Monday, February 22, 2010

Hornby railways strikes again...

Chaos to start the week at Peterborough Rail Station. I've been here nearly an hour and no sign of any mainline service south to London "due to over-running engineering works in the Hitchin area".

Doubly annoyed to see professionally printed giant notices at the barrier warning of severe delays znd cancellations this morning.

If they can get notices printed, surely they could get an announcement on BBC Cambridgeshire's news bulletins earlier to warn the thousands who commute from Peterborough to London to make other arrangements and avoid a long cold frustrating wait.

Eventually, a First Capital Connect train arrives which seems to be stoping at every lamp-post between here and Kings Cross. Staff tell me there's a fast East Coast train five minutes later, so stupidly believe them.

Another half an hour has gone by and still no sign of a mainline train.

Hornby was better organised than this!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Teenager fights Tory cuts...

Good to see a 16-year-old campaigning against Tory cuts to local bus routes.

Who says 'Britain is Broken'..?

Monday, February 15, 2010

Conservatives caught inflating teenage pregnancies...by ten times!

David Cameron and the Conservatives never let the facts get in the way of their agenda of talking Britain down.

They seem to have learned nothing from last week's official rap on the knuckles after they falsely claimedviolent crime was rising.

This time they're guilty of an absolute howler, wrongly claiming that in some deprived areas of the country, more than half of all teenage girls get pregnant.

It's total Tory tosh of course.

They are so determined to talk Britain down as part of their "Britain is Broken" bollox that they've inflated the pregnancy figures by TEN times.

The truth is teenage pregnancy rates have actually fallen since 1997, not risen.

Fit to run the country...?

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Tories airbrush out Cameron...

David Cameron, widely ridiculed after his image was airbrushed in the last Tory poster has gone one step further for the next...he's been totally airbrushed out according to the Daily Torygraph

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Cameron candidate who quit, attacks party 'dinosaurs' and says she'll stand after all...

One of David Cameron's so-called 'A' list candidates who dramatically threw in the towel last night now says she will stand after all - just 24 hours after resigning and accusing some in her Party of being 'dinosaurs'...

Who can she be talking about...?

Seems Eric Pickles, the rotund Party chairman turned up at a meeting of Westminster North Constituency Conservatives last night in an attempt to close-down bitter in-fighting in the Party.

After working his magic, Mr Pickles had managed to inflame the situation so much that he managed to leave with the resignation of the wife of the unlikely named Octavius Black, one his Eton pals?

David Cameron was no doubt less than chuffed with Mr Pickles, and was apparently busy making phone calls to repair the damage today.

He reportedly originally foisted the partner of the said Octavius onto Westminster North Tories, causing bad blood among Westminster Tories.

The London Standard says the Tories have been scrambling today to rescue her political career after it descended into chaos.

As Tories squabbled, no doubt the very able Karen Buck, Labour's MP for the area, was quietly getting on with the important work of representing the people of Westminster North.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Tory councillors, brunette, hypnotic love...and the police...

Reluctant to intrude on personal grief, but couldn't resist sharing the Romford Recorder's big story this week of a Tory love triangle which went wrong, sparking a police investigation.

This should have the Conservative followers in Romford and Havering choking on their cornflakes...(specially if they read it in the News of the World on Sunday!).

Guess who's sick of Cameron's spin and smiles...?


Who's sick of 'happy chappy Dave' leading the Conservative Party with 'all this PR stuff, smiling at everyone and saying everything people want to hear...'

Former Tory Minister David Mellor, that's who!

Mellor was asked on BBC's 'This Week' programme whether he thought David Cameron 'had it in him' to lead our country.

His revealing reply: 'I don't know.'

Hardly a resounding vote of confidence.

The fact that even a former Conservative Minister can see through Cameron's spin and doesn't know what his party stands for anymore, surely demonstrates that Cameron's Conservatives are not fit to govern Britain.

David Mellor went on:'The issue for David Cameron's Conservatives is, do the Tories stand for anything that the public is going to get excited about...'

He said that under Cameron's 'leadership' voters 'don't really know what the Tories are all about.'

I hope he's wrong and that voters know precisely what the Tories are all about..

You only have to listen to David Cameron and Boy George Osborne to understand what:

1. They are about the same as they were when Mellor was a Government Minister.

2. They are about imposing immediate damaging cuts to vital public services that would pull the rug from under the fragile economic recovery.

3. They are about bringing back the cruel 'sport' of ripping foxes apart with packs of dogs.

4. They are about giving a tax-break to the richest few estates in the country while cutting Child Tax Credits for the many and slashing funding for the network of SureStart Childrens Centres built by Labour!

5. And yes, Mr Mellor, Cameron's Tories are about all this PR stuff, smiling at everyone and saying anything people want to hear.

Who will forget the pictures of Dave riding his bike to work to demonstrate his 'green' credentials, while his chauffeur follows behind in the limo!

Same old Tories, eh?

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Stats Authority slams Conservative Crime Con...

Sky News reporting that the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority has officially rebuked Cameron's Conservatives over their scaremongering tactics over violent crime (as I posted HERE.

In a letter sent to David Cameron, the UK Stats Authority says the Tory attempt to show violent crime had risen is misleading and a misuse of statistics.

The UK Stats Authority questions why the Tories did not use the well respected British Crime Survey figures.

The answer of course is obvious...

Because the independent BCS shows that violent crime has in fact HALVED in recent years.

The Tory fox is now well and truly shot.

So no more 'Broken Britain' bollox Mr Cameron.

UPDATE: How The Times is reporting the story.

UPDATE 2: The BBC's Mark Easton gives his take on the rebuke for the Tories and says the Stats Authority takes issue with the claims Chris Grayling made on the Tpoday programme yesterday.

Watch this space for the Tory apology. But don't hold your breath!

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

BBC says Tories 'shopped' on crime con...

Delighted to hear the Conservative con on violent crime figures exposed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning.

As I posted last week HERE, David Cameron's 'Broken Britain' campaign relies heavily on them being able to prove violent crime is rising...when he knows that in fact the reverse is the truth.

This morning, the BBC put Mark Easton - their journalist who first publicised the Tory con - head to head with Cameron's spokesman on crime, Chris Grayling.

Grayling had sent out spurious statistics to local Conservative parties across the country encouraging them to claim violent crime had risen since 1997.

Mark Easton explained that the Tories had ignored official clear warnings that the figures they were sending out could not be compared due to major improvements in recording violent crime.

The Conservative spokesman tried to move the debate onto his promise to make collection of crime figures independent of Government.

Mark Easton point out that the British Crime Survey, which has been around for 30 years, IS independent of Government and shows that in recnet years violent crime has been halved - down a full 50 per cent.

The Today presented challenged Mr Grayling: "Now that you have been shopped, will you send out a note to local Conservative parties instructing them not to use these figures...?"

No, of course not.

If they did that, the entire 'Britain is Broken' scare-mongering would be shown for what it is - a Tory con.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Redwood lets Cameron's cuts cat out of the bag...

Senior Tory MP John Redwood has let the Cameron cat out of the bag by predicting even more swingeing cuts than the Conservative Leader admits he is planning.

Yesterday, Tory treasury spokesman Philip Hammond admitted that the Tories were planning cuts to public services of £1.5 BILLION this year.

This was after David Cameron, clearly rattled by polls which showed Labour closing the gap, started pretending that early Tory cuts would not be as massive as he had earlier indicated.

Today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made it clear that cutting the deficit this year - as the Tories are determined to do - would choke off the economic recovery and plunge the economy into a 'double dip' recession.

Cutting the deficit this year would see more businesses going under, repossessions and job losses.

Tonight, John Redwood was asked on Sky News if £1.5 BILLION in cuts in 2010 was about right.this year.

Redwood's response: 'Oh I think it will be more than that...'‏