Bob Piper

(More) Tory lawbreakers

2008-05-15T14:33:40Z

Serial Offender tagged. Sadly we are to be deprived of the tales of Staines weeping and wailing as the forces of law and order take him down for his celebration shower.

Tories dragged kicking and screaming...

2008-05-15T14:28:40Z

Political Donations hidden by Tories
The official investigation was launched after it emerged that the Conservatives gave Mr Osborne almost half a million pounds to help run his office - at the specific request of the donors of the cash - but this was not reported, as it should have been, in the Register of Members' Interests. Labour MP for Bassetlaw (Notts) John Mann said: 'The report shows that there is clearly a methodical system that has been put in place to hide donations.' 'The Tories are being dragged kicking and screaming into revealing their donors. What is really astonishing is that this has continued despite Cameron's promise of transparency.'
Hat Tip: Fair Deal Phil

Union activists under attack

2008-05-15T13:43:54Z

About 20 years ago I went on a trade union training course with NALGO (now UNISON) in Largs on the west coast of Scotland. I can't remember too much about the course to be truthful, but I do recall meeting a trade union activist named Glenn Kelly. I think he was a member of Militant back then, but I might be wrong. Anyway its good to see the years, and being an elected member of the union's National Executive, have not mellowed him. Glenn is facing disciplinary charges along with 3 other UNISON activists which could lead to his expulsion from the union. Nominally the charges involve 'being disrespectful to the union's Standing Orders Committee' and originally they were ludicrously accused of racism for publishing this image on a leaflet critical of the S.O.C....

The crime Glenn Kelly and his comrades have committed is to exercise free speech against a trade union leadership determined to stifle opposition to New Labour policies. This is not the first time this sort of tactic has been used by the UNISON bureaucracy to attack Stewards in their branches. Some years back left-wing activists in the Birmingham Branch of UNISON were persecuted and expelled on disgracefully trumped up charges by the New Labour supporting Leadership of the union for having the temerity to stand up to their employers, and the union organisation in the City has been very much weaker as a consequence. You can see more on the campaign, including reading a copy of the so-called offensive leaflet, at Stop The Witchhunt and there is some more information on Jon's union blog.

Tory Lawbreakers

2008-05-15T12:49:41Z

Following their Leader. David Cameron and Boris Johnson have both been filmed cycling dangerously the wrong way up a one-way street, and now we find that corpulent oaf Soames has been fined for dangerously driving a quad bike... thanks to some vigilant anti-hunt campaigners. Follow this link to see the film of Soames making an arse of himself. I was going to paste the video, but this one is so much better.

On the subject of lawbreakers, all is silent and Paul Staines hasn't posted for a few hours now, so maybe dizzy will be able to borrow his shoelaces after all. Remember, remember, the 15th May!

You cannot be serious!

2008-05-14T18:27:50Z

Mike Smithson at Political Betting is a sensible sort of chap with dubious political leanings, and who writes just about the most widely read political blog in the UK. OK, that's the nice stuff out of the way... because Mike Smithson has gone completely stark raving bonkers! He is right that the BBC's election night coverage, particularly the buttock-clenchingly piss-poor Jeremy Vine, was truly shocking. But... To suggest that the man they need to anchor their election programmes is the man-with-a-weetabix-on-his-head, Andrew bloody Neil, on the grounds that the election programme was too frivolous is absolutely unbelievable. This Week on Thursday nights has the potential to be a really good piece of late night political programming. But it is ruined by Neil and his dreadful jokes about Blue Nun, his pathetic 'quizzes', and items such as the embarrassing video with Mark Mardell and Portillo singing 'Amarillo'. Without doubt Neil is intelligent, knowledgeable sharp and informed. Equally without doubt is the fact that he is 'an entertainer' only in his own mind and succeeds in reducing a decent political format into a substandard version of Tiswas.

Cobblers?

2008-05-14T14:33:26Z

If you want to know what's wrong with this country... look no further than here. Is there anything sadder than middle-aged men trying to pretend they are still young by wearing fancy trainers? I think not. To make it worse... this is why the man wants new laces.

I haven't worn laces out, I just have blue Airwalks with blue laces and want a set of white/cream laces for them because I am vain.

Same old, same old

2008-05-14T13:18:21Z

The announcement by Gordon Brown that the Government are to extend employment rights to agency workers is very much to be welcomed. Of course, I very much doubt it will be welcomed by the CBI, the Institute of Directors, nor their stooges in the Conservative Party, and they will all hop up and down twittering that giving people employment rights is a 'burden on business' and that it will create millions of unemployed. We've been here before, of course. Charles Hendry (Who -he? - Well, he is the Shadow Minister for Industry apparently) has described employment rights for temporary and agency workers as "fundamental hostile to wealth creation". Same old Tories, eh?

Little man... big, big pockets

2008-05-13T18:05:04Z

How shocking that someone out of work should look to earn a living. Disgraceful. I mean if you are a failed Parliamentary candidate looking to pick up the odd bob or too on the scampi and chips circuit, who could argue? However, if you already had a job, I mean a big important job, say you were the Shadow Foreign Secretary for instance, you would think there would be enough to do keeping you busy dealing with that, wouldn't you? Well, not little Willie. He might be little Willie but he has got very, very big pockets indeed. I wonder how much of this money that Willie is trousering he actually donates to charity? Just wondering, that's all.

Boing Boing Bouncing Boris

2008-05-13T13:50:19Z

The Tory troll is logging Boris Johnson's busted pledges.

Ken is Dead... Long Live Ken!

2008-05-13T10:59:02Z

Harry's Place reports that Boris Johnson has appointed Revolutionary Communist Party member Munira Mirza to be an adviser on cultural affairs which seems to be stretching the Big Tent theory to its limits I would have thought. No doubt the scumbag Gilligan will be blasting this story all over the Evening Standard. Meanwhile, Michael Mosbacher at the Social Affairs Unit, tells us that... Munira Mirza herself runs what in less charitable times would have been described as a front organisation - the Manifesto Club. Its strap-line is "history is still young". This might seem just an anodyne bit of snappy copy, but it fits rather well into what is the overall perspective of the Revolutionary Communist Party coterie. Their perspective is that Marx is right, only that previous Marxists have got the timing wrong. We are still in the productive stages of capitalism - the time for revolution will still come, it is just that history is not ready yet.
Which strikes me as a pretty reasonable analysis. Ken is dead, Long Live Ken.

Class

2008-05-13T09:27:29Z

Dominic Lawson in The independent despairs as he asks the question Will we never escape class in this country? According to his Wikipedia biography, Lawson, (Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford) is married to The Honourable Rosamond Mary Monckton, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. He is, of course, the son of former Tory Chancellor, Baron Lawson of Blaby, (errm, Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford) and grandson of a the union between a tea merchant and the daughter of a stockbroker. Apparently, Dominic thinks that "pure social class" is much less an advantage than it used to be.... because you even hear presenters on the radio talking with regional accents. Whew, that's a relief.

Button It!

2008-05-13T09:05:41Z

Robert Harris' piece in The Guardian should be essential reading for anyone who gives a scintilla of credence to the likes of Milburn, Byers and Clarke. Whatever reservations people have expressed to me about Brown's leadership, none of them have been pining for a return of Blair. We had hemorrhaged members over the War in Iraq and Blair's quasi-tory agenda (a baton which has been enthusiastically picked up by Cameron) and we had lost over 400 councillors in the elections before he shuffled off to his billionaire's pads. He left Downing Street, Westminster, Sedgefield and in all probability his Labour Party membership as soon as they had ceased to be useful to him. But at least, unlike Thatcher and Heath, he never hung around like a bad smell telling everyone how things were better in his day. His supporters had the opportunity to stand for Party Leader, and they bottled it! Now, together with Mrs Blair and the bulimic one, they should follow their leader and button it!

Keep Up

2008-05-11T11:34:06Z

Ministry of Truth on why the Tory PR people should listen to PMQs to avoid making Dave look a tit.

Politics Home Panel Trash Brown

2008-05-11T10:14:37Z

Politics Home Index, the best British political blog aggregater around, today launches its PHI 5000. It is a politically balanced group (?) of 5000 regular voters who will become an online focus group. The initial findings won't make particularly good reading for Gordon Brown.

You're so predictable

2008-05-10T09:29:03Z

Never mind Political Betting... follow this man's predictions which appeared in The Independent on 11th August last year: "You don't have to be Nostradamus, or even Eileen Drewery, to predict what is going to happen in the Premier League season, which begins today with no certainties except that Manchester United will win it, Chelsea will finish second, Arsenal will finish third and Liverpool fourth. That I know this before the season kicks off is of course dispiriting beyond belief, and means that as a source of excitement I must already focus on the relegation battle: any three from Derby County, Wigan, Birmingham City, Fulham, Reading and Sunderland."
Sadly, however, as Viner points out, you probably wouldn't have caused Mr Ladbroke to shed many tears on the sort of odds he would have been likely to give you. As predictions go, they were all too easily predictable. Surely the only question now is whether Martin O'Neil can prove Kevin Keegan wrong next season and break the boring monopoly of the self-perpetuating Champion's League four? If that doesn't happen, though, I won't be as rash as Viner, who also predicted: Continuing the theme of English football at the top level having become wearyingly predictable, I undertook to lead a triumphant conga across Soho Square, naked, in the almost unimaginable event of none of the so-called "Big Four" reaching the FA Cup final.