Dan Hodges Has Left The Reality Building

All that mud slung at Mil The Younger, and still the polls refuse to move conclusively in the direction of Young Dave and his jolly good chaps. While some out there in the right-leaning press are exhibiting a mixture of panic and aggressive denunciation at the sound of the Labour leader’s name, there is always one dependable, if tediously carping, voice willing to tell the readers that Ed is rubbish, so there.

Disaster for flailing, er, Hodges actually

To no surprise at all, that voice belongs to the less than legendary blues artiste Whingeing Dan Hodges, whose dismissal of Miliband on more or less every level has been so predictable since his election as party leader that he might have saved time by putting all those complaints on a tape loop. Nothing, repeat nothing, repeat NOTHING, good would come from electing the wrong brother as party leader.

But Dan did not always get it right. “If Ed Miliband  picks a fight with the unions he'll lose” (he did, and didn’t) … “If Ed Miliband goes to war with business he'll lose” (his paper says he has, but hasn’t lost). Anyway, Ed was a loser, right? “I'm genuinely starting to think Ed Miliband has given up on winning. Just wants to lose in ‘the right way’” mused Dan. So don’t get any ideas about winning the election.

The carping dismissal went on and on (and on and on and on), typified by “Ed Miliband must be left to lead his party to defeat”. Was there no hope of redemption? Hardly: “The fact I am predicting Ed Miliband's defeat is his best hope”. So that’s a no, then. No, Labour was heading for defeat: “For 4 years Labour has been lying to itself about winning the election. Finally the lying can stop”.

Hodges’ riposte to Paul Burgin’s accusation of personal dislike was typical: “That's because you have to come up with some other rationale other than I'm right about him leading you to defeat”. Dan was right, er, right? And Dan was so expert in his Miliband analysis that he could do a little of that damning with faint praise: “Ed Miliband is brave and he is principled and he is utterly, utterly wrong”.

And woe betide anyone suggesting otherwise: “Mary Riddell: ‘Mr Miliband’s friends say he is determined to tough this one out, certain that public decency will prevail’. Jesus wept”. Look, Ed’s rubbish and he’s going to lose, right? This was dead easy: “So let me get this right. Ed Miliband can't even walk down the street now without it becoming a communication's disaster”. As opposed to a punctuation disaster, of course.

Ed was even rubbish at by-elections: “If it's any consolation, even I didn't think I'd be writing ‘Why Rochester is a disaster for Ed Miliband’”. He’s a disaster, right? Oh hang on, what’s this from the Spectator today? “Miliband could still win. If he does, here's what'll happen next, says [Dan Hodges]”. Yeah, he’ll still be rubbish!

So let me get this right: Ed Miliband has been a loser for almost five years, until Dan Hodges wakes up and detects that the wind direction has changed not necessarily to his advantage. Then he suddenly becomes a potential winner. How does it feel to have been so wrong for so long, Dan? Or does the money make it worthwhile? Pass the sick bucket.

Tories Trident Missile Misses

The election campaign became noticeably warmer yesterday after Mil The Younger declared that what Pitt The Younger had enacted over 200 years ago - “Non-domicile” tax status - should come to an end. While Young Dave and his jolly good chaps put on brave faces and deployed their Labour-bashing keyword (“chaos”), there was a realisation that Miliband had once again stolen a march on them.

There was only one thing to do - put one over on Labour! But how? Here we come to defence, an area where the Tories have traditionally been strong, but recently have come under fire from supporters of the armed forces - and from Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP - for not committing to spending 2% of GDP on those armed forces after the General Election.

But hey, details, eh? The logic was this: a decision on replacing the Trident submarines has to be made next year. Therefore the next Government will take that decision. At present, the Parliamentary maths suggest that Labour will not be able to form a majority Government, but after some kind of deal with the SNP, they would have the numbers. The SNP are opposed to Trident. Therefore Labour would have to do their bidding.

There was, though, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, only one thing wrong with this idea - it was bollocks. Labour has thus far taken a line on Trident more or less identical to that taken by the Tories, and the SNP have not committed to voting down the Queen’s Speech, or any other legislation, of a future Labour administration unless they get a commitment to scrapping the deterrent.

But hey, details once more, eh? Mild-mannered political journeyman Michael Fallon was duly dispatched to the studios. And then it all went wrong. He “said Mr Miliband had ‘stabbed his own brother in the back’ to lead Labour and was now ‘willing to stab the UK in the back’ by doing a deal on Trident with the SNP ‘to become PM’”. Er, hello? What happened to the “weird” and “useless” Miliband? Did he never really exist?

As the BBC has pointed out, “The Conservatives and Labour are both committed to replacing the UK's ageing fleet of Vanguard class submarines which carry Trident nuclear missiles and maintaining the continuous, at-sea deterrent”, although why we need the ability to vaporise every large urban area on the planet, when, as we are constantly being told, the greatest threat if from terrorists, is not clear.

The impression has been given that Fallon has been sent out with a script from which to deliver his uncharacteristically personal attack. Exactly who might have written the script and given him his instructions is not known, but an increasing number of Labour voices are pitching the name of Lynton Crosby. Margaret Hodge has delivered a broadside in his direction on the question of offshore interests; there will doubtless be more.

So the Tories have just shot themselves in the foot once again. Never mind, eh, lads?

Evening Standard Non Dom Shame

[Update at end of post]

At the end of the evening rush hour, those of us who can then relax at home or on a night out should spare a thought for the poor souls clearing litter from trains and buses in and around London: from Underground to Overground to far-flung depots at places like Colchester, Northampton and Brighton, hundreds, if not thousands, of copies of the Evening Standard are being collected and sent for recycling.

The capital’s only surviving evening paper is now a free sheet: thus many take a copy without having to consider whether it is worth the expenditure. And from the inevitable pages of Foxton’s adverts, what those commuters are reminded of, every weekday, is that most of them should not even bother thinking about getting on London’s property ladder. They can’t afford it, and boy, does the Standard let them know.

But those commuters, just because they haven’t got the means to pay those obscenely inflated property prices, are not stupid. They also know that one of the main drivers for astronomically priced new developments and the bidding up of values elsewhere is the money rolling in from abroad, and much of that is in the hands of people who are, for tax purposes, not domiciled in the UK. Yes, they are “Non-Doms”.

So one can easily imagine their reaction to yesterday’s Standard front page headline: “LONDON BACKLASH OVER ED’S NON-DOMS ATTACK” it thundered. Readers were helpfully told “Business chiefs warn Labour plans put Capital’s global success at risk”. Er, excuse me, but this is self-interested bullshit. London’s success, global or otherwise, depends on all those at the bottom of the pile as much as those at the top.

The editorial is real bleating stuff: “if those very wealthy individuals decide that it just costs too much to live here, London in particular would lose out from lost consumption and some employment … Simply attacking non-doms … in order to signal to the electorate that Labour is against privilege is not a helpful way to plan a tax regime … Reform of the non-dom system seems unarguable; abolition is quite another matter”.

So there you have it, Standard readers: your only evening paper says you should just suck it up and keep wishing that, one day, you’ll be able to put down a deposit on property a little closer to Charing Cross than somewhere half an hour’s drive from Tring. Because the paper you skim through and leave on the seats for some poor soul at Northampton or Bletchley to clear away says you have to yield to non-doms.

And who owns the Standard? As if you need to ask: the Lebedevs. Whether it is Alexander or Evgeny, are we, perchance, talking about, er, non-doms? If so, this is just another exercise in self-interest, those with money commanding those without to know their place. In any case, it is a clear demonstration that the Evening Standard is utterly divorced from its readership and their concerns. And that’s not good enough.

Get real, Standard people. You have a readership beyond Foxton’s customers.

[UPDATE 1440 hours: as if to show how out of touch the Standard is, Adam Bienkov at politics.co.uk has noted that "According to the snap FirstVerdict poll, 77% of people support removing the non-com tax break on wealthy UK residents, with just 20% opposing it".

Will Sarah Sands and her team re-think their line on this one? Don't hold your breath]

Guido Fawked - Non Dom Spin Unravels

As if to once more confirm what Peter Jukes said about them - (“like a disownable branch of Conservative HQ”) -  the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have today done the Tories’ bidding in trying to rubbish Mil The Younger’s announcement that a future Labour Government would look to end “non-dom” tax status, and therefore have one rule for all UK residents.

Fart in lift Inquiry sounds bum note

Having a situation where the obscenely overmonied get away with not necessarily paying their full tax whack might look like something that the sane should not be attempting to defend. But as Labour have seized the high ground, either the Tories and their followers lose face by admitting that Miliband was right all along, or they must take an adverse stance and somehow spin it as economically sensible.

This they did: meanwhile, CCHQ found a video of “Auguste” Balls giving an interview back in January, selectively edited it to change the meaning of his remarks, and span that Labour was now split, because Balls had said abolishing non-dom status would end up costing more money than it saved. “Balls In Jan: Non Dom Reform ‘Will End Up Costing Britain Money’” announced the Fawkes folks.

There was, though, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, only one thing wrong with this idea - it was bollocks. Balls said “might”, not “will”, and CCHQ edited out him saying “But I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will”. CCHQ then lied about the edit. The Fawkes rabble span this as “Watch Balls Undo Labour’s Big Non-Dom Policy”. This was most obedient of them. But it was still bollocks.

And, as ITV man Tom Bradby was by now pointing out, the Tories defending non-dom status was looking like a bad move. But at the Fawkes blog, cometh the hour, cometh the purveyor of iffy reasoning and shonky grammar, in this case Staines himself, to urge his loyal readers to “look over there”. “Labour’s Tax Expert Admits Error” he asserted, telling “This morning on the Today Programme Ed Balls namechecked the blog of Jolyon Maugham a tax specialist QC, he [think that should be ‘who’, Paul] estimated that Labour’s change to the non-dom tax rules would bring in an extra billion”.

He goes on “Well other independent experts have taken him to task on Twitter for a basic error [no citation, no surprise there], most countries have double taxation treaties (DTCs). If you pay tax in one country on your earnings, you can’t be taxed again in another jurisdiction – the UK has over 100 such treaties”. Did anyone say otherwise?

Do go on. “On Twitter Jolyon has conceded ‘I accept DTCs could have some impact. There’s plainly some uncertainty about the numbers’. When you take this into account the net tax take will be nowhere near the billion claimed”. Where is the admission of error? There isn’t one. And no citation for the “nowhere near the billion claimed”.

This is shameless even by the abysmally low standards of the Fawkes rabble, as well as making next to no sense, except to the most tribal and right-leaning. Labour has stolen a march on the Tories, with Staines and his pals left clutching at the straws they just invented for the hell of it. Another fine mess, once again.

Sun UKIP Racism Hypocrisy

The Super Soaraway Currant Bun has been having a go at those intending to vote for Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP for some time now. This came to a head yesterday as Rupe’s downmarket troops swung behind Young Dave’s instruction to wavering Kippers to vote Tory, if only to save the political skin of Himself Personally Now. But the Sun has been facing both ways to pursue this one.

Tuesday’s editorial said of UKIP voters “They are understandably sick of professional politicians, and a Britain powerless to control immigration and dictated to by unaccountable Eurocrats”. Then they attempt to rubbish Mr Thirsty and his pals, in the same way the paper used to try and put voters off what was then called the Liberal Party in the 1970s and 80s - it was a “protest vote” that wasn’t worth it.

“Racism & Ukip” declared an editorial recently, telling readers “NIGEL Farage was challenged yesterday over whether Ukip is racist. He put a gun to his temple and fired … Farage told a radio interviewer people would be worried if a group of Romanians moved in next door. Asked what the difference would be between them and some Germans, Farage, whose wife is German, said ‘You know what the difference is’”.

There could be only one conclusion: “This is racism, pure and simple … It is not racist to worry about the impact of millions of migrants on Britain, as we have argued for years. It IS racist to smear Romanians for being Romanian … Nigel Farage, Ukip leader, did just that”. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the Sun has no room to call racism on anyone else, given its past and present behaviour.

The paper has recently given former editor Kelvin MacKenzie a column, and recently, with no hint of irony at all, he told Farage that he must “state his party is not racist”. Under the less than benign editorship of Kelvin McFilth, the Sun had a reputation for “jingoism, racism, homophobia and intolerance” according to John Pilger. The portrayal of Winston Silcott after the Broadwater Farm riots was typical.

Even today, the racist and bigoted are still welcomed by the Sun, and chief among the best-known is professional motormouth Katie Hopkins, whose recent form in this area even taxed the Mail: “A number of anti-Muslim rants were sent from Katie Hopkins' Twitter account last night including one that called Palestinians 'filthy rodents … Tweets from her account also made jokes about Ebola’”.

The Independent observed “The former Apprentice star takes aim at 'gypsies' and 'travellers' in an attention-seeking Twitter rant that would curdle [Nigel] Farage's tea … Today’s targeted cultural groups were ‘travellers’ and ‘gypsies’, whom Hopkins declared were ‘ferrel humans [sic]’ that ‘we have no duty to’”. But the Sun gave her a column.

So don’t forget, Sun readers, don’t vote UKIP because Mr Thirsty is racist, but keep reading our dubiously sourced copy, even if the pundits are, er, racist. No change there.

Daily Mail Non Dom Hypocrisy

The “non-domicile” rule, which, as the Guardian points out, “allows many of Britain’s richest permanent residents to avoid paying tax in the UK on their worldwide income”, was introduced more than 200 years ago under the aegis of Pitt The Younger. So it is fitting that it is Mil The Younger who will today commit to ending what has become an arcane device for the obscenely overmonied to benefit Themselves Personally Now.

Guess who's setting the agenda once again?

The Guardian explains “Non-doms pay UK income tax and capital gains tax on their UK sources of income and gains, and whatever income generated overseas they choose to remit to the UK. By contrast, UK domiciles have to pay tax on all of their income and gains, wherever in the world they are made – Britain or overseas”. The way in which non-dom status is acquired is also a strange and arcane thing.

Labour claim that “those who have lived abroad and return to the UK can claim non-dom status simply on the basis of nothing more than a burial plot, a foreign bank account, or a father born abroad – and even an overseas newspaper subscription”. Some, it seems, contrive to inherit it. Miliband will, we are promised, commit to end it.

Here’s what he intends to say: “There are people who live here in Britain like you and me, work here in Britain like you and me, are permanently settled here in Britain like you and me, but aren’t required to pay taxes like you and me because they take advantage of what has become an increasingly arcane 200-year-old loophole. There are now 116,000 non-doms, costing hundreds of millions of pounds to our country. It can no longer be justified, and it makes Britain an offshore tax haven for a few.”

There is cross-party support: as the Guardian notes, Lib Dems like Vince Cable has long advocated abolition of non-dom status. But over at the Northcliffe House bunker, the opposition to the idea is already ramping up, at the behest of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre: “critics will say scrapping the status is another example of Labour's anti-business agenda, and will spark an exodus of rich investors from London to other European countries or the Far East”, Daily Mail readers have been told.

Well, look who's here, eh?

Tories, the Mail has reported, are opposed to the move, with Michael “Oiky” Gove warning “the policy would result in the Treasury losing revenue” (note that he does not defend the principle behind non-dom status). So why should the Mail be so opposed? After all, the Vagina Monologue, as far as is known, pays all his taxes in the UK.

Ah well. The ultimate owner of the Mail is Lord Rothermere. And he “claims hereditary non-dom status through his family’s French ancestry”. The owner of a paper that rails against all things European, and especially anything French, uses French heritage as a means of dodging tax. What a surprise. What an example to others. And what a 24-carat, gold plated, copper-bottomed, lousy stinking hypocrite.

Stuff the two million readers, think of the one boss. High principles - no change there, then.

Guido Fawked - Blair Blowback Baloney

Once again, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have been living up to Peter Jukes’ recent characterisation - “looking like a disownable branch of Conservative HQ” - as they spin the appearance of Tone this morning as A Vary Bad Thing Indeed, pretending that adding Blair to Mil The Younger’s campaign is already causing Labour supporters to desert the party.

Fart in lift Inquiry straining under pressure

But, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with this idea - it was bollocks. Under the suitably sarcastic headline “Labour Supporters Welcome Blair’s Return”, a post written by newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, readers are told that “Labour supporters past and present are welcoming back their longest serving PM in suitable fashion”. Five selected Tweets are then presented.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the exercise falls at the first hurdle, as the Tweet from Andrew Butterworth (@butterwaa) has since been deleted. He has since Tweeted “Did a jokey Labour and Blair tweet.. ended up Rt'd and Fav by a load of UKIP knobs...  *Deletes Tweets  *Tries to scrub shame off in shower”. Butterworth is clearly not a supporter of any party. Or, it seems, of the Fawkes folks.

Never mind, perhaps the next Tweet will be a real Labour supporter. Christian Betts is that man, and he is obviously apolitical. There is no suggestion of any current or past Labour allegiance in his Twitter bio, or on his website, but we do find out that he is self-employed and works from home. So that’s none out of two.

Third time lucky, perchance? Miranda Smith does style herself a socialist. But that does not make her a Labour supporter. Moreover, she has Tweeted “so, I guess I'm voting either greens or mebyon kernow. westminster have again proved they have nothing to offer the rest of us”. As she has stressed “Westminster have again proved they have nothing to offer”, that means she not only isn’t a Labour supporter, but wasn’t.

How about the Tweeter who goes by the name of Kelsey (@kelsey_feed)? After all, he has passed adverse comment on Blair and Miliband. But, once again, there is no sign in either Twitter bio or Tweets that he is, or was, a Labour supporter. At least the Tweet quoted in the Fawkes blog is still there.

The fifth Tweeter quoted doesn’t do Wickham’s spin any favours either: from the Avatar on Yvonne Ridley’s feed, it should be blindingly obvious that she is not a Labour supporter. Indeed, today she has announced “Sick of the dirty tricks from Westminster parties, false promises & Bitter Together campaign against Scotland I've now joined @theSNP”. And again, there is no sign of past Labour support.

All of which means that Wickham is full value for his “Billy Liar” epithet, and the Fawkes blog once again lives up to its 4% positive trust rating. “Disownable branch of Conservative HQ”, indeed. Another fine mess, once again.

Miliband Must Face Down Murdoch

Newspapers dabbling in politics is not a new thing: three days before the General Election of 1931, Stanley Baldwin tired of attacks by those owned by Max Beaverbrook and the Rothermeres, observing “The newspapers attacking me are not newspapers in the ordinary sense … They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal vices, personal likes and dislikes of the two men”.

Yes, it's that big an issue. No pressure, then, Ed

He went on “What are their methods? Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker's meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context...What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”. Now there are five men. But the methods are, sadly, unchanged.

This was addressed yesterday in a Guardian Comment Is Free piece by Nick Davies, whose dogged determination brought the phone hacking scandal into the mainstream, who told “At this election, British politicians can afford to speak out against Rupert Murdoch”. But it isn’t just Murdoch, and there is only one politician who is likely to speak out. The only man who can is Mil The Younger. And this is why he must.

The proprietors - Murdoch, Rothermere (delegating his power largely to the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre), the Barclay Brothers, and Richard “Dirty” Desmond, are to a man obscenely rich. Dirty Des, to his credit, resides in the UK: the others, at least for tax purposes, do not. They claim to care about ordinary Britons. The stark reality is that they do not: what they care about is Themselves Personally Now.

These less than august beings are not interested in the effect of austerity, the EU, immigration, taxation, the NHS, transport and travel, the environment, or anything else on ordinary folk. But they are interested, just as Beaverbrook, and Rothermere’s predecessor were, in the exercise of power, and without having to run for elective office. Thus they exert other methods in pursuit of bending others to their will.

The sycophants and crawlers are rewarded with jobs; those too inclined to independent thought are shunned. Any dissenters not armed with their own legal teams are there merely to be shat on from the greatest possible height. Those caught in the crossfire - the Dowlers, the McCanns, Christopher Jeffries, Ann Diamond, Andy Miller, and many more - are treated as so much collateral damage.

The essence of leadership, as J K Galbraith observed, “was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of the people in their time”. Right now, more and more people are anxious that their Government should be run by those they elect, to do what they have been elected to do, and not constantly swayed by the dictates of unelected billionaires whose main priorities are self-interest and flogging a few more papers.

Of the two potential Prime Ministerial choices, only Ed Miliband is capable of making that commitment. Cameron has already sold his soul in order to make his own Faustian pact. The decision to commit thus is in the Labour leader’s hands. Many who want their politicians to show leadership will hope that he chooses wisely.

Cameron Tells Kippers - Do As You’re Told

As if anyone needed to know just how impartial most of our free and fearless press is not, the appeal yesterday from Young Dave for those who have forsaken his party for Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon-bar propper-uppers at UKIP has underscored their desperation: not only the Telegraph, but also the Mail and Sun, have piled in behind the Cameron message, talking up the Tories and running down the Kippers.

You over thyah! Kipper cheppie! Vote for me! Jolly good sheow!

“'Come back home': Cameron issues impassioned plea to Ukip supporters to vote Tory to keep Miliband out of Number 10” tells the Mail, backed up by Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, telling “through the fog a clear distinction is emerging … the Tories want to let people to keep more of their money to spend as they see fit”. Come on now, obedient voters, answer that dog whistle!

The Tel damns Mr Thirsty with faint praise, telling “Ukip, under the leadership of Nigel Farage, transformed British politics, and performed a service by bringing issues such as immigration into the mainstream of national debate” before performing the all-important switch by warning “Yet now voters must decide how to cast their ballots”. For whom should they now vote? Well, Dave’s initiative “should be applauded”. That means vote Tory.

And the Super Soaraway Currant Bun is in lockstep: “reality is dawning on those considering voting Ukip … Farage will not be Prime Minister on May 8. Nor is he likely to be dictating terms to whoever is … [Tories] steered the economy off the rocks and made it the envy of the world [ho ho ho] … [Labour] can take power only with the support of the SNP, which would drag it further into left-wing lunacy than even Miliband might like”.

The Sun editorial then tells it to the voters straight: “the way our system works, a vote for Ukip is effectively a vote for … chaos - because Ukip hurts the Tories more than Labour … If you’re still considering a protest vote, be warned … It could be a very costly mistake”. So they want you to vote Tory, too. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, their chosen leader is not helping his own cause.

This is, according to the pro-Tory Mail, what Cameron said yesterday on the campaign trail in Bristol: “Look, we’ve heard the message loud and clear about the things you want to see changed and we’ll change those things. Come with us, come back home to us, rather than risk all of this good work being undone”. He wants those who have left the Tories to return, but instead of asking them nicely, he issues instructions.

“Now look here all you Kipper-leaning cheps and chepesses” says Dave, and immediately causes wavering Kippers to dig in their heels and become even more determined not to do the bidding of an old Etonian who treats them as his Sixth Form self would have treated a “fag”. The Mail says “Mr Cameron also conceded that he understood the ‘frustrations’ of Ukip voters. It is a significant peace offering by the Prime Minister, who once dismissed Ukip as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’”. But he hasn’t taken back those words.

Voters are not there to be instructed. They are there to be persuaded. Bad move, Dave.

Sun Trussell Trust Hypocrisy

The faithful Murdoch retainers at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun are becoming yet more desperate in their drive to discredit anyone who might distract from their agenda of getting Young Dave and his jolly good chaps back into Government next month. And, despite running articles telling readers that Christianity is under attack around the Middle East, the hacks have no problem kicking Christian organisations in the UK.

So it is that Rupe’s downmarket troops have homed in on the Trussell Trust, which has committed the heinous crime of running foodbanks. “FOOD AND STINK” declares the headline, helpfully explaining to confused readers “Grub charity’s zero hours funds … Bosses are slammed for hypocrisy”. And what “hypocrisy” would that be? “The Trussell Trust has slammed [zero hours] contracts”. It has?

Well, not really: the Trust has, however, said “The government should undertake a sector-by-sector review of the use of zero-hours contracts and their impact, and take action to ensure that people who are in work are able to earn sufficient income to survive”. That’s not the same thing. So the Sun is ranting about a stance that does not exist. Nor is all the Trust’s investment in firms that operate such contracts.

That was not enough to stop the paper running its “investigation” - which involved turning up information which, as it is transparent about its activities, the Trust makes readily available - and a suitably hectoring and judgmental editorial. Yeah, that’ll show those wishy-washy bleeding hearts, eh? The trust has tried to put the Sun straight.

“We have not called for an end to all zero hours contracts, but we have said that there should be better regulation of zero hours contracts to stop them from being abused” they tell, pointing out that “Last year Trussell Trust foodbanks provided three days' emergency food and support to over 900,000 people in crisis in the UK thanks to our generous supporters”. Charity, eh? The Sun clearly finds this kind of thing hard to understand.

The Murdoch poodles also find it hard to conceal their own appetite for saying one thing and then doing another: two years ago, they told “ENERGY giant npower has dodged paying up to £108 million in UK corporation tax in the past four years - by funnelling cash to Malta”. But that was then, and this is now: today’s Sun does not have a word of criticism for npower, but it does have a half-page advert for it on Page 24.

As Private Eye might have observed, “I wonder if the two are in any way related? I think we should be told”. News UK is one set of bosses that, unlike the Trussell Trust, are most unlikely to be “slammed” any time soon. What did it say in that Sun editorial this morning? Ah yes, “You rarely have to look beyond the loudest voices to find the biggest hypocrites”.

Where do those “loudest voices” come from? From the Sun. And the Sun is in no position to call out anyone else for hypocrisy - because one of those “biggest hypocrites” is its not very good self. High principles, eh? No change there, then.

Hogwarts - Nearly A Nasty Accident

Most papers long ago dispensed with any pretence of knowing one end of rail and air travel from the other: the best they can manage nowadays is to have someone road testing the latest motahs. So when West Coast Railways (WCR) had their operating licence suspended by Network Rail (NR) recently, the best the nationals could manage was the Mail’s “Hogwarts Express suspended”.

Tangmere, the loco hauling the excursion train

The report continued “Services by West Coast Railways have been suspended following the incident on March 7 in which a train failed to stop at a signal … According to reports, a 100mph collision between a steam excursion and a First Great Western high speed train was missed by barely a minute”. Apart from getting the speeds all wrong, and missing just how potentially serious the incident was, it’s not a bad first attempt.

What the press has not told its readers is that there could have been a serious accident, and that the operation of a WCR excursion train appears to have bordered on the reckless. As the RAIB report notes, “train reporting number 1Z67, the 16:35 hrs service from Bristol Temple Meads to Southend, passed a signal at danger on the approach to Wootton Bassett junction, Wiltshire. The train subsequently came to a stand across the junction”.

Track layout at Wootton Bassett junction ((c) RAIB)

In other words, blocking any movement to and from the South Wales lines (see diagram). Had a train been signalled on those lines at the time the Signal Passed At Danger, or SPAD incident took place, you do not need any prompting to be able to figure out what would have happened. So how could a train have overshot a red signal on a line equipped with the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS), which should have prevented it?

This is where it all becomes truly jaw-dropping. The driver of train 1Z67 failed to acknowledge an Automatic Warning System (AWS) signal for a temporary speed limit on the approach to Wootton Bassett Junction. The brakes therefore applied automatically. The train should have come to a stand and the crew would then be expected to contact the signaller. But someone in the cab overrode the automatic brake application.

“Evidence shows that the driver and fireman instead took an action which cancelled the effect of the AWS braking demand”. This “had the effect of making subsequent AWS or TPWS brake demands ineffective”. The train should have slowed after getting a single yellow signal approaching the junction, but did not. When the driver saw the red signal, he braked too late. TPWS would have done the job for him. But see above.

Safety systems like AWS and TWPS have evolved after decades of hard lessons have been learned - like what happens when such safeguards are absent. You want an example? That excursion was hauled by steam locomotive Tangmere. In the days before AWS and TPWS, sister loco Spitfire rear-ended another train near Lewisham in heavy fog. Ninety people lost their lives (full accident report HERE).

That’s why it’s serious. Today’s Railway cannot allow unsafe and reckless practices to develop. And today’s press needs to understand and report this kind of incident.

Nadine Dorries Toes The Party Line

With the result of next month’s General Election - sorry, folks, there’s still four and a half weeks’ campaigning to go - loyalty is crucial when parties want to show the voters that they are free of splits and singing from the same hymn sheet. So it may have appeared most fortuitous that Mid Bedfordshire’s Tory MP (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries appeared in the Mail On Sunday to tell readers Young Dave was OK after all.

Wait, what? Wasn’t this the same Nadine Dorries who had earlier said of Cameron and his pal, the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, “I think that not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others – and that is their real crime”?

It certainly was, but this apparent volte face has in its backstory three elements that are key to understanding how parties enforce loyalty in MPs, and what started the “posh boys” meme in the first place. Cameron, unlike Ms Dorries, “gets” Coalition Government; the Lib Dems may have been a small part of that Coalition, but without their presence, there would not have been a place on the Government benches for her.

So she was always on a hiding to nothing when trying to drive a wedge between Dave and Corporal Clegg. Cameron’s PMQs put-down - “I know that the honourable Lady is extremely frustrated about the... perhaps I should start all over again... I am going to give up on this one” - was excessive. And, as many critics of Ms Dorries are all too aware, she does not take kindly to that sort of thing. Thus the “posh boys” retort.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, there are limits to what even the most maverick MP can get away with. As the BBC reported, “Following her comments, the MP's local Conservative Association chairman Paul Duckett said in a statement: ‘Nadine Dorries MP has expressed her personal opinions and it would have been courteous of her to advise the association prior to expounding them’”.

Additionally, it was revealed recently that Ms Dorries’ constituency home was owned by former Association chairman Andy Rayment, all of which tells you why she is not likely to be jumping ship to UKIP any time soon. On top of that was the ruckus over her going off to take part in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, which resulted in her losing the Tory whip. The local party would not have been best pleased about that.

Put the last two of those together, and it is no surprise at all that Ms Dorries has let the press know that “I knew in my heart that David Cameron was compassionate and caring … When I watched David Cameron in the leaders TV debates … I felt proud of him … He looked like a man who does know the price of a pint of milk”. Quite so. And she’s dead modest with it: “I am not so arrogant as to claim credit”.

Of course you’re not, Ms D. Another happy ending, eh? Pass the sick bucket.

Liz Jones Takes The Piss Out Of Herself

This weekend is a holiday weekend. I know this as B&Q in Crewe was closed earlier when I looked in, or intended to: so there will have to be another visit. One cannot begrudge all those not-so-very-well-paid folks being able to have a couple of days off. This most people understand. But for the mildly batty Liz Jones, there can be neither understanding, nor even tolerance, because she has been inconvenienced.

What do you think of it so far?

“Our souls need hard work, not bank holidays and lunch hours” she tells the world, to which I say Our Soles to you too, dearie, and get yourself a sub who knows how to write a headline less reminiscent of a Derek and Clive sketch. But, as Clive James might have said, I digress. Things are serious at Liz’ new North Yorkshire gaff.

“ON Maundy Thursday, which in this column I will be referring to as ‘Thursday’, as I believe in neither God nor bank holidays, I went to get in my Land Rover to go and purchase grass seed, only to find the rear windscreen shattered” she tells. Serves you right; I walk over to B&Q. You live out in the sticks, you get inconvenienced.

And she couldn’t get it fixed this weekend. Big intercoursing deal. “Why, in last week’s leaders’ debate, did no one talk about banning bank holidays, surely the worst pox on this country since VAT and the Congestion Charge?” she whined, unaware that, for some people, it’s one of the few times they can get a few days’ rest.

What’s wrong with Easter, anyway? “Easter is merely seen as an excuse to eat chocolate and clog up the A1”. It gets worse: “On Friday evening [I] failed to get a table at the normally deserted Thai restaurant in Richmond, here in the Dales”. Use your common sense. Eat elsewhere. Get a takeaway. Try cooking for yourself, like ordinary people do.

You want more selfish? Here it comes: “I called the press office of one of the big firms whose CEO signed that letter damning Labour, only to be told the woman I wanted to speak to was ‘probably at lunch’. I asked to be put through to her boss, who told me: ‘She’s entitled to a lunch hour.’ No she’s not, I told her. She knew I needed information, so she should have asked a colleague to fetch her a sandwich”.

Perhaps not everyone out there has a sandwich-fetcher on call. Perhaps being mildly inconvenienced is just one of those things that mere mortals have to tolerate. Perhaps the Mail On Sunday’s readership might run out of patience with tales of poor, downtrodden Liz Jones, her expensive motah and her inability to figure out the world around her.

And perhaps she could get her story straight once in a while. “I’ve never taken a lunch hour in my life” she asserts today. So how come last week she was telling readers “cooking involves huge amounts of shopping – the lugging of carrier bags in our lunch hours”. You wouldn’t know, remember? You don’t take lunch hours.

Hello Liz Jones! You long ago became a mere parody of yourself. Now the only thing you’re fit to advertise is self-pity. And nobody cares about that. Get real.

Toby Young Invents Class War

Despite the continuing inventiveness of its hacks and pundits, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun is clearly still in need of outside help in its campaign to tell readers, for the umpteenth time in less than a week, that the rotten lefty Labour Party is rubbish and they should all be voting for Young Dave and his jolly good chaps. Sadly, hack Craig Woodhouse drew the long straw in his bid to play the “Class War” card.

Behold the most credible source the Sun could find

That is because he has been forced to turn to the loathsome Toby Young in an effort to tell readers that Labour wants to rid the country of Free Schools, which as any fule kno are very wonderful, because the programme that unleashed them on the public was the work of Michael “Oiky” Gove, who just happened to be a Murdoch employee in his previous incarnation as a Times hack and leader writer.

“Free Schools ‘face axe if Labour win’” shrieked the headline. They do? That rather contradicts the policy put out by Tristram Hunt over the past, er, several months and rather a lot of TV interviews. So who says they ‘face [the] axe’? Ah well. That would be Tobes, “who set up three of the revolutionary ‘Free Schools’”. And Tobes “raised fears for their future as militant teaching unions held Red Ed hostage”.

So what does Tobes have to say for himself? “I’m concerned Free Schools may not be safe if Ed Miliband is PM. Ed Balls said he was going to shut them down. He ‘clarified’ it afterwards … I don’t think you can take these clarifications at face value because in office they could be beholden to the far left”. We are not told when “Auguste” Balls said “he was going to shut them down”, probably because he didn’t.

But let me put Tobes straight: he has nothing to back up his claim other than his own hot air. Zero. Zilch. Nil Nada. Not a sausage. Bugger all. The biggest threat to the Free Schools that have been started up under the stewardship of Himself Personally Now is not from any political party, but the dubious leadership and day to day control exercised by their management - or the apparent lack of it. Take the West London Free School (WLFS).

Zelo Street regulars will recall the appalling catalogue of bad behaviour that led to the departure mid-term of head teacher Sam Naismith (see HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE). There was also the expenditure of £9.25 million of taxpayers’ money - that’s our money, Tobes - on an office block in Hammersmith because Palingswick House was not ready for the school to move into - and not big enough even then.

Had Sally Coates not been parachuted in to steady the ship, WLFS could well have faced serious, if not terminal, problems. This has nothing to do with “class war”, but getting the basics of running a school right in the first place. To then whine that Sun readers should “look over there” at opposition politicians is not surprising. But it is equally dishonest. Toby Young should be looking to himself before blaming others.

And don’t forget, the Free Schools programme is well over £1 billion over budget.