Hallelujah! After an unfortunate hiatus the fairly lean Tory blogosphere in Manchester sees Cllr Iain Lindley return here. Which is just in time for midnight's deadline for those Manchester Blogging Awards.
Not an entirely expected outcome as the hosts crash in match one - already history has been made.
Have linked to the BBC coverage rather than ITV whose coverage was fair to middling and must surely improve. Heard the first half on Five Live which was better. I noticed that summariser Mr Matt Dawson carries a specific schoolboy sense of humour. Funny how these things persist.
Dave-id Cameron and his puppy are going Japanese at the thought of making the future Maidstone and Weald MP Iain Dale his Chancellor
Oh dear, oh dear, I Dale. There is a dire need for six-week National Community Service training for Tory Boy Bloggers if this piece of careless spin is anything to go by.
This report (PDF download) is from the The Bow Group. "The Bow Group is the oldest - and one of the most influential - centre-right Think-Tanks in Britain. The Group exists to develop policy, publish research and stimulate debate within the Conservative Party. It has no corporate view, but represents all strands of Conservative opinion."
Iain claims that this, ahem, impartial report reveals quotes at length from the report including that:
The Mayor has also squandered the huge increase in government grants over the same time. Grants that cost the average London household over £2,000 in tax.
The Executive Summary of the report in fact says:
... the GLA now receiving tax payer grants worth £2,000 per household
Exec Summary, second deck of type on Tax, on super soaraway page 3
So according to the report Exec Summary London households RECEIVE THE BENEFIT OF an average of £2,000 in government grant per annum. They do not PAY it. How Why does Iain get not spot this switch from RECEIVE to COST? A little bit adventurous even by Tory twisting standards?
So, Ken and his crew actually EARNED LONDONERS (say 3 million households x £2,000 =) £6 Bn in government grants? According to this Tory think tank report. Hurrah! Well done Team Ken.
There was no secret hypothecation of taxes in London last time I looked. These are taxes from national and international companies and direct and indirect personal tax nationwide. So this "statistic" would have been 100% pure Tory toss anyway. Given that it in fact INCOME [insert]the Bow Group report featured by[/insert] Iain Dale's Diary has actually cost every household in London £4,000. Shame on him them. Maidstone and Weald must watch him closely should he be successful in his ambition to become their MP.
Compared to Boris Johnson we're told his calculating is "quite good".
UPDATE: It's a bit hard to tell but Iain has been visiting and states that the perverse spin was from the Bow Group and not ID. Fair enough. So he only re-published this tosh without comment. Probably he'll have corrected their figures by now? He's still playing hard to get when it comes to Maidstone and Weald or being a PPC in general.
Thirty to thirty-three thousand since you ask. Probably a good deal "fairer" in Belfast or Sunderland than it would be in Kensington. Discuss.
Amazing really. Iain Dale still hasn't even mentioned the Observer's Pendennis Story on the intended retirement of his great friend Ms Ann Widdecombe as MP for Maidstone and the Weald. Even though campaign posters have already been designed if not yet booked. What this? Not a new-fangled web-based campaign?! Probably too much for Maids of Kent and Kentish Maids both.
Perhaps the "British Cabinet Minister" (sic Le Monde) Cllr Shireen Ritchie urged a cross in the no publicity box? Perhaps Ann's last endorsement has come home to roost? Blogging today will be light until tiffin time ...
Under the title "When It's Right to Speak Out" Iain Dale praises the Tory suicide bomber* Dave-eeeed Cameron thusly:Dale: Cameron then went on to criticise Gordon Brown for comparing himself to Margaret Thatcher, coming up with a couple of rather good lines...
Cameron to SunWhat a cheek! If we had listened to Gordon Brown no one would have been able to buy their own council house, unions would run the country and we'd probably be speaking Russian. He is a conviction politician - convicted of robbing people's pensions, stealth taxed and failing to reform the NHS.
Cam's characterisation of Brown is of course wildly innaccurate (though some on the Labour left would add: "More's the pity").
SUN-CAM MYTH 1: Council house sales would be stopped - Blair/Brown AFAIK seriously regretted missing that one. The tap was not turned off by Brown was it? Did Brown EVER try to stop Right to Buy? (as some say: more's the pity) This despite the contempt from the cheating Tory Lady Porterhouse. Or whatever her thieving name was.
The thing that needed to go with it but never did under the Tories and still hasn't under NL is the recycling of receipts to build new homes - properly protected e.g. in co-ops, from right to buy and also resale or remortgaging.
SUN-CAM MYTH 2: Unions would run the country - Neither Blair not Brown is much of a Trade Unionist. And does Cam or the Sun really think Unions have a sniff of running the country? (as some say: more's the pity) Do the Sun or the Tories think people will believe that given the New Labour history?
SUN-CAM MYTH 3: We'd all be speaking Russian - Speaking say Russian would be no bad thing, or French or German or Mandarin or Gaelic. Every word is an idea. And each has different shades in each language. I do speak Russian myself. Not well. A bare pass at O. But I am resisting the speaking of Imperialist American.
What I learnt while learning the language - from a Mr Perfect with a rather blatant false leg, Oxfam dressing before it was fabulous, and turn ups like Kim Philby (just like Mr Jones who taught us "World Studies") - was not just an A to Chetori rote thing. It was about culture, ideas, history and understanding. Speaking Russian after being conquered? Stupid. (as no-one says: more's the pity)
Don't know which languages Cam speaks but here he blunders on in pure Yahboo. This "convicted" riff is bunkum. Sun readers are not in the slightest bit thick, as Eton Cam may think.
"I do not buy this", they say with the confidence of true Europeans. "We do not buy this". "He, she and/or it does not buy this".
Brown is head and shoulders over Cam on conviction and in my eyes he has been playing all this like a real master. He is helping the Tory Party destroy the Tory Party.
'Til not one stone stands on another. We had already done this in Manchester say 15 years ago. In fact this is not great for us. The pestilent Lib Dems have become a clear second party in many wards as Tories just roll over and die.
Tory voters are holding their nose and voting for a party that they wrongly think is TO THE LEFT of Labour. For that reason at least I am urging Cam on with every breath and every sinew. Can he re-engage George and Albert and even Janet and John?No, he just isn't cutting it. 
Cameron SHOULD have kept silent as Tim Montgomery tapped on Conservative Home.
Polls were improving. Now they will certainly re-droop.
The next General Election will be in June 2009.
Put tha' cash away Dave-eeed.
Unity has taken a break from a three-parts and counting smashing up any illusion of Tory ... Party ... Intelligence ... on Crime and Disorder to deal with the missing dog-whistle we identified earlier today.
Image of Cam in Manchester, Wythenshawe from Metro via Scally Central.
Unity corroboration albeit in rather more concise form from Neue Arbeit Macht Frei seamlessly switching from anti-Blair to anti-Cam.
Iain Dale thinks David Cameron has got the best coverage in today's Sun and that this is for a Tory Policy Everyone Can Unite Behind.
I wonder? It's six weeks, not 104 or more. More like Outward Bound than National Service and arguably a bit of an insult to the conservative core voters who went through the latter (including in WWII and Korea).
Shot in foot redux.
A real policy from the Tories that we could unite behind? Suggestions please. I'll not try to muster a top ten like Dale does. Can we run to a top three do you think?
Dizzy declares Mark Lynas a Global Village Idiot over his rather silly remarks. I agree.
Making quasi-religious assertions about "Science" is fundamentally dim and/or dangerously disingenuous.
Using these QRAs as basis for illogical action and proposed policy is pathetic.
Whether it is Tories, Libs, Greens, Socialists or New Labour doing so. Bjorn Lomborg is a god among scientists.
Lomborg is even a real scientist. Policy makers should pay attention to the scientific fisking of the mainstream "science policy".
Source of image: WSJ article (PPV) cited at length on Art Diamond's interesting blog.
David Laws is an Ass says Political Hack UK. Read the story and disagree if you dare. Hat tip: Tom Watson MP.
Mail skit becomes reality. Have you seen JO recently? Fifteen you say? Fifteen stone I say. The Guardian Cartoon Shop
There is no Number 10 in the series.
You know ... "It's time for a change ..." ... "We need to recognise the importance of immigration".
Second screen:
"We must fight them on our beaches, we must fight them in our streets ... where's me fascist black shirt and not to forget me Heckler and Koch Thompson sub-machine gun?"*
* Attribution William Shakespeare Winston Churchill.
BUT SERIOUSLY: Where is that immigration dog whistle?
Very likely this is a blogsclusive exclusive. Advance sight of moving gifs.
But at this rate Maggie will be cheering on Gordon. This is facile. This is dull. This is Tories 4 business as usual.
The only real change proposed, the "offer" in marketing BS, is this:That a bunch of unprincipled, unreliable and untried rats-in-sacks toffs who still cannot organise a web
campaign in 2007 should take over from a conviction politician from the old school and his tried and trusted
team of fearless innovators.
Various Tory web schemes are already lying in tatters. Internet "Guru" Grant Schapps has not played a blinder. Risible sites (e.g. Tory Tosser and SUSU with it's illogical read, vote, debate strapline have been shut down or just withered on the vine.
There have been scams and a veritable 1234 of bad practice. We had that ridiculous You Tube "Sexy Britain" yoof site. And now this?
I can understand why Tory Boy Bloggers are cheering this on. There may be some advert bookings for them.
But really this is poor. It doesn't even matter that it will get a bit of below the line attention. I'm happy to run the adverts free and gratis in this post. Because they are so poor.
(The click through target on images should be this. Not sure if it's my html? Or space age Tory internettery?)
Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics has chucked former-Communist hackers and current-German bomb plotters into the same post.
In the case of the former are these Chinese hackers servants of the Chinese State? Or the Russian State? Or just fun-seeking geeks who happened to be in China?
Or is this what they were practicing for when they allegedly took down Taiwan, sending hoax press releases from government servers?
And in the case of the latter, who mostly had just the one chemical - not the 20-plus collected by the BNP-linked Clowns of Colne - will these Germans get off with shorter sentences? Fair's fair.
Not content with yesterday blowing the gaffe on Dave-eeed's overall failures Mr Iain Dale today calls for one man to be taken out and shot and calls on another band of assassins to knife another prominent figure. In the second case, unbelievably, he is encouraged by a Times journalist. THIS is the Tory message on violent crime. Shoot 'em, knife 'em or scare them to death.
Apparently the Russians are coming. There is a real explanation for a war plane buzzing 18 Doughty Street - the home of MSB AG (Mainstream Blogging, Anti-Government). Not in fact "remember Al Jazeera", "remember Radio Free Belgrade" but Veteran's Minister Derek Twigg presenting 500,000th Armed Forces Veteran's Badge to Sonia Hartford from Birmingham and the two enjoying a flypast.
POP TRIVIA: My friends the former Manchester power boppers The Smirks - inspiration for a pukocious PD of The Housemartins (particularly ironically with the song 'Sheep'), and three of whom were for a time also Distant Cousins - had a near hit with OK, UK.
Stymied largely because of a bad week industrially at Decca distribution.
The new blog in the last post, OK, OD could earn a theme tune. Particularly as the boys have just signed (hush hush) with Sanctuary Records for a retread album. A single or two a distinct possibility ...
Meanwhile after a scruffy gig at The Wilde Club those Housemartins were tracked down at WOMAD, Colchester (New Order, James, ACR, Kalima, Maphumo, and ? The Smiths also played) and their breakthrough gig at International 1 was plotted. They shared posters with one Champion Doug Veitch, more on whom anon.
Open Democracy is one of several leftish USA based op-ed sites that LOL have followed more or less closely, in many cases since they began. Back when t'interweb was young-er. Great to see Our Kingdom, or 'OK' gathering steam, linking to LOL without being asked (Hallelujah!), and also now coming to the attention of the MSB (Mainstream Bloggers).
Will try to come back to this as the OD 'swarm' site has recently taken a great leap forward and first I need to flit around there with my butterfly mind more fully engaged.
While Dylan fan Dave Osler knows all the words Iain Dale is demanding something with less complex lyrical content. Both involve pistols at dawn.
You've been down to the bottom with a bad man babe ... [fade] Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying; Baby, please stop crying ... [/fade]
Shouldn't UKIP vet MEP Candidates before sticking them at the top of the list? Not once the truth of fraud and fascist alliances begins to out itself?
Ashley Mote, 71, benefit fraudster: over six years trousering £73,000 in benefits to which he was not entitled and since 2004 trousering £60,000 per annum and all the gravy he can drink (as a Euro-sceptic he'll be drinking the boat dry) after standing on an anti-fraud platform. Mr Mote will continue to get pay - but not much gravy - during his incarceration.
After UKIP cottoned on to his previous Mote has been hanging round with old Le Pen and other Nazis, fascists and racists. Including Alessandra "Better to be a fascist than a fag!" Mussolini.
Here's how Der Spiegel described him on his ascension to Jean Marie and Alessandra's right hand:Ashley Mote, 70, is the very image of a polite British gentleman: balding, slight belly, striped tie and hand-made English shoes. As he sits in his spartan fifth-floor office in the European Union parliament building in Strasbourg, he dreams of a victory over the European Union. "We are going to take our money and go back home."
For 20 years he owned a marketing agency with offices in seven different countries. He wrote books about the history of the British national sport of cricket and stood up for the system of "free enterprise," which he sees as the "antithesis of the EU." But instead of enjoying his retirement, he has gone into politics and moved into the European Parliament as an independent member of parliament (MP).
His aim is to wage a "guerrilla war" against Europe, infiltrating the organization as "a Trojan horse" -- until his fellow countrymen grasp the fact that Europe is choking them and Britain quits the EU. For Mote a pro-European Brit is like "a Turkey voting for Christmas."
For a long time the Londoner has been a lone fighter on the continental battlefield. But last week he joined forces with 19 MPs from six other countries to form the European Parliament group "Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty." The move gives them the chance to get more money, more speaking time and above all more attention. The group's members now have to pretend that they have the same political aims. This, however, is easier said than done.
Nirj Deva MEP gave Ash a good shake as he joined fatherlands fatheads.
But although this was reproduced on Conservative Home responses include the claim that Mote was an active Tory for a long time before defecting to UKIP. In fact the commentary is very informative. It seems Churchill conceded, "If I were Italian, I should don the fascist black shirt."
Boris Johnson had some bright 14 year old girls in the back of his car once. All they would do was talk about marriage. Brides. Grooms. Which rather did poor old Bozzer's brain in. Girl's just like to have fun? Not so.
And Boz wrote an article about what he overhead and then he sold it three or four times. Bit like gals those editors. Why settle for one? What! Terrific. Seems Dave was right to bang on about marriage and all that. These young Sloanes prove it. Though least said soonest mended about broken society, adultery and divorce.
Top breeding: By thoroughbred Recess Monkey out of old knacker Mr GuF.
Iain Dale is delighted though there is no news from him yet on Ms Widdy and her upcoming vacation of some prime Kent real estate. Oh no.
But it seems that Dave-id has written to Gordon who - like Maggie and unlike Dave-id (or Tony) - is a believer not a chancer. In his letter he throws down a gauntlet (right) or more realistically fusses hopelessly over please pretty please having a televised debate.
He reminds me of the Black Knight in MP and the Holy Grail. "Coward!" he shouts as he hops armless, legless, policy-less, and utterly disposed of. Into the mire.
Dave-id should go get one or two city jobs? Give up while he's "ahead"?
How should complaints work | Apparent gross overspend but no answers | Spending outside election periods | Proactively publishing election accounts | Protecting vulnerable donors | No more intermediaries | Limits by items not cost | Show us the leaflets | Analyse the norms | Serious penalties for lying and cheating.
Dear Sam Younger
Should certain bad practices e.g. blatant dishonesty in content e.g. use of parliamentary allowances for small c campaigning e.g. paid advertising on campaign material be specifically outlawed and very severe penalties be introduced?
For example: A re-run of an election with all opposing parties being reimbursed by the offender.
For example: Votes for a rule breaking candidate being ignored and the next best candidate being elected.
At the moment existing rules, such as they are, don't seem to be enforced.
There is no deterrence for bad behaviour.
Paradoxically, the most honest and upstanding individuals and their parties in a particularly tight corner could well be disadvantaged by the lack of real supervision.
Although they might otherwise be the best bet for the constituents.
The amount that is spent clearly makes a difference. In the constituency given in the first example voters explained their vote:
"We got eleven leaflets from X and only two from Y. Meaning X cared more and got our vote."
In reality X was very likely cheating.
Best wishes
Labour of Love
Mr Younger is appearing on 18 Doughty Street tomorrow. Iain wants question suggestions. Here are ten of many, concentrating on election spends nitty gritty. Other posts in series "clocked" back one year.
Maddie's mother in law Shireen Ritchie is the Tory-mamma deputy-in-charge-of-
-candidates? Good news then that champion blogging expert and wannabe MP Iain Dale will soon be giving her a gentle grilling for the famous 18 Doughty Street.
If Iain isn't too mean Shireen may after all be able to put in a good word for him over Maidstone and Weald.
It wouldn't do any harm to follow Marc Roche in Le Monde October 29, 2006 (right, picture and caption as published by Watching America, source of Le Monde translation) in bigging up and promoting Mrs Ritchie. To being a Tory MP and British Cabinet Minister no less.
Down to earth Chim Chim Shiree is of course a councillor and an Exec Member leading on family values in Kensington and Chelsea.
Great post from Rupa and another from Tom on the problem of rip-off wages on high-street brands. [Top image is ripped off from the marvellous Periphery aka LOL's old Manchester pal Joe Magee now in Bristol. Commission his work! periphery at periphery co uk]
The craziest thing is you ask me is that anyone who buys clothes from these territories might actually believe workers are getting £1 never mind £5 an hour. Many many years ago the late lamented City Life Magazine did a feature (c 1984 or 1985) on similar shenanigans. 
The gag the importers were using then was to stitch "made in england" labels (which were actually made in england) onto clothes that clearly were not. If memory serves these weavers of deceit sent them out to the Philippines to get them applied to garments.
To my eternal shame (though not personally responsible) between ourselves, our printer and International Labour Reports (a campaigning mag floreat 1984-1990) we LOST a handful of the actual labels concerned.
Guido of course does a nice line in ripping people off. A new slavery as content producers are ripped off by the Man? Slogan for the day Comrades: Intellectual property needs a minimum of a hat tip. Which goes for comrades on the left too, mentioning no names.
TRIVIA: When I travelled to India as a youth in 1975 the wage of the cook - at the top of the food chain - where we stayed in Calcutta was on 40 rupees per month. This was then equivalent to £2. That's 50 pence per week. No more than 1p an hour. 
My host was very gracious and very wealthy and lived in a penthouse, possibly on top of this very building on the famous Shakespeare Sarani. The boss of Brooke Bond/Fray Bentos in India. And the cook had travelled with his family from Dar-es-Salam. He considered himself pretty well paid.
Guido, are you still actually trying? A story from November 2006?
God, "we're on fire today" as your illustrious namesake once said as he proudly yet rather sadly viewed and savoured the whiff of the coulli of his own big bbq'ing coilons.
The story is about internet censorship. It might as well be about intellectual property theft as Guido nicks the above map from RSF without link or attribution and makes a spurious connection to some half-arsed Blair blether. Earth to Guido: "Blair is Gone". Please don't rip off any more real internet freedom warriors.
There is not even a click through link from the stolen image.
The map and other professionally produced goodies can be downloaded free (donations welcome) here and was produced gratuitously by Fabrica and altered unceremoniously by LOL. Don't want to offend Boris.
What is the point if ...: "there is no mention of ********** or ********** ******"? While Boris' choice, satirically off-colour expletives still ring in Mr Cleverly's ears for switching on yesterday's video without sound, Mr Dale compiles a book with the best bits taken out in advance.
Let's have analysis on the question of Tory selection in the Maidstone and Weald constituency instead.
Johan Eliasch (milionário sueco), formerly Tory deputy treasurer, is the CEO of the global technology company HEAD. Inventors of metal skis and a notable brand and innovator in all kinds of racquets, sticks and clubs. Above seen with Hermann Maier the "Herminator" who has sacked Atomic and signed for Head (deja Atomic y ficha por Head).
Although Iain Dale was rather quick to slag Johan's judgement off I must say that he seems to have his head reasonably well screwed on. Here's an article from the Ecolopop web magazine:
C’est ainsi que Johan Eliash, millionnaire anglo-suédois et propriétaire du groupe Head (spécialiste d’articles de sport, inventeur du ski en métal), a choisi de contribuer à la préservation de la riche forêt amazonienne. Il a racheté à une scierie, en octobre 2005, deux parcelles d’exploitation de bois pour un total de 160000 hectares, au coeur de la forêt, dans l’état d’Amazonas, au Brésil. L’objectif : préserver ces parcelles de toute exploitation intensive. Le montant de cet investissement caritatif est estimé par le Sunday Times à 8millions de livres sterling.
Selon Courrier International qui lui consacre une page dans son supplément “riches”, Johan Eliash estime que 400 millions d’hectares de la forêt amazonienne pourraient être acquis pour 14 milliards de francs. Il mène campagne pour que des célébrités et des hommes politiques suivent son exemple. Il projette également de produire des médicaments alternatifs, des huiles essentielles et de sauver ainsi la forêt amazonienne.
Johan Eliash fait parler de lui mais il n’est pas le premier à agir ainsi : Paul van Vlissingen, milliardaire propriétaire de Calor Gas, a lui aussi investi 15 millions de livres sterling dans des espaces naturels, en Afrique cette fois.
Which translates to estimate Johan's investment in live wood at £8M, levering in £15M more from a mate, which, whatever one's stance on climate banter, is a considerably more worthwhile investment and cause celebre I'd have thought than a £2.6M loan and/or fundraising for Cameron's deadwood gulch.
Johan Eliasch is co-founder of Cool Earth with none other than Labour's own favourite Frank Field and explains his motivation here, and Frank goes here.
His press is only 99.9% favourable.
Stopping the logging did mean slack times at the timber mill.
Need any further points to show Iain Dale's hasty appraisal to be awry?
Johan Eliasch, voici avec sa compagne, Ana Paula Junqueira , secrétaire générale de l’Association brésilienne pour les Nations Unies. Anna Paula's delightful website is also available in english for those HABLO NO PORTUGUÊS, and a summary biography is here.
NOTICES: Don't forget the Blog Action Day on environmental issues in six weeks time. Logging pi chart from: Mongabay.com.
Stephen Tall provides a snap shot of Lib Dem media success, here. Despite self aggrandising and pretending to be a mimicster and front bench spokesman John Leech (Man Wit) is still in the BOTTOM TEN. As is Paul Rowen (Rochdale).
But as cheery glass half full Libdemologists they will be spinning this as a late surge with both Leech and Rowen climbing slightly from their low of six months ago. Mark Hunter (Cheadle) is surely doomed to relegation, seemingly growing roots at the foot of the table.
John's bird-of-a-feather cluster bomb hypocrite Willie Rennie remains just outside the drop zone.
Guido has a great story involving Boris being lost for words at his press launch. Thanks to James Cleverly? Boris understood to have been heard muttering (ironically, natch) "Trust a Bloody Darky".
Went to the Back Boris site expecting to see the great audiovisual communication there at least. But sadly no. But all is not lost. There were ALL Boris' press releases (above, all two, from 16 and 18 July).
And there was his his bustling media centre (again two items, bollocks to this) despite the encouraging:Below you'll find the latest campaign news, however if you'd like to see the press releases or image gallery please use the links above.
The Gallery is there. A picture is after all worth a thousand words. And Boris' clever software makes him look even more like a fat head (top) than is strictly necessary (right).
NOTES FOR TECHIES:
The portrait pictures in the collection are shown in the wrong ratio.
As in a Hall of Mirrors.
Which Boris undoubtedly has at home.
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