Red Ken Exposes Labour Hypocrisy

Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said…

“Detailed information on bondholders of domestic credit institutions’ senior and subordinated debt is not available. Credit institutions, including Anglo Irish Bank, do not have access to comprehensive information on the holders of their senior and junior, or subordinated debt, because such debt is publicly traded and dealt through clearing house systems. Issuers do not have access to the records of those systems and the issuer has no means of establishing the underlying ownership of its bonds at any given time. Unlike in the case of shares, the holders of credit institutions’ senior and subordinated debt instruments are not subject to a disclosure regime.”

Red Ken Exposes Labour Hypocrisy

However much we suspect the integrity and word of politicians, rarely is there such a simple acid test of right and wrong. Labour’s selection for a candidate for Mayor of Tower Hamlets has been an utter mess resulting with many supporting the lefty independent Lutfur Rahman, who was deselected after his extremist links were exposed. These rogues included Labour’s candidate for the Mayor of London.

The Staggers reports that so far eight people have already been expelled from Labour for campaigning against the official candidate and Harman said:

“There is nobody else that is a Labour candidate for Tower Hamlets… if they are supporting somebody else, then they are opposing the Labour Party and you cannot be against a party and in it”

So will Labour live up to their famed hypocrisy and let this one go quietly?Are some animals more equal than others?

UPDATE : Smarkets have opened the betting on Tower Hamlets.

he Criminal Ruling Classes

Such are their number it is getting difficult for Guido to keep track of all the politicians who are either under investigation, currently facing charges or are  actually in the dock as defendants.

It is worth bearing in mind that 52% of MPs in the last parliament were found to be guilty of over-claiming – the vast majority of whom paid-up quietly in an admission of guilt.

Some of the worst cases have finally made it to the courts, former Labour MPs Jim Devine (reported to the police incidentally by the Sunlight Centre), Elliot Morley and David Chaytor are trying to avoid criminal trials and are currently in the Supreme Court arguing that they are above common criminals and should be tried by MPs. Don’t think so…

Sitting Labour MP Eric Isslley is facing charges. Labour MPs confirmed to be under police investigation include Denis MacShane and the former MP Margaret Moran.

Reported to the police we have Sadiq Khan, who has been reported on the exactly the same expense-fiddling grounds as Margaret Moran. Ironically he is a Shadow Justice Minister.

Tory Lord Hanningfield is facing trial but Lords Paul and Bhaita as well as Baroness Uddin have escaped prosecution by promising repayment.

LibDem MP David Laws is awaiting the report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges with regard to him having the taxpayer pay rent to his boyfriend. The Committee has ordered former Labour MP Shahid Malik to repay his claim for the cost of insuring his wife’s diamond ring. No, really.

Bill “Piggy” Wiggin was ordered to apologise and repay £4,009 of expenses for which he claimed but did not actually incur. Shamefully the Old Etonian has been allowed by David Cameron to keep his Whip’s job despite a pre-election promise live on TV to sack Wiggin if he was found to be “claiming money that he wasn’t entitled to”. Change we can believe in… not.

Has Guido missed any politicians under investigation or in the Courts?

UPDATE : Forgot Tory Lord Taylor of Warwick is pleading not guilty to six charges of dodgy accounting. His bother is over claiming overnight expenses in relation to properties which he didn’t live in.   He claimed to the Sunday Times he had lived at his mother’s home in the West Midlands. This turned out to be false as his mother’s house was sold in 2001 when she died.  His former wife confirmed that he lived in London, and nowhere else, until their separation in 2003.

See also: Labour’s Dirty Dozen

Paranoid About Left-Wing BBC Bias?

Some would have it that the caricature of BBC news editors as Thatcher-hating, Green-loving, Tory-bashing, anti-Israeli types is just that, a ridiculous caricature of over-the-top nonsense only existing in the minds of paranoid Telegraph readers. Is it really paranoia?

Yet it is fascinatingly revealing to see how BBC luvvies talk candidly amongst themselves on Twitter,  exhibiting uniformly left-wing group-think straight out of the pages of the Guardian.

The Biased-BBC blog highlights Rachel Kennedy, a ‘strand editor’, responsible for sections of the rolling news programme on the BBC News Channel. According to her Twitter feed George Osborne is going to “knacker” the economy and“ruin lives”, she loves the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas etc.

From Gaza to Murdoch she has the whole bag of left-wing values that you would expect from a news editor on our impartial state broadcaster.