TB is off to deepest darkest Hackney, well Victoria Park rather to see Tiesto tonight... something he has wanted to do for a long time, not least of all because of this little video:
Will try ask the man himself what he thinks...
After a week of side swipes and bitching it's nice to see at least two of the candidates coming out today with some policy ideas.
First this morning we had Craig Cox flexing his sound muscles with
"If a restaurant knew for sure that no matter what it did, it would always get 100 customers a day and make enough money to pay its overheads, what incentive would it ever have to make a nicer soup or update the furniture? None. And it's exactly the same with schools."
Eric Pickles
"I’ve set about abolishing all the Rs. Regional Spatial Strategies, regional housing targets, Regional Assemblies, Government Offices for the Regions and Regional Development Agencies. We’ve said our goodbyes. The arbitrary regional tier of government administration and bureaucracy was unpopular, ineffective and inefficient. So it’s the end of regional government: we need a new era of localism. Nowhere is that more important than in the economy."In other news, the Conservative Party youth wing has locked in a complete regional restructuring in their new constitution. Regional tiers of bureaucracy.
Just in time for the election a new CF constitution. TB hasn't read it as he has better things to do, but he imagines someone out there will want to:
Let him know if there is anything interesting in it.
"I would like to make it very clear that the only people authorised speak on behalf of my team are, myself and the joint campaign directors: Hamish Stewart and Philip Smith. No other individual has the authority to speak on behalf of the team."That should end this email nonsense.
Following the
"I have come to your country in a spirit of humility. I know that Britain cannot rely on sentiment and shared history for a place in India's future. Your country has the whole world beating a path to its door. But I believe Britain should be India's partner of choice in the years ahead. Starting this week, that is what we are determined to deliver." - David Cameron inThe Hindutoday
"David Miliband was beginning to look as accident-prone as Mr Bean last night after yet another adventure backfired. After ruining his chance of the Labour leadership by gurning at the cameras while brandishing a banana, the Foreign Secretary's visit to India last week was labelled a "disaster" by the country's leading politicians." -The IndyJan 2009
TB's bag-carrying amigo is raging. The £6.5m omnishambles that is the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has been forced to extend the deadline for MP’s first claims. Initially the organisation had insisted all claims had to be submitted within 90 days, but MP’s are so bemused by the system that most of them are yet to make a claim.
So far just 279 out of 650 MPs have claimed expenses, whereas the rest have funded office equipment, travel and hotels out of their own pockets. The deadline for their claims would be 7th August onwards but IPSA has rushed out a note to say that MP’s will have until 1st October for these first claims.
While TB has little sympathy with many Members, the fact that they can't even run an office is a joke. There is a difference between lining their pockets and actually doing their job. The staffer told him earlier; “We all agree with the new expenses rules, but IPSA itself is an expensive shambles. Anyone wanting to go into parliament today would need at least £10,000 in cash to cover IPSA’s inadequacies. The fact is that the system is confusing and bureaucratic. They need to abolish IPSA asap.”
Sounds like a plan. They should just give them all debit cards from Parliament bank account. Statement published monthly. Simples.
Ben Howlett launched his website this morning:
Given TB has dropped from sixth to the twenties on Wikio in the last few months he isn't expecting great things from this year's Total Politics poll. Traffic peaked in the run up to the election with well over a 100,000 pages views every month but obviously the traffic has dropped off with the rate of posting. Either way if you have enjoyed swinging by here then please do vote for TB in the poll... rules below!
Cheers!
It's that time of year again, when Total Politics asks you to vote for your Top 10 favourite blogs. This is the fifth year of the poll. The votes will be compiled and included in the forthcoming book, the Total Politics Guide to Blogging 2010-11, which will be published in September. For the second year running, the poll is being promoted/sponsored by LabourList and LibDemVoice as well as this blog, and that of our publisher, Iain Dale.
The rules are simple.
1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include at least FIVE blogs in your list, but please list ten if you can. If you include fewer than five, your vote will not count.
4. Email your vote totoptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
5. Only vote once.
6. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible. No blog will be excluded from voting.
7. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
8. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2010. Any votes received after that date will not count.
TB knows that lots of campaigners are all very excited about the CF elections, but such a battle will not be won by bitching about each other in the comments of this site.
Over the weekend one IP address attempted to post 30 comments in favour of one candidate and presented some pretty spurious and libelous allegations. You know who are. If you want to end up in the High Court, go get your own blog.
Moderation is going to be a lot tighter now and repeated offenders will be blocked. TB is all up for hosting a forum for debate, but when it descends into smearing from one camp pretending to be another, save your breath, the comments won't get though.
Here endeth the bollocking. Sorry to get all Tim Ireland on your for a moment.
As you may have guest TB doesn't quite have the time to blog here like he used to. However in loyalty to those who have been readers from the beginning he is keeping an eye on the growing Tory-bun fight that is brewing over the internal Conservative Future elections. Without time to write vast analysis he will be trying each day to do a News in Briefs about the campaign. If you have any ideas for a good quick forty word hit, then do ping him an email.
And so to Mahiki last night for the first of the Conservative Future chairman hustings that was piggy-backing on the Young Britons' Foundation Summer Party. Cocktails were flowing, though compared to years passed it was a relatively sober bout.
That wasn't to stop a howler though...
Questions began with an in-depth discussion on Europe. The floor probed the candidates far deeper than David Cameron was on the issue on the election campaign. Answers ranged from "No" to "Maybe" to "sort of in and out?" Other questions on reform were all rather dull and the usual lines about communications were pushed out.
It wasn't until a cheeky grenade was lobbed in that there was the night's only shocking incident. Candidates were asked "Which politician do you most relate to and respect... in Northern Ireland?"
Well that was slow, messy, and amateur. Interruptions meant it never really got going but there wasn't exactly much to work with in the first place. It makes you realise just how far Dave has moulded PMQs to his own style and uses it to bash with ease. Clegg's opening joke was cheap and crashed. Not sure about the dissertation line either...
Straw isn't exactly suited to the combat style of PMQs and its pretty embarrassing when you make Harman look good at this. He started too quietly and by the end of his questions he was bellowing and came across rather dreadfully and gruff. Bit jumbled on the substance as well. Think Clegg would benefit from a bit of "practice" at this too despite his scathing put down.
Clegg warmed up once the questions were thrown open to the Backbenches, but the duel is really what mattered. His defence of the coalition at the end was very good, hit the Labour record hard too despite the best efforts of the Speaker.
Once again another piss poor performance from Bercow. Funny he never interrupted Gordon when he went on with reams of tractor stats and obscure defences of Labour's record. Who knows what point Clegg was going to make? He then completely cocked up the fact that Straw had only had five questions, it looked like it was his first time too. And once again he went with the "shut-up because people are watching" line. The public don't hate PMQs battles. Maybe Bercow could explain why it's the only Commons session that people watch? Every week. And enjoy?
Ed Balls is showing off his London campaign team in a new
Just a quick reminder about next week's YBF summer party:
Date: Thursday, 22 July 2010, 8.00pm
Venue: Mahiki, 1 Dover Street, London W1S 4LD
FREE Mahiki Cocktails – but get there early!
Entry: £20 (£10 for full-time students and graduates)
There is a CF hustings before at 7pm, which as TB is apparently not allowed to chair he will instead ask awkward questions from the back at. All the details and tickets
...please chill out.
TB wasn't sure what Simon Cavalier Jones was expecting in this race but:
"It's shocking how tribal and petty these elections have become. Elections should be fun, ideas should be banded about, people should be lobbying candidates and drinking with them. It's amazing the amount of rubbish talked about these Elections and the smearing.
CF should be fun, we after all are the Young Generation, it should be about meeting friends, politics and party's. Not spouting off arrogant nonsense and accusing people of things they have not done. Sadly this behaviour is what drives people away from us and it must stop.
Most people outside of CF see us as about as progressive as Cliff Richard! We need to show that as a Party, we are normal young people and the tone of these elections is not helping. Let's have some fun, have some laughs and reduce the amount of pomp involved. I for one promise to buy a beer for the funniest comment below (for or against me)."
So the CF bandwagon rolls on.
A strange mood at PMQs today, the leaders were actually quite funny and it was a much less stilted performance from Harman than usual. For a second TB thought that the honourable members had actually listened to Bercow and were chilling out a bit. Harman pulled off the joke about partners and mothers well but Dave was quick on the come back with the CND dig. Harman should know the rules state you leave the mothers out of arguments though.
Although it was clearly a joke, Harman continues to insinuate that Clegg and Cameron are in a gay relationship with her "partner" comparisons. Yes everyone has made the same joke, but this is Ms Political Correctness we are talking about. Imagine is someone made a joke about Harman being a lesbian, there would be outrage from not only her but her army of puppeting drones who weigh in whenever anyone dares to criticise. TB's beef is not with the joke but Harman's hypocrisy.
The good humour couldn't last for long though. The last few Harman questions were back to the more heated exchanges we know and love. Bercow had the audacity to tell the Prime Minister to shut up before he answered a question. He was quick to to defend the PM later, on more than on occasion, seeming like he was trying to make up for overstepping the mark.
The Speaker is on thin ice, he is a servant of the House not a leader. He should not be preaching outside of the House about how members should behave, it is completely outside his rightly limited and focused mandate. He is damaging his authority, a fatal flaw in a Speaker. He wont be able to stay for long if he is pushes his luck too far.
A few interesting questions from the Backbenches, but after a good opening ten minutes, it all tailed off rather.
Not content with talking head domination, TV's Shane Greer has taken to doing underwear ads:
Joking apart it seems
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