Author Archives: Mark Pack

Bob Spink, elected in 2005 as Conservative MP for Castle Point, was kicked out of the Conservative Party last month and has now joined UKIP, calling his former party “dishonest”.

From a local news release:

On April 14, 2007, the Conservative Portfolio Holder for Environment, Health and Safety stated in a reply to a Liberal Democrat question at Council that the current combined recycling and composting rate for Winchester was 36.7%.

A few days later, George Beckett, Conservative Leader of the Council published a leaflet claiming that the recycling rate was 40% on the front side of the leaflet. 

By the time he reached the rear side of the same leaflet, the figure had reached 85%.

Lib Dem Councillor Jim Wagner, who asked the

…

Looks like the new week will be much like the old week when it comes to Labour infighting, for Monday’s Times brings us a letter from Charles Clarke in which he lays into Ed Balls:

His injunctions about the “indulgent nonsense” of “private briefings against the Labour leader” certainly come from one who is well acquainted with this kind of activity. Such things do discredit politics and take us back to the days of faction and party-within-a-party that were so damaging in the 1980s…

It’s certainly true that many Labour MPs, including myself, are disappointed by policy decisions such as the

…

Variants on the question “Is Gordon Brown finished?” continue to dominate much political commentary, with The Guardian today running a fascinating first-hand account of what it’s like working with him:

When Gordon Brown used to hold meetings at the Treasury, coffee would be served with the milk already added. I always thought that summed up his style. Such was his eagerness to get on to business that he had no time for the 20 seconds it would take to pass round the jug and the biscuits, a ritual that broke the ice across the rest of Whitehall.

The pieces goes on to …

From their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in Westmorland and Lonsdale:

I seem to be in the middle of a nightmare at present.  The BNP are standing all over my home constituency.  Everyone seems depressed where I am standing for parliament.  Gordon has decided to take money away from his core vote,  PPS’s are threatening to resign!! When are we going to wake up!!!  There is hundreds of councillors who are going to lose their seats if Gordon doesn’t listen.  I am asking please Gordon for the last time wake up and smell the coffee and save the party as in

…

A little while back, the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, made a dramatic announcement that one in six schools in England are breaking the admission rules.

Two problems though.

First, the claim was – shall we say – not exactly right. When it came to checking the evidence – the evidence wasn’t actually there for his claims.

And second, it looks to have been carefully timed to bury some genuine bad news about the number of pupils not getting into their first choice school.

Ah well, you can’t really expect the chap in charge of school education of all people to worry about things …

1. November 2007: Government minister Admiral Lord West says he isn’t convinced that the 28 day limit on detention without trial needs increasing. He talks to Gordon Brown. And lo, within hours of the original story, he changes his mind.

2. April 2008: Government minister Gerry Sutcliffe questions the Government’s policy on alcohol duties. Senior Government sources apply pressure. And lo, within hours of the original story, he changes his mind.

3. April 2008: Angela Smith is going to resign her Government post. She talks to Gordon Brown. And lo, within hours of the original story, she changes her mind.

Note: …

A letter, courtesy of Save the Labour Party website, from the Weston-super-Mare Constituency Labour Party to Gordon Brown:

At the last GC meeting of Weston-super-Mare CLP on the 3rd April 2008 there was a general consensus amongst the attendees regarding the poor performance of the Labour Party in government and unfortunately much of this criticism centered on you…

I refer to the appalling lack of foresight when it was decided to abolish the 10p rate of income tax which according to reliable sources will cause most harm to 5.3 million of the lowest paid – the very people that our Party

…

The Daily Mail and the Telegraph would have us believe that one in five of London’s crimes are committed by foreigners. However, the Five Chinese Crackers blog has done an excellent demolition job on the ‘evidence’ used for this claim, concluding:

To sum up – these figures are meaningless. They don’t measure foreign nationals or immigrants at all. They don’t tell us the number of crimes the people measured are responsible for – only the rate they are accused of crimes compared to the number of crimes people who describe themselves as British are accused of. As I’ve said before,

…

Nick Clegg sets out his answers over on Comment is Free.

The “description” column in the list of candidates nominated for an election is where you normally find the name of the party that a candidate is standing for, or a close variant of it. It’s also what is then used on the ballot papers themselves. Sometimes too people are down as independents or have no descriptions. And then sometimes you have candidates who really don’t understand what “description” is for … as you can see here.

From The Scotsman:

POLICE have been called in to investigate allegations that a Scottish Conservative Party worker stole £150,000 from party funds.

Senior party officials called in the police after the money, thought to have come mainly from subscriptions, disappeared from their Edinburgh offices over the last year.

The missing funds were discovered after a routine financial check, and officers are understood to be investigating a string of accounts to try to trace the money.

The missing funds have sparked a financial crisis, and forced the party to ask donors including Rangers owner Sir David Murray for help covering

…

Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, April 2008: there are “30 active plots” and “since the beginning of 2007, there have been 57 people convicted on terrorist plots.”

Peter Clarke the head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch and national co-ordinator for anti-terrorist investigations, July 2006: Scotland Yard involved in 70 anti-terrorist investigations and over 60 people facing trial on terrorist charges.

It’s true that Clarke and Smith didn’t use exactly the same terms – “plot” vs “investigation” and “facing trial” versus “convicted” (an important difference!).

But, terrorist trials have very high conviction rates (over 90%) and almost by definition what anti-terrorist police …

Councillor quits party and stands as an independent candidate is not a particularly unusual story. It’s not normally a council leader doing this though … so enter stage left, Michael Walton, the Conservative Leader of Tynedale Council who is standing as an independent in May’s elections, up against an official Conservative Party candidate amongst others.

As the Manchester Evening News reports:

Mayor elect in ‘sacking bid’ row
A MAN earmarked for mayor is accused of abusing his position in a bid to get a political rival sacked from her job as a nurse.

Robin Parker, who is due to take over as mayor of Rochdale next month, admits repeatedly emailing bosses of Rochdale Infirmary asking them to take action against Coun Jean Ashworth for publicly criticising the trust.

In his emails he has cited the case of Manchester nurse Karen Reissman who was sacked for speaking out against changes.

He claims he was not using his official town

…

Politics.co.uk reports:

Gordon Brown’s decision not to attend the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony is not enough for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who has called for the prime minister to object to China’s plan to take the Olympic torch to Tibet.

“He should now follow his decision not to attend the opening ceremony by insisting that the Chinese quickly enter into negotiations with the Dalai Lama and abandon the needlessly provocative plan to parade the torch through Tibet,” he said.

Mr Clegg criticised the prime minister for doing “the right thing under pressure, rather than out of conviction”.

“From his reluctance to bring

…

Last month a special election court ruled that Eshaq Khan (who has since been expelled from the Conservative Party) and his supporters carried out “corrupt and illegal practices” to secure his election in Slough. The police have now charged four men with electoral fraud offences.

UPDATE: A fifth man has now been charged.

… but this time, it’s four ex-Labour councillors up against the Labour Party in Northumberland.