Tory Wintertons jump before being pushed
From the Telegraph:
Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton, the Conservative MPs, are to resign from parliament at the next election. The couple will not run for re-election as the MPs for Macclesfield and Congleton.
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Their decision comes after the Telegraph disclosed that they claimed more than £80,000 in rent for a small London flat that was owned by a trust controlled by their children. Expenses submitted by Sir Nicholas show he claimed for £41,508 in rent. His wife’s claims amounted to £41,584.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple.
Disinformation from Afghanistan’s Opium war
Last week, troops in Afghanistan launched a four-day raid on a Taliban strong-hold, during which they seized some drugs. Would you like some more detail? According to the BBC, the raid took place in “Marja” (which is actually in Nigeria); Al-Jazeera believe it happened in “Marija“; AP took a guess at “Marjah“; while only UPI correctly named “Marjeh”, in the Helmand province. 14, 16, 34, or 60 militants were killed in the operation.
If you think that’s bad, when it comes to the record of what was actually seized the ‘facts’ take on a life of their own. The AP report that 16.5 tons of drugs were seized, along with “other materials”. The BBC declare that ninety-two tons of “poppy seeds and other drugs” were seized, and Al-Jazeera continue the game of chinese whispers, changing this to “ninety-two tons of drugs”.
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Letter: voting for change
This letter was published in the Observer yesterday. I signed it too.
The expense crisis reveals a nation governed by a political elite that has stopped listening and who are accountable to no one but their party machines. Too many MPs seem more interested in changing their homes than changing the world. Our society faces real problems – mass unemployment and growing poverty, the threat of climate chaos and an erosion of our civil liberties to name but three. These all require effective government working on behalf of the popular will. Yet our whole political system is close to collapse. We demand a new electoral system that makes everyone’s vote count.
On the day of the next general election, there should be a binding referendum on whether to change to a more proportional electoral system. This should be drawn up by a large jury of randomly selected citizens, given the time and information to deliberate on what voting system and other changes would make Parliament more accountable to citizens.
We demand the right to be able to vote for a change.
Defending Jo Swinson against the Telegraph’s misogyny
Yesterday I returned from my recent self-imposed hiatus from blogging (however temporarily) to write about the Daily Telegraph’s recent ‘exposé’ on Jo Swinson MP.
Very briefly, on Thursday, the Telegraph published a carefully worded article about cosmetics and dusters ‘appearing on’ receipts despite acknowledging that items on her receipts which had actually been claimed for tended to be marked by an asterisk. The cosmetics were not, they have no evidence to suggest that they might have been claimed for anyway, and Jo Swinson herself completely denies that she did.
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What Dale didn’t mention
Iain Dale is running what, at first sight, seems to be a rather damning story about Tamworth MP, Brian Jenkins.
Labour MP Brian Jenkins is a prat. And a bully. The Mail on Sunday reports that he has sent a letter to a constituent, Warren Clegg, threatening legal action over a letter Mr Clegg had sent him about the Gurkhas. Mr Clegg pointed out in a letter to the local paper in Tamworth that he hadn’t had a reply. Mr Clegg is a student at Cambridge about to sit his finals. His father has just gone to serve in Afghanistan. Now Warren Clegg’s mother has written to the Prime Minister to protest at this letter.
However, there’s an important piece of the story missing from both Dale’s and the Mail on Sunday’s coverage…
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Time for an Election
The papers today are carrying stories stating that a clear majority of the public want an early general election. This is of course completely unsurprising in light of the avalanche of scandal that there has been over recent weeks, and the pathetic reaction of MPs to it. People want to exercise the one democratic control that they have over their politicians – the right to throw them out at the ballot box.
What has been surprising though, is the reaction of the liberal political classes to the call. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s performance on Thursday’s Question Time was a case in point. Not only did she oppose calling an election, she did so on the grounds that such was people’s “anger”, they might “vote to spite”, and return BNP MPs to Westminster!
It is, of course, highly unlikely that the fascists could corral enough votes even in their strongest Westminster constituency to win an FPTP election. But even that isn’t really the point.
We should boycott the Queen’s party
There’s a load of good initiatives starting life on the LibCon website at the moment, not least Paul Evans’ call for a link between reselection/deselections and the strengthening of local parties, and the Labour activists letter to the NEC. It’s clear the website is becoming quite a political force.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, therefore, I’m using LibCon to start a call for a boycott of the Queen’s garden party, if the BNP are invited.
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Comment and be damned
At the risk of indulging in a bit of a Dorries overload, there’s a brief exchange of comments in the ritual bloodletting that followed Tim Mongomerie’s Conservative Home post on her rather churlish reaction to the Telegraph’s expenses exposé that’s well worth flagging up as, perhaps, something of a salutary lesson for some MPs/Parliamentary candidates: continue reading… »
More Transparent Than Thou
Via Nancy Scola at Tech President, here’s an old cartoon from the New Yorker:
By William Hamilton. Published in The New Yorker September 16, 2002
You can get T-shirts and everything.
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Cameron tells Dorries to shut up (updated)
Further to Unity’s post earlier, this storm gets better by the hour. David Cameron has now had to publicly rebuke ‘high-flying Tory’ Nadine Dorries for her “witch-hunt” comments.
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