2,000 Speak Out Against Byers

The Sunlight Centre have had 2,000 people sign their petition since this morning:

Stephen Byers MP, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1998), Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1998–2001) and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2001–2002) was caught in a Sunday Times sting operation in which he offered access to the British government for up to £5000 per day. He referred to himself as a "cab for hire" and has disgraced himself.

We believe, in light of these revelations that his membership of the Queen's advisory body, the Privy Council, is wholly and utterly inappropriate.

We, the undersigned, call on Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to strip Stephen Byers MP of his membership of the Privy Council due to his involvement in offering to sell access to the British Government for personal profit.

SIGN

Bun Fight!

Beware of geeks. There is always some teccy out there who doesn't like you. The lefties, on realising they couldn't actually discredit the tory Crash-Gordon site, decided to attack in and divert the address to the Labour Party website instead. All very mature.

The problem with the supposed "e-election" is that bun fights and attacks like this are going to become the norm. TB would love to have seen the incandescent rage that would have spilled across the world had a tory activist hacked the "Save our Sure Start" campaign or the like. Nothing like a bit of double standards though.

Not one voter will have changed their minds about this attack. Cash Gordon was an effective way at branching out to eleven million Facebook users. The jealous left, who can barely afford to run this general election campaign throw a tantrum. Thirty odd lefties have had a field day... welcome to the online campaign!




It's going to be a long six weeks.

Labour Planted Story Falls Flat

The hysterical lefties have finally found a way of attacking the Tories

Crash-Gordon

site. After a weekend of jealous silence, finally

Political Scrapbook

has a err, neatly packaged, story claiming that because the people that built the site for CCHQ have worked for some right-wingers in the states then the whole project can be instantly poo-pooed. Does he really want to go down this ridiculous line of attack?

Is that the faint sound of hypocrisy TB hears? PS uses Wordpress. Lots of people he disagrees with use Wordpress. He going to cry about that? But lets try an example closer to home. Take LabourList and the Labour website for example. Both hosted and run by Tangent Labs. Funnily enough Tangent's owner Michael Green is a Tory donor and gave money directly to Cameron's leadership campaign. He takes hundreds of thousands from the left but is a tory. He going to whine about that?

No didn't think so.


UPDATE: Like with so many tech stories, Dizzy has the

last word.

Another Labour President in Drunken Nightclub Assault

In what seems like years since university, TB always does chuckle when news reaches him of old faces and red hacks.

Thomas Graham

is President of the Edinburgh University Student's Association. He is also a Labour Party pole climber and holds office in Labour Students. Hilariously with his recruiter hat on he once tried to get TB to join Unite. Like so many in careerists who would not be able to survive in the real world, Graham now has his eyes set on an role within the National Union of Students. His chances of election next month took a big hit last night though.

Despite the fact Graham and his other sabbatical Vice-Presidents have just announced a restructuring of the students association model, with inevitable redundancies, nobody was expecting a tired and emotional President to start swinging the axe in the later part of Saturday night.

A paralytic Graham was escorted out of the student run Potterow venue last night by bouncers who found him behaving aggressively and very, very drunk. Instead of taking it on the chin and getting in a cab he decided to throw his weight around a bit. Not only did he declare, at the top of his voice repeatedly, that the bouncers in question would be fired on Monday morning, reports that he assaulted a fellow student are being investigated. Not only an embarrassment, Graham has completely abused his posistion and made himself a laughing stock. Needless to say the bouncers who were doing what they are paid to do are safe in their jobs. Things aren't looking good for the wayward President though.

Labour hacks have a track record of this sort of thing. Nottingham's Labour President was lucky to get away with head-butting someone outside a club, and who could forget when Manchester Labour's poster girl Grace Fletcher-Hackwood punched a student, while elected to a role responsible for "student welfare". She had to

resign

her sabbatical position at York. TB can see little reason why the precedent set in York isn't applied to this situation.


If he does end up going and loses out at the NUS elections, it sounds like Thomas Graham would be most at home with the rest of the thugs at Unite.

Guy News

"Maggie's"

An intriguing spot in the Standard

diary

. This sounds like a laugh:

Nightclub entrepreneurs Charlie Gilkes and Duncan Stirling are soon to launch Maggie’s, a new Eighties-inspired club in Chelsea, in honour of Lady Thatcher. David Cameron may be reluctant to embrace Thatcherism but London’s hip and trendy young things certainly aren’t.

The club, on Fulham Road, will pay homage to the decade of kitsch, and Lady Thatcher, who lives within walking distance, has been invited to the opening night next month.
Lucky club-goers will hear famous speeches from the Iron Lady playing in the loos.

Thatcher memorabilia will vie for space on the walls, along with such paraphernalia as A Team action men and A-ha platinum discs. Timmy Mallet, John McEnroe and Bananarama will be depicted in a giant mural.

It will apparently be open in time for the election, but more importantly, will it be in time for TB's birthday?

UPDATE: Check out the

website

:

Cheers Gordon

Via 

Iain Dale.

Tweet o'the Day

Looks like TB jumped the gun there. Andrew Rawnsley's scathing

put down

of Kerry McCarthy would have qualified for QotD:

Brilliant.

Quote of the Day

"“Ban Mephedrone!” urge cocaine and ecstasy dealers"

-

ASI blog

Guy News Preview

It was a long night in the Guy News edit suite, but check out TB's musical finale:



Rest of the episode out later to

subscribers

.

Another Charlie Chump Moment

Another long day and probably an evening in the Guy News edit suite but what a great spot by

the Fink

:

In yesterday's 

interview with Will Straw

, Charlie Whelan appears to have given up being a spin doctor and a political organiser and become, instead, a pollster.

He claims that it is not true that a third of Unite members are planning to vote Conservative because his own survey showed it was only about 8 per cent. It never occurs to him to wonder if their might be an interviewer bias in answers to a survey conducted by his own officials.

He describes the contrary evidence as:

Some Tory paper did a bogus poll of Unite members

But the poll was actually a 

balanced and representative survey

 of 1,023 members of the union conducted by Populus last year.

So presumably every poll that shows the Labour resurgence can be dismissed as bogus eh Charlie boy?

Quote of the Day

"As someone who grew up in the Communist Party, I’m pretty disciplined."

-Whelan tells

Will Straw

He Just Can't Stop

There is no love lost between Mandy and Whelan. Ever the socialist, when Mandy resigned, Whelan cracked out the champagne in the Red Lion. Given the election is just weeks away though, you would think Whelan might bite his tongue before briefing bloggers who are on the payroll about his old foe. Whelan has accused Mandelson of "getting upset" and "getting out of the pram" in an interview to

Left Foot Forward

.


Such unity at the heart of the bunker!

Write the Theme Tune, Sing the Theme Tune

Talking campaign tunes:



Vote Lib Dem or the strangled dogs get it.

And of course...

No discussion about drugs policy is complete without some cake:

Claws Out for Miaow

Once the laughter at watching politicians trying to say "miaow miaow" with a straight face subsided, this morning's news becomes less funny. Both the government and Grayling have come down heavily on the currently legal drug mephadrone. Following the sad death of two teenagers, who were reportedly mixing the drug with heavy drinking, both parties have promised to ban a substance they openly admitted they had only just heard of today.

The Tories had the chance to redeem themselves for their science-denying backing of the government over the sacking of Professor Nutt, but have fallen back into old authoritarian ways. Incidentally Nutt acknowledges these new designer drugs cant be stopped and should instead be produced to pharmaceutical quality for peoples safety.

Given they knew nothing of something this morning, the fact the government could move so quickly and so determinedly is quite chilling. What ever happened to a considered decision based on evidence and research? Mandelson says he will look into the drug speedily. 

PMQs Review - Gordon Backtracks

The Unite connection is hitting Gordon hard. An interesting, shocking PMQs in which the Prime Minister accepted that one of his lies had unravelled and conceeded that he was in the wrong about military funding. The moment was years in the coming - cherish it.

Cameron was nifty and managed to box Brown round the ears as the PM was obviously flapping re BA. Something tells TB we will be hearing "Labour is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Unite union" again. As Cameron said, there is no denying Unite pick candidates, choose policies, elect the leader, and have special access to No.10. Hence Brown's refusal to answer anything on it.

Irritatingly the SNPs Angus Robertson's question about Steven "sniffer" Purcell was drowned out. He asked if Gordon had taken part in a conference call when deciding by-election candidates for Glasgow. Clearly Purcell's little problem came up in said convo. Brown denied taking part but they wouldn't have asked unless they were on to some thing...

Cameron 8 Brown 3 Clegg 4

Quote of the Day

I would never go as far as calling Charlie Whelan an "aggressive hooligan", "serial killer" or "killing machine" - but then, civil servants and senior Labour figures have already said that,”

-Michael Gove this morning in Transport House.

Playing the Mann not the Ball

TB choked on his afternoon Diet Coke when he read that John "First Class" Mann has threatened to sue a blogger for the heinous crime of calling him a "wanker":

(Click to Enlarge)

Well the author of "

Mannisms

" isn't going down without fight. The hilarious site that "keeps an eye" on everyone's favourite rent-a-gob is well worth a read.

Don't be wanker John.

Rumbled by the Beeb

BBC 15 Mar 2010 | 15:50 GMT | United Kingdom

CBBC airs its first ever ever in-house animation series 'Muddle Earth', CBBC's first ever in-house animation series begins debut run on BBC One, based on Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's children's novel of the same name. Thirteen-part series follows the adventures of a the wizard and his human apprentice as they attempt to thwart the attempts of an evil blue teddy bear from taking over the land and is aimed at 6-9 year olds. Features music performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, another first for the channel, and the voice of Sir David Jason

TB isn't quite sure what he has done to upset the lefties.

Ultra-Sound

Fantastic news this weekend that both Tracy "It's cool to vote Dave" Emin, (well done Vaizey and all those lunches) and Gulf-war hero and general SAS legend Andy McNab have both backed Dave.

McNab told

The Sun

"I'm impressed. The Tories are the future." So you've been told.

And you wouldn't want to mess with either of them.

Closer to Free

There has been a fair bit of chat recently about campaign songs. While they undoubtedly have zero effect on the result, TB thought he would share his two cents. While he is grumpy that they would steal and slaugter such an epic tune, Labour would be stupid not to use Journey's "Don't Stop Believing". The Tories flirted with "You Can Get It If You Really Want" TB has a much better idea...

Everybody wants to live
How they wanna live
And everybody wants to love
Like they wanna love
And everybody wants to be
Closer to Free

Everybody wants respect
Just a little bit
And everybody needs a chance
Once in a while
Everybody wants to be
Closer to Free

Everybody wants to live
How they want to live
And everybody wants to love
Who they want to love
And everybody wants to be
Closer to Free

If there are more appropriate lyrics than the Bodeans "Closer to Free" to describe the partcular brand of conservatism Dave offers then TB would be very surprised. And finally a campaign free of U2.

Suggestions in the comments...

He Will Let You Down

It was a late night in the

Guy News

edit suite last night, but check out a sneak preview of this week's episode. TB, with a little help from Beau Bo D'or spliced this tribute to Johnny Crash:

Subscribe

to get this week's episode this aftenoon.

The Loony Left is Back

In the shortest suicide note in history, the great and good of the hard left, and some seemingly sensible types who should really know better, have called on the government to potentially bankrupt itself. In a

letter

to The Guardian, various pinkos have called for the deficit to be increased and the nation to stick its head in the sand and their hands in their pockets. They just don't get it.

This collection of washed up socialists, scummy trade union thugs, outgoing MPs, brainwashing lecturers and err

BevaniteEllie

, otherwise known as the "first up against the wall" list is as follows:

Colin Burgon MP
Alex Smith, Editor, Labourlist
Austin Mitchell MP
Anne Cryer MP
Alexandra Kemp, Chief Executive, West Norfolk Women and Carers' Pensions Network (personal capacity)
Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, NUS National Officer
Billy Hayes, General Secretary, CWU
Byron Taylor, National Trade Union Liaison Officer, Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO)
Cat Smith, Vice Chair, London Young Labour
Chris Edwards, Senior Research Fellow, UEA,
Chris McCafferty MP
Chris McLaughlin, Editor, Tribune
Christopher Cramer, Professor of Political Economy of Development, SOAS
Clifford Singer, Director, The Other TaxPayers' Alliance
Colin Challen MP
Compass Youth Executive
Dave Anderson MP
David Drew MP
Dai Havard MP
Dave Prentis, General Secretary, Unison.
David Hamilton MP
Diane Abbott MP
Denis Murphy MP
Edward O'Hara MP
Ellie Gellard, Unknown Labour blogger
Grazia Ietto-Gillies, Emeritus Professor of Applied Economics, Director Centre for International Business Studies, London South Bank University
Glenda Jackson MP
Gerry Doherty, General Secretary, TSSA
Gordon Prentis MP
Prof. George Irvin, Univerity of London, SOAS.
Professor Ian Gough, Professorial Research Fellow, LSE
Hugh Lanning PCS Deputy General Secretary
Hywel Francis MP
Harriet Yeo, Labour Party NEC
Hilary Wainright, Co-Editor, Red Pepper
Ismail Erturk, Senior Lecturer in Banking, Manchester Business School
Janet Dean MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Jim Cousins MP
Jim Sheridan MP
Jon Cruddas MP
John Austin MP
John Ross, Editor, Socialist Economic Bulletin
John Weeks, Professor Emeritus of Economics, SOAS, University of London
Jonathan Rutherford, Professor of Cultural Studies, Middlesex University
Katy Clark MP
Karen Buck MP
Keith Norman, General Secretary, ASLEF
Ken Livingstone
Kevin Maguire, Associate Editor, Mirror
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Martin McIvor, Editor, Renewal
Malcolm Sawyer, Professor of Economics, University of Leeds
Mehdi Hasan, Senior Editor (politics), New Statesman
Michael Connarty MP
Michael Meacher MP
Mick Shaw, President, FBU
Mike Wood MP
Michael Burke, Economist and contributor to Socialist Economic Bulletin
Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass
Neil MacKinnon, Chief Economist, VTB Capital
Paul Kenny, General Secretary, GMB
Paul Truswell MP
Paul Sagar, New Political Economy Network.
Pat Devine, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Peter Kilfoyle MP
Peter Willsman Labour Party NEC
Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex
Richard Ascough, Regional Secretary, South Eastern GMB
Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research UK
Roger Berry MP
Robin Murray, Fellow, Young Foundation, Author of Danger and Opportunity:Crisis and the New Social Economy
Roger Godsiff MP
Ronnie Campbell MP
Sam Tarry, National Chair, Young Labour
Sunder Katwala, General Secretary, Fabian Society (personal capacity)
Susan Himmelweit, Professor of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University
Terry Rooney MP
Tim Roache, GMB Yorkshire Regional Secretary
Tony Juniper, environmentalist
Tony Woodley, Joint General Secretary UNITE
Will Straw, Editor, Left Foot Forward

The red peril is back.

Quote of the Day

From one of today's lobby briefings:

The Prime Minister chaired Cabinet at which Transport Secretary Lord Adonis gave a presentation of the UK high speed rail future, said the spokesman. Lord Adonis received 'a ripple of applause' after he called himself 'the Thin Controller', said the spokesman, a reference to the Fat Controller of the Thomas the Tank Engine books.

" How is John Prescott, " asked a correspondent.

" Always in our thoughts, " replied the spokesman.

Smirk.

How Quickly The Guardian Unravels

TB is busy and he has done this before, but

MPTP

has got his digging hat on again. Robert Booth the Guardian muckracker attempting to stir up trouble has had his string pullers cover well and truly blown:

The latest installment of this story has another point of interest, a comment from Gill Marshall-Andrews, Chairwoman of the 

Gun Control Network

:

We are deeply disturbed that elements of the Conservative party are allying themselves with the organisation Young Britons’ Foundation, whose aims include liberalisation of gun laws, and that senior Conservative figures are espousing the views of this disturbing group

But hang on a second – since when was liberalisation of gun laws one of the aims of the YBF? I’d love to see Marshall-Andrews provide a source for that. You’re certainly not going to find anything on that topic 

on the YBF’s website

. She goes on to say

Ordinary people in the UK are fearful of guns and do not want to see a return to the pre-Dunblane situation where pistol shooting was the ‘fastest growing sport’. Then we were clearly heading along the American road, a road we fervently hope that the Conservatives will not take us down again.

Now I’m even more confused. Had anyone – even the more strident Labourite – ever heard the Conservative leadership propose reversing the handgun ban? I mean, I have to assume that Gill Marshall-Andrews has, because otherwise she’s just scaremongering, and doing so with a specific political target (not that it’d be the first time 

the Gun Control Network has been accused of scaremongering

).

Isn’t it a little odd that the Gun Control Network should be commenting on this story, given the lack of a direct link? Let’s just pause to note that Gill Marshall-Andrews just happens to be the husband of the Bob Marshall-Andrews, Labour MP for Medway.

On a side note: Medway, as the political geeks among you will be aware, is significant marginal. Bob Marshall-Andrews has a a majority of less than 250 – reduced from over 5,000 in 1997 – and he’s standing down this year. His replacement, Teresa Murray, is expected to lose to the renamed Rochester and Strood constituency to the Conservative PPC, 

Mark Reckless

, who, in a pleasing coincidence, is 

a close friend of Daniel Hannan MEP

…

a member of the YBF’s Parliamentary Council

.

Full story

here

.


Subtle move by the red team.

Quote of the Day

"Curiously, one thing that's left open to the broadcaster is the opening and closing credits. Rule 68 states that "each broadcaster [is] responsible for their own titles, music, branding etc". If I was running ITN – which, at the time of writing, I'm not – I'd make the most of this sole crumb of freedom by creating an insanely inappropriate title sequence in which a claymation Brown, Cameron and Clegg take turns performing sex acts on a cow, a kettle and a hole in the ground, all of it backed by the old It's a Knockout theme tune. Then it abruptly cuts live to the studio, where all three leaders have been waiting to speak, watching with mounting horror as this sickening cartoon unfolded on the monitors. As they storm out, a body language expert analyses their facial expressions, and the studio audience waves giant foam hands around. It might not affect the election either way, but who cares: that's entertainment."

-Charlie Brooker on the TV debates in

The Guardian

Posh Tory is Back

Hide The Decline

You may have noticed the new ad on the left of the site. Hide the Decline is a Australian based climate change windup t-shirt company.

Check out their wares

.

If you would like to advertise on TB drop him an email and make him an offer he can't refuse.

The Party's Over

The story of Steven Purcell has ended with a tragic twist and shocking attempt at a cover up. From high flyer to rock bottom, Purcell has fled Scotland and gone into hiding, possibly in Australia. Once again Paul Hutcheon, with the help of Tom Gordon, proves why he is one of the finest investigative journalists around with

this forensic write up

. Guido has a

summary

too.

Still nothing but silence from Number 10 about the fall of their ally.

Quote(s) of the Day

In a less than subtle dig at his opponent in Buckingham Nigel Farage, John Bercow said today:

“Simple rabid personal abuse frankly shouldn’t have a place in parliamentary politics - it is low grade, it is unworthy.”

Speaking

in 2005 while campaigning against David Cameron, John Bercow said:

"Eton, hunting, shooting and lunch at Whites" made David Cameron the wrong man for the job.

The outgoing Speaker should be careful not to make his fear of losing turn him into any more of a hypocrite.

Smirk

Good spot from Gordon's visit to Afghanistan yesterday by

Old Holborn

.

The Enemy are Rattled

That The Guardian would chose to use their

front page

and a whole subsequent

news page

to attempt to have a dig at the

Young Britons' Foundation

shows the organisation is working.The lazy article assembled from a few blog posts, some stock photos and a sprinkle of Hannanphobia is some fantastic free press for YBF. TB understands that on the back of this article alone the 10 grand was donated earlier today to continue to the fight against the leftist establishment.

You can tell a non-story as soon as you hit the quote from John Prescott. The article itself ends up turning into a press release about the success and as a graduate of some of the fantastic YBF training, TB was particuarly chuffed with the last few lines:

 The YBF claims to have trained 2,500 party activists and sources familiar with Conservative central office said there is an informal understanding that the YBF is the main provider of training for young Conservative activists.

But most significantly, at least 11 Tory parliamentary candidates have either been delegates or speakers at its courses since 2003. With many in winnable seats, it seems the graduates of the "Conservative madrasa" could be about to take power.

As for Comrade Blaney? Well his views are well known, he has rightly never been afraid to express them, but to suggest that YBF is some sort in indoctrination brain washer is ridiculous. Just a cursory glance over the list of speakers from last weeks event shows that there was a mixture of painfully party line stuff and some more interesting ideological suggestions from the right. The range of PPCs and journalist YBF has helped, again shows the broad-church of conservative thought nurtured by such a vital organisation. There was even some orange-bookers at the event last week.

Donal has done a fantastic job with YBF and to be so sloppy to suggest that one man's personal opinions on a handful of issues must therefore be reflected by everyone he has ever helped shows just how lazy The Guardian piece is. Well done also too CF's press officer Michelle Donelan for handling what was quite clearly an attempted hatchet job with ease.

Right, must dash, TB has got to practice his water-boarding skills.

You can donate to YBF

here

.