Least self aware tweet of the day - Alastair Campbell

The least self aware tweet of the day comes from Al 'dodgy dossier' Campbell

I suppose that you have to admire his chutzpah if nothing else.

Fortunately the replies to his tweet are pretty scathing, take a look here.

Why is Alastair Campbell allowed to pollute our airwaves

I see that tonight's Have I Got News for You will be presented by the vile Alastair Campbell. Before watching it maybe you should cleanse your palate with this video of Michael Howard speaking truth to evil.

Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson did more to destroy my faith in British politics than anybody else. A couple of truly vile individuals whose survival as pundits and acceptable personalities speaks volumes about the standards and prejudices of the BBC.

And less we forget here's Alastair Campbell faking emotion on the Andrew Marr show, emotion that stops him from having to answer the pertinent and inconvenient question.

Problems ahead for Alastair Campbell?

Guido Fawkes thinks so, based upon this thinly veiled threat at the end of Trevor Kavanagh’s column in this morning’s Sun:

“ALASTAIR CAMPBELL, who once played the media like a fiddle, has the nerve to accuse the Press of being “putrid”. He is fortunate lobby journalists never reveal their sources. Otherwise a queue of hacks could reveal how Alastair routinely dripped poison into their ears about everyone – then swore them to secrecy. Luckily, some of us kept a diary.”

Guido opines:

'Word of these diaries is spreading like wildfire. There is talk of the dates, times and locations of meetings where Campbell “dripped poison”.'

Could Alastair Campbell be skewered by his own briefings, one does hope so.

Alastair Campbell

I did not comment on Alastair Campbell's 'performance' at the Leveson enquiry as I was not sure that amount of swear words should ever be used in one article. Guido Fawkes has found a Facebook comment from the former News of the World political editor Ian Kirby that I think bears repeating:

“Is astonished. I never knew there were two Alastair Campbells. The one I know told me Peter Mandelson was insane, but insisted I used it anonymously, persuaded Tony Blair to change the law in response to News of the World campaigns, spent years trying to befriend the Daily Mail and invented the claim that Sir John Major wore his shirt tucked in his underpants. He also encouraged me and Andy Coulson to ask Tony Blair if he and Cherie were in the Mile High Club to make a good headline. I’m worried that AC has been kidnapped and no-one noticed.”

Why does anyone believe a word Alastair Campbell says?

What a lucky lady?

I read recently off a 32 year-old woman, Naobi Jacobs, who woke up one morning to find that she had no recollection of the last 16 years of her life. Sadly this meant she had no idea who her 11 year-old son was. However this incident of Transient Global Amnesia meant that she thought that John Major was still Prime Minister. This meant that Naomi Jacobs had no recollection of the despoiling of British life carried out by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, the destruction of private pensions by Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, the selling off of half of British gold reserves contrary to Treasury advice by that same undynamic duo or the creaation of the biggest boom and subsequent bust by the same twosome.

As I said, what a lucky lady?

Finally someone at the BBC has the guts to stand up to the loathsome bully Alastair Campbell

Not the 'feared' Jeremy Paxman on BBC 2's Newsnight or John Humphrys on radio 4's Toady but Vanessa Feltz on Radio London

Well done Vanessa Feltz, well done indeed. I have never heard an interviewer treat Alastair Campbell the way he treats others and deserves to be treated. He was his usual nasty, spiteful self but rather than roll over and let him walk over her, like most BBC interviewers do, Vanessa Feltz fought back and more than held her own. My admiration for Vanessa Feltz is through the roof; I just hope her bosses support her because big bad Alastair will not be happy and may look for revenge...

Annoyingly I am a regular listener to Vanessa Feltz's Radio London show but was busy at work this morning and so missed this live.

My previous post was about a putative boxing contest between John Prescott and Wendi Deng/Murdoch, I think a Vanessa Feltz should be employed as Wendi Deng's coach!


Thanks to Biased BBC for the spot.

What will satisfy the BBC re the phone-hacking affair?

The BBC are collecting scalps as they fight to first destroy any competition from the right of British politics in the delivery of news and opinion in the UK by ferociously attacking News International and pretending that no other news organisations are as or more guilty than News International. However the BBC's true target is the Conservative lead government and overnight it became clear that the new narrative, presumably agreed with some of the Labour leadership, is to destroy David Cameron's reputation, name and position. The attack dogs have been out already; Denis MacShane has been Tweeting his poison and no doubt Alastair 'pure as the driven snow' Campbell will be interviewed soon about ethical news gathering. The BBC/Labour alliance has no shame or sense of the absurd and so they could even use Damian McBride as an interviewee.

The BBC/Labour sense blood and will try and destabilise the government as much as possible. They will hope to collect David Cameron's scalp but will also try to 'shame' some LibDems into leaving the Coalition and crossing the floor of the House.

One almost admires the single-mindedness of the attacks were it not for the fact that the BBC is meant to be independent and unbiased in its news coverage, something that it has singularly failed to even attempt in its coverage of the phone-hacking story.

Saturday morning catchup

Once again, too many Firefox tabs resulting in carashing Firefox and much frustration.

1) Blazing Cat Fur reports that 'The Toronto District School Board has decreed that "Only White People Are Racist" ' and provides the evidence.  Political correctness decrees that white people are in the wrong and in this sort of analysis of course Jews are white people whereas Muslims are not.


2) Fox News has an >to the Mila Kunis story and it may not be good news for Marine Sgt Scott Moore...


3) The often interesting Mother Jones website has interesting piece about life in an Indian call centre. Read it and you may go more gently on the Indian helpdesk the next time you have to call one...


4) Angry Predator identifies a fine example of victimhood poker and it seems that ethnic minority sensibilities outweigh the feminist right to breastfeed.


5) Melanie Phillips thinks that 'From human rights to the EU, the tide's turning against the liberal thought police' - I hope she's right but fear she is not.


6) Der Spiegel warns of the dangers of dildos. Yes I did say dildos.


7) The BBC report with a straigh face that: 'Alastair Campbell was "somewhat of an unguided missile" during talks about intelligence before the Iraq war, a senior MI6 officer has said.' Tell us something we didn't know about that duplicitious c**t.


More later...

The one-hundred and thirty eighth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award is presented jointly to The Mail, Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair for combining to produce this line in today's Mail:

'Now, the latest volumes of Alastair Campbell’s diaries reveal that Mr Blair repeatedly told him that Mr Balls, now shadow Chancellor and then Mr Brown’s senior advisor, was a ‘highly disruptive influence’.

My cry of 'Ed Balls - a "highly disruptive influence" - "No Shit, Sherlock"' is only tempered by the fact that I usually take any statements made by Alastair Campbell and/or Tony Blair with more than a normal sized pinch of salt.

The definition of 'brass necked cheek'?

Ed 'second choice' Balls on LBC's Alastair Campbell phone-in yesterday evening claiming that history should have taught us that it was a mistake for governments to try and fit the economy into an election cycle - breathtaking cheek but as the presenter was as bound up with labour's election strategy as the guest the comment was allowed to pass unchallenged.

I couldn't stomach more than 40 or so minutes of the ex-Iain Dale show and I am not sure that I will listen again until Iain Dale returns. If I wanted to hear Labour figures talking as though their party was not in any way responsible for the economic mess that the country is in then I would listen to the BBC.

On that note it has been noticeable for a few weeks now that whenever a Conservative spokesman on Any Questions points out that they were left an economic mess by the last Labour government, they are greeted by a groan - presumably it is considered bad form by Labour supporters to bring up the past. This is off because right up until the end of the last Labour government, present day problems were still being blamed on the previous conservative government which was by then 13 years out of power. The left really are shameless aren't they?

Some questions that the Chilcot Inquiry will not address properly, if at all

'Why did Mr Scarlett put himself at the service of Mr Campbell? Why did Mr Goldsmith not resign? Why did the Cabinet allow itself to be sidelined? Why did Parliament in general, and the Tory Opposition in particular, so easily accept Mr Blair’s word?'

Read more in a rather good article in The Mail by Stephen Glover. The piece is entitled 'So it WAS all based on a lie. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Blair to be held to account over Iraq' and made me rather angry at the way Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell got away with so many wrongs and are now rich and/or lauded despite their histories.

'I am not a mouthpiece for Michael Gove's free schools I spoke out for the sake of our children, not to support Tory education policies'

The Guardian allows Katharine Birbalsingh her right of reply to the attacks she has faced since she dared to expose the inadequecies of the English educational system. She concentrates on the recent attack on her by Fiona Millar, the marginally less unpleasant half of the Alastair Campbell/Fiona Millar couple.


Update:  Katharine Birbalsingh wants to mae a correction to my article:

'Hello Not a Sheep!
I have to say though, I didn't write the title of the article! Funny how a title makes everything seem one way instead of another...
Best wishes
Katharine'

Clever, very clever Mark Thompson?

Am I alone in wondering if Mark Thompson's 'mistake' in showing his notes as he went into a meeting at Number 10 really was a 'mistake' or in fact deliberate. What better cover for the BBC's Direcor-General who had already admitted to the BBC having a left-wing bias in the past, but no more, than to appear ready to explain the background to the Coalition government's spending cuts. Of course an unbiased BBC would have been explaining the context for these cuts from the start rather than behaving as an accomplice to the Labour party that had caused the public debt problem via massive overspending, but this is not an unbiased BBC.

Instead we get the BBC feeling able to report Ed Mr Miliband's claims that Mr Thompson had "a list of programme ideas which appeared to showcase Tory economic policies of savage, indiscriminate cuts". This expression 'savage, indiscriminate cuts' is the latest Labour/BBC meme and one that will be repeated ad-nauseum until it is accepted as fact.


The sheer cheek of any ex-Labour minister in complaining about the BBC putting the government's side of any story is incredible after 13 years (plus previously when in opposition) of the BBC only asking 'how high' when Alastair Campbell or Peter Mandelson told them to 'jump'.

The Conservatives should not be fooled by Mark Thomson's attendance at a meeting and his promises (if promises were made) that the BBC would put spending cuts in context. The BBC is pro-Labour and will actively connive to achieve the re-election of a Labour government. The BBC is no friend of the coalition, the country or democracy and must be tackled head on.

Why do we take political memoirs at face value?

Lots of people are in a bit of a tizz this morning because of what Tony Blair has said in his autobiography. I don't understand why; after all why should we believe he is telling the unvarnished truth? Do Tony Blair's memoirs report what actually happened, what he would have liked to have happened (knowing what he knows now), what he wants to believe happened (Tony Blair being able to convince himself of most things), what he wants other people to believe happened or what he wants other people to believe he believed happened?

Just as with Alastair Campbell & Peter Mandelson's books, why should anyone believe a word that Tony Blair says? All three are proven liars, so why should their books be any more truthful?

Interestingly, will any journalists be asking Peter Mandelson why he lied to the British public when he assured us that rumours of massive arguments between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were just media tittle-tattle?


From the time that I heard of Tony Blair lying about his stowing away on a plane from Newcastle to the Bahamas when he was 14, tricky as there were no such flights at that time, I had no faith in this man. I was therefore made exceedingly angry by the way the media, especially the BBC, repeated his claims of being a pretty straight guy.

Also remember Tony Blair's involvement with Bernie Ecclestone, the Hindujas and of course 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. In the latter case, the security services told Tony Blair that intelligence about WMD was 'sporadic and patchy', 'little' and 'limited'; Tony Blair translated that to Parliament as 'extensive, detailed and authoritative'. Also remember Tony Blair writing to the Romanian government when Lakshmi Mittal was bidding to privatise the Romanian steel industry. Tony Blair wrote that 'I am particularly pleased it is a British company which is your partner.' At that time this British compnay was owned by an Indian citizen with holdings in the Dutch Antilles and of his 125,000 employees just 85 were in Britain. The fact that Laksjmi Mittal had donated £125,000 to the Labour Party is of course entirely coincidental to Tony Blair's support. We should also consider the cash for peerages affair but that would take too much time and I am running shot of bile.

Alastair Campbell on Richard Bacon 5 Live show

Yes AGAIN. Why is this boil on the backside of the British body-politic given so much free airtime to publicise his books and his views? Especially as his version of history is so obviously self-serving and skewed.

Don't bother answering that, I know why and that is why Richard Bacon and all the other pro-Labour presenters at the BBC will one day be held to account.

Things we all knew but Alastair Campbell kept hidden until after the General Election

I am so unshocked by the news that:

'Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s former spin doctor, discloses in a new book that his boss questioned whether Mr Brown “had it in him” to become Labour leader and believed that Mr Brown preferred “wanting” the role to actually doing it.

Mr Brown, in turn, accused Mr Blair of “breaking his promise” not to stand against him in the Labour leadership election that followed John Smith’s death in 1994, and “could not get over” what he regarded as a betrayal.

The result was a simmering resentment that exploded into foul-mouthed shouting matches which left both men with “purple faces”, says Mr Campbell. He portrays Mr Brown as a brooding presence who would go “absolutely berserk” if he did not get what he wanted and told colleagues that Mr Blair “could not be trusted at all”. '

Maybe someone could find all those articles from the 2000s telling us how Tony and Gordon were close friends and were really friendly and ask them why they deliberately mislead the British electorate.


The other, more relevant, story told by Alastair Campbell concerns Ed Balls, apparently:

'Ed Balls, the current Labour leadership candidate, is described as an “irritating and rude” man who “drivelled on endlessly” and was not regarded as a “grown-up” by Mr Blair.

...

Mr Campbell dismisses Mr Balls’s “awful” strategy papers, adding that he spoke “drivel” in meetings.'

Ed Balls - 'irritating and rude' spoke 'drivel' and not considered a 'grown-up'. Sounds accurate and explains why he is the perfect man to lead the Labour party.

Alastair Campbell's revised diaries

DON'T GIVE THIS MAN YOUR MONEY!

Now I've got that out of the way, let's have a think. Alastair Campbell publishes his diaries before the elction which he admits leave out revelations that might be embarrassing to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Now the election is over he is planning on publishing his diaries in full from next month... in four separate volumes. Why would anyone think that what is in this series of books is anymore 'the full story' or 'the truth' than the last book? Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy and was responsible for ordering the alteration of the 'September Dossier' to be consistent with a speech given by George W. Bush and statements by US officials. Remember that on 9 September 2002 it was Alastair Campbell who sent a memo to John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, directing that the British dossier be "one that complements rather than conflicts with" the U.S. claims.

I have no time for this man; he, Peter Madelson, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (along with others) have ruined the fabric of this country and in an ideal world would all stand trial for their crimes. Failing that I wish they would also just disappear so I never have to hear or see them ever again.

BBC Radio 4 Today programme under a Conservative/Lib Dem government and more

Quite amusing to listen to as the Today programme tried to be unbiased but just could not. So many examples but one that I found most endearing was that the programme reported that the markets were down a bit despite the election of a Conservative lead government, the trouble was that by 08:45 the markets were up a bit and 'the narrative' was already was out of date.

Last night some Labour bigwig was stating clearly that Gordon Brown would continue as an MP, as public service was so important to him. This morning it slips out that he is in fact to resign as an MP. Public service, pah; Gordon Brown wanted power, he craved power, he needed power. As soon as he lost power he's off to ruin some other organisation or people's lives. Gordon Brown has changed his mind so many times over the last few days but still the BBC praise his consistency.

Then there was Neil Kinnock on the Today programme allowed to make ridiculous claims about Gordon Brown's abilities and achievements with not even a hint of a quibble form the presenters. You can bet your life that if a Conservative had praised Margaret Thatcher in 1990 the BBC presenter would have been straight back with the criticisms 'for the sake of balance'. Incidentally did I hear something correctly? Did a phone ring during Neil Kinnock's interview and he immediately say "It wasn't me" and then when it rang again in the latter segment and the interviewer say that was your phone, Kinnock say "Well it wasn't me, it was my phone". If correct that sums up Labour politicians, lying is instinctive to them and when found out they just resort to questioning the definitions; well it worked for Bill Clinton in the US and for Tony Blair for years over here, and don't get me started on Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell.

Iain Dale's feelings about some of Labour's leaders seems to match mine

'The best thing about today is that is means that we finally get to see the back of Mandelson and Campbell. Yesterday they attempted to launch a pseudo-coup. Thank God it failed. Labour people were too sensible to be dragged along with it and credit is due to John Reid, David Blunkett and others for pointing out that it couldn't work.

Mandelson and Campbell are both very talented people. But they have presided over a culture of conducting politics in a very underhand manner. I may be naive but I hope things will be very different under the new government.'

Peter Mandelson's malign influence on British politics & public life and the power he seemed to exert over the British media, especially the BBC, has been a source of great distress to me for years. I hope that he will now disappear but somehow I think that he will be around and pissing me off for some years yet; presumably he is already cooking up a scheme to get his man installed as leader of the Labour party and devising schemes to win the next general election. I will not make public my thoughts about Alastair Campbell as I do not like to swear on this blog and swearing would certainly be necessary.

Democracy? "... I will take no questions this evening.."

Those were Gordon Brown's words after he announced that he would be standing down as Labour leader and Prime Minister. Doesn't that sum up Gordon Brown's attitude to democracy? His Labour party are roundly defeated in a general election and yet rather than accept defeat he and, as Adam Boulton describes "a cabal", in Number 10 are deciding the future of the UK without reference to their political party or even the cabinet. Sky's Adam Boulton declares that:

'"There is a cabal in Number 10, basically playing politics with the country's future.

"There's been no open consultation about this measure.

"We haven't seen the Cabinet meet, we haven't seen the Parliamentary Labour Party be recalled to a meeting - in fact, no Labour party meeting is scheduled until Tuesday," he continued.'

This looks increasingly like a Labour/Lib Dem done-deal; respect for democracy comes a pretty poor second to lust for power amongst the current occupants of Number 10 - Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell.


Here's the video of Gordon Brown's announcement, Adam Boulton's much watch confrontation with Alastair Campbell follows it...


Here's the Adam Boulton/Alastair Campbell 'interview'...

The thought that Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown are going to keep their hands on power in this country revolts me. If they think the people will accept this coup they are wrong: rev up the Audi and pass me a mask.







Here's Alastair Campbell being interviewed by Adam Boulton on election night and may help to explain some of the animosity between these two figures, although most of it is because Alastair Campbell prefers the media to be somewhat more compliant to his every whim, like the BBC - Iraq invasion excepted...