In case you hadn't noticed this blog is my entirely personal and eclectic view of the world. Organisations I belong to disown me and every word of this thing - long before the cock crows. I blog what I want and I blog it when when I want. I rarely delete comments and will generally carry corrections and observations prominently on request. This time, and every time ... it's personal.
Conservative Home has an insightful round up at the level of meaning | Iain Dale witters fluently about less round pegs in square holes | while Mister GuF finds exploding Bruges groupers. UPDATE 23:30: The big question is not whether this Tory line up is "pub ready" or authored by spinning top Andy Coulson (to be "pub ready") but how many of them - including Clarke and Hague and Grayling and Letwin - will give up their day jobs and try to make a career out of their self-interested part-time political dabblings.
And we remain ever so worried that they've lost their bollocks as it were in Iceland, thanks to this dodgy Michael Spencer Billionaire multi-Millionaire character whose company Butlers appears to have lost local council tax payers a cool £250 Million plus. He's the Tory Party Treasurer so you'd hope he had their cash on ice too?!
You can take part in the ConservativeHome "Reshuffle Reaction" poll RIGHT HERE.
The pre-rolling Labour supporting group hug that is LabourList has company from a parallel universe name of Labourist.
Tim Ireland is getting stuck in to tiro blogger Derek Draper and the LL ting. Iain Dale seems to be filing these developments under "when the left fall out" though the greatest attacks on the LL Beta have been from (a) himself in various misery memos (b) muppety Tory trolls and (c) so he claims, Donal Blaney's paramilitary Blaney Youth in a denial-of-service prank.
Derek Draper has a lot to learn about blogging and moderating comments and engaging (or not) with Tim Ireland. But I'm not sure Iain Dale is the guru he should seek out.
Leading Lib Dem paranoia merchant Alix Mortimer runs a theory up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes. They don't. But there is universal fascination with it. With the idea that the new site was also on board the Project.
And there is also an emerging counter theory involving the netizens of Message Space as saboteurs. One of these was of course - quite wrongly - blamed for giving Guido the SP on the boy Draper in the first place.
4. Avoid 'Whataboutery' (Liberal Conspiracy) and reactionary bad taste (Mr GuF). Though I think the menu was doughnuts for doughboys, not pizza Sunder.
Sunder makes it clear that his proposals do not require neutrality or even even-handedness. And he gives his own view:
Personally, I believe Israel's current military operation is wrong. I believe the Hamas missile attacks are wrong too, and want to see a cessation of all violence. I recognise Israel's responsibility to protect its own citizens, but believe that this must be undertaken in a way which respects international law and its particular responsibilities to the stateless Palestinians too, and that the scale of civilian casualties can not be justified.
I agree with every word of this. And agreeing with this I tend to blog to rebut Tory and IDF spin. Hamas are wrong but that does not make Israel right. Israel are wrong but that does not make Hamas right. Might does not make right.
ILLUSTRATION: From the UN Observers with any resemblance to a young Sunder Katwala purely coincidental.
FOOTNOTE: Whether through extreme moderation or general wonderment at this post there are very few published comments. As well as this first non- yah boo post LabourList has added a permalink to its most recent (yah boo) editorial. Tracking Osborne's pitiful slide towards the door. Perhaps they're listening?
Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF has more idea about business and the economy than dare I say Iain Dale or Do Nothing Dave Cameron. Neither of these have even been personally bankrupt as far as I know, never mind shorted bank stocks, raised money and friends for Central African despots, or tricked fascists that he was one of theirs.
While GuF suggests the business lending package may be too little too late - at least as far as the small business element goes - he can not only see the substantive differences between the unfunded and unreal Tory plan and the funded and real Labour one, but he thinks the Labour Plan is Smarter. To be fair and give this context let's have his full analysis on the main package:
Guido's main concern about the Tory plan to insure bank-to-business lending was that it would encourage risky lending in a failing economy. The lenders would not really have to worry too much about the risk because the taxpayer would pick up the tab. The government's scheme will provide banks with guarantees covering 50% of the risk on existing and new working capital up to £20 billion. It shares the risk between the banks and the taxpayer, encouraging the banks to lend for the same profit for half the risk. This is in some ways smarter than the Tory plan.
In other words the Osborne-Cameron £50 Billion might as well have been burnt by the KLF on a remote offshore island; for all the responsible lending and continued trading it might achieve.
It will be interesting to see how Dale scores PMQs today. It seemed pretty even to me, Clegg rather irrelevant, and I think Brown will have edged it for most neutrals.
Brown 7 - Cameron 6.5 - Clegg 4 - Corbyn 5 for pluck
GuF by the way was less complimentary about the small business component. Blaming Mandelson, without any evidence, for delaying it for political reasons.
One thing I noticed in today's PMQs minutae was Brown's declaration that he believes the banks with the significant taxpayer stakes ARE lending to business and home buyers at more or less the required rates and that this is being monitored weekly.
If that is so, and why would he say it so directly if it isn't, it gives the lie to a large part of the media feeding frenzy. Though it does not mean these two banks are extending their lending as some businesses may well wish, just maintaining it.
Donal Blaney takes credit for the LabourList denial-of-service-attack during last night's Channel 4 News (above). It was he claims his Conservative Future strugglers, hot from their Madeleine McCann impersonations and other sacking offences, or in the arabic Sheik Blaney's Mujahideen. For once, quoth the self-appointed high imam of blog terrorism, LOL's paranoia was justified. Actually it seemed pretty obvious what was occuring. Channel 4 should have cached the content against the Tory children's rather predictable and very sad activity.
Back at LabourList Mark Hanson introduces a rapid rebuttal (above) to Cameron's milk-boarding baby-torture viral. And Alan Milburn brings down a fair crack of the whip on some very deserving Tory "ass warriors".
During the Channel 4 piece as well as bearding GuF by calling him Dweebo or something, Dolly promises another prominent lefty. Now that's not Mark and it's not Alan ... so will it be Maccy D? Or do Jon Cruddas or Neil Lawson count as lefties in Derek's little red book? And just what exactly will Young Labour spend their retaliatory free hit at live feature Tory web content on?
Has Derek Draper got the X Factor needed to found and nurture a mass readership Labour enthusiast blog? Tap Dancing, check. Gift of gab, check. Self importance, check. Comrades in arms, check. Commitment to cause, check. Technology, via Jag Singh, check. We'll soon find out if the package adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
All ready for the "told you so" follow up. And describing Gaby Hinsliff's Guardian.co.uk online exclusive as an Observer piece. That he was in effect spoiling. Which it may well be tomorrow of course. But it's already a Guardian Online scoop, so sorry Iain.
Here, with my useful annotations, is Iain's anthology of the five other early blog comments:
At Spectator Coffee House James Forsyth thinks it may be more like the official Tory Party Blue Blog than the lazy comparator of ConservativeHome.com. Truth is it could rise up somewhere in between. More like Lib Dem Voice in that respect. Semi-detached.
Guido Fawkes is pretty encouraging actually. Look forward to opening a new front in the blog wars. Continuing his Hate-Hate relationship with Dolly.
ConservativeHome too is encouraging. Pointing out that they formed and developed under a low budget scenario. Thereby correcting one of the three bleated strands of Dale's misery memo.
Cllr Bob Piper teases the Labour Party's Favourite Tory Blogger over his premature raining on Derek's parade, pointing out that Luke already has the Number 10 line sewn up.
And Jon Worth's EU Blog makes some good points about both the technology choices and the danger of aloofness and consequent disappointing market penetration.
What about LOL? Couple or three points for now:
Danger! Danger! Potential Progress Version of Compass Online.
Opportunity! Opportunity! Rather than spelling end of Labour Home experience I can see a huge synergy and possible coopertition; even formal links.
Danger! Danger! As Amadeus was told with no justification: "Too many notes" may be the cry. Vide Compass papers, and the three legged mutual masturbation machine of the Clarke/Milburn Project (now Toten Hosen - not even cached).
Why does everything have to be termed the New X anyway? This should not be seen as either the New ConservativeHome or the Improved LabourHome. This should surely be seen as the one and only LabourList?
Israel's Defence Force put up a robust defence of course, we wouldn't expect anything else, saying that militants fired mortars from that UN school in Gaza, before they bombarded it. In several interviews and a YouTube IDF-Channel statement to camera IDF and Govt of Israel representatives claimed that mortars were fired from the compound - before they started their flattening of that compound.
The UN immediately and strenuously denied that any mortars had been fired or any militants sheltered. The main Israeli defence spokesman claimed that Hamas were cooking up a cover up. Which seems like a bit of psychological projection, particularly when we considered the mis-direction on YouTube.
This (above) sees Captain Benjamin claiming that the mortar launching squad and known terrorists were among the dead, and it referred to a video, "released a year ago", though only date-stamped a few days before, and with timecode and date information scrubbed off, which showed some people firing a mortar from a UN Gaza school. Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF linked to it on the 7th January at 10:30 am. He had of course linked to various other IDF propaganda videos ahead of this. But this one was apparently put up on 1st January.
This video has cropped up a few times, was used in a similar way during the last Lebanon invasion, and in some current manifestations in both cases is/was presented as being current. It is not. It's 18 months or so old. It also does not seem to show a comparable circumstance.
From an airborne point of view "Terrorists" are shown firing a mortar from rubble at the edge of a UN school. They are unidentifiable. Could be anyone. No other people can be seen. And when they're done firing three fireworks or whatever, they scarper over the back wall. Using a probably empty, already shelled school, without any sign of consent or toleration from UN or civil authorities.
This seems like a very thin tissue of lies this. And by coincidence there it was, apparently being popped up on YouTube just a couple of days before the UN school shelter was hit in the current conflict.
Yesterday the Guardian reported that the UN were right, the IDF were wrong and that Israeli sources were admitting to the UN that Hamas mortars were not fired from inside the compound. Just from "outside", undefined. Presumably the IDF must have the airborne or other surveillance tapes that they thought pinpointed the source of the mortar rounds?
Maintaining the IDF's stance Captain Benjamin Rutland (as seen above) maintained that "we have intelligence information that we hit the actual mortar firing squad". So come on Benjamin! Produce the evidence or "information" as you call it. Can we see current videos? Instead of something from two years ago, passed off in some quarters as current, and even in official version having date etc removed, please pretty please?
Another plank of the Govt of Israel/IDF defence for civilian casualties has been the pre-warning schtick. Civilians are given advanced warning of where strikes will be. Really they are. At least some of the time. Losing the element of surprise and so de facto only attacking infrastructure - or possibly causing military material to be moved in IDF view - but avoiding killing civilians.
While claiming that Hamas were cooking up a cover up to the lethal UN school strike, seeing a two-year-old video passed off as current, and pleading their pre-warning humanitarianism Israeli authorities must have been aware of the apparent breakdown of this very system. When more than 100 people were evacuated by them to a specific safe house which they bombarded with sustained direct hits within 24 hours of herding civilians, half of them children, to what became in many cases their final resting place.
What is going on Israel? You have the right to defend your civilians. Many of us do feel that killing 700+ Palestinians and losing a dozen or so of your own is no way to avenge one rocket death or set the scene for peace. But you do have the right to self defence. Empowering Hamas hotheads and re-embittering the population as you do may not be the obvious way. The world doesn't tend to think so.
But how can the sophisticated Israeli military be so bloody careless? And how can the propaganda be so very weaselish? And so clumsy?
According to the IDFNA homepage they have not signed in and there has been no new material on that IDFNA PR homepage for 15 hours. (Though we have found some, see footnote). The last thing being some bragging about "precision bombing" on all kinds of Hamas targets, each located, according to our IDF friends, "near civilian houses", "on roof of civilian house" "on back of civilian truck" and so on.
From the Hamas point of view of course this is a resistance movement. No military uniforms. No military vehicles. No military barracks. By definition it is operating within a "civilian" context. But that doesn't require carpet bombing or collective punishment. And Israel's latest IDFNA video propaganda proves that beyond doubt.
In these cases - unlike the UN school or the Israeli directed sanctuary - Hamas militants and/or their equipment were it seems taken out with precision.
FOOTNOTE: The more recent video we've found (above, posted 5 hours ago, but not coming up in searches) is this arabic version/adaptation of the 2007 "mortar from school" tape. Unidentifiable people with neither consent nor toleration from anyone else, and no obvious use of the school as a shelter; so what may well an unequivalent site being taped from the air. But not attacked as in the latest video.
My arabic is not good enough - almost non-existent - to see whether the IDFNA are representing this in arabic as a current tape. Original captions are erased as before. Or whether they are persisting with their - admitted to UN erroneous - claim that mortars were fired and mortar firers killed in the recent UN shelter 2009 case.
If you can translate the arabic perhaps you can let me know?
UPDATE Sat 00:40: Here's a scenario in which honours are shared. Slightly more evenly. Hamas mortar boys fire crappy mortars, yes: but outside the compound. Then, having failed, they flee. In the direction of the compound. And, forgetting themselves completely, the IDF then kill 40 civilians or thereabouts, flattening the UN refuge, albeit trying to nail these Hamas boyos.
In terms of the war law people talk about, but which is rarely exercised, this would appear to be Israel in the wrong in a big style.
Hamas idiots did not fire from this compound, although they were perhaps not considering the war law on that; but then Israeli idiots determined to obliterate the useless Hamas homemade rocketeers did flatten a known concentration of civilians; which those half-arsed rocketeers were running towards, or had reached.
ME MYSELF AND I: Keep returning to the Hamas pretext for sending all those crappy rockets over and killing ONE. Which was an Israeli incursion on 4 November killing SIX. And then, there was the Israeli pretext which was that one dead from the crappy "rockets". With their intelligent response having killed 800 "others" and counting, and having increased Israeli dead by at least ten-fold.
Iain Dale is inaccurately passing on details of Captain Clogg's shifty shuffle. And asserting that but not explaining why Lynne Featherstone should be immediately prominentised.
Ditto the Gypsy-hating Nadine Dorries I suppose? As he's also teasing about a Cameron Reshuffle post to follow. Presumably this is a a Dale/Dorries fantasy rather than a real re-shuffle? Cameron wouldn't even stop his work shy part timers having all-consuming day jobs. He's hardly going to sack any goose he won't say boo to.
Though Caroline Spelman had better watch out. Mr GuF of the Integrity Defence Force is determined to protect the ethical probity of his beloved Conservatives.
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.
Dogstarscribe essentially provides some pointers for a potential conservativehome or libdemvoice kind of organism. But that cannot really be 'parachuted in' now can it? Labourhome might even grow up to be that thing one of these days. Currently it's clearly lacking in direction and judgement.
But it seems to me that if we accept that the Tory Blogosphere is thriving largely because their party is in opposition then we could simply wish them to go from strength to strength!
Ten more years of subservience and under-performance vs Tory bloggers, and Labour government will do me!
Those bloggers DO reveal the nasty old school underbelly of the Cuddly Nu Tories. They DO share their analysis too readily. They DO betray hubris and triumphalism out of turn. They DO excuse the inexcusable. They DO assume and presume. They DO encourage the real world politicians they deify and hype to believe their own publicity. And they DO of course pointedly ignore the things we should be noticing and pointing out.
Such as Colson's outing as a disgusting bully.
On the other hand rebutting much of their wishful thinking and wishy washiness and the lack of policy substance of their party is actually not that difficult. Help from the centre in that, and a certain amount of theming and coordinating perhaps, would surely be welcome?
Without obligation.
Assistance in tackling some of our target wins and target saves too. Targeting as LOL does with Rochdale, and with Manchester Withington and so on.
And attacking the opposition would be a far more progressive activity for the bloggers of Labour and of the left than excessively critting our own side of the argument. Or joining GuF and Dale in excessively critting Mr Draper for taking an interest and making an effort.
Jag Singh, ex-Labour Home, current Message Space guru appears to have given his mate Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF an early Christmas present. Clearly Derek Draper doesn't realise that some of the more powerful and useful elements of the Labour blogosphere exist beyond the M25.
UPDATE Sat 11:24: Jag Singh says it ain't true in no uncertain terms. Which is cool. And all we ever wanted.
Local "politician" Sandy Walkington of Verulanium has been getting a pasting for posing with a dry flyposting pasting brush as if he's painting a faded postbox. A serious priority for a PPC I'd have thought. Hat tip: Iain Dale who wonders aloud where he's heard this man's name before.
In fact Sandy is a freelance Spin Doctor "Gun for Hire" and was Ming's Head of General Election Communications in 2005. Also accompanied Sir Ming and Lady Elspeth on their incursion into Labour Conference circles at which meeting - Lab and Lib Dem fellow feeling - we had a brief discussion about how TOXIC the Lib Dems tend to be in Rochdale and Man Wit. Sunder Katwala blogged the event live here, here, and here. As there was plenty of bog roll in the loos and all our pillar boxes are naturally gleaming soviet red, there were alas no Lib Dem photo opportunities.
Iain also recalls a similar Lib Dem faking incident caught by Mr GuF. Dale's quite a good blogger you know, when he sticks to nitty gritty and steers clear of Economics, HERE outrageously pretending he knows more about the subject than Yvette Cooper's little finger.
TRIVIA: Lady Elspeth appeared to storm out of the meeting. Possibly affronted by the remarks of Peter Hain, James Purnell, or from the floor the barrister Emily Thornberry who recited a list of the dirty tricks she wasn't doing to batter the Lib Dems over? No, in fact Lady E was rushing down the spiral staircase to join the wretched snoutcasts on the Lloyd Street steps. She has form as a toker as well as a proficient hand-bagger reports failed MP Matthew Parris.
Clearly LOL were not suggesting here that journalist Neil Sterio's typing should get him flung into jail. But Robert Mahoney records the fact that online journalists now form the largest group of journalists under lock and key. Almost half the total of 125 are bloggers and our professional cousins. The Committee to Protect Journalists provides the roster, and the pi-chart, and how you can express your solidarity and help. It has been great seeing Alan Johnston back reporting for the BBC. From India last time I looked. 125 scribblers, tappers, snappers and the rest are currently imprisoned for expressing themselves.
Guido, not of course a proper writer and a man who should be locked up for his persistent drink crimes and toxic cynicism, makes do with house arrest, tag and curfew. He's more concerned with the spiking of a 1976 album sleeve and spreading paranoia than with reality. Perhaps the BPJ could start a campaign? UPDATE Fri 08:17: Toxic cynicism and penultimate sentence/link added in response to comment.
Long before the bankrupt drunkard banned and tagged dunk driver Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF was a blogger or even an organiser of "rave parties" he took an interest in the war-affairs of Mother Africa.
The picture shows the college drop out Staines fund- and friend- raising for anticommunist, nationalist, even arguably fascist UNITA killers. Clients first of China, but by this time the CIA. Which must be considered rather less attractive behaviour even than his alleged cosying with fascists before he was "sent down" for idleness and thickery from a third-rate FE college.
Now GuF is calling for African Billionaires to put their hands in their pocket and finance a big reward to locate President Robert Mugabe who, presumably, must have gone into hiding without the rest of us being aware of this.
Following his location we presume from his preamble the place where he be shall be razed to the ground by US Fighter Bombers and the broken remains of his corpse issued in fliers and newspapers to prove he's departed the planet. Cf Uday Saddam Hussein.
Clearly if someone or other vague that Mr GuF aka Guido Fawkes aka the convicted drunk driver, bankrupt and general reprobate Paul Staines can confuse with the government causes bits of the internet - specifically the Wiki page for the Scorpions likely dire new (immediate correction, 14:43) 1976 album "Virgin Killers" to be beyond reach as he claims here then that could of course seem to be a bad thing. The German schlock rock outfit still have an unedited wiki presence which has a para covering the controversy.
Presumably the block - via UK Internet Service Providers and at the instigation of the independent NGO the Internet Watch Foundation - on the album wiki page could be lifted immediately with a little common sense. If for example the image, which actually dates back to a 1976 sleeve from the band's fourth album, were removed from the page or a zoomed version (as above) used in its place. Or they could even use the real sleeve used on most of the records issued in most world territories (left).
The full image is at best very dodgy and at worst culpable under UK child pornography images law could be removed from the code of the page at a keystroke? Or indeed the block could be reduced to target only the image?
Even at the time of release, just as the band began to translate from cult following to major commercial success, it was replaced in many countries and according to the band's wiki:
In 1976, Scorpions released Virgin Killer. The album's cover featured a nude prepubescent girl covered with broken glass designed by the German branch of RCA Records[citation needed], their label at the time. The cover brought the band considerable criticism and was pulled or replaced in several countries. Despite the controversy, which lead singer Klaus Meine later expressed regret at the inappropriate cover, the album itself garnered significant praise for its music from critics and fans alike.
Klaus Meine is still the lead singer. But as it goes the band's own website either still use the original or have returned to it from what was to all intents and purposes the real sleeve. Artwork controversy was very much a marketing meme of 1976.
And no they'll probably not be removing it from the wiki page. The very dodgy image - in which a naked pre-pubescent child's genitalia is obscured only by what looks at first in thumbnails like a strangely placed microphone stand, but which is in fact a broken glass cover - is creating lots of column inches for the rock nasties with the nasty sting. Staines would surely do better to find an example of internet censorship where a potentially illegal and certainly offensive-to-many naked child image, albeit more than 30 years old, was not involved. If that is he wishes to further his "they've come to get us all" hysteria over internet censorship by governments.
UPDATE 15:11: Real sleeve image and relevant comments added.
Someone seems to have got at Professor Dylan Jones-Evans blog post supporting Damian Green. Meanwhile Dale twittered a correction to Tom Harris' Damien as "illiterate" (sic) when he probably means "mistaken" and when Mr GuF has been using Es for days.
That lying and unprofessional drunk driver, UNITA terrorist supporter and personally bankrupt scumbag Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes aka Mr GuF lies as he claims Brown Confesses to Procuring Misconduct. He presents a short YouTube clip in "evidence". That'll be evidence of his own mendacity. Again. With Dirty Wastrel Frank Coke asking the questions.
Young Brown may have been wet behind the ears back in 1985 but even with Bully Flashman hot on his tail there's no sign of "confessing to procuring misconduct".
- In 1985, Gordon Brown himself made his name at Westminster as new MP thanks to his ability to obtain confidential Government papers. Mr Brown was passed a Department of Social Security paper setting out plans to cut the benefits of young people who did not seek work.
If GuF cannot see this difference he must be off his face still. Brown's merely saying he's received a leak. Not that he has squeezed and squeezed and squeezed his leak. Until the pips squeak as we used to say in Labour circles.
Thinking of which:
Was that Damian-with-an-a-please-Guido Green pressurising the mole? By saying he'd dob them in? If they didn't come through? With more and better dirt? Something more party political? As well as more feeding BNP / Daily Mail rhetoric?
That'd be hilarious now wouldn't it? Obviously compromised shadow minister. Gets bubbled because he pressures source that he'll dob them (both) in. To give him more dirt. Hoist etc. How dim would he have to be?
Clearly this arrest did provide a bit of a sinking feeling in Liberal Progressive circles. Even if the Tories cheered when worse was done to Ruth Turner by that Bully Yates of the Yard. Even if the Tories were pretty much as harsh and "Stalinist" with leaks When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.
But I'm cheering up a bit now. There's every chance Damian Green and David "sub-poena-them-all, I'm-a-libertarian" Davis are going to end up with a frightful GOOey mess on their faces. Let's hope so.
In our last story yesterday we pointed out someone writing ex cathedra as a blogging expert had run a story about this expert writing they'd done and quoting it in full on their own blog. It had LOTS of broken links in it. In the original post we said around 50% of the 31 links. That was based on a rather quick count, but it was certainly closer to the mark than the author's own contemporaneous count:
Blogger Iain Dale said...
God you're an incisive critic. No wonder you are regarded as a joke by the blogging community - even Labour bloggers.
So the worst criticism you can come up with is that there are four broken links in an article of 2400 words. Jesus. You crack me up!
29 November, 2008 18:28
"There are FOUR broken links ..." Remember that. You can surely count on Iain when it comes to arithmetic? And say it's not true about those sniping Labour bloggers!??!
At just around midnight there was a further exchange:
Anonymous said...
What a shit blog
29 November, 2008 23:37
Blogger Chris Paul said...
Where's yours anon 23:37?
29 November, 2008 23:41
Blogger Iain Dale said...
There were four broken links. Not 15. Idiot.
30 November, 2008 00:12
Everybody Hates Chris said...
And that's fewer broken links than there are on Chris Paul's list of 'Alpha Blogs' on his own home page, Iain.
30 November, 2008 00:30
Naturally "Everybody Hates Chris" anonymous like Anon 23:37 has been deleted. They are barred. But clearly they are wrong in so much as (a) several bust links in my blogroll are annotated as such and (b) unlike Iain's links they were right at one time. Blogs come and go is all. Send broken link messages to the usual etc etc ... two (not four, certainly not ten+) have been corrected 12:16.
Anon 23:37 appears to emanate from the IP Address one of Iain's very very loyal-est sock puppets, "they" just couldn't resist their potty mouthiness as their master throws his potty toys.
(above two paras were one, amended for improved sense 12:06)
Iain may still be rather tense and clenchy jawed around midnight. But notice, he has changed tense too. "There WERE four broken links" which suggests that he's (a) been and mopped up at least four broken links and (b) he doesn't understand that the unamended HTML is still out there in hyperspace and (c) he is as careless as he is over confident.
Let's be generous for one moment shall we? Let's assume that just this once Iain is telling the truth when he suggests that he has corrected just four links. Can we all do that? Yes, I know it's hard, but let's just try shall we?
This means that with the SIX THAT ARE STILL WRONG NOW (twenty hours on and counting) the total figure was merely TEN. Just over 30% blog links wrong in an article about blogging from a blogging expert in a magazine for budding student journalists. So that's OK then. If four was trifling ten remains trivial, isn't it? There were 2400 brilliant words there after all. What do they want? Pay monkeys, get peanuts.
The British Journalism Review is published by the University of Luton. Don't sneer. They're coy about their rates: "Payment: by arrangement". But has to be a lot more than a Ton for 2400 accurate words of wisdom aka head emptying careless blether from an expert of Iain's calibre?
Surely not an Archer or even a Grand, but surely a Monkey? The BJR is sponsored after all by half of Fleet Street, and Reader's Digest:
BBC | ITV News | Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday | News International The Daily Telegraph | Reader's Digest | The Economist | Trinity Mirror The Guardian | Unite (T&G)
They should really, strictly speaking, demand their money back because even linkless this piece was pot boiling, put the kettle on I'm nearly finished but they're paying well twaddle. No matter. To help Iain out, in the spirit of blogger solidarity, the SIX that are STILL WRONG are:
Fly quickly my little winged monkeys! Iain Dale will soon be there pooper scooping up his own mess and very likely denying it ever existed.
Bit of a doggy stink remains, but hey ho, it'll pass with time.
Blogging expert? My arse! As Jim Royle might say.
Incidentally Dale's continuing evidence-less campaign against The Sun's Whip Column and The Mail's Ephraim Hardcastle "nicking blog stories" continues to grate. There are stories out there mate. Why on earth do you or for that matter Guido have the gall to think you're the only ones to spot them?
It's not as if you don't run stories uncredited hours, nay days sometimes, after other bloggers or even printed media and simply protest that "I haven't read XYZ today, yesterday, this week". Still, if you live by the sword with these attacks on professionals you can be put to the sword yourself, without compunction.
UPDATE ALPHA LINKS 12:06: Have updated Lakelander, which was an HTML error on my part, and Mad Nad Dorries which was a swerve from the parliamentary commissioners on her part but is not really a blog so who really cares? Have left Guido old school address as it still aliases to the new. Also the "resting" links as annotated.
Any more corrections please let me know. We are still girding up loins for a long-awaited re-design and if you'd like to be blog-rolled then or now please get in touch. Particularly if you have an un-reciprocated inward link.
Yesterday we lifted some Tory Boys and Girls spraying their excitement and delight over what they claim to be an almighty error, which sees us all doomed. Apart from Ken Clarke. Perhaps the only Tory in their parliamentary party who has a clue* on such things.
To Thine Own Self Be True, we wrote ourselves at the very same hour, but one way and another it did not get posted. But better late than never :
Luke Akehurst asks rather sensibly "Whatever happened to Tory triangulation?" The Tory game plan thought Luke had been to triangulate and steal the centre ground from Labour. This would imply an outflanking to the left and more vigorous fiscal stimulus package.
"Instead we just get George Osborne squeaking away like someone who swallowed the collected works of Sir Keith Joseph and Milton Friedman. Triangulation, compassionate Conservatism, new Tories, all gone.
Funnily enough the Tories and the daily headline writers are mirroring this with talk of the end of New Labour.
"VAT is only charged on consumption, of course - so it means you don’t have the problem of someone using their stimulus cheque to pay off their credit card debt."
Hopi goes on to worry about Ken Clarke's partisanship but I'll deal with that allegation in another post I think.
Tom Harris MP double blogged with this sort of thing both at home and at Labour Home. Even he was taken aback at how comprehensive Darling’s stimulus package was. But he didn’t stay to hear Eliza GOOlittle's reheated denunciation. There's much more:
"So where are we? VAT has been reduced from 17.5 to 15 per cent. Let’s have a very quick history lesson on VAT, shall we? When Labour left office in 1979, VAT was at eight per cent. Thatcher, who had explicitly promised, during the election campaign, not to double VAT, then doubled VAT, setting it at 15 per cent. Then, as soon as the Tories managed to get shot of Mrs T, they tried to repair the mess left by the poll tax, offering an across-the-board cut of £140 to every voter/poll tax payer. To fund this, they increased VAT by 2.5 per cent."
To be fair Tom increasing from 8% to 15% is not doubling. A mere 88.5% increase.
"As to the rest of the package, it differs from the Conservatives’ proposals in one vital respect: it exists."
Dr Rupa Huq is presumably still reeling and rocking from the desperate news that dancing master John Sergeant, married to her deputy head teacher has thrown in the towel and sidled away from Strictly Come Dancing without any fuss.
"For anyone who has argued that the main two parties are now like Pepsi and Coke surely events of the past 24 hours and week demonstrate clear blue water between them? Today has left the Tories looking increasingly out of touch and irrelevant. Their decision to effect a U-turn on sticking to Labour’s spending plans last week shows how the revert to type in slashing the axe of cutbacks when the going gets tough."
It's a step in the right direction but not exactly grounds for hoisting the Red Flag from my front door. LRC Chair John McDonnell MP has today been explaining what the Labour left's take at Comment Is Free.
John's Labour Representation Committee will perhaps be feeling a little coy and out-flanked by running dog lackeys over their welshing on the nationalisation of the towering heights of capitalism. You know, banks and the like. Doing a good bit of rueing I'll be bound.
Guido is busy frantically self-polluting over the performance of George Osborne at the pre-budget report. I don't deny that he pulled off a good bit of oratory, and made a shining example of political salesmanship. The content is poor, however. ... This lack of content, in fact, goes so far that Boy George's lot down at the shadow treasury (emphasis on the 'shadow') have apparently refused to commit to reversing Labour's move. Labour have therefore effectively pulled the Cons with them on 45%. The question is thus: how will grassroots Tories react? I'm happy. If they miss the line that Guido has lapped up, they'll decapitate themselves, though, I accept, on the upside for them, it will be hard to find anyone less relevant. If they don't, we get a 45% top rate no matter who people vote for. In other words, Blue Labour.
Fair enough. Though as Dave Osler explains 45% is hovering around the "pants" level for a proper pips squeak, tax the rich policy:
"Even a few years back, the Lib Dems were sufficiently bold to call for a 50p in the pound take on the rather lower threshold of £100,000 a year. How quickly the political right forgets that even during the hey-day of High Thatcherism, the top rate of income tax was 63%; despite his status as a former Trot, Alistair Darling is but a hopeless wuss by comparison to 'Red Geoff' Howe. "I mean, correct me if I am being needlessly controversial here, but the basic principle underlying any left of centre take on taxation is simple enough; the more you earn, the more you owe the Inland Revenue. "The idea that the rich should hand over a higher proportion of their income than the less well off has been a mainstay of the broadly progressive outlook since Lloyd George’s people’s budget of 1909, and it is high time the principle was restored."
Last but not least. Let's hear it for the girls:
Alex Hilton was extremely prescient with a Sunday homage to the boxing bill poster (above, right) which sees our man buff and theirs bluey-white. So, so weak. As Ed Balls MP might mumble-shout, almost incomprehensibly, but not quite.
Sadie Smith meanwhile promised the earth. Meat and two veg on the table daily. But like the feeble woman she is there's a let down at the end of the flannel. Seriously though, Sadie's discovery of a blog sexing device will no doubt be the source of countless hours of self-pollution:
Stuff on the PBR to follow as soon as I've finished scratching my balls and talking about hot girls: sure you can't wait, eh?
* OTHER TORIES with Half an Idea: ????? Nominations? Ewan and Liam (who's half Labour) perhaps ... anyone else? Andrew Lansley you say? Ha ha ha ha.
SUBTEXT: Yapping Yousuf finds Andrew Lansley's resignation speech hilarious. He should have stuck to the lying fibs and blazing non sequitors.
COMPLAINT Wed 13:16: the "small" version of the homework animation isn't small enough for blog use, and the click and drag is not all that. Must try harder on presentation. Satisfactory work and progress otherwise.
Here is Conservative Home's round-up of some of the reaction from Tory bloggers to this afternoon's Pre-Budget Report and the response given by George Osborne, which we have already hailed as outstanding.
Iain Dale says that this is the day that Labour "blew it big time" and describes George Osborne's performance as "really strong". He also quotes a non-Conservative MP as having told him: "This wasn't George Osborne. It was Ozzy Osborne - drawing blood!"
Janet Daley at the Telegraph says the PBR was "more of a take-away than a give-away Budget", given that the tax increases outweighed the fiscal stimulus. She says that in his response, George Osborne "did very well".
Her colleague, Iain Martin, is a very angry man, describing the scale of the Government's mismanagement of the economy as "breathtaking" and "a gross moral failure by this government". In a later post, Iain heaps praise on George Osborne, whom only a couple of weeks ago he was asking to be moved from the shadow chancellorship. He describes Osborne's performance as "absolutely blistering and his best Commons performance to date", concluding that "it was seriously impressive and strengthens his position enormously."
The observations of Alex Singleton, meanwhile, concentrate on George Osborne. Saying that he came across as "a powerful and effective shadow chancellor", he concludes that "his performance will have done much to restore faith in his position".
Matthew Elliott of the Tax Payers’ Alliance, welcomed the immediate VAT cut, but said the prospect of large tax rises in the future was "very worrying". He called for "permanently low taxes, not a crippling debt mountain and higher tax to come. It is unfair that the Chancellor is not going to make the public sector share any of the pain of the recession. If the Government cut out wasteful and unnecessary public spending, we could have larger tax cuts, less borrowing and a faster recovery.”
Harwich MP Douglas Carswell blogged live from the Commons, expressing exasperation at the Speaker for not taking Labour MPs to task for heckling George Osborne, whilst he did admonish a number of Tory MPs.
The Burning Our Moneyblog describes Alistair Darling's expectation of a mild recession as "pie in the sky" and concludes that it is a "a bad news budget that's actually even worse than it looks".
Peter Hoskin at Coffee House wonders whether Alistair Darling's gamble will pay off. Pointing out that "the Treasury's tax receipt and net borrowing figures always tend to be optimistic", he wonders whether this time they're even more optimistic than usual.
Meanwhile, his colleague, James Forsyth, writes a post with the alliterative headline, "Labour fails to get bang for its borrowed buck". He predicts that Darling has potentially set himself up for a fall by predicting growth in Q3 next year and also describes George Osborne's performance as "his strongest ever Commons performance", adding: "Today was the day that Osborne proved that he is up to the task of being Shadow Chancellor at a time when the economic question is once more dominating politics".
And Fraser Nelson's reading of the figures is that the debt bombshell "is not due to explode until 2015/16", concluding that "this is not just an economic failure, but a moral one".
In a post entitled "Osborne Wows", Guido writes that his co-conspirators were hugely impressed with Osborne's performance. He also cites Tom Clougherty of the Adam Smith Institute as describing the shadow chancellor's performance as "the speech of his life".
Think I've caught most of the spelling mistakes. Goodness me these Tory hacks have fat fingers. Sticky fat fingers. Stinky sticky fat fingers.
Anyway these cats are spraying willy nilly. They're excited about something or other.
Oh, yes: 1. The sound of their own voices talking trite crap; and 2. Doom and gloom, with not a sensible idea from one of them.
If this was Eliza GOO-little having a good day this can surely only be because of our low expectations. But as low expectations go this was surely shriller and shiller than coach Valerie would have wanted?
Ken Clarke meanwhilst, speaking on Radio Five Live, was worried. Said it was a three pipe problem. Said even then there was no certainty. Said that VAT cut WAS THE RIGHT THING. Said it was all a big gamble and the worst world conditions of his lifetime but that he for one hopes it comes off.
Good to have one Tory who gets it and wants the best. The rest of the Tories seem to hope that it doesn't come off. It may not. This is a really tough spot everyone in the world is in. If this works, good. If not we'll need something else. I'm not sure the Tories have anything remotely coherent to offer instead. And the "tax bombshell" line is just a trite truism.
Tax take (NB not tax rates necessarily) WILL have to go up OR expenditure go down in the fullness of time. As always. Still waiting for the Tories to point us at a Tory-run eceonomy anywhere in the world that has escaped these problems and/or has a better recovery route mapped out. Any pointers GOO?
MEANWHILE: I am quite liking the VAT break with the tweaks round alcohol, tobacco and oils - which Iain Dale suggests foolishly are illegal.
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