EXCLUSIVE: Coalition Leader Resigns Over Revolting Libdemologists

STOP PRESS Fri 1 PM: As you'll see from comments Cllr Gregory Couzens has resigned the Lib Dem whip and joined the humungous independent non-group. Not sure whether the Tories decided to black ball him or he is biding his time. Local opinion is divided on his electoral prospects in May. To be fair the divisions are largely on the margin of his catastrophic minority.

Word is the independent non-group consisting of these seven numpties plus some earlier runaway Lib Dems will be forming a party. Why? So they get support in the Town Hall - on the Council Tax payers of Rochdale - and, very important, so they get a Leader's Allowance - on the Council Tax payers of Rochdale - not to mention committee places as of right!

The way they are going they could become the second group if they pull this off. But will Cllr Gregory No Mates Couzens (right) be able to persuade this riff raff that his egotistical self promotion and silvery scissor skills are what's required?

Rochdale Online's report. Though don't believe a word spoken by either Couzens or Mulgrew. Good to see Labour calling for Couzens' scalp, as it were.

Meanwhile in parliament there has been an exchange between Simon "Slayer" Danczuk, who must take at least some of the credit for the Lib Dems' disarray, and Eric "the Eel" Pickles whose party's general exploitation of this sorry party and ideological attacks on local government and particularly poorer communities is also of course a factor:

At Commons question time, Mr Danczuk told Mr Pickles: "Your failure to stand up for councils in the Comprehensive Spending Review is having a devastating impact on jobs and services in Rochdale.
"Homes provision, community centres, adult care services and much more are being cut.
"The situation is that bad that six Liberal Democrat councillors resigned last week and later the Liberal Democrat council leader stood down.
"Because of these cuts, the local authority is in turmoil. When is the minister going to stand up for local government?"

Lib Dems "Need Lead in Their Pencil" - Pickles

Mr Pickles replied: "I would have thought you would be seeking to congratulate the coalition Government because we recognise that a number of authorities are more dependent on grants than others.
"In particular, we face a very difficult task so far as Rochdale is concerned in having to bridge just short of GBP6 million taken away by the last Labour government from the Working Neighbourhoods Fund and we're certainly seeking to cushion them.
"So my advice to you is go back to Rochdale, put a bit of lead in their pencil and let them get on with protecting the frontline services rather than fighting among themselves."

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STOP PRESS Fri 9 AM: According to Rochdale Online Irene Davidson remains leader of the Lib Dem group. They also have Cllr Dale Mulgrew - the ring leader of the coup - offering weasel words:

The Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Councillor Dale Mulgrew said: “The turn of events over the last week have been incredibly difficult for Irene and her options have become more and more limited by the day.
“I think most reasonable and decent people will once more question the motives of the six whilst Irene was in hospital.
“The process of de-selection is not a matter for the leader but for the constituency party executive.”
Councillor Mulgrew concluded: “Irene continues to make a good recovery and it is hoped she will be out of hospital before the weekend.”

What a complete Libocrite this pathetic wee joker is!

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Last week we told you all about the mess that is the Rochdale Lib Dem Party. RIGHT HERE. Six Lib Dem councillors had resigned the whip and gone independent. A seventh was sniffing around for a berth with one of the other main parties. All was not well. How could things possibly get worse?

The demon coiffeur Cllr Gregory Couzens had staged a kind of a do, a coup attempt you might say. A letter was prepared demanding Cllr Irene Davidson the leader of the Lib Dems, of their local Condem pact, and of the Council - for just 11 months - should stand down. She is pictured here with former RAP playmate of the month and green grocer Alan Taylor, her predecessor. He's gone now.

A number of the Lib Dem group had signed up, probably thinking that when this feisty prison officer was flat on her back in hospital - a bit crook as they say in Cell Block H - might be a great time to give her a good old fashioned kicking. I'm not going to be revealing the names of the signatories. Not just now. But they know who they are.

But anyway, when their motion was put to the vote they lost. And what's more the resignations started. Word is that Deputy Leader and one of the main rivals for the parliamentary candidacy of Rochdale Dale Mulgrew, more on whom anon, is the Prince of Dumbassness behind the whole thing.

Some of the defecting crew had already I believe defected from Tory to Lib Dem in past lives. Experienced renegades? Or rather perhaps experienced self-preservers.

Today we can reveal more. Cllr Irene Davidson, who was in hospital in the very poorly ward when the coup was attempted having a kidney removed as part of her cancer treatment, has submitted her resignation as Group, Coalition and Council leader in writing. Basically because her people were defecting and those that were left were scheming against her.

The word on the streets of Deeplish, of Spodden and of Falinge is that this Liberal Democrat strategy in this town is playing out completely according to the plan of the masterminds behind it. That being that they become un-partnerable and lose any part in control of the council, set Labour up to be some part of the ruling arrangement, watch them dealing with incredibly difficult budget decisions, thanks to the ConDems in Westminster, and try to become popular opposing all this as pavement politicians and misery mongers.

A far cry from the Rt Hoon Nick Clegg's assessment of the Lib Dems as a party hungry for and competent in control of councils. They are on the run from responsibility. They want to be in opposition, minimise losses and rebuild; rather than facing such a meltdown next May that they are basically back to the fitting in a single taxi model which applied to the party nationally before Cyril Smith was elected to the House.

Back to Cllr Dale Mulgrew. Born again tosser. Utterly incompetent. Utterly ruthless. Horribly ambitious for a bear of such little brain. Dale's dad of course is Jimmy Cricket the old school Irish comedian with the welly boots, and Dale is constantly pimping dad's wares as agent/manager. Old habits die hard and this chump is organising a comedy council, a comedy councillor group of ever dwindling numbers, and a comedy forward strategy.

One other thing? Cllr Gregory Couzens, one of the few of the Rochdale Lib Dem rat boys who once could make a coherent plan, who once upon a time could string a sentence together, and who could formerly command any real respect from the people of the town, well he's blown it completely.

Possibly trapped by Cllr Dale Mulgrew he collected the signatures of the clowns against their leader, and he both failed to sign the thing himself, and failed to win the day. He's now putting the finishing touches to his application to join the Conservatives. Could be in coalition with Labour within a week.

Dale Mulgrew - the brains behind the Get Irene operation?

Bloggeration: Left and Right Pincer Movement on Farm Gate

Back at his Order Order blog (right) - now benefiting no doubt from scores of LOL readers checking out his Caption Compo - there is also his very first attack on a cabinet member in the crowd-pleasing Cam-Clegg coalition.

Who would Staines be going after you wonder? A woman surely? Narrows things down a lot that. The ridiculous tiger feet Home Secretary? The unelected and mediocre Baroness Token? Or would it be one of his own and indeed Labour of Love's previous targets for scrutiny? Ah yes, it's Nanny Spelman alright.

This former Conservative sleaze buster Lady Chairman, caught in the sort of expenses-gate that might have ended her career in 2009 but was shrugged off in 2008, appears to be the first Condemnative Minister to breach the Ministerial Code - on her very first day.

Here's the basic narrative.

Mrs Spelman and her husband Mr Spelman are big wheels in the agricultural lobby business. Living off the fat of the land. She's given her shares in the family business to her Sugar Daddy hubby - also a Tory candidate - but it's been registered at at least two (count 'em) tax-payer funded addresses. Guido concludes for now by asking in his colourful way:

Did Cameron know that she was so recently a shareholder in a lobbying firm focused on Defra before he appointed her to the position? Because the whole thing taints politics and shows the far-too-cosy relationship between lobbyists, government, business and money…

Little over an hour later Political Scrapbook had been rooting about too, looking at the chapter and verse of the code and finding that this appointment ought to be subject to assessment for conflict of interest, potential conflict of interest and perceived conflict of interest for both Mrs Spelman and her relatives:


PSBook concludes by asking:

The new minister’s interests in this area are well known. Did she raise them with DEFRA Permanent Secretary Helen Ghosh?

Or has Spelman broken the Ministerial Code of Conduct in record time?

LOL will add two more questions:

If so what did Helen Ghosh have to say about this rather obvious issue of making hay while The Sun shines? and

Did Mr and/or Mrs Spelman or their employees, associates, agents or partners have a previous lobbying relationship with DEFRA Permanent Secretary Helen Ghosh?

UPDATE Sat 01:47: Our chums at Sunlight Centre for Open Politics have sent another of their letters. Not as in the olden days of Damian Green's mole following some leaden broadsheet expose but actually ahead of the MSM. Hurrah!

Iain Dale: Offensive, Bullying, Smearing, Angry, Libel Merchant

Above we see John Prescott urging voters to put their sweet lips to the 'phone and tell him what he wants to hear. Iain Dale, who is notoriously bad-tempered and a stone cyber-bully, meanwhile is smearing loveable Prezza. The Nation love him for twatting the idiot egg man. And we forgive him as does Pauline for his daft old man antics of yore. Prescott is a living legend. A devout campaigner. A robust opponent of the kind of camshamflimflam of Cameron and his hateful acolytes.

The message came down the line that I should bring my boxing gloves next time I saw John Prescott after this somethingly mixed post. But in reality he was all sweetness and light and I needn't have bothered bringing them or my head guard.

I'm wondering if Iain Dale will print my comment on his dull smearology HERE. Give his sockies something to get their teeth into and bully. As is their wont. Just in case he does not, they can do it here, with an added link:

Oh for goodness sake Iain. That Mail story's bought in revenge and also as it goes, did I mention, in the Mail too. What speculative rot it is.
Ms Temple did not make a complaint and did in fact slow down for long enough to be caught.
You are plainly and simply smearing Gordon Brown and John Prescott and you have no shame whatsoever.
You yourself are renowned for having paddies and losing it. In blog comments here and elsewhere included. Now aren't you?
Have you still got that Hitler picture up? The artist has removed it from their site. You know that? So it is only you - and your derivatives - smearing Brown with it at this moment.

Of course it was the Mail that lost their black shirts for publishing some earlier Iain Dale libels against Gordon Brown and Tom Watson. The latter engaging legally and getting handsome damages and costs. Iain Dale had been running round TV and radio studios all day the day before publication smearing Brown, Watson and Labour. Here's my take on his excuses.

He was told repeatedly that he was wrong that time too. The offensive visual and verbal libel is still cached as it appeared at the artist site. But also still live at Iain Dale's site HERE with Dale making irrelevant and indeed silly comparisons with the actually amusing Tractor Production Stalin from Beau Bo D'Or. We adapted the thing, adding green tractors, and used it here didn't we? Yes, we did.

It's the thought that counts Iain. Sidoli has realised that a hate driven and unreasonable image is a libel, whereas a gentle satire is fair comment and fun.

Nominations Open: Who Do You Think You're Kidding Mr Griffin?

So, rather inevitably, with two MEPs in the bag the BNP are reputedly invited to put one of them on the platform at BBC Question Time, report Times Online. Quite a flurry, and a divided flurry at that, from Labour tweeters. With some twaddle from the odd Tory.

Some debate too in Parliamentary Labour circles about sharing a platform with the horribly damaged hate merchant Nick Griffin. Personally I would take the decision away from the PLP wheedlers and take the law into our own hands.

I'd stick four sharp comedians or entertainers on there with Der Furore - possibly armed with custard pies, sharp sticks and/or green goo. But certainly with the means to ridicule His Nastiness.

Billy Bragg? Jo Brand? Meera Syal? Lenny Henry? Lee Herring? Stephen Fry? Rabbi Julia perhaps? To stray a little outside Equity ranks. Certainly NOT Polly or Yasmin. Serious ridicule is what that man needs. Make him see the funny side of his lifelong mistake. Tories like his dad are barking wrong, of course they are, but Going Nazi is not the answer. If you think it is you're asking the wrong question.

Wipe the smug scowl of Nasty Nick's contorted visage. And see the poop from his addled mind, spilled out, pulled to bits, plain for all to see. Can this man-child be made to beam with bonafide warmth and contentment towards the world of colourful diversity on his doorstep?

That will make the tabloids, the humouroids and the broadsheets the next day. Whereas Alan Duncan and Lynne Featherstone and Geoff the Hoon, let's say, giving him ear ache and what for ain't going to cut the mustard.

Who would you send in to nail Nick Griffin? Category A: Politicians; Category B: Freestyle; Category C: International; Category D: All Time. And Category E: who would you pray that the BBC super-libs don't invite to the party party?

Nominations in comments please. And do tell your friends. Inward links and tweets very welcome.

Paul Rowen MP: Fishing 4 Facebook Friends With Unbaited Hook

Although the Guardian Media Group have been rather cowed by the bumptious bullying "only here for the beer" Lib Dem MP for Rochdale, Mr Paul Rowen top scribbler Mike Keegan and his editors have had the courage to run a new Rowen story.

A story in which the hapless "knob of butter" member has been exposed for:

(a) sending unsolicited mailshots to rising 18s;
(b) trying to solicit their Facebook friendship; and
c) failing to put adequate or indeed any postage on their stuffed brimful envelopes.

Sending letters to new voters is fair game. Let's not be too harsh on that one. As long as it doesn't turn into harassment. But there's something that makes me a little uncomfortable about an MP begging for teenage friends and followers. And clearly failing to stick the correct postage on such material is piss poor.

Now, all this happened some time ago. But the teenager concerned is still a teenager, still unemployed, still out of pocket by £1.27, still a little worried I'd say at this Facebook proposition. Nonetheless the Lib Dem sock puppets are out in force.

What looks like an incognito and hair trigger Lib Dem Cllr Steve Cooke is the latest to speak his brains, more than two hours ago, haven't they had any more comments with this story among the "most read" of the day:

You've printed a story about incorrect postage on a letter that was sent a year ago? Give us a break and write a real story. Looks like someone just has an axe to grind against their local Lib Dem MP.

Before that there's Mark,Radcliffe (no relation):

The real story is why has it taken a year to deliver?


And various other Lib Dem sock puppets ("all" pictured above, we might wonder) with silly names and the same tedious chorus:

I see the MEN work experience journo is in the office today. Could have given them a story with a bit more substance though.

How much did it cost MEN to publish the story? more than £1.27 I'd guess. Is there no news today?

Wow! Hold the front page! For goodness' sake MEN, get back to being a proper NEWSpaper.

With just one message supporting the story at the time of writing:

Doesn't this show how desperate MPs are? Sending letters to 18-year olds asking them to be his friend on Facebook.
Pathetic

This is quite a good story actually. Whatever the foolish PR Paul Rowen's friend(s) in their many schizoidal incarnations may try to suggest.

But something is missing from Keegan's scoop. The thing which makes sense of making this relatively old news into a current story. But I'm not afraid of the Big Cry Wolf. So, let me help out.

RECENT revelations of this foolish, flustered and fallacious MP's allowances claims showed that he had purchased a very substantial paper folding and envelope stuffing machine. Perhaps this behemoth also has a franking facility? I don't know. It's something like this one here:

This means that Shane White and the rest of us have contributed some £6,000 - possibly the maximum allowed by the Green Book for an office machine - to the means for Mr White and hundreds and thousands of others to be sent mailshots.

The machine had an apparent total cost well into five figures. And I think most reasonable people would agree that it seemed ludicrously over-specified for a single local MP office. What are this motley nay hen-speckled crew actually up to?

Other Lib Dem MPs in the region and nationally have used tax payers money towards high volume printing machines. John "Bull" Leech MP for example has paid a proportion of the cost for a two-colour Riso printing machine. There are some obvious discrepancies with these arrangements which we'll come back to one of these days.

But no matter. Between Rowen, who also has a Riso plus his big FO stuffing machine, and Leech with his high-volume Riso there is the beginnings of an unvirtuous circle production line. I wonder what Andrew Stunnell MP in Hazel Grove and Mark Hunter MP in Cheadle have to bring to the party?

Some of these MPs at least, or their local supporters or their local parties, have set up unincorporated "Printing Societies", whatever those are supposed to be. "Unaccountable" would be one thing they are I suppose. Surely not an attractive characteristic given the MP's allowances soup they're all in?

I think Rowen's local party may have one of these Printing Society. His colleague John Leech MP in Manchester Withington certainly has one of these - Withington Printing Society - associated with his local party and I believe sharing his parliamentary office, or the same premises at any rate.

Many Lib Dem MPs have apparently taken completely non-political adverts on highly political leaflets with the payments going to their local party funds. Paying for the printing. Albeit indirectly. This may be "within the rules", but does it look right?

And most of these Lib Dem MPs also seem to be paying a kind of "tithe" to their regional offices. And as a rule also sharing their space with political activists (and/or printing organisations) which makes keeping track of what's what rather difficult.

£1.27 may seem like a trifling matter. Rowen may be belittling the pain felt by a job-seeking teenager but at least he'll join Hazel Blears in paying the money back!

But there's a chance that hundreds of letters have been sent out without stamps. DESPITE this fancy party machinery. That we the tax payer have helped pay for. And the unstamped letter therefore becomes the tip of a very large iceberg of hidden arrangements and difficult questions.

So well done Mike Keegan. Well done Manchester Evening News. Well done Guardian Media Group. Mr PR Paul Rowen MP may have tried to gag your journalists but you really need to take courage from small victories and pursue the sacred truth of what this rather sordid individual has been doing in our name, and with our money.



POSTSCRIPT 17:05: Stuffing machine added. And those naughty boys at Rochdale RAW have also posted on this.

Nadine Dorries MP: Battling Sleazegate MP Comes Out Swinging

When Nadine Dorries MP pads up and hoiks the bat of truth to the wicket to defend the stumps of MP innocence by attempting to slog the BBC - and specifically presenters' expenses - for six then it really is too hard to resist straight-arm slinging a Malinga style side-arm yorker at middle and leg:

You're not an innocent MP Nadine now are you? You simply do not have a proper explanation for your "main home" arrangements. Your "second home" answers the description of your "main home" as you are there more than any other address. Your one remaining dependent child is based at that home and at (day) school nearby, your dog and apparently your childminder/dog walker/ex husband too. I really can't see the merits in yourself coming out to bat for "innocent MPs" or even jeering at Margaret Moran MP I see. What do you think you are doing?
Could you please publish the ratio of comments allowed versus total comments even if my honesty and precision don't pass muster this time?

On Sunday Nadine had a BBQ lunch for some local Tory ne'er-do-wells she tells us, on Friday there was a garden party at Westoning in Mid Narnia she tells us, on Wednesday "a mates night out" with Dave Cameron and some mysterions she tells us leaning on her being born and raised "in a Council House":

Something changed for me on Wednesday night. The kid from the backyard in Liverpool (picture on top bar, and reproduced here) had crossed the divide created over generations of suspicion, to the place where she trusts the kid from the country estate. That's a big deal where I come from and takes some doing.

Only a few days before she had "fessed up" to being born and raised somewhere else:

I had ordered a cab. My cab driver was Barry and on my arrival we had chatted all the way from Lime St to Oakfield Rd. I told him how I had been born only a few hundred yards away and spend my first few years in my Nana’s house, 12 Breck Rd. She had lived there up until I was 20 and I had spent many happy days with my wonderful Nana. The picture on the top of this blog (and reproduced here) of me holding the teddy and bottle was taken in her back yard.

Here she tells us about another Friday night/Saturday morning in Woburn (site of tax payer funded "second home") and here's another Friday night in Woburn (the second home) to be followed by a journey to and from Liverpool then onwards to a friend's house in the Cotswolds (site of the alleged main home) she tells us.

Here's a letter from yesterday's Bedfordshire on Sunday:

We deserve better ...

Sir – Our Mid-Bedfordshire ‘representative’ in Parliament, Nadine Dorries, was quoted in your newspaper as saying ‘I chose to have my second home in Bedfordshire rather than Westminster as I think it’s important to live the daily commute along with the rest of my constituents’.
Whose MP does she think she is? Surely the intended purpose of a second home is to allow MPs representing constituencies that are far from London to be able to contribute fully in parliamentary business, not to allow an MP whose constituency is close to London to maintain a house in the country, just for the weekends.
Ms Dorries’ skills as a self-publicist are beyond question but her claim to be sharing the pain with the rest of us really takes the biscuit.
On this occasion, she seems to have forgotten that the inconvenience of Bedfordshire’s location is far outweighed by the political comfort of a safe-seat sinecure.
To the Conservative party, I would say, as a life-long Conservative voter, when are you going to present me with a local candidate who will truly represent me in Parliament and for whom I will gladly vote? We Bedfordshire residents must surely deserve better than this.
Andrew McIlhatton
Willow Cottage, Church End, Steppingley

This was in response to Nadine's "explanation" for her "main home" nonsense. Reported here. It doesn't really stack up.

Nadine's ex-husband's pied-a-terre in Chiseling Expenses is and was NOT Nadine's main home by any reasonable definition. If, as I tend to think, Mr Paul Dorries has re-located to Woburn for house-sitting, child-tending and dog-walking duties there is no stretch in the real world or for that matter Mid Narnia that can maintain the illusion that the rented Woburn Home is NOT Nadine's main home. As understood by any reasonable person from the Green Book and interpretations thereof.

Labour Leadership: If Brown is Houdini, Who is Harris?

Iain Dale acclaims Gordon Brown as Houdini and claims Tories are delighted by his great escape. But in truth this was an atrocious piece of plotting, mostly involving bitter light weights, some of whom didn't realise that they were!, and though he's a great blogger Tom Harris' petulance is hardly heroic as Iain would have it.

Seems to me that had Gordon Brown been somehow forced to go Iain Dale would likely claim that THAT was brilliant news for Cameron too.

In many ways that's fair enough. It's his job as the loyal-est party man in the blog business to spin what happens in a craven way to the interests of his useless, policy-less, hoon-about, tap-dancing party leader.

The Labour Party leadership issue is finely balanced in some regards. And so is the cost benefit analysis for the Tories. But real life is not made up of a series of replicable experiments. We'll never know what might have been if X, if Y and if Z. You make your decisions and you then work with the outcomes of those.

We cannot run the past again to have Gordon Brown elected in a closely contested campaign against three or four rivals. Or even to have simply smacked down John McDonnell/Michael Meacher MP and/or Charles Clarke/Alan Milburn MP. Any sort of contest WOULD have strengthened his hand. No doubt about that.

We cannot run the past again with the Autumn 2007 Election and Labour Going Fourth for "five more years" from that point. Now can we? And it might have been Cameron winning, and now quite frankly in a terrible mess with the economy and with his big beasts.

And we cannot run the past again without the inappropriate smiling of YouTube gate, or even the "we can keep this recession going" - meaning recovery - that is still lurking in Labour YouTube la la land. Take it down, now! Or re-edit the thing. There must be a take with the correct word surely?

We also cannot run various future scenarios with any certainty now can we?

We cannot be sure what would have happened over the next six months if Gordon Brown had been knifed at this point. We cannot run the future if the pathetic plotters had kept their childish and inept moves to themselves. And we cannot run the future under alt. leader A, B or C either.

Labour of Love was clear. We wanted a party leadership contest. We wanted the right-of-Gordon Blair rump to put someone up. We wanted Compass to have their champion too. Even the prospect of the Brown-McDonnell smack down was better than nothing, though we had our doubts about John's candidacy as he is personally rather unpopular in the PLP and could never carry the day, whatever his policy platform.

Labour of Love is trying to be clear now as well. We are certainly not Blairites, and we're not Brownies either, but we think Brown Must Stay as PM. Preferably to and through the next general election.

The Euro Election arithmetic is almost totally irrelevant. And the statistical illiteracy and innumeracy and analysis of even the clever bits of the mass media, the pollies and the blogosphere is quite staggering at times.

The people who bothered at all clearly treated this election as a kind of opinion poll. Nothing more and nothing less.

Those who did not vote clearly don't give a monkeys who represents them in Strasbourg. Perhaps they don't believe the spin that 75% of our law comes from Europe? Or they believe it is the Council of Ministers that does it? Or they are content with that?

And those who did vote were divided between those who did care deeply, and those who couldn't give a flying fig.

The fact that only 31% turned out and Labour got less than 16% of the popular vote does of course mean that there is, if you like, a mandate of only 5%. But if you're going there why not follow through?

The same goes for the Lib Dems and UKIP. 95% of us are against them too. And the Tories can only muster 9% or so in favour, with more than 90% against them as well. 19% voting in favour of the big three parties. 81% not caring or against mainstream parties taken together.

And delving deeper the loathsome BNP's 6% protest-cum-racist rump is less than 2%. As is the one note Green house gas vote.

Tom Harris hasn't been particularly brave. He's blogged with empathy with some of the resigners, or are they sackees?, over the last week. But in my opinion he's very late, not fashionably late to the Kill Gord party. And very much over-simplifying things.

When he piped up at the PLP meeting Tom knew that the day had been lost for the inept plot. And yet he pressed on and spoke out? Dear me. And then publicised what he had said? Dear me again. Looks like petulance, quacks like petulance, it is petulance! Perhaps he thinks it will help him get re-elected?

Lloydy will have picked Tom to speak as a relatively wet plotter. As we discussed last night. Did he get Sally Keeble too? I know he let Clarkey have his bumbling mouth off.

Tom was relatively wet on Newsnight also. His choice of ties and his haircut have come on by leaps and bounds since 2005 and his first Ministerial outing at conference - perhaps this is his buddy Iain's influence? - but Tom's busily doing-a-Stringer with his parliamentary career.

That outing was in a very dull transport fringe meeting. In fact Graham Stringer was a jolly shining light of comedy on a dull panel. It was that bad. And Tom was extraordinarily dull. To be fair he'd only just got the portfolio a few days before. I spoke from the floor. Suggesting that the hypocritical chancers, the new Lib Dem MPs Rowen and Leech, were going to be making hay from either end of the potential Metro line and that we needed to rain on their parade.

I've still got my "speech" somewhere. Scribbled on the cover of some vital GMPTE propaganda or a Manchester Evening News pull out? Something like that.

Back to business. The fact that what Tom said in a private party meeting, and after the GB horse was back frisking in the Number 10 paddock, is placed into the public domain is not particularly impressive now is it?

If Gordon Brown is Houdini, as William Rees Mogadon claimed two months ago, from whence cometh the top graphic ... Who is Tom Harris? As Fat Ladies Singing goes he be may a flustered Pantomime Dame taking a final bow, rather than a raging Valkyrie bringing the house down.

Aaaaargh! Meme Time: Thatcher, Bowie, Floyd and Palestrina

Aaaaargh! I've not only been tagged by Dr Rupa Huq, with Paul Burgin's 1979 General election meme, I've also noticed this fact and can offer no excuses for inaction. So here goes.

How old were you?

An erudite twenty two. Deeply immersed in Part Twos, or Finals in the vernacular. At the Victoria University of Manchester. A 20,000 word dissertation on "The Formation of Runoff in High Alpine Basins" was under my belt, including a marvellous sojurn at the "Bond-esque" Jungfraujoch Hochalpine Forshungsstation with Observatory, Restaurant, Tunnels-to-die-for, Huskies, Skidoos, and an Eiger piercing train.

Climbed the 4,000 metre Monch on that trip. Grossing out plodding identikit check and breeches Teutons with our free-spirited and mostly ropeless dash for the summit. Would climb Jungfrau itself twice in succeeding summers. And all the several summits of the Gross Aletschhorn. But never the Eiger. This being under 4,000 metres.

Exams in Geo-Politics, Advanced Cartography and Surveying, Environmental Geomorphology, Glaciology and Hydrology to look forward to. Plus a Philosophy of Science paper on "Theories Define Data, not Vice Versa", which title owed something to Sherlock Holmes I'm told but which herded the unwitting sheeple into leaden analyses of inductive and deductive reasoning. Joy unconfined!

After which would follow a summer in the Rockies minding glaciers for Le Governement Du Canada. With far too much Hotel California on the sound system. Plus the Devil Rode Down to Georgia that year as I recall.

What are your personal political memories, if you have any?

Had other fish to fry. No party politics certainly. Attended General Meetings in the MDH - Main Debating Hall - whenever I had no cross country races or track meets to attend to. Hard to remember the order of the political personalities there. Tories Hugh Carter who died in the yoke after a very public struggle with cancer. John Somers seemed an obnoxious little shit from Cumbria. On the left left we had John Anzani and Mick Hume. Steve Hewlett, the Baker's Union Pilsbury dough boy. Labour figures included Phil Woolas, and later John Mann.

Certainly took no part in local government or parliamentary activity at this point. Not until 82/83, when I also actually joined The Labour Party (in Hulme branch I was) and the first of a number of Trade Unions, being the NUJ, and the Cooperative Movement to boot as founder of a Workers' Cooperative.

Watched the election night coverage more-or-less end to end I believe. Though I'm not sure. I've not re-watched it to test that theory. I was rather pre-occuppied with exam preparation, having been a rather lazy (if brilliant!) student for the best part of three years. Coming from an era of relatively short governments and taking it in turns this probably seemed far less momentous to me than any election may do today in an era of longer stints. Perhaps we will now be back to the too-ing and fro-ing of old?

Loved school milk. Never failed to get to school, even in floods and blizzards, and often got to drink epic quantities of the stuff. Hated Maggie Thatcher, natch. Didn't think much of the grandiose patrician Sir John Hall, our MP in High Wycombe, re-elected at the last GE. Walked by his HQ most every day I seem to recall? Big picture of toff beaming down kindly?? The Tories seemed to have that town by the balls just then, though the lying scumbag Liberals had a gaudy orange terrapin-of-an-office just down the street.

Political Views Held?

Strong and strongly left-wing Labour supporter. Strongly Republican views both for UK and for Ireland. Some communists in the more mainland side of the DNA pool. Nationalists/republicans on the Irish side, though strictly of the Gerry Fitt kind of persuasion. Joke: RUC Recruits ask when to use truncheons? When you see Fitt! Ha, ha, ha, how we laughed. Interestingly we took The Daily Telegraph. For the crosswords and the sport. I continued to buy that more often than any other paper at uni.

Until one day one of my tutors, Bill Brice, who died last year, used my copy to mop up some spilled tea, saying that this was all it was good for. I liked Bill and I saw the light. I still did all the broadsheet crosswords Saturday and Sunday. But paid more attention to the Guardian.

Getting back to Ireland ... Great Grand Daddy was a gun runner I understand, back in the days when it was "different". And my mum's cousin Hugh was to be shot dead by soldiers in Derry, near st Eugene's Cathedral around the time of the Bobby Sands hunger strike and all. Parents were not active in the Labour Party at that point AFAIK. Irish uncles and cousins were active in civil rights struggle. Stopped a few rubber and plastic bullets and the odd truncheon between them.

Parents were later LP Branch officers and the like, though they're now in Ireland where there's no party infrastructure to speak of.

Where did you live?

Lived in the Humanities/Politics/Sociology basement stacks at the John Rylands and the Geology section in the Christie. Shuffling index cards. Reading and re-reading significant scientific and sociological papers, the abstracts of the second tier, lunch playing table football at Champions League standard in the Union most days, Ben Elton and co upstairs in the coffee bar near the pinball machine; teatime playing pool in the Bowling Green pub near the MRI; back in the Libraries until chucking out time. Absolutely no alcohol for two long months.

So mostly "lived" in the two libraries! Also then as now running along the Mersey Banks and in road loops of all shapes and sizes from "Fog Lane" (4) to "School Lane" (5) to "Parrs Wood" (6) to "Lancaster Hill" (10). Like Berlin U-Bahn and E-Bahn lines the runs were named after their farthest point. When I wasn't studying or running I had a bedroom in Fallowfield. In a Hall that was (a) infamous for ASB from sub-standard Hoorays and Hearties and (b) rather redolent of the Oxbridge world I'd deliberately opted out of. I was a rather successful Pinko agent provocateur.

By this point my family lived in Bristol, down by the then long-term closed Portway, near Sea Mills, but nominally in Stoke Bishop.

School/College/Workplace?

Victoria University of Manchester. See above.

Favourite TV Programmes?

Watched very little TV at this point. Obviously I'll now provide a long list of imagined watching. Top of the Pops and Whistle Test. Doctor Who. Dangerman, Avengers, The Prisoner, Quatermass too I seem to recall, rightly or wrongly I don't know. Match of the Day. Lots of news and documentaries. As much athletics as possible.

This was pre-marathon in the mass participation sense. But Dr Ron Hill MBE, a Manchester alumnus was a hero, and the Africans - particularly the Kenyans with the Ethiopians and Tanzanians bubbling under - now emerging as a world power in running. Also took an interest in the likes of Rose, Staynings, Ridler - all from Bristol and originally my club Westbury, but away having it large, before having it large was even invented, at the exotic Western Kentucky University.

Favourite Band/Music/etc..?

Tricky times these. By the end of my third year I had hair down my back, a full Castro beard, and would by necessity wear a bandana to race in. My graduation photographs are a joy to behold. But I had very, ahem, catholic tastes in music.

The December before this election had been up to Newcastle to see Bowie (and Iggy Pop guesting) at the City Hall, with a mate who claimed throughout this period that his middle initial "H" stood for "Himmler" and was not only running with the Tories in the Union, but also worryingly interested in the heavy end of the "small arms" continuum, and also the rise and rise and fall and fall of Webster, Tyndall and the National Front.

Will have sung plainsong, oratorios and polyphonic sprees at Clifton Cathedral, played abyssmal "jazz" on my scarcely-touched Euphonium, lunked up to Uni after a mispent youth in brass bands, pogo-ed relentlessly in the cellar-bar disco, and followed a little known pub-rock-cum-punk band known as Zoot Suit and the Zeroids, featuring one future BBC presenter Mark Radcliffe as frontman.

Later to become a drum legend with inter alia Frank Sidebottom. And the Shirehorses was it? Mark and Lard at large. I think wretched Pink Floyd at that wretched Stafford cattle market, really a cattle market and doing "Animals", was the following summer. But obviously I'll not be mentioning that one.

Aaaaargh. Someone remind me why I don't usually do these things? I'll come back and tag, link and illustrate this horrific confessional.

Stalking Horse Play: What's the Worst that Can Happen?

LabourHome are again fomenting febrile doom and gloom.

OK, so Gordon's had an April with a few little niggles here and there. Nothing he cannot bounce back from. International Labour Day tomorrow heralds a new month and a new start. All. Will. Be. Well. Would be conspiracists should stop right now, thank you very much.

Speculation about stalking horses seems to be running a little wild. Rule number one of the Jockeying Club is: Not a big beast. So I'm not sure where the names of Charles Clarke and John Reid are coming from. One commenter even suggests that Reid would batter Cameron. I'd say his fist fighting days are probably over. And JR is planning to stand down. Clarke couldn't be allowed to do it. He might get it into his head that he should actually go ahead and stand for the job. That would never do.

Let's get things into perspective.

A vile spin doctor (VSD) has been found not spinning some vile stuff. Who'd have thunk it? World Post-Smear Champion Guido says the VSD's mate's non-existent blog would have been "too smeary" and "obscene". But we'll never know. But an air-headed Tory MP X has outed themselves and is going round uttering worthless threats.

MPs of all parties are scared constipated and libido-less over their upcoming expenses reveal. And much as they mutter and grouse they wouldn't mind a delay in publication and a delay in change. Another year of the same would be ideal. Cutting this Gordian Knot was well worth a try. Tying up the loose ends will take longer than might be hoped. So what?

And there is an extraordinarily sentimental reaction to some outsourced workers-in-uniform. They're making outrageous demands for improved terms and conditions. Tories are backing them. With weasel words. So expose them.

That's all looking pretty good really now isn't it? Catch yourself on folks. But on the plus side it gets better. And now I'm being serious.

Green shoots of recovery. Bank lending a bit more. House prices recovering. But not too much. Exports amazingly strong. Record profits for Leahy. Existing mortgages fairly cheap. Cost of living flat or reducing. Troops out of Iraq. 50 pence tax.

More schools. More hospitals. More doctors. More nurses. More teachers. Some good green stuff on the way. Public health scare, so far so good.

McBride gone. Draper going. And the coup de grace Prescott getting Battlebus out for a spin at the weekend. Come on! Kick off your shoes? Lay back and relax! What's the worst that can happen? Please see above.

Tomlinson Death: "Baton Cop" Reminds of Lynndie England

This Guardian video is not conclusive by any means. But it doesn't look good now does it? What happened before hand? In the half hour before Ian Tomlinson was batoned on the back of his leg? And then barged over? And especially in the five minutes or so before this sequence begins?

What had these members of Boris Johnson's own police force - demanding that hot seat was a very big mistake from the clown Bozzer - been up to earlier in the day?

There is some speculation from a fellow Chris living in St Pauls, Bristol. Or more accurately from one of Chris's commenters. It may come to nothing. But it's interesting.

The attitude there reminds me of Ian "Class War" Bone - the anarcho-egotist who re-emerged with some unchecked enthusiasm for the Fred the Shred brickings - but the juxtaposition of pictures here is interesting. BristleKRS (Bristol Chris) has a commenter who reckons the police "clot" attending closely on the baton and the barge featured in the Guardian video are also the "clot" in this staged-looking picture for the old family album:


And this picture above I must say somehow - I cannot satisfactorily explain myself, though Charles and Lynndie have now done their time and might have answered CIA adverts for London manoeuvres - reminds me of this one here:



Do you think that the baton copper somehow reminds of Lynndie? Something about the "power pose"? And that his/her sidekick looks just a bit like Charles? As BristleKRS says the identification of "baton cop" and company with the officers at the Tomlinson scene (below) is not conclusive. They don't appear to be the bargers. But the surveillance society and the ubiquitous camera phone cut both ways as Boris' police are now discovering.



FOOTNOTE: The Lib Dems seem to be claiming credit for calling for a criminal investigation. However David Howarth MP (Shadow Justice) is saying he has in fact complained about policing of the Climate Change demo, not the Tomlinson incident. Green AM Jenny Jones - a member of the Police Authority - was on last night suggesting that pre-emptive "kettling" was the wrong approach. Howarth does suggest that police and media hype contributed. In doing that he's missing out the likes of Anarcho-shill Iain "Mad Dog" Bone and his "this is only the start" rhetoric.

What will Police overseer in chief Boris Johnson do about this? Is he a fit person to be Mayor, never mind Chair of the Police Authority? Being elected as a clown is all very well, but running London is a serious task and Boris is a very naughty boy.

BREAKING: Frank Field MP Calls For Time Limited Benefits

A couple of weeks ago Frankie was calling for plans to be hatched - just in case - for a government of national unity. His co-panelists such as David Steele rather teased him over it all. Poor Frank. Now he's written a paper for Reform, for which independent think tank he is an Advisory Board member. He probably advised them to publish his paper:

"Time-limited benefits can help fight the recession" ...

Is Frank's bold and very likely even-more-unpopular-with-Labour-than-James-Purnell's claim. Indeed Franko claims the Welfare Reform Bill - being debated in the House of Commons today (Tuesday) - is based on toothless sanctions that will not help people back into employment. And he suggests that a radical programme of time-limited, contribution-based benefits and locally devolved community programmes would allow welfare to become an important weapon in fighting surging unemployment.

The paper, Help! Refashioning welfare reform to help fight the recession, finds that at the height of the last recession, before Labour's welfare to work strategy was
created, more people were leaving unemployment benefit than were at the height of
the most recent economic boom. At a time of rising unemployment, therefore, welfare
reform is more important than ever.

Repeating his familiar burden and currying favour with his many Tory admirers Field claims that The New Deal has been a spectacular and expensive failure, costing £75 billion over the past decade but reducing the number of benefit claimants by only 400,000.

As usual this arithmetic seems pretty duff and a tad misleading. The population of working age has I think increased considerably in this period, one way and another. So the glass half empty approach of reduced claimants may be less informative than the glass half full one of considering total workforce.

But, bashing on, Field claims a new approach is needed, echoing Bill Clinton's 1996 reforms which cut welfare rolls by two thirds.

The key pillars of Field's proposed reform are:

* Time-limiting benefits for under 25s who have never worked and linking this reform to the advent of a green community programme;

* Reforming the National Insurance system so that workers with a longer record of work receive higher contribution-based Jobseeker's Allowance if made redundant;

* Freeing the Jobcentre Plus network from central control, allowing people who understand the local job market to help claimants back into work whilst combating benefit fraud; and,

* Abolishing the use of training as a sanction, restoring its value and prestige.

So far, so "not too mad". Frank Field MP says: "The Government is debating welfare reform whilst standing on the burning ship. With over-bubbling phrases and good intent the Government has set upon a strategy that will defeat its goal.

"A radical Government would withdraw this Bill and replace it with serious welfare reform as one means of overcoming the recession".

Elizabeth Truss, Deputy Director of Reform, said: "We have had eleven years of talk
of welfare reform. Will the Government now be brave enough at the crucial moment to
act seriously on its rhetoric?"

Now now Elizabeth. And Frank too. The Government believe they are seizing the day and walking the talk. What they've got is unpopular enough with Labour grass roots and meeja without adding the Field magic to the mix.

PDF DOWNLOAD: The report from Field and his researcher Patrick White can be downloaded right here. Or you could wait for welfare and blogging expert Iain Dale to explain it for you as he surely will.

Freedom of Information: Tories Had Done Deal With Labour

Don't get me wrong. I shall enjoy any bounty from FOI requests on hypocritical MPs of all parties - calling for openness while secretly hoping, or indeed plotting to stymie this. Thanks to Sam Coates for this digging.

The secrets of John Leech, Paul Rowen and other "Freedom of Information champions" in the Liberal Democrats will be particularly interesting given their craven bleatings, the published accounts of their local party units, and their often strange arrangements.

But with or without the FOI exemption the new rules and the increased granularity of expenses accounting are a great leap forward. And although I may have to share some of my receipts with the taxman and/or VATman and my accountant I do not have to share these with the press and bloggers of the nation. Which makes the level playing field argument defunct doesn't it?

Here is the order paper for the non-debate on FOI showing the increased openness being brought forward by the government, lettering scheme as forwarded to me (see update):

Main Business

† 1 BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE [Until 6.00 pm]
Ms Harriet Harman

That, at this day’s sitting, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Ms Harriet Harman relating to Payments to hon. Members (Publication Scheme), Members’ Allowances (Green Book), Members’ Allowances (Audit and Assurance) and Committee on Members’ Allowances not later than 5 pm; in each case such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.


† 2 PAYMENTS TO HON. MEMBERS (PUBLICATION SCHEME)
Ms Harriet Harman

(1)

(2) In addition, information relating to Members’ expenditure from the beginning of the current Parliament shall be published in relation to each financial year, to the extent that such information is separately identifiable, under the following categories:

(a) Administrative and Office Expenditure:

(i) accommodation costs for offices, surgeries, etc;

(ii) office equipment and supplies;

(iii) telephones and other telecommunications;

(iv) professional fees and charges;

(v) agency and other staff costs;

(vi) travel costs;

(vii) utilities;

(b) Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure:

(i) mortgage interest;

(ii) rent;

(iii) hotel costs;

(iv) council tax;

(v) fixtures, fittings and furnishings;

(vi) subsistence;

(vii) other household costs, including service charges, utilities, telecommunications, maintenance and repairs;

(c) Communications Expenditure:

(i) websites;

(ii) reports and surveys;

(iii) delivery charges, postage and stationery;

(iv) advertising;

(v) equipment;

(d) Staffing Expenditure;

(e) Travel Expenditure in relation to travel by Members:

(i) car, including third party vehicle rental and mileage;

(ii) rail;

(iii) air;

(iv) other UK and European travel;

(f) Resettlement Grant;

(g) Winding-up Expenditure;

(3) The Committee on Members’ Allowances shall keep the categories listed in paragraph (2) above under review and may modify them from time to time as the committee may think necessary or desirable in the interests of clarity, consistency, accountability and effective administration, and conformity with current circumstances.

† 3 MEMBERS’ ALLOWANCES (GREEN BOOK)
Ms Harriet Harman

That this House approves the Guide to Members’ Allowances (the Green Book), published as Annex 1 to the First Report of the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee (House of Commons Paper No. 142) and endorses the Principles set out in Part 1 of the Green Book as the basis for all claims made by Members;

That the rules set out in the Green Book shall govern all expenditure on Members’ allowances with respect to all claims for expenditure arising on or after 1 April 2009;

That the Members Estimate Committee shall carry out a review of the provisions of the resolutions of this House relating to such expenditure, make such modifications to them as are necessary to ensure that they are consistent with the provisions in the Green Book, and report to the House; and

That this House thanks Ms Kay Carberry CBE, nominated by the Trades Union Congress, and Mr Keith Bradford, nominated by the Confederation of British Industry, for having acted as the Speaker’s external appointees to the Advisory Panel on Members’ Allowances.

† 4 MEMBERS’ ALLOWANCES (AUDIT AND ASSURANCE)
Ms Harriet Harman

That this House approves the arrangements for the audit and assurance of Members’ allowances set out in the report of the Members Estimate Audit Committee to the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee, published as Annex 3 to the First Report of the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee (House of Commons Paper No. 142).

UPDATE 11:33: I've relented and removed the repetition.

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.

Lib Dem Leech Flouts the Rules: Commissioner Sits Idly By

We are still waiting for the Parliamentary Commissioner to treat scowly John "Hospital Hoax" Leech (right) like any grown up MP who persistently flouts the rules and protocols of both the House and the Electoral Commission.

- Persistently flouting the rules by delivering parliamentary reports outside his area;
- Persistently flouting the rules by touting for casework outside his area;
- Persistently flouting the rules by representing himself as "your MP" outside his area;
- Persistently flouting the rules by issuing hybrid Portcullis (supposedly non-partisan) and Party Politics leaflets;
- Persistently flouting the rules by using Tax Payers money for Party Political material, in content and timing ... designed to get Lib Dems elected;
- Persistently flouting the rules by hiding the location where and even the name and address of the true printing contractor carrying out his money laundering printing;
- Persistently flouting the rules by hiding his true spending levels and fundraising mechanisms;

But perhaps the Commissioner thinks that Leech is so feeble that he should be given any number of let offs and quiet words instead of facing the music like a proper MP.

Other MPs have been officially carpeted. And we think John leech deserves to be properly treated and officially carpeted too - he is a real MP is he not? How can he be let off like some cheeky little chancer instead of as a real MP?

The High Master of Manchester Grammar School apparently chucked the naughty boy John Leech out as he would any other evil little MGS scrote referred to his justice. Why cannot the Commissioner also treat a miscreant equally with other miscreants?

Mr Leech's latest missive in Chorlton - barring the recent tax payer funded fount-of-lies survey on Education and Health - is a three-fold down to A5 which features Leech and his muppety cohort Paul "They're All Bastards" Ankers - as one of those "parliamentary reports (right) before PTABA was elected - on the cover.

Standing in a park which is in Trafford MBC's turf and Stretford MP Beverley Hughes' constituency. Facts which are not noted anywhere on the leaflet. And which have this pair of clowns once again interfering outside their ward and constituency boundaries.

But inside, what's this?, where the illicit portcullis letter with green ink header on mustard paper usually lurks we have some Lib Dem "passing off". Same green ink, same heading "John Leech MP, Liberal Democrat MP for Manchester Withington" but instead of the Portcullis a little pen and ink clip art treasure ... the tower housing Big Ben itself.

Blatant piss taking over the rules. Something that has been a persistent feature of the conduct of John Leech MP both before and during Mr Leech's temporary tenure.

Like the way he outspent all the opposition in 2005 with many times the tonnage of propaganda. Some say five times as much, others nearer ten times, and that was without the leaflet so naughty that it had to be burnt on a pyre.

With just the one donor (£23,000, allowance for election = £11,000) actually declared and a grand total of just £17 for one person's mobile allegedly the total 'phone spend. Although they had at least three landlines at the HQ. The HQ he didn't even exclusively pay for. With mum leading the effort all election day, hammering the 'phone knock up all day. Just one example of Leech's campaign mendacity when it came to his expenses.

The famous bar chart fills a whole page. A throwback to 2005 rather than recent ward data showing him trounced in the area in 2008. Advertising the fact that Mr Leech has a parliamentary majority of just 667. Half of which was sliced off last time in that one ward alone. The number of the beast plus the devil himself. Mr Leech of course did not have a vote in the constituency as he lives elsewhere.

He still doesn't live in the constituency, despite an estate agently press release saying he and his mysterious long term partner Catherine were to shack up on Chorlton Green.

As ever the full process colour, full bleed, glossy leaflet was allegedly "Printed by Withington Printing Society ... at 8 Gawsworth Avenue, Manchester, M20 5NF". Which happens to be the address of Mr Leech's parliamentary offices and also the home of the Lib Dem constituency association. All very cosy.

CALL FOR PUBLIC SPIRITEDNESS: Did you go to MGS or Loreto with John Leech? Or perhaps to Brunel University or any other seat of learning? Do you have a story to tell? Or perhaps you're outside his constituency but he's pretended to be your MP? Or written to you anyway? Or perhaps he's used parliamentary stationery to address a private or party matter? Do drop us a line won't you? Thanks.

And Honest John obviously welcomes openness and says a hearty xmas thanks too:

Libdemologists: Could They Have Got Their Act Together?

Probably the most sensible and reasonable Lib Dem blogger on the planet, Alix Mortimer covers the Green Gate gathering though reading the small print that'll be without hearing or reading the debate.

With around 100 MPs not voting at all on Ming's amendment this may not be quite such a close run thing as the margin of four suggests. The margin on the substantive motion is not revealed. Probably more than four then?

But Guido's suggestion that Lib Dems could have got their act together and won the day perhaps needs some examination. Who were the missing in action Lidemologists last evening?

It would of course be very difficult to have an effective review of events that are still in process by a committee, however constituted, while the details of what Damian Green is supposed to have done, what office holders at the HoP are supposed to have done, what civil servant(s) are supposed to have done, and what evidence can be brought to bear to determine the various guilts and responsibilities.

The Government way is adjourn until there are some certainties and belatedly build a house upon the rock while the Lib Dem way is to get stuck in and build the house upon the sand.

To these eyes it is quite hilarious to see Tories complaining that the Speaker's wish to see an investigation as soon as possible is being thwarted. They are after all protesting elsewhere that the man is out of his depth, has poor judgement, and that anything he says must be treated with contempt. I paraphrase. But you get their drift.

Woeful Disgusting NO Campaign: Media Relations Experts Write

Following publication of this post publishing further woeful NO Campaign materials related to the ongoing Manchester ballot on a proposed £3 Billion Great Leap Forward, part financed by peak only road charging, we received various comments.

First of these was from Cllr Iain Lindley (Salford, Walkden, Conservative) and appeared to be suggesting that there is some equivalence between YES campaign promotion of improved safety as an outcome of the TIF proposals and a disgusting rape narrative video, and disgusting posters produced in the NO cause. Trying to keep middle aged, white, male, be-hatted, manic, selfish, car drivers in the driving seat.

This is what Councillor Lindley said:

Chris Chris Chris...
I can understand why you want to hype these adverts up. They are pretty distasteful and moreover hardly likely to enthuse people to vote "no". You want it to be a big deal - that's politics.
The truth is that this video seems to be the work of two men in a shed with an out-of-date Apple Mac, and in any case the only people who've actually watched the damned thing are political hacks like us. It's hardly been on repeat play in the Orient food hall - if it had been, you might have had a point.
The ironic thing, of course, is that the YES campaign have used a very similar message - albeit with more tact and subtlety.
Isn't "I'm voting yes because I want to feel safer on the bus" implying that you'll be less safe if you vote no?
07 December, 2008 01:03

"More tact and subtlety"? Somethingly understated difference I'd say. We've asked him to retract this silly comparison. So far he has not done so. We don't know why. This really was a very silly thing to say.

Though the only video on heavy rotation in the Trafford Centre was the one fibbing about the £1200 a year everyone was going to pay. I'm not sure why they didn't choose a five-car family and say £6000.

Later on an out-of-hours comment arrived from some PRO on behalf of GMMG (Greater Manchester momentum Group) and I'll reproduce it here (bold italics) with inter-collated conversational comments in plain italics:

When GMMG posted a message on your blog two weeks ago explaining that GMMG had nothing to do with that Sonassi film, condemning it and explaining that Sonassi had been immediately expelled from GMMG as soon as we were aware of its existence, you said that the statement was "commendable".

I welcomed the commendable formal condemnation of the video and the assertion of the expulsion of Sonassi from GMMG. But I'm not so sure that I exonerated GMMG (or the Trafford Centre) from blame as the GMMG PR now suggest. Putting words into mouths etc. Is this NO campaign PR being run by some green tea boy?

Two weeks later you are resurrecting the subject and saying that GMMG "tolerated" the existence of the video. This implies that GMMG knew of its existence and distribution before seeing it on your blog. That is completely untrue and we request that you amend your blog immediately to reflect the truth.

You'll have to be more persuasive than this if you want me to change my blog. First, did I actually say that GMMG tolerated the video or knew of its existence and distribution?

No, as far as I recall, but might of course be wrong, I said or suggested that The Trafford Centre tolerated the video and surely knew of its existence. I think this is a reasonable conclusion from the facts.

But how far GMMG and the Trafford Centre are congruous is of course an issue. And if I've slipped I apologise. It is the Trafford Centre that agreed the video theme, facilitated it, and tolerated it. Not "GMMG" as such.

But your earlier "GMMG Statement" appeared to speak for both the Trafford Centre and GMMG within the same statement. Clearly until recently at least Andrew Simpson, CEO of Peel, has been Chair of GMMG and the Chief NO Spokesman too, now he's been sent away, but even if GMMG statements include the two I do realise these are separate entities and try to compartmentalise.

How can I say the Trafford Centre knew the video was planned? Because according to Sonassi's Dave Carlson (various emails) there was a meeting between the Free Manchester Partnership, including Sonassi's Dave Carlson, who admits to membership but has not so far named any other constituents, and representatives unnamed but clearly with decisive executive power of the Trafford Centre.

At this meeting TWO major actions ensued:

1. The concept, treatment and facilities needs of the planned video having been discussed, The Trafford Centre approved these needs and allowed the shoot to go ahead, including their scarey outdoor car parks, bright indoor car park masquerading as "daft dad" garage, and private access roads, some masquerading as public highways;

2. The Trafford Centre representatives, with their GMMG hat on, recruited Sonassi certainly (as they were later canned) and Free Manchester Partnership in the literal sense of Dave Carlson's emails (but they have not been canned) to the Greater Manchester Momentum Group.

The Trafford Centre representatives did not necessarily approve the detailed actors or shooting script. The suggestion was that this was rather cobbled together. But they did approve the concept of a stranded child, fearing attack, being let down by dodgy dad who didn't want to pay the charge. Which incidentally he wouldn't need to under the proposals.

For the record, GMMG had no part in its production or distribution ...

Apart from major GMMG constituent allegedly approving the concept and facilitating the shoot that is?

... and we have condemned it from the moment we became aware of it. As soon as it was practical on the Monday following its discovery, the film was taken off YouTube and the links on Freemanchester to the GMMG and Stopthecharge websites were taken down and replaced with a statement explaining that there was no connection.

Perhaps we have over-estimated the basic competences of The Trafford Centre and their PR agencies? But we would consider that any internal press/PR office or external agency that did not have alerts when items mentioning, never mind tagged "Trafford Centre" went live should urgently review their arrangements.

You should also know that whilst Sonassi sought the permission of the Trafford Centre to film on their premises, they (TC) had no prior knowledge of the content of the film, Sonassi did not show the film to the TC before distributing it and Sonassi did not tell TC that it had been distributed.

Sonassi's man Dave Carlson, who insists the production was by and for Free Manchester Partnership rather than the heavily implicated Sonassi, claims that he had a meeting with senior people at the Trafford Centre, capable of signing him up to GMMG, at which the concept was discussed and agreed.

Are you claiming that Dave Carlson is misleading us all on that matter? And how can it be, in this day and age, that the TC did not get an immediate alert on the video's publication, that GMMG and stopthecharge did not get immediate alerts on FreeManchesterPartnership linking inwards, and that there was no knowledge of this whole avalanche of bad taste and dirty tricks was heading down the big chill mountain?

Anyone understanding modern communications would believe that alerts would have been received promptly by the Trafford Centre when a video appeared at YouTube tagging their brand. But perhaps this Billion Pound Peel Company are claiming that they haven't begun to get their act together?

In case it's not blindingly obvious, GMMG had nothing to do with any of the content of the Freemanchester site and we agree that the posters you have reproduced here are disgusting.
07 December, 2008 18:59

Forgive me for repeating this but I find it incredibly hard to understand how the GMMG campaign office, the Trafford Centre press office, the stopthecharge wassive, and their various PR agents would not have been aware of (a) a new video tagged "Trafford Centre" and hilariously "Comedy" and (b) a new NO website that repeated the GMMG texts almost verbatim and linked inwards, including from a disgusting poster download page.

There have not been that many websites springing up supporting the cause that a new one would be ignored surely? Is that what you are suggesting?

You have not answered my questions before. But here are some more:

- Why did the Trafford Centre allow this video to be shot?

- Why did TC/GMMG having discussed an attack/women/dad/charge idea, recruit Sonassi and/or FMP as a result of this video approval meeting?

- Why was there or are you claiming no knowledge of the FMP site, video and posters when these linked into GMMG and stopthecharge?

- Why has Peel Holdings CEO Andrew Simpson been taken off the case?

- How long will the PROs involved in all this keep their jobs?

AND HERE'S ONE TO CONSIDER CAREFULLY, OH GREAT PR:

- Did Sonassi or anyone involved in Sonassi or the horror rape video make any of the other, official NO Campaign video offerings?

AND ONE MORE THING:

- If I put the nasty Free Manchester Partnership video back up tomorrow who will be able and willing to complain that I am infringing their copyright?