time for reflection

the Silly Boys have not updated their website for ages now, and it is still saying that the Tories and Liberals are "unprincipled" to have gone into coalition and taken over Reading Borough Council.  They are also spinning (and His Master's Voice has faithfully copied out, to be followed by others) that Labour was in power for 27 years.  Not so.  And while we are on the subject of principles, I was there when Labour got the chairs of committees (without actually taking control) in 1986.  The council had gone Tory from NOC in 1983 and the chairs of committees were acquired because a renegade Tory called Hamza Fuad (great bloke, I liked him, he was mayor one year, I wonder where he is now) voted with Labour against his own group.  He was not a fan of M. Thatcher.  Two seats won the following year enabled Labour actually to take control.  But using a renegade Tory to get power?  Is that principled?  Personally I have no problem with any of it, politics is about power and there is no virtue in opposition, but most in the Labour Party seem to disagree.  A bit rich though for Zim One Lovelock to talk about principles.  Hein?

Basher

hasn't gone away, though he is on crutches (oh dear, tries to keep straight face, a just punishment for what he has done to others) and is still describing himself as "the Labour candidate for Park ward" - they are selecting their candidates early this year! Think so?

oh dear they don't look happy do they

hahahahahahahaha

pictured Cllr Pete "Both Ways on Kennet Meadows" Ruhemann and an empty chair for Cllr John "Salter's catamite" Ennis, who has probably had to go and live in a barrel now that his master has disappeared from the scene.  Labour council?  Yes, I remember that.  Got rid of it nicely didn't you boys?  Even Dictatorship Dave "moronic members of the public" Sutton was there to be in at the death, no doubt pleased with his handiwork now that he has got his wish - two Tory MPs in Reading and Labour in opposition.  Well done.  Very very well done.

Hat-tip Adrian Windisch for pic.  More please.
update:  I understand I have readers who do not know what a catamite is.  Disappointing.  They can find out here.

a new era dawns

for Reading Borough that is, according to Cllr Willis, who becomes the new lead councillor for strategic planning and transport.  The cabinet is interesting, though one or two of the better talents have not been given the positions they probably deserve.  We'll see.  How I wish I had been there to see the faces of the Labour Group, who were apparently glum and silent.  Congrats Zim One Lovelock, taking the group to oblivion after 27 years.  What a waste.

As the shredders fall silent a new dawn breaks.  In the early quiet a lone blackbird sings.

my man on the Strasbourg tram says

Oona King got off it at the European Parliament stop last Wednesday morning

I was a bit shocked

by this picture, published in Le Monde's weekend magazine.  There are other cartoons on the page, which has a British theme because there is a new government in the UK.  For those who do not read French, the man in the picture is intended to represent then President (in 1992) Mitterrand, and the Queen is of course intended to represent the British state.  This is what it is saying old Mits thought he was doing at the time, and his speech bubble says (and if there is a play on words in French it is beyond me) "Can you feel it babe?  My Maastricht Treaty?" The cartoonist says his editor refused to publish this in 1992, but he is making that up I fancy.  But would a British medium publish it now?  And what would their reaction be?  Readers' reactions welcome.

balls

yes, that one.  He is not a fit person to lead a major political party - or a whelk stall.  He said, about the Iraq war, "Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, but..." and that although he was a key adviser to Gordon Brown in 2003 when the decision was made he thinks the decision was wrong.  Oliver Kamm rightly says that the Saddam Hussein regime (whether the man was "horrible" or not is irrelevant) was a major genocidal catastrophe of the 20th century, and I know that too many members of the Labour Party do not understand that.  Hence Balls' facing both ways at once. If any Labour Party member is tempted to vote for him this should help them to decide not to.  Miliband Major has kept quiet on the issue, because he was an MP in 2003 and voted for the war, as I did.  Miliband Minor has said he was against it.  Miliband Major should stand up and say that he is proud of his decision in 2003.  He should be proud.  But he has showed pusillanimity in not doing so.

And at the same time we have key figures in government, like Liam Fox, going to Afghanistan and saying they are not interested in nation building, just in bomb and run.  This is as bad as the likes of Douglas Hurd in the 1990s propping up the Slobodan Milosevic regime and then milking Serbia for money.

Bastards.  Traitors to the values of international solidarity, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.  Bastards.

oh dear

the list of MPs' accounts with the Parliamentary Catering Department which remained unpaid for more than 90 days as at 1 September 2009 includes the following:

Salter Martin £184.25

tsk tsk

that's quite a lot of pies, bottles of champagne, pints of Websters, nips of Speaker's Blend Scotch, sandwich teas, whatever your preferred poison is.

this is not very good

Mr Howarth has decided to post a review of the new film Four Lions.  I have not seen the film yet, and it may not appear in our local cinemas in Strasbourg.  I note too that families of victims of the 7/7 murders in London have called for a boycott of the film.  I will never forget that day, as I was there, but will not be supporting a boycott.  Anyway, I will see the film when I can.  But read Mr Howarth's review for yourself.  I did not know whether to be angry, puzzled or contemptuous.  Throughout it Mr Howarth makes the assumption that the entire audience will always be white and non-Muslim.  He even refers to the protagonists as THEY (his capitals).  Most peculiar.  Mr Howarth has lived in Reading for quite a long time, and may even have gone to the cinema there on occasion, I have no idea.  My own quite regular visits to cinemas in Reading revealed that the management of those establishments is quite happy to allow people of the non-white persuasion through their doors.  I never saw a cinema poster that said "Whites only".  Is that what Mr Howarth would like to see?

by whose authority

did Lovelock, who was sworn in as leader of the council on the last occasion for such a thing to happen, decide to relinquish that office and go into opposition?  What minute of a council meeting records such a vote?  There may well be such a meeting, next week I imagine, but there has not been one.  This is abuse of office.  A vote needs to be taken. A Cabinet needs to be appointed.  The new Reading Cabinet should be interesting.

shut it

on your way out Jo Lovelock

just for once

the Silly Boys were a bit quick off the mark:

Labour Leader Jo Lovelock, who leads the largest group on Reading Borough Council, has condemned the Liberal Democrats for their decision to join with the Tories in a joint ConDem Cabinet on the Westminster model agreed between Nick Clegg and David Cameron. No it is not.  The Westminster model as she calls it is something quite else, and Labour is not the largest party in Parliament.
She says: "On 6 May the Tories in Reading lost Minster and failed to win any of their target seats. What were those then?  Share their strategy with you over a cuppa did they Jo? Labour won six seats two seats not six - Minster from Tories and Battle was a notional Labour gain - but the seat had originally elected a Labour councillor, who left Labour because of Sutton and Lovelock's disgraceful bullying and came second in five and third in the rest, including Caversham, which had three Labour councillors when there was a Labour MP in Reading East we continue to have broad support across the town, why didn't you win Church and why did you lose Katesgrove, while Labour Redlands becomes a distant memory, eh?and there is no local logic to the Liberal Democrats' decision. Seems highly logical to me.  In power or not in power.  Who would choose to be out of power?
"But this is obviously part of a national political shift. Nothing to do with Reading's Labour administration then?  The Reading Evening Post trumpetings about Labour's "achievements" are down to national swing too are they?  The Liberal Democrats at Westminster have signed up to Tory policy on the economy and on cuts to public services, on Europe the only Reading Labour Group foreign policy that I know of is on Israel - they want to destroy it, on defence, on nuclear power so what about Reading's many nuclear power stations? this is pitiful stuff and much more. The Liberal Democrats in Reading, who have always told us they want to protect public services, now want to have their hands on the Tories' axe. ooh er missus 
"I know many Liberal Democrat members and supporters who have been horrified by their deal with David Cameron. So? The national polls are already showing a real swing to Labour from the Liberal Democrats, who have abandoned any pretence of being progressive party. Indefinite article here please - who is drafting this stuff?  Howarth?  Labour in Reading will be a very active opposition, starting now. Let's get this straight.  Has there been a vote in council that Labour should go into opposition? Ah, but you never were big on the democratic process were you Jo?  The people of Reading did not vote for this ConDem coalition, do not deserve this ConDem coalition, they sure as f*** deserve better than the group of corrupt scumbags in the Labour Group and I am sure will take an early opportunity to say so through the ballot what?  The Labour Group resigning en masse to create a whole bunch of by-elections? if not the next opportunity will be at the next election.  Democracy Key Stage One.  Do try and keep up. 

yes!

we are told (by His Master's Voice, so it must be true, eh Murrill?) that the LibDems and Tories in Reading have reached agreement on forming a coalition to control the council.  Will Zim One Lovelock be airlifted off the roof of the Civic Offices a la Ceausescu?  But better, at last the books will be opened.  The shredders won't stop till dawn.  Note to the boys in blue: former Cllr Dictatorship Dave "moronic members of the public" Sutton took a lot of papers home with him when he left.  You will find them chez lui at 22 Eldon Place Reading RG1 4ED.

In the name of God, go.

exit poll

Well, I am impressed.  With the turnout in my little poll on the Labour leadership.  Who says apathy rules?  Who says the next Labour leader is going to be called Ed?  Or Miliband?  Or possibly both?  Harriet performed respectably in my poll, and there was a loyalist surge for Miliband Major, Ross Kemp was quite well fancied at one stage, but the clear victor was - Paddy Ashdown!  I can understand this, a man who can sort Bosnia out might just manage it with the Labour Party.  Congratulations to all of you on performing your democratic chore!

our air is not for sale

remember that?  Anyway, the planned strike by BA staff will not now go ahead following a High Court ruling.  I think this decision is a disgrace.  It was made on the basis of an administrative technicality of a very minor nature, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case.  And the strike is not, as it has been portrayed, about changes to BA, which all concerned agree are necessary for the loss-making airline, but against victimisation of those who took part in the earlier strike.  Which is right. 

So who benefits?

spot the deliberate...

this from the Salter ("there is no prospect of my ever blogging") blog on the Telegraph site.

With two young women working largely on their own in the office for the best part of the week, it seemed only responsible to utilise the security budget that the Commons authorities had introduced for the installation of panic buttons, an intercom and security shutters. The equipment was duly delivered, only for us to discover that just 50 per cent of the cost was recoverable from the designated budget. The only way the full £6,000 bill could be met in full was either by cutting the wages of my staff or, as was eventually the case, to pay for it myself.

In Doris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook", which had a great influence on me in my younger days,  there is a mock writing competition, to continue a piece which has as its first line "The two women were alone in the London flat".  In 1950s London, where the book was written and set, there would presumably have been many, not all of them men, who did not realise that that sentence was meaningless.  But in 21st-century England?  Er, Mr S, if there were two of them in your office then neither of them was "on their own".  So what did you mean then?  Misogyny in Parliament has lost a faithful friend in you, Mr S.  I see that the resentment at paying your own money for something still festers - despite the 40K plus claimed in the first four years for a non-existent London property.  Which is criminal fraud.

there's good boys

the Silly Boys have now removed "Martin Salter, Your Labour MP" from the sidebar of their website for legal reasons, after its continuing presence long after the election was pointed out on this blog and elsewhere.  We wouldn't want you telling fibs, now would we children?

now they've gone too far

Live bullets are openly being used by police in Bangkok against the red-shirt demonstrators.  Ban Ki-moon saying "Now, now" is not good enough.  This must stop.  Part of the advantage of a monarchy is that most citizens of a country, while they may turn on their government, will not turn on their monarch, who thus may have a role to play in times of constitutional crisis.  This is true in Thailand, where the monarch is venerated.  So, Your Majesty?  Anyone? (sound of tumbleweed)

surely by now...

my limited experience (I have never personally lost an election) is that it is when you win that you get overwhelmed with stuff to do, new responsibilities etc, and things get neglected.  When you lose you start glumly clearing up the next morning.  However that is clearly just me, because the Reading political sites I link to on here have just about without exception failed to update since the election, or to do so properly - Basher still describes himself as the candidate for Park ward, the Silly Boys have not updated since 3rd May and still have "Martin Salter, Your Labour MP" on the sidebar, which may not even be legal, even Rob White still describes himself as the candidate for Park ward and for Reading East.  Mr Salter himself,  who may or may not be in Australia, blogs cheerfully on the Telegraph site, nonsense like "the coalition won't last two years" and has time to post daily, and yet his own website remains out of date and neglected.  Mr Howarth rarely updates his site anyway, although there is a post which reminds us that he thought a hung parliament most unlikely, and that if there was one a Tory minority government would ensue.  The Reading boys.  F***ing it up for a generation.

What a waste.

the surge is happening

in my Labour leadership poll of course.  The surge is on behalf of one D. Miliband, so that is the line.  I understand that Blinky Balls is considering standing, as is E. Miliband (who seems to have more political nous than his brother does, which is not saying much) and so is J. Cruddas.  As for remarks about the dress and appearance of women in politics, twas ever thus, get over it.  Mrs Cooper-Balls is not standing, and why there are those who object to her so strongly I have no idea.  A reader has noted the presence of Ann Coffey at the D. Miliband launch, and cheered me greatly by reminding me of an incident (which I witnessed) in the Smoking Room of the House of Commons, when Ms Coffey, who had had a good lunch, fell backwards over a leather armchair, splitting the fishnet tights she was wearing from thigh to toe.  How we laughed.

keep 'em coming

the turnout on my little poll on the right, on the Labour leadership, is just fantastic.  More please.

kitten heels

looking at the UK Cabinet as the names emerge, I don't know why, but I did not imagine Theresa May as Home Secretary.  I once out-shoed her at the Woodley Carnival btw.  I had on leopardskin print kitten-heel mules.  I've still got them.

you say goodbye, and I say hello

well, you know where that comes from

that is how a change of government is in the UK

goodbye Gordon

goodbye Labour government

now for new things

oh no

please please no

how glad I am that I was not there

at the Reading Labour GC last night.  At the Civic Offices.  At public expense.  It started at 1900 with a "political" meeting, chaired by the chair of the party, currently Trish Thomas.  Someone tells the members what the election result means.  Then the party votes on who it wants to have the Labour Group positions.  This has been stitched up over the weekend.  At 2000 the party delegates left and the Labour Group met (the tenses in this post are deliberately all over the place) to elect its leadership and officers.  Was, who is a councillor and thus in a position to know, tells us that no room was booked.  The Civic Offices' meeting rooms, including the council chamber, not being exactly fully occupied on a Monday evening, the boys just troop in and take possession of the room.  This is arguably the most poisonous Reading Labour meeting of the whole year - and it has some competition.  So who has paid for the room?  The council chamber does not come cheap.

Bunch of corrupt scumbags.

the mystery deepens

we hear that Mr Salter did not attend the general election count in Reading, nor was he around on election day.  Nothing mysterious about that, I certainly did not attend the Reading count in 2005, the year I stood down, though I was still in Reading at the time, spectre at the feast and all that, and I did not campaign in Reading in that election either.  We hear too that the leadership of the Labour Group did not attend the count either, you'd think they might have gone to give the candidates some support in penitence for having, in the East, suppressed the candidate from public view whenever they could, and, in the West, having selected the most embarrassing and certain-to-lose candidate they would find.  But no.  We are not told whether the chair of Reading Labour Party, Trish Thomas, was there.  Perhaps someone who was present can enlighten me.  We are told that some of the boys were there and that they sent up an ironic cheer at the result in Reading East.  For which they ought to be expelled from the party.  But back to Mr Salter.  We hear that he left for Australia earlier than planned because his wife, who is already there, has a health problem.  Well, maybe.  But however you travel to Australia it takes 24 hours all told.  And there is a slight jet-lag problem, which reduces personal productivity for most people for a day or two.  And Mr S is not a seasoned traveller, never "jetting off" anywhere if he can help it, he has told us many times.  And yet he managed to write his Telegraph blog on Friday.  In which incidentally he told us that party members wanted "Blair" to go because of poor local election results in 2006.  Which is utter nonsense, as I am sure Mr S knows.  The local election results in Reading East were indeed very poor for Labour.  Now that there is a Tory MP in Reading West the same is likely to ensue there.  And Reading Labour can slide gratefully between the freshly laundered sheets of opposition.  Where it has wanted to be all along.

So where was Mr S really?  Blogging from his seat on a Qantas flight?  I doubt it very much.

some good news from Thursday

George Galloway, pictured here with his former best friend the genocidal dictator (deceased) lost by miles in Poplar and Limehouse.  And in Bethnal Green and Bow the first Bangladeshi-born female MP was elected, Rushanara Ali.  Good, hein?  It seems to me that although people say that some election results are "strange" such as Gisela Stuart being re-elected in Edgbaston when others supposedly less marginal lost their seats, these results are not strange at all.  I think people took a hard look at the MPs they had and decided they would continue with them if they were good people who would do the best for their constituency.  Which Gisela is and will.

It is less good news that Reading Borough Council remains in no overall control with Labour the largest party.  The corrupt little clique which has been pretending it has a democratic mandate is still there, with Salter apparently sitting in on its meetings.  When Salter's best friend Howarth (prop. Public Impact Ltd, remember "Your better off with Labour"?) left the council he was rewarded with contracts for PR for the council's transport agenda, for whiich he had been lead councillor, and for other parts of the council's work.  The council taxpayer of Reading is funding Howarth's business and lifestyle (gas-guzzling 4x4 cars, golfing holidays in Spain and so on) and Salter would like some of that.  The current chief executive of Reading Borough Council, unlike the last one, the shamed Trish Haines, is neither corrupt nor the stooge of the Labour Group, but Salter is none the less never out of the Civic Offices, a place where he has, or should have, no business.

I was pleased to see Rob White elected in Park, if only because Basher has not been allowed back to punch the faces of those who disagree with him.  But Rob, the Labour Group will turn on you.  Do not let any soft words that are said to you lower your defences.  Get your council mail posted to you, not left in the Civic Offices, or it will be opened and your constituency casework subverted.  Be aware that your correspondence with council officers will be read by Lovelock and leaked to whoever she thinks needs to see it.  If Labour retains the leadership of the council they will manufacture stories against you as they have done with others.  Speak softly and carry a big stick.

bye bye Basher

Basher McKenzie, failed in Henley and failed comprehensively in Park ward, says on his blog that he will "carry on".  Carry on doing what?  Park has three councillors, whose job it is to represent the people who live there.  Currently they are of three different parties, which might even lead to better representation, who knows, than they have had previously.  So if Basher comes to your door ask him why and tell him that you already have councillors, thank you very much.  Let him throw punches at people who are smaller than he is elsewhere.

what d'you reckon, Cap'n Andy? It's all over in Watford

Richard Harrington Conservative 19,291 34.9 +5.3 Sal Brinton Liberal Democrat 17,866 32.4 +1.1 Claire Ward Labour 14,750 26.7 -6.8

ashes to ashes

all that hard work the Reading boys did, and finally they get the outcome they wanted all along - Labour in third place in Reading East and we are back to the 1980s.  Congratulations boys.  Your antics had a nice mention on Sky this morning just in case anyone had forgotten and no I didn't talk to Sky.  In opposition, the Tories in government (well, not quite yet but that was out of your gift) and Labour in third place.  Labour's militant tendency in the Reading party has done what the other Militant did in the 1980s - make the party unelectable for a generation.  Well done.  Jolly well done chaps.  How are you going to face the decent party workers who went out delivering and did their best during this campaign, when you have your delightful post-election GC and the poison flies around the room?  What are you going to say to them?  May you be forgiven.  At the moment I can't.

Howarth, Sutton, Singleton-White and Salter, that is your political epitaph.  Opposition for a generation. 

and on a lighter note...

Was posts an invitation to a party at the Chilli n Spice restaurant in St Mary's Butts Reading (East of course) on Saturday evening. So get on down there, the fun starts at 1930 and Anneliese and Naz will be there to welcome you.  How I am looking forward to it.

I opened that restaurant btw.  I am sure this will be mentioned on the night.

crashing down

from the BBC a few minutes ago:

1. 0940: Reports are coming in that the UK Independence Party Euro-MP Nigel Farage has been involved in a light plane crash at an airfield near Brackley in Northamptonshire. Mr Farage, who is standing in the general election, is understood to have suffered non life-threatening injuries in the incident.

but in Park ward...

Basher lies.  He says Labour has been "protecting Kennetmouth from Tory development plans for over 15 years".  A lie.  Developing Kennetmouth has been the policy of the Labour council publicly since 1991 (I should know, I was a Labour councillor then who voted against it) and secretly long before that.  Basher knows this and has lied. His election leaflet in Henley, where he is the parliamentary candidate, has a faked picture of him and Gordon Brown together.  People say politicians lie, but in fact most of them don't.  Even if they were minded to it is bad judgment and they know it.  You get found out.  Your choice today in Park ward.  Vote for a liar and a bully with no political judgment.  Or vote for another candidate, with whom you at least have a chance of getting an honest representative.  With Basher McKenzie you know you won't.  He is a liar and a bully.  

a nation says "for f***'s sake"!

whaaa?

while you get ready to vote tomorrow

think about this - I had a cataract removed from my right eye this morning - they take off the lens (le cristallin) and replace it with an artificial silicon one.  It took about three hours from arrival at the clinic, with the operation itself taking about 15 minutes under local anaesthetic.  No pain and a lovely light show to watch. Slightly high on the pure oxygen I was breathing, which sadly has now worn off.  I was sent home with advice not to take important decisions this afternoon.  So that's the invasion of Burma put off for another day then.  I had to wait eleven days from diagnosis to procedure.  This is what I look like now, but only until tomorrow when this dressing comes off.  If I ever leave France I shall come back here for any health procedures I might need or want. The little bloke who wheeled me from the recovery room to the room I had for the duration mentioned tomorrow's election once he had established where I was from (my accent is a bit of a giveaway, I cannot seem to lose it, and I think I sound to a French person the equivalent of how Antoine de Caunes used to sound on British TV  years ago.  If you get my drift).  Bloke then started reeling off the names of post-World War II British prime ministers, better than most Brits could do, and said it was going to be a close-run thing and that the LibDems were going to be nowhere.  He said he was very interested in British political history and had a lot of books about it at home.  Did the heart good.

Incidentally, when you go into a French hospital for any kind of procedure you have to have not one but two showers, including hair and all bodily orifices (helpful diagrams on the wall) with a powerful disinfectant stuff called Betadine that makes your nose run.  If you are in bed while there no visitor is allowed to touch the bed.  There is no such thing as MRSA in French hospitals.  Do you think these things are connected?

Oh and the breakfast they gave me afterwards was very good indeed.

ah now I see

I remember them using this line in 2005 too, and it reappears in the Silly Boys' literature today:

In 2005 enough people voted LibDem in Reading East to let the Tories in.

Ah, so that is why Reading East got a Tory MP in 2005!  I did wonder. Well, silly old me! Nothing else had anything to do with it!  Scales fall from my eyes! 

people of Woodley!

you may have missed the recent gems penned by former Labour councillor, former lead councillor for transport in Reading and now recipient of fat contracts from Reading Borough Council for, er, transport, yes I mean J. Howarth Esq. prop. Public Impact Ltd (remember "Your Better Off With Labour"?) - so while he portrays himself these days as non-party-political, he is clearly not.  He has chosen to mention Woodley in one of the sudden rash of blogposts which have appeared in recent days, and he describes it in the following way:

Woodley, an eastern suburb

Oh dear.  Oh dear oh dear.  He doesn't know Woodley, that man, does he?  When you vote on Thursday, people of Woodley, remember that.

prediction

from The Times, widely reproduced around the blogs:

has Lib Dems in a very distant second place for Reading East with a 15% chance of winning the seat. Labour are third with a 5% chance and the Tories are a near certainty with a 77% chance of winning.
In Reading West, Labour are a bit stronger, and the Tories and Lib Dems a bit weaker, but the Tories are still ahead with a 65% chance of winning the seat.
Labour look like facing almost complete wipe-out in the South of England outside of London. If you draw a line from the Wash to the Bristol Channel, or indeed anywhere below Coventry, and look south of it, it looks like the will hold onto Luton North, Slough, two seats in Southampton, two seats in Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth Moor View, and only three of those look like safe seats.


Why is Labour "a bit stronger" in Reading West than East?  Anyone?  Perhaps more interestingly, in terms of the council elections in Reading, why has Labour got nothing positive to say despite more than 20 years of controlling the council and for 13 of those years having an MP as the paid lobbyist for Reading Borough Council?  Why do they just put out false propaganda about their opponents, especially in Abbey Ward, where Tory Tickner may not save her seat by pretending, as she has for years now, to be the Tory she is inside.  Incidentally, if anyone meets her on the street in the next few days they may wish to ask her to back up the claim she made, in an email to me, that the "rapaciousness of African men" is the cause of the high incidence of HIV in much of Africa.
All this, and Basher puts a picture of Mr D.P. Singh and other Sikh men up on his website, so I had to look (becomes thoughtful) and then informs us that on Saturday afternoon he went canvassing with Anneliese.  Canvassing?  Five days before polling day?  Canvassing?  What precisely were they going to do with any data gained from that?  Five days before polling day canvassing is finished.  Has to be.  Literature is going out, last-minute blitzing of PEOPLE YOU KNOW ABOUT is being organised.  They have lost it.

In the name of God, go.

we will bury you

I wasn't going to post this, which is from Ben at Harry's Place (look away now, Anonymous 1129 previously, the poster might be one of DA JOOZ, not that you would know from its content) but now I have.  It is about the Guardian.

Tory Tickner pants on fire

 Was posts the following quote from a Reading Labour "Abbey Matters":

Beware - Resident's parking Under Threat from Reading Tories and Liberals

We know it is  Reading Labour because of the mistake in it (apostrophe, people, apostrophe, what, are we all greengrocers on this blog?)


I know this is a lie and I do not live in Reading.  Neither of those parties has that policy.  Was says he is minded to sue.  Well, I hope someone does.

liberal interventionism

we know what that is, don't we people?  Norm says he is voting Labour, and this is one of the reasons he gives:

Labour is the party most closely associated with the doctrine of liberal interventionism, a doctrine which should be supported.

Hallelujah.  Yes they are and yes it should.  The alternative is - democracy, human rights and the rule of law just for white folks who read the Guardian, which is an obscenity.  So, if you are minded to vote Tory on Thursday, ask your candidate what they think about liberal interventionism.  How would they have voted on Iraq for example if they had been in the House in 2003, or how did they vote if they were.  Expect them to tell you the truth, and hold them to it.

my sentiments exactly

As so often, Oliver Kamm puts my views better than I can.  Here he is on Gordon Brown and next week's election:

This is a feeble, unimaginative, incompetent and intellectually incurious Prime Minister, whose hapless, cynical and dysfunctional government has debased the notion of public service, coarsened public life and forfeited any claim to public respect, and I shall be voting for its return to office next Thursday. 


My reason for voting Labour (in fact I already have, by post), is, apart from the fact that Kate Hoey is an excellent MP with a commendably independent turn of mind and is one of the very few on the Labour benches to speak out about the atrocities in Zimbabwe, that a Tory government would keep Britain out of the euro.  This is similar to Oliver Kamm's view, though I would not presume to speak for him.  I doubt that this view is shared by many UK voters however.  And yes, I know that no party, including the LibDems, has pledged to take the UK into the eurozone. 

electioneering by His Master's Voice

published yesterday in His Master's Voice, though not visible today on their website.  This "story" features the former MP Martin Salter and the former leader of Reading Borough Council, Dictatorship Dave "moronic members of the public" Sutton and some schoolchildren, who say they would like to have summer camps for Whitley children.  But there is no story.  They campaigned for these camps last year.  They have not yet got them.  The only reason to publish this picture is to get their precious boy into the paper.  If Mr Salter held some actual position in the community there might be some justification for printing a picture of him, though even then it would  be questionable in the middle of a general election campaign.  But he does not.  In his final message to constituents he thanks the Reading Evening Post for all their support, as well he might.  Mr Murrill found it easier than journalism.  Now tell us Murrill why you published this in mid-election campaign.