John McWilliam

this is not the best picture of the former Labour MP for Blaydon, John McWilliam, who retired from the House in 2005 and who died on 14th November, but it was the best I could find, having only heard this very sad news today. I am on a New Year holiday in Cyprus, and am barefoot in Paphos and mostly not on line, hence the delay, having also spent some days in Cornwall for Christmas, in a place where you have to walk up the road to get a mobile signal. Some day all this will change.

John was a good man, I supported him in his bid for the Speakership when Betty Boothroyd (who has subsequently been very ill, oh dear), retired. Always hopeless but I was proud to support John. I remember him in the Strangers' Bar with a twinkle in his eye and an anecdote, but I also remember that he was to be bought by nobody, and that he understood that there was more than one way to advancement and a successful career.

Very sad. 68 is too young to go. I'll miss you John. Have a glass for me, wherever you are, and twinkle your eyes in all our memories.

strike is off

British Airways' 12-day strike off, by order of the High court. Fraud in the vote, they said. Irregularities, they said. Vote not valid. Strike cancelled, they said. Anyone else notice (last night was one of the rare occasions we had good enough reception to watch our satellite channels, so saw this on Sky) that the Unite spokesman said in response to this that the fraud/irregularities were not enough to alter the outcome of the vote. Remind you of anything? Redlands ward 2005, after the police found there had been fraud in the 2004 election? Stuart Singleton-White, the fraudster's friend, saying exactly the same, that the fraud was not enough to alter the outcome of the election, prompting the question in chorus, "How did he know?"

Redlands LibDem councillor Daisy Benson, elected after Singleton-White's condoning of fraud shamed the Labour councillors into humiliating defeat, wants to be the LibDem parliamentary candidate for Reading West, and has a platform now. Not helpful was it Stuart? Still, now you are in charge of Reading Buses, so onward to fresh triumphs. Hein?

lookin' good

thanks to the Sartorialist for this picture, taken in Melbourne, Australia. He takes pictures of people he thinks look good in what they are wearing, and I have stolen this one.

Lies, damn lies, Basher and Page

Basher McKenzie, apparently now recovered from some kind of agonising disorder of the nether regions, has posted this in which he says it is "not true" that Alfred Sutton playing fields are "earmarked for development". In fact of course it is true. The letter he attaches, in tiny print, to his post, signed by Cllr Tony Page, says as much. The last sentence of that letter in fact says:
"it would not be appropriate nor possible to remove this site from the Site and Detailed Policies Document". That is, er, earmarking the site for development. That is Basher's lie. In fact of course it would be entirely possible to remove the site from that document. That is Cllr Page's lie. I would have thought better of you Tony. They lie to try and save Park ward. But they lost Park ward a long time ago - when then Cllr Howarth watched the football on telly with Cllr Fatboy Hartley instead of going out with their then MP and her team and meeting residents; when Salter's hired thug beat up a Park ward candidate outside the mosque; when the then councillor team, with the honourable exception of then Cllr Christine Borgars, sneered at the residents of Green Road who were worried about the mosque development; when they put in the do-nothing Shirley Merriott, whose haircut alone lost Labour at least 50 votes, as a present for her help in the deselection of their Labour MP; when they told the electorate that fraud in east Reading elections was just fine; and now when they refuse to engage with the electorate and simply tell them lies, very loudly, in leaflets paid for by the taxpayer with money given to Mr Salter and donated to Mr Howarth's Public Impact propaganda outfit. Lost. All gone.

In the name of God, go.

yes or no

My little poll on the demonstrations in Iran is over. Three votes were against the student demonstrations and ten in favour. It seems to me that the issue is clear cut. Guest post opportunity available to anyone who voted and who wants to expand on their position.

let us compare mythologies

with apologies to the great man for borrowing the title of his book of poems, top title though, hein?

Mr Salter actually spoke in the Chamber this week. He prefaced his remarks with this:

It is a pleasure to follow Tony Baldry. I can give him some comfort. I have just done a quick count around the Chamber and a clear majority of Members did not vote for the Iraq war. Let us glory in our purity for a few moments.

That may have been the case on the day. Mr Salter himself certainly did not vote against the Iraq war, despite telling everyone who would listen that he had, and informing the Reading party: "I walked through the No lobby with the full mandate of this party".

He continues later:

We also considered the election of Select Committee Chairs. In 2001, a fiasco occurred within the parliamentary Labour party because of the Executive's attempts to determine who their scrutineers were and to decide that Donald Anderson and Gwyneth Dunwoody were too good at their jobs and would therefore be excluded from the list of people put forward for the Select Committee. The parliamentary Labour party for once was not a poodle, and it rose up. As a result, we brought our internal democracy into that process, and the elected Back-Bench Members in the PLP had a say in the names put forward.

That did indeed happen, and I voted to remove the whips from the appointment of Select Committee chairs, and received a message of thanks from the late Gwyneth Dunwoody. Mr Salter omits to inform us that on that occasion he voted the other way.

Towards the end of his remarks he says this:

The farce of private Members' Bills is currently an exercise in using up time. We march the non-governmental organisations and lobby groups up to the top of the hill, and an inordinate amount of time, paper and rain forest is wasted in debating matters that will never get through, because a Government Whip can stand up on a Friday morning and shout, "Object." For goodness' sake, we have to be better than that.

Er, Martin, how often have you actually turned up on a Friday? Or on any other day? The whips don't stand up to shout "Object". They do it from a sedentary position. Do try and keep up. You've only had 12 years to try and learn how to be a parliamentarian.

they didn't ought to have been and gone and done that

on the Silly Boys website they attack the Reading East MP for "using taxpayers' money to subsidise a political party". Oh dear. The listed office for Reading Labour Party is 413 Oxford Road Reading RG30 1HA, which last time I looked was the taxpayer-funded office for Martin Salter MP. Reading Labour Party's leaflets are mostly produced within that office, using a Risograph machine funded by the taxpayer as part of Mr Salter's constituency office equipment. Mr Salter's expenses returns show regular substantial payments too from the taxpayer to Public Impact Ltd, prop. Mr J. Howarth (remember "Your Better Off With Labour"?) , some of which is laundered into the production of glossy publications for Reading Labour Party. To say nothing of Mr Salter's boasts that "the council delivers my election leaflets" and the regular donation of council facilities free for Reading Labour Party events, promotions and stunts, something which the shamed former chief executive, Trish Haines, told me would continue as long as she was in office, because all the council's facilities were "in the hands of the Labour Group, and that means Martin Salter too". How true. To say even less about Mr Salter's claim of over £40K of taxpayers' money for a non-existent London property between 1997 and 2001.

In the name of God, go.