Well Having Your Lawyer in the Cabinet Helps

There has been widespread condemnation today when it

emerged

that a senior member of nutjob group Hizb ut-Tahrir is teaching, and preaching at LSE. Reza Pankhurst has provoked outrage from the anti-extremism 

Student Rights

group who said today:

“With the increased scrutiny on campuses following Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab’s [Detroit bomber] terror attempt; we must call into question why a member of a group who have supported suicide bombings is allowed to teach to impressionable students.”

Quite.  The government apparently keeps Hizb ut-Tahrir “under continuous review” but having a your lawyer sitting in the Cabinet has clearly made life easier for Pankhurst. Despite his best efforts, Tooting MP and Transport Minister Sadiq Khan failed to stop Pankurst being imprisoned in Egypt for membership of the group back in 2002. Khan

described

the connection to the group as trivial.

Friends in high places eh?

TV's TB

TB did laugh when the makeup lady asked him if he wanted "airbrushing"

Ken Clarke for Twitter

Talking of last night's Question Time, tweeting tory boy

Declan Lyons

got an interesting campaign going. TB is agrees that life would be better with Ken Clarke on twitter. He came out with a vintage classic last night when describing the Labour coup "they hide behind the dagger and fight with the cloak."

More... more! We

know

 he has a Blackberry so why the delay? 

Support the campaign with the

#getkenontwitter

hashtag

Chilcot: The Guilty Men

Apologies for the lack of blogging - TB has been a busy bear. Meanwhile the pressure for Gordon to appear before Chilcot is growing. Not only did Clegg pound Brown on it at PMQs on Wednesday, but on last night's Question Time Peter Hain got utterly destroyed by an audience that smelt blood and cornered the Orange Crusader over the run up to the war. Hain fluffed the pre-rehearsed lines and the first twenty minutes of the show was real

car crash stuff

. A commenter wrote the other day:

The Chilcot inquiry thing is gaining ground - even on the Guardian website where they have a poll.. Well worth a look, to bump up the numbers to '90% of Guardian readers' wanting him to appear before the election? Sounds unlikely ? You think he could never be that stupid ? Wait until you see Tony Blair 'blamestorming' all over him and then see his temper rise and the need for revenge trumps the risks which such an encounter, and the accusation of flip-flopping, could cause.

Mark my words, he will be heading to the Queen Elizabeth the Second Conference Centre to sing like a canary before the election before getting himself up to his neck in the brown stuff..

TB is inclined to agree. The pressure needs to be increased. The public have the right to witness the thought process of the man that bankrolled the war before they cast their votes.

Say Cheese!

Dead Man Walking

Cam 6 Clegg 5 Brown 2

TB is very busy after it taking hours to get to the office this morning, but that PMQs couldn't pass without a quick comment. Dave was back to form. Splitting the questions was a good move - thumped Brown, leaving him spluttering and cornered with those last ones. The cabinet looked extremely uncomfortable while Dave pounded them again and again. The Downing Street staff lines about airbrushing and posters could have been funny the first time if it had been delivered well. However it flopped the first time and thus Brown looked absurd pounding it again and again. As ever Brown refused to answer any of the questions and resorted to his tired stale lines and statistics.

Clegg used his questions on Iraq well, it was a fair point that the country needs to have a chance to judge Brown for his writing the cheques for the war but the day was definitely Daves. Gordon is here to stay now and there is no risk of another coup. Time for the fun and games to really begin.

Popcorn anyone?

The Bagshaw Files

TB isn't one to blow his own whistle, but, he has enjoyed blowing the doors off Liberal Youth. He began his campaign against them during their election last March and became the must stop shop for all their campaign gossip. The Liberal Youth forums described the coverage as a "mixture of gonzo and News of the World sensationalism" that was "popcorn worthy" - TB couldn't have put it better. There was spin and briefing, lies and counter briefs - all recorded in painful detail by Tory Bear:.

It all began with a heckle, triggering a bitter election fight. Emails started landing in TB's inbox. The election dragged on, Liberal Youth imploded and the inevitable Downfall video appeared, which Cowley Street swiftly had pulled.



Election day drew nearer,

Guido weighed in

 and it was truly sandals at dawn. And suddenly it was all over. Bagshaw had gambled on  playing dirty to survive and she pulled it off. TB knew there was more fun to come.

It didn't take long for the honeymoon period to disappear. Elaine's opponent splashed her side of the story. And who will ever know what really happened at the training weekend? A message to those Lib Dems in despair:



And then she was gone. Stabbed in the back by those she had treated so badly, with the approval of the Party HQ.


So farewell Elaine.  Tory Bear will miss you.

Cowley Street Sanctioned Bagshaw Coup

TB's ears at Lib Dem HQ have confirmed that Baroness Ros Scott - the president of Liberal Democrats sanctioned the coup against the now former Liberal Youth Chairman. It is no surprise then that this one succeeded where so many failed before. Scott was approached by the plotters before the letter was put to Bagshaw and given the fact so many of the executive had already resigned it was simple to set up the two thirds no confidence constitutional passage out for Bagshaw. Elaine tried to fight it, but with the party machine against her she soon realised her time was up.

Loyal to the End

As the dust sort of settles on the Liberal Youth bunfight, two more yellows have jumped ship. James "Eva" Shaddock, loyal to the end to his lover and wee

James Harrison

 who TB is most glad to see the back of, both hung up their sandals this afternoon. These two were the only ones to stand by Elaine Bagshaw both privately and publicly, loyal dogs to the end.

James Shaddock's resignation letter about his caring friend is well worth a read if you fancy

a laugh

.

Puts Elaine's mention of a year of ups-and-downs into perspective.

The Bagshaw Coup

Well Lib Dems certainly know how to organise a coup. Maybe Elaine would have survived if she had stayed in the Labour Party. TB has been working the phones to find out what really happened. All this is on the record from a key figure in Liberal Youth:

"Elaine's explanation that she's resigning because she's 'no longer able to give this position the attention it deserves' is complete bullshit: it's the latest lie from a compulsive liar. Elaine was forced to resign because the Liberal Youth exec finally had the guts to stand up to her, and organised a coup. Seven committee members signed a letter of no confidence over the weekend giving her three days to resign immediately. She knew that her time was up, and we could do this the easy way, or the hard way."

It seems that her main reason for resigning was hilariously to attempt to salvage something of her reputation for her future political career. She sobbed to Cowley Street to try get the coup stamped out but they cut her loose.

"I mean, how can you overturn being no-confidenced by over half your own exec? What was she thinking? We won't be sorry to see the back of this bruiser and her bullying ways. Though now that she's got more time on her hands, Christ help us if she ever tries to stand for parliament. As a Lib Dem, anyway."

TB has been

warning

the Liberal Youthers about Bagshaw since March last year. Hate to say he told you so...

Liberal Youth Chairman Throws in Towel

TB was hearing stirrings of this last night but couldn't get it confirmed. Good news is that Elaine Bagshaw has resigned as Chairman of Liberal Youth. After months of chaos and resignations it seems this once Labour Student hack has decided to pack it all in.

+++developing+++

UPDATE: 13.16: 

From: "LiberalYouth Admin"
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:06:00 -0000
Subject: A Message From Elaine Bagshaw

Dear all,

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have to inform you that I will stepping down as your Chair, effective immediately.


This is not a position I wanted to be in, but unfortunately recent events have meant that I'm no longer able to give this position the attention it deserves, and to give all of you the Chair that you deserve.

Blah blah blah.

TB hears that it wasn't exactly a happy parting. Rows, tantrums and tears before bedtime. This leaves "Britains Liberal Youth movement" in even more chaos than they were in already. Expecting an epic bunfight.

UPDATE - 13.48: Oh it's good, really good. Watch this space.

On Your Blog

Hordes of lefties let out wails as it emerged late Sunday that Lord Tebbit has joined the blogosphere:

I have often enough been called a rotten old blogger (or something which sounded like that) but to be a Telegraph old blogger is a new experience, and I’m proud to join a team which includes a lot of people I admire.

Something tells TB

this

is going to be good.

One More

Neil Hepburn made TB laugh with yet another

mock up

of the Dave poster:

Wonder what the King Over the Water really makes of the direction things are going in.

+++Wootton Bassett Islam4UK March Called Off+++

Seems the scumbags have chickened out.

Good news.

Quote of the Day

-Paul Goodman

Enough

said.

"Funeral Hearses are Circling Parliament Sq"

Make no mistake how damaging the Peter Watt expose is. Finally someone from the heart of Downing Street is saying the truth. It's telling how quick

LabourList

are to come out of the blocks with the official line:

That's not what TB is hearing from one of his more reliable Labour sources though:

"Watt an earth is going? I've heard a rumour that a fleet of funeral hearses are circling parliament square. It's so bad. I wouldn't rule out another plot at this rate: regicide or cannibalism? Need gallows humour to get through.

The ferrets are well and truly fretting. The Mail

editorial

is killer:

"This is not so much a government in crisis as a crisis pretending to be a government"

Tories Put Boot In re Watt

Commenting on the revelations by former Labour General Secretary Peter Watt, Conservative Party Chairman, Eric Pickles said:

"After a week in which six senior Cabinet Ministers failed to back the Prime Minister, this is yet more evidence of the dysfuntion at the heart of Gordon Brown's Government. It is now clearer than ever that we can't go on like this with such a weak Prime Minister and such a divided government."

TB makes that the 178,492nd thing we can't go on like this week.

Watt a Legend

"Peter, we've spent 10 years working with Gordon and we don't like him. The more the public get to know, the less they will like him too"

Dale has quite the scoop in bagging Peter Watt's book.

The Mail has the serialisation

. Despite being able to see the pound signs glowing in Watt's eyes on Sky a moment ago, he raises some

serious points

:

Mr Brown’s Cabinet ally Douglas Alexander said the PM’s inner circle wanted an early Election partly because even they didn’t like him – and they feared the British public would soon form the same view.

The day Mr Brown called off the 2007 Election, denying he had ever intended to hold one, Labour chiefs had a fleet of limousines circling Parliament Square ready to take Ministers on the campaign trail, and had 1.5million leaflets ready to be posted.

No10 is ‘completely dysfunctional’ under Mr Brown, who runs the country ‘by making it up as he goes along’.

Sulking Mr Brown walked out of a Downing Street dinner party with US politicians because they sat down without his permission.

Ouch.

The most damning part has to be the evidence of just how was the "election that never was" was:

He also reveals the chaos caused when Mr Brown made his U-turn on the Election during a TV interview.

‘As he spoke, the fleet of limousines ordered at No10’s behest was circling Parliament Square.
'They had come . . . to collect Ministers and whisk them off on the campaign trail. They were sent away on a pretext, to spare us the humiliation of anyone spotting them lined up outside our offices.

‘We had already spent £1.2million. Somewhere in a mail depot were hundreds of sacks of personalised letters to voters in marginal seats – 1.5million envelopes waiting to go.’

Smoking stuff.


DALE:

Has the 101.

Reloaded: Save Our Gordon!

A long night but enjoy!

Gordon Invades CCHQ

TB's CCHQ eyes got in touch:

Seems Gordon took the Cabinet on a field trip to CCHQ for a lesson in party unity.