The MP who sparked the cash-for-honours inquiry has apologised for a lapse of judgement after a newspaper said he had a “drunken romp” with two teenagers.
The Sunday Mail reported that the SNP’s Angus MacNeil “kissed and fondled” the girls in a hotel room in July 2005.
The Western Isles MP said he bitterly regretted the incident which took place at a post-ceilidh party in Shetland.
More.
Calderdale politics seem to be as lively as ever this year with Chris O’Connor, a former Conservative Mayor, standing as an independent against a Conservative councillor (Hipperholme and Lightcliffe ward) whilst Shakir Saghir is standing for the English Democrats in Park ward, where he used to be a Conservative councillor (as was his father, whilst his brother this year is standing in another ward for the Conservatives).
Liberal Democrats Ming Campbell and Nick Clegg come out as two of the top three in this survey.
More interesting news from Northampton: two of the independent candidates this year are Peter Evans, a sitting Labour councillor and their current Chief Whip (!), and Tony Clarke, who was MP for Northampton South 1997-2005 (when he was defeated). The local paper has more on this very odd tale.
As Northampton is also the site of the Conservative telephone poll rigging scandal the Liberal Democrat prospects in the city seems to be getting better and better.
As pointed out in the comments on a previous posting, the Liberal Democrats have retained control of two parish councils this week: Bradfield in South Yorkshire and Kidlington in Oxfordshire.
Why “unfortunate”? Well, these two electoral triumphs are due to the hard working local Focus team delivering numerous leaflets with bar charts failure of other parties to put up enough candidates. Right results, but a pair of contested elections would probably have been the better route to it.
UPDATE: Ther are some more councils to add to the list – Abbots Langley Parish Council and also, curiously, Hedge End Town Council. Given that …
Congratulations to Cllr Stuart Beadle, who will be re-elected in May after his only opponent, a Conservative, turned up at Broadland District Council HQ with his nomination papers twenty minutes too late.
Lord Greaves warns candidates to lay off the food.
Mind you, as for his quote “Some people go along to the rallies of a particular candidate because they know they are going to get a lot of food” – isn’t that the reason the National Union of Teachers fringe is always packed at conference? Yum yum, fish and chips.
The latest poll (in today’s Scotsman) would give the SNP 44 seats (+17), Labour 39 (-11), Liberal Democrats 24 (+7) and Conservatives 15 (-3). (There aren’t complete figures for the other parties).
These figures are not nearly as good for the SNP as previous polls, causing the Scotsman to write:
Voters bring high-flying SNP back down to earth … the findings are likely to be a blow to Nationalist morale, which was boosted by other polls which suggested they could win up to 50 seats at Holyrood.
Robin Harris:
(a) Worked for the Conservative party, and
(b) Was David Cameron’s boss
So you might expect him to have nice things to say about how his former employee has come so far etc.
But no.
His verdict on Cameron? He is an “out and out opportunist” and “I don’t believe David Cameron believes anything” (except presumably the vote appeal of regularly changing your clothes).
Hat tip: Matthew Pearce
Colin Ross has the story about Mike Dolman in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Worth watching for a laugh. Billed as a “day in the life” of the First Minster, it’s clearly the day that Jack McConnell was stalked by Annabel Goldie as the voice of God:
Congratulations to Rebecca Hunt, selected to be PPC for Maidstone and The Weald, and to Sarah Carr who has been selected to take the baton from Paul Keetch in Hereford.
Thanks to Mark Valladares and Colin Ross for the head’s up.
It’s a common complaint that when phone polls run by newspapers produce odd results the papers often publish them anyway. So full credit to one local paper for taking a rather close look at the results of its phone poll over whether the pay-off given to Northampton Council’s (now former) Chief Executive should be made public:
THE CONSERVATIVES have been accused of trying to rig a Chronicle & Echo phone poll by deluging the newspaper’s vote line with multiple calls … An amazing 46 per cent of the “no” votes came from two phones owned by the deputy leader of the council, Councillor
…
Cllr Suzanne Fletcher has been Lib Dem Mayor of Stockton Borough Council since last May, and as Mayor, she’s been writing up her days on a blog on the Borough Council’s website.
The idea has been a huge success. The community groups she has visited have been thrilled with the coverage and the photographs on the website. There’s even been a small amount of evidence that some groups have invited her just so they can appear on the blog.
Unfortunately, the blog has been removed by over-zealous interpretations of “purdah”, which is a legal concept preventing councils from publicizing councillors standing for …
As Jonathan Wallace points out, there’s one slight flaw in the Conservative Party’s excitement at the number of Liberal Democrat councillors who have switched to them. More have actually switched from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats (11 to 10) than have gone the other way since the end of Michael Howard’s leadership.
And I don’t think his figures include the latest switch from Conservative to Liberal Democrat (via independent) by Bev Brennan.
The sixth of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator, together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.
A rather eclectic mix this week, in descending order of popularity:
1. ‘Nick Clegg’s Leadership Plans’ on Linda Jack’s Lindyloo’s Muze blog.
Linda teases her readers with a promise of the inside-track on the Sheffield Hallam MP’s always-honourable intentions…
2. ‘Pics from the inside of the stately home of the Lord Rennard’ on Jonathan Wallace’s blog
Yes, it turns out Lib Dem blog readers are just as
…
Specualtion has been to rife as to all the opposition parties will nominate as their candidate for Mayor of London and take on Red Ken. The Tories are having a primary to consider the huge range heavy-hitters being touted, such as Nick Boles, Steve Morris and Iain Dale, while the Greens have just plumped for Sian Berry over veteran Green candidate David Icke.
But who will we Lib Dems field? One candidate mentioned in the Tory race as an outside possibility is none other than John Major. Oh yes. The former PM is enjoying a resurgance in popular support, as the …
A little light relief for the weekend. I’ve been reading David Steel’s party conference speech from 1976, as you do:
I have been leader of the Party for less than three months. During this short period I have not lacked advice on what I should do … These submissions have ranged from the useful through the exotic – such as the plea that I could end the nation’s drought by advocating the selected dropping of atomic bombs in Greenland – to the downright byzantine, such as that from the lady who was convinced that I could be sitting in Number 10 within
…
While we wait to find out if the Labour Party will return money to putative peers, and David Cameron will return the money obtained from misuse of his office, the Lib Dems have decided to return a donation that broke the rules.
According to the Guardian:
The Liberal Democrats have agreed to repay a £40,000 donation, the Electoral Commission confirmed today.
The party conceded that the money, donated by Christopher Nicholson on December 31 last year, was impermissible because the donor was not on the electoral register at the time the donation was made.
I doff my cap to Liberal Review …
Be careful what your friends post.
Incidentally, if you use MySpace / Facebook et al there is a school of thought which suggests that under the principle of better safe than sorry, you should consider putting an imprint on your profile page.
Only got one of the three results so far: a Conservative hold in Basingstoke, but with their majority cut from 99 to 34 and an 8% swing to the Liberal Democrats.
The result in Rooksdown ward, Basingstoke & Deane Council, was:
Conservative 156 (53%, -11%)
Liberal Democrat 122 (41%, +5%)
Labour 18 (6%, +6%)
Conservative hold
8% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat
34% turnout
While the blogosphere finds itself absorbed in the Fawkes-White grudgematch, I’ve been musing this much-trailed piece by David Miliband in The Telegraph. In it, the Environment Secretary sets out his political philosophy. And what is that philosophy?
He talks about how we’ve moved from ‘I need’ and ‘I want’ phases of British politics to an ‘I can’ generation. The emphasis seems to be on opportunity and the active involvement of British citizens. He talks about successful business giving more responsibility to employees. And most of all he sees a need to devolve power to local communities.
Decentralisation; individual empowerment; opportunity; self-defined …
It’s always nice to report a good news story, and this press release from the Lib Dems is good news at the end of a campaign that has lasted years. Congrats to Ed Davey and everyone involved in seeing Bishar al-Rawi freed. By all accounts his experience has left Bishar traumatised, and it’s good that he can begin to recover back in Britain.
The verdict’s in, and it’s a grim one for David Cameron: he broke Parliament’s rules, he raised money wrongly, he’s had to apologise “unreservedly” and he has had to make multiple promises about his future behaviour.
If a Labour minister had been so severely rebuked, do you think Conservative bloggers and MPs would by any chance be spitting blood and calling for his or her resignation? But now that it is someone in their own party, let’s see …
On, and twenty-six Conservative MPs have also been told to stop using Parliamentary …
Sitting in darkness in the BBC’s Millbank studio, he looked ridiculous. Hesitant and lacking a point – Michael White quite simply wiped the floor with him. You bit off more than you could chew there, Mr Fawkes – and damaged your reputation in the process.
Watch out Paxman and White though, I’m sure hell hath no fury like a Guido scorned.
Still – braver than me. In the unlikely event that I’m ever asked on Newsnight I shall whimper “mummy!” and flee to safety.
THE Liberal Democrat candidate to fight MP Phil Woolas for his Oldham East and Saddleworth seat has unexpectedly quit — to work in Russia.
Alison Smith — the first woman parliamentary hopeful chosen to contest the seat — stepped down yesterday and held a farewell social last night.
The party says the law graduate from Aberdeen is quitting politics to work in Russia. Privately she told friends she was going to study Russian at Oxford hoping to get work in Russia.
More from the Oldham Chronicle.
Blogger Guido Fawkes interviews political journalists for the BBC’s Newsnight tonight.
I think my favourite lines from Jeremy Paxman in the package are “that’s complete bollocks” and “I’m sorry, I think you’re just living in a pathetic conspiracy world.”
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