Politician Prepares For Debate No Shock

[Update at end of post]

Both the Sun on Sunday and Sunday Times are secreted away behind a paywall, but a Zelo Street regular has made available the relevant screen shots (see how that works, Rupe?) to show that the desperation in the Murdoch poodles’ attacks on Mil The Younger has gone beyond mere barrel scraping, and they are now onto their Fred Flintstone tribute act (that means they’ve reached Bedrock).

The Sun’s Sunday political editor David Wooding has his name on one of the lamest by-lines ever to come out of the Lame faculty of the University of Lame in the lame city of Lamesville, as he proclaims “ED’S SECRET ROBO PLOT … Exclusive: 10-page crib sheet for ‘stiff’ TV show”. This reveals that the Labour leader prepared for last week’s Leaders Debate at Media City. Just like any party leader would!

So Rupe’s downmarket Sunday troops have loaded all their Easter eggs into one singularly uninspiring basket. “Politician caught preparing for debate” has precisely no news value whatever. That someone has picked up what look like Miliband’s discarded crib notes has hardly any more worth, other than to show that his handwriting can be, shall we say, challenging to decipher at times.

Otherwise, this is, as with yesterday’s “body language” attack, yet another nasty piece that can trace its lineage back to 1984’s “Benn On The Couch”, as witness “bizarre motivational notes … hush-hush game plan … gives a rare insight into the inner workings of his mind … lays bare how he tried to psych himself up for the showdown by scrawling ego-boosting pep notes … cyborg-like”. Yeah, see, he’s odd, innit?!?

And the very worst of howlers comes as Wooding claims Miliband was “telling himself to behave like a ‘happy warrior’”. Er, hello David? You do know that this is a reference to a well-known William Wordsworth poem? Either Wooding does not know his English literature, or he’s insulting his readers (the reality may lie somewhere between those two). Worse still is the use of the supposedly upmarket Sunday Times to run the story again.

The paper’s political editor Tim Shipman - ex Daily Mail - was also on board: “I believe the Sun on Sunday has a belter this evening. Keep an eye on @DavidWooding's tweets … Ed seems to have left something lying around … Scripted responses are sensible but ‘happy warrior’ is dangerously memorable”. Yes, Mr S., it’s memorable because it’s Wordsworth. But you and your pals have your script to stick to.

Journalists with decades of experience behind them, and capable of searching out stories and turning them into memorable copy, have given up all pretence of independent thought in a lame attempt to inflate “Politician rehearses for TV debate” into so much psychobabble and knocking copy. “Oops! Miliband forgot his debate crib sheet” chirps the Sunday Times headline. More like “Oops! Hacks forgot their ability to think for themselves”.

Can it get yet more lame? It certainly can - four and a half more weeks of this to come.

[UPDATE 6 April 1555 hours: It certainly could get more lame, as the Sun has decided to use this non-story as an excuse to kick the hated BBC, chucking in the odd blatant lie as it does so.

Under the headline "Sun's Mili BBC snub", readers are told that "Number 10 complained to the BBC after the broadcaster shunned yesterday's Sun coverage of the 'happy warrior' notes Ed Miliband forgot to take away after the TV leaders debate".

Wrong: as election purdah rules dictate, Number 10 did no such thing. Perhaps they mean their pals at CCHQ. The paper remembered in time to quote rent-a-gob Tory Charlie Elphicke, who seems to think that the decision to base its news coverage on news, rather than partisan knocking copy, has something to do with the Beeb's impartiality, which it does not.

So the broadcaster may have mentioned the non-story later. Have I got news for the faithful Murdoch retainers: the BBC is there to serve all the public, not just the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker. Still, good to see the usual level of accuracy from the Sun - not unadjacent to zero]

Top Six - April 5

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 to empty the washing machine later. So there.

6 Leaders Debate - Only Two Can Spin Both the Sun and Telegraph had already decided before the ITV-hosted debate from Media City that Mil The Younger had lost because their pre-determined script said he was rubbish. It didn’t turn out that way. Bad move.

5 Telegraph Wins Best April Fool That letter from more than a hundred business leaders just had to be a piss-take, right? It turned out that way after it was suggested that CCHQ was behind it - another slice of Telegraph non-journalism.

4 Sun Miliband 1980s Dishonesty If in doubt, resort to the tactics of the infamous Kelvin McFilth - just chuck it in, even if it isn’t true. So they did, including Tweets that didn’t exist. Four and a half more weeks of this creativity to go.

3 Sun Nation Is A Flop The Sun has made its allegedly fun politics site open to all, put several hacks on it full time, and promoted it heavily. But it has been estimated that 90% of Retweets are coming in-house - from the Sun’s own staff.

2 Grant Shapps Lied On Newsnight The Tory Party chairman pulled three flat-out lies in his interview with Evan Davis, on Greece, Growth, and his own business activities. But still he is in place.

1 Guido Fawked - Tory Shill Fail The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog kicked off the election campaign by running just the eight Labour bashing items, some of which were of dubious veracity. As Peter Jukes put it, it was looking as if the Fawkes folks were “a disownable branch of Conservative HQ”. Another fine mess, once again.

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

Sun Miliband 1980s Dishonesty

[Update at end of post]

Remember “Benn On The Couch”? This infamous Sun smear was run just before the Chesterfield by-election in 1984 in order to undermine Tony Benn, who had left Parliament after defeat in Bristol East the previous year. The psychiatrist who made the assessment had never met Benn, and the article was widely condemned. It was another low water mark in the career of the appalling Kelvin McFilth.

This man is so dangerous ...

Well, now the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has returned to “expert” profiling in order to smear Mil The Younger, as hack Kate McCann has penned “METAL MILI … Cyborg-like body language slammed”. Many Sun readers will be too young to “get” the title, which alludes to the TV Series Metal Mickey, which ran from 1980 to 1983. The Sun does like to hark back to the 80s, perhaps because the paper wielded real power then.

... that he's worth a smear like this

The article, sadly for those expecting actual facts from the Sun, is a mixture of selection and downright dishonesty, and this can be seen to good effect in the contribution of body language expert Judi James. There are direct quotes from her in the body of the article, but whether the words in “Stare”, “Shake”, “Stance”, “Gestures” and “Smile” are also hers, we are not told. And, as the man said, there’s more.

Yes, he said that, but he also ...

While the Sun quotes Ms James as saying Miliband looked “like a man not in charge of his own body” (see readers, he’s an alien!), she is also quoted by the Mail saying “Overall I’m sure Miliband’s coaching team will be patting themselves on the back and declaring a win … it was like a hypnotist working his spell on his audience … Miliband struck lucky with the middle spot (always where the highest status people sit) and used it to the max”.

... said that, and the Sun won't be going there

Instead, the Sun selects the “suggested he was being worked by some kind of remote control”. Also highly selective is the claim that outgoing Parliamentarian Austin Mitchell “thought SNP chief Nicola Sturgeon came across better” than Miliband. It’s true he Tweeted “Every twitter thinks their leader won but they themselves could have put it better.. I'm the only objective voice. Women won. Sturgeon best”. However.

She didn't say what the Sun claims ...

Ms McCann can’t have it both ways: Mitchell also Tweeted “Who invented the silly story about Sturgeon favouring Cam and for whose benefit?” which the Sun will not be featuring any time soon. And, as for Diane Abbott and Rowenna Davis backing Ms Sturgeon over Miliband, that is a flat-out lie. The former’s only mention of the SNP leader was “Politics aside good to see @NicolaSturgeon takes @Nigel_Farage to task on immigration”.

... and neither did she

And all Ms Davis said about the debate was “With respect Prime Minister, it's people that create jobs, not you” and “It's telling that the whole of our political debate is shifted to the left when you bring in all of Britain's parties”. Thus the downright dishonesty: another throwback to the 80s, when Kel and his pals just “chucked in” anything they could make up. Miliband has not been snubbed by his own MPs.

Oh, and the “Milibot” meme is no better than “Red Ed”. It’s not working, Murdoch poodles.

[UPDATE 1810 hours: Diane Abbott has now confirmed that the Sun has been dishonest in its claims about her.

She has Tweeted "The tweets the Sun is alleging do not exist". So perhaps Kate McCann would like to explain herself? Maybe not - after all, being a Sun hack means never having to say you're sorry]

Sturgeon Is The New Clegg

This morning, Corporal Clegg and his motley platoon may be basking in the quiet satisfaction of knowing that what happened to them in the run-up to the last General Election is not going to happen this time round. Almost five years ago, following the first of the Leaders’ Debates, Clegg, who was judged to have put in the best performance of the three party leaders taking part, was subjected to a vicious press assault.

This woman is very scary - If your name is Paul Dacre

At the head of the attack was the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, commanding his crack, if not totally cracked, battalions of obedient hacks and pundits from the Daily Mail. The panic button was duly pressed at the thought of the Lib Dems preventing Young Dave from entering 10 Downing Street, and the Mail’s favourite subject of the past 80-odd years was recalled in order to put the boot in.

“CLEGG IN NAZI SLUR ON BRITAIN” thundered the headline. Was there a “Nazi Slur”? No, there wasn’t, but the Mail had persuaded credulous Tory MP Nicholas Soames to give them a suitably supportive statement. In the event, the Lib Dems’ poll numbers held up reasonably well, and Clegg became Deputy PM, something the Vagina Monologue has never forgiven, hence the continuing abuse dumped on him.

That was then ...

But this time Clegg will not be on the receiving end of the Mail’s monstering: after last Thursday’s TV debate, those in the Northcliffe House bunker have taken the decision to go after Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon instead. The reasoning is straightforward: she gave a very good account of herself, her party may gain a lot of seats at the election, and the party most likely to benefit from their support is Labour.

This, for Dacre, is unforgivable: it does not seem to have occurred to him that the House of Commons is there to represent the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is clearly betting that it hasn’t occurred to his readers, either. So they are told that, unless they do as instructed and vote for Young Dave and his jolly good chaps, those damn provincials from the far north will run the country by proxy.

... and this is now

And that’s total crap. What is worse for the Mail, not only has the paper run different headlines on its English and Scottish editions this morning, images of the two front pages are now being widely disseminated via social media to demonstrate Dacre’s hate and hypocrisy. English readers get “MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN IN BRITAIN”, the angle being that Ms Sturgeon is some kind of rotten lefty.

But Scots are told “NICOLA: I WANT TORIES TO WIN”, trading on the Telegraph’s assertion that it has seen a memo that nobody concerned seems to know about. The angle there is to suggest the SNP is in league with the hated Tories, the party which the Mail would like to see benefiting from their attack. Confused? Dacre might be, but more and more of his readers will have rumbled his nasty agenda.

The Clegg attack didn’t work. This one won’t work either. Will it deter the Mail? Will it heck. Roll on the next smear campaign. There’s still more than four weeks to go.

Telegraph Sturgeon Memo Farce

Her party may only be campaigning in Scotland, but the successul excursion to Media City by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has set the right-leaning press off on a display of blind panic. And for why? The idea that the SNP might gain several seats has been pretty much part of the accepted political wisdom more or less since last September’s independence referendum. The panic has led to some suitably creative copy generation.

Nicola Sturgeon

And the press will have to go some to match the creativity shown by the Telegraph, which claims to have seen a memo which, by the most fortunate of coincidences, matches that paper’s agenda perfectly. Moreover, the “full text” of the memo, which has been published in today’s paper, is not shown as an original document, but instead, readers are expected to take the supposed transcript on trust.

Now, far be it for me or anyone else to suggest that the Tel is overplaying its creative abilities here, but readers should note carefully the sub-heading: “Here is the full text of the British Government's account of the French ambassador's meetings at the Scottish Parliament, including her talks with Nicola Sturgeon” [my emphasis]. Not the Scottish Government’s account, and not the French Government’s account, either.

This is the relevant part of the “memo” : “The Ambassador also had a truncated meeting with the FM (FM running late after a busy Thursday…). Discussion appears to have focused mainly on the political situation, with the FM stating that she wouldn’t want a formal coalition with Labour; that the SNP would almost certainly have a large number of seats; that she had no idea ‘what kind of mischief’ Alex Salmond would get up to; and confessed that she’d rather see David Cameron remain as PM (and didn’t see Ed Miliband as PM material)”. Does something smell just a little ripe here?

Not wanting a formal coalition is already known, as it the belief that the SNP will gain a number of Parliamentary seats. The Alex Salmond line is an outsider’s speculation - he and Ms Sturgeon work closely together - and the comments on Young Dave and Mil The Younger just happen to chime with what the Tel has been pushing for some time.

A source “close to the First Minister” that the BBC’s James Cook finds reliable enough to quote has called the claim “completely false”. Moreover, “the French consul general in Edinburgh, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, has told the BBC Ms Sturgeon had not expressed any preference for a leader". So what of the French ambassador?

“The spokesman for the French ambassador Sylvie Bermann … said Ms Bermann had met Ms Sturgeon in Edinburgh, but that the SNP leader had not expressed an opinion on who she would prefer as prime minister”. It’s looking like the Tel is in a minority of one here. What they have may indeed be genuine - but without something to back it up, this may go down as yet another dud Zinoviev Letter.

Almost five more weeks of this creativity to go. Elvis may yet get a look-in.

Katie Hopkins Debate Bigotry

The ITV-hosted Leaders Debate last night gave every broadcaster the chance to give their pundits an airing, however indifferent the analysis. And out there in the Twittersphere, those who did not merit pundit status, but were rather too full of their own sense of entitlement, did their own punditry, with predictably tedious results. And the results do not get more Tedius Maximus than with Katie Hopkins.

Young Dave and his bestest fan

Now, we all know who Ms Hopkins wanted to win: Young Dave is her hero, her kind of man, although Cameron might not be so keen after her recent “gas oven” jibe at his principal opponent. So Dave got a free pass, but everyone else got a kicking because, well, she probably had nothing better to do. And the nastiest of the Hopkins kickings was reserved for the women participants, which is interesting in a petty jealousy sort of way.

First to get it in the neck for having her own opinion was Natalie Bennett: “Natalie couldn't find a jacket to fit - so she thought screw it, I'll wear this terrible old sack”. It got worse: “Christ, an irritating Australian is trying to tell us how to run our country. Darling, you can't even run Brighton … Look Green Party. You aren't getting in. You aren't even properly British. Get yourself to M&S and get a suit”.

Ms Bennett does not run Brighton, and she is British, but Katie isn’t finished: “Natalie celebrates free movement of people in the EU. Oh yes Natalie, I celebrate the buggers climbing in lorries at Dover”. Free movement within the EU does not entail climbing in lorries, but then, facts are not Ms Hopkins’ strong suit. This should be borne in mind as she turns on Nicola Sturgeon. Here, she starts nasty and gets nastier.

“Ah, the poison dwarf has a voice in England. Someone show it daylight, daylight will kill it … Little Miss Salmond chooses children not nuclear weapons. These are big and strange choices to make [WHAT?] … Chuff off you little poison dwarf. We pay for Scottish education and Scottish prescriptions. DO ONE”. In case you missed it, she really has a problem with other women being successful. And, as the man said, there’s more.

“The Poison Dwarf promises everything without making a single cut. THAT is the luxury of getting English cash … No Nicola, you have not kept university free of tuition fees. ENGLISH MONEY has kept that free. Utter crap”. You think that’s unpleasant? Ah, but then she notices Leanne Wood. “Why is there a Welsh person speaking on my TV. Did she just say we offer f*ck all?” Patronising, much?

“'So much pain for so little gain' oooo Wales likes rhymes. She probably thinks breast is best too … SHIT, Wales gave the world the NHS. I thought they gave the world Jihadis and a bloody silly accent”. I did say that factual knowledge was not her strong suit. But ignorance and abuse certainly are, particularly towards other women.

Fortunately for Cameron, nobody has yet asked him if he approves of the behaviour of his self-proclaimed bestest fan. He will be hoping that moment never comes.

Nigel Farage Is Unwell

As last night’s ITV Leaders Debate got under way, one thought came to mind: had Nigel “Thirsty” Farage really stuck to his claim not to have gone near the falling-over water before 1800 hours? His performance, with its mix of strange facial expressions and occasionally bizarre rants, suggests that he may not have achieved this particular objective. The sweaty demeanour suggests likewise.

Sweaty and overtired finger up the bum time

The HuffPost captured one of Nige’s wobblies, observing “Nigel Farage Just Malfunctioned During The Leaders’ Debate”. Mr Thirsty also interrupted Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, barking “The books aren’t balanced. We’ve got a £90bn deficit. What’s going on here? Let me get real. Please”. And, as Gary Gibbon of Channel 4 News pointed out, the UKIP leader had difficulty making sense on other issues.

“Nigel Farage lamented a Britain that is littered at the top of politics with the products of private schools. Keen-eyed observers of the profile of Nigel Farage we transmitted will recall he is a product of one of those himself” noted Gibbon. The head Kipper made a lot of noise, but was ultimately in one-trick pony mode: it was the foreigners. Nicola Sturgeon observed that there was nothing he wouldn’t blame on them.

But it was when he coupled his attack on foreigners (but not his German wife, of course, and definitely not his forebears, who were French, hence the, er, foreign-sounding surname) with claims about “Health Tourism” that his opponents expressed a mix of disbelief and disgust. As the Guardian reported, “He went on to claim that 60% of the 7,000 people diagnosed with HIV every year in the UK were born abroad”.

You heard that right. Mr Thirsty went on “you can come to Britain from anywhere in the world and get diagnosed with HIV and get the retroviral drugs that cost up to £25,000 per year per patient. I know there are some horrible things happening in many parts of the world, but what we need to is put the National Health Service there for British people and families who in many cases have paid into this system for decades”.

Gibbon conceded that this scaremongering would play well with the UKIP base, which, if that kind of thing impresses them, they certainly are. Leanne Wood told Mr Thirsty that he ought to be ashamed of himself. Mil The Younger Tweeted later that the comments were “disgusting … He should be ashamed. The fact he isn’t says so much”. Corporal Clegg Tweeted that it was “simply vile and desperate. Politics of the lowest form”.

Many people wouldn’t frame a debate about the NHS in that way, no matter how many sherbets they’d imbibed. So the question has to be asked, had the UKIP leader been frequenting a nearby Rub-A-Dub, and as a result, did he appear in that debate while Elephants Trunk and Mozart? Are we expected to believe that he always behaves like that? And if he does, is that a good selling point for his party?

Was he in an overtired state? As Private Eye might have put it, I think we should be told.

Leaders Debate - Only Two Can Spin

Back in the mists of time, and in black and white, the successful British comedy film - which means it must have been a long time ago - Only Two Can Play featured a scene where the lead character, who was supposed to be reviewing a local theatre’s new production, leaves early and submits a cod review for his newspaper column, assuming that nobody will be bothered, or able to tell the difference from the real thing.

The problem comes when the there is an accident with the props and the theatre burns down. Thus the perils of writing before the event. Sadly, in the intervening half a century, the Fourth Estate has forgotten the lesson, and this, coupled with their determination to tell readers which way to vote, rather than give them any of those inconvenient facts, has left the Telegraph and Sun covered with rather more than confusion this morning.

So while the Independent’s offspring i tells its readers “Dawn of rainbow politics”, acknowledging the contributions of seven party leaders in last night’s ITV-hosted show from Media City, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun had already decided that Mil The Younger had lost, because this was in accordance with their script. So readers of that paper were told “Oops! I Just Lost My Election” (Geddit?!?).

The Tel had also made its mind up that, whatever the reality, Miliband had lost because the accepted Tory-supporting line meant that he was rubbish. “Miliband flops as outsiders shine” they declared, selecting the post-debate poll that gave the Labour leader the least favourable rating. The problem with this approach was that the YouGov poll put their preferred Prime Minister behind Nicola Sturgeon and Nigel “Thirsty” Farage.

Sadly for both Sun and Tel, the snap polls after the debate showed Miliband doing as well as Cameron, with ICM for the Guardian putting him in front by a point (those who like to crow about ICM as being the “gold standard” when its results bring news they like may not be too happy about that) and two other pollsters showing a tie. And the conclusions reached by the Guardian’s report will not make good reading for the Tories.

“Miliband does seem to be rated as a credible Prime Minister” the report observed in summary, also noting “Nicola Sturgeon’s appeal goes way beyond Scotland”, suggesting that those who could not vote for her party would mostly give Labour their endorsement. Having seen which way the wind was blowing, whoever was writing today’s Sun editorial then decided to break ranks with the headline.

“In truth, last night’s debate decided nothing” was the grudging opening line. And that’s not quite right, is it, Murdoch poodles? It allowed more and more of your readers to see through the fog of blatantly partisan propaganda. It showed once more that, the more the viewers see of Miliband, the less they believe the abuse. And it showed just how desperate the right-leaning press is to keep him out of power.

The Sun and Tel’s props just caught fire and burned down their theatre. Bad move, chaps.

Sun Tory Business Spin Unravels

[Updates, two so far, at end of post]

The Super Soaraway Currant Bun, which, on the direction of Creepy Uncle Rupe, has followed the Telegraph and abandoned all pretence of allowing its readers to receive a balanced view of the forthcoming General Election, has used yesterday’s “letter” to the Tel, signed by all those “business leaders”, as the basis for another mainly fictional attempt to tell that Labour is engaged in some kind of “attack on business”.

This is allied to another fictional concept, the “lurch to the left”, along with the over-use of one Charles Dunstone, the Carphone Warehouse man, because he once passed favourable comment on Labour. What the Sun manages not to tell readers is that Dunstone is one of the “Chipping Norton Set”, a pal of their former boss Rebekah Brooks, and also a weekend neighbour of Young Dave.

The Sun has been secreted away behind a paywall, but a Zelo Street reader has made a screen shot of the article available (see how that works, Rupe?). It is titled “ED CHUM PRESCOTT IN BLAST AT BOSSES … HORRIFIED LABOUR TOP BRASS REELING”. What has Prescott done? Pointed out that there are a significant number of Tory donors in that list of “business leaders”. Which there are.

So what of the “horrified” Labour “top brass”? The claim is attributed to Dunstone, but to be fair to him, the Sun puts it in quotes, probably because what he said was not sufficiently incendiary for the hacks’ liking. What we do know is that, while Dunstone claims “I speak to Labour people who have been in Government who are horrified by the rhetoric and direction of the party”, he is unable to name check one of them.

While Steve Hawkes and Kate McCann were trying to spin the idea that the businessmen who signed the Tel’s letter were not part of a piece of Tory Party propaganda, though, it had already been revealed that the party had indeed been behind it - and this was underscored today when Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, said “that Conservatives should not have used his name on the business leader supportive letter”.

So when the Sun claims Dunstone “joined 102 other top bosses in backing the Tories’ long-term plans for economic recovery”, not only is that number suspect, but also it seems Sun readers are not being told that the “letter” wasn’t something that business people had originated themselves. They may not be told, also, that the Tories are still trying to deny they were behind the letter, pretending it was some kind of spontaneous gesture.

Meanwhile, the Sun is trying to threaten its readers away from supporting the Labour approach to zero-hours contracts: for those who signed that party’s letter, the paper says this is “raising the threat that they could now be sacked by vindictive bosses”. You mean the kinds of people whose praises you’ve just been singing, Sun people? They sup some strong stuff over at the Baby Shard nowadays.

They might as well just tell readers to vote Tory. Which they will be doing soon enough anyway.

[UPDATE1 1810 hours: now the CEO of Ladbrokes has also distanced himself from the Telegraph letter.

Jim Mullen "wrote that the company has made clear that it does not endorse any political party and would not seek to tell its employees or customers how to vote".

What you will not read in the Sun. Or the Telegraph. No surprise there, then]

[UPDATE2 3 April 1015 hours: and another of the signatories has distanced himself from the letter, which was not a Tory Party stunt, honestly.

As the Guardian has told, "Lord Bilimoria, the independent cross-bench peer, told the Guardian that he was 'unhappy' that the letter, which first appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, gave the impression that he was a Conservative party supporter".

Probably as well they got more than a hundred to sign up, then]

Guido Fawked - Miliband Smear Fail

As if to rubberstamp Peter Jukes’ thought that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog are becoming “A disownable branch of Conservative HQ”, the already thin veneer of reality was cast to the wind yesterday afternoon as a copy of Mil The Younger’s election address to his constituents in Doncaster North passed before their inspection. This had to be instantly hatcheted.

Fart in lift Inquiry papers over cracks

And, from the looks of it - the shonky grammar is a dead give-away, too - this task fell to the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, whose enthusiasm clearly got the better of him. “Miliband Fakes Local Support on Own Leaflet” proclaimed the headline. Was any of the support described by the Fawkes folks faked? Well, no it wasn’t: all three individuals used in example are real people. So no faking was taking place.

Worse, the idea that Miliband was doing anything improper was also wrong. But, even though his trousers were already starting to smoulder, Master Cole was clearly up for a thorough smearing. He claims Miliband “has not managed to find any ‘real’ people to endorse him, instead picking Labour Party organisers to masquerade as ordinary local people”. Remember that - “Labour Party organisers”. Because it’s not true.

Behold a stuffed shirt ...

First to pass before Cole’s examination is retired midwife Cynthia Bunting, of whom he asserts “That would be local party member Cynthia Bunting who helps organise and promote fundraisers for Ed in the constituency”. The link now brings up the Fawkes blog post: yesterday afternoon it linked to Doncaster local paper The Star, telling that she had attended a fundraising event. But evidence of being an organiser was there none.

So that’s one whopper from the flannelled fool. Could he double down? You betcha, says Sarah: next up came community activist Tony Sockett, of whom Cole tells “That would [be] Tony Sockett who just happened to be a Labour councillor in Doncaster”. Past tense - Sockett left office almost four years ago. And, again, no evidence of his being a “Labour Party organiser” is provided. So that’s another whopper.

... and behold his stuffed post

Three in a row? Why not, eh? Adam Davey, described as a “working Dad”, attracts the Cole ire too: “That would be local party supporter Adam Davey”. Of course he’s an intercoursing local party supporter, meathead, otherwise he wouldn’t be on the sodding leaflet. But for the third time, nothing to back up the claim that he is a “Labour Party organiser”. Those pants are now well ablaze.

And the worst aspect of this? Not that the Fawkes blog’s readers are told, or the original credited, but this appears to be lifted from Andy McSmith’s Independent diary column from the previous day. The difference is that McSmith’s piece was factually accurate. “This must be what Labour meant when they promised ‘less fear and more honesty’ in this campaign” concludes Cole. More honesty than he manages would not be difficult, would it?

And one can conclude thus with no fear at all. Another fine mess, once again.

Telegraph, Tories And Political Interference

After the Telegraph ran its front page “letter” from over a hundred Tory Party supporting business leaders yesterday, it was revealed by Sophy Ridge at Sky News (“first for breaking wind”) that this was not an exercise in investigative journalism: “Understand that Conservative Party co-Chairman Andrew Feldman helped organise today’s letter from business leaders in the Telegraph”.

It's the way they tell 'em

So the Tel was being used to disseminate party propaganda, which is pretty shameless, even given the paper’s usual political leanings. It got worse: the latest issue of Private Eye (#1389, available at newsagents at £1.80 a copy) has asserted that “Aidan Barclay, chairman of the Telegraph group, has assured David Cameron he will do whatever it takes to help the Tories’ election campaign”. There was more.

“Accordingly, hated daily editor Chris Evans has been told to live up to the Torygraph nickname and ignore any bad news for Dave and his chums, even it if undermines the paper’s integrity yet further”. The saga of reporter Holly Watt, who took her scoop on tax-dodging at Smythson, a firm with which Dave’s wife Samantha is associated, to the Guardian because the Tel refused to touch it, is given in example.

This is bad enough for the Tel’s reputation, but for Aidan Barclay, when his testimony to the Leveson Inquiry is considered alongside these events, it does not look good. Starting at Paragraph 27, it begins badly and gets worse: “I do not interfere in the editorial content of the newspapers or magazines we own … I am a passionate believer in the vital importance of editorial independence. Editors working for the Telegraph have the freedom to edit their newspapers as they think fit and make alI editorial decisions”.

How does that look when compared with what Ms Ridge and the Eye have reported? Not too good. And yet more of that testimony contradicts the Eye: “Decisions on how to cover General Elections and when and how actively to support a Party with an endorsement I leave to the editors”. Can it get even worse? It certainly can.

“Quality newspapers like the Telegraph titles depend on conveying news accurately and fully: that requires dialogue across the political divide”. Not much “dialogue across the political divide” when you’re publishing party propaganda on the front page, is there? Do go on. “I do not regard building or fostering relationships with politicians for the sake of it as a particular part of the job of a newspaper proprietor”. Hmmm.

And then we arrive at the Pièce de Résistance: “No Prime Minister or opposition Leader has ever asked me for a favour. And I have never asked for one … I do not recall that [David Cameron] has ever asked me to interfere in matters of editorial policy”. The Barclay brothers are no strangers to the concept of legal action. So perhaps they will be taking that action, at least against the Eye.

After all, one would hate to think Aidan Barclay might have misled the Leveson Inquiry.

Sarah Vine Self Awareness Fail

After getting a cross-party thumbs-down from both Michael Portillo and Alan Johnson on the BBC’s This Week over her needlessly abusive attack on Mil The Younger and wife Justine recently, Sarah Vine, aka Mrs Michael “Oiky” Gove has resorted to telling the world that she conforms to Olbermann’s Dictum (“the right exists in a perpetual state of victimhood”). Yes, she is really a victim!

Her husband still isn't getting Sam's husband's job

“My vile trolls and why I pity today’s teenagers” runs today’s headline, as she begins by pretending that the article is not really about Herself Personally Now: “Channel 4’s Teens follows the lives of a group of teenagers at a school in Loughton, Essex. If you have school-age children or grandchildren, I urge you to watch it”. But, as with most things Sarah Vine, it really is about Herself Personally Now.

One of the teenagers is apparently subjected to unpleasant name-calling, to which Ms Vine observes “This mindlessly cruel spectacle had a particular resonance as I’ve recently acquired my own small army of trolls. Not people taking a different view on things I’ve written - we columnists love to spark debate and, yes, controversy - but vicious, highly personal abuse”. Could she give an example?

She certainly could: “I am, so it seems, in no particular order, a sour two-faced bitch, so fat I look as if I don’t have any eyes and an ugly c*** who should do everyone a favour and set fire to myself … Don’t get me wrong: I’m fully aware I have a face best suited to radio — and that if you dish it out you can’t complain if you get it back in kind. But this abuse is of a different order and I admit I’ve found myself uncharacteristically wounded by these trolls”. So being abusive is clearly A Very Bad Thing.

In that case, perhaps she would care to explain the very next item in her column: “Researchers in Los Angeles say they have discovered that rich kids have bigger brains. So how do they explain Tamara Ecclestone?” Is that an isolated incident? Er, no it isn’t.

How about last week’s snark: “Part of me wants to congratulate Cheryl Fernandez-Versini for speaking out against the sexualisation of female pop stars. ‘Sexy and all that is great to an extent, but you shouldn’t have to sexualise yourself to be selling music,’ she told a magazine. The other part of me can’t help wondering how getting a huge red rose tattooed on her bottom chimes with that ethos”

No wonder Ms Vine finds taunts about her appearance come so readily to mind when she is constantly dishing them out to others. When she whines “Seeing yourself through the eyes of those who truly hate you - however irrationally or mistakenly - is, frankly, frightening”, that is a luxury she awards herself, while the unfortunate Ms Ecclestone and Ms Fernandez-Versini are fair game for the same kind of abuse.

“Vile trolls” are an interesting concept: only around when Daily Mail pundits are on the receiving end. Because such saintly individuals would never indulge in such appalling behaviour themselves. Pass the sick bucket.

Grant Shapps Lied On Newsnight

Still Grant “Spiv” Shapps is chairman of the Tory Party, and still his pants are well and truly on fire, as witness his quizzing by Evan Davis on Monday evening’s Newsnight. Shapps first helpfully explained that the Tories’ claim of Labour tax rises of well over £3,000 were per working household, to make the numbers look bigger, and then aggregated over five years, to make them truly scary.

Can you smell burning?

That much was merely misleading, and some of the minor untruths, such as asserting that Mil The Younger had done nothing with his life except be a professional politician, were what passes as mere background noise in today’s political campaigning. But when Davis moved the discussion on to business, Shapps could not resist the temptation to go into full delusional whopper mode - all captured on video.

The UK five years ago, he asserted, was “bust as Greece”. Er, hello? Let’s see what all those credit ratings agencies think of that, shall we? Greece generally merits a credit rating of B, on a scale that goes AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB and then B. The UK in 2010 was still rated AAA. The idea that it was “bust as Greece” isn’t just misleading, it’s a flat-out lie. And any credit downgrade has come under the Coalition.

Would Sir like to pour a little petrol on those flames to get his burning trousers blazing a little more fiercely? He certainly would: Shapps then asserted that the UK’s growth rate was the highest in the developed world. This depends on arguing that China, Nigeria, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are not part of that “developed world”, which “Spiv” could just about justify. But then it gets more difficult.

You wouldn’t say that other EU member states were not part of the “developed world”, would you? So how does Shapps explain the presence of Ireland, Hungary and Poland, all growing faster than the UK? Ooh look there’s South Korea too - hardly a backwater. And Norway as well. So that’s another flat-out lie from the Spiv. And, when it came to excusing his own online marketing business, there was worse to come.

Davis specifically alluded to a product which “scraped” content to get hits and generate income from adverts. Shapps eventually asserted that his businesses had been “perfectly legal”. That one was not: the product Davis mentioned was the notorious Traffic Paymaster, which had been sold by Shapps’ How To Corp, and which effectively plagiarised others’ content to garner clicks and income for others.

That was in flagrant violation of Google’s rules, and the product had to be withdrawn. Had the product been “perfectly legal”, then there would have been no need to withdraw it. So that’s three occasions on which the chairman of the Tory Party flat-out lied during his Newsnight interview. As he is still in post, it has to be concluded that his party has no problem with having a chairman for whom dishonesty comes so naturally.

That’s something that the voters will have time to consider before casting their votes.

Telegraph Wins Best April Fool

Yes, the month of April has begun, and with it the opening morning of wading through the murky stream of April Fool “jokes”, panning through the mud of tedious and repetitive boredom in the usually vain hope of finding a nugget of genuine and original humour. The bad news is that the mud-to-nugget ratio is as high as ever this year. But the good news is that the Telegraph had bucked the trend with its front page splash.

“100 business chiefs: Labour threatens Britain’s recovery” announces the headline, followed by a list of names, some of which are rendered in a rather larger crimson type. These people, we are assured, control businesses which employ 500,000 in the UK. And they have, it has to be assumed, put their names to this declaration out of concern for their country. Or so it seems, until a little examination is made.

Who did the arranging? Well, reticence means that nobody is singled out by the Tel, but the name in the post-front-page-analysis frame is Stuart Rose, famous for his involvement with Marks and Spencer some years ago. Lord Rose, as he is styled on the Tel’s declaration of support for Young Dave and his jolly good chaps, is a Conservative peer. This is the most fortunate of coincidences.

Also in that larger type is the name of Anthony, now Lord, Bamford. He too has links to the Tories, not least because of donating money to them. He is also rumoured to be one of those behind the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, the Astroturf lobby group that works so tirelessly to demonise Government. Then there is Duncan Bannatyne, which reminds us that today is still April the first.

Then an anomaly enters: Philip Green has signed the declaration. But why should his name be rendered in smaller and less conspicuous type? Could it be that, once again, he is not only an unwavering Tory supporter, but also someone who resides in the tax haven of Monaco, and is, let us not drive this one round the houses for too long, a bit flash with his cash? Is the Tel wanting readers to look elsewhere?

Maybe they would rather we look at names like Cameron Mackintosh, theatre impresario, knighted during the Major years, briefly endorsing New Labour before openly regretting it and denouncing the whole project in forthright terms, and supporting the Tories last time round. And also in that larger type is the name of motor racing supremo Ron Dennis. McLaren’s new production centre was opened by Cameron in 2011.

And in the six years prior to that, the Tories had benefited from £126,000 in donations from, er, Ron Dennis. It goes on: Joanna (Baroness) Shields is a Tory peer, Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse fame is one of the Chipping Norton set, and Malcolm Walker of Iceland blamed the horsemeat scandal on the public sector, a most convenient conclusion for free marketeers everywhere.

It’s got to be an April Fool. Or is it? They’re the best ones: where you can’t tell the difference between the piss-takes and the real thing.