Cameron Apology: You SAID Diesel, THAT BIT Wasn't Howler or Fib

That Channel M Cameron "Debate" suggested some cut and thrust didn't it? But more accurately it was a conversation with a largely sympathetic even sycophantic audience - hand-picked by the MEN, their TV station Channel M, and their Radio Stations too. Particularly liked that lovely "send 'em home" racist Tory guy at about halfway now I've clapped eyes on him. Are you sure he wasn't chosen by the Sunday Mail?

The programme can be watched here. 49 minutes it seems when the adverts are taken out. May have been re-mixed? Not sure.

Wall to wall silliness from Cam. But quite slick with it. Went down well. Like the stuff that spewed from the Torrey Canyon. A real environmental disaster that was. TRIVIA: The section of Mauldeth Road from Barlow Road/Hardy Lane to Princess Parkway in Manchester was known for some years as "Tory Canyon" as the blue filth controlled all the tree posters there.

Back to Cam Flim-Flam. Spending promise after spending promise, but no actual cuts that hurt. Except those ever popular unfunded tax cuts. If I get some time I may have a little old fisk. There are some good old U-turns, bumper giveaways, lots of pie crust promises, as well as all those cut taxes and increased spending mysteries .

"No fan of Dave" was there and offers a few pointers in comments here. MEN Chief Reporter Dave Ottewell protests too much in the same place. But he was in fact absolutely right about Cam quoting Diesel prices. A bit odd. Like quoting the price of bread in dollars and cents for most of the audience. But he did. He has a diesel car don't you see? In his fleet of vehicles.

Yes Dave (Ottewell), it was a coup for your sister organisation getting Cameron on the Manchester Evening News' vanity "community" TV project. Of course it was. If you assisted in making this happen Dave, then it has to be a sincere well done. No viewers, but leader of the opposition. This is quite a feat.

But it wasn't a debate. And Channel M is not a community station in any normal usage. As you suggest Dave it is really a Granada type operation with a somethingly lower budget - though it must be said plenty of GMG shareholders money i.e. the Guardian/Observer development budget is going down the toilet on this one. Scores of local scribblers and snappers also paid with their jobs for this vanity.

The acres of prime and uncritical news coverage in print and radio was of course what Dave Cameron was after. And what he got too.

My mentioning the lack of the promised live blogging and mis-directed links may seem like quibbling Dave, but is not if you're actually relying on the so-called live blogging that doesn't emerge. Or on the misdirected link. Then it's not quibbling. It was and is a fundamental let down. And some kind of apology might be more use than a rather derisory attitude.

Back at the Mother Ship the uncritical Manchester Evening News coverage is a one way street:

While cutting public expenditure and taxes Cameron will pay for every transport improvement we in Greater Manchester, and presumably every other corner of the UK, desire. Which pro rata could be a wonderful and instantaneous £120 Billion windfall for our national transport infrastructure! With no greening required! Though quite a lot, equivalent in 20% in one year, will have to be cut from the national budget for that one!! | But do not worry people! While cutting public expenditure and taxes Cameron is back to his dratted bogus Greenwash and the planet will be saved. By running sex toys off small roof top bird bashers. And other such slippery methods of beating "Peak Oil". | While cutting public expenditure and taxes Cameron wants the government to guarantee all business loans. And incidentally provide a mega-Billion six month delay (in many cases default) in VAT settlements for businesses. Create a parachute for the bosses with this extra cashflow! | While cutting public expenditure and taxes Cameron wants to pay prisons by results. This could create a thriving transfer market for nice lags. And the paradoxical dystopia where the worst ones are minded as cheaply as possible, by minimum wage YOPs trainees perhaps? Or, why not, flinging into oubliettes instead? | While cutting public expenditure and taxes Cameron promises to invest heavily in getting James Purnell and other malingerers weaned off Thatcher's benefits culture legacy. Hurrahs all round.

Iain Dale's Diary: Statistical Twittery With Tony Benn

I've got a hunch going on that says that Mr Dale may be sadly deluded about his readership. One way or another. He says he has 80,000 absolute unique visitors (AUVs) in his latest monthly total. And 600,000 AUVs in the last year.

Here are a couple of for instance explanations for these figures, with the latter 7.5 times the former.

Scenario One: Perhaps he has about 25,000 "regulars" who visit in several months, possibly every month. And then he has towards 50,000 who make one or more visits in a particular month, but never come back.

25,000 + (50,000 * 12) = 625,000

Scenario Two: The Annual AUV figure is no such thing and is instead the sum of M1 ... M12 averaging 50,000 a month. Say 30,000 at the start growing steadily to 80,000.

Let's have this right. These are still very good figures indeed. For UK political blogs. And probably ten times my own or better. For example 10,000 unique visits and 5,000 unique visitors in a good month. Currently running at a bit less than that.

But is it 600,000 unique visitors 95% of whom do not feature in more than one month?

Or is it say 40,000 or so regulars month in and month out topped up with hundreds or thousands of less loyal visitors?

And which of these would you wish for if you were Iain?

Meanwhile. I think there is a tendancy to get these statporn outbreaks wrong and despite coaching from Wardman and others it's a fairly shallow learning curve just now. If I'm right - that it's probably the latter, more loyal model - then Iain's accidentally told Tony Benn a porky pie.

Mr Dale is yet to explain how Mr Benn took him into the wardrobe and explained through their little adventure how Dale's carte blanche for the State of Israel splattering "precision" bombs with a 50% chance of landing within 20 feet of where they were aimed was not in fact very clever at all.

Nanny Spelman: Ripping Off Taxpayer "Not Deliberate", Just Stupid

The temporarily surprisingly fragrant Mister GuF is disgusted with The Standard's report that the tax-payer cheater Caroline Spelman will be cleared of any deliberate wrong doing.

The only logical conclusion from this decision - if it should come to pass - would be that Ms Spelman is INCREDIBLY STUPID.

She employed a nanny under an unusual interpretation of the rules. A mistake. Not the sea to drink. But so stupid was she that she concocted a cock and bull story instead of admitting her mistake and paying back money she could easily afford to reimburse.

And so stupid that her story was quite frankly incredible. So stupid that she had accidentally employed a completely unsuitable "constituency secretary". Using tax payers' money. So stupid that she employed her at a faraway, remote location. Still using tax payers' money. A bit of her home I think it was.

So very stupid that she allowed this woman to carry out an almost negligible workload of "constituency secretary" work. At tax payers' expense.

On the other hand Ms Spelman was also VERY FORTUNATE. Very fortunate that although this unqualified and unsuitable secretary did sweet FA in her main role. Taking the Michael. She was a dab hand at nappies and bottles and buggies and cots.

And - completely free of charge - she looked after Spelman's progeny. So the taxpayer got shafted as she was a terrible constituency secretary and that's what we were paying her for. But Ms Spelman did quite well out of it with a free nanny. Saving herself up to £40,000 per annum at today's prices. There should be a law against it.

Cameron can sack her for guilty as charged and call Sir Michael Lyons names for being so easily taken in by the scummy old sleazebag. Or he could sack her for being incredibly stupid. Or he could sack her because her luck must surely run out.

Turns out the Tories themselves are the source of the Standard story. This means there is a chance they have not retained all the details and nuances of a report that is a few weeks away from publication.

There is no news yet on whether nappy supplies or nursery decoration office fit out were whizzed through the stationery and accommodation account.

Tory Latest Web Cabinet Meeting: Leaked to Labour.org.uk

As originally whacked and leaked, possibly by an anxious and underemployed William Hague, to Labour.

Dave Cameron: Petrol Down to 99 Pence a Litre Gaffe

David Cameron is live on Channel M. He has just claimed that the price of a litre of petrol has now "come down to 99 pence". UPDATE 17:40: Dave Ottewell says it was Diesel, wasn't clear. Not as bad an error as Clegg's pension gaffe. But seriously bad. And preface to lots and lots and lots of other statistical and factual errors. Will try to come back to this programme anon.

UPDATE 13:01: very strange live blog/twitter effort from Sarah Hartley here. Her so-called "live blog" wasn't. Dave Ottewell previewed the event at the Harpic-a-like the Blue Blog, again promising live blogging. And the MEN link to their own Dave Ottewell's blog is unadjacent to the right page. Spurious.
The Channel M front page currently doesn't link. Why did GMG stick £15 M into this Granada-lite effort? It could hardly be more different from real, relevant, refreshing community TV? Just a tired, pale imitation of grown up ITV. And thus doomed to fail its brief. And indeed fail its commercial desires. As part of GMG convergence and concentration business plan.

Kitt (81) and Walters (82): Romance Without Finance is a Nuisance

Romance without finance don't make no sense, no kinda way, buddy can you lend me a dime? Or something like that anyway. Even the top sheet for this top tune is proving elusive.

Like some Peston of the Obituaries the ambulance chasing Bloga Donna Iain Dale took the extraordinary step of claiming a "scoop", "breaking the story" with a wafery wiki-skim death notice of Sir Alan Walters - the Conservative economist credited in some quarters with bringing down Maggie Thatcher. Hurrah! Mr Dale claims the scoop under the self-aggrandising title "First For News" bragging that he had the story at 9pm on Sunday.

Though, strictly speaking, it was at 9:09pm. Whereas Donal Blaney had a slightly skimpier wiki skim much much earlier. At 9:07pm. Though that presumably won't count because Iain won't have seen that. Therefore it did not and does not exist. Perhaps there are still earlier sightings? Does Sir Alan's gerontologist have a blog?

Iain's point such as it is is that various mainstream media published their considered and extended and prominent and original obituaries some hours later than Iain's couple of quickie paragraphs. Though if there is one story that even the most avaricious news makers mostly think can wait it is "news of their death". And although Iain has been right on a political death, he's also been wrong. So perhaps the MSM insisted on seeing the body?

As I recall The Sun had an obit for Alan's arguably far far more important contemporary Eartha Kitt that "sadistic nymphomaniac whose escapades and loose morals were the talk of Paris" a day or two ahead of most of the rest of the media. Ahead even of blogs and broadcasters. On Boxing Day. Whereas some were three or four days later on the case.

Sadly sex-kitten contemporary Sir Alan was not smeared so marvellously, though the Telegraph did have a try with: "a eurosceptic monetarist and the former personal economic policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher".

Here's Lloyd "Tiny" Grimes (tenor guitar and tenor) with an extract from "Never Too Old to Swing". I believe they did record a live performance of Romance ... but can't find a VT of that one just now. The photography of once earthy now heavenly Miss Eartha was uncredited in the Telegraph. Jak Kilby and/or Redferns perhaps?

Iain Dale's Diary: Surviving Sheryl Gascoigne

From the strange post title to the strange insider information that 22 year old Bianca is not Gazza's biological father we do have to wonder what on earth Dale is on abaht.

He does appear to have more sympathy and empathy with the Gazza Crisis than with the Gaza Crisis used as a hook for the post. But Gazza is no more George Best than Dale is Dr Anthony Clare. Painful.

Nadine Does the Time Warp: Left Foot In It, Right Foot In It

It is 23:30 on New Year's Eve. No, what's this? One sentence later it is 23:50. And by the time the thing is finished, presumably shorn of the crassest stupidities, impregnated with the most vital Tory lines, and posted another nine hours have passed.

Nadine Dorries MP - that bright star in the Tory firmament - is emptying her head. Into some chap's computer she is happy to share. There has perhaps been a ceasefire, even if the witching hour prospect is not apparently of New York's Time Square, or otherwise a new front has been opened.

It may be a so-called blog. But this is not a permalink:

In thirty minutes it will be midnight and I excuse myself from the table of my host for a pre arranged appointment with his computer to write my New Year blog. The words “hurry, you only have ten minutes” fly at my back. No pressure then.

It really doesn't matter how long you have Nadine. If this is to be authentic Dorries' it will not matter. It will be muppetry and twittery, of that there is no question.

He (Darcy?) follows me into his study with a bottle of the best Champagne I have ever tasted and re fills my glass. I sit in front of his computer which has a screen bigger than the TV in my lounge. This is a serious computer. It is very used to serious input and I wonder how it will react to temporary ownership by a blogging back bench opposition MP.

So called "blogging" back bench opposition MP ...

The technology contained on this desk makes me feel insignificant.

It at least has the good sense to keep its own counsel.

As I begin to type I can imagine the monitor mouthing in disgust “Oh for goodness sake!” I press very firmly before it attempts to cross its keyboard arms in protest and repel me. There is a green light at the top in the middle of the screen. I would not list paranoia as my main fault, however, this computer is either watching me or I have had too much Champagne.

What would the barking Nadine Dorries list as her main fault then? Persistent fibbery, runaway self aggrandisement, sickening lack of recognition of public-private boundaries, and going along with that, let's not forget, that faux sensitivity?

I distract myself by moving my thoughts to things more political.

Which may be post-rationalising code for some serious morning after re-writing of that arrant midnight twaddle ...

As I left Westminster before Christmas the only conversation was speculative general election chatter. Having died away during the holiday it will re ignite upon our return, if for no other reason than it can only be eighteen months away at most.

To be replaced with more arrant twaddle. 18 months being potentially a full third of a term.

In recent weeks I haven’t met anyone of any political persuasion who believes that Labour can win another term, despite the ominous arrival of Mandy - frequently spotted looking down over the debating chamber in the weeks leading up to recess.

Nadine really should get out more. From a situation of just a few hold outs here in Manchester a year ago we've now reached widespread optimism of that historic fourth term, to follow this historic third term and the extraordinary rally in the polls. Which naturally followed not only Mandy's arrival but also my own bold predictions of August 2008.

But what's this? More fascinating insights from Nadine.

My impression of Mandy is that he is both a pragmatist and a strategist. A founder and architect of New Labour, one has to assume his loyalty will be wedded to the cause above the individual.

What on earth is this supposed to mean? That here is a professional politician? Not someone who will be off helping run an oil speculators, a global tobacco empire, a property development business, a couple of city firms before breakfast, superior wallpaper for hoorays and rangers, or an after dinner speaking pantechnicon? Someone with public service and getting things done "for the many not the few" at his core. Whatever may surround that vocation.

If your overriding concern was for the New Labour project to remain in power in the long term, what would your advice to the PM be?

I'm sure Gordon Brown, and indeed Peter Mandelson too, was waiting breathless for Nadine's analysis. And this disdainful "remain in power" rather than the real "get things done for the many not the few" is so very wearing isn't it? The Tories covet the power after all. To get things done for the few not the many I'll be bound. Looking at their traditional yet painfully inexperienced line up of wealth, privilege and dilettante arrogance this conclusion if hard to escape:

Would it be based on damage limitation? Is his job to persuade the PM to go sooner, maybe in June at the same time as the Euro and local elections, rather than wait and see how bad it will be in 2010 risking even bigger defeat?

Wishful thinking from the Labour Party's second Favourite Tory "Blogger". The decision can only be based on "getting things done" and "for the many not the few" meaning that anything less than an overall majority will be extremely disappointing.

But there's more:

As the Christmas holiday period ends jobs are going to fall out of the sky like snowflakes.

Be careful what you wish for Nadine and in what contorted terms ... we know what you're trying to say, even if it is redundancies rather than jobs that you think are going to be falling, I mean rising ...

The economic picture remains gloomy and predicted job losses high and rising. If un-employment tips past the three million mark we may begin to witness civil un-rest as the poor become poorer and the poverty gap widens.

Civil unrest? Like we had last when the Tories broke thew back of the mining industry or came up with the Poll Tax instead of something based on "how big is your house" as they have recently criticised Labour for continuing? If you want to see civil unrest it's Tories like Nadine you need in power.

Issues such as NHS reform and Education simply don’t resonate with families totally absorbed with making ends meet on a day to day basis.

Really, Nadine, you don't understand anything do you? Nothing. Not a thing. People not only want reliable and adequate services. They also want to hope that public sector and public services jobs WILL NOT BE SHED AT SUCH A TIME when the variable part of the economy, based on profit and to a large extent on discretionary spending, is a bit stuck. Not least because of doom mongering.

And we continue to hope that as health and training needs INCREASE there will be no DECREASE in provision as Nadine and Nu Tough Cam appear to be suggesting.

When you lose your job, can’t pay the mortgage and your main worry is do you have enough money to buy food to feed your children before the next benefit payment, I would imagine that political nuances fly straight over your head. All you would be interested in is putting someone in power who can deliver change and throw the economy a life raft.

Of course this is coming from a woman "born in a council house" (not), who knows all about living on the breadline (again, not), and for whom "political nuance" is bread and butter (distinctly not).

As the black cash in hand market exploited by the poorest is also hit by recession, my prediction is that 2009 will be a bleak year with no relief in sight for 2010.

What twaddle Nadine. Black cash? Black cash in hand? Black market? What utter twaddle. It's "black economy" - if you must - and that derogatory idea, of unaccounted for cash in hand, is hardly the exclusive preserve of the poorest. The richest specialise in it.

But what pessimistic twaddle this official Tory line through the prism of dim Nads really is.

Mandelson’s job over the next few months may well be to advise the PM to go sooner rather than later. The advice of MPs will be to wait as they cling onto their seats. Whether or not the election will take place in 2009 is anyone’s call.

Not thankfully Nadine's, or dangerous Dave's. Just now Gordon is not interested in fighting an election. There is a downturn to see off first. But at some point needs must.

There'll never be a great time for the next general election given the backdrop. So when an election comes it will have to be a quickie.

I have favoured June 2009 since the Blair-Brown succession. It is the four-year anniversary. It would help see off the BNP. The need for MORE not LESS mediation of Tory Boy capitalism - as their right reverends pointed out - will remain as clear as can be.

And yes, whenever the election may be Nadine it WILL be about "damage limitation". Limiting, indeed preventing the damage that would almost certainly be caused if Nadine's people were calling the shots.

Iain Dale: Not Driving Bad Taste Nails into Gordon's Political Coffin

Iain Dale seems determined to keep the title as Labour Party Favourite Political Blogger with a bad taste coffin/headstone schtick and nothing to back it up. Not even the bare bones of a theory or an action plan.

As usual Mr Dale thinks Mr Cameron's job is easy. he just has to pin the blame for the world's woes on Mr Brown. Simple Pimple.

This simplistic schtick won't stick unless Iain and his blunt-witted mates can produce a Tory-style economy somewhere in the known world where there were no problems from the world/US situation.

If he could do that and if it is a comparable economy - Japan? Germany? USA? France even? - someone might believe that a Tory Govt would and would have avoided the problem.

If he cannot, and he knows he cannot nowdoesn't he, then Gordon will continue to enjoy the confidence of the electorate for providing action and leadership instead of these weak and unbackable assertions. And Cam's slump will continue even if Bishop Duff and Bishop Duffer offer prayers in aid.

Their critique was naturally of capitalism and capitalist types. They were calling the government names for insufficient mitigation of the disastrous greed and carelessness of Tory Man.

The gravestone Iain publishes is of course in the worst possible taste. This sort of thing is why he will retain the title as the Labour Party's Favourite Tory Blogger Iain even as the Tories re-achieve parity and very likely drop behind once again.