Joke Candidate: John O’Farrell Tipped to Fight Eastleigh

Osborne’s Last Chance | Telegraph
Osborne Isn’t Working | Fraser Nelson
Lynton Crosby Interview | Indy
LibDem’s Handcock Accused of Sexual Assault | Guardian
Boozy Night Out for Sally with Tory Boys | Sun
Why Wasn’t I Hacked? | Peter Stringfellow
Why No One Envies the NHS | Robin Shepherd
The Tories’ Women Problem | Prospect
We Need to Deal With Mainstream Anti-Semitism | JC
Ireland’s Bondage | WSJ
Huhne Rejected Treasury Job | FT

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2013

Joke Candidate: John O’Farrell Tipped to Fight Eastleigh

Ed MIliband says he wants more working class people and people with an armed forces background to stand for parliament, so the Eastleigh by-election is the first opportunity for Labour to choose someone from that kind of background. Yet Labour heavyweights seem to be swinging behind John O’Farrell, who is about as much of a Labour luvvie as you can get. O’Farrell first appeared on the West End stage when he was 10 years old, writes novels and does comedy for the BBC. He wrote a novel with the title Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997.
The man who reputedly invented the grey John Major spitting image character also wrote the jokes for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He seems serious about standing, he has stood unsuccessfully for Labour before in 2001. The Labour glitterati are backing him and he has already started campaigning in the constituency. Polly Toynbee has publicly endorsed his candidature and says she will work for his election. “Up the workers!”

Saturday Seven Up

This week 149,455 visitors visited 420,115 times viewing 707,274 pages. The top stories in order of popularity were:

• Peter Huhne’s Texts to Lying Father
• Toby Helm’s Twitter Spat With Gove SpAds
• Labour’s Taxing Line
• How We Hunted Huhne
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• WATCH: Huhne’s Downfall In His Own Word
• Private Eye: Now Two Months Past Its Sell-By-Date

You’re either in front of Guido, or behind…

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Today In Court Pryce: I Could Have Ruined Him By Other Means

Yesterday it was the taped phone calls, today Vicky Pryce hinted that she had far more on her ex-husband that she could have used to destroy him: “If I wanted to ruin him I could’ve thought about other things to expose him with no repercussions for me. It was a very tough time for me and rest of the family and I did things I’m not proud of. If I’d wanted to inflict fatal damage on him I could have done something very different”.
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation heard today was Pryce’s claim that Huhne tried to pressure her into having a second abortion, but she said no. Gives a somewhat different perspective to those texts. The trial continues…