Stolen Guest Post: Con Home on Bloggers on PBR

Know Your Enemy:

Here is Conservative Home's round-up of some of the reaction from Tory bloggers to this afternoon's Pre-Budget Report and the response given by George Osborne, which we have already hailed as outstanding.

Iain Dale says that this is the day that Labour "blew it big time" and describes George Osborne's performance as "really strong". He also quotes a non-Conservative MP as having told him: "This wasn't George Osborne. It was Ozzy Osborne - drawing blood!"

Janet Daley at the Telegraph says the PBR was "more of a take-away than a give-away Budget", given that the tax increases outweighed the fiscal stimulus. She says that in his response, George Osborne "did very well". 

Her colleague, Iain Martin, is a very angry man, describing the scale of the Government's mismanagement of the economy as "breathtaking" and "a gross moral failure by this government". In a later post, Iain heaps praise on George Osborne, whom only a couple of weeks ago he was asking to be moved from the shadow chancellorship. He describes Osborne's performance as "absolutely blistering and his best Commons performance to date", concluding that "it was seriously impressive and strengthens his position enormously."

The observations of Alex Singleton, meanwhile, concentrate on George Osborne. Saying that he came across as "a powerful and effective shadow chancellor", he concludes that "his performance will have done much to restore faith in his position".

Matthew Elliott of the Tax Payers’ Alliance, welcomed the immediate VAT cut, but said the prospect of large tax rises in the future was "very worrying". He called for "permanently low taxes, not a crippling debt mountain and higher tax to come. It is unfair that the Chancellor is not going to make the public sector share any of the pain of the recession. If the Government cut out wasteful and unnecessary public spending, we could have larger tax cuts, less borrowing and a faster recovery.”

Harwich MP Douglas Carswell blogged live from the Commons, expressing exasperation at the Speaker for not taking Labour MPs to task for heckling George Osborne, whilst he did admonish a number of Tory MPs.

The Burning Our Money blog describes Alistair Darling's expectation of a mild recession as "pie in the sky" and concludes that it is a "a bad news budget that's actually even worse than it looks".

Peter Hoskin at Coffee House wonders whether Alistair Darling's gamble will pay off. Pointing out that "the Treasury's tax receipt and net borrowing figures always tend to be optimistic", he wonders whether this time they're even more optimistic than usual.

Meanwhile, his colleague, James Forsyth, writes a post with the alliterative headline, "Labour fails to get bang for its borrowed buck". He predicts that Darling has potentially set himself up for a fall by predicting growth in Q3 next year and also describes George Osborne's performance as "his strongest ever Commons performance", adding: "Today was the day that Osborne proved that he is up to the task of being Shadow Chancellor at a time when the economic question is once more dominating politics".

And Fraser Nelson's reading of the figures is that the debt bombshell "is not due to explode until 2015/16", concluding that "this is not just an economic failure, but a moral one".

In a post entitled "Osborne Wows", Guido writes that his co-conspirators were hugely impressed with Osborne's performance. He also cites Tom Clougherty of the Adam Smith Institute as describing the shadow chancellor's performance as "the speech of his life".

Think I've caught most of the spelling mistakes. Goodness me these Tory hacks have fat fingers. Sticky fat fingers. Stinky sticky fat fingers.

Anyway these cats are spraying willy nilly. They're excited about something or other.

Oh, yes: 1. The sound of their own voices talking trite crap; and 2. Doom and gloom, with not a sensible idea from one of them.

If this was Eliza GOO-little having a good day this can surely only be because of our low expectations. But as low expectations go this was surely shriller and shiller than coach Valerie would have wanted?

Ken Clarke meanwhilst, speaking on Radio Five Live, was worried. Said it was a three pipe problem. Said even then there was no certainty. Said that VAT cut WAS THE RIGHT THING. Said it was all a big gamble and the worst world conditions of his lifetime but that he for one hopes it comes off.

Good to have one Tory who gets it and wants the best. The rest of the Tories seem to hope that it doesn't come off. It may not. This is a really tough spot everyone in the world is in. If this works, good. If not we'll need something else. I'm not sure the Tories have anything remotely coherent to offer instead. And the "tax bombshell" line is just a trite truism.

Tax take (NB not tax rates necessarily) WILL have to go up OR expenditure go down in the fullness of time. As always. Still waiting for the Tories to point us at a Tory-run eceonomy anywhere in the world that has escaped these problems and/or has a better recovery route mapped out. Any pointers GOO?

MEANWHILE: I am quite liking the VAT break with the tweaks round alcohol, tobacco and oils - which Iain Dale suggests foolishly are illegal.

Sir George Gideon Oliver Osborne MP: Liar or Fool?

George Gideon Oliver Osborne's Wiki Entry is full of loose ends and adverse information. Allegations of cocaine use, disgraceful insulting use of the term "autistic", Bullingdon Club membership, outright lies about a White House meeting, and repeated 80 and 90% mendacity scores on Channel 4's Factcheck* feature are among them.

Unfortunately his latest piece of utterly inaccurate cobblers, as told to the Manchester Evening News (Today's City Edition p21) is not showing up on the website. But as a servant of truth and justice I'll patiently and faithfully re-key it:

[Headline]Families 'hit by tax bill of £50 a week'[/headline]

POORER families and struggling small businesses in Greater Manchester have been 'clobbered' by government tax rises, says shadow chancellor George Osborne.
He claims the tax bill for an average Manchester family will rise by £50 a week after Alistair Darling's recent tax rises.
Mr Osborne said the chancellor was 'out of his depth'.
The Tatton MP, shadow minister for Manchester, told the M.E.N. that the city would be particularly hard hit by Labour's 'wrongheaded' tax plans.
Mr Osborne said: "Hard working people across Manchester who save through their companies' share ownership could lose out as a result of Labour's latest tax rises.
"As usual, there wasn't a word of warning about this in the chancellor's pre-budget report but the average tax bill for a Manchester family will rise by £2,600 a year for the next five years."
He said Conservatives were committed to increasing the inheritance tax threshold sounding the death knell to death taxes, and lifting nine out of 10 first time buyers out of the stamp duty net."

There you go Mr McGOO, a verbatim re-typing of your arrant nonsense. If Conservative Central HQ or Cllr Iain Lindley of Salford would now explain how the average family in Manchester is 5 pence never mind £50 worse off a week than before Alistair Darling's speech I will also print that explanation verbatim.

In answer to my own question: as GOO is a Magdalen College scholarship boy we have to assume he is not a fool, he is repeating such things over and over again despite corrections so we cannot conclude he is mistaken, which leaves just one explanation.

Most of us these days don't give a monkeys whether George Osborne snorted cocaine with vice girls - an accusation he strenuously if not entirely convincingly denies - but we do care about his runaway addiction to MENDACITY.

Reading Postcards from the edge, more so than watching the film perhaps, shows us how these vices - cocaine and mendacity, or "talking shit" - are linked.

Obviously George issues mangled denials on the former - and who cares - but he seems to be in dire need of a 12-Step-Programme to conquer his appalling predeliction for, nay addiction to fibbery.

* As we revealed here Channel 4's excellent factcheck service found that Tory positioning on Labour's tax regime was 90% mendacious while on the likes of IHT and non doms their own plans were a mere 60% mendacious.

More Tory Funding Opacity: The Boy Mann Done Good

Eighty, count 'em, Tory MPs up for slapped wrists and perhaps even confiscated donations as my Man Uni contemporary John Mann MP rattles their cages.

The Boy Mann Done Good. LOL still feel that Labour and the media are missing a trick on the GOOey mess that is George Osborne's money laundering.

The exonerating emails were no such thing. From the last post on the subject:

First observation. Source. The correspondence was with the Chief Whip's office, not Osborne.

Second observation. Timing. This comes months after donations became news. Approximately 11 months after this passporting of funds is known to have begun. And as Hain chase begins to wind up.

Third observation. Overlap Concept. The basic email covers "overlap" but from the perspective of EFFECTS THAT ARE DECLARED TO RMI and which must also be declared to the EC.

Fourth observation. NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND.

Fifth observation. This gets no-one off any hooks.

Finally I'd observe that while these monies have apparently been declared to the Electoral Commission by the CCHQ they haven't been declared by Osborne have they? If Manchester Labour or one of our constituencies gets some cash donated the appropriate accounting unit(s) will declare these. If monies are then given to a candidate's campaign the candidate will put these in their declaration of expenses and if they are bound by RMI in that too.

Nothing in the advice suggests that the payments should not have been declared to the RMI. That was assumed as a given by the Commissioner. Because of the question that was apparently asked.

The Tories are not representing that these are the only exchanges in writing between themselves and the EC and RMI over the rules in the last 12 months or so. Let's see the whole lot! Can we do a Freedom of Information Act enquiry and obtain them?

Perhaps I'm wrong. But it seems to me these donations have been declared ONCE. But they should have been declared THRICE.

First, by Tory Central Laundry with Electoral Commission shortly after their receipt. Tick, very good.

Second and third, by the Office of Sir George GO Osborne MP with the EC when received from CCHQ, identifying the original donors as passported to him. And obviously this needed to go on the RMI too. Cross, could do better.

As Miranda stage whispered: "Oh, Brave New World that has such Mooncalfs in it". Well something like that. Seriously, Caliban himself - in the eye of the storm - would have done better than Osborne on this.

My regular correspondent Evan protested recently that I hold that Hain is a clown but that Osborne, Cameron and Co are "at it". I am willing to change that view to make them all clowns, you know incompetent, slapdash, unreliable, maverick. But I cannot concede that Hain was "at it". Clearly a cock up. There being no conceivable benefit for anyone from his inactions.

So are the highest reaches of the Tory Party confessing to be as clownish as Hain? But for many more months? And for at least one order of magnitude more wonga? Or are they going to continue to try to be neither nor? Neither incompetents nor conspirators. That simply won't wash.

GOO Gate: PCS Emails Say Zip, Labour Missing Trick?

Sam Coates' The Red Box blog at Times Online has the emails that are supposed to get GOO off the hook. Guido pointed me there. Don't think they get him off the hook at all myself. But here they are:

-----
From : Alda Barry (the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards)
Sent: 06 December 2007 14:44
To: Nikki Da Costa (office of Tory Chief Whip)
Subject: Overlap

Good morning Nikki
I promised Mr McLoughlin written confirmation of the areas of interest where Members must register both with me and also, under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA), with the Electoral Commission.
I hope the following brief summary is helpful, but Mr McLoughlin might also like to consult the Electoral Commission for more detail. I usually speak to Rachel Savage on 020 7271 xxxx
The Electoral Commission is
interested in 'political donations'. Benefits personal to the Member (eg tickets to sporting events) are not of interest to them.
The areas of overlap are concentrated in Categories 4 (Sponsorship) and 6 (Overseas visits). In the case of the latter, their threshold is higher than ours - they do not require the registration of visits worth £1,000 or less.
There are also a few interests which we register under Category 5 (Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK)) which are regarded by the Commission as political donations which need to be registered with them if they are worth more than £1,000 - car parking passes or web-site design (if worth more than £1,000) are examples of these.
Under PPERA, it is the responsibility of the Member to report appropriately to the Electoral Commission. It has recently become the practice of this office to advise Members to consult the Commission if it appears to us that an interest should be registered with them, but I must emphasise that this is purely informal arrangement and does not absolve Members from the responsibility for being aware of, and complying with, their obligations under the Act. Nor can this office advise, expect ingeneral terms, about the requirements of the Act.
This office and the Committee on Standards and Privileges are aware of some dissatisfaction among Members that they have to register the same interest twice. The Electoral Administration Act 2006 opens up the possibility of a 'one-stop shop' for reporting where the requirements overlap, and it is hoped that the House will, before too long, be given the opportunity to consider the implications of such a system and decide whether it wishes to implement it.
I hope this helps
Alda Barry

-----

From: Da Costa, Nikki
Sent: 07 December 2007 11:03
To: BARRY, ALda
Subject: RE: Overlap
Thanks Alda.

This is very useful
Kind regards
Nikki

Nikki da Costa
Special Adviser to the Opposition Chief Whip

-----

From : BARRY, Alda
Sent: 07 December 2007 13:53
To: Da Costa, Nikki
Subject: RE: Overlap

Nikki
I think I misled you just now. THe register deals with donations to a member's constituency association and not to central offices. Sorry.
Alda

-----

From: Da Costa, Nikki
Sent: 07 December 2007 14:03
To: BARRY, ALda
Subject: RE: Overlap

Thanks. Understood.

------

First observation. Source. This is from the Chief Whip's office, not from Osborne.

Second observation. Timing. This comes months after donations became news. Approximately 11 months after this passporting of funds is known to have begun. And as the Hain chase begins to wind up.

Third observation. Overlap Concept. The basic email covers "overlap" but it from the perspective of EFFECTS THAT ARE DECLARED TO RMI and which must also be declared to the EC.

Fourth observation. NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND.

Fifth observation. This gets no-one off any hooks.

Finally I'd observe that while these monies have apparently been declared to the Electoral Commission by the CCHQ they haven't been declared by Osborne have they? If Manchester Labour or one of our constituencies gets some cash donated the appropriate accounting unit(s) will declare these. If monies are then given to a candidate's campaign the candidate will put these in their declaration of expenses and if they are bound by RMI in that too.

So shouldn't these donations have been returned by CCHQ to EC. Then returned by Osborne to EC (including ultimate donors as CCHQ is an agent) and to RMI? Perhaps I'm wrong as the FAQs from Labour HQ don't go there:

Which other members of your Shadow Cabinet receive donations via Conservative Central Office to fund their offices? And in the interests of transparency, why don't you today publish the names of the donors, and the value of their donations?

Why did it take 11 months for George Osborne to check with the registrar whether the donations he was receiving via CCO to run his private office should be declared in the register of members' interests? What prompted him to check this in December given he'd been receiving these donations since January?

When David Willetts received donations via CCO to run his private office in August, he immediately declared it in the register of members' interests. Why did he do that automatically when George Osborne waited 11 months even to check whether they should be registered?

When Oliver Letwin was Shadow Chancellor, he gave up his directorships in a number of merchant banks because of the potential conflict of interest. Do you think it's appropriate for George Osborne's office to be funded by the managers of hedge funds and major investment banks, who would stand to profit massively from his proposals on stamp duty on shares, capital gains tax and so on?

In November, your local party office was forced to pay back £7,400 in donations which had come from foreign donors, relating to an auction prize for a holiday in Sri Lanka. Presumably someone in your office must have solicited these donations. Who was that individual and have you sacked them?

When GOO Met Oleg: Specifics of Denial Suggest More

Gideon George Oliver Osborne is being highly specific in denying that donations were either sought or received from a specific Russian individual, whose hospitality he has certainly enjoyed, albeit he claims briefly and accompanied by his Party's fundraiser, who apparently made a special trip to be present.

Doh! Wouldn't the man have to be on the UK Electoral Register to be eligible to donate as an individual anyway? So, assuming he is not, any donation triggered by this gentleman would have to come via or strictly from a company or association operating in the United Kingdom. The Tories are denying any Company route. So that's that then? Or is it?

Why would Mr Nathaniel Rothschild tell fibs on what he regards a matter of honour and privacy? Essentially giving a demonstration of why throwing stones at Mandleson was an error of judgement. A point that Nick Robinson echoes on his BBC blog who also confirmed that following legal threats the letter was tweaked by Nat.

Could Mr Rothschild make a mistake on such a very simple matter? Is it not the case that a donation from Oleg was OFFERED? But not yet taken up. Nick Robinson is also now explaining on BBC News 24 how Osborne did not deny variations on the "donations discussion" theme.

Ways forward for the Tories: Could a donation be made via an Unincorporated Association? Or in via some promise of unofficial Swift Boating come an election? Or perhaps in the time-honoured honouring-the rules-in-their-breach form of help with overseas travel?

As used by the dissembling Lord Ashcroft. Still dragging his feet and breaking his and Mr William Hague's promises to the government.

GOO must surely come a cropper on this, and although Caroline Spelman and all those MEPs are still in place, this could give Cameron an excuse to move him out of the shadow treasury role. Could Cameron even be in league with Rothschild to achieve this?

Here is the Times letter and the original Conservative rebuttal:

Here are the full texts of the letter sent by financier Nathaniel Rothschild to The Times (as amended following legal threats, here in situ) and the Conservative Party's statement in response to that edited version:

TIMES LETTER

Sir, Since your paper - along with your sister publication The Sunday Times - has made much out of what may or may not have happened at a private gathering of my friends this summer in Corfu, I thought I should make the following observations. I am surprised that you focus on the fact that one of my guests, Peter Mandelson, is a friend of another, Oleg Deripaska. Not once in the acres of coverage did you mention that George Osborne, who also accepted my hospitality, found the opportunity of meeting with Mr Deripaska so good that he invited the Conservatives' fundraiser Andrew Feldman, who was staying nearby, to accompany him on to Mr Deripaska's boat to solicit a donation. Since Mr Deripaska is not a British citizen, it was suggested by Mr Feldman, in a subsequent conversation at which Mr Deripaska was not present, that the donation was "channelled" through one of Mr Deripaska's British companies. Mr Deripaska declined to make any donation. I mention this because it turns out that your obsession with Mr Mandelson is trivial in light of Mr Osborne's actions. I also think it ill behoves all political parties to try and make capital at the expense of another in such circumstances. Perhaps in future it would be better if all involved accepted the age-old adage that private parties are just that.

CONSERVATIVE STATEMENT

The allegations made in Mr Rothschild's letter to the Times are completely untrue. Both Andrew Feldman and George Osborne deny absolutely that they attempted to solicit a donation from Oleg Deripaska. Nor did they suggest a method by which he could conceal a donation via a British company. They spent a short period of time on Mr Deripaska's boat at the invitation of Mr Rothschild. Donations to the Conservative Party were not discussed with Mr Deripaska. In a conversation on September 18, Mr Rothschild suggested to Andrew Feldman that Mr Deripaska wanted to make a donation to the party through one of his British companies. The offer was not taken up.
For clarity - the Conservative Party has neither sought or received any donations from Mr Deripaska nor any of his companies.

POSTSCRIPT: Guido claims Mandy got Blair to request this intervention from Rothschild, who was of course a Bullingdon contemporary of GOO, rather than Cameron. And that £50,000 is not the correct quantum of solace for such a high level connection with such an extraordinarily wealthy individual. Rather like 1p damages in a litigation ... derisory. Can't see the un-edited letter anywhere just yet. Any pointers?

Sir George Osborne MP: Does He Lie To Own Children?

The First Post shares a delightful vignette from a fast foodery name of Tootsies. George (gideon) Oliver Osborne, the wallpapering heir and future 15th baronet has feral children. What a disappointment that must be to poor Mr GgOO.

George probably lies to them ceaselessly and without rest. In the same way he lies pestilently to the people of our great country. These children deserve our support. Poor little rich kids.

GgOO told the people of Manchester that they were each £50 a week worse off this year and a further £50 a week next year and so on for five years under Darling's plans as opposed to his:

[Headline]Families 'hit by tax bill of £50 a week'[/headline]

POORER families and struggling small businesses in Greater Manchester have been 'clobbered' by government tax rises, says shadow chancellor George Osborne.
He claims the tax bill for an average Manchester family will rise by £50 a week after Alistair Darling's recent tax rises.
Mr Osborne said the chancellor was 'out of his depth'.
The Tatton MP, shadow minister for Manchester, told the M.E.N. that the city would be particularly hard hit by Labour's 'wrongheaded' tax plans.
Mr Osborne said: "Hard working people across Manchester who save through their companies' share ownership could lose out as a result of Labour's latest tax rises.
"As usual, there wasn't a word of warning about this in the chancellor's pre-budget report but the average tax bill for a Manchester family will rise by £2,600 a year for the next five years."
He said Conservatives were committed to increasing the inheritance tax threshold sounding the death knell to death taxes, and lifting nine out of 10 first time buyers out of the stamp duty net."

What a big whopping fib that was.

The Manchester Evening News? Sadly they printed the Bullingdon Toff's lies without comment. Though they either didn't web them or took them down PDQ when they realised they'd been sold a pup.

GgOO's Channel 4 mendacity rating veers between a teeny 60% lying to a fulsome 90% lying and no mistake

"But Pater dear Pater! You lied to us! Your own dear children! We are minded to fling Bollinger Bottles at fox cubs until they are deaded. Like Pater's friends, allegedly. Do let us! Or we shall scweem and scweem and scweem!"

Hat tip: Old Mr GuF.

Iain Dale: Will Never Get a Conviction Out of Peter Hain!

Sad to say Iain Dale is again barking up the wrong damned tree. He will never get a conviction out of Peter Hain.

The Electoral Commission are bound to refer matters to the police if they think there is a reasonable chance (who knows what the test for that would be) of some illegality worthy of a £5000 fine or a suspension. So they've a choice to make.

But I'm not sure lateness but with full disclosure would actually hit the button for that.

The CPS would then only prosecute if on the balance of probability they can get a conviction. And to get that conviction they would need a "beyond reasonable doubt". With Peter Hain it would be hard to get any conviction at all. Boom boom.

Still nothing from Iain about Osborne and the other Tory money launderers?

Even Guido Fawkes is covering it and he wasn't exonerating Osborne as of last night. And Donal Blaney was saying Osborne should get what's coming to him. If anything. Just like Hain.

Toastmaster: The Lakelander via Dale. I believe Osborne is on the other side. But there are limits to the art department's photoshopping skills and time. Couple of portfolios to run, doncha know?

Iain Dale: Not Crowing Over Wendy Alexander

Iain Dale says he isn't going to crow at Wendy Alexander stepping down as Scottish Labour leader. This was of course a position she won in an uncontested internal party election, "helped" by ten donations of more than £520, perhaps £10,000 in all, which were, following advice from officials, not declared everywhere they should have been. And then, following different advice from different officials, were of course duly declared.

But The Daily Mail of all organs probably has the real explanation for Iain's reticence. Not to put too fine a point on it the Tories have at least unlucky 13 current sleaze stories to contend with. Every single one of them far worse than any error or carelessness from the mighty WA.

Similar mistakes have been made in a contested Tory Party leadership election by David Davis and Liam Fox at very least. With the former aided and abetted in that campaign by the positively saintly Derek Conway and very famously by, the paragon of funding declarations, Iain Dale himself. Someone who has been very fond of saying how exceedingly careful and 100% correct all that stuff was under his personal stewardship. Whoops! As Iain says ignorance is no excuse.

And of course more of the same and worse in the general run of political donations and undeclared interests by Alan Duncan, George Osborne, Phillip Hammond and at least eight other Tory front benchers.

Thanks to the greatest of these: Hammond, Osborne and Duncan; the average quantum of these folk's discrepancies is some 30 times as great as in Alexander's case. And their political interest far, far greater in most if not all cases.

In GOOey Osborne's case with some hilarious-if-it-wasn't-so-serious disingenuous cover up story concocted to explain how the Tory's would be Chancellor was funded to the tune of £500,000 by various high falluting city interests, without feeling that this was in any way a declarable interest. And we have some of Iain's commentators quibbling about exactly what advice was sought and given. Check Osborne's cock and bull story won't you?

And Oily Duncan is still making chuckling denials of accepting £158,000 to run his office from the boss of the rather sleazy oil business Vitol, never mind accepting an alleged remunerated Directorship of Arawak energy which the Vitol Group own some 40% of.

UPDATE 15:33: It is noticeable that The Mail are saying that Vitol ITSELF, based in the Netherlands, has given significant funding to Duncan. rather than mentioning the group CEO Alan Taylor who appears in the Tory CCHQ declarations for the £158,000.

Each of these thirteen Tories has a vestigial red ribbon on their coat hook in the members cloakroom on which to hang their swords. Let's hope they all bring them in at the next opportunity and fall on them in a collective act of hari kari on College Green.

Caroline Spelman MP could officiate before necklacing a string of outstandingly greedy Tory MEPs and ducking a tribe of Conways into the Thames to see if they drown as they should, being complete innocents and all.

She can then be handed a length of stout rope, a 'useful knots' chart from Scouting for Boys, and a step ladder ... and pointed at a stout Oak Tree.

FOOTNOTE: How the BBC exclusively broke the story, including video of resignation announcement live on BBC. Amazingly Guido had not commented at all until 2:11 when he posted this guff here. As LOL Graphics were finally pulling their finger out.

Of course all the Tory Boy Bloggers missed the rather good "No More Donations" story of the time. LOL gave it to one outpost of the MSM. And will be pleased to receive credits of both kinds if others now pick it up.

Dale's Telegraph Column: Dog Bites Man Shock

Apparently all the Deputy Leadership candidates were warned routinely of the reporting rules for donations. Leadership Election expert Iain Dale tells us so.

Next week we can presumably expect Iain to explain the travesty of Osborne's failure to declare almost half a million to either the EC or RMI. His reply to a point about this made as comment 1 is either very disingenuous or rather ignorant.

Osborne didn't ask anyone anything. The office of the Tory Chief Whip asked the commissioner a question which apparently enquired which donations stuck on the RMI also needed putting on the register at EC. Not the other way round. The assumption in the commissioner's answer was that these were already on RMI.

Wrong generic question, wrong timing 11 months in, absolutely bang to rights concealling who was propping up Osborne's continuous mendacity and spin on treasury matters. Outrageous. Far worse than Hain. Much later. Much more money. Much more calculating.

What other questions were asked by the Chief Whip's Office? Or others among CCHQ or individual MPs' organisations? Let all the enquiries made in the last two years be put into the public domain.

Hain's position is that he didn't knowingly do anything to hide contributions. His team were just late in full disclosure.

The only thing his campaign really has in common with David Davis campaign - which Iain of course managed - is that Hain did remarkably badly as did Davis.

I'm not sure why Iain Dale wants to keep reminding people of his part in that debacle? And he must begin to deal with Osborne honestly. An outrageous and wilful avoidance of transparent reporting by the Buller boy. And by the look of it repeated by others in the Shadowy Tories - apart from David Willetts who apparently got it right first time.

Iain Dale: Pretending He Thinks Osborne is Brilliant

The Conservative's weakest Treasury shadow or Chancellor of the last fifty years continues to get a bad press and the Labour Party's favourite Tory blogger Iain Dale is of course there to protest too much.

Complaining about standards. "Fiction posing as journalism" he squeals. Insufficient or inappropriate quotes. Unidentified sources. Trouble with non sequitors. Crass stupidity. Well, stuff like that anyway.

You'd have thought that Iain would realise that these Journo Grrrls - if you notice it is almost always the Grrrls he complains about - are actually following his own modus operandi. Imitation, flattery, schmattery.

GOO is not having a good crisis by any objective criteria. He doesn't say much and what he says is compromised by his "telling on Oleg" travails. When he does speak also generally speaking rubbish, or treasonous rubbish, and often rubbish that contradicts the Cameron lines too.

It is hard to know how Iain can say any different. GOO is being kept out of sight rather. Me old schooly Grayling has been doing twenty times as much media as GOO. Which I rather like. Because CG has lost his reasonable man with a smile and a wave posture and he's become a pretty whiney, scowly curmudgeon.

Bless him, GOO is rather like a cricketer of modest abilities being hidden in the field. Making everyone else work that much harder.

Can't run for toffee. Has butter fudge fingers. Cheesy thrower. Liable to collide with colleagues. Bloody useless really. Almost up to my own cricketing standards. Though I was never on a losing 1st XI side at Uni. He's not being kept in the team for his batting or bowling now is he? He's an all rounder. All round useless.

It is Cameron now who is looking indecisive and weak. Caroline Spelman is still in post. Oily Duncan is clearly a cackling loon in the pocket of the oil industry. This one is in the pocket of the Housebuilders. That one is backed by hedgies. Yet another is a developer. And none of them will stop their shenanigans.

It has taken a demand for £500,000 to be repaid by Den Dover to Europe to see him getting any disciplining. What about Chichester and all the others?

Cameron cannot or will not shift Osborne. Grayling is now grating. Davis was utterly mismanaged and remains a ticking time bomb. Hague is vaguely part time. Grieve is grief. Fox is faux. Lansley is scum.

The opposition front bench frankly looks lightweight, seriously compromised by outside interests and time consuming jobs or businesses, as well as looking inexperienced.

Iain Dale is Labour's favourite Tory blogging precisely because he comes out with stuff like this. Let the Tories keep Osborne where he is I say.

MAIN PICTURE CREDIT: It's from the Farr family Blog. Need an experienced and reliable photographer in the Bath Area? Farr has a safe pair of hands. Web site here.

UPDATE Sun 10:54: Andrew Rawnsley thinks GOO is actually being smart. Plotting for an election in 18 months.

Would be terrible to see the embarrassingly posh twat (right with bessie mate Nat Rothschild) lose that supposed gamble and come a cropper in seven or eleven months time. Osborne is being protected by cameron at the moment. Hidden in the field as it were.

GUFDATE Sun 11:06: Guido agrees.

Sir George Osborne MP: Hiding Half a Million from RMI?

Sir George Osborne the wallpaper heir has admitted receiving the best part of half a million pounds without declaring it on the register of members' interests (RMI).

According to the Mail on Sunday headline he is blaming an administrative cock up at the parliament end for his concealment of the provenance of £487,000 of fat cat contributions to his utterly mendacious Treasury operation. Perhaps the donors were embarrassed by his persistent fibs?

Cameron claimed live on Andrew Marr's AM programme today that they got an email from the authorities saying "you don't need to bother". But he didn't mention that any advice along those lines had now been changed or that other Shadow Cabinet members had similar slush funds laundered by the same route. Apart from two brains Willetts - above board. Cameron and Osborne are in glass houses, not quite managing to resist throwing stones.

UPDATE 15:29: Good to see the Thatcherite blogger Donal Blaney calling for Osborne to get the same rocket as Hain.

That Bullingdon Connection: GOO and Nat Pose on Steps

The nuance to look out for when Sir GOO provides a timetable of his meetings with Oleg, expected later today, is that it will probably be confined to meetings in Corfu of which there "aren't many". How about meetings in the other 200+ states in the world? Meanwhile here's the jolly Bullingdon photo. Looks like the boys could do with releasing their pent up late adolescent blue-blood energies smashing up a local restaurant, relaxing with crack whores, or battering fox cubs with Bollinger bottles:

1. George Osborne

The 36-year-old MP for Tatton is the eldest son and heir of baronet Sir Peter Osborne, the founder of the upmarket wallpaper merchants, Osborne & Little.
His real name is Gideon but he has used his grandfather's name George since the age of 13. He says: "Life was easier as a George."
At Oxford he edited the university magazine Isis. One issue was printed on hemp paper, made of the stems of cannabis plants.
After leaving university he worked for two years as a freelance journalist before landing a job at the Conservative Research Department. He was made Shadow Chancellor at the age of 33.
He lives in a £1million house in Notting Hill with his novelist wife Frances. As well as his income as an MP, he is a beneficiary of a trust fund which owns 15 per cent of Osborne & Little's shares.

7. Nat Rothschild

Rothschild, 35, is in line to be the fifth Baron Rothschild.
After Eton, where contemporaries remember him as an unruly and wayward student, he studied history at Wadham College.
For many years, it was feared that Nat would self-destruct, like many other young Rothschilds in the dynasty.
In 1996, Nat's cousin Amschel hanged himself at the age of 41, while another cousin, Raphael de Rothschild, died in New York from a heroin overdose aged 23.
Now Nat has turned his life around, and is tipped to become the richest ever Rothschild. He is the heir to a £750million fortune and has made a second fortune in his own right by running the Atticus hedge fund, which manages funds worth £11billion.
Although discreet in his business deals, privately he lives the life one would associate with a Rothschild. His best friend is Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, and he is currently rumoured to be dating the young film actress Natalie Portman.

The Jady Goody Inheritance: Donal Blaney is a Despicable User

Donal Blaney (below right) is a user. And an idiot. A complete fecking idiot. Using Jade Goody's celebrity death and her well managed and very healthy endowment to her sons as a colossally insensitive hook on which to call Gordon Brown a "grave robber". That's what they call psychological projection. Donal is the grave robber here. Confused? Let me explain.

He can adopt a playground/cemetary taunt, thinks Donal, because Gordon thinks that current arrangements give enough of a net estate to go free of death duty aka inheritance tax, whereas the Tories wish to give the 3,000 or so richest estates in the land a tax break until they amount to £1 million (plus £1 million for combined estates) tax free. Donal thinks that pointing this rich-get-richer scam out to the public is a pinko love triangle plot between Labour, the Guardian and the BBC. But facts is facts mate, facts is facts.

Clearly Jade Goody has been well advised. Clearly Jade Goody has set up a Trust fund for her boys. Clearly Jade has already put £4 Million aside. Clearly the sum involved will continue to grow as receipts from books, and syndications, and TV rights, and DVDs, and image rights, and sound investments, and dare I say merchandise, and so on roll in.

Clearly Jade Goody has strategically married the odious little scrote, and like Donal the user, who happens to be the father of her children. That's not Donal, that's Jack the lad of course. Looks like the uneducated everywoman Jade Goody has far more sense and sensibility than right-wing idiot Tory blogger Donal Blaney. And, hurrah, Donal seems to be in charge of bringing on the new generation of Tory idiots who have managed so very many sordid scrapes already under his underhand tutelage.

The Tory policy on Inheritance Tax has been the subject of such huge lies to the British Public that it helped generate quite a rise in the party's popularity. There is an extraordinary fellow feeling grown up over tax in which even the poorest can be dog whistled into thinking they should be against tax for the very richest.

Osborne and Cameron wilfully pretended that their scam for the richest idiots in the land - the ones with more money than sense, the ones that can now be tapped to donate to the Tories - was actually an almost universal boon to the people.

What Tosh and Tripe!

The fact is that Kenneth Clarke is no mug. He knows that it is tosh and tripe, knows that it should not be a priority, knows that even the right wing tabloids will suss out that only the very wealthy would benefit, knows that he cannot in all conscience continue to pretend that Osborne and Black Wednesday Cameron are boy geniuses.

That's the beauty of Ken Clarke. He knows he should be leading the Tories. He knows he should be vying with Brown to be Prime Minister. He knows Osborne was already completely exposed as a grandstanding muppet. Ditto Cameron. He is now on hand to take them down. They did it to themselves. All because they were running so very scared of the Mandy effect. "A big boy did it" they thought, as Peter ran rings round Osborne's Cor Phew attack, "Our dad's bigger than your dad!" And so he is.

The Tories are faced with a stark choice. They can flex their rhetoric to include the idea that, OK well yes, this was a luxury ticket item for a tiny minority of the stupid rich. (And that the quid pro quo was inadequately priced licence to cheat taxes for the non dom rich.) They can kick it into the manifesto long grass as some kind of aspiration. They've done that I suppose. They can then simply sack it completely. Blaming the global financial crisis. No, sorry, that won't do, blaming Gordon Brown. Or last but not least I suppose they could sack Kenneth Clarke, again.

Meanwhile someone should have a word with Donal. He is an insensitive idiot. He maintains a hate-hate relationship with Gordon Brown. And, HE Donal Blaney, is the A1 Grave Robber and A1 Eejit in that relationship.

Nasty Party: Funny Game of Doctors and Nurses

Kevin Maguire carries on the good fight against the wallpaper heir, future Baronet and former Buller Bully Boy Sir George GOO Osborne:

George Osborne has appalled fellow Tories with a sick jibe about another shadow chancellor.
Moderates in the party revere Iain Macleod, who suffered a heart attack just weeks after entering the Treasury when Ted Heath became PM in June 1970.
But that did not stop Osborne making fun of him at an event organised by the Policy Exchange think-tank.
The shadow chancellor said: "I'm a great admirer of Iain Macleod but I'm not planning to die within a month of becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer."
It is not the first time Osborne, who changed his first name from Gideon to sound less posh, has caused massive offence.
The wallpaper firm heir branded Gordon Brown "autistic" at the Tory party conference two years ago.

The Tories are always at this sort of thing with Iain Dale throwing about mental health diagnoses like confetti.

As Iain the patient argued Diabetes Can Be Beaten. The question is: Can Tory joshing and gybing based on medical complaints and amateur diagnoses be shown the road too?

George Osborne: Condemns Grasping Prole Conway

Good to see the rakish young blade, wallpaper heir, mendacious shadow minister, Buller Boy and Tatton toff Sir George Osborne apologising for Tory sleaze.

Conway's trade, don't you know? A grasping prole.

Wifey wouldn't work for me says GOO. Oh no. Ha ha ha. Couldn't afford her!

Kids too young. Not to mention completely and utterly feral. Blah de blah.

Pretty rich isn't it when donations of almost £500,000 are received by Osborne indirectly in a single year. And from parties very interested in his future policy decisions.
But were not linked to GOO either at the Electoral Commission or in the Register of Members Interests? Conway should get together with some other ruffians and scrag the weaselly toff.

The First Post: Cameron Win to be Last Post for Progress?

Neil Clark has provided a run down of the hawkish nature of Dave Cameron's cuddly new Tory front bench for The First Post. If the 10% cuts card doesn't trump the Tories, perhaps the wolf in sheep's clothing foreign affairs madness will hold sway? "Worse Than Blair on Foreign Affairs" could be our rhyme perhaps? Some highlights:

Dave Cameron - was himself boosted by Tory right and far-right neo-cons as they feared anti-war, pro-EU charismatic Ken Clarke would prevail over lame loon David Davis, he has finally joined or formed his loony right Euro Lebensraum grouping as promised;

Gang of Three Cam Champions - Gove, Vaizey, Osborne are hawks;

Michael Gove - author of hateful and absurd polemic Celsius 7/7, "neo-con rallying cry" of anti-Islamism, he says "totalitarian ideology" on a par with Nazism and Communism, must be fiercely opposed;

Ed Vaizey - like Gove signatory to principles of ultra-hawkish Henry Jackson Society, one of who's founders is an Attila - organisation founded at Peterhouse College Cambridge in 2005, and named after a warmongering US Senator who opposed détente with Soviet Union;

George Osborne - Cameron's Shadow Chancellor, right-hand man, bulwark against Clarke; praised "excellent neo-conservative case" for war against Iraq (Hansard, scroll to col 734);

Hawkish Fellow Travellers - Policy eXchange is heavily linked to the Cam Crew, being set up by Gove and one Nick Boles, with boy blogger and sabre rattler Iain Dale in Trusty tow;

Nicholas Boles - is a fierce hawk, a member of the Notting Hill set, and has been parachuted into the safe seat of Grantham and Stamford;

Dean Godson - uber-hawk and dirty McBridivist trickster, shamed by Newsnight investigation into his team's Islam-bashing forgeries, even slammed by Black and Amiel as too loony right for them;

Back to Cameron Himself - bit of a weasel in public pronouncements, though some are pretty hawkish, but clearly beneath any "nice" veneer he's running with the dogs of war;

Mentioned in Dispatches - further "The Atlantic Bridge" militia - Fox the founder who has roped in Gove and Osborne op cit along with me old schooly Shadow Homey Chris Grayling and Shadow For "Foreigners" William Hague.

As Mr Clark asserts a goodly number of these folk, from Cameron himself downwards have been in some MP allowances bother or other. But with no pressure whatever to go. Whether they've flipped mightily, bought luxury goods incestuously, or played the second, third, fourth, fifth jobs to the hilt. Just don't call these "a foreigner"! (Definition two).

George Osborne: Flipping, Father, Frances Framed For Fiasco

Kathy Newman's repost for Channel 4 News reveals that something else, a bit darker, may have emerged in the investigation of George Osborne's flippery pokery. The Telegraph also have the untaxed £748,000 profit from selling his previous "second home" in London, which would have been liable to some £300,000 in Capital Gains Tax had he not "flipped" it and told the Inland Revenue that it was his "main home".

We have to go back to the Mail in June 2008 to catch George giving credit to someone else, his wife Frances to be precise, for sorting out all his boring financial matters. Perhaps she should be Shadow Chancellor instead? Somethingly reminiscent of the Mad Nad Dorries blame shifting to Pee-Ay poor pregnant Pippa? She hadn't even seen her expenses claims claimed the fantasist MP for Mid Narnia. But I digress.

Perhaps it is the fact that the mortgage or loan or familial loose change or whatever, swirled around from GOOey home to GOOier home was laid on by a family member, as The Times reported that was dad, Sir Peter the seventeenth baronet. Seems that whoever the lender is now the "tracker" nature of this things means he is now claiming next to nothing from the taxpayer. You'd have to be a saint to not be worried about something cooked up by a fella's missus with her father-in-law. And him "trade" and all.

So that's alright then? Tory sources are it seems trying to "pair" Ozzy with his opposite number, though sadly that doesn't work either as there's nothing to report from there. We've been worried about GOO-ey's grasp of reality, political nous and integrity when it comes to cash money for a long while now.

Those humungous "office of George Osborne" donations from Rothschilds and the like that he forgot to forget that he'd forgotten to declare for one, and the private runnings of yet another Rothschild that he did declare for another.

Tory Funding Scandal: Deliberate Obfuscation of Donors

The sordid details of the Sir George Osborne attempt to bury bad news for Peter Hain have trickled out all day.

These "Wish of George Osborne" donations have been steaming in throughout 2007. From January to December inclusive. It was not until 7 December 2007, as he continued his assaults on Hain's situation, that GOO asked for advice on whether he should have been registering the donations.

Although there was a short period in which the advice was that this figure almost approaching half a million pounds did not have to be added to the Register of Members' Interests this soon passed.

The full extent of this type of support for Shadow Ministers - with all but David Willetts failing to register their interest - will no doubt emerge in the coming days and weeks.

While I'd have to agree that Peter Hain is a bit of an embarrassment with what Steven Pound MP said might be "a think tank that doesn't think" and for his team's incompetence - not to mention his delusions of grandeur - that has been over an internal selection.

Cameron, Osborne and the like may have been receiving massive sums passported through CCHQ for their own operations without declaring it properly, and all the while making hay over Labour's rather similar system problems.

George Osborne: All Ee Wants Is A Room Somewhere

This post from Tom Harris MP is introduced by Iain Dale as the erstwhile Transport Minister, some say the historic first red box redundancy over a blog, "doesn't think George Osborne is all bad".

Which is true enough. It becomes a question of "how bad is he?"

Tom thinks GOO is lacking "luck" and "judgement" to go with "ability" and "skill". Which, if we meld the latter pair of likes into one factor becomes: "Tom Harris MP doesn't think GOO is more than two-thirds bad".

Similarly, in the same Sunday Dozen, I'm not sure Iain is quite representing Bob Piper correctly with the idea that what follows is praise exactly:

Now.... you won't be expecting this, but...
I thought George Osborne pitched it just right this morning on the Andrew Marr programme. The right combination of defiance, mixed with some talk of economic prudence. If he still wants the job, and he gave no sign of calling it a day, I would confidently predict he will be standing alongside his old Oxford chum David Cameron as Shadow Chancellor at the time of the next election. His only real problem, I suspect, and the bit that probably doesn't endear him even to his Tory colleagues, is his air of superiority and arrogance, and that won't play well with the electorate unless he can lose that inbuilt sneer. Oh, and that pained expression when concentrating that makes his face look like a smacked arse! But apart from that ...

Interestingly the Indy's Steve Richards, reported by Tom Harris MP, still has GOO as a future Conservative leader. But where does that leave his near contemporary Cameron? Falling on his arse at the next election and giving way to accident prone GOO? is that it?

And will GOO ... perhaps trying to cut off the Piper's faint praise at the pass ... 'ave gaught 'is estry 'nglish orf pat ... or rather Val, in time to figure should there be a vacancy? An hilarious story of poor little rich boy investing in his future. That's in whatever the opposite of elocution is. In attempt to pass for ornery.

Yes, it seems, The Mail on Sunday suggest, that GOO's been having un-poshiness lessons for yonks. And the MoS also detect some changes within the past year. Which is strange.

As au contraire plum the Tories haughtily. It's two years since he had some media training from this Valerie Savage, who has also, some would argue rather unsuccessfully, "tuned up" or "tuned down" some other Cons' for the box.

Repeat after me:

All GOO wants is a room somewhere

... preferably at Number 11. Bessie Cursons (above) tells it like it is. And even looks a bit like the little blighter. GOO Blimey!

INCIDENTALLY: Very pleased to share a spot in Iain's Saturday Dozen with Tom Miller, expert blogging on Manchester politics ... from Woking.

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.