Friday, 10 August 2012



FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Bradford Routing Haunts Labour –
Watson Amassing Troops in Corby

The joke doing the rounds this morning in Labour circles is:

“Rupert Murdoch has three months to take out the trash. If he wanted to kill someone he could probably get away with it. Tom is now so obsessed with Corby he thinks it’s Ed’s Crewe.”

Labour sources tell Guido that they are determined not to see a repeat of their Bradford by-election shambles. Former Brownite boot-boys Watson and Ian Austin are off to Louise Mensch’s old constituency, along with half the party staff. They’ve despatched a team to find a decent office as at the moment they are working from the Labour Club. Gordon Paterson, former Labour Yorkshire organiser, is in charge of field operations at the moment and will probably be the agent. Labour confirmed to Guido last night that leave has already been cancelled. Dozens of HQ staff have been told they have to go up there full time.

Political advisers and the policy team are rather grumpy because they are being told there will be daily mini-buses from London and that they are all expected to be on them. Ed has also told staff in the leader’s office that he wants them up there: “some of them don’t mind to be honest because nice to be out of office but others moaning.” One insider even says there has been talk of conference being scaled back. General Secretary Iain McNicol has apparently told staff that Corby is the single biggest party priority now until November. Everything else is now secondary, including Police Commissioner elections.

Gone is the complacency of Bradford and it’s all hands to the deck. Obviously that is not what they are saying publicly though – as Guido revealed last night - the line is “we’re not going to win”.

Thankfully the candidate has deigned to cut short his south of France holiday and is out on the stump.

Better late than never…

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012

Video: The Obama That I Used To Know

That irritating Gotye song as you’ve never heard it before…


Watson Tells Labour Spinners to Brief That They Will Lose Corby

As Ed spends the afternoon in Corby – the front-line of Tory/Labour fighting in the next three months – Guido hears that Tom Watson is already playing the long game. The party campaign director has told Labour Political Advisers to stress that the party expects to lose the by-election in every conversation they have with the lobby. Speaking to Labour sources this afternoon it is clear that Labour’s routing in Bradford still haunts the party. The expectations game has begun and it’s all hands to the deck – full details in the morning.

Flashback: “Mudslingers: the 25 Dirtiest Political Campaigns” Watson’s Favourite Book


Guidogram Going Out Shortly

The Guidogram round-up of the week is going out shortly.

Thousands of Westminster insiders read the Guidogram, everyone from Downing Street insiders to Fleet Street never miss it. This week Guido won a satisfying victory in the Wandsworth Tory fraud scandal, while Louise Mensch quit for pastures new and Nick Clegg was left humiliated. Not to mention Piers Morgan being revealed as the greatest twitter troll of them all…

Join the conspiracy and become a subscriber to the Guidogram, free, to keep in the loop. You’re either in front of Guido, or behind…


Greens Still Back Lottery Ban Despite Gold

Given that their candidates seem to spend half the timewaving Nazi flags and doubling as escorts, nowadays the Green Party have to do something special for Guido to raise an eyebrow. Nonetheless, this is loony even by their standards: they want to scrap the National Lottery. Apparently the Lottery is part of a great conspiracy to make big business even richer and it should be replaced by a disturbingly Soviet-sounding “wealth distribution system“.

Clearly the Greens believe that National Lottery schemes such as helping war heroes and backing Team GB are not worthy causes. Even in the face of Olympic glory. On the right side of public opinion once again…


Nomura “Brexit” Contingency Document in Full

Ambrose Evans Pritchard reports this lunchtime that Nomura have begun contingency planning for a possible British exit from the EU:

“The core point is that the eurozone may have to take drastic steps in integration (fiscal union, etc) to save the euro, making it nigh impossible for a fully sovereign state to remain part of the Project. In other words, it is not so much Britain leaving the EU as the EU leaving the treaty-based club of sovereign states it was supposed to be.”

The document was written by Alastair Newton – “an ex-British diplomat, former head to Tony Blair’s G7 team, and intelligence co-ordinator in the first Gulf War”. For some reason the Telegraph have not published the whole document so here it is:

With the Eurozone set to go tits up again in the autumn, that November by-election could prove very interesting…


Bad Omen for Tom Daley Tomorrow

The Curse of Cameron meme didn’t last very long, especially given Team GB had their most successful track and field day with the PM cheering them on in the stadium last weekend. What it did prove is quite how much Guido’s Jonah Brown campaign clearly got under people’s skin. The problem was that one was actually a real curse. So on that note, Guido is sad to say it’s not looking good for young diver Tom Daley, who having missed out on a medal already is taking part in the individual 10m diving tomorrow. This is what Sarah Brown just tweeted:

Will he be able to smash the curse of Jonah Brown?

Via @grimreaperblog

Video: Labour MP’s On Air “News-Nat” Rant

Labour MP and expenses piggy Ian Davidson lost the plot live on air last night accusing Newsnight Scotland of being biased in favour of the Yes campaign for Scottish independence. Alleging that the BBC were in cahoots with the SNP, Davidson repeatedly referred to the programme as “News-Nat“, before the furious presenter Isabel Fraser demanded an apology. TV gold…


CCHQ Go On Union Sports Attack

Following Guido’s story yesterday about the unions restricting any chance of expanding school sports, CCHQ have joined in the fun:

Orders from the NASUWT to a membership which totals over 300,000 states that ‘Members should refuse to attend any meetings and activities outside school session times which are not on the school calendar and which are not within directed time.’ Meanwhile, the NUT is balloting its members to join the NASUWT in a ‘work to rule’.

Conservative MP Damian Hinds, who sits on the Education Select Committee, commented:

“It is utterly hypocritical for the unions to blame the government for a lack of sport in school at the same time as ordering their members not to help with activities outside of school hours. Following the huge success of the Olympics, the last thing we want is to go back to a time when school sport was crippled by militant union leaders embarking on a damaging and irresponsible work to rule. Ed Miliband and Stephen Twigg must condemn their union allies for standing in the way of children who want to take part in sport after school. If everyone in Team GB worked to rule like the NASUWT we would have fewer medals than Australia.”

Since the militant unions blinked over the Olympic strikes, there seems to be an upping of aggression against them. Good.


Bankrupt Bloggers Resort To Slave Labour

Bankrupt lefty bloggers Left Foot Forward are in suchdire financial straits that they have resorted to advertising for slave labour interns. They’ve spent too much and are running a deficit – you couldn’t make it up.

Back in 2011 the blog was among the fiercest critics of unpaid internships, jumping aboard the Intern Awarecampaign lobbying the government to ban the practice. It ran posts including one titled “Unpaid Internships Are Wrong“, which suggested that offering young people jobs with no pay could be illegal and even asked for readers undertaking unpaid internships to contact them in confidence.Left Foot Forward also set up a “Living Wage Appeal“, part of which involved them promising to pay their interns. Their position was crystal clear.

Their stance hadn’t changed earlier this year either when they waded into the great workfare debate, arguing that: “The claim that it is aimed towards providing useful work experience that will lead to jobs is demonstrably untrue…Not only is it wrong, but it may actually reduce young people’s job prospects“. Pretty damning stuff…

Imagine Guido’s surprise, then, when he saw that the very same Left Foot Forward wereadvertising for an editorial intern to work in a “voluntary” capacity, without pay. Candidates are required to have “knowledge of HTML; picture editing; data analysis and presentation; journalistic experience; and a knowledge of progressive organisations”. Sounds like a real job to Guido, and they aren’t even paying travel expenses. Judging by the furious reaction in the comments, Left Foot Forward readers don’t approve of their new policy on slave labour. Guido is happy to report that he always pays his interns…


Posted by Britannia Radio at 09:28