Flood defence budget cut and cut again!

Whilst many parts of the country are suffering from flooding, in fact extremely severe flooding it is worth considering what if anything, the political backlash could be.

Over the last few years DEFRA, the Department for the Eradication of Farming and Rural Areas, has been in crisis because it has made a complete mess of the new farm payments system causing massive extra costs and fines.

The net result according to this article in last years Guardian is a cut to flood defences. What is worse is that according to this article in Ground Sure, of the 10th of July this year, the budget cuts are still going ahead.

What is more, we can't call in the armed services to help, because they are overstretched.

At times like this it does not take a genius to work out whwww.at sort of questions are going to come up at Prime ministers questions. Rather obviously Gordon Brown will therefore be prepared. I wonder how the follow up questions will go?

Hat tip to ColinW on politicalbetting.com for the links to the Guardian and Ground Sure.

Who will rid us of these troublesome letter writers?

Today's Sunday Telegraph carries the story that between 2 and 6 Conservative MP's have written to Sir Michael Spicer, the Chairman of the 1922 committee calling for a vote of no confidence in David Cameron.

Not only have they done that they have also sought to brief the press on the matter as well.

This is daft. I do not care a jot why they have written to Sir Michael, or in fact that they have, but what sets my blood boiling is that they chose to make their dissent public in a very damaging way.

As the leader in today's Telegraph, headlined "These foolish letter writers":

They have not learned one of the most glaringly obvious political lessons: the only outcome of division is disaster.

These MP's probably come from safe constituencies and obviously do not give a stuff about less safe seats or target seats and obviously do not want to get into government.

There is much discussion on this on politicalbetting.com of which there are some priceless quotes, one from Punter:

I heard Cameron on radio today. Although recorded before news of the letters, I bet he knew of them. He certainly didn’t sound like a man who was going to roll over. In fact he sounded far more steely than I’ve ever heard of him. Crucially also I think Andrew Mitchell a key member of the Davis sensible right faction also came out swinging in support. I think this grouping and the Cameroons are now essentially joined at the hip, at least in the view that the Leigh tendency poses a mortal threat, and that whatever differences they have that grouping needs to be slapped down and slapped down so hard they never get up again

And this from Stonch who is a little left of center (and writes about beer here):

Cameron is the first Tory leader since 97 to succeed in leading Labour in the opinion polls. He led his party to a result in the local elections not even the most fervent of Tories believed would happen.

Cameron and his crew have made one massive mistake, and it’s coming to a head now - they believed their own propaganda. Gordon Brown is not a bumbling, mentally retarded wierdo. He’s a cunning politician who has bided his time for years and clearly wasn’t going to come unstuck immediately upon assuming office.

However, the Brown bounce will wear off. So the Tories lost two by-elections? Yes it makes Cameron look foolish - his own fault. But they were always going to lose them, and there’s everything to play for going forward.

If Brown had the balls to call an autumn election, he’d almost certainly take a narrow majority and have a rough time ahead. If he doesn’t, I suspect the pendulum will swing back and forth in the months and years to come, and he won’t be certain of a fresh mandate. That’s what normal politics is like, we should embrace it.

If David Cameron is challenged by any of these head banger right wingers, the rest of the party should boot them out. I don’t like Cameron at the moment because the homogenity his inner circle scares me and I think he comes over as two-faced, but even I can recognise he’s the right leader for them at the moment - and anyway, he’s all they’ve got.

Lets not have a one party state, people.

These troublesome letter writers need to be dealt with and fast. Their constituency associations need to have a word. Private dissent is fine, public dissent like this ensures defeat.

Brown Bounce long lasting?

When I watched BBC news 24's Saturday night paper review, for the Sunday Papers they quoted a couple of polls, one in the Sunday Times* that puts Labour in 40% and the Conservatives on 33 and one in the Observer that puts Labour on 41% and the Conservatives on 35% giving a 7 and 6% lead respectively.

This, two weeks after Gordon Brown's take over is "long lasting"? Well that is what the BBC said. I know that Gordon may be boring and two weeks with him as leader may seem like a long time, but this is ridiculous.

If it goes on for 3 months, I will be impressed, but it still wont be a long lasting bounce.

* I have as yet not got a link to that poll.

Cash for Peerages, A private prosecution?

One thing that is clear from the Cash for honours affair is that those who suspect wrong doing are not happy. Guido has set up an online pledge to see how many people he can get together to back a private prosecution. I have signed it, see here.

This mainly centers on a rather obvious breech of the The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and in particular the loans made. Part IV of the act, section 50 says as follows:

Donations for purposes of Part IV.

50. - (1) The following provisions have effect for the purposes of this Part.

(2) "Donation", in relation to a registered party, means (subject to section 52)-


(a) any gift to the party of money or other property;

(b) any sponsorship provided in relation to the party (as defined by section 51);

(c) any subscription or other fee paid for affiliation to, or membership of, the party;

(d) any money spent (otherwise than by or on behalf of the party) in paying any expenses incurred directly or indirectly by the party;

(e) any money lent to the party otherwise than on commercial terms;

(f) the provision otherwise than on commercial terms of any property, services or facilities for the use or benefit of the party (including the services of any person).

Note (e) in bold. In principle a prosecution would turn on whether loans made, for Lordships, were or were not on commercial terms. There are statements in the public domain that indicate some certainly were not on what any sensible person would regard as commercial terms, and indeed it is arguable that were the Labour party in a position to borrow on commercial terms it would have done so. So if the loans were not commercial we get to section 61 which is here:

61. - (1) A person commits an offence if he-

(a) knowingly enters into, or

(b) knowingly does any act in furtherance of, any arrangement which facilitates or is likely to facilitate, whether by means of any concealment or disguise or otherwise, the making of donations to a registered party by any person or body other than a permissible donor.

(2) A person commits an offence if-


(a) he knowingly gives the treasurer of a registered party any information relating to-

(i) the amount of any donation made to the party, or

(ii) the person or body making such a donation,

which is false in a material particular; or

(b) with intent to deceive, he withholds from the treasurer of a registered party any material information relating to a matter within paragraph (a)(i) or (ii).

Now, we know that Jack Dromey the Labour party treasurer claims he was blissfully unaware of theses loans. If they were indeed not commercial then clearly there is an offence here as well.
though (b) would give some trouble as there is a need to show intent.

Now, it has to be said that the CPS did look at the issue of loans but dismissed them thus, at paragraph 30 of their statement:

30. In relation to possible breaches of the 2000 Act, we are satisfied that we
cannot exclude the possibility that any loans made – all of which were made
following receipt by the Labour Party of legal advice - can properly be
characterised as commercial.

Which seems a bit dismissive and rather odd. After all legal opinions vary,. look at Lord Goldsmith on the Iraq war. However what they seem to be saying is Labour's lawyers say it's OK so it is.

So, if you think we have been short changed, please read Guido here and sign the pledge here.

Army short of troops and equipment

The Daily Telegraph has been leaked a memo by Sir Richard Dannatt Chief of the General Staff to other senior defence chiefs.

The situation is that our military is severely overstretched and has not got any capacity to handle the unexpected.

To put this in perspective during the cold war, and at the time of the Falklands war we had something like 250,000 men in the army, now we have about 100,000.

What is more regiments are no longer moving with their equipment, for example the Parachute Regiment has had to leave most of its equipment in Afghanistan so that their replacements can use it. This has two knock on effects. Firstly it means that can't train with their own equipment out of theatre, to ready themselves for a return, and secondly the equipment gets worn out, because it is in constant use without the downtime for maintenance. There seems to be little or no budget to replace battlefield losses either.

Being engaged in a long war does involve a lot of expense, as well as extra equipment. Despite promises the forces in Afghanistan still do not have what they need to fight and do the job.

In short, the problem is we have peace time defence spending whilst we are fighting wars on two fronts. In short, it is nuts.

The BBC also has this.

IF you can keep your head

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

An extract from If, by Rudyard Kipling.

Could I suggest that all my colleagues in the party don't go running around like headless chickens trying to dish the blame out to everyone else?

You have to invest an enormous amount of emotional energy in an election and more so in a by-election, and I appreciate that we would have liked to have done better, but we are where we are.

Now is not the time to lose our heads, but to steel ourselves for the fight ahead,

Ealing Southall by-election result Labour hold!

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Liberal Democrats	Nigel Bakhai	10118	27.7
	Monster Raving Loony	John Cartwright	188	0.51
	English Democrats	Sati Chaggar	152	0.42
	Respect	Salvinder Dhillon	588	1.61
	Green	Sarah Edwards	1135	3.11
	Independent	Kuldeep Grewal	87	0.24
	Conservative	Tony Lit	8230	22.53
	Independent	Yaqub Maish	280	0.77
	Independent	Jasdev Rai	275	0.75
	UK Independence	Kunnathur Rajan	285	0.78
	Labour	Virendra Sharma	15100	41.34
	Independent	Gulbash Singh	92	0.25
	Majority		4982
	Total Votes Cast		36530

Sedgefield by-election Result, Labour hold

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	English Democrats	Stephen Gash	177	0.63
	Independent	Paul Gittins	1885	6.74
	Christian	Tim Grainger	177	0.63
	Green	Chris Haine	348	1.24
	Monster Raving Loony	Alan Hope	147	0.53
	UK Independence	Toby Horton	536	1.92
	Conservative	Graham Robb	4082	14.59
	Anti Crime	Norman Scarth	34	0.12
	British National Party	Andrew Spence	2494	8.91
	Liberal Democrats	Greg Stone	5573	19.92
	Labour	Phil Wilson	12528	44.77
	Majority		6955
	Total Votes Cast		27981

Well, the Liberal Democrats did not do that well, but the did put us in to third place.

The BNP slow hand clapped Phil Wilson which is the sort of rum behaviour I expect of the Liberal Democrats.

Sedgefield by-election prediction

Well here goes:

	Conservative			20.0
	Labour			45.0
	Lib Dem			17.0

Cash for Peerages, no charges? Interesting timing?

Apparently there will be no charges in the cash for Honours inquiry, a bit of news that has been leaked to all news outlets prior to an official announcement tomorrow.

Hmm.. A cynic might thing the timing was odd, and perhaps designed to keep bad by-election results of the front pages.

But only a cynic would think that, surely?

Meanwhile there will be an enormous amount of leaking of evidence gathered. After all if it was clear cut and there was full co-operation they could have had this investigation done and dusted in a couple of months.

The BBC has this.

Police investigate Ealing Southall Postal Vote leak

Apparently the Metropolitan Police are investigating the leak on the Telegraph blog by Jonathan Isaby purporting to give the splits in postal votes between the parties.

The BBC has this.

It is I have to say interesting news. The original entry has been removed as well, though I have seen.

I am happy with my prediction.

Explosion in Central Manhattan, Building collapsed, transformer blamed?

Apparently a transformer explosion has happened in Manhattan causing a building to collapse.

This is apparently not being treated as suspicious.

Umm..

Do they make that big a bang?

This will take out a large part of the electricity grid in New York as well I suspect.

More news as I get it, but details are very sketchy.

Update 23:36 GMT

Looking at the TV pictures it seems that a building has probably not collapsed but one of New Yorks steam pipes has been ruptured.

I say that because the smoke cloud is continuously going up, not spreading out indicating heat rather than dust from rubble.

Another update, some structural damage to a building no buildings have collapsed.

My Predictions for Ealing Southall

To be honest I think this is very hard to call. It could go either of 3 ways, but here is my prediction anyway.

<

Conservative				34.8
Labour				30.2
Lib Dem				27.9

A Conservative win on a reduced turnout of 47%

So what is happening in Sedgefield?

Well, it is very hard to tell. In principle Sedgefield is ultra safe Labour, on a 62% turnout. Labour got 58% of the vote with the Conservatives on 14.4% in second.

This time around as it is a by election of course and maybe the voters feel neglected. The other problem is of course getting the vote out. All of the interest has been in Ealing Southall. However I get to see this You Tube clip of a three way question and answer session with Graham Rob for the Conservatives, Greg Stone for the Liberal Democrats and Phil Wilson for Labour. In some ways interesting. You have to wonder if the place would not benefit enormously from a change of party in control. In fact at the local elections 6 independents got in, and it seems Paul Gittens is carrying their baton on this election.

Boris for Mayor!

So Boris Johnson has thrown his hat in the ring for Conservative nomination for Mayor of London.

Can he win? Yes he can!

That does not mean he will, but he could.

He announced his candidacy in typical Boris style, turning up on a bicycle outside Ken Livingstone's office to greet a throng of the press, to ride off shortly afterwards. He has a website here, and I have to say I love this quote from an Op Ed piece in the Evening Standard:

I will be running against the strong advice of those who say I would be better off writing books, and going on television, and that I risk throwing away what remains of my political career; and though there have been literally hundreds of people who have urged me to run, I have found myself brooding - like all paranoid politicians - on the negative voices, the people who say that the great King Newt is too dug in, that his positions are impregnable, his machine too vast and well-oiled.

And having weighed up their warnings, over the last week, I say phooey.

There are some who think he is very bad, notably the privately educated and somewhat vacuous Polly Toynbee who has written this article in the Guardian. All Polly can see of Boris is what she wants to see. I wonder if she is going to attack Ken Livingstone for hanging out with the sort of people who want to stone homosexuals?

Mike Read (the DJ) has this interesting article on Comment is free as well, firstly saying he won't be in the race, and will be backing Boris. What he also does is outline some interesting ideas for London.

Guido has this which he says shows that Boris can win if he can just get out a few more Conservative voters whilst Mike Smithson has this on 7 reasons why Boris is in with a chance.

The one thing that is clear though, is that now there will be a real election for Mayor of London and it will be interesting.

Any one want to donate to Labour?

Much has been said about Tony Lit's supposed donation to Labour. he is of course the Conservative party candidate for Ealing Southall.

For a start there is much spin on both sides, or at least that how it looks. Obviously there are some major differences of fact that could if the Lit's current apparent story is born out could lead to criminal charges.

Firstly as Dizzy points out here, it could well be just a business transaction. As in Sunrise radio was there just to network.

It was billed as a "Diversity in Business" event which gives further cover.

However two things concern and amuse me. Firstly there is this I lifted from the Observer:

He added the Lits had been told the fund-raising event was organised by Labour MP Keith Vaz, and that the money would be going to his charity, Starline, which helps disadvantaged children.

If true then the fact that the funds went to the Labour party (I know the cheque is made out to the Labour party) then this is a criminal offence under the acts which govern charities and possibly under the 1968 theft act as well. It goes without saying that his word against someone else's is unlikely to cut it in a criminal court unless their is other corroboration.

The second thing is that Labour seem to be sending a clear message that donating money to them is making yourself a hostage to fortune.

It amuses me greatly but does not concern me. It seems that if you want to donate money to Labour you can be arrested by the police, get to meet a rapist at a fund raiser or, if it is politically expedient for them to do so, have your donation thrown back in your face by Labour in all the papers.

I bet the Labour fund raisers are having a fit right now and some are considering their positions.

In fact a major fund raiser, Mike Smithson on his political betting blog answered my question here:

Mike as a fund raiser, do you think Labour using the family firms donation against him will cause fund raising problems for Labour.

With this comment:

To your question I do believe that the Oyston and Lit affairs won’t have helped.

On the latter you simply do not go around exploiting someone’s or some firm’s generosity for political purposes. Good faith must exist and that will have been lost. I can see quite a lot of business interests being less keen to support these glossy £1000 a seat events because it could be used against them.

If I had been in charge of Labour’s fundraising I would have been considering my position this weekend. You have to respect donors.

To me Labour’s fundraising looks very amateurish.

Well there you have it from a fund raiser.

Family split as they can't afford to stay together

Sunday's News of the World carries this story of a family, married mother and father and a baby son who have split up because when the father takes a new job they will be worse off. What is more, they will be much better off if they split.

The article says:

Sean Ash and wife Chloe agreed to break up after realising they would lose out even MORE when he takes a new job.

They spoke in the wake of a major political row this week, sparked by Tory leader David Cameron's tax-break pledge to give married couples an extra £20 a week.

Sean and Chloe, who have both been on benefits, explained why they decided to join what Mr Cameron called "our broken society".

As a couple, they had a joint net income of £1,702 a month. But after the split, Sean now gets £1,184 and Chloe £1,396—making a total of £2,580.

And then goes on:

That means they are £878 a month in benefits better off leading separate lives.

Sean, 25, soon expects to start a job with London Underground earning £22,000 a year. But he says he had to leave his wife and one-year-old son Dylan three weeks ago when it became clear that him working would bring their joint income down to £1,472 a month.

Bonkers isn't it? The problem here is that the costs of living of single parents are met whilst those in relationships appear to be able to go hang.

One of the major considerations of course is housing benefit. A single parent or a family with no wage earners working 16 hours a week or less gets it whereas anyone working over 16 hours a week does not. Of course the situation is that a two parent family can't get away (rightly) with two people not earning full time on the state unless there is a good reason, and one of them wanting to work does not cut it, whereas being a single parent, it is not unreasonable (again rightly) to say they don't have to work full time as there are chores to do.

This is of course where Unity is a F*ckwit not a Ministry of Truth as he would have us believe, as he showed in this article entitled "He’s not the Messiah… he’s a fuckwit!"

The problem with Unity's lack of thought lies with this remarkably stupid one sentence assumption:

Instead of taking Mad Frankie at face value, lets look at a more realistic scenario - a two parent family with a single wage earner in the same minimum wage McJob, with all other factors (housing benefit, child benefit, etc) being treated as equal and, therefore, excluded for simplicity.

The problem is that Unity is a fuckwit who does not live in the real world. If you have two adults in a household one of them will have to work unless their is a good medical reason not to, and that will have to be full time unless there is no work, and in reality there is work in most parts of the country and that means the work more than 16 hours a week. that means they DON'T GET HOUSING BENEFIT.

I have run across this problem with people on benefits before. The cutoff is sharp in the extreme. You can't feed a family if you have no kitchen to cook the meal in, and you won't get one of those unless the accommodation is paid for.

Got it Unity?

Tin Tin in the Congo a best seller!

Apparently Tin Tin in the Congo, which has belatedly (it was originally published in the 1930's) caused some upset and a complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality (See Dizzy here for a much more sensible look) has, according to this article in the Sunday Telegraph jumped right up Amazons best seller lists into the top 10.

Perhaps the Ayatollahs in Iran ought to consider just how many copies of Satanic verses would have been sold were it not for the book burners?

Beware of the Baby Snatchers part II

The secret family courts and social services are at it again. I reported on this in the Telegraph a short while ago where family courts sitting in secrecy were putting children up for adoption even where the parents had been cleared of any charge of abuse and indeed on the worrying rise of under one years olds taken into care and adopted.

Well now the Sunday Telegraph reports on the case of a couple who had their daughter taken into care on suspicion of sexual abuse followed shortly after by her sister just after her birth.

The police after exhaustive investigation have concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges against the parents. In many ways that would be fair enough, but the parents need to be exonerated and they never can be in such circumstances.

The situation has of course moved on. The children have been in care so long that they have now been placed with potential adoptive parents. It seems the weight of the system is against the parents as the courts are likely to take the view "that it is in the best interests of the child" not to change the status quo.

This makes me so angry. Parents who have done nothing wrong will not be banged up for 10 years, but will be deprived of their children for life, whilst at the same time the children will be denied their biological parents for life despite all the evidence indicating that is the best relationship.

The family courts need a kick up the backside and secret hearings need to be ended yesterday.

The dirt on Super Casinos

One of the things that always had alarm bells ringing in my head about "Super Casinos" was who wanted them?

I have never spoken to a voter or indeed a gambler who has pressed me on this.

Where did the driving force come from?

Well Paul Mason's report on the issue shed more light in the issue, talking of his meetings with civil servants in the Department of Culture Media and Sport.

It seems they were very keen on the idea of super casino's and indeed some had even gone as far as preparing CV's outlining their skills and how they could help companies wishing to build these casinos.

On current government regulations civil people can both join the civil service from business and business from the civil service. Sounds sensible until to realise that the revolving doors create conflicts of interest especially in areas like this where a civil servant can draw up policy guidance and then nip out and ask for a large fee to advise on it.

Perhaps this is where the strange drive for Super casinos came from?

Regrettably Paul Mason's report is not online yet. Newsnights website is here.

The end of Cabinet government?

One of the interesting things about Gordon Brown's new broom is that he promised a "new politics" "change" and "a return to cabinet government".

On the super casino's U-turn of course there was no cabinet discussion at all, whilst the decision was revealed by way of a planted question at Prime Ministers Questions.

We know there was no cabinet discussion because of this quote in the Guardian here:

His spokesman said the prime minister had not discussed it with the cabinet, but had agreed a position with the new culture secretary, James Purnell.

Hmm..

I agree with the decision itself, or rather I had not been persuaded by the argument for "Super Casinos" but am very dubious about the decision making process both for and the U-turn against.

I am also concerned about the wasted costs for all the doomed bids. Rather unsurprisingly Manchester and its MP's are not best pleased.

The House of Lords, good for something?

As I said in my earlier article on Prime Ministers Questions today it looks like Gordon Brown has scrapped the Super Casino policy.

Gordon Brown said:

"This is an issue on which there is no consensus found in the two houses of parliament."

Well it was passed in the House of Commons and thrown out by the House of Lords.

Yvette Cooper (Mrs Balls) who is a far better communicator than her husband Ed was on Newsnight trotting out the same line.

This sticks in the craw somewhat as previously Labour has screamed blue murder when the House of Lords have thrown out other daft measures.

Still it is nice to see Gordon Brown hiding behind the noble House of Lords.

(See the Guardian here for the quote)

Gordon Brown's second PMQ's

I am just watching Gordon Brown's second Prime Ministers Questions, where he looks like he might be rowing back on gambling and super casino's.

To be fair it looked like Gordon Brown did much better than last time. That said he had a low base to start from.

What David Cameron did not do was tackle him on issues he may not have been aware of.

The issue under discussion centered around centralising hospital services in less larger bigger hospitals after a report was published today. Gordon Brown seemed to avoid answering the rather obvious point that those hospitals that are not specialist centers must close or reduce services.

Scratches head? What about family policy?

Well, there is some discussion at least over the family and marriage, inspired by Ian Duncan Smiths report on "Breakthrough Britain".

It highlights the reasons for the breakdown of British society and indeed some suggestions for solutions.

I will have to read quite a bit more (and already have a long reading list) before I comment in detail. It is interesting to see how Ed Balls feels fully able to comment without having read it though.

Here are some links:

We have to report here, Nick Robinson on the politics here and this in the Independent urging David Cameron to stick to the path without using the dreaded "M" word, marriage.

What is irritating though is that the news is just quoting sound bites where there are none.

Conservative home has this, which seems to have more lefty posts than usual.

Exclusive to all papers: Keystone Terrorists foil dastardly plot whilst keystone cops look on

The verdict in the case of the hapless 21st of July 2005 bombers came in today, and some reporting restrictions have been lifted. (The BBC has this)

We know that their story that this was just some kind of protest was not believed by the jury who were convinced beyond reasonable doubt they intended to kill. They would have but for their own incompetence.

What is of somewhat more concern is that the leader of the plotters, Muktar Ibrahim from East Africa had not only been on a trip to Pakistan but questioned by special branch about it and found in possession of a large amount of cash and a military first aid kit. This did not, it seems, raise alarm bells.

It gets worse. We have Interpol criticising us for not accessing the database of known terrorists, (well we could be using our own copy) not giving information back to it (also fair enough because there are 186 countries in Interpol and we may not want them all knowing) but shockingly not checking with Interpol about known to be stolen travel documents. That is daft. (See the Telegraph here for the original allegation and the BBC here for some government response).

The thing is this, the government keep asking for extra powers. They are of no use unless they are directed at the right people and that is not a matter of what the law is but how the executive direct the resource to tackle terrorism combined with the political will to use it.

Conservative campaign in Ealing Southall

I have just been emailed this Youtube clip asking for help in the Conservative campaign in Ealing Southall.



If you can help do so. You can get in touch with the campaign here, and Tony Lit's campaign website is here.

It takes a lot of people and hard graft to win an election, doubly so for a by-election up to and including polling day.

If you can help, sign up and get helping!

Ealing Southall, Labour to come third or worse!

Yes, Mike Smithson, political punter extraordinaire, and author of "The Political Punter" has read the runes and issued this challenge:

What odds will someone offer me on this proposition - Labour not to make the top two
in Ealing Southall. I’m prepared to bet £100

My reasoning being that these defections will cost Labour 1000s of voted.

Who’ll take me on?

As yet there appear to be no takers, i certainly won't. If Mike is prepared to put that kind of money on the line, then the odds of it happening have got to be better that 2-1.

If that were to happen Tom Watson and Keith Vaz would not be allowed near a by-election again and Gordon Brown's honeymoon would be well and truly over.

Ealing Southall defection shocker!

There has been a defection of 5 labour councillors from Labour to the Conservatives during the by election in Ealing Southall.

Iain Dale has the statement issued by them.

They have defected to Tony Lit's campaign which it seems has the momentum at this stage.

It is going to be one interesting by-election! I have backed the Conservatives to win at an average of 6.7 (or 5.7 to 1 in fractional odds) which looks like a value bet to me.

The BBC also has this.

Insidious infiltration

I regularly read Dizzy Thinks, who had this article linking to this article in the Daily Mail (well, it could have been the Mail on Sunday) about how there are 8 "Al Qaeda" "sleepers" or sympathisers on the police.

Well, it has to be said this is to be expected. They are not stupid and this sort of thing, or rather attempts at doing this sort of thing are to be expected. The shock is, it seems to me that there are not systems to vet applicants so that this does not happen.

What concerns me more, because it is less easy to spot and is not yet high on the agenda is the way state officials from some communities are playing a part in "honour" killings by looking people up on state databases or indeed bank and other systems to tell families where their "errant" offspring" are.

I heard that on an edition of BBC Radio 4's File on 4 program on honour killings. We all have unique identification numbers of one form or another whether it is a National Insurance number or bank account or credit card number. These are all stored in databases accessed by a variety of members of staff. All any community needs, and often in the case of honour killings many members of the community are in support of them, is someone on "the inside" and then if the said child uses their credit card, national Insurance number or notifies a change of address and then they know where they are.

Yet this government wants to ignore that problem but create an over arching database that will allow any criminal gang access to the data they need to track down anyone they want as long as they have someone one "the inside".

Scary isn't it?

Cash for Peerages, Lord Levy to be charged?

According to this article in today's Independent on Sunday, sources in Whitehall think that Lord Levy will be charged in the Cash for Peerages affair. The same sources also think that Ruth Turner won't be, so that gives you an idea where the story came from.

Of more interest however is the prospect of Tony Blair giving evidence under oath in a trial. Could be tricky!

For more on the cash for peerages/ cash for honours scandal see here.

Hat tip to Politicalbetting.com for the Independent article.

That Gordon Brown Honeymoon

When I entered the politicalbetting.com 2007 prediction competition I predicted that Gordon Brown would get a poll bounce of 3% when he took over compared to the average ICM position of the previous 3 months.

Well, the last ICM poll just before he took over had Labour on 38% compared to the Conservatives on 35%.

According to Conservative home, there is a new ICM survey showing Labour on 37% and the Conservatives on 35%.

Hmm.. losing points already after wall to wall positive coverage?

I also predicted that Gordon Brown would be 5% down on his first honeymoon polls after 3 months.

Looks like I was right, or at least the numbers are going the right way.

Sorry about the lack of posts, I have been busy

Well, busy keeping a close eye on Wimbledon and the Eclipse cup at Sandown park, making sure that I get free bets!

(I have done quite well on Wimbledon)

Inland Revenue want to grab your money

The Inland Revenue, or rather Revenue and Customs, now want to take money without a court order whilst overcharging a million people a year.

I thought the power to take money from peoples bank accounts without a corner was excessively draconian and fundamentally wrong, but then I heard that the National audit office studies show just how many mistakes it makes in over charging people tax (it undercharges as well).

The state should never have unfettered power, because it does make mistakes. The fact that the state wants it, when it is clear that they make a huge number of mistakes should really concern people. They clearly just do not get it.

The BBC has this on the amount of mistakes the Revenue makes, whilst the FT has this on the new powers the government want and reaction to it.

Putting The Al Qaeda threat in perspective

I have just read this brilliant article on the Register with the headline:

'al-Qaeda' puts on big shoes, red nose, takes custard pie

Some great quotes:

To recap: an exceptionally incompetent group of troublemakers, unknown to the plods or spooks, decided to bring a spot of terror to old Blighty starting last Friday. These people had no actual explosives, and were apparently too lazy and ignorant to learn how to make them. Instead, they decided to load cars with petrol, domestic gas cylinders and "containers holding nails", and then set fire to them - either manually or using a cellphone-initiated remote rig of some kind.

And:

Frankly, if this kind of thing is the only backlash the West experiences for Iraq, we've got off pretty much scot-free: we should indulge in a spot of military adventurism any time we feel like it.

Conversely, if this is all al-Qaeda have to offer, we should never have lost a moment's sleep over them - let alone shoved our valuable appendages into the military meat-grinder of Afghanistan (I'm choosing to assume here that al-Qaeda only became a serious presence in Iraq after we invaded the place. Argue among yourselves as to whether Saddam was more or less threatening than Osama).

Read the whole article, it is bith funny and interesting.

Bank of England Raises interest rates again to 5.75%

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has raised interest rates again to 5.75%, the fifth rise since August last year. There are indications that they may rise again soon to combat inflation and money supply.

Ultimately that is going to hurt many borrowers. Expect bankruptcies and repossessions to rise.

The Bank of England statement is here and the BBC has this.

Gordon Brown at Prime Ministers Questions

I could only hear the audio and missed the first few minutes, but Gordon Brown does seem to creak under pressure. he was stammering very frequently. I wonder if he will improve?

I was also amused that in answer to one question he claimed he had only been in the job for 5 days! This is in fact his 7th day as PM. Oops. I understand some on his benches did not look happy.

It appears that Gordon is also solidly behind ID cards which is going to mean he can't cream off that many Liberal Democrats. When asked by David Cameron about it, he of course quoted some on the Conservative side who seemed to be in favor, a point Cameron neutralised by pointing out a statement by Douglass Alexander Alistair Darling* the new Chancellor completely against ID cards. Cameron's team know Gordon's game, so will make sure he has Labour quotes against the Labour line on a whole range of issues now.

I liked Ming Campbell's reply to Gordon Brown saying his door was always open to the honourable gentleman to which Ming replied that it "was more of a trapdoor" and there was no evidence of change there.

However all that will be important is how the media report it.

The BBC has this and this on the importance of PMQ's.

*Thanks for the emailed correction, *cough* typo on my part.

Alan Johnston Free and on his way home!

I was very pleased to hear that Alan Johnston has been freed. I also heard an interview with him this morning on BBC Radio 4's the Today program and he sounded in good spirits. (You can listen here, 10 minutes in).

Apparently one of the things which cheered him up was having a radio on which he could listen to the BBC World Service and hear how much support he had.

The BBC also has this.

The one interesting reform

The one interesting reform that Gordon Brown has proposed is that the executive be stripped of the power to recall Parliament and it be given away.

In earlier times, or rather pre Blair times this was a non issue because Parliament was recalled when there was a clamour for it. During the war in the Lebanon this was not the case, nor (if I remember correctly) during the foot and mouth crisis.

It therefore seems a good idea to change the power just in case we elect another president by mistake, after all we are a Monarchy.

Abolishing the Royal Prerogative?

One of the interesting things about Gordon Brown's changes seems to be abolishing the Royal Prerogative in the case of war and dissolving parliament. Instead of the Prime Minister exercising those powers on behalf of the Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II, Parliament will have the power.

On Channel 4's News Jack Straw said that there was no place for a power dating from antiquity in a modern British democracy.

Lets deal with that first. We are an old country. Our institutions are old. What is more they have evolved over a period of time in a way that reflects our history and traditions. As long as they work why change them?

Now on to the substance rather than just hating our history (which it appears Labour does).

This country has not got to war without parliament being happy with it. Even in the time of Edward III he consulted Parliament. Parliament is consulted and was in the Iraq war, in fact it had a vote. So what is broken? Ultimately the fact that in the case of the Iraq war Parliament was sold a pup. This proposal does nothing to stop that happening again and again. The problem is not the use of the Royal Prerogative but the lies that went with it (even if Blair did not actually lie to Parliament he seems to me to have lied to himself.)

What of the dissolution of Parliament? Allow Parliament to vote on it instead? Except in the case of a hung Parliament it makes no practical difference. A whipped vote will still guarantee an election when the party of power calls one.

So there is no point to either reform other than to destroy our heritage.

Nations and Regions: Divide and Rule

It appears that one of the themes of Gordon Brown's statement in the House of Commons today was "Nations and Regions" or apparently select committees for each region of England in the House of Commons.

Does this man seriously think this will address the West Lothian Question? In referendums regional assemblies have been rejected so why should we accept that?

Ed Balls should not be Schools Minister says Labour blogger!

Yes, apparently Labour blogger, Chris Paul thinks that only those who have been in the state sector "can pronounce" on state schools, he said so here,* obviously he will now be campaigning to get Ed Balls replaced as Minister for Schools. Except of course he won't he was applying double standards and referring to the fact that Michael Gove had spent some of his education in the private sector (he also went to a state school) rather than the fact that Ed Balls went to an independent school.

Oh the double standards of the left.

Hat tip to Dizzy thinks, here.

*I will obviously ignore the point Chris Paul tries to make as it is daft. Yes obviously people with other experiences can bring their talents to different fields.

Loose lips sink ships

So when you blog or pass on any information remember this. During the second World War there were campaigns to get people not to repeat important and vital information. After all you could be overheard and provide information which may give a German spy a clue on Allied shipping which they could pass on, resulting in ships being sunk.

In fact to give you an idea of how careful we were, Bletchley Park (who broke the Enigma codes) had worked out that Coventry was going to be bombed but as it was the only source of that information, doing anything about it would let the Germans know we had broken Enigma and would have cost far more lives.

In this day and age things are very different. When the Americans get a lead on Osama Bin Laden because they can trace his satellite phone the US press just loved publishing that, it sold a few more papers but ultimately he just turned his phone off so a valuable line of intelligence was lost.

Well, the press, presumably briefed by someone "close to the investigation" are keen to tell us exactly how the current terrorist operation was rolled up. They say that the two cars in London yielded vital intelligence to whit mobile phones ....

We have in essence told the enemy exactly what they did wrong. Do we seriously think they will not learn?

This is nothing short of treason, yet the same bunch of cretinous jerks have insisted we can't use intercept evidence because it would reveal vital information about how we do things whilst at the same time revealing vital information how we do things.

Shameful.

The end of the War on Terror?

I have often criticised the language used in the somewhat laughably named "War on Terror" and terms like Islamo fascist.

In this article I dealt with how you can't have a war on terror because terrorism is a defined act and you are not going to remove it from every dictionary, whilst also pointing out that it is a political war as well as a military one and we need to win the political one.

I have pointed out that terms like Islamo Fascist serve the enemy by driving people toward them rather than us. (See this article here).

It seems that some while ago David Cameron took that up and started to question the language. Well now in the face of the current threat the government, or more specifically Jacqui Smith have stopped using stupid language that appeals to our core vote whilst alienating the very people we need to bring on side.

Remember this, asymmetric wars are primarily political, and as such language is very important.

For more on the War on Terror see here.

NHS Capital Spending in England cut by a third, but not in Scotland or Wales

In one of Gordon Brown's last acts as chancellor he has cut the hospital building program in England by one third whilst leaving that in Scotland and Wales alone.

Is that fair?

It does explain why there are huge and increasing problems in the NHS, in part caused by Dr John Reid's appalling time as Secretary of State for Health making a mess of Doctors pay.

They even want to downgrade our local hospital the Princess Royal and sell off some of the land, in what is a fairly new state of the art hospital to move patients to an overcrowded and for many in central Sussex difficult to get to hospital in Brighton.

Ridiculous.

The FT has this.

No more Conservative defections to Labour?

I bring you shocking news that Blinky Ed Balls appears to have over egged the pudding somewhat by suggesting that Thursday would be better than Tuesday.

Rumours then reached me that there would be a couple of defections over the weekend.

They have not materialised.

The reality is that Ed Balls has been trying to sow division and confusion in opposition ranks. It has worked a treat with the Liberal Democrats, but not quite with the Conservatives.

I take this opportunity to pour scorn on all those Conservative bloggers and commentators who have been virtually dragging out and shooting potential defectors in what it is they have written. All I can say is that you have been doing Ed Balls work for him, and shame on you.

Beware of the Baby Snatchers and the Secret Courts

According to figures obtained by the Sunday Telegraph the numbers of babies less than 1 week old taken into care has risen by 3 times since 1997 to 900 a year whilst the total number under 1 year old have risen from 970 to 2,120.

These cases then go before the Family Courts which operate in complete secrecy. To give you an idea how bad it is a Solicitor concerned about one such case (Sarah Harman) was suspended from practicing for three months for showing papers to the then Solicitor General, Harriet Harman (her younger sister).

These cases can't be discussed beyond a very narrow group of people, breach of this secrecy counts as contempt of court. So we don't know what goes on in these courts. What is more they rely on expert evidence which is frequently from one source.

It gets worse than that though. Unless you can find evidence to prove the expert wrong there is no point in appealing, it takes time and money to find new expert witness evidence and both are frequently in short supply as young children end up being put up for adoption fairly quickly. Once adopted that is it. No appeal will get the children back. They are lost and gone forever.

There was a case of a family from Norfolk who had had 3 children taken into care on the footing that it had suspicious broken bones, and without any need to prove who did what the children were taken into care. When the fourth child was on the way they went on the run and got as far as Ireland. Regrettably they were sent back. However they eventually scored a victory as their council backed down and accepted that the child whose broken bones led to their children being taken into care did in fact have a medical condition which led to that. By this time of course the 3 other children had been adopted so no appeal will get them back. This is a full life sentence for a family convicted not beyond reasonably doubt, but on the balance of probabilities with no appeal, no time of fro good behavior or anything else and all done in the strictest secrecy.

Some say that the numbers are going up because of the incentives for councils to get more children adopted, and it is a lot easier to get a new born adopted. Obviously this has been denied.

There is however a real problem here. Children are being taken away from their families, and once adopted there is no recourse to law, that is it, the end. This happens in secret so there is no scrutiny. This is patently unjust and wrong, even though the secrecy is supposedly there for the best of reasons, to protect the anonymity and best interests of the children. It seems to me that the secrecy now only benefits the system by hiding the injustice and absurdity of some of the decisions.

John Hemming MP has a blog and frequently raises this issue. In this article he links to a Times law report of a judgement in the Court of Appeal which came to the conclusion that as the law currently stands if a child is taken into care and it now should no longer be in care, that if the judge views it in the best interest of the child then that child will be adopted.

The Sunday Telegraph has this.

Iran on the brink as the working class blame Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The fuel protests in Iran last week seem to be crystallising into a general feeling that president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is letting his core voters, the average working man in Iran down.

Not only do they have to face petrol rationing but also inflation that is much higher than it used to be largely caused by president Ahmadinejad's policies and sanctions.

It seems that he also has some madcap plan to build steel plants well away from the sources or Iron ore as well, which shows just how daft he is.

The regime does appear to be keeping intellectual dissent stifled and the reformists are divided but there is an increasing amount of grass roots discontent on the streets.

I expect Iran will try to pull some sort of stunt to get its people to unite behind it. It would be a mistake to help them out. What we need to do is quietly increase the pressure and avoid sabre rattling.

The Telegraph has this.

Comment from Hassan Butt, an ex Jihadi extremist

There is an interesting piece in today's Observer written by Hassan Butt, and ex jihadi, here.

It makes interesting reading.

Observations on the current terror campaign

After two car bombs were found in London and one has been driven into Glasgow airport, I won't do a full round up of the news, but I will make a few observations.

Clearly the people involved this time have not been successful, however many got away and they may well learn. We do need to find them.

There have been 3 vehicles involved. It is possible that they were all fitted out by the same team, and in the same place. This would be a lockup garage, possibly able to hold one, two or three cars at the same time. if you have recently rented such premises to someone be on the look out for odd comings and goings. If you have suspicions let the police know.

I have so far been pleased with the governments response. Serious but not scare mongering nor looking, so far, to drive through yet more silly measures on the back of this. This threat will not be beaten by the endless passing of yet more laws, but may be beaten by careful hard work.

I understand that one of the two arrested in the Glasgow Airport attack was wearing a suicide belt. He is currently critical in hospital. I suspect that is not the half of it, I suspect he is outraged at the maker of the belt.

The suspect device at the Glasgow hospital where the suspects were taken to may well have been the suicide belt that one of the suspects had.

Whilst we do need to raise our game in terms of public vigilance, security service action and budgets we should also put some numbers in perspective.

We have had less than 100 people killed by terrorists in the last 10 years. In that time over 300,000 have died in road accidents, roughly 150,000 have died of hospital acquired infections and millions have died of cancer.

You are very very unlikely to die in a terrorist attack so don't panic, and carry on.

Spare a thought for the tow truck crew

One of the things I thought was fascinating about the two car bombs found in London is that one of them was towed away after having been given a ticket and then clamped.

When the crew who towed the car away realise who they are, there will be no alcohol or cigarettes in the house, nor will there be any clean underpants.

Gordon Brown gets a bounce in the polls

According to reports on Conservative home and politicalbetting.com Gordon Brown has a bounce.

Figures are not yet clear but an ICM poll in the Guardian tomorrow will show Labour on 39% compared to the Conservatives on 35%. Other numbers are not yet available.

I expected some bounce for Brown, but this is a little bigger than expected. I don't think it will last past the conference season, nor is it as big as John Major's bounce in 1990, which took the Conservative party to 49% compared to 39% for Labour. (hat tip to Liberal Tory here for the numbers, but please note that a 17 year old poll is not that good a poll.)

So in essence Gordon Brown does not have the poll lead he needs to guarantee victory in 3 years time and it is touch and go now.

My take is this, Gordon's best chance of getting reelected is to call a general election sooner rather than later. The longer he leaves it the more the "it's time for a change" will count against him.
If he takes this chance and calls a general election for September or October he may get an overall majority, though my money would be on a hung parliament. If he leaves it Labour will lose.

I will add more when I have seen the online reports. There is also a Yougov poll with a Labour lead, Labour 38%, Conservatives 35%, from politicalbetting.com here.

Is there going to be a Revolution in Iran?

For some time now I and many others have been hearing about rumblings on the streets of Tehran, and indeed other parts of Iran. The population of Iran is becoming younger by the day and frankly they are not happy.

Iran is a religious country full of traditions, but people do need jobs and frankly the economy stinks. Inflation is running at 20 to 30%. Not an issue that would bring about a revolution on its own, but it adds to the mix. Then there is unemployment which is high and growing, disaffection with the rules of the theocracy and last but not least the sudden imposition of petrol rationing.

Iran does not have much in the way of refining capacity so although it produces and exports a lot of oil, it does not produce petrol. The problem here is that it then has to import petrol, which it then subsidises, at immense cost to the treasury. Iran is running out of the cash to buy petrol.

Obviously the answer is simple, or at least it should be, Iran has some very clever scientists capable of building some test nuclear plant and clearly seems to think it has the money to do so, so it clearly can and indeed ought to develop its own refineries. It isn't. Instead it is spending vast amounts of money not only on its own defence, but a nuclear program which is causing the country immense problems and money on mucking about in other peoples countries as well, like hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah to fund the rebuilding the the Lebanon, a war which the average Iranian in the street did not ask for or want to be involved in.

Iran's economy is slowly collapsing when it should be reaching dizzying heights. It is doing so because Iran's government has grand plans of its own. The people don't care. They want jobs and security.

So what happened when petrol was rationed? Well the rationing was imposed without consultation or advanced warning to anyone, including the petrol station owners or the police. The result was riots and petrol stations being burnt down. The text messaging service has been closed down so that people can't organise protests and journalists are being ordered not to report any trouble. Clearly the government is under pressure.

What the Iranian government needs right now is some external threat to unite the people. It had that in the sabre rattling over its nuclear plans, and it helped. We need to remove the obvious threats to Iran so that it can't unite its people (as well as making sure they can a news service that tells them how bad things really are in Iran). In short we need to appear to take the pressure off.

That does not mean we stop working on its nuclear program, it just means we do so quietly and carefully so as not to give the Iranian regime ammunition to unite the Iranian people behind it.

The BBC has this on the fuel protests.

Base Interest rate set to rise, and probably rise again

Sir John Gieve, deputy governor of the Bank of England has said that the Bank of England's base interest rate is too low, and are helping to fuel the demand for loans and credit.

Some analysts expect the interest rate to hit 6% by the end of the year.

The fact is that it has been obvious that consumer debt has been out of control for years as indeed has government debt but not much has been done about it.

The chickens will be coming home to roost. I just hope it is gentle.

The BBC has this.

Felicity Jane Lowde jailed for 6 months today

According to this report in the Oxford Mail Felicity Jane Lowde jailed for 6 months today, been given a 5 year ASBO and has a restraining order against her. This follows on from persistent online harassment of Rachel North.

She was originally convicted in April in her absence as she did not attend court and had sacked her defence team. A warrant was issued for her arrest, hence the wanted campaign, and then arrested in an Internet cafe on Brick Lane on the 7th of June.

Regret ably there is no mention of treatment of help for any mental health issues.

Felicity Lowde did say she was appealing, a sentiment I do not share.

Ministry of Defence Just not important

We have our forces engaged in very difficult fighting situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet apparently Gordon Brown does not think the Ministry of Defence needs its own dedicated minister.

Des Browne, the buffoon who should have been sacked after allowing the Iranian hostages to sell their stories not only stays at defence, but has been made minister for Scotland as well!

Labour sources insist that Scotland is a part time job after devolution. Well that may well be so, but the Ministry of Defence most certainly is not.

What are are troops supposed to think now they have a part timer in charge?

Gordon Brown has made a drastic blunder here.

Cash For Peerages, Tony Blair questioned by Police again! Was it under caution?

Apparently Tony Blair has been questioned again by police according to the Press Association.

I wonder if it was under caution, after all they wanted to question him under caution but did not, (see here) as he was a sitting Prime Minister.

Yesterday I asked if they would now question him under caution and it appears that they may have done.

This could be very interesting.

Many thanks to those on Politicalbetting.com for highlighting the news, Iain Dale also has this whilst Guido has this.

For more on Cash for Peerages see here.

Update 13:04

According to Radio 4's World at One Tony Blair was not questioned under caution.

Update 15:53

Apparently the questioning happened 3 weeks ago, but the news was not released until today.

Good news management?

I wonder if they will question him under caution?

So Tony Blair has gone

And boy am I pleased.

It was quite correct for David Cameron to be complimentary to Tony Blair yesterday at Prime Ministers Questions. Love him or loath him Tony Blair was one of the best political communicators there has been in modern times. I was never convinced by his sincerity but all to many were.

He is quick witted, humorous and I have no doubt would make good company on a long journey.

He is gone now, as as David Milliband said, "people will be saying 'wouldn't it be great to have that Blair back because we can't stand that Gordon Brown."

And yes they will. I am so pleased Tony has gone because it will make the Conservative party's job of winning the next election a bit easier.

That said Gordon Brown is no walk over, he is a political operator of some skill, quote possibly one of the best. He can play all sorts of games and stymie internal opposition like no other, hence being elected unopposed. However he is nothing like as electable as Tony Blair and will not appeal to the general public as well.

I do wish Tony Blair well on his mission in the Middle East. Regrettably the best way of telling if an international envoy is making some progress is how many assassination attempts there are on them.

Tony Blair appointed Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern

One of the interesting curiosities of the House of Commons is that an MP can't resign. Apparently that is due to a rule dating from 1623.

However, it seems that if an MP takes office for profit under the crown then he can no longer be an MP and so the seat becomes vacant.

So today Gordon Brown, The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.

I wonder if he enjoyed signing that piece of paper?

If we double the spending on schools will our children learn more?

It appears to be the governments plan to raise spending on education to the same level as the independent sector.

I scratch my head when people talk like this. For a start, which part of the independent sector? Eaton? The average? Who knows what the target actually means.

The next problem is this, is this not the most facile target you have ever seen?

If I go out to buy a weeks shopping and spend £100, would my children be better fed if I spend £200?

The answer is, it depends. You can buy a given product at all sorts of prices. If I buy a box of corn flakes for £2 are they better than the one I brought for £1 last week.

This issue is really important because throwing money at a problem, and then being proud of it, is not the answer. Holland and Sweeden (along with most of the rest of the developed world) spend less than us on secondary education, but neither country has sink schools. Why? Because schools are easy to set up, and sink schools don't get parents sending their children there so improve or close.

Now will Tony Blair be questioned under caution?

Regular readers will remember that the word on the street was that Yates of the Yard did want Tony Blair questioned under caution, but decided mot to after they were sent strong signals that it would not be a good idea to do so to a sitting Prime Minister.

Well, he isn't anymore, and he is about to disappear to Jerusalem so I hope they question both him and Lord Levy before they are off!

Also Guido seems to think that Ms Courtney Coventry has been questioned again about what she or her husband may have been offered in the way of inducements to donate. (Please note she is not a suspect). I wrote this at the time the story broke as it was very funny!

Lord Davies of Grantham?

I heard Ed Balls on BBC Radio 4's Today program referring to Quentin Davies as Lord Davies of Grantham. This, after Quentin Davies has said he does not want a place in the House of Lords.

Was Ed mischief making or has Quentin got all the moral courage of Harriet Harman?

Will Lord Cohen be the new Lord Levy?

There is an interesting report in this mornings Financial Times about fund raising for the Labour party.

Apparently since Gordon has got the job (well, at least since he was nominated unopposed) money has been rolling in. Apparently big business figures have contributed more than £500,000.

Ronnie Cohen (not yet a Lord, but I emphasise the yet) has been sort of at the center of this, but people close to the situation (is this like sources "close" to Lord Levy? Like remarkably close?) have insisted that what Lord Levy has done will not be repeated and what is happening is merely networking of like minded people.

Hmm...

I suspect Guido will have a field day.

One of the main reasons why political commentators don't think there will be a snap election is money. Labour just do not have any. Well, this could remove that.

It has to be noted though that £500,000 is a drop in the ocean and does not even begin to cover Labour's running costs let alone paying off its debts, but it is interesting to note how Gordon Brown's dark money men are replacing Tony's.

Quentin Davies Defection just does not make sense

Thinking it through, the reasons for his defection are idiotic.

He wants to belong to a party that is affiliated to the EPP (so he joins one that’s affiliated to the European Socialists);

He doesn’t like Cameron’s line on grammar schools (so joins a party that wants to abolish them);

He didn’t like Greg Clark’s praise for Polly Toynbee (so joins a party that admires Polly Toynbee);

He is strongly in favour of the Iraq War (so joins a party whose Deputy Leader said they should apologise over Iraq - though she denies it now);

He doesn’t like Cameron’s policies on pensions or the family (so joins a party whose policies on pensions and the family are far removed from his own);

plus he favours fox-hunting (which Labour voted to ban) and is opposed to homosexual equality (so joins a party that favours it).

It’s a bit like falling out with someone, chopping off your right arm, waving it at them and yelling “there, you bastard, that’ll show you.”

By Sean Fear, originally here, reproduced with his kind permission.