John Leech MP's Feet To The Fire: Must Vote ConDem Budget Down

This morning I was amazed when I followed a link to this Guardian article to find the born again hospital closure and dentist fixing fibber and expenses gamer John Leech MP uttering all sorts of suck up platitudes towards the outrageously over the top Conservative and Liberal Democrat budget. Even my rocky faith in this schemer's political integrity has been dented.

Desperate times call for desperate measures from this weakest link. On election night I had been amazed to see the slimeball's slimeball (corrected, not slimball, not by any stretch of the imagination) David Hennigan (right) - sacked, by fellow slimebag Paul Rowen, the ex-MP for Con-Dem Rochdale, for being embarrassing - lining up as a key member of John Leech MP's re-election team.

Not peripheral by any means. Delegating tasks to other key team members. Hob-nobbling with senior councillors, though not with the would-be MP who was off drowning his sorrows, or "chilling", or something. Anoraks on both sides thought Leech had Lost. As he certainly deserved to do with his integrity by-pass and his serial failure to get anything REAL done. he claimed plenty. He did next to nothing. Incidentally Hennigan's cousin - newly elected Cllr James Hennigan - appears to also have an official role with John Leech MP's Con-Dem team.

Hennigan D's first hail-fellow-well-met stanza to me on the night included claiming responsibility for fixing it for John to have a really pretty nasty and disreputable smear campaign against the Labour council candidate in Manchester Chorlton where I live. More on which anon. And Hennigan D also naturally featured heavily with Cllr Chamberlain V and Cllr/PPC Eakins M in some highly disreputable drunken loutery and anti-social behaviour. More on that mess soon also.

What follows is what John Leech told the Guardian. I expect that, him being all left-wing and that, not having one of the forty plus government jobs, they expected that he would be an MP who sought to exculpate the Lib Dem grassroots from the stain of association with George GOO Osborne's hateful budget.

But not a bit of it:

John Leech, the MP for Manchester Withington, said the coalition was having to stabilise the public finances and the Lib Dems could not secure a budget which completely reflected their thinking.

"I would have preferred to have seen taxes raised in other areas but as part of a coalition government we don't always get our way. But we don't have a Lib Dem government, we have a Liberal-Conservative coalition. The idea of raising personal [tax] allowances by £1,000 is progressive."

Leech was scathing about Labour which is intensifying its attacks on the Lib Dems. "The budget was not as bad as people were expecting and Labour have got a cheek saying anything about the budget when they had promised cuts and cuts. Harriet Harman's performance was a joke. She had written her speech before the budget was announced.

"They just want to go into opposition and blame the incoming government for the cuts that have to be introduced. No one likes cuts ... but we are in a pretty dire situation."

"Not as bad as people were expecting"? Perhaps John Leech would care to provide in comments some illustrations of how this budget could have been worse than it actually already is? Before we even catch sight of the devastation to Manchester jobs and Manchester services to be wrought by the Departmental spending review.

Don't get me wrong. I welcome this candour from the supposed "left" of the the Lib Dems in parliament. They don't give a flying fig for the working people, the sick, the old, the vulnerable of the UK. And they are providing virtually no checks and balances on what is nothing but an ideological attack on society and our solidarity with those who most need support from us all.

Don't stand helplessly by. Add your signature BEFORE 5PM TODAY to David Miliband's appeal to the more progressive Tories and the whole opportunist cadre of the Lib Dems to wise up, catch themselves on and vote against Osborne's poisonous budget. And retweet @DMiliband's call to action. And contact Mr Leech direct via Write To Them if you are a constituent. Also LEECHJ@parliament.uk or Tel: 0161 434 3334 Fax: 0161 434 3206 or soon-to-be privatised Snail Mail: 8 Gawsworth Avenue, Didsbury, Manchester, M20 5NF and/or House of Commons London SW1A 0AA.

Below's the David Miliband letter. Minor Labour of Love heart murmour: shame he did not share this with all our leadership contenders, it would still be his initiative. Below the text is a harrowing visual representation of the budget John leech proposes to vote through.

The projected total effect on incomes and services of this so called "progressive budget". Courtesy of The Fabians and via The Observer and this rendering of the chart TUC Touchstone blog (or click for PDF download of Fabian report). In essence the poorest families will be bearing SIX TIMES THE BRUNT of the Tory measures than the richest. SIX TIMES.

Hold John Leech's feet to the fire. SIX TIMES THE HURT. Show him what he should be doing to the Tories. SIX TIMES THE HARM. Clearly if it weren't for the fancy jobs and cars and pension and kudos the Lib Dems would have been doing the right thing and holding a minority Tory government to account. SIX TIMES THE SHARE.

GOO would never have got this budget through without the craven buy in of the Lib Dems. And No John, No John, No John, No the £1000 change in the personal tax allowance does not touch the poorest people in Britain. You've failed. You've failed to hold Osborne and Cameron and the right of the Tory party in check. You are a weak and dishonest representative of a weak and muddle-headed franchise.

Make John Leech keep his word and vote against anything not in Manchester people's interests:

Dear Conservative / Lib Dem MP

The CONservative Budget: 5 Big Cons

I am writing to you ahead of the Budget vote (today) to urge you to vote against it.

In the last 24 hours XXX people have co-signed this letter to voice their outrage at the 5 big Cons announced in last week’s Budget.

Con no 1– This budget is “unavoidable”

Yes this Budget was avoidable. Labour set out plans to cut the deficit by half over the course of the next Parliament. The Tories have chosen to cut the whole of the deficit and more to the tune of £32billion of public services and £11billion of welfare cuts. We should not risk jobs and growth by cutting more quickly than is needed.

Con no 2 – This Budget is “fair”

This Budget is not fair. Up-rating benefits more slowly means that those at the very bottom are hit the hardest. £6bn of cuts from benefits by the end of the Parliament means those with the least amount of money are expected to shoulder the most pain. 20,000 more people will lose 90p of every extra pound they earn, in lost benefits and extra taxes. Making the poor pay the price for the sins of the richest is an outrage.

Con no 3 – ‘We’re all in this together’

Not if you’re a family. You’ve chosen to cut taxes to banks but hits families hard – with the Sure Start Maternity Grant cut, the Health in Pregnancy Grant scrapped and the baby element of the Child Tax Credit scrapped. A tax cut for business should not be paid for by penalising hard working families.

Con no 4 – ‘We have no plans to put up VAT’

The Budget raised VAT to 20% - hitting the poorest hardest by cutting into their incomes the most. We have been misled.

Con no 5 – No families earning under £40,000 will lose their Child Tax Credits

The Tories claimed that Labour was “lying” during the General Election when we warned that the Tories would remove Child Tax Credits from families on £30,000 a year. Yet this Budget means that no family with one child over the age of one and income over £30,000 will get a penny in tax credits by 2012/13. This is a betrayal.

Don’t risk the recovery. Vote against the Budget.

Yours sincerely

David Miliband MP

Click to enlarge

Good Honest Politics: www.YouFund.me.uk/Lucy-Powell

Hurrah! The Lucy Powell page at YouFund.me.uk has now been completed, with the correct embed code. Available at YouFund.me.uk/lucy-powell. As LOL previously reported this contrasts with the Nadine Dorries attacking (for shame!) Linda Jack and absolute Tory bollocks talking of castrating Labour and Ed Balls (geddit?) from Anthony Calvert, calling up memories of Steven Twigg and his tatering of Michael Portillo. And (finally, what took you, you kipping?) the full on attack on John Bercow from Nigel Farage who has boasted about the humungous level of expenses and allowances he has drawn down and who employs his wife, and whose own MEPs have been an absolute disgrace: his "Ban the Bercow" being an hilarious dog-whistle play on "Ban the Burka". How we laughed!

Faced with relentlessly lying scum-bag Lib Dem opponents it is hard to be relentlessly positive we always find. We do our best. But sometimes standards do slip. But it's hats off to Lucy Powell for keeping her eye on the ball: Keeping Cameron and Osborne out of Downing Street.

£Ashcroft: Biggles, Bertie, Algy and Ginger Flaunting the Rules?

We've been following the rather ridiculous Baron Muchhousing Ashcroft of Belize for some time.

Here, for example is our archive featuring "Flying Lion" - the good Lord's private jet company - which has been ferrying shadow mimicsters and MPs around willy nilly. Not a UK company. Not paying tax here. With no base here. With no direct company interest in the demented big-C wasting involved in dashing around the globe.

Michael Ashcroft's Flying Lion has exploited an apparent loophole in the donations rules. These bar overseas companies and overseas based individuals from donating either money or in kind goods and services to UK political parties. With one exception. That being Travel.

This concession being designed to allow the Sultan of Brunei say to summon some UK polis at his own expense, to lobby them on his interests, to entertain them and to return them, educated, to the UK. Or let's say Tata to finance some travel to and accommodation in India to explain their prospectus for the UK.

Ashcroft's Flying Lion wasn't doing that. It was instead donating the services of a private jet and crew to ferry Mimicsters and MPs around the globe. To destinations and on missions entirely unconnected with Flying Lion's direct interests. That seems abusive to me. And the fact that this hasn't been outlawed when challenged says more about the Electoral Commission and PPERA (the relevant legislation) than it does about the activity.

The Commission and the Law look weak. And Flying Lion, an overseas company with no direct interest in the travel offered, appears to be providing an analogue of cash money. Donating money to a UK political party. Which is not allowed.

To make matters worse whenever Tory MPs get this cash equivalent donation, under the guise of the Travel concession, they always but always evaluate this gift as if it were a scheduled, even a budget scheduled flight. This is by no means representing the true cost of say a day's running costs.

Let's say 1/250th of a year's running budget for starters. Including depreciation and maintenance and hangaring and registration and wear and tear. And any and all airport fees. And enormously well-paid flight crew and attendants. Not even the actual cost of the aviation fuel for these thirsty jets would be covered. And really, the evaluation should be on a cost-plus basis anyway.

What would it cost to buy this service on the open market? Not meaning business class flying to Hong Kong say. Like £2000? But meaning what would it actually cost to charter a high end private jet for this journey. Which might be £100,000. And why would they continuously understate the value of such things? Well because (a) if retrospectively ruled out and clawed back the amount of cash would be far less; and (b) because if you want to claim Ashcroft donates only 1% of your whole it doesn't help if there's £2 million at true value of private jet setting to be included.

One might run a similar discussion over Taking the Michael's Bearwood Securities Limited. The UK firm that has been the main agent of his key marginals largesse. It would be completely illegal if Bearwood was simply passporting money through from an overseas, "ineligible" donor like Ashcroft say, and had no direct company interest in making such donations. To be an eligible donor a firm like Bearwood Securities would need to be carrying out a bona fide, uncontrived UK business AND not be acting as an agent for any ineligible donor.

People are trying to determine what's what on this. So we'll leave it there.

We've no time to discuss Michael's wife's donations and how those arise. Or what an all-round unpatriotic, ruthless, self-serving and cheeky arse Lord Ashcroft is being in trying to buy elections in the UK. Just has he has tried in Australia and New Zealand and Belize and elsewhere in Central America and the Caribbean.

And we've certainly got no time to try to work out what he's been up to in Belize. Taking the piss mostly. He's not popular. Very likely others will have a go at all this over the next day or two. We'll see. Perhaps we'll join in.

We do, naturally, have a man on the ground in Belize. Ashcroft beer is monopolistically bad. His cola is monopolistically bad. His phone company was monopolistically bad. His utilities and so on and so forth. He's fallen out with the new - more right wing but less in pocket - government. And the people think he's pocketing their money. Aren't people funny?

Connections with the disgraced Sir Allen Stanford, from Turks and Caicos, would of course be down-played and denied. What a gift it would be to the forces of progressive righteousness if there were a Stanford-Ashcroft-Cameron connection. Revealed perhaps in the long campaign? Or even during the sprint. Let's hypothesize. It's fun! What if they were all meeting up at Lords for the cricket while Stanford was working his million pound prize money and borrowed helicopter stunts for example.

Would make George Osborne's dalliances with Aluminium billionaire oligarchs and Rothschild hedgies whose family donated to GOO's office - which he tried to gloss over - it would make such dalliances look de nada. Just as well there is no Stanford-Ashcroft-Cameron connection.

Cons' "New Poster": Ashcroft's Tumescence Puffs Con Conceit

The creepy tax avoider and vulture capitalist Lord Michael Ashcroft of Belize now has a tumescence of throbbing organs. Including Total Politics, and Conservative Home, and Politics Home too. Don't know whether the money he's putting into these during the long campaign counts towards the Tory expenditure tally. But perhaps it should?

Total Politics' Question Time in Manchester was horribly biased. Tweeted by myself with the tag #TPQT. [Twitter is not serving these, you could search chrisplol + tpqt]

Tories have not had a councillor elected in the city for 15 years or so. And the one they picked up as a Lib Dem defective, Cllr Faraz Bhatti, is a disaster area to rival Andy Coulson. There are questions about his credentials. His protege Fawad Hussain had campaign workers who were not only arsey but who also worked with Hizb_ut-Tahrir material. That being an organisation Cameron says he would ban. And FB's personal carryings on have scandalised the community.

There are signs, for example in Manchester Withington that a new generation of Tories are looking finally to rebuild. Adding to John "Hospital Hoax" Leech's fears of oblivion. Yet Shane Greer off the Telly, standing in for the increasingly ridiculous Iain Dale, should not have allowed most of the minority of Tories in the TPQT audience to ask their silly Tory questions. Or to make silly speeches in several cases. Not even sure it was pre-meditated. He just couldn't help himself.

Conservative Home is of course a wall-to-wall promotion of Conservative candidates and causes. And at a cost - funded by Ashcroft - that massively outstrips anything Labour equivalents are currently able to apply.


Now yet another of Ashcroft's organs is giving the Tories a lift. The claim is that the above twattery is in fact the latest Conservative Party hoarding poster. What I'd say it is is yet another mediocre communications idea, badly realised, as a jpeg file on someone's PC. Not a poster we're going to actually see anywhere. But a kite, searching for the winds and hot air of mass media coverage. Here's the Politics Home conceit. It's not a poster, it's a poster-shaped jpeg.

More than this. It's silly. Yet again the Coulson-Hilton-Cameron-Osborne unpopular beat combo get things way wrong. "Division of Labour" was and is a boon, certainly for capitalists if less so for de-skilled labour, though arguably good for the common wealth. Say Adam Smith.

If every member of the cabinet were a clone of GB and a yes person, then we might as well not have 'em. And have no doubt; the Conservative message manglers would be having a go at the Chancellor for not being his own man. Good for Darling that he is standing up for his views and what else would Brown expect? He certainly stood up for his views against Blair. As we may read in tomorrow's Observer.

Also, and obviously, to "get" the Division of Labour line (which doesn't really work anyway) you need to have A Level plus Economics. Otherwise this not-a-poster is utterly meaningless. The idiom is not in common use. And, if you do get it? It's just an irritating abuse of language.

To be honest I don't think My David Cameron will need to bother with this one. Though here's a couple to start them off if they do. Only the image has been changed.





FOOTNOTE: Labour Matters has tweeted that this Tory effort is a response to the more coherent and substantial Labour's latest non-Poster themed "Chancer not Chancellor" and supported by deep and wide factual analysis. Osborne is a chancer. End of.

New Statesman Conservative Special: First, The Fluffy Bits

Not sure about this New Statesman Tory special. The ten to watch advice to Cameron is thin. Which follower of politics will have learned anything from that? Nadine Dorries will be delighted to be in the same Top Ten as Maggie Thatcher. But I'm sorry this is staggeringly thin gruel. [Empty Calories] Please sir: can I have some more?

Oh alright then. Here are the crumbs of some unenticing linkbait, with added SEO. Paradox to pop them in having shot them down, I know.

Davis | Montgomerie | Clarke | Johnson | Fox | Duncan | Brady | Leigh | Dorries | Thatcher

Mehdi Hasan's blog post Is Andy Coulson a "Tory Liability"? is a bit better.

He quotes some of the "press standards" DCMS report vs Amnesia International and also a slice of the Guardian report on the NOTW/Coulson reverse at the Employment Tribunal on their famous bullying culture.

Then we have three ideas:

Mehdi says "YES!!" to his own question and opines that Number Ten staff would be in for a real problem if Coulson were involved;

Mehdi jeers at the Tory blogosphere for failing to deal with their own side's spinmeister and his track record; and

Mehdi asks: "Does any doubt remain that the members of the Tory blogosphere take their marching orders from CCHQ?"

There were four comments yesterday. One dissing an alternative to Coulson. Three defending the Con AC or attacking the Labour AC et al. Not getting to the heart of the question(s) in my view. And that, my view, is that unlike our AC who was also previously a tabloid NUJjer Coulson does not get and cannot do impression management or communications strategy.

The whole thing is strident headlines, a few sketches or pictures, and some thin captions. There is no adequate research. No meat to back up the shouty slogans. And no sign whatsoever of due diligence. It's a whinge and a prayer.

In fact it's so bad that at current rate of poll change Gordon Brown's Labour could actually be 6% ahead on polling day. And being looked on as insurgents so sure was the Tory victory.

Here's a mildly tweaked version of my own comment:

It takes an idiot or a smearer to put Alastair Campbell in the same bag as McBride and Draper. Indeed even these two are quite different.
Campbell is a serious political animal who is relentlessly interested in the politics, the policies, the ideas, the offer and purpose of the different parties.
Head and shoulders above McBride. Who is of course a Labourist but very different.
Coulson's behaviour since getting the CCHQ role - enormously overpaid btw - is not particularly well documented is it?

But between him and Hilton and flim flam man Cameron, we must assume, there is the direction of a spin and spiel operation that is clearly very very dishonest. And more than a little bit nasty.
Tories ain't on any kind of message and communications high ground.
Just a few examples:

1. Sam Cam's ordinary dress for conference. Actually procured at enormous expense in time, which is money, and favours called in.
Effectively a hugely expensive carry on to create a dishonest impression of ordinary off the shelf clothing. Pah!

2. Memory Man speech. "Without notes" was the positioning. Not quite true. But that's what was briefed. And that was what was reported. In fact it was rote learning and "Without content". Pah!

3. Last conference speech. Two big anecdotes. A. Conceit: Man from Pontypool twists ankle and is forced to stop seeking work. Reality: Man has FIVE major life-changing health conditions and is actually trying to get himself onto a higher level of benefits. Pah!

4. Anecdote B. Tragic murder-suicide is used by Cameron as evidence of broken Britain. What a cynical and negative meme this is.
But also what a very very bad example. Bad politics. Every body with oversight of these matters in this area = TORY.
Every Council, Police Authority, PCTs and HTs. Immediate ward councillors = Lib Dems. These sad events do happen. Perhaps no one could have done anything. But a terrible kinda nasty choice to use this story.

5. General tone and nature of personal attacks on Brown's character and behaviour and performance as a leader. Now driving votes for Brown and Labour as it goes. Absolutely pathetic. Absolutely nasty. Horrible. Has to be coming from Cameron-Hilton-Coulson. They have made Brown into the underdog and Britain is soft on underdogs.

6. And finally. The utter farce of Mrs Pratt and the impossibly bad charity set up. This isn't just random happenstance. This is an obviously Tory family business, charity and decision to leap in. Cameron endorsement.
Widdy patron. Office neighbours. No Trustees to speak of - they all left 2 years ago. Terrible reputation.
Yet the Coulson-Hilton-Cameron axis of twaddle (a) dreamt this NBH attack up up OR (b) agreed when proposed OR (c) allowed/encouraged once it happened. Quite gleeful at first. As were the conbloggers and contweeters.

There is a pattern of nastiness here. Perhaps George (Osborne) has a hand in it too? But whoever it is working alongside Coulson-Hilton-Cameron it's just horrible. Really horrible.
Which brings us right back to Cameron hiring these guys and their baggage. Why would he do that? Have they been effective? Nope. Well, you know, they got Murdoch (even more) on side. Though he still has time to change sides for The Sun. Any other progress? Nope. Nasty streak. Absolutely.
By their work shall you know them.

To the above right is the current shadow cabinet line up. Some *weird* pictures will greet a click to enlarge. Look at Fox! And Gove! Airbrush central office. And more. And Grayling is still there. TENTH in the pecking order.

UPDATE Sat 18:13: There's been further evidence today of the Coulson-Hilton-Cameron-Osborne axis-of-aggro getting carried away. The Guardian report that Coulson spiked positive Tory lines post Pratt-Gate, anticipating a feeding frenzy. There was one. But it was largely Coulson's Pratt-fall dummy getting chomped.

Con Home FC: Drops "Dirty", "Inaccurate" Own Goaler from 1st XI

UPDATE: 00:53 3 April 2010/10:15: This morning the Observer are breaking a story in which the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling indicates to a think tank that he supports the action of "Bed and Breakfast" owners who turn gay couples away at the gate. Though he draws the line at "Hotels", however defined, who must play fair.

Chris Grayling - like a couple or three other Tory front benchers - makes gaffes most weeks. While he started out with a reputation for a safe pair of hands and even for a kind of liberal Cuddly Nu Tory reasonableness, he's become Tebbit Lite. Norman Tebbit without the intellect, instincts or information.

About a week ago he completely misunderstood a breaking story in which the Advertising Standards Agency suggested that an utterly true advertisement about community police officers - as opposed to Detectives and Specialists - spending 80% of their time in the community might lead some viewers to believe this was ALL the police. It was not.

Never mind eh? Grayling rashed, I mean rushed, into every media orifice, and shot a load of nonsense into every microphone and camera he could find. In essence he did not quite understand the story. And, on the hoof, he made up some twaddle about the uncontested community police statistics.

To be fair there wasn't much of a story in Detectives or mounted police or desk sergeants or TAG or Fraud Squad spending more than 20% of their time detecting, or training police horses or themselves, or staffing desks, or rooting through company accounts or whatever.

Grayling got the wrong end of the stick. And he simply made up some "facts" to assert to support his knee jerk.

Yesterday's discovery of his throwback attitudes to gay men and lesbians, who could arrive at a Bed and Breakfast at 9pm and be turned away willy nilly, with the Shadow Home Secretary's blessing, were especially poignant for Tory watchers.

They coincided with a lot of jeering from Eric Pickles and others about a competition-winning Labour Party poster. Designed by an amateur in a crowd-sourcing exercise. Suggesting, er, that Tories had throwback attitudes redolent of the popular TV series Ashes to Ashes, set in the 80s, and its thoroughly politically incorrect anti-hero Gene Hunt.

Later the same day we learned with ahem great sadness of the brutal killing of Eugene Terrebanche the founder of South Africa's racist AWB.

This reminded many people of how Margaret Thatcher and other leading conservatives had propped up the vile apartheid system, for which Cameron has now apologized splitting his party, how young Conservatives specifically the Federation of Conservative Students had created "Hang Mandela" posters and tee-shirts, and how the generation of Cameron, Osborne, Dale, Staines, Grayling, Johnson and so on had defied a National Union of Students campaign and opened bank accounts with a boycotted bank.

Yes, yes, yes. Gene Hunt and Ashes to Ashes are a popular entertainment. Yes, yes, yes. We gasp at the right-offness of it all, the brutality, the venality, the whisky shots, the Audi Quattro, the machismo. But No, No, No. We don't want a return to these values. We don't want a Prime Minister who is "flattered" to be compared with a throwback gangster-cop. And we don't want homophobia and racism back to 80s levels.

Here is the original February post. Pointing out. A bit Gonzo stylee. That Chris Grayling was no hero of the expenses scandal and has been a serial gaffster.

Conservative Home's Tory Diary does not have the man in its masthead. IDS being the spare non-Minister/Officer. Surely but surely Grayling has now done enough to be taken out of one of the top three shadow cabinet jobs?

It's about time too. Finally one of the dirtiest jostlers in the game and least accurate passers of the balls on the benches of the "Rich Man's Plaything" that is Conservative Home FC [aka "The Toffee Noses" or "The Blew Its"] would appear to headed for the early bath.

"This over-rated "spoiling" forward has back passed and headed and even actually shot the ball into the back of our own net so many times," confides a lad from the boot room, "and being so very dozey and muddled the daft lad's the last to know."

One of our Tory Shadows is Missing!

Taking a look at the masthead for the Tory Diary section of the team's head coach and majority shareholder Michael "Off Shore Billionaire" Ashcroft financed Conservative Home FC website - he also has the supporters' magazine Total Politics and the Politics Home franchise in his armoury - LOL are seriously worried for the future career of one of Ashcroft's fellow Old Wycombiensians.

The First XI pictured includes "Scrap Iron" Lady Maggie Thatcher at Centre Forward and Boris "Bonkers" Johnson as her Left centre back. And Dave "Raffles, the Gentleman Bungler" Cameron of course is there on her far right wing. George "GOOey" Osborne, "Just" William Hague too, despite ten years of broken promises on the chief coach/manager/owner's tax business. They're shadows to two of the three great offices of state after all. The Five Galacticos!

And then there are the journeymen players: Liam "Stinketh at Both Ends" Fox, Eric "The Simple Pieman" Pickles, "Initial Man" IDS, Kenneth "Hush My Puppies" Clarke. And a couple of grrls naturally. This is the modern game. No blacks, no Irish, but we have females. Caroline "Nannie" Spelman, and Theresa "Crocodile Shoes" May.

Oh dear. One of their top players seems to be missing. Off on a free transfer to Portsmouth perhaps? Did Chris "On My Head" Grayling miss the photo call? Or is the writing on the blog wall for his gaffe-prone career in the First Eleven?

Chris "On My Head" Grayling gaffes have included, on a sample basis, the following fouls, own goals and sendings off:

SENDING OFF! Pimlico Gate in which he kept, and claimed second home bunce (£100,000 between 2001 and 2007 alone) for, a rather scruffy though now, thanks to the taxpayer, somethingly done up former council flat. He was rarely seen there according to neighbours quoted in our finest newspapers. He had his main home but 17 miles away. And he also owned two buy to let properties in Wimbledon. Apart from being "Sick as a Parrot" Grayling joshed on his hilarious official website: I use the flat when "working very late" because I need to "work very erratic and late hours most days when the House of Commons is sitting." Well "work very erratic" we'll give him.

OWN GOAL! Then there's Balti Gate. No sir, nothing to do with the Pukka Pies Balti pastie now available at the Conservative Home FC ground! But Baltigate wherein the very confused former Shadow Home Secretary claimed that Moss Side was just like Baltimore, as featured in The Wire, even though it would take Moss Side about three or more years to match one week of Baltimore fatal shootings. Clearly this riled MEN hack Chris Osuh who presumably ironically called him a "Top Tory". Unaccountably "Over the Moon" Chris "On My Head" Grayling used his former BBC employer's National Bullshitting Helpline to stick to his guns, geddit?: "I didn't say Moss Side equals Baltimore. What I said is that we have in Moss Side symptoms of a gang conflict in this country which I find profoundly disturbing". In Moss Side population 11,000 there were actually no, zero, zilch killings in the previous year. Baltimore, population 600,000 had 191, count 'em.

FILTHY TACKLE ON OWN MID FIELD GENERAL! Over to Wikipedia for the news:
On 7 October 2009 he was asked by the BBC about a Conservative Party plan to offer General Sir Richard Dannatt an advisory role. He, thinking it was a Labour appointment, said he hoped it was not a "political gimmick", and said "We've seen too many appointments in this government of external people where it's all been about Gordon Brown's PR.". When he realized he had misheard the question, and that it was a possible appointment of his own party, he told the BBC's National Bullshitting Helpline he was "really delighted" with the idea, adding "It's a bit embarrassing really because I would have liked to give General Dannatt a more enthusiastic welcome. [Grayling Laughs Off Dannatt Gaffe]

PENALTY SCOOPED OVER BAR! Amazingly Chris "On My Head Be It" Grayling's best gaffe of the lot has yet to bother the scorers at his Wikipedia op cit. They also haven't heard about his free transfer to Portsmouth. There are some cracking outings on You Tube however: HERE and HERE and HERE to give but three examples. And the inkies were have a go heroes also HERE's the Telegraph and HERE's The Daily Mail and HERE's the Daily Mirror and HERE's The Independent and HERE's The Times. And The Bloggers! Don't get me started.

Naturally CH and CCHQ and Ashcroft will all claim independent thought. Though it was noticeable that cockahoop Tories WRONGLY announcing a 12-point lead bounce (The Sun/YouGov) after PrattGate - it was actually a slump to 6-points - included Tim Montgomerie of CH and Eric Pickles and others of CCHQ virtually simultaneously. Ashcroft may have been represented by Iain Dale? Sadly he's blocked LOL from his twitter feed - and he's not the only one! - but we'd like to think so.

The Mirror's Bob Roberts predicted this sacking immediately after Bogus Tory Stats Gate but it was none other than Dr Rupa Huq at LabourList who called Cameron a cowardly custard for not offing the chump six months ago. Now, finally, fellow Manchester United supporter Tim Montgomerie of the Conservative Home FC terrace choir has taken the great sword of photoshop to the Graylian Knot.

Here it is, again. Grayling places the ball on the penalty spot! Walks back. Turns purposefully. A jinking run up. Points left. Literally points left. Looks left. Winks. The goalie sits down. Our hero pauses. Ambles in. Open goal. And FAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLL! Sends the crime balls soaring over the bar.

On Opinion Polls: General Randomised Sample Head Emptying

Two polls then. These are at quite different points in the range of likelihoods. Which are I think The Great Escape, a minimal Labour hold; The Escape, a hung parliament; The Trial, a minimal Con gain; and The Romp, with Faust the poster boy in complete control. For how long nobody knows. Could we even see the paradox of the better he does, the less good his prospects of maintaining the whip hand?

The ComRes one for The Sunday Mirror shows Cameron already on the ropes basically. 4% worse off than the last of their series. Perhaps the Osborne liability coming home to roost? Perhaps the all-round nastiness of yer Goves and yer Graylings? Of Cameron himself? Perhaps just a case of every poll a maverick poll? But, Hurrah anyway!

The other one is far more interesting in lots of ways, though the arguments below apply to both. The ICM "target seats" poll for Murdoch's Tory-friendly News of the World assumes Labour will lose every seat where 4% swing or under does the business for the Conservatives. And then it looks at the 97 next most vulnerable seats where it's Labour incumbent and Tories insurgent. Swings of 4.1% up to 10% required.

Scary stuff when a 10% swing applies. Someone with a majority of 19.9% (say 11,000 or so) loses by a smidge with a 10% party-to-party swing. Consider Manchester Withington 2005 and you're in the right ballpark.

I'm going to include more or less the full legend from UK Polling Report at this point. Followed by a couple of comments I've made. You can also see this, read other comments and join in HERE:

The News of the World has a new ICM poll of marginal seats in tomorrow’s paper. ICM’s sample covered the 97 seats where Labour are in first place and the Conservatives in second place, and where the Conservatives need a swing between 4% and 10%. The implied assumption is that seats with a majority of less than 4% are going to be Conservative gains anyway on the current national polls and not worth looking at – instead these are the seats that span from a hung Parliament to a chunky Conservative majority.

The topline voting intention figures in these seats, with changes from the last electon, are CON 40%(+9.2), LAB 37%(-7.4), LDEM 14%(-3.8) – so a swing of 8.3% from Labour to the Conservatives. In contrast the last ICM national poll showed a national swing of 6.5%, so once again we find a slightly larger swing towards the Conservatives in the Con-Lab marginal seats they need to win. This has been pretty consistent in all polls of marginal seats in the last couple of years.

What it doesn’t tell us is how well the Conservatives are doing against the Liberal Democrats in their marginal seats. On these particular figures it isn’t critical – if there was a uniform swing amongst Lab vs Con marginal seats these figures would net the Tories around 124 extra seats, and added to the 214 seats they start with on the new boundaries that alone would be enough for David Cameron to win a small overall majority even if the Con vs LD battle was completely static.

However, for a healthier majority the Conservatives would also need to make some progress against the third party. There is much less evidence of what is happening in Con vs LD seats, and it is much harder to judge what it means when there is, since personal votes and tactical voting plays a larger part and we don’t know for sure how to factor that in.

Going back to the ICM poll, there was scant evidence that the larger Conservative swing in marginal seats came from out-campaigning Labour or having more money to throw about. 28% of respondents recalled having received party literature, been canvassed or seen other signs of campaigning by the Conservatives, not significantly more than the 24% who recalled seeing signs of Labour campaigningin their local area.

ICM also asked whether people trust Cameron or Brown more on various issues. Cameron led decisively on modernising the NHS, cutting crime, controlling immigration and improving standards in schools and united his party. Brown led on dealing with an emergency. On transport, Afghanistan, taxation, the recession and terrorism the two leaders were almost even.

Reading this, with some inkling of what was likely, I asked:

Where are the numbers polled, level of DK-WS-NV and the methodology for this one? Lack of this hampers evaluation of the importance or not of this. Also any work on squeezability of LDs in these? The old would you rather C or L for this crew could be illuminating. They have 14%. The margin between the real contestants is 3%. Plus it the usual +/- lots margin for error?

Give us the footnotes, or expect us to shrug and say "who knows what if anything that means then"?

UK Polling Reports' Anthony Wells responded promptly:

Chris, they’ll all be on ICM’s website in due course. Basically though –

Methodology is all usual ICM methodology. Quoted margins of error figures are always based on the sample size – so with a 1000 sample size this is the usual +- 3% margin of error.
WNV 10%
Ref 7%
D/K 23%

Though as usual, ICM reallocated their don’t knows & refusals based on their vote at the last election, so those don’t knows and refusals were not ignored – ICM assume half of them vote for the parties they did last time. The unadjusted figures in this poll were CON 42%, LAB 36%, LDEM 13%. The re-allocation of don’t knows changed the final published figures to CON 40%, LAB 37%, LDEM 14%.

39% of Lib Dem voters said they would consider voting tactically (though no doubt some of those saying Conservative and Labour are already Lib Dem supporters voting tactically), but they were not asked which way they would do so. The closest proxy from the questions asked is probably best PM, where Lib Dem voters split for Brown over Cameron by 43% to 36%

Which led me to this response. Earning part of my living administering polls I shouldn't perhaps be quite so cynical and questioning:

So, basically we have 600 punters who actually express an opinion in 97 seats meaning an average of 6 and a bit per target constituency? Plus some farming out of the DK-WS-NVs.

There will be serious to very serious over-reporting of voting at all last time as 80-90% is not where we were at turn out wise, plus confusion and mis-remembering of the ones who did actually vote.

3% margin of error and 5-6% of possibly tactical LDs as well? In some seats I think a very large proportion – more than 39% – will actually go tactical. Seems to me these things are a very blunt instrument indeed.

Doing quite a bit of phone iD for one of the parties, and face-to-face for one of the majors, not ICM, it beats me why anyone gets too excited by these things. Within the margin of error we have way way lower Tory gains cf ComRes, and we also have landslide territory.

However this has been carried out there’s nowt as queer as folk. Happened to bump into a guy I polled 2 months ago 1 week ago in another context. He had told me v firmly in the interview that if there were a GE tomorrow he would vote for one of the big two. But when I saw him again, outwith an interview context, he was equally firm that he would in fact vote for the third party.

And it wasn’t a change of heart. Just a change in candour.

Polls are an interesting sport of course. Precise. To at least one place of decimals. Yet with a whopping 6% band width. 3% either way. Making a lead from pollster X of 15% OVERLAP in a sense with one from pollster Y saying 10%. Yet one of the leads appears to be fully 50% more than the other! And most journos and politicians scarcely numerate to boot. Never mind the broad population.

But the combination of this apparent precision (with inaccuracy in the small print) with 24/7 mainstream media and the 24/7 clamour bloggers and tweeters, some with very grand ideas of their own importance, the danger is we get a rather meaningless mash of mush. For the poor woman or man in the street the chance for good old-fashioned sheepism is muchly reduced.

If so LOL say GOOD. The electorate have some stark choices to make. It would surely be in every one's best interest if every single elector ignored every opinion poll, ignored every gurning televised focus grouper, ignored every bogacious bar chart and speculative swingometer and squealing headline, made no attempt whatsoever to bet on the national winner, and instead voted in the best way available to them.

To return either a Conservative or a Labour government. In their own interests or in solidarity with those needing the most support from society. A little clue here. This is not those with net estates in the clear blue water zone between some £700,000 and £2 million. And it's not feral hedge fundies either. Or Mum-Ps with no main home and dynasties of unsuitable relations in top jobs.

Don't Be Conned: Sam Cam £65 Dress Cost £40,000?

As Conman trougher in chief Eric Pickles MP launches the online boutique of the party of the few not the many HERE there emerges a story of utter misrepresentation from the Cons. As @chrispLOL tweeted.

Hats off to Mirror journalist Susie Boniface and sidekick Francesca Cookney for a brilliant Sam Cam Sham Scam tm expose. Far from being an off-the-peg number for Everywoman, retailing at just £65, Sam Cam's dress choice for her hubby Sham Cam's #conman09 speech was not exactly off the peg. Not quite.

Instead it was the result of a humungous effort by perhaps hundreds of working people, running round chasing their tails.

Sam Cam decided that her common touch would best be demonstrated by the brown with cream polka dots 1940s number as modelled by Myleene Klass for M&S (Tess Daly "blog" or flog!? and below right). She arranged for M&S to be approached with demands along the lines of "I must have that dress!".

A nationwide search ensued for this Everywoman dress - made in a tiny edition of 2,000 - not even enough for one each for the millionaires who would enjoy George Osborne's "family and friends" Inheritance Tax offer. But, so the story goes, not one could be found. Using normal channels at least. But that was not the end of it:

According to M&S sources Samantha asked their chief executive Sir Stuart Rose to help when she bumped into him at a social event.

Sir Stuart, who attended a Tory fundraiser in June and is tipped for a ministerial position in a Cameron government, was happy to be her knight in shining armour. He ordered staff to search the company’s 600 UK stores for one of the elusive dresses.

Suppose this was one CEO at one hour (£2,000) and one SMT team at five hours between them at £100 (£500) supervising ten regional managers at two hours at £50 (£1,000) 600 store managers spending an hour at £20 each (say £12,000) supervising 1200 underlings at two hours at £10 (£24,000) ... we get a running total of £39,500.

And phew, as far as the M&S myth making goes, this turned up one no-mates Conderella example - a size 14 sample - stuck in a bottom drawer somewhere.

Clearly after the nationwide dress hunt costing hours of M&S staff resource there came what is being described as a an in-house pattern maker making the thing fit "size 10" Samantha. Let's allow £500 for that. £40,000 for a £65 dress? You couldn't make it up! LOL's seamstress daughter is doubtful whether this is even the same fabric or anything approaching the standard cut. Everywoman? My fat size 20 arse!

Those "£29 Zara shoes" were so down-to-earth that Sam Cam could hardly walk in them so may be the genuine article! Or perhaps there's a tale there too?

Can't help noticing that belt also? Any ideas?

Here's the ever so apolitical Stuart Rose talking to The Mirror:

After her appearance at the conference Sir Stuart said: “We are delighted, of course, and it’s a great endorsement but the company makes no political donations whatsoever. Ours is a totally impartial company.”

Famously Mr Rose was so "impartial" on BBC Question Time that he was a complete waste of a chair. Though of course M&S had a shop at #mancon09 this year.

And none at other party conferences.

Wonder how much they didn't donate exactly for that sales opportunity? And was making room for this the reason the Cons wouldn't allow the Blood Donor Service houseroom?

Or were they afraid the blue blood would out? Hat tip: Alex Foster/LDV

The Atlantic Bridge: Good Cause or Sham? Who Pays The Piper?

Above you'll find one Davey Spillane blowing up a storm on his uillean pipes. Back in our music promotion and management days we worked with him on a number of occasions, spookily at the time of this Atlantic Bridge song and the Out of the Air album it's taken from. You may know Spillane from his Moving Hearts days? But I digress. Today's lesson is about a very different "Atlantic Bridge". Apparently so furtive that there are no AV records of their activities responding to Googling. Pointers appreciated.

LOL's fellow Chorlton-based Labour blogger Stephen Newton has taken a look at the Tory-Through-and-Through "charity" and "think tank" of the same name as the piper's tune The Atlantic Bridge and finds them in shameless defiance of Charity Commission rules, cancelled from the Con Con Fringe under the cloud of a probe which Stephen triggered, and looking for all the world like a Sham Cam Scam. What follows is a precis cum annotation of the first part of Stephen's highly recommended investigation.

This "charity" appears to mainline on sponsorship of predominantly private and sometimes clandestine events at which senior Con Men – including shadowy cabinet mimicsters – and their rather rabid US allies may "bond" behind closed doors. Far from the disinfectant of sunlight. Never mind the democratisation of You Tube.

Their Con Con Fringe promised: "members of the Shadow Cabinet ... joined by a prominent American leader." Cancellation means these rabid types have been denied their anti-NHS anti-EU bonding opportunity. No chance now to defy Andy Burnam’s call to ban anti-NHS Tories from the Manchester event. At least, they're not now visible on the public agenda.

Stephen invites readers to: Come back at 9am tomorrow to learn about the Atlantic Bridge Travel Club: Atlantic Bridge submission to Charity Commission implies, ‘well planned, systematic corruption.’

As Stephen reports a charity must never endorse a political party or indeed play any part in party politics. So, the weaselly Atlantic Bridge Sham Cam Scam achieved charitable status in 2003 by claiming to be an education and research scheme or think tank.

TAB's Honorary Patron Margaret Thatcher glossed this "charity" as ‘a bulwark against the… people on the left’ and the Advisory Board is a who's who of Tory wingnuts in high places: shadowy limp biscuit chancellor George Osborne, former Tory leader and beer monster and shadow foreign secretary William Hague, shadow (multiple) home secretary Chris Grayling and two other shadow cabinet members. Another shadow minister, a hereditary Conservative peer and a backbench Tory MP complete the UK line-up, reports Stephen.

This may of course be different to the legal Board of Trustees of the "charity" and as this tale is told it will be interesting to see who's on that one, and whether there have been any interesting desertions or additions cf The Policy Exchange.

STOP PRESS: This is very different indeed. The Board are as follows with a mere three of them identified as "Trustees". Which in itself would be a cause for concern in terms of charitable credentials and good governance. Here's the names and you'll find the "Advisory Board" US and Uk also listed at the link:

The Charity Commission is it seems unaware of any case of a charity being identified as a sham by a court in England and Wales.

The Atlantic Bridge may be the first. And based on the parliamentary estate in Portcullis House to boot.

How very embarrassing this could be. Room 341. That translucent charities crusader Guido Fawkes and his Sunlight COPS will be onto this directly, without fear or favour.

*FOOTNOTE: Guido Fawkes / Dead Gaza Children / Advertising Dollars montage sourced from the magnificent Beau Bo D'Or. Sunlight Arsehole as rosette, clumsily added by LOL Graphics. Incidentally Stephen Newton is also responsible for the delightful Buffing the Banana with Paul Dacre Mail-watching service. Delivering the gloss without the muck.

Political Arithmetic: David Ottewell Catches Labour Demonising

Good spot, well a fairly good spot, from David Ottewell, chief reporter of the Manchester Evening News, on his blog.

I'm sure he'll track this through the week, and repeat the exercise next week in Manchester. He could run a few of the Tory blogs through his count too and see how much they are repeating his search terms. And he might try some comparative arithmetic with other conferences immediately before election time.

Name checking opponents, directly by their names, is down in the standard playbook as a complete NO NO. However when it is a case of identifying Cameron and Osborne and the whole sick Con crew with Beelzebub then repetition is no bad thing. The reason by the way that I say it's a fairly good spot is that there is plenty of use of "we" and "I" and "us" and "our". These are pronouns and they are of course shorthand for "labour" and so on:

Who is this conference all about?
I thought it only fair to test my suspicion that this conference has got as much - if not more - to do with the Conservatives than Labour.
I've done a text-search on three speeches by cabinet ministers today - Lord Mandelson, Alistair Darling, and Yvette Cooper.
Results?
Between them, they mentioned "Labour" a total of 14 times.
They said "Conservative", "Tory" or "Tories" a total of 53 times.
The three ministers mentioned "Gordon Brown" six times.
They mentioned David Cameron 11 times.

Labour 09: Dale, Balls, Handbags, Bracknell, Total Bollocks

Mr Dale has a report on the Fabian "Can Labour Win Again" debate of last evening HERE and the Fabians have one HERE. But the question of whether Ed Balls or Caroline Lucas has a sense of humour, or whether Dale's little ficts rather than facts should rule him out from PC duty - with his next disappointment due soon in Bracknell. The talk of the town, media corps wise, is on whether Cameron will have the balls to sack the floundering fibber George GOOey Osborne.

Disappointing that one has to subscribe to "Lord" Ashcroft's Total Bollocks magazine to be put into the prize draw for a netbook. Didn't Dale say a visit to the stand was sufficient? Well, not quite, but clearly he's a Tory and unreliable ...

And please do visit the TotalPolitics Exhibition Stand in the Hewison Hall, where you will get the chance to win an ASUS Eee PC! And please be nice to Emily. She gets lonely at conferences, you know...

Fox News Faux Pas: Murdoch CRap and #GoNads to Dorries

As it goes I think the utterly discredited George Osborne has a resemblance to The Joker and he's not had a good day or a good week. But he's not the only one.

Beau Bo D'Or has the above in response to a Huffington Post scoop re Poxy Fox News. Making or indeed faking not breaking the news.

FOOTNOTE: #GoNads is beginning to catch on instead of #SackDorries as a twitter tag. The two are not as distinct as they might first appear. Subject is obviously not this @nadinedorries but rather this one this one - the arbiter of "balanced" - who posted the following transatlantic smear earlier today:

Tories and Their "Thinkers": (A) Wrong (B) Miserable (C) Divided

On today's Politics Show the chilling David Frost of British Chambers of Commerce seemed to have a truly lamentable command of Economics and/or a horrendous ideological bias against any and all customers from the Public Sector. Yes, customers. The NHS workers for example who buy their groceries. The teachers who take a holiday. The town hall folk who buy a car, a house, a fridge, a sofa. Thanks to having jobs and all.

And then there are the capital projects. Potentially employing thousands, and all being well driving profits. Fling these people on the dole and we have the near opposite of a multiplier. We could call it a stultifier.

Instead of public sector worker spending £X and let's say one half of that £x/2 going into the pocket of private sector workers and onwards £x/4, £x/8, £x/16 already giving a multiplier of almost two times X going through the economy. And plenty of tax going to the exchequer, at every level. Instead we not only have money going OUT of the exchequer in benefits but also only somewhere between 10 and 20% of X and its multipliers wandering round the economy.

Brendan Barber of the TUC was far better. And best of all was Alan Johnson. Hitting well above Mr Rawnsley's faint praise. Link below. He didn't spell out the economics perhaps. But he did make the case for Brown/Darling calling every decision right while Cameron/Osborne called every decision wrong. Pointing this out, looking forward with positive principles and plans and being united are key to taking the fight to the (a) wrong; (b) miserable; and (c) deeply divided Tories. Labour must find ways to be quietly confident in telling it the way it is.

Mr Frost is not only a lamentable economist and prejudiced parrot but also the epitome of the Tory analysis. Which somehow sees them riding a solid lead, albeit it being perhaps 5% short of what they should have to overwhelm Labour.

Labour accepting an inevitable "sea change" as Andrew Rawnsley has suggested happened in times past, in Observer Comment will allow the worst to happen. A Spring tidal wave of Tory tossery. Wet behind the ears but hard right between those ears new Tory MPs crashing about, damaging everything as their ideologies trump doing the right thing.

Here are some of the demands the weak yet cocky Cameron/Osborne combo face:

The Tory account of what they would have done to save the economy is unconvincing and their prescription for the future is fiercely arguable. The Conservatives remain outside the international consensus when they argue for immediate and deep cuts to public spending.
Economists of the right as well as the left contend that this would choke off the first tentative signs of economic recovery. While David Cameron and George Osborne remain shy of detailing where their axe would fall, some of their fellow travellers have become emboldened to be harshly specific.
The Institute of Directors and TaxPayers' Alliance have just produced a shopping list of cuts for a Tory government, which include the abolition of all Sure Start centres, the end of child benefit and the withdrawal of free travel for pensioners.

Waking the electorate to these nasty realities can and will turn the tide.

George Osborne: To Announce Rich Get Richer Ploy?

Seems like George Oliver Osborne aka GOO is to make an announcement today, following up on his buddy Cameron's "raising the cost of salads"/"cutting ministerial pay" RE-announcement (first made three or four weeks ago) about a reduction in salaried ministers should the millionaires take over in office. According to the ever so 'umble Iain Dale it was his blog post wot did it, the one here, a month ago. Rather than various wittering from CCHQ and elsewhere in the past. LOL found the Lib Demmer Alex Wilcox calling for severe cuts in Ministers in January 2009 and referring to his party's internal chunterings on the subject ten years ago.

Essentially the Tories are saying nearer to 100 paid ministers than the current 119. Another brilliant idea from Iain Dale! We'll be hearing that a lot in the coming months! He'll have McBride's old desk in no time.

Seems likely that arithmetic will show that the average "designer sandwich" of the lucky 100 millionaire ministers will be significantly more than the current average "butty" of the average child of the toil. There, we've moved off toffs and not toffs, to haves and have nots. Is GOO about to announce redistribution from the have nots to the haves at the highest levels of government?

FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT: I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of cutting the ministerial payroll. Or the idea of flattening the scales. Bit sceptical about how long it would last under Tories. See next post! And also worried that as it is clearly the case that it was only the poverty pay of MPs and Ministers that made 90% of them flex the rules on allowances, that any tightening of belts could lead to a Westminister crime wave.

Iain Dale: Parliamentary Labour Party Blogging Treasure

We have often suggested that Iain Dale is the Parliamentary Labour Party's Favourite Tory Boy Blogger. He has now published some albeit rather hooky data apparently confirming our analysis. Having said that, this "breaking news" is about four months old and LOL cannot find a trace of the survey on the ComRes home page. Not their proudest day perhaps?

Iain's coverage of the massively overdue change in emphasis of Mr Alan Duncan's hobby of being a thoroughly part-time modern Tory politician HERE is just the kind of thing that earns him his loyal Labour following.

Duncan is an oily bastard. Funny at times. But an oily, erratic, maverick, money grubbing bastard. The juxtaposition of his HIGNFY appearance and his contribution to common or garden tractor production, on the taxpayer, was months ago. He should have been defenestrated at that point.

And his complete stupidity in inviting a lawn wrecker to tea and then mouthing off a good few weeks ago. Defenestration becomes unavoidable you'd have thought. Iain suggests that a rather meaningless demotion to prisons shadow will leave "proud" Duncan "gutted" and that it shows Cameron's "ruthlessness".

LOL think it will leave "piss taking ten jobs shit gob" Duncan "delighted" and shows Cameron's "pathetic dithering". Albeit with an atrocious shallow and inbred gene pool at his disposal, cramping his lily livered style. Duncan will be delighted we feel, because, as a non-Shadow Cabinet Mimicster he will be less or not at all bound by Cam's ridiculous ruling that top Tory troughers will need to give up their DAY JOBS if they are to continue with their dilettante pastime as politicians.

In Duncan's case his day job is in fact getting paid gazillions to do shady oil deals with, we presume, the sheiks, oligarchs, despots, and the embargoed, mostly in pretty shabby circumstances even by the standards of oil deals with sheiks, oligarchs etc. The latest variety of this day job being a paid role he only actual took up when he was shadowing business and energy or some such apparently excruciatingly compromising conflict of interest.

That being with some famous sanction busting types, related closely to people that had made donations to his office that he hadn't seen fit to declare properly. Cosy. And a nice little earner.

Along similar lines you might think to George Osborne's failure to declare Rothschild donations properly, the kind of thing that had the Tories and the churnalists they feed twisting non sequitors into some kind of redemptive "within the rules" clap trap that certainly would not have passed muster now public rage on donations and allowances has been so very very recalibrated.

To the extent where buying a banana (40p) for an intern requires a seven paragraph rebuttal by a hopeless MP who also submitted a receipt for TV Services (£9.99). But that's a long story that is. Some other time.

GOOD INTENTIONS: Plan is to come back and put all the links in to the back story. You can perhaps use site search in the meantime.

Compassion Plea For Duncan: Tory Liabilities Must Be Nurtured

Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home has reported that sheesh! for brains Alan Oily Duncan (archive) has drooped dramatically in the site's ratings scheme. With disapproval UP 20% in just two weeks. From 61% disapprove to a whopping 81% disapprove. More of them want four more years for Gordon than Duncan to prosper.*

Of course there isn't any guarantee of the authenticity of the voters as "Tory members" - unless CH is even more embedded in the party machine than it seems - but that is how Tory Home are representing the figures - as the view of party members.

Results like this give Labour bloggers and activists a dilemma. If this geezer - a manic foot-in-mouther waiting to happen, and a greedy capitalist unlikely to be able to disinvest and back away from all his jobs and money - has got this unpopular is it:

(a) Our job to help him to tipping point and get rid? Or

(b) Our bounden duty to throw the wicked little chancer our love, our prayers and our best wishes? And hope upon hope that he survives.

Given the very shallow and small Tory gene pool, with quite a number already "burned" and/or damaged; by Moat-and-Wisteria-gate, Ashcroft-gate, Euro-homophobe-gate, Bullingdon-gate, and a whole series of Hannan-gates; the first option is pretty tempting.

Could we "burn" enough for example that they promote the ridiculous mythomaniac, serial calamity and ongoing nepotista Nadine Dorries MP to some kind of spokesperson? More likely in this case that David Davis or the like would be rehabilitated, on a solemn promise of no more red mists and Magna moments?

Davis could perhaps provide some mileage. But far better in this case to opt for the second option. We MUST do all we can to keep Oily Duncan surviving and slithering on the slippery slope, surely? And should the axe fall we must be fulsome in our praise for the loathsome little oik: "Quite Sane For a Tory" springs to mind.

And while we're at it we really need to monitor but not attack Osborne lest this liability be shuffled out despite his money, his connections, his knowing where Cameron's skeletons are buried. And Grayling may be working up his incipient Tebbit-ism a treat - but he must be treasured. Although it is tempting to out Daniel Hannan and Dave Cameron over their bad police, good police double act this too must be nurtured and saved for 20-10.

NO TIME LIKE THE NOW: LOL say:

David Cameron would have to be a fool to divest himself of the charming normal for a Tory, housewive's choice delight that is Alan Duncan. Alan loves money and lording it an awful lot. He despises the great unwashed. In short Alan Duncan is a proper root and branch Tory and can't be ousted on the say of newly cosmopolitan metrosexualist pinkos who read effete, liberal blogs on t'interweb.

* Mild exaggeration.

Tory Impression Management: Heffer Cowed By Coulson?

"David Cameron V Simon Heffer" is the billing over at Paul Burgin's Mars Hill blog, but in truth
Heffer's broadside, HERE, and any number of Conservative Home commenters agreeing, could almost be part of a carefully choreographed "Heir to Blair" effort. Is part of, etc.

Heffer essentially says that he wants the Tories to win, and expects them to, but he says he's not happy. "Cameron is not a real Conservative" is the rhetoric. Translation: Nothing to be scared of.

It may have been Routledge, or Maguire, or that twisted fool Jenkins, or Foot PBUH, or all the above who once said "Blair is not a real Socialist". Translation: Nothing to be scared of.

This actually fairly accurate appraisal helped Blair and New Labour no end. Wooing the 500,000 swingers in the swing seats.

There have been Labour moments, and a general direction of travel which could be way worse, a certain amount of collateral redistribution, the minimum wage, minimum income guarantee, humungous investment in education and health ... we've also had towering economic competence, exceptional crisis management, regressive tax to give the rich a lift, and who could forget those great military adventures on GW Bush's coat tails?

Same difference? No, no, no! Call me Dave Cameron is a proper heredi-tory Conservative. George Osborne is worse. And so on and so forth.

Whereas old stager Tony Booth managed something approaching in vino veritas, many a truth spoken in jest, wise-cracking that "Cherie is marrying a Conservative" there is no evidence of any equivalent incident.

Can you assist? Did Sir Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield, 8th Baronet (left) or William Waldorf Astor, 4th Viscount Astor once opine that "Samantha is marrying a Trot"?

Whether the Heff is in on this impression management or not is moot.

Is Slippery Simon saying one thing when he means another?

Or is Simple Simon being used and abused by that clever turn-a-blind-eyer Andy "Milking Amnesia" Coulson?

HERE'S THE MAIL: Failing to bottom out the claim that Cam-Sam are worth £30 million plus. They seem to have missed both the real Cam royal connection - according to Wikipedia which must be correct - and also skated over the Sheffield pere divorce.

Radio Five Live Exclusive: Mister Damian McBride Regrets ...

Radio Five Live's Victoria Derbyshire (from 10.00AM) has Damian McBride's first interview since he crashed and burned. Pre-recorded, with soundbites trailed on other BBC outlets.

If you have the right version of Flash you can listen here. Perhaps we'll hear how the alleged Nadine Dorries law suit against Damian, and Gordon, and perhaps she'll have roped in their ultimate employer Betty Windsor too, is getting on? Or perhaps Nads - who had absolutely no need to out herself as a Red Rag Squidgy Gate email mentionee - was simply lying?

FOOTNOTE: The fact that George Osborne offered "soundbite banking" this morning may raise a few eyebrows, or get some nods of recognition.

Talking Head: The Travails of the Ambitious Media Whore

Time after time Iain Dale makes full disclosure on the minutiae of his media whoring diary. A giddy rise and tragic fall a la Fanny Hill beckons perhaps? Last night he revealed that he had had to choose between honouring a date with Lady Bellingham and the Sky News papers review or locking horny horns with John Prescott on BBC Newsnight. What is a poor media whore to do? Above, an artist's impression of Mr Dale (right) coming down hard on Mr Prescott's ass.

I'm not sure how they managed it but some of Iain's sycophantic sock puppets managed to deduce from this news that someone somewhere was "frit". Prescott? BBC Newsnight? The only person that might be called "frit" here was Dale. "Frit" of losing the momentum of his Sky News talking head career.

Actually Iain has probably done the right thing here, though at 8pm on a Thursday, three and a half hours before the review was due to air, it seems odd that there was not a ready substitute who could have stepped in for the more routine gig. Are Sky News not professionals, able to be flexible when something comes up?

Where Iain is absolutely wrong I'd say is to imply that BBC Newsnight will not now consider inviting him the next time they want a Tory blogger talking head. Before he typed that he was dead wrong ... but now he has displayed this gratuitous delusion of grandeur he might be right.

On the substance of Coulson-gate. Is Deputy Yates actually a Tory? Or just an idiot taking instructions from spinning Tories? Or actually using weasel words to deflect and distract while cases are compiled? Or even simply clearing the decks for all kinds of civil actions to take their rightful and costly place centre stage?

As Brian Paddick pointed out Yates' announcement was specific to the determined case which ended with a scribbler and a hacker going to prison. It was not a pardon for the other 304 journos identified as conspirers with hackers, blaggers and bin divers by the Information Commissioner. The CPS could very easily tell him to go back to any one of those potential cases and investigate?

That evidence was sequestered and may remain so while there are live police enquiries. But how long will that lock up actually last?

If there is no criminal action then literally hundreds of celebs may choose to take civil actions. They will sub poena those papers. They should be out on a moderately short timetable.

Coulson will surely have to go if there are ANY other cases involving NOTW journalists and payments to "consultants". As Andrew Neil has said over and over again it beggars belief that any editor - competent or indeed incompetent I'd add - would not have an idea that more than two dozen of their feral scribblers were walking on the wild side with bumptious blaggers, filthy bin divers and digital hackers.

Just a thought ... how are the BBC now getting critted by Iain's sock muppets for extending an invitation that you were unable to accept? Presumably some Tory apologist or other did find themselves available? I didn't see the programme. How does this make anyone "frit"?

And could it be that Iain's friend the Newsnight editor, getting it in the neck from Iain and others for his Politics Pen line up (see Footnote) is too kind to reveal that his line up was not his first choice? But that a series of moody media whorey Tory types were too busy sucking up to Murdoch's Sky TV or keeping options open to actually take part in a pinko BBC production?

If that is there are any Tory types, outside of parliament, of sufficient profile that also understand economic policy? Even inside parliament there is a dearth of Tories that do policy or do economics, and of course even George Osborne himself has outed his poor wife Frances for contriving his mortgages and so on.

Was this because (a) it was beyond poor George's wit? or (b) to provide a scape goat should his rather ridiculous mortgages from pater, flipping from mansion to mansion, and avoidance of CGT ever becomes the story.

BREAKING NEWS, from Robert Peston of all people, way outside his usual news beat: Rebecca Wade herself was on the hacking list but declined to press charges.