What a surprise.

The Sunday Telegraph is set to make uncomfortable reading for Mr and Mrs Balls apparently.

More at midnight.

23:31 Well nothing about Balls in the first edition and not sure what

this

is all about, but

brutal

for Labour none the less. More

intrigue about Hazel Blears

, is she being set up by NO10 to take the can back for the whole rotten bunch? 

+++developing+++

Intriguing...

Old Holborn

is plotting...

"If any of you is or knows of a friendly pig farmer with transport for 30 pigs who would be willing to be on national television, outside the Houses of Parliament next week, please contact me. This is a serious request."

Something tells TB that the image of piggies trotting past Big Ben could get a lot of attention...

Ouch...

"• Phil Woolas, the Home Office Minister, claimed for items of women's clothing, tampons and nappies. The parliamentary rules only allow expenses which are "exclusively" for MPs' own use so it is not clear these items were justified."

The Telegraph seems very keen to make amends for the smeargate mess.

Day 2

.

Busted knee.

TB has busted the tendon in his knee. Pain, excruciating amounts of pain.

Have you seen this man?

TB really hopes that CCHQ are war-gaming the Dave and Alan show.

Total Recall

James Burdett

raises an interesting idea:

In the US many states have a means of sacking an elected representative, a recall mechanism, most notably this was used in California at which Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected to replace the recalled Governor of California. Why don’t we import that sort of system to the United Kingdom? I’m sure that there would be many constituents who would like to be able to sack their MP when they learn of their expense claims.

Not a bad plan at all.

We're closing in...

Update 21.37:

Tory Politico

has had some fun with this.

SNP - fail.

TB would love to know which SNP activist is in charge of his ward in Edinburgh. Four days in a row someone has put one of these leaflets through his door:If they can't even organise leafleting how exactly do they expect to run a country?

Better late than never...

Busy busy bear today, but as it's the 1st anniversary of the blog, as promised TB thought he would share some of his favourite stories from the last year:

• Celebrating BoJo style.
  
• Interview with CF Chairman Michael Rock.
  
• Taking the piss of Social Action.
  
• Some funny pictures from conference; here, here and here.
  
• Remember the fun and games with Lily Kember?
  
• NUS conference diary.
  
• Blowing the lid on Labour's early attack blog.
  
• This is a good place to start with the Liberal Youth elections. 
  

TB@1

Exactly a year ago Tory Bear got bored of his revision and decided to set up this site and had a little rant about Scottish politics. Boris had just won London, Timpson was about to take Crewe and The Sun had the tories on 49%.

Throughout today he will be revisiting some of his favourite posts...

At first it was a handful of readers who left the odd comment. Then TB started blogging about Conservative Future... that really got things going. Looks likes the 1000th post mark will be reached today as well.

Stay classy San Diego!

A new low for this country...

TB doesn't know what

this dude

did to offend anyone, and frankly he doesn't care. Jacqui Smith is a disgrace to her office and this country.

Just go.

This made TB laugh...

"Five People & Planet activists from Edinburgh University were falsely imprisoned by a Topshop store manager in Edinburgh on Friday, allegedly as part of a national strategy of detaining peaceful protesters."

They have the right to protest outside yes, but what is wrong with the store detaining them once, and only once, they had broken into areas of the shop where they were not meant to be, ie the shop window? Something they are so clearly proud of

on their website

.

They were tresspassing and the manager had every right to make sure that they didn't run away before they could be fairly prosecuted. These hippies must learn the hard way that they have to play ball and stay within the law if they want to be taken seriously.

Send a cococnut to the manager though. What a legend.

+++Brent and Gareth fired+++

Iain Dale got the scoop

, but it seems apparent that Draper has been booted out as editor of

LabourList

. Despite early attempts by his minion Tom Miller to maneuver into a position where he would be able to take over as Draper's puppets, it seems they have been told

where to go

as well... Ironic that this little set back is put at the end of a nonsense piece Miller has written about careerism in politics. Seems he has learnt a lesson in it from Draper...

A statement is expected tomorrow.

UPDATE: Alex Smith steps up from deputy to

replace

Dolly. Seems Miller was just too toxic to be kept on.

Now that's a good Party Political Broadcast...

Dear Gordon Brown,

Yesterday you subjected the nation to another cringe worthy performance in front of the camera. Although you managed to contain your desire to dance, you grinned and ran around your garden. It was all just a bit odd and embarrassing. Here is a performance by a young man that you don't think very much of, but from whom you could learn a lot. He is calm and composed when dealing with people and above all else he is honest. He looks people in the eye and tells them how it really is. Why don't you have a little watch and take some notes:



Please stop going on YouTube, and please stop lying to the nation, and please stop hiding in your bunker. There is no doubt that you went into politics with the best of intentions and it's not too late to save a scrap of dignity. Just go to the country, take the fight to the street. If you genuinely believe that you were doing the best you can to save this great nation, then you would not be frightened. Every chance you get you run away from people being able to vote for you, whether it be your party members, a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty or above all, a General Election.

Today you spat such venom at your opponent across the Dispatch Box. If you really believe that he and the Conservative Party are the frauds and salesman you claim they are, then why not take the fight to the doorstep and call that election.

Lots of Love

Tory Bear

What news from the north?

Annabel Goldie tells it how it is

over at the Blue Blog

:

"The Scottish Conservative achievements are there for all to see; 1,000 more police, more help for our elderly, a new national drugs strategy, the abolition or cut in local taxes for our smallest businesses, a town centre regeneration fund to boost our high Streets. A combined package of £234,000,000 for the benefit of Scotland. Constructive politics on devolved issues - but steadfast opposition when the SNP have tried to highjack the agenda for their separatist goals."

TB has been a late convert to the idea of getting into bed with the nationalists while they are a minority government, though it seems to be working. The naive and ridiculously bigoted views that make up an alarmingly high percentage of their membership are deeply worrying and TB was initially sceptical that working with the SNP could benefit the Union. Having said that TB knows a few very charming SNP supporters, he has spent many a merry night drinking with the Jacobites. However, as things stand at the moment, the SNP ship is heading directly for the rocks. Far from advancing their cause, the SNP "government" executive and their reaction to the recession has left the idea of independence laughable. The only reason they might do well in the next General Election is because of how despised Labour is. Hardly a ringing endorsement. TB has yet to hear one good idea that has been put forward by the SNP, that couldn't be done within the Union structure if they put their minds to it.

As reading between the lines of the Goldie posts says, why shouldn't we prove that we are fighting hard for the electorate and representing their issues in Parliament, all the while taking the piss and highlighting the flaws of the SNP at the same time? The rest of the Parliament has the SNP by the short and curlies and we might as well get the most out of it while we are in a position of strength. It needs to be a two pronged approach though. At the same time as working hard in Holyrood, Cameron needs to be more visible north of the border. Scotland makes up a tenth of the UK population, it's not unreasonable to expect Cameron to spend a day or two a month in Scotland. It's been too long since he has given a high profile speech in public up here and in some of the most marginal seats like Perth and North Perthshire and Edinburgh South, a visit from DC could whip up a huge amount of interest. At least he's heading up for the Scottish Conference in a couple of weeks, something Nick Clegg failed to do for his party.

TB is heading up to Perth to hear Dave speak on the 14th, tempted to throw another conference party...

Tom Conti on flat tax.

Tory Bear never realised that Tom Conti was quite so sound. Check out the

video

he just put together for today's edition of the Daily Politics:

Couldn't agree more.

And then they came for me.

Some shocking news from the recently revamped

Tory Politico

. A law, currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, could spell doom for bloggers:

"The bill, proposed by Californian Democrat Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others could make it a federal felony to use a blog, social media, or any other web medium “to cause substantial emotional distress through severe, repeated, and hostile” speech.”

Here’s the relevant text of the bill:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both….

["Communication"] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; …

["Electronic means"] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages."

Let's not get any ideas Jacqui...

Red red whine...

TB knew that Alastair Campell was an professional porno writer amongst other things before he went to work for Blair, but not that he was the lead singer of UB40:

It's on Wikipedia

so it must be true!

Hat-Tip -Nic Conner.

More navel gazing...

Via the wonderful

Charlotte Gore

, TB noticed that this months

Wikio blog rankings

are out. Miss Gore has stripped down the results for just Lib Dem blogs so TB thought he would do the top the right-wing blogs in the UK according to Wikio, the bracketed number shows over all standing:

1 (1).

Iain Dale's Diary

2 (2).

Guy Fawkes' blog

3 (4).

ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

4 (10).

Dizzy Thinks

5 (11).

The Devil's Kitchen

6 (12).

Old Holborn

7 (14).

John Redwood's Diary

8 (16).

Telegraph Blogs - Daniel Hannan

9 (17). Tory Bear
10 (19).

Mr Eugenides

Wikio ratings are not only based on traffic levels, but also on the number of incoming and outgoing links a blog has so thank you to all those who have been linking to TB in the last few months and enabled him to creep up the listings!

Reckon it could be a while before he can over taken Mr Hannan and Mr Redwood though...

Quote of the Day

"In countries like Africa..."

John Prescott

speaking

to a crowd yesterday.