I'm Harriet Harman!

This one

is hotting up...

Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman has been questioned by police for allegedly leaving the scene of a traffic accident and driving while using her mobile phone.
The MP attended a pre-arranged appointment with officers, believed to have taken place in the past fortnight.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman confirmed that lawyers were in discussions with police regarding the case and that they had offered ‘preliminary advice’ – but were awaiting further evidence.

A full police file is expected to be sent to the CPS next month, when a decision will be taken on whether to prosecute Ms Harman.

While it's no Chappaquiddick the killer quote allegation has to be "I’m Harriet Harman... you know where you can get hold of me." If true it's a resigning issue. Or should be, but then what exactly does a Labour woman have to do before she resigns?

No doubt Jacqui and Patricia will advise.

Cough...

TB sees the logic on not having a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty per say if it has already been ratified. Guess it will have to be a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU straight up right? There is going to be the promised referendum still right?

Right...?

Cartoon - Klaus Edition

Vote Blue, Go Green

Why have the Conservatives been so quiet on Alan Johnson's declaration of war on science? For a party that claims to believe in freedom and a desire to defeat the deficit, shouldn't ending prohibition be something actively considered?

Who cares if Cameron smoked up a few years ago, if anything it gives him more authority to discuss these matters than someone who hasn't. Brown's desperate attempts to reach the ARGH "skunk weed" middle England crowd should not be emulated.

Legalise and tax it.

The Angry Mob

AN effigy of the Prime Minister will be burned at the bonfire night and fireworks celebrations in Ripon

next week

.

The organisers, Ripon Gunpowder Plot, decided to make a giant Gordon Brown figure after consulting with sponsors and members of the public about whose face they would like to see on the Guy at the event, which takes place at Hell Wath on Friday, November 6.

Committee member John Richmond said: "Guy Fawkes did want to blow up the Houses of Parliament; it was a political plot, so we wanted to keep a political theme and with the economic situation as it is and an election coming up, Gordon Brown was the perfect choice."

Funnily enough TB is off to see some friends in Ripon for the weekend, he will keep his eyes peeled for the guy. Blogging will be lightish, but will put some stuff up on the train. Toodle doo.

When Will Macintyre Apologise?

Nothing yet from the New Statesman's resident livewire re

this

.

TB can't help but recall a line Mr Macintyre once said to him:

"I think this is more serious than you think. You are young and see politics as a game so that is understandable. But it's not a game any more, so up to you. Now."

"I am a Disgrace" - Jacqui

Question Time last night was

popcorn worthy

for Jacqui fans. Remember what happened to Nick Griffin last week? Well basically everyone's favourite over-promoted trougher had a similar, and equally deserved, pasting:

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has accepted that she was "disgraced" by the scandal surrounding her expense claims.

Asked on BBC's Question Time, whether the expenses scandal had left her disgraced, Ms Smith said: "Yes, I have been, it’s obvious, and I made an apology to Parliament."

She went on to say;

"I don’t think people who have been disgraced should go to the House of Lords, but more importantly we need to put the system right."

before meekly suggesting that she didn't want to go into the Lords anyway, despite being almost guaranteed to lose her seat at the next election. A bit like muttering "shit party anyway" after a door-whore has made it perfectly clear that your name is very much not on the list and that you are very much not coming in. It was a shame nobody on the panel, or even Dimbleby himself, was quick enough to ask whether she supported the elevation of the disgraced Michael Martin to the Lords. A golden opportunity missed.

Jacqui should be going to prison not the upper chamber. While it is unlikely she will go down, she is most definitely nearly out of all our lives come May. John Sergeant hit the nail on the head with his priceless intervention:

"It is a puzzle to people, when you’re asked where your home was, and you were Home Secretary, and you didn’t seem to give the right answer", he said, provoking cheers from the audience.

He went on: "Was it a complicated question, that you therefore genuinely got wrong and took advice on? When someone says, ‘Where’s your home?’, I can answer that pretty quickly."

Just pay the money back and all this could go away.

Tories Seal the Deal?

When arch Labourite Wes Streeting is sucking up to the Tories you know they must be scared...

NUS WELCOMES CONSERVATIVES' BACKING FOR STUDENT VOICE IN FEES REVIEW

• Willetts warns universities are yet to properly account for £3,000 top-up fees
• Case not made to students and their families for even higher fees
• Shadow Universities Secretary says he would probably oppose higher fees if a vote took place today

Thursday 29 October 2009

The National Union of Students (NUS) today welcomed comments from Shadow Secretary of State for Universities, David Willetts MP, who this morning told an audience of student delegates at NUS’ Higher Education Zone Conference in Manchester that the student voice must be heard in the imminent review of fees.

David Willetts also said that if there was a vote on the fees cap today he would probably not support any increase, as universities had not properly accounted for £3,000 top-up fees or shown the benefits of higher fees to students and their families.

Wes Streeting, NUS President, said:

“I warmly welcome David Willetts' call for the student voice to be heard in the imminent fees review, and his consistent argument that the student experience must be at the heart of the ensuing debate on higher education funding.

“Students are now expected by those in power to contribute significantly to its costs. Therefore, we have a direct and unique interest in a review that will determine the future of fees."

The NUS has spent decades bashing the Tories so the fact that they are so blantently screaming for attention proves they have given up on Labour.

The times they are a'changin'.

Something blue...

TB couldn't help a chuckle when the news reached him of a certain clash of dates. Two couples, consisting of various Conservative Future darlings have ended up organising their weddings on the same day. Young tories have already started falling into brunette and blonde camps as both brides are refusing to budge. This could get vicious.

Someone get the popcorn.

Video - Did Dave Tell Gordon to F'off?

To those who moan at TB for swearing please go be illiberal somewhere else. There was much discussion during PMQs of whether Cameron mouthed fuck off to Gordon. Deservedly so, he could even have sealed that elusive and very much mythical deal if he had said what most of the nation wants to say to Gordon as soon as possible.

Well thanks to the technical wizardry of anonymous commenter Calais TB can bring you the video for you to decide:



What do you reckon?

PMQs

Well that was more like it. No wonder the benches were left crying "more, more" after Cameron and Brown's duel. The Prime Minister was rattled from the outset and ended up repeating his condolences for fallen soldiers twice in an horrendous attempt to buy time before answering Cameron's question on the TA u-turn. He was reduced to buzzwords and begging Bercow "nooo no, noo Mr Speaker they were wrong." If that is all he can say then it is no surprise that even Mandelson appears to have given up on him.

Dave went in for the kill and Brown's new line that the Conservatives were wrong on recession and wrong on recovery was batted away by a simple list produced by Cameron of all those countries that are back in growth. It utterly destroyed Brown's line that Britain was leading the world out of recession. Nick Clegg also said something about climate change. Brown was flustered and cack-handed and looked exhausted. How long can he go on?

TB is trying to track down the footage now but there was some speculation that Dave might have mouthed something that every single hard working British citizen would like to say to Gordon's face...

Watch this space.

Normal For Norfolk

Congratulations to Norfolk for once again proving what a joke shop it is. TB isn't surprised that they haven't quite grasped the power of Google yet given that they still point at aeroplanes up there.

Perhaps they would have been

more accepting

of Liz Truss if it had been her cousin she had the affair with.

AWS Row Rumbles On

Two more constituencies have upset the central party by rejecting the undemocratic and backward idea of All Women Shortlists. Party members in Wigan and Makerfield are furious at the moves and have started petioning.

"What we want is a really good choice across the board, not just women. We want men as well so we can pick the best, literally the best for our area."

TB couldn't agree more.

But hold on,

what's this

?

Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!

The

BBC

seem to have been extremely well briefed last night, do they have the whole report per chance?

MPs will be banned from claiming the cost of mortgage interest payments on second homes under proposals being put forward, sources have told the BBC.
It is understood the Kelly committee, which has been reviewing MPs' expenses, will recommend MPs will only be able to rent second homes in future.

The committee is also expected to recommend MPs will not be able to employ family members in the future.

It is understood the changes will be phased in over five years.

So far so good, while the phasing in could perhaps be done slightly quicker, TB isn't complaining, yet. This better not however be an early splurge of the boldest parts of the report. While these changes are very welcome, it must not be forgotten that Parliament's problems go a lot deeper than family members and mortgages. The entire expenses culture needs up-rooting. The

Sunlight Centre's

Disinfecting Parliament, a shadow Kelly report has set the bench mark for what needs to be done.

Have a read

. Kelly cannot afford to cock this up.

Lets hope he got to see one of those copies requested by the committee.

Brown Backs Blair - Scorched Earth Begins

PoliticsHome

is

reporting

"PM to actively campaign for Tony Blair to become EU president." And so it begins. How the mighty fall. For every waking hour for over a decade Brown plotted and spewed bile in an attempt to end the career of Blair and yet now he is in enough of a rut to turn to him in a dark hour. No doubt a deal has been cut for Blair to come back and campaign for Gordon, if Gordon is in power in May (Which incidentally is looking increasingly unlikely.)

When his arm was twisted this morning Cameron said he would work with Blair if he absolutely had to, but was less than happy about the idea of President Blair. This is a cheap political shot by Brown. He knows he is down and out and knows it will be Cameron that would actually have to work with Blair, something Brown no doubt could not fathom ever happening again.



The timing of the announcement is equally cynical too. Nice distraction from Brown's massive u-turn on cutting the TA spending budget. It also shows just how little respect Brown, Blair and other Euro-extremists have for the process of the Lisbon Treaty. Lest it be forgotten that it has not yet been ratified and the Czechs might yet throw one massive spanner in the Blair machine by destroying the job he so desperately wants. TB has to smirk at what Gordon's blessing will do for the Blair campaign though.

Jonah doesn't exactly have a particularly good track record for endorsements.

Consultation Fail

In yet another sign that this government is descending into farce, the Home Office have written to the Leader of the Opposition to pick his brains about how best they can improve the service they provide:

(Click to read the letter)

If Civil Servants wants to know what Dave wants to do for this country then they should bloody well tell Brown to call an election. TB recommends Dave replies with contact details for Chris Grayling, who has a few ideas about where to take the Home Office!

TB is finding himself saying it a lot recently, but seriously, you couldn't make it up.

Mandelson Briefing Against Brown?

According to Tory "just call him scoop" Rascal, who has it on good authority from a senior, backbench Labour MP, Mandelson is back on the dark art crack. There is some gold in the Rascal's post and the whole this is definitely

worth a read

:

"According to the MP, even some of the Prime Minister’s keenest supporters seem to be resigned to his having to stand aside. ”A few of us think there’s a good chance he’ll walk away, and now even some of his friends are nodding at the dissenters. It would break him, which would be a terrible shame – he feels that if he does walk away, his life to date will have been wasted. I’ve known Gordon for years, and I think it’s a shame it’s come to this – but the party has to get through.

The man’s an absolute gift to the other side. Tory MPs are shitting themselves about the idea that Gordon might not lead us into the election. Without him, Cameron knows we’re in with a fighting chance.”

Asked what had brought the PM to this point, the MP was adamant that the “beginning of the end” was Brown’s ill-received YouTube video on MPs’ expenses. “As soon as we saw that,” he said, “we knew Gordon was in trouble. What f**k-wit would look at that video and let it go online? Gordon is surrounded by sycophants who lack the guts to be honest to him when he needs it most.

Whatever people think about Tony, he was always willing to listen to criticism. No one dares to speak out to Gordon. They’re all too bloody frightened to just say, ‘Gordon, this is shit. You look like a maniac.’""

Explosive stuff.

A Delightful Weekend in the Country

Apologies for the delay in the write up but TB had some serious sleep to catch up on. The last weekend at Wellington College for YBF6 was an extremely sound gathering of some of the brightest minds in the grassroots movement of both today and the next generation. It was a refreshingly honest look at where conservatives in this country really are at. Behind those closed rural doors people were a lot more willing to go off message and be frank about where we are and what still needs to be done. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

TB didn't get down to until Friday afternoon so was rather sore to miss Carswell and Pickles, but delegates were singing their praises. The Eric Forth Memorial Dinner, with speeches from Conor Burns, Jonathon Isaby and Michael Forsyth was a rousing reminder of those pinnacles of the movement, without whom the Conservative Party, and the umbrella group behind it, would be here today. Congratulations again to Emma Carr who won the Forth Memorial Award for activism.

TB was impressed at the commitment to the cause shown by the fact that there was an almost one hundred percent attendance for the 9am start on Saturday morning, despite some attendees having only found their beds a couple of hours before. The story of Smeargate from the horses mouth was clearly worth getting out of bed for. TB's favourite question came from one of the American delegation who at the end of the talk put up their hand to ask, "sorry, what is Smeargate?" Apparently the Derek Draper Downfall video wasn't quite clear enough. Joking apart it was wonderful to have ten or so American attendees from YBF's sister organisation The

Young America's Foundation

. It was nice to catch up with some old faces, and TB will never ever tire of hearing a certain young Texan tell the story of how to fish for "gaiters" with just a chicken and a knife...

Dr John Shosky is one of the most compelling speakers TB has ever seen. He was privileged enough to have extended training with this former Reagan speech write in DC this summer and it was a joy to hear him speak again this weekend. If you ever get a chance to meet him do not miss it. Hannan also fired up the crowd on Saturday lunchtime with a passionate attack on Europe, hitting all the right buttons with the crowd with his almost poetic, devastating deconstruction of the left's attacks on Kaminski. Was lovely to meet Mrs Hannan and have a good chat with the two of them over lunch. Peter Botting's speech and image training was a highlight of afternoon, having heard so many great speakers, some tips and advice on how to pull it off yourself was appreciated by the crowd. TB missed the ultrasound Douglas Murray as he had to sneak off to write his own speech. Dammit.

The Margaret Thatcher Banquet on Saturday night was always going to be tough crowd. TB had the pleasure of introducing Iain Dale and was mightily chuffed with the crowds reaction to his own speech. It was hilarious that those Gordon jokes were meant to be horrendous yet the booze soaked crowd didn't seem to care! TB had seen Mr Dale appear on various panels before but this was the first time he had heard him speaking. He has an impressive command of a crowd and an excellent ability to weave humour and serious points together in away that leaves you chuckling and then suddenly thinking, actually hold on, that's really scary. His line of TB being "the lovechild of Boris Johnson and Guido Fawkes" might have to go on the banner. And so inevitably another evening was spent in the bar and there were a lot more sore heads on Sunday than there had been on Saturday.

TB was a bit of a bear with a sore head himself on Sunday but the laughter induced by Russell Walter's fantastic speech on err direct action certainly livened things up. It was a fantastic weekend and as so many speakers said, nobody is doing what YBF is doing in this country and for this they have to be congratulated. Donal Blaney and Steven Dent, with the help of Mark Clarke and Matthew Richardson put together a fine selection of speakers and the organisation was like clockwork.

If you are young and interested in the political world and you haven't been to a

YBF

event yet, you are really missing out.

Bow Group Election Results - Abercorn Re-elected Chairman

After a minor hoo haa the election count eventually took place last night for the new committee of the

Bow Group

. Annesley Abercorn was re-elected as chairman and those who were on his slate are shown in bold. The results are as follows:

Chairman:
Annesley Abercorn 33 ELECTED
Ryan Shorthouse 29

Treasurer:
Patrick Sullivan 36 ELECTED
Sam Parr 25

Political Officer:
Craig Rimmer 33 ELECTED
Elle Perry 28

Commercial Secretary:
Havard Hughes 32 ELECTED
Suella Fernandes 28

Secretary:
Brian Cattell 34 ELECTED
Alexandra Jozeph 25

Membership Secretary:
Ben Harris-Quinney 27
Liam Scott Smith 32 ELECTED

Richard MABEY was elected to the position of Social Secretary unopposed.

Mark NICHOLSON was elected to the position of Research Secretary unopposed.

Council:
(The first five were backing Annesley Abercorn; the last six backed
Ryan Shorthouse)

Peter Cuthbertson 26 ELECTED
Matt Eaton 26 ELECTED
Adam Soffe 26 ELECTED
Daniel Valentine 20
Robert Westbrook 22

Maria Allen 34 ELECTED
Sam Coates 35 ELECTED
Catherine Crook 21
Georgina Dowling 24
Fabian Richter 27 ELECTED
Zehra Zaidi 12

Congratulations and best of luck to all those who were elected.

Lib Dem PPC in Bribery Scandal

A

publicity stunt

by Liberal Democrat

York Outer

PPC Madeleine Kirk has spectacularly backfired. A week ago she put out this statement:

"Our party is the natural home for students. We are the only party to oppose tuition fees, we are the leading campaigners on the environment and civil liberties and we are calling for the investment that will make it easier for all young people, students or otherwise, to get a job.

"It is clear from the record number of people we have signed up this year that there is a growing momentum behind the Lib Dems locally and an excitement about the coming election."

However all is not as it seems. Eagle-eyed

student rag

hack Peter Campbell has

blown the lid off

what could become a highly embarrassing scandal for the Kirk and Liberal Youth. It seems local party funds have been used to pay for membership to the Liberal Democrats for students signed up in Fresher's Week:

Offering free membership at Freshers’ Fayre radically increased the number of people who joined the society by a factor of ten.

Previous years have seen roughly 10 members overall.

Essentially membership is given away for free in order to get people to sign up and appear to be really joining. As

one York student

told their Nouse student paper:

"If this is the only way the Lib Dems can get members, I really feel sorry for them. Labour and Tories on campus regularly get 60+ and 70+ members respectively signing up at freshers fair annually and paying a membership fee. You have to wonder how committed their members will be if they weren’t prepared to pay a couple of quid to sign up."

Kirk has said; "It certainly wasn’t bribery" but it is hard to see how this can possibly be true. It's almost a textbook example of it. Free membership to a political party, paid for by other party members, all you have to do is put your mark upon a sheet. It's not just bribery, but lies and spin of the lowest kind.

TB wonders what else Ms Kirk has lied about?

While Kirk has attempted to cover up the issue by denying her own money was used, others have not kept stuck quite so closely to the line. As Campbell reports:

"Councillor Tom Holvey, who was on the Lib Dem stall at Freshers’ Fayre, said however that it would help boost York’s profile nationally with the Lib Dems. “It will definitely give York more kudos”, he said.

The money used came from individual donations from the local party, including councillors and local members. The total amount pledged would have covered the cost of 150 members of the party. Even though Kirk herself did not pledge money, she was aware of the deal and fully supported the donations. All the money pledged has been paid, with the excess “going into the kitty in case we wanted to do something like this again.”

The agreement to donate the money was reached between Craig Martin, Lib Dem chair at the university, and a number of local councillors last summer over an end-of-term BBQ.

Martin calls the money ‘sponsorship’, saying “we have never had enough members. I was always having to treble numbers when telling people how many we had, just to make us look like a worthwhile party. We decided to try this.”

“It is the best thing in the world for me to come into a society that was about to die and completely turn it around.”

It looks like Craig Martin is destined for a fast-track career within the Lib Dems with moral scruples such as those. First he admits to hoovering up dodgy money, then lying in the past about membership and then blowing his own trumpet. Cowley Street must be so proud.

The whole thing is a complete and utter PR disaster, Kirk has been sorely humiliated being seen to attempt to buy a campaign team. The arrogance of putting out a release singing the praises of the recruitment drive, a sentiment also adopted by the national Liberal Youth organisation, beggars belief.

If further proof of the fact Liberal Democrats are liars was ever needed, let this be yet another example.