Statement on Ken Livingstone chair of Unite Against Fascism

The Chair of Unite Against Fascism Ken Livingstone has a record of three
decades of opposition to racism, fascism and anti-Semitism. Millions of
Londoners have twice chosen Ken Livingstone as their Mayor, because of his
proven record on opposing injustice, racism, fascism and promoting equality.
His suspension from office for four weeks by a un elected body flies in the
face of democracy.
We are proud that he is our chair and will continue to be so.

Scrap the Standards Board

I have had my own run in recently which resulted in a ludicrous reference to the Standards Board. As it happens the Standards Board realised that it was an entirely frivilous complaint and it proved to be, as I forecast, a ridiculous waste of public money. Now the Standatds Board have taken this decision in respect of Ken Livingstone which must surely hasten their own demise. How a bunch of unelected officials can suspend from office someone elected to run one of the World's biggest cities is beyond me.

Iain Dale is a sucker for punishment. Not content with Ken giving the Tories two trouncings in a row, the masochistic Mr Dale wants a third punch on the nose. As if the news on Ian's new best friend Comical Cami wasn't bad enough!

Surely we've got to be preggmatic about this?

Over five million people at work in the UK regularly do unpaid overtime, giving their employers £23 billion of free work every year. If you're one, why not take some time to reflect on how well (or badly) you're balancing your life?

Tomorrow (Friday 24th) is Work Your Proper Hours Day. Ask your employers to publicise it on their Intranet (don't hold your breath though).

An interesting analysis of the US fatalities in Iraq compared with the same stage of the war in Vietnam at lies.com. Regrettably there is no comparison for dead Vietnamese and Iraqi citizens.

Prince Charles - 'political dissident'

On the same subject... From a letter in The Guardian
"No chance of Prince Charles being dissident enough to be a republican, I suppose?"
Colin Burke
Manchester

See also, on the same letters page, the cutting observation about.... the Oxford Revolutionary Socialist Society

It is almost a mantra: no-one with power gives up that power voluntarily. Whether we are talking about Emperors, Kings, Governments or local councils, if you expect them to 'give away their powers' you've probably got a long wait. You can point to some examples I'm sure (devolution?) but beware of those who talk the talk of 'devolving power' to communities or neighbourhoods... it usually just masks further centralisation. So, when David Miliband makes 'a keynote speech' about 'localism' ... be sceptical. As I have said before, David and Ed Miliband's dad, a fine old Marxist, wrote a book called 'Parliamentary Socialism' with the central thesis that Labour would always sell out and would never deliver socialism. His sons are engaged in proving the old man was right.

Simon Jenkins in The Guardian casts a sceptical eye over Miliband's New Localism. The one thing Miliband and his colleagues never mention is democracy. They are horrified by voting.... Miliband is unable to list a single power to be given to elected councillors. His benefaction is to unspecified volunteers who are "below the radar" of democracy yet who deserve something called 'more control', writes Jenkins. Miliband's Leader is worse though: Blair is equally off the Miliband message. He regards local democracy as akin to avian flu. To him "community school" is a term of abuse. He yearns to release education from the clutches of local councils and give it to churches, tycoons and his own regulators.

Within the wider labour movement, the Tectonic Plates are beginning to rumble. The Blairites have already done what they can to emaculate local government. The latest proposed education reforms are seen as an attack on LEA's and a step too far. The parliamentary backbenchers have picked up the noises. Miliband's new localism, combined with Sir Michael Lyons' anticipated proposals for local government are designed to castrate local authorities. But the wider movement knows we fight General Elections with the troops honed on local elections. Get rid of your local elections, you become like the current Provisional IRA; an army without any troops.

Perhaps then the Blairites (or will it the be the Milibandies by then) can embark on the final solution. Get together with the Lib Dems, introduce state funding of political parties, fight elections on TV, and ditch those inconvenient trade unions altogether. Some bloody localism, eh?

Ming Campbell is dead in the water! He has just been given the kiss of death! Either that or Hemming is so confident Ming is going to win he has decided now is the time to start sucking up.

Yesterday, prior to sitting through the yawnathon that was Aston Villa's inept performance against Manchester City (who for 94 minutes couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo) I read 'Guards' by Ken Bruen. (Ignore the Amazon review by 'A reader from Slagelse' - it tells you more about the Danish than 1,000 Islamaphobic cartoons). What a cracking book! Bruen's central character is a dipso former Garda in Galway who stumbles his way through 300 pages either totally pissed or preparing to get pissed. How have I missed these books before? Here's a flavour.

I'm getting a bit pissed off with student lib dem supporters who say the sort of thing Doctor Vee said: "I’d far rather vote for the Conservatives than Labour at the moment. In fact, for the forseeable future. If it leads to a Conservative government, so what?" If you follow the link he gives to MatGB, he writes: "In 1997, I wanted Blair to win. New Labour appeared to be a refreshing alternative to a Conservative govt that had been in office too long and lost its way." Lost its way!!!!! Just exactly when did it do that; before of after Thatcher sent baton wielding thugs into the Yorkshire coalfields or to Murdoch's Wapping printworks? I'll condemn Blair for sucking up to George W Bush (and a lot more besides), but Thatcher sent Paul Channon to sit on Saddam's white sofa to try to flog him weaponary after they knew he had practised genocide against his own people. Of course, she was not beyong sipping tea in china cups with murderers and torturers like Pinochet, but hey, perhaps she had 'lost her way' by then. Where did these people learn their social history? Smash Hits? Do they think the Thatcher years were all New Romantics and David Bowie? Last year I wrote a post which pointed out that in 1979 some small Trotskyite sects used to wander around advising people to vote for Thatcher’s Tories in the General Election. The Labour Party under Jim Callaghan had “sold out the working class” betrayed the trade unions and danced to the monetarist tunes of the IMF. Murdoch’s Sun newspaper reached the same conclusion (albeit not, as you can imagine, for the same reasons), and come the election, Thatcher swept into Downing Street. Bloody good strategy that turned out to be! If you want Lib Dems... ask people to vote for them. They opposed the war (until it started, then they supported it) argued for increased taxation to fund public services (even though Labour invested more than they had promised) and wanted to drive us unthinkingly into a federal Europe and the single currency (although they became strangely silent on that as time passed). But to argue for the return of the Tories in the hope that they have 'found their way again'.... you must be barking! Say what you will about the SWP and Respect, at least they have class politics... not the politics of the classroom.

Clearly a man who can't tell his Arth from his Elwen.

It is estimated that women who are subjected to domestic abuse suffer around 35 incidents before they report it to someone. If, that is, they live long enough. Another excellent post by the World Weary Detective.

Birmingham Tory/Lib Dem Council in leak scandal.

Why do supermarkets stock so many brussels sprouts? I am the only person I know who loves them. This is painful.

People who have been following this blog over the last couple of years will know that we have been waging war with a company called Blue Chip Casinos for the last three years. For those who don't know...start here! Blue Chip submitted a planning application to convert a pub in a residential street in my Ward into an all-night gambling den decked out to look like some ridiculous ocean liner.


Local residents objected to the plans and the Planning Committee threw the proposal out on the grounds of unreasonable noise and nuisance to local people. Undeterred, Blue Chip appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, and after a three-day public inquiry, the Planning Inspectorate upheld the Planning Committee’s decision.

We thought that would be the end of it, and they would go away and leave the residents in peace. Oh no! Blue Chip submitted modified plans which erected some bloody awful ‘sheds’ at the back, directly facing people’s homes, to act as ‘an acoustic barrier’. Planning Committee kicked this in to touch as well, this time with the rider that the sheds themselves were ugly. Back came Blue Chip again, this time with ‘litter gathering’ shrubs on the street facing part of the sheds. Once again, Planning Committee threw out the plans and confirmed quite clearly that they still didn’t think an all-night casino in a residential street was appropriate… with or without tarted-up sheds.

So, now, with only three days before their deadline to appeal expired, Blue Chip are back for a fifth bite of the cherry with another appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. For three years this odious company have subjected residents to a process of mental torture. But for the fifth time in three years the residents are preparing to resist them. With the assistance of the excellent Planning Aid, we are drawing up the battle lines. Unfortunately the Planning Inspectorate has chosen to deal with this latest appeal behind closed doors on the basis of an exchange of papers, leaving local people suspicious that the Inspectorate don’t want to stab them in the front.

The fight goes on.

"Public-funded art is for everyone, not just some stupid vicars." ... or Mullahs presumably. 'Christian Voice is outside, praying for our souls ... '

Last year I went to see the African Soul Rebels tour with the excellent Tinariwen and Rachid Taha, Algeria's answer to Joe Strummer. Next week I'm off to see African Soul Rebels II with another Algerian star Souad Massi and the creators of last year's best album, Amadou and Mariam. The tour starts in Manchester tomorrow... get to one of the shows if you can, (sold out in London, I'm afraid) if it's as good as last year it should guarantee a great night out.

The new Blog Code box which appears in the sidebar is a cracking idea. It allows bloggers (and others) to rate blogs on the basis of a short questionnaire, and then it matches that blog with others reviewed. It the allows readers of your weblog to discover other weblogs similar to yours in terms of style, content and delivery. One interesting thing for me was that two of the blogs I read most, Occupied Country and The Whole Wide World of Fat Buddha appear as the best match for each other. I once jokingly speculated that Steve at Occupied Country and Pete at Fat Buddha were the same person... the plot thickens.

Sometimes as a councillor you have to give people bad news. There benefit has been stopped, you cannot get their repair done immediately, you are unable to get a move for a single parent with 3 kids in a third floor flat who has been waiting for three years on the housing list. But it doesn't begin to compare with this. There are some jobs I just could not do. This is one of them.

The Raid. The state doesn't always come round quite so compassionately. Every raid like this in Belfast in the 1970's led to a few more recruits to the paramiltaries.

I am once again reminded (this time by the Black Country Villain) of the power of Johnny Cash's Hurt. Like or loath country music, this video, made whilst Cash was dying, has to be one of the best ever made.

As Birmingham City plunge towards relegation it is rumoured their shirt sponsorship may have to be changed. If it is true, they could try these sponsors who appear to have been so successful to date - all their shirts have sold out!

The woeful Conservative administration which rules Birmingham City Council (at the behest of their Lib Dem puppies) are making a real pigs ear of things. That is not the opinion of some ultra lefty in the Socialist Worker... that is the view of the ultra Conservative Birmingham Post, and the former director of the business orientated organisation, Birmingham Forward. "I have said on several occasions that this administration has proved derelict in its duty to lead the city.... the coalition is ill equipped to govern and my comments are not about political ideology." Don't sit on the fence, son, say what you mean.

The Rewards of Failure

Someone was twittering on the radio this morning whilst I was delivering leaflets in the rain (pause for sympathy) about the Blair's hanging on in Downing Street to enable them to pay the oversized mortgage Tone has taken out on his new London home. Surely if he took a leaf out of William Hague's book, Blair would soon realise his big mistake has been giving the Tories a pasting in three consecutive General Elections. He would pay the lot off in a few months after he finished being Prime Minister just by tramping around the lecture circuit cracking a few jokes. According to the radio correspondent, the boy Hague charges aound £10,000 per speech... and the irritating little twerp makes scores of them every year. Also, for being a complete and utter flop as Tory Party Leader, the News of the Screws pays him £200,000 a year so he can tell us all how he did it! Ok... Blair's never going to do as well on the comedy club circuit as the runt Hague. Let's face it, he makes you laugh when you look at him, but ten grand for a few gags by a man who basked in the glory of being called a foetus.... unbelievable! For a full list of Cameron's bag carrier's 'earnings on the side' whilst he was supposed to be representing his constituents.... read here.

John Prescott on David Cameron, the man with a coat of many colours, "They might call themselves compassionate and caring, but we know different. They can change the label any time they like but it is the same old poison in the bottle." Via Skuds

Chicken Yoghurt on the same theme, but somewhat funnier than Prescott: "The new Tory leader sheds his principles like, well, a power-starved politician shedding his principles, and sets about systematically alienating his party while u-turning on a sixpence, and the media are all like, "wow, look at him go!", forgetting that Blair did it all before 12 years ago."

Just one of the rather tasteless items on sale at the Lib Dem Shop. Straight up!

In addition to this blog I have got a Councillors' website provided by Sandwell Council under the Councillor Info project. However, one of the problems with this site is I am not allowed to make 'political' comments. Why? Surely as politicians, that is the business we are in. It is a bit like Tesco having a website, but saying they are not permitted to put anything about food on it. The people that should really be jumping up and down screaming about this are the opposition groups. Their silence on political matters is almost an implicit statement that they have got nothing they disagree with the Council on. Certainly, as far as our majority opposition Tory Group are concerned, that is an easy conclusion to jump to. A quick glance at the Tory Leader's website reveals her two fellow councillors are two members who have departed from the Council ages ago, so not much chance of any politics or other content there then.

But why shouldn't Councillors' Websites be allowed to discuss political issues?

An interesting article by Vince Cable in today's Guardian about the two views of David Cameron. I like the turn of phrase where he considers whether Cameron is the same old Tory Nasty behind a smiley face. "If that is all that is involved, we can relax. In due course, the feint to the centre will be followed by a familiar lunge to the right: with talk of swamping by immigrants, European conspiracies, and the evils of taxation. The Mail and Telegraph will crack the whip. Open-neck shirts and recreational drugs will go the way of William Hague's baseball cap, and we'll be back on familiar terrain."

This piece of crap is on Iain Dale's blogsite today. So, you get the message. Demonstrators... Muslims.... must be on the dole, obviously. I wonder if the same sort of message appeared when the Countryside Alliance had their demonstrations about their right to inflict cruelty on animals. Of course it wasn't, because the reality is, as I and many other Labour bloggers have been pointing out, if you scratch the surface of the new smarmy Cameron revolution, underneath the same old reactionary Tories are lurking. They may try to give the impression that it is only a few 'Old Tory' Tebbits who don't agree with Smarmy's New Model Tories, but deep in the heart, the Colonel Blimps are still there.

Just to show that buried deep in the Labour Party there are still socialist hearts beating, Tony Benn "happy in a blaze of autumn sunshine" writes about the values passed down to him by his radical Liberal father.

It is 50 years since the Ed Sullivan Show in the US took the decision to only film Elvis Presley from the waist upwards to avoid the morals of the nation's youth from being corrupted by his pelvic movements. It is 40 years since the Rolling Stones were made to change the words of to 'Let's Spend the Night Together' to 'Let's Spend Some Time Together' in case the original words drove a generation of Southern Baptist Girls into spending lustful nights with boys who were not planning to spread the gospel. And still today, in the 21st Century, in a land which produces grisly 'shoot 'em up' X-Box nasties and Playstation games about running people down in the street with souped up stolen vehicles, the Texas Taliban are censoring the lyrics of the Rolling Stones. The notion that a bunch of old age pensioners singing iffy lyrics (“You make a dead man come” - how ironic is that when sung by a bloke with a free bus pass) is going to corrupt the moral compass of the nation's youth settling down to watch a bunch of blokes bashing seven bells out of each other tells me they've got their priorities wrong somewhere.

Where is Chantelle? (via New Links)

Update

Regular readers may be aware of the fuss which broke out recently in these parts about comments I lightheartedly made about a neighbouring Metropolitan Borough. The Leader of that Council pompously made much play of the fact that if I didn't apologise he was "going to report me to The Standards Board of England and Wales". Just to keep you up to date, I have received a letter from the Standards Board. Their verdict? As predicted... no case to answer. Thanks to all those, particularly my constituents, who sent messages of support. I will try to get round to writing to you.

Whilst I detest almost everything the Conservative Party stand for, I do think we should embrace David Cameron’s ‘Democracy Taskforce’ brief to "consider the use by ministers of the power of the royal prerogative" with open arms. If Ken Clarke’s taskforce can come forward with some positive conclusions to take away the power of the monarch, including the powers of the monarch that are currently exercised on her behalf by the Prime Minister, we should grab the opportunity with both hands. The powers vested in the Monarch in the Palace and the monarch in Downing Street, whether they be the power of patronage or the power to wage war on behalf of the country, are remnants of a medieval system of Government and have no place in a democracy. When Clarke finishes this part of the task, we can push on to complete the job by freeing up the Windsors and their assorted hangers-on, take them off the payroll, and allow them to get a proper job and get on with their lives as they please.

The boy done good. Same age as Rooney, and scored in the Youth Cup Final when we beat Rooney's Everton, Luke Moore's star is in the ascendancy

Now, who says Tories don't have a sense of humour? (actually, I do most of the time). Former Tory Parliamentary candidate Iain Dale has done a rating of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet, giving marks out of 10 for voter appeal. In Iain's opinion the Tory Shadow Cabinet, only a couple of months into the Cameron era, already outscore the Cabinet in terms of voter appeal. But of course, Iain was just being mischievous. I mean, how in hell could you give David Davis 8 out of 10 for voter appeal (unless you were part of the Davis for Leader campaign like Iain), or Theresa May 7 out of 10 (I wouldn't give her one, someone comments rather spitefully). But... the giveaway, that proves Iain is just trying to wind people up, is revealed when he gives the boy Hague 9 out of 10 for voter appeal. Given that Blair gets only 8 out of 10 for winning three consecutive landslides... and in 2001 Hague managed to drive away a million more voters than even John Major had managed to attract in 1997... what exactly has Hague done since 2001 to so startlingly increase his voter appeal, other than stay resolutely out of the public eye? All of which convinces me that the more people see of clowns like William Hague, the more they will realise that Cameron's formula is, as cooks in the merchant navy used to say, the same old shit, different sauce.

I was listening to the Five Live ‘phone in this morning on the way to work. A fatal thing to do because it gets me so angry. Two out of three callers on the line about the ‘anti-Muslim’ cartoons were complaining about Muslims wanting to convert this country to Islam. But surely… that is what these people do? Not all of them, but the most committed of them. It is no different to the pairs of Jehovah’s we get knocking the door flogging The Watchtower. No different to all those Catholic missionaries spreading the word of their Lord to the developing world. No different from my mate Dave who urges people to come along and listen to him preaching at the local Methodist Church. No different to the Socialist Worker sellers pushing their message and flogging their papers at the bottom of the ramp at New Street station.

I repeat… that is what they do. I don’t buy the Socialist Worker… I don’t buy The Watchtower… and I haven’t heard Dave’s sermons (other than in the pub after branch meetings). Don’t get excited by these things, as Frankie Says… Relax!

I, as promised, have absolutely nothing to say about this.

The Guardian today carries two interesting pieces. Neil Bentley from the CBI tells us that PFI is the saviour of the NHS and makes a snide reference to Professor Allyson Pollock receiving funding from UNISON. His remarks, entirely unconnected, of course, from where the CBI get their funding, include this wonderful passage: “Millions of people have been able to benefit from the state-of-the-art facilities PFI hospitals offer.” Perhaps what Bentley is more happy about though, is the notion that “A few people have benefited by Millions from the state-of-the-art facilities PFI hospitals offer.” The other article is by Polly Toynbee who welcomes the government’s (latest) NHS reform which will, “… drag the cash and attention from the Green Wing glamour of hospitals towards communities and surgeries where the old, the frail, the depressed and those with never-ending chronic conditions use most NHS care.” Oh well, only another thirty years to pay on a “state-of-the-art facility” whose time has already come and gone.

"David Cameron is rated more favourably than any of his three immediate predecessors two months or so after each had been elected leader." Iain Dale reports this as 'good news for the Tories'. So, let us get this straight, David Cameron has a greater popularity rating than Michael Howard... Ian Duncan Smith... and William Hague, a couple of months after each one of them was elected. Crumbs of comfort indeed. Unfortunately for David (or 'Dave' as Iain has taken to calling him) he won't actually be standing against those three-time losers in the proper polls. Of course, not all Tories have Iain's enthusiasm for 'Dave', and some are downright hostile already... The Cameroonies may hope that The Right has nowhere to go but that's not true. Some may go to UKIP. Some (hopefully very few) may even be tempted by nationalist parties. Much more likely is that many will sit on their hands and stay away from the polling booths.

Genocide in Slow Motion "In Darfur genocide is taking place in slow motion, and there is vast documentary proof of the atrocities.... it's appalling that the publishing industry manages to respond more quickly to genocide than the UN and world leaders do." There is more... very much more, over at the excellent Sudan Watch, where the situation is described as 'The war on terrorism that most Americans don't know about.'

"Perhaps that is why so many supporters love Robbie Fowler - because, more than anything, he is a fan. It's just a pity the bastard isn't a City fan." Bitter, twisted, you bet!

According to this report in The Times, there is concern for the peace process in Ireland because the IRA are still spying. Now, this shouldn't be confused with recent reports that British spies are still operating in Moscow, nor the fact that British Intelligence (a real misnomer that one) has produced reams of 'intellingence' about nuclear facilities in Tehran. No... see, they are OUR spies... and that is the difference.

Just before Christmas, Steve's parents were 'visited' by scum thieving from his parents. His dad has subsequently been very ill. Just exactly how low down the food chain do these bastards have to sink to get up to this sort of act of bravery. I don't subscribe to the Tony Martin 'right to shoot burglars' philosophy... but I understand entirely the sympathy it attracts.

Raise arms.... take aim..... fire!

The LibDem Twelve Days of Christmas

“On the Twelth Day of Christmas my True Love sent to me……

Twelve Lords imbibing,
Eleven rent boys telling,
Ten gays denying,
Nine journos digging,
Eight hit men missing,
Seven Mayors exposing,
Six MPs plotting,
Five Sexual Deviants.
Four dodgy gifts,
Three jammed guns,
Two drunken Leaders,
And a cartridge in a Great Dane."

Via Iain Dale.

I am reminded of that moment in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue when they were inventing celebrity answerphone messages. "Hello, you're through to Peter Tatchell. I'm out at the moment.... if you would like to be outed too, leave your details after the bleep."

"If you provide state-of-the-art facilities plus a significant state-provided increment on the school budget, you will usually achieve better examination results. Who could ever have expected such an outcome?" Letter in The Guardian

In one sentence (in an article that is supposed to be about the Artic Monkeys but is primarily about himself) Paul Morley destroys the 1% of credibility he ever had and gets an instant entry into pseuds corner: "The hipper, cultier movies continually re-contextualise 1980s music." Ouch!

Professor Allyson Pollock has been exposing the myth of PFI up and down the country to small audiences for about 10 years now, whilst the Treasury have been banging on about it being the only game in town. Finally, some people are beginning to understand the logic of her case.

Mistaken Identity

"I see Hughes has come out, eh" I mentioned to a mate of mine this morning. "Bloody hell", he said, "he has only done a couple of years" No, Dave, not THAT Hughes!

Eric the Unread has a new Lib Dem anthem.

And all that righteous indignation when Tom said “vote Lib Dem… get Tories” eh? Now they are not only running cities together, there is a possibility the might morph into each other. Over at Iain Dale's Diary, Iain's getting damp patches of excitement about it all. Frankly, I'm bloody horrified every time it's suggested one of the yellow swine are associated with joining us. Quite why an unreconstructed Thatcherite would welcome the arrival of some more lilly-livered liberals to boost the Cameron crowd is beyond me.

Never mind Brown or Blair, Hughes and whoever... there's devastating news from the White House!

I think he's gone too far this time. Whatever thoughts I might ever have harboured about my MP.... I cannot in a million years imagine him doing this.

Tim's scatalogical observation.



Would the next Liberal Democrat without scandals lurking in the closet please stand up. Political Hack's observation.

On the subject of skeletons and cupboards...It has all gone quiet over here.

Tony Benn argues for a left challenger to the coronation of Gordon Brown as Blair’s successor. I agree with almost everything Benn says here… with one reservation. “Any candidate who came out against the Iraq war, privatisation and the crude commercialisation of our school system, with a hidden return to selection, at the expense of local education authorities, could be sure of party and public support, as would those who argued for pensions linked to earnings, an end to student fees, and a non-nuclear energy policy based on renewables and conservation,” he writes. Whilst I agree the Party needs to have this discussion, I think it underestimates the degree to which the media are now able to dominate and manipulate the agenda. Any leadership candidate standing on a platform of ending the cosy three Party consensus would be faced with the full monty from the media.

They would be accused of wanting to return to Polly’s ‘wrecking’ tactics, of fighting an outdated class war, and of pursuing a high tax and spend agenda (which, God forbid, might drive Tom Jones, Phil Collins and Rod Stewart to live abroad – by the way, I haven’t seen Rod, Tom and Phil down the pub lately, where do they live now?). The myths 1979 would all be dragged out – and remember, you would have to be over 40 to know whether or not they were the complete cobblers that they are. The new Leadership candidate would be accused of arguing for a return to the days when trade unions ran the country whilst bags of rubbish mounted up in the streets and you couldn’t bury your granny unless you had express permission from the local secretary of the GMB. The country would be left defenceless as hordes of Russians (oh no, sorry, Arabs) massed on our borders waiting to deflower our young and steal our money. Richard Branson, we would be told, would be heading off to Bermuda as his hard earned assets would be nationalised and turned into massive loss making state-owned bureaucracies and hordes of unruly youths would march through the streets demanding Digby Jones’ head on a turnpike (actually, that one might be a vote winner). Of course, Richard and Digby's money would then be misused by local politically correct neighbourhood committees dominated by gays and lesbians who would ensure maths and english were replaced by gender and peace studies on the school curriculum.

Alternatively, the media would offer us St Gordon, a safe pair of trousers, the saviour of the economy, the Lord of PFI who ‘gave’ the nation all those hospital and school buildings and set the Bank of England free from the shackles of all those interfering do-gooders.

No Tony, I love you to death, but sorry mate, you're wrong on this one. If we imagine there is the slightest chance that a left candidate for the Leadership would have a chance of a fair contest, we are spitting into a hurricane. It could never happen and they could never win. Unless, of course, we gave this man a chance.

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.
Voltaire

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.
George Santayana

I don’t propose to give any credence to the full gist of Polly Toynbee’s ridiculous article, but there are a couple of points I would want to make. Firstly, I disagree with my MP, John Spellar, on many, many issues. However, his loathing for the Lib Dems is one of his plus points, and I’m pleased to see that he still reserves more bile for them than he does for the Labour left.

The second point is the throwaway remark by Toynbee at the start of the article that “in 1981, despairing of the ability of the leadership of Michael Foot to halt the Bennites' wrecking tactics and the many Militant coups, the Gang of Four - Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers - split away to offer a better social-democratic challenge to Margaret Thatcher.” There you are, that was the reason, they had a “social democratic vision” and wanted to stop the left wrecking the Party they loved (or should that be controlled).

Did they? What were these ‘Bennite wrecking tactics’? Oh yes, I remember, they were about democracy in the Labour Party. Following the defeat in the 1979 General Election the Party in the country became embroiled in an intense debate about how the Party was run. These constitutional arguments centred around extending the franchise for the election of Leader and Deputy Leader rather than just MPs having a vote, mandatory reselection of MPs to try to ensure accountability (before this ‘wrecking’ measure was introduced an MP in a safe Labour seat held the job for life as long as s/he could sweet talk a couple of dozen people on the General Management Committee) and allowing the Party NEC control over the election manifesto (both Wilson and Callaghan claimed they had a personal veto over elements in the manifesto that they did not support.

Now, there is a valid argument about how New Labour has been successful in reclaiming the power of the leadership over the Party, but the fact that a number of right-leaning Labour MPs around David Owen, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Poppins and Bill Rogers decided to throw their rattle out of the pram because they may be held accountable to the wider Party, can be continually dressed up as “wrecking tactics” by their opponents is just utter rubbish. The reality is the founders of the Social Democrat Party formed their own organisation because they were frightened of …. Democracy.

No apologies at all for linking to this site twice in such a short time but these are better days indeed. When smarmy Campbell tries to disguise the Tories as something new, just remember those same Pinochet buddies are still there in waiting.

Letter in The Guardian:

To the north of Iran lies Russia, an expansionist nuclear state that has invaded Muslim Chechnya. To the west is Iraq which invaded Iran in the 1980s and is now occupied by two nuclear-armed powers, Britain and the US. Also to the west lies Israel, another nuclear power. Although President Ahmadinejad's latest statement makes it clear that his country has no desire to develop nuclear weapons, the case for Iran to have an independent nuclear deterrent is far stronger than that for the possession of nuclear weapons by the UK.
Yusuf Rakeem
Bristol

Fifth Lib Dem enters Leadership race. Actually, on closer examination, the author of this site is either slightly disturbed or had a drop too much of the Charlie Kennedy's lately.

How refreshing to hear that George Galloway has referred to Denis Rodman as 'bro' in the Big Brother house. Is this how George addresses Maggot or Preston (who? I hear you ask) his fellow inmates in the house, or the 'yoof' of Bethnal Green and Bow. I suspect not, (although no doubt there will be Respect members getting in touch to confirm George's street credentials) but that this is George's way of showing he is hip and can 'talk the talk' in the black man's language. If he starts tapping fists with Denis, rapping or chatting about his bro's natural sense of rhythm I will be truly convinced that this man has completely lost the plot.

Thanks to Tom Watson for this link. Dunnes Stores in Dublin, the focus of international opprobrium when, in the 1980's a check-out worker, Mary Manning, followed her trade union policy and refused to check-out South African apartheid products. The dispute lasted three years and acted as a focus for people around the world who were opposing Thatcher's friends in the Apartheid regime. Well... some people never learn. Sign the petition here. Spread the word.

If there is anyone in Canada who stumbles across this site and would care to do me the occasional tape of this guy's programme, I would be eternally in your debt.

The Standards Board of England and Wales emerged out of the Nolan Commission on Standards in Public Life. Its purpose was to ensure that local authority elected members, when acting in their capacity as a councillor, behaved with propriety and also that some of the more horrific instances of abuse of officers by members, and vice versa, was curtailed. Well, Councillor Tom Ansell, the Conservative Leader of Walsall Council, has given me 7 days to apologise to the people of Walsall for innocuous comments made on this blog site... or he will report me to the Standards Board. Normally I would treat his correspondence as private, but given that he chose to embark on a tirade of abuse against me on the radio on Friday, including his threat of the Standards Board, I will print the text of my reply here.:

Dear Councillor Ansell,

Thank you for your letter dated 13 January about the article on my Weblog. I have re-read the item that you appear to think insults the people of Walsall and I cannot find anything in the remarks I have made which make any reference at all to the people of Walsall, and I cannot, therefore, find anything to apologise to them about.

In fact, in my 24 years working in Walsall I found the Walsall people to be amongst the nicest people I have ever met and worked alongside, albeit very badly served over the years by their elected representatives. I deeply resent your malicious assertion that I have insulted them in any way whatsoever.

On that basis you will not be receiving any apology from me at all, and if you wish to waste even more time and public money making this frivolous reference to the Standards Board, do so. Censoring elected members free speech by using the Standards Board might be the way you deal with issues in your Borough, it will not wash with the Standards Board which was created to deal with serious issues such as the bullying of Officers by Members, which you will be more than aware of in Walsall. Personally, I would have thought someone in your position would find better ways to spend their time, but that is up to you.

Incidentally, the compromise agreement signed by myself and the Council states that neither Party will make or publish any derogatory or disparaging statement intended to damage or lower the reputations of the other. I have deliberately avoided making any statement or remarks of a derogatory nature about the Council, its Officers or Elected Members in the written media, on the radio, or even on my weblog. You, on the other hand have not respected that contract and have made insulting statements about myself in the Chronicle newspaper and on Radio WM. Perhaps when you are making your ridiculous reference to the Standards Board you would like to provide them with these remarks. If you do not, I will.

Yours sincerely,

Bob Piper

Ming's minders try to gag Hemming

John Hemming, the West Midland's very own favourite for leadership of the rudderless ship known as the Liberal Democrat Party, is being quoted as I write at 379-1 on Politicalbetting to win the race. To put things in context, you can get similar odds that Celebrity Big Brother's lothario Gorgeous George Galloway will replace Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party. Despite the bookies scepticism, it would appear senior figures within the Lib Dems are so worried by the possibility of John sweeping the nation with his warm and passionate oratory... they have resorted to trying to gag him!


Meantime, cross party support for John continues to grow here, and here.

OK... here is the full gist of the eccentric (and outraged) Tory Councillor Tom Ansell's amazing outburst (most of which is complete cobblers) in which I am identified as the most obnoxious person he has ever met.

10 good reasons to vote Liberal Democrat: Iain Dale's Diary has a terrific poster tribute to Charlie Kennedy (not suitable for a family newspaper).

I'm told the Tory Leader of a neighbouring local authority has labelled me in the media as "the most obnoxious person he has ever met." This simply because I lightheartedly described his charming little hamlet as "a dump" even though I never even suggested he was responsible. Coming from a Tory, and from a man with such a deep political insight, I am obligated to say that's the nicest compliment I have ever received in my entire political career.

"Do you ever get that scary feeling that there’s more than one Peter Mandelson? What are they really doing in Millbank Tower? They tell us it’s a communications centre. Well, I reckon they’re making Mandelsons up there and getting read to store them in that Millennium Dome in Greenwich. When the clock strikes midnight on December 31 1999, millions of Mandelsons will emerge from the Dome and civilization as we know it will be at an end." Tony Banks, (via Iain Dale... who just so happened to have compiled 'The Wit and Wisdom of Tony Banks') and is presumably hoping for a reprint.

If they start to eulogise over Ariel Sharon on your nightly new bulletins, just remember, his death would be none too soon for many. Robert Fisk says: So it is as a war criminal that Sharon will be known forever in the Arab world, through much of the Western world, in fact - save, of course, for the craven men in the White House and the State Department and the Blair Cabinet - as well as many leftist Israelis.

Shurely shome mistake? The Grauniad appears to have overlooked the challenge from Yardley's very own leadership challenger. So, in the interest of fairness, the PoliticalHackUK gives us a brief synopsis of the Hemming career which ably demonstrates the man is definitely fit to run this hopeless shower.

I hear on the grapevine that pornographer David Sullivan is considering adopting this strategy for his ailing football club.

Whoever took this decision is completely potty and should have the humility and commonsense to apologise to the family. (via Normblog)

Surely this cannot be serious. I know that Political Hack and myself have jokingly urged the Lib Dems to elect John Hemming as their new Leader, but you don't expect people to take it seriously. This must be a spoof! We all know that Hemming thinks Hemming is great... but how did he get the support of another batty Lib Dem MP. Charlie Kennedy with half a bottle of Scotland's finest inside of him would do less damage to the Lib Dems. Go for it John. I'm backing Hemming!

Of course, on a purely selfish level, the imminent demise of the Lib Dems could be bad news as their supporters return to their natural home in the Conservative Party.

"The icon of horror of Saddam Hussein's rule is a 1988 film of petrified bodies in the Kurdish town of Halabja, killed in a chemical weapons attack. The attack has been referred to a great deal by Bush and Blair and the film shown a great deal by the BBC. At the time, as I know from personal experience, the Foreign Office tried to cover up the crime at Halabja. The Americans tried to blame it on Iran." Pilger on The Quiet Death of Freedom.

Does anybody know just exactly how much we cough up each year for "British Intelligence"?“

…..western intelligence agencies say they have tracked Iranian attempts to secretly acquire sophisticated equipment for nuclear programmes and missile development.” (Fuelling the crisis, The Guardian January 5th 2006)

“….a senior British official directly accused Tehran of supplying Iraqi insurgents with sophisticated roadside bombs that have killed eight British soldiers and two security guards since May.” UK accuses Iran over killings of soldiers, The Guardian October 6th 2005)

“Government officials now acknowledge that there is no evidence, or even reliable intelligence, connecting the Iranian government to the infra-red triggered bombs which have killed 10 British soldiers in the past eight months.” (Anger as Britain admits it was wrong to blame Iran for deaths in Iraq, The Independent January 5th 2006)

Your front-page coverage of Iran's alleged nuclear activities suggests that you have not learned the important lessons from Iraq. After recent intelligence failures over WMD, editors should be doubly wary of "leaked intelligence", its timing and the motives of those who provided the information. (Iran intelligence is not trustworthy, Letter to The Guardian January 6th 2006)

Is this the moment of New Labour’s victory?

Philip Gould, in a letter to The Guardian, offers an interesting analysis of the current political situation. Cameron’s ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ is not so much the reinvigoration of the Tories, Gould says, it is an admission of defeat: “What has happened to the Conservative party in recent weeks is the political equivalent of the collapse of the Berlin wall. New Labour has pushed and they have capitulated….. proving that in the long march of British politics, we were right and they were wrong.”

In a sense, I think Gould is right. Cameron’s anxiety to distance the Conservative Party from policies they have fought elections on, not just in the last year but for generations, is an attempt to drive the stake deep into the heart of Thatcherism. It is an acceptance by the Party leadership that the great ‘She-Devil’ that they have revered and worshipped, is a reviled and hated figure throughout most of the country. In coming to that realisation, the Conservative Party have accepted New Labour has won the battle for the centre ground of British politics.

The consequences of this realignment in British politics could prove catastrophic for our democracy. What it says is that all future elections will be a fight for the votes of a few hundred thousand people in middle-England. The political parties don’t have to give a fig for the voters in their traditional heartlands. New Labour doesn’t need to tailor their policies to win the votes of whippet breeders in Barnsley, welders in Wolverhampton, or building workers in Bootle. The same is true of the Tories in the Shires. They know that even if they put up a monkey in Buckingham the Tory faithful would still turn out in droves to vote for it (you could say that John Bercow was living proof of that). No…. neither party has to fight for those votes, what they are both after are the votes of those people in the middle-ground of politics.

What we are now seeing is the Tory spin doctors spinning the message their focus groups tell them these people want to hear. The middle ground doesn’t want a privatised NHS for their granny; they do want selection in schools so that their little Samantha doesn’t have to mix with rough kids from the council houses; they don’t like the idea of the Euro, but they are not anti-European. As Kinnock said in his infamous 'redundancy notices delivered by taxis' speech, you can have all the principles in the World, but without power they count for nowt (The flip side of this coin wasn't mentioned; you can have all the power in the World, but if you've sacrificed your principles to get it, it equally counts for nowt).

So, what does all this mean? Have the Tories finally capitulated and accepted New Labour was right all along? Or is this just smoke and mirrors and after the election, Cameron will rip off the mask and Norman Lamont’s adviser and Michael Howard’s script writer will step out of the shadows and restore the Thatcher heritage. I suspect Tories wishing and hoping for the latter will be seriously disappointed. In the same way that the Labour left thought Blair was just ‘putting it all on’ and would stop all that New Labour nonsense when he got into power, the sad reality for the retired Field Marshals and blue-rinsed battalions could be that Cameron means what he says.

Then, like elections in the US, we can all go out and choose between tweedle-dum and tweedle dumber.

So, at last.... Charlie's 'come out'. No real surprise though, surely. How could you expect anyone to lead this lily-livered shower without being driven to drink! In the immediate aftermath the speculation is that the manner of his statement means that anyone standing against him would be regarded as insensitive. Well, my money is on at least one candidate with the skin of a rhino (and no earthly prospect of winning) standing against him... step forward into the paddock.... Hemming the stalking donkey.

Masters of War
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

An interesting list of those who have had their obituaries prematurely announced.

So, Cameron really is the full Monty... a true Blair clone. Today he is to announce a new Tory policy for the NHS and will admit that the policy they fought the General Election on a few months ago was complete rubbish (he presumably won't dwell on the fact that he was the author of the Manifesto). Like Blair announcing Labour's new Education policy, without any reference to the Party, and precious little reference to the Secretary of State for Education, Cameron doesn't seem to have discussed the issue with Andrew Lansley (who he? I hear you say... well he is supposed to be Shadow Health Secretary). So, Cameron "will stress his commitment to the NHS".... but Andrew is saying "his party would impose no limits on the use of the private sector". Who should people believe? Well, like the Lib Dems when they try to face both ways at the same time.... neither of them!

Blogger purged by Leb Dims for his blogging activity. How very bloody Liberal of you.

Oh, and (via Iain Dale) here's your chance to plunge the Leb Dims into further oblivion... sign the Save Chuckie petition. At the time of writing only 34 poor souls had, and I'm reliably informed most were Labour and Tory.

David Cameron is a fraudster and a hypocrite. So says the Small Town Scribbler, and who am I to disagree.

Herbert Douglas Ellis... it's his birthday (choke on it!)

I just love the Wikipedia entry for Aston Villa Chairman Doug Ellis. It has just the right tone of irreverance for this shocking little man. I like the bit which states that he was reported to be the first football club director to pay himself a salary (believed to be as high as £200,000 per annum). Oh, yes, and the passage that says Ellis sold a number of his shares at flotation, raising around £4m for himself. They even debunk his ludicrous claim to have 'invented the bicycle kick', something more popularly attributed to flaboyant continental players such as Pele. The fact is, to most Aston Villa supporters, Herbert Douglas Ellis is an unpleasant smell which lingers around the ground... and unfortunately we are saddled with him. But for a man who has made a personal fortune out of football, his latest demented spoutings just about take the biscuit. Its bad enough 'rent-a-headline' Caborn coming out with this claptrap, without one of sport's very own pocket-liners spouting off. I'll believe Richard Caborn is serious about a salary cap for the overpaid when he and his leader get up at the CBI Conference and demand it, and Gordon Brown tells the penguin-suits in the Mansion House to enjoy their dinner because he is going to start salary-capping. Perhaps Richard Caborn would like to back my call for Doug Ellis's salary to be capped... to nil!

I had a good day out yesterday at The Hawthorns. There was some 'jovial banter' between the two sets of supporters, but peace was maintained by a line of fairly friendly, but firm, matchday stewards. In fact, they seemed to be responsible for nearly all the security in the stadium despite the presence of large numbers of police officers on duty, presumably as backup in case the whole thing 'kicked-off'. This policing is apparently compulsory and is part of the criteria for issuing a ground safety certificate. When Wigan Football Club objected to the high cost of this policing they were told by the Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Policeforce, "You cannot expect the tax payer to pick up the cost of policing football matches." So... why is taxpayers' money being spent on the policing of this multi-millionaire's wife. Particularly when the multi-millionaire in question tells the taxpayers to mind their own business! "The Public Accounts Committee has pressed Prince Charles to open his accounts to full public scrutiny. But Clarence House maintains that what the Prince of Wales does with his private wealth is his business."

It was the Sun Wot Won It? Is Scum magnate Murdoch preparing to switch horses... or just hedging his bets. Tory hopes of winning the backing of the News International titles at the next election are given a major boost with the arrival of Jonathan Collett, previously Michael Howard's press spokesman.

Just one new year's resolution: To read Robert Fisk's 'The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East'. I have read the excerpts in The Indie, but now I'm going to find time for a 'reading week' to do justice to the book's 1300 pages. Anyway.... here's some Fisk to be going on with:
"The Ed Murrows and Richard Dimblebys, the Howard K. Smiths and Alan Moorheads didn't mince their words or change their descriptions or run mealy-mouthed from the truth because listeners or readers didn't want to know or preferred a different version.

So let's call a colony a colony, let's call occupation what it is, let's call a wall a wall. And maybe express the reality of war by showing that it represents not, primarily, victory or defeat, but the total failure of the human spirit."

The sound of knives sharpening.

OK, think of a gadget that changed the world. Is it here? I'm afraid I owned far more of these than I would wish to admit to. Anyone want a betamax video recorder and a couple of tapes?

Warley Woods, Bearwood, Sandwell

Behind the smiley faces of the Cameron Crew, this bunch are still around in the background. I hope His Bobness can square the circle of Capitalism - The most effective system of wealth creation. Free markets are blind to gender, race, class or religion. or "currency exchange rates determined by the free market..." or "Deregulation, Domestic and global – to maximise freedom of choice and individual responsibility in an improved society." Compassionate Conservatism, my arse.

Tom Watson describes 2005 as the year of the ipod. Well, maybe it is, but..... Sociologists will talk for ever now of the iPod generation, solipsistic, introverted, used to demanding and getting their own, customised version of everything. Combine this with a society made up of people whose sensitivity chips have been removed and you are headed for serious trouble.

Forget TINA.
Regardless of what we are told by the guardians of economic and political power, there is an alternative.

Recently revealed Cabinet papers show that Harold Wilson wanted to nationalise the breweries. "Much local resentment is caused when a local brewery is taken over by one of the anonymous national breweries thus reducing the choice - and often the quality - of beers available," he wrote. Unfortunately he was only writing to Shirley Poppins, but still, bless him, and I take back all those things I said about you, Harold (well, most of them).

It takes a desperate man to sing a desperate song.

Vote for who you like... the IMF will still win. Iraq will not be sovereign or independent in the near future, even if President Bush says so. The country’s financial future will instead be dictated by a new colossal economic occupation, complete with ground forces, tanks, foreign military bases and the like -- all thanks to the United States, Britain and the IMF.

Recovering from an all-day session on Timothy Taylors 'Landlord' this morning and I watched the highlights of last July's Live 8 concert on TV. One of the most moving moments for me was when Geldof introduced Birhan Woldu. This is from this morning's Guardian: "But I'll end with this truth. Although I am exhausted and bone weary in every sense, all of those 20 years of boring you and myself to death about this stuff would have been worth it for a single life. For just one person, it's been worth it - Birhan Woldu. When we saw that little scrap of humanity on The Cars' film 20 years ago during Live Aid, when we saw that silent scream, the soundless agony of that tiny thing, when the phone lines collapsed with pity for her - and then to see her now, beautiful, dignified, elegant, intellectual, dynamic, hopeful; a young woman worried about passing her agricultural exams on the Live8 stage, then I really, properly mean this: all of it was worth it for just her. For that single life. And in her is everything every person is and can be and must be allowed to be, and therefore every death, every loss is a great loss, an incalculable loss, a diminishment, an impoverishment.

This year, all of you started keeping 5 million Berhan people in east Africa alive. Not bad. Not bad at all."

Of course, if you want to, you can always sit on the sidelines and snipe whilst you play with yourself.

An old mate of my has got his job back after a piece of personal vindictiveness led to his unfair dismissal. Good on yer, Mick, it just goes to show that sometimes the good guys do win! I hope you and Susanna have a good one this Xmas and I'll catch up with you in the New Year.

Thanks to Skuds for this link.

It's a website which enables you to in put a photo of yourself and using face recognition software it compares you to a celebrity.

So, I fed in this photo:


And it said the closest celebrity to me was… Kevin Spacey.

Not sure Kevin will be telling his mates down the pub though! As Skuds says… more work needed here.

Have a good Xmas everyone.

Remember what Tom Watson told you... vote Lib Dem... get Tories! The Lib Dems continue to pave the way for a Hemming-style Tory-Lib pact. If Mr Cameron is as good as his word, and the Conservative Party does change and become genuinely “liberal”, there should be nothing to prevent an electoral pact with the Tories.

Of course, Charlie doesn't want to deal with the Tories. That's easily resolved. Get shut of Charlie. The Leb Dim petitition to dump Chuck is online. Now, we wouldn't want any vote rigging, so leave it to those nice folk in the yellow tories to stick the knife in.

Footballer gives fascist salute. Blair's buddy Berlusconi leaps to his defence, "Mussolini's era hadn't been so bad", explaining that Fascist racial laws against Jews were only introduced to help the Axis war effort.

Twisted logic. British spy infiltrates Sinn Fein. British spy creates mayhem and succeeds in getting the devolution process halted. British spy confesses to being British spy. British spy is not assassinated by republicans. Who is to blame. Why, obvious really, Sinn Fein and the IRA, of course.

An absolute classic Private Eye cover.

"God damn it…first one wants freedom, then the whole damn world wants freedom." - Gil Scott Heron, 'B Movie'. Evo Morales, the first ever indigenous President of Bolivia, Latin America's poorest country, describes himself as America's worst nightmare. Taking a leaf from the new book of Latin American politics written by Hugo Chávez, Morales will seek to copy the example of Venezuela's reformed state oil company, which has secured advantageous deals with foreign companies without too much complaint.

Remember 'Chemical Sally' and 'Dr Germ' and the US most wanted 'deck of cards' members of Saddam's regime? Well, quietly, slowly but surely, they are being set free. I suppose bringing people to trial for creating weapons of mass destruction would be a tad embarrassing without even the flimsiest evidence of such weapons.

There's been a big fuss in Sandwell over the last couple of weeks. According to Council sources (and the media), we have allegedly offered the Council's refuse collectors an additional payment of £900 to work on three Christmas and New Year Bank Holidays to prevent a backlog of rubbish building up. They have (allegedly) refused and asked for £1300. You can probably gather from the above that I have not been closely involved in this fiasco. Well, the local (and national) media have had a field day with lurid stories of "greedy binmen" holding the council to ransom and editorials with hints to residents to withhold their traditional Christmas Box for the refuse collectors. I've only one contribution to make on this subject. Why do we want them to work on Bank Holidays anyway? I know the attempt to get them to work was a genuine attempt to help dispose of the even larger mountains of rubbish and wrapping which accumulate over the holiday... but it is not beyond the wit and wisdom of Sandwell residents to hang on to their rubbish a bit longer over a holiday period, surely? We might even encourage a few more people to get down to the Tip and the Bottle Banks and recycle more of their waste. Give the refuse collectors a decent holiday with their friends (if the poor buggers have still got any) and families, bung them a bit extra for taking away the extra stuff after the holiday, and maybe everyone could start off the new year on a more constructive footing. Oh, and by the way, negotiations like this are much better conducted without involving journalists, "greedy" or otherwise, in search of a scoop or some scandal to rake over.

Someone has drawn my attention to this sad personal tale concerning my fellow Sandwell Councillor.... BNP member James Lloyd. Apparently the lad... "got himself in with the wrong company to start with and has now gone completely off the rails." Actually, perhaps that is his own defence too... just got in with a bad crowd. The boot camp for the son, the jackboot camp for his dad.

Have I Got News For You, Charlie

Steve Bell, brilliant as ever.

Charles Keneddy has apparently received the support of his senior Leb Dim colleagues... a bit like the rope supports the hanging man, to steal a phrase from V.I. Lenin. Ming Campbell's pledge to support Kennedy "as long as he remains Leader" is a classic piece of Newspeak. We're approaching that 'tipping-point' where you can no longer find anyone who thought Charles Kennedy was ever a good idea anyway. Empty threats won't solve his problems. Time to spend more time with the family and the TV Studio, Chuckie. Still, the problem then could be the "yellow Tories" find their way back to their natural environment.

Where can you find Marianne Faithful convent-girl-cum-singer, Arthur Lowe, Book of Revelation, Ofsted, Jake The Peg, Amanda Burton and Pantheus, King of Thebes all in one place? Easy, I know. They are all referenced on the excellent 'Achtung Bono' from the Four lads who shook the Wirral. What a Xmas bonus for less than a tenner!

Ernesto, an occasional and confused contributor to this site, once went into Philpotts, a 'fancy dan' sandwich shop in Brum and asked if they had black pudding on white sliced... with lard! So, Ernie, this one's just for you!

Aircraft Emissions/Noise: 14th December 2005

Q. To ask the Member for Yardley and Birmingham City Councillor, John Hemming, what the Leb Dim Councillors are doing about this in their capacity as shareholders of Birmingham International Airport.


Written Question to the member for Yardley: 14th December 2005

Q. To ask the Leb Dim Member for Yardley how much longer he is going to fiddle whilst Rome burns around him, and for clarity of his position in respect of the Honorable Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

I wonder sometimes if the Leb Dims have compelely lost it.

"Never underestimate the self-pity of the ruling classes. Since Labour took office in 1997 the Confederation of British Industry has been engaged in one long whinge. It doesn't matter that our taxes are among the lowest and our regulations among the weakest in the developed world. It doesn't matter that the rich are richer than they have ever been. The CBI is the monster with a thousand stomachs that will never be satisfied." George Monbiot gives both barrels to the CBI.... and a few others too!

Steve Bell on drawing Dubya. "He moved like a chimp, walked like a chimp and even talked like a chimp. This was no play acting; George Bush actually was a chimp."

It looks like there will be no difficulty scoring at next year's World Cup. A brothel where the prostitute's pay to get in!

The Tories have chosen the right man – and what a disaster that will be! The unanimous adulation heaped on David Cameron by media pundits and political commentators of all persuasions actually makes me more confident in predicting his failure as an opposition leader than I have been on any political issue since John Major took Britain into the ERM, applauded by a similar ecstatic consensus of the chattering classes.

Yesterday I listened to one of those dreadful Five Live radio ‘phone-in programmes asking people to ring in and say what they thought about David Cameron as the new Tory leader. The whole level of discussion reminded me of the scene from the West Wing, when President Jed Bartlet describes a similar experience:

“I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends - apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don't vote, do they?”

Well, here's a surprising turn up for the book. A middle-class lawyer telling the trade unions to be more respectful to their masters or they will have to stand in the naughty corner. I'm touched by the irony of a new labour flunky telling the unions they must halt their decline in their membership!

Vote for Bloggerheads, and get your friends to do the same. I would say Vote Early, Vote Often, but that twerp Hemming will run off to the courts if I did. Surely Tim can beat the likes of Melanie bloody Phillips.

Things are getting serious for the bluenoses as they face the prospect of going into the festive season having won less games at St Andrews than Aston Villa have this season. Perhaps this is the time to remind Pete about his pre-season optimism. I quote from his post of August 10th:

"The football season is upon us and the prem starts on Saturday. Last year I predicted Blues would struggle, this year I predict the opposite. Most of my fellow fans and certainly the national media, have us written off as mid table plodders and I can see the sense in that, but there are circumstances which lead me to believe that the optimism that most (apart from me) felt at the start of last year is justified this time around.

First....Forssell, he proved himself fantastic scorer at this level in a mediocre, defensively minded team lacking creativity. Basically, he did it by himself. If his knee injury hasn't knackered him completely there is no need to suppose he won't be as prolific as before. There are a couple of factors that most commentators have failed to pick up on though. The first is Jermaine Pennant. This boy excites like I haven't been excited since Trevor Francis was superboy. If you think Wright Phillips is a class act, wait till you see Pennant. This time around, Forssell will have ammunition, plenty of it.

Also, assuming they are all fit, which is unlikely I know, he will be accompanied by one of two absolutely superb strikers......Heskey (don't laugh) and Pandiani, who believe me is a bit special and better than his stats from last season suggest.Then, Dunn might get fit and Izzett, who lets not forget was the prems leading supplier of chances the year before last is fit again. We have the potential to be a pretty scary attacking force, if only Bruce and his coaches take the shackles off. Remember where you read it first!"

Pete, if you've got any horse racing tips... sit on 'em!

John Hemming takes time off from predicting the end of the world on energy supplies to claim that the NHS is in financial crisis. Incredibly, this is a man who willing jumped into bed with the Tories (and anyone else who issued an invitation) for the first (and last) sniff of power that came his way, and he's got the brass neck to claim Labour is presiding over the run down of the NHS. Well, perhaps he would care to take time off from asking endless crackpot questions about silent phone calls and ask a few about Government spending on the NHS. He might also want to compare what the Government has actually spent on the NHS with the pie-in-the-sky empty promises in the last three Lib Dem Manifestos. When he does he will be able to work out just exactly what sort of financial crisis the NHS would be in if Labour had only spent as little as Hemming and chums had promised.

Those of us in the Labour Party may disagree with our Leadership on a number of things, (and we still have more to do to bring health spending up to EU averages, but our starting point was to take over a health service from Hemming's coalition partners who had spent 18 years trying to destroy it)) but we will stand no criticism from those cretins who would have only made the situation worse.

Start the week with a smile...

Danny Kelly on why he won't say a word about George Best's 'minute's silence'.

Uncyclopedia. A good spoof Wikipedia site

... and this bloke's a laugh a minute!

This story reminds me of that old chestnut: When they opened the trophy cabinet at Wolverhampton Wanderers, two Japanese prisoners of war jumped out!

Best check the seat carefully before settling down in a Birmingham cab.

Don't bomb the messenger!

I'm afraid I cannot share this man's enthusiasm.