It’s seems apposite to note that in the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Prague, in the Czech Republic, has become renowned in some circles as one the growing centres of the hard core porn industry.

I mention that only because a certain current resident of the city appears to be displaying a distinctly masochistic streak at the moment, one that I full intend to facilitate as the post goes on.

I am, of course, talking about ‘Praguetory’, or to give his real name, Dominic Fisher, a particularly miserable specimin of online pondlife… oops, my bad, I appear to have ‘outed’ PT’s real name…

Well, not exactly, as you can see here:

You see, its actually rather difficult to ‘out’ someone when they’re dumb enough to have already done it for you, nor, even under netiquette, are you required to respect someone’s anonymity when they’re determined to make a pain in the arse of themselves are are telling porkies in the process.

While we are on the subject of ‘outing’, its seems that Dominic has not alway bee quite so shy in his online activities. Here he is, for example, posting comments on the Times’ website…

On Nick Robinson’s newsblog on the BBC…

And here he is posting as Dominic on a political blog…

And again… can you guess who’s blog it is yet?

Yep, it’s Bob Piper’s previous domicile at Blogger.com.

Now, you may be wondering, about now, what’s brought all this on yet again? Well, the answer, naturally enough, is Praguetory who, unlike his party colleague, Boris Johnson, has yet to learn the art of taking his beatings with anything remote approaching a bit of good grace.

You see, after I exposed his little G***** O******* faux pas only the other day, handed him his arse in the comments and then, with an assist from Justin, nailed down the lid by producing these screenshots:

I should point at this juncture that unlike Dominic, who’s “I’m sure you all know my anti-drugs stance…” opening gambit marks him out as a sanctimonious prick, especially when he spends most of the rest of the post whinging about a policy matter, which rather suggests to me that all he really give a fuck about the vote he thinks the Tories will get off the back of promising tax cuts, I neither no nore particular care whether the individual in question is an imbiber to rival Keith Richard or a complete tea-totaller.

What that individual may or may not (allegedly) have done in his youth is a complete non-issue at the moment, and will stay that way unless he does something completely dumb, like joining Dom in his sanctimonious ‘anti-drugs stance’ while concealling past misdemeanours - if there are actually any to conceal, which is far from having been confirmed.

But as all signs to date suggest that Tories have learned the lessons of the Major years and the ‘Back to Basics’ debacle, then I doubt very much that’ll happen and even if he did find himself having to publicly pontificate on this particular subject then a simple ‘mea culpa’ and the assertion that he’s learned something from past mistakes would be good enough, in my book, to avoid a charge of hypocrisy - which other that being found to still be up to the kind of stuff that Dominic suggests, is about all that would make this an issue.

That’s my take on it, and I’m a member of the Labour Party. Dom’s a Tory and want to see the guy removed from political life. I’ll leave ot to you to decide where the moral high ground is here.

…Bob Piper, quite understandably given the shit he went through due to PT, had himself a little online chuckle at dumbasses expense, to which the moron has reacted by taking another dig at Bob and trying to stir up yet more trouble for him over his much reposting of this image (shown in its original setting at Peter Gasston’s blog)…

And here’s Peter, some time later, claiming full ownership…

Now you may notice something quite interesting about the date of Peter’s post, shown the screenshot - 23 April 2005. That’s slap bang in the middle of the last general election campaign, at a time when Michael Howard (pictured) was the leader of the Tories and the Tories were running a spectacularly ill-considered, overheated and, in the opinion of many, just plain nasty election campaign on immigration.

And yet, with an election campaign in full swing, that image, when posted by both Peter and Bob, drew not on iota of hand-wringing faux outrage, even from Tory bloggers.

Now that tells you one of two things. Either the Tory bloggers around at the time were, themselves, so uneasy about Howard’s campaign strategy that they decided not to make anything of it… or standards of online behaviour have gone right down the shitter since Dominic decided to show up with the aim of becoming Guido-lite.

As you can see, Dominic’s dragged the old image up and is trying - again - to suggest that Bob is racist, again by taking his reposting on image produced by someone else, entirely of context…

And, as was the case over the Cameron image, Dom has decided to launch his attack on Bob, rather than try and take me on, which to my mind is yet more evidence to support my view that he is conniving, snivelling little piece of shite and entirely lacking in balls, because had any of the latter he’d front up to me, not sit in his online cesspit whining about Bob.

Especially because, no one else but me is out here fucking with him - and frankly if he carries on with this shit then I’m happily going to keep right on fucking with him until he learns his fucking lesson.

You see, unlike Dom, I fight my online wars out in the open - I don’t skulk around behind people’s backs. If you piss me off, then I’ll say so. If you seriously piss me off, then not only will I say so but if the matter requires it I’ll even tell you exactly what I’m going to do you by way of reprisals, before I even do it, because once it get to that point, there isn’t fucking power on earth that’s going to stop me.

Dom hasn’t quite got there yet, but he’s sailing pretty fucking close to it by posting shit like this:

As I’ve said in a couple of posts lately, one of the golden rules of netiquette, if not the golden rule, is ‘what start’s online stays online’.

There is, however, an exception to that rule, and then exception comes into play if someone breaks that rule.

Let me spell this out in no uncertain terms.

Dominic has shown himself to a complete and utter cunt simply by daring to make a threat like that.

However, as yet, I’ve seen no indications that he’s tried to make good on that threat, and that’s the only thing holding me back at the moment.

If he does stir up further trouble for Bob in either the press or by e-mailing Bill Thomas then that situation changes completely, and his little G***** O******** faux pax - with screenshots - is going to start hitting inboxes, starting with the very same G***** O******* that Dominic referred to as a ‘wanker’, an ‘economic illiterate’ and, for good measure, as ‘one of the greatest alcohol and substance abusers at Magdalen College’.

You see, ‘what starts online stay online’ only hold valid if it does stay online (or goes in to the real world without deliberate manipulation - you can’t do shit, after all, if the press happen across it) but if it gets taken into the real world deliberately then all bets are off… and that’s how its always been done.

This ain’t a threat. It ain’t even a statement of fact - this is just how it is, and what happens next is entirely up to Dominic.

One other little matter to sort out is this - yet another blatant lie on Dominic’s part…

Once you’ve stopped pissing yourself laughing at the ‘my gloves came off’ comment, let me draw your attention to his claim that he only began to ‘rally the blogging troops’ on Sunday, which was the 10th of December.

Bullshit…

Here’s Praguetory over at the blog of Morag the Mindbender on the 8th of December, shortly after he first began shit-stirring at Bob’s blog.

Note the date and time… Friday December 8th at 5:12pm (GMT) - two days before Dominic claims to have started to rally the blog troops.

Oh, and the post he refers to is this one…

Note the time and date, again - 8th December at 5:39pm… Central European Time (remember he does blog from Prague), which is 4:39pm GMT.

I think that proves that Dominic was out ‘rallying the blog troops’ well before the time he claims.

You’ll also notice that right throughout this, I’ve used nothing at all that is not in the public domain - although I am certainly aware that Bob, at the time, received e-mails from a number of Tories who declined to join in Dominic’s little blog jihad, in addition to knowing that a journalist played Bob a taped telephone conversation of someone claiming to be Dominic on the line to the journalist and shit-stirring the Cameron stuff.

Dominic’s claim is that it wasn’t him. Well, I think there’s enough information here and my previous post (linked earlier) where, in the comments, he first confirms that he wrote the G***** O******* post, by pointing out a piece of information I had deliberately omitted from it to begin with, and then came back with the ‘where’s the evidence’ gambit - well, it’s published (again) earlier in this post, so that kills that one - for you to reach your own conclusions.

What I haven’t done, yet, is specifically ask Bob to forward to me any of the emails he received from those Tory bloggers who didn’t back Dominic, partly because I don’t really need that information to bury him, but also because, despite what he appears to think, I don’t discuss posts like this, or indeed anything else I post on here, in advance with Bob or with anyone else for that matter.

Oh, and I should say that that stuff of Dominic’s about the Data Protection Act earlier… complete and utter load of bollocks from start to finish.

Leaving aside the obvious jurisdictional questions - e-mail sent from one G-mail account to another never even enter the UK, as Gmail’s servers are all in the US - DPA 1998 could only be an issue if, sufficient personal information was posted to allow for the sender, or recipient, to be identified.

Copyright is more of an issue, but even that is readily circumvented if one understands how fair use/fair dealing provisions operate - in other words and even without having seen a single e-mail, I’m certain that I could quite easily , and legally, publish sufficient content t show precisely when Dominic actually started deliberately engineering a blogswarm - and i’m equally sure it wasn’t Sunday as he claims.
I think that’s about as much of Dominic’s bullshit as I can stomach for the moment. The absolute bottom line here is that in terms of this last week, the stuff posted here has got fuck all to do with Bob Piper.

This comes down to me and Dominic, and nobody else, as far as I’m concerned it only because (a) last time he came here and tried it on he got his arse handed back to him on plate, and (b) because Dominic is conniving little bully, which is why he’s started up on Bob Piper, again.

For all the sanctimonious bullshit he’s posted today, what this comes down to is that Dominic thinks that between
the shit storm he stirred up before Christmas and Bob’s public office, he’s got Bob in a position where he can’t fire back regardless of the crap that Dominic throws at him.

And maybe he’s right and Bob feels that he can’t at the moment, much as I’ve no doubt he’d like to fight his own battles - I honestly don’t know as I’ve not spoken to Bob about any of this at all.

So Bob may feels contrained in his actions… but I’m not and I’m getting thoroughly sick of this jumped up little cunts antics and sub-Guido game playing, so this is my last word on the subject, and Dominic’s last chance to back off and  shut the fuck up.

He’s proved he ain’t got the balls to front up to me, and he sure as fuck ain’t packing the brains either - and that’s what makes him both a coward and a bully - and I’ve made it absolutely clear where this goes next if his latest bout of whinging gets out into the real world and causes Bob - or anyone else - any more hassle.

It’s down to him, now, how this ends… but it does end, one way or another.

I think its well established that far-right political parties have quite a bit of ‘previous form’ when it comes to taking a rather revisionist view of history.

Usually this takes the form of Holocaust Denial and ‘Hitler was just a bit misunderstood’ but if you look closely enough you’ll also find examples of the far-right being rather economical with their own more recent history, as is this (stomach) moving ‘eulogy’ to the closure of The Lagoon Public House in Tipton…

One night a handful of years ago, a young man telephoned John Salvage, the then Black Country Organiser, to express his anger, along with dozens of local people, in regard to children in Tipton, being expelled from school, all because they were angry, and showed it through words and playground tit-for-tat action, at the brazen, arrogant, and racist slurs being thrown their way.

Why, surely it cannot be that, the racism, and arrogant behaviour was carried out by Muslim children could it? Well, it could, and was… and all because these children were constantly shouting their support for the ‘’Twin Towers’’ atrocity that had occurred in 2001, and for ‘’Bin Laden and the Taliban,’’ Many of the Tipton parents had told the headmaster concerned that, this behavior was not acceptable, and that the local white, indigenous children’s torments were ignored. It made no impact, and certain numbers of boys did what came naturally, and through sheer anger and frustration, vented this anger on the perpetrators, in typical childhood fashion.

Soon, some of the local white youngsters were being expelled, and reprimanded for simply reacting to taunts and slurs, but the Muslim children were allowed to say, and do what they wanted. The young father, who’d telephoned John Salvage, was worried that it might all get out of hand, as the situation reached boiling point, and so, along with another activist, John went to an arranged meeting, the first ever in the area, as representatives of the British National Party.

It was thought that, the meeting was between local parents, and angry locals, and the BNP representatives. However, that night, in a jam packed, large room, there was literally red faced anger, at the lack of respect local Labour, Lib/Dem and Conservative politicians, Muslim leaders, and authorities had shown for ‘’their kids’’. After a marathon two and a half hour meeting, with many in the 200 plus crowd, saying that ‘’politicians were all the same’’, and that the BNP could do nothing to help, a hoarse voiced John Salvage and fellow activist, ‘’Budgie’’, proved that the spoken word, even in those heated circumstances, and heart-felt passion from a Nationalist point of view, did hold true.

Now, after many at that first meeting in that public house, have become dedicated activists, supporters and voters, the BNP has created a local ‘’spiritual home’’ in Tipton, and the pub itself. After the initial BNP victory, which saw Simon Darby win a seat in Dudley, and John Salvage and David Watkins in neighbouring Sandwell, many friends were made. Thus, a personal thank you from John Salvage and the BNP leadership in general, is forwarded to Stuart, the young father who phoned John that night, Rob and Tracy, previous landlords at the original meeting and many thereafter, and Jamie and Sandra, who are vacating, due to the pub and land, being purchased by developers.

Out of sadness, respect, loyalty, and to mark the end of this era, the Skull and Crossbones flag can be seen flying from the pub in the picture, thus bringing an end to five years of this central, almost mythical part of local BNP and community folklore. The other picture shown here of the remnant architecture of an old church, also signifies the end of an era.

Awww, what a shame… all a complete load of bollocks, of course, aside from the admission that The Lagoon was the local BNP ‘dive’.

That supposedly ‘first ever’ local meeting meeting of the BNP in Tipton, which took place at the Lagoon, was anything but a first local meeting - the BNP had been operating in the Tipton area for at least 2-3 years before, as noted in this BBC report from 2001…

By the end of 1999 the BNP membership had risen 2,000 of which 400 were active. The West Midlands becomes increasingly important, with local organiser Steve Edwards polling 17% in the Tipton Green ward in Sandwell.

This was before the BNP took up ‘residence’ in The Lagoon, but its still a lie to suggest that the BNP’s activities in the area began only on that mythical night in 2001.

So why are the BNP telling whopping great porkies here?

Well, for no other reason than that in 2000, the relationship between BNP Leader, Nick Griffin and the then West Midlands BNP organiser, Steve Edwards, his wife Sharron (the Party Vice-Chairman) and BNP Treasurer (at the time) Michael Newland, rather soured, resulting in an acrimonius split that, at the time of this report in Searchlight from October 2000, looked well set to hit the High Court.

Without going in to the full in and outs of the split, which eventually resulted in Edwards’ and Newland leaving the BNP to form the Freedom Party with London-based barrister, Adrian Davies, who represented noted Holocaust denier, David Irving, in his unsuccesful appeal against the loss of his libel action against Deborah Lispstadt (who had accused him of Holocaust denial), it carried all the usual hallmarks of far-right infighting; including allegations of financial irregularities, theft of membership lists, etc…

Last month Searchlight reported the £1,500 cheque paid to Lecomber out of party funds. It was initially claimed that this was reimbursement for a printing bill that Lecomber had paid on the party’s behalf. However, it now appears that it was no such thing, but rather a means of supplementing Lecomber’s income without declaring it to the tax and benefit departments. This true explanation was admitted by Griffin, with a degree of embarrassment, at the Advisory Council meeting in August.

Lecomber is believed to receive £120 a week from the BNP, which, when topped up with Family Credit, gives him a weekly income of almost £250. But Lecomber was unhappy to learn that Griffin received double his salary (£1,000 a month) and arguing his worth, protested a need for parity. The £1,500 payment, paid in two cheques, was disguised so as to avoid a comparable reduction in State benefits.

Further details have also emerged about the loan Griffin received from the party to build an extension to his house. It appears that Griffin took several thousand pounds from party funds to renovate a barn attached to the side of his house. He agreed to have a proportion taken out of his salary but decided to write off the remainder, claiming that the room was now available for party meetings and functions at no charge.

Many respected BNP members are beginning to voice disquiet over the leadership “gravy train”. One BNP organiser told Searchlight: “No one begrudges people getting a wage, but it seems to be spiralling out of control. No sooner have we raised money for the party then some in the leadership give themselves a pay rise, trips to the US and build extensions to their houses.”

Nothing, then, that the recently expelled Sharon Ebanks wouldn’t recognise - in fact the Lecomber allegations are still rattling around there even today, some 6-7 years on - except that in case there was an additional twist in the tail as it was strongly rumoured at the time that an impending by-election in the West Bromwich West constituency, arising out of the retirement of Betty (now Lady) Boothroyd from the office of speaker of the House of Commons, played a part in the rift, as Sharron Edwards, who’d previously contested council elections in the constituency, which includes Tipton, was unceremoniously shunted aside as the BNP’s parliamentary candidate, at first in favour of the BNP’s Birmingham South organiser, Lee Windridge, although it was actually Griffin, himself, who stood in the end, gaining on 4.2 of the vote - far less than Edwards would have secured has she been permitted to run.

Interestingly, the BNP’s Wikipedia page has almost nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of the period from 2000-2001, when this split was taking place and make no mention whatsoever of either or the Edwards’ or Newland - the Freedom Party’s Wikiperdia page, however, exhibits no such reticence.

This is not particularly surprising as the BNP routinely makes use of what it refers to as ‘proscription’ when dealing with former members, under which (supposedly) engaging in certain activities while a party official (including posting on Stormfront), or associating with or even speaking to proscribed ex-member may be treated by Griffin as grounds for expulsion (and proscription) from the party. Ex-BNP members, especially those who’ve had a falling out with Griffin or one of his his close allies are officially ‘unpersoned’ by the party, which is why the Edwards’ don’t get a mention at all in the eulogy to The Lagoon as well as speaking volumes about the all-pervasive culture of paranoia that runs through the far-right and their real level commitment to normal ‘democratic’ principles, such as freedom of expression and freedom of association - you can have both, but only when Nick the Fuehrer says so.

So the tale of how the BNP came to first meet at The Lagoon is a complete load of bollocks, including all the revisionist crap about 9/11 and local Muslim kids shouting their support for the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden, which no more than part of deliberate strategy on the BNPs part to reposition itself to exploit the so-called ‘war against terror’.

And how do I know this for sure - apart from talking to local people on the ground up in Tipton?

Well, I’ve also mentioned the 1999 local council elections and Griffin’s unsuccessful effort to win a by-election in the West Bromwich West constituency, which includes the whole of Tipton in late 2000.

So when we get to the General Election of 2001, held on 7th June, some three months BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Centre, what do you think we find?

This…

And there you have it - in fourth place with 1,428 votes (4.5%) we find John ‘never been to Tipton before in my life, honest guv‘ Salvage, Steve Edwards’ replacement as West Midlands BNP organiser.

Can someone please remind me which political party Frank Field MP is member of? (rhetorical)

Or perhaps remind Frank, as he seems to be more than a bit confused of late, is his latest missive on Comment is Free is anything to go by.

A successful terrorist attack on London could make part of the capital uninhabitable for decades and make Britain permanently poorer. Yet, while London awaits its fate, Scotland Yard is fiddling away on an enquiry into the alleged sale of honours. How can the Metropolitan commissioner defend this enquiry as the best use of scarce police resources?

And the right six numbers on the lottery draw on Saturday night could make me a millionaire, but I’m not holding my breath for that either.

Are you actually serious here? The Met should forget investigating a criminal complaintin which is senior political figure may (hypothetically) because there might a few (no less hypothetical) scary Muslims out there.

Is there anything else you’d like to suggest that the Police stop investigating while they sort out this terrorist business. Armed robbery, perhaps? Burglary? Mugging?

Perhaps we should cancel all further housing developments until Barratt’s have built a 15 foot ’security wall’ around the M25 as well? That would make about the same amount of sense.

In criticising the Metropolitan Police commissioner for a serious misuse of police time I have not assumed that there is no case to answer on the honours front. No 10 has at the very least been sailing close to the wind. The whole saga is tacky, to put it mildly.

Tacky? That’s a bit of an understatement, Frank. Try ‘unethical’ instead.

Leaving aside the specifics of the Met’s investigation - on which Michael White offers a nicely considered take - what we can be sure of is that the Labour party did exploit a loophole in the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to obtain funding, by way of loans, without disclosing the identity of the loanees, as it would have had to do in the case of donations.

What we also know, is that the Tories did the very same thing as well.

In fact the main difference between the two parties in this respect is that when both were caught with their fingers in this particular cookie jar, the Labour Party ‘fessed up and published a full list of their loanees, while the Tories stalled, paid off a number of existing loans - thus ensuring that neither the loanee or the terms of the loan would be disclosed - and then replaced these loans with other loans of, shall we say, ‘unclear’ provenence.

Presumably, Yates of the Yard has taken a good close look at these transactions as well, but that’s somewhat immaterial as the democratic, rather than legal, point to be made here is that both parties were ‘working’ the system to their advantage, and, in fact, the Tories worked the system right to very last minute an managed to wring every last drop of advantage they could out of it.

The way that the police have conducted the enquiry suggests to the media that it is the PM who is in the frame. But where did those senior Labour party figures who run the party, particularly in the run-up and during the election, believe the £18 million spent on the election came from, if not from wealthy donors? When the small group of top Labour officials, including the prime minister and the chancellor, mapped out the campaign, did they all believe that the £18 million or so they were committing to election campaign grew on trees?

That’s a very good question - provided, of course, that your prime motivation for asking it rests in genuine concern about what looks to have been the diminution of internal party structures, check and balances and you’r not just looking to take a bit of heat off the PM by ’spreading the load’, so to speak.

What is the financial control structure in the Labour party that allows the treasurer to claim that he had no idea of the source of the £18 million? Does not the Labour party have an audit committee to ask such elementary questions before money is committed?

That’s another question, Frank… and so is ‘Why does it appear that Party’s financial controls (and structure) were largely disregarded by those most directly involved in procuring these loans and and on who’s instructions and at who’s insitigation were they bypassed?’

Both are equally valid questions and, as a Labour Party member, I really would like answers to both of them, but again, I’m a little unsure of your motives here, Frank.

Are you demanding that we clean out the Augean Stables or just spread the blame a little more widely?

These are some of the very important questions the Labour party leadership needs to answer. They are not questions which have so far been put in public debate.

Nor, necessarily, should they be put in public debate, Frank, as you should well know as a Labour MP. All the questions you pose relate to internal Labour Party structures and practices, matters of considerable concern to Party members but not necessarily one into which the public have a right to included.

That’s not to say that public transparency is not an issue here - it is. We have to both do the right thing and be seen to do the right thing, but the debate itself is one for our own membership and not Mrs Miggins the life-long Tory Voter from Middle-Slopping-by-the Canal.

But we shouldn’t have to turn to the police to gain answers to questions which tell us something pretty fundamental about how political parties are run in Britain today. That a full scale police enquiry was put in hand raises not for the first time the judgement of Ian Blair the commissioner.

Actually, on this occasion it doesn’t call his judgement into question at all.

You see, back in 1215, a guy called John signed this bit of parchment called ‘Magna Carta’ and in doing so codified (by default) a basic principle - one that actually dates to Anglo-Saxon law - one that is sometimes expressed poetically as ‘be you ever so proud or mighty, no man is above the law’. And that’s a principle that has served us pretty well ever since - it was good enough to execute a king in the mid 17th century and its plenty good enough to investigate a Prime Minister and his advisers in the 21st.

Like it or not, the Met received a criminal complaint in this matter and having received such a complaint it is their bounden duty to investigate that complaint to the fullest extent permissible in law - no ifs, no buts and absolutely no ’sorry, not in our best interests’.

The commissioner has found himself in choppy political water recently and it was obviously easier for him to allow the enquiry to advance than to defend that with all the issues facing the Yard, the honours for sale fiasco was no where near the top of his agenda. But the easy option is, in this case, a negation of leadership.

Look, Frank, much as I harbour no great regard for Sir Ian Blair, and on record as saying so on on this blog on several occasions, even I am not inclined to suggest that his unwillingness to interfere in or curtail this investigation is a simple matter of political expediency, let alone a negation of leadership. He, or rather his officers, are doing precisely what the law and custom of this land says they should be doing - investigating the complain they received in a thorough and exacting manner.

You seem not to quite understand that half an investigation here is of no value to anyone, least of all Tony Blair and his staff.

If Yates of the Yard leaves absolutely no stone unturned in his inquiries (not ‘ENquiry ‘, Frank - yours pedantically) and finds no evidence of wrong-doing, then Blair will be fully and completely exonerated of all allegations. If, however, the investigation is seen to be anything less that thorough and exacting and no prosecutions ensue due to ‘lack of evidence’ then while Blair and others maybe exonerated in the eyes of the law, public doubts will remains and, most likely, become stronger than ever, having been fueled by conspiracy theories that will inevitably spring up in the wake on such an incomplete resolution to this affair.

If Blair et al are ‘clean’ - in legal terms - then its in their best interests for this investigation to proceed and be completed in as full and thorough manner as possible - only if they’re not is Yates of the Yard’s dilligent perfomance of his duties going to be a problem, one that will not go away if its seen that the good Inspector has been in any way constrained in the performance of his duties by outside political influences.

During Ian Blair’s watch the nature of the terrorist threat to Britain has fundamentally changed. Irish terrorists were about destroying buildings, usually after giving a warning. The nature of the threat posed by Islamic extremists is carried out by suicide bombers. What none of us know is when the next outrage is going to occur.

Nor is the threat, awful as it is, confined to such horrors visited on innocent individuals. An explosion of a dirty bomb could make parts of London uninhabitable for decades or more. Such an explosion would bring down more than the surrounding buildings. Twenty per cent of Britain’s income comes from the financial services sector. A dirty bomb would see much of this industry leave our shores. At a stroke our national income would be reduced from being at the top of the league of advanced countries, to the bottom, with huge repercussions for income and employment levels.

Likewise, bombing the Thames barrier at a record high tide with strong incoming winds would not only flood Canary wharf. Such an attempt would result in a pack of financial lemmings scuttling from our shores with the same devastating effect on national prosperity as a chemical or dirty bomb attack.

No, stop, Frank. You’re scaring me…

Have you ever thought of applying for a job as a scriptwriter on ‘24′?

It is against the need to try and prevent a catastrophe on this scale for our country that I continue to question the use of police time over the alleged sale of honours. I know it’s much easier for the police to chase a somewhat old fashioned crime as the alleged sale of honours than to try and foil the next, and then the next, terrorist outrage.

Of all the many things that scaremongering about ‘terrorist threats’ has been used to try and justify, this is by a long distance, the most contemptible - so much so that words fail me.

Well, not quite, as there are many words I could use here but as I’m consciously exercising a little more self-restraint than usual in the knowledge that some Party colleagues find my occasional forays into streams of inventive invective a tad off-putting - and I want this recieve the widest audience possible - I am rather more (self) contrained that usual in my remarks.

The commissioner has put what we are told is his most gifted senior policeman onto this task but it is these very gifts that we need to employ trying to keep ahead of the new terrorists. Given the choice between ruffling some feathers of the smaller creatures at No 10 for perverting the course of justice or reinforcing the unglamorous daily grind of trying to protect the security of our country, Ian Blair’s judgement looks eccentric, to put it mildly.

No, Frank. It’s you efforts to justify the softpedalling of what is, for the time being, at least, still a criminal investigation by raising the false spector of explosive-laced Jihadis wandering unchecked around London that is, to put it mildly, eccentric.

Insane might be a better term, were it not that I think that you know precisely what you’re doing here, so terms like ‘disingenuous’, ‘intellectually dishonest’, ‘duplicitous’, deceitful’ and ’shifty’ would seem to me to be rather more apposite of your arguments.

Quite where you are coming from here, is, I must confess, something of a puzzle to me. As far as internal dissention goes, those perennial dissenters of the ‘traditional left’, like Jeremy Corbyn or Bob Marshall-Andrews, them, I get. I understand pretty well where they’re coming from, how they see things and the beliefs and values that motivate them to act as they do - and in some instances I’m happy to admit that I’m not at all unsympathetic to some of the opinions.

You, on the other hand, I find perplexing. I can well recall your early days in government, back when you were the political ’superman’ who would modernise the welfare system singlehanded, only then to become a busted flush within a year or so of becoming a junior minister.

Now, when you’re not sniping from the backbenches you’re hanging out with your new found friends at the Thinktank ‘Reform‘, which professes to to be an “independent, non-party think tank whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity.” but looks altogether more like a typical free-market Tory glee club to me and others who still subscribe to the view that if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck…

My you do have some interesting friends there, Frank.

There’s Christopher Gent, the former Chairman of Vodaphone and current Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, for starters.

And what about Sir Douglas Hague, Economics Advisor to the Prime Minister from 1979 to 1983?

Err, hang on there. 1979-83? Care to remind us just exactly who was the Prime Minister at the time, Frank?

I guess Ruth Lea, Director of the Center for Policy Studies (founders Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher) will need little introduction - she’s on Question Time enough for starters. She’s also, in case you hadn’t noticed, sufficiently involved in the right-wing pressure group, the Taxpayer’s Alliance, to have been a signatory to letters from the ‘Alliance’ sent to the FT and Telegraph and didn’t she once head up the
Now there’s nothing wrong with that - Lea’s political leanings are hardly an unknown quantity - but it does seem that you’re keeping somewhat curious company of late, including Stephen Pollard, of whom little needs to be said other than that were Blogger4Labour to run a poll for the man most likely to ship off and join the Tories once Blair goes, then its fair bet that Pollard would come in clear winner - and I ahte to say it, but on recent performance, you might well come in a not too distant second.

I could go on and pull out the details of a few of the other ‘Reform’ notables, say…

Tim Congdon - Politeia (along with Letwin, Maude and ‘Two Brains’ Willetts ) and Taxpayer’s Alliance (again), or

Prof. Anthony O’Hear - another special advisor, on education, to the Thatcher government and a noted social conservative, or

Patrick Minford, who has a Tory ‘rap-sheet’ as long as your arm - former Vice President of the Monday Club, currently on the Council of Conservative Way Forward, whose members include Thatcher, Tebbit, Parkinson and IDS, amongst others, and fair bit else besides.

As I said, Frank. Curious company you’re keeping these days?

Look, I know it’s not ben easy for you.

At one time you could have been a contender but since you got thrown off the waterfront all you’ve been able to is drag your bedraggled political carcass over onto Sunset Boulevard to play the Norma Desmond of the backbenches, so I suppose I should have some sympathy for you.

But you see, there’s this nagging question at the back of my mind that’s bugging me, because I can’t quite put my finger on the answer…

Who’s side are you really on here, Frank?

UPDATE: Apologies to Manic for filching this out of his comments but…

He’s [that’s Frank, btw] just replied to me with this: “Tony Blair ruined my career. I owe him nothing. So don’t bother your silly little head in thinking I put any arguments forward to save Mr Blair.”

Posted by: Manic at January 23, 2007 12:20 PM

Okay, that clears that one up… I think?

With all the fuss about Holocaust denial, should we now start worrying about the possibility of English Civil War denial?

Despite being the world’s oldest democracy, the UK has never had a revolution - no great rising of the people demanding the overthrow of the established order. 

I suspect that what Helena means is that we’ve never had a proletarian revolution in the UK, and I suppose she is technically correct as we didn’t become the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland) until 1800 - the 1707 Act of Union only created the Kingdom of Great Britain, but I’m still inclined to think that the Civil War counts as a revolution, and a British one, despite the name, especially as the Scots helped to start it.

Okay, so Sunday’s story in the Independent about Ruth Kelly and the Maximum Tone trying to backslide on the introduction of the Equality Act Sexual Orientation Regulations in England & Wales and slip in a last minute exemption for Catholic Adoption Agencies is hardly a surprise (it is, however, a resigning matter, Ruth) and nor is the fact that the Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols has been leading the the campaign for an exemption:

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, who is set to become the leader of England’s Catholics, recently warned the Government not to “impose on us conditions which contradict our moral values”.

“It is simply unacceptable to suggest that the resources of… adoption agencies … can work in co-operation with public authorities only if the faith communities accept not just the legal framework but also the moral standards being touted by the Government,” he sermonised last November.

And here’s Vince, again, in the Birmingham Evening Mail only last night…

Archbishop Nichols said: “Granting an exemption to Catholic agencies will not alter the legal rights of same sex couples seeking to adopt children.

“But this is not a service that Catholic agencies themselves can provide because of beliefs that are well known and widely shared.”

So it’s all about moral standards is it Vince?

Well, let me introduce you to Father Hudson’s Society, which is a “social care agency working within the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, which includes Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, Birmingham, West Midlands, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire.” …

…a social care agency that is owned and operated, as registered charity, by the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, of which Vince is the Archbishop.

As you can see, Father Hudson’s Society provides a range of social care services, including family and adoption services, which I guess would make this one of the adoption agencies that the Catholic Church are threatening to close if they don’t get their exemption, but if they do get their exemption then they’ll carry on providing their adoption services and that’s alright because it doesn’t alter the legal rights of same sex couples seeking to adopt children…

…and Father Hudson’s Society also gets to keep the £900,000+ of taxpayers money it receives every year from Local Authorities for providing those services, even though if you’re gay then you can fuck off.

That’s right, £900,000+ - actually its £950,337 in total according to their last published accounts.

Oh, plus there’s another £2.7 million on the books for Adult Care services (guess which exemptions coming next), most of which comes, again, from Local Authorities (although there are some private fees in there as well).

So it about moral standards… and near enough a million quid in taxpayers money  (which oddly doesn’t get a mention) plus, who knows? There’s time to start whining about wanting other exemptions (and theatening to take their ball home) yet…

Isn’t there Vince…

Remember Mystic Nadine?

You know, Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, who had me in stitches with her hilariously bad grasp of statistics only a touch over a week or so.

Well, Nadine’s back and this time its amnesia…

Simon Mayo: Did you vote for the control orders Nadine?

Nadine: I…don’t remember.

Simon: You don’t remember?

Kitty Ussher: You don’t remember!

Nadine: I don’t think I did actually…I don’t remember the specific, it was part of a bill I don’t know, I probably did vote, I would imagine that I did vote for it, yeah.

Kitty: So you voted for it but you’ve just on air, on live air, tried to…

Nadine: Yeah probably and you’ll probably find out in a second when you’ve looked it up that I didn’t, I really don’t know, but I do know that if you put any any…

Kitty: So it’s Conservative policy taking this very seriously. 

There is a slight problem here with Simon’s original question. Control orders were introduced in Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which received royal assent on 1th MARCH 2005…

…and neither Kitty or Nadine became MPs until the General Election that took place on 5th MAY 2005, so the answer that Nadine was grasping for, and missing completely, was…

‘No. I wasn’t an MP at the time’…

(via Ridiculous Politics - who hasn’t quite cottoned on to the full measure of ridiculousness in this story)

FOOTNOTE:

Is anyone just a tad relieved that Simon doesn’t appear to have asked Kitty the same question? Just a thought - think nothing of it…