BNP: leaflets and adverts
There is a minor controversy over some Royal Mail workers in Bristol refusing to deliver BNP leaflets, a position that is entirely allowed under their contracts.
Royal Mail has now backed down, after one local worker described the management acting as “cheerleaders for the BNP,” and asking individual workers “Why are you anti-BNP?” when they balked at delivering leaflets. What, a picture of Nick Griffin alongside a KKK leader and founder of Stormfront not enough?
But there’s a more worrying issue here. As Adam Bienkov highlights on Tory Troll, local newspaper owner Newsquest is happily taking money from these racists. I’m ok with local newspapers writing about the BNP if its a legitimate news story. But taking money from neo-nazis? Do they have no shame?
Then josephlaking messages me on twitter to say: “in Thurrock, where the BNP launched their manifesto, a local paper was carrying a story entitled ‘BNP choose us for launch” — just great. Do readers know of other instances of local newspaper carrying BNP advertising?
Update: I’ve compiled a list here.
Where are the fans of greed now?
Not long ago you couldn’t utter a single word against excessive City bonuses. Those who did were envious moaners clueless as to how financial markets work.
Take the same pious Telegraph that was this week ranting against the “scandalous greed” of MPs. As recent as October 2006 they sported this proud headline: “Greed is good“.
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Time for a new Chartism for the UK
by Rick Muir, of IPPR
The sight of Ming Campbell, a hitherto widely respected Lib Dem elder statesman, being heckled and jeered on Question Time, was to long-standing observers of British politics profoundly shocking. Over the weekend Tam Dalyell and Gerald Kaufman, also widely respected political veterans, had to go in front of the media to justify claims for £18,000 bookcases and antique rugs.
People are making comparisons with the Italian ‘clean hands’ scandal of the mid 1990s, which wiped out the entire party system. There are parallels with the collapse of the Venezuelan party system just over a decade ago, in which long standing party loyalties, already under strain, suddenly snapped following an economic crash and corruption scandals that implicated the whole political class from left to right. The outcomes of both of those episodes are salutary: the emergence and later political dominance of charismatic populist movements headed by Silvio Berlusconi and Hugo Chavez.
So where might the pieces settle following this unprecedented parliamentary scandal? Could the party system, one of the fixed comfortable constants of British politics, actually collapse?
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Storm Brewing
The atmosphere in Westminster is oppressive. Hop up the steps from the tube and the cries from the Tamils on Parliament Square bite your ears. I’ve seen plenty of protests on that piece of green over the past few years, but this one crackles like a storm-cloud ready to discharge a bolt of lightning.
The wind seems angry too, sweeping through Victoria Tower Gardens, pulling the hats off tourists and messing up their grey comb-overs. The pigtails on school children billow in syncronicity with the union flag above the tower.
Meanwhile, the press and the suits hurry in and out of the building. They ignore the angry mob and the red flags across the street, and yet they are under attack. They shrug off the violent wind, yet there is a storm brewing inside.
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Melanie Phillips: the thick or nasty dilemma
I adhere to a rather offensive school of thought. Its basic premise is a simple dilemma: that those on the political right are either thick or nasty. That is, either they realise that the policies they promote and the world views they endorse mean preserving the power, wealth and privilege of the already powerful, wealthy and privileged at the expense of everyone else, or they don’t. If the former: nasty, if the latter: thick.
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Meeting to support Simon Singh today
A meeting to support writer science Simon Singh will be held today in central London, in advance of his libel case against the British Chiropractic Association.
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Exclusive: Angry Labour activists sign letter on MPs expenses
A broad swathe of Labour Party activists and parliamentary candidates are tonight circulating a letter to express concern over the way party leaders have failed to take charge over the MPs expenses scandal.
The letter, addressed to the National Executive Committee chair, says they were writing to register their protest at, “the conduct of many Labour MPs, ministers and cabinet ministers in allowance and expense claims funded by hard working British taxpayers during the tenure of this Parliament”.
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Exclusive: More should be asked over Nadine Dorries’ expenses
This is by David Reeves, Labour PPC for Mid Bedfordshire
In May 2008 I referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner, Mr John Lyon, the question of whether the type and combination of expense claims made by Nadine Dorries MP (Con, Mid Beds) were within the rules (letter below).
This followed the concern of a constituent as to why Mrs Dorries claimed more in annual train and car expenses in 2006/07 (£12,005) than fellow Bedfordshire MPs Patrick Hall (£1,198) and Alistair Burt (£7,017).
In 2006/07 Mrs Dorries claimed £6,431 under section 5a car, and £5,574 under section 5c rail. The constituent was concerned that to have claimed so much for car expenses, under the rules Mrs Dorries would have needed to travel some 16,444 miles in the year, the equivalent of driving a 45 mile journey every day to all 4 corners of the large rural constituency, which would take at best 1hr 24 minutes (source: Google maps), in addition to her Westminster duties.
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Sweet dreams, harsh realities
Like his fictional counterpart in West Wing, Barack Obama embodied the highest hopes of his liberal supporters, distilled their idealism into bumper sticker slogans and sold a rhetoric of change which promised a clean break with the failures of the past.
But barely 100 days in to his term in office, a growing number of his supporters are seeing a President so straightjacketed by the actions of his predecessor that he’s even continuing those policies he once renounced.
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Shahid Malik is being used as a scapegoat
Shahid Malik became the first government minister to step down as an investigation was launched into allegations of financial impropriety.
By claiming that his main home was in his constituency he was able to nominate his London home as his second home, allowing him to use expenses – the maximum of £66,827 over the three years he has been an MP – to furnish and keep it. Among the items that he had claimed for was a £2,600 home cinema system, including a 40-inch flat screen television. The Commons fees office agreed to pay half. He also claimed for a £730 massage chair.
None of this is defensible in my view. But if a minister is being asked to stand down while an investigation is taking place, why doesn’t the same apply to Hazel Blears and James Purnell – who are accused of gaining financially by flipping their homes. As Peter Oborne pointed out yesterday:
He has been accused of pocketing thousands of pounds in expenses and avoiding taxes by designating one of his properties as both a main residence and second home. And yet Purnell is responsible for catching benefit cheats!
Indeed! But will Brown suspend him? Nope. Darling? No. Malik is paying for Brown’s lack of courage. In fact both Cameron and Brown have offered easy sacrifical lambs. And yet if they were serious about punishing people who personally benefited by abusing the expenses system, then they would remove people from the front-bench. Peter Oborne again:
No one with an ounce of decency could ever vote for a party represented by either Francis Maude (who claimed almost £35,000 in two years for mortgage interest payments on a London flat when he owned a house just a few hundred yards away) or multi-millionaire Alan Duncan (who claimed more than £4,000 of taxpayers’ money ‘to cover the basic essentials of grass cutting’).
Incidentally, I am reliably informed that Duncan shows little of the contrition away from the cameras that he expressed in front of them. In private conversation he declared that MPs should receive salaries of more than £100,000 and that their expenses should be kept secret. These remarks are significant because, as Shadow Leader of the Commons, Duncan has a big influence in these matters.
In other news, there is apparently a demonstration on Wednesday in Westminster
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