Met Commissioner Says Vote Labour

While Theresa May has characteristically responded to the terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday night by mouthing platitudes - “Enough is enough”, which ranks with “Brexit means Brexit” for sheer vacuity - and her most ardent admirers in the press grovelingly lap it up, elsewhere the question is being asked as to whether we have sufficient Police and security force numbers to combat the threat.

Cressida Dick

What resources does the PM propose to use in pursuit of her allegedly new and tougher stance towards terrorist attacks? Why does she, once again, deflect by ordering the gullible of Grubstreet to “look over there” at the Web? And, most importantly, why is it not her, but anyone else in the cabinet, who is being pushed forward to appear before the inquisition of the broadcasters, even those on Breakfast TV?

Her hapless Culture Secretary Karen Bradley was volunteered to appear on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, where she failed more than once to answer a straightforward question from co-hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on the number of armed Police officers (this was cut by more than 1,000 between 2012 and 2016, on Theresa May’s watch). Matt Chorley of The Times helpfully provided a graph to assist her next time.

All Ms Bradley would tell GMB viewers was that there was a choice when the electorate went to the polls on Thursday. So there is. And Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has - perhaps not inadvertently - showed the force’s frustration at the succession of Tory cuts by suggesting that she favours choosing a party that is not the Conservatives. The evidence could not be more compelling.

Paul Harrison, senior news editor for Sky News, relayed Ms Dick’s comments, which will not make comfortable reading for The Blue Team. “#LondonBridge Met Commissioner asked if the the system is buckling under pressure, incl 3 attacks: ‘I would like more resources, yes’”. Ouch! Perhaps we could have a second source for that?

We certainly could, from ITV political editor Robert Peston: “‘We need more’ resources and power, says Met Commissioner Cressida Dick”. And what reason did the Commissioner give for her response? Peston again: “[Ms] Dick says we needs more powers and resource because terrorist threat intensifying”. As Karen Bradley kept on saying to Morgan and Ms Reid as she desperately tried to avoid actually answering the question, voters have a choice on Thursday. They have a particular choice on Police resources.

That choice is for more of the same under the Tories and Theresa May, with fewer Police officers available over time, or for an increase of 20,000 officers offered by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. The Red Team is also committed to increasing manpower in the security services, the people who have to obtain and utilise intelligence on terror threats, and then ensure those who may be planning attacks are monitored and, if necessary, stopped.

So this morning the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has effectively told anyone capable of deciphering her straightforward message to Vote Labour. No surprise there.

Zero Hours Student IS ALSO A TORY

After Zelo Street gave readers a little more information about the student who had showed such enthusiasm for zero hours contracts on last Friday’s Question Time leaders’ special, there was a significant response. Had Ed Robbins been a plant? Was he merely taking his political lead from older members of his family? Was it fair to suggest he was a Tory? Well, on that last point, the latest information to hand suggests the answer to that one is yes.

Ed Robbins watches Dimbleby Major

Robbins may have enjoyed a rewarding gap year and a number of other reassuringly expensive divertissements, but he has also found time to dabble in politics, and unless he has changed party since the 2015 General Election, most certainly is a Tory. I give you the 2014-15 issue of The Cheltonian, the house magazine of Cheltenham College, because all  suitably upmarket independent schools have to have house magazines.

On Page 17, we can read about “Government and Politics”, and that “The Government and Politics department continued to enthuse and engage the student body. The academic year was bookended by the Scottish referendum, the rise and fall of UKIP and the excitement of a General Election. It is without doubt a deeply stimulating subject and the Sixth Form students were immersed in recent political developments. What with local hustings events and visits from prospective Cheltenham candidates, the pupils benefited hugely from the exposure to contemporary local and national issues”.

Was there some kind of practical element to this learning? There certainly was: “The real highlight for the department was the College-wide election. Every main party was represented and what followed was a highly informed and passionate campaign”. And who might have represented the Tories in this exercise? As if you need to ask.

Life can be hard for some. Or maybe not

“Edward Robbins (U6, L), representing the Conservative Party, won the popular vote and the majority of the constituencies (spread across the Houses, Common Room, administrative staff, catering staff and the estates department”. So all those who assumed that Ed Robbins was a Tory assumed correctly.

That would explain why he did not inconvenience the Imperial Progress of the Empress Theresa, but instead aimed his question squarely at Jeremy Corbyn, whose plain speaking and candour, coupled to a commitment to social justice and the kind of agenda that would not look out of place in mainland Europe probably frightens the living daylights out of many in and around the Cheltenham College former pupils’ world.

And for those who believed Zelo Street behaved somehow unfairly and improperly in exposing Ed Robbins, no-one is suggesting that he should not be free to espouse whatever views he chooses, and promote his chosen political agenda. But likewise, anyone else is free to call him out on it. Moreover, given the information in this post is openly available, it might have been thought that whoever does the audience vetting for Question Time would also have been able to dig it out.

It would certainly save the BBC a significant amount of grief. Just a thought.

André Walker - You’re A Tosser

[Update at end of post]

After news emerged of the terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Market last night, many were repulsed at yet more death and injury being needlessly meted out by those who claim the good name of The Prophet in order to justify murder and mayhem. Even our political class declared a brief truce, although the General Election campaign will restart in earnest this evening. But there had to be one idiot on hand.

André Walker - of less than high principle

That idiocy was volunteered by André Walker, formerly connected to the now-dormant Young Britons’ Foundation, and also, so he claims, a close friend of Elliott Johnson, the Tory activist who tragically took his own life after being bullied by a number of people, including, it seems, André Walker. Walker , let us not drive this one round the houses for too long, is a shit of the lowest order, for whom dirty tricks are his new normal.

His behaviour included turning up at Elliott Johnson’s inquest hearing, claiming to have been in a relationship with the dead activist. Now he is reduced to writing for the New York Observer, which sounds mildly impressive, except that it was purchased back in 2006 by Jared Kushner, and is one of the few publications to have backed Combover Crybaby Donald Trump for the US Presidency. It’s well out there on the right.

Now, Walker has decided that he will personally intervene in the terrorism debate, by claiming to offer himself as a target, thus - he appears to hope - drawing attackers’ fire away from the rest of the public. How can he achieve this? Simples. By being a Grade A Tosser: “A bounty on my head. Any #ISIS terrorist that kills me gets £50k. I'll give my address. No police. But I've got a sword. Good luck” he Tweeted earlier.

Why would he do this? “Very simple, fight someone who is a fair opponent. No honour in running over children”. Really? “They are cowards who blow up kids and run people over. I'm suggesting a fair fight... with me”. So armed only with his trusty sword … hold it right there, this is total crap. Has Walker not seen the first Indiana Jones film? He can brandish his weapon (kersnick kersnick) all he likes, but one pot from a gun and … dead.

And quite apart from the idea of Walker going around pretending he’s Adam Adamant once more reincarnated (younger people - ask an older relative about that one), what he’s proposing is plainly illegal - after all, if it’s illegal to use rather less prominent blades in anger, it’s going to be illegal for him to use his. Plus dealing with the less charitably inclined among the population is down to the authorities, not this tosser.

André Walker should leave law enforcement to law enforcement professionals, and remember that the Tory bullying scandal, in which he was implicated, has by no means blown over. And if he wants to draw attention to those who kill innocent children, he should be lobbying the Government and the arms industry to stop selling deadly weaponry to régimes which use it to terrorise their neighbours.

André Walker is an ocean-going tosser of the least deserving kind. Good laugh, though.

[UPDATE 1440 hours: as if Walker's stunt were not the pinnacle of stupidity, the Mail had to go one better by putting his Twitter excursion on their website and fouling up his nationality.

"American journalist sparks fury after posing outside Parliament with a SWORD and offering ISIS £50,000 to fight him" they told. But Walker, it was conceded, is a Freeman of the City of London. He is also British and a Tory Party hanger-on.

Still, when you don't bother to do the research, what do you expect?]

London Bridge - We Need More Cops

Last night, three men armed only with knives and a white van carried out an attack on pedestrians at the south end of London Bridge, and then in the Borough Market area. There are many pubs and restaurants in the vicinity; all would have been busy on what was a warm Summer Saturday evening. Seven people lost their lives. It could have been many more, but for the swift Police response.

That response came so swiftly that eight minutes after the authorities had been alerted, all three attackers had been shot dead. The attack was over. But there were still injured parties to care for, bystanders to evacuate. Many lives had experienced the nasty jolt of crude terrorism. It was the third terrorist incident in less than three months, and the second in London. General Election campaigning has been paused until this evening.

And yet, and yet … political parties may have put their campaigns on hold, but the thought has already entered with many observers that there is a question screaming at us. These attacks are, increasingly, getting through, and there have for a number of years now been warnings about cuts to Police numbers, and especially to reductions in community Policing. Theresa May was confronted over the latter two years ago.

Moreover, as the Mirror has told, should the Tories win next Thursday, there would be more Police cuts in the five years to 2022. Nigel Nelson’s article explains “The cuts would begin to bite next year as 43 forces face a £332million funding shortfall which will continue year on year until 2022 … There are currently 122,859 police officers in England and Wales … The projected losses of 16,732 would bring that down to 106,127, below the 1978 levels of 106,732”. That is despite large increases in the overall population.

Theresa May this morning chaired a COBRA meeting, as is usual after such an attack, and she has come out and spoken about the length of terror-related sentences. I hate to have to point this out to the Prime Minister, but that is stuff all use after the event. We need a restoration of the community policing that, under her watch, has been decimated.

Only then can the collection and co-ordination of intelligence give the law enforcement authorities and security agencies the fullest picture of what is going on out there. Those same authorities were warned about Salman Abedi, the Manchester attacker, several times, but if their resources will not stretch to cover all those who should be under surveillance, some of them will be missed - and they will get through.

It also seems that Abedi was allowed to come and go between Britain and Libya - on the watch of the then Home Secretary … Theresa May. National political campaigning may have been suspended until this evening, but when the whole machine cranks up again, the finger will inevitably be pointed at the PM. And it will be no use her bleating “look over there at the Web”, or saying we’ll crack down by issuing longer sentences.

Staying alive beyond making their attacks does not appear to be part of the attackers’ modus operandi. So tougher sentences are irrelevant. We need more cops - and Theresa May is hell bent on going in the other direction. I’ll just leave that one there.

Top Six - June 4

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 major cooking stuff to do later. So there.

6 Tories’ Brexit Advantage GONE Jeremy Corbyn introduced the team that would negotiate Brexit should Labour win the General Election. And they put their Tory equivalents in the shade on competence and credibility.

5 Dominic Raab - An Utter Shit The Tories’ representative on a Victoria Derbyshire big debate special approached the question of food bank poverty as if he were examining a set of company accounts.

4 Corbyn And The Bomb Jezza was right not to agree to first use of the kind of weaponry that can lay waste to far larger areas, and kill many times more people, than the kind of nuclear devices set off at the end of World War 2.

3 FBI Bomb Warning - Tories In Trouble We now know that Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, had been the subject of warnings from his local community - and the FBI.

2 Katie Hopkins SACKED By Mail Online It will be dressed up as an amicable parting of the ways, and will only happen when her contract comes up for renewal - but the era of Hatey Katie at Mail Online is effectively over.

1 Zero Hours Student IS STINKING RICH The £150 Ralph Lauren top suggested the student quizzing Jeremy Corbyn on Question Time might not be on his uppers. And Ed Robbins most certainly isn’t down to his last tin of beans just yet.

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

Zero Hours Student IS STINKING RICH

Friday’s Question Time special featured questions from several audience members to both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. One directed at the Labour leader was on the subject of zero hours contracts, from a young man who described himself as a student. He was concerned that scrapping zero hours contracts would somehow impoverish him. But some of those watching took one look at him and smelt a rat.

Dimbleby Major quizzes Corbyn - Ed Robbins looks on

The £150 Ralph Lauren top did not suggest that he was on his uppers, and one enterprising Twitter user duly rummaged around and found rather more about the questioner, which suggested likewise, commenting “‘I need my zero hours contract to buy food, Jeremy will starve me’. if he really was desperate to buy food why not sell one of his tuxedos?” Zelo Street was duly tipped off as to his true identity.

Hello, he's been rumbled

The student pleading to obtain more zero hours contracts is called Edward Robbins, or Ed Robbins to his friends. He had a schooling which, like the upmarket wardrobe, suggests he is not going to be down to his last tin of beans any time soon.

Ed Robbins slums it round the world ...

For starters, Ed Robins went to the exclusive Winterfold House prep school, following in the footsteps of elder brother Nick, leaving in 2010, and moving up to Cheltenham College, another exclusive independent school, where he was a member of Leconfield House, which consists entirely of boarders. During the 2014-15 academic year, he again followed in the footsteps of his elder brother by being made Head Boy.

... at exclusive Cheltenham College ...

A family putting two brothers through exclusive prep school and secondary school will have needed some serious money to do so. Yet more of the folding stuff would have been required for Ed to go off on what I understand was a world tour gap year after finishing at Cheltenham College. And yet more dosh would have to have been splurged on earlier skiing trips to Cime de Caron in France and upmarket Villars in Switzerland.

... at upmarket Cime de Caron ...

Elsewhere, Robbins’ Twitter feed suggests he has also found time in his busy schedule to visit Dubai - just to cross it off the bucket list, you understand - and the available memorabilia from his time at Cheltenham College shows he has also seen at least a few excerpts from Life of Brian (“what has College ever done for us?”). Note that Cheltenham Collage is just “College” to former students, as Eton College is just “School”.

... and exclusive, posh Villars

Edward Robbins is very much one of the 5%, and he hasn’t even finished University yet (well, that world tour gap year has to take precedence, dontcha know). The idea he is going to become impoverished by a change in Government at Westminster is total and utter baloney. He and his family have no need to put silver spoons in their mouths: they would be able to hire chaps to do that sort of thing for them.

Once again, someone trying to be ordinary when they are anything but has been caught bang to rights.  And once again, they get caught partly because what they think is ordinary marks them out as folk with too much brass for their own good. Another phoney rumbled.

Corbyn And The Bomb

“Now for a few tense and terrible days the prospect was faced. People looked directly into the pit. There can be no doubt as to the result: thousands and perhaps millions began to wonder if there was not some slightly less heroic but substantially more pleasant alternative”. Recollection of the Cuban Missile Crisis by J K Galbraith, from The Age Of Uncertainty.

A BBC Question Time special yesterday evening featured - separately - Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, who were in turn subjected to a light grilling from a studio audience. While the Tory leader got questions about welfare cuts and lack of public sector wage increases, Jezza inevitably was confronted by those who considered his stance on nuclear weapons, confirming no first use, to be insufficiently bellicose.

What appears to have been forgotten in that more than half-century since the United States and the then USSR faced off over the latter deciding to station nuclear missiles in Cuba, very close to the US mainland, is what would result from the use of such weapons. Just to loose off one such device in anger would result in death and destruction on a scale unimaginable, the after-effects being with us for generations.

What also appears to have passed by all those - including, it seems, Theresa May - is that the destructive power of nuclear weaponry is now far in advance of the last ones to be used in anger, against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Those bombs wiped out entire cities, laid waste to swathes of land, spread death and disease whose effects were felt for decades afterwards.

But the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were puny in comparison with the firepower now in the hands of countries like Britain - and several others. The destructive power of modern nuclear weaponry would not merely lay waste to large cities, but to entire small-sized countries. The euphemistically titled “kill zones” would encompass not hundreds, but thousands of square kilometres, or miles for the imperial purist.

That is why British Governments from the 1950s to the present day - Ms May seemingly excepted - have predicated their holding of these weapons on there being no first use of them. The scale of destruction they would wreak is too terrible to imagine, the finality of their deployment too awful to contemplate, the likelihood of other countries being drawn into a yet more destructive nuclear exchange too much to even visualise.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was the generals who had previously advocated first strikes who were fortunately sidelined, in favour of those like JFK and his advisers who realised all too well the inevitable consequences of such actions. It is due to those men of restraint and common sense under pressure that we owe the pulling back from the brink.

And for those who still harbour dreams of that clean, decisive first strike, one more thought enters: there is no instance in history of nuclear weapons being deployed against an enemy capable of retaliating in kind. I’ll just leave that one there.

Tory Election Fraud - JUST IN TIME

The Tory election expenses case had been thought to have blown over - except there was still the case of Thanet South MP Craig Mackinlay, whose constituency had had so much resource poured into it in 2015 to prevent Nigel “Thirsty” Farage from achieving his first success in several attempts to become a Westminster Parliamentarian.

And then, like an afternoon thunder shower brewing up on a hot and sticky afternoon, there was a flash of light, and soon after, all hell broke loose. With less than a week to go before the General Election, and well after the last point at which parties could pull their candidate and nominate someone less toxic, Mackinlay was in trouble.

As the Independent has reported, “A Conservative fighting to retain his seat and his two aides have been charged with electoral fraud as part of a major investigation, less than a week before the country goes to the polls … The Crown Prosecution Service announced on Friday that Craig Mackinlay, defending South Thanet for his party, has been charged following a probe into his 2015 election campaign expenses”.

All those Battle Buses, activists, hotel bookings and associated food and drink have, it seems, caught up with The Blue Team, and just in time to set thoughts of 1990s “Tory Sleaze” echoing around the media. CPS Head of Crime Nick Vamos has told “We have concluded there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to authorise charges against three people”. And who might the other two be?

“Agent Nathan Gray, 28, and Marion Little, 62, have also been charged with offences under the Representation of the People Act 1983 and, with Mr Mackinlay, are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on July 4”. Marion Little. Now there’s a most interesting name, because she drags in another Tory leader.

The Mail knows all about her: “Amid the actors, athletes and other famous figures rewarded in the 2016 New Year Honours list, there was a name unfamiliar to all but a few Westminster insiders. It was that of Marion Little. She was described in the official London Gazette announcement as 'Campaign Specialist, Conservative party'. She was to be made an Officer Order of the British Empire. She had earned it for unspecified 'political service’”.

So Young Dave gets dragged in, as does Theresa May: she and Patrick McLoughlin “both argued that the legal authorities had ‘confirmed what we believed was the case all along, that these Conservative candidates did nothing wrong’. Mr McLoughlin added that the allegations had involved ‘politically motivated and unfounded complaints’ and had ‘wasted police time’, something Ms May also agreed with”.

Well, now it seems that the complaints may not have been unfounded, nor a waste of Police time, in the case of Thanet South, Mackinlay, and Ms Little. Just as the polls are showing a move away from the Tories to Labour, the imperial progress of the Empress Theresa suffers another most inconvenient setback.

It couldn’t happen to a more deserving party.

Tories’ Brexit Advantage GONE

In yet another apparent reboot of her General Election campaign, Theresa May spent much of yesterday - well, the part where she wasn’t aimlessly parroting slogans in order to put the press off the scent - telling anyone who would listen that only with the Tories could there be a half decent Brexit settlement. This was her latest defence against declining poll ratings, the means by which her campaign would get back on track.

And then, in the space of less than a minute, it began to unravel, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed Labour’s Brexit negotiating team. Any advantage Team May might have retained then vanished completely as first the ranks of the media, and then the voters, looked at the Tory team, then looked at the Labour offering, and concluded that the imperial progress of the Empress Theresa was going nowhere on this one.

As predicted, Labour’s Brexit negotiating team would be headed by Keir Starmer, a barrister of decades’ standing, a QC, and a former Director of Public Prosecutions. Compare and contrast with David Davis, a well-meaning Tory, but one for whom the seriousness and complexity of the Brexit negotiations has never been wholly taken on board. The rest of the Labour team is equally sound.

Emily Thornberry, shadowing the Foreign Office, compares well to London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, whose main claim to fame with the EU has been to talk well, but lie badly, about it. Ms Thornberry has been steadier and more assured as the election campaign has progressed; Bozza’s main contribution has been in waving his arms and losing it badly in the aftermath of TV debates.

Barry Gardiner has also had a good election campaign, and before that was shadowing the job done by disgraced former Defence Secretary Liam Fox. The choice between the two men is straightforward: a safe pair of hands in Gardiner, or a spiv. Also, Fox’s proximity to a number of highly conservative US interest groups does not suggest he would be an even-handed trade representative. Not good for the Tories.

So the choice between Tory and Labour is a straightforward one: a vastly experienced lawyer, with experienced and competent support, versus the man who goofed over the Tories’ immigration target on Question Time last night, backed up by a liar and charlatan more interested in Himself Personally Now, and a spiv more interested in the main chance for him and his States mates.

And as to Theresa May being there to head her team, maybe that might be too much to ask: not only did she callously send Amber Rudd to bat for the Tories in last night’s TV debate despite Ms Rudd’s father dying on Monday, but she has refused an invitation to go on BBC Woman’s Hour - the show where Corbyn had his brain fart earlier this week - and has dumped on Justine Greening instead. Not a good look.

Strong and stable? As Winshton might have observed, “shome shtrength … shome shtability”. Anyone would think she isn’t up to the job. Just a thought.

Katie Hopkins SACKED By Mail Online

When pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins left the Murdoch Sun, in the wake of her disgraceful comparison of refugees to “cockroaches”, her demands for refugee boats crossing the Mediterranean to be sunk, and claiming that after seeing dead bodies in the water she didn’t care, it was all handled very diplomatically. Ms Hopkins didn’t really get the sack - her contract just didn’t get renewed.

Viewers may want to look away now

It didn’t help that she had also used her Sun column to put the boot in on Kate and Gerry McCann, precipitating a pile-on from the online army of conspiracy theorists, professional trolls and assembled weirdos that follow any mention of that case. Hatey Katie explained herself to Press Gazette by telling “I articulate views that a lot of people feel but feel that they can no longer say”, but she was talking out of the back of her neck.

But now has come another case of what goes around, comes around. Ms Hopkins has endured a torrid few recent months, and it has all been of her own making. After losing a libel action brought by writer and campaigner Jack Monroe, she then lost her LBC show after responding to the Manchester bombing by asserting there should be a “final solution” - thus echoing the language of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.

And now I can reveal that there is more disappointment in store for fans of Hatey Katie. Firstly, my information is that LBC had made the decision to part company with her some months back. The outburst of Islamophobic bigotry after the Manchester attack merely caused push to come to shove rather sooner than had been intended. But, her fans would point out, she was still there at Mail Online. Wasn’t she?

Katie Hopkins? That c*** can f*** right off

Ah well. It appears that there was a meeting last week, most likely at the Northcliffe House bunker, attended by Hatey Katie, with not merely Mail people, but also lawyers, present. Whether there is another legal action in the pipeline following Ms Hopkins’ outpourings is not known. But what is known is that this meeting had one key item on the agenda, and that concerned her one-way ticket out of the building.

Yes, Katie Hopkins is to be effectively sacked by Mail Online. But note the use of the word “effectively”: this is a face-saving formula not unlike the one used when she departed the Sun. There will be no talk of sacking. The language used will tell of people voluntarily going their separate ways. There will be talk of taking on new projects. Both parties will agree that they part on the best of terms. But it will be no different to a sacking.

Because Ms Hopkins does not have much of a say in the decision. She will be out at Mail Online. Although too incendiary for the Sun, LBC and now Mail Online, she need not worry too much. She is already a pundit for Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). There will be a berth at Breitbart or InfoWars, should she want it. But all of this would merely confirm a slow and steady decline into deserved and inevitable irrelevance.

The age of Katie Hopkins at Mail Online was for a time, but not for all time.

FBI Fingers Farage

What would not surprise any Zelo Street regular is the latest news to come out of the continuing probe by US Intelligence agencies into Combover Crybaby Donald Trump and his ties to the gangsterist régime of Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin, and that is that the spooks have now put Nigel “Thirsty” Farage on their list of “persons of interest”. It does not mean he has done anything wrong, but then, it doesn’t mean he hasn’t.

Squeaky You've Been Rumbled finger up the bum time

The Guardian had the story: “Nigel Farage is 'person of interest' in FBI investigation into Trump and Russia … FBI interested in former Ukip leader’s ties with people connected to US president and WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange”. And there was more.

“Farage has not been accused of wrongdoing and is not a suspect or a target of the US investigation. But being a person of interest means investigators believe he may have information about the acts that are under investigation and he may therefore be subject to their scrutiny … Sources who spoke to the Guardian said it was Farage’s proximity to people at the heart of the investigation that was being examined as an element in their broader inquiry into how Russia may have worked with Trump campaign officials to influence the US election”. And one source put it directly.

“One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved … If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage … He’s right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There’s a lot of attention being paid to him”. And what in particular is the FBI looking at?

“The source mentioned Farage’s links with Roger Stone, Trump’s long-time political adviser who has admitted being in contact with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker whom US intelligence agencies believe to be a Kremlin agent”. The suspicion that Mr Thirsty was the go-between, the link between the Trump gang and Wikileaks, was only heightened when the former UKIP leader was caught sneaking out of the Ecuadorian embassy.

He uncharacteristically became all coy when asked what he’d been doing there - forgetful, even. Martin Longman at the Washington Monthly was not so coy, asking the obvious question: “Did Nigel Farage Serve as Roger Stone’s Intermediary?” The growing body of evidence pointing to Farage’s involvement was covered on Zelo Street, including the route to Assange becoming a UKIP Cause Celèbre (HERE and HERE).

Meanwhile, Farage has been spinning for all he is worth, the BBC reporting “Nigel Farage says it is ‘extremely doubtful’ he could be a ‘person of interest’ to the FBI's investigation into Donald Trump and Russia …The former UKIP leader said he had ‘no connections’ to the country”. Two things here. One, he is a person of interest, and two, he is lying. He admitted in the now infamous interview with Die Zeit that he had met the Deputy Russian Ambassador to London - and maybe met him twice.

The former head Kipper has spent so long swimming with the sharks, he should have no complaint when they decide it’s feeding time, and the item on the menu is him.

Mail BBC Bias Claim UNRAVELS

The audience in yesterday evening’s TV debate did not exactly warm to the Tories. And, as it was being staged by the BBC, this could only have one consequence. Never mind allowing the thought to enter that Tory popularity may be declining, that they are mounting a lousy campaign, or that voters were unimpressed with Theresa May hiding behind a grieving colleague - it had to be a case of Beeb bias.

That meant the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail would have something to say come the morning. And so it came to pass, with the screaming headline “TV chiefs under fire over ‘the most Left-wing audience ever’ … FURY AT BIAS ON BBC TV DEBATE … The BBC was last night accused by a prominent Labour supporter of picking ‘the most Left-wing election debate audience ever’”.

Confirming that the Northcliffe House panic button had been well and truly pressed, the YouGov poll suggesting the Tories could lose their Parliamentary majority was dismissed as a “rogue” effort, while the other side of the field was played with a Daily Mail Comment consisting almost exclusively of abuse hurled at Jeremy Corbyn.

And who was the “prominent Labour supporter” of the headline? “George Eaton, political editor of the Labour-supporting New Statesman magazine, said: 'This feels like the most Left-wing audience in any TV debate’”. Ri-i-i-i-i-ght. The Mail’s writers haven’t been paying attention of late, have they? The Staggers has been more than prepared to criticise Jezza and his supporters. It certainly isn’t handing Labour a blank cheque.

Who f***ing says I'm losing it, c***?!?

Moreover, Eaton has felt compelled to take to Twitter to put the Mail and its readers straight: “Since my tweet has become Mail splash, should say it was casual observation (‘feels like’), not allegation of bias”. Also, it did not help the Tories that a majority of the other parties represented - the LibDems, Greens, Plaid, Labour and SNP - took a stance well to the left of them, and most likely the public’s perception of them.

As for the Staggers, claiming it is some kind of Corbyn cheerleader is immediately debunked by the cover of the latest edition: the headline article, written by editor Jason Cowley (also not a Corbyn loyalist) is titled “The Labour reckoning … Is Jeremy Corbyn really heading for a crushing defeat on 8 June?”

The best the Mail can manage in response to that is to cite the likes of London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, oblivious to the knowledge that Bozza is a career liar of the most shameless kind, and rely on backup knocking copy from the odious Quentin Letts (let’s not), whining “Worse than the mob at a Momentum rally! Where DID they get them? The Beeb insisted the audience members were representative. Bogeys to that. They were no more balanced than a gorilla on a unicycle”.

The Mail has been reduced to protesting that the polls are wrong, anyone not liking the Tory campaign is a rabid leftie, and worst of all, inflating a casual comment into a front page splash out of sheer desperation. Paul Dacre - not waving but drowning.

TV Debate - Theresa The Coward

Yesterday evening’s TV debate, held in Cambridge and hosted by the BBC, was given the additional spice of Jeremy Corbyn turning up to represent Labour, and use the opportunity, as did the other participants, of asking the obvious question: given that the Labour leader was there, along with the leaders of the Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP and Plaid Cymru, where was Theresa May? But our allegedly fearless Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the Tories were represented by Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who managed a few decent lines, but was always on the back foot when confronted with six other participants (the SNP was represented by Angus Robertson, their head man at Westminster) who made hay at her boss chickening out of the scrap.

And then came the news that the Tory press has been spinning all night: Amber Rudd’s father Tony had died on Monday. He was 93, and had served in World War 2. Tony Rudd had, along the way, been a journalist and had covered the Suez crisis for the Guardian. That would have taken some bottle to do: the Guardian was the only national daily to stand against Anthony Eden’s folly, and took a circulation hit as a result.

The Telegraph found a source who told “The family got together on Tuesday night with all the children to celebrate their father's life. Their father took such pride in her he would have loved it. He was actually looking forward to watching this debate … It would have been madness for her (not to take part) - it's just not what her father would have wanted”.

And the Murdoch Sun wanted readers to know “BRAVE Amber Rudd stood up to debate Jeremy Corbyn tonight despite the death of her elderly father on Monday, the Sun can reveal … The Home Secretary refused to step down from the frontline of the Election campaign after her frail 93 year-old Dad Tony passed away … Last night, friends confirmed the retired stockbroker had died but she wanted to keep campaigning … One pal said: ‘It just shows how tough she is’”. It shows something else, too.

It was left to Labour’s Barry Gardiner to say what many were thinking: “My deep condolences to Amber. At any time, to have your father die is a real tragedy for anyone. I know the pressures that are on politicians during an election campaign and the fact that she has been prepared to come and do that shows that she is an estimable woman. But what does it say about Theresa May that knowing that Amber had been through that, she forced her to do it rather than to come in there and stand up for herself?”

After Harold Macmillan - the man who succeeded Eden after Suez - had sacked several cabinet colleagues in what became known as “The Night of the Long Knives”, Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe observed “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life”. Our callous and cowardly Prime Minister has now gone one better, by sending a grieving colleague out to defend the Tories’ record.

Theresa May does not deserve to be returned as Prime Minister. She is an empty and evasive campaigner, utterly devoid of empathy, and like a rabbit in the headlights when it comes to actually answering questions.

Now we know she is the lowest kind of coward.