Totty Watch

TB has a busy old afternoon and evening but thought he would share this image, for no apparent reason, of everybody's favourite lady blogger

Meghan McCain

. It has to be noted that her Twitter pictures are getting saucier and saucier:

Not sure what the Senator from Arizona will have to say about all of this.

Simple Pleasures

www.labourfuture.com

Well TB laughed.

Cough Up Thief

Always one to spectacularly fail at gauging public mood, Alan Simpson, the deluded lefty is

refusing

to pay back excessive cleaning costs as ordered by Legg and his leader. He claims he didn't break the rules, however TB would like to ask Mr Simpson how exactly this cleaning perk was "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purposes of carrying out their duties as an MP."

Exactly. Cough up.

PS. Let it not be forgotten who Alan Simpson's staffer is these days. No wonder he is doing such a good PR job. He may have been able to silence his mates on the local paper in Nottingham with some preemptive phonecalls, but don't think TB hasn't forgotten about this little case.

PPS. For those lefties moaning about the fact TB hasn't mentioned the Wilshire case, do your homework - TB made his feelings perfectly clear last night.

Here

and

here

.

Guess Who is Paying For Labour Future

So who is picking up the tab for organising the Charles Clarke show/

Labour Future

/a platform for a coup? The taxpayer of course!

Malcolm Wicks MP is apparently running the Labour Future campaign, though it seems Charles Clarke's ego is almost as big as his appetite, and so he gets his own special bold font. It doesn't take much to make him stick out from the usual suspects though. TB has to chuckle at poor little Parmjit Dhanda. Will this desperate fool ever turn down the chance to scream "over here, over here... looooook aaaaat meeeee"? Shame it won't save his seat.

So who is the point of contact for the campaign? Well readers are encouraged to get in touch with one

szperal@parliament.uk

. Would that be the MP for Croydon North's PA Louise Szperal by any chance? The same point of contact for all of Malcom Wicks office needs? Why yes, TB believes

it is

. So why exactly is this staffer, who is being paid by the taxpayer, allowed to partake in such blatantly partisan activities on office hours and on public money?

At this rate the latest attempt at ousting Gordon is going to be as cackhanded as all the rest.

The Digital Battleground

Via the

Alternative Conservative

TB learns that the Tories are once again leading the online charge with a series of

Spotify

adverts. How long before Labour give another outgoing MP such as Kerry McCarthy the role of Spotifty Tsar? The warm friendly tones of Eric Pickles will make for a welcome break from the normally grating ads that seem to be dominating at the moment.

Great move by CCHQ. This is a real chance to engage with a new audience, on a postcode specific basis, and the great thing about Spotifty ads is that there is no way to mute them if you want to carry on listening to tunes! We shall fight them on the beaches, on the landing grounds...

...and in the mythical interwebby musical ethra too it seems.

Labour Future

TB would kill for a Lobby pass right now. There is tectonic activity tonight.

Ever one to fraternise with the enemy for a good story, TB just got off the phone with his most plugged in of red Parliamentary sources. Just as he speculated earlier, things could well be on the move. The excellent Sir Thomas Legg has well and truly rattled the Parliamentary Labour Party and instead of shooting the messenger there seems to have be a big movement toward blaming the PM. It was Gordon after all that brought Legg in to rightly go after his flock with a blunt axe.

Just because Brown managed to hold his membership together in Brighton doesn't mean the higher rungs of the party are on board. Look at what happened to IDS - held his conference together, just, but was gone within weeks of Parliament returning. Something is going on.

Enter stage left - Charles Clarke.

"Labour Future" has gone live.

Well well well, what's going on here.

Jon Craig

reports that the usual trouble makers will be meeting in Committee Room 13 tomorrow morning at 11am to launch this new initiative.

TB understands the meeting might be slightly better attended than first anticipated.

Carter-Ruck - Viral Market Leaders

Lefty gossiper

Political Scrapbook

is on particularly good form today:

"After a difficult 48 hours which saw the law firm under assault from the blogosphere, politicians and the media, Carter-Ruck is to undertake a PR charm offensive with redeveloped online content and endorsements from “brand ambassadors”.

The campaign has enlisted the support of celebrity Labour blogger Derek Draper. “The combination of litigiousness and a cack-handed approach to all things online make Derek the ideal representative for the Carter-Ruck brand”, said Senior Partner Andrew Stephenson

Wonder if there could be a t-shirt in the making here?

Are the pieces coming together?

Firstly there was the announcement on Saturday from Downing Street that Gordon's good eye is seriously damaged. Today he point blank refused to say, in contrary to what he said to Adam Boulton during Labour conference, that he was in his job until the election. His choice of words to Sir Michael Spicer's question were intriguing. Why did he not just say "yes"? Why did he mention "we" have a strategy?

Deeply suspicious.

Gorden has gone from insisting he was in the job to the last minute to refusing to say whether he would "soldier on until the end", but the plot thickens. Today four Downing Street staffers were spotted together at Congress House. What was so important and secret that it couldn't be discussed inside Downing Street? Why did they return there after?

Nothing has changed, it's as if the summer and conference season never happened. Are we beginning to see the fruits of that awfully long holiday that Gordon took? What was planned when he went off the radar for almost six weeks?

Could we be another step closer to the end of Gordon?

#PMQs

TB isn't near a computer. He is recovering from any excellent evening catching up with his homies who are just back from driving around the world. Got the beers in. He will tweet his way through PMQs. If you don't already follow him on Twitter already you can by clicking the column on the right.

More later.

A Comprehensive Owning

Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger announced the fantastic news that Carter Ruck had backed down

over Twitter

. How very appropriate. The Guardian can now print what the internet has spread over and over and over again.

Yes this is a victory for The Guardian, in a battle it should never have had to fight, however it would not have won without the weight of the new media behind it. Without blogs and twitter the Guardian would have been forced to bow down to the mighty Ruck-us with very little they could do. They won the battle, but they wounded themselves so heavily in doing so, it is unlikely they will last the war. If there was ever proof needed that the MSM was dying, let this be it. The Guardian have signed their own death warrent today, wouldn't celebrate too hard over this one.

Another nail in the old media coffin.

We're All Going To Die!

Lembit is at it again with the Early Day Motions:

1962
TRACKING NEAR EARTH OBJECTS
21:7:09

Lembit Öpik
Lynne Jones
Peter Bottomley
Frank Cook
Mr David Drew

* 5

That this House notes the collision of a large object with the planet Jupiter, causing an impact scar in the Jovian atmosphere the size of the earth; believes it is a matter of scientific fact that earth will, sooner or later, be hit by a large near earth object capable of destroying a significant proportion of life on earth; further notes such an impact would be more damaging to the British economy than the failure of a bank, but that the Government has spent more on preventing the bankruptcy of Royal Bank of Scotland than the entire cost of tracking and diverting any near earth object capable of incinerating the United Kingdom; and calls on the Government to implement all 14 recommendations of the Near Earth Object Task Group which published its report and recommendations in 2000.

It's fine Lembit, everyone knows Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck will save us.

The Gags Don't Work, They Just Make It Worse

It's not just the media that is changing, but seemingly the control people can have over what is said that is changing too. A year ago the Trafigura scandal might have been picked up by a few blogs, but this morning there have been literally thousands of people discussing it openly on Twitter. This would never have happened had the Guardian been allowed to quietly go on and publish what they had to say.

Mr Eugenedies

is right to employ the

Barbara Streisand theory

:

"One day these highly-remunerated libel lawyers are going to wake up and realise that they aren't being paid in guineas any more and that, thanks to this thing called the Interwebs, they can't shut down freedom of speech the way they used to in the old days. On the contrary; as Barbara Streisand found to her cost, 99% of people don't give a shit about 99% of stuff, right up the moment when you start waving your arms up and down telling them to stop reading about it."

Can see this story going down as a case study for a long time to come.

Trafigura Dumped Bad Stuff

So wait, it's not like that hasn't been reported? Gag TB?

TB would love to be a fly on the wall during the Trafigura/Carter-Ruck conference call that will undoubtedly be taking place this morning. The plan to keep the naughty little secrets that Carter-Ruck are no doubt being paid all sorts of millions to keep under wraps, has backfire spectacularly. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to try gag a British newspaper from covering Parliament should have watched that great episode of State of Play with Bill Nighy as the pesky newspaper editor.

Nothing like a handful of bloggers short of stories on a Monday night to put a spanner in the works though. Kudos to

Guido

,

Alex Massie

,

Next Left

,

Tory Politico

and

Political Scrapbook

as well as thousands of the twitterati for firing this one up.

Can anyone think of anything funny to rhyme with Carter Ruck?

TB loves the quote on the front page of the

Carter Ruck website

. They actually boast at what a walkover the Guardian is:

Clearly they took their own advice and didn't "mess with Carter Ruck." TB on the other hand has no money:

Question 61

, to be asked on Wednesday 14 October, by Paul Farrelly MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

What's all the fuss about? The Guardian should get some balls and Carter Ruck should take a long, long, hard look in the mirror before they damage their entire profession.

Spectacular fail on their behalf. As is so often the case - attempting to silence a story only makes it spread far far quicker!

Another victory for the blogosphere.

New Video: Jacqui is Still Lying

TB has been playing around on his now near fried computer this evening. This is in no way polished, but he was just trying some new things out:

The shamelessly stolen music caused some issues on youtube too. Sorry

Mr H

...but you have to admit the words fit!

Quote of the Day

"I only had to pay back six grand."

-Derek Conway

The former tory MP was

speaking

to to Jon Craig in light of Gordon's astonishing theft of over twelve thousand pounds of taxpayers money. Conway was disgraced, a career ruined.

Gordon is set to make millions when he is finally defeated by the voters.

Eat Your Heart Out Liam Byrne

Governor Arnie posted a picture of his breakfast on Twitter that was picked up by

Hattie Garlick

. What a legend:

TB doubts Liam Byrne, a man notorious for his

pernickety demands

for his meals served by his staff gets this level of service. Look at the love and care that has gone into preparing that breakfast!

Better rewrite that memo Liam.

Don't Panic Hit the Lords

TB imagines that there will be a video to follow, but Heydon Prowse of

Don't Panic

fame will be sticking this poster to the side of the House of Lords at 3.30 this afternoon in protest at Lord Taylor and Truscott of "give us a couple of grand for amendments to the law" fame:

Not sure what Foxtons will have to say.

Stop Whining, Start Signing

My my my what a busy first day back at school it's been. Researchers and bag-carriers, who have pretty much had the Palace to themselves all summer, have been taken somewhat aback by the various shit-storms that have broken this morning. Those gin sodden afternoons on the terrace must seem like a world away right now.

Most of the trauma seems to be coming from the fact that Thomas Legg is actually doing his job properly and thus enforcing the rules. There seems to be much discontent, and even a whiff of rebellion in the air as MPs, right the way up to Gordon, are complaining that the rules have been changed retrospectively. This is utter bullshit though. One overbearing rule that has always been there was that any expense claim must have been "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purposes of carrying out their duties as an MP." This isn't a new rule, this was the rule. It seems a few home truths are starting to hurt.

Stop whining and get out the chequebook.

How to State the Bleedin' Obvious

"The arrest of Tory MP Damian Green as part of a Home Office leak inquiry was "not proportionate",

a report

has said."

Well no shit! Did that really take six months to work out. TB reckons every single person, red or blue, who saw the footage of the police trampling over the authority of parliament, mocking our entire democracy could have told you that the course of action was not proportionate.

More importantly, who is going to take the can back for it?