Cable Television: Vince Gets Coverage Because George is Piss Poor

Iain Dale asks why Vince Cable is getting such an easy ride from the mass media. His latest wittering around scrapping the 50% aspiration (not target) for students going into HE is populist but would have little effect on the public finances in the short or medium term.

Vince Cable gets an easy enough ride. But it's a wonder really that he's getting a ride at all. He's finance spokesman for the third party. A third party who are looking fairly lost to be honest. Who are losing their way in their local fiefdoms such as islington and Liverpool. And who have little or no coherent national policy. They are in fact an apolitical franchise spreading local misery and hopelessness.

The fact Cable is getting such coverage speaks volumes for George Osborne and even Ken Clarke's success, or rather lack of it, in articulating anything much at all. And when GOO plunges in he shows himself to be a very weak, arm bands kind of swimmer.

As reported for example by Stephen Tall at LDV.

Who Gives Best Lib Dem Oral?: Sack Cyril Smith From List

Lib Dem Voice are running a public poll on the matter of who is the greatest living orator in their tradition. They have included the bare-bottom smacker, ballbag fondler, asbestos arse licker, and miscarrier of sex murder justice Sir Cyril Smith MBE in their short list. Commenters have suggested towards twenty further nominees for the list. Blooming Lib Dems! All over the place. Paddy Pantsdown and Shirl the Pearl are running away with it so far.

Here's my comment:

Cyril Smith?

He could not orate his way out of a paper bag. We know for sure that one or two of his more extended parliamentary contributions were written for him by the Health and Safety nightmare that is the Asbestos Industry. He delivered one of them - with his chums in the gallery - even though an amendment and not the substantive motion was being put.
And he had a nice line in kangeroo courts involving vulnerable youth being persuaded to take a beating from his own fair hands rather than other consequences.
And of course he manufactured outrage at any delay in the wrongful conviction of Stefan Kiszko with a Lib Dem escaping prison for many years due to this gross error.
Please take Cyril off this list. He is and always was a ******* disgrace. Tell Dave Hennigan (Cyril's number one fan) to go swivel.

I've voted for John Pardoe. Not because he's any good on the stump. But as a protest at the inclusion of the large than life fiddler on the hoof. Pardoe will get next to no votes in his own right. This makes him a perfect avenue for a protest vote. Fly, fly my pretties, fly. (Misquote by the way, not even close).

The Economy: Tories and Corporates Cannot and Do Not Add Up

When it comes to the Economy it seems that Iain Dale continues to follow careless fact gathering with silly analysis and doctrinaire opinions. Here Iain claims a £39 Billion hole in our National budget per year. Treason! Yesterday morning that was. And like George Osborne on various media outlets Iain calls vaguely for deep and immediate public expenditure cuts.

In fact the £39 Billion total needs to be found over the next six years. Between 2009-10 and 2015-16. And in fact like hapless George before him Iain deserves to be ridiculed for his pathetic alarums. GOO was torn to shreds all day for his lack of a coherent alternative. He's such a feather lightweight.

Spookily £39 Billion is the per annum estimate from insurance group LV on the unpaid care received by the elderly. HERE. Given the vested interests of the Private Health insurance Market a health warning is needed here? However there is an interesting piece of head emptying on Labour List about Carer's Allowance and rather spuriously some alleged local democratic deficit in the People's Party.

In the course of a comment on this I reckoned that £200 Million per week would be needed to raise the Carers' Allowance to £250 per week and drop the means testing. That would be around £10 Billion a year. And that includes carers of every type, not just those for the elderly. Perhaps LV= went to the same school for scandalously bad statistics as Iain Dale?

UPDATE 15:52: Their workings are here. Essentially LV= charge out all contact between the elderly and their offspring at £8.27 an hour. Which is the going rate for personal care. Next time you visit your parents or receive your children as guests don't forget to draw up an appropriate invoice. Talk about the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

The Last Supper: Gazette Sausages on Salford Toast

Gosh. The Press Gazette, like a pig pulling a cart of pork sausages is drawing its own conclusion. Julian Cope I believe. May issue, out soon will be the last. The Salford Star meanwhile is toast. Even their obituary in the Gazette is inaccurate and self-aggrandising.

SO-SO Tories: Prezza Haymaker on Chinless Wonder Hannan

John Prescott MP (top video) may have hardly heard of Daniel Hannan MEP (bottom video) before Desperate Dan started his mad ass attention seeking. But now John's overjoyed that this Godalming eminence grease - who bigged up Icelandic banks and their Tory go faster de-regulation before hypocritically attacking their Tory mess - is in the public view, showing the dark heart of the conservative party.

Dan supported Cam because his waters told him that despite pretending to be charming and caring Cam was and is as right wing Anti-Europe, Pro-Rich and Anti-Public services as he - Hannan of the Hype - is himself. Strangely enough LOL have been unable to find a picture of the pair of them together. Can any reader assist? Cam may consider that he needs to distance himself from his political heartland.

Danny Boy lays into the Tory-anathema that is our glorious National Health Service about five minutes in. Warning the USA against such civilisation and humanity.

The whole thing is Tory Bile at its brightest and best:

Mea Culpa: Absent Without Leave For The weekend

Gosh! That seems to be a whole weekend with no blog posts. Goodness me. Once in a blue moon. The major activity of the weekend has been a trip to Bristol on Saturday to wish my Gran Mabel a Happy 103rd Birthday.

Outstanding feature of this party being the live showing of the Grand National on the big screen. Apparently one or two Little Sisters of the Poor might have been strung up by other residents had they not laid on this extravaganza.

Holy Multimedia Grandma! Big screen. Big FO Projector. Excellent surround sound. Great race. And great win for one of the greatest underdogs of all time.

Had the party proceeded as scheduled on Sunday I suppose they have had to show United's purgatory and eventual salvation. Ronaldo snoozing to two. Plus Whiteside Nova. Injury time goal and yellow card on debut. Terrific.

It's Official: Tory Web Guru Shapps Tweets His Brains

When Tory T'Interweb Guru Grant Shapps claimed that his digital identity had been hijacked by someone or other, correctly guessing that his password was, and I kid you not, "1234" we knew he was an idiot at best and more likely an idiot with no grasp of the difference between truth and fiction, and a predilection for threatening legals.

No-one surely would choose "1234" as a password for an electronic forum? Particularly not a T'Interweb guru. But this was how Grant claimed all sorts of nonsense came to be done in his name. Today he tweets - see it here at his curious pop star twitter home - alerting us to a nit-picking non-sequitor at his personal speak my brains forum.

Spuriously linking painless, costless PCT re-branding with changes elsewhere in the NHS.

Damn Lies and Statistics: 97% of Public Don't Trust Journalists

Courtesy of Mister GuF's "read elsewhere" sidebar we learn (a) only 3% trust journalists and (b) that journalist Fraser Nelson claims 72% want public spending cuts. These two things we've learned should be closely linked. The latter poll, conducted by PoliticsHome, is by "deliberative polling" where the pollsters or the client (The Spectator) advance presumably perfectly balanced arguments on the subject ahead of the choice. The questions themselves are leading. The deliberation is leading. And 18% of the respondents think - even after all the leading - that any overspending is marginal, "a little". 54% would be a more reasonable headline. I've not seen the actual polling results. But Fraser's write round seems to conflate the level and cost of any fiscal stimulus with the level and cost of public services.

The public are 97% right not to trust journalists.

Here's the clincher. Revealing that the panel were opt ins consulted by email, and that the actual results were weighted to reflect what is called "party identification". Although that concept is supposed to be fixed, tribal, gut feeling it is actually a moving feast and even in the best of times is pretty seriously anti-government:

PoliticsHome interviewed 1406 UK adults by email between 25–26 March. Results are weighted by party identification to reflect the UK at large

.

Iain Dale Pooper Scooper: GB "Announces" General Election Date

Oh dear. Iain Dale has discovered the dates of the General Elections from now to eternity. I have asked him when the document to which he refers - the Constitutional Reform Bill - was actually published by Lords Hansard. Answer here and above. It's either quite a scoop - well, apart from the possibility of amendment or action before it is enacted - or evidence that the April Fool meme reaches all layers of Society. For there is such a thing.

UPDATE 18:35: It emerged pretty swiftly that Iain Dale was wrong. This was not a Government Bill. And it was not an April Fool as such. Just Lib Dems business as usual. To be fair Iain's source was stone wrong. But Withering Vine have scored through their whole story. Whereas Iain's story stands with partial correction.

Tedious MP Vouchers For Sale: Less Than £500 Per Constituency

The Times reported yesterday that they had been approached "by a businessman" 11 days before the Sunday Express publication of some Jacqui Smith material. With the £300,000 price tag. HERE. Now young Paul Staines/Guido Fawkes/Mister GuF has offered to receive the material free and gratis and see to it that it is web-posted - out of reach of the UK authorities - within 24 hours.

Mmmmm. Conduct Dutch auction for material as a complete package? Or drip, drip, drip in a death by 500 stories? Or give it all to Guido? Put yourselves in the businessman's position. Which would you choose?

Strikes me that the current asking price is less than £500 per constituency. Even in these straightened times you'd expect local papers or political opponents to be able to raise £500 per constituency for an oggle at these papers? Of course if the Commons had been answering the many and varied Freedom of Information requests for MPs expenses, or simply publishing the lot proactively, there would be little or no market in this 99.9% tedious material. As all the scanning and so on is we hear complete could not the government burst this bubble, or lance this boil, TODAY?

And what about employees names? There may be arguments for these to not be disclosed. Being confidential personnel records. The names of any and all more casual employees included in these vouchers when they are officially published might well be redacted.

LOL are interested in these below the radar ones. Working on an ad hoc basis. Possibly cash in hand. Without ever getting close to parliamentary email addresses. Deniable. In some cases perhaps laundering monies back into local political party units rather than keeping the fruits of their labours? Or simply avoiding tax and national insurance.

We would need access to MP and local party bank accounts and cash ledgers to get anywhere near transparency on some of this below the line carry on. Which party of government would have the guts to retrospectively require all MPs and political units to go completely open book? To require proper auditors instead of friendly and amateur volunteers?

Guardian Twittering From G20 Skirmishes: Hot Type Here

Guardian have four twitterers from the G20 demonstration. And I have a genuine story so fantastical that I cannot stick it on the blog until after noon lest it be mistaken for an April Fool. @kennardcif (almost 'canard' - born for it?) | @lenadecasparis |@rowenna_davis | Sunny Hundal @pickledpolitics. Instead of linking to the twitter pages the Guardian link to CIF profiles. They just don't get it. @jessica_cif?? nope, sorry is nipping down to Max Spielman's kiosk every few minutes to provide quality photographs from the scribblers (tappers?) sides. Now owned by that newest Tory MP Timpson ... who said the Credit Crunch was good for no-one? This one is from Lena. There is a scribble pad for all five of them at the first link above. Sunny is slacking. To put it mildly.