Tory Leadership - Now The Uber Candidate

Contenders to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party are coming thick and fast, and in the case of London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfefffel Johnson, both thick and fast at once. This is quite a surprise, given the fractious state of the Parliamentary party right now, and the sheer impossibility of squaring the circle that is Brexit. Yet still they come, and today has brought more hopefuls.

It's the way I tell 'em

Yesterday it was Sajid Javid, today it’s James “Not” Cleverly. New names are coming forward all the time. Compare and contrast with 1975, when Mrs T was the only one to challenge then leader Sailor Heath. But the name that Londoners will find eye-catching is that of Bozza’s former deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse, who has already been dubbed the Uber candidate. He might also be termed another press poodle candidate.

The latter is down to his claim, back in 2012, that too many Police resources were being allocated to investigating phone hacking. Labour MP Chris Bryant “claimed the comment ‘makes it clear that from the highest political level’ London Mayor Boris Johnson and Mr Malthouse, who chairs the Metropolitan Police Authority, had ‘intentionally sought to close down the phone-hacking investigation’”. Another one for the Murdochs to consider.

Former Met Commissioner Paul Stephenson had claimed “On several occasions after Operation Weeting had started and I had returned from sick leave, the chair of the MPA, Kit Malthouse, expressed a view that we should not be devoting this level of resources to the phone-hacking inquiry as a consequence of a largely political and media-driven 'level of hysteria’ … The reality was that this was wrong but that was a fairly widely held view”.

We now know that both Malthouse and Bozza were talking out of the backs of their necks, and the idea of either being allowed anywhere near the Top Job is worrying in the extreme. Worse, Malthouse’s only recent notoriety is the infamous “Malthouse compromise” on the Brexit negotiations, which would have been incompatible with the assurances implicit in the Good Friday Agreement and associated legislation.

Not only friendly to him ...

And so we come to Malthouse’s time as Deputy Mayor for Business and Enterprise, during which the Uber meter row erupted. Here is what he said at the time: “It's a challenge for us as a city, and what the taxi drivers are doing is highlighting that. They're saying, 'You can't have it both ways - if Uber come along and operate without regulation, then we should be able to compete without regulation or they should have the same regulations.' That's a fair question which we as a city are going to have to tackle”.

Except Malthouse didn’t tackle it. He effectively dumped the responsibility on the courts, avoiding having to make a decision on whether Uber drivers were operating a metering system, which is a flagrant breach of the capital’s regulations: only black cabs are allowed to use meters. Private Hire Vehicles have to quote a fare upfront.

... but also friendly to them

The upshot is that Uber got away with using what looks like a meter, walks like a meter and quacks like a meter. And Malthouse got away with having to get off his arse and make a decision. Now he wants to lead the party which at present forms the Government.

So that’s another candidate that shouldn’t be taken seriously. You have been warned.

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Labour Expulsion - Corbyn v Campbell

A most unseemy row has broken out after Alastair Campbell, former spinmeister to the blessed Tone, found himself expelled from the Labour Party earlier today. As the BBC has reported, “Tony Blair's former spin doctor says he has been expelled from the Labour Party after voting for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections. Alastair Campbell, a lead campaigner for another Brexit referendum, said he was ‘sad and disappointed’”.

Try to ignore the naked boy, folks

Although, as a lifelong Burnley fan, he stopped short of declaring himself Gutted, or indeed Sick As A Parrot. The report also told “He said he voted Lib Dem ‘to try to persuade Labour to do the right thing’, but ‘always will be Labour’ and appeal. A Labour spokesman said supporting another party was ‘incompatible with membership’. Mr Campbell revealed he had voted Lib Dem during the BBC's election night broadcast on Sunday”.

Big Al pointed out in his defence “there was ‘plenty of precedent of members voting for other parties/causes’ and that some were now senior staff” … “He claimed the decision also ‘contrasts with our era’ when Mr Blair was ‘pressed’ to withdraw the Labour whip from Jeremy Corbyn for voting against the party - but the then PM said no”.

Then someone dug out a Tweet from Jezza which, it was then claimed, showed that the current Labour leader was rather fortunate to retain his party membership. In March 2012, at a particularly low point for them leader Ed Miliband, Corbyn had said “Congratulations to George Galloway on astonishing result in Bradford. Big message here on opposition to wars and austerity”. Galloway had stood for the Respect Party in Bradford West.

Moreover, the idea that Galloway ever cared about anyone other than Himself Personally Now inevitably enters. So is Jezza bang to rights, or is this just a little more mischief making? Well, Owen Jones dug out the rules, and the rules make interesting reading.

This is what it says under “Exclusions”. “A member of the Party who joins and/ or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member, subject to the provisions of Chapter 6.I.2 below of the disciplinary rules”. Big Al supported an opposition candidate, and said so. Bang to rights.

But what of Corbyn under Blair, and indeed under Mil The Younger? Ah well. What happened under Blair was that Corbyn voted against the Government in the Commons, which back benchers often do. It is not the same thing as supporting an opposition candidate. Then there is the congratulation of George Galloway.

Corbyn may have praised Galloway’s result, but did not support his opposition to Labour. And, of course, Jezza is not on the electoral roll for the Bradford West constituency.

What we have here is one false equivalence (Commons Rebel v supporting another party), and one example of Corbyn knowing the party’s rules better than his critics. Case closed.

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Boris Campaign Officially FAWKED

With the Tory leadership spooked by the ever-present threat of Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his latest less than democratic electoral vehicle The Brexit Party, candidates to succeed Theresa May as leader, and therefore Prime Minister, are tailoring their manifestoes accordingly. This means more promising of unicorns that they can never deliver. And that brings us to London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

The Great Blond Hope ...

As Zelo Street has already pointed out, the Murdoch mafiosi would rather like Bozza to take The Top Job, not least because Creepy Uncle Rupe wants to transform TalkRADIO into a UK version of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse), which would need broadcast impartiality rules re-writing. A compliant PM would help enormously. And Bozza would be ideally compliant, given the dirt the Murdochs have on him.

... and his not so little helper

Now, yet more information has been unearthed showing the Murdoch’s backing for Bozza. The fear among so much of the Press and Pundit Establishment is that Tory MPs, who will whittle down the field of leadership candidates to just two, who will then be offered to the membership, will somehow manage to vote out Bozza. So he would not be offered to the Tory membership. If he were, he’s thought to be a certain winner.

So a campaign has been launched to make sure those MPs somehow cause Bozza to be one of the lucky Last Two Standing. It has been imaginatively titled “Boris On The Ballot”, and tells anyone not yet asleep “REMAIN MPS ARE PLOTTING TO KEEP BORIS OFF YOUR BALLOT … Use this form to tell your MP now: members must not be denied a real choice”. You can then complete the form and confirm “I BACK BORIS”.

And where is this advert appearing?

All well and good, but who is behind this enterprising little venture? Ah well. You can get a clue by checking out the adverts appearing alongside the usual dubiously sourced copy at the Guido Fawkes blog, domain of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble. And yes, there it is: “TELL YOUR MP YOU WANT BORIS ON THE BALLOT”.

Right here, that's where

Moreover, when the Fawkes massive is discussing the Tory leadership race, look who they put at the centre of the mugshot display: it’s all about Bozza. Also, The Great Guido’s links to the Murdoch mafiosi are well known: when Rebekah Brooks tells Staines to jump - well, OK, someone on his behalf - his only question is to ask “How high?”

Bozza front and centre with Fawkes

But is that the only connection between this latest campaign and the Fawkes mob, that they are carrying advertising for it? Well, not quite. One look at the Privacy Policy for Boris2020 dot Org reveals it “is run by CampaignAction Limited, the controller of your data, registered as such with the Information Commissioner’s Officer in the UK”.

And look who's behind it all

What it doesn’t tell you is that the full name of the company is Campaign Action Limited (Ireland) and that the name of its Data Protection Officer is … Paul Staines.

The Great Guido is actively shilling for Bozza. Rupe and Rebekah will be pleased.

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The Danczuks Are Back Together

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street will remember the saga of (thankfully) former Labour Party member and MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk, suspended by the party and then barred from standing for it at the 2017 General Election. Spanker Si and his second wife Karen had become minor media Slebs, before they split and he was discovered to have been sending explicit texts to a 17-year-old girl.

The saga was not over, though, and while Kazza and her unfeasibly large chest took up with a young Spanish man and become briefly engaged to him, Spanker went through a series of relationships which all too often resulted in tabloid revelations - some of which were the result of tip-offs from one or other of the couple. The Si and Kazza show gave the red-tops so much cheap copy. And now, just for old time’s sake, it’s back.

Although his “Spanish Gaff” was rumoured to be on the market, and for a mere €53,000 - a 2 bedroom apartment in the Anglophone ghetto south of Alicante won’t fetch much nowadays - it seems there was no sale. And so it came to pass that last weekend Spanker Si Tweeted “Nice to be spending a bit of time at the Spanish gaff - glorious weather”. Not much of a view, though, unless you like looking at other Urbanizaciones in the distance.

Remember the good old days, tabloid hacks?

But, so what? Well, news has arrived on Zelo Street that Danczuk is not on a solo holiday right now. I can reveal that Kazza is there too. And their two long-suffering sons. The same scenario as when there was a late-night bust-up which ended up with Kazza carted off to the local A&E and Spanker in a cell at the nick in Orihuela.

Why this might be is down, as so much with the Danczuks, to money, or the lack of it. While Kazza is featuring less and less in her preferred role of media personality (no, don’t laugh), and edging ever closer to being forced to return to the Asda checkout whence she came, Spanker is apparently not doing as well as he would like in his role as a Research and Intelligence bod at a company called Shine.

Their website refers to him merely as “Simon D”, telling “Simon brings a successful 20-year track record in researching and gathering intelligence … Simon founded a research, public affairs and communications consultancy; has held notable research positions and worked with academic institutions”, without mentioning the time as an MP, or that the consultancy he co-founded, Urban Visions Limited, went bust in 2011.

It has been put to me that Spanker is still not exactly flush with cash, and with Kazza not getting very many media appearances at all nowadays, holidaying on a budget has become not merely a necessity, but an imperative. So it is that they are cooped up together with the kids in that Algorfa apartment for the school holidays.

Bitter at leaving Labour, much?

The only change is that there is, as far as is known, no-one from Fame Flynet to do not-really candid snaps for the tabloids, or indeed any hacks to report on the latest Si and Kazza goings-on. But that may be about to change.

And when it does, Zelo Street will have more to tell. Stay tuned.

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Farage Wipes Out UKIP

The Brexit Party is dead, long live the Brexit Party: while Nigel “Thirsty” Farage is feted by the more easily impressed part of our free and fearless press, once more winning a contest where he knows he will never have to deliver on his braggadocio, he has at least performed one welcome service. He has ensured the destruction of UKIP as a political force, thus demonstrating that it’s all about Himself Personally Now.

I em not a racialist but, und zis is a big but ...

The roll-call of those thus removed from the body politic is a relief to those who wished it had happened rather earlier: Adolf von Batten, the party leader with all the charisma of Arthur Putey, his deputy Mike Hookem, useful in the wrong kind of fight, and hopefuls such as Carl Benjamin, who styles himself Sargon of Akkad, along with Mark Meechan, who styles himself Count Dankula. All are now electoral history.

No more dogs making Nazi salutes ...

The problem is that the former Farage Falange has been replaced by another in the same mould, the new incarnation of his electoral vehicle being less democratic - as in not democratic at all - and with a roster of MEPs who, let us not drive this round the houses for too long, are not fit to shovel human by-product from Heap A to Heap B.

... one fewer milkshake targets ...

The all-new Brexit Party has no policies, other than the hardest Brexit possible, which Nige need not waste time explaining, because he’s won, see? He need not tell his adoring fans that the only policy he offers is likely to make him and his pals a lot richer, and the folks who voted him back into power a lot poorer. Right now, they don’t care. They backed a winner, everyone else lost, ha ha ha, get over it.

... but we still have Squeaky con-man finger up the bum time

So right now it is a challenging task to get those voters to respond to the obvious questions - how will Brexit benefit them? What is it that they so dislike about the EU? What EU laws would they repeal? What do they think “No Deal” means? What is so “undemocratic” about the EU? Do they know who they just voted into office?

Because, whether or not those voters want to respond right now, they will have to do so in the future, perhaps after the event. And that’s the greatest pity: it will be too late when the deed is done, manufacturing industry is leaving the UK, Sterling has become a basket case currency, wages have not just stagnated but declined, the NHS has become history, and the UK has become a subservient client state of the USA.

Only then will some of the most ardent Farage fans stop, think, and realise they’ve been had. By then, Nige will have retired to his secure villa, happy in the knowledge that he broke the old politics, but sadly, broke his own country in doing so. But it won’t be his fault. As Carole Cadwalladr put it, “The idea that the Brexit Party is a ‘new’ party is a total fiction. It’s just the latest host body for Farage - the tapeworm of British politics”.

Yes, it’s good to see Batten and the Islamophobic fringe finally crash out of politics. Sadly, the sick joke that is Nige the Pied Piper rolls right on, peddling lie after lie after lie, offering voters a prospectus on which he will never have to deliver, selling a vision of a future Britain he knows is fantasy, and accountable to no-one but himself.

Worst of all, that free and fearless press still can’t bother itself to hold the charlatan to account. Buckle up, Britain. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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Labour - Time To Face Reality

The European Parliament elections may have been dismissed by some as an irrelevance, but for the two main parties in the UK, they were all too relevant. And they were bad news for both: the Tories have been reduced to just three MEPs, haemorrhaging support to Nigel “Thirsty” Farage’s new Brexit Party electoral vehicle. while Labour, which is hoping to replace them as the party of Government, saw its MEP numbers halved.

But while Labour languished, the Lib Dems overhauled them and the Greens increased their EP representation to seven. They, the SNP and Plaid Cymru were unambiguously Remain parties. Moreover, as one helpful graphic from the BBC shows, the vote share for pro-Remain parties was higher than for pro-Brexit parties. Labour tried to straddle the issue, ride two horses at once. So who was to blame?

It’s no use blaming Jeremy Corbyn. Jezza stuck tenaciously to the line agreed by Conference last September and endorsed since. He did what he was mandated to do. The problem was that, with others offering snappier soundbites, Labour’s message did not convince voters one way or the other. And there is worse news.

It’s no use blaming Tom Watson. There have been some wildly creative claims over the weekend that Labour’s deputy leader was launching some kind of coup. He wasn’t, and he isn’t. Watson kept his loudest criticism to himself until after the vote. Moreover, his assertion that Labour must come down on the Remain side has been echoed by Emily Thornberry - the person many on the left would have replace him.

Barry Gardiner Is An Idiot. Many on the left will not want to hear this, but hear it they must. At the end of March, Gardiner said “Labour is not a remain party now”. For a party trying to appeal to both Leave and Remain, that was an act of monumental idiocy. As he said that, he drove tens of thousands of Labour voters to the Lib Dems and Greens.

Why that happened should not need explaining. Most voters do not share the ideological attachment to Labour, or indeed to any other party, that party members do. Most Labour voters voted to Remain in 2016; most who would usually vote Labour in 2019 would do so too. Tell them that Labour is not for them - they go elsewhere. Simples.

The current message to voters is not good enough. Here’s Laura Pidcock, an MP who has had a lot of stick from the right-wing press, and for whom I have a lot of time, trotting it out again last night: “I understand why many people will have used #EUelections to express frustration at handling of Brexit, but tomorrow morning, working class communities will wake to the same issues, worries & fears. We have to deliver a society that brings together Leave & Remain & works for all”. It’s not cutting through. Voters see through it.

Why so? There is no better deal on offer than that of remaining in the EU. Forget the Farage froth; telling voters to stand tall and have pride in their country won’t put food on the table. And taking Britain out of the EU will put even less food on the table. No party is going to be able to address those worries and fears if that happens.

Labour has to get real not only with the voters, but with its members. Tom Watson is right; so is Emily Thornberry. Corbyn did his best, but Labour was a study in ambiguity and confusion. That cannot continue. The party must choose, and choose wisely. That is all.

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Tommy Robinson HUMILIATED

And so, after the campaigning, the Police overtime, the milkshakes, the violent assaults that are still being investigated, the rallies that descended into yet more violence, and the instilling of paranoia into voters - like telling them to take a pen to the polling station because of the suspicion that a pencil mark would be rubbed out - came the moment of truth for Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson.

The reality was that he lost. He lost so badly, in fact, that he lost his £5,000 deposit - or, rather, whoever paid the £5,000 deposit lost it. The Tories, who scored just over 130,000 votes in North West England, failed to have one MEP elected. Lennon scored around 39,000 - not much more than 2% of the popular vote.

Those who had followed his campaign so enthusiastically, like Rebel Media head man Ezra Levant and his sidekick Jessica Swietoniowski, had talked up their live results show. Ms Swietoniowski provided her usual schtick, sneering at “Government Journalists” - in other words, real journalists, rather than amateurs who don’t know what they’re doing except to follow an already-set agenda - but then the results came.

And from that point on, the Rebel Media crowing ceased. But the excuses only ramped up, as soon as Lennon’s pal Daniel Thomas, the amateur comedy kidnapper, told the world “**Breaking news** Unfortunately Tommy Robinson has not been elected!!!”

Fire up that spin machine! Self-confessed child killer Avi Yemini offered “JUST IN: #TommyRobinson gets the HIGHEST independent vote in history, but still not enough to win his seat … Censorship 1 … Democracy 0”. “His” seat? Another clown who doesn’t understand the European Parliament election process. And there was more.

Politicalite, fresh from having UKIP suspend one of its team, whined “This wasn’t a fair campaign. Tommy was banned from social media and was denied fair media coverage. The Establishment have denied the working class people of Britain a voice”. Denied coverage? He was never off the local TV news. Away with you.

Pat Condell, meanwhile, was away with the fairies in no style at all: “A valiant attempt by #TommyRobinson, who campaigned with integrity and maturity in the face of extreme provocation, gross misrepresentation, and blanket censorship. If he had been allowed to compete on a level playing field, things might have been different”. Wibble. Hatstand.

Thomas, though, was there to give his faithful support to the very end. “Tommy Robinson is a voice for the forgotten, this experience will only make him stronger!!! Oh Tommy Tommy!! We stand by him, no matter what!! #TommyRobinson”. Fine by me, Danny. You stand there, then. Everyone else has left. The circus has gone home.

All he has left now is his retrial for Contempt of Court. He might lose that one, too.

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Tommy Robinson Bracing For Defeat

Although voters in the UK went to the polls last Thursday to cast their ballots in this year’s round of elections to the European Parliament, other EU member states will not complete the process until later today. So although turnout figures have been made available, we cannot know who has been elected until after 2200 hours today. That has not stopped one campaign from making its own all-too-obvious prediction.

To no surprise at all, that campaign is the one run on behalf of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson. He is bidding to become an independent MEP for North West England, although he lives in the Home Counties. Lennon and his pals have decided that they need to get their excuses in first, and their base riled up.

While Ezra Levant of Rebel Media is promising an election special for Rebel TV, telling his followers “The UK’s fascist left has deplatformed Tommy Robinson from social media. Now they’re harassing newspapers for simply reporting the existence of his campaign. I hope he wins tomorrow” (hard for anyone in the UK to deplatform someone when that platform is Twitter or Facebook), Lennon’s pal Avi Yemini is playing the blame game.

As Zelo Street observed yesterday, some postal workers on Merseyside refused to deliver election leaflets for Lennon. Yemini is now talking this up as an excuse if Lennon loses, posing the question no-one is interested in - “Did [Censored] get CHEATED out of the election?” QTWTAIN. Yemini was not alone, though.

Lennon’s associate Daniel Thomas, the amateur comedy kidnapper, started the day in optimistic mood, telling “It’s the day that could change everything, he has campaigned tirelessly to show the public he is the right man for the job. Later today, we find out if our man #TommyRohinson will walk into the EU like @TheNotoriousMMA. Come on Tommy you got this!!” But then his mood changed as Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate appeared.

Lowles had been joking about Lennon’s chances of getting elected, and another Tweeter had talked about “rubbing out” pencil crosses on ballot papers. Lowles hoped they were using a Hope not Hate eraser. Thomas was not happy. “Lead loony leftie at @hopenothate, discussing & making jokes about  election fraud. This is the same organisation who works with the government, BBC to attempt to bring down figures on the right they don't agree with”. Paranoid, much? And there was more.

Lennon’s number one fan Lucy Brown, who had his prison number tattooed on her wrist, and calls him “Babes”, is also on the same page: “Wirral Trades Union Council Facebook page have openly thanked ‘posties’ for not delivering Tommys [sic] electoral campaign leaflets, which is in breach of the Representation of the People Act 1983”.

So if Lennon fails to be elected tonight, his campaign already has its excuses ready. He was cheated out of it by the Rotten Lefties™. The problem with this one is that he would have to already be very close to making the cut, given the number of potential votes involved. If he’s way off the pace, they might as well not bother.

Not that that will stop The Great Tommy. There’s personal responsibility for you.

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