "trial by media". But Levy's right and Tory bloggers like Dale and Fawkes have been the worst. Now they pussyfoot about as if what they say matters. Huh!

University Challenge: Manchester in Last Four Again

This time without a single Lib Dem activist or even one dodgy Doctor in our line up. Having won through the repechage Manchester knocked out the last Oxbridge survivors. Meanwhile Cold Blood II has been shot in the Christie, Whitworth and Arts Buildings at the University of Manchester. And in the Northern Quarter. Deserves conservation area status to keep the film industry happy. Including tomorrow's Life On Mars.

BBC Gag: Document is NOT an Email

Contrary to reports, including those linked here yesterday, the particular document concerned in the injunction on the BBC is NOT an email. It is a document drafted by Ruth Turner which concerns Lord Levy and which was intended for Ruth's boss Jonathon Powell. However, unlike an email it is not possible to know whether the document was sent, received or read. Even after a careful exposition of this by Channel 4's correspondent Jon Snow is however still saying the thing was "sent".

Recess Monkey: Deceased Maggie?

Parliamentary Blogger Recess Monkey scooped the field with an announcement shortly after midnight that brass-necked iron lady Maggie Thatcher had shuffled off to the great scrapyard in the sky.

Iain Dale, who has been promised the exclusive, was in a right Tory tizzy, nuancing a Maggie obituary, finishing a tie-in hagiography, and recalling Mark's Twain's oft-misquoted aphorism "The report of my death was an exaggeration".

Not one to harbour a grudge Iain has Recess Monkey blogger Alex Hilton on Blogger TV tonight at 9pm. Hilton did recant this morning.

Observer Sport Monthly: John Amaechi Interview

Good stuff: Amaechi's Basketball Centre is about half a mile from my house. My son plays there on Saturdays. John Amaechi's book Man in the Middle is published by ESPN. Meech's magical masterclass.

Libdemologists: W Menzies Campbell Speaks and We're None the Wiser

HERE IT IS (BBC VIDEO): W Menzies Campbell, the great unifier, has apparently set out his five demands for participation in a coalition with Labour - PR not required, soft on crime essential - and his merry men have been briefing and counter-briefing ever since. What a rabble. Scientologists should disassociate themselves.

UPDATE: Commentary at Political Betting is fascinating.

BBC Gag: Newspapers Test the Waters

Guido and News of the World suggest Labour have been the ones leaking to the BBC. The Mail on Sunday gets furthest in their disclosure stating that the leaked email was from Ruth Turner to Jonathan Powell, while The Sunday Telegraph and Guido and NOTW makes it about Lord Levy.

Meanwhile The Mail on Sunday also reveals that Blair's team can expect £75,000 golden goodbyes when he goes and Brown lets them go.

Go Swivel Yates! Maggie Thatcher is all for Cash being paid for Peerages (No Devaluation!)

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.

Manchester Withington Selection: Le Crunch

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.

Oh My God: BBC Gagged Over Secret Plans

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.

Newsnight Daubing: Class A Bullingdon Boys

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?

Michael Crick: The Images They Wanted To Ban, Cameron ... and Blair?

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.

Tory Troubles: Channel 4 News Email Leaks

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.

Has Ultra-Tory Blogger Hounded Out Mr Hains' Special Advisor? ... Nope, Guido is Lying

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.

Private Equity Expansion: BBC Newsnight with Sion B'Stard and John McDonnell

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.

Milburn and Clarke: Laurel and Hardy?

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.