During the 2005 UK General Election
and the 2006 local elections, we asked you to register a highly
visible and damaging protest vote against Tony Blair, his style of
government, his right-wing leanings, and his lies about the 'war'
on terror and Iraq.
When going through the Labour Party 2004/5 Campaign Return we suddenly found ourselves in possession of Alastair Campbell's professional contact details.
Given recent auction-related developments and our need for further data-entry funding, our course of action seemed obvious:
The British motor industry has long been a thorn in the side of successive Governments since the early 1970s when British Leyland was synonymous with the breakdown in relations between the unions and management. But in the depressing history of British Leyland's terminal decline there can be no more unedifying illustration of political ineptitude than New Labour's handling of MG Rover.
Fast forward 5 years, to the run up to the 2005 General Election, and things weren't looking quite so rosy. More than £30 million had been siphoned out of the company by the Phoenix Four in a situation that the Financial Times described as "capitalism at its ugliest... a spineless government taken for a ride by entrepreneurs who succeeded only in enriching themselves."
Meanwhile New Labour, in panic and desperation made public pronouncements of support for the MG Rover employees, going so far as to slip the company a £6.5m pre-election bung.
The following would appear to suggest that New Labour paid Experian Intact to cleanse election canvassing data of any MG Rover employees*.
The relevant entry appears here, in document number HO809 from the Labour Party's campaign return:
Full details from the invoice appear in text below (with the relevant data highlighted):
Return Document Number: HO809 Invoice Number: E504197 Company: Experian Intact Address: Synectics House, The Brampton, Newcastle, Staffordshire ST5 0QY Date Expense Incurred: 29/04/2005 Total Invoice Amount: £1,692.00 Amount to be Included in Return: 100% Labour Party Contact Name: Lee Williams Expenditure Type: Voting Research Comments: Data services
Invoice Details:
7 Intact Teleappending jobs undertaken in April 2005 as shown on the attached spreadsheet @ 195 each - £1365.00
Data cleansing undertaken on MG Rover database: OSIS - No. of records: 2,676 @ rate: 0.0075 - £20.07 Bureau Fee - $54.93 Total - £75.00
Net - £1440.00 VAT - £252.00 TOTAL - £1692.00
(* We fully acknowledge the possibility that New Labour paid Experian Intact to add MG Rover workers to their existing database... or build/correct a special database comprised only of MG Rover workers so they could call each one of them in turn to apologise.)
[NOTE - We are currently busy processing the Labour Party's complete campaign return in order to teach the powers that be what the words 'public domain' really mean. Soon you'll be able to search through the documents yourself and find other juicy nuggets that journalists missed in their haste to ruffle Cherie's hair. The devil is in the detail, folks... and we plan to give you access to as much of it as we can. If you wish to help pay for the time spent on data entry, you can click here to make a donation. Thank you.]
UPDATE - Here is the relevant entry from the return summary. Note especially that the expenditure is classified as 'Voter Research' and not 'Unsolicited Materials addressed to Electors' (the latter is what one would expect if this particular data service was used to build a list for a targeted call/letter).
(Entry HO809 from) Head Office - General Election Campaign Spending 2004/5
Item Number for the Return: HO809 Invoice Number: E504197 Name of Supplier: Experian Intact Address of Supplier: Synectics House, The Brampton, Newcastle, Staff. ST5 0QY Date Expense Incurred: 29/04/2005 Invoice Date: 29/04/2005 Date Invoice Paid: 03/06/2005 Total Invoice Amount: £1,692.00 Portion applied/included in return: 100% Amount to be included in return: £1,692.00 Type of expenditure: Voting Research Description: Data services
When you've finally hounded Brian Haw into an early grave, you can auction off all the placards you've seized.... including those two original works by Banksy (assuming, of course, that they weren't damaged when police stuffed them inside that metal container).
Okay, there still work to be done, not only in ensuring that Blair is removed from any position of authority, but also in ensuring that his replacement is chosen through open and democratic methods, rather than as a result of some deals done behind closed doors. In the meantime, a bit of humour for you...
Tony Blair was visiting a British School, the teacher asked the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, if he would like to lead the discussion on the word "tragedy." So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a "tragedy." One little boy stood up and offered,
"If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs him over and kills him, that would be a tragedy." "No," said Blair "that would be an accident."
A little girl raised her hand: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy." "I'm afraid not." explained the PM. "That's what we would call a great loss."
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Blair searched the room. "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of tragedy?"
Finally at the back of the room a small boy raised his hand. In a quiet voice he said: "If an aircraft carrying you, Mr. Blair, was struck by a "friendly fire" missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy."
"Fantastic!" exclaimed Blair. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?"
"Well," says the boy, "it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be an accident either."
BBC - Judges rule against peace vigil: The government has won its appeal against a legal ruling which allowed peace activist Brian Haw to continue his five-year vigil outside Parliament.
Guardian - War protestor dealt court blow: The Stop The War Coalition, which backed Mr Haw, said the decision was "another stab in the back" for democracy. Spokesman Andrew Bergin said: "We are very disappointed by this ruling, which we believe is completely wrong. The anti-war movement is determined to continue to uphold the right to democratically and peacefully protest outside Parliament."
UPDATE - Do you remember Tony Blair using Brian Haw as evidence of his liberalism? Well cop this: I am concerned less with the court's interpretation of the law than with the government's shameful attitude. Its motives for getting rid of Haw boiled down to two. His demo was a bit of a mess. It spoiled the view for tourists visiting Parliament. Personally, I find the concrete fortifications in front of the Palace of Westminster far uglier and more offensive. The other point made was that every day, in his journey from Downing Street to the House of Commons, the prime minister was forced to pass Haw's protest and could not avoid seeing the banners and placards.
BBC - Labour must rethink web - Blair: Tony Blair has said Labour must rethink its website as it seeks to bounce back from its local election disappointment. In a letter to new Labour chairman Hazel Blears, the prime minister said "innovative ways of communicating" and "radical thinking" were needed. He said: "We must move from a mainly passive relationship...to one where supporters interact with us, with local party members and with each other."
In principle he's right... but he's operating with one hell of a blind spot and we think you can guess what that is.
(Note for the record: Once Blair goes, we're available for hire. In principle.)
The Labour Party Campaign Expenditure Investigation Fund
Recently, we asked the Electoral Commission for a copy of every single invoice/receipt/document from the recent Labour party campaign expenditure return.
As chance would have it, the data we requested from the Electoral Commission becomes available from today.
But there's a problem...
Originally, it was estimated that there were 1,500 documents relating to Labour's expenditure. Now the photocopying has been done, it turns out that there are 2,790 of them... so we're caught short on our very tight budget and find ourselves £129 shy of the total copying fee.
If we get over and above the required amount, we'll let you know ASAP (and perhaps begin a further fund-raising drive so we can also afford to scan and publish every single document online... then *you* can give them a good going-over, too).
UPDATE - OK folks, we're there. And then some. Thank you to everyone who donated. Especially our most generous donor by far... Julian Todd of Public Whip.
Most of the results are in and, as expected, Labour lost more than 250 councillors. Sure, it's a long way short of the 400 that some sources were claiming possible, but by no stretch of the imagination could last night be considered anything other than disastrous for New Labour.
So, Blair's had a lousy nine days with Cabinet colleagues making cock-ups both figurative and literal, and he's taken a drubbing in local elections which were as much a reflection on his leadership as a contest on local issues. What does he do?
Obviously really, play the Ministerial Okeycokey, also known as the Cabinet (re-)Shuffle.
As Justin predicted, the Safety Elephant was given the boot, only to be replaced by Dr John Reid, another odious member of the Scottish Mafia that Blair relies on. If you thought things were bad under Clarke, just wait 'til you see Reid at the Home Office. This is the former Communist Party member whose move the right has been achieved without a shred of shame or embarrassment; the man who was implicated in the Lobbygate scandal; the same person who was a drinking buddy of Radovan Karadzic. Oh, and not forgetting the cannabis found in a public area of his home.
Meanwhile, Clarke now exits, stage left, to the back benches, proclaiming his loyalty to Blair, whilst undoubtedly planning a Howe-esque savaging of his boss.
Straw gets demoted from the Foreign Office, possibly in an effort to separate him from Condie before he can get caught trying to boost transatlantic relations Prescott-style. He is replaced by Margaret Beckett, who has been handed the poisoned chalices that are Iraq and Iran. Once again she manages to avoid being in DeFRA at the wrong time, arriving after the foot and mouth fiasco, and leaving before bird flu.
Ruth Kelly leaves Education, having managed to survive the passage of Blair's flagship education reforms. She'll get Two Shags' portfolio as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's powers are passed to the newly created Department for Community and Local Government.
Former Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon comes back, as Minister for Europe, another newly-created role.
There's more, but it all gets pretty tedious. This isn't a significant change to the heart of government; it is merely an attempt by Blair to build a shield wall around him. This is not about better government; it is about ensuring the continuation of New Labour and Thatcherism with added guitars.
The Labour Party is now faced with stark choices. Blair has, with this reshuffle, made it blatantly obvious that he is sticking around until his anointed successor can be appointed. Bringing Reid to the Home Office brutally sticks two fingers up at Gordon Brown, who by now must surely realise that if he wants the Premiership, he's going to have to fight for it. Given his lack of cojones, expect a drawn out, internecine bitch-slapping session rather than any coherent contest based on policies and ideology.
The solution is simply stated. By the Party Conference this autumn, the Labour Party must rid itself of Blair, and ensure that a open leadership contest takes place. There must be no shoe-ins, no handover of power through backroom deals. The party must learn the lessons of Blairism, rediscover its values and beliefs (both of which New Labour is sadly deficient) and truly move forward. And it must be done now, before the Party finds itself once more unelectable.
The Nether-World - Labour's grim night: Tony Blair is said to be having a cabinet reshuffle today in the hope that this will deflect attention from Labour's disastrous results and give the impression that Blair is still in control. It won't!
We beg to differ.
We fear it will work. On the public... for a while... and at further cost to Labour's dwindling fortunes.
Today we will be assured that all is well; that the 26% result was really no different to the 2004 local elections, and that Labour went on to win the 2005 General Election (with a whopping 22%).
Oh, but don't go making the mistake of thinking that result is part of a long-term problem. The lovely Tessa was assuring us well before any real results were in that this was only because the last 9-12 days were so very awful.
Not that things are as awful as all that... (we will also be reminded that 254278 319 is not 350 or 400).
Lessons learned, robust government, determination to pursue reforms etc. etc. etc.
We await the details of the reshuffle with interest. If Blair puts the Safety Elephant out to pasture and puts Hoon in charge of the Home Office, then serious questions will need to be asked about his priorities. And his sanity.
The Times - Blair and Cameron get ready: The timetable for the election results means that political anoraks will have to stay up until after dawn to get a true feel for the results, with many London seats declaring between 3am and 6am... The great unknown is how low the turnout will be. Lower turnout is worse for Labour and anything below 30 per cent could prove disastrous.
(Note: We forgot where we saw it, but there was an article late last week about the bulk of postal votes being postmarked last Wednesday... i.e. the Wednesday that Tony Blair assures us was in no way coloured black because nobody lost their homes or had their milk snatched or...)
The Mirror - Blair's plea to voters: Labour fears that if disenchanted voters stay at home, the Tories could gain local power by the backdoor. And it is bracing itself for election wipeout with as many as 300 councillors losing their seats. Privately, Labour insiders admits losses of more than 250 seats will be a disastrous. If the party is overtaken by David Cameron's Conservatives in just 273 seats, Labour would no longer be the largest force in local government.
Monsters & Critics - Key test for Labour: Should the Tories under David Cameron make inroads, Labour could lose at a minimum around 100 to 150 seats. Worst case scenarios put the figure closer to 300.
Monsters & Critics - U.K. parties face voters' verdict: A tolerable result for Labour would be a loss of around 100 to 150 seats, said Patrick Dunleavy, professor of government at LSE; a loss of 300 would be 'cataclysmic.' His predictions were echoed by John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who wrote in the Independent newspaper last week that even if Labor were to do no more than repeat its 'disastrous' performance in the 2004 local elections -- when anti-war voters deserted the party in droves -- it should still not lose much more than 150 seats. Losses much above the 250 mark would be 'potentially nasty' for Blair....
BBC - Leaders face local poll test: A rough and ready calculator suggests if Labour loses 150 seats, that will be within the bounds of manageability - the sort of thing that might reasonably be expected. Labour may even suggest that, against such an appalling background of the foreign offender row and John Prescott's private life, amongst other things, it's not so bad after all... It is already being rumoured that if the party suffers over 200-250 losses then Tony Blair's days will be numbered, with serious figures demanding an announcement over his departure date or even a swift resignation.
Lotsa talk today about a new number... 400. Is this meant to scare the voters? Make any number lower than this look not quite as bad?
Independent - Blair tries to head off disaster with show of power: The troubles have overshadowed Labour's election campaign and party officials fear Labour could lose up to 400 seats - their "worst-case scenario". They admit plans to fight on local issues have been scuppered by the crises.
Guardian - Labour braced for heavy blow and 400 losses in local elections: Labour expects to lose 400 councillors and control of 15-16 councils across England in local elections today. The figures are significantly worse than officials had suggested only a week ago. A net loss of 400 seats - with 4,361 seats up for grabs - would represent a grievous blow and take the number of Labour councillors nationally down to around 6,000, the lowest figure since the 1980s. Labour expects to lose half the boroughs it controls in London including Bexley, Merton, Croydon, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey and probably Camden. The predictions, based on the latest canvass returns and internal polling, show a dramatic worsening of the position due to the party's appalling recent publicity.
The Scum - Blair braced for disaster: Tony Blair was this morning smiling at the polling station despite facing a Black Thursday at the elections. He is resigned to huge losses nationwide. It emerged last night he has been warned privately that today's local elections could even produce a nightmare scenario of 400 lost seats. [GRAPHIC: 300-plus losses: Devastating. Time for Tone and Cherie to dust off plans for retirement. 150-plus losses: Poor. Prime Minister's grip on the Labour party is damaged forever. Below 150 losses: Good. Cherie can buy some more furniture for Downing St.]
Okay, so tomorrow is polling day for the local government elections in England, and you're probably thinking "What's the point in getting out to vote?" or "So who the hell do I vote for?". So instead of exercising your democratic right, you take the kids out for a picnic or a trip to a theme park.
Well, make the most of it, because it may not be long before such an attitude could cost you as much as £40.
The Institute for Public Policy Research has just published a report calling for the introduction of compulsory voting. The report has the backing of many in government, and it isn't hard to see why. In last year's general election, Labour claimed victory on a 36% share the vote, yet turnout was only 61%. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the state of democracy in this country.
And the 2002 local elections were worse, with turnout as low as 32%!
Now, compulsory voting isn't actually going to make people vote. So if the report's recommendations were to be introduced, it would be essential that voters have an opportunity to register their displeasure with the policies of all candidates. The addition of a "None of the above" option must be a integral part of any introduction of compulsion. And the reporting of such figures as spoiled ballots including "None of the above" must also be clearly reported.
Of course, people might be more inclined to vote without compulsion if they felt their vote actually counted. To achieve that would require the introduction of proportional representation, something that Labour promised in 1997 and 9 years later has still failed to deliver. Understandable really, given that the current system allows a Party to form a majority government without actually receiving the endorsement of a majority of the electorate.
So compulsory voting will be the most likely way forward, especially if Gordon Brown replaces Tony Blair. After all, how could Brown resist the introduction of another item of stealth taxation, namely a Non-Voting Tax or, more ironically, a Non-Poll Tax.
Given all this, and taking in to account the undesirability for many of voting Conservative or Lib-Dem, why don't you get in practice for saving £40. Tomorrow, go to your local polling station, and in large, friendly letters write NONE OF THE ABOVE across your ballot paper. Alternative, print off a Backing Blair logo or image and, using an easily concealed glue dispenser such as Pritstick, paste it onto your ballot.
Ideally, we'd prefer it if you actively voted against New Labour, but for many that is too much to ask. But failing that, try our alternative above.
It's the day before an election when things look their rosiest... then the people you put your trust in turn around and screw you all over again.
This - believe it or not - is as good as it gets.
Enjoy it while it lasts... and don't do anything silly like vote for Labour while Blair's still in office, OK? Whispered promises/hints of action just don't cut it.
Clarke takes one last desperate gasp of your precious oxygen
Backing Blair (April 26): One can only wonder what new, exciting and misguided authoritarian measure will be used to over-compensate for this disgraceful state of affairs...
*sigh*
Guardian - Clarke to toughen deportation laws: Home Secretary Charles Clarke is to announce plans to strengthen the law on deporting foreign prisoners, it has been confirmed. They will include the introduction of a presumption that any foreign national who is convicted of an imprisonable offence should be deported.
Well, I suppose, having been dragged in front of Parliament, he has to say *something*... so it's back to the tried and trusted method of using headline-grabbing authoritarian measures to mask incompetence and failure.
In his next move, Clarke will respond to news that criminals have been mistakenly released after trial by doing away with trials*.
(*This is a joke, obviously. Charles Clarke will never get to make this move because Tony Blair has decided that this is such an important crisis that he simply must wait until after the local elections to put someone competentreasonably competent who backs him in charge.)
Blair Watch: This shows the weakness of New Labour at the moment as they would have desperately wanted to hold off a statement until after Thursday's elections, as their political advantage far outweighs public safety or the right of an elected parliament to know what's going on.
Sunday Herald - Blair needs to reshuffle the Cabinet … including getting rid of himself: We could have four more years of this debilitating, damaging, depressing political farce. If that thought increases the national sense of depression, we understand and sympathise. More screw-ups await, more errors, more apologies, more heads-must-roll weeks, more worst-ever weeks. The sense of democratic fragmentation is heightened when it appears the Prime Minister's sole concern is to shore up the project, keep ministers in office when they should have be sacked and pretend the vacuum of authority he is operating in is, in his own words "just the way it is".
Pandora: John "two shags" Prescott reckons the Mail on Sunday should be carpeted by the Press Complaints Commission for buying up the "excoriating" diaries of his mistress, Tracey Temple. Perhaps, when the dust has settled, he'll think again. For it turns out that some of Prezza's most embarrassing bedroom secrets were deleted from the memoir prior to publication. Sources close to Temple report that three key anecdotes from her hand-written diaries were missing from the MoS's seven pages of edited highlights. The first referred to an under-sized feature of the Deputy PM's anatomy, which Temple compared to a "cocktail sausage". The second described efforts to use pharmaceuticals to resurrect what the newspaper later referred to as "an unsuccessful attempt at sex". The third contained detailed accounts of a "Lewinskyesque" encounter in the Whitehall office of Prescott, left. According to sources at the Mail on Sunday, all three passages were removed for reasons of taste. "Tempting though it was, we didn't think our readers want to read graphic accounts of this sort of thing," says one. "We are, as they say, a family newspaper." Yesterday, though Temple's "censored" recollections were sweeping through Westminster, having been aired on the internet site of the publisher Iain Dale. "Far from threatening to take the MoS to the PCC, Prescott should be sitting down tonight and writing a handwritten letter of thanks to their editor," he reckons.
Typical. It's always the guys with the little cocks that turn out to be sexual predators.
Instead of trying not to think about it (we know it's tempting) spare a thought for all those women who suffered after spurning his clumsy advances over the years... and all those who suffered after succumbing to them.
UPDATE - Hm. This is going to take a great deal of whitewash. Best break out two rescue teams...
The Times - Prescott's office to deal with inquiry into his love affair: Two government departments are to conduct an inquiry into whether John Prescott abused his position as a Cabinet minister in his two-year relationship with his diary secretary, Tracey Temple. The Cabinet Office and Mr Prescott's own Deputy Prime Minister's department confirmed yesterday that they will look into the claims made by Ms Temple, who is still a civil servant.
Telegraph - Prescott slips through gap in code: The chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life criticised Tony Blair yesterday for failing to allow independent investigations into alleged sexual misconduct by ministers. In a clear reference to the John Prescott affair, Sir Alistair Graham, the head of the Government-appointed watchdog, said a "significant gap" existed in dealing with alleged non-financial breaches of the ministerial code.
Polly Toynbee - Labour MPs at last seem to be ready to ditch Tony Blair: So Labour supporters tempted to give Tony Blair a bloody nose by letting Tories in might consider the damage it may do in the long term. Emailers ask angrily how else they can express their fury. The answer again, I'm afraid, is that old nosepeg. Don't use good local Labour councillors to get your revenge on the PM. His MPs look determined to see him off this time, roughly if need be, should he be foolish enough not to go soon.
Sorry, Polly. No more nosepegs. There still exists a pronounced risk that Blair can weather this storm and deliver a reshuffle instead of the fresh deck (and dealer) that's required. And we remember how well Blair 'learned his lesson' after the last election. (Take a look at this action, taken a mere 40 days after the 2005 election as just one example.)
Bob Piper said it best (see 'comments' for quote): "I can understand your reservations on [insert issue here], but your local councillor is hardly to blame. Having said that, every vote for Labour will be claimed by Blair as a vote of confidence in him."
No more promises. No more delays. We've had enough.
There'll be no more votes for Labour until Labour deals with Blair.
Politics.co.uk - Blair hits campaign trail: Tony Blair is on the campaign trail today as he hopes to get Labour back 'on message' just days before the local election. The party is bracing itself for a major defeat in Thursday's polls, following another weekend of headlines about two of his most senior ministers. Some analysts predict Labour could lose up to 200 council seats across England and Wales, while there is also a possibility that it could lose control in London.
The Nether-World - Damage Limitation: Tony Blair is desperately trying to plug the holes in his sinking New Labour ship. Knowing that his party is going to do very badly in Thursday's elections, the Prime Minister is out on the campaign trail in an attempt to improve Labour's prospects. He's got his work cut out. Labour is expecting its worst results since 1968.
Would it help, hinder or make no difference to Labour if Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair now? Help Labour: 27% Harm Labour: 18% No real difference: 51% Don't know: 4%
Related links:
Guardian - Ministers say Blair must name day: Senior cabinet ministers want the prime minister to rescue his flailing government by agreeing a public date on which he will hand power to the chancellor.
Backing Blair - Brownout: We stopped holding any dim hope of Gordon Brown presenting any kind of viable leadership solution well over a year ago.
Guardian - Clarke withheld deportation facts from Blair: The home secretary took more than three weeks to tell the prime minister that serious offenders were among the foreign convicts released without facing deportation, it emerged today. A Home Office spokeswoman said the delays - revealed by the Times - occurred while the Home Office was "working hard to clarify the situation". "The prime minister was told as soon as the full extent of the problem was known," she said.
Clarke: ... eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve... and... Hm. The guard's van appears to be missing.
Blair: What exactly are you doing, Charles?
Clarke: I'm trying to gauge the full extent of the train that's headed right for y..
[SFX: There is an almighty crash]
Clarke: Oh, I'm *dreadfully* sorry, Prime Minister.
We dare to hope... we dare to dream... but we can't stop thinking about Kenny the Rooster for some reason:
An old farmer has about 200 hens, but no rooster, and he wants chicks.
So he goes down the road to the next farmer and asks if he has a rooster that he would sell. The other farmer says, "Yeah, I've got this neat rooster named Kenny. He'll service every chicken you got, no problem."
Well, Kenny the rooster costs a lot of money, but the farmer decides he'd be worth it.
The old farmer buys Kenny. He takes Kenny home and sets him down in the barnyard, first, giving the rooster a pep talk: "I want you to pace yourself now, Kenny, you've got a lot of chickens to service here, and you cost me a lot of money ... consequently, I'll need you to do a good job. So, take your time and have some fun."
Kenny seemed to understand, so the farmer pointed toward the henhouse and Kenny took off like a shot. WHAM!- Kenny nails every hen in the henhouse three or four times! The farmer is shocked. After that the farmer hears a commotion in the duck pen, sure enough, Kenny is in there.
Later, the farmer sees Kenny after a flock of geese, down by the lake. Once again - WHAM! He nails all the geese three or four times.
By sunset he sees Kenny out in the fields chasing quail and pheasants.
The farmer is distraught and worried that his expensive rooster won't even last 24 hours.
Sure enough, the farmer awakens the next morning only to find Kenny on his back, feet in the air, stone still in the middle of the yard, vultures are circling overhead.
The farmer, saddened by the loss of such a colorful and expensive animal, shakes his head and says, "Oh, Kenny, I told you to pace yourself. I tried to get you to slow down, now look what you've done to yourself!"
Kenny opens one eye, nods toward the buzzards circling in the sky and says: "Shhhhhh, they're getting closer."
This is from a Scum article brought to our attention by Blair Watch: Bungling Home Secretary Charles Clarke did NOT offer to quit last week over the freed foreign convicts scandal. He told the BBC he had offered to go - which infuriated Prime Minister Tony Blair. The PM stormed out of the Commons on Wednesday after being humiliated about his refusal to accept the "phantom" resignation. The revelation comes as Mr Blair’s celebrations for his ninth anniversary as PM lie in tatters.
There's more from the Scum... pretend-blogger Trevor Kavanagh spells it out here: (Charles Clarke) has lost some of the PM's goodwill by wrongly blurting out his claim that he had offered his resignation and had it turned down. The first Mr Blair knew about this was when he heard the Home Secretary announce it on the BBC - effectively making it impossible for him to be sacked. This explains why Mr Blair left the Commons like a shot after Question Time on Wednesday - before Mr Clarke opened his mouth to explain how he managed to "lose" 1,023 foreign hoodlums.
Rachel North - Lazy and deceitful: Right. I've bloody well had enough of the Home Secretary. I've tried to keep quiet about it because we are supposed to be meeting up again in May, this time with other survivors of 7/7, and so I judged it pertinent to keep it zipped in the interests of further fruitful dialogue... But I can't keep schtum anymore.
Pandora reports: The last thing Tony Blair needs right now is for another loyal minister's head to appear on the chopping block. If he thought Tessa Jowell was out of the woods, he'd better think again, though. The Culture Secretary, only recently recovered from the David Mills affair, is about to be thrown back into the firing line. Last week, Pandora raised an eyebrow at Jowell's comments in Parliament about a (highly criticised) decision to award a £30,000 lottery grant to Manchester United. It was, she said, nothing to do with her. "This decision was taken by the regional sports board of Sports England. This was not a decision ministers were party to." As I pointed out, these comments directly contradict those of the Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, who had days earlier told The Sunday Telegraph that he was "directly involved" in that very decision. They can't have both been telling the truth. And tomorrow, the Conservative MP Nigel Evans will table two Parliamentary Questions to find out what's been going on. The questions, drafts of which have been seen by this column, will require Jowell to confirm that the comments she made to Parliament were accurate. Presuming that she replies in the affirmative, MPs can draw two explanations. Either Caborn lied to The Sunday Telegraph; or he told truth, but Jowell was ignorant of what he was up to. Either way, it won't look good.
There's a lot of dirt to be dug up here... Labour's behaviour over lottery funds has raised many questions in the past, with the direction of funds somehow straying to pet/high-profile projects and/or programmes that should be covered by mainstream taxation. There's also the matter of the illusion of charity... in 2003, Camelot ran a series of ads that focused on the recipients of grants, implying - as Private Eye put it - that purchasing a lottery ticket was "an act of charity rather than a business transaction (looking) very much like a breach of both Camelot’s own code of practice and the ITC rules for television advertising."
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