What more is there to come?
Martin Bright has a typically excellent column in the New Statesman about this whole fundraising scandal. Here’s the key graf:
MoD slammed by Select Committee
The Ministry of Defence has been slammed today in a report from Select Committee on Public Accounts that looks at it's management of the Defence estate. The report concluded that over 40% of family accomodation and more than half of single living accomodation is substandard.
A flagging union
It's right that our national flag should represent Scotland, England and Ireland. Adding Wales would be rewriting history
Third time lucky?
The government is having another go at reform of the Child Support Agency. The new system must address parents' concerns
The Liberal Democrat Leader
The role of the Leader of the Liberal Democrats is one of the most difficult in British politics. Unlike the Leader of HM Opposition, there is no specific financial support for the leader of the party, neither, except at election time, does the Liberal Democrat Leader have Police security protection.
Greens set to join the real world
With New Labour increasingly seen by many as a lost cause, there has been much discussion on Liberal Conspiracy of late as to whether the Green Party might be a more effective political vehicle for the British left. This weekend, in what will be seen as an indication of their desire to be taken more seriously as a party, they are set to ditch their dual leadership structure in favour of having a single leader.
Labour donors anonymous
Labour_donorsanon Why do so many Labour donors seem embarrassed about giving to the Labour Party? David Abrahams did it through his employees. Wendy Alexander's leadership campaign, where she had to beat nobody, raised £17,000 through attracting several donors of £995, just under the £1000 mark where they would have to be declared.
HMRC data security scandal debate - still no mandatory use of encryption
The latest Labour party financial funding scandal seem to be obsessing the "Westminster Village" and has overshadowed yesterday's Opposition debate on the ongoing scandal at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling admitted that the missing CD discs have still not been found or accounted for. He seems to be obsessed with the review of the data security and privacy procedures at HMRC which Kieran Poynter .
Sleaze Queens Wrestle
Fascinating three-way tussle in the Commons this morning over party funding. In the Blue Corner: Theresa "Nasty Party" May; in the Red Corner: Harriet "Spirit and Letter of The Law" Harman. Trying to referee - and keep the debate in order - Mr Speaker, "Gorbals Mick" Martin. Mrs May's opportunity came during the weekly session on next week's business. So she had to keep on stretching the argument to what should be debated - the speaker warned her three times but ruled in her favour in the end.
'Donorgate' getting serious
Throughout the current rumpus about the illegal donations to the Labour Party, its been assumed that, in reality, it was just a few backroom boys getting carried away. A bit of short term damage and then normality resumed. That was definitely the tone of a discussion on the Radio Cymru programme Taro Post that I took part in this afternoon. Paul Flynn, MP was on for Labour.
A sensible approach to party funding
The party funding scandal that has engulfed the government will undoubtedly be used as an excuse for more regulation and more state funding of political parties. This is a mistake. The Labour Party is in trouble precisely because it has broken existing laws and been found out, not because there was not enough regulation to guide their conduct.
Is Harman Trying the "If I Go, You Go Too" Defence?
Guido is having difficulty understanding the maneuvering of the various Labour party players in the scandal. Dizzy is hinting that the source for the Evening Standard's writ attracting story on Mendelsohn is the Harman nominating MP, Kevan Jones. He was seen dining with the journalist who wrote the article in Shepherds the night before. Not conclusive, but interesting nonetheless.
Newsnight Allegations Mean Harman Cannot Survive
Much as I would like to watch Alan Duncan make mincemeat of Caroline Flint tonight on Question Time, I shall be watching Newsnight. Why? Read on, dear reader, read on. David Grossman has uncovered more about the reason Harriet Harman was so keen to accept money from David Abrahams Janet Kidd. She is in debt up to her very pretty eyebrows. Her campaign overspent to the extent that next week she is holding a fundraiser in Leicester Square, billed as "This is the last opportunity to raise funds towards the cost of our very successful campaign. Places are limited and tickets are available strictly on a first come first served basis.". Tickets are a mere £30. However, that's not the juicy bit.
Marriage tax myths
Remember policy - y’know, that stuff politicians are meant to do? Well, here’s something for the few of you who do - new research suggests that the Tories‘ proposals to encourage marriage through the tax system would be a wasteful bribe to median voters, rather than a way of improving the way children are brought up. Granted, there’s evidence that the children of married couples do better - on average - than those from single-parent homes.
Is the Labour party about to implode?
Man in a Shed was sitting back watching Newsnight when to his utter amazement Mr David Abrahams appeared on Newsnight, or rather phoned in. Perhaps it was a last minute thing, it was certainly dramatic. (Guido has the transcript that is probably also available on the Newsnight web site ).
Does the latest poll under-state Labour’s plight?
What if the fieldwork had taken place yesterday? As has been noted often here a key element when assessing a poll is the timing of the field-work. In fast-moving political situations like we’ve seen this week the “when” can play a critical role. So the overnight YouGov poll in today’s Telegraph has to be looked at in terms of when it took place. The figures, as discussed on the previous thread, were with changes on the previous survey from the pollster - CON 43% (+2): LAB 32% (-2): LD 14% (nc)
Dave. Get rid of Teresa May. PLEASE. I beg you.
Open Labour goals all over the place and this woman cannot shoot straight. She cannot shoot at all. She would not recognise a ball if she tripped over one in her ridiculous shoes. Nor a goal, not even if all the world's Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian footie commentators roared out the word 'Gooooooooooooooal!" in one great, cosmic, orgasmic chorus.
3 comments:
I assume you're the fellow on BBC just now ... greets.
A little tweak for your page: right now you have a humungous number of posts on the front page. Terribly long ... very hard to load for those of us who don't have hot machines and fast connections.
cheers
--bentrem
Judging by the time you left this comment, I probably was the fellow you saw on the BBC. Glad someone was watching!
I have taken your helpful advice. I have reduced the number of posts from 20 down to 8. Hope this works better now...
It's a project, making blogs really user friendly ... ironing out the kinks is the way to start. Blogspot isn't the easiest platform to customize, though it's good for what it does.
Something you might want to peek ... I'm implimented it on my perenially "beta" homepage ... the "Expand" link on my technorati faves. (Just proof of concept there.
Then next thing I'm going to do is incorporate ''DOM Tabs'' (see how Comments/Floated/Links all display in the same slab of real-estate) into my sidebar. Anything to make it shorter.
cheers
p.s. google/blogspot is schizophrenic concerning my account ... this might appear under a different identity.
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