Do Not Pass Go

Do not collect anymore deliberately pilfered taxpayer money.

Fantastic news

in this morning's Telegraph -It seems that the Met is closing in on the worst troughers. As suspected, it seems the scummiest offenders have been Labour's Chaytor, Morely and Devine.

What about Moran and Malik though?

Vomit

Oh dear, look what just popped into TB's inbox:

Dear Tory Bear

More than likely, you don't know who I am, and are wondering why I'm emailing you. I’m not a politician, I’m an ordinary Labour Party member.

A few weeks ago I started a campaign to get this video released as Labour's PPB

And guess what - tonight it's going to be shown on TV. On BBC 2 at 5.55pm and BBC 1 and ITV 1 at 6.55pm.

I saw it for the first time at Labour Party Conference this year and it actually made me cry. It reminded me why I joined this Party, why I campaign for this Party and why I will always fight for this Party.

But here's the interesting thing - I started to show it to people who weren't members, people who weren't even sure they were going to vote Labour this time round - and they loved it too and said it made them more likely to vote for us.

The video outlines the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech – like free personal care for those in need as a step towards the creation of a National Care Service – and sets them in the context of Labour achievements like the Minimum Wage and the creation of the NHS.

It’s called "Fighters and Believers" - you'll see why when you watch it - and in honour of this, this weekend the Labour Party is holding a "Fighters Weekend".

If you list an event that you're organising for this weekend on Membersnet by the end of the day the Labour Party will send you a batch of special limited edition "Fighters and Believers" badges for your CLP

This is the story of Britain and of our Party - people fighting to achieve change, people fighting to secure fairness and opportunity for those in middle and modest circumstances and people fighting for the country as a whole.

And the lesson we should all carry with us in the coming months? When we fight we win.

If you have ever wanted anyone you know who’s undecided about how they might vote at the next election to understand why you’re Labour get them to watch this video

Best wishes,

Ellie Gellard

PS – If you can’t campaign for Labour this weekend but want to join the fight – you can donate to Labour now and make a massive difference. Every penny you donate will be spent on our fight.

She may "always fight for this Party" but that is the very problem with Labour and this government, they fight for themselves and not for the country.

PS. Is that Bevinite or Bevanite Ellie?

Digby4Pavillion

It's the

Brighton Pavilion primary tonight

and the good people of Brighton should pick

Scott Digby

to be their man. Scott has a fantastic record as a councillor and did wonders running some fantastic events at Conference, such as the highly successful Party for Change. He would make a great MP.

TB wishes him the best of luck.

UPDATE - Massive Blunder in PEB

Quite unbelievably the error strewn Against the Odds video is err still error strewn, inaccurate and stomach churning, ready for its TV debut tonight. See TB's earlier post.

Millionaire Labour donor JK Rowling plug gone though, unsurprisingly.

UPDATE: A brilliant spot by the

Angry Walrus

. At 1.40 there are shots of the city and some banks. Here we can see the true legacy of this Labour government:

"Mortgage approvals slump to record lows"
"Economy to slow this year despite rate cuts"
"weak pound aggravating inflation pressures"

Red faces at

Silverfish

yet?

Queens Speech

Labour know that none of these Bills will pass, and thus makes the whole thing even more political. As TB's buddy Strathclyde said, there are only thirty odd legislative days left in the upper house and it would be a failure on the part of the Lords if they did not conduct proper scrutiny. The ever plugged in Kevin Maguire just let slip the entire Labour strategy on Sky moments ago. There won't be time to get these through, but it sows the seeds for the election campaign, which started officially about two hours ago it seem at Mandy's Victoria Street briefing. Kevin clearly stated that these Bills will be put to Cameron to accept in the campaign. Labour are fighting like an desperate opposition, the government is trying to make the opposition dance to their tune, a sign of how far they have sunk. They know the game is up. They are exhausted, they have no real new ideas.

Dizzy looks

at each measure in his ever erudite style. Cameron must stay strong and not play their game.

Fingers crossed that the Telegraph's Andrew Pierce is right. His repsonse to Maguire was to suggest this will be the last Labour Queen's Speech for a "very very long time."

Ignore them and it seems they will go away.

Exclusive - The New Against The Odds PEB Leaks

OK so not really, but the day has arrived commie friends. This is the moment we have been waiting for proles and dolls. When we fight, we win!

That's right, today is the the day the inaccurate socialist lies will be peddled on national television. After the

absolute pasting

the Against the Odds video has received by an army of freelance fact checkers online, across the political spectrum, it is of no surprise it had to be sent back to the editing room before it could be aired tonight.

TB predicts the Bevin/Bevan epic cock up will be gone, as will JK "Give us a mill"Rowling and probably the outrageous claim to have freed Mandela. TB gave the vid his two cents here but for a more comprehensive savaging, check out this

no holds barred fisk

:

"“They said that working people were not fit to govern - so we formed the Labour Party”
A party where the intellect, stimulus and money was supplied by the decidedly middle-class Fabians and their friends.

“They said that women didn’t deserve the vote”
This glosses carefully over the fact that Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the main suffragette movement, WSPU, was refused membership of the Independent Labour Party after she was encouraged to do so by her friend Keir Hardie. The refusal was on account of her gender. Several years before her death, Emmaline became concerned by socialism and joined the Conservative Party. We are of course still waiting for a woman to be elected leader of the Labour party, let alone become a Labour Prime Minister. The legislation to extend an equal franchise to women was brought in by Baldwin’s Conservative government in 1928."

Etc.

TB's favourite comment so far has to be one of the ones left on youtube:

"After toppling apartheid, building the NHS, bringing peace to Northern Ireland and winning the second world war.. isn't it hard to stifle a giggle when Gordon Brown suddenly pops up @1.24 with... (drum roll)... Sure Start :-)

But I mock, GB is clearly a great man - just look! he walks with Barack Obama, at 2:12."

The

Labour PR machine

has gone into overdrive over this nonsense. "LOOK AT US WE LISTEN TO ONLINE TYPES!" It's weird to think that if the party is that broke, to the extent they have to recycle their amateurish videos to broadcast on TV, how/why are they paying for private polling about it? Kerry let the cat out of the bag on that one:

Meanwhile, the Labour Party’s strategists had noted the campaign. It’s clear the video appeals to Labour supporters, but then they tested it in focus groups of swing voters and it was going down well. And so the decision to update it and run it as the Queen’s Speech PPB was taken.

This decision is a victory for Labour’s thriving online community. It’s a victory for everyone who understands the power that new forms of communication are now giving us. And it’s a victory for the Labour Party who should be congratulated for acting so quickly to embrace the opportunity here.

Ugh, pass the trough. The left are rattled and they are shoring up their core base, simple as. This isn't about engagement online this is about clocking that some over excited kiddies gurgled and clapped their hands a lot when they saw something they liked. We are still months from an election and already Labour are being made to dance a merry tune by their out of touch and amateur membership, in a desperate bid to shore up votes. Role on 17.55 BBC 2.

TB will have a spring in his step and whistle on his lips this morning.

How's this for a Moral Compass?

There is an exciting bit of news breaking over

at the Guardian

. The bonkers Labour group

Compass

could be set to make moves against Gordon. In a sure sign that No10 is somewhat rattled by this, just look at their aggressive reaction to the news:

Criticism of Brown's leadership will anger No 10 as it seeks to build on small progress in the opinion polls and a strong byelection performance in Glasgow North East. It insists that the 4,000-strong Compass has little traction in the parliamentary party.

Senior figures in Compass, however, point to a database of 30,000 supporters. They think they could back the home secretary in return for a pledge from him that a referendum on electoral reform would be held, possibly on the day of the general election, or the foreign secretary in exchange for movement on measures to tackle inequality.

A shift to the left would be the final nail in the coffin, and while might firm up some of the Labour core, it would seal the deal for Cameron as the sensible floating voters come to the blue camp in terrified droves. Why did Labour change in the first place?

If Compass do start operations this could get bloody very quickly.

The popcorn is on TB.

Gordon and the Vermin Problem

Working Class Tory

had a nice little scoop followed up by the

Standard's Paul Waugh

the other day about the Labour council candidate who described the Queen as vermin in a foul treasonous diatribe. Well WTC has managed to dig out a photo of said traitor and guess who is posing happily with him:

To the tower with the both of them.

Pickles Briefing

Well it's pretty clear who has been briefing Peter Oborne. It's almost verbatim.

Busy Bear

TB has a full on day but will be back later. He also had a rather sore head thanks to those nice people at ComRes. Their charity awards bash was great fun though sadly Ed Balls did a runner before TB could get a photo. No doubt he clocked his opponent Antony Calvert in the audience.

Quote the evening had to come from Nick Hurd while presenting an award:

"Such a pleasure to be here presenting Campaigner of the Year, and following on from Ken Livingstone, who clearly wasn't."

TB laughed a little too loudly as the rest of the room had a sharp intake of breath.

Delusion of the Day

Even the PM's WW1 & 2 had it easy compared to Gordon Brown--Remember there's also rolling 24/7 news to contend with.

-A loon commenting on

LabourList

.

Tweet in Haste and Repent at Leisure

TB lost a drunken bet with Kerry McCarthy last night that the Against the Odds vid would never get an airing on TV. Ironically Sister Bear has a

piece in today's Standard

that made TB chuckle - it's all about hasty tweeting. Ben Bradshaw and darling Kerry come under particular scrutiny...

Late-night or ill-thought-out tweets are the cyber equivalent of drunken dialling.

Despite the inherent risk, the Labour party now has a "twitter tsar", Kerry McCarthy MP.

Her tag denotes the seriousness with which politicians have embraced Twitter's 24/7 opportunity to listen the sound of their own tweets and engage with voters.

Over at the Tory party, The Spectator's diary of a Notting Hill nobody, the satirical diary of a Conservative minion, reports that all MPs are supposed to spend three hours a day on Facebook and a further three on Twitter.

Parties might want us to see their tweeting members as spontaneous and modern, but the freedom allowed by constant tweeting can be disastrous.

McCarthy reacted to news that the Sun would be supporting Cameron with the following tweet: "Labour doesn't need The Sun. We've got Twitter ..." only to backtrack furiously.

The most regretted tweet of all made a front-page political row. Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw gave a kneejerk twitter response to David Cameron's conference speech.

Within minutes he tweeted about his attack on "big government", seeming to imply that Cameron and his family had big government to thank for the care their late son Ivan received in the hands of the NHS.

The times of Bradshaw's tweets, too (a veritable dawn chorus), are extraordinary. He regularly tweets at midnight, one, two and five, from his mobile.

Campaign to get SB on Twitter progressing nicely.

An Odd Decision

So the chat this morning in geekdom has been about the apparently successful campaign by one Ellie Gellard, or

@bevaniteellie

to her friends, to have some socialist porn shown on television.



Miss "Polly Toynbee's columns make me cry" Gellard, a calm and tempered young lady, prone to reasoned and well thought out debate has been campaigning to get the Against The Odds, a video knocked together on Windows Movie Maker to introduce Gordon Brown to his ill-fated last conference speech, shown as a Party Election Broadcast. While it no doubt was rabble rousing in the hall, a video to get the hacks going, the overexcited Bevanite decided, probably because it had the word "Nye" in it, that it needed to be taken further.

In an impressive campaign for someone living in a different country to pull off alone, she enlisted the support of comedians Alastair Campell and Eddie "Gimme a peerage" Izzard to back it. The petition also had some

interesting signatories

on it, they include 13 Richard Cuntlethworpe, 15 Patrick Arsehead, 17 Jim Bollocks, 18 Neville Cockworth, 20 Kevin Stalin, and finally, 127 Daniel Fuck. Interesting too that Kerry McCarthy MP, Gellards one time boss and Labour Twitter Tsar had inside information on the decision hours before it was

leaked

to James Macintyre at the New Statesman.

So about the video. The fact that Victoria St are even considering showing it on television proves a lot of key points. Firstly, things are more desperate than imagined. For the Labour Party who have spent the last twelve years denying their forefathers and refusing to acknowledge, out of pure sense, their socialist routes, to turn round and produce this vomit inducing montage beggars belief. Brown, Blair and Mandy chopped this baggage away with a blunt axe and now have the audacity to attempt to use Old Labour as a lifeline. Oh and did you know President Obama is in the Labour Party? He features up there with Foot and Kinnock and Brown - all the fighters together. Smirk.

Brown a fighter? Yeah ok, because he's never ducked a fight before eh. Why no Callaghan either? Surely he should be included in that loser montage towards the end. And it's good to know what a million pounds can buy you in this devalued age. Yes that's right donate a million quid to Labour and you get a chance to plug your books and snivelling fairytale on television.

Joking apart the JK Rowling section will have to go if this video is ever actually broadcast on TV, such shameless product placement is unacceptable and given the donation could be a potential headache. The historical inaccuracies are appalling too. Since when can the Labour Party claim victory for votes for women given Lloyd George's government passed the Bill after WWI, not anything the Labour Party did? How about defeating fascism when Churchill won the war, or taking credit for freeing Nelson Mandela. As for Nye Bevan, well TB is still hunting down the name, but he certainly wasn't the first working class minister. Oh and TB has said it before and will say it again - Barack Obama is not in the Labour Party. He thinks Gordon is a toxic loser, hence why he won't meet privately with him and such shameless attempts at stealing some stardust look as pathetic and they do desperate.

Amusingly there also seems to be a massive cock up 32 seconds in. While discussing Nye Bevan, the footage is of Ernest Bevin:

What is Ellie's favourite word for describing perceived tory cock ups? Was it fail?

Labour are playing this as a "look at us all down with the techno kids" move. Showing how caring and chummy they are with their still lacklustre online community. Those TB has spoken to privately are anything but enthused and while they liked the little campaign, they are slightly bemused it has been taken seriously. Already some have spoken out publicly, against the video being shown on television. Perhaps most surprisingly, the uber-loyal NUS President Wes Streeting

slammed the idea.

If anything TB is pleased that Labour have had to sink this low. Clearly they are so broke they can't afford a new PEB so will rehash this tripe. It shows desperate times really do call for desperate measures. If Brown wants to invoke a history of socialist extremes, and a string of bonkers losing leaders to try and save his ass then let him.

The sensible voter will reject this cynical nonsense.


UPDATE 13.21: The ever sharp

Working Class Tory

has sorted out the miner innaccuracy:

"But no-one told Nye Bevan

When did they say that? They didn't, because it obviously wasn't true. Miners had been ministers in several Labour governments before Attlee's. The Labour Secretary for Scotland, William Adamson, was an ACTUAL MINER, not just the son of one. So Nye Bevan is completely irrelevant in this."

Cartoon - Battle of the Lefty Blogs

Copenhagen - Fail.

True to form, Gordon Brown announced last week that he would be attending the Copenhagen Climate Change summit. The curse kicked in, and this collective hysterical waste of time has accepted it is

doomed to failure

:

"The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December has been billed as the world’s last chance to stop global warming.
But negotiations soon broke down because the US refused to sign up to targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The deadlock has forced world leaders at a summit in Singapore to step in and admit that any deal this year will be little more than a “political agreement”."

Ever a fan of swanning around the world stage rather than trying to sort out the messes he has created at home, in light of the fact Copenhagen has now failed, why does Brown still have to go? The whole thing was a waste of time to begin with, now that has been accepted will the Prime Minister please not piss away taxpayers money on this junket.

And what about his carbon footprint??

TPA Cinema Ad

The Taxpayers' Alliance

, What!? An independent grassroots movement!? EVIL! Burn the witch! It must be a Tory front, LIARS!! ARRRRGHetc.

Ok enough of that. The Taxpayers' Alliance have today released this cinema ad that will be hopefully get some popcorn munchers thinking:



Cinema ads are definitely the way to go to reach new audiences and it is no surprise that a little birdy told the bear the Tories have block booked various slots next spring.

TB loved the name of the boat.

Delusion of the Day

Is Alastair Campbell back on the sauce or has he just lost it finally? His shameless hypocrisy last week when slagging off The Sun and Murdoch despite been on his knees to them for ten years was one thing but check out this gem from

his blog

today:

Context - He is slagging off private schools and defending comps:

"despite the swirls of middle class angst about (vastly improved) State schools that so pollute this debate, so dominated in the media by editors and journalists who have chosen the private sector for their own kids, and distort their coverage to justify their choice."

What a moron, no wonder said editors and journalists still think he is an absolute...

Hannan Smashes the Euro-Extremists

The Taxpayers' Alliance

, What!? An independent grassroots movement!? EVIL! Burn the witch! It must be a Tory front, LIARS!! ARRRRGHetc.

Sorry let's try that again,

The Taxpayers' Alliance

are running a debate on Europe and have this stunning contribution from Hannan. In his articulate and calm manner he destroys all the arguments against an independent Britain put forward by the Euro-extremists:



A must watch.

If you were in a good mood this morning...

...then don't read

Peter Oborne's column

if you are a Tory. Actually do, it makes for some scary reading but the truth hurts:

Indeed, according to John Maloney of Exeter University, the Tories must secure a 10 per cent lead over Labour to win an overall majority of just one seat at the next election. In other words David Cameron faces a very high mountain to climb. The most astute Conservative strategists are keenly aware of this problem, as is Cameron himself.

An internal Tory Party document sets out the scale of the problem, stating baldly: 'The Conservatives have never won a General Election from a starting point as weak as they face now.'

The paper calculates that to win a majority, the Conservatives must hold every seat they won in 2005, plus an additional 117 constituencies. To put that in perspective, Margaret Thatcher notched up an additional 63 seats in 1979 for the Tories, while Edward Heath made 69 gains in 1970.

The Tory briefing note sums up the problem as follows: 'To become Prime Minister, David Cameron must surpass the electoral achievements of both Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill.'

Only once before have Conservatives made gains of the scale that Cameron requires to obtain an overall majority after the election. But that was in the exceptional circumstances of the National Government of 1931, when the Labour Party had split in two.

But most crucially, Cameron is well aware that a simple overall majority would not be enough for him to govern effectively. Instead, he needs a working majority of at least 30 seats (which means a majority of 15 per cent over Labour on election day).

Oh dear.

Tune into Sky News at 7pm

Tory Bear will be discussing the Glasgow by-election on day telly at 7pm. You can watch a live stream of Sky News

here

.

Tweet him

some one liners and you never know...

Wonder who he will be up against.