Vince Cable gives the Liberal Democrat repsonse over on Comment is Free.

Here’s the relevant text: 

Regular readers of this newsletter will know that your local MP, Theresa Villiers, and two local Conservative Councillors, Wendy Prentice and Bridget Perry have always been against moving Foulds into the site of the Barnet Countryside Centre at the end of Byng Road.

Conservatives In Touch with High Barnet ward newsletter, number 39, June 2007, London Borough of Barnet

Sounds a reasonable expression of local concern perhaps?

But remember that phrase “have always been against” and now read this:

“One of Barnet’s oldest schools, Foulds School in Byng Road, is to be re-built … the northern end of Byng Road,

…

A recent edition of Channel 4’s Dispatches programme looked at Britain’s housing shortage and revived questions over donations made to the Labour Party in Manchester. I’ve just got hold of a transcript, so if you missed the show, here’s the story:

Manchester Central Constituency Labour Party has received more donations from property developers than any other in the country – tens of thousands of pounds. They’ve even solicited cash.

On 1st June 2004, the party held a fundraising breakfast here at the Manchester City Art Gallery. Among the donations was £5,000 from a company called “Ask Property Developments”.

The Labour Party did well in the subsequent election and was returned to power. And this is when things take an interesting turn.

You may have noticed there’s been a bit of a fuss over whether the Conservative Party has done a bit of a u-turn over its logo.

Their tree logo seemed to undergo a change of colour, dropping the use of green for a more traditional Conservative blue and adding in a splash of clouds.

But today the BBC reported this:

A Conservative Party spokeswoman … told the BBC: “We are not changing it at all. When we launched the tree last year there were various colours on it.

“You can change the backdrop on it. You can change the colour of the tree to

…

So says The Guardian:

The Labour party has approached agencies to pitch for its advertising account as it gears up for a possible general election campaign.

Campaign Magazine also says:

Beattie McGuinness Bungay, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, Clemmow Hornby Inge and Partners, VCCP and the digital agency Profero are understood to be among the agencies contacted.

Labour seems to be gearing up for one with the appointment of Jon Mendelsohn to a key general election post.

Of the various people who only briefly feature in Alistair Campbell’s published diaries his is perhaps the oddest cameo – spending most of the day sitting in a pub in case President Bill Clinton visited it.

There’s an interesting piece from 1998 on Jon Mendelsohn’s business background here, which includes the comment:

Mr Mendelsohn, who used to handle Mr Blair’s business contacts, retains close – some say too close – links with … Lord Levy, the party’s fund-raiser.

His lobbying firm of …

If so, Vince Cable wants to know them.

If you’d been following Gordon Brown’s comments about terrorism in the media, you could be forgiven for thinking that he doesn’t want to score party political points on the matter, and in fact wants cross-party consensus.

Just look at what Patrick Wintour wrote in The Guardian, what Sky News reported or what Philip Johnson wrote in The Telegraph.

They all talked about how Gordon Brown wants consensus. Sounds fairly reasonable doesn’t it? All parties pull together for the common good in the face of threats to our security, etc etc.

Only one problem with this picture. It’s that small matter of …

David Cameron’s “arrogant Old Etonian” approach has cost him the support of Tom Cowie, who until now has been one of the Conservative Party’s top donors, giving over £630,000 to the party since 2001.

Tom Cowie, president of Arriva (the bus and train company) will instead donate funds in future to the Prince’s Trust:

“The Tory party seems to be run now by Old Etonians and they don’t seem to understand how other people live. They seem to be very arrogant like I suppose Old Etonians can be.”

More details in The Guardian.

UPDATE: Barcharters Anonymous has a good round up of recent Tory …

Chris Huhne today attacked Gordon Brown’s green credentials, pointing out that he has just downgraded the Government’s top committee dealing with environmental matters and axed completely another key body. Not exactly a sign of taking the issue seriously…

The Liberal Democrats have just kicked off a new transport policy making process. A consultation document will be produced ready for debate at the Spring 2008 conference, but you need not wait until then to start having your say. The first stages of the online consultation are already up and running over on the party’s policy consultation website.

From today’s edition of The Herald:

Scottish Labour lost the May election because of infighting over control, a poorly thought out manifesto and the facts that the party had little momentum or a positive message …

The Colwell memo states the campaign was “relentlessly negative with little that can be judged to be positive.

“The national organisation was hampered by in-fighting over who was in control, while local organisation was patchy. It seemed that the party has been hollowed out,” though in some places candidate effort and headquarters support made a difference.

Full story on The Herald’s website.

I suspect most politicians have used the “it’s a hypothetical question” reason to avoid answering a question. Over at Slate there’s an interesting piece praising Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama for his enthusiasm in answering hypotheticals, which very much sets him out from the crowd.

Hat tip: Comment Central.

Click below to play this TV clip: 

From The Telegraph:

Grassroots Tories fear election defeat

For the first time since Mr Cameron took over as Tory leader, a majority of Conservative activists believe that he will not be the next Prime Minister, according to the survey.

The Electoral Commission has published its proposals for reducing the number of British MEPs from 78 to 72. The cut is driven by the expansion of the EU, with the number of MEPs countries have being reduced so that the total size of the European Parliament doesn’t swell to ridiculous proportions.

Their proposals don’t automatically become law, but it’s extremely likely that they will. So here’s how things are likely to be looking at the next European elections: East Midlands, London, North West, South West, West Midlands and Scotland each lose one MEP.

Full details on the Electoral Commission’s website.

My keyboard brings cheery news for Conservative MP Alan Duncan. He can now vary his day calling for the expulsion of Michael Howard and other Conservatives by also calling for Labour to drum this candidate out of their party, along with this one, this one, Alan Milburn MP and Julie Morgan MP.

Their sin? They’ve all used that “straight choice” phrase which Mr Duncan claims is homphobic.

You can also have a pop at the SNP for using the phrase too – must all be a bunch of homophobes too, right? Though in …