Dapper Laughs Comeback - Don’t Bother

Regular Zelo Street readers may recall the brief interlude last November when one Daniel O’Reilly, who styles himself Dapper Laughs, was notorious, before ITV2 decided not to commission another series of his “Lad Comedy” show On The Pull, in which he gave out advice to young men, who were not as proficient in getting forward as he, on how to make themselves rather better received by young women. As it were.

Funny. So he says

The reason his show was pulled may have been the lame torrent of misogynist drivel that emanated from his North And South, it may have been comments he made during his stand-up show, but it was indeed pulled. Now, Dapper Laughs wants a way back, and has secured a feature in the Sunday Times magazine, where Martin Daubney has given him the benefit of the doubt - and concluded he quite likes the bloke.

As the Indy has noted, “When O’Reilly was filmed at a gig making a rape joke last October, before telling the audience that a woman in the crowd was ‘gagging for a rape’, he lost his TV show and cancelled his tour due to the backlash, in which 68,000 people had signed a petition calling for him to be taken off TV. He later claimed in an interview with Newsnight that he had killed off the Dapper Laughs character”.

Though it seems O’Reilly spoke with forked tongue: “But O’Reilly has begun gigging again, and in an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine this weekend he has attempted to defend the jokes he made that night, while seeking to assure people that ‘I have never said I condone rape’”. No, it’s nothing more than PROPER LAD BANTER.

I mean, next he’ll be coming on all Reformed New Man … oh hang on a minute, will you look at that Twitter feed: “My point was, with 2 million followers why not ask me to put a message across to young lads, instead of trying to ban me. Stay tuned”. Actually, it’s less than 400K on Twitter, but do go on. “As a son, brother, and boyfriend to some amazing woman id [sic] love to use my position to educate men on sexism”.

Has he turned over a new leaf? “I didn't make ‘rape jokes’ I don't joke about rape. Or find it funny...I spoke about it. Unlike any other comic ever”. Is this reformed character also going to cut out his, shall we say, creative use of Twitter to have critics monstered? Sadly, as Mic Wright has discovered, no he isn’t: “I see Dapper Laughs is up to his old trick of quote tweeting people who criticise him so his followers monster them. Classy as ever”.

Wright has weighed the evidence, considered his words carefully, and concluded of Dapper Laughs that “he's a scumbag as is Daubney. And The Sunday Times should be ashamed of giving them the platform”. One thing is for certain: this is a thinly veiled attempt by Daniel O’Reilly to get himself another fifteen minutes. And he does not merit it, whether he gets himself into the ST Magazine or anywhere else.

So O’Reilly can draw an audience for his stand-up show. Fine. Just don’t anyone pretend that he’s any kind of phenomenon other than one worth ignoring.

Times Finds Reds Under Labour Bed

The Murdoch press has suddenly become most concerned about the future of the Labour Party, the Sunday Times today carrying tales of 1980s-style entryism and a totally erroneous suggestion that the upcoming leadership election may be suspended. The problem for Rupe’s supposedly upmarket troops is that their favoured party - the Tories - is the one with the real entryist problem. So what’s their claim?

“Hard left plot to infiltrate Labour race … Harman urged to halt leadership vote” claims the headline, going on to tell “HARRIET HARMAN has been urged to suspend the Labour leadership race after evidence emerged that hard left [again] infiltration is fuelling a huge surge in party membeship … More than 140,000 new activists are projected to have joined by the deadline for registration to vote, a rise of more than two-thirds since the election, with many signing up to back the hard left [again] candidate Jeremy Corbyn”.

Readers have the names of the Communist Party and the Green Party pitched to them, before being told “Some of the new members have previously stood as candidates for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, an electoral alliance including the Socialist Workers’ party, founded by Bob Crow, the late hard left [again] leader of the RMT rail union”.

D’you think the ST wants us to think that there is something “hard left” going on here? There’s certainly precious little journalism: readers are told “Labour MPs say their local parties have been flooded with new members, most of them supporting Corbyn”, but have only one name given, that of Bassetlaw MP John Mann, and even then, the Murdoch faithful have to be highly selective when presenting his contribution.

While Mann has indeed said “People who chose not to vote #Labour at the General Election should not be able to vote for the next Labour leader”, he has also Tweeted “I will be backing whoever is elected #Labour leader (and being awkward). 2016 has elections everywhere and they should be judged by results”. That second comment does not make the ST story, because it does not fit the idea of Labour being split.

Meanwhile, the ST - like all the other right-leaning parts of the Fourth Estate - says nothing about the infiltration of the Tory Party by the alphabet soup of deeply conservative and often Neo-Con influenced lobby groups: the ASI, CPS, IEA, TPA, the Freedom Association (which has been banned from the secure area of party conferences for years), and of course the Young Britons’ Foundation, that supplies so many party activists.

No, all that is hunky dory, but what is not is the prospect of yet another Labour leadership candidate that is beyond the bidding of Creepy Uncle Rupe: Corbyn, like Andy Burnham, has refused to give the Sun an interview. No wonder the Murdoch press wants to frighten the readers against him, to the extent of borrowing the “hard left” meme so beloved of hosts on Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse).

The Labour leadership contest isn’t being suspended. And Rupe still doesn’t have a vote.

Gove Puts His Foot In It

What better way to give voice to the Government’s claim that the NHS is not properly open for business at weekends than one of its ministers discovering that first hand? And what better way to get the information out there to a still sceptical public than having that minister married to a tabloid journalist? So when Michael “Oiky” Gove injured his foot - falling over a toy, for Goodness’ sake - the opportunity was obvious.

“Oiky”, who has form for falling over and making a prat of himself, was driven to an NHS Treatment Centre by wife - and Daily Mail writer - Sarah “Vain” Vine, only to make the Shock Horror discovery that they were unable to X-Ray the potentially broken foot because he’d turned up at the weekend. Here was the smoking gun, the evidence that proved Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) was right.

The Telegraph was clearly not best pleased: “Michael Gove left on crutches because he couldn’t get an X-Ray over weekend … Michael Gove’s wife has called for all NHS services to be available 24/7, after her husband was let down by the lack of Sunday services”. Ms Vine told the Tel that “Oiky” “has been unable to receive treatment for a possible fractured foot because parts of the NHS shut down on the weekend”.

Ms Vine was deeply insulted: “His work diary was packed (he left home before 8am and returned after I was asleep); Tuesday’s, too … The foot has not yet been X-rayed. Obviously it’s not life threatening. But it is very painful … Trouble is, like most people, he doesn’t have a spare half-day to sit around awaiting the pleasure of the hospital radiographer”. There was more. Rather a lot more.

“No one is suggesting NHS staff don’t work very hard and do an excellent job. Just that the service needs to be a 24/7 one. And that means all departments - not just acute emergency departments - need to be available at weekends”. The problem for Ms Vine is that radiology departments at many NHS hospitals are open 24/7.

So the Tel then had to issue a “correction”: “Yesterday’s article … wrongly implied that Michael Gove could get no treatment because all NHS radiology departments close on Sundays … These departments are in fact open 24 hours a day for emergencies in many hospitals other than the minor injuries unit that Mr Gove attended”.

It got worse: the NHS Treatment Centre in Shepton Mallet, where “Oiky” and Ms Vine fetched up, is run not by the NHS, but Care UK, a private provider. So the rotten socialist NHS, which Ms Vine was so joyously attacking, already provides a 24/7 service, but the Very Wonderful private health providers that the Tories want to see lots more of do not.

And so the latest attempt to demonise the NHS in pursuit of another needless and misleading Tory campaign has been unmasked as a sham, driven more by the cluelessness of a Mail pundit than reality. Still, generates column inches and gives Young Dave and his jolly good chaps a nice warm feeing. Mustn’t grumble.

Top Six - July 26

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 Welfare Bill - What Does Labour Stand For? Opposition consists of more than just sitting there and doing nothing. Especially when tens of thousands of people in work are facing a significant reduction in their living standards.

5 Newton Dunn - Still A Bully The Sun’s political editor got himself into the latest issue of Private Eye magazine for allegedly behaving very badly towards a waitress in Moncrieff’s Bar. Not that he’s a bully, you understand.

4 Nadine Dorries Protests Too Much The fragrant Nadine’s latest attempt to silence the serially tenacious Tim Ireland failed as press regulator IPSO - for the second time - threw out her complaint.

3 Subsidise Uber? You’re Having A Laugh The idea that taxpayers should subsidise a global company with a cash war chest of over $1 billion, just so it can make provision for the less able, something that London’s black cabs do anyway, really was taking the biscuit.

2 Sun’s Picky MP Paedophile Claim The Sun’s latest “Paedo Scare” was notable not for what the story contained, but for what it did not.

1 Hillsborough - The Full Truth The Sun’s disrespect for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough stadium disaster went a lot further than one front page story.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Liz Kendall Sexism Row Fail

With each passing day, and voting beginning in around three weeks’ time, the Labour leadership campaign of Leicester West MP Liz Kendall looks a yet more forlorn cause. Today’s news is typical: the tally of Constituency Labour Party (CLP) nominations stands at 106 for Jeremy Corbyn, 98 for Andy Burnham, and 86 for Yvette Cooper. Ms Kendall has garnered the support of just 14. She’s run out of road.

But, given the nature of the voting system, those calling for her to pull out are not thinking this one through: votes are allocated to second, then third preferences as candidates are eliminated when those votes are counted. There is little point in taking a name off the ballot right now. There is, though, no point in trying to whip up controversy for the sake of it, and the latest such event does those involved no favours at all.

Charles Falconer, long-time friend of the saintly Tone, is backing Burnham. He explained his choice thus: “Neither Yvette [Cooper] nor Liz [Kendall] can steer the party through the challenging few years ahead of us when we need a leader who can reach out to all wings of the party and provide unity”. What he did not do was make any generalisation about the capabilities of women in a leadership role.

Not that you would know that from Ms Kendall’s response: “It’s depressing to see a senior man in the party dismiss the contribution of women so easily … For Charlie to say that somehow women aren’t tough enough to lead the Labour Party is a gross insult and, as for standing up to Jeremy Corbyn, I’m the only candidate who has been saying he would be a disaster for our party and that I wouldn’t serve in his shadow cabinet, unlike the candidate Charlie is supporting”. If only Falconer had said what she claimed. But he didn’t.

Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News disagreed: “I can spot sexism a mile off, and I’m not afraid to say it. But Lord Falconer - Charlie to his mates - is no sexist … what cheerful Charlie was saying was a statement of fact, based on YouGov’s opinion poll released early this week”. The involvement of the Murdoch Times has not helped matters.

The paper, seeing its chance to make mischief, reported Falconer’s comments under the headline “Women ‘are not tough enough to lead Labour’”. That, he observed, “suggests I think that women are not tough enough to lead the Labour party. That is not my view and I said nothing that suggested it was … The Times itself has acknowledged in emails that the headline was ‘stupid’, ‘misleading’ and ‘sexist’”.

Would Ms Kendall now accept that? Well, no, the Times headline may have been wrong, but “I based it on what he actually wrote … He said that myself and Yvette weren’t up to the challenge of leading or uniting the party, and I think that’s just plain wrong. He only picked out the two women”. The impression is given that someone is arguing in their spare time. And that person appears to be Liz Kendall.

Sorry, team Kendall. Your candidate is not going to win. Maybe quit the attention seeking.

Toby Young Fails GCSE History

There were many raised eyebrows this week as the Mail suggested that, even in the brave new educational world ushered in by Michael “Oiky” Gove, GCSE exams were being “dumbed down”. The screaming headline, “Spot the difference! How new 'tougher' history GCSE exam will ask pupils to compare these two images of Parliament... with extra points for pointing out presence of women and ethnic minorities”, said it all.

What was that about Dumbing Down?

And the inmates of Northcliffe House wanted readers to know that their chosen party of Government was unhappy about the situation: “Schools minister Nick Gibb said sample papers submitted by the exam boards were ‘far below’ the standard he expects. He attacked the boards for failing to raise standards and making questions too easy”. Gibb did not, for some reason, explain himself. But, for one Tory supporter, that was enough.

The loathsome Toby Young immediately took to Twitter in condemnation, telling anyone out there who had not hit the Mute button “Dumbed-down History GCSE exam asks students to play ‘spot the difference’. My 7-year-old could get a C. Pathetic”. Sadly for Tobes, a perusal of the examination paper - taken together with the marking notes - shows that he has not acquired the sobriquet “Captain Bellend” for nothing.

To get a Grade C pass, candidates must achieve an answer standard around Level 3. But this is a one-size-fits-all examination paper, and some questions do not require a Level 3 standard of competence to be demonstrated. The question with the “Spot the difference” images of Parliament is one of those. The marking notes clearly show that there are Level 1 and Level 2 answer standards. Getting a C involves the later questions.

Take the very next question, “Explain the significance of the signing of [the] Magna Carta”. Here is what the examiner is looking for in a Level 2 answer: “eg It was significant at the time because the barons were pleased to have obtained agreement from the king of their rights. They renewed their oaths of allegiance to him. Copies of the Charter were drawn up to distribute throughout the kingdom. Although it did not prevent the barons going to war with King John it did become the basis for peace between them and subsequent kings, such as Henry III”. That, Tobes, is not yet good enough for a C.

To achieve Level 3 - and a C standard - the marking notes require that the candidate “Develops more than one of the aspects in Level 2”. Perhaps Tobes - and, indeed, the likes of Nick Gibb - would like to explain how requiring that in order to get a C grade is “dumbing down”. And I have one more question for Toby Young.

Tobes runs the West London Free School. So one might expect that, even if he does not understand the structure of the questions, and the marking scheme, in an exam paper, he would be able to consult a specialist teacher who could explain it to him. That suggests either lack of communication, or that Tobes is just being wilfully ignorant.

They don’t call him Captain Bellend for nothing. Because Toby Young is indeed a bellend.

Northern No Powerhouse - Tories Knew

The suspicion of many observers that Young Dave and his jolly good chaps knew that Network Rail (NR) could not complete the network upgrades promised in the run-up to the General Election was, at the time, no more than that. But that NR - like BR before it - could reasonably manage one large project at a time became clear after the event. Now the beans have been well and truly spilled: the Tories knew all along.

What was promised before the polls included the electrification of the Midland Main Line from Bedford to Sheffield - a route which takes in a number of marginal constituencies, such as Corby and East Northamptonshire, won by the Tories in 2010 but regained by Labour after Louise Mensch threw in the towel and left for the USA. The prospect of a direct electric service to London may have proved attractive to swing voters.

And so it came to pass that Labour incumbent Andy Sawford lost the seat he had won in that by-election. The promise of better rail links to the capital may also have proved beneficial to Anna Soubry in Broxtowe, to the west of Nottingham, Nigel Mills in Amber Valley, Amanda Solloway in Derby North, Maggie Throup in Erewash, Nicky Morgan in Loughborough, and Mark Spencer in Sherwood.

That’s seven seats. The Tories’ overall majority is 12. Had Labour taken all of those, there would have been a hung parliament. There was also the promise of electrification for the main northern Trans-Pennine route from Manchester to Huddersfield, Leeds and York, which may also have benefited the Tories. This is doubly important, because we now know that the outgoing Coalition Government knew there would be delays.

The BBC has reported “Ministers were warned before the election that major rail upgrades might have to be delayed … Network Rail boss Mark Carne said the Department for Transport was told in March that decisions about deferring schemes could be due within months. The department had previously said it was not told Network Rail's board expected delays until after the election”. Someone is being economical with the actualité here.

Carne wrote to Labour’s Lilian Greenwood to tell “In mid-March 2015, Network Rail informed DfT that decisions may need to be made in the coming months about the deferral of certain schemes”. He also told that “Network Rail, the DfT and the Office of Rail Regulation all knew around 80% of current projects were ‘at an extremely early stage of development, with inevitably high levels of uncertainty regarding their cost’”.

Instead of coming clean, the Tories carried on with the pretence, their press pals happy to see the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, unveil a stick-on nameplate applied to a 25 year old train as proof that all was well. Now, those same press pals are keeping schtum (the Guardian has reported the story, though) because there is the possibility some seats have been won on a blatantly false premise.

Not that Cameron and Osborne will be fussed. They won. That’s all that matters to them.

Free School Not Cleared For Take-Off

Although the likes of the loathsome Toby Young rightly attract their share of brickbats over a slavish support for the Free Schools programme initiated by his hero Michael “Oiky” Gove, at least the information about how much the West London Free School is costing the public purse - that means all of us - has been willingly ponied up. Sadly, the same thing cannot be said of all Free Schools - well, not yet, anyway.

Zelo Street regulars may recall the curious case of the Parkfield Free School in the south coast town of Bournemouth, which began its life at Butcher’s Coppice, a scout camp, before moving to an office block in the town centre called Dorset House. But then a problem entered: this accommodation would not be available after 2015, so a new home had to be found. The National Air Traffic Control Service (NATS) provided the solution.

Their training centre was now vacant. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the building was not in town, but six miles away - and in a different local authority area - at Bournemouth Airport. It was, in fact, adjacent to the airport apron, giving the potential for pupils to be subjected to the bracing aroma of aviation fuel, and the related prospect of significant noise pollution.

That was bad enough, but then it was found that since NATS moved out, the building had become home to a large number of bats. So the school had to negotiate to remain at Dorset House for another year while that was sorted. By this time, the thought entered that Parkfield Free School might be racking up a fair old taxpayer bill, what with all the different premises, start-up costs, and of course the bat removal to pay for.

So the Bournemouth Echo put in an FoI request, only to have most of it refused: “the DfE would only give us limited information about the school's pre-opening and post-opening expenditure that revealed the school received £145,807.46 before opening and £467,500 afterwards … However the DfE does publish lists of payments over £25,000 and these appear to show that between July and December 2013, a total of £2.14million was paid to Parkfield Education Limited, the trust that set up the school”. There’s more.

“Land registry records also show that Parkfield paid £3million for the College of Air Traffic Control at Hurn”. Hurn is where Bournemouth Airport is sited. So there has been around £6 million shelled out, but the DfE is stalling: “The Department is currently in commercial negotiations to finalise the capital costs and releasing the information you requested may have a negative impact on the Department's negotiating position”.

I detect a whiff of bullshit here. The new premises has been paid for, and all that should now be outstanding is clearing the bats, fitting it out, and paying for temporary accommodation in the interim. Why is the Government dragging its feet? Is there another significant capital sum coming at us down the runway?

Either way, this is another example of Free Schools equalling an open-ended taxpayer commitment. Plus this one, it seems, got a “requires improvement” from Ofsted. The people of Bournemouth could have done better with their local authority.

Daily Mail’s Sour Kuenssberg Whopper

After the BBC announced that long-serving political editor Nick Robinson was to join the Radio 4 Today programme, the speculation began as to who might replace him. Since the appointment to the post of John Cole back in the early 80s, the post holder has become a fixture of TV news bulletins, a nationally-known figure. It is arguably the highest-profile role for a journalist anywhere in the UK, and perhaps beyond.

Jan Moir: such a happy soul

There was also speculation that the selection process would see the appointment of the first woman BBC political editor, and so it came to pass as Laura Kuenssberg was given the nod earlier this week. Much of the reporting of this event has been purely factual (Press Gazette account HERE), but then the Guardian told “The BBC was said to be keen to appoint a woman to the role to give its political coverage more gender balance”.

Now, that is not the same thing as making the selection on gender alone, but it was all that the inmates of Northcliffe House needed to use the event as yet another excuse to put the boot in on the hated Beeb. It is no coincidence that the duty of confecting the hatchet job was given to Glenda Cattia Maxima Jan Moir, who preceded her rant with the routinely dishonest headline “Laura's a star but why did the Beeb only want a woman?”

There was more. Rather a lot more: “from the moment the plum vacancy was announced, BBC bosses made it clear that they wanted a woman for the job to give the Corporation’s political coverage more gender balance. A lady person! Crack open the Babycham and the cal-free snacks. For a mere girl in the top job would be cutting edge and groovy and inclusive, not to mention super-modern and make them look really, really great”.

Not, you understand, that the Mail is being demeaning or sexist - how can it, when it’s given the job of kicking the BBC to a woman? But having made her false assertion, Ms Moir was off and running: “Isn’t making it clear that female candidates will be favoured not unlawful discrimination by any other name? Positive discrimination is just as sexist as the negative sort and anyway, there is nothing positive about it if you’re a bloke”.

Sadly, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with this idea - it was bollocks. Nothing was made clear. There is no evidence that any male candidate was passed over, which Ms Moir almost admits: “Boo hoo to all the other hard-working and now slightly disillusioned chaps who might have fancied their chances at the top job but understood that Men Need Not Apply was the tacit message”.

Then she lets slip the real reason for the kicking: “it has been particularly galling to see BBC executives and certain newspapers crowing about the first female political editor of the BBC”. Pay attention all you yogurt knitters at King’s Place - it’s the Guardian’s fault. Listen up: “These things are not supposed to matter … To do so is demeaning to Laura Kuenssberg and to all of us”. It’s not the Mail demeaning women, so there.

Not as demeaning as peddling a pack of lies as fact, but hey ho. No change there, then.

Nadine Dorries Protests Too Much

With May’s General Election campaign receding into past memory, there has come a timely reminder from press regulator IPSO of the less than totally honest behaviour exhibited by some of the candidates, as an adjudication has been published regarding a complaint made by Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries.

And one look at the adjudication shows that this was one campaign that developed not necessarily to the Fragrant Nadine’s advantage. During the run-up to the election, the Sunday Mirror had run a story titled “TORY NAD STALKING ROW WITH VOTE RIVAL … Police probe Tory’s ‘harassment’ blast”. The article detailed the varied and creative allegations made by Ms Dorries against the serially tenacious Tim Ireland.

The piece also asserted that there was a Police investigation in progress following complaints received in the wake of a hustings event at Shefford, which Ms Dorries did not attend, but at which a number of her supporters turned up and distributed leaflets which made allegations about Ireland. These, shall we say, were not factually correct, and gave every appearance of being highly defamatory.

IPSO, on this occasion, was not pronouncing on the nuances in the Editor’s Code of Conduct, but on a straightforward matter of accuracy, that being whether a Police investigation was indeed in progress when the paper published its article. And, as the Guardian has reported, “The regulator found that the paper’s report that Dorries was at the centre of a police investigation was accurate”. There was more.

“Dorries said that no such investigation could have been taking place because any allegations that she had broken electoral law would have had to be referred to the police by the returning officer, who would only do so after the vote on 7 May. But police repeatedly confirmed to the Sunday Mirror that they were investigating allegations into Dorries, Ipso found”. It got worse for the MP.

“Dorries also complained that the story … was inaccurate because it reported that police had produced a report clearing the other candidate - the blogger Tim Ireland - of having harassed her on different occasions in the past … She said that the document on which the paper was relying, which Ireland obtained under data protection laws, only took into account the professional view of a single officer”.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the Sunday Mirror checked its story with the relevant Police press office, and the IPSO findings note that “The police had … confirmed that [Ms Dorries’] concerns about [Ireland] had been investigated and passed to the CPS, but that no evidence of an offence was found”. Moreover, this was not the only recent Dorries complaint about Ireland that IPSO has thrown out (see HERE).

Those papers that have given Nadine Dorries the opportunity to peddle her claims against Tim Ireland might do well to peruse this latest adjudication before humouring her again.

You can see Richard Bartholomew’s take on these events HERE.

Uber Doesn't Care About Disability

Sometimes, the most unexpected sources ride to the rescue, and so it is with the currently debated issue of driver and rider matching service Uber and its stance on accessibility. The signs that Uber, to put it directly, does not care about the disabled and the less mobile have come not from their opponents, but from their own actions, and the reports on them. The lesson for those needing accessible transport in London are clear.

The capital’s black cabs must be fully accessible: that means they can accommodate wheelchairs, which in addition benefits those less mobile, less confident to use the bus and Tube, those laden with luggage and shopping, or just wanting to make a more dignified exit from their chosen conveyance. No such compulsion extends to Uber to provide accessible vehicles, and so they do not.

But if there were a demand out there, then surely the market would step in and satisfy the need? That would be the dream of those who urge less regulation and free competition. And, from the experiences of customers in the USA, it is, sadly, nothing more than wishful thinking. The effect of Uber in New York City has been to impact severely on the availability of accessible vehicles. And the news from California is yet worse.

In NYC, advocates for more accessible taxi services had worked with the industry over the years to make 50% of the city’s cabs wheelchair accessible. This was not up to the standard of London, but it was excellent progress. Then along came Uber, taking business from taxi services, and taking taxi drivers, too. The result was that, out of an estimated 14,000 Uber cars on the road in NYC, not one was accessible. Not one.

You can see the video setting the facts out right HERE.

What Uber won't give you, and doesn't much care about

It gets worse: last week, as the Los Angeles Times has told, Uber suffered a blow “when an administrative judge recommended that the ride-sharing giant be fined $7.3 million and be suspended from operating in California”. At issue was reporting customer information: “The reporting requirements include the number of requests for rides from people with service animals or wheelchairs; how many such rides were completed; and other ride-logging information such as date, time, Zip Code and fare paid”.

Uber is not letting the authorities know how many requests it’s receiving from wheelchair users and those with service dogs (guide dogs in UK speak), nor how many of those requests were satisfied. This is a most creative way of airbrushing out the issue: just don’t report on it at all. Then there is the issue of non-cooperation with the NYC authorities.

As The Verge has told, “The City Council is expected to vote tomorrow on a new proposal that would impose a one-year slowdown in the number of new vehicles it can license for its fleet. The city says it needs time to study a rapid increase in congestion happening in its crowded urban core”. Uber’s response is to wheel out the aggressive lobbyist and claim that it’s not fair because it will cost people their jobs.

That is Uber in a nutshell. It’s all about them. No word about their total lack of disabled provision. No word about the percentage of disabled requests they actually accept. Just the aggressive pursuit of expansion, expansion, and yet more expansion - on the terms on which they want to do business.

Meanwhile, in London, Assembly Transport Committee Chair Val Shawcross has noted that TfL “does not appear to have progressed plans to develop an over-arching strategy for the taxi and private hire trades”, and, worse, “there is no clear audit trail for interactions between senior managers and licensees”. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Uber’s lack of accessible vehicles will not be addressed by TfL - at all.

So where does that leave those who do require an accessible vehicle, and all those who benefit from the black cab requirement? One thing comes clear from happenings Stateside, and that it that Uber does not give a damn. Hello TfL, time for you to wake up.

Montgomerie Toynbee Smear Fail

Look back for one brief moment to the first days of the phone hacking revelations that ultimately led to the Murdoch empire closing the Screws in a last desperate bid to keep the bid for 100% control of Sky in play. Into the fray waded the well-intentioned but utterly clueless Tim Montgomerie, then at Conservative Home, to declare that “This is about revenge, not phone taps”. It wasn’t, because it was.

Did Monty bother to ask any of those involved - Nick Davies, for instance - if they were part of what he claimed was a Labour Party hit job? Probably not. All he did was to take the then received wisdom among equally badly-informed right-leaning bloggers and pundits and declare it to be fact. It was a spectacularly wrong call, but it was not the only example of the genre. Nor, it seems, has this habit left him in the intervening years.

We know this because Monty was at it again the other day, approvingly Tweeting the Times front page and telling “It looks like @OwenJones84 and @pollytoynbee might just get the Labour Party of their dreams”. This alleged “Labour Party of their dreams” would, it seems, be one led by Jeremy Corbyn. There was more.

“[Would] Ed Miliband be able to save his party by urging folk not to vote Corbyn? Kinnock?Is there anyone who can stop Labour committing suicide?” tweeted a by now delirious Montgomerie, letting slip the real reason for his Twitter excursion, that of indulging in partisan leering at the Labour leadership election, on the basis of a single poll, by a pollster (YouGov) that hacks and pundits on the right had been slagging off since May’s General Election for being totally rubbish.

Leaving aside that the Times is supposed to be an upmarket title and a paper of record - although in reality it lost both labels a long time ago - the sad and rather obvious fact was that Monty had got it plain flat wrong in the case of Ms Toynbee, as she reminded him in short order: “Tim, check before you tweet. Just done BBC News channel on why Corbyn [would] be a calamity, plus columns”. Still, reality, eh?

He wasn’t doing much better with Owen Jones, either, managing to miss that the other target of his Tweet was first and foremost about debating the matter, something his column yesterday afternoon for Comment Is Free makes abundantly clear (see HERE), as does his comment on Liz Kendall today: “Liz Kendall has as much right to stand as anyone. If other campaigns are scared they won't win - maybe they should try inspiring people”.

Montgomerie adds precisely zero to the Labour leadership debate with his clumsy sniggering - and his inability to get his facts right. But that isn’t the point with this particular pundit: it’s just puerile Guardian bashing under the pretext of serious comment. It’s more of the His Master’s Voice. It’s the obsessive sucking up to Creepy Uncle Rupe by someone who must know that he’s been promoted way beyond his pay grade.

Thus the level of high principle at today’s Times. But his loyalty is total and absolute.

Mail Rowling Hedge Attack Flops

The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre never let go of a vendetta, no matter how lame the copy generated in pursuit of it, and so it has proved with a fresh assault on author and campaigner Jo Rowling, because, well, she’s more famous than any of their dubiously talented hacks, and, more importantly, she humiliated the Dacre doggies in open court recently after winning a libel case against them.

So what has Ms Rowling done to offend the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker this time? Has she published another book? Perhaps she has donated to a cause that does not meet with the approval of the Vagina Monologue? Maybe she has appeared at a bash attended by an array of slebs and no-one from the Mail got an invite? Well, no: what has caused grave offence to the Mail is that Ms Rowling is having a hedge trimmed.

Yes, the Mail is running a story about Jo Rowling’s leylandii. I kid you not: “Harry Potter and the prisoner of the traffic jam: JK Rowling causes four days of travel chaos after installing temporary traffic lights so she can have her Leylandii bush trimmed” screams the headline. Did she “install temporary traffic lights”? Well, no: all she did was engage a contractor to come and do the work, but hey ho.

That cuts no ice with the Mail: “Furious residents have blasted JK Rowling for causing traffic 'chaos' - because she is having her hedges trimmed. The Harry Potter author, 49, is having the massive Leylandii bush outside her luxury Edinburgh home cut back and temporary traffic lights have been put up during the works. The 30ft plants outside her Edinburgh property are currently being tended to by gardeners who have been working on them for three days”. So she’s being a responsible neighbour, then.

Keeping leylandii from getting out of hand is no more than that, but the Mail wants readers to know that this is causing outrage: “Many residents are now wondering how much longer it will take because of long tailbacks being created leading one to dub the situation traffic 'chaos' because of queues on surrounding roads”.

And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, the Mail manages to get precisely no residents at all to voice their concerns. And two, how much longer the work will go on is redundant for one very good reason: Ms Rowling had the work done LAST WEEK. We can be sure of this because the story was covered by the Daily Record SEVEN DAYS AGO. There is only one reason for running this story.

To see that reason, all we need to do is to scroll down to the very end of the Mail Online story, to see … oh look! There’s a video of Jo Rowling at the Leveson Inquiry. That, folks, is why the Mail is dredging up a week-old story: to run knocking copy against someone who has had the courage to speak up against press misbehaviour and stand with the less well-known victims of press abuse. This is just a continuance of the Mail’s vendetta.

So sad to see sensible hacks forced into generating this hateful drivel. But not surprising.

Sun Oxbridge Reject Reunion

As I told recently, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, has secured a new berth among Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, and from September he will be the paper’s “Westminster Correspondent”. In reporting this news, the latest issue of Private Eye magazine (Issue 1397) has let slip a most interesting nugget of information.

Man of the people ...

The Eye piece tells “THE political team at the Sun, that most class-conscious of newspapers, is shaping up to be the poshest in Fleet Street with the arrival of its new Westminster correspondent Harry Cole, 29 … There could be social tension ahead, for Cole, astonishingly, is in Who’s Who. He was invited to join the select few last year … although … Staines has not been thought worthy of inclusion”.

Nor, it seems, has the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, and thus the idea that there may be “social tension”. But the more obvious question concerns the spiteful and jealous attitude Cole exhibits towards those who have bettered themselves in life: despite his wheedling his way into Who’s Who, he still petulantly talks of Yvette Cooper, Mary Creagh, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall as “Scions of privilege”.

... and working class hero

For what? For achieving the progression from state school to Oxbridge, which is something they did without access to any kind of privileged background - unlike Master Cole. The flannelled fool went to the exclusive Tonbridge School, where annual fees for boarders are higher than at Eton. Indeed, Tonbridge is an Eton Group school. Yet, for all that money having been thrown in his direction, Cole did not go up to Oxbridge.

A similar story afflicted Newton Dunn: he went to Marlborough College, and at the same time as Samantha Cameron. Sadly, he too did not go up to Oxbridge. He and Cole achieved the same outcome: both ended up going to Edinburgh University. Newton Dunn read English Literature; Cole read Politics. Also no doubt coincidentally, both Fawkes blog and Sun are equally jealous of those who go from state schools to Oxbridge.

The Sun’s bullying attempt to bend Labour leadership front runner Andy Burnham to its will is well known. The Fawkes rabble’s equivalent may be less so, but much of it (the posts HERE and HERE are typical) was authored by Master Cole. And from September, both he and Newton Dunn can combine their petulant jealousy into one glorious circle jerk. So the question has to be asked - why didn’t they go up to Oxbridge?

Did neither Cole, nor Newton Dunn, want to bother themselves with Oxford or Cambridge? Or, as seems rather more likely, were they deemed not good enough? That, of course, would explain the attempts to pull Burnham down a peg or two: it would be a means of exacting vindictive revenge for not getting their feet in the door. And, although it might give the Sun’s politics team a nice warm feeling, it would reveal another failure.

And that is that they weren’t even good enough to make a career for themselves in politics.

Staggers Validates Sun Bullying

If anyone had any doubts as to whether the New Statesman magazine was of truly independent outlook, or just another part of the press establishment, this week has confirmed that, well, establishment it is, as its increasingly out of touch editor Jason Cowley has sucked up to the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, and the mag has effectively approved the bullying tactics employed by the Murdoch press.

Gone a bit downhill since then, sadly

And, as for the idea that the Staggers is in any way sympathetic to any left of centre political ideas, that thought has been signally disabused by Cowley swallowing the right-wing Kool-Aid in one as he refers to a Trade Union leader as a “red baron” in the Mail today. He doubles down by saying of Andy Burnham “this Cambridge-educated former special adviser likes to think of himself as the People’s Andy”.

Yes, the same right-wing drivel - don’t look at the comprehensive education and the achievement of going up to Cambridge, but play the “elitist” smear - that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog regularly peddle. And things are no different in the Staggers’ own features, as witness a piece by Tom Latchem, which also looks at Burnham - and the Sun’s petulant bullying of him.

Readers are given the conclusion of this analysis at the outset: “If Andy Burnham doesn't fix his relationship with the Sun, he's dead meat … I’ve interviewed Andy Burnham. He's a great guy, but if he doesn't fix his relationship with the Sun, he's doomed”. Yes, he has to fix his relationship. There is no onus on Rupe’s downmarket troops to get off their collected jacksies and do anything. They have no need to concede any ground.

There is more: “As a former tabloid journalist myself, and one who remains heavily involved in that world, I told him in no uncertain terms that staying on the right side of the Sun is crucial if you are to have any chance of political success”. So heavily involved that part of that interview Burnham gave Latchem managed to find its way to the Sun’s Sunday political editor David Wooding - it was used to give Burnham another kicking.

So the article’s conclusion will come as no surprise: “unless Burnham can navigate an acceptable compromise with the Hillsborough families he is deeply loyal to and the Sun, his messages about championing the NHS and delivering a fairer austerity plan may never get a fair hearing in Britain’s biggest newspaper”. For Latchem, selling one’s soul is clearly a straightforward exercise, as is yielding to the bullies.

No-one should be surprised that there is such cynicism surrounding politics when anyone giving the impression of having principles is deemed fair game for the deeply unpleasant convocation of thugs, bullies, yah-boo boys, shameless opportunists, amateur Mafiosi, and other associated shysters that populate the Murdoch empire. It tells you all you need to know about the press establishment that this behaviour is deemed acceptable.

And now we can see that the Staggers is part of that establishment. How very cosy.

Newton Dunn - Still A Bully

It was no surprise at all today to pick up the latest issue of Private Eye magazine (Issue 1397, available at all good news outlets) and see another story about the bad behaviour of not just any old hack, but the Super Soaraway Currant Bun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn, who, as the Eye has pointed out, is the kind of “man of the people” who attended Marlborough College at the same time as the likes of Samantha Cameron.

Far more unpleasant than he looks

Nor was it in any way surprising to see that the bad behaviour allegedly exhibited by Newton Dunn, whom the Eye describes, with unusual restraint, as an “Arch snob”, consisted of an act of forthright bullying directed at a waitress in Moncrieff’s Bar, where not only hacks, but many others who work in and around the House of Commons, congregate in order to refresh themselves. The story is straightforward.

Newton Dunn ordered a coffee. When the waitress “told him the price, [he] lost his rag and accused her of cheating him. He cried that she had charged him more the last time he had bought a coffee - why was coffee cheaper now? Clearly, she had cheated him before and pocketed the extra money. The waitress explained that the reason she had charged him more before was that he had a coffee and a banana. This time he had ordered just a coffee, so obviously the bill was lower”.

The waitress, according to the Eye account, took the phone numbers of everyone who witnessed the Sun hack’s outburst, but declined to make a formal complaint as she did not want to be branded a troublemaker. Clearly, some of those present were so unimpressed with Newton Dunn’s behaviour that one or more of them told the Eye.

Here on Zelo Street, while that kind of behaviour is automatically assigned to the “Well out of order” category, especially as it seems Newton Dunn could not be arsed to apologise, it comes as no surprise. That is because of the case of former Sun hack Clodagh Hartley, who told a trial at the Old Bailey last November that she was “frightened” of Newton Dunn, and that “Pretty much after I started, he was bullying”.

Tom Watson, Labour MP and scourge of the Murdoch empire, went further back in 2012, when he told that “Whitehall editor at The Sun Clodagh Hartley, has recently had a complaint of bullying upheld by an independent adjudicator. According to a number of credible sources, the adjudicator found that her line manager, Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn, was guilty of bullying”. There was more.

“When asked about the matter … Mr Newton Dunn said that he was unable to comment on the allegations. Warning me to be very careful what I publish, he claimed that all enquiries should be directed to a company press officer”. Trying to put the frighteners on Tom Watson is never a good idea: the West Bromwich East MP also let it be known that he’d been told Newton Dunn had been given a final warning over the affair.

Will the Sun’s management take any action over the alleged incident in Moncrieff’s Bar? Don’t hold your breath.