Lord Taylor of Solihull: To Be Replaced by Baron Muir of Pepys?

Just a couple or five of hours ago we visited the blog of Lord Taylor of Warwick via Ealing and espied there a rather belated piece of Baronic prattling about one Professor "The Grump" Gates and another Sergeant "White Magic" Crowley. Each accusing the other of unnecessary assiduousness, and/or super soaraway foolishness and/or somethingly discordant attitude. And not particularly smoothed over by any beer summit, now with corn chips.

The first prattling on the ignoble platform of fleeting dignity since the unfathomably elevated Taylor - ever the deep race relations thinker - was caught bang to rights by the ranking Sunday Times with some breaking and (not) entering activity around his own homestead(s). Probably very very similar cases? The juxtaposition could certainly create that impression.

Turns out Taylor of Warwick continued to count the eponymous Warwick or to be precise Solihull as his "main home" in his heart of hearts. Even when his mum Enid had passed. And her home too alas had passed or, in the vernacular, conveyanced to the other side.

Taylor of Solihull, TOS for short, didn't live there even before she died and it was sold. The odd visit. Very odd. According to net twitchingly nosy then and achingly garrulous now neighbours. And he didn't even feel the need to go back to the area, to keep his main home there, even though he sometimes liked to pretend he was propping up the Bar there. As a barrister. Though he's not practiced for years. Gotta be rusty by now?

But that's just details. Splitting hairs. WarwickSolihull remained his heart's "main home", and not Ealing where all the rest of his body and his family lived. This was just as well. As, because of his heartfelt and declared in triplicate "main home", those nice people at the Fees Office pretty much forced a daily attendance allowance on him.

For ever so many days as well. Was he really working there that much? We're not sure to be frank. Latterly £174 per day anyway. Just for signing in and chilling. Some £70,000 in total has been drawn down. To help him keep up, ahem, both his homes.

In short Taylor was found out passing himself off as someone whose main home for allowances purposes was "where the heart is" with his old mum Enid (or in one piece of spinning on the grave Madge) in Solihull.

Very very sadly indeed mummy's boy Taylor did not think to bring his heart along with the rest of his body to his family home in Ealing. Or when that family kicked him out, for "fairy stories" or some such, just round the corner, though still in Ealing.

All especially sad when Enid Taylor died more than eight years ago. In Spring 2001. With the home, which John Boy still thought of as late as 2007 as his "main home" for all sorts of purposes, also sold that year. Autumn 2001.

What did this stalwart of exemplary leadership, Christian missions, and uplifting quotations tell the tax man we wonder? Was there a flip in there somewhere?

It seems that, absolutely beside himself with greed (geddit?), Taylor continued to call it his main home and to claim Lords attendance allowance until 2007. Very rum indeed. We repeat: £70,000 in all. A good haul even by Tory standards. And more than sneaky Lord Rennard managed in his own little two homes and attendance allowance for old rope ramp.

Probably about five hundred or so days claimed as the daily rate has grown towards the latterday saints' £174 per diem.

Designed this allowance, we feel, for those with out of town main homes in mind. Not just in mind. Real out of town homes to maintain. We suspect this was particularly not intended for those handy for any one of the seven (is it seven?) Ealing and Acton stations on Mister Boris' fine Underground network.

Lord Taylor of Warwick - whose off colour commentary on the papers' review
I've previously blogged about - very mistakenly claimed £70,000 from the taxpayer in attendance allowance for Lords service.

Having been one of the Major ennoblements. Largely 'cos the beastly pre-diversity Tories had made life a misery for him in Cheltenham where he failed to get elected as he wasn't "local". In fact it's thought they dubbed him "not local as the ace of spades". Which shows a very wonderful command of "old Tory". "Come on you black bastard!" they'd shout as Taylor struggled with the quaint old gauntlet of fascists and racists of their number.

He claimed for about 500 attendances then. Perhaps more, depends on how these fell against the changing price. Up to 2007 when he stopped claiming. Just six years after Ma passed over and her Solihull home too conveyanced to the other side ... But according to The Public Whip website, Lord Taylor has an attendance record at the Lords of 17.9 per cent, having voted 243 times out of a potential 1,348.

With a good few of these votes clustered onto less than 243 days. But how many brilliant speeches did he make ahead of those 243 votes?

Well, unlucky thirteen in all. So, that's cost the taxpayer only a little under £5,400 apiece ... But he's made just the one in the past year. Too busy with his "church work" and his little Lords-based sidelines. Here's a bit of the speech. A hell of a mess. Gordon Gekko? Mystic Mug? Saving for a rainy day? :

My Lords, someone once said, "Greed is good". That was the dreadfully misguided mantra of Gordon Gekko. He was the mercenary financial trader, a character played by Michael Douglas in the Oscar-winning Hollywood film "Wall Street" in 1988. The film ended with Gekko in ruins when his greed backfired, but Oliver Stone, the film's director, was dismayed to see that Gekko became a hero to many wannabe financiers, rather than a warning. Considering the credit and casino-type banking culture which then dominated the next 20 years, the moral of the film was ignored.

Our whole finance and economic system is based on confidence, which is sometimes not objective or rational. There was a time when the City and Wall Street were seen as the masters of the universe. No longer. The scale of the financial and economic downturn has surprised many. Loss of confidence has fathered the fear factor. Economic forecasters now seem less like Mystic Meg and more like "Mystic Mug". Even in this noble and learned House, no one can confidently predict whether the Dow or FTSE will
rise or fall tomorrow.

I agree with the charge sheet highlighted by my noble friend Lady Noakes at the beginning of this debate. No one doubts that there is a global recession, but the Government did not save for a rainy day. That is a fact, and it is not only raining now — it is pouring.

Here's the comment I left at Taylor of Warwick's blasted blog:

Gates' good reason jet lag and beer summit on plane?
Meanwhile John Taylor you have been accused of having £70,000 of tax payers money in a mistaken claim for Lords attendance allowance of £174 per day. You have made just one speech in the last year - hilariously about greed around cash money - and just 13 speeches in eight years.
Where is the coverage of this personal experience - what blogs are for - rather than an out of time paean to racial profiling. In doing this are you suggesting ever so slightly that the Sunday Times may be in the same territory in catching you in such apparently inexplicable and inexcusable mistakes?
Are you going to hang up your ermine and do the right thing here? Or press on regardless and hope that no-one will have noticed?

ILLUSTRATIONS: These are stolen with pride from the Guardian Diary which leads with this story today. Or at least the top one is. That's Lord Taylor himself. Pre-disgrace. The lower one however is our suggestion for a replacement.
Now that Hugh Muir has gotten himself some decent story tips and not found himself slumming in the dirty underbelly of that nice conservative home call a spade a spade and a bitch a bitch blog comments, getting Mr Dale into a fine paddy, we're sure all can be forgiven. All can be forgotten. He's a shoo in surely?
A tad younger. And all his hair his own. And not based in Solihull. And unlikely to ejaculate inappropriately about "giving Carla Bruni one" on BBC News channel.
But examine the "before" and "after" pictures carefully. No neantherdal Tory need even know that the greedy shyster Taylor's fallen on his sword.

Labour of Love: Normal Service Will be Resumed Shortly

The plan is for normal service to be resumed shortly. We don't intend to go the way of Cllr Kerron Cross. KC has pulled the plug on his cheerful blog, without even posting the promised traveloguey stuff. Boo hoo. An explanation is promised in due course. But where will that appear? The world of the Labour Blog is turned upside down.

Will Parbury is not firing on all cylinders by any means.
Tom Miller 2.0 has "done a Kerron" and skulked away.
Recess Monkey was resting last time I looked.
Luke Akehurst is ticking over, but far from prolific.
Hamer Shawcroft's British Bullshit Foundation is still sadly on ice.
John Leech Watch is not paying attention to John Bull any more.
Idiots 4 Labour are cackling maniacally only to themselves.
Bloggers 4 Labour is still running a comprehensive feed, but not much else.
Fightback, replacing a similar Labour ultra blog, was KO'd in Round One.
Ridiculous Politics has also packed in the good fight.

That's ten significant obituaries or hiatuses in a couple of short years. A first XI adding Kerron back in. And of course there are many more. Some of these may come back from the dead. But has there been similar attrition in other parts of the political spectrum?

Has the advent of new investors at Labour Home, the advent of Labour List, cheeky chappie Tom Harris MP, beloved of the Tories, and the Go4th and Alastair Campbell axis stymied others? Perhaps for some proprietors it is competition from real life politics and/or family life? Or is it a rush of lively new voices?

UPDATE Thu 08:49: Pleased to see that John Leech Watch is not quite as dead in the water as I thought. And Luke is out of Hospital and possibly even living closer to his local truffles and champagne socialist bar, all the better to wheel himself there. Will Parbury is making blog-orphaning excuses in comments involving prolific tweeting and others are willing Kerron Cross to make a Kezia-like comeback.

Meanwhile I have added a classy video performance from Mr Tractor Production Statistics Gordon Brown - on global connectivity and anti-poverty - and also a secret seven of Labour freshies, all with NW or at least Northern connections, to the LOL bog roll.

HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. And I'll also be adding Paul Halsall's English Eclectic, soon as.

Rainman Hacker McKinnon: Has Peter Hain Changed His Mind?

Didn't see Question Time last week. But gloss of the proceedings suggested that Peter Hain was seriously out-numbered in basically supporting the McKinnon extradition. Now the BBC have him preferring a UK trial. So has Mr Hain changed his mind or has some journalist, at The Daily Mail or even the BBC, misinterpreted his statements? Probably not. Here it is again in The Daily Telegraph. Or perhaps it was the not so trusty glosser that got it wrong? Hoon was the last Labour Minister on QT for starters ... BBC iPlayer. And I saw that one.

MYSTERY SOLVED 19:05: Gloss was good. It was Any Questions on Radio 4. With Comrade P Hain shown the light by Commissar D Green and Sister T Gold. BBC iPlayer, again.

Tory Lord Taylor of WarwickEaling: Worse Than Rennard & Dorries?

If nothing else news that Lord Taylor of Warwick (criminal's own website) is in fact a very naughty boy and strictly speaking "of Ealing" should keep him from smarming around so disgracefully on the BBC News Channel paper reviews. There have been times when his nudge nudge "I'd give her one" (well perhaps not quite that) kind of sexist gaiety has not only been extremely embarrassing for BBC presenters but also almost literally sick making. Good job Honest John has lots of missionary positions or we'd think the worst.

In essence this toerag appears to have been caught in a great web of deceit. Using a mother (Enid or Madge?) who died in 2001, and her home, sold in 2001, as "main home" cover for years and years of House of Lords subsistence claims at £174 per night, tax free. Worse even than Rennard. Worse than Dorries.

Weasel words on this continued it seems until 2007. The man plied his trade as a barrister "in the Midlands" - er, no, not quite true, unless he's been plying this trade without the knowledge of the Bar Council, since 1993 when they spotting him bar-weaseling his last. And he's done bit of Assistant District Judging, though again not in the Midlands, and again not recently.

"Honest John" has in fact lived in Ealing pretty much all along, presumably not far from some of the Ann and AndrewAlan Keen homes in that part of town (ish, thanks Sadie!), to which I'll return, though he's in a presumably seedy bachelor pad. His long suffering wife and family kicked him out in 2004. What else has he been doing then? Over to the Times:

He held two high-profile roles: as vice-president of the British Board of Film Classification in London and chancellor of Bournemouth University. At the same time he ran his Ealing-based public relations company and was chairman of a Surrey recruitment firm ...
Yesterday a close family member said Taylor had not had a home outside London since he moved to Ealing in 1995. Another relative described claims he had lived with his mother after entering the Lords as “fairy stories”.

Just imagine the banter at the BBFC when the noble Lord was reviewing some XXXX material. "Phwoar!" But what of right now? Lord TOE seems to be nothing but a full time Con man and part time BBC paper reviewer and dirty leerer who perhaps tried a bit too hard at that. His wiki is a stub. Not much of substance. A stub. A stubbed TOE?

POSTSCRIPT: Back in 2001 the BBC reported on his various rows with the backswoodsmen of the Tory Party. Even tangling with William Hague. Perhaps Vague could consider removing Taylor along with Archer and Ashcroft? The latter famously failing to honour his promise to pay tax in the UK. Making liars of both Hague and of Cameron himself.

Hat tip: Donal Blaney who may be so gleeful as the WLF (Warwick Leadership Foundation) and other business interest in PR and the Law may be a rival to his own nonsense. Not least his YBF (Young Britons Foundation), training the activists of tomorrow. Mostly towards drunken and foul-mouthed disgrace as it goes.
Meanwhile Lord TOE uses his quote of the day to claim that his conscience is clear. Pssshaw!

Tackling Tory -Isms: Give Us Ground Zero Or Accept Tinkering

Further to Iain Dale's lame attack on Harriet we have shrill Shane Greer getting lamer still. Taking his red ink cue from Guido perhaps he squeals:

Harman’s latest crusade is an insult to women, and in particular an insult to the memories of those women who fought and won equality for their gender based on a very simple idea, merit.

What complete and utter tummy rot from yet another relatively merit-less Tory squeal-baby. Harman's proposal, which Shane wrongly describes as "her latest campaign", it's not, it's a long game, is about tackling decades nay centuries of negative discrimination. Negative discrimination that totally twatty Tories like Shane Greer are in complete denial about.

We don’t have another 50 years to wait for all the male bedblockers and their feisty-for-him-even-when-scorned-and-cheated loyal wifies to drop dead. Ditto white, straight, upper class, born rich. For institutional and societal -isms of all kinds to be laughed out of town.

If we were clearing the decks in every elected office, every institution, every public service and if you like re-advertising with a blank sheet to begin with and with former incumbents barred from interfering and choosing successors then merit might well come to the fore.

Fairly quickly. Hegemonic groups would still have some advantage. But it would be greatly reduced by not having bums on seats, and not bossing selection.

Had merit already run free as These Totally Twatty Boy Tories like Greer and Dale and Blaney and Hendren* would have it then 51% of our parliamentarians, and 51% of our councillors, and 51% of our boardrooms, and 51% of all office and power would surely be in the hands of women? Unless that is these TTTBTs are suggesting that "on merit" 15% and less is your lot?

Merit clearly needs a helping hand. And in giving merit a helping hand we instantly increase the selection gene pool, provide an example for others, smash a log jam of pathetic conservative excuses, including the con-fem bravado, and what’s more advance meritocracy AND equality AND the absolute standard of those in public life.

Labour should hang the ridiculous Cam Twat Tories out to dry on this one. Tories are denying inequality, and Tories are denying the causes of inequality, and Tories are denying the means to address inequality. Pah-bloody-twatty-thetic.

FOOTNOTE: Penny Red, aka Laurie Penny is absolutely correct to say: Harriet Harman's idea that men cannot run things without women is misandrist and untrue, except that that is not really Harriet's idea now is it Laurie? As, to be fair, you go on to discuss. Just a soundbite for an engaging headline-come-linkbait?

No homogenous group can run things as well on their own as they would with heterogenity. Whether this is the nations' boardrooms say of casino banks or the corridors of political power this is the case.

Only utter fools would argue that selecting for any office or power from 10% of the population - let's say white, middle-class, male for argument's sake - was either "meritocracy" or optimal for the exercise of that office or power.

Or perhaps "utter fools" would not quite be alone in this? Perhaps someone quite clever, but not very clever, who feared for their current and future position would be driven to make the same pathetic arguments? Eh Shane? Eh Iain? Eh Donal?

UPDATE 13:40: *To be fair Phil Hendren aka Dizy Thinks was missed off this final list because he does admit that women get the shitty end, stick wise.
It would be too much fairness to exclude Donal Blaney, who has not even posted on this matter. But has a jolly good story about the odious creep Lord Taylor of Warwick claiming for a homestead which quite simply does not exist. Next they'll be telling us his peculiar hair "cut" is painted on to his bald bonce.

Iain Dale: Ladies, Relax! Leave it to Tools You Can Trust

Seems that national treasure Iain Dale is going to go on the BBC News Channel shortly (3:20pm he says) to explain that it's Tools You Can Trust when it comes to the private arrangements of political parties. Dear-O dear-o Dale-o is responding to a rather desperate Sunday Times story, reminding silly season readers of a position that Labour's Deputy Leader Ms Harriet Harman took more than TWO YEARS AGO, when she was elected. Viz. That women and men should be represented fairly evenly throughout the people's party.

"Sloppy cobblers Iain" was my first response though, given the subject, what a twat I am, I should perhaps have excluded this slack "parts of the body" lingo.

Through most layers of the LP we have arrangements to ensure women are represented. Constituency parties are required to send at least half woman delegates to conference. It cannot just be muggins' turn among a cabal of greyback big bollocks' mongers.

The CLP section in the NEC is 50% women. And so it goes on at other levels in the people's party. We also have a certain amount of positive action in selection at parliamentary matters. For Westminster - some AWS. For European - a "zip", and even at local level arrangements may be adopted to see the party pick from 100%, not the more traditional 50% of the population.

This is all relatively new. But representation is far far better in our party than in others. In terms of gender and other dimensions. And those other parties, including Iain Dale's own Conservatives under Dave Twat Cam, are sensing that they need to stand up to neantherdal men and women within and also have a go at addressing inequality.

By choosing from more than 50% of the population it is fairly logical to conclude that Labour have a better chance of getting better people into these roles overall. Over time. It's not instant.

But I'd go further. People are not all the same. And teams benefit from difference rather than the clonery and dronery of blokeish blokes chosing more blokeish blokes and so on ad nauseum.

To take the Belbin Team Roles model for example, the word is that there are nine role types: Plant, Resource Investigator, Coordinator, Shaper, Monitor Evaluator, Teamworker, Implementer, Completer Finisher, Specialist. They're defined at the link. Teams that don't properly cover all the roles under-perform.

My experience suggests that the ability to lead in each of these areas is not necessarily evenly distributed between the genders! Coming from a completely different place - Mid Narnia fantasy world - the raving mythomaniac Nadine Dorries MP added her twopenneth a few days ago, tackling some alleged mis-quoting by the press:

I did not say Conservative women are passionate (although I am sure we all are!) I said that women are more passionate about individual issues and tend to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in, whereas the men operated more like drones who worked away at the agenda. I even described how sometimes I looked at the men en masse in the voting lobby, all dressed the same, all buzzing around and how the women really stick out as no two of us are alike and we all could be identified for the individual issues we champion.

Although there may be an opportunity for a great leap forward for the Tories at the next election it remains to be seen whether it will be taken. Judging by Mr Dale's attitude, and indeed that of his comment muppets and those at The Sunday Times to boot Tory folk just don't have an ounce of sense on this. They are a closed book. Stuck in the mud. A throwback.

Harriet was - two years ago don't forget - only I'd say following the logic of Labour's lower layers through. Detached from the time and context of that she's happy to repeat the concept, in a rather rhetorical way ... to set tongues wagging, in a good way, and to trap Tory dinosaurs into setting themselves up against Equality.

Leaving that aside Mr Dale has inserted some more sloppy bollocks into the issue with some foolish assertions about Equality legislation:

Harman has already gone far in enough in dictating that if employers have two equally qualified candidates, they should choose the female candidate. If she got away with this ridiculous suggestion, there's no telling where it would lead.

Well, there is actually. To Harriet Harman leading the Labour Party. Hmmmm. Perhaps I see some mischievous merit in it after all!

This assertion that Harrie has dictated preference for under-represented groups in absolutely tied recruitment situations is more Dale twattery.

There is a provision that employers MAY so choose. Faced with a draw, with nothing between the candidates, they MAY choose the applicant that balances any imbalance in their workforce RATHER than flipping a coin, asking an obscure general knowledge question, drawing straws, or indeed running other tests on a sudden death basis.

This is going to be an exceedingly rare situation.

And it could just as well favour men where women are over-represented. Let's say in filling a senior nursing post. With two tied candidates the employer could pick the man!

It is not compulsory.

Just not illegal to make a thoughtful rather than random choice in these circumstances.

So, Iain Dale, should it be illegal to voluntarily make a thoughtful choice in the recruitment sphere when faced with two absolutely equal candidates? To take into account the overall needs of your organisation? The balance of your workforce?

And, Iain Dale, has it got the slightest bit to do with you and your prescriptive hordes what we in the Labour Party choose to do within our organisation?