Saturday Seven Up

British Photographers’ Association v Greenslade | BPPA
Only The Lords Can Save Us Now | Speccie
Labour Amendment to Protect Small Blogs | LabourList
Labour and Tory Blog Amendments Up Pressure | Scrapbook
Borgen in Westmister | Speccie
This Was Not a Conservative Budget | Norman Tebbit
The Problem With Osborne’s Mortgage Scheme | John Redwood
Hero of the Week: Michael Gove | Sun
Sally Bercow For Parliament? | Standard
In Praise of Lady T | NormBlog
Gove Slaps Down Emily Thornberry | Cristina Odone

SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2013

Saturday Seven Up

This week 139,167 visitors visited 397,467 times viewing 671,471 pages. The top stories in order of popularity were:

• Treasury Leak Entire Budget to Standard Before Osborne Up
• Hugh Grant Admits “Enormous Delight” From Tabloid Smears
• Eric Joyce Staffer Martin Brown Knocked Woman to Ground
• Hacked Off’s Blackmail Letter to Miliband
• BBC Weather Hacked
• Tell Evan Harris to Blog Off!
• Speccie Say NO

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

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013

IDS: Balls Like Mr Potato Head

Is there a competition in the cabinet as to who can come up with the most amusing alter ego for Ed Balls? Vince Cable gave it a good go yesterday noting how Balls reminded him of Basil Fawlty saying “don’t mention the war”, but the clear winner is IDS:

“It was quite amusing to watch the shadow Chancellor run around. More and more he reminds me of the film “Toy Story”, and that rather angry Mr Potato Head who wanders around shouting, screaming and being very angry to absolutely no effect at all. Disaster, chaos, crisis, U-turns—I wonder what he does in his private life when anything goes wrong. He is certainly not much help to his wife I expect.”

Uncanny…

Lord Lucas Amendments in Full

Here are Lord Lucas’ three amendments to the Crime and Courts bill:

“A publisher who focuses on a specific locality or region and only reports national issues on an incidental basis that is relevant to such local or regional matters.
A publisher who operates as a non-charitable campaigning organisation and is publishing material incidental to the organisation’s aims and objectives.
A publisher who does not exceed the definition of a small or medium-sized enterprise as defined in Section 382 and 465 Companies Act 2006.”

Here we go…

Via @jimwaterson

The Many Faces of Emily Thornberry

Well worth taking a look at Michael Gove skewer Emily Thornberry on last night’s Question Time just for her facial expressions, from 40 minutes in. She didn’t fare much better on the Daily Politics today either, accusing the government of “starving out” cancer sufferers from their homes:

Thornberry: I met a guy in Lancashire, right, and he lives in a three bedroom house. His wife has recently died, wife has recently died and he has cancer. He is in a three  bedroom house, and they have written to him and they have said unless you move you’re going to lose £80 a month. I am not saying that in the long term it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to move. But basically, to starve him out is not right, and…
Brillo: You’re accusing the coalition of starving him out?
Thornberry: I mean I think this is what happens.

A strong nomination for an Order of the OTT…

Young Tories: “Each is More Ghastly Than the Other”

This is what was scrawled down on the minutes of Maggie’s meeting with a group of Young Conservatives in 1982, released today. How things change…

H/T @jimrmanning

UPDATE: The Margaret Thatcher Foundation has confirmed that it was Ian Gow who penned the apt observation.

Lebedev Snr Says State Regulation is Bad

Sky’s Adam Boulton has just grilled billionaire Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev on his thoughts on press regulation. He pulled the rug from under his newspaper proprietor son and Independent titles Editor in Chief Chris Blackhurst, who are the only ones to sign up to state regulation, so far. Under sustained questioning from Boulton, Daddy Lebedev seemed to deny that he was a donor to Hacked Off, concluding “er, you better ask Evgeny about that”. As Guido revealed this week, Hacked Off claim that the Lebedev funded Journalism Foundation were a donor to the tune of £20,000. Surely Hacked Off are accurate in everything they say? Video to follow…

Breaking: + + + Amendment to Protect Bloggers Put Down + + +

With only a few hours to go before the 3 pm deadline Guido is hearing that Lord Lucas is putting down an amendment to exclude small independent bloggers from the regulatory burden of the Royal Charter. The amendment is based on the wording proposed by BigBrotherWatch (see here).
The aim is to insert a new Schedule into the Crime and Courts Bill:
‘Exclusions from definition of “relevant publisher”

“A publisher who does not exceed the definition of a small or medium-sized enterprise as defined in Section 382 and 465 Companies Act 2006.”

This effectively takes out all small independent bloggers and re-calibrates the legislation to only cover what Tom Watson rightly calls “Big Media”.Hopefully this will command cross-party support…

Two Weeks Later, David Ruffley Needs Yet Another Researcher

Readers will remember this month’s Guidorama investigation into Westminster’s Toughest Job: working for Tory backbencher David Ruffley. Just two weeks after his latest advert for a researcher, parliament’s answer to the Incredible Hulk is on the lookout for yet another helper.
Things must have worked out well last time, then…

Media Bitch Fight: Scrapbook v HuffPo

With the future of the blogosphere at stake today, Guido takes absolutely no pleasure in seeing two old friends turn on each other:
Roll on 3pm…