Guy Fawkes' blog of parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy

Friday Caption Contest (Tamsin's Crewe Edition)

2008-05-09T12:25:00.006+01:00

This caption contest uses an old photo from Tamsin's days as a Welsh AM. Alas Gordon has yet to be seen in Crewe and Nantwich putting his curse on her campaign to inherit her mother's seat.

Could this photo have the same Jonah effect as the one Gordon had with Ken? Here's hoping...

The Blog You Love, They Hate

2008-05-09T11:39:00.010+01:00

Julia Hobsbawm's Editorial Intelligence held a soiree at the RSA on Wednesday about the Influence of the Commentariat. They had surveyed a hundred or so of the pundit class and invited them to the event to discuss their findings. The great and the good of the chatterati voted Polly Toynbee the most influential columnist and (outside Big Media) Guido the most influential blogger in Britain. Some of the great and the good didn't like that one little bit.

What insight did these editorial titans take from that? Simon Jenkins, Suzanne Moore, Charles Clarke and Polly obsessed about the uncouth comments from the co-conspirators and CiFers. They are the people. The people you don't meet at Hampstead dinner parties or in the village deli of your Italian villa. The people who are sick and tired of the metropolitan elite can now tell you so at the bottom of your own article. Polly clearly hates the indignity of being told she is wrong by the CiF mob where her colleagues can see it and laugh along. They really don't like it up 'em do they?

Polly basically said Guido can't be good because he doesn't like politicians. Simon Jenkins reckoned Guido, Dale and ConservativeHome were too SW1-focused. Charles Clarke said we were self obssessed (nobody laughed). Suzanne Moore said Guido is a wanker in his bedroom. Daniel Finkelstein was the only one of the Commentariat to defend bloggers.

Lets deal with these in order:

Guido is cynical about politicians and their motives - as are most people outside the Commentariat - so what? Is that the wrong approach? Not in Guido's judgement, forinstance apart from Matthew Parris, who of the Commentariat said Gordon Brown would be a total disaster and found out as such rapidly? From right to left he was applauded and lauded by the entire herd of metropolitan chatterers.
Guido does despise most politicians, unlike Polly, who showed her good judgement in boosting Gordon Brown so fervently. Now by her own admission, though even recently so full of admiration, she realises he is not up to the job.
Guido, Dale and Tim Montgomerie are political bloggers, so it would be odd if we did not in fact write about Westminster where they do, errrm, politics.
Charles Clarke's comment is very odd because he is so full of amour propre as to be risible.
The humourless feminazi Suzanne Moore has said it before and she is still wrong. Guido has an office...

If you can bring yourself to listen to them whine at length, the podcast is here. Of the voices heard only Hobsbawm, Finkelstein and a chap from Microsoft "got it", he said he thought it sounded like he had entered a room full of whigs complaining about pamphleteers. Exactly.

Where Are Clegg's Expenses?

2008-05-09T09:50:00.003+01:00

It is 43 days since Nick Clegg told us with regard to MP's expenses

"...there is no earthly reason why the rest of the information should not be published immediately. Any delay will only add to the British public’s distrust in their politicians.”

It is a month since they were due to be delivered according to the time-table given to Guido by his spin-mistress Hannah Gardiner. Where are the expenses?

Hannah gave an entirely different (and somewhat irrelevant) explanation to Sky's Cheryl Smith. If there is one thing Guido learnt from Hain's expenses scandal, is that delay is a sign of something to hide. Guido has called Clegg's office repeatedly asking when his expenses will be published. As Clegg told us himself, delay will only add to distrust...

Portillo is a Broadcaster Not a Tory

2008-05-09T06:56:00.006+01:00

Iain Dale gave Portillo a great tongue lashing on election night which has sparked off a wave of Polly-bashing. Guido has a confession to make, he was if not a Portillista certainly a sympathiser. In fact a couple of decades ago Guido worked for David Hart,* the breaker of the NUM and Scargill's nemesis. Less well known is that Hart had been grooming and encouraging Portillo for years in readiness for greater things. Hart was also the man who installed the phone lines prematurely in preparation for an abortive Portillo leadership challenge. It backfired when it leaked out and undermined Portillo badly. In retrospect perhaps this was fortunate.

Portilllo's living is nowadays derived from him being respected as someone who understands the Conservative Party and he is drafted in to provide balance and a non-left-wing perspective on the BBC. Oddly he seems completely unsympathetic to Cameron, in fact peevishly hostile. Reports that he voted against the Conservatives last week are incredible if true. Might it not be appropriate therefore for the BBC to find another balancing figure who is a broadcaster and a Tory? Like, errm, Iain Dale?

*Something I have been meaning to blog for sometime - David Hart is seriously ill. He has done his country great service. His role in defeating NUM thugs and ending Scargill's Marxist dreams make him deserving of the highest honours. He also personally financed and supported a network behind the Iron Curtain which was crucial in assisting dissidents and later in pressurising Gorbachev on perestroika in the Western media. These are just two examples of his good works. For some unexplained reason he was not ennobled by Margaret Thatcher, perhaps an oversight, perhaps he fell out of her favour. By convention the leader of the Conservative Party is able to put forward some names for honours every year for services to the party. David Hart may not have made any donations to the party lately, but he did help Thatcher with her speeches and battles back in the day. His work deserves recognition.

+++ YouGov Whisper Number : 26% Tory Lead +++

2008-05-08T20:21:00.003+01:00

Did Guido mention before that 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

UPDATE : It occurs to Guido that Michael Portillo may now have to revise his opinion. So Brillo, tonight on the This Week show, ask Polly if he still thinks, as he did only two months ago, that "Brown will win the election".

Taxation is an Intrusion

2008-05-08T16:33:00.004+01:00

The Speaker's barrister yesterday told a High Court judge that forcing MPs to publish their expenses is a "substantial intrusion" into their private lives. Disclosing a detailed breakdown of their claims for running a second home, including addresses, might attract "the mad and the bad... They might simply not want the world to know the details of how they were furnishing their home in some particular respect", Nigel Griffin QC claimed.

The Devil puts it well on his blog:

Well, might I humbly suggest that—if this is the case—that MPs do not use taxpayers' f***ing cash to buy their furnishings?

By all means remove the address if they are afraid of the people they supposedly represent - the important principle is that we should know what they are spending our money on. It is obvious that they really don't like us watching them pigging out at the trough. They are clearly ashamed of their greed becoming publicly visible.

Dan Watson Fails to Board the Family Gravy Train

2008-05-08T15:19:00.004+01:00

Sadly the trouncing Labour got in the local elections meant that Dan Watson, of Tom Watson's West Midlands political clan, failed to get on the taxpayer's gravy train.

Still the Watsons will just have to manage on the £300,000 or so they claim between them from the taxpayers..

UPDATE : A co-conspirator emails to tell Guido that Amy Watson’s candidacy saw a 25% fall in the Labour vote in Birmingham Kings Norton. Another £15,000 in expenses denied to the Watson family fortune.

Miliband is the New Heseltine

2008-05-08T12:17:00.002+01:00

Last night Miliband was on Newsnight, unlike Gordon he does have the courage to face Paxo, and was arguing that "Green is the new red". All very worthy and dull eco-technocratic-tosh. More interesting were his protestations about not wanting Gordon's job. That is something that Alan Johnson emphasises as well. Clearly if you want to survive and not be mauled by the Brownies briefing behind your back, you have to say repeatedly "Gordon is the best man for the job". Despite the fact that, as Martin Bright writes in this week's New Statesman, the Labour Party is no longer in denial post the May Day Massacre.

Miliband's word formula is that he is getting on with being foreign secretary, it is becoming almost as familiar as Heseltine's old word formula: Heseltine used to say that there were "no circumstances imaginable currently in which he would..."

Last night it was nuanced very deliberately in Guido's opinion:

Paxo : How much longer can you resist these calls for you to take on the burden of leadership?

Milibland : For as long as it takes until Gordon Brown calls the next general election. Gordon was the right leader last year and he is the right leader this year, and to take us into the general election

Clearly Gordon is the captain and he can go down with the sinking ship, then it is everyone for himself...

Miliband's word formulations have to allow for the non-cerebal Brownies' psychotic tendencies. Hence he pledges completely over the top total fidelity and loyalty - with a time limit - until the day after the general election. The truth is Gordon has the job until election day because no one else now wants it. That is also why Alan Johnson doesn't want the job of spinning on broadcast media, the job Hazel Blears undertook in the past for Blair. He clearly does not want to be associated in the public eye with the Brown disaster.Guido still stands by his 2005 prophecy: Cameron will be PM and Miliband will immediately challenge for the leadership...

Labour's Credit Crunch

2008-05-08T08:06:00.004+01:00

The FT this morning reports that the Labour Party can't pay back loans made to the party under the Blair / Levy Loans for Lordships scheme. The party

is in emergency talks to renegotiate more than £10m of loans from wealthy businessmen to prevent itself running out of money.
Most of the millionaires who secretly lent money to Labour in the run-up to the 2005 election ought to be repaid in the coming months but the party – which is £20m in the red – is in no position to do this.

The rolling re-scheduling has been going on for three years, unless a billionaire steps in the party will never be in a position to re-pay the £20m or so it owes. Lakshmi Mittal has given over £5 million, Sainsbury has given some £15 million (more than Ashcroft has given the Tories). You have to ask why, if they can't manage their own party finances, should they be trusted with the national finances? Labour is a sub-prime credit risk, led by a sub-priminister...

The First Days of Mayor Boris

2008-05-08T00:01:00.005+01:00

It got off to a good start with the police making good on his tough crime stance promise - shooting a drunk gun toting lawyer. However this banning of drink on public transport* has Guido worried (for one reason and another). Will hip-flasks be confiscated?

Will we be able to travel intoxicated, will one be able travel with bottles of booze? What are the mechanics of this? Guido may have to resort to Cameroon style transport arrangements in London - cycling one-handed while swigging from a jug of Pimms. Oh, hold on...

The thing is Boris, if you go to Beijing to hob-nob with Tibet's oppressors (and don't send the right signals) as well as getting all authoritarian in your first week with the G&T swilling classes on the long march to Zone 6, we will remember your treachery come 2012. This may be the most rapid disillusionment with a politician ever...

*Pretty sure that Guido was served alcohol on public river transport between Westminster and Canary Wharf one evening. It was pretty civilised for public transport. Is that to be banned?

Taxodus : Aberdeen Asset Management Packs Bags

2008-05-07T17:20:00.004+01:00

Aberdeen Asset Management manages £114 billion and is rumoured to be following Brit Insurance to Dublin. The Times adds Smith & Nephew as well as Cadbury heading for the tax exit doors. Will the last multi-national to leave switch off the light...

+++ Greens Select Candidate for Crewe & Nantwich +++

2008-05-07T16:31:00.003+01:00

23 year-old Robert Smith will be announced as the Green Party candidate shortly. He was selected after the person scheduled to be the candidate decided they did not fancy fighting a by-election in the full glare of publicity. The Greens didn't fight the seat at the general election so this skews the psephological balance a little. Don't expect a big upset...

Why Fake a Toff When You Have a Real One Available?

2008-05-07T13:50:00.005+01:00

The Labour Party's efforts in Crewe and Nantwich to paint the local candidate as a "Tory Toff" required them to dress up a couple of Young Socialists in top hats and parade them around as fake toffs in an Andy Coulson style gimmick. Seems all of a bit of a waste of time when not far away they have a real Toff of their own they could have used.

Step forward Mark Fisher, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, the Eton and Oxbridge educated son of a Tory MP is a gent to his finger-tips.

He would never have committed the faux-pas of wearing a grey topper either...

Joined Up Government or Daily Dithering?

2008-05-07T12:42:00.004+01:00

The Treasury's Kitty Ussher has just given an interview to Bloomberg TV saying Britain's financial sector needs more new migrants the very day after the Home Office put up a new set of hurdles to slow the number of people coming into the country. "It's absolutely crucial that we bring skilled people in,'' Ussher told Bloomie today, "When we have difficult economic times, we need to search all over the world to find the people we need.''

A month ago the government introduced a points-based migration system to cut migrant numbers. In March, the Home Office ran advertisements announcing "the biggest shake-up of the immigration system in 45 years.'' They showed a picture of a series of hurdles, each labeled "New Immigration Controls.'' Yesterday Liam Byrne announced new regulations to make it even more difficult for companies to employ skilled migrants. Consistency? Consistently incompetent...

Hat-tip : Bloomberg

PMQs Daily Politics Live Chat

2008-05-07T11:30:00.000+01:00

PMQs : Don't Shout Abuse at the Telly

2008-05-07T10:21:00.004+01:00

After the alcohol driven success of the local election night live-chat Guido will be hosting on the blog another live chat session from 11.30 until 12.30 covering PMQs. We will be watching the Daily Politics as our point of reference.

On election night it was fun and profoundly profane. No doubt this time it will be full of respect for our political masters, completely free from bad language and vitriol. Or maybe not...

The system allows Guido to let 10 chatterers go freely unmoderated, the rest have to have their comments click-approved. So if you want to be unmoderated, be wittier and more amusing...

Contractual Lies

2008-05-07T09:26:00.003+01:00

Sue Cameron of the FT took the trouble to call Hermes to dig into Labour's spin that David Pitt-Watson is walking away from the General Secretary job because of "contractual difficulties" with his old job. "No contractual difficulties with us," Hermes told her.

Well, says Labour, he has had difficulties extricating himself from his old job. "No," says Hermes. "He left last week."

We seem to accept blatant lies from politicians nowadays as just par for the course. Particularly if they come from anonymous spokesman. Guido always tries to name the spokesperson so that we know who is doing the lying. They don't like that...

Should Labour Make Family Privilegean Issue in Crewe & Nantwich?

2008-05-07T08:25:00.006+01:00

Two Young Socialists had a good wheeze dressing up as top hat and tails toting toffs to meet David Cameron and Edward Timpson off the train as they arrived to campaign in Crewe and Nantwich. Class war might seem like a good idea against two public schoolboys from privileged monied families.

Except Guido has the nagging feeling that it might it be a little unwise given that Labour have themselves chosen to use the hereditary principle in selecting Tamsin to fight the seat.

Tamsin Dunwoody is of course the privileged daughter of the Labour MP who held the seat until her death last month...

UPDATE : Guido's co-conspirators comment that Tamsin's grandfather, Morgan Phillips, was the General Secretary of the Labour Party, and her grandmother served as a minister in the House of Lords before being made the Lord Lieutenant of London. Tamsin is hardly working class...

Still No Sign of Clegg's Expenses

2008-05-06T17:42:00.001+01:00

Do you remember back in March when Nick Clegg righteously boomed that the delaying of publication of MPs' expenses is a "hammer blow" to public confidence in the Commons?

Do you remember Guido called his office and asked when he would be publishing his expenses. They said in two weeks. The two weeks passed and no publication was made. Things got very testy, they denied telling me what they had told me. So Guido pressed them. They would be publishing them "in a few weeks" said Hannah his spin-mistress. So that meant "that month [April] not next month?", pressed Guido There was some "humphing" from Hannah.

The month has passed.

Farewell Arabella...

2008-05-06T13:00:00.003+01:00

Arabella Weir, Guardianista, actress and writer last week on what she would do if Boris was elected:

"I will go on hunger strike and throw myself in front of the next horse at Ascot if he wins."

... and good luck with the diet.

2008-05-06T09:47:00.005+01:00

The former adviser to the former Mayor of London, Lee Jasper, who did so much to help Boris on to the path to power, is speaking tomorrow on the subject of “Money, Power and the Route to Success” (tickets only £10).

According to the Mayor Ken subsidised (until now) BLINK website, the downwardly mobile Jasper will be speaking to "upwardly mobile people like yourself who want to socialize with like-minded others in luxury surroundings that reflect where we are, at this stage of our careers and businesses." In Jasper's case that would be unemployed and under police investigation.

Steve Richards: Fails Numeracy Test

2008-05-06T08:25:00.004+01:00

The man who told us last week that if we were only as clever as him we would vote for Ken Livingstone, demonstrates his genius again this morning in the Indy.

So what, if anything, can Brown do to avoid a 1997 landslide in reverse? Currently, a fatal narrative is in place. It can be summarised in three words: "Brown is a disaster".

Via Dizzy.

Haven't We Bin Here Before?

2008-05-06T07:27:00.003+01:00

Gordon says he is listening. He is listening to the people of Britain. What has he heard? Cut stealth taxes? Restore the great pension grab which wrecked Britain's pension system? Abandon the wasteful ID Cards plan? Drop 42-days detention without trial? No.

He is going to drop plans for local bin taxes. Was that really what the people of Britain wanted most? Hold on a second, who had the rubbish idea for bin taxes in the first place?

It is hardly a major tax break - the cost was expected to be £50 per annum. Hang on another second, he has already said he wasn't going to go ahead with bin taxes last October! What a con! He has already U-turned on this...

Hat-tip: Sam Coates

Taxodus - Enterprises Flee UK Tax Regime

2008-05-05T10:56:00.008+01:00

The news that WPP is considering fleeing UK shores to escape ever increasing taxes resulting from Gordon's prolifigacy must signal that business has had enough of Gordon's tax and spend policies. Every week a major business seems to make the move, Ireland is continually welcoming companies keen to halve their tax bill.

The Irish benefit massively and the inward investment has helped make Irish per capita incomes now higher than in the UK. In the last 11 years Gordon's big government and big tax bill thinking has contrasted with Ireland's more Thatcherite approach - resulting in Ireland becoming richer. It has come to something when the republic is spending hundreds of millions of euros to help the poor neighbour in the North upgrade infrastructure. Eurosceptics who claim Ireland is subsidised by EU funds are out of date. Nowadays Ireland is a net loser from the EU financially.

Gordon says he is listening, well he should hear what businesses are saying and see what they are doing. The tax base is narrowing and will continue to do so until he takes the low tax, high growth route to prosperity. The taxodus across the Irish sea will only increase otherwise...

Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View

2008-05-05T00:01:00.002+01:00