Turns out to be even more off-subject than our previous glory-find of secret footage from the Lord Chancellor when he was flat-mates with Tony Blair.
Our teutonic twat of a leak turns out to be amusing none the less. And when it comes to foreign policy, this video explains a great deal.
Who said the Germans don't have a sense of humour ?
No sign of the promised Bush pilot project video yet. We've been assured it will be with us tomorrow. We can only apologise for the unreliability of our East German contact. She professes to be scared shitless. Talking of which...
In our on-going quest to find an MP who’ll support “the Misrepresentation of the People’s Act” we’ve been badgering Gordon Brown.
Having been brushed off too many times to mention, last night, we snuck in to the Fabian Society’s hastily convened “leadership” debate in a last-ditch attempt to confront the man. It didn’t go well.
Long before we got a chance to badger him, we were spotted by the great man himself and immediately recognised.
Check out the look in his eyes - it says, “I know who you are, I know what you’re up to. I eat subversive mother-fuckers for breakfast. Look at me once more and I'll fucking have you”. Gulp. Those unfortunate enough to be sitting near me turned up their nose at the smell of fear. I was too paralysed to even mutter a denial. Besides, it could’ve been the natural odour from any of the unwashed hippies in attendance.
It took all of our courage to approach him afterwards for an interview request. His instructions were succinct ;
1) No longer are we to contact his press officer.
2) All communications should now be made via Damien McBride.
3) Vote Brown.
We googled McBride – he’s a “special advisor”. Little more is known.
Brown was less than impressed by our question, "Do you know you're flying low".
From memory, the conversation went something like this ;
TB : I’m only repeating what I’ve been told, from what I can tell there’s no hard evidence to back any of this up
GWB : Well, there wouldn’t be – we don’t have that kinda technology so you can be sure as hell nobody else does, least of all the Germans.
There are Gov. leaks that are OK and those that aren't.
Yesterday David Keogh, 50, a civil servant for 25 years who worked as a communications and cipher officer at the Cabinet Office, and Leo O’Connor, 44, employed as a political researcher for a Labour MP, were found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act after leaking a government document said to be a recorded minute of a two-hour confidential discussion at the White House between Mr Blair and President Bush.
The damaging contents have been the subject of much speculation, ranging from the bombing of the al Jazeera TV network to the Halliburton/Pentagon inspired Bush pilot project.
We've been contacted by a German source who insists on remaining anonymous, telling us she has a full transcript of the conversation and video proof. We're assured the real juice relates to the Bush pilot project, and that the low down on it will make Bush's suggestion of bombing al Jazeera look like chump change.
If all goes according to plan, we'll be in receipt of the transcript and video tomorrow - assuming we're not in jail.
Apologies, apologies. We've had to go dark once again.
We had to move HQ not long ago - convinced they were on to us.
Thought we were fine but all of a sudden the weird noises on the phone re-appear and one of our girls gets a weird tailing-scenario. She's convinced it's a stalker. We know better - she's flattering her (moose) self.
In any case, if there are any near-sighted males between the ages of 16 and 75 (80 at a push if he's got a few quid), please e-mail us P.O. Box details and two photos (one un-dressed).
Normal service will resume once re-location is complete (probably next week). If you'd like to be alerted when this happens, sign up.
Today we go to the polls.
A little more digging in yesterday's post turned up what really went on in Birmingham, 2004 prompting Richard Mawrey QC, the election commissioner, to claim, " electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic"
All six councillors strenuously denied rigging the ballots and being improperly elected. During the trials, which were held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute and lasted four weeks, the court heard evidence of wholesale theft of votes in the city, with thousands of postal ballots being diverted to a "safe house" where they were filled in on an "industrial scale".
The judge said he regretted the government had dismissed recent warnings about the system's failings as "scaremongering". He pointed to a government statement which said: "The systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working."
Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, collaborating with the local Labour party, is establishing the first school of Electoral Engineering in the recently named "Robert Mugabe Avenue" of sunny Gipton,
The friend of an uncle of the wife of Mugabe's chiropodist overheard him saying, "We welcome the new alliance and school. It is a wonderful opportunity to share our knowledge. Already, I have learned great things. For example, violence and intimidation aren't needed to rig an election, it's very last century. The postal vote and bored friendless students is all that's required".
In 2000, the UK government passed a law allowing postal votes on demand – in other words, you no longer need a compelling reason to vote via post. In some wards, this has resulted in 25% of the electorate registering for postal voting.
Last year in Gipton, rival candidates complained about the Labour party’s pre-election activities regarding abuse of the postal voting system ;
The Times will shortly be handing a dossier to the police on their behaviour. This will include transcripts of secretly recorded conversations where Hyde admitted the instructions to collect postal votes were “illegal” and warned student activists,: “Don’t get caught with any on you. We are not supposed to collect them.”
Hyde then said: “We also want to check they are voting Labour as well... If they are voting Liberal Dem, then don’t offer to put the postal vote in.”
One of the students then said: “Yes, I’ll post that for you.”
Hyde laughed and added: “Yes, that’s it, and then it ends up in the toilet.”
Our understanding is that so far UN inspectors haven't been approached to monitor the voting day in Leeds, they're busy in Zimbabwe. In any case, the notion that electoral fraud would take place in the heartland of one of the worlds oldest democracies is patently absurd.
Barrister Richard Price, an expert on election law, told BBC radio "The reason for the decline in figures is either because the people who were registered for postal votes simply didn't exist ... or because the people who did have postal votes simply no longer have confidence in the integrity of the postal voting system,"
Full story hereYou may remember us going off on one over
Gasp at the beauty of "the Turkey Oak at Park Lane Central Reservation" or "the Maidenhair Tree of St Johns Gardens, Horseferry Road". Can you hear the sound of cash registers ringing ?
We thought it might be useful to find out via a Freedom of Information request exactly what this cost
As you can see, we should have some news by May 17th.
At
You may recall the media buzz around a plot to capture and behead a muslim British soldier. Funny that the night before the raid on the plotters, several reporters travelled up to report on the event.
Now, as much as it’s nice to know about these things via the press, there’s always the distinct possibility that at the trial, if too much information gets out they can mount a successful defence on the basis of being unable to receive a fair trial.
Reporters doing their homework and prejudicing a fair hearing is one thing, government sanctioned leaks another – especially when there’s the possibility it could lead to guilty defendants having their case dismissed.
In this case it turns out the tip-offs and various other information leaks (lurid details of the plot etc.) came from the Police or/and the Home Office.
Shadow Attorney General Dominic Grieve has put down questions to the Home Secretary asking him to confirm there was no leak from the Home Office. They remained unanswered for six weeks until this denial was issued – a denial which directly conflicts with the Guardian's account of events.
Yesterday in the Commons Teflon Tony rejected calls for an enquiry, but If the Guardian names it’s source – claimed to be a ministerial aide… well, we’re taking bets...
Hat-tip to Iain DaleThe Attorney General, is “keeper of the public interest” and supervisor of the Crown Prosecution Service. He’s also the legal advisor to the Government (when TB wanted to know if it’s legal to go to war with
History repeating itself ? It’s also the sort of letter he wasn’t going to write to John Prescott, when our friend George Bathurst asked the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate his Prevention of Corruption Act breach.
For a taste of gov't stonewalling at genius level check out our interview with George...
One of the problems facing the Misrepresentation of the People Act, is you need to get the Attorney General’s go ahead to proceed with a prosecution. Most recently the Board at BAE were relieved to find out that the Attorney General deemed that it was not in the public interest to continue investigating claims of bribery and corruption by BAE.
So, if you want to prosecute someone in government, you need the blessing of - the governments legal advisor. Imagine if you wanted to take a company to court but to do so you needed their solicitors approval ?
We’ve asked for an interview with the man. We will be denied. Have no doubt.
Much government weirdness to report.
It’s a little known fact that
Perhaps the party’s taking Tony Blair’s vow to increase the number of female MPs a little too seriously ?
That said, Sir Alistair wasn’t shy in his criticism of the current lack of accountability for ministers. We’ll be posting his interview soon.
We should declare an interest - the first band your humble servant saw live in concert was the Damned at the Hammersmith Palais (you mean first concert without your Mum and Dad - that would've been ELO. Ed) and our first sight of Captain Sensible. We remain big fans of the Captain - a proper, salt-of-the-earth English gent. Not averse to the occasional bit of mayhem, he tells it like he sees it and isn't afraid to say it loud.
May 3rd sees local elections all over the country and the Captain is painfully aware that our electoral system has no checkbox for "abstain". In other words, if you happen to think all the candidates are shit and would like to register an abstention - you can't do it. Our last General Election gave the government a majority when it fact it only had 27% of the vote on one of the lowest turnouts in history.
We wonder what an "abstain" option on that ballot paper would've done to the turnout figure in 2005 ? Very shortly we'll find out.
Captain has set up the Blah Party. Since it's launch last September they've attracted 10,000 members and are growing daily. They're standing for the local elections in Bradford. If you live there and you're fucked off with the current parliamentary party candidates - this is your chance to show it.
Vote Blah on May 3rd.
We do of course apologise in advance should our accusation that Gordon Brown is in fact Hilda Ogden prove to be false - though we reserve the right to remain sceptical. We shall see what light our Freedom of Information request sheds.
In the meantime, in an article shamelessly cribbed from the Times, results of a poll conducted for teletext show 47% of those polled thought Ogden-Brown was a straight talker.
The Home Secretary, John Reid, despite his reputation as a straight-talking tough guy, fared worst out of all three parties in the study...
57% David Davis
54% Sir Menzies Campbell
47% Gordon Brown
47% David Cameron
40% Tony Blair
39% John Prescott
36% John Reid
After examining television interviews with ten leading politicians from the past 16 months, Geoff Beattie, head of psychological sciences at the University of Manchester and the resident psychologist on Big Brother has concluded that Mr Brown is the most straight-talking of his senior Government colleagues.
Professor Beattie said: “The Labour Party seems to be in legacy mode. There are certain statements they want to be remembered for and they are determined to get them out.”
But he warned that voters should not be fooled into thinking that the opposition parties are intrinsically more open or trustworthy.
“There is not some factor that makes them psychologically more straightforward than Labour,” he said. The Labour scores were affected, he added, by “the constraints of government”.
Professor Beattie was horrified at the suggestion that his study showed that the Conservatives were more honest than their rivals. He said: “I wouldn’t for a second say that Conservative politicians are more straight-talking. Once they get a chance to go back into government, I’m quite sure they will be equally evasive.”
In true oily-slick political fashion, Brown has never actually stated he isn't Hilda Ogden so it's not strictly accurate to say he's lied. However, he has on numerous occasions said his name IS Gordon Brown. Surely, this amounts to denial.
Hilda left the TV soap Coronation Street in 1987, exactly the same time our "leader in waiting" began his ascendancy in the Labour Party.
We shall be making a Freedom of Information request immediately and pursuing it with much vigour.
I thank you.
