Blog-ads make more strange bedfellows...

Had to chuckle at this extract from today's Diary in The Guardian:

Much embarrassment at the Green Arrow Forum, the bloggers' website that supports the BNP. At the top of the site is an advertisement for singlemuslim.com, the UK's leading Muslim marriage service. This has caused much consternation to the perplexed BNP bloggers.

It transpires that the ads are placed by Google, whose computerised brain must have noted that the Green Arrow constantly refers to Islam and thus thought this would be an appropriate site for lonely Muslim hearts. Some BNP bloggers have also twigged this and suggested that in future, Islam be referred to only as "the threat to the west" to avoid confusion.

Even more enjoyable than the recent ad promoting Ken Livingstone which appeared on Tory Iain Dale's Diary...

Tory blogsite says Vote Labour...

Had one of those double-take moments when I saw the campaign ad that's just appeared on the front page of Iain Dale's blog...

The excellent ad is surprisingly not for Iain's mate, the Tory candidate Boris Johnson...

Even more surprising - and amusing - it's a reminder to vote in May's London Mayoral elections for, wait for it....

Yes...it's for Labour's Ken Livingstone.

Nice one Ken!

More Tory sleaze and hypocrisy as Iain Dale defends the not so 'honourable' gentleman...

Another day, another shock revelation in the unfolding scandal of disgraced Tory MP Derek Conway...Thursday's Daily Mail claims it has uncovered secret documents which show that a close friend of one of Mr Conway's sons was also on the MP's payroll - as well as both his sons and his wife.

A couple of days ago when the story first broke, Tory blogger Iain Dale declined to comment on the plight of his friend Derek Conway.

Fair enough. But today, on news that the 'honourable gentleman' is to step down at the next General Election (before he can be deselected), Iain Dale has lambasted 'the baying mob' who attacked Derek Conway.

Iain says:

'Whatever Derek did or did not do he did not deserve some of the comments that have been thrown his way...'

Poppycock.

Let's be clear what Mr Conway did: he wrongly dipped into the public purse to pay his son more than £40,000 in taxpayer's cash.

The new allegations which have emerged regarding thousands of pounds in taxpayers cash handed to his other son, payments to his wife and now cash for a close friend of one of his sons, all warrant further investigation.

(By the way, I totally condemn the Mail's disgraceful fixation on the alleged sexual orientation of any of those involved. It's totally irrelevant to the core issue of misuse of public funds).

For Iain Dale to portray Derek Conway as a victim of a baying mob demonstrates that he is allowing his judgement to be seriously clouded by his friendship.

There's more than a touch of hypocrisy in Iain Dale's whinge about 'the baying mob'.

Only a few days ago, Iain was quite happy to personally lead 'the baying mob' attacking Peter Hain for late reporting of private donations to fund an internal Labour Party election.

A tale of two MPs: one loses his job and faces a police investigation, the other gets a holiday...

A few days ago, a senior Labour MP apologised for late reporting of thousands of pounds in private donations which he received to fund his bid to win an internal Labour Party election. There was no suggestion of fraud or that the money was used illegally or of misuse of public funds.

Peter Hain blamed an administrative error for reporting the donations later than he should have done.

The Electoral Commission decided to call in the police and Peter Hain responded by immediately resigning as a cabinet minister…

Today, a senior Conservative MP apologised for misusing thousands of pounds of taxpayers money.

The House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said Derek Conway was wrong to put his son on the public payroll when he had little or no contact with his father’s office either at Parliament or in his Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency.

The Committee was astonished that young Freddie Conway seemed to have been all but invisible during the period of his employment.

That’s because he was hundreds of miles away studying for his degree at Newcastle University.

The Tory MP generously used public funds to pay his lad way over the going rate, as well as pension payments and lavish bonuses.

Mr Conway, whose previous fame seems to be as John Major's vote fixer in the Commons, is likely to face a ten-day suspension from Parliament.

So, one MP declares private donations late, loses his job and faces a criminal investigation.

The other gets caught misusing public money and gets sent on a 10-day holiday from work.

Is this justice, or am I missing something…?

There's one more very stark difference in these two cases:

Tory Leader David Cameron was first in the queue to put pressure on Peter Hain to resign.

I have yet to hear Mr Cameron announce that Derek Conway will be barred from standing as a Conservative candidate at the next general election...

UPDATE: Spot the difference: Leading Tory blogger Iain Dale was all over the Peter Hain story last week. He has yet to utter the words Derek Conway...! Same old Tories.

Fair Deal Phil beats Boris...!

Chuffed to bits to see I've been voted number 26 out of the Top 500 in Iain Dale's new Guide to Political Blogging 2007 published tonight.

A huge THANK YOU to readers and fellow bloggers who voted for me.

Last year I was thrilled to be placed seventy-something in Dale's top 100 Labour blogs.

So I'm delighted to be 26 in this year's all-comers league table. Iain says 14 of his top 20 are on the right and only two on the left. (and i notice some are professional writers and broadcasters).

So he appears to rank me about fifth highest Labour blogger.

Just noticed I'm ten places higher than Boris Johnson in the all-comers table and 16 places above John Redwood.

Bet you can't guess who's at the top of Iain Dale's league table...

Anyway, the top 300 are on his site. He says you'll have to buy the book to see the full list of the top 500!

Tory blogger joins Tory politicians to trash Tory 'blueprint for environment'...

The Tories so-called Quality of Life Commission is going down like a lead balloon...amongst Tories. It's even provoked leading Tory blogger Iain Dale to write from his holiday in Italy to join the Tory politicians trashing the Report.

Iain says:

the best thing to do with it would be to immediately recycle it. And that's all I'm saying...

So as well as business up in arms with the plan, we now have:

A Tory MP who says its 'bonkers',

A Tory MEP who says it's a full frontal assault on Tory values,

A Tory newspaper - the Daily Mail - who says it's 'dumb politics'

And now a leading Tory blogger who says it should be 'recycled'.

Oh yes, and a Tory leader trying to extracate himself from a backlash from his own party.

All this, and David Cameron thought he's 'distanced' himself from the most radical idea it contained - taxing shoppers who park at out-of-town supermarkets.

I can only imagine what our own Tory MP John Hayes thinks...

UPDATE: Easyjet was hardly likely to welcome Tory plans for extra taxes on flights, but for the record, here's their comments as reported on Conservative Home. Briefly, they say:

The Quality of Life Report is factually wrong, arrogantly London-centric and would tax the holidays of hard-working families.

Canny Gordon's not frit of Cameron...

What are the Tories who are predicting a snap autumn election up to...?

Tonight, Iain Dale among others is reporting 'rumours in Westminster' of an October 4th General Election - following another favourable poll for Labour and Gordon Brown today.

The latest poll reported in the Daily Telegraph suggests a landslide defeat for David Cameron if there were to be a snap General Election.

Strange, perhaps that the Tories are talking up the odds of an early General Election and crying 'bring it on' - when even they must realise that that on today's ratings, they have no chance of winning the trust of the British people.

Personally, I thought Call-me-Dave's performance on Newsnight earlier this week was the first real sign that he finally realises he's no match for Gordon Brown and that he now sees his task to shore up the core Tory vote.

Could it be that the Tory grandees are predicting an early General Election in the safe knowledge that there won't be one - and then claim Gordon is frit of them?

Surely not!

Iain Dale breaks his silence on my libel victory...

Iain Dale has responded, following Tom Watson's demand that he apologises to me which I posted on HERE.

In a comment on my blog today, Iain points out quite rightly that he didn’t repeat the allegations against me which became the subject of my libel case.

Iain’s not daft and could clearly see that the story about me was potentially libellous, as I eventually proved in High Court this week.

But the day the lies were published, Iain was quick as a rat-up-a-drainpipe to get posting and provide a link to the Mail-on-Sunday story.

Under the headline “Exposing the Real Face of New Labour” – and adding the infamous 1997 Tory “Demon Eyes” poster for extra effect – Iain praised Richard Gibbs, the source of the Mail-on-Sunday story, saying he ran an “excellent” blog.

Iain also said this:

Needless to say the Labour spin machine has swung into action and tried to trash Richard Gibbs by accusing him of joining the Conservative Party.

So who says the person who made the unfounded allegations against me was a member of the Conservative Party?

At the time, Richard Gibbs was co-author of a prominent weblog called The Cameron Leadership or TCL, a site then run by four members of the Conservative Party.

Iain Dale has a link to The Cameron Leadership on his own site so it wouldn't have been difficult to confirm that the Labour Party were telling the truth.

The opening page of The Cameron Leadership at the time confirmed that Richard Gibbs was one of four co-authors of the site who were all members of the Conservative Party.

It said:

“Richard Gibbs joined the Conservative’s (sic) in 2005…”

So is it really "spin" for the Labour Party to say Richard Gibbs was a member of the Conservative Party when he made the allegations?

Incidentally, Richard Gibbs’ own “excellent” site was taken down shortly after I issued libel proceedings against him and the Mail-on-Sunday.

Mr Gibbs no longer contributes to The Cameron Leadership (TCL) either.

The TCL site now says

Richard Gibbs posted on TCL for a while in early 2006. He has…retired from blogging for now.

So those are the facts.

I’m not going to fall out with Iain Dale over whether he owes me an apology or me or not. I’ve won everything I wanted in my libel case. I've been vindicated in the High Court and it’s time to move on.

Iain was gracious enough to say to me:

Well done for having the balls to take it to court and win. Not many would have seen it through to the bitter end.

Ever thinking of improving blogging, Iain adds the following:

Now, what are you going to spend your loot on? A badly needed new design for your blog perhaps?!!!

Er, probably not Iain. But thanks for the thought!

MP Tom says top Tory blogger owes me apology...

Tom Watson MP (left) says top Tory blogger and would-be MP Iain Dale (right) owes me an apology for repeating the untruthful allegations against me published by the Mail-on-Sunday last February.

Iain was one of the first in the world of blog to repeat the libellous lies and promote the Mail-on-Sunday's dodgy story. Iain gave credibility to the false claims by saying that the person who made them ran an "excellent" weblog.

Iain did not comment when the "excellent" weblog was closed down shortly after I issued legal proceedings against its author and against the Mail-on-Sunday.

I emailed Iain after the High Court hearing this week when the Mail-on-Sunday apologised to me and paid me damages after admitting there wasn't a shred of truth in their story. I hoped he might do the decent thing.

Haven't heard back yet.

Meantime, the official apology by the Mail-on-Sunday has just appeared on the Mail website where it will stay for 14 days under the terms of the settlement of my libel claim.

Iain's done a lot to promote higher standards and decency in political blogging, so I'm sure I'll be hearing from him in due course...

Top Tory blogger defends Labour's Lord Levy over humilation of arrest...

Earlier this week I posted on the case of the former Tory MP David Prior who was arrested by police investigating fraud.

I made the point that we could not jump to any conclusions. Now Iain Dale, the Tory would-be MP who has done more to bring political blogging to public attention than anyone else, has gone even further.

Iain says these very public arrest of people who may in the end never face charges, causes public humiliation which should not be part of our legal process.

He's absolutely right.

Iain fought a Norfolk seat for the Tories at the last election where David Prior was MP from 1997-2001.

The arrest of David Prior has provoked Iain to defend both him and Labour peer Lord Levy who was publicly arrested in the current so called cash-for-honours police investigation.

Iain asks:

Whatever happened to the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’? It seems if you a public figure you have to put up with this sort of thing nowadays.

Iain has done as much as any other media outlet to hype up expectations of criminal charges in the cash-for-honours probe - in which police have interviewed senior Labour, Tory and LibDem officials and politicians.

However, it’s an excellent post: well worth a gleg.