George Galloway making friends as usual on The Daily Politics

"You're not my judge, you're not fit to be my judge. "

Adding George Galloway to part of the LEAVE campaign was a huge error. If it was a cynical calculation that his personal vote would outweigh those who rightly detest this man, then it was a moral mistake.

Ed Balls and The Daily Politics

Today's Daily Politics reprises the video that I showed this morning and then interviews Liam Byrne who follows the party line quite impressively under some reasonably stiff questioning from Jo Coburn although I do wonder how any of these Labour people manage to keep a straight face when they praise Gordon Brown's premiership and Ed Balls' performance as Shadow Chancellor. There then follows a discussion with The Spectator's James Forsyth and The Independent's Steve Richards. 14 minutes and 22 seconds worth watching.

The video will be available until 12:29PM Fri, 17 Jun 2011.

Phil Woolas 'explains'

Today's Daily Politics programme has Phil Woolas explaining to Andrew Neil that 98.5 per cent of the 1.67m new jobs for those of working age created since 1997 have not gone to foreign workers. I am confused...

More interesting is the second set of figures on foreign born workers in the private sector.

Nice try by Phil Woolas to try and make out that those making these claims are in some way racist. Just look at Kevin Maguire's face as he tries to not get involved in any way.

Let's all move to Doncaster, or not...

Doncaster have elected a former religious education teacher as Mayor, his platform is interesting to say the least. Cutting the mayor's salary from £62,000 to £30,000, cutting the number of Doncaster councillors from 63 to 21, bringing in harsher punishment for "young thugs"; introducing zero-tolerance for anti-social behaviour; stopping translation services for immigrants; and scrapping "politically correct non-jobs and encouraging the former employees to seek meaningful employment". Also Mr Davies also pledged to lower the council tax by "cutting extortionate levels of bureaucracy" and to hold a referendum on the mayoral governance of Doncaster. I believe I also heard that he would scrap Council support for Gay, Lesbian and Transgender month.

All sounds quite sensible so when I When I heard people describing the party as closet racists and Little Englanders I immediately smelt a rat so did a little digging. Here is their manifesto and constitution. What do you think?

Who should I vote for at the EU elections?

Apparently I should vote for UKIP, but I won't be.

BBC news priorities

Yesterday the blogosphere and much of the UK press (and indeed the US media) started to run the video of Daniel Hannan MEP telling Gordon Brown some home truths. The BBC decided not cover this story then and even today are only mentioning it in passing. Can anyone doubt that if this had been a UK MEP speaking out against Margaret Thatcher or John Major (in the past, or David Cameron in the future) it would have been on heavy TV and radio rotation and prominently displayed on the website?

The BBC instead prefer to concentrate on stories such as this about an Essex Conservative council leader who has quit his party and joined Labour. This article gives the BBC the opportunity to repeat the claim that "I cannot justify David Cameron's decision to make his number one priority in a recession a tax cut, which would give hundreds of thousands of pounds to millionaires".

The BBC decided to cover the Daniel Hannan story only by mentioning it on The Daily Politics and spinning it as being of minor interest to all except obsessives.

Can we now say that the BBC is actively campaigning for a Labour general election victory?



Here's Daniel Hannan's speech and do watch out for Gordon Brown's imbecilic smile at 2:55

Derek Draper promises a lot but can't deliver

On the Daily Politics Derek Draper says that Daniel Hannan's speech was wrong and that if we go to Labour List we can see line by line why it was wrong. So I held my nose and visited Labour List whose design seems a bit better than on my last visit and found article by Sunder Katwala on the Daniel Hannan speech. Unsurprisingly there was not a line by line refutation of Daniel Hannan's speech, how could there be when it was true; instead there was repetition of comments made by Daniel Hannan in the past and insults aimed at the right in the UK and the USA.

So Derek Draper's website prints an ad hominem attack on Daniel Hannan rather than the promised line by line refutation of Daniel Hannan's speech. As is so often the case, Derek Draper promises a lot but fails to deliver.

Why cancel PMQs (update)

Yesterday I blogged that:

"The death of a child is a tragedy for the family concerned but we are talking about the government of the country and holding the government to account. The Diana-effect has taken too much of a hold on the UK, In a time of economic crisis, you shouldn't stop the normal political affairs of the whole country because one involved individual has suffered a tragedy. What next, a national day of mourning when Jade Goody dies?"

Today I see that Matthew Parris agrees:

"I did not care for the House of Commons's impromptu memorial ceremony yesterday, which may now become a precedent for whenever a party leader suffers a close personal loss. The House is there to look outward to the nation as a whole, not inward. Parliament marks the deaths in action of British servicemen in Afghanistan with a simple one-line acknowledgement, and should do no more for sadnesses closer to home. I know many Members who have faced awful tragedies in their families and who have not asked (as I'm sure David Cameron did not ask) for this to be discussed in the Chamber. The case for full-blown statements from William Hague, the Prime Minister, Vince Cable and the Speaker was not evident to me; a single sentence from each would have been enough. And there was no case at all for suspending Prime Minister's Questions."

National debt

The proportion of UK external debt to GDP in the UK is over 400%, it was 197% in 1997.

Any comments Gordon Brown?

Margaret Becket on the Daily Politics didn't seem to want to answer the point, take a look here, from around 5:15.