Sunday, March 29, 2009

Tory Blogs: Knees Turned to Water, Think They're Going Blind


Iain Dale has made what seems like a rather spurious attack on John Mann MP HERE. Questioning how it is that Mann is not on the backs of Labour second homers as, allegedly, he would be if it were Tories. Like for example the unfortunately misrepresented Eric Pickles MP. But John Mann specialises in outing strange and incorrectly declared political contributions not claims under MP's institutionally disreputable terms and conditions. Iain has missed the target by a mile here.

His commenters care little for Mann and are using this vacuum to bleat about a Jacqui Smith story of dubious merits. Two feature films with 18 classification plus three other features were mistakenly not excluded from a claim for the broadband connection(s) which MPs are entitled to claim.

These two pay-per-view films - costing about £7:50 altogether - are being characterised throughout the Tory blogosphere as "adult", "porn", "sleaze" and so on. Although the rather thin story is on the cover of the inky Sunday Express it does not have a link of any kind from the front page of the web edition. In fact it looks as if the story has been somethingly spiked.

Seems like a very minor clerical error on the part of the Smith office. And one that was immediately corrected at that. The hypocritical, puritanical, and possibly disingenuous gutter media and gutter bloggers are going at it hammer and tongs with prurient ridiculousness on a story whose knees have turned to water. As Ivor Biggun would say. It doesn't have the legs. The Express have all but removed it.

Meanwhile Nigel Griffiths MP really should have a word with Max Mosely.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could the quick back oedeling by the Express have anything to do with the "Adult" publishings of the "Express's" owner.

Me thinks we should be told, and how much of the profit of the porn magazines ends up in the coffers of the Tory Party ?

GW

Chris Paul said...

Interesting question GW. The story that appears online at the Express seems much much shorter than the one in the print edition. But the essential story hasn't really gone away. It's an error. It's an embarrassing error. But it's a small error. A very small error. In April 2008. And apparently not repeated since.

Osborne forgot to declare considerable six-figure donations from Rothschilds etc. Duncan did similar. And the media are getting excited about £20 on movies?

But it's hard to imagine the Express have back pedaled over solidarity with adult pay-to-view or on instructions from the Tories.

benchilltory said...

i think the dirty films thing a bit comical.
i find claiming 88p for a plug very
sad