Christmas Is Coming

The festive season is upon us, and as is customary at this time of year, Zelo Street will be taking a break while I hopefully enjoy a relaxing and convivial Christmas.

Normal service should resume next week, and don’t forget, there are the usual review of the year and pointers to the next one to come.

My thanks to all of you who have taken the time to look in on the blog. I hope you like what you read, and that you will keep on looking in in the year to come.

And to my regular targets - keep on behaving like prats, because without that, there would be far less to blog about and the world would be a less interesting place.

Have a peaceful Christmas.

Katie Hopkins - Islamophobic Bigot

A family group who also happened to be Muslim were prevented from boarding a flight from Gatwick Airport to the USA recently. They were not given an explanation. Their MP, Stella Creasy, has had no success in getting the US authorities to explain themselves, and has now written to the Prime Minister. But one pundit knows all about what really happened: pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins has been on the case.

Viewers may want to look away now

Ms Hopkins has the nudge-nudgery on the go from the start: “This lovely big British family aren’t exactly conventional. They are two brothers – and 9 children… between 8 and 19 years old … I’m sorry? Two brothers and nine children. All called Mahmood … When was the last time two grown men, took nine ‘kids’ abroad on their own?” But one of the brothers was accompanied by his sister in law. Katie hasn’t bothered checking.

And then comes a really clumsy smear: “And then there’s their address in Waltham Forest, a known hotbed of extremism … Anjem Choudary - Britain's loudest extremist hate speaker - came from Waltham Forest”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, Choudary comes from Welling, in the borough of Bexley - not Waltham Forest. And two, he now lives in Ilford, which is in the borough of Redbridge.

So that’s more smears combined with crap research, or, as many people call it, lying. But on she goes: “And if it wasn’t enough that two Muslim men from an extremist area of England, plus their nine children were flying together without any women, to set off alarm bells there’s the fact that they have confirmed links with Al Qaeda … Yup. Intelligence was received about a Facebook page connected to the family address, containing extremist material sympathising with Al Qaeda”. Not really, no.

Over to CNN, that hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism: “A check by CNN on Wednesday of traveling family members on the UK Electoral Roll showed an email address associated with 18-year-old Hamza Mahmood that links to a suspicious Facebook page … The page appears to belong to a Birmingham resident with a similar name, whose occupation is listed as Supervisor at Taliban and Leader at al-Qaeda”. There’s more.

“When asked by reporters about the Facebook link, the family said the email listed on the electoral roll is incorrect, missing some characters, and that the son lives in London, not Birmingham”. So Katie is talking out of the back of her neck once again. Have another go: “Tariq’s brother was also detained in Tel Aviv for 8 days before being ejected from the country”. No and no. He wasn’t detained in Tel Aviv. He never got past the airport.

He was refused entry to Israel, and was detained overnight. But readers should know to expect this from a pundit who talks about “playing my usual game of ‘spot the terrorist’ at the airport, (beard -5 points, rucksack – 10 points, sandals – 5 points – be honest, you’ve all done it)”. No Katie, we haven’t all done it. You’re just a cheap and nasty bigot.

And your pants are on fire too. No wonder the Sun sacked her.

Sun Top Gear Smear Busted

The BBC’s flagship show about all things motors, Top Gear, will return to the screen in May next year. And it will do so without the team that fronted it for so many years until Jeremy Clarkson lost it with producer Oisin Tymon recently. There will be no Jezza, no Hamster, and no Captain Slow. But things change: after all, Top Gear’s first presenters included Angela Rippon. The press, though, is uneasy about the change.

This is especially true at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, which, by sheer coincidence you understand, pays Clarkson a non-trivial sum of money to pen a regular column. With no Jezza on Top Gear, the Sun’s pundit may suffer a lowering of his profile, and that would never do. So Rupe’s downmarket troops have done what comes naturally - they’ve used the occasion as another excuse to put the boot into the hated Beeb.

“Top Gear turmoil as Chris Evans picks two unknown hosts and backroom two leave” screams the headline, above an alleged “exclusive”, probably because no other paper was desperate enough to make it up. So what’s the story? “German racing driver Sabine Schmitz and motoring journalist Chris Harris will line up with ex-Formula One star David Coulthard and [Chris] Evans”. Yes? Yes yes? Yes yes yes?

“But our exclusive revelation of their appointments comes after executive producer Lisa Clark left this week, having joined less than five months ago”. Backroom staff change no shock horror. What does the Sun have to back up the claims of “turmoil”? Ah well. They have “a source”. “A source said: ‘Lisa is very well respected and her departure has been a real shock. There is a lot of upheaval at the moment’”.

Do go on. “The turmoil comes amid claims of disquiet over the new presenters after stars such as Zoe Ball, Suzi Perry and Jodie Kidd all ruled themselves out”. Yeah, and so did Angela Rippon. Can the Murdoch doggies manage something better? Ooh look, they’ve got “an insider”. “An insider said: ‘Sabine and Chris are virtually unknown to the wider public and David isn’t the most charismatic driver’”.

And to that I call bullshit. David Coulthard has been part of the Beeb’s Formula 1 coverage for some years. He’s a bloody good commentator and analyst, and he’s popular with the viewers. Sabine Schmitz is already well known to Top Gear viewers, and Chris Harris runs his own popular YouTube channel. In any case, how well-known were Richard Hammond and James May before they appeared on Top Gear? They weren’t.

The Sun story is just a cheap smear, a routine hatchet job to try and rubbish the new format because the Murdoch press is having a sulk after one of their overmonied pundits got the boot from the show. Hence they make up “a source” and “an insider” to slag off Top Gear. It’s just more of the usual tabloid hypocrisy: they want the BBC run down, but can’t want to generate clicks off the back of its programming.

The new Murdoch HQ in London is called “The News Building”. Oxymoron of the decade.

Sun PR Advocates Censorship

The right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate is always quick to accuse those who want to see truly independent press regulation of wanting to “muzzle”, “shackle”, “chill”, or more straightforwardly censor the press. Campaigning group Hacked Off is routinely described as “anti-press”, and the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn called them “a group of whining film stars” (you can’t have a “group” with just one, Tom).

He's sorry, he hasn't a clue

Faithful - and routinely dishonest - Murdoch retainer Trevor Kavanagh talked of “gagging”, which suggests someone has been forced to read too many of his piss-poor hatchet jobs. Both were unswerving advocates of a free press - well, the kind that is free to do the bidding of Creepy Uncle Rupe and other billionaire owners - and so would never be party to anyone telling them what they should publish - even if they get it wrong.

Whine ... 

That, after all, is what is known as The Duke Of Wellington’s Principle: “Publish and be damned”, and of course neither Hacked Off, nor any of their supporters, advocate any change in that principle, unlike the Sun’s exceptionally clueless PR spinner Dylan Sharpe, who has today taken a break from telling Andrew Marr how to conduct interviews, to try and make his Twitter followers “look over there” away from yet another Sun foul-up.

... carp ...

This is the PR who mused “A shame Alan Johnson wasn't asked if he thought the leader of the Labour Party thinks the EU is as important as he considers it [Alan Johnson is not a member of the shadow cabinet] … Hey media plurality campaigners: how does this graph look to you…? [Look over there at the broadcasters] and the magnificently strange “Would Corbyn destory the Death Star if it meant killing 1000s of innocents onboard..? [What?]”

... wibble

Then came yesterday’s admission that September’s Sun story on Jeremy Corbyn, the Privy Council, and Short Money was a pack of lies from start to finish, a PR’s nightmare. So when the Independent jumped the gun and mistakenly said the Sun would be apologising (not true) and had been forced to publish a front page correction (also not true), Sharpe was able to deflect - until he overreached himself.

“The Independent have today published a tiny correction on page 2 for a story that appeared big on page 1 yesterday” he whined, managing not to mention that the correction took the Indy one day, and the Sun’s took three months, with the paper being forced to make the admission.Then Sharpe let it slip: “Honestly, there should be some kind of press regulator who can stop this sort of thing happening”.

There is no way of stopping “this sort of thing happening”. Newspapers and websites are run by human beings, and human beings make mistakes. The only way to “stop this sort of thing happening” is by prior restraint, or, putting it in plain English, censorship. So Dylan Sharpe, PR for the Sun, bastion of our free and fearless press, is saying there should be a press regulator able to censor newspapers.

After remarks like that, it will be interesting to see how Dylan Sharpe’s future at the Sun pans out. If he has one.

Cameron Capitulates To Murdoch

Politicians’ psyches are seared through with memories of past failure. For Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, it was the long period in the wilderness and the loss in 1992; for David Cameron and George Osborne it was how the win in 1992 went sour so quickly. Both Labour and Tory memories of that year’s General Election have one common thread: the benefit of having the Murdoch press on side, and especially the Sun.

You press cheppies over thyah! Pipe dine and let the kindly people from the Sun ask the questions! Jolly good sheow!

The influence of the tabloid press may be steadily dwindling, but papers like the Sun are still able to set the news agenda, dragging other papers and the broadcasters along in its wake. Cameron and Osborne live with the constant fear of re-living what happened to John Major: losing the Sun, and the endless ridicule that ensued. Their tendency to over-compensate is what drives them into the waiting arms of Rupert Murdoch.

Their return to Murdoch’s side was sealed earlier this week when Cameron attended Murdoch’s suitably select soirée at the latter’s London flat. Here, he was reunited with the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks, although no lending of Police horses was though to have been discussed. What was undoubtedly discussed, though, was the manner of Cameron’s prostration before Murdoch.

Cameron wanted the fear of losing the Sun to be gone from his shoulders: in this search, Rupe would help him find reassurance and contentment. But there is, with Murdoch, the inevitable Quid Pro Quo, which would invariably feature a lot of quids. The hated BBC had to be further emasculated. Leveson 2 had to be punted convincingly and finally into the long grass. Ofcom might go easier on a “Fox-ified” Sky News operation.

That Cameron had given his solemn undertaking to the victims of press misbehaviour counted for nothing: in any competition between honour and survival, honour is quickly dispatched out the window. All he will probably get is the Murdoch press backing his stance on an EU Referendum - to stay in the Union - while Rupe will also get the green light to take the 61% of Sky he does not already own.

Dave’s grovelling ministers went to the party too: John Whittingdale had the wagons circled round him in his hour of need. Priti Patel, newly promoted to Minister For Herself, did just that. The parade of prostration was as desperate as it was sickening. And all to try to ensure that John Major’s infamous phone call does not happen again.

That call was the one Major made to the unsavoury Kelvin MacKenzie, to ask how Kel would cover Black Wednesday, the ERM fiasco. Kelvin McFilth (for it was he) told Major “Prime Minister, I have on my desk in front of me a very large bucket of shit which I am just about to pour all over you”. Dave would rather keep smelling of roses.

So when Cameron comes back from Brussels to tell voters that he won’t let the UK be governed by a bunch of foreigners, remember that, at the same time, he’s whispering out of the corner of his mouth “Well, maybe just one foreigner, Rupert”.

Harry Cole - Pants Officially On Fire

Back in September, the Sun’s alleged “Westminster Correspondent” Harry Cole, formerly tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, secured himself a front page byline credit on a Labour-bashing story headlined “LABOUR HYPOCRITE … Leftie who hates the Royals WILL kiss Queen’s hand to grab £6.2m … COURT JEZTER” (geddit?!?)”. And there was more.

An unsavoury sleazebag airs his views

“New Labour boss Jeremy Corbyn, who once backed a Bill to abolish the monarchy, will be forced to bend his knee before the Queen and kiss her hand in order to secure his position as official Leader of the Opposition … Mr Corbyn will join the Queen’s Privy Council, despite previous claims he would shun Her Majesty … This stunning act of loyalty exposes the hypocrisy of the life-long campaigner for Britain to abolish the Royal Family”.

What an exclusive! What a steaming pile of crap!!

Sad to say, though, as I pointed out at the time, the whole story was a pack of lies: the “£6.2m” referred to is what is known as “Short Money”, and its provision to the Labour Party is not conditional on the party leader joining the Privy Council. Moreover, Corbyn would not have been allowed to become an MP had he not sworn his loyalty to the crown, which he did in 1983. The splash was a crock of crap.

Tony Gallagher: not a good start

This was not a good start for new Sun editor Tony Gallagher, but perhaps readers would duly bin the paper and the 24-hour rolling news Speculatron would move on. Sadly for Gallagher, his managing editor Stig Abell, spinner Dylan Sharpe, and the serially dishonest Master Cole, the complaints began to arrive at new press regulator IPSO. Yes, not even the toothless successor to the PCC could save Cole’s bacon.

The Sun had to print the judgment ...

And so it came to pass that IPSO made its judgment: the complaint that it had duly considered was upheld. The Sun, through the less than good offices of Master Cole, had indeed published a pack of lies. IPSO noted “The newspaper had not offered a correction promptly and therefore had failed to comply with its obligations under Clause 1 (ii). The Committee required the publication of an adjudication”. And it got worse.

“The misleading information identified was repeated throughout the article, and appeared as the lead story on the newspaper’s front page. It was significantly misleading, formed the principal basis for the personal criticism of Mr Corbyn set out in the article, and resulted from a significant failure to take care not publish misleading information, given that the factors that formally affect the allocation of Short money were known to the newspaper”.

... but the front page teaser is hardly visible (bottom left)

Even worse for the Sun, they had to make reference to the adjudication on the front page. Luckily for the obedient Murdoch poodles, they got away with a tiny “IPSO complaint on Labour Short Money is upheld” at bottom left of the page, rather than letting readers know they had published a pack of lies. But what observers of the Fawkes blog already knew is now official: Harry Cole’s pants are well and truly on fire.

Master Cole has not featured on a Sun front page for a while. I wonder why.

Simon Danczuk - Not Labour At Christmas

At this time of the year, those who hold elective office give their thanks to all those who helped to put them in their positions of power, knowing that, in most cases, they will need that support again in the not too distant future. Yes, politicians send out their Christmas cards, combining that gesture of thanks with, in the case of Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk, the continued promotion of Himself Personally Now.

Danczuk’s seasonal offering shows him posing in front of the clock tower of Big Ben, with the soothing words “Christmas is a time for celebration and reflection, but also to look forward to the New Year and a fresh start [my emphasis] … As I prepare for another busy year both here and in Parliament, you have my commitment that I will always have Rochdale’s best interests at heart”. There is more.

“As we join together to celebrate this special season of goodwill, let our thoughts reach out to those at home and abroad who may be facing difficult times this Christmas … Let us hope for peace and harmony for next year and beyond”. Danczuk then signs off not as “MP for Rochdale”, but as “Rochdale’s MP”. On first glance, this looks an inoffensive offering. But an increasing number of local Labour supporters are less than pleased.

Why should this be? Ah well. The nearest that Danczuk gets to admitting that he is representing the Labour Party is that red tie he is wearing. There is no mention of the party under whose banner he was elected to Parliament, and certainly no mention of the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, whose name he has done so much recently, with the assistance of the right-wing press, to routinely trash.

Look - no party!

On top of that, there is the heavy hint, by talking of looking “forward to the New Year and a fresh start”, that all those rumours of him jumping ship and either joining another party, or deciding to become an Independent, the representative of Himself, might after all have had some substance behind them. And that combination is what has angered many in the constituency who have previously campaigned for him.

Right now, social media sites are seeing more and more Labour Party members in and around Rochdale passing adverse comment on Danczuk’s Christmas card. These are the people he will need, come the next General Election, to go out in all weathers to persuade an increasingly sceptical electorate to choose him above all other candidates. They are the people he needs to help get the vote out on the day.

So how does Simon Danczuk say thank you to them? He cheerfully ignores the party they all joined, the party of which he claims to be a loyal member, and the party that got him to where he is today. After all the less than totally favourable publicity of the past year, and the accusations of disloyalty following his pursuit of money-making opportunities from the right-wing press, one might think Danczuk would not want to alienate his local support.

But that is what he appears to have done. What a star. What an absolute shower.

Sun Cocaine Smear Busted

Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun have decided that the grassroots group Momentum, which grew out of Jeremy Corbyn’s successful run for the Labour leadership, is A Very Bad Thing. So they dispatched hack Matt Quinton to a Momentum get-together at the Prince of Wales pub in Brixton to find something suitably scandalous, which, by the most fortunate of coincidences, he duly did.

“Hard-Left Labour group in drug shame as Sun investigation finds coke in loos at Corbyn bash … EXCLUSIVE: Detection wipes showed tell-tale traces at Momentum Xmas party in Brixton” screamed the headline. Had the Momentum membership and their hangers-on been lining up with their pal Charlie for a sniff? Well, while the Sun clearly wants its readers to believe that, Quinton’s story swiftly unravels.

“TRACES of cocaine were found in toilets where a group of hard-Left Jeremy Corbyn supporters held a private Christmas party … The Sun used specialist detection wipes at the end of the boozy ticket-only pub event for around 100 members of the hardcore Momentum group … The swabs, used by police, came out in blue blotches, which mean the Class A drug was present. They are 95 per cent accurate” tells Quinton.

Do go on. “Only Momentum supporters were allowed into the £6-a-head arts fundraiser at the Prince of Wales in Brixton, South West London, including Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott”. Er, that’s not quite true, is it, Matt? Had that been the case, the Sun’s intrepid reporter would not have been there. Did Quinton turn out his pockets before he entered the bash to show that he himself was not carrying anything snortable?

The Sun might whinge long and loud in righteous protest, but without that proof, the claim in the article would not be admissible as evidence. And it gets worse: if this was an evening bash, how do we know that someone had not taken their stash and rolled-up tenner for a quick score during the lunchtime session? Come to think of it, how many toilets in central London do NOT show traces of cocaine?

Quinton would have to have demonstrated that the areas were free of the drug before the bash began. He didn’t. So he cannot pin his findings on Momentum, of whom the Sun sniffily concludes “Momentum declined to comment on our drug findings”. So what did Quinton do? He went to try and snitch Momentum to the main Labour Party press account (then he deleted the Tweet and thought nobody would notice).

Had Matt Quinton taken his “investigation” to the Met, he would have been laughed out of New Scotland Yard. He has proved no connection between Momentum and coke-sniffing. So there is no “drug shame”, only the shameful and crude smear administered by yet another principle-free taker of the Murdoch shilling. If he was so damn sure Charlie was being used, he should have called the cops and left if to them.

Why he might not have done so is something I will leave to readers to figure out.

Murdoch Fox Now Hen House Guard

In the looking glass world that is the larger part of our free and fearless press, no behaviour is subject to reproach, no action beyond the pale, and no appointment off limits. So it was that, in a land of make believe that would have been beyond the imagination of Lewis Carroll, alleged press regulator IPSO announced the accession to its board of one Trevor Kavanagh, faithful Murdoch retainer and attack dog.

Why did Kavanagh cross the road? To score More And Bigger Paycheques For Himself Personally Now

As the Guardian has told, “Ipso announced Kavanagh’s appointment on Friday, saying he brought decades of knowledge of the industry and an ‘unparalleled reputation as a political journalist’”. Campaigning group Hacked Off has not been backward in coming forward to pass severely adverse comment on this two-fingered gesture to the public.

“Evan Harris, the joint executive director of Hacked Off, said: ‘Trevor Kavanagh’s appointment to the laughably entitled Independent Press Standards Organisation means that Ipso has abandoned even the pretence of independence from the industry … It was the industry which effectively nominated Mr Kavanagh and drove through his appointment via the editors on the appointments panel”. Why should Kav be less than credible?

Ah well. For Kavanagh, the charge sheet is long, and makes dismal reading. When senior Murdoch executives were arrested on suspicion of bribing Police and public officials, Kav claimed that other Police operations had been put on hold and that as many as 20 officers had turned up to make the arrests. He lied on both counts.

Kavanagh obediently lied about the Royal Charter on press regulation - which should, by itself, disqualify him from being allowed anywhere near IPSO - and claimed that Common Purpose was “dedicated to curbing the press”, which is also blatantly untrue.

He told Sun readers that bribing public officials was OK, going as far as to claim that the paper paid a “tip fee” to a prison officer for information about Bulger killer Jon Venables. The amount bunged was £40,000. Tip fee my arse.

While Kavanagh was telling Sun readers that Operation Elveden was “a costly and vindictive vendetta by an unholy alliance of politicians, police and prosecutors … This was a blatant travesty of justice from start to finish”, he somehow forgot to mention that the Murdoch press had grassed up dozens of its sources, many of whom had their careers ruined and were jailed. It was all someone else’s fault.

And during one trial of Murdoch hacks, Kavanagh reported the words of Mr Justice Saunders in glowing terms … except for the words of Mr Justice Saunders that observed Kavanagh was distracting the jury and disrupting proceedings. The Great Man was barred from the press benches and had to go and sit at the back of the court.

There might be more ridiculous appointments that could be invented - King Herod to chair the NSPCC, perhaps - but to put a propagandist and serial liar like Kavanagh on the board of a supposedly independent press regulator must rank as one of the most tactless and insensitive appointment of all time. Perhaps Joseph Goebbels was unavailable.

Sun BBC Money Hypocrisy

The Super Soaraway Currant Bun has made a miraculous discovery today: the hated BBC does work for an external body, and then gets paid for it. Hold the front page! Who knew about that one, then? But Rupe’s downmarket troops are also adept in the application of spin, and so it came to pass that readers were “exclusively” told “BBC’s secret £2m funding exposed within obscure EU scheme”.

That's what I bladdy think of youse bladdy freedom of bladdy information bladdy laws, ya bastard Pommie drongoes!

Yes, this funding was so obscure that the information about it was fully transparent and readily available, unlike, oh I dunno, the amounts of wedge being bunged to a number of enterprising characters in exchange for their expertise in hacking and tapping phones, obtaining stuff off the Police National Computer, getting hold of NHS records, going through folks’ dustbins, and having them followed.

But the Sun is deadly serious: “Broadcaster received £71,000 per month over a 30-month period”. Well under £1 million a year, when, as the paper admits, “The broadcaster already receives almost £5billion from UK public funds and commercial activities each year” (already dwarfed by Sky’s £7.6billion for 2014, which the Sun doesn’t mention, and by sheer coincidence, Creepy Uncle Rupe has a 39% stake in it).

So the Sun is whining about an amount of less than one-fiftieth of one per cent of the BBC’s income. But on it drones: “The BBC has kept hidden from the public the fact that it asked the EU for the cash … The windfall is not mentioned in its annual report, on its website, press releases or on any other BBC info outlet”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, “the cash” was payment for work.

That, in other words, is the same as the Sun would do: bill a third party for work done. And two, as this is payment for completed work, there is no “windfall”. And the spin is all too predictable: “Now MPs fear the BBC’s relationship with the EU could lead to bias in the In/Out referendum debate”. How many MPs? One. Try again.

“The Sun on Sunday can also reveal the BBC will air a one-hour documentary on British Euroscepticism ‘in the couple of weeks before the referendum’, presented by left-wing journalist Jacques Peretti”. Peretti is so left-wing that a documentary he made for BBC2 recently garnered a positive write-up in the Daily Mail.

What the Sun is not telling its readers is that its ultimate boss - Rupert Murdoch - met with George Osborne twice in June, just before the BBC was hit with a licence fee settlement that amounted to a significant cut. On top of that, between the General Election and that settlement, Osborne also met with senior Murdoch executives on four occasions. Then the licence fee deal was mysteriously leaked to the Murdoch Sunday Times.

No, the Sun doesn’t want to go there. Instead, it wants its readers to “look over there” at some work the Beeb is doing for an external organisation, because it’s the EU. Then it can spin it as some kind of rotten conspiracy, while making sure nobody looks too closely at how Murdoch is bending his newly compliant pals in the Tory Party to his will.

And he’s the one making the serious money. What you will not read in the Sun.

Tory Resignations Are Just Bluster

Having previously been quite good in reporting on the bullying scandal engulfing the Tory Party, the Mail On Sunday’s political editor Simon Walters has, it seems, allowed himself to be suckered by one of those being dragged into the mire, as his latest article on the subject tells “Donal Blaney, a former ally of shamed Mark Clarke, resigned as chairman of the influential Conservative Way Forward campaign group, set up to honour the former Prime Minister’s legacy, as the result of an investigation by The Mail on Sunday … Dramatically, Blaney said he is also leaving Britain to live and work full-time in America”.

Donal Blaney

There was more: “Blaney said he was resigning as CWF chairman to look after his ill wife in their US home. He added he no longer had enough time to carry out his CWF duties and planned to expand his legal work in America … The group’s chief executive Paul Abbott is also resigning … He was among those who encouraged Elliott to complain about Clarke. Mr Abbott, who recently became a father for the first time, will be taking at least a six-month break from politics, according to sources”.

Blaney, Grant Shapps, and Mark Clarke not having a problem with one another's company as recently as December 2014

On top of this mildly creative tosh, there was a quote from a spokesman on behalf of Blaney: “There is and can be no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of Donal or CWF. Others are accountable for their own wrongdoing. He cannot be”.

And I have to tell Walters that, on this occasion, he has failed to do his homework and has been royally bullshitted by all concerned. Let’s start with CWF: whether Blaney resigns as its chairman is immaterial. The CWF website still shows its registered office to be 60 Churchill Square, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent. This is the same address as the registered office of Griffin Law, Blaney’s legal practice.

Blaney, Mark Clarke, and Clarke's hatchet man André Walker also having no problem with one another's company

Elliott Johnson received his CWF redundancy letter from Griffin Law. If Blaney retains control over CWF, he has relinquished bugger all. As to his no longer having time for his CWF duties, and Abbott claiming to be taking a six month break from politics, consider the forthcoming events advertised earlier today on the CWF website.

On 7 January, we see “CWF academy special edition for London Conservative Future with Paul Abbott and Chris Rowell”. Later that month is a “CWF academy special edition for London Conservative Future with our chairman Donal Blaney”. Zelo Street readers can see the screenshots (taken this morning) and judge for themselves.

And as to the claims that Blaney will be resigning “to look after his ill wife in their US home”, and that he is “leaving Britain to live and work full-time in America”, three pieces of evidence might usefully be considered. One, Blaney has form for using his wife’s health as a way of deflecting criticism, as he did back in 2009: “Nice touch 4 Grauniad to run weak hatchet job on the day my wife is taken into A&E by ambulance”.

Two, if Marci, his wife of nine years, is so unwell, one has to wonder why her business website - she’s a personal trainer and veteran of the US Forces, who served in Iraq - shows no sign of that. And three, as to Blaney’s leaving the UK to live in the US, according to his wife’s business website, which tells “I currently live in Tampa, Florida with my husband, Donal”, HE’S ALREADY LEFT.

What Walters has been spun is another attempt by Blaney to get all concerned to “look over there”, as witness “His exit piles more pressure on Tory chairman Lord Feldman … CWF is an integral part of the Tory movement and Feldman will likely be seen as responsible for the way its members behave”. Wrong. The Tory Party cannot exercise any control over CWF. This is well understood.

Better from Walters are three new and not totally surprising claims: “Days after encouraging Elliott to tell Tory HQ about Clarke’s bullying, CWF fired Elliott from his CWF job saying they were ‘protecting’ him from Clarke … Blaney asked Elliott to pay him £400 an hour for legal advice over a minor matter … Blaney also charged young Tory activists smeared by Clarke’s gang for legal advice”.

The MoS’ political editor might find that a more fruitful avenue for further exploration, rather than allowing Donal Blaney to bullshit him further. These resignations are merely for show, and change nothing. Blaney is in this scandal up to his neck, whether he wants to be or not. There is no chance of him spinning his way out of it.

Top Six - December 20

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 Christmas preparation stuff to do later. So there.

6 Guido Fawked - Drug Hypocrisy The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines sniped at author and journalist Peter Jukes last week, suggesting he was dependent on drugs. That would be the same Paul Staines who … you get the picture.

5 Sun Exclusive Email Editing The paper’s alleged “Westminster Correspondent” Harry Cole published a supposedly damning email concerning now-expelled Tory activist Mark Clarke. But it had clearly been edited. Why?

4 Desperate Dan Departs Labour Now it can be told - the Telegraph’s not at all celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges rejoined the Labour Party earlier this year, just so he could reprise his 2013 flouncing out.

3 Natalie Rowe And The Independent What is the story concerning culture secretary John Whittingdale that Indy editor Amol Rajan spiked? Ms Rowe is not best pleased.

2 Lucy Allan - 3 Strikes, You’re Out After Telford’s Tory MP fabricated a death threat against her, posted and then withdrew a bizarre Facebook rant against her opponents, and was revealed to have bullied one of her own staff, there was only one thing left to do. Resign.

1 Sun Pundit Bullies ANOTHER Teenager Not content with her disgraceful hounding of Milifandom’s Abby Tomlinson, (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch last week went after June Eric-Udorie. There was no actual discussion of the arguments - just more of the hectoring, patronising abuse we know and do not love.

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

Natalie Rowe And The Independent

There appears to be one of those little local difficulties brewing at a location not unadjacent to Amol Rajan, editor of the Independent. The exact nature of the difficulty is not yet clear, but that we will find out about it certainly is, thanks to the tireless advocacy of her cause by the highly sound Natalie Rowe, who has already caused some embarrassment to the Government by pointing out George Osborne’s friendship with Charlie.

Natalie Rowe with a happy (at the time) client (Copyright to this image is held by Natalie Rowe)

As has been well documented, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who even nowadays is prone to occasionally looking a little out of it during PMQs, made use of Ms Rowe’s services in his younger days, although most of the right-leaning press has been rather less keen to publicise this than, say, the angle of Jeremy Corbyn’s bowed head during the remembrance commemoration at the Cenotaph last month.

The first hint Ms Rowe’s story came in July, as she Tweeted “To all my followers and anyone else ... I'm going to SHAME #MSM into revealing ALL @JWhittingdale, if they stay silent you've got ME!” Something to do with John Whittingdale? The bloke holding the future of the BBC in his hands? It would seem so: “Come on John ..ready when you are! I HAVE THE PHOTOS”. What can Whitto have been up to?

By November, we got another hint from Ms Rowe: “Not sad about what I know to be the truth, but it’s the truth and a disgraceful one. I have the evidence #Whittingdale Pimps Hookers”. But no rush from the press to dish the dirt on the minister who was in the process of emasculating the hated BBC. Still, coincidences, eh? Then, earlier this month, we learnt of Rajan’s involvement. “@amolrajan HI THERE ! HAVING A NICE DAY?”

Ms Rowe was not a happy pundit: “TWITTER! The story is going to come out anyway, but know this ! This shit hole @amolrajan has the worst excuse for not outing a TORY, EVER!” Do go on. “AND! There is this Arse. THE EDITOR  of the @Independent. Who is part of the @JWhittingdale cover up!” Amol Rajan had, by this time, blocked Ms Rowe on Twitter. What was all that about? Little by little, more teasers emerged.

And boy, was Natalie unhappy: “Can't WAIT for everyone to find out what this prat has to hide ! Disgrace to Journalism … Amol Rajan Editor of the @Independent (soon to be sacked) trying to please the Tories he's a  Pathetic Ignoramus … Soon folks this Email from-Editor of @Independent namely  #Amol will become more clear. #BBC #Whittingdale #Coverup”. The email confirms that Rajan has spiked an article.

Here’s the text: “I’m just not in the habit of giving sources guarantees that stories will appear … Nor can I get into explaining all editorial decisions that I make … All I can do is reassure you that, after close consideration, I decided not to run the story on editorial grounds”. So there was a story, and if Natalie Rowe’s Twitter timeline is any guide, it concerns John Whittingdale, and she clearly believes its spiking was, er, unexplained.

What has jolly, affable Whitto been up to? Why has the Independent put an article together, only to then spike it? Did Rajan spike it on his own initiative, or was he leaned on? The problem for the Indy’s editor is that these spiked stories, if they are of any interest, have a habit of getting out. And from what Ms Rowe has been saying in the last few days, get out they will - and soon. Together with the reason for the spiking.

Sun Foreign Passport Claim Busted

Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun have clearly decided to extend their campaign of foreigner-bashing beyond refugees and others who can be demonised because some of them are Scary Muslims (tm). So today the paper has led with an attempt to bash all those who do not hold a British passport - or, whisper it quietly, do not solely hold a British passport.

Under the by-line of Steve Hawkes, deputy to the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, readers are told “5M FOREIGN PASSPORT HOLDERS LIVING IN BRITAIN”. And just to make sure those readers take the hint, the headline is preceded by the just slightly loaded phrase “MIGRANT SHOCK”. Wise up, Sun readers, they’ve all come here to claim benefits and get free houses!

But then comes the detail of that “Five Million” claim: for starters, there is no mention, when the numbers for EU member states are pitched, that almost as many Brits have moved the other way and are now living elsewhere in the EU - many in Spain. Nor is there any explanation why the Irish are now considered to be “migrants” - their right to live and work in the UK pre-dates EU membership by decades.

How many Brits live and work in Ireland? We aren’t told: the Sun only wants to talk about one part of the picture. How many of those “five million” are students and workers on short-term placements (whose permanent residence is not in the UK)? Nope, you don’t get to find that out. How many of those from (say) the USA are employees of the Federal Government - diplomats, military personnel and the like? No word on that either.

This matters: none of those could credibly be called “migrants”. We would not expect the USA to call our diplomats and trade promoters “migrants”. And then there are those from India, Pakistan and the rest of the Commonwealth. How many of those are relatives of British passport holders? How many hold dual nationality? Ah, but the Sun doesn’t want to go there, because that would mean less of those “migrants”.

But the paper does want to make the numbers look as scary as possible, which may be why readers are also told about refugees - and that there are almost a million of them. Are they all coming to the UK? No, but the Sun wants its readers to know that they’re on the move somewhere in the EU. Because that’s enough to set those readers off believing that it’s yet another million coming here to claim benefits. Allegedly.

And the one category of “migrant” the Sun is most definitely not going to tell its readers about is the kind that owns the paper. Because Rupert Murdoch isn’t a “migrant”, you see, he’s a businessman, a tycoon, a mover, a shaker. We should not look at him and his “tax efficient” propaganda generation operation, but at those who have taken the courageous decision to make a new life in another country - just to be able to get by.

The Sun - victimising those at the bottom of the pile since the day Creepy Uncle Rupe was allowed to get his grubby mitts on it, then blaming someone else for the consequences.

Tim Montgomerie - Still Clueless

Members of the punditerati like to tell me that, in regarding Tim Montgomerie, now of the Times, as serially clueless and lightweight is to do The Great Man a disservice. He is, I am repeatedly told, a serious and respected political commentator who does rather more than rank as high as any in Rome. So what has changed since Monty’s infamous “This is about revenge, not phone taps” Comment Is Free piece from 2009?

That, after all, was the article in which he told of Andy Coulson leaving the now-defunct Screws in the wake of the “Royal bugging scandal”, where there was no bugging. He claimed “It is a desperate attempt by Labour to get revenge for the ousting of Damian McBride … The Labour machine's attempt to drag others into the gutter with Team Brown is as ugly as it is transparent”. Phone hacking was nothing to do with “Team Brown”.

Monty protested that “the antagonism towards Coulson is also rooted in the hostility of the Guardian and the BBC to Rupert Murdoch's media empire”, before securing his future career by simpering “I do not wish to defend every action of the News International empire, but Rupert Murdoch has been an overwhelming force for good in this country's life and politics”. What a job application! And what a 24-carat crawler.

So how has the clueless crawler of old transformed himself into the serious, heavyweight commentator of today? Sadly, on the latest evidence, he has not: Monty has shown that he not only believes the content the Murdoch press spews out, but is prone to misinterpreting what he reads to suit his agenda, a fatal flaw for any pundit who claims to be reputable. The moment of truth has come over a Times article on Labour Party membership.

“Corbyn warned as ‘30,000 quit party’” asserted the headline, the piece going on to claim “Jeremy Corbyn was confronted by Lord Mandelson last night with claims that 30,000 Labour members have quit the party under his leadership … The Labour peer said that ‘two parties’ were developing under Mr Corbyn - one formed of long-term, moderate members and another made up of the leader’s personal following”.

But the “30,000” claim was just that - hence the use of quotation marks. Monty was unable to take the hint, and creatively reinterpreted it, announcing “30,000 moderate members have quit Labour Party under Corbyn  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4643133.ece … - follow @ihaveleftlabour for more updates”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.

One, the “30,000” number is still just a claim, and it is not possible to say from which wing of the party they may have come. And two, @ihaveleftlabour is a crank account that has only been active for a few days. Had Monty bothered to indulge in the mystical art known as “Five minutes’ Googling”, he would have found out that Labour membership has increased by more than 183,000 since the General Election.

That increase is greater than the entire membership of the Tory Party, estimated at around 150,000. All of which means the Times article is conjecture unsupported by facts - rather like Monty’s claims about phone hacking. And we know how that one panned out.

Tim Montgomerie is still clueless. His own clueless witterings demonstrate it.