On that freedom all our other freedoms depend.

TB is very busy today. Big surprise tomorrow, but in the mean time stumbled across this old gem again:



Ahhh. Normal service resumes tonight.

Don't want to go school today...

Busy day. Too much wine last night. Grumpy.

Dizzy joins the Village People

Provocative headline aside,

Dizzy

is featured on Newsnight tonight talking about his sustained and noble campaign against No10 and their continued cover up of what exactly they sell in their gift shop. Surreal but hilarious, this three min clip is well worth a watch:

Mark Wallace

hit the nail on the head with his tweet: "

@dizzy_thinks

good performance on Newsnight! You even dressed exactly as the Westminster village imagines bloggers to!"

Sound and Slick...

Is it just TB or has anyone else noticed how slick the CCHQ videos are getting? It's looking good for the election. Such a shame we can't buy airtime and get this sort of thing viewed by millions instead of thousands. Allowing political parties to buy advertising would destroy the stranglehold the media and lobby have over our politicians, who have to creep round them and vica-versa. But that's a debate for another day...



In the meantime the new approach to aid has some fantastic ideas and is a fantastic video.

Harperson finally goes round the bend...

"LABOUR is riding to the rescue of another down-trodden minority group - Northerners.
Harriet Harman is drawing up plans to stamp out discrimination against Scousers, Geordies and people from Yorkshire.
Labour's deputy leader wants to get more people from the regions on to the boards of major public bodies.
Ms Harman is planning to impose special quotas to boost numbers - just as she has done for women, gay people and ethnic minorities.
She fears too many organisations are run by executives from London and the South East."

Oh lordy, she's really

scraping the barrel

now. What the hell is wrong with this woman?

Anyone hear the one about the Scouser, the Geordie and the person from Yorkshire who walked into a bar?

Exclusive: Ed Hallam has poked Lucy Roblin

There has been much speculation about whether or not Lucy Roblin the Vice Chairman of

CLWCF

had received a poke from Ed Hallam, the Chairman. Well TB can reveal once and for all Hallam has poked Roblin:

Smirk.

Boris Saves the Day

Great little story from PR Week

about Boris and his Twitter feed coming to the rescue of the some irate bus passengers. Not sure what is more shocking - the fact Boris apparently knows what is happening on his Twitter account...

...Or the fact

David Singleton

managed to write a positive piece about someone who wasn't Labour.

Monday Morning Totty Watch:

TB is not sure that this is the right reaction to be having to an

article from The Guardian

, of all places, about the under-representation of women in the Conservative Party, but he thought it deserved some coverage. To be fair they started it by including

a whole gallery

. Before you sniveling lefties get all emotional, TB is a big fan of this charge by the ladies through the party ranks... who wouldn't be:

It has to be said that CF's very own Liza Chantelle and Anna Fazackerley from Policy Exchange are looking particularly fine.

Weekly Cartoon from Posh Tory:

Can but hope and pray it happens for real soon.

Dinner?

So anyone fancy being wined and dined by Tory Bear? All you have to do is be the 1000th person to

follow him on Twitter

...

The winner has to be able to get to central London, will have to be in early September too. Numbers can fluctuate a little from day to day so just be the first person to email TB with a screengrab of you being the 1000th follower. Sixty odd to go.

Who will the winner be?

Male or female? Lads- TB will get the beers in and then something manly like curry. Ladies... well it will be a slightly more civilised evening. See above.

Follow TB on Twitter

here

. Good luck.

Summer Reading

TB finds himself reading fewer and fewer books these days so it's always nice to reclaim that forgotten sense of satisfaction you just don't get online. He has a couple of reads to recommend as thoughts turn toward packing bags and beaches. One fun, one slightly heavier.

A Useful Fiction

is a must read for anyone who has ever looked at devolution in the United Kingdom and thought, hold on.. what about little old England? Broadcaster Patrick Hannan gives a fairly comprehensive look at the last ten years of the little devolution project and doesn't hold his punches. In the way that only the SNP can, the celebrations of the last few weeks over the ten year anniversary were highly politicised and it's rather refreshing to finally hear someone put a well justified dampener on it all.

With the dust still settling on the expenses scandal it didn't take long for some entrepreneurial types to get the handy guide book to the whole saga out in just weeks.

The Little Book of Big Expenses

does exactly what it says on the tin. If you don't like to see political types savaged in a brutal and irreverent style then TB wouldn't recommend reading. If however you want to take the piss out of the troughing bastards and want a handy comedy index of what went on then go grab a copy now. The comedy redactions got TB some very funny looks on the tube the other morning. Think there were a couple of snorts.

Would cry if he didn't laugh.

Who dunnit?

Got a rather interesting text message:

"An unsuccessful attempt has been made to access your Voicemail
account. If this attempt was not made by you, please contact Customer
Care on 191 immediately."

Give TB some credit, he's not that silly. Not sure what

the thug

is still moaning about not being told about having his phone "hacked".

Why can't he just retire gracefully?

Totty Watch: QT Special

TB didn't catch Question Time last night, but there was much post-boozy lunch excitement when a rather inebriated co-worker returned having remembered he had fallen in love with this rather lovely lady from the audience last night. About 13 mins in

here.

Anyone know who she is?

Who was the hackette?

The delectable Kevin Maguire is putting a

bit of stick about

for Gordon once again:

"Home Secretary Alan Johnson was a picture of innocence during the plot to oust Brown and replace him with a former postie with the initials A J. Not so his entourage. It has come to the attention of No 10 that one of his team offered a job in Downing Street to a hackette."

Via the

Coffee House

this little bit of gossip begs the question - who was the hackette?

Could it have been

Allegra Stratton

?

Her articles did play a rather key role in the botched attempt to oust Brown?

In Dave We Trust

He hasn't quite got the Messiah like qualities of Obama quite yet, but things are looking good for Dave.

Apparently

he could be a direct descendant of Moses.

An actual watergate...

Iain Dale

has a wonderful scoop this morning about the fact the Liberal Democrat candidate in the Norwich By-Election April Pond has a rather lovely house... surrounded by a defensive trough full of stagnant water.

Yes one of the few things that really came to symbolise the expenses scandal was the ol' moat cleaning. No wonder Pond was Clegg's third choice for candidate. Was it really very wise of the dead duckers to choose a woman, who not only isn't very local, but during a by-election that will be dominated by the scandal is hardly a clean break from it?

Looking a little closer.. wait... what is that? Is that... is that... a duck house floating there?

Sorry who is Vince Clegg?

It is often said that Vince Cable should be the leader of the Liberal Democrats but someone in Liberal Youth is clearly a little confused...

These pictures sent to TB from last weekend's "Activate" weekend for the yellow kids are apparently from a training seminar where they were being taught by Cowley Street officials about leaflet writing. Anyone who has even gazed half an eye over any Lib Dem election literature will recognise the usual lies and bullshit that they push on the doorstep. Looks like the record isn't going to change anytime soon.

Particularly enjoyed the "Vince Clegg saves Christmas" line. Surprised the deluded dead duckers haven't pushed that one for real yet.

Genius.

Classic.

Via

Beau Bo D'or

Tory fingerprints are all over this...

Donal Blaney

has got the scoop:

"It is, however, abundantly clear that the Tories have a real case to answer. Tory fingerprints are all over the scandal - as I can exclusively reveal here.

Theresa May - once possibly bought a copy of The News of the World. What did she know that we ordinary mortals didn't, eh?

Michael Gove - worked for The Times (wink, wink) which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch (nudge, nudge) and believed to have maybe picked up a copy of The News of the World on a train once. What clearer evidence of Tory complicity in this could you want?

William Hague - wrote a weekly column for The News of World. Rumoured to have been the real editor, publisher, proprietor and driving force behind the entire newspaper since 1977.

Boris Johnson - was one of The News of the World's victims but in his case he deserved to have his voicemail hacked into because he's a Tory toff and he stood for the Mayor of London against St Kenneth of Livingstone, the High Priest of Political Correctness.

John Gummer - might own a Sky satellite dish. Or might not. BSkyB is owned by Rupert Murdoch. So is The News of the World. Ohmigod, the circle of connectivity gets closer still.

Richard Ottaway - represents Coulsdon, Surrey in the House of Commons. Coulsdon sounds like Coulson so clearly he too had intimate knowledge of what The News of the World was up to."

The fake Labour outrage is pathetic. John Prescott was nailing his staff on his desk while he was Deputy Prime Minister. Of course he was going to be targeted by journos.

The

real attack dogs

are very quiet today.

Busy...

TB is not only very hungover but extremely busy.

Apologies for the radio silence.