Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View

Look Back on the Blog Year

Over a thousand articles were posted on the blog in 2007, here are just a few that provoked and amused:

Music to Wind-Up Guardian Readers
Brillo Berates Blinky Balls
What Miliband Bought His Godson for Xmas
The Dougie Alexander Caption Contest
Obscenely Hypocritical Guardian
Where's Gordon?™ (picture is a classic)
Gordon's Handwriting is Revealing
Floreat Etona
Where's Gordon?™ - the Map
Tom Watson Breaks His Promise, As Predicted
"Oh F**k, It Is Harman"
Obama Girl
That "Feral" Blair Speech
Brown Bonks Bonce
E-Oh, Stand-Up, Speak Up
Shapps Caught Personally Astro-Turfing
Bogeyman Brown Nose Picking Video Re-Mix
Blog Today, Print Tomorrow (Again)
Contrarian? Crazy? Betting on the Tories at the Low
Competition Limericks for Gordon's Conference Speech
Ali Campbell Complains About the Blogosphere
Nothing To See Here...Police Don'tWannaReferendum
Miliband : Ten More Years
Cherie on Gordon
Brown's Vanity Publishing
Peter Watt Faces 12 Months on Conviction
GQ's Powerful, Political, Unelected
Totty Watch : Hilary Not Humping Huma
Brown : "I Don't Look at Polls"
Boris Bombs the Bass
OLR Win 90% of Government Contracts
359 Lords-a-Fiddlin'
Sunny's Bitch Slappin'
British Jobs for British Workers
Total Politics, Totally Disconnected
Tories Call for an Inquiry into Balls' Bung
Hain Fundraiser : "Small Problem With Donations"
Ashcroft Should Come Clean
Law Lords Rule Labour Party Guilty of Racial Discrimination
Daily Food Allowances : School Children, Armed Forces, Prisoners, MPs
Gordon's Black Wednesday £11,169,591,442 on September 19, 2007
We Told You So...

Brown : "Cowards Afraid of Democracy"

So says the leader of the Labour Party (without a vote cast) and election-bottler-in-chief, of the murderers of Benazir Bhutto. Now may not be the time for petty political point scoring, what the heck, Christmas is over...

Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View

Wishing You Peace and Prosperity

Blogging Brogan Applauds Disgraced Blunkett

Benedict Brogan on his blog quotes approvingly the disgraced Blunkett giving a speech to the assembled hordes of the Dead-Tree-Press at the What the Papers Say awards shindig. "Bloggers sometimes but rarely know what they are talking about, sometimes but rarely talk sense." "Hear hear" says Brogan of the always sensible Daily Mail.

To get this into the proper perspective one should know that David Blunkett told the head of the Prison Service to call in the Army and "machine-gun" rioting inmates to regain control of a jail in 2002. Martin Narey, then director general, said the then Home Secretary told him he did not care about possible deaths during bids to retake Lincoln prison. This was at a time when the Daily Mail was lauding him as a great Home Secretary, but before he was exposed (by the Daily Mail) for fathering a son with another man's wife, fiddling his expenses and fast-tracking for his mistress her nanny's visa. All covered in detail on this blog...

St Tony Comes into the Light

Guido is trying to take a break from blogging and ignore the newsflow. Hard when the two main news items in Ireland today are Taoiseach Bertie Ahern being cross examined over corruption allegations and Tony formally converting to Catholicism. Blair always was upwardly mobile.

UPDATE : Fraser Nelson had a good piece anticipating Blair's formal conversion last month. Guido's struggle for the re-Catholicisation of England seems to be progressing well with the news that Catholic church-goers out number C of E church-goers.

Hain's Suspiciously Slow Declaration

On the morning of December 3 earlier this month Guido called up one of Hain's (until that day) undeclared financial backers to make enquiries. By that afternoon Hain had made a dash across to the Electoral Commission, allegedly entirely unrelated, to clear up a few omissions.

Sky's Joey Jones wonders why Hain's team is taking so long to get the information out into the open. Joey asks

So why the delay? - Is there a bigger can of worms than we had thought?

Hain's team say they want to get their submission absolutely right. I know it may sound a bit cynical for this time of year, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the information got sneaked out once everyone's headed off for the holidays...

Guido has his own suspicions. Don't worry Peter, Guido will break away from his holidays to make sure it doesn't go unreported. Don't forget anything this time Peter, it would not look good if Guido had to point out an omission again...

Clegg Hires Brian Eno as "Youth Issues Adviser"

Brian Eno is a 60 year old ex-rock musician.

UPDATE : Clegg doesn't believe in God. No word from God as yet on the future prospects for the LibDems, but you don't expect miracles.

Boris Bus Beats Ken's Killer Bendy Bus

Boris is backing the futuristic clean, low emission, hydrogen-powered wheelchair and pushchair friendly double decker bus. So us cyclists will have two good reasons to support it, less chance of being crushed to death by a bendy bus or having to choke on diesel fumes. Autocar commissioned this design. Of course we were told by Ken that "only a dehumanised moron" would get rid of the Routemaster. Ken got rid of the Routemaster in 2004.

Londoners want, and tourists especially expect, to see the famous red bus silhouette against the backdrop of the Capital of the World. Bizarrely Ken's supporters now no longer able to object on disability legislation grounds now object on cost grounds. When have they ever worried about cost before? Boris is on to a populist vote winner here...

Failure to Follow-Up

Guido has been busy Christmas shopping, spending his Clegg bets winnings, which were not as much as they should be because Guido reduced his exposure as the campaign progressed, or rather as Clegg's campaign failed to progress.

Meantime in the red corner of Guido's blog comments a number of posters are complaining that Guido has failed to follow up the scandal of Cameron's Dodgy Donors. Yet more evidence that Guido is, yawn, a Tory toady.

There is a back story here. When the Abrahams scandal blew up Guido got an anonymous call from a posh voice who seemed to be intimately familiar with Tory fundraising processes. It was inconceivable, the source claimed, that if Labour were following procedures they would be unaware of Abrahams. The Tories themselves checked donations against monthly updated electoral rolls. They returned donations regularly which checks discovered failed to meet the criteria, all donations above £200 were checked, above £5,000 they were scrutinised and at £50,000 they got to know everything about them. Labour were simply not doing this checking and Guido should get on to the Electoral Commission to discover how many donations Labour returned in comparison to the Conservatives. Not enough it now seems.

The Tories are being disingenuous saying they voluntarily forfeited the £5,900 and £1,500 donations. They had no choice, the 30 day grace period to discover mistakes was up. Unless by "voluntarily" they mean "we didn't want to continue breaking the law" they only did what they had to do.

It is extra embarrassing that it is Cameron's own constituency association. Is it on a par with Peter Watt, the Labour Party's national general secretary, being party to a proxy donor scheme to cover-up the party's third biggest donor? Well, you judge for yourselves...

Courageous Gordon to Use Alistair as Human Shield

The PM's monthly news conference will be a laugh* in ten minutes. Notice it is called the PM's monthly news conference, yet this month he is bringing Alistair Darling along to take the blame for the inevitable questions about Northern Crock. He couldn't do his usual Macavity trick and disappear so he is going to try to hide behind his Darling Chancellor instead.

*Maybe not.

+++ MING IS ALIVE +++

Seen at the LibDem leadership announcement. Not looking too spritely or cheerful...

UPDATE : Clegg won (no surprise) and gave a speech worthy of, errm, Al Gore. There were only 500 votes in it out of some 40,000 cast.

CCHQ Designated Party Poopers Tonight

CCHQ are having their Christmas party tonight. Somebody is worried that the boys and girls will get out of hand. Surely not, this isn't the Bullingdon Club after all...

Dear All,

HR have just had a word with me regarding the CCHQ duty of care and tonight's party.

In essence this means each Department nominating someone to 'be sensible' and ensure that each of their people aren't found (a) drunk (b) abusing other members of staff and (c) that each person in their team gets off the premises safely.

Therefore please can I leave it to you all to nominate someone sensible within your teams to make sure that tonight goes smoothly?

Many thanks

Jennie Gorbutt │ Party Chairman's Office │CCHQ

The Human Resources party-pooper is Giles Inglis-Jones, who once tried to impose a gagging contract on all CCHQ staff. He is not popular at CCHQ nor, as you can see above, was the gagging contract successful.

Do feel free to email pictures of "sensible" drunken fun to Guido, photocopied bum prints are a must...

UPDATE : The Tory Christmas card is here. The more ideological one from those Eurosceptic jokers is here.

Who is Leaking Now?

At the last stormy meeting of Tony Wright's Public Administration Select Committee, Yates of the Yard was blamed for leaking during the inquiry into Loans for Lordships. He pointed the finger at the politicians on the committee. They in turn accused the police.

So who told the Sunday papers about Levy trying to block publication (later today) of Gulam Noon's letter to the committee? Yates hasn't even seen the letter.

Here are a selection of the stories from the Sunday papers:

Levy tries to block Labour donor letter Guardian
Lord Levy tried to stop MPs publishing Labour donor's 'frank letter'. Independent
Lord Levy 'stymied cash-for-honours report' Telegraph
MPs demand urgent peer selection reform Times
The Press Association
all 82 news articles »

Who do you now believe was really responsible for the leaks and speculation, the police or the politicians?

Can the Irish Again Save Europe?

With the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, it fell to us Irish, to our glory, to save Western Civilisation. It was Irish monks who copied and preserved almost all of Western classical poetry, history, oratory, philosophy and commentary. It was in the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells that, safely distant in the West and away from the barbarian despoliation of the European continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly even, preserved the West's written treasury.

As Thomas Cahill records in How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe "when stability returned in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning, becoming not only the conservators of civilization, but also the shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on Western culture." Ireland became "Europe's publisher" as warrior-monks followed Columcille's example and began to colonise barbarised Europe.

Whereas once before in distant European history the Irish preserved documents to save Europe from barbarians, Ireland could now vote down a document and save Europe from the bureaucrats. Ireland, alone of all the nations of Europe, will hold a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty...

Andrew Gilligan in this evening's London Standard has another story about the whirlpool of corruption and graft surrounding Lee Jasper, Mayor Ken Livingstone's aide.

Cash has been dished out in wheelbarrows to Jasper's pals. Now a whistle-blower of impeccable credentials has come out to describe a catalogue of demands for hush money, political interference and financial irregularity.

The Tories are now calling for the District Auditor to come in and go over the books. In any organisation where one individual faced so many allegations he would be suspended pending an investigation. What does Ken do? He calls everyone racist and gets his echo-chamber of ratepayer funded self-serving community groups to join in the chant. It won't work this time.

Brenda Stern, who was the programme manager for the LDA's Diversity Works initiative, is a former director for the Commission for Racial Equality, who was brought into the LDA in March 2006 to rescue Diversity Works. She comes from a background in anti-apartheid activism. Her credibility is not in question. Lee Jasper should be very worried.

So why is Ken still so vehemently defending his aide? Could it be that Lee Jasper knows where the bodies are buried?

We Told You So...

John Hutton didn't mince his words when he gave Nick Robinson his prediction. He was right.

He made this forecast (video here) to a Question Time audience. He got it wrong, it took five months.

They are going to miss three times election winning Blair when he is gone. Wait and see...
26 June 2007

Labour have acted like lemmings, dispensing with their most successful leader of all time for a less popular, less likeable replacement. The more the voters see of Gordon, the worse it will get.
May 13, 2007

You have to wonder if the Labour party is having a collective moment of Lemming-like lunacy... The Brown bounce will be a dead-Lemming bounce.
April 27, 2007

Remind Guido why they are getting rid of three-times-winner Blair early?
April 25, 2007

The Tories are on polling levels last seen at the height of Thatcher's popularity during the national euphoria following the Falklands victory. Gordon Brown has been a f***ing disaster for the Labour party...

Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View

The Fat Lady is About to Sing

All those who pledged to support a private prosecuton of Lord Levy should now have received an update by email and text message.

As was always intended, we will make a final decision as to whether to seek a prosecution following the conclusion of the all-party Public Administration Select Committee's deliberations. They will be publishing their report into "Honours and Propriety" on Wednesday.

Well over two hundred people have pledged financial support for a prosecution. As we have seen with this second Donorgate wave of Labour fundraising sleaze, there will be no end to corrupt political fundraising until those concerned realise that they risk jail. This can't be allowed to go on unpunished. Harman, Hain and others claim ignorance of the law and forgetful mistakes. The opportunity to unforgettably impress on politicians the disgust of voters with the system is approaching...

Swerving the Union

Ring, ring...

Guido Fawkes Hello
Oxford Uni Errm, would you, err, be interested in speaking in an Oxford Union debate?

Guido turned them down. He is just not that right-wing.

Friday Caption Contest

Need Party Details? Call Kevin on 0788 151 8690

Gordon's Black Wednesday£11,169,591,442 on September 19, 2007

As these official Bank of England statements reveal, the bank's liabilities went up £11,169,591,442 on Wednesday September 19, 2007. This was Gordon's Black Wednesday.

How much will the taxpayer lose in Northern Rock? With recession coming and for the first time since the 1991 negative-equity disaster, three consecutive months of recorded falls in property prices, it is not looking good. The total level of public support is "confidential", but we can assume it is now £30 billion.

click to enlarge

Northern rock has de facto already been nationalised, it now looks increasingly like that this will soon be formalised. Is it any wonder why the "economic competence" poll ratings for the Labour party have collapsed to levels not seen since before the 1992 ERM debacle. The nationalisation of Northern Rock was not in the national interest, it was in the narrow interest of Labour to protect their North East heartland votes. It is not a great bargain...

Vince Twinkle Toes

Vince Cable really has had the time of his life for the last few months. He looked very happy dancing with a very hot Alicia last night, well wouldn't you be happy? See him perform on GuyNews.TV.

Bye Bye Westmonster, Hello Whirlwind

We say farewell to Sadie at Westmonster. Her star shone bright briefly before Guido saw her off. Whatever happened to the Honourable Fiend?

We now say hello to another girly political gossip from the Westminster Whirlwind (a.k.a. Katy Taylor-Richards). Her new blog for the Express this week takes a look at some of Dessie Swayne's moves.

They do say write about what you know...

Daily Food Allowances :School Children, Armed Forces, Prisoners, MPs

Dizzy had a piece that struck Guido as demonstrating where our politician's real priorities lie. Guido has turned it into an easy to understand graphic. Take a look at the average spending allowances per day on food as voted for by politicians. According to the government, Army and RAF personnel (on base) get £1.63 per day spent on them, and the Navy (when in port), gets £1.78 per day. Schoolchildren in state schools now get on average some 50p up from 37p since Jamie Oliver. (Admittedly for only one lunch meal, but it is still nevertheless revealing.)

Now compare that with the average spend per day on food for prisoners. £1.87. Those in a Young Offenders' Institute get a budget of £3.81 per day, over double the armed forces. How much do politicians get? £20 per day, no receipts required. 12 times as much as a soldier. Can it be any clearer where their real priorities lie?

They are literally gorging themselves in the trough at the taxpayers expense whilst heroes go short.

UPDATE : Metropolitan Police Dogs have more spent on their daily food than squaddies do.

Yvette's First Class Package

A Labour party press release arrives in Guido's inbox from Mrs Balls, headlined "Next Steps for Social Housing"

"Labour’s Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper, has announced a package of measures and extra investment to make social housing fairer and more effective. The plans will re-focus social housing around the needs of the tenants and will make it easier for young families to move to larger homes when they need to."

Fairer and more effective packages?

Mr and Mrs Balls are paid by the taxpayers quarter-of-a-million a year between them, yet so hard done by are they that they still claim a package worth tens of thousands extra in mortgage subsidy on top. They own two homes and with the CGT reforms dreamt up on the back of an envelope after George Osborne promised to slash IHT, they will be voting themselves a handy reduction from 40% to 18% on property capital gains. So the constituency and London home owners who already benefit from a tax-free allowance worth £40,000 annually to pay their mortgages, will vote themselves a nice little bonus tax cut. They will then be able to sell their taxpayer funded second home and only pay the reduced capital gains - a 55% tax cut for MPs.

Somehow Guido doubts that kind of package will be offered to ordinary young families who don't vote themselves the nomenklatura benefits available to the political class. Fairer and more effective packages? They are having a laugh...

On the Hercules to Basra

Sky's Glen O'Glaza doesn't seem to have enjoyed himself on the 44 hour Basra-Kabul round trip. He questions the wisdom of Gordon's media handlers in organising a schedule which made it difficult for broadcasters to file a story. Not much point in a photo-op without being able to send back photos...

Beau Bo D'Or's take on the trip for Channel 4 made Guido smile. Press play.

UPDATE : According to information in the comments Gordon didn't fly out on Hercules and risk using the transport he deems appropriate for the squaddies. Courage?

Reach Out, Make This Christmas Special for a Politician

It is around time that we look back and think what have we achieved this year? One person sent Guido an email listing Peter Hain's supporters and campaign strategy. They very effectively sabotaged his career ambitions. Something that made them and us very happy.

If you want to achieve something this year, there is still another two weeks to go. Help Guido bash and expose politicians, lying lobbyists, sleazy spin-merchants, sell-out wonk-whores and their tame media mouthpieces. This requires information. You make this blog happen. Sources are anonymous (unless you want credit*). Who is to blame really? If it is your boss, you know. If you know "the line" is a lie, ask yourself why you got into politics; was it to cover up the truth or tell it?

Skype gossip and tittle-tattle online to Guido.
(If you haven't got Skype, download it free here.)

Guido's blog relies on you for information.

Voicemail : 0709 284 0531
Fax : 0709 201 2337
Email : Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com

*You may get a "Conspiracy Member" T-shirt.

Parliamentary Panto

Panto season is upon us:

Mr. Redwood: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what value of assets the Bank of England has accepted as collateral for loans to Northern Rock; (2) what proportion of the Bank of England's total assets are represented by claims on Northern Rock and its assets.

Kitty Ussher: The sum borrowed by the company is confidential.

Oh no it isn't! Despite much inconsequential huffing and puffing from Schillings you can still read in detail about Northern Crock's supposedly confidential finances here.

The Coming Economic Downturn

Just flicking through this morning's Pink 'Un must be grim reading for Darling and Brown:

UK home affordability hits 15-year low

Decline in UK confidence hits hiring

UK producer price inflation hits 16-year high

The authoritative investment bank Morgan Stanley is now predicting a U.S. recession next year. Given that the British economy is debt-bloated and during the feast years Gordon just splurged on more spending rather than putting something aside for a famine, the U.K. economy is heading for a very hard-landing next year. The Tories will be very glad that Gordon didn't call that election. Happy Christmas...

Labour Party Christmas Advent Calendar

Courtesy of LibDemVoice.

Which World Leader Has Open Blog Comments?

President Ahmadinejad has not got a reputation as the most liberal world leader, in fact Iran tries to censor the internet by blocking access to foreign websites.

But his own very public blog allows comments from unregistered users, which means that like on this blog you get the mob making comments. He has comment moderation but it is (as here) pretty liberal. John Jacobs from the USA tells Mahmoud "I hate you. You are retarted. That simple, mentally retarted". More intelligently another American posts a comment "I think you are an evil leader. Freedom and tolerance are necessities in this day and age, and the fact that your country kills intellectuals, journalists, minorities, etc. is horrible and deeply disturbing. People say America is so horrible, but you can live in whatever fashion you want to, and if the government does something you dont like then we can protest. Our government is great because it is of the people, for the people and by the people. Change your ways."

In contrast as an experiment (after discovering that they were using payroll astro-turfers) Guido has been joining Downing Street Ministerial webchats on and off for months and posting polite pointed but critical questions to the likes of Ed Balls and other ministers. Not once has a single question got through, yet Guido can post critical comments on the Iranian president's blog freely.

Paddick Confesses Guilt

Guido is looking forward to the London Mayoral elections hotting up, especially as the LibDems have chosen a strong personality to contest against Boris and Ken. Brian Paddick, the former top copper, is running on their ticket. Sort of.

He apparently has his own views on issues and doesn't plan to pay much heed to the party machine. Guido asked him bluntly

Is it true that you have made it clear to Cowley Street that you will be doing your campaign your way and that since leaving the police you have adopted a new mantra: "I take advice, I do not take orders."

Paddick replied straightforwardly "Guilty as charged!"

There Will Be Mulled Wine and Hangovers...

You should have received your invite by now. No word yet as to Stanislav's attendance.

Beg for an invite from Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com.

Totty Watch : Xmas Tory Totty