Clegg Set To Be Humiliated by the Miner’s Daughter
The deputy Prime Minister (when he remembers) is set to be humiliated in the Barnsley by-election because, according to a survey in the Mail, the LibDems are looking likely to come fourth after coming second in the general election.
UKIP’s Jane Collins was ‘born and bred’ in Yorkshire, raised in Pontefract, the daughter of a miner and is the blonde who is set to land a bombshell on Clegg’s party.
Dan Jarvis (Labour) will cruise home with a wacking 63%, James Hockney (Conservative) will stay in double figures on 13%, Jane Collins (UKIP) on 9% could push Dominic Carman (Liberal Democrats) into a humiliating fourth place next to the BNP and other assorted loonies. The survey data shows the most former LibDem voters switching back to Labour. This will give Clegg party management problems with the left of the LibDems…
- The Guardian: Uncut and Full of Cant
- An Open Letter To Alan Rusbridger
- Guardian Invested Millions in Hedge Funds During Banking Crisis
Rich & Mark’s Monday Morning View
How is Toynbee so rich?
'Impurity' at the Guardian
A characteristically lofty and notably rambley missive emerged from the private compound of Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, last week, and was published on the newspaper's website. Even experienced Rusbridger-watchers rubbed their chins. Were these the disconnected ravings of a man who has enjoyed supreme power for so long that he has parted company with reality?
Apparently not. Mr Rusbridger seems to have been responding to the striking allegations of the blogger Guido Fawkes last Monday, though naturally he is far too grand to mention Guido by name, and affects to be unaware of his existence. Guido had declared that The Guardianhad been hypocritical in attacking Barclays Bank for paying one per cent tax on profits of £11.6bn. According to Guido, the newspaper's parent, Guardian Media Group (GMG), holds hundreds of millions of pounds of assets in a Caymans Island domiciled offshore corporation. Among other head spinning allegations is the suggestion that GMG has £223.8m invested in an overseas/offshore hedge fund managed by Cambridge Associates, which trades currency derivatives.
Crikey! Mr Rusbridger's roundabout response is first to suggest playfully that the Scott Trust,The Guardian's ultimate owner set up in 1932, was "in a way. . . some kind of tax dodge". He admits his newspaper has "no thought of profit in the immediate future" and concedes its reliance on the asset-rich GMG. He then quotes two tax experts who have given GMG's accounts a clean bill of health. He states that "total purity for any company in the modern world is difficult to define, let alone achieve", and concludes with the assertion that "it does need journalists to engage with this complex subject".
In other words, Guido Fawkes was largely right. It is a vintage piece of Rusbridger-ese, a veritable masterpiece. The exact allegations are never considered. Instead we are treated to a lot of high-minded mumbo jumbo whose inner message is that The Guardian cannot be at fault because it is The Guardian. How much better if he had put up his hands, admitted the charges, denied all illegality, and agreed that we live in a fallen world. I only wonder what The Guardian's in-house termagant, Polly Toynbee, will make of it all.
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