Backing Blair – 2nd London MeetUp

Last night’s Backing Blair meeting was a success. We have one mini-campaign on the roll (I’ll tell you more about it later; it’s a hoot) and we also discussed possibilities and options for other London campaigns and ways of improving these and the wider campaign.

I also showed those at the meeting a sneak preview of the second Backing Blair video, which should go live later today.

(UPDATE – Or perhaps tomorrow morning.)

Oh, and I can tell you that we definitely had a spy at the meeting. But that’s a good thing. Because his name is David Shayler and I’m going to build him a weblog the moment Craig Murray’s is finished.

:o)

I’ll tell you more about that when I’m able.








Posted in UK General Election 2005 | 2 Comments

Blogging the election

Both the Times and Radio 4 want you to blog the election for them. For free.

You may remember me asking you to do the same thing. But I’m not the Times newspaper or the BBC. Fair enough if payment is impractical, but if either of them had at least offered a bit of prize money, the reception would have been much warmer…

Europhobia – Rupert Murdoch wants you to work for him for free
Nick Barlow – Why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?

If you want to blog the election and do it for free, then this is the project for you:

General Election Campaign Monitors Wanted








Posted in UK General Election 2005 | Comments Off on Blogging the election

How to spin tectonic plates

Blimey! Now Bob’s at it!

Guardian – Are you thinking what I’m thinking about the election?: Thanks to tactical voting and electoral apathy the Tories could win it.

I think at this stage the Monster Raving Loony Party stands a better chance, but I’ll keep an eye on it just the same.

BBC – Blair ‘up for it’ ahead of poll: Tony Blair says his personal standing in the eyes of voters will be “an issue” in the general election. The prime minister said he was “up for it” as the country waits to go to the polls, possibly in a matter of weeks. (Link via Poons.)

Related (and requires registration to read in full):

Guardian – Why the Sun is anti-Labour once again: The Sun is no longer a pro-Labour newspaper, yet neither the paper nor Downing Street is saying so openly. Both sides are keeping up the facade that it is business as usual despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Murdoch gets busyThe love-affair may not be over. A lot will depend on how Blair reacts to this latest bitch-slapping from Murdoch.

Bloggerheads: An important thing to remember about Murdoch and Blair is that – as cosy as their relationship might seem – Murdoch will not hesitate to give Blair a solid kicking over issues like the EU and immigration…

PS – Oh dear, indeed.

The Sun – Brown sees off Milburn: Tony Blair is preparing to sideline election supremo Alan Milburn amid fears of a Tory revival. Mr Milburn is seen as a flop and will make way for Gordon Brown, hailed by the PM last week as the “best Chancellor for 100 years”.

UPDATE 2 – I think it’s pretty clear what sort of issues Murdoch is trying to get on the agenda via this last slapping…

Look out! Gipsies! But it’s not about racism: The problem with gipsies and travellers has nothing to do with any racial discrimination, as John Prescott fears… If the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office would just let the politically correct scales fall from their eyes, they would see this obvious truth.

UPDATE 3 – (Via Chicken Yoghurt)…

Independent – Blair broke code to keep war advice from Cabinet: Tony Blair is facing calls for a formal investigation after it emerged that he breached the official code of conduct for ministers by failing to show the Attorney General’s full advice on the legality of the Iraq war to the Cabinet.

Here’s yet another chance to stop those protest votes, Labour Party peeps.








Posted in Tony 'King Blair | 3 Comments

Celver

Washington Post – Critic of U.N. Named Envoy: President Bush named Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton yesterday as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a surprise choice that would send an outspoken critic of the world body’s effectiveness to its inner councils.

Kut Nimmo – War is Peace – John Bolton to the UN: In Bushzarro world, where up is down and logic is irrational, Bush nominates a man as ambassador to the United Nations who believes there is no United Nations. “There’s no such thing as the United Nations,” John Bolton declared in 1994. “If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” Like the character Bizarro created by Otto Binder, Bolton Bizarro has a brain apparently functioning at a level of a kid – or more accurately, Bolton Bizzaro operates on the level of a playground bully minus Ritalin.

He’s a smart man, that Mr Bush… oh, yes he is:

Peter Gasston – Right as in right-wing?








Posted in George W. Bush | Comments Off on Celver

Nicola Calipari: Death by Ambush or Death by Stupid?

BBC – Nicola Calipari: An ‘extraordinary hero’: On Friday, Nicola Calipari was an unknown Italian secret agent, close to completing another successful mission for his country. A few hours and a selfless and fatal act later, he had become a hero mourned by his entire nation. Calipari was on the verge of delivering Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to safety after her hostage ordeal in Iraq, when their car came under US army fire.

Guardian – Italian hostage accuses US of trying to kill her as thousands mourn her rescuer: The former Italian hostage who saw her rescuer shot dead at a US checkpoint in Baghdad said yesterday they might have been targeted because of US objections to Italy’s policy of negotiating with kidnappers.

Independent – Italian hostage tells of rescuer shielding her from bullets: Piero Colari, Ms Sgrena’s partner, told reporters angrily: “There are only two explanations, either it was an ambush or those soldiers were complete idiots.”








Posted in It's War! It's Legal! It's Lovely! | Comments Off on Nicola Calipari: Death by Ambush or Death by Stupid?

Push that legislation through, boys!

The threat is real and immediate. Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens says so. In News Of The World.

I shan’t bother wasting my breath to point out the obvious.

UPDATE – But Chicken Yoghurt will. Enjoy.








Posted in The War on Stupid | 2 Comments

Unlikely but amusing

Seamus spotted a familiar image (see these comments) and brought this to my attention…

It has been suggested that Jeff Gannon has been entertaining Tony Blair in a way that makes his offer to appear on Little Britain even more amusing.

The minutes referenced above claim in a nudge/wink way that; JD Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) was busy entertaining the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

The link Libertythink provides to the relevant minutes keeps going down, but you can see them by following this link (PDF) which appears on this page.

Then you can stop right there. This is where the story ends, as there is little prospect of a love-child to agonise over.








Posted in Tony 'King Blair | 1 Comment

Blunkett not the daddy… and certainly not the source of the leaks

Independent – Furious Quinns launch tirade against Blunkett: In public, Mr Blunkett refused to counterattack, saying it would be “unseemly” to engage in a public argument with the couple. Privately, he is convinced that it was someone close to the Quinns who leaked to yesterday’s Sun newspaper the result of the latest DNA test, which established that he is not the father of Mrs Quinn’s second child, Lorcan, born last month.

What a load of unmitigated bulldust.

If you check Bloggerheads from the 16th, 17th and 18th of August 2004, you’ll see a clear pattern of ‘mysterious leaks’ that take form in print in The Sun and News Of The World as support-pieces for David Blunkett. FFS, they even had their Page 3 girl shedding a tear at his resignation.

If the Quinns had leaked anything to The Sun, Wade would have turned that against them in a second in a barrage of SHAMELESS HUSSY MANIPULATES PRESS headlines.

Guy Fawkes – No Need for a Nanny Now: The negative DNA test result comes as rumours circulate that Blunkett could make an early return after Labour wins the General Election. Admittedly the main sources for the rumours are Blunkett and his few remaining allies.








Posted in Rupert 'The Evil One' Murdoch | 1 Comment

Happy thoughts… happy thoughts…

If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.








Posted in UK General Election 2005 | Comments Off on Happy thoughts… happy thoughts…

A message to the peeps who know Zack Exley

If (I repeat if) Zack Exley is on his way back to the U.S. I would ask those who know him best (or even those who know how to get in touch with him) to work towards cornering him in the nearest non-smoking bar, so they may ask; “WTF are you up to?”

Earlier this week I emailed at least 10 high-profile left-leaning blogs in the U.S. about Zack’s new job with Bush-chum-Blair, and only *one* came back with a reply. Basically, I got blanked.

Two of the sites involved – Atrios and Washington Monthly – have now been dropped from my ‘sources’ list.

We help you; you help us. It’s not a specified deal as such, but we in the UK know that there are limits, and Exley has clearly operated outside those limits. And many ‘progressive’ blogs such as Atrios and Washington Monthly have clearly chosen to ignore those limits.

To put it another way…

If it comes down to this being a debate about reality, then if it ends up being a discussion about you in the US dealing with your own realities and leaving us in the UK to deal with ours after everything we’ve been through, then you can Fuck. Right. Off.

We’d love to care about social security and what not, we really would… but we have problems of our own right now that we thought you might care about, especially given everything we in the UK/reality-based community tried to do for America.

Mr Anti-Bush now works for Blair. That appears to be a reality.

Got no comment on that? Fine.

But I personally will not be linking to you if you don’t think Zack Exley working for the opposition is even worth mentioning.

You deal with your domestic issues, and we’ll deal with ours.

PS- Fcuk you very much.

PS2 – The last site to be removed from my navbar was Fark.com

Well done, Atrios and Washington Monthly; you’re in good company.

UPDATE – If you’re in the UK and a regular reader of a left-leaning U.S. blog, I’m going to ask you to send a link to this post to that blog. I’m feeling very ignored and quite pissed off at the moment. How much effort did we (collectively) throw at the US election? How right is it that reality-based blogs should ignore Zack Exley shilling for Blair?








Posted in The Reality-Based Community | 9 Comments