Day 2868: I really don't know which result would have been worser!

Friday:


So, the Glen-clothes by-election has, apparently, given Mr Frown his MOJO back, while the Liberal Democrats have fallen into fourth place and lost our deposit.

There's quite a lot to be UNHAPPY about there.

It appears that the Labour are actually BENEFITING from the financial disaster that they themselves are – in large part – responsible for. It looks like people are willing to OVERLOOK Mr Frown's piloting us onto the economic rocks, because he's poised so heroically unflappable stood there on the bridge. Either that or he's frozen with indecision again, still it looks good.

But is it NECESSARILY that bad?

Looked at another way, perhaps if Mr Frown thinks that the polls are moving his way again, he might just be tempted to return to Plan A and hold a general election sooner rather than later. And the sooner he holds one, the sooner we have a chance to spare the country the impact of Ms Jacqui Spliff and her I.D.iot cards! That's something I can't wait for!


Mr Frown's options for an early general election are quite narrow. It's already too late to go for one this year: any three week campaign will take us into December and annoy voters by getting in the way of their Christmas plans; likewise no one wants an election during the great January hangover, so February is probably the earliest. That's a month of cold short days, not good for campaigning, and if you've already waited until then, what's another couple of months to April?

(However, having already moved the local election to coincide with the Euro elections in June PRECISELY to avoid holding elections two months running, May seems a little unlikely.)

An April general election can be PORTRAYED as a "normal" "every-four-year" "business-as-usual" "we-always-intended-this" election; it can come shortly after a give-away budget that shoots as many Conservatory foxes as Sooty can draw a bead on; and it minimises the time for bedding in of any actual policies that the Conservatories might come up with (unlikely as that seems).

So the Labour victory in Glen-robes might not be all bad.

And, as an added bonus, we HAVE managed to avoid another SMUG moment from Alex Salmon, the fishy leader of the Scottish Nasty Party, and dealt a blow to his hopes of floating off Scotland. No, he doesn't want to PRIVATISE it, he just wants to move closer to Iceland… and then SINK.

Day 2833: Blair Resigns! Brown(e) Resigns! Don't get your hopes up!

Friday:


Knife crime news, as BoJo the Clown knifes that Clone of Lord Blairimort who's been running the Met, by having people shot, bugged, paid off or racially insulted.

Who would have thought that he'd have the bottle!


Ms Jacqui Spliff, the Hopeless Secretary, has complained that BoJo is "making the police political". Well, bad news, sister: YOU did that!

You did it when you recruited the Blairimort Clone into supporting the Labour whenever you wanted a stooge impartial police officer to say that detention without trial is a vital part of defending our fascist democratic police state.


It is, of course, long PAST time that the Met Chief should stand down. Really, he should have gone as soon as he understood that he had deceived the public (even if unintentionally) over the shooting of an innocent man.

Trust is simply vital in policing. Trust between the people and the police AND trust between a senior officer and those under his command. Sir Ian had managed to sacrifice both of those.

And then to contest the Health and Safety case – the one and only way in which anyone in the Met could be brought to face any kind of justice – and then to LOSE that case… how he could carry on then, I do not understand.

The Mayor was, in all honesty, merely telling Sir Ian what Sir Ian OUGHT TO HAVE DONE ages ago.

It's not entirely without RISK for BoJo, though. He must realise that if crime goes UP it's now entirely on his plate.

The politically EASY thing to have done would have been to follow the "procedure" as Ms Spliff demands – apply to the GLADs, get them to ask permission of the Hopeless Secretary to sack him, have that permission refused, er… He COULD have done that and then blamed the Met Chief for all woes, while shrugging off culpability and claiming his hands were tied by the bureaucracy. But he didn't. He went and handed Sir Ian the Pearl-Handled Revolver and stood over him to make sure he didn't use it to shoot ANOTHER innocent guest in our country.

So, reluctantly, a hooray for BoJo.


Anyway, just in time, the Labour has recruited a man who could teach the Blairimort Clone all about resigning: it's the return of Mr Mandy "Mandy" Mandlebrot, soon to be ennobled as Lord Prince of Darkness.

This is all part of Mr Frown's latest reshuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic, which also sees Mr DES Browne, minister for Having a Confusingly Similar Name, resign after refusing Mr Frown's offer of a switch to a less important name. Er role.

Meanwhile Mr Millipede Minor joins his brother Mr Millipede in the Cabinet.

Milipede Minor will command the newly created "Department of Energy and Conservation" while his slimy elder sibling will remain in charge of "Abroad (No Tourists)"

This means that jointly they are the ministers for A(NT) and DEC.

Ahem.

Day 2758: Now it's the Labour's turn to Kick the Sick

Sunday:


"Claimants should work for benefits," says Mr James Deathknell.


"Claimants should work for benefits," says Mr Balloon.

Day 2733: There's little that's Liberal about THIS Conspiracy

Wednesday:


This is going to sound SOOOOO ungracious after they were kind enough to invite me to their meeting, but the "Left Liberal Bloggers Summit" organised by the Labour Conspiracy and the Grauniad this week was DULL with a capital DULL!

I was not sure what I was expecting it to be about going in, but more disappointingly I am really not sure what it was all for coming out!

What I CAN say is that it felt like a typical Labour Students meeting: a panel of the "important people" at the front addressing a lecture hall of us "proles". If you were a friend of the chair you were called by name; if he didn't know you you were made to declare name, rank and blog serial number.

"I don't want this to be a pyramidical hierarchy," declared Labour Conspiracy chairperson Sunny at one point.

"Well what are you SITTING in, then?" replied Daddy Alex.

"And who's in the BURIAL CHAMBER?" added Daddy Richard.

The problem for me – and I suspect for the several Lib Dem bloggers sat next to us, and probably for several of the other members of the audience, not least the man who said he would rather gnaw off his own arm than vote for the Labour – the PROBLEM was that the entire affair seemed to be based on the PRESUMPTION that we should be trying to SAVE the Labour (possibly from ITSELF… more probably from the GOVERNMENT!).

Daddy Alex said that as far as they were concerned, there are clearly two sorts of Liberal Left Bloggers: Labour Bloggers and DISGRUNTLED Labour Bloggers!

Okay, I put my fluffy feet up and admit I am being slightly unfair to the panel, most if not all of whom seemed to have even less idea why they were there than WE did! Mr Tim Bloggerheads gave us a brief history of blogging, saying how it really all began on the liberal left, before during and after Lord Blairimort's campaign to make sand smoulder, and that the Conservatories did not get involved until after Mr Dale Winton lost in North Norfolk at the 2005 General Election and decided to do something else with his diary.

In fact I am sure that Mr Winton would be THOROUGHLY thrilled in the "Dear Oscar" sense to know that the Labour Conspiracy were spending so much time TALKING about him.

"My dears: the ONLY thing worse than being BLOGGED about… is NOT being blogged about!"

Much was the wailing on the part of the Labour bloggers that they do not have a big STAR NAME blogger like him or ME! Or denouncing the very idea of star names and saying that they never needed one anyway! And besides those grapes looked really green and sour etc…

Mr Bloggerheads stood aside from all of this, occasionally pointing and laughing. His position appears to be – and forgive me if I have this wrong – bloggers should do BLOGGING. Getting organised, coordinating action, having hidden agendas isn't really in keeping with the whole individual freedom / shooting your mouth off ethos that blogging springs from.

Having AGENDAS was very much what the other panellists seemed to be about, though. There was a man from the Labour Home saying how they set it up so that members of the Labour could feel like they were having a conversation with the leadership. Riiiiight. And there was a lady from the f-word. Apparently this means FEMINISM and is nothing to do with Gordon Ramsey. There was Dan the Angry Man from the Iraqi Interpreters campaign. He gave us a brisk (or brusque) lecture on how to set up an online campaign. (Clue one: if you're not willing to work at it hard full time for more than a year: give up! Clue two: offline campaigning is, still, more important than online campaigning; get your phone calling and letter writing done.) He arrived late and seemed personally cross with each and every one of us for the government having shafted him, his campaign and above all the Iraqis. And then there was one of the moderators of the Grauniad's comment is free. She was there to explain to us why the Grauniad is DIFFERENT to the Torygraph. And apparently it's NOT because the Torygraph still MATTERS.

The only real thing that we learned is that the Green Party are to launch a rival to ConservatoryHome and LabourHome called… "GreenHome" which is… erm… original.

After two hours of this we were all given a two-minute break to stretch our legs and sing the INTERNATIONALE.

Then there was a change of panellists in order to spend another hour on the section billed: "Where are all the women bloggers?". I do not know where the women bloggers are because we spent the hour answering the question: "why can't men just do what feminists tell them to?" (In fairness, at least one of the feminist bloggers didn't know where the women bloggers were either, since she insisted that the only women in the room were the ones on her row, which overlooked the few-but-not-none scattered through the rest of the audience, including our own Mayor Mary. But since her point was "how dare you not name any feminist bloggers" to a man who hadn't named ANY bloggers at all, there may have been more going on there than a fluffy toy can understand.)

What we really learned from this is that there are a whole SPECTRE SPECTRUM of (often contradictory) things that these particular feminist bloggers wanted: independence, recognition, not to be bullied, not to be ignored, men to support their arguments, men not to "muscle in" on their arguments, the internet to be more inclusive, to be left alone… Blogging, of course, allows you to speak with ALL of these voices, or as many as you choose to, but not if you are going to try and impose some kind of collective unified "purpose". Which brings us back to where we were for the first two hours.


Still, the NIBBLES were nice, and I am sure the sandwiches would have been delicious if they had not been left to mummify in the desiccating atmosphere of the Grauniad's photo gallery. (Some nice snaps, by the way!)

If this had been a really LIBERAL do, though, we would have STARTED with the nibbles and the drinkies (not for baby elephants!) and had some get-to-know-you chit-chat. Then maybe we would have had a couple of speeches from the likes of our panellists. And they could have finished up by giving me the Blogger of the Year Award. Erm.

We would have got to know a few people, maybe found some blogs that we want to read.

We did manage to meet nice Mr Bloggerheads, who sort of recognised Daddy Richard which scared Daddy no end (he is not used to FAME and ATTENTION the way that I am!) And also nice Mr Malcolm of Make Votes Count, Mr Lee Griffin, Mr Chris and Ms Kate Smurthwait who is also a fan of Mr Dr Evan Harris!

But the people of Labour Conspiracy did not make any effort to introduce themselves to us or try to engage us or find out what it was that WE wanted. Au contraire. It was all about what we should be doing for the Labour.

Mr Paul Burblings had bravely spoken up to suggest that left-wing bloggers might be happier with a period of opposition, that after so long in power they had found themselves caught in the position of defending… well, rubbish. A palpable GASP had gone around the room.

"With maybe two years to the election," the Grauniad lady asked, "what is it that we can do to stop the Labour from falling?"

"Give it a good shove," was Daddy Alex's barely subvocalised suggestion.

Now THAT is a conspiracy I WOULD join!

Day 2699: Wrecking Crewe

Thursday:


Let's get one thing quite clear from the get go: the Conservatories AREN'T "back". They never went away. It's just that for the last ten years they've been called NEW LABOUR.

Lord Blairimort decided that the Labour couldn't beat the Conservatories, so he chose instead to be "The Conservatories, but NICE".

Well, Mr Balloon has got "The Conservatories, but NICE" in solid silver spades, and Mr Frown is looking distinctly NASTY PARTY.

So the result in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election isn't the start of something different. It's a vote for more of the same with FRESHER SOCKS on.


What seems almost the MOST extraordinary thing is the calls from supporters of the Labour saying "we must now set a radical agenda" or "we must rob the rich and give to the poor to prove that we care" like it's EVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

The problem with so-called "left commentators" is that they like to think that they are the "good guys". They're utterly incapable of getting their head around the fact that they supporting a nasty brutish and only if we're lucky short fag end of an authoritarian, warmongering, super-rich-rewarding, poor-taxing FREAK SHOW: a bunch of Conservatories dressed up in the undead body of the Labour Party.


But – clean footwear aside – do the OTHER Conservatories REALLY have anything to say to earn the right to step into the DEAD MAN'S SHOES?

Last night on Questionable Time, Auntie Maude was representing the Conservatories – saying it was impossible to guess what the by-election outcome might be, which suggests a certain amount of DIVORCED FROM REALITY-NESS – and a member of the audience challenged him, saying that the Conservatories had no polices.

"Well, that looks like a man who wants sending all of our policy papers…" chuckled Auntie Maude smugly "…our paper on penal reform, our paper on education and, er, er, the others as they come out…"

I am NOT KIDDING! See for yourself; it's probably still in the BBC's IP layer. (What IS a layer of IP?)

Or there's Master Gideon Oboe – did you see him at the by-election? Apparently all Conservatory MPs were told they had to visit at least three times. "I've been here four times," squeaked young Oboe, "just two more and I'll have done my three… that's right isn't it?"

In the aftermath of the results he was talking about "Mr Balloon is putting together a new ruling coalition."

Presumably we can look forward to the Conservatories, the Daleks and the Cybermen together at last.

Mr Balloon is calling it the "end of New Labour" which might be a BIT previous, what with there being two years until Mr Frown ACTUALLY loses the next general election. What's MR Balloon going to say THEN? "This is the end of New Labour… er, again!" probably.

It's NOT the end, it's not even the BEGINNING of the end, it's a bit somewhere in the middle that you're going to leave on the side because it's not very nice.

Governments have recovered from WORSE foot-in-mouths that this. It's just that the Labour do not seem to know how or even to WANT to!




How did WE do? Well, obviously we didn't WIN. Our vote was down from the general election, but we weren't squeezed to irrelevance.

Our candidate was Ms Elizabeth Shenton and she did jolly well to keep up our support AND stand up to some bullying from the BBC's Mr Paxo in a Newsnight debate, having a go at her about being "parachuted in".

Oh, I know it's espirit d'escalier but I DID think of a better answer. Ms Elizabeth SHOULD have said:

"Well, Mr Paxo, the local party selected me to fight this campaign. Why were YOU parachuted in? Aren't the local BBC journalists good enough?"

Day 2648: Harriet's Fool

Tuesday: Surely, surely THIS has got to be an April wind-up! Ms Harriet Harpic quizzed for ten minutes by Mr Humpy on the The Today Programme is a waste of everyone's life most days, but today it was almost beyond satire. She is wearing a policeperson's anti-stab jacket. So WHAT: it is a PHOTO OPPORTUNITY, you monkeys, not some kind of surrender to ANARCHY in the UK! On a day when there are MUCH MORE IMPORTANT things to be discussing it just seems a bit BONKERS. In other news: Committee of OAP's from the House of Lords Club says: "We don't like immigrants much!" Coming soon, House of Lords Club report on "Why aren't things as good as they used to be" blames "Kids Today!"

Day 2602: "If anything goes wrong, the mayor is responsible"

Friday


Those were Mr Mayor Ken's words to the London Assembly this week: "If anything goes wrong, the mayor is responsible."

Then he had Lee Jasper suspended.

"This casts serious doubt on Mr Ken's judgement," said Mr Brian, shocked at the escalation in the SCANDAL.

"This goes far beyond the allegations made by the Evening Standard, which simply suggested that Lee Jasper had broken the rules, not broken the law."

Is Mr Mayor Ken ACTUALLY going to take responsibility? Well, forgive me if I suspect NOT. He does have a history of saying one thing and then denying it later.

Promises not to remain INDEPENDENT and not rejoin the Labour, and to serve for no more than two terms seem to have been just slightly OVERLOOKED.

(Though do not try reminding him, as he tends to get a bit CROSS!)

Even in this current crisis he may have been caught in a BIT of an untruth.

It seems that he knew about the problem of the missing cash – because he'd been TOLD about it – but then denied there WAS any problem. It no doubt just slipped his mind.

Though if he is getting so FORGETFUL, perhaps it would be a kindness to give him a nice long VACATION, say from around about May of this year…


So it is BAD NEWS for Mr Jaspar, as he is under investigation, but will the STINK affect Mr Mayor Ken?

Mr Marty of Mayorwatch suggests that this is ACTUALLY a cunning win-win strategy for him.

If his opponents on the London Assembly go along with the plan, then he gets to kick this whole scandal into the LONG GRASS until after the election, by making the whole thing subject to a police investigation. If they DON'T then he can say they had the chance to put up so now they have to SHUT UP.

And do you know, I think Mr Marty might be RIGHT!


Speaking of people backed by the office of the Labour's Mayor, though, GOOD NEWS from Leyton where Local Labour's CHICKENS came home to roost when the Liberal Democrats recovered the council seat stolen by convicted liar, Ms Miranda Grell.

Pink News covers the same story and so does Lib Dem Voice, of course.

Let me add my FLUFFY CONGRATULATIONS to those of Ms Merel Ace, Mr Matt Davies, Mr Neil Woollcott and many others.

Hooray! Very well done!

Day 2589: Oh Bugger!

Sunday


Mr Clogg has taken the Prime Monster to task over his obsession with transforming Great Britain into a POLICE STATE!

From endlessly expensive I.D.iot cards to tracking our movements with talking CCTV; from fingerprinting schoolchildren to bugging the private meetings of our MPs: this government has made us the most SPIED on, least TRUSTED people in the Western World.

Like the idea that the government could corrupt our coroners and control their courts, the notion of breaching the confidence of discussions between a constituent and their MP – or a defendant and their lawyer – undermines the very RULE of LAW that defines Great Britain.

As a LIBERAL elephant, this is completely ANATHEMA to me. I have never REALLY understood how CATHOLICS could be so OBSESSED with the sanctity of the CONFESSIONAL – suddenly, now I feel that I do!

As the CRISIS concerning the bugging of MP Mr Sidiq Khan continued to unfold, the policeperson responsible claimed to be in FEAR for his life – no doubt he is afraid that someone will violate his human rights… oh.

Meanwhile, the man at least theoretically responsible, Mr Man O'Straw, the Sinister Minister, denied knowing what was going on.

Which is ANOTHER failing of this government – they do not even KNOW what their secret police are UP TO! And worse, they seem not to CARE!

This really has pushed my OVER THE EDGE! I can hardly believe it, but I am starting to think that the Conservatories – Mr God who does not exist help me, the Conservatories! – might be better than this lot. Though you might need a MICROSCOPE to see it!

Corrupt, shallow, nepotistic, incompetent, upper-class nincompoops they might be, but they are still ONLY venal and selfish. And these things are FINITE: once sated, they will stop.

The Labour are MAD and DANGEROUS and they won't stop because they think they are on a mission from Mr God (see above).

THEY HAVE GOT TO GO!

Day 2579: Egg-Faced Exit for Egregious Ecru Eejit

Thursday:


So farewell then, Mr Peter Vain, you ridiculous russet rogue.

Day 2561: Mr Frown, the Bettabuys Prime Monster

Sunday


Well, that is what he told Mr Andy Marmite:

"We can do Bettabuys Police; and we can do Bettabuys Nurses!"

"What about the Army?"

"We can do Bettabuys soldiers too!"

It's about the people working in our public services. Typically, the Prime Monster is trying to cut corners as he cuts costs, by nipping off to the made-up, lo-cost supermarket from Consternation Street!

Of course, he was BUTTERING them up with JAM tomorrow because he was also telling them that they weren't getting any jam TODAY.

Or in fact TOMORROW either under Mr Frown's new Three Year Plan plan.

Chancellor Sooty has been doing the colouring in on Mr Frown's new plan to fix public services pay rises in advance, and HE was on the The Today Programme trying to sell this as "a good thing".

Sooty's justification was that people will get: "certainty as to what the pay increase will be, not just this year, but next year and the year after".

But the thing is that fixing people's salaries like this actually increases their UN-certainty. You see, as it stands, people are ONLY uncertain about how inflation will affect the DIFFERENCE between prices and their salaries.

Costs can vary quite a bit – look at the large jumps in train fares and energy costs already this month. And on top of that there is the surge in mortgage and loan interest because of the Credit Crunch. (Which is why for most people, the relevant inflation rate is the RPI that INCLUDES interest rates, rather than the CPI, the one that Mr Frown quotes all the time, that does not.)

But they will ALSO have a pay rise which will, probably, reflect the inflation at the time. So even if prices are unexpectedly higher, there's a good chance that wages will be unexpectedly higher too.

In effect, the uncertainty about your salary CANCELS OUT some of the uncertainty about prices.

So if you FIX the salary rises in advance, then you are actually MORE uncertain, because unexpected changes in what things cost you will not be compensated for.

This is obviously similar to the problems facing people like pensioners who are on a fixed income (though of course THEY know that they will get a fixed increase of 0% each year for the next three years).

Or you could compare it to fixing your mortgage costs with a fixed rate loan.

You MIGHT think about taking out a fixed rate mortgage for a few years – but you know that that is a GAMBLE: you COULD save money if interest rates go up, but you will lose if they stay the same or go down, but then you might also think that the certainty about the payments is worth the risk of losing a bit of money on the interest. The thing is, it is YOUR gamble to take.

Here, Mr Frown is the one who is gambling – he bets that he can keep inflation DOWN – but he is expecting the public service employees to put their salaries on "32 Red" for him.

Or, to put it another way, over the last couple of years, inflation got a bit (a little bit) out of Mr Frown's preferred band. How happy would YOU be, taking him at his word that he has gotten inflation back under control and isn't going to lose it again?

Let us have a quick look at the NUMBERS.

Three years ago, January 2005, the Retail Price Index is 188.9 (compare with 2004: 183.1) and inflation is about 3.2%.

Mr Frown – who was Chancellor then (as he still is, now) – might offer you a, let us say, generous-seeming 3.3% pay rise every year for three years. (Generous when you bear in mind that TODAY he is currently only giving up a 1.9% rise for anyone he is responsible for paying.)

However, by November 2007 (the latest month for which the Office of National Statistics have figures) the RPI has increased to 209.7. That is an increase of about 14.5% in (nearly) three years, equivalent to about 4.7-and-a-half% a year each year.

As you can see, Mr Frown's hypothetical offer of 3.3% would have left you substantially worse off.

And that's just picking the figures for three years ago TODAY.

(Because it's not like Mr Frown has a record of picking the inflation figures from their lowest point in the year to base his GENEROSITY upon – ask any pensioner who got the INFAMOUS 75p rise! Ooh, look: it's Sooty!)

I may just be being a very fluffy elephant, but I am not certain that MY certainty is improved by the prospect of being a part of our Glorious Leader's plan to triple tractor production. Is yours?

Day 2555: Lord Blairimort is History!

Sunday:


At least according to Mr Steven "Pants on" Byers, and he's an expert in BURYING the BAD NEWS.


Some people think that this is a sign that the Blairite wing of the Labour are ready to bury the hatchet – and for once, NOT in Mr Frown's BACK!

This should be HAPPY news, and only a CYNICAL person could think that it is because they are scared of the Conservatories "resonating" with the public.

Mr Frown, for his part, continues to offer a New Year of New Change for New Labour: he intends to find whole new ways to MESS UP Lord Blairimort's legacy!

Day 2525: Miranda Grell and Rik Willis: an apology… would be nice

Friday:


We can all be a bit PARTISAN sometimes when it comes to defending one of our own. But sometimes, it seems, that the Conservatories (blue OR red) go quite a bit BEYOND reasonable doubt and into the land of wilful ignorance when it comes to sticking up for their, shall we say, "less than pure" associates.

Let's take a couple of recent cases, where Councillors have been caught bang to rights saying the sort of things they really shouldn't oughta: for the Labour, twice-convicted liar Ms Miranda Grell; and for the (other) Conservatories, white-supremacist supporter Mr Rik Willis.


Mr Rik has previously demonstrated that cannot resist mouthing off, usually about funerals. His past form includes praise for Mr August Pinochet, the dead dictator of Chile; and expressing gladness at the departure of Mr Tedward Heath, one time Conservatory Prime Monster. Tasteful.

This time, he crawled out of the woodwork in order to post on Politcalbetting.com (now a Wholly Owned subsidiary of ConservatoryHome) singing the praises of the late and otherwise unlamented Mr Ian Smith, white minority ruler of the country then known as Rhodesia.

In Mr Balloon's SHINY and NEW Conservatory Party, this is supposed to be a THING OF THE PAST. Most Conservatories should and would be HORRIFIED and REVOLTED by these sort of statements. Or so you would HOPE.

So it is almost MORE depressing to see instead the postings of massed Conservatories rushing to his defence.

Rather than accepting that Mr Willis ought to take responsibility for shooting his own mouth off, the Conservatories want to try to shift the blame onto Liberal Democrat posters – calling for them to be BANNED from the site! – just for spotting this and saying that it was WRONG!

Apparently LAUDING dead racists is merely a private opinion but, goodness, COMPLAINING that supporting racists is a BIT OFF well, that's just BEYOND THE PALE!

Nor do SEMANTIC arguments that Apartheid was only the name of that policy when it was carried out in South Africa really help the case for the defence. If you have to play with WORDS to get him off, you really in you heart have to realise that he was GUILTY.

Their last response is to claim that it doesn't count because anyway Mr Willis specifically condemned Apartheid as "indefensible".

This of course is NOT true – Mr Willis did not SPECIFICALLY condemn Apartheid; in fact that condemnation had to be practically wrung out of him!


Councillor Rik's first posts was at 9.53 pm (post #126) and although he pops back with such BON MOTs as "Smith was a benign and successful leader" (post #148) and "…another 10-20 years of "colonial rule" could have enabled those territories to have properly prepared for independence…" (post #196), it is not until 12.57am (post #270), a mere THREE HOURS LATER, that he finally admits that Apartheid WAS "indefensible". Though he then tries to defend it with the remarks:

"However it needs to be seen in the context of a successful first world economy faced with a growing third world majority on its doorstep"

and

"…even under apartheid over 3 million black people moved TO South Africa from neighbouring black ruled states because they wanted to benefit from the opportunity and jobs it provided to them"

It HARDLY seems that a RINGING condemnation of the Rhodesian whites-only government policy was at the FOREFRONT of Mr Willis's mind, does it?

The point is that the Smith regime in not-yet-Zimbabwe was BAD, REGARDLESS of just how appallingly awful the Mugabe regime has turned out to be.

The GOOD NEWS though is that, even in the Conservatory Party, Mr Willis is a DINOSAUR. (Huge MOUTH; tiny BRAIN!) Most Conservatories these days would at least STOP and THINK before saying this sort of thing. There might be too many who still BELIEVE it but at least these days it gives them pause, and fewer of them have the ARROGANCE of a Mr Willis, believing that they have the god-given right to their opinions and no one else is allowed to be appalled.

He has his supporters, who want free speech for him but specifically try to shut his critics up. But with their no platform for anti-racists platform they're just… KOOKY.



SADLY, it almost seems that the OPPOSITE is true in the Labour, where it is the THRUSTING young ZEALOTS who believe that they can say and do anything so long as it is "for the cause".

This is where we come to Ms Grell, who spread horrid lies about her opponent so much that he had to flee from his home. She has resigned from the Labour and quit her job working for the Mayor's deputy (who only suspended her when she was found guilty the first time).

But she still seems UNAPOLOGETIC about being found guilty. Twice. And never mind the HARM that she done.

Ms Grell was TIPPED as a RISING STAR and received strong backing from the Labour, not just her local party but MPs like Mr Harry Cohen and TV's Diane Abbott. Not to mention the ONLINE supporters, some of who seem more REGRETFUL that people are linking to the least presentable of their posts on the issue than that a person's life has been ruined.

Apparently, it is a SMEAR to call someone an APOLOGIST – perhaps because the Labour never APOLOGISE! I have LOOKED UP the word apologist and it means "one who makes a defence in speech or writing…"

I am PUZZLED as to what you would call THIS…

"Ms Grell seems to have EITHER been convicted on the basis of demonstrably partisan hearsay of various very serious smears rehearsed in the piece. OR she has been convicted of saying her opponent was gay and getting his lover's age wrong."

…if it's not some kind of DEFENCE.

But I have probably linked to the wrong post. How REGRETTABLE.

Of course the Labour Party first promised to fund Ms Grell's appeal before abruptly reneging on the deal on the eve of her return appearance in court. In many ways this is even WORSE than just backing her to the hilt, as they left the demented woman in the LURCH having effectively EGGED her ON. Who's to say that she might not have come to her senses if the Party hadn't made her a rash and ultimately unfulfilled cash offer.


In Birmingham – if the allegations are true – the Labour has been behaving EVEN WORSE and the Director of Public Prosecutions is to investigate claims that another case (also hinging on whether or not the Labour won by SMEARING their opponents) was DERAILED by WITNESS INTIMIDATION.

Could it be true? It is all too reminiscent of the tactics the Labour used in the Sedgefield By-election.


Recently, we were listening to the Westminster Hour (Mr Clogg was on) and afterwards they turned to their "panel" of MPs for a review of the week. It was Mr (Un) Ed (ifying) Vaizey for the Conservatories and Ms Wibbly Thornberry for the Labour. The Liberal Democrats (and the Scottish Nasties and the Welsh Nasties and anyone else) were represented by… oh.

"Do you agree with Liberal Democrat acting leader Vince Cable when…"

"No!" jumped in Mr Vaizey.

"Neither do I!" agreed Ms Wibbly.

And then they GIGGLED like a pair of SLITHEEN.

Did they have any excuse for behaving like babies? No. The PROBLEM is that in our RIGGED political system, there is no one in a position to send them to the NAUGHTY STEP.

There are BAD EGGS in all parties – we all know that, we all hope that they get found out and get got rid of.

But the Labour and the Conservatories still believe that they have a RIGHT to RULE: how else to you explain the way they immediately MAKE EXCUSES when one of their own gets caught red handed; how else to you explain Mr Vaizey and Ms Thornberry's giggling – they think that they can do EXACTLY as they please.

OBVIOUSLY the Liberal Democrats exist to prove them WRONG.

Day 2523: Welcome to CASH for CORONETS II: CASH UNDER THE COUNTER!

Wednesday:


After all the FUSS caused by the Bernie Ecclestone BUNG, Mr Mandy Mandleson's MORTGAGE, the Hinduja Brother's Passports and of course Lord Blairimort's CASH FOR CORONETS you would have thought that the Labour would have put its financial house in order.

Not so, as it turns out.

Hold onto your hats because the latest goings on are going to get a bit twisty-turny, and developments are still developing! And the money involved, like some kind of out of control roll-over lottery keeps going up and up: first it was £400,000, then £500,000, then £600,000. Latest: a devilish £666,000.

It all starts with a newspaper investigation of some of the biggest donors to Mr Frown's Labour Party: Mr Ray Ruddock, an itinerant builder, and Ms Janet Kidd, a secretary. They deny everything…

…then they change their story. Ms Kidd works for a North-Eastern Business Man with a, well if not "shady" reputation, at least a reputation that is, shall we say, not without shade, Mr David Abrahams. Mr Ruddock occasionally does some building work for him. Yes, they admit that he gave them the money in order that they might pay it to the Labour for him and thus keep his name off of the list of donors that goes to the Electoral Register. Mr Abrahams denies everything…

…then he changes his story and admits that he is the mystery donor. But this is against the law; the Labour has broken electoral law by hiding the true identity of their donor. The General Secretary of the Labour, Mr Peter Watt QUITS.

Mr Watt clearly has not been replaced by an energy saving light bulb and looks rather DIM. Perhaps he saved energy by not switching on his computer! Otherwise he might have read the e-mails from the Electoral Commission explaining the law WHICH HE WAS IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE THE LABOUR FOLLOWED. He says that he and he alone knew about the SPECIAL donation. Everyone else denies everything…

…then they change their story. It turns out that some other people in the Labour DID know what was going on. More fake donors emerge. The amount of money gets larger. Mr Abrahams – clearly not satisfied with dropping one Labour supremo in it, goes for another one and reveals a LETTER from Mr Frown's new chief fundraiser, Mr Mendelsohn that shows that HE knew about the scam. Mr Mendelsohn denies…

…well, actually he admits knowing it but claims he was trying to fix the problem on the quiet before anyone found out. Although THAT may not stack up as he appears to have sent the letter in question AFTER the newspaper investigation began.

Meanwhile, the scandal reaches CABINET LEVEL when it is revealed that Minister for LANDFILL, Mr Benny Hill, was offered a donation to his deputy leadership fund on the same would-you-take-some-dirty-money-from-me-via-my-unknowing-chums basis. Tipped off by Lady Jay, he turns it down. Not so cautious is the victorious but unwise Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Ms Harriet Harpic, who pockets five grand from Ms Kidd. Ms Harpic defends her actions as "in good faith".

…but she still admits she's going to have to give the cash back.

Mr Frown faces the press and is repeatedly asked to give her his full support. The Prime Monster denies everything…










It is no wonder that Mr Frown was under fire in today's Prime Monster's Questionable Time: the fire was coming from HIS PANTS!

The Prime Monster – only last summer the MASTER of all CRISES – seems to have totally lost control.

As Mr Power Cable puts it:

"Mr Frown has gone from SECRET STALIN to BLATANT Mr BEAN in a matter of weeks!"

Not only does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing, it clearly doesn't realise that it DOES know what the right hand is doing and tipped the right hand off that the coppers were on to it, only to conveniently FORGET everything and look I plead the FIFTH!


Mr Frown has set up an inquiry, headed up by Lord McCluskey, a retired judge and close personal friend of, er, the late Labour leader Mr John Smith. Still at least he's got the former Bishop of Oxford on board to keep him honest.

There are several questions that they could do with answering:

• Who knew what and when?

• Why didn't any of the people who DID know DO anything about it?

• How come none of the people who work for the Prime Monster thought it was worth TELLING the Prime Monster what was going on?

• And, most importantly, are we ABSOLUTELY SURE that this is the ONLY time that this has happened?

The man at the CENTRE of this affair, Mr Abrahams, complains that these events have CRIMINALISED HIM – well duh! That is because you are a CRIMINAL!

You broke the law about disclosing his identity… mainly on the grounds that you really didn't feel like disclosing your identity.

It is quite simple: the law says that you have to declare the ORIGINAL source of the money, not just the last person to handle the lolly. Let us think about WHY. The POINT of declaring who the donors to a Political Party ARE is so that the public can easily SEE if the Party is trading favours for funds.

It is in people's INTEREST to know if, just for example, a person made a LARGE donation and then had, say, a controversial PLANNING APPLICATION to which the objections were suddenly dropped; or if they got selected for a SEAT in PARLIAMENT – or the House of Lords Club, remember that!

People OUGHT to be able to trust that decisions are made for the RIGHT REASONS and NOT because their supposed representatives have received a FIGURATIVE "brown envelope". They OUGHT to be able to, but SADLY years of GOINGS ON from the Poulson Buildings Scandal to Cash for Questions have tarnished that trust.

Because of this, the Labour – quite rightly – brought in more rules for political parties about the money that they receive. Unfortunately they KEEP on reminding people of this as though it is some sort of EXCUSE for immediately going out and finding a whole load of ways AROUND their own rules!

Just because they SAID it was wrong does not make it impossible for them to DO IT ANYWAY.

I mean, I think that stealing STICKY BUNS is BAD – but that is NOT proof that I wouldn't yum them up if I got my fluffy feet on them!

All political parties – including the Liberal Democrats… even the Conservatories – struggle with this. They are all always in need of more funds, and short of staff and under pressure the requirements of open democracy make if difficult to get it right every single time. People do the best they can, yet still mistakes can be made. But some people seem to go OUT OF THEIR WAY to make "mistakes".

Loans instead of donations; hiding donors behind stolen identities. It is possible that the Labour's motives really ARE pure… but you have to wonder why they KEEP ON looking for underhand, under-the-counter ways of receiving the cash.

Democratic accountability RELIES on the people being able to SEE what goes on so that they can make FULLY INFORMED decisions. It isn't good enough just to CLAIM that you are whiter than white – people also have to be able to do the doorstep challenge on you!

(Though, when the POLICE do the doorstep challenge on THEM the Labour complain that it is unfair victimisation!)

From everything that has happened, it seems that the Labour quite simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND this simple truth.

Which ought to be FUNNY coming from the "if you've nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" people!

PS:

Even after I took them along to the London Hustings, my Daddies STILL cannot choose between the excellent Mr Clogg and the excellent Mr Huhney-Monster.

Making speeches

Clearly the PROBLEM with the Liberal Democrat Leadership contest is that there has been a TRANSPORTER ACCIDENT and Captain Kirk has been split into his AGGRESSIVE KILLER side and his FLUFFY BUNNY side.

An elephant with the answers

The ANSWER is obviously that we need Mr Scotty to FIX it so that we can RE-COMBINE him.

A vote for the best candidate!

Day 2504: The Do Nothing Decisions that will Haunt Mr Frown

Friday:


Mr Power Cable, our stunt-stand-in for Sir Mr the Merciless, is right: the big surprise about Mr Frown's "vision" for the country – as laid out in Mrs the Queen's Speech – is not after ten years of waiting and planning how much he wants things to CHANGE but how much he wants them to STAY THE SAME.

Although he will ALWAYS be remembered for the invasion of a Middle Eastern Country, the REALITY of Lord Blairimort's regime was built around the triple pillars of a target culture, a surveillance society and a corrupt executive.

And Mr Frown ain't changing nothing.

Off Target

Typical Frown-ite policies reinforce the "command from the centre" ideology, as though the Government knows better than people what is good for them. For example, the proposed Planning Reform Bill will be taking powers away from local accountable control and giving them to yet another quango, the Independent Planning Commission – independent as in taking its orders from Secretary of State for Imposition of Airports, Mr Ruth Kelly.

Meanwhile, "Nanny Frown" is raising the school leaving age to eighteen, described as an "ambitious" solution to the "problem" of "NEETs" (or "NEILs" as I shall call them: "Not Earning or In Learning").

This is NOT "ambitious": it is OVERBEARING. Sixteen year-olds are old enough to make up their own minds. Give them the OPPORTUNITY for a place a college, YES; but do not FORCE them to go, or worse FINE them if they don't.

Is there any REAL benefit to deferring their entry into the labour market by two years… until after the next general election… ah, I may have answered my own question!

As Liberal Democrat Mr David "I am the" Laws points out: six-hundred-million pounds earmarked for HUNTING DOWN teenagers and DRAGGING THEM OFF to school could be BETTER spent on solving the problems of why they can't read and write in the first place!

Big Blairimort is Watching YOU!

Increasing the government's power over your life (in the name of protecting you from the terrorism that Lord Blairmort himself helped to stir up) has long been the watchword of the Blairimort regime, and Mr Frown promises us more of the same.

Detention without trial in Great Britain is already longer than anywhere else in what we LAUGHINGLY describe as the civilised world.

Why, then, do we need yet another POINTLESS debate about increasing it?

"There is not a shred of evidence that such a radical change in the law is needed," said Liberal Democrat, Mr Clogg.

Especially when the Government is also proposing to ACCEPT the Liberal Democrat call to allow terrorist suspects to be questioned AFTER they have been charged, thus ending the pointless guessing game of:

"You are being held under the Terrorism Act 2000."

"With what am I charged?"

"I am afraid I cannot tell you THAT, sir!"

And do not forget that even if you are NOT locked up, the Government still wants to keep track of your every thought and deed by means of an I.D.iot card. They've now admitted that the cost is going to rise to £5.6 billion. And they will not stop a single terrorist.

Dame Shirley of Williams was on CRACKING FORM on the Radio Four Any Questionables about this (well worth a Listen Again, till Friday), roundly condemning the intrusion, the obsession with centralisation, the waste of all that money. Particularly the INSANITY of the Government toying with proposals to recoup some of the cost by SELLING ON your private data!

"And would YOU refuse to carry an I.D.iot card," asked Mr Jonathan Dimble-donkey, slyly.

"Of course!" stated our Shirl without a hesitation or a breath!

Conservatory Quisling Mr Alan Dunkin' Donuts got his panty-hose well and truly twisted up as he frothed over to condemn Dame Shirley, and leadership candidates Mr Clogg and Mr Huhney-Monster, for joining the pledge not to co-operate with Operation "Bar-code the Nation".

"How VERY DARE you!" he spat, "How DARE you, as legislators, the holders of the people's sacred trust! How dare you stand up for the rights and freedoms of the British People! And you in the audience can stop booing too! We'll know where you live!"


A government elected on barely a third of the votes cast certainly cannot be said to have a mandate to make such a FUNDAMENTAL change to the nature of British citizenship. If the Conservatories are SOooooo up in arms about one little European Reform Treaty, why are they not demanding a referendum on I.D.iot cards too? Or would they rather just roll over and go along with them?

Ker-ching

The Cash for Coronets DEBACLE has wound its weary way to the end of its road to nowhere, leaving nothing to show but a large snap Autumn election-shaped hole in Mr Frown's war chest.

But the recent visit of King Ablutions – boycotted by Mr Power Cable and the Liberal Democrats – reminds us of the big bribes scandal that still hasn't gone away: Lord Blairimort's decision to stamp out the Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE and their deals with the House of Saud. That decision has now been challenged in the High Court.

Was that REALLY a treat to National Security? Or just a threat to BAE's sale of another four-point-four billion pounds worth of Eurofighters to the Arabians this September?

Mr Power Cable welcomed the decision to allow a judicial review.

And Mr Frown's love affair with Big Business doesn't end with ARMS DEALERS. No, that's not HIGH RISK enough for him! He's also backing the NUCLEAR INDUSTRY, sticking to Lord Blairimort's line and wasting billions of pounds of YOUR money on more dangerous atomic power stations instead of investing NOW in good British renewables like windmills and wave-turbines.

Because the WORST example of Mr Frown's lack of ambition is the proposed Climate Bill that aims only for an INADEQUATE 60% reduction in British carbon pollution by 2050, reliant on importing dangerous Uranium.

"It has all the hallmarks of another monumental letdown," sighed Mr Lemming Öpik for the Liberal Democrats.

And Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary, Mr Huhney-Monster condemned it as "full of holes".

Why not REALLY GO FOR IT and take the Liberal Democrat challenge to make us a Zero Carbon Britain? Lead the world, and reap the rewards of new clean technology and safe reliable energy independence.


What Mrs the Queen's Speech REALLY spells out is that Mr Frown doesn't have any ambitions beyond the cautious management of Lord Blairimort's poisonous legacy. It is not a menu of opportunities, only a catalogue of regrets.


And if he regrets Lord Blairimort meekly going along with the Monkey-in-Chief's Middle Eastern Adventure (part one)… well, Mr Frown may still very soon have his chance to take part in part deux!

PS:

OBVIOUSLY it would be unseemly to raise any further questions about Conservatory Peer of the Realm and possibly Resident of the Realm, Lord Ashcroft.

Asked about his residency in the United Kingdom, a spokesflunky said:

"That's a private matter between Lord Ashcroft and HM Revenue and Customs."

Asked about the ATLANTIC OCEAN, they added:

"That's a private matter between Lord Ashcroft and HM Revenue and Customs too."

Day 2502: Found Guilty? Don't Worry – the Labour's Mayor's Office will back you!

Wednesday:


The Labour certainly stand by their CRIMINAL element.

No doubt you remember Ms Miranda Grell – found GUILTY of telling lies. The Labour have decided to fund her appeal, despite her own statement to the police admitting that she lied. She is reported as "suspended" from her job working for Deputy Mayor Ms Nicky Gavron – suspended as in NOT FIRED for being a convicted, self-admitted liar, then?

No doubt you remember Sir Ian Clone of Lord Blairimort – found GUILTY of putting the public in harm's way. The Labour's Mayor Mr Ken continues to stick by him, even though the TOOTHLESS London Assembly has passed a motion of no-confidence. Obviously the London Assembly was created by the Labour, so you can hardly expect them to have given any POWER to the democratically REPRESENTATIVE body, can you? (And how can Mr Ken claim to REPRESENT anyone if he IGNORES the views of anyone who disagrees with him?)

Ms Grell has put out a statement saying that she doesn't accept the court's judgement. So, scratch "law abiding" from her CV as well.

Her friends and family have started a campaign to overturn the court's verdict. They claim that they never heard any of the things she is meant to have said. Presumably they weren't in court then, when there was testimony from the people who INDEPENDENTLY reported her to hate-crime unit ALERT, or the further FIVE WITNESSES there to testify that she accused her opponent of sleeping with boys of 14, 15 or 16 or HER OWN LABOUR RUNNING MATE, Mr Nicholas Russell, who was "disgusted" by her attitude and also heard her claim her victim had a "fourteen-year-old Thai boyfriend."

No, apparently it's all some kind of RACIST CONSPIRACY. Hmmm, who EXACTLY is playing the RACE card, then?

In court, Ms Grell claimed that SHE was the victim… leading the prosecution barrister to label her a "fantasist".


And speaking of dangerous fantasists, Mr Ken continued to talk nonsense in support of his chum Sir Clone, claiming that there was a "Cynical campaign" against him.

The Cynics, founded by a pupil of Socrates, believed in leading a life of self-sufficiency and virtue, achieved by eschewing the false influences of wealth, fame or power. They reached the height of their influence in Roman times when their philosophy was honed down to responsibility and willpower.

Hmm, yes, they DO sound like the sort of people who would find Sir Clone's love of power without responsibility UTTERLY REPELLENT. On the other fluffy foot, I can't see them hanging around for two-thousand year JUST to campaign against HIM! Perhaps Mr Ken is thinking of someone else.

"Al-Qaeda must be laughing at us while we busy ourselves pillorying the police who keep us safe," said Mr Ken.

Well, no actually Mr Ken I suspect Al-Qaeda were laughing at us when the police started killing innocent Londoners for them.

If I believed for ONE SECOND Mr Ken's LUDICROUS claim that ONLY Sir Ian is competent to lead the Met then it would surely ON ITS OWN be a reason for Mr Ken himself to RESIGN IN SHAME for overseeing a police force composed of such incompetents.

I do NOT believe it! I think that there are MANY brave and capable people in the police and Mr Ken is NOT FIT to serve as Mayor if he is going to diss their talents like this!

It is about time that someone challenged the Labour in their complacency and arrogance.

PS:

One person who IS calling the Labour to account – in a small way – is Liberal Democrat Mr David "I am the" Laws. (We met him yesterday while on our way to see Mr Huhney-Monster!)

Mr David had CAUGHT OUT the Prime Monster. Mr Frown was giving a speech on education last week, and his office contacted the local paper in Yeovil, Mr David's constituency, to say that a local school would be mentioned – with quote from the speech – and they might like to give Mr Frown some jolly nice free publicity please.

Except, when he gave the speech – gasp – no mention of the school.

And then Mr David checked around and GUESS WHAT… several OTHER local papers in different constituencies had ALSO received a note from the Prime Monster's office, ALSO telling them that a local school would be mentioned, and ALSO giving the same quote. Only the names were changed to protect the GUILTY LABOUR SECRET STALINS in Number Ten.

It is so difficult to hold the Government to account when they have NO REGARD for the TRUTH.

But we said very well done to Mr David for at least catching them this time.

Day 2458: Liberal Democrats are right… says the Labour!

Tuesday:


DARINGLY, Mr Vince "Power" Cable and Mr David "He is the" Laws have SNEAKED into the Labour's Conference in Bournemouth. Either that or they've booked in REALLY, REALLY EARLY for our Conference there next year.

Whilst trying to fight their way out of Mr Frown's Big Top… sorry, Big Tent (NOT the one in Greenwich that ought to be named after me), Messrs Cable and Laws ran into Treasury Minister Ms Angel Eagle who was full of praises for the Liberal Democrats' tax plans.

In spite of our fundamental differences on the way that taxes should be SPENT – we say by giving it back to people locally; the Labour say by giving it to Mr Frown to approve each item personally – it is good that we can agree that there might be FAIRER ways to RAISE those taxes in the first place.

This of course is practically treason… unless Mr Frown is planning on nicking them in the next couple of weeks. Do not be surprised to see a 4p tax cut in the Labour's manifesto for this election that isn't going to happen!

Also learning lessons from the Liberal Democrats was Secretary of State for Places that Mr Frown Doesn't Run (Yet) Mr Millipede.

Although urging us to "move on" (not once but four times) from Lord Blairimort's foreign policy adventure was all too patronisingly familiar from Lord Blairimort's own many attempts to get us to "move on, move on, nothing to see here"… in fact a lot of the speech was… eerily reminiscent…

The short, clipped sentences… The lack of verbs… The vision… Thing. Ten years in government... New Labour Government… Moving on... And on... And on… Eyes-on-the-future stare; grip-on-power hands on the podium; I've-made-a-deal-with-Mr-Frown pledge card signed in back pocket…

Actually, does anyone know where Lord Blairimort IS this week? And has anyone checked Mr Millipede's head for zippers?

Mr Millipede was at least willing to concede that the biggest, most shockingly awful, total Horlicks of a Foreign Policy catastrophe since at least Suez and possibly since the DARDANELLES was a bit of a "scar".

"Good intentions are not enough," he said. "We need good institutions."

Obviously he means institutions like the European Union and the United Nations (though sticking Lord Blairimort in another kind of "institution" would also have helped). Throughout the CRISIS and DISASTER of the Middle Eastern invasion, the Liberal Democrats have appealed to the government to work WITH other countries, through the UN and the Union, and WITHIN the framework of INTERNATIONAL LAW. Only by working together and working to support the rules so that other people come to follow them too can we hope to make a SAFER WORLD.

There's the REAL lesson for you, Mr Millipede. Never mind your good intentions, listen to the WISDOM and EXPERIENCE of Sir Mr the Merciless.

Day 2454: Miranda Grell versus Witches

Friday:

In Doctor Who there are a race of aliens called the Grell. Pottily convinced that knowledge really IS power, they roam the universe seeking to acquire information, which if true they chirpily label "Good Facts!"

The Labour's hopefully-very-soon-to-be-ex-councillor Ms Miranda Grell, though also obsessed with getting power, seems to have had the REVERSE fixation, as she has been found GUILTY of going around spreading BAD FACTS, very Bad Facts indeed.

The BBC says so.

The Times says so.

Lib Dem Voice says so.

And the Labour's Blogger Mr Chris Paul says, er, not, actually.

Mr Chrisp denounces the Times reporting as a LIE – which is fighting talk when you're defending a lady just convicted of, er, lying. Also, just possibly, a little unwise, especially just after admitting to neither being present in court nor having read any transcripts of the case.

I assume this means that Mr Chrisp JUST KNOWS that as a member of the Labour, Ms Grell CANNOT have done any wrong! This is called BLIND FAITH.

Certainly he seems to believe her "excuse", that is the excuse she offered when denying everything didn't work because, of dear, there were witnesses, including members of the Labour. (The "excuse" was that she had made a "mistake" about her victims boyfriend's age – because it so SOOOOOO easy to say "fourteen" when you meant to say "thirty-nine", isn't it!)

As the saying goes: there's none so blind as those who do not bother looking before egging someone on to sue a National Newspaper (or the Times) for "poor reporting".

Oddly enough, I think that this is why we HAVE courts – so that, when we haven't seen or heard the evidence we can RELY on an impartial system to tell us who is telling the truth and who is lying. But obviously that does not seem to be how at least a couple of speakers for the Labour see things.

Perhaps they just haven't got the memo from Mr Frown about restoring people's trust in politicians. Here are a couple of pointers: do not tell lies; if someone one your side DOES tell lies, tell them to stop; when they are CAUGHT AND CONVICTED of telling lies, do not try to SHIFT THE BLAME onto the VICTIM.


In the OLDEN DAYS, the Worst Accusation in the World™ used to be "WITCHCRAFT!"

You could stick the label on someone like it was the BLACK SPOT and all the other villagers would immediately be set against them, because witches are AUTOMATICALLY bad! And there was no defence – after all, witches lie and pretend to be good and godfearing so the more good and godfearing you are the more it is OBVIOUSLY a LIE and a COVER-UP! Once the cry of WITCH goes up, pretty soon it is time to start with the DUCKING STOOLS or gathering up the FAGGOTS for a BONFIRE.

(And yes, Daddy has told me that this is where that particularly HORRID pun comes from!)

"There is no smoke without a fire" goes the saying – yes, but LOOK who is starting the fires before you start gathering the lynch mob!


Nowadays it is not Witchcraft, but Child Abuse – but it is still the same old WITCHHUNT: pick on someone a bit different and start the name-calling. Do not worry about getting proof, because the HUE and CRY will bring them down even if the accusation is not true.

It used to be lonely old women and gay daddies who would get picked on; these days… not much has changed, actually.


I must put my fluffy foot up to a (slight) interest in the case, because my Daddy Alex was candidate to be MP for Leyton and Wanstead a couple of elections ago and so we know (slightly) some of the people involved. We know how hurt and traumatised and damaged they have been as a result of Ms Grell's NASTY and UNTRUE tale-telling.


PS
More on the Labour and their nasty habit of dirty tricks here.

And indeed here.

Day 2391: Ealing Comedy

Thursday:


You don't HAVE to be mad to leave £8.3 million to the Conservatories…


I have to admit, it was a GOOD NIGHT to be Mr Frown. The Labour managed to hold on to both of their safe seats in the by-elections, which ten years into government is easier said than done!

As Liberal Democrats I think that we must be both HAPPY and a little bit DISAPPOINTED with these results.

Congratulations, Mr Nigel!

I am HAPPY because we came SECOND in both of them – in the north, the Conservatories came third; in the Sourth Dave Balloon's Conservatories (no relation)… also came third.

In Ealing Southall we moved into a clear second position; in Sedgefield (whatever Mr Grant Mishaps thinks) we avoided the third-party squeeze and overtook the Conservatories to establish ourselves in a good second place there too.

Clearly when it comes down to it, WHATEVER part of the country you come from, the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS are the REAL OPPOSITION.


My daddies didn't manage to take me up to Sedgefield, but I DID meet Mr Nigel, our candidate in Ealing Southall, and he was bright, enthusiastic, hard-working and a JOLLY GOOD SPORT, not above shaking hands with a fluffy baby elephant. (I am sure Mr Greg in Sedgefield was just the same.)

So I AM disappointed that they did not win.

I had thought that we were in with a OUTSIDE CHANCE – though my daddies said that it was a bit of a long shot.

Clearly, Mr Frown has learned that the BEST TRICK is to arrange to have the by-elections VERY QUICKLY, so that the Liberal Democrats do not have a chance to really get to work. The longer we have to talk to people, the more people get to hear our message, and the better we do.

Plus he has learned the Mr Blackadder lesson: if you want to win a by-elecition, get rid of Lord Blairimort before you start.



What about Mr Balloon, though? Has the BUBBLE BURST?

Conservatory responses to the results seem to range from

"Our vote share went up, but the Liberal Democrats failed to win! This is a disaster for the Liberal Democrats – finishing ahead of us just proves… er… stuff. And doing minisculely better than Mr Something of the Night just goes to show that our campaign was a success, I tell you, a SUCCESS, a TOTAL BRILLIANT SUCK-CESS!"

to the, er, less moderate

"We have FAILED in our PURITY! The GREAT SHE-GODDESS is ANGRY WITH US! Slay the pie-faced Eton milksop! Construct a GIANT WICKER THATCHER and drive the wets INTO THE FLAMES!!!"

Where did it all go wrong? Was it…

…his election GURU getting caught ASTRO-TURFING!

…his campaign team getting nicked FLY POSTING!

…his election monitors being investigated for ILLEGALLY LEAKING POSTAL VOTES!

…or his CANDIDATE turning out to have just popped in from donating almost five grand to LORD BLAIRIMORT!

Unlike last year's by-election where the Liberal Democrats came within 700 votes of winning the SEVENTEENTH SAFEST Conservatory seat in the country, Mr Balloon cannot blame the Local Party for picking a RUBBISH CANDIDATE. No, Mr Balloon picked THIS rubbish candidate all by himself!

Choosing a famous-face local; staging the defection of six, sorry, five councilors; driving around in convoys of loud-speaker cars – none of these stunts helped, because the people of Ealing saw them for what they were. Stunts.

Just trying to match the Liberal Democrats for the NUMBER of leaflets delivered does not count as a grass roots campaign.

Proper LOCAL CAMPAIGNING means listening to the local people, finding out what they want and finding a way to deliver that.

That is why Liberal Democrats CONNECT to people.


Of course, that does mean that you have to leave the office from time to time, and spending a bit less effort OBSESSING over the Internet and trying to manipulate opinion by posting comments as a SOCK-PUPPET. Perhaps one day the day will come when the blogosphere really IS as important as we all think we are… but that's a long way off yet.

Everyone online seemed to get TERRIBLY excited about Mr Mishapps and his silly deceptions… and yet the story never broke out into the "real world". Which is a shame because "MP caught out as big fat fibber" is just the sort of story that would give us the chance to fight a by-election in a Conservatory seat if any of the deadwood press had caught him out that way.

The fact is that Conservatories can call for tough laws on identity theft and at the same time (fail miserably to) pass themselves off as someone else only because the "proper" media do not think that the Internet counts.

(You will notice that leaking fibs to a "proper" newspaper has got the police investigating them!)


Still, the school holidays are here and with the political SILLY SEASON. Mr Balloon has a month-and-a-half now to crawl out of the limelight and try and stick his wounded project back together. And you can be pretty sure that he will. He will be back in the Autumn with another new RELAUNCH – too early to tell yet whether it will be more of the same policy-free NuLabour-lite stuff or the traditional LURCH TO THE RIGHT of the Conservatory Leader-in-Trouble.

Or he COULD try and come up with some policies…

Day 2366: And the Winner Is…

Sunday:


Well, Mr Frown, obviously.

But much MORE interesting – well, interesting if you are a number anorak like Daddy Richard – are the results for the DEPUTY leader. Or as BBC3's news in 60 Seconds put it: Mr Frown gets to be Top Dog, but who gets to be Deputy Dawg?

Handily, someone has put the full results on the Wikipedia (thank you to Mr James for spotting this) and they make interesting reading (with the same caveat as above).


What is clear is that Mrs Harpic didn't just win in the LAST round – no, in fact she was a CLEAR winner in EVERY round… among the MEMBERS of the Labour. But she LOST in BOTH of the other categories EVERY TIME too!

Equally clear is that Mr Postman Pat, far from having the union vote all tied up as everyone supposed, was actually kept in the competition because he won the MPs and MEPs college EVERY TIME.

In fact, the Unions voted EVERY TIME for Mr Never Heard of Him from the Backbenches, only switching to Mr Pat in the final round when Mr Whoever He Was had been knocked out and taken away for interrogation tea and cakes by Mr Frown's SECRET STALIN secret police.

Now, you MIGHT say that there is a bit of a case for Union members to have a say in the Labour's leadership election. All right, SECRET STALIN fixed that, but you might say that they should have a say in the DEPUTY election, because they pay their money. Of course, under the present system there's no limit to how MANY Unions they can join so if they feel like it they can have SEVERAL says, which is kind of not right. Less one member one-third of a vote; more one member, how many votes would sir like to buy?

But the really OUTRAGEOUS thing is giving the MPs and MEPs SUPER-VOTES: there are three-hundred and fifty-one Labour Members of Parliament and nineteen Labour European Parliament Members, three-hundred and seventy in total; meanwhile, the Labour have around about a hundred-and-eighty-thousand members.

So an MP's vote is worth 487-and-a-half members. (That is a third divided by 370 over a third divided by 180,000… PLUS an extra one because the MP can vote AS a member AS WELL!)

This seems VERY UNFAIR – especially when the MPs can choose to LOCK OUT anyone they do not want to stand anyway… as a certain Secret Stalin managed to organise in the Leadership ballot.

Oh the WHOLE, it would be a lot fairer or at least a whole lot less peculiar if they just gave ONE EQUAL vote to every member and, if they want to, ONE to everyone who was signed up to a union too.

So the good news is – if you are Mrs Harpic – that you LOOK like you GENUINELY deserved to win, rather than having it fixed for you by Union Barons (or "My Husband", as Mrs Harpic calls one of them) or by Secret Stalins in Parliament.

Or so it would SEEM, except that we cannot REALLY know for sure, because in round THREE Mr Benny Hill was eliminated even though he actually came SECOND in the members' vote.

If Mr Don't Know Him Now and Never Will had been eliminated at that stage for coming last among the members, then who knows how his vote might have split up among Mr Benny and Mrs Harpic and Mr Pat? It might have been Mr Postman Pat eliminated at the fourth round and then Mr Benny and Mrs Harpic could have gone head to head!

Would a Blaiocratic stuffed effigy passing themselves off as the true inheritor of the Labour tradition have won in that contest? Who can possibly know?!


Never mind, Mr Benny, you can console yourself with the fact that you will probably keep your job in the Cabinet, maybe even get a promotion, while Mr Frown has acted quickly to say that the elected deputy leader can be Party Chair. Amid the huge applause for this decision, how many – I wonder – realised that what he was actually saying was "the elected Deputy will NOT be Deputy Prime Monster"?

I doubt that Mrs Harpic was expecting her promotion to Party Chair to mean she was being SAT ON!

Of course, if Mr Frown was a REAL Secret Stalin, he would IMMEDIATELY replace Mrs Harpic with a STEPFORD Harpic who would say she never said the government should apologise for Invading Iraq. Oh…

Day 2356: Muppet Show

Thursday:


As Mr Frown's search for some idiot to be his Apprentice draws to a close, the six remaining candidates appeared on Questionable Time to try and explain why anyone should care which of them wins.

Since Mr Balloon has described them as MUPPETS (and to be fair, Lord Blairimort was RIGHT when he said that's a BIT RICH coming from Mr Balloon!) I thought I would try and identify WHICH Muppet was WHICH!


Mr Benny Hill: people have said that he is like Sam the All-American Eagle – austere, aloof, obsessional. This is nonsense; he is none of those things. I watched him bobble backwards and forwards and from side to side, flapping his head and his hands and doing a poor-man's impression of his DAD. Clearly his main characteristics are (a) he does not realise everyone thinks he's a joke (b) he does not realise that he is an ALIEN. Muppet rating: GONZO THE GREAT.

Ms Hazel Bleary: wide-eyed and as insanely chirpy as you can get without having a CUCKOO actually pop out of your forehead, sitting next to GONZO only reinforced the OBVIOUS stereotype. Quite how anyone can believe that what the public want after ten years of the Labour is the same but MORE SO completely eludes me, but she certainly looks keen to put Mr Benny in a spangley leotard and launch him from a cannon pointed at the audience. Muppet rating: ESMERALDA the CHICKEN.

Mr I'm Sorry I've Forgotten Who You Are [R: John Cruddas] No, it's gone again: probably ought to be one of those two in the Electric Mayhem Orchestra that no one remembers, not Dr Teeth, Sax-man Zoot or Animal, the other two. Having said that, neither lead-guitar Janice nor bassist Floyd really has that air of self-satisfied spiv about them. Seems to be trying to sell under-the-counter Old Labour policies. Muppet rating: RIZO the RAT.

Mr Alan Johnson: indulgent smile, affable nature, gives the impression that he knows that the unions will stitch it up for him and can afford to look generous. Muppet rating: Frank Sinatra looky-likey JOHNNY FIAMA (NOT an anagram of Mafia, hoooo no).

Mr Peter Vain: self-styled prima-donna, making a living off the achievements of others, who no one quite dares to tell just how ridiculous they really are. Too much make-up. Muppet rating: obviously MISS PIGGY.

Ms Harriet Harpic: clean round the bend. She places all her emphasis on being best chums with Mr Frown. But not his patsy. And a woman. But not his patsy. And she comes from the South which will compliment the fact that he comes from the north.[*] Seems too much to concentrate on qualifications based on who she IS, rather than what she can DO. Muppet rating: incompetent gopher but uncle owns the theatre, SCOOTER.

[*] actually, Ms Harpic seems to be saying that Mr Frown's best Apprentice would be EVIL KATIE from "The Apprentice". Which is handy, because she happens to be AVAILABLE.


Having said all that though, actually watching the show I began to realise that for all of their differences they actually all sound the same:

• No return to Old Labour

• Time to move on from Iraq

• We must be a listening government (shut up, WE're talking!)

• Ooh, I can't think of ANY of our legislation that we should repeal

• Haven't we done WELL.

By the end of the show, I realised that in fact none of them HAVE as much individual personality as ANY of the Muppets above. So in fact they are all THE AMAZING MUSICAL MUPPAPHONES, identical coloured gonks who squeak when clubbed.

Which kind of makes Mr Frown MARVIN SUGGS, the man with the mallet. And that fits.

PS:

Mr Balloon is a bit of a MUPPET himself of course. Let me see – talks with funny accent, flaps hands about, flails around losing control of his kitchen/cabinet, known to holiday in Norway, never produces an actual result… Muppet rating: clearly he's the SWEDISH CHEF!