Teresa Pearce

is the Labour candidate for Erith and Thamesmead,, as any fule kno. When I published some gossip about her, bringing up events from her past, on this blog recently, she wrote to me, not denying the allegations but threatening legal action. I left the post where it was. It is still there. She has had plenty of time since then to commence legal action, but I have heard nothing. So she has gone off the idea. Pity. I was looking forward to hearing her tell a packed courtroom she didn't vomit in Brighton, and to hearing those who were present testify to the contrary. How unbelievably pompous it is for a private individual to threaten to sue, especially when that private individual hopes to be in public life as an MP in the near future. If she can't abide unpleasant coverage she had better not go into public life. And if she does not want horrid things to be said about her she had better not behave in a way which attracts such coverage.

ain't Google wunnerful?

I have never understood why Google alerts come up as they do, sometimes long after the event. Here is one that pinged into my inbox yesterday evening. It is part of the record of a meeting of the Planning Committee of Reading Borough Council from 6th April 2005. Yes, that's right, just before the general election of that year. Parliament was prorogued on 11th April as I recall.

Present: Councillor Waite (Chair);
	Councillors Chaudhri, Collins, Crisp, Dymond, Green, Hanley, Page, Pugh, Ruhemann, R Stainthorp, and Stevens.
	Apologies: Councillors Hoskin, Janjua and Weston.
	RESOLVED ITEMS
	The Chair reported that Item 12, 58/64 Northumberland Avenue (application number 04/001436/FUL) had been withdrawn.
	88. MINUTES
	The Minutes of the meeting held on 9 March 2005 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.
	89. QUESTIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH STANDING ORDER 36
	The following question was asked in accordance with Standing Order 36:
	Question from Councillor Crisp:
	The Chair of the Planning Applications Committee will be aware of the result of the recent legal action taken by Martin Salter MP against Councillor Wilson and Mr Ewan Cameron. Among their allegations was a claim that Martin Salter placed pressure on council officers and the Leader of the Council to reach a particular decision in my ward. Could he advise me of what action he is taking now that these allegations have been shown to be entirely baseless?
	Reply from Councillor Waite (Chair):
	I share Councillor Crisp’s concerns. As Chair of this committee I often receive feedback about the planning system in Reading, the vast majority of which is complimentary. It is also clear that this Committee and the planning process is held in high regard. That is due in no small part to the acknowledged integrity of elected members of all parties.
	I am sure that it is of concern to all of us that unsubstantiated allegations involving a planning application, decided by this committee, should have been used as part of a personal smear campaign. I have therefore reported this matter to the Chair of the Standards Panel and to the opposition leaders.
	I do not believe it is appropriate to discuss this matter further here, and some members may also feel restricted as they are also members of the Standards Panel. But I will ask that the Panel’s findings are reported in full to a future Planning Committee. I'd more or less forgotten about those events. The legal case was lost because the plaintiffs mistakenly llnked the allegations about the planning application with Mr Salter's attempt, back in 1998, to have then Cllr Sutton removed as leader of the council. He changed his mind about this once Cllr Sutton agreed to do Mr Salter's bidding in all things in exchange for Mr S's use of his position as MP entirely to promote Reading Borough Council. Which is what happened, as we know. Sorry this post is coming out like this btw, I don't know how to stop it doing it. But the allegations were not "baseless" at all, as then Cllr Waite was well aware. They were entirely true. Mr Salter had a family connection with the Workers' Educational Association, then based in west central Reading in a building occupied by Pastor Joel Thomas and his church. HIs congregation was growing and he had found new premises in Portman Road Reading, for which he needed planning permission. When he took possession of the POrtman Road building the WEA would become homeless. So Mr Salter said, in my hearing, at a liaison meeting between the Reading MPs and Reading Borough Council leader and officers, "It would be helpful if some obstacles could be put in the way of that planning application". However then Cllr Sutton did not think he could help in this way. That was in June 2002 and it was the last such liaison meeting I attended. I had had enough of the corruption and bullying. Anyway, thanks Mr Google for pointing this out after all this time.

it feels good

I have finished my novel. Took about 18 months to write, what with having a full-time job and all. It's not the first book I've written, but it is the first novel. It is called Priors Gardens. That's it for now.

so now we know

what Mr Salter is going to do next - this from the Financial Times, so it must be true.

“I have a slight problem being the MP for the area because everybody talks to me while I’m fishing,” he grins sardonically. “That’s why I’ve just bought a boat, because then they can’t get to you.”
He plans to spend more time exploring the Thames in his new boat after he stands down from parliament at the next election – a decision taken long before the rush of expenses-driven departures in recent months. At 56, he appears to have more fishing ambitions left than political ones: “If I had a choice between being a member of the cabinet and catching a 3lb roach, I’d probably take the roach.” I don’t think he’s joking.

come back Tony!

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12 hours ago

woman on top?

here is what Iain Dale has to say about Claire Ward, the Labour MP for Watford who featured in a steamy News of the World story a few years ago which related to some incidents which took place during a visit by members of the Parliamentary Armed Forces Scheme, including myself, to Kosovo. On that occasion she behaved like a slapper and lied about it afterwards. After the story appeared a Labour Party press officer rang me to say that she was suing the paper and could I confirm that it was all rubbish. No I could not, I said, and what was more if it came to court they had better not call me as a witness (which I was) because I wasn't going to lie under oath. Long silence on the other end of the phone. No libel action against the Screws. Anyway, here is Dale on Ward:

I do not think it is over the top to call Claire Ward a liar. Hopefully she will get her comeuppance in a few weeks and will lose her seat.

For him rather strong language.

oooh, such goings on

a story in the Mail on Sunday this weekend about terrible goings on on MPs' "junkets", drinking contests and so on. What interested me was the sources for the story rather than the people written about. Someone called Lawrie Cunliffe (who?) has been briefing the MoS rather extensively it seems. You'd have to ask why. Who would be served by fellow MPs being dished? Cui bono? Etc etc. Geraldine Smith, Labour MP for Morecambe, featured prominently in the story, but it was not against her. This happens a lot. She is rather close to a member of a senior Labour dynasty, in fact very close indeed, could that have anything to do with it? Geraldine probably has the classiest hair in the Commons, and she refuses to get naked with fellow members of the Council of Europe delegation, to my certain knowledge. There are others who have no such inhibitions. Oh and in case you were wondering who the Lothario of the delegation is, Mike Hancock, LibDem MP for Portsmsouth South, is your man.

bully pulpit

former Cllr John Howarth (prop. Public Impact Ltd, remember "Your Better Off With Labour"?) has revamped his website, just a little, and updated it, just a little, to include the following gem on the subject of workplace bullying in the public sector:

Managers are expected to be tolerant to the last, to watch employees who take liberties with taxpayers’ money and who fail to do their jobs and carry on as if it doesn’t matter. Managers appointed to turn around services that are failing, which often requires pruning the roses somewhat, have their positions undermined and the key card that is played is that of ‘workplace bullying’. I’ve seen it happen in both the Councils on which I served where senior management have folded in the face of accusations that would be considered pathetic in most private businesses. Nothing changes and the public loses every time.

would be interesting to know who he is referring to. Not shamed former chief executive of Reading Borough Council Trish Haines, I imagine. And it does seem a bit, well, er, for a former chair of Reading Labour Party to come over all pious about bullying. Doesn't it?

boys! boys! come back!

here I am in the coffee bar at St Pancras station, early for my Eurostar, the place has free Wifi (why doesn't everywhere?) and from what I see around me the restrictions on what sites people can access here are hardly stringent - but look what response I got:

Access Denied

Access to this URL is currently restricted due to a blocking rule.

URL: www.readinglabour.org.uk/

The URL you are attempting to access has been blocked. Usage policy does not allow access to this activity.

oooh er, is it just me?

where does he find them?

the Sartorialist I mean, how cool is this New Yorker?something about the scarf and the detail at the wrists - and the hat shouldn't work but does.

the barely literate Geordie loser

that is former Cllr John Howarth (prop. Public Impact Ltd, remember "Your better off with Labour"?) has decided to write something on his website about the "reality TV" programme "Tower Block of Commons", which I have not seen. You can read it here. He shows predictable misogyny in saying that the girl is not up to being on TV (he means Nadine Dorries MP), but we knew that about him. What is gratifying though is that Mr Howarth appears to have developed a sense of humour and a strain of self-mockery, which is welcome. He knows he cannot write in English (so why does he keep trying to do it then?), but he has put in some deliberate errors, such as spelling "deprivation" "depravation", spelling the surname of Tim Loughton MP "Laughton" as if he was Charles, and, marvellously, referring to "cheep heroine". Splendid stuff. Where he lets himself down though is in the sneering tone in which he refers to the working-class people who actually live in the tower blocks concerned all the time. We hear this tone a lot from Guardian-reading Labour and it is a matter of sadness to me that we do. A little light fisking for the last couple of paragraphs:

But what on earth was Labour thinking? what gave you the idea that the MPs who participated in this programme did so at the behest of the party or the whips? bizarre notion. self-aggrandisement is why they did it.Austin Mitchell was clearly not up to it. There were several MPs who could have carried it off and been a credit to their party. so this is how parties get votes these days, by sending people on to reality TV shows? I do not think so John, not even on the wilder fringes of the Reading GC.John Mann, the Bassetlaw MP, once lived in a council flat considerably more squalid than those featured so? quite a few MPs have lived in council flats in their time, does not qualify you to be a "credit to your party" on a reality TV show, Martin Salter in Reading West ah, the boyfriend! the one you wasted your political career in Reading trying to protect from himself, the one who was a director of your company and never declared it, the one you talk to naked every morning is a man who can manage without creature comforts how would anyone know that? he never has, he is a middle-class Jewish boy from Surrey and lives in leafy Tilehurst in some comfort, having previously claimed £40K for a non-existent London property and Don Valley’s Caroline Flint may have misjudged her exit from the Government, no she didn't, she was right but has definitely tolerated at least one Labour Party Young Socialists Summer Camp as part of a tiny minority of non-Trotskyites back before the expulsion of Militant so? - if you can survive torture a Tower block is a doddle. how patronising is that? Labour MPs forced to mingle with working-class people, we can't have THAT now can we?
I’m sure there are others equally capable. And this, I’m afraid, sums up Labour’s problem going into a close election, the political and media judgement of the party’s organisation has repeatedly been found wanting on the most basic of fronts. Be patient John, the call will come one day, they will come crawling to you and ask you to save them with your unrivalled media management skills. Just remember the triumph of the one-way IDR. I know the party leadership does. It is this that has let a Conservative Party that has still failed to date to convince the merge 40%+ needed for what passes as a mandate in this country hold a near winning lead. is this sentence in Albanian?
Despite the manifest failings of the politicians, there were moments that showed that there is still hope. When the 30 or so Dagenham tenants got together at Mark Oaten’s instigation to kick off a campaign to have their blocks demolished they gave short shrift to the BNP councillor who gate crashed their event. Omigod! Working-class people behaving decently and not in a racist way! Unheard of! Some of these oiks do not even read the Guardian! Have a care John, these proletarian johnnies are Not Like Us. You had to cheer. Huzzah! Jolly good show! Carry on, people of Dagenham, and we might just let you vote for us, don't you know!

how very dare she?

this received today by email from a person purporting to be T. Pearce. I do of course apologise to T. Pearce unreservedly. Spelling her name with a superfluous h as I did in my previous post is unforgivable. I see that the author of this piece says that the gossip sent to me is untrue, and anyway it didn't happen when my correspondent said it did. Hmmm. Pity one K.. Maguire is not subject to the same discipline when he publishes lies about various people and gets away with it. Anyway, T. Pearce, or whoever you are, if you really are standing for Parliament you had better get used to people saying horrid things about you. I promise you they will do it. And even being looked after by the great and the good in the Labour Party did not stop Little Miss Justice Minister (as she is now) Claire Ward, Labour MP for Watford, seeing herself all over the News of the World with headlines like "Woman on Top". So be warned, Ms Pearce. If there is a Cap'n Andy in your past he will find you. Baby baby it's a wild world.

Anyway, Ms Pearce, or whoever this is, wanted to have her say, so here she is having it. Can't say fairer than that eh Tessie?

Dear Ms Griffiths

I am writing to you as the author of the “Jane Is The One” blog, hosted by Blogspot.com.

It has been brought to my attention that a blog entry posted by “Jane” at 09.03 on Thursday 11 February 2010 entitled “Labour candidate for Erith and Thamesmead” contains a report from “a correspondent” which includes inaccurate and defamatory comments about me. Please can you confirm that you are the “Jane” who has posted this blog?

None of the appalling allegations made in the paragraph beginning “Pearce shared…”, are true, save the fact that my husband and I are divorced. I should point out however, that this occurred in 1990 and not in the period 1992-97 as implied.

On the basis that you are the author of this blog entry, and in any event are in overall control of the “Jane Is The One” blog, I ask that you remove this entry from your blog in its entirety immediately. It follows that the five comments about the blog entry should also be removed. If the entry and comments are not removed by 10am tomorrow morning (Wednesday 17 February) I will, regrettably, have to take further steps as soon as possible. I hope that will not be necessary.

If you are unwilling to remove this blog entry please confirm this by return together with your reasons for not doing so.

Yours sincerely

Teresa Pearce

on the carpet

speculation is mounting about what the whips have done to Mr Salter since his "bloke in a dress" remarks about His Holiness Pope Benedict. He hasn't blogged since last week, nor has he voted in the House, and as the Home Affairs Committee is not on a visit anywhere he has no reason to be absent. My source tells me that he has been sent back to the constituency (Reading West we hope) and told to keep a low profile until the fuss dies down. Labour MPs are out for his blood, especially in the west of Scotland where the Catholic vote is significant, but not only there, as he is a vice-chair of the Labour Party and thus was deemed to be speaking for the party when he made his savage personal attack on His Holiness, who will be visiting the UK this year. He wasn't at the last PLP meeting either, having found out that there were members ready to tear him limb from limb and brief the media afterwards.

Even the usually mild-mannered Reading Chronicle has weighed in, with an editorial titled "Handcart for Mr Salter". The Reading Evening Post is doing its best to protect him, but with very limited success so far.

get on down there

this from John Prescott:

I'm coming to Reading to speak at Labour's South East regional conference on Saturday February 20th.So I thought why not ask local supporters to pop down for a chat.It's an opportunity for us to meet, chat about what we want from a Labour Fourth Term and get ready for the local and general elections.All Labour members and supporters are invited and attendance is absolutely free!And if you want to join the party, I'll sign you up there and then.Don't worry if you're not a member. Just RSVP to this invite so we can see who's coming from the Go Fourth Facebook group.We'll be in the bar of the Hilton Hotel, Drake Way, Reading, RG2 0GQ 2HQ from 5.30pm.Hope to see you then!

would be nice if he turned out a bit earlier to knock on some doors, perhaps in south Reading close to the venue, you would think Mr Powers, as regional director of the Labour Party and also a candidate in Church ward (2004 three Labour councillors, now, three Tory councillors) would want someone helping out there - wouldn't you? I have always thought John was the best electoral asset the party has, but the leadership of Reading Labour disagrees with me on that and has done little but slag him off since 1997.

the Reading Banner is an arsewipe, discuss

there, that's got your attention, but I am making a serious point. The Hansard Society has done an analysis of what people want from online communication and from communication by politicians, and here is an extract from an interview by Total Politics with Dr Andy Williamson, director of the Hansard Society's e-democracy programme.

What should politicians do to meet the requirements of an increasing political online community?Communicate – very simple. We have done a lot of research on how MPs communicate. This is mainly through publishing and the new research shows that people don’t want that. They want conversation – they want to be heard. They want to feel like what the MPs are saying is part of a wider conversation with the public and themselves. Not just issuing press releases and appearing for photo opportunities.What are the major differences between now and when the eDemocracy Programme was launched in 1997?What has changed is social media. There is now a culture of conversation online that didn’t exist 10 years ago when it was very much about publishing. The internet was an extra channel of publishing information and to a lesser degree there was the potential to then consult and engage through things like discussion boards. What’s happening now with the developments of Facebook and twitter is that the internet has become a parallel channel for the mainstream media. 10 years ago you were still relying on newspapers, television and radio to get a conversation that was based on their schedules and biases. Now you’ve got blogs, twitter, social media networks broadcasting the stuff around the story’s lifecycle and not the publisher’s lifecycle. Conversations happen when they happen not being based on deadlines.

Food for thought there boys, I hope. You have a good Labour candidate in Reading East who has been deliberately silenced and has no dialogue with the voters, you have, by design, possibly the worst candidate Labour in Reading has ever had in the West, whose only pastime, his old schoolfriends tell us, is calculating the decimal points of pi, and your communication strategies have not changed since the 1980s.

As Beth Ditto sings in "Heavy Cross" (on my new iPod hahahaha)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLLxdcrk0-s

"you say it's been done so undo it"

and

"the choice is yours, so choose"

now I've seen everything

IKEA in France are on strike

Labour candidate for Erith and Thamesmead

What is below is gossip. Tittle-tattle. Scuttlebutt. What you will. If a newspaper diary column or similar publishes vile lies about you there is no avenue of protest or retribution, because such columns are light-hearted, not presented as factual, and not meant to be taken seriously. That is what you will be told if you try to protest about the content of such a column. The law, and the rules, are just the same for bloggers. The difference is that bloggers do it for free speech and do not get paid to do it. So if you don't like what is published about you get over yourself, and get out of politics, because if you can't stand unhealthy episodes from your past being relayed in the present media then you are in the wrong career. I hope this is helpful.

one Theresa Pearce, whom I have never met, and who is glowingly described by the vile Kevin Maguire thus

and whose doings are reported by a correspondent thus:

Vomit-inducing puff in the vile Kevin McGuire's column in today's Mirror for one Theresa Pearce, Labour candidate for Erith and Thamesmead.
McGuire says how wonderfully 'real' she is - in her fifties, a tax inspector - somebody who knows all about looking after kids, studied at The Universioty of Life rather than Oxbridge and is an absolute cert to win - also will be a divine asset in the new House of Commons.

Pearce shared xxxxxx house with me, xxxx and xxxxxxx at a Party Conference in Brighton prior to 97 and after 92.
She proceeded to get steamingly pissed every night - and on the last night spewed up literally all over the house so we had to pay to get it specially cleaned.
Also, she began a shagging feste with a journalist on the Daily Express at same conference.
Police arrived at conference, sent by her husband who accused her of abandoning her children. She was supposed to pick up her kids from school but left them in the lurch while she pursued shag feste with Express journalist.
Police drove her to a special meeting at the school with the headteacher and her husband. So she had to abandon the conference.
Husband divorced her.

So, this is the example of sublime womanhood promoted by McGuire.
I think that we should be told .........

refused to back Iraq

here is an extract from a post on Mr Salter's Telegraph blog:

Clare Short had far greater access to information and intelligence data about Saddam’s real threat to world peace than the rest of us 139 backbenchers who refused to back not "voted against" as you told everyone who would listen Martin. You abstained on that vote, possibly the most important one in any UK Parliament since the 1930s, at the urging of the whips. and then lied about it. Proud of yourself? the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Did this former Cabinet Minister seriously think that bombing Iraq was going to help kick start the Middle East peace talks or improve relations between the Arab world and the West? Probably not, but she was wrong. It did. Did she really cast aside all her worries about the illegality of the war in the absence of a second UN resolution on the promise of international rebuilding of the bomb-damaged country? No. She got pissed and changed her mind twice. Read Robin Cook’s resignation speech on 18 March 2003, it’s all there. Pity you weren't there to hear it Martin. What was more important that day?
Tony Blair was horribly wrong he was absolutely right about supporting the American invasion of Iraq there was no American invasion, which even you know Martin I am sure, but an invasion by allies, but at least he didn’t try and insult our intelligence by rewriting history at the Chilcot inquiry.
Shame he didn’t say sorry, though. for what? winning elections?

in perpetuity

His Master's Voice is part of a package of regional "newspapers" owned by the Guardian Media Group which has now been sold by them. I think this is terrible. The Reading Evening Post, rightly described by independent Cllr Tony Jones as formerly an integral voice to the town, could disappear! The Murdoch people think this is OK, that the future is in paid-for online content. I am not so sure, though old Rupes is rarely wrong, he didn't get where he is today etc etc. However, if you read this you will see one of the grands fromages in GMG is informing us that the sale will "secure the future of the Guardian in perpetuity". No. This is something we do not want. The Guardian, as any fule kno, is the only national newspaper to give a platform to racists, to promote genocide, and it also (though it is not the only one to do this) reports known untruths as fact. It should die horribly. So come on readers, let's save the Reading Evening Post! Because the continuing existence of Murrill's brand of secondary-modern barely adequate cut-and-paste-Salter's-press-releases-and-stick-your-head-up-RBC's-arse is a small price to pay for the demise of the Filth. Hein?

the LibDems' top strategist

is called Tom Smithard and this is what he looks like. Really. Hat-tip Guido.

well, it's a start

look at the facebook fan page for Nasty Naz here and notice that you are not finding members of Reading Labour Party on there, come on boys (and indeed some girls from time to time) get involved, go on with you. Have a look at the site, you will see that he uses Denefield School as a backdrop, with an unnamed female person in the shot, who may even be a pupil there, who knows.

Amnesty International

I used to belong to that organisation years ago. but now, oh dear. White far right Jew-haters as well as the brown-skin Muslim kind. Oh dear.

still dunvotin

on Home Affairs business yesterday. You'd think Mr Salter would want to make the most of the opportunity, with just a few short weeks left to serve, but no.

still happy, Guardian readers?

(AFP) – 2 days ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban militants blew up a girls' school on Saturday in northwest Pakistan, the latest in a wave of attacks by Islamist extremists targeting educational institutions, a minister said.

No one was hurt in the attack, which took place in the village of Huwaid, eight kilometres (five miles) north of the town of Bannu.

"The explosive material was planted at three different places in the girls' primary school, which completely destroyed five out of seven rooms of the building," provincial education minister Sardar Hussain Babak said.

He blamed the attack on Taliban, saying they were "opposed to girls' education".

Senior police official Iqbal Marwat confirmed the incident. He added: "No one was hurt in the explosion as it occurred at 6:00 am (0100 GMT)."

Pakistan's military is engaged in offensives against Islamist fighters across much of the northwest including tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a region branded by Washington the most dangerous place on Earth.

About 30,000 Pakistani troops poured into South Waziristan in mid-October to try and dismantle strongholds of the Taliban leadership, enraging militants who have responded with a surge of bomb blasts and attacks

or would you have preferred it if Lots Of Girls Had Been Killed? because Let's Not Follow the Bush and Blair Agenda. Oh No.

Hein?

a million million typos

here it is - so let's all dash out and buy, hey boys?

did you spot it?

in this clip from the BBC the other day, the posh-slip in Salter's accent? back to middle class from faux barrow boy, without passing by Jewish west London at all!

give me an answer, do

I have a colleague here in Strasbourg who is still on the electoral register in the UK (as am I and entitled to be for the next 12 years, so there) and was last resident in Reading West. He asked me who he should vote for, having already decided that if Salter stood again it would not be for him. I didn't have to think about it for long. I said that if I were voting in Reading West it would be for Adrian Windisch, the Green candidate. Of course there is still time for other candidates to register. I also told him that I believe the seat will be Conservative after the election.

The LibDem candidate for Reading West, Daisy Benson (hence the title of this post) has moved out of Redlands, which is the ward she represents on the council, and to a location west of the centre of Reading. It is however in the Reading East constituency. Sadly Ms Benson does not appear to have been aware of this, and thought she was moving into the constituency she hoped to represent. My correspondent tells me she has been using the Salter map of Reading. Daisy, Daisy, if you make a mistake like that keep quiet about it, don't tell every council officer in a three-mile radius.

We UK citizens who live elsewhere in the EU can register as overseas voters in the last constituency we lived in, which I have done, and can vote there in general elections. But not in Scottish or Welsh or London assembly or local elections. We French residents can vote in France in municipal elections and in either country in European elections. We cannot vote in France's regional elections, which take place next month, for reasons which escape me. Twenty of France's 22 regions are under Parti Socialiste administration. The one I live in in eastern France is one of the other two. Seems to me that if I cannot vote in the regionals here in France I should be able to vote in London. Grrr.

spectacular own goal? I think not

Cllr Richard Willis and others are describing Mr Salter's juvenile remarks about the Pope, calling him a "bloke in a dress", as a "spectacular own goal" and other less polite epithets. Not so, I fancy. They cannot or will not see that Salter regretted his decision to stand down almost as soon as he had made it. He decided to do it because he thought the seat would be lost, then realised it might not be with the right kind of work, tried to have the decision reversed and had no success, so now is determined to see that the seat is so comprehensively lost that his tenure of it will be looked back upon as some kind of golden age. This is why he and Cllr Page supported the embarrassing Nasty Naz, having failed to get any support for the dead-head from Southampton Salter thought would be compliant and too dull to get any interest from the constituents. Now Salter is doing his best to embarrass the party in any way he can. Hence the "bloke in a dress" remark. Remember after all that Salter is also a vice-chair of the national Labour Party, he tells us.

and while we're on the subject of the dirty media

I do not think the subject of the destruction of human life and happiness by the lying filth who pass themselves off as journalists (eh, Mr Murrill of the Reading Evening Post?) has been better written about than here by the late Heinrich Boll, which I have just read in English translation on the recommendation of a colleague who is a German scholar. Although my progress in German has not been very fast lately I have made a pledge to myself to have read it in German by this time next year. The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum was published in 1975. Not much published then stands up to today's reading. Hein?

two MPs to face fraud charges

as is well known and is reported here and was second item on France 2 this morning, whose report was complete with picture of bath plug, at the cheapness of which the newscaster marvelled. But of course the rules allowed MPs to get away with this kind of thing for a long time. And nothing is said about claims between 1997 and 2001 which were against all the rules, lenient as they were, such as the claims made by Mr Salter for four years, for a non-existent London property. None of the print or broadcast media will reproduce this, although journalists have said to me that they know it is true. Bloggers are not exempt from the laws of libel however, so the only reason I have not been sued must be that it is true. 40K. At least. Criminal fraud.

f'''king hell

we did not know this man who only daytime TV knew

watch these two clips

here

and tell me what you think

it's still going on

Anne Moffat MP, pictured after a GC meeting. It is indeed still going on, as the East Lothian print media inform us. Not clear to me from the article whether former whip Jim Murphy MP is being accused of being behind the attempted deselection of Anne Moffat MP or whether he has been trying to stop it. Those in the know in Scottish Labour (sooner them than me) will know exactly who has been talking to the papers. It does however remind of the some of the uglier scenes at the Reading General Committees, with similarly shouting men at the front of the room insisting on silence while they slag off anyone female who behaves in a way that differentiates her from a doormat. In Reading of course there was another MP in the room joining enthusiastically in the boys' chorus. The police were never called to the Reading meetings, unlike the East Lothian one reported on, and there were times I wished they had been. Certainly the violent behaviour by Basher McKenzie at a different meeting warranted it. Scottish Labour and the national party are on trial here. If they cannot do the right thing then they deserve oblivion. I thank my correspondent for sending me the link to the article. That correspondent also says in their message to me:

Obviously, it's a long way from Reading, and I don't have any background information, but some of the facts in the story have a strange resonance, don't they?

Also, the MP in Portsmouth North (Mrs McCarthy Fry) is being opposed by an RMT Union funded opponent (Mick Tosh, a Trotskyist) standing as "Trade Unionists Socialist Challenge" or TUSC, on the basis that she does not show sufficient support for working class issues. She has been a Unite member all her working life, she says.

It looks like the Peoples Party still hasn't qute got hold of the idea of strong independently minded women representing them. I wonder if Daisy Benson would ever have been selected as a Parliamentary Candidate if she had remained a member of the Labour Party?

Great questions to which the answer is No.

a straw man

Rob White and the Green Party, campaigning for Park ward as they consistently and energetically do, have been highlighting the development plans for the Alfred Sutton playing fields, as well they might, and they have succeeded in bringing out into the open the secret and corrupt ways of the leadership of the Reading Labour Group. Basher McKenzie, who wonders aloud on his website why people keep trying to run him over, (probably because one violent thug the less keeps the population safer, eh Basher?), thinks he will gain some electoral advantage in Park ward (though putting on your side bar "Where is Park Ward?" is not the best idea Basher) by rubbishing the Greens instead of campaigning positively on practical policies. With this in view he "publishes" a letter from Cllr Tony Page, as follows: ( a little light fisking is irresistible here)

Reply to Mr White from Cllr Page
I thank Mr White for his petition but very much regret the mischief-making and scaremongering agenda oh no you've rumbled us we were trying to keep that secret that lay behind this petition. There is no threat whatsoever to the playing fields. we have always been at war with EurasiaThe Site Allocations Document is now known as the Sites and Detailed Policies Document, so now we've changed its name that's all right then and the draft document is to be discussed at this meeting. which we had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing The Thames Valley University playing fields are not included in the Sites and Detailed Policies Document, and there is therefore no need to remove them. oh yes they are, read the document and see below The existing built form of the TVU site, along with the areas used for parking, are included as an allocation primarily for education. Should it not be required for education then the policy does allow for residential see? and there are no plans to build any more schools in that area, but it is clear, and explicitly stated on page 94 of the latest document we hoped you wouldn't read that far that this would not include the adjacent playing fields.The whole Crescent Road campus, including the playing fields, was included as a candidate site in an earlier consultation version of the Site Allocations Document in 2008 we had it down to build on all along, you bastards, you spotted it, as it had been nominated for development by the University a big boy did it and ran away – not the Council. so who gives planning permission then? The Council consulted on all of the approximately 100 sites that had been nominated for development, as it is required to do. and the Greens have been responding, which we have decided to call "scaremongering"The document explicitly stated on several occasions that the Council did not necessarily endorse any sites. The playing fields are among a number of sites consulted on in 2008 that are not included in the current draft document. no - now we have been rumbled we are simply going to hem it in with car parking and prevent public access until in due course there is residential development on the site and the by-then-disused playing fields are covered with condoms and needles and sold off to another developer.

Well done boys. Nice try, better luck next time.

In the name of God, go.

proud to be friends

from the Observer, very good to read this, the words of the democratically elected president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani

The Iraqi people now have the right to build their own freedom and are deeply grateful to British prime ministers Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, for their assistance.

At the time, I and other leaders of the Iraqi opposition asked Mr Blair's government to help the Iraqi people get rid of the dictatorship. And we praise the bravery and sacrifice of British troops.

We suffered under Saddam Hussein in ways that too many in the international community seem to have forgotten. His regime was a republic of fear, which slaughtered Iraqis on an industrial scale and attacked our neighbours. We are fortunate he has gone and that we have a chance to rebuild our society.

Iraq is one of the historical founts of modern civilisation. Our tragedy is that Saddam pillaged our potential for his own purposes.

Now that he is gone we have a great opportunity to overcome our isolation from decades of modernity and to rebuild our links with the international community. Our second parliamentary elections, on 7 March, will provide an opportunity to consolidate our growing democracy and further isolate those who use the bomb and the gun against the will of our own people.

We, as a people, have a great regard for and affection towards the British and we are seeking deep, broad and long-term relationships with your politicians, academics, sporting groups and businesses.

We are a potentially rich country but our legacy is a poor one. We value the ability of British business to unlock our resources through increased investment and by trading with us. Iraq is becoming increasingly open to commerce, which is a means of giving our people the better way of life that they seek and deserve.

It would also be in Britain's interest to continue its relationship with us. We are proud to be your friends and hope that you will always be our friends, working together for the common good of humanity.

The author is the first non-Arab president of Iraq and founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

So there we have it. The Iraqi opposition asked for help and got it. And the Guardian readers are very cross that they did. But this bloke - who is he, just a brown-skin bloke from somewhere foreign, probably doesn't even read the Guardian and has never heard of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.