Tuesday, 22 May 2012




Norman Tebbit has a humble brag:

We Maastricht rebels were derided and abused for opposing the single currency by the wise, clever,

Guardianista soft centre left establishment from whom we now hear so little on the matter.”



TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2012

Balls Blamed for Byrne Putsch
“The Punishment Beatings Are Back”

This snippet from Rachel Sylvester’s column, stuck behind the Times pay-wall, deserves a wider audience:

“At Westminster, Mr Balls can be overbearing. An attempt to oust Liam Byrne, the Blairite Work and Pensions Secretary, from the Shadow Cabinet, which was resisted by Mr Miliband, is blamed by some on the Shadow Chancellor’s bovver boys. “There’s a gang within the gang,” says an insider. “The punishment beatings are back.” One MP compares Mr Balls and his wife, Yvette Cooper, to the Borgias who just can’t help plotting.”

Belardinelli the bovver boy has a certain ring to it…


Leaky Watson

If his rapidly fading smug smile was anything to go by, Tom Watson got a much tougher ride at Leveson than he was expecting. He was probed about McBride and Smeargate, denying any knowledge of a plan to counter Guido, despite theRed Rag website actually being set up. He was also cornered on leaking and again denied, on oath, that he leaked information from the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee to the Guardian. That will clear up the mystery around them getting hold of all sorts of evidence before anyone else then. He was forced to answer yes to the next question though – of course he was feeding Nick Davies.

Watson was also asked about his relationship with Political Scrapbook. He denied, unprompted, to being “part of the management”, or indeed ever feeding them information. Which is odd given a simple Google search pulled up this glaring example:

“Tom Watson will in a few moments use parliamentary privilege to publicly expose details of a notorious murder inquiry allegedly blocked by News International.”

Information reaching the media before Parliament? How did that come about? The website also carries a very prominent advert for Watson’s book and is funded by the his allies at the GMB Union….

Mehdi’s Massive Promotion

Guido got wind last week that Mehdi Hasan had been sacked as Political Editor of the New Statesman. When we put it to him he exploded…

Well it now seems Guido was on the money and the Staggers were just being nice by not announcing his departure last week along with other internal movements. He’s bagged a massive promotion in both status and influence by joining the Huffington Post. Guido just spoke to one of Mehdi’s fellow lefty hacks:

Lefty: Has he been fired?
GF: Well he’s going to the HuffPo, so you could put it like that.
Lefty: Oh god that’s worse than being fired. That’s worse than being dead.

Are they going to pay him?

See also: Mehdi is “The Commentator” and a chart of the New Statesman’snewsstand sales during the Mehdi era: