Ex-MP Elliot Morley due in court over expenses

Yesterday's Man?

It's Elliot Morley's day in court this time. He is due to appear in his first hearing to face allegations of dishonestly claiming more than £30,000 in parliamentary expenses. Mr Morley, who quit Parliament at the last election, denies two counts of false accounting relating to mortgage claims between 2004 and 2007.

I remember him coming out of his house denying all the charges. He still is it seems. However, he runs the risk of the judge adding on several months extra jail time if the court finds otherwise. An MP who coughs up and says sorry is one thing. An ex-MP who digs in his heels is quite another. Time will tell. He's in court at 4pm.

UPDATE

He pleaded guilty after all. The Crown Prosecution Service said, "The Parliamentary expenses system exists to assist the public's representatives in carrying out their duties, but Mr Morley used it to line his own pockets with just over £30,000 - more than an average household's annual income. Such behaviour is blatantly dishonest and cannot be excused." Quite so. But there are plenty of others out there in the corporate world doing very similar things. A broader brush is required.

Labour MP admits expenses fraud

Labour MP Eric Illsley has admitted he fraudulently claimed more than £20,000 in parliamentary expenses. Appearing at Southwark Crown Court, he admitted three charges of false accounting. This after he strenuously denied any wrongdoing. I get the impression that for quite a few MPs, the culture of shoving things down as expenses was a completely OK thing because they felt aggrieved at their "low pay". They should get real. Let them have proper salaries and proper expenses. Even now the whole remuneration system is creaking alongside mutterings and moanings.

No doubt Illsley will do time. Will his constituents have to become prison visitors if they want to see him or will there be a by-election? We should all be told!

Tom DeLay in de dog house - 3 years jail time

Former US House Republican Leader Tom DeLay has been sentenced to three years in prison on conspiracy charges. The Texas politician was convicted of conspiring to funnel corporate campaign contributions to legislative races in Texas, in violation of state law. He says, "I can't be remorseful for something I don't think I did". He probably hasn't heard of Mandy Rice Davies, but I'll quote her. "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

It's funny how some politicians delude themselves. In Britain, David Chaytor, former Labour MP, denied any wrongdoing until it was all put in front of him in big bold print. Now he got only 18 months. DeLay has got twice as much. That's the thing about America. Everything's just that bit bigger!

Mandelson's pot calls Byers' kettle black!

Peter Mandelson has some front. He calls the greedy antics of Byers, Hoon and Hewitt grubby. Here's a man who has ducked better than the most activated duck and dived better that a gold medallist at the Olympics. They say that oil and water don't mix. Well, Mandelson disproves that theory as much as he disproves nearly all the others.

New Labour is probably the most vile political vision to have been afflicted on the British people. In fact, it is something nobody should revere or praise. It is a deluding concept that turns people into rampantly greedy people, who lose all sight of reality. My big fear is that the poison that the New Labour chalice has in it will have infected too many voters come polling day. It has already befuddled the mind of Stephen Byers, who has the brass neck to suggest that his "caught-on-camera" remarks were all not really meant. Byers says he is a "cab for hire" but it sounds more like he is a car that's been "inadvertently" found in a red light district. Very seedy indeed!

Whatever Mandelson says, whatever the Labour Party does, it still signifies that this Blairite version of a quack doctor's remedy for carpetbaggers is utterly contemptible. I suggest that if any Labour candidate comes knocking at the general election they are given short shrift in good measure. My fantasy is that all of them receive ZERO votes. If only!

Tony Blair's oily Iraq War

So the Iraq war was nothing to do with oil? How come the dodgiest prime minister ever ends up being an adviser to an oil company with interests in, guess where, Iraq? It has emerged that Blair has been paid for advising the UI Energy Corporation, a South Korean oil firm with interests in Iraq and the US. Douglas Carswell MP says, "It stinks".

Tony Blair has been a chancer all his life. Everyone knows that and if they don't they must either be mad or extremely naive. Or possibly from another planet or a parallel universe. There is an outfit called the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments which is supposed to delve into such things as former prime ministers living off former political decisions. As Carsell says, "It seems that the former prime minister of the United Kingdom has been in the pay of a very big foreign oil corporation and we have been kept in the dark about it. Even now we do not know what he was paid or what the company got out of it. We need that information now. This is revolving door politics at its worst. It's not as if Mr Blair has even stepped back from politics, because he is still politically active in the Middle East. I'm afraid I have no confidence at all in the committee that vets these appointments. It's no good telling us these deals may be commercially sensitive - we are talking about the appointment of our former prime minister and the public interest, rather than any commercial interests, must come first."

Exactly right! However no amount of "political vetting" will hide the fact that Blair is, and probably always will be, a dodgy dealer. The South Koreans just hired Arthur Daley's posh protege.

Thin end of the political wedge

A judge has seen fit to throw out the BNP's new constitutional rules. This is on the basis that they are still discriminatory on the basis of race. Maybe they are, but what these liberal minded baters, who are trying to use legal methods to implode or explode the BNP, forget is that such tactics backfire. For much of the past 25 years they have had a prissy policy of holding to a "no platform" approach. They hoped the BNP would drift away. However, as many of these libertine types are responsible for passing bad laws, defending immorality or just brushing unpleasant facts under the carpet, there is plenty of stuff for the BNP to say "I told you so".

Today we have had the conclusion of a review on whether teachers can be members of the BNP. The teaching unions are up in arms over the decision which says they can. Ms Chris Keates, of the NASUWT, is in a lather. She says, "The idea that a person who signs up to membership of the BNP can simply leave these beliefs at the school gate and behave as a 'professional' when they walk into school is risible." That is taking the typical leftie approach. What is definitely risible is that it seems OK to be a left-wing union activist but not be a member of a legal political party. I am all in favour of making sure political parties obey the law but attempting to outlaw personal beliefs, however odious one may find them, smacks of undemocratic actions. Ms Keane just plays into the hands of those in the BNP.

Personal politics have no place in the classroom, BNP or any other party. However, Ms Keates and her chums have infected schools with left-wing propaganda for decades. I know of many members of the Conservative Party, who are teachers, being held as suspect by the likes of Ms Keates. She seems to want a political-cleansing that suits her own propaganda.

I fear that the BNP are going to do well in the general election. They are parading themselves as white knights (literally) in the face of political ineptitude, bonus bagging bankers and corruption in high places. It shouldn't be that way. If the politicians had not seen fit to feather their own nests and the New Labour regime had not interfered on almost every level by imposing crazed ideas on social experimentation, we would have no rise in far-right politics.

The likes of Ms Keates are the cause of Nick Griffin's advancement. She needs a long hard look at herself in a mirror!

One in five "considering" voting BNP!

Would you Adam 'n Eve it! The BBC has done the BNP proud. Not just by putting Nick Griffin on Question Time, but by allowing a dodgily selected audience (enticed to boo at appropriate moments like a 19th century music hall crowd) and by the fellow guests ganging up on him, thereby making him look "got at".

As Griffin himself says, this parody hardly touched the BNP policies. Now we have, according to Sky News, an opinion poll suggesting that 22% of the British people have allowed their minds to loosen overnight and for them to consider voting BNP. With a crowded field in many constituencies, that could see MPs elected. Now that would turn the House of Commons into a bear pit.

Remember, New Labour, who trumpet the fact that they "won" three general elections in a row, only managed to get 20% of the total electorate's support last time. Put's it into perspective a bit!

The BNP needs to be quizzed not on immigration or race - we know what they stand for there. Let's confront their command and control economic policies and their quick fix law and order solutions. But above all, please, please let the mainstream parties just stop the spinning, deceipt and cronyism. It's just helping to bolster the 22% as they mull over the benefits of a BNP government!

Morley suspended! What the people think

I'm wondering if anyone is going to vote for one of the major parties at the Euro Elections. It's a bit like the minnow football clubs thrashing the premier clubs in the FA Cup! Gordon Brown says of Morley's suspension, "Where there is irregularity now it has got to be dealt with immediately. Where standards have been transgressed and the evidence has been shown to be there, action has got to be taken. Where disciplinary action is necessary, it will and will immediately be taken." Pity he didn't think like that with the bankers!

e-muck on the web!

Gordon Brown must be wondering what politics can do to him next. I get the impression that he hasn't got the right kind of control over these No.10 apparatchiks. He goes about now expressing "much regret" and says he is calling for a tighter aides' code of conduct. My goodness, has the man seen this code? It's as tight as it should be.

The Easter break was a time of self-imposed restriction for me. No blogging over the festivities. But it's a hell of strain when we've got such a Jekyll and Hyde prime minister. So I'm back in harness, raring to go. Lance Price, a former BBC reporter turned New Labour spin doctor who spun himself out of a job, thinks there are too many bloggers like me. Those on the right, that is.

We are only here to carp at the Government. Well, yes, but also no. I don't see this as an attack blog, more of one that highlights palpable corruption, spin and deceit. The very fact that these made-up stories, that the creepy Damian McBride thought was good stuff, were being hatched inside No.10 is something we should all be concerned about.

Gordon Brown sounds like a man who is like a startled rabbit in the headlights of McBride's car. All something he knew nothing about until it suddenly came round the corner. But I can't take that on face value. People like McBride don't act like this unless they think or assume that their boss will be pleased as punch with the outcome.

What is wrong here is that the seedy corruption that is New Labour (oh, for the Old Labour decency of men like Eric Heffer!) is all below the belt stuff. Frances Osborne, the shadow chancellor's wife, should never have had such digusting stuff made up about her. Have a go, politically, at her husband if you want, but keep out of the gutter, please!

The leery face of Derek Draper rises out of all this. I imagine Mr.Draper has a very good side to him, otherwise he would or could not possibly get past Kate Galloway. But this episode shows up the unattractive side of the New Labour machine. I hardly dare suggest there is an attractive side. In fact, if I racked my brains all night, I'd be hard pressed to come up with anything decent this shower has done.

Far from being criticised, those of us who blog from the right should be given some credit. In this, the credit goes to Guido Fawkes for uncovering this scandal. It's his sort of reporting that puts him at the top of the bloggers' list (No.2, I think). We've had no words of regret from Draper or McBride. Gordon Brown is trying to distance himself from the stormdrains.

The Conservatives are right to demand a fullsome apology from the prime minister. This time he just has to say sorry.

The quick and the dead of New Labour

It isn't really surprising that a senior policeman should go off the handle and attack the Conservative Party in a most peculiar way. Over the last ten years, the politically correct and secular mindset of New Labour has permeated every section of society. The police are no exceptions. That a man by the name of Quick should be so quick as to declare his innermost political thinking through diatribe speaks volumes.

Mr Quick has taken umbrage because the Mail on Sunday revealed that Mrs. Quick was running a vintage car rental business from the family home. Quick off the mark, her police boss husband, says, referring to the Damian Green inquiry, "The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation in a wholly corrupt way, and I feel very disappointed in the country I am living in. I think it is a very spiteful act, possibly to intimidate me away from investigating Mr Green, and I feel it has put my family at risk." Not only is it outrageous for a policeman to behave like this, it shows how he really thinks. Using perjorative words and phrases, like "Tory machinery", "mobilised", "wholly corrupt way" and "very spiteful act", without having the wit to check anything out before opening his mouth, shows how cosy this policeman's mind is with being anti-Conservative.

I think the Conservative Party has acted with restraint and deserves an apology! And Mr. Quick - a little message for you. I too feel very disappointed in the country I'm living in - with it's politically correct nonsenses, financially corrupt government and the general elevation of weasel wordsmiths to positions of authority.

Todd Palin seals his lips!

The husband of John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, has refused to give evidence in the "Troopergate" investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power as governor of Alaska. Troopergate is the name given to this alleged scandal over accusations that Sarah Palin sacked the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her former brother-in-law, a state trooper. I don't think I'd like to get on the wrong side of this woman. Unlike the easily-pleased gathering at the Republican Convention, I sense she may be a little like fluff around cold steel. I hope I'm wrong, because if not, and she gets elected, John McCain is in for a hard time!

Meanwhile, as the investigation gathers slight speed, state senators have claimed that unco-operative witnesses are effectively sidetracking the probe until after US election day. Perish the thought!

Todd Palin was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska legislature. Are the others so tightlipped? Come on Sarah, own up, tell us what happened and let this all die down.

Brown dismisses Levy's Blair claims

In the "Well he would say that" department of political life, Gordon Brown brushes aside assertions made by Lord Levy. When something like this is revealed, it is either true, partly true or a fabrication. I've said that I feel it is true, or at least as true as Lord Levy remembers it. These kinds of remarks are not normally forgotten.

Either Lord Levy is a liar or Tony Blair is a liar. Lord Levy writes in his memoirs that "He (Blair) kept saying that he had never realised how duplicitous Gordon was, and what 'a liar' ". So Tony Blair thought Gordon Brown was a liar. There's a lot of them about in New Labour, that's for sure.

Gordon Brown told the BBC in an interview that Blair's office "has made it clear that this in not an accurate reflection of what Mr Blair has said". Not an accurate reflection. But are we to deduce from that that it did reflect some truth. In all this we will all have to make up our own minds. However, the facts of this leave one thing very plainly true. There is at least one liar amongst them.

No love all in Levy/Blair tennis match

Tony Blair must be some kind of rotten chum to his friends. When the going gets tough, let them hang out to dry. When they fight back, call them liars. It's all a bit pot calling the kettle black. Blair's been dissembling since his schooldays. It seems to be an inherent character trait. Those at Fettes with him felt a sensible distance was required at times, otherwise they too could be hauled up in front of the Headmaster. Gordon Brown came to believe that he couldn't trust Blair's integrity. No doubt, Blair felt likewise. It had long gone past the point where the dog was chasing its tail. The tail had a life of its own!

Blair first got to be friends with Michael Levy at a Jewish fundraising dinner party in 1994 and they eventually ended up as tennis partners. Levy is better known now as Lord Levy, chief fundraiser for Blair's New Labour organisation. I have no doubt that in the ten years since his enoblement (granted by Blair in 1997), Levy and Blair chatted about Brown, amongst others. I do not disbelieve Levy. Not because I have any reason to, but because Blair's denial sounds so hollow.

I would say that Blair said to Levy that he believed Gordon Brown “could never beat” David Cameron at the polls. That has more than a ring of truth in it. Lord Levy wrote in his memoirs that Tony Blair “told me on a number of occasions he was convinced Gordon ’could never beat Cameron’”. He said the former premier felt he could have won a fourth term had he not stood down last summer. All this rings true for me.

Many journalists will attest to the fact that the Blair/Brown relationship was mostly a tense one. John Prescott has openly said he had to mediate between the two. Blair's weak and limp denial makes Lord Levy out to be a liar. I very much doubt that. Levy has been angered by the way he has been allowed to be humiliated in the cash-for-honours scandal. However, he has hit back by revealing truthful statements rather than fanciful concoctions.

So I have no time for Blair, a serial dissembler. What I find vaguely interesting is that on reception into the Roman Catholic Church, Blair must have been told about certain credal values. He appears to have ignored bearing false witness whilst in the Anglican Church. I trust his mentors in his new spiritual home now have gently reminded him of this commandment from Moses' tablets!

MPs get it all on the cheap!

You'd have thought that MPs would have stopped wanting to see their dirty laundry washed in public. Perhaps not. The sorry story goes on. Figures have been released to show what the leading lights got up to with their expenses. TV licences paid for, as in Blair's case! Gordon Brown got £2,380 for cleaning his house. As a part-time MP job-sharing with an MSP couldn't he find the time for a once-over with Henry?

David Cameron apparently 'used the system' to claim £21,000 in a year to pay his mortgage. Now I wish I could tap into such a system. Perhaps my bank could assist? The big question is, will he stop this practice now, or will it continue. I'm beginning to feel I may want the Conservatives back in power, but, please Mr. Cameron, let it all be on a proper, decent basis. No more sleaze, spin, and deception. Give us a cast iron guarantee that you are going to clean up this tawdry mess once and for all. If not, then how can you blame the bogus bonus gatherers in the City, the gravy train merchants in the quangos, and those billionaires paying less tax than their cleaners (maybe the same cleaners as used by Gordon Brown)?

The one shocker on the list was that greedy Prescott! He used £4,000 for his grocery bills in one year! Taxpayers money for his trips to the supermarket. Nearly £80 a week on Tesco's Finest! It's an outrage.

The rot must stop now.