I Had That Alan Curbishley In The Back Of My Cab Once...

You know all those newspaper articles which sneer at blogs like this one for peddling unsubstantiated rumours, as if journalists wouldn't think of indulging in such practices? Next time anyone writes this, quote example back at them.

The sports pages of most national newspapers wouldn't exist without unsubstantiated rumours being printed. They're the lifeblood of so-called sports journalism. The broadsheets keep their consciences clean by reporting what the tabloids are saying - see The Observer's Tales from the Tabs column, which looks at possible football transfer rumours. But the Independent on Sunday has surpassed itself today. It reports...

Alan Curbishley will replace Martin Jol as Tottenham's manager next month

And who is the source for this exclusive nugget? A White Hart Lane insider? A friend of Alan Curbishley? No, the source is an unnamed North London Taxi Driver. You couldn't make it up.

George Walden is a Pub Bore

Former Tory MP George Walden was one of Britain's worst ever High Education Ministers. Since leaving Parliament he has earned a living writing pseudo-intellectual drivel about politics and culture. It's usually unreadable. I attended a discussion evening with him and his wife a couple of years ago, organised by Living Marxism. He was insufferable and spent the whole evening putting down his wife. In the Independent on Sunday diary there is a piece on his book The New Elites in which he slags off David Cameron for "being a posh man pretending to be common". Utter rubbish. But even if it were true, it's better than a pub bore pretending to be an intellectual.

EXCLUSIVE: Blair Meets Philip Anschutz at Freud Party

Mail on Sunday journalist Glen Owen seems to have missed the big story in his piece (HERE) today on the Matthew Freud party, attended by Tony Blair at the apparent insistence of Miss Rebekah Wade (scroll two stories down).

I can exclusively reveal that not only was Tony Blair there, but so was Philip Anschutz, the man behind the Casino at the Dome and on whose ranch the Deputy Prime Minister famously stayed.

I think we'd all like to know if the Prime Minister and Mr Anschutz actually met and if so what they said. I suppose I could ring Downing Street and ask the question, but it's the final day of the Ryder Cup and I'm sure there are some lobby journalists out there who are stuck for something to write about that doesn't involve Gordon Brown. So go to it guys. And please do remember where you got the story from...

Finns Threaten 18 Doughty Street Takeover

Or have I mistranslated THIS?

Kaksi brittien johtavaa konservatiivibloggaajaa Tim Montgomerie ja Iain Dale käynnistävät poliittisen netti-tv-kanavan nimeltä 18 Doughty St TV. 10.10. käynnistyvän kanavan sisällöntuottajina toimivat Montgomerien ja Dalen mukaan poliittisesti aktiiviset ihmiset, joilla on painavaa sanottavaa. He varustavat 100 ihmistä videonauhureilla, ja heidän toimittamastaan materiaalista koostetaan joka illalle 4 tuntia ohjelmaa.

Invitation to Form TORIES FOR MEACHER

Following my piece last week on Michael Meacher seeking to stand against Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership (see HERE), The Daily alerts me to the existence of a Michael Meacher blog. Please contain your excitement. It's titled MICHAEL MEACHER - LABOUR'S FUTURE. No, really, it is. Laugh, I nearly did what the lady in Little Britain does.

Here's Meacher's latest entry...

I have just heard, from what I regard as an unimpeachable source that Gordon Brown has told junior ministers that if they do not vote for him in the forthcoming leadership contest, they’ll be out. I must say, the machine politics doesn’t surprise me. But clearly Gordon is more worried about his vote than we thought!

Well blow me down. I feel another incontinence attack coming on. I think I can see huge advantages to the Conservatives if Michael Meacher carries on his campaign. Anyone likes to form Tories for Meacher?

Tony Blair's Ugly Rumours

On Wednesday I was told of a rumour relating to the Prime Minister which was so preposterous that I didn't really give it a second thought. Well, almost. I actually wrote a short blog entry about it but decided not to post it as it really was so outlandish. However, having seen the Mail on Sunday a couple of hours ago while I was at News 24, I'm no longer so sure. Read THIS story, especially this extract...

Before the party on Wednesday night - as his wife Cherie was flying to Rome to deliver a speech - Mr Blair joined Rebekah Wade, editor of The Sun and a close friend of [Matthew] Freud, for a cosy supper at Cecconi's restaurant in Mayfair. This location aroused suspicions because Freud, regarded as the best-connected man in London, is also a friend and PR adviser to Cecconi's owner Nick Jones, who founded the exclusive Soho House members' club. Ms Wade apparently persuaded Mr Blair to join her at the party at Freud's, which had the ostensible aim of promoting a new credit card which will fight Aids in Africa.

Now, put that together with Peter Dobbie's column later on in the paper (which is not yet online) and draw your own conclusions. Well I suppose it's one way to keep The Sun onside...

Sunday Round Up

I've got an article in The Observer today on why politicians should embrace blogging, which you can read HERE.

There's a big feature in The Independent on Tory Tribes HERE which includes pen portraits of Inner Circle Cameroons, A Listers, Z Listers, Black Listers, Gay Listers, Cameron Celebs, Conservative Commentators, Dave's Babes and Young Turks. The Indy also has a multi authored piece called The Cameroons are Coming HERE, as well as a Quiz dreamt up by Jo-Anne Nadler titled Are You a Closet Tory?

The Sunday Express has a front page story saying that David Cameron will commit to abolishing Inheritance Tax on the main family home. It's a non story because it is actually the Tax Commission which is thought to be proposing this, rather than the Party itself.

Esther McVey Will Make Wirral West a Tory Gain

I am absolutely elated to hear that Esther McVey has been reselected as Conservative candidate in Wirral West. She fought a good campaign there last time and it's good that she wants to do it again. Boundary changes are in her favour and there's little doubt in my mind that she's on her way to the Commons. Esther is a very shrewd businesswoman who made her name with GMTV. She's a born and bred Merseysider and extremely popular locally. Go get 'em girl.

The Prime Minister Resigns

More HERE.

Channel 4 News Reports on 18DoughtyStreet

Channel 4 News carried a report on the launch of 18DoughtyStreet yesterday lunchtime and Tim Montgomerie was interviewed by Krishan Guru Murthy. Sadly I was at home planning my first two weeks' programming! You can see the four minute report HERE. Krishnan's line of questioning demonstrates clearly why we need a channel like 18DoughtyStreet. They carried a much longer report on the 7pm bulletin but sadly it's not online. However, they did a good report on the rise of blogging last week which can be accessed HERE.

Guido believes that CCHQ is "concerned" by the advent of 18DoughtyStreet. Read why HERE. I doubt it very much. There may be some who see it as dangerous but Francis Maude understands more than most that new technology can reach parts of the electorate traditional politics cannot. [plug] Francis and I are speaking alongside Dame Ann Widdecombe at the Hansard Society fringe event on politics and technology at the Tory Conference [/plug]. I guess I'll find out what he thinks then. I'm sure Ann will say people ought to have better things to do than watch TV on their computers - unless of course we start the Widdy Channel. Oh God, let me take that thought back. Frightening!

PS I'm doing the papers on News 24 again tonight at 11.45pm

Should the Conservatives Be More Active in Northern Ireland?

It's been some time since the Conservative & Unionist Party did what it says on the tin. I remember the formation of local Conservative Parties in Northern Ireland caused a great deal of controversy in the 1980s and the national Party didn't quite know what to do. If it recognised them it risked alienating the Ulster Unionists. Of course, the support of the Ulster Unionists was crucial to John Major's precarious adminstration in the mid 1990s. The last decade has seen the Ulster Unionists gradually eclipsed by Ian Paisley's DUP to the point where the UUP is almost extinct. The defection of a leading UUP member, James Leslie, to the Conservatives this week is symptomatic of the decline of the UUP.

This morning Slugger O'Toole published a piece by Alex Kane on the dilemma now facing the Conservatives and David Cameron in Northern Ireland. You can read it HERE. He believes there is now a major opportunity for David Cameron in Northern Ireland now, but he needs to recognise it and grasp it. Of course the danger is that any growth in Conservative support risks diluting the Unionist vote and could hand several DUP seats to Sinn Fein. It's a tricky one and I don't pretend to know the answer. My gut instinct is that the Conservative Party should be seeking to expand its operations and influence in all parts of the country. We belong, after all, to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Conservatives website is HERE.

Paxman: Prince Charles 'Despairs' of Bush

Petronella Wyatt has a typical Petronella interview in the Mail today with Jeremy Paxman, who has a new book out on the royal family. As usual she issues a marriage proposal to him. Is there anyone that Petronella HASN'T proposed to?

But tucked away in a corner of the interview is this little snippet from Paxman on Prince Charles...

Paxman: "Of course he isn't allowed to have political views, but friends told me he finds the invasion of Iraq an utter mystery and despairs of Bush."
Petsy: "Gosh, Jezzer, if you don't mind me calling you that?' (there is a stangled groan), 'haven't you just outed him? - just as Matthew Parris outed Peter Mandelson...?'
Jezzer: "Oh God, have I?'

I'd have thought that would be quite a good news story in itself. Paxman outing Prince Charles, I mean, rather than the Prince of Wales having controversial views. As Tony Benn might not say, it's personalities that count, not ishoos.

How Hitchens can Emulate the Hefferlump

Things are looking up for David Cameron. In his Telegraph column today, Simon Heffer doesn't slag him off. OK, he doesn't mention him at all, but that in itself is progress. All DC needs now is for Peter Hitchens to emulate Heffer in tomorrow's Mail on Sunday, or at least avoid using his extremely tedious 'useless Tories' phrase, and DC's weekend will be complete. Ain't life grand?

Simon Heffer also achieves a notable first today - a column where I agree with every word he writes. I'm not sure if that is more worrying for him or me, but this piece in particular appealed to me, as I too am a car lover and Top Gear fan...

We all have to have some vices, and mine is Top Gear. It has long struck me as the last outpost of politically incorrect programming on mainstream TV. I love the jokes about inferior foreign cars, the cruel banter with members of the audience, the puerile rivalry among the presenters and, above all, the sheer joy of being environmentally unfriendly with high-speed, gas-guzzling motors. Yet it is the way in which Top Gear accepts risk as a normal part of life, and the two fingers it puts up to the national obsession with health and safety, that most endears it to me. I do hope the ghastly accident that befell Richard Hammond this week does not spell the end of this wonderful entertainment: but I rather fear, once the jobsworths have done their worst, that it will.

And I defy you to read THIS Jeremy Clarkson column in today's Sun without laughing out loud and getting misty eyed. Brilliant stuff.

Dizzy Makes Bid to be 18DoughtyStreet Station Controller

Oh Dear. Dizzy thinks he's a Fisker. HERE. Not sure what he'll make of my interviewing style...

PS Looking at the comments people seem to think I am slagging Dizzy off. Far from it. He is a giant among bloggers and I much enjoyed his defenestration of Mr Humphrys' interview.

All I Do Is Dick Around

Did you see SPARKS on Jonathan Ross just now? Fantastic. Here's the song they performed - a kind of ode to blogging! They then did This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us. Virtually everyone I know hates SPARKS. No accounting for taste. If SPARKS hadn't existed, there would have been no Pet Shop Boys, no Erasure.... hmmm, not making a very good case, am I? Still, I have something in common with Jeremy Vine. We both love SPARKS. I've seen them a couple of times live in London. Well worth it. No, really.

Osborne & Forsyth Need to Sing from the Same Hymn Sheet

Allister Heath writes in today's Spectator that there's a looming clash between George Osborne and Michael Forsyth over his interim Tax Commission report. Osborne is reportedly asking Forsyth to tone it down, as it apparently proposes £19 billion of tax cuts over a five year period. Read the full article HERE. Here's an extract...

Its 40 proposals include cutting the basic rate of income tax from 22 per cent to 20 per cent, slashing corporation tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent (and eventually to 20 per cent) and scrapping the 10 per cent starting rate of income tax. The draft even calls for a cut in the top rate of tax as a longer-term aspiration. In a blow to Cameron, and contrary to media reports, the Commission won’t propose any countervailing new green taxes, nor does it address council tax reform.

The poor would pay significantly less tax, with the starting 10 per cent rate of income tax scrapped and hence no income tax payable on the first £7,185 of earnings. There would also be a revolutionary reform of inheritance and capital gains tax; the two levies would be merged. Primary homes would become totally exempt from inheritance tax while the rest of a deceased’s estate would be eligible only for a reformed capital gains tax. This would impose either a 20 per cent or a 40 per cent tax on gains on assets handed down; the rate would be reduced by a tenth every year so that no tax at all would be payable on assets held for a decade.

There would also be help for families with transferable personal allowances, for couples with a child under the age of five, making it less costly for one of the parents to stay at home. Currently parents earning £50,000–£60,000 are still eligible for family tax credits; the Commission wants to ensure that these taper off at a significantly lower rate. It also wants to scrap tax credits for film production and for research and development. Stamp duty on share transactions would be abolished; however, the Commission will not propose to undo Chancellor Gordon Brown’s destructive raid on pension funds.

Contrary to speculation, the plan doesn’t endorse a flat tax. In conversations with Forsyth, Osborne has made it clear that he is especially opposed to the Commission’s proposed reduction in the basic rate of tax. Osborne is concerned that it would be portrayed as helping the rich and the middle classes. Even more controversially, Osborne wants the Commission to consider a £1 billion employee national insurance contributions hike by extending the income range on which they are payable by £5,000.

Osborne and Cameron will have to tread carefully as the radicalism of the Forsyth Commission chimes perfectly with increased unease over tax among Tory backbenchers. Many who had reluctantly begun to accept the Cameroonian view that tax cuts are political suicide are now changing their minds again. Backbenchers have told me that a TaxPayers’ Alliance/ICM poll, splashed on the front page of the Sunday Times last month, created a stir by demonstrating a growing public appetite for tax cuts when sold the right way; they also report that their constituents are increasingly angry about the gross waste of taxpayers’ money that has become the hallmark of Brown’s public sector.

The sentence which leaps out at me from this is this: In conversations with Forsyth, Osborne has made it clear that he is especially opposed to the Commission’s proposed reduction in the basic rate of tax. Osborne is concerned that it would be portrayed as helping the rich and the middle classes.

Excuse me? How can a reduction in basic rate income tax be seen as helping the rich?! I respect Allister Heath but I simply cannot believe that George Osborne would have said that. And since when was it a crime to help the middle classes?

There is a lot of good stuff in what Michael Forsyth is proposing - some of it already adopted by the Liberal Democrats. We have to be brave in this area. No one is going to vote for a mushy status quo. We've got three years to sell a comprehensive package of tax and spending reform. We don't need all the detail now, but we do need to know that the Party leadership and its Tax Commission are united in its aims.

Cash for Peerages Inquiry Will Not Go Away

I suspect the majority of my readers do not subscribe to the New Statesman. Well you're missing out. Especially this week. Their political editor Martin Bright has a cracker of an article HERE.

If you were reading last Sundays papers you might have seen an article alleging that John Yates's Inquiry into Cash for Peerages was getting nowehere and was close to being abandoned. It looked like a bit of New Labour wishful thinking, and Martin Bright seems to agree. He's made a documentary for Channel 4 which will be broadcast on Monday at 8pm. Here's a short extract from his article...

"So were the loans designed to be hidden? Matt Carter, who was then Labour's general secretary, wrote to the lenders emphasising that the in terest rate on the loan "can be considered as a commercial rate of interest. Accordingly, the loan will not give rise to any reportable donation within the meaning of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act." This letter has been shown to the police. It may seem technical, but if the loans were not genuinely commercial, then the 2000 act was broken. Bairoliya told the programme: "I wouldn't say that they are commercial as I understand the term commercial. It's a bit like one of my friends is in difficulty and you wanted to help them out: you might give them a loan and not charge them the full rate." Asked what rate he would expect, Bairoliya said: "If someone did agree to give you a loan, they would expect to have a return which was in proportion to the risk they were taking. In this case they would judge the risk fairly high and they would require a margin of at least 4 or 5 per cent above base." By this calculation, Labour should have been charged between 8.75 and 9.75 per cent interest"...

"According to my Labour Party source, who is at the highest level of the party structure and perfectly placed to know, at least some of these loans were never intended to be paid back. According to this individual, they were never loans at all but purely and simply secret donations. And has my source told the police? You bet.

That last bit will send a shiver down the collective back of all three parties. Who is Bright's source? Well if it is who I think it is, Tony Blair should be a worried man. Very worried indeed.

I'm Going to be Nice to Ming...

Ming Campbell can go home to Edinburgh this weekend secure in the knowledge that his position as LibDem leaders is now relatively safe. This week has been an important one for him. Had it all gone wrong, he could today be facing a real crisis, but the LibDem conference in Brighton will probably go down as one of the most boring in living memory. Why? for the simple reason that they behaved themselves.

As far as I can remember there were no rebellions and Ming carried the day on the 50% tax proposal. His speech (which I have only seen excerpts from) was unremarkable, but competent. He's a leader who provokes respect from his party rather than a collective flowing of juices (a la Paddy Ashdown). That should be enough to see him through. The New Statesman poll today, which shows 82% of their readers believe the LibDems need a new leader is not to be taken seriously. For him to be in peril, a similar number of LibDems would need to think that too. And they don't. So Ming is here to stay. As a Conservative, that doesn't make me unhappy. That's not me being complacent - it's because I believe (and all the polls prove this) that up against David Cameron, Cameron wins. Someone said the other day that Cameron has the 'Zeitgeist'. The same cannot be said for Ming, however charitable I am feeling today.

Should BBC Current Affairs Entertain or Inform?

Sunny Hundal has a thoughtful piece HERE on CommentIsFree on whether BBC Current Affairs is now seeking to entertain rather than inform. The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but the tipping point was reached when they decided to have comedians on Question Time. This has led to other political programmes like This Week booking the likes of Shane McGowan to give us their views on the great issues of the day. This whole theme will make a great discussion for my new programme on 18DoughtyStreeet. Sunny, you just booked yourself on as a guest. But we want you to inform, not entertain!

Hoby's Road to Nowhere No 5

Click on image to enlarge Courtesy of Hoby