Nine times out of ten I get the bus home like everybody else. But on those rare occasions when I pile out of Ronnie Scott’s or the 100 Club and it’s a bit too late or a bit too cold to be hanging around for the N73, I jump in a taxi to Stoke Newington. There’s change from twenty five quid, even after the tip.

So when Stephen Byers – who would have regulated the taxi trade during his stint as transport secretary – compares himself to ‘a cab for hire’ at £5,000 a day, the obvious question is just how far that fare would take a punter.

That kind of cash might even be enough to overcome any lingering traditional reluctance to go south of the river after midnight, guv’nor. Despite the extortionate rates charged by London cabbies, five grand must be sufficient to drop you off in Rome or Vienna, just in time for a bollocking from the missus for staying out late.

continue reading… »

In the last few minutes, the Conservative Party has taken down its Cash Gordon website after a major security failure which allowed twitter users to rick-roll the site using javascript embedded in a tweet.

To compound Tory embarrassment, one of the sites to which visitors were briefly redirected featured an image of three naked old men engaged in an explicit sex act, although the Tories can, perhaps, consider themselves lucky not have been Goatse-rolled at any point during today’s debacle.

So, that’s another expensive Tory new media project down the crapper in a matter of hours.

UPDATE

I’ve now been advised that both goatse and lemonparty did appear on Cash Gordon site for a while, all of which nicely sums up the Tory new media department’s day.

This is a guest post by Prateek Buch.

As the nation prepares to go to the polls in just a few weeks’ time, this week’s Guardian Politics Weekly podcast, recorded live at Manchester University, took a snapshot of the political landscape as seen by our friends in the North. Whether it was from the three Guardian panellists, from the members of the audience or from interviews with the public, strong opinions emerged on the issues that look set to dominate the public discourse in the coming weeks – and listening to these contributions I saw a theme emerging.

John Harris began by documenting, rightly so given my experience of growing up in Manchester, that too much political rhetoric simply bypasses those in the great Northern cities who would rather hear politicians discuss the nitty gritty of housing or working conditions at the lower end of the jobs market. Michael White spoke of the pernicious effect of taking the concerns of those living in safe seats for granted – that the fixation with 800,000 or so voters in marginal seats leaves the needs of the majority behind. Polly Toynbee’s description of a ‘defunct electoral system that drives towards idiocy, with the crassest posters and stupidest slogans’ reiterated this. Indeed, Toynbee even wished for a hung Parliament, such that electoral reform could finally get under way. continue reading… »

This one come firmly from the file marked ‘You couldn’t make this up even if you worked for a tabloid’ via the offices of Private Eye.

If you look at the bylines under much of The Sun’s recent coverage/speculation about the recall of Jon Venables to prisons for as yet unknown breach of his licence terms, you’ll frequently find the name of the Sun’s Chief Reporter, John Kay.

What you won’t find in The Sun is any reference whatsoever to Kay’s 1977 conviction for the manslaughter (by diminished responsibility) of his Japanese wife after an apparent murder-suicide bid.

The story was, however, recorded by the Miami News who, on 21 December 1977, published this brief account of Kay’s efforts to end his own life…

John Kay, 33, drowned his wife in the bath, said the prosecutor in court at St. Albans, England. Then he tried six times to kill himself. First he slashed his wrists – but the cuts were not serious. So he threw himself head first out of a window, but landed on a plastic garbage can. Next he turned on the gas in the kitchen, but the oven had a self-lighting mechanism he was unable to put out. He tried to hang himself but couldn’t get into an effective position. He then stood on a bridge overlooking a bypass, but decided, remembering the window episode, it was not high enough. His final attempt: driving his auto full speed into a stationary car. Kay (a reporter, it must be recorded) lived, slightly injured, to tell the tale – in court.

I dunno about anyone else, but I can’t help thinking ‘Wasp Factory’ when reading that…

The mainstream media reporting on Saturday’s English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism demonstrations in Bolton has proved worryingly misleading. It indicates that important lessons must be learned by UAF and all those who oppose the growth of the far-right EDL.

Frustratingly I was stuck in a 2-hour tailback on the M6 on Saturday morning, so missed the first stages of the counter-demo. However, I’ve been able to piece together the following from speaking to people in the afternoon and from media reports (though more on whether to trust those later).

Essentially, the EDL and UAF demos were scheduled to begin around 1pm. Greater Manchester Police had established two distinct protest areas for each group, separated by barriers (and later by police with dogs standing between the barriers). However, UAF protestors attempted to occupy the entire protest area in the morning, in a bid to deny the EDL the ability to protest at all. The police response was one of zero-tolerance: riot police and horses were sent in, and the area cleared. The majority of UAF arrests – that have been so publicised in the media – were therefore made in the morning before the EDL had arrived. Certainly, I only saw one arrest in the entire course of the afternoon, and nothing like the 55 reported. continue reading… »

From MyDD.com :

How’s this for history? The first black President and the first female Speaker of the House just brought America’s health insurance system from the 19th century to the 21st century, doing what no politician before them was able to achieve.

The new law, while insuring 30 million and lowering the deficit, is not perfect. It does little to address cost containment. It contains a mandate without strong enough subsidies. The Medicare reimbursement issue persists. You might blame Barack Obama for these imperfections. You might say that had he shown more forceful leadership, he would have had a stronger bill. And you might be right. But consider this:

In 1993, President Clinton tried to pass health care reform, and didn’t even get a floor vote.

In 1974, President Nixon tried to pass health care reform, but couldn’t quite close the deal with the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson opted to pass Medicare rather than universal coverage, believing it more politically doable.

In 1945, President Truman, like Clinton, proposed universal health care but was unable to get a vote.

In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to pass universal health care, but thought it too politically unpopular and didn’t even try.

In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt campaigned on the promise of universal health care and couldn’t even recapture the White House.

You can claim that the bill’s inadequacies are proof that President Obama failed to show true leadership on this issue, but history will tell you otherwise. He showed the courage that LBJ and FDR lacked, and his persistance did what Clinton, Nixon, and Truman were unable to do. I call that leadership.

Meanwhile, ConservativeHome complains that letting poor people get health insurance is a “significant leftwards turn”, and rounds up different complaints from North American wingnuts.

Political Scrapbook has pulled off a hell of scoop this morning…

On the day the US Congress passed legislation providing health coverage to 32 million Americans without insurance, Political Scrapbook can reveal the Conservatives’ Cash Gordon campaign was developed by an anti-healthcare lobbyist described as “Karl Rove 2.0?.

Writing on the Blue Blog yesterday, the affable Sam Coates claimed that Conservatives’ campaign site against Labour/Unite links was “built in just a few days”. What he doesn’t tell you is that the system has been purchased off-the-shelf from Republican strategists David All Group and was originally developed to galvanise opposition to Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms.

Cash Gordon is based on Operation Waiting Game, which leverages social media against reforms which, it is claimed, “will have the same devastating effects in the United States as it has in Canada and in nations across Europe: longer wait times and lower quality care”.

To make matters even worse for the Tories…

In an embarrassment for CCHQ, the party’s flagship campaign is currently hosted alongside those attempting to ”rescue America from government-run health care”, including NotSoSure.org and Hands Off.  Another site rails against homosexuals in the armed forces, stating the military “should not be used as a tool to advance the goals of gay activist groups”.

For a party that’s now supposedly ‘gay friendly’, the Tories do seem to have rather a lot of queer-bashing ‘friends’.

Over the weekend, the Sunday People dug up another rather embarrassing blast from Michael Gove’s past:

Yes, that is the young Michael Gove pictured on an official NUJ picket line during a long-running dispute in Aberdeen in around 1989/90.

My how times change….

This is a guest post by Ben Gunn.

Along with “paedophilia”, the term “child” has become so expanded as to risk losing coherent meaning.

In terms of child protection legislation, a child is anyone below the age of 18 years. That you can drive, have sex, get married and go to war whilst still a “child” is just to highlight our decidedly convoluted views on these matters.

Childhood was once a matter of biology. Post-puberty opened the doors to vistas of sweeping chimneys and vanishing down coal mines, proudly sporting long trousers and a waistcoat. Examine early photographs and children look like miniature adults. Some even sported pipes, and the only way to identify the father in family photos was by the walrus moustache.

In a long, stuttering reaction against the exploitation of the young, the Victorians began to redefine childhood as a legal, political and cultural artefact. It has been a bit of a mess ever since.

This reached it’s apogee with the Sexual Offences Act of 2003. This busybody Act created a raft of new offences, including voyeurism and sex in public. As well as missing out on the rave phenomena, it looks as if dogging is something else I’ll never experience…

Child protection wasn’t overlooked either. Whilst it was previously an offence to have sex with someone under the age of 16, this Act extended the prohibition to “any sexual activity”. This is much more insidious and made no allowances for the ages of all involved. School kids snogging and fumbling each other in the local park are now committing child abuse. continue reading… »

I got this highlighted to me while travelling and thought it was worth flagging up. Expose the BNP points out what happened in Bolton and how the media help and aid fascists from the BNP and EDL:

Video on the Bolton News website makes it clear, however, that the violence was not coming from the anti-fascists. It shows an elderly veteran of World War 2 who had joined the protest, and UAF stewards can be heard urging protestors to stay calm in the face of apparent police efforts to provoke a riot.

The Bolton News had a reporter in Victoria Square who described on Twitter how EDL members had broken away from the square to cause violence: “Number of demonstrators intent on causing disorder have broken away from protest site. Large numbers of officers deployed to address.” The journalist saw “missiles flying” as the EDL tried to get out of its enclosure.

The BBC also lets the English Defence League people describe themselves as “a peaceful, non-political group” — which is of course pure rubbish. But this isn’t challenged at all. In the interests of “balance”, UAF spokespeople were not quoted.
Read the full report here

This originally appeared on Hagley Road to Ladywood’s pre-election series.

I voted for Labour in the last three General Elections. In ‘97 I did it with conviction and hope. Four years later, before the War on Terror and all that jazz, I voted Labour with quiet content. At the last election, despite my better judgement and deep anger at the party, I did so again.

I will not be voting Labour in the coming General Election.

The fact remains that some of my closest political friends are still deeply wedded to the party. They don’t have much love for Brown, and they’re not defenders of the Iraq War, but their loyalty is to the party, not the personalities of the current car-wreck of a government. I’ve always been a pragmatist, not a tribalist.

I toyed with voting, and campaigning for, the Lib Dems. But having ‘enjoyed’ many run-ins with leading Lib Dem bloggers, I found many of them to be insufferably self-righteous. I know Lib Dem bloggers who are great, but others seem to believe they have a monopoly on liberalism and a fabulous sense of their own importance.

So, I find myself without a natural home.

Recently I wrote encouraging voters to ignore the largely indistinguishable major parties and vote for the single issue that’s closest to their heart. For me, it is individual rights and the increasing illiberalism of our lawmakers. Following my own advice I’m inclined to vote for the Pirate Party UK. continue reading… »

A elected second chamber, where we would vote for the Parliamentarians who decide on our laws, could be a desirable democratic innovation.

However, a peerage remains a significant public honour which reflects an important measure of esteem in our political community. (This is why some trouble is supposed to be taken to ensure that peerages go only to fit and proper personages).

A certain Mr Michael Ashcroft, who was in his own words “totally serious about my desire to be known as Lord Ashcroft of Belize”, failed to meet the obligations which were made a condition of his becoming a Lord and which his peers expected him to observe as a matter of personal honour. (Ludicrously, the Lords appointments commission believes it has no power to look again at a process overseen by its now abolished predecessor).

What a shambles.

Yet, as Mr David Cameron reminds us often, social responsibility is not only and always the duty of the state.

So, as a small and symbolic mark of disrespect, this blog will henceforth refer to the non-dom billionaire as Not-Lord Ashcroft.

May we commend the practice to the blogosphere.

Annie Quick reports:

The campaign to target MPs standing in the way of reform started with a bang this week in Harrow with an open letter to Harrow East MP Tony McNulty which collected almost 3,000 signatures in a few days.

The letter highlighted McNulty’s record which shows him consistently protecting ‘the old top-down politics of command and control and against reform.’ He was a key offender in the expenses scandal, which ended in him resigning from government and paying back £13,837 which he had claimed for a second home. No wonder, then that he had voted against the Freedom of Information Act being applied to MPs. He is also a key champion of ID cards, and voted against a fully elected second chamber and for an appointed Lords.

McNulty was hit hard on Thursday with a full page ad in the Harrow Times and posters with ‘Wanted for crimes against democracy’ delivered to thousands of Swing voters in the constituency, many of which are now stuck up in windows around Harrow.

In case he hadn’t got the message yet, local volunteer residents and a Power2010 sheriff delivered the letter – and the name of every co-signer – direct to his constituency door. Sadly, no-one was there to receive them. McNulty has been rather quiet as the campaign has been building up these past few days and we’re waiting to see what defence, if any, he will offer on the accusations laid against him.

On Monday Power2010 will be adding five more MPs (taken from the public’s suggestions) to their Most Wanted list. Over the next few weeks, volunteers around the country will be making sure that the next parliament is a reforming one.

This post is part of Hagley Road to Ladywood’s series on the election.

As a voter who’s long felt left behind by Labour, who’s unimpressed by the wet flannel liberalism of Nick Clegg and who remains underwhelmed by parties on the electoral fringe, this election has often felt like a choice between “the lesser of who cares?”.

For me, the prospect of voting this May – a task I might have once grasped with enthusiasm – seems like a tawdry chore, with each party appearing like a cheap imitation of my own values.

Still, after a good few months of dismayed dithering and yawning, I finally came to a decision about how I’m going to vote in this election:

I won’t.

Here’s the thing: 6 years ago a British prisoner called John Hirst went to the European Court of Human Rights demanding that our government give him and his fellow inmates the right to vote. The court ruled that our blanket ban violated the Human Rights Act, and ordered the government to make the necessary changes.

Naturally, the government has deliberately dragged its feet ever since; issuing objections and obfuscations at every turn, and getting no closer to changing the law than the establishment of some weak-willed ‘consulation exercises’.

This was fine for the first five years, but now the election has brought the matter into sharp relief. After ignoring repeated warnings that the General Election must not take place without the ban being lifted, in December the Council of Europe suggested that the election may breach the European convention on human rights. The council repeated that claim last week, along with the notice that, unless the law is changed, tens of thousands of prisoners would be within their rights to sue the British government.

As it stands, the coming election promises to be the first in modern history where tens of thousands of British citizens have illegaly barred from casting a ballot. Whatever crimes these men & women may have committed, however dubious their character, can we really claim to be tough on those who break the law when we are happy for the state to break its own laws in order to punish them?

For me, the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’. I cannot, in good conscience, exercise my legally-guaranteed right to participate in the democratic process when tens of thousands of Britons are illegally deprived of theirs. For that reason, I will be staying at home come election day. Not out of apathy, nor out of a lack of available alternatives, but as a small protest against a big injustice.

Guest post by luis enrique

I wish people spent more time looking at data and less time pontificating, so in theory I ought to love the flourishing of attention paid to household income data

But I don’t, because I think it’s being misused. It’s possible to misuse data like this in lots of ways, but I want to focus on just one. The household survey data offers a static snapshot of household incomes, but the right way to think about poverty, and wealth, is to look at lifetime income profiles.

Here’s what I mean. continue reading… »

There’s a bit of meme going around at the moment of various blogger’s choosing theme tunes for their blogs all of which led me to the realisation that, thus far, David Cameron hasn’t got a tune.

Barack Obama had a tune…

Bill Clinton had a tune…

Tony had a tune… (sorry!)

And Maggie had loads… (not that she would have wanted them)

But as for Dave, there doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon.

Okay, so there are a few obvious contenders, like this…

And Jarvis nails its pretty well, of course…

Sadly, there isn’t a video of Frank Zappa’s cover of The Clovers’ doo-wop classic ‘Cocksucker’s Ball’ so we’ll have to make do the original in honour of D-Cam’s days as a Bullingdon Boy… (definitely NSFW audio)

And I’ve always thought this one by the Beatles fits pretty well…

Although its possible that Beau Bo’s come closest so far to capturing the essence of the Tories…

Tell you what. Let’s throw this one open to the floor… can you think of a better theme tune for D-Cam than any of these?

We recently reported the hilarious, if disturbing, remarks of Tory MP Tim Loughton:

“We need a message that actually it is not a very good idea to become a single mum at 14. [It is] against the law to get pregnant at 14. How many kids get prosecuted for having underage sex? Virtually none. Where are the consequences of breaking the law and having irresponsible underage sex? There aren’t any.”

So, The Guardian asked, should there be prosecutions?

“We need to be tougher. Without sounding horribly judgmental, it is not a good idea to be a mum at 14. You are too young, throwing away your childhood and prospects of developing a career.”

Without sounding horribly judgmental, anybody who thinks that there are no consequences to getting pregnant, and that a criminal record promotes a happy childhood and helps develop a healthy career, is a Platinum Imbecile.

Platinum Imbecility aside, there’s something to note about the bizarre universe Mr Loughton resides in: girls get pregnant by magic. continue reading… »

Our friends at Conservative Home carried reports that the former North Korean Finance Minister was executed because of his failed economic policies and because he was “a son of a bourgeois conspiring to infiltrate the ranks of revolutionaries to destroy the national economy”.

Inevitably, this news has left the nice people in the Tory grassroots who leave comments on their website confused about how to react.

At the time of writing, the majority have gone with “excellent idea, why can’t we follow North Korea’s lead and execute our political opponents”:

“I believe that a state is completely justified in using laws on treason to execute those who betray the nation while holding a position of power. That goes for us here in Britain too. It has always struck me as curious that we are prepared to kill foreigners at a time of war yet are not prepared to execute those that threaten national security from within. The execution in North Korea was justified.”

Brown and Darling have betrayed this once great country and I for one would cheer as loud as the church bells if they were executed for treason

However, a significant minority preferred “this proves that the Iraq war was right and we should invade North Korea”:

“Don’t worry, North Korea will fall apart eventually.

Just drop a few suicide paratroopers in with assault rifes and shoot up Poynyang or whatever it’s called. Utter chaos will ensue. Of course they’d need to be suicidal paratroopers ready to blow themselves up before being taken prisoner.

Sorry, I like fantasising about smashing North Korea to bits.”

“Or better still ask the Chinese to invade and tell them that they can keep the territory as part of China a la Tibet and Hong Kong.

Chinese style capitalism might well get North Korea’s economy going. China could crush that regime within hours thus wiping out a vile junta and improving regional stability.

It might not be a desirable democratic option but it would get rid a major nuisance and improve relations with China. They would get the kudos of having ended an evil regime and would get more territory. Also their army could test out all of its weapons as well.

But my favorite option has to be the US destroyers launching missiles and unleashing waves of airborne attacks. After that Western Troops would secure the place and make it safe for democracy.”

Truly it is the eternal dilemma for right-wing Tories – whether to admire authoritarian dictatorships, or invade them.

MPs’ expenses: Nadine Dorries says ‘main home’ is tiny Cotswold cottage

Nadine Dorries, who has repeatedly declined to disclose the location of the property, was paid the allowances on the basis that she needed two homes to work in both London and her Mid Bedfordshire seat.

Mrs Dorries is under investigation by John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, who may recommend that she repay public funds received for unjustified claims.

MPs are entitled to claim back “second home” expenses that were “necessarily incurred in staying overnight away from their main home for the purpose of performing their parliamentary duties”.

Most designate a constituency house as their “main home” and bill taxpayers for a flat close to Westminster, where they can stay the night after working in Parliament.

Yet in a highly unusual arrangement, Mrs Dorries tells Commons officials that her “main home” is a one-bedroomed lodge-keeper’s cottage in a small Cotswold village, 90 miles away from Parliament and 55 miles from her constituency.

This allows her to claim “second home” allowances for her family house in her constituency, where neighbours have stated that she spent a significant amount of her time.

In all she has claimed £60,524 since 2006. She used the money to pay the house’s £18,000-a-year rent, as well as council tax and other domestic bills. She recently moved into a bigger farmhouse half a mile away.

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What a wonderful job we’re doing of keeping Nadine in the lifestyle to which she thinks she’s entitled.

As a bit of fun for a Friday morning we thought we’d offer our readers an opportunity to choose their political scumbag of the week, largely because this week has conveniently provided us with a strong field of contenders.

The rules are simple. just read through the following list of political low-lifes, decide which one is biggest scumbag and then use the either the comments facility or twitter* to hurl a bit of pithy but well-merited abuse at them.

*If you tweet in a response you’ll need to include a link to this post for it to be picked up

Sometime during the day – which is likely to more or less when I can be arsed – I’ll tot up the scores and we’ll have ourselves a winner.

So without further ado, lets list the nominees…

continue reading… »