Tomorrow’s Speccie reveals that Maggie told Gorbachev, in secret:
“Afghanistan is under occupation. If my country was occupied
I would join the guerrillas and fight for its liberation.”
Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler says:
If it wasn’t for Maggie we’d all be speaking Argentinian now!
Communications Data North Korean Style | BigBrotherWatch
Teachers Put Themselves Above Students, Again | Dan Hannan
Councils Want to Abuse Snoopers Bill | Nick de Bois
We Should Know the Names of Arrested Stars | Roy Greenslade
Old Holborn Tweets Investigated By Police | BBC
Ed: Please Vote For David Cameron | Dan Hodges
Tories Need to Set Thatcherite Dividing Lines | Alex Wickham
Maggie: Callaghan Couldn’t Organise Pussy | Sue Cameron
Ed Can Take Advantage of Anti-Politics Voters | James Forsyth
Could Labour Wreck Gove’s Revolution? | Fraser Nelson
Thatcher Was Right, There is No Such Thing as Society | FT
Teachers Put Themselves Above Students, Again | Dan Hannan
Councils Want to Abuse Snoopers Bill | Nick de Bois
We Should Know the Names of Arrested Stars | Roy Greenslade
Old Holborn Tweets Investigated By Police | BBC
Ed: Please Vote For David Cameron | Dan Hodges
Tories Need to Set Thatcherite Dividing Lines | Alex Wickham
Maggie: Callaghan Couldn’t Organise Pussy | Sue Cameron
Ed Can Take Advantage of Anti-Politics Voters | James Forsyth
Could Labour Wreck Gove’s Revolution? | Fraser Nelson
Thatcher Was Right, There is No Such Thing as Society | FT
FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2013
Victory: Guido’s Blog Will Remain Unregulated
Government Tells Evan Harris to “Blog Off”
Dr Evan Harris told all who would listen that he wanted this blog to be regulated, Max Mosley wanted the government to “cut the wires” of the internet for bloggers who didn’t submit to judicial censorship and the nutty Professor Brian Cathcart who mutters about freedom of the press while trying to stamp it out didn’t really engage. Well they have completely and utterly failed in their ambitions.
The government has announced that for-profit blogs which make less than £2 million will be exempt from the new system of press regulation and there would also be an exemption for blogs with fewer than 10 employees under the amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill. Which leaves plenty of room for Guido to expand his operations…
We would not in any event have gone along with a regime that attempted to put an unbearable and unjustified regulatory burden on us. This is not to say that Guido supports the legislation, it seems pretty unfair on small newspapers who will still be regulated and it means there is not a level playing field. There will, as Guido told Leveson, be a thriving unregulated free press and a withering regulated unfree press with one hand tied behind its back. You only have to consider the Rolf Harris story revealed on this blog three months ago and only today seen on the front pages of the newspapers…
To Boldly Go Where No Chancellor Has Gone Before AA+
Movie star Benedict Cumberbatch is a textbook metropolitan lefty, almost apologising for being middle class as he attacked arts spending cuts during a speech at a TUC rally in 2010. Surely just a coincidence that his new role as the baddie in Star Trek casts him as the spitting image of George Osborne.“Into Darkness”, just as Fitch downgrades Britain’s credit rating from AAA to AA+…
Pic via @tweeter_anita
Labour Members Desert Gordon
Here is University of Bristol professor Mark Wickham-Jones’ analysis of Labour Party membership figures in Dunfermline during Gordon’s time as their MP at yesterday’s One Nation conference:
Guido has an idea…“The reality is the grass-roots model is gone, I think. I mean, you know, Dunfermline – Gordon Brown’s constituency in Dunfermline – had nearly 1,000 members in the mid-1990s. At the time of the Labour Leadership election when they gave us fantastic data – which they’ll never do again – it had 163 members. Where did those people go?”
Boston Terror Suspect Hates Liverpool
If this is the genuine Twitter account of the Boston terror suspect…
UPDATE: Twitter provocateur Old Holborn has been in touch to say that he has had the police round after he trolled the whole of Liverpool and they are more interested in the death threats against him.
Liverpool are a joke of a football club.—…he’s really in trouble now.
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev (@Dzhokhar_) December 15, 2012
UPDATE: Twitter provocateur Old Holborn has been in touch to say that he has had the police round after he trolled the whole of Liverpool and they are more interested in the death threats against him.
I still have Scousers sending me death threats. Superb—
Old Holborn (@Old_Holborn) April 16, 2013
Unions Jump on Heywood Thatcher Tribute
Jeremy Heywood and Bob Kerslake have already been on the receiving end of a cross-party slamming for their gushing Maggie tribute, now the unions are sticking the boot in. PCS fat cat Mark Serwotka has added his name to the growing list of figures across the spectrum criticising the piece:
They’re queuing up…“It is clear that some people do not see the civil service as the hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants who work day in, day out providing vital services across the country, but rather as a cosy clique at the centre of government…this article is ill-judged, deeply unhelpful and risks doing damage to the civil service.”
LISTEN: Caller Tells Balls: “You Live in Denial”
“Is your biggest problem – you are the most annoying man in politics, you live in denial, you smear on behalf of Gordon Brown when you did it, you’re a left wing economist with private education. This is the problem Balls, you don’t listen.”If Sean from Matfield is anything to go by, Call Balls could become essential Friday morning listening…
Via LBC.
Mitchell Refuses to Leave Ministerial Office Suite
They say denial comes before acceptance, and that certainly seems to be how Andrew Mitchell is dealing with losing his position in the Cabinet. Guido hears that Thrasher has yet to vacate his ministerial-grade office for a more plebeian backbench-grade parliamentary office, despite resigning six months ago to the day.Given he is not likely to be back in the Cabinet any time soon, it really is time to let it go…
UPDATE: A colleague tells Guido that Mitchell has been asked to move several times but is refusing.
UPDATE (15:45): Andrew Mitchell’s office have released the following statement:
“We have seen the story about Andrew Mitchell’s office. Your story is completely untrue. Andrew offered to move but Sir George Young did not want to. No-one has asked Andrew to move since.”
Balls Spins Indy Spending Splash
Labour are getting into a spin over this morning’s Indysplash claiming they will pledge to outspend the Tories in 2015. Balls has told LBC the story “is an exclusive but it’s wrong”, blaming a report from the Fabians: “it is not our policy, it is not our position”. As Damian McBride speculates, the Indy front page is manifestly true, Labour just won’t confirm it until they release their manifesto in two years’ time.I'm struggling to decipher the Indie splash on Lab spending: False flag op by the Blairites? Self-puffery by the Fabians? Or just, er, true?—
Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) April 19, 2013
One thing's for sure: no sensible, loyal person in Labour wants that story out now, so whoever briefed it is either a snake or a half-wit.—Labour pledging to spend more is a case of when rather than if. They say they don’t have a position now, but you can bet the scoop will be confirmed by election day…
Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) April 19, 2013
Can You Say Who It Was Yet?
Three months after Guido first reported that the star had been questioned and three weeks after this blog reported his arrest, the old media have finally run the Rolf Harris story. There was never any court order or injunction preventing publication, the delay was the decision of the editors alone. Harbottle and Lewis can put pressure on the papers to keep stories quiet, but it merely hands the scoop to the free press on the unregulated internet. Chilling..See also: Can You See What It Is Yet? and Rolf Harris Arrested By Operation Yewtree Police
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