Trident: Nigel Griffiths Resignation, Luke Akehurst Fibs Like A Libdemologist

Luke Akehurst, the famous arms lobbyist, blogger and Labour right winger is tough on opponents of Trident renewal including resigning Deputy Leader of the House Nigel Griffiths. Luke ridiculously claims that a yes vote now - arguably five years early - is required to meet a weaselly dodgy manifesto insertion to maintain an "independent" nuclear deterrent.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. The timing, presumably to add to Tony Blair's arsenal of "success", is potty and could scupper Labour's navy in Scotland. The "Manifesto Commitment" is illusory and got there at the final proof stage with no debate in party, government or cabinet. The suppression of the debate on yes/no and indeed Cruise/Trident has been mighty and persistent, stretching back around 20 years. And Trident is not independent.

It is worth noting that Neil Kinnock - the architect of the current policy - has strongly urged that the vote be delayed while Glenys Kinnock MEP is among the Not In My Name signatories.

Dave Osler is cynically suspicious of Griffith's motives. Perhaps he has more time for Malcolm Chisholm MSP who resigned as an assembly minister in December 06 after supporting an SNP motion. Like Griffiths Chisholm has a tight Edinburgh constituency which is on balance against Trident.

If the vote proceeds and is won thanks to Tories this could be very unhelpful for Labour in Scotland's Parliamentary elections in May and create some friction to overcome for the eventual General Election. It will be the SNP which benefits most from this ridiculous timing as the Lib Dems are ALL OVER THE PLACE on this in Scotland as they are in Westminster.

Fib Dems have chronicled their sad manoeuvres HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. The first link is the most recent. Jo Swinson MP (right) is also a grab from Fib Dems. They also have some cluster bomb hypocrites on board of course.

UPDATE: Scottish Parliament, Sorry!

Dodgy Dossier: Hans Blix Says Exclamation Marks Replaced Question Marks to Mislead

The Iraq Dossier Blog links to a new speech from Hans Blix which adds more detail to the criticism of the dodgy dossier. Labour Against The War's more respectable dossier is HERE. To my eyes the Blair/Campbell soup of a dossier was risible. I have no idea how Michael Meacher was taken in and while Iain Dale drew my attention to this story we should ask how his Tories were fool enough to fall for it. Michael Howard was honest enough to admit he didn't really buy it but wanted to whack Saddam anyway. But what about cuddly nu tory Dave/id Cameron?

Green Party: London Mayoral Candidate, Miss Android; Chorlton Candidate, Medieval Punishments

Guido Fawkes has a story about this Green Candidate for London mayor Sian being a back-to-the-stone-age anti human campaigner HERE.

We've not quite seen this articulated so clearly in Manchester but we did have a Green candidate for Chorlton in 2004 name of Jessica who surprised the liberal intelligensia normally taken in by Green no-paper campaigns by announcing that ASBOs were insufficient and that a set of stocks should be placed in Albert Square forthwith. Alas the web archive doesn't contain the historic pages. But I'm betting there will be a reader out there who saved a copy ...

Next it will be trial by earth, trial by fire, trial by water; and let's not forget chopping hands off and the like. The trouble with Greens is that they like recycling and furry animals but beyond they they may believe in anything.

Letters I've Written: Never Meaning To Send

Lords in White Ermine
Never Reaching their End
Letters I've Written
Never Meaning To Send

Real Lyric Words and Music by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.

The latest twist in the tale is that the document drafted by Ruth Turner was a moody blue kind of letter. Never meant to be sent. But a "flipping" good head empty and mood enhancer.

John McDonnell: The YouTube Works

Campaign Launch: July 2006

< Why I'm Running * Poverty >

< Health * Trident >

< Education * Peace >

< Trade Unions * Climate Change >

Michael Meacher: Interview with Labour Home

Interesting comments over at El Tom's Newer Labour.

He's a class act. But essentially Meacher has the same platform as John McDonnell without quite the same degree of integrity and judgement, something which Meacher himself salutes before spinning yarns about parliamentary nomnations in the bag.

Backing Blair on Iraq, conspiricising on 9-11, owning millions of pounds of residential buy-to-let do not a wise leader or an exemplary socialist make. I look forward to Alex Hilton interviewing John McDonnell, and who knows another candidate who is from the centre left, yet distinctive from the left candidate, and unimpeachable.

Really there should have been some left and centre left primary system. Something like the Unanimous programme could have been the way.

Some Inconvenient Untruths: Iain Dale Throws Complete Paddy at Dave/id Cameron Over Al Gore

Iain Dale thinks it is a disgrace that Al Gore has been invited to address the Shadow Cabinet.

I'm not quite sure why Iain has gone quite so entirely for the half-baked rhetoric of a Channel 4 programme over the half-baked ruling theory rhetoric it is trying to face down. It is all half-baked.

And as Mark Twain might have said:

"The wonderful thing about popular environmental science is the huge return of speculation one gets for such a very small investment of fact"

Neither top science nor top journalism from either side. Whoever is more right there are very good reasons to:

- use less fossil fuels and raw materials
- reduce, reuse and recycle
- strive for improved air quality
- bring forward viable emergent technologies
- rethink national/international grid meme

This last is now looking disastrous with up to 90% of energy lost in distribution over huge distances. Let's tell China and India and Africa about that rather than expecting them to settle for poverty.

For those of a more socialist persuasion than Iain Dale there is also the idea of resisting the domination of our world by huge corporations and by USA pollies who are brown-nosed and green-eyed rather than in the slightest bit green.

If you're looking out for armageddon in the middle east the month after next to bring forward the second coming then basically screw the planet and fuck the poor are corrollaries. What is that warm fuzzy term those Bushy churchies use for the end of the world scenario they are working towards? Thanks to a Doctor of Divinity (comments): the word is Rapture.

Meanwhile air transport may be in effect one of the least viable areas at the moment for real environmental improvements. Though New Labour are appearing to buy the overall received wisdom at the moment they don't buy knee jerk and unilateral attacks on air travel. But Cameron and Campbell seem to do so. For the moment.

Devils Kitchen discusses this. And BNP (or UKIP?) Verity's comment at Iain's site includes this:

I cannot believe all this hysteria. Remember "global cooling" 20 years ago? Remember Ehrlich's "population bomb"? Remember "we only have enough oil to last for 20 years - ooh, err!"? These scary scenarios (scary if you were 10 years old at the time) all come from the same source - the one-worlder, anti-progress, anti-democracy, command economy Marxists.

Unlikely. Anti-gore vid links also here. And here's another Gore-baiting Flash movie:

Mad Chad: On Tories Backing Google vs Microsoft

UKIP Chad may be mad. But THIS is interesting.

Manchester Withington Selection: Busy Day

Today, contact with four of the five final teams. Letter from Yogesh including her website. 'Phone conversation with Nargis aide. Mug of tea with Naheed. Stop The War meeting with Jenny assistant.

Also finalised Tomas in Hastings Half Marathon (Sunday), dropped son to Meech's basketball academy, took Tarus to lift for National Cross Country (Sunderland), picked up hoopster, signed up a Co-op Party member, some Private Eye story plotting, taking in a little Irish festival, a photocall with a dozen of Labour's 14 women council candidates for May, and moderately extensive dog walking.

Some catch up blogging to be done ...

The 2020 Vision: Blairy Vision Soft Contacts

Hugh Muir's Guardian Diary covered the Clarke/Milburn Brown spoiler "Blairy Focus Group" thusly:

Surely everyone can see by now that Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn are up to something deeply sinister. We have not been taken in and we know that while everyone was watching Miliband, the "Alan Milburn Support Listing and Website" moved quietly into post-Blair battle mode. Its 16 members are a "small but ever expanding group" of girls and they specialise in downloading dreamy pictures of the MP for Darlington. But come the bloodletting, they'll be there.

And their friends in high places thusly:

And who else have Clarke and Milburn got on side? Who's pulling the strings? Well, at the top of the list of links on their website, the2020vision.org.uk, they have the Policy Exchange, which is a centre-right thinktank close to David Cameron. At the bottom of the list we find the Smith Institute, a thinktank famously close to Gordon Brown. Now come on, you don't have to be Einstein.

Their Links didn't touch the ground. The utterly Tory Policy Exchange has been bumped down the list and Brown's friends at The Smith Institute have been removed. I'd guess at TSI's own request.

Graphic from FT of early September 2006.

Iain Dale on Newt Gingrich: Yesterday's Blogger Telling 1999 News

Iain Dale has another breathless exclusive this morning. Apparently Newt Gingrich has been a serial philanderer and all round bad old boy. Shock horror!

Trouble is the story hasn't moved on that much since 1999. That is the last time there was a Republican selection race on the cards.

Newt has all sorts in his resume, including having his first wife sign divorce papers immediately after her third cancer op. Reason given - too ugly to be First Lady. Second wife not treated much better. Third wife was bit on side while Newt was pursuing Clinton. Like Clinton he was a hypocritical churchian toker and a man for whom oral was not sex.

Yesterday's blogger telling 1999 news.

Manchester Withington Selection: You Tube

Man Wit candidates have gone digital. Your first You Tube link:

.

Very well done to Team Nargis. An excellent start. First website. First candidate political broadcast.

FIRST PUBLISHED: 11pm Thursday.

Times Up in Liverpool Speke-Garston: Lib Dems Found Out and Humiliated in Flagship Liverpool

We looked for the result of yesterday's Speke-Garston by-election on the (Lib Dem) Liverpool Council's website. Nothing doing.

The Liverpool Daily Post showed why. There was a complete meltdown of the Lib Dem vote in this ward. Going from a 700+ majority for the Fibs to a 700+ majority for Labour.

Biblical numbers. Being seen by the Lib Dems as a barometer for the "success" of their post-Storey story! To my eyes Cllr Warren Bradley is a complete lightweight - a bit like a charmless version of dear Simon Ashley in Manchester - and the disgraced Storey is already clawing back his power.

For Labour this was to be a signal over whether they might expect to make a significant breakthrough in May. This now looks almost certain if they put in the work. There is little doubt that Liverpool Labour were in a terrible state as they declined.

But now they are deserving respect and winning back the power.

As Labour group leader Cllr Joe Anderson said: “This by-election was a referendum on Liberal Democrat control in this part of the city, and Speke has spoken with a voice that says ‘we’re sick and tired of being neglected’.”

Cllr Richard Oglethorpe, the Lib-Dem agent, said: “I’m proud of the campaign we fought and obviously disappointed by the result.” Conservatives were beaten into fifth place by candidates from both the Green and the far-right British National Party though they did hold off UKIP. By FIVE VOTES.

Colin Strickland (Lab) 1,984; Lynnie Williams (Lib Dem) 1,218; Steven Greenhalgh (BNP) 281; Cherry Fitzsimmons (Green) 68; Brenda Coppell (Cons) 54; and Mark Bill (UKIP) 49.

Elections in the North: Slugger O'Toole, plus the Raytheon Nine, Protesting Against Lib Dem's Murderous Hobby Horse

Have been meaning to blog on the elections in the North of Ireland and indeed on my recent visit to the frontline. But meanwhile I'd recommend Slugger O'Toole for results and commentary.

Particularly good to see a link with the Raytheon9 who have been charged under the Terrorism Act (meaning a Diplock Court) for protesting against the cluster bomb and bunker buster makers Raytheon which Lib Dem chancer Willie Rennie MP has been bigging up while simultaneously standing up with Cllr John Leech MP and others pretending to slam their products.

HERE Labour of Love scripted an attack advert against this Cluster of Lib Dem Bombers; HERE we speculated about the fibber Rennie and the fibber Leech's poor re-election prospects; and HERE with links to earlier Fib Dem and LoL stories we wished Willie a happy Burns Night.

What fuckwitted hypocrites these Lib Dems are. Slugger's picture shows Eamonn McCann, Social Environmentalist Alliance candidate for the Foyle constituency (and I think one of the Raytheon 9). "If destroying some Raytheon computers saved just one life, it was worth it."

Hat tip to Iain Dale for reminding me about Slugger's works.

Daily Torygraph: Op-Ed Columns as Job Applications

Squire Dale uses his Daily Telegraph column today to apply for the job of being Dave/id Cameron's "man up the backside" of the US presidential campaigners. Trying to rectify the damage of DC's clumsy positioning.

Dale is least looking forward to climbing up "god forbid" Hillary's sphincter. This last comment may rule him out of consideration as Dave/id's transatlantic brown noser would of course have to go anywhere he or she was sent in the cause of artifically inseminating future US presidents with the notion that the Oxford Bullingdon tendancy has a safe warm hand to feel perfectly comfortable with.

Rather than the cold shoulder offered so far. Squire Dale HERE.

Libdemologist Spin Doctor: Has Been Planning to Go "Since November"

Mark "Bright Spark" Littlewood the Lib Dem head of own goals and sabotage has been planning to leave for sometime, allegedly. He is claimed by Lord Rennard to have indicated he was resigning in November 2006 and will now go within two months.

Alert Lib Dems are pointing out that the gaffes over Ming's deadly dull "spring" speech could have been embarrassing. Could have been embarrassing? Come on you Lib Dems, get with the programme. Mark is an ex-Liberty Head of Campaigns and before taking on his Libdemologist chores he was in a flap about Ken's brilliant Oyster Card system with a grand conspiracy theory.

Manchester Withington Selection: Hustings Venue

Hurrah! Miraculously an alternative venue for the final hustings has been found which does not favour any of the candidates. Hats off to the procedure secretary and the fairness compliance officer and most of all to those who politely complained and those who politely listened.

Hopefully there will be no "gags" about beauty contests and no lines about "my, how this place has improved, thanks to a Labour government, since I went to school right here" (and before I sodded off to London). We had both these winning moves at the initial hustings.

Two or three stuck in the beauty contest one. Only one of these has survived. Only one was able to do the school one. Her much improved primary school, due to have been followed because of force majeure by her much improved secondary school. I kid you not. But they've seen sense.

We'll not have these lines at the final hustings. Hurrah for people power!

Yesterday, a Magistrate; Today, a Tory Shadow

Iain Dale and other Tories are generally agreeing that David Cameron was right to get rid of cow wary Patrick Mercer who came out with strange anecdotal generalisations about BME soldiers. But plenty of excuses and quibbles in Tory-mooland and Tory-blogland.

Mr Mercer generalized from the particular in a dangerously agile, and yes racist way. From one soldier allegedly playing hooky to see his girlfriend and using an excuse of racism. Someone else might have used an excuse of a grannie's illness.

But Mercer's anecdotes generalised in effect to the idea that black soldiers are lying lazy skivers, and more so than say scousers, gingas, Irish or god preserve us the triple whammy of an Irish scouse ginga.

Mercer also unwisely uses "lots" and lots of other vagueness also. He was right to resign. DC was right to require him to do so. That all this coincides with scandalous accusations about black Commonwealth soldiers and that it was effectively volunteered to The Times means Mercer was and is a liability. The fact he's shown the door quickly does not mean he is not the tip of an iceberg of a party for which Cameron himself was masterminding a dog whistle race campaign - not two years ago.

Green wellies and Grecian 2000: the tools of the Modern Tory Colonel

Reclaim Labour: Have Comrades Given Up Hope and Sold Out to Big Pharma? Reclaim Viagra?

What on earth has happened to the famously fearless ReclaimLabour blog?

UPDATE: Search parties are out for Harry, but there is a virus warning on the remnants of the site. Avoid.

More Tory Twaddle: Dale Analysis of Lords Votes

The more I read Iain Dale's attempted analysis of such things the less I trust it. Labour of Love have pointed out some examples of CCHQs blogger-in-chief's schoolboy errors HERE, HERE and HERE. This is another one to add to the pantheon.

Better to stick with the reasonable idea that an extra 90 Labour MPs voted for the 100% option because that is where their socialist or social democrat heads are than to make them - without the slightest foundation - into wreckers conspiring against their own ingrained politics. Of course there might be a few abolitionists in this group, but mostly they accept the idea of two chambers but require democracy.

If Iain is looking for wreckers and anti-democrats he should consider the anti-reform forces who piled in for the 100% elected but who actually favour the status quo, 100% appointed or some other undemocratic option. Only 28% of Tories backed the 100% option, which Iain says he favours, while 63% of Labour MPs did so. Time to cross the chamber?

Legal Outrage: "Bloody Foreigners" Magistrate (68) Stays on the Bench

Needless to say Labour of Love think that a magistrate responding to complaints about his offensive language from colleagues with a tirade against "bloody foreigners" and Rusholme curries should not be allowed to stay on the bench.

Mr Alan Mitchell (68) rejected a recommendation that he be downgraded to the Manchester supplemental list and on review of the case by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice this old fool was reprimanded but not really disciplined.

The witnesses were colleagues including a woman JP whose remark that she was offended by his pathetic prejudice and had a husband from Iran actually triggered the latter outburst. And a Black British clerk also. Which I suppose shows something about how oblivious this character is to reality, though just about anyone would have been offended.

Mr Mitchell has we feel led something of a charmed life, leaning on his JP status more than a little to get out of scrapes, and LoL will tell at least a little more anon. Meanwhile anyone finding themselves in front of this barmy and reactionary beak would do well to object.

The Manchester Evening News report.

That YouGov Poll of Labour Members and Affiliates

Despite a drubbing for Hazel Blears Luke Akehurst rather likes this strange poll. PDF Results here

There were some very daft questions in there, like it was a first year student project. They even get Jon Cruddas' name wrong. Particular problems include the old business as usual vs leftiness lurch false dichotomy; steeped in personality over policy; no open questions at all. These questions would be useful:

If Gordon Brown were not available and in an ideal world who would you like to stand for leader of the party?
When should Blair have gone?
Will you pay any attention to what MPs do?
Are you interested in listening to a debate or have you already made your mind up?

What exactly is "too left wing" about John McDonnell's platform?
What is JMcD's platform?
Should public services be publically owned?
Will the Iraq War be an issue for you?
Will Trident be an issue for you?
What are your three biggest issues?

Is Gordon Brown too right wing to be leader?
Is David Miliband too right wing to be leader?
Is Charles Clarkes too right wing to be leader?
Is Alan Milburn too right wing to be leader?

Will you be trying to "bet" on the winner when you cast your vote?
Do you think that after 13 years waiting Gordon Brown deserves to be leader and PM whatever is going on in the world?

Not even:

Are you going to vote?
Did you vote in the last leadership election?
Did you vote in the last NEC election?
Are you actually paid up?

Clearly the results in the NEC election indicate a much more left/centre left bias in the real membership which regularly votes than in this batty YouGov polling.

Walk The Plank: Trust Us, We're The Trustees

Part two of our quarterly Board meeting proceeds last evening with yours truly in the rotating chair. Difficult decisions are duly made with a fax that arrived today from a body called the MCA sealing the fate of a short summer tour in our good ship Fitzcarraldo. We will have further discussions on that anon. Work in Liverpool, in big stadia events, and in fireworks is going from strength to strength.

The ship's berth is moving very slightly from the one pictured during the Liverpool dérive. And the world (today) has finally caught up with the Liverpool Post (friday) that the Manchester Ship Canal People are to rescue Liverpool with a £5.5 Billion investment along the river over the next 30 to 50 years. They're looking to the Towers of Shanghai for inspiration, which belies recent planning permissions or lack of them by the stuck in a rut Libdemologists.

[aside]They are saying that nothing will happen without consultation though we don't need a particularly long memory to remember the fourth grace consultation and Mike Storey and the Lib Dem horde picking the design with by far the least votes. Then messing that up anyway.

Incidentally word has reached Labour of Love that the disgraced former Council boss and big-hair scarey Mike Storey has seen his post, more or less without portfolio, swollen to more than he ever had on his plate before. Meanwhile the supposed leader has next to nothing left, perfect as he's a useless windbag. Allegedly. The sooner the people of Liverpool have a return to a Labour regime the better. There is a bye-election tomorrow, Thursday.[/aside]

More on Tower Hamlets' show (right) shortly. The lanterns produced for the Commonwealth Games finale in 2002 (above) are still turning heads and generating business, with one VIP giving the view recently that this was the best work ever made for such a stadium event.

We Trustees are immensely proud of the team and all they do. Today's Guardian Society tells us that there are around 3,500 Charity Trustees in the City of Manchester alone, which is not much less than one in a hundred (population 430,000) which is a remarkable concentration of entrepreneurial do-gooders in any one place.

Guardian Letters: Cash without Honour

RH Page has it about right I think in today's Guardian letter's page:

Whatever may, or may not, have gone on in respect of cash for honours, it seems likely that it reflects accepted practice by all three main political parties over many years. Representatives of all three parties have been questioned. Is it really appropriate that the entire mainstream British political establishment should be traduced under a law which has long lain dormant, at the behest of nationalists, with an obvious axe to grind, and certain elements in the Metropolitan police about whose motives for pursuing this matter with such vigour it is possible to speculate?

Couple of contrary views from the same source posted in comments. The one implying the Guardian has thwarted the investigation by its reporting is to my eyes hilariously silly. And Blair's Harry Worth moment proves he's not a vampire.

Guardian: Did Lord Levy Ask Ruth Turner to "Shape" Her Evidence?

That is what the Guardian are claiming today. Having successfully resisted an injunction. Still ambiguous about whether the "particular document" is/was an email or not.

UPDATE: Stories are getting more and more specific. Latest (18:00pm) have Ruth Turner not being at all comfortable with Lord Levy's account of events. Iain Dale OOZES OPPROBRIUM about Lord Levy's own cries of "trial by media". But Levy's right and Tory bloggers like Dale and Fawkes have been the worst. Now they pussyfoot about as if what they say matters. Huh!

University Challenge: Manchester in Last Four Again

This time without a single Lib Dem activist or even one dodgy Doctor in our line up. Having won through the repechage Manchester knocked out the last Oxbridge survivors. Meanwhile Cold Blood II has been shot in the Christie, Whitworth and Arts Buildings at the University of Manchester. And in the Northern Quarter. Deserves conservation area status to keep the film industry happy. Including tomorrow's Life On Mars.

BBC Gag: Document is NOT an Email

Contrary to reports, including those linked here yesterday, the particular document concerned in the injunction on the BBC is NOT an email. It is a document drafted by Ruth Turner which concerns Lord Levy and which was intended for Ruth's boss Jonathon Powell. However, unlike an email it is not possible to know whether the document was sent, received or read. Even after a careful exposition of this by Channel 4's correspondent Jon Snow is however still saying the thing was "sent".

Recess Monkey: Deceased Maggie?

Parliamentary Blogger Recess Monkey scooped the field with an announcement shortly after midnight that brass-necked iron lady Maggie Thatcher had shuffled off to the great scrapyard in the sky.

Iain Dale, who has been promised the exclusive, was in a right Tory tizzy, nuancing a Maggie obituary, finishing a tie-in hagiography, and recalling Mark's Twain's oft-misquoted aphorism "The report of my death was an exaggeration".

Not one to harbour a grudge Iain has Recess Monkey blogger Alex Hilton on Blogger TV tonight at 9pm. Hilton did recant this morning.

Observer Sport Monthly: John Amaechi Interview

Good stuff: Amaechi's Basketball Centre is about half a mile from my house. My son plays there on Saturdays. John Amaechi's book Man in the Middle is published by ESPN. Meech's magical masterclass.

Libdemologists: W Menzies Campbell Speaks and We're None the Wiser

HERE IT IS (BBC VIDEO): W Menzies Campbell, the great unifier, has apparently set out his five demands for participation in a coalition with Labour - PR not required, soft on crime essential - and his merry men have been briefing and counter-briefing ever since. What a rabble. Scientologists should disassociate themselves.

UPDATE: Commentary at Political Betting is fascinating.

BBC Gag: Newspapers Test the Waters

Guido and News of the World suggest Labour have been the ones leaking to the BBC. The Mail on Sunday gets furthest in their disclosure stating that the leaked email was from Ruth Turner to Jonathan Powell, while The Sunday Telegraph and Guido and NOTW makes it about Lord Levy.

Meanwhile The Mail on Sunday also reveals that Blair's team can expect £75,000 golden goodbyes when he goes and Brown lets them go.

Go Swivel Yates! Maggie Thatcher is all for Cash being paid for Peerages (No Devaluation!)

Obviously it was the Police - Yates of the Yard - who asked for the injunction on the BBC story. Not the government. Certainly not the Labour Party.

Yates is getting rattled. So rattled his people have stopped leaking to Tory bloggers, even if they are in the same grand lodge.

Thar she blows! Go swivel Yates! Maggie would want the party of government to win on this one.

Manchester Withington Selection: Le Crunch

This weekend the General Committee of the CLP considered the itemised bill of the phoney war and decide on the shortlist for selection of the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate who will try to reclaim this lovely leafy seat for Labour at the next election.

The final shortlist in alphabetical order of family names:

Naheed Arshad-Mather MBE
Councillor Nargis Khan
Jenny Lennox
Lucy Powell
Dr Yogesh Virmani

These are the same names that would have gone forward after the Branch Party nominations. Of the affiliates only the Co-op Party and SEA involved significant numbers of the selectorate. Unison, the T&G and GMB didn't even manage to affiliate.

I was not invited to the GC meeting on Sunday night. I should have been included in this body and also probably in the EC as a GC/EC member of Manchester Central re-organised into Manchester Withington. This was supposed to be guaranteed under transitional arrangements, and rightly so.

Regional Office did not resolve this query, and has yet to respond to the request that strange venue choices be re-visited.

Oh My God: BBC Gagged Over Secret Plans

Unlike Iain Dale who claims an EXCLUSIVE but says nothing and pussyfoots around alleged names he allegedly knows I can reveal that the BBC has been injuncted from revealling that every member of the Bullingdon Boys (Class of 1987) has been promised, by big D, a modest K or an immodest P - at some stage - for maintaining their generous contributions to the old alma mater. An Alma Mater which is now planning to move on from smashing up restaurants to again smashing up communities and livelihoods.
MEANWHILE, SADLY: Guido is pissed and incoherent. It's Friday night and Guido's an amateur.

Newsnight Daubing: Class A Bullingdon Boys

Oxford Student recently carried an analysis, while The Independent gave a guide to the dramatis personae of the spiked picture.

Meanwhile the "MP for Bullingdon" is one Mr Baldry (right).

Himself once in trouble for organising a bad boys Dining Club for one of Keith Vaz's mates at the Palace of Westminster, is here seen in the house praising the wardens of Bullingdon Prison.

Matching faces to names: (1) Sebastian Grigg, (2) David Cameron, (3) Ralph Perry-Robinson, (4) Ewen Fergusson, (5) Matthew Benson, (6) Sebastian James, (7) Jonathan Ford, (8) Boris Johnson, (9) Harry Eastwood, (10) Spy?

Michael Crick: The Images They Wanted To Ban, Cameron ... and Blair?

1. Cameron: Local Oxford agency Gilman and Soame have mysteriously withdrawn copyright on lucrative Bullingdon Club images. Tories say have not spiked it. Crick has had the spiked picture repainted. As Roy Hattersley said the snap proves Cameron is in fact an aristo toff and part of a rich boys ASB Club. G&S say they have made a decision not to release "school photos".

2. Blair: Minor league toffs looking a bit squiffy, with a TB hand signal.

Tory Troubles: Channel 4 News Email Leaks

Not on the site immediately, but soon come, a series of emails showing how George Osborne has completely lost control over all his colleagues.

They are now promising spending, tax cuts and policies which hopeless George and dopey David just will quite simply not be able to deliver.

Blair nailed them on their married tax fudge at PMQs and Harman nailed Willets on Newsnight on the same matter. Both his brains AWOL. Their only real policy in tatters already.

Has Ultra-Tory Blogger Hounded Out Mr Hains' Special Advisor? ... Nope, Guido is Lying

That's Guido's story, HERE. Hain's Special Advisor. Discovered doing too much electioneering on the firm's time Guido says he's walked the plank.

Guido is also pursuing some other SpAds for similar offences, notably one of Hazel Blears'.

All of which I think is fair enough. Mr Hain - surely one of the entertainingly least safe pair of hands on the planet - is on Question Time with Dimbleby tonight.

UPDATE: Guido has admitted he was telling lies.

Private Equity Expansion: BBC Newsnight with Sion B'Stard and John McDonnell

Sion B'Stard and John McDonnell debated the issue of Private Equity on Newsnight this week. SB'S was gung-ho for it. JMcD was rightly wary about the Labour Party accepting support from asset strippers and profit takers on quite this level.

NCP, The AA, Birds Eye and Debenhams are all businesses now within their ownership. One-in-six workers are now employed by their concerns. And Sainsburys and British Airways are targetted. Sion B'Stard is clearly a Tory whose contribution was muddled and unprincipled laissez faire. John McDonnell meanwhile had his media reputation enhanced by another principled and competent contribution.

Michael Meacher of course asked a rather bumbling question - with a rescue from a the speaker to begin - about the sector at PMQs yesterday. Great minds think alike? Tony Blair was able to advise Mr Meacher that his leadership bid was doomed.

Milburn and Clarke: Laurel and Hardy?

The last time I used this graphic was to describe the fractured mess of the local Lib Dems in Manchester. But it also seems perfect to describe the fractured mess of the New Labour project and "another fine mess" that is the2020vision of our very own Stan and Ollie.

Gordon Brown (and the Labour Party) will benefit most in my opinion from being challenged from the left and centre left, not from his fellow neo-liberals for whom the personality question heads off the policy one which should have primacy.

We could now have McDonnell for the Left, Brown for the Centre Right, and Clarke for the Right. There is plenty of space between McDonnell and Brown, and plenty of nominations to go round, to see a Centre Left challenge too. Obviously not meaning the non-starter Meacher.

Steve McQueen: 'Queen and Country', War Art at Central Library

Just seen this war artwork previewed on Channel 4 News. In our very own Central Reference Library. As part of Manchester's newest International Festival. A cabinet holds proof sheets of family-supplied portrait stamps of the British military dead of Iraq.

These men and women fit the usual Royal Mail Philately criterion for being on a stamp. Not royal, but are dead.

Clearly exceptions are made from time to time for someone who catches a catch on the field in Brisbane. As McQueen says: "Why not someone who catches a bullet in the field in Basra?"

Neither the MoD nor Royal Mail are keen to progress the idea.

ALSO: Catching up soon I hope with War Art seen over recent months at Stockport Art Gallery, Cornerhouse, and Liverpool Tate.

After Six Minutes: On For 45-0

Remarkable start to the Reading - United replay. Goals on 2, 4 and 6 minutes. And there was me predicting 4-0 at full time.

Manchester Withington Selection: Affiliates

The Co-op Party nominated Councillor Nargis Khan and Naheed Arshad-Mather MBE. Dr Jane Evans, Jenny Lennox, and Lucy Powell were not eligible.

CWU backed Nargis Khan and Lucy Powell. USDAW backed Lucy Powell. Amicus' three branches including my own GPMU branch are yet to go public.

The Socialist Education Association ballot was won by a single vote by Lucy Powell.

More supporters' endorsements for any candidate are always welcome. Who will win most handsomely in Withington? Who will knock the grimace off the Lib Dem face the best?

Select YOUR ENDORSEMENTS from the Withington Menu top left or by clicking here, read the ground rules, and click comment to leave your 100-word endorsement(s).

UPDATE: This post replaces the earlier effort, the comments, and the apologies. More anon. Including that Student news.

Tory Candidate Blogs: Set to be HUG in Rossendale

Iain Dale asks "Who do so Few Candidates Have Blogs?" but we know he means "Why?"

Jake "the fake" Berry (right) - who stood and placed third last time in City Centre ward, Manchester - has one I tell Iain. Here's the link. I note that Jake already thinks that like a Tory think tank and that he should be an dot-org not a dot-con.

This candidate used to say he lived "in Manchester", later "on the outskirts of Manchester", but now presumably will have changed to "the environs of Rossendale" or some such?

No, alas it hasn't. It still has him moving to Manchester and living on the outskirts thereof. All the while Jake has of course lived in Cheshire, on the Liverpool side of the M6 I believe.

Incidentally the Conservative home analysis of Jake's selection commented on his spolling, grimmeur and sin-tax and this may account for more nice but dim Tories not having blogs. And Iain's own headline shows that factor up.

Perhaps it's a clever play on words that maternity units are in fact a "hug" rather than a "huge" issue in Rossendale?

Certainly the local government candidates Dave/id was communing with in Benchill, Wythenshawe may not be starting theirs anytime soon.

CAPTIONS: Picture top is we think of another Jake Berry.

This one here may be an out-to-lunch Jake Berry who is set to be absolutely HUG in Rossendale.

World of Liberals: Visit From the Cast of Shameless

The previous story reminds me of events on Sunday morning at LoL HQ. Dogs barking at what they believe are some disreputable characters skulking outside. Turns out they are Libdemologists dropping leaflets for a street surgery by their new carpet bagging candidate for the local elections. This guy stood as a local man in Fallowfield in 2004 and as a local man in Brooklands in 2006. Now he is a local man in Chorlton for 2007. This time it may even be true, who ever can tell with these geographically fluid Libdemologists?

Hopefully Cllr John Leech MP will accompany the candidate and local people can mount a demonstration against the Hospital Hoaxer.

Anyway, the one who is a dead spit for Frank, looking if anything rougher than usual, claimed to be "a handsome man" and also that your blogger looks more like the character then he does. Ouch. Very witty. Not. How very insulting! I hope he isn't going to go complaining about my satire when he has just accused me of looking worse.

The people of Chorlton Park probably don't want Shameless behaviour on their streets. Quite right too. But things can only get worse if one councillor is an absentee and two more are doing next to nothing. We certainly don't want their shameless politics to spread to the streets of Chorlton.

Jewellry as above "Shameless Dog" can be bought from Thomas Mann.

World of Liberals: Candidate De-Selected Over Bestiality "Smear"

Hat tip to Lord Dale for linking with this rather coy report. THIS ONE is less so. In true Liberal fashion Mr Pavier (above boasting of big pumps) blames the "friends" who dobbed him in for "smearing him" rather than chastising himself for his lewd textography.

Conservative Stoners: Dave/id Cameron Down to Grass Roots in Benchill

The picture above shows one ex-stoner getting down to grass roots with a current model in Benchill, Wythenshawe. As used in news reports in The Times and elsewhere. The picture (right) steps back a little. The friend "shooting" Cameron has been widely identified. In the cells too for breaching his tag conditions and separately for being a junior stoner.

But Dave's other associates and the local people identified to stand for the Cuddly Nu Tories in the May elections have not been named.