Salmond's "McBride Moment"?

All that talk of dear Damian leads nicely into

this story

coming out of Caledonia. Seems the SNP have got their fingers burnt as it turns out one of their most prolific and aggressive "cyber-nats" was in fact a paid up employee of the Scottish Government - in charge of the office of Culture Minister Mike Russell.

Oops, no surprising then that one Mark MacLachlan no longer works for the SNP and his blog has now disappeared. As

The Herald

reported:

"Mr MacLachlan suggested some Labour politicians got a sexual thrill from bullying women, branded a prominent Tory “the biggest liar in the Scottish legal system”, and posted a picture of Gordon Brown in a noose with the headline “duplicitous lying bastards”.

He also alleged a married Labour MSP visited gay cruising spots, badmouthed the daughter of Lord David Steel, the former presiding officer at Holyrood, and described several opponents as “c***s”"

Sounds fairly typical for a nationalist blog then. The now defunct

Universility of Cheese

was one of the few to actually have the balls to name George Foulkes as a gay cruiser though. This isn't smeargate stakes as there is no evidence to link Alex Salmond directly to this blogger. TB wonders which other Scottish bloggers are getting very nervous about who they work for now though. Also there is no evidence of malicious scheming in the office to make stuff up a la McBride and all, but it has certainly destroyed the SNPs constitutional media strategy for this week.

Who could have leaked a thing like that eh?

The Gloves Are Off

TB occasionally enjoys his banter with soon to be former Labour MP Kerry McCarthy. Kerry,

a known expenses trougher

and vegan, should spend less time on twitter and more of her weekend attempting to defend her wafer thin majority, against the odds.

There is an air of desperation creeping in to the Labour netroots, perfectly encapsulated by Kerry's actions. Playing the man instead of the ball is an understatement. She has clearly been taking evening classes at the Damian McBride School of Political Campaigning™ as she has managed to stoop to new lows of comparing Tory Bear to Nick Griffin. The highly tenuous connection being both are sceptical of global warming.

Her thought process

last night

went like this:

Nick Griffin = Racist + Global Warming "denier"
Tory Bear = Global Warming Denier

Tory Bear = Nick Griffin... shortly followed by "HEY ELLIE, GUESS WHAT!"

Well Kerry that is too far, shall we have a look through the Labour manifesto and the BNP one for a little game of spot the difference? This pathetic attempt to bat away a debate you know you would lose by smearing by association is a step to far. You don't drag Nick Griffin's name into a debate unless you are going for the cheap shot.

TB has been pulling his punches so far but from today until your agent turns to you on election night with a "sorry", the gloves are off.

Why Are Vampires Making a Comeback?

Asked Sky News last night. Someone there has a sense of humour:

Looks like they got an expert in

Labour To Bother Fighting Election

Labour HQ went into

recruitment overdrive

last night. The timing of these job adverts makes TB think a March election hasn't been entirely ruled out. TB hears that the money for these jobs has been specifically ring-fenced by donors to spent solely on the election. Labour are still in millions of pounds of debt though.

It will take a very brave rat to join a sinking ship.

Hello Sailor!

Ooooh.

Captions below, yes TB knows there are overdue prizes to be dished out and one day he will remember to do that, but if you make him laugh there is something up for grabs...

This Could Be Interesting

UKIP have

announced

their new leader. Their desired strategy of attempting to do this as quietly as possible has been remarkably successful. TB is the wrong side of a port and cheese board so he can't be bothered to find the exact figures, it is however worth remembering that UKIP cost the Tories countless seats at the last election. He is wondering what the impact of the new leadership will be.

Lord Pearson is sound. Outflanking potential in Tory heartlands could be massive...

Confessions of a Climate Change Denier

TB is finds himself increasingly using the term Global Cooling Deniers. Problem is he uses the phrase in jest. Others throw the word denier around in a far darker fashion. He is sick to the back teeth of the pious, tedious, deceitful and at times violent extremist stance that has been adopted in the last few months by the climate lobby and their spiteful mouthpieces.

TB disagrees with you about global warming. Ok? Got that? However much you hound him and rile him he is grown up enough to make a judgement all on his own. Vicious lists of “deniers”, drawn up and then spread around so others can target and bombard and harass are totally fucking unacceptable. What next? Will all the deniers be made to wear little green stars on their jackets?

The left are pathetic in their attempts to use a disputed and increasingly shaky idea to promote their hidden political agendas. There is a difference between being green, being respectful, being sensible and being sustainable out of choice rather than having to subscribe to a highly dubious scientific theory. You can want to leave this planet in a better state than it was inherited in without having to be forced to subscribe to a theory that makes you want to do it.

Being sustainable is common sense, it shouldn’t have to be forced upon us. TB understands and knows the need for the UK to reduce our dependency on oil and coal. We need to develop new energy creating technology. The wind and sea is free, we’d be stupid not to use it. Nuclear power is clean and efficient and in the long run far far cheaper than burning oil. TB knows this without having to subscribe to a quasi-religion, with all the dangerous pitfalls theology brings.

Of course TB doesn’t want to pollute and destroy the planet. Recycling is of course a necessary thing, but not because WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE if we don’t. The obsession with global warming is a patronising and pathetic attempt to control the individual. Hence why it is no surprise where on the political spectrum it’s most vocal advocates lie.

Now Will, Sunder, Grace, George, Brian etc and the anonymous lot, leave TB the hell alone. He has chosen on the base of his own decision making ability where his views on this lie. No amount of harassment and attempted shaming is going to change that until TB sees some bloody evidence (not nursed figures!)

TB respects this world because we should, not because we are made to.

Never Been One For Blondes

TB was fairly whelmed when he saw Philip Blond speak during conference season and has been less than enthused by the sort of people who are making swooning noises about him. Good news today though is he is reducing

normally sharp critics

to dismissive desperation. TB has however just had a chance to flick through some of what was

said earlier

.

There is much that is right with the state and there is much that is wrong. What is right is that the state embodies in structured form a common concern – it represents the coalesced will of the people that there is a level below which you cannot fall and an undertaking that we as a body politic have a stake, a care and indeed a provision for you and every other citizen . In that sense the welfare state really does represent the best of us. In that sense the great triumph of the left is indeed the 1945 Labour government which laid the foundation of the modern welfare state. But what the working class thought would save and secure became something that gradually and over time, eventually helped to destroyed them. Why? Because the state instead of supporting society - abolished it. The welfare state nationalised society because it replaced mutual communities with passive fragmented individuals whose most sustaining relationship was not with his or her neighbor or his or her community but with a distant and determining centre. Moreover that state relationship was profoundly individuating - unilateral entitlement individuated and replaced bilateral relationship.

The working class did not ask for this – they wanted something far more reciprocal, more mutual and more empowering. All existing working class welfare organisations were sidelined by a universal entitlement guaranteed by the state based upon centralised accounts of need. Local requirements, organisation or practices were simply ignored and thus rendered redundant. Thus the welfare state began the destruction of the independent life of the British working class. The populace became a supplicant citizenry dependent upon the state rather than themselves and the socialist state aborted indigenous traditions of working class self–help, reciprocality and social insurance. Rather than working with each another in order to alter their situation or change their neighbourhood or city, relying on the welfare state only to get them through a temporary rough patch, working class people increasingly became permanent passive recipients of centrally determined benefits. As such welfare ceased to function as a safety net through which people could not fall, becoming instead a ceiling through which the supplicant class – cut off from earlier working class ambition and aspiration – could not break. This ‘benefits culture’ can be tied directly to the thwarting of working class ambition by a middle class elite that formed the machinery of the welfare state yes to alleviate poverty but also to deprive the poor of their irritating habit of autonomous organisation.

Interesting stuff. Jury is still out somewhat at this end but one to keep an eye on.

Nothing Says Grrr Like a Fisk

Busy day for TB but amused by this continuing tête à tête between Christian May and Heydon Prowse. CM has replied with a fisk. Scroll down the page for background.

"Some points: I never agreed to have an interview published in Labourlist. Seems like an interview to me. But then again, Mr Prowse has some experience about tricking people into interivews. I've never met Christian May (although I'm pretty sure he definitely reads The Guardian and maybe even Red Pepper). The last time I purchased the Guardian I was a university student, using it as an illustration of poor quality journalism in a presentation. I got a very high mark. I can't think of a bigger waste of my time than to get involved in this petty left/right bickering. Well at the risk of sounding like a kid, you started it. You really did. I can't believe a hugely important guy like Christian had time to write a 500 word response to a misquoted article that about 100 people read. Well it didn't take long to write, given that my passions were raw. Also, Alex Smith take note; Mr Prowse thinks only 100 people read your site. Perhaps he isn't the darling of the Left? I didn't read all of your reply Christian cos [sic] it was very boring and I have work to do, but it all sounds very good and noble. Thanks very much. It's probably fair to say that more thought has gone into my political views than has ever gone into your opportunistic, inaccurate, cheap, quick-sell political films. I guarantee, however, that your darlings Cameron and Osborne will sell out the Conservative roots and young idealists just as thoroughly as Labour did. If you know something about the Conservative Party that I don't, please let me know. As it stands, I'm happy to advocate on behalf of a Party I believe in. Not all of us are willing to write off politics simply because we're swept up in a populist anti-politics mood. Open your mind, Mr Prowse."

Over to your Heydon.

Catty

So it seems that Heydon Prowse didn't actually know he was being interviewed for LabourList in their

much trailed

"The Heydon Prowse Interview":

Some points: I never agreed to have an interview published in Labourlist. I've never met Christian May (although I'm pretty sure he definitely reads The Guardian and maybe even Red Pepper). I can't think of a bigger waste of my time than to get involved in this petty left/right bickering. I can't believe a hugely important guy like Christian had time to write a 500 word response to a misquoted article that about 100 people read. I didn't read all of your reply Christian cos it was very boring and I have work to do, but it all sounds very good and noble. I guarantee, however, that your darlings Cameron and Osborne will sell out the Conservative roots and young idealists just as thoroughly as Labour did.

Praise all round then.

Don't Panic Vs. CF - Round 32

Don't Panic

's Heydon Prowse can be very funny, he can also get right under people's skin from time to time. It seems he might want to rethink his comments concerning CF's head honchos. TB has a response from CF Charmain and Deputy Chair Michael Rock and Christian May to Mr Prowse's

interview with LabourList

that was published this morning, in particular his recollections of a certain conversation:

Michael and I share much in common. One such trait is that we don't often read LabourList, and I'm sure we’re not alone in this. It seems to be not much more than a collection of press releases from Government departments, broken up by a few over excited Tweets from their "grassroots" or "online movement." Although to be fair to Alex Smith, he has at least succeeded in bringing in a bit of debate and opinion after the downfall of its original editor.

However, Alex Smith stills lets the odd howler through his editorial sift and the website was drawn to our attention this morning after the political highwayman Heydon Prowse appeared to articulate our views, and the views of Conservative Future, to the readership of Labour's flagship online presence.
Apparently, having spoken to us both, he concludes that we’re all Guardian readers, that we would agree with most of what he thinks, and that the the only change we’re interested in is from opposition to government.

Where to begin?! Well for starters, I’ve never met Mr Prowse. I wasn’t at the infamous gathering where he filmed my friends and colleagues, and I certainly haven’t met him anywhere else. Michael has had a conversation with Mr Prowse, on camera in fact, but I think it's fair to say Michael isn't particularly well known for his Guardianista views, and there wasn't much policy discussion. So how Mr Prowse claim to know which papers we read and what our political views are, is beyond me.

To be fair, he probably doesn’t have to meet either of us to know that we want the Conservatives to move from opposition to government, but it’s a touch unfair to claim that our thoughts on “change” are as basic as that.

Why do Michael and I want change? Well Mr Prowse, Michael and I have decided to break it down for you:

We want a change from an overbearing State to a smaller government. We want a change from punitive taxes on the poorest to incentives to work. We want a change from a broken society to a renewed civic conservatism. We want a government that cares about people, not headlines. We want the armed forces to be led by Dr Fox, rather than the embarrassing “Bungling” Bob Ainsworth. We want a Health System that trusts doctors, not targets. We want schools that ensure teenagers leave with the ability to read and write. We want Britain to be an effective trading partner with Europe, not a willing cash cow in the ongoing project of EU imperialism. We want a Prime Minister that doesn’t employ people to smear political (and military) opponents.

There’s a lot that we want to see changed, not least the credibility that Mr Prowse seems to have gained through duplicity, spin and mistruths.

Over to you Heydon, TB is more than happy to publish right of reply.

Oh Gordon.

More here

.

"Saving the world."

Time for a New Leader

Bleak

polling news

for the Scottish Tories.

Iain Martin

is right:

They’re getting absolutely nowhere, slowly. More than 12 years after they were wiped out in 1997, and 10 years since the launch of devolution (which they thought might enable them to rebuild) they are stuck down on 18%.

The findings will trouble David Cameron, who has attempted to make great play of his Unionist credentials. But with a Labour government in trouble, and a fresh-faced Tory leader, the best his Scottish wing can manage is 18%.

Remember, in what will likely be a closely fought election campaign, every seat counts. For context: Thatcher secured 31% of the vote in Scotland in the 1979 election that brought her to power. Her party had 22 Scottish seats. Now it has one. On 18% it’ll be lucky to do any better than that.

This poll will make for very depressing reading for a lot of extremely talented PPCs that the Party has north of the border. Although these candidates are pretty much powerless to do anything about the Holyrood grouping and the leadership of the Party in Scotland, noises need to be made. Tory MSPs need to take a long hard look at these figures and what they can do to help the image of the Party in the eyes of the Scottish voters. A refreshed an invigorated grouping in Holyrood could gain more attention and thus more traction for the Scottish Party as a whole.

While Annabel Goldie has many fine qualities she is clearly not leading the charge effectively. While many like her personally, the numbers tell a different story. Any course of action need not be brutal, merely pragmatic. There are some very talented potential successors in the Holyrood grouping who could hit the ground running.

A change at the top could be the very catalyst required to restart the fight back north of the border.

The Last Word

It seems all echelons of the Labour Party are in capable off saying sorry for anything, unless of course it is for the actions of the British people hundreds of years ago. It seems the official line of "regret" will have to do from Ellie Gellard. As for the cowardly councillor Tim Cheetham he deleted his words in silence. Says a lot!

Just a few final words on all this. Regular commenter here, blogger

Dick Puddlecoat

, has a damning response to what was christened "Skate-Gate". TB was as shocked as he was offended by such callous words from the two labourites and while he was blogging in anger, a more reserved approach from Dick is

well worth a read

:

Now, it has been mentioned in the comments that TB is being a trifle precious here, and, in an ideal world, they would have a point. However, this is Labour we are talking about. You know, the party which has systematically thinned the collective skin of the entire nation?

They have not merely discouraged comments which could be construed as offensive, they have legislated to criminalise them but, and this is crucial, only for those who are deemed worthy by socialists. Hate speech is illegal if others utter it towards Labour's friends, but perfectly acceptable if aimed by their elected officials and party apparatchiks at those who are not stamped as 'approved' by the left.

Say you don't like Muslims and you could end up behind bars, but wishing death on Thatcher is fair game even for tinpot Tim and ever ready Ellie.

See, the commenters at TB's place tend to possess more of a spine than that attributed to the public by Labour during their tenure, but then, those who are not socialist have always tended to believe that the world is a difficult place and one should learn to cope with it rather than be nursemaided through the whole experience.

Labour, though, have decided that the country should be filled with individuals who have the right not to be offended ... ever. So much so, that we regularly read of innocuous ads receiving complaints from dainty flowers who either see offence that wasn't there, or who are quite simply too stupid to understand the joke.

So surely, if Labour aren't to be accused of hypocrisy (hey, stop laughing, I'm trying to be serious here), Mrs Thatcher should be expecting an apology quite soon, no?

Well. No. Because the response has been depressingly predictable.

"The official line to take tonight seems to be smear TB as a sexist, all very well coordinated kids."

Hammer. Knee. Jerk.

As usual, rather than tackle the problem, the preferred method is an ad hom smear.

Talking about a woman? That'll be sexist. Concerned that immigration policy is wrong-headed? That'll be racist. Worried that schools are putting too much emphasis on same sex relationships? You're a homophobe.

The implication is that this was only a joke and not meant to be offensive, so TB, and Mrs Thatcher's friends and family, should just chill out.

Perhaps they might be inclined to if Labour hadn't spent a couple of decades just not getting the fucking joke themselves. Or, as A N Wilson put it at the weekend.

"I would much rather live in a world where comedians sometimes 'go too far', than in a tight-lipped dictatorship where you do not dare to make a joke because someone else will think it 'totally unacceptable' - to use that pompous phrase which is trotted out all too often nowadays by the thought police. Acceptable to whom?

It is patronising to women, Jews, black people, Irish people, or indeed to anyone, to suggest they are too thin-skinned ever to hear a joke in which some stereotypical attitude is betrayed."

Them's your rules, Labour. You're the ones who promoted this atmosphere of instant mistrust of the jovial word. You're the ones who dictate that no offence should ever be perceived, let alone intended. You're the ones who have set the agenda and acted on it.

Yet wishing death or injury will be conveniently set aside in this instance, because Labour are not consistent, merely selfish.

They scream when they, or their pet groups, are even mildly offended - hell, they even scream when their pet groups are not offended but Labour think that they should be. But when it comes to Labour offending others, that's a different matter entirely. Their own right to post objectionable messages or hate speech is assiduously guarded. After all, theirs is the righteous ideology and cannot ever be questioned.

You must understand. It's not offensive when Labour do it. Got that?

Well said that man. Read the whole piece

here

.

NIMBY!

Great spot

by Dizzy:

Won't ask how he found that out.

Quote of the Day

"It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them."

-George "moonbat" Moinboit on the

CRU leak

.

Grauniad Subliminal Sudoku

Of all the things TB laughed at in this morning's Guardian

this

had to be the funniest:

Whoops.

UPDATED (again): They Don't Half Pick 'Em

The problem whe

n you become a poster girl for a political party is realising that instead of being a random groupie on twitter, when you get the endorsement of party elders, party slaves and party cheerleaders, when you are photographed with the PM, you deserve a little more scrutiny. LabourList proudly state young Ellie Gellard is their most

influential communicator online.

It takes a pretty sick individuals to look at the footage of a frail old lady enjoying a reward for years of loyal and great service to her nation and

wish a violent accident

involving stairs and skateboards upon them. You may disagree with someone politically but to wish them a violent death? Baroness Thatcher has been hospitalised in the past from falling down and to suggest the image of her falling down the stairs over a skateboard is in anyway funny or just reward to anyone is as deeply disturbing as it is shameful. Apparently this is funny though to Labour's poster girl Ellie and

Barnsley councillor Tim Cheetham.

So will Alastair Campbell, Kerry McCarthy, John Prescott, Labour HQ and even Polly Toynbee, who were so quick to praise this deluded young lady for her campaigning about the Labour PPB please have at worst a quite word with her, or at best do the right thing and publicly condemn her? Or is this an acceptable message from representatives of the Labour Party?

TB got in touch with senior Conservative source, and friend of Mrs Thatcher and showed them this filth, their response said it all:

"Healthy political debate is one thing, but it is quite another to spread vile jokes like this around the internet. This young lady should be ashamed of herself. It's clear that gutter politics aren't just confined to the top of the Labour Party."

A joke here and there and a bit of banter is one thing but a line has very much been crossed here.

UPDATE: 22.30: A point or two: both of these people officially speak for the Labour Party. One is a councillor, the other brought in to email the entire Labour Party membership list and has been thrust into the limelight as an officially endorsed poster girl for the appalling attempt at a Labour fight back. "Game on" eh?

The official line to take tonight seems to be smear TB as a sexist, all very well coordinated kids. However TB would have gone after anyone sick enough to make those remarks. He doesn't care what any old kid says on Twitter, but when someone is a representative of the party of government they should think twice before they open their mouths. The reason Ellie was targeted was due to the fact she is such a prominent activist supported and endorsed by Labour HQ, rather than one of a last handful of irrelevant Labour councillors. Though with the "vermin" nonsense they hardly have a good rep these days do they?

So stop the spin and the shouts of bullying etc and bite the bullet. If you can't take a taste of your own medicine then that says more about you than it does about the bear. TB is just interested in whether these thoughts are commonly accepted and supported views in the Labour Party? So far no one condemned Ellie from the red camp. Telling.

UPDATE 12.01: Could those various press officers who claim on the phone to still be looking into this please hurry up. TB is starving and wants to go to lunch soon...

Mystic Mac

TB has had a busy day making life difficult for a certain MP, but he did have the opportunity to laugh, and promptly send hoards over to James Macintyre's

latest fantasy blog post

. First it was Blair to win and now fifty odd piss taking comments must surely be a new record for the the low traffic Statesman site?

"Indeed, yesterday's poll and the apparent trend reminded me that, after I dared to suggest in my new year predictions (some wrong, some right), that the two main parties' positions in the polls would switch by the end of this year Iain Dale, the aimiable and popular partisan Conservative blogger, reacted with "cackling laughter" and said "In your dreams, sunshine".

In fact, private polling commissioned by Number Ten is today showing just that."

Course it is James.

TB's fav comments have to be the "Did Gordon slip you some of his happy pills?" and "Is this secret poll No.10 has, is like the secret intelligence report no. 10 had about iraq having WMD's?"

Now as far as TB is aware there are very strict rules on how Downing Street can use party political polling, and particularly if they brief the media on them. British Polling Council

rules

say that if you media release any results from a poll, then the whole poll must be published in full within 48 hours by the pollster:

2.3. Public opinion polling organisations reporting results will endeavour to have print and broadcast media include the above items in their news stories and will in any event make a report containing these items together with full computer tables of the results available on their web site within 2 working days of the original release.

2.4. In addition to the information outlined above, the public opinion polling organisation responsible for conducting the survey that has entered the public domain will place the following information on its own web site within 2 working days of the data being published.

· A full description of the sampling procedures adopted by the organisation

· Computer tables showing the exact questions asked in the order they were asked, all response codes and the weighted and unweighted bases for all demographics and other data that has been published

· A description of the weighting procedures employed and weighted and unweighted figures for all variables (demographic or otherwise) used to weight the data, whether or not such breakdowns appear in any analysis of sub samples.

· An e-mail address for further enquiries. It is assumed that all other reasonable requests for other data, over and above the requirements specified herein, necessary for readers of the polls to assess the validity of the data will be answered

· A link to the BPC web-site

So who is the pollster and where is the report on their website?

Are they not a proper BPC registered polling organisation?

Or was Macintyre making up anonymous LOOK AT ME I'M IMPORTANT briefings from No10?

Well they have 48 hours to publish, but TB isn't holding his breath...

Cartoon - Still on Recess?

Well it was a pretty poor

first shot

.

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