What Did Gordon Know and When?

A scandal far from London is edging closer and close to the door of Number 10. In amongst the plants and moans that normally take up the latter stages of PMQs there was a rare gem of a very intriguing question from the SNP's Angus Robertson asking Gordon about a conference call to discuss the suitability of Labour's disgraced cocaine king

Steven Purcell

as the candidate in the Glasgow East by-election in 2008. As the Screws

reported

a 'Labour insider' claimed:

"At that point, rumours about Steven had reached the party headquarters. So a discussion was had with him - and he was asked outright about the drug rumours. And after that, any idea of him being the candidate was ABANDONED immediately."

Robertson asked:

AR: "Given that the Prime Minister will have looked closely at the tragic case. Will he confirm whether a Downing Street staffer took part in a conference in July 2008 which discussed the suitability of Stephen Purcell?

GB: I know nothing of what he says but I shall look at it.

Always one for a dodging a question, what was Gordon so coy about? Why so subdued? Surely this was a great chance to attack the SNP for appalling smears, as they are so often, and tell them to put up or shut up. TB understands that at the post-PMQ briefing afterwards Scottish journalists were palmed off with: “There are more important questions”.  For once someone doing the briefing was correct. There are some very interesting questions still surrounding this case indeed.

Could it be that Brown knows more than he is letting on? The story of Steven Purcell's resignation has led to a constant drip drip about just what was going on at Glasgow City Council and its relationship with big donors to the Labour party. The Scottish Sunday papers are having a field ay about big Labour donors and lucrative public sector contracts. Million pound

deals

, quango

donors

and Purcell

linked

to shady companies. And it goes further than that -

blackmail and organised crime

.

What TB can't understand is why the caledonian editors are so reluctant to get down and dirty and blow the lid of this story once and for all. It's not like they

didn't know

: "Politicians, journalists and lawyers alike, apparently, had direct or indirect knowledge for years about the personal habits of the leader of Glasgow City Council and chose to ignore it." Great.

But this whole saga has plenty more questions that are still needing to be answered. Not just about Labour donors getting taxpayers cash but about Labour donors and their connections with gangsters. "The Digger", a small A5 Glasgow newssheet has just revealed that Labour donor James Mortimer is the uncle of the common law wife of a well known Glasgow gangster.

As well as being a high profile attendee, along with the Prime Minister, at the Labour fundraising dinner the day before Steven Purcell's little moment of cirsis, Mr Mortimer has entertained some intriguingly high profile people at his

Club 29

in Glasgow.

Such links between the Scottish Labour party and the mob have been raising eyebrows for the

last few years

. Like the Red Rose Dinner attended by Labour First Minister Jack McConnell and John Reid. It was also attended by a drug dealer by the name of Justin McAlroy who ended up dead six days later. James Mortimer also attended that dinner.

His father, Tommy McAlroy, who is a close friend of Labour whip Frank Roy, has also been

implicated

in drug baroncy. And it’s also not the first time John Reid – a former Home Secretary for goodness sake – has had family connections reported that

raise eyebrows

 - his father in law was arrested in a drugs bust.

So you might be getting an idea why Gordon Brown was not exactly keen on drawing attention to the UK media about a story which has him and numerous senior Labour leaders wining and dining with people who have some seriously dodgy connections and backgrounds. If its full implications broke before the sixth of May it may not just destroy Scottish Labour but bring down Brown. 

But there are three important questions that still remain unanswered over two weeks after these events broke. So TB will have to ask them publicly in order that the media in London do what Glasgow news editors have been too afraid to do.

1. Who is paying for Steven Purcell's bills? Public relations, top media lawyers, stays in rehab clinics and lengthy trips abroad cost money and Steven is now unemployed - his whereabouts still unknown. Most of his money went up his nose so how is he paying his way. Why did he turn down the help the council's media officers offered?

2. Under Steven Purcell's leadership of Glasgow City Council what deals have the council,

City Building LLP

and any other arms length organisations set up by the council done - particularly with major Labour donors like James Mortimer, Brian Dempsey and Willie Haughey?

3. Who was sitting at the top table with Gordon Brown and Steven Purcell at the Labour party fundraiser the night before Steven Purcell's announcement to his colleagues and did anything happen at the dinner to hasten his departure from the council?

Dig dig dig.

Caption Contest - Unemployment Rising Edition

Getting ready for life post May 6th.

Quote of the Day

"Margaret Moran is a lying bitch."

-Iain Dale

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