Home sweet bear.

Tory Bear has gone home for the weekend so blogging will be light to non-existant. He'll be in Westminster on Monday though if anyone is around for one of those promised catch ups...

One step at a time...

Not even a spike through the foot can stop this keen candidate:

1min 20secs into it is well worth watching...

She's got some balls...

So it was a quite night in for the Balls family last night. Poor Yvette must have been wondering why her husband kept popping outside talking to someone in hushed tones on his mobile. Seems it's not just Harriet Harperson who has a ruthlessly ambitious husband pulling the strings. 

Could it be any more obvious where

this briefing

came from?

Point of order...

My my aren't those young Liberal Democrats a pesky bunch. TB's story earlier got them into a

whirl

. We've had statements from candidates and now the

returning officer,

 all asking who this evil Tory Bear is and why is he upsetting the big yellow boat. There has been briefing that would make any spinner blush this evening and TB's inbox has made for the most interesting of reads...

The official line seems to be that there is no problem and that everything is fine. Original. However TB must ask a few questions:

• If there is no problem, why the hell are senior members of your youth movement briefing, and countless grassroots members complaining - to a tory!?!
  
• If there is no problem then why is there a growing campaign for
  RON
  ? If there is no problem then nobody would be calling for the Reopen of Nominations.
  

Oh dear the calamity at the of the top of the Liberal Democrats is trickling down.

Twatter banter.

You can follow

TB on Twitter here

.

Over to you Gordo..

Anything you feel you should

apologise for

Prime Minister?

Worst job in the world.

Just spotted this on

Toby Young's twitter

:

Yoof watch.

Tory Bear was right in his hunch that Liberal Youth were in real trouble. It's amazing what drops out of the tree when you shake the branch a little.  After surviving an

attempted coup

, current chairman

Elaine Bagshaw

 (right,) is being given a good run for her money in a bid by

Sara Scarlett

 (below,) to stop Bagshaw being re-elected, but the whole affair is getting rather bitchy and messy. There is a

growing movement

developing amongst the membership calling for the nominations to be re-opened on account that neither of the candidates would be right for the job.

The opposition to Bagshaw is growing daily, especially as this "Vicky Pollard like" media performer (according to Quinton Letts!) can't seem to keep her mouth shut about how great she is. Just a quick scroll of her

campaign group

sees her taking full responsibility for lobbying the Cowley Street great and good single handed, and even claims she can give dear old Vince Cable some advice on the economy. This woman makes the very worst of the CF self aggrandises look tame. TB is amazed that she hasn't started a social action project yet...

Things apparently came to a head at last week's Coventry hustings where the two candidates were questioned on why they were Liberal Democrats, a good question to ask any member. Scarlett gave in interesting answer about growing up as a woman in the Middle East giving her an inherent liberal streak, but it was Chairman Bagshaw that really fluffed it. She rambled on about always being a liberal and there never being an eye opening moment or epiphany. Her vague answer left out one pretty significant fact though...

Tory Bear reckons there must have been something significant that made her jump ship from the Labour Party to the Lib Dems.

This little piggy stayed at home...

The Jacqui Smith saga is far from over... This morning the excellent

news has broken

that the Home Secretary has faced further questioning and potentially an investigation after all. 

Captions contest anyone? 

Answers below...

Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic...

Spin spin away Peter.

Exclusive: Lib Dems hoping for a miracle...

Tory Bear has his eyes and ears everywhere, and none more so than at the Liberal Youth

conference

last weekend at Warwick University. Take a look at Lembit Opik's strategy for the Lib Dems retaining the number of seats they have in parliament at the next election:

Poor Lembit, he's been through a lot recently and it looks like

too many nights

on the lash are beginning to have an effect on him. 

Unless of course that actually is the official Lib Dem policy.

Tears of laughter...

TB had to watch this three times before he could even contemplate posting it...



"Don't worry Kate, this wont be on GMTV"

Hat-Tip -

Donal Blaney

Better dead than red.

Never one to lose his temper lightly TB has come to the conclusion that Tom Miller is a bit of a twat. When he's not

cosying up

with the bigger boys at LabourList, (he's almost a mini-Draper without the famous wife,) he pours drivel and preaches socialist state loving hate on his "Newer Labour"

blog.

This morning the world was greeted with the

sad news

that, in a referendum as straight as a nine bob note, Hugo Chavez is set to remain in power for the foreseeable future having poured millions of pounds into a state sponsored campaign to change the constitution.

As

other blogs

have picked up, this isn't good news for the people of Venezuela. Yet the little twerp Miller can

barely contain his joy

, or his communist sympathies.

If you like it so much Tom, why don't you put that silly hat of yours on and go live there.

Liberal Yoof are at each others throats.

It's never a good sign when even the former returning officer of an election starts bitching about what bitches the candidates all were. Well that's the Lib Dems for you. It seems that the newly created

Liberal Youth

are being dogged by petite politics and back stabbing...

"For me, the most disappointing aspect is the lack of unity. It has been put to me that an organisation that is doing little is most vulnerable to infighting, and I have to say that it has been a recurring theme of my time as Liberal Youth Returning Officer that most of the conversations I have been part of revolve around who isn't getting on with whom. How does such distraction help in the building of a better organisation?"

Read the rest of the damning statement from Liberal Bureaucracy

here

.

So as the dust settles on their spring conference that was held this weekend at Warwick University, (check out the organised fun in the agenda

here

,) it seems that already this little project is beginning to fall apart. Activists are bitching, no work is getting done and not a by-election for love nor money.

Tory Bear suggests the cause of all your problems may lie with this

chap

.

Labour say jump, Student press says how high?

Now despite some vocal people having no interest in student politics, a big chunk of the readership of this blog do care, so Tory Bear was quite excited about the idea of writing a weekly column for the duration of election season for the student press. However when the word got out - shock horror oh my god a tory being allowed somewhere to express his views arrrrgh, the editorial decision was taken to replace TB with a staff writer. As he gets on very well with some of the

Student

hacks TB doesn't want to point fingers, and understands that perhaps the decision was out of the hands of those who had previously encouraged it, but he does however know who it was that made the big fuss about it, claiming that TB wouldn't be neutral. Well luckily the ever growing

HackWatch

website has no qualms with printing the rejected first column and as you can see it's all very fair:

"The next few weeks will be a flurry of plotting late into the night, knocking on thousands of doors, leafleting and putting up posters, injected with the occasional hour of sleep. At the end of the day EUSA elections are not won with fancy videos or flashy websites, they are lost and won on the doorstep. It’s all about who can meet and talk to the most students to get their message out there...

...years of dreaming for some, months of planning for others, and what seemed like a good idea in the pub for one or two candidates is set to come down to a pitched battle on campus."

Oh well, their loss. Read the rest

here

.

If you thought the British blog wars were bad...

While Derek Draper continues to

embarrass himself

on a daily basis with his constant obssesion with triggering some sort of blog war with Guido and Iain etc, spare a thought for Xu Lai the Chinese blogger behind the risque

Pro-State in Flames

blog. He was

stabbed

this weekend after doing a bookshop interview with readers of his blog. Apparently someone didn't like something he posted...

He was taken into the loos of the bookshop by two armed men

and told

“You brought this on yourself. You know why we’re doing this, don’t you?”

Don't get any ideas Derek.

Rules of Political Life #56 - Dodgy kodak moments can easily go wrong...

If they are running in an election, however important, candidates love to show themselves recycling all manner of things. Though is it really a good idea to

be photographed

for your campaign throwing away the election guide put together to explain the rules and regulations of the election?

Given the quagmire of appeals and rule breaking that normally goes with student politics, Tory Bear doubts that the excuse of "Oh I didn't realise I was breaking the rules" will wash if this candidate gets busted...

Whoops.

The real life West Wing...

TB has a Monday morning treat for West Wing fans, who will love this

fascinating insight

into how Obama is running his ship. It gives a detailed account of who the main players in the administration are, and more importantly, where their desks are in relation to the Oval Office. 

The similarities between Obama and Santos, Rahm and Josh etc are uncanny...

Is it time for a Season 8?

So farewell then Gossip Girl...

Over the last few months various universities across the country have seen blogs emerge that are inspired by the hit US tv show "Gossip Girl". Brilliantly scathing and sarcastic, these blogs give an insiders look on the lives of trust fund kiddies while at university. 

GG Edinburgh Edition sadly had the MSM go to town on her this weekend, and although this

piece

in Scotland on Sunday was arguably pretty damn funny, apparently the Daily Mail were up for stirring things up.

The piece describes the "tell-all website has proved so popular it has had 12,000 hits in its first three months, and now receives more than 600 new visitors every week.

According to the blog, Edinburgh students' lifestyles include:

• Renting Georgian property in the city's New Town, where a flat in Dublin Street costs around £4,500 per person, the equivalent of a year's allowance of a student loan;

• Mid-term skiing holidays in the exclusive Swiss resort of Verbier, which costs around £3,000 for a week;

• Parties at the Royal Scots Club, renting out the place for a champagne reception and venison dinner for 120 people;

• All-day brunches fuelled by dozens of bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne at £30 each;

• Three nights a week partying in nightspots such as the Opal Lounge, where customers must spend at least £135 to reserve a table with a bottle of Mercier champagne."

Some lazy hack has clearly had their day made when they stumbled across the website but TB is never a fan of seeing a fellow blogger

go under

. He understands though that the negative PR this sort of thing causes can be rather unpleasant. 

So farewell then Gossip Girl, whoever you were.

Gordon says more tax...

Tory Bear rotates the t-shirts he sells every so often. This is your last chance to get your hands on one of the very popular, £10 bargain price Gordon specials:

See other designs and order

here

.