151 days ago
This is a company which is a dirty polluter and is only not bust thanks to the utter insanity of Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems from his time as a minister in the coalition Government. It is a scandal and one funded with £11 billion of your cash..
407 days ago
As an assistant to the leader of the Lib Dems in the house of Lords we might not be too surprised that poor Caroline has caught a case of #BrexitDerangementSyndrome. One imagines there is a lot of it going around in the offices or Lord Newby. Whoever he is. But we should not mock Caroline but should pray for her as her level of sickness is off the scale.
443 days ago
The tweet below is from Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves but I also cite Lib Dem leader Ed Davey for spouting equal tosh this morning. I start with BP (BP.) and windfall taxes. Then it is onto Tintra (TNT) with two more bombshell exposes today. My target price here is now officially 0p. Then it is onto another Dominic White, of the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME) infamy, MaxRets Ventures (MAX). En passant I mention DeepVerge (DVRG).
1127 days ago
I received a personalised letter today from a party that wants my vote in the Senedd elections on May 6. I will give you the quote then you guess whether it is from Labour led by bonkers Mark Drakeford, the Lib Dems, The Tories or the cottage burners of Plaid Cymru. Which party said it will “create 65,000 more jobs. And provide the basis for economic recovery by increasing funding for every pupil in Wales, and launching the biggest road building plan in a generation.”
1796 days ago
Like millions of others, I voted for the party which is now the largest single party from any country in the EU Parliament and which won the British Euro elections by a country Mile – Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. The reaction of the Westminster and media classes has been predictable: “Didn’t the Lib Dems do well! This is a vote against Brexit.” You could not make it up. But they did.
2299 days ago
You have probably forgotten who Tim Farron is but as a reminder he is that annoying little twit who kept on reminding us all how working class (pronounced to rhyme with gas not, as would be more appropriate, arse) he was while leading the Lib Dems to their second worst result in eons. He is still an MP. Do you remember now?
2508 days ago
Tim Farron was a pretty hopeless leader of the Lib Dems. His weasel words and demands for a second vote on Brexit were laughable and the way that he kept on insisting that he was the only working class ( pronounced with no r) was just plain cringe worthy. But the reason that he has quit as Lib Dem leader is that in modern Britain being a Christian is not acceptable, at least to the fake news wolf packs of the liberal metropolitan media.
2552 days ago
My godless, almost 16 year old, daughter Olaf calls me as her GCSE's start next week. Her school reports are glowing, she has already won a scholarship to the 6th form and I wish her luck but am confident that it will be A*s all round. We have agreed not to discuss grade inflation, I'm very proud of her anyway. Conversation then turns to the General Election where she says she is backing the Tories. Again I am proud of her. Her real anger is directed, however, not at her fellow Islington resident Comrade Corbyn, but at Tim Farron and the Lib Dems. She is furious at poor Mr Farron for his less than unequivocal support for LGBT rights. In Islington that is the sort of issue that really matters above all else.
3282 days ago
We continue our series on why various ShareProphets writers are voting for a range of parties on May 7th. I asked for a postal vote and so I have already voted and I voted Tory. Since I view the entire political class with contempt the main reason for voting Tory was to annoy my Labour voting wife. But there are actually three more serious reasons why everyone should vote Tory in the General Election.
Come May 8th the Government with either be a Labour/Scottish Loons coalition or Labour propped up & blackmailed on a vote by vote basis by the Scottish loons. Or it will be a Tory led coalition with the Lib Dems.
Britain is hurtling towards bankruptcy. All the talk of austerity
3319 days ago
I am rather cross with my capitalist cat Tara. Whereas my morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley treated the UKIP pamphlets thrust through our door with suitable respect by defecating on Nigel Farage’s face, Tara failed to respond in a suitable manner when the Labour party pushed three flyers through the letterbox. Bad Tara.
Thus the Mrs, a lifelong deluded lefty, thrust them into my hand smirking at the failure of Tara to follow orders and I dutifully had a butchers. There was one from a dreadful harridan who leads Labour on the City Council and thinks our pompous arse of a red-trousered mayor George Ferguson is awful. He is but her rantings made me feel almost sorry for the Mayor. The level of petty squabbling just made me want to see the whole lot of them at City hall strung up with eco-friendly piano wire.
Then there was a glossy pamphlet from our Labour MP Kerry McCarthy. Oddly I could find no picture of her party leader Mr Miliband on the flyer and cannot imagine why that is. She had a long go at the Tories for failing to tackle the deficit. You what? Suddenly the party that always runs out of other people’s money when in power is the party of Austrian economics? Pull the other one Kerry luv. Kerry also boasts that she has mentioned Bristol 200 times in Parliament in the past five years. Wow… my taxes are well spent on you aren’t they?
Finally there was a pamphlet from my local council candidate who was wearing a trainspotter’s uniform and looked about 150. By this point I was losing the will to live but comrade Mike Langley grabbed my attention by flagging up the real issue in this election: the seagull menace here in Bristlington. And
3491 days ago
We asked, at the weekend, who you, our readers, expected to form the next Government. The bad news is that a fifth of you think the nightmare scenario of a Lab/Lib coalition is on the cards. Time to emigrate methinks. Most readers thank that one way or another Call Me Dave Cameron will get to stay in No 10 and 2% of our readers are officially delusional thinking that the Lib Dems will form a majority Government. The full results are:
3632 days ago
Reading this morning’s press I am inundated with reports about the latest “UKIP car crashes” and the mainstream press now questions first whether UKIP will win Thursday’s poll and second, if it does win, how soon the bubble will pop. About the only person calling this right is Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
I write this as someone now almost 99% certain NOT to vote UKIP, more on that later.
The “car crashes” are in reality nothing of the sort. Some chap in Gloucester has made a comment about shooting a “pooftah” to get the others to turn straight, another fellow in Sussex seems to have an unusual degree of sympathy with the Third Reich and both are standing in the local elections for UKIP. So what, there are a few fruitcakes in UKIP. What’s new?
Nigel Farage was given a good duffing up in an LBC Radio interview. He lost his temper as did his PR man and he sounded a little less clear cut than usual. The interviewer ruffled him. But again so what? 99% of the population did not listen and since Farage was banging on (yet again) about immigration one suspects that his general theme probably played well with many anyway.
What Tim Stanley flags up is something those inside the political and media bubble in Westminster just do not appreciate. The great unwashed, that is you and I and the other plebs and peasants, are sick to the back teeth
3695 days ago
In a secret meeting George Osborne apparently stated that more folks paying 40% tax is good news. They feel happier because they feel like they are successful and have joined the middle classes and so will share Tory values and vote for his party. At every level these claims are stupendously stupid.
As a Conservative I believe that folks should pay as little tax as possible – I have always thought that this was a core conservative belief. We believe in a small state and a society where one is encouraged to work harder to earn and keep more money, not just to pay more in tax for an ever bigger Government to piss away. And I always thought that George Osborne was meant to be a Conservative. Have I missed something? Has he joined the Lib Dems?
If folks are mad enough to want to pay more tax then they always have the right to send a cheque off to the Treasury and make a voluntary donation. But it should be their call. Not that of a patronising dicked like George Osborne.
As to the idea that if the State steals more of my money then I am likely to reward the party in power? This is sheer folly.
Osborne like most of the out of touch upper class twits who dominate the Conservative Party these days has no idea how the aspirational working and middle classes think. They come from the classes who believe, to quote Leona Helmsley, that tax is for little people.” They come from families who have never had to juggle bills and dip into overdraft to pay the mortgage or to pay for Christmas. They simply have no idea how ordinary folks live and struggle.
It is inconceivable that anyone in the Conservative party of Thatcher, Tebbit and Joseph would have spouted such nonsense. But then they were not patrician fools like the current Tory elite.
3730 days ago
What is worse than having your house flooded out? Or indeed being in any sort of human tragedy? It is having a troupe of politicians coming to see you afterwards. And so this week Cameron, Pickles, Farage some Lib Dems you have never heard of and ex Labour Minister Chis Smith (now running the Environment Agency) have all trouped off to Somerset to “see for themselves”, to show they care and to offer vague promises they know they cannot keep.
If I am ever involved in any great human tragedy and am lying on hospital or am waist deep in flood water my one request is that no politician comes to visit me. It will only make me feel more angry and resentful.
And so to win a 50% off token for Maribelle’s I offer this picture of UKIP leader Nigel Farage as he paid homage to the flood victims. I shall be dealing with his ludicrous but populist suggestions later. Please post your captions in the comments section below.
For what it is worth my entry is:
“ I am NOT a politician so you can trust me…it is this long”
3814 days ago
Jew hating MP David Ward (Lib Dem Bradford) is at it again. The man was (eventually) chastised by his party for comparing the Israelis to the Nazis but he remains an MP despite that little outburst. You might have thought the Jew hating scumbag would stay silent but think again.
Ywo weeks ago he opined that he did not think that Israel should be abolished, merely that it should never have been founded. The Lib Dem party leadership said nothing.
And why should they? Heck: Israel is a homeland for the Jews. It is only the frigging Jews after all.
And now for Ward’s latest outburst in which he says that the problems the Roma face in coming to Britain would all be solved if they had a “Board of Deputiies”. Hmmmm. There is of course only only minority group that has a Board of Deputies and we have all read the Protocols of Zion and know that they control the world and can do what they want, don’t we Mr Ward?
Are the Lib Dems jew haters? I think that they may be many things but Jew haters they are not. Mr Ward on the other hand….he seems the sort of chap who would fit in well with the loathsome bigots in the UKIP Friends of Palestine.
3873 days ago
Oh worship the Money Tree, Bow down to the Great Money Tree. Nick Clegg you really are a prize git of the highest order. Your suggestions that all kids under 8 should get a free school meal might grub a few votes from the more innumerate members of the electorate but at every level it shows you for the fool and clown that you are and your party as an ideologically incoherent mess.
We start with the Money Tree basics. The UK is running a vast budget deficit and is heavily in debt. It cannot afford another £600 million. We are going bust. What do the Lib Dem’s not understand about that? Wake up to bankrupt Britain folks.
Aaaaaaah but what about the starving kids?
3933 days ago
To be honest I am a bit starved of ideas and the bird wants to head off for a romantic meal so the best that I can do on the caption front is to offer up a picture from earlier. Please post your wittiest captions in the comments section below.
3982 days ago
We now all know that the two folks who had an affair that Dave Cameron reckons could rock his Government are a) a man and a woman ( hence no Lib Dems involved), b) both Tories, c) both married, d) both reasonably well known ( another reason no Lib Dems involved) and neither is currently in the cabinet.
Both have already been named in internet speculation although most folks have not got a perfect match yet. It is however only a matter of time before the twittersphere or a foreign paper has this all out in the open. Yet Cameron reckons that using the British Courts to silence UK Newspapers might stop this coming out.
Sorry Dave, I know this is painful but you might as well come clean now. Being seen to try to cover it all up will not help. I know the revelations will be painful for innocent parties but you really have no choice.
4011 days ago
It is so long since we ran a caption contest that I have forgotten what that caption was or who won. Let’s assume that it was the Evil son for simplicity’s sake. And so this week caption contest features that leader of the party whose candidate in Bridgewater South got zero votes on Thursday. Even the candidate herself could not bring herself to vote Lib Dem. Meanwhile in South Shields Nick Clegg’s party scored the worst by-election result for a major party (do the Lib Dem’s count as one?) since 1948. Across the land Beardy Weirdies with Orange rosettes were thrashed. As such I ask for captions to this picture.
For what it is worth my entry is:
Nick Clegg predicts the number of seats the Lib Dems will win at the next election…best case scenario
Or
Nick Clegg counts up the number of Lib Dem votes in Bridgewater but is out by ten.
Post your entries in the comments section below – deadline 9 AM Friday.
4012 days ago
As I sit at Bristol Temple Meads preparing to head up to London it is 8.30 AM and just 7 of 34 councils have declared the local results from last night. But already it is clear that the ONLY clear winner is UKIP. There is little doubt that Nigel Farage’s party will make further big gains from the other 27 counts and that it is a triumph. But does it mean much?
The results are pretty spectacular given that four years ago UKIP stood in few of these seats. In other words they have come from nowhere. As things stand UKIP is on 42 seats (level pegging with Labour) and a net 42 ahead. The Tories are 66 down, the Lib Dems 15 down and Labour 30 ahead. Where UKIP has stood it has averaged 27% of the vote and should gain c20% overall – well ahead of the Lib Dems and not far behind Labour.
So what does it mean? The easy calls first.
Together with its abject result in the South Shields by-election (the worst by a major party since 1948) the locals are a disaster for Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. There will be yet more angry beardy weirdies
4012 days ago
Can this be true? A result has just popped up on the website of Somerset County Council for the Bridgewater South seat. The Tory got 580 votes. Labour 974 to hold onto the seat while Lib Dem Judith Kendall appears to have received precisely 0 votes. And so, the county that produced Paddy Pantsdown and also that other fine upstanding expenses fiddler David Laws, sees a contest where not even the candidate herself can bring herself to vote for someone representing Nick Clegg’s party.
Meanwhile up in South Shields the Official Monster Raving Loony Party came within 100 votes of defeating the Unofficial Monster Raving Loonies – the Lib Dems recording the worst by-election result by a mainstream party since 1948.
It does not look good for the Lib Dems.
4013 days ago
My father has already done his stint as part of the slick electoral machine of the Shipston branch of the party that wishes to block the deportation of Abu Qatada and now we sit back and watch the results come in tonight. To add interest we have six bets running. And it is at 5 Albanian Lekke a pop.
My banker is who will get a greater percentage of the popular vote: UKIP or the Lib Dems. The last national survey suggested the Lib Dems would get 14% and UKIP 22% just behind labour on 24%. I think it is pretty brave of anyone to admit voting Lib Dem but I suspect that even more folks are reluctant to admit to voting UKIP lest the local council snatch their kids or Ken Clarke accuses them of racism. So I sense the 22% might just underestimate the UKIP vote and so barring a miracle this is my banker bet.
I win 5 Albanian Lekke from my father.
I wish we had a bet on the South Shields by-election where the word is that both the Tories and Lib Dems will lose their deposits. Indeed there is a suggestion that the unofficial Monster raving Loony party (the one led by Nick Clegg) will in fact be beaten by the Official Monster Raving Loony party. UKIP will come second but I suspect a lot closer to Labour (in its safest seat in England) than it did in Rotherham.
How well UKIP actually does is down, I suspect to whether folks feel apathetic (Local elections do not count, all politicians are greedy sleazy tossers who ignore our wishes on everything, but I am off down the pub, staying at home waiting for the next Coronation Street star to be exposed as an alleged sex offender) or angry
4013 days ago
My partner is a lifelong deluded lefty. She has always voted for the People’s Party. But I can report a mini triumph of a shift away from the loons here in the Clifton Ward of Bristol.
Naturally my partner would rather drink her own urine than vote for the wicked Tories. The Lib Dem’s murdered a forest of trees in an attempt to win support for their ageing hippy of a candidate. But however many new park benches this old fool has managed to get set up around here my partner cannot forgive the Lib Dems for being in coalition with the wicked Tories so that was a non-starter.
And that left the People’s Party (no leaflet) and a nice young man with a Polish name standing for UKIP. He promised to end political correctness on the Council which I though sounded like a good idea although my partner was not so sure. And he also promised to end immigration from Eastern Europe. I guess he doesn’t like his relatives much.
4047 days ago
Well anything is possible. The uber talented chanteuse Ms Cheryl Cole could be walking down my street right now to ask me out for a hot date. Frankly that is more likely than Labour losing a seat that has never been anything but Labour. But miracles can happen. Hang on… there is someone at the door.
Pizza delivery. Wrong address. Not Cheryl. Drat.
The results last time were Labour 52%, Tory 22%, Lib Dems 14%, BNP 7%, others (not including UKIP 5%). Following Rotherham and the national trends my assumptions would be:
Various others including the BNP and the Lib Dems get 10% between them. The Lib Dems will come somewhere between 5th and 8th on another night of abject humiliation for Nick Clegg. The BNP will not achieve much. At least Clegg’s memory these days seems to be so poor when it comes to hearing painful news (Rennard, Huhne, Hancock) that he will soon be able to forget about leading his party to another electoral caning.
The Tory vote will slump. Call Me Dave has done his utmost to piss off traditional Tories (I am amazed that there were so many in South Shields, wherever it is, last time) and voters will tactically switch to the best placed party that might just run Labour close, i.e. UKIP. The Tories will get 10% of the vote ( + or – 3%). I suspect the – is more likely than the + - it will be a dire night for Call Me Dave as May 2nd also sees local elections in which the Tories will get thrashed. There will be stacks of very angry ex Tory councillors on May 3rd.
And so on the face of it, if the Labour vote held steady then that would see UKIP on 30% and Labour on 52%. But….
South Shields looks to be the sort of grim Northern shit hole that Labour takes for granted. Its voters there are working class and one suspects that their views on immigration, Europe and a range of other issues are not exactly the sort aired by Ed Miliband and his pals at Islington dinner parties. Besides which this by election is caused by Dave Miliband pissing off to New York to earn loads of wonga. Talk about treating your poor constituents with contempt. That makes the circumstances a touch unusual.
And so my guess is that there will be some shift from Labour to UKIP (as there was in Rotherham and Eastleigh) and also from Labour to “not voting at all as you are all wankers.”
UKIP has nothing to lose here. If it gets 30% and comes second (from nowhere) that is a triumph. But I have a sneaking feeling that it could do rather better than that. It is currently 17-1 to win and I am tempted to have a tiny flutter. Anything is possible. Hang on... is that the doorbell I hear ringing again?
4057 days ago
Yesterday David Cameron climbed down and agreed to the demands of Labour, the Lib Dems and Hacked off Campaigners like Hugh Grant (who was not at the time getting a blow job from a roadside hooker) and has agreed to State regulation of the press. Indeed it is worse than that since the new body set up will also cover anyone who publishes news related information in the UK. So that might get my Dad involved. The Shipston on Stour Parish newsletter is within the scope of this new legislation and should my father wish to moralise about the domestic arrangements of local celebs Tessa Jowell MP and David Mills, now happy reconciled as of one week after she stepped down from front line politics, Jowell could in theory report my poor father to the new regulator. And any blog is potentially within this remit if its primary discussion matter is news related – which includes celebs and hookers.
The press were not involved in agreeing the new Royal Charter and oppose it. But most big news organisations will eventually sign up to the code although the Telegraph appears to be. If you do not and the political stooges who manage it find you have breached you could face company destroying damages. And as things stand you may have to pay damages if you are hauled before the new body and found innocent.
This is therefore a fundamental assault not just on the press but on free speech.
It is a sad day. It will make it easier for the same MPs who have pushed through this legislation to lie, cheat and steal. It will make it easier for celebs to portray one image and get you to buy their merchandise while doing whatever they wish on the side. It will make it less likely that the crimes of future Jimmy Savile’s, expense fiddling MPs, hooker using politicians (Archer) or celebs (Grant) will be exposed. It truly marks an acceleration towards the world of Airstrip One.
However,
4058 days ago
Today the three party leaders will sit down and agree to ever tighter controls on the press. Assuming that he is not getting a blow job from a hooker at the time, Hugh Grant will then invoke the name of Milly Dowler and a 300 year tradition of a free press will draw to a close.
If you trust your politicians to behave with honesty and integrity that is perhaps fine. If you are happy for celebs like Grant to give you the hard sell on their latest movies or useless designer products without knowing why their public image is a sham that is again fine. If you are happy for scandals involving taxpayers cash being wasted, paedophile rings run within local councils and at the BBC to stay hidden and protected, then that is fine.
I suspect that none of us are happy that scandal and corruption will now become harder to expose. I am not.
The established press has done itself no favours. Phone hacking was a disgrace. It was also illegal under existing laws. There is no need for a new law to (in due course) get the collar of Piers Moron and others felt. And the press/Westminster cosy club
4059 days ago
Cyprus has become the fifth Eurozone nation to get a bailout but this one is different. At the insistence of the Germans one condition of the bailout is that private citizen’s pay and they will do so via a tax of up to 10% levied on all bank deposits in the Mediterranean island. This is pure socialism in action – the idea that the legitimate savings made by an individual as a result of fully taxed income can just be seized by the State. It is a horrific precedent.
For having established that the State can effectively seize whatever it wants whenever it wants you rather accept that you have no private property or savings. You can work your socks off, pay taxes to support those who do not work, save prudently so that you will not be a burden on the State or your family in the future and then one day the State just seizes your money. Heck why stop at 10% of bank deposits? Why not seize land, houses, etc.? The precedent is now there and this is an EU precedent.
David Cameron wishes to remain part of an organisation which thinks that State sponsored theft of private wealth is acceptable. I do not and nor, I suspect, do most British people. If the Conservative party and for that matter the Lib Dems and Labour support State sponsored theft that is fine they should be honest about it and we can all vote UKIP. But will the established parties stand up to the political elite in the Evil Empire and say
4065 days ago
If he was not such a sanctimonious git who has been wrong on every issue of the past 15 years and if his wife was not such a revolting piece of work you might feel a shred of sympathy for Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce as they each prepare for an eight month stretch. As it happens, like 99% of the population I delight in the downfall of this ghastly couple who typify all that is so revolting about the political class. And it seems that twitter agrees...
@sixthformpoet
I wonder if Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce are one of those annoying couples who finish each other's sentences.
@GuidoFawkes
Cruel and inhumane >> @nedsimons: Lembit Opik telling BBC News he will happily visit Chris Huhne in jail.
@doctorcfd
One last thought about #Huhne - when Clegg was elected over him, was the party merely picking the lesser of two weasels?
@EUMegaraid
#Huhne and #Pryce symptomatic of endemic political criminality Let's just turn Parliament into a Category A jail and be done with it
@Kwaitie
No Nick Clegg, a personal family tragedy is your child being hit by a speeding motorist & nearest A&E is miles away due to NHS cuts #Huhne
@DommieWobble
bet chris #huhne thought his ex's had stayed this way ....fun boy 3 - our lips are sealed http://youtu.be/IYS5tPou2s0
@GavBillenness
Breaking news: #Huhne tries to make Vicky Pryce take his 8 months for him
@DCamoron
#Huhne learned the hard way not to give penalty points to your wife! I'm not that stupid, I make sure #Clegg takes mine!
@AndreTheViking
Breaking News: #huhne to appeal sentence. Requests that his wife picks up the soap in the showers for him.
@fnordleblanket
Sentenced to 8 months isn't so bad. It's been ten years since #Pryce and #Huhne have gone down together.
@Brendan_Surrey
The ultimate punishment would be to be denied PR. To have to beg for a slave labour job at a Job Centre just like the rest of us. #huhne
@MrsStuffandGuff
@Scarletstand Thank god one of them didn't pen a facebook status vaguely threatening something vague, or they would've got longer. #huhne
4066 days ago
I am not sure what the Lib Dems are meant to stand for these days and in a couple of years’ time they will be an electoral irrelevancy anyway. But I always thought that a party with the word Liberal in its name might have some sort of core beliefs in the liberty of the citizen against an all-powerful state. Unless I have read my John Stuart Mill very incorrectly I think that should be the case.
However, under current plans which the Lib Dems in parliament have largely supported, the law will change to extend secret hearings across the civil justice system. In a secret hearing defendants or claimants will not be allowed to be present, know or challenge the case against them and must be represented by a security-cleared special advocate, rather than their own lawyer. Right now these procedures are used in tiny numbers of immigration and deportation hearings, but the Government wants to extend them across the civil courts in cases deemed to involve national security.
Now, I am sure you can spot the flaw in this proposal. It is the State that decides when the security of the State is threatened. In a country where burning a poppy on twitter and where calling a police horse “gay” have both been deemed by the State to be offences, I simply do not trust the State.
That may trivialise the point. What about the whistleblower? The David Kelly figure. As the law stands now he is just murdered in the woods, sorry I meant allowed a public trial if charged. But as the law may stand in future someone who exposed how a crazed leader started an illegal war with a pack of lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction
4068 days ago
And so the jury has found that Vicky Pryce, aka the former Mrs Huhne, is like her ex husband a liar and a criminal. She has been found guilty and now we can await with pleasure, the sentencing of the gruesome pair. Mrs Huhne, a very successful career woman who stood up the Euro fanatic Chris numerous times tried to claim that in relation to the speeding points Mr Huhne bullied her into perverting the course of justice. It did not wash.
It has also emerged today how she tried to blacken Huhne’s name by tipping off journalists about his share trading and all because the wind-farm loving scumbag ditched her to run off with a hideous lesbian. They sound like a truly ghastly couple and it is hard to have sympathy for either as they both prepare to spend time doing porridge.
The fun does not stop here as it now emerges that senior Lib Dems including Vince Cable and Nick Clegg’s wife were all aware of the points story well before it appeared in the papers. Naturally the Lib Dems deny that they knew about. Just like none of them knew that their former CEO Lord Rennard was in fact Jabba The Hut.
Don’t you just love the political class? So Princess Leia how would you like to be a Lib Dem MP? "Remember that you can also buy the Chris Huhne special T-shirt as well as a “Justice 4 the Sefton 2” T-shirt, mug or hoodie exclusively at our online store. And you still have time to enter this week's Lib Dem Special caption contest here.
4075 days ago
The Lib Dems held on but UKIP was surging. A couple more days and UKIP would have snatched it. In the end it was wasted Tory votes that let the Lib Dems in as Call Me Dave’s party came third in what is his 40th target seat. Labour was always irrelevant here, its own disaster is not an issue.
The Lib Dems will be greatly relieved to have held onto what should be one of their safest seats albeit in very tough circumstances: Chris Huhne off to do porridge and the current sex scandal. For now Clegg hangs on but if he is shown to have lied about his knowledge in the sex pest cover up he may still face the chop. This is not the start of a Lib Dem recovery, Rennardgate may well still drag that party to Thorpe style lows.
UKIP is now coming second in both leafy southern towns like Eastleigh but also GMSH’s like Rotherham. There is a growing disgust with the entire political class and UKIP is the big winner from that. All the established parties should be worried but they are so arrogant and out of touch that the corrupt establishment will not change tack.
But the big losers right now are the Tories. As long as Call Me Dave stays as Tory leader it is only a matter of time before UKIP gains an MP. For the Tories are in trouble.
4076 days ago
The Tories seem to be admitting that they may come third in the Eastleigh contest. It looks as if the sex pest party will win but UKIP is coming up on the rails fast. Whatever happens Labour will come a dismal 4th with the presence of the Wicked Witch Cherie Blair on the campaign trail yesterday only adding to the woes of its Argie loving candidate. So how will be the BBC report the results?
1. If UKIP wins then it will be “ extremist far right party wins on a disastrous night for the Tories/Lib Dems.” It will then ignore UKIP totally and dismiss its poll numbers as a freak result but quote Ed Milliband as saying Labour was always going to get obliterated but the voter’s rejection of wicked Con Dem austerity shows that he is on track to be the next PM – a great night for Labour. The BBC will report that both Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg face leadership challenges.
2. If the Lib Dems win and UKIP are second it will be “extremist far right party surges on a disastrous night for the Tories.” It will then ignore UKIP totally and dismiss its poll numbers as a freak result but quote Ed Milliband as saying Labour was always going to get obliterated, and the Lib Dems were always going to win what is their safest seat but the voter’s rejection of wicked Con Dem austerity shows that he is on track to be the next PM – a great night for Labour. The BBC will report that both Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg face leadership challenges.
3. If the Tories win and UKIP are second it will be “extremist far right party surges on a disastrous night for the Lib Dems who pay the price of supporting hugely unpopular Tory cuts. It will then ignore UKIP totally and dismiss its poll numbers as a freak result but quote Ed Milliband as saying Labour was always going to get obliterated, and given how the Lib Dems are racked by sex scandals are on 8% in the National Polls that the Tories did not win by more is very bad news for them too. This is a rejection of wicked Con Dem austerity shows that Milliband is on track to be the next PM – a great night for Labour. The BBC will report that both Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg face leadership challenges.
4077 days ago
One runs a tinpot organisation and issues a press release saying that measures taken by his organisation “continue to deliver production growth” at a time when production had fallen sharply for the prior two months and one runs a tinpot organisation and says that he had not heard of allegations that his party CEO was a serial sex pest until last week. Oh dear. Breaking News: It seems that one of his own former MPs (Sandra Gidley) has now gone on the record saying she told Clegg all back in 2007.
In for a penny in for a pound. Ellerton (or rather his grateful shareholders) is suing me for libel for calling his statement about production growing (when it was in fact falling) “deliberately misleading.” I really am not quaking in my boots about defending that one and cannot wait to get JimBob to explain himself on the witness stand.
Now that I am getting the hang of being sued for libel for pointing out the bleeding obvious, here we go again: Clegg, I think your statements about your knowledge of sexpest-gate are deliberately misleading too.
What’s the difference between Jim Ellerton and Nick Clegg? Unlike Clegg, Jim Ellerton has at least some chance of being leader of the Lib Dems after the next election.
4080 days ago
The Lib Dems are still likely to win Eastleigh. If they do not, given that every councillor there is a Lib Dem and it is a Lib Dem seat then Nick Clegg is in deep trouble. It may well be that the cover-up over the Lord Rennard sex scandal is only a secondary worry although that will get very nasty as well. But at 11/2 UKIP is now worth a flutter. Think the unthinkable: UKIP might just win the by-election caused by Chris Huhne’s imminent fast track to prison.
A Populus poll shows Lib Dem 33%, Con 28% UKIP 21% ( but surging). However that assumes that undecided voters are reallocated on the basis of how the seat voted at the last General Election. That was a whole different ball game. Without that fiddle it is 31 (sex pest party), 26% ( hopeless party of Government), 25% UKIP.
Labour are on the low to mid teens and since the Labour candidate ( the one who supported the Argies in 1982 and wanted the IRA to kill Thatcher) is a prize loon, his vote could well slide far further. Labour voters in Eastleigh are not bourgeois Islington lefties who think the UKIP are unspeakably horrid but traditional working class voters who believe in hard work and have no truck with the EU, unrestricted Romanian immigration etc. They really should vote UKIP anyway and if they see UKIP as a chance to kick the wicked coalition in the goolies they may well switch. No: they are switching it is just a matter of how many more come over in the final few days.
If UKIP can pick up a few more percentage points from Labour ( and it is gaining support from all three parties) then life gets very interesting. It is hard to see the Lib Dem vote hardening in the final few days as the sex scandal widens and deepens and nothing the hopeless Government does these days does anything to attract those who should be core Tory voters. If it is anything the Tory party is meant to be the one that gets the economy right. And on Friday the UK lost its AAA rating as the credit agencies finally twigged that UK public finances are a mess and that things are not getting better.
A separate Survation phone poll has it as: Con 33, Lib Dem 29, UKIP 21, Lab 13 but again if you do not do the reallocation fiddle UKIP is up on 25 with this time the sex pests in second on 26, and the Tories on 29. The same arguments apply here. It is abundantly clear that this contest is a three way battle. Labour support is slipping steadily ( all to UKIP) and Nigel Farage et al must also think that in the next few days they can also pick up Lib Dems and Tories as well.
It will not change the world, but a UKIP win would be disastrous news for both Call Me Dave ( giving credibility to a party which believes in the sort of things the Tory party once believed in) and also for Clegg in that if the safest Lib Dem seat in England is lost what hope does his party have of avoiding electoral wipe-out in 2015.
At 11/2 it is worth a flutter. It might just happen.
And as I noted before, a UKIP vote is in fact the ONLY sane and honourable vote in Eastleigh. .
4087 days ago
As I was happily preparing for the publication of another ebook tomorrow I see that I have received a volley of twitter abuse from a good man, but a deluded lefty of the highest order, @Mickkipper. In response to my suggestion that the crackpot Lib Dems wished to tax your jewellery and paintings as well as your house if you were rich, Mick replies ”Why not, most of them have been robbed pillaged during the common wealth days. Bring back slaves ehhhhh Tom.”
Saints preserve us. Is this really the high level debate that the left offers up? I object to being taxed on wealth accumulated as a result of me buying assets with taxed income ( a double tax) and that means that I want to bring back slaves?
But it got better. In stating the fact that at least twice a day some young person from Southern Europe wanders into my restaurant with a word perfect CV begging to work at the minimum wage but in a City were 100,000 young Britons are without work and living off welfare , not one home grown applicant turns up, I am lambasted. Mick sent of a series of tweets of which the best were:
“Caitt Reilly…. out of touch Winnifrith. Bring back the workhouse, chimmney boys and mine boys. Employ a eastern European”
and
4087 days ago
I am not a UKIP member nor can my support be taken for granted – generally I despise all politicians and which they would just stop introducing laws and go away. And with that caveat I approach the looming by –election in Eastleigh with the conclusion that the ONLY sane and the ONLY honest vote is for UKIP.
The election is caused by liar and criminal Chris Huhne (Lib Dem) having to stand down because he is almost certainly heading for prison. In terms of Government and policy it will change nothing. We will still be ruled by this wretched Tory Lib Dem coalition and Labour will still be offering a principle free crackpot populist opposition. And as such an Eastleigh resident can vote with a clear conscience and on principle.
I start with why each of the candidates from the main three parties does not deserve to win a single vote before turning to UKIP.
4100 days ago
Windfarm and general all round global warming nutter and Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne has for months protested his innocence on the charge of perverting the course of justice – that is to say getting his ex wife to take speeding points for him. Today he has pleaded guilty in Court. So Huhne is not only a liar but will very shortly be a convicted criminal too and, fingers crossed, heading off to gaol. Given that during his period of procrastination and lies he has continued to claim MP’s expenses might this multi millionaire now be required to pay them back? I doubt it. Does he get an MP’s normal payoff? I expect so.
And now we face a by-election in Eastleigh, formerly a Tory/Lib Dem marginal. It is hard not to see the Lib Dem vote collapsing given that they are nationally hated and the circumstances of the contest. In that part of the world Labour is about as popular as the late Jimmy Saville and so UKIP will be licking its lips. There is no threat of “letting Labour in” by voting UKIP in this one-off contest. One imagines that the traditional Tories of Eastleigh are not exactly enthused by the tone of Call Me Dave’s conservatism. And so this may be the day. The odds have to be on a result of Conservative, UKIP, Lib Dem, Labour and then the assorted loons, but you never know. I would imagine that round at UKIP headquarters the excitement is tangible.
4109 days ago
Apparently David Ward is a Lib Dem MP for some GNSH. I had never heard of this prize shit until today when he opined that Israel’s actions in Gaza could somehow be compared to the holocaust. It is a free country and this nonentity of an MP can say what he wants but coming two days before world Holocaust day this is offensive and factually just plain wrong. Actually it would be offensive and plain wrong at any time.
In the holocaust more than 75% of European Jews were rounded up and systematically murdered in Death camps. Gassed, shot, burned, often used for medical experiments, European Jewry was almost annihilated. That is a holocaust.
Israel operates no death camps in Gaza. It does not attack Gaza just because it hates Arabs. It seeks to take out military targets which folks, who do openly boast of their desire to inflict another holocaust on the Jewish people, deliberately locate in residential areas. Israel attacks military targets deliberately sites in residential areas because Hamas attacks civilians in Israel because it wants to kill Jews. Any Jew will do.
4119 days ago
Jo Swinson is a Lib Dem Business Minister who is also an equalities minister. Unlike most politicians she has actually worked in the private sector – as a PR person for a local radio station before becoming an MP at the age of 25. Based on that vast experience of the needs of business she has come up with a cunning wheeze to make life ever more miserable for employers with yet more red tape. Just what the company doctor ordered. And it seems that this is coalition policy. Were the leader of the Conservative Party someone whose Dad ran a corner store and whose husband ran a series of companies rather than a pampered suit who did a brief stint in PR before becoming a professional politician, Swinson would be told where to stick her daft plans but that was before Call Me Dave made his party a “nice” party.
If Swinson gets her way, from next year all employees (not just those with kids) will be able to request the right to work flexible hours and cannot be denied unless the employer can show a clear business need. The silly woman
4128 days ago
Britain is getting fatter. The strain of treating a stack of lardbuckets like myself for diabetes (my issue), heart attacks, etc is a very real financial burden. All of that is a given. But calls to ban Frosties ( Labour health spokesman Andy Burnham) and Fried Chicken shops ( general lefty fruitcake and a bit of a lardbucket herself, Dianne Abbot) do not address the problem. Prohibition never works. It fails with drugs, it failed with alcohol in 1920s Chicago and it will fail with Frosties.
4212 days ago
Vince Cable somehow gained a reputation (out of Government) for predicting everything. He did that by (after the event) saying that he had predicted it beforehand. And for a while it worked and it was St Vince this and St Vince that. Until a bit of fact checking rather knocked the spots of that story. And since joining Government he has been an unmitigated disasters getting almost every big call wrong and appearing to be intent on nothing more than scheming his way to the top when Nick Clegg finally gets the order of the boot. So he is not exactly an idol of mine. But today the horrid little man sank to new depths.
Cable has always been a prize Euro loon
4259 days ago
Nick Clegg, the leader of the Lib Dems and Deputy PM yesterday called for a new “Wealth Tax” so that wicked rich people could “make an extra contribution” during the economic downturn. In an interview with the Guardian, he links his call with the word “fair.” Hmmm. Mad, innumerate or just desperate?
I note that Clegg has not actually put forward a concrete proposal just a general idea. As such it can be dismissed as pre-conference grandstanding and the chances of anything actually happening are pretty much zero. But hypothetically let us humour the guy and assume that it did. Would it a) assist the economy, b) strengthen Government finances or c) be fair? The answer is no on all three counts. As such Clegg is at best economically illiterate and at worst just plain mad. Or perhaps this is a desperate gambit to win back lost voters?
To the economy first. Folks acquire wealth by various means.
