Labour caught out cyber squatting

The ever excellent Dizzy Thinks blog has caught the Labour Party out at a senior level cyber squatting on a website called www.toryparty.net.

The problem Labour have is that they tried to hide it, but didn't do a very good job of it.

Scottish Tories - Prudes or lacking in a sense of humour ?

Looking at this story on Dizzy Thinks blog makes me ask the question are the Tories prudes or do they have no sense of humour ?

Either way, I agree with Dizzy that is is hardly a resigning matter, but it speaks volumes about the Tory party.

Even Conservatives don't believe the Tories can cut taxes and improve services

The nearly always excellent Dizzy Thinks blog highlight the contradiction between the Conservatives pledge to cut taxes whilst at the same time wanting to increase services. You have to ask if Tories don't believe their policies, why should anyone else ?

Dizzy seems to be at odds with the Tories most ecent announcement that each new mother will get 6 hours of maternity nursing help each day for the first week of a baby's life and the costs this will incur,

"At a time when there is a shortage of midwives already, are we seriously going to propose spending around a quarter of a billion each year on maternity nurses? Come off it! "

I agree with him. Actually what we need is a proper system of guaranteeing pregnant women a midwife. My own wife was told when by the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital that despite her waters breaking, despite early signs of pre-exclampsia and also despite having regular contractions, being five weeks early and being 2 cm dilated, this was not enough to warrant having a bed, and was told she would be sent hom. the fact that she had the baby less than two hours later, before they had a chance to send her home highlighted the fact that hospitals need more maternity beds and more midwives, not maternity nurses or state nannies.

Irrespective of your views on the subject of maternity nurses, Dizzy's point is clear. Can the Tories afford their promises if they are to match Labour's NHS funding plans (as they have promised) and also add new services whilst also cutting taxes ?

A sign that the blogosphere is starting to have an influence after pro Labour journalists have a go at Guido Fawkes

Dizzy has an interesting report highlighting that a number of left wing blogs, but more importantly, a number of journalists have run an rather inaccurate story today claiming that Paul Staines (aka Guido) has sent an e-mail which states clearly he is working hand in glove with the Tory party.

The background to the story is that Paul Staines has probably done as much as everyone else put together to highlight what Peter Hain has been up to and he has, as a result been the toast of anti Labour bloggers and conversely come in for much criticism and derision from Labour bloggers.

So what has stirred up today's story ? Well an e-mail appears to have been sent to some leading bloggers and journalists with an attachment or footer that states that Guido is a Tory. However, those with the technical nous can see very easily that the e-mail had been altered and journalists should do a lot more than simply check the "sender" to find the true origin of an e-mail. It appears the e-mail footer at the bootom claiming to be from the Tory Party was added after Guido sent the e-mail.

he question then is who is it from ? Guido admits it was his e-mail, but the footer at the bottom of it was added after it was sent by him. So why haven't the journalists noticed this ? It appears to me that those pro Labour journalists who were quick to run the story were desperate to make a link between Paul Staines and the Tories that the truth of the matter was no longer of any interest to them. The journalists in question do not appears to have bothered doing their background checks to check the authenticity of the e-mails. Shoddy journalism.

Note - This posting has been altered to take in to account my initial mis-understanding of the situation. Thanks to Mark Pack for clarifying matters.

Are we set to become the "Liberal Party" ?

Dizzy tries to claim Nick Clegg is "spinning", and Iain Dale reads it as the Lib Dems no longer being "Dems". Are we set for a name change ?

I don't really care, although there is not some brand loyalty from people who refer to us as Lib Dems, but it would cause Gordon Brown major problems as he refers to the party already as the Liberal Party (deliberately I am sure to be annoying), and if we changed our name he'd have to call us Lib Dems.

Still, what's in a name. It's what you stand for that really matters.

Dizzy discovers plans for Labour alternative to 18 Doughty Street

The excellent Tory blogger Dizzy, who is also an Evertonian (of course) has discovered plans for an alternative to 18 Doughty Street coming from a Labour point of view.

As ever, Dizzy shows us just what a great blogger he is.

Social Services taking another child - Another story to shock everyone with kids

This story from Dizzy is self explanatory, but shows how one couple are using YouTube to get the story of their currently unborn child being taken from them across to the wider world. It is quite disturbing.

John Hemming MP and Norman Lamb MP have both been campaigning rather publicly about the shocking way that family courts are allowing children to be taken away from parents without the parents seemingly having any power to stop it, even when the social services departments and the social workers have no evidence as to why the parents are deemed a "risk".

There was the shocking case in Norfolk recently of a couple who had there three oldest children removed from them and adopted. When they had a new baby, Norfolk County Council wanted to remove this child. Norfolk County Council alleged that the couple's three older children had all been physically abused. What Norfolk County Council did not investigate was that all three children had brittle bone disease, inherited from their parents, which fully accounted for their injuries. The couple were, at he very least minute, allowed to keep their new baby, but will never get there three oldest children back because they have been adopted now.

How accurate is the Daily Mail ?

I watched an old episode of Men Behaving Badly last night on UKTV Gold, an episode from 1995. The headline on the the Daily Mail that the character Tony was reading is typical of the headline that the Daily Mail still uses. Over sensational, designed to worry people and lacking in factual evidence. It said;

"Artificial wombs withing ten years"

Given that the headline was badly wrong, can we really trust the headline that Dizzy makes reference to today ?

Be careful what you put your name to on Facebook

Dizzy points out this morning the rather amusing tale of at least two Tory MP's who have signed up on Facebook to support a fictional character to be next Conservative MP for a place that does not exist.

It could be that they are in on the joke or it could simply be that in Facebook people are constantly sending out requests to join this, that or the other and these Tory MP's have not had the sense to check out what they are signing up to.

A warning for all us Facebook users there.

The problem with wrestling is ...

Some people say that blogging is a self indulgent and almost utterly pointless pastime. Yet there are so many bloggers out there who really do inform and entertain. The best at this is Dizzy, who is not only a Tory (shame on him) but an Evertonian (he is forgiven for being a Tory).

He has written a brilliant piece about he problem of drug taking in Wrestling in the US and the dominance of WWE over other wrestling Federations. I personally cannot stand wrestling. It's a sort of ballet dancing for strong blokes, all choreographed and planned in advance with a large element of naff acting. It's not a sport at all and does not deserve to be called a sport. However, i would urge fans and non fans of wrestling to read Dizzy's posting as it really is worthy of a larger audience.

Are the Lib Dems targeting air con ?

Dizzy has an interesting analysis of written questions being asked by Norman Baker and Chris Huhne about government use of portable air conditioning units and asks is the party planning an extra tax on air conditioning units in the home ?

I would suggest that such a policy would possibly have a negative impact on our poll ratings and would, inevitably raise questions about raising tax on cars too as 75% of cars now produced have air con as standard. Such a policy could open a real can of worms.

Of course we have to do our part for the environment but is taxing home air con being considered by the party ?

The Tories on Ealing - In the words of the Tory blogosphere

Doing a search of the Tory blogs this mornning brought up the following

From Ellee Seymour
"coming third was a bitter blow and a huge embarrassment."

"Tont Lit, despite his dashing Bollywood looks and huge popularity was obviously a flawed choice"

It is worth noting that Tony Lit was David Cameron's personal choice !


The Thunder Dragon puts it in even stronger terms when he says;
"It was pretty much an abysmal failure. At this stage in a Parliament, the Conservatives should be doing far far better in by-elections than a less than 1% increase in vote."


Iain Dale adds ;
"Although this is not natural Tory territory most observers would reckon that in the middle of the third term of a Labour government the party ought to be able to increase its vote share by more than 0.9 per cent."

Pretty strong words from someone who has much to be annoyed about given the CCHQ lies he has been asked to peddle throughout the campaign. Well done Iain for being honest now. The CCHQ stuff they fed you devalued your excellent blog.


And a comment from Conservative Home from Ellesmere Dragge at 10:47 am
"The message seems to be for Tories to return to their constituencies and prepare for another drubbing."


Perhaps the best and funniest of the comments comes from Dizzy Thinks, who wrote in advance of the results and included a response that would be appropriate for ach of the scenarios. As it was, scenario C was the one that was correct, and the comments were ;
"Oh look, I was totally wrong like most people who try to predict the results of elections. The Labour Party romped it and maintained their majority. The Lib Dems spanked the Tories who remain in third position. Ming's position is safe for now. Questions will now be raised about Tory stagnation. Perhaps Tony Lit's selection will be seen by some as the death bell tolling for Cameron's leadership?"

Anyone who finds a comment on another Tory blog wirthy of note, why not let me know in the comments.

Sedgefield by-election imminent

Dizzy, who is as well informed as anyone, speculates on the chances of a double by-election with Sedgefield and Ealing Southall on the same day.

Perhaps the oppostion parties ought to target their resources carefully to get round Labour's plans to water down the oppostion threat ?

Don't tell Chris Davies !

Dizzy's blog has been an absolute tour de force of excellent opinion and little nuggets of comedy over the last week, but THIS piece stood out for me.

Don't pass this on to Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies please !

"Dizzy Thinks" highlights errors on Women Lib Dems website

Anyone with any website knowledge or knows anyone who has anything to to with Women Liberal Democrats ought to point them in the direction of this story on Dizzy Thinks.

Yes, it's a bit geeky, but his correct and it ought to be fixed.