CCHQ accused of smear campaign by ex-Tory MEP
The former Tory MEP McMillan-Scott has launched a stinging attack on Tory high command, saying it had orchestrated a “smear campaign” against him.
In a furious letter sent to Conservative MPs in Westminster, he said:
- A smear campaign was launched against me, starting with a specious letter which William Hague sent to key Conservatives in my constituency and also issued to the media although he knew that, for legal reasons, I could not reply. Six Conservative Press Officers vilified me to constituency media and the nationals while defending Kaminski.
- On September 15, without notice or reason, I was expelled from the Party after an email exchange between Board members. They did not meet. This decision is subject to a prolonged internal CCHQ appeal procedure in which my lawyers and I have little faith (I was on the Board for three years) and, as a result, may lead to court action.
The full letter is published by James Macintyre at the New Statesman
McMillan-Scott has also published a document titled ‘Kaminski Uncovered‘ (MS Word), also on his website, which lists his allegations against the new leader of the Tory EU grouping Michal Kaminski.
The issue is unlikely to go away for the Conservative Party, despite CCHQ’s attempts, as McMillan-Scott is taking the party to the High Court.
Trevor Phillips chastised by Select Committee
I have to say that this is the first time I have ever seen a parliamentary committee publish anything like this…
1 Allegation of Contempt: Mr Trevor Phillips
We met on 9 February to discuss a draft Report on the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It emerged at the start of the meeting that Trevor Phillips, the Chair of the EHRC, had recently spoken to at least three Members of the Committee about the Committee’s consideration of the draft Report and the publication of written evidence with the Report. In our view these discussions could constitute a contempt of both Houses in that they may be an attempt to influence the views of certain Members of the Committee shortly before it considered a draft Report directly relevant to Mr Phillips in his role as Chair of the EHRC. We recommend that the matter should be subject to investigation by the Privileges Committees of both Houses.
This allegation relates to a investigation by the Human Rights Joint Committee into the circumstances that led to several resignations from the EHRC last year.
Greek financial crisis: speculators versus democracy
Thanks to the Greek financial crisis, there is now a new punch line to an ancient music hall joke. The correct response to the question ‘I say, I say, I say, what’s a Greek urn?’ is no longer ‘oh, about 50 drachmas a day, I reckon’ but rather ‘4% less than they used to, on account of the latest public sector pay cut’.
The decision, taken by socialist government of George Papandreou, comes in response to a debt crisis that might have been more easily manageable but for the actions of hedge funds, who on Friday alone took $79bn in bets on the future value of the euro.
These people have also staked huge sums of money on a fall in the value of Greek government bonds, most prominently through the use of instruments known as credit default swaps. The price of CDSs has hit record levels in recent days.
Outfits such as Paulson and Moore Global Investment, who are leading the pack on this one, are politely described in the financial press as ‘speculative investors’. The second half of that designation might conjure up connotations of solidity. In the public mind, investment equates to new plant and machinery or roads and and schools and bridges.
continue reading… »
Welcome to Libertopia
Wondering what “savage cuts” in public spending would actually mean in practice, or what would happen if the government got out of the way of providing basic services? The residents of Colorado Springs are about to find out:
“More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.”
“A budget crisis caused by the recession left Colorado’s second-largest city with a $28-million shortfall in its $212-million general budget. Residents — largely conservative, anti-tax and suspicious of their elected leaders — resoundingly voted against a proposal to triple property taxes and keep the city humming. Mayor Lionel Rivera said the city has no choice but to cut fundamental services.”
New Tory ad campaign already spoofed
After the huge success in spoofing the first Tory ad campaign, the man behind MyDavidCameron (Clifford Singer) has launched a second spoof site for the new Tory ad campaign.
Here’s the original poster:
It’s already been spoofed:
It has been attacked for being “flippant” and “distasteful”.
It has been criticised by the Spectator for not being strictly true.
People on Twitter have started making fun of it.
And now you can send in your own spoofs via: My Tory Tombstone
Update Carers UK’s chief executive Imelda Redmond CBE has issued a statement saying:
This crucial debate must not be drowned out by media soundbites and electioneering. It is particularly disappointing to see these difficult issues reduced to slogans and posters, and for care of older people to be associated with negative of gravestones.
The carers and families we represent are struggling now and desperately need decent services and support. They will not accept social care becoming a party political football.
Cameron’s centralisation of power laid bare
“It’s official: DC has changed the party!!!!!!!!”
So tweets Tory prospective parliamentary candidate Joanne Cash, who resigned on a Monday and un-resigned on Tuesday from the Westminster North candidacy, explaining that:
I did resign. Assoc did not accept. CCHQ has resolved specific issue so I am not leaving. It’s official DC has changed the party!!!!!!!!
Paul Waugh has a very full account of “the farcical scenes at the plush Commander gastropub” in a little local difficulty in which party chairman Eric Pickles, the hereditary deputy leader of the Tory peers Lord Strathclyde, David Cameron himself, Michael Gove and several other party luminaries were heavily involved.
The upshot appears to be that Cash’s one-day resignation has succeeded in removing her enemy in the local party – who was constituency chair and, ever so fleetingly, elected constituency president by the members.
Which raises the question: does the episode show how “DC has changed the party!!!!!!!!”?
continue reading… »
Reformers welcome vote victory on AV
Electoral reform organisations tonight issued statements celebrating the vote in the House of Commons for a referendum on AV.
The BBC reports:
MPs backed the referendum plan by 365 votes to 187 – a majority of 178 for the government. A Liberal Democrat amendment to hold a referendum earlier and on a different voting system – the single transferable vote – was defeated by 476 votes to 69.
….
The government put forward its plan for a referendum to be held by the end of October 2011 in an amendment to the Constitutional Reform Bill. But the wide-ranging Bill has to go through various Parliamentary stages before becoming law and is expected to face opposition in the House of Lords. Downing Street has also admitted “time is tight” to change the law ahead of a general election, widely expected in May.
Tonight, the Electoral Reform Society’s Dr Ken Ritchie said it marked the end for First-Past-The-Post:
We wanted MPs to back the amendment on the Single Transferable Vote. The Alternative Vote will not go nearly as far to deliver a representative parliament, an accountable government and responsive MPs. But we finally have movement towards a better voting system.
The evening’s Hansard report will serve as a permanent record of the dividing lines between the old and new politics. Tories and Labour rebels will have the opportunity to explain their decision to voters at the coming election.
Willie Sullivan from the Vote for a Change campaign, which has led calls for a referendum, said:
This vote has clearly demonstrated where some of our MPs’ priorities lie. We have a new coalition in British politics. And as they shuffled through the lobbies together, Conservatives and Labour’s rebel knuckle draggers stood united against change.
We now have a clear view of which politicians have faith in their voters, and which simply have faith in the status quo.
If this Axis of Reaction needs a leader, they need look no further than Douglas Hogg, a man who says giving the people a choice on how they elect MPs is a waste of public funds having spent taxpayers’ money on his moat. You can find no greater spokesperson for the First-Past-the-Post tendency.
Watch: Colbert calls Palin a ‘f*cking retard’
via North of Westminster blog
Quote-mining is never a good idea
One of the more common, and thoroughly, dislikeable practices associated with climate change ‘skepticism’, creationism/intelligent design and with the peddling of pseudoscience, is that of quote-mining.
Quote-mining is the practice of scouring scientific papers and reports for quotes that can be readily presented out of context in support of the quote-miners preferred position or argument irrespective of whether those quotes provide a fair reflection of the actual contents of the paper. It’s actually a practice that recognised as a logic fallacy, not to mention a form of false attribution and it’s neither a clever nor a particularly honest practice for anyone to engage in.
Sadly, there’s currently a perfect illustration of the fallacious use of quote mining to be found at Devil’s Kitchen; one that relates – unsurprisingly – to one of the key chapters in the IPCC’s AR4 report on Climate Change. continue reading… »
Ali Dizaei: when bad coppers are black
Police corruption might not appear to have much in common with guitar-based rock bands. But what is beyond dispute is that both were so much better in the 1970s.
Look at the Met’s Obscene Publications Squad, for instance. Those guys would not have stooped to fit up whatever back then constituted the equivalent of a website designer for a few hundred poxy quid. Why bother with stuff like that, when they were busy trousering millions in bribes from criminals like Jimmy Humphreys, the porn king of Soho?
When Commander Ken Drury went down for eight years in 1977, Mr Justice Mars-Jones was clear that he had headed a regime of “corruption on a scale which beggars description”, and the judge was not wrong on this one.
But Ali Dizaei is to his predecessors what the Noisettes are to the Pistols or Zep. His efforts to frame Waad al Baghdadi obviously brand him a boorish alpha male little bully. But the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad in its paddy-bashing hey-day would have laughed him off as an obvious lightweight.
continue reading… »
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