Dave's Part: Tesco Express Opens in Dalston

Dave Osler has a useful post on the latest Tesco Express opening. It's in Dalston. I agree with him. Apart from the surely satirical nonsense in the last paragraph about lamb price and Kenyan mange tout? I'll be doing a post about this particular Tesco of Dave's and perhaps the putative one just round the corner from the house of love next week. Probably Monday.

Tesco are OK on Unions encouraging Usdaw sign up; they pay NMW plus, with hols, sick pay, maternity and the like; they do proper health and safety and training; they have careers; are accountable for clear marking of origin; tend to have good stock, and feature offers and loss leaders - other than on mouldering old perishables.

In Dalston they are using the Job Centre for all recruitment. Excellent. When I worked for Manchester CC - in what the current leader Richard Leese annoyingly calls the chinese period, you know when the party decided the policy - we used to like Job Centre only. This meant our own residents and less over-qualified applicants and lower advertising costs for our people.

The independent retail sector vary. Some are really excellent on unions and wages and T&C and stock and ethics and all. Some are dire on all those things.

If it were a Co-op Late Shop it would be a consumer co-op and if Waitrose in effect a worker partnership. So those would be better.

The tescopoly lot are an extraordinary coalition. And whatever they may say they are mostly driven by Tesco-hate or selfish self-interest as competing shops. They rarely bother mounting a campaign against a micro Somerfield, Co-op, Nisa or even Sainsburys. I have yet to be persuaded they have a care for the workers - in shops, as shoppers, in the supply chain.

Many corner shops dream of becoming chains and doing a Tesco, yet they think local councils are there to protect one set of capitalists from another. Not so.

Haggis EDM: Cluster Bomb Rennie Laments

So disappointing that Cllr John Leech MP, the busy-doing-nothing shyster temporarily representing Manchester Withington, has not signed this topical Early Day Motion concerning a potential bleeding dry of Scottish butchery - apparently in an offal state. Steakholders in the industry claim that modern haggis making is tripe, the wurst ever, and ask the SNP to have the guts to put the heart back into Haggis training.

Mr Leech's pal the Rabbie Burns look-alikey Willie Rennie, given the Lib Dem campaign coordinating role by Calamity Clegg, is of course the famous cluster bomb hypocrite.

Before his lucky by-election win Will-lie made his living puffing the arms industry, particularly Raytheon who make the things, crossed several constituencies to visit their factory on his election and then scarcely blushed as he made speech and motion after speech and motion calling for cluster bombs to be banned. He's got two-facedness down pat.

Happy Cluster Burns Night again Mr Rennie!

Ministry of Truth: Sparkling on Election Watchdog

Unity at Ministry of Truth suggests small p political motivation behind the decision to dob Hain in to the peelers. Little short of a "Show Trial" to demonstrate that the Electoral Commission are not in fact useless and are in fact worth their millions.

LOL have added a couple of comments on specialist subjects Cllr John Leech and Sir George Osborne.

Guido Fawkes: Full Disclosure For Lobbyists?

Guido Fawkes says nothing today about his pasty appearance on Newsnight last night. Better than his previous endeavour I would agree. But there really could not have been more headroom after that now could there? He was exposed then of course as an utter numpty.

The idea that GuF has taken Hain's scalp - even if Diane Abbott MP thinks he has - or that GuF is anything other than a gutter gossip monger, with low standards at that, is utterly preposterous.

But I am excited by a development today. Mr GuF is supporting the foundation of a kind of voluntary standards body for lobbyists. Even though GuF is a little troubled that the Lobbying Transparancy is an initiative of the left.

To counter this he recommends that it be joined by the likes of the Tax Payers' Alliance, implicated in the ridiculous DWP Press Release Hoax, which GuF also fell for, only last week. They are of course largely funded by the Conservative Party's most famous slush fund organisation - the Midlands Industrial Council on which GuF also had a false story last week.

Anyway I come for once to praise Mr GuF not to bury him. Mr GuF is a lobbyist himself in effect. Lobbying for Hedge Fundies and Libertarian Profiteers and Privateers everywhere. So wouldn't it be a great idea to see him setting an example to his fawning fans on the right? With some disclosure of his interests here first?

Let's have an return of GuF's:

Business interests in full
Including his "Tax Players Alliance"
Domicile for tax
Residence for tax
Outstanding legal matters
Entertainment accepted in detail
Voting status
And so on and so forth

Anyone who wishes to start a full and frank disclosure on Mr GuF's behalf is very welcome to use the comments here using the above section titles or otherwise.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Boothroyd for this link to a Torygraph blog displaying a "Press Release" apparently from Guido but with all the Conservative Party rubric as footer. GuF is livid. He is NOT a member of the conservatives (anymore), he is also not maintaining his dalliance with fascists, or his dalliance with the SDP. He is not a number. He is a free man.

Bond Fantasy: Quantum of Solace for S Generale

Quantum of Solace doesn't quite hit a home run as the name of the new Bond movie. But the film does have a timely fantasy French Bond Villain. Just as Jerome Kerviel has taken Societe Generale to the cleaners as a real life French bond villain.

Most reports even BBC Television and online on this are FAILING TO NOTICE the small print of the story which involves £3.7 Billion IN A SINGLE BOND TRADE made this Saturday. Jerome Kerviel could have at it for years. Radio 5 Live had that insight more than two hours ago.

UPDATE 17:14: Have changed the BBC Bond link as the Newsround one was not working. the Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton pictured right star alongside Daniel Craig.

UPDATE Fri 10:22: Information is still a bit scarce but the Saturday trading spree described by Radio Five Live may in fact have been the Bank itself closing down Jerome's positions in which £30 Billion or so were at risk. There have been suggestions that the emergency recovery of these positions was a major factor in market wobbles.

Andy Burnham MP: Gets Culture Media Sport

Burnham's strongest suit of these three would be sport I'd say. Took part alongside myself, Dr Rupa Huq and others from the floor in a Channel 4 sponsored debate on football at Labour's Brighton Conference in 2005. All about the governance of the National Game. Which was the subject of the Conference Resolution I had wanted to take.

Forced by democratic structures to take something altogether more tedious. Along the lines of "Blair Must Go, Soon-ish". Although I got to speak from the platform about the Walter Wolfgang incident and on the floor of half a dozen fringe meetings I was sadly marked out of the game on the conference floor with that particular route one offering.

How Mr Burnham will fare with the hot potato of the Arts Council, Museums and Arts Galleries and so on I don't know.

RESHUFFLE: Yvette Cooper - Chief Secretary; Caroline Flint - Housing Secretary.

Work and Pensions: James Purnell New Hotseat

James Purnell MP has been promoted to Works and Pensions Secretary. He and another young James P, that's Plaskitt, were Junior Ministers in the Department in days of yore with Purnell having the former DSS side.

Apart from continuing the fast-tracking of Purnell this moves him out of the troubled waters of the Department for Culture Media and Sports where Arts Council musical chairs with Regularly Funded Organisations have gone down like a lead balloon.

Thoughts of Charles Clark, Alan Milburn or some other rehabilitation move, gone. Promotion for a woman perhaps for Culture. BBC say Yvette Cooper, LOL suggest Beverly Hughes. Wales? Who knows really. It cannot be a full cabinet post 'solo' as the quota of posts is full. Perhaps "attending as and when".

Plaid Cymru: Are These Boyos in Glass Houses?

Thanks to blogger GW for drawing attention to this Conduct Report: PDF download or online. It concerns Plaid leader Elfyn Llwyd who has not been slow in coming forward on the Hain case, Plaid's Adam Price who was accomplice to Angus MacNeill om police time-wasting who famously likes to play with fire, and Plaid's Hywel Williams singled out for particularly taking the piss on logo size.

They were all carpeted for spending their Communications' Allowances on heavily branded and simultaeneous press advertisements costing around £20,000 and forming I think six full pages of the South Wales Guardian. Shortly before the Welsh Assembly elections.

This trio of famous freedom fighters were forced to repay the money. And their successful attempts to get approval were slammed as being disingenuous. Which could of course be a precedent for slamming George Osborne's supposed off-the-hook email and the process round that - 11 months after the fact, and with an unsuitable question - as similarly unacceptable.

Very interesting indeed that the committee in effect asked the Commissioner for Standards to look at the relationship of so-called "Parliamentary Reports" with the campaigning period. As regular readers will realise the production of such documents by Cllr John Leech MP has clearly been related to election activity in both 2006 and 2007. Just before the formal election period perhaps, but clearly campaigning using tax payers' rather than party monies.

The PDF version of the document includes a copy of each advert in English and Welsh. One of each here for your delectation. Click to enlarge.

ASIDE: It may just be a misprunt of course - with even grocers' apostrophes appearing in the BBC News 24 captions of late - but the Hain story ticker is now saying: "More than £109,000" rather than "More than £103,000".

UPDATE 16:36: There is a great wazzock name of Angus Robertson from the Scottish National Party pontificating and claiming that his own party is immune. I feel a little googling activity coming on on that particular can of worms.

Tom Watson MP: Challenges Dale to Get Kit Off

Tom Watson MP has trumped behemoth Tory Boy Blogger Iain's Dale's fatty banter by taking his kit off on his blog. Absolutely awesome.

Political betting: No Book Yet on Hain Successors

But report that a bet of 7-1 against a resignation this month had been available not so long ago.

Peter Hain: Has Resigned from Work and Pensions

Still continuing as Secretary of State for Wales while he works to clear his name. This follows the Electoral Commission handing findings to Met Police. David Davies is on News 24, doing his level best not to break into a huge grin.

UPDATE: BBC Online got the story at 12.25.

UPDATE 12:50: Contrary to earlier report looks like Hain may be resigning Welsh Secretary role too. Lembit Opik called for him to stay? Plaid Cymru say he'd be welcome back as he has done a good job.

Health: Dale, Lansley & Lamb Piss on Labour Chips

Iain Dale has chosen to make a fat joke and misrepresent one of the ten or so measures and innovations in a £372 million package to turn the tide on the very real and serious problem of obesity. Perhaps his own half stone loss of the past month - many congratulations Iain - has made him giddy and light headed? Though fellow cast members at the Maidstone pantomime (above) claim there is yet to be any real sign of malnourishment.

But that's as cheap a shot as Iain's post.

The BBC summarises the announcements and provides a platform for Messrs Lansley and Lamb to piss on Labour's chips as it were. Iain latches onto the idea of incentives for health gains, just as firmly as "bad" cholesterol latches onto our arteries, with the hilarious observation that a voucher for a successful weight watcher handed to the great unwashed so beloved of the one nation Cuddly Nu Tory will go straight down the takeaway rather than the gym.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! As yesterday's laughing policemen might have chorused.

The headline measures and ideas as reported by the BBC:
* Identify at-risk families and offer early support and advice
* Make cooking lessons compulsory for children
* Increase children's activity levels
* £75m healthy living marketing campaign aimed at parents
* Work with industry to agree a universal food labelling system and to reduce portion sizes of fatty or salty foods
* A review of junk food ad rules
* Limit fast-food outlets near schools and parks
* Incentives to encourage weight-loss
* Personalised support via the NHS Choices website and more weight management services

Let's humour Iain for a moment. Vouchers for clothes or for gyms won't in fact buy a big mac and fries.

But for clothes horses on slighter budgets than Mr Dale losing each dress size means needing to afford new clothes. And healthy food need not be but certainly can be more expensive and/or difficult to prepare than junk. It's not cash Iain.

As I understand it the amounts could be a lite bite compared to Guido Fawke's daily lunch budget. Suggested as many of the measures as for voluntary introduction rather than some kind of state diet and exercise regime. And it is surely cheaper and wiser to prevent ill health than to deal with it down the road?

Tories believe on principle in incentives rather than penalties, no? And on voluntary guidelines to the food industry rather than that big fat State throwing its weight around?

This is incentives rather than penalties but should save the tax payer money. And it's voluntary rather than compulsory. So isn't it a good thing Iain? Rather than something to crack cheap fat jokes at?

Thick Blue Line: Baseball Cap Heist Suspects Go Quietly

In an unprecedented occurence the Metropolitan Police are agreeing entirely with the estimates of some grim faced protestors in the capital. Both groups agree that 18,500 are marching.

The organisers back up their figures with hard evidence. They have run out of baseball caps for their burly activists. 15,000 were ordered, they claim, though we have not seen the receipts.

Rumours emanating from the Met that many of marchers are "cheap slags" who have taken one cap to wear and another to wash are dismissed as "false witness".

The clandestine motto of many "cells" of well drilled protestors, linked in a loose national network, in furthering their ends by "borrowing" from other groups is we're told "Stolen With Pride".

Bob Piper: Uber Blogger Iain Dale in Poll Fraud Hypocrisy

Many thanks to Councillor Bob Piper who has revealled that Iain Dale in criticizing the Lib Dems for facing both ways on electoral fraud is guilty of the very same thing himself. Not one year ago, not one month ago, not one week ago, but this very day! Omitting to provide a link to the newspaper source or refer to the conviction on two offences of personation of the cousin of Tory councillor, but only just, Altaf Adalat:

Meanwhile, (quoth the Birmingham Post in the same article Dale quotes) a Birmingham man was found guilty of rigging votes in a Coventry Council election last week.
Iftikar Hussain, 31, the cousin of Tory councillor Altaf Adalat, denied using the identities of two other people to place fraudulent votes in the Foleshill Ward election on May 4, 2006. Councillor Adalat won the ward by six votes.
A jury at Birmingham Crown Court took just over an hour to unanimously agree that Hussain was guilty on two counts of personation.
During the trial, the jury heard that he used the identities of Abdul Khaliq and Mukhtar Hussain, who were not in the UK at the time. Hussain is due to be sentenced on February 1.

Iain Dale: Libdemologists in Poll Fraud Hypocrisy

Good to see a flurry of posts from Iain Dale late evening after an unexpected 24 hours of silence. Since he revealed his diagnosis with Type 2 Diabetes, which created a treasure house of advice, reassurance and goodwill for anyone facing such a diagnosis, any absence of activity is more noticeable. Best wishes Iain.

This morning normal service is resumed with a juxtaposition of some "holier than thou" Lib Dem Voice crowing with the realities of a Lib Dem on the ground (and in the courts) in Birmingham.

Iain is perhaps a bit quick to agree with LDV that this is a problem of Labour's making. Such shenanigans were of course a feature of British political life long before there even was a Labour Party.

And to bring things right up to date Lib Dem Chris Davies MEP tried to smear his erstwhile colleague Sajjad Karim MEP, the latest Tory MEP and very pleased to be listed as such for 2009, with allegations of underhand tactics in the LD selection.

Pretty rich given that the upsurge in LD fortunes in 2004 was largely fuelled by a communalist campaign by Davies and company, exploiting Karim to the max.

Media Ethics: BBC Man Impersonating Gordon Brown

Disgraceful. Undermining all that is good and holy a BBC Journalist attempted to impersonate our Prime Minister with a view to personal gain.

Guido Fawkes: Lavishes Praise on Gordy For 3% LSE Win

This afternoon that chancer Paul Staines aka daft blogger Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF gives Gordon Brown the credit for today's business at the LSE. Nice to see the super soaraway gain of 3% on the day at close of play. Praise for Gordy doesn't come that often from this direction. He will certainly treasure the accolade.

Andrew Gilligan: Is He Boris Johnson's Little Helper?

Boris Johnson's little helper Andrew Gilligan has yet another smear story in The Standard today. Under the headline Ken aide "breaks rules over election website" Gilligan shows no such thing. Do go and have a read and see how many deliberate mistakes you can spot.

As Mark Twain might have said confronted with this rather than Victorian science: "the wonderful thing about Gilligan's journalism is the huge return of conjecture one gets from such a small investment of fact".

Conjecture, innuendo, smears and in the case of the headline what is on the face of it arrant rubbish. Essentially the new facts in the piece are these:

1. Three web domains were registered all pointing to a campaign website;
2. Apparently registered by a web design company;
3. One that like dozens more has had some GLA or LDA contracts;
4. They used their own postal address;
5. But the contact name of one of Ken's advisors was given;
6. The registrations were made at 11:37 on Friday 13 July;
7. On that date at that time the advisor was working at City Hall.

Sadly, so far at least, The Standard have not published the comment I left three hours ago.

What is the accusation exactly? That someone spent 10 minutes and 5p of council tax precept on a private 'phone call while at work? No it's not even that really is it? You don't know when the call was made or from where or by whom do you? Or that someone else didn't use their name and contact details at 11:37? This is thin Mr Gilligan. Just an excuse to repeat other smears and half stories. It is very thin indeed. Are you actually working for the Boris Johnson campaign yourself? Is that true? Getting paid by The Standard but actually working for BoJo? Sweet.

As indicated above various other stories are rehearsed incompletely. That there was an issue in 2004. That there had been an investigation on grants. And so on. Without indicating the results. Smearage plain and simple.

For all I know this guy has spent five minutes of work time and either a mobile, a web browser or 5p of landline registering these sites. Then again there are many other possible scenarios to explain the facts. Such as: the web design company registered the site. Then there is of course the implication that this design company has been favoured in some way in the past and is returning that favour. But that's odd you know. Because as I say in the rehearsal of the facts above many companies will have won contracts from the GLA, LDA and related accounts.

Coming hot on the heels of the pile of steaming Martin Bright polemic on Channel 4 last night - including of course a reminder of the Standard/Finegold's action against Ken, though not that it collapsed - this shows basically how Ken's enemies know that there is literally NOTHING GOOD ABOUT BORIS versus the Mayor of London's Job. So instead of attempting a positive job selling that gaffe prone clown they are trying to nail Ken with flimsy "investigations" and flagrant dishonesty. Like that presumptuous headline of theirs.

Andrew Gilligan: Is He BoJo's Right Hand Man?

According to Chris Gale in Comments at Tom Watson's blog the famous journalist Andrew Gilligan, who has been using the festering and diseased organ that is the London Evening Standard to attack Ken Livingstone, is deeply implicated in Boris Johnson's campaign. "Right hand man" even. And there was the world thinking Gilligan was an anti-war lefty.

Baby Sitting: Bribing Big Brother to Play Nice?

Extraordinary. At last night's Chorlton Labour Quiz we found a parent who paid the biggest child in their brood to not beat up their sibling(s) in front of the babysitter. This sounds like a protection racket by the child on their parent. Any other examples of strange contracts between parents and offspring?

Guido Fawkes: Boris Johnson Pants Down Fixation

Ho ho ho. Sewer blogger Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF has updated his tedious media sleeping with the enemy story by claiming those of the left who think he's a pillock and more importantly betraying his supposedly libertarian philosophy by moralising in this way ... are hypocrites.

GuF's saying everyone on the left was up for jeering when it was Boris Johnson being caught with his big pants round his ankles.

Actually it is mostly the Tory sewer press that enjoy covering this stuff. But anyway, the difference is that Boris is an elected politician, a shadow mimicster, a London mayoral candidate. He's not a mere scribbler or TV presenter.

Perhaps I should give Guido another example?

If the recently defected Manchester councillor Faraz Bhatti - now a Cuddly New Tory, ex Libdemologist - was not an elected member but was instead a journalist and was caught adulterising ... his community might well be scandalised.

Perhaps his wife's family would give him "a good talking to" for dishonouring their family name?

But as he is an elected member he would also stand to lose his so-called "personal vote". And he couldn't complain if the newspapers went after him for it.

This is of course why most political parties aim to select level headed and highly moral individuals as candidates. David Cameron will have done his due diligence before accepting Faraz Bhatti's highly principled request to join the Tories.

POLITICAL INSIGHT: One possible political difference between Faraz and the Manchester Lib Dems has emerged recently. Enough to cause his defection?

The Lib Dems have been ignoring true falls in crime figures and rises in police numbers since 1997 and calling for more police while simultaneously calling for less action on anti-social behaviour.

Following a recent misunderstanding with police officers in a car park near Manchester Airport Faraz Bhatti is campaigning for less police and more turning a blind eye. "Don't you know who I am officer?"

Hazel Blears Triumphs: Tory Iain's are Polarised

Iain Lindley, a Tory of Salford's Fair City, has been parading his lack of insider knowledge for more than thirteen months now. Iain Dale believed his forename sake. Back in December 2006, and again a few days ago.

Lindley's propaganda has basically been that Hazel Blears will get run very close or actually lose the candidacy for the seat of Salford and Eccles. Last time Mr Lindley came out with this crock and Mr Dale drew attention to this we went to L's site and provided a comment predicting that Hazel would win by 2:1.

Yesterday afternoon it emerged that Hazel Blears had won ... by 2:1.

Mr Dale keeps up his adulation as immortalised by Theo Spark (right) and referred to in one of LOL's very earliest posts.

Mr Lindley continues to whine disingenuously.

He is a Tory after all. What do you expect?