Sunday catchup

Some stories that I read this week and think you should too:

1. An Oxfordshire Geek calls Gordon Brown "Cynical. Loathsome. Detestable. Vile. Despicable. Disgraceful. Nauseating. Abhorrent. Reprehensible." Not a controversial view but it saves me writing about tonight's Piers Morgan/Gordon Brown pre-election love-in.


2. Anna Racoon takes Speaker Bercow to task for his lack of control over PMQs:

"Prime Minister’s Question time has long been a farce, though farce implies something mildly amusing. The past few weeks it has turned into an elongated election broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party and it is anything but amusing.

Every question is turned into an monologue deriding the Conservative party, and the speaker never intervenes to demand an answer from the Prime Minister.

Yesterday there were 10 ‘planted’ questions from Labour MPs, not holding the government to account, but giving the Prime Minister the opportunity to extol the virtues of the Labour party. 3 questions from Conservative MPs, never answered, 3 from Lib-Dems, equally never answered, and 1 from a welsh windbag – Elfred Lewis."

Anna Racoon has a suggestion as to how David Cameron should draw attention to the farce that is PMQs and (in my view harness some of the righteous anger that many have against Gordon Brown and the unpleasant people that support him):

"I long to see Cameron call the Blind Man’s bluff – to ask a serious question, and the moment he is treated to a monologue on the supposed short comings of the Conservative party by way of response, to lead his entire party out of the House of Commons and hold a press conference on the steps of St. Stephens instead.

Provoke a constitutional crisis. Defy the media not to report Cyclops’ wilful refusal to be held to account. Defy Clegg not to follow suit and support him. Kick Bercow out of the Conservative party. Disown him."

3. The Cynical Tendency has an interesting article, but I am not sure what he is talking about!


4. The Sun reports on the Unions who are recruiting for the coming war with a Conservative government:

"UNION chiefs preparing for a battle over public spending cuts have launched a £500,000 RECRUITMENT drive.

Unison are offering salaries of up to £40,000 for at least 15 local and regional organisers to "build the strength" of the public service union."

5. Conservative Home reveal that:

"the unions are holding back money from Labour's election fighting fund and instead choosing to build up a war chest with which to fight the Conservative government that they expect to be elected next year. The relatively benign economic years of the recent past have meant the unions have not had to fund much strike pay and the coffers of the public sector unions, in particular, are overflowing.

A very good source tells ConHome that the unions have as much as £25m to spend on campaigns to oppose cuts in the public sector workforce and in public sector pay."

6. Coincidentally The Telegraph report that:

"David Cameron will move to scrap the automatic union funding of the Labour party if he wins the general election... Currently, unions only need to ask members every 10 years if they want to contribute to their political funds, which also includes spending on campaigning and lobbying.

Around £8million a year is channelled through the political funds to Labour party coffers in this way.

Under the Tory plans, union members would have to choose to contribute to the political fund every time they pay their annual subscription.

Asking individual union members to tick a box supporting Labour every year was a key sticking point in talks to reform party funding which collapsed amid acrimony two years ago.

Mr Cameron has pointed out that many union members are not Labour supporters and yet are often unwilling contributors to the party."