The Wardman Wire

Just imagine: You are Gordon Brown. You have spent £167 million on advertising, £29 million on PR and sponsorship and £12 million on “strategic consultancy”, totalling nearly £400m on spin in the past year.
What would you expect to be getting for it?
A positive personal rating? A poll boost? A donations rise?
Instead you get terrible poll [...]

I did a few pro-Mansfield buttons yesterday, and Tom Pegg from the Local Paper - the Chad - has demanded one of Richard Bacon, who is now a presenter on Radio 5.

Since I found a good Creative Commons photo of Richard Bacon on Flick-r (courtesy James Cridland), here you go, Tom:

The only fly in the ointment will be if he detests Mansfield. If so, we’ll set Alan Meale MP on him.

A 19th century electoral system for the 21st century. The damning statement of the Electoral Commission in their report (pdf). It also reveals that the “current fragmented arrangements for electoral administration” treats voters as an “afterthought”.
The Electoral Commission has identiified massive loopholds in the electoral system that could allow for fraud. Such as the ability [...]

Cartoon: Gaping Void

Heave-Ho Harry’s Place

Here we go again; another random party using our atrocious Libel Laws to close down criticism and debate. In this case it appears to be Sheffield Academic Jenna Delich, or her supporters, making legal noises to intimidate the iSP hosting the blog Harry’s Place.

Harry’s Place comments:

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.

 

This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.

They committed the unforgiveable sin of “publishing a fact”, which means that any Libel Case is down the toilet for a start - if my legal head is screwed-on correctly tonight. And any iSP should know that, but the law makes it easier to give in. If allegation is not correct (I think it looks fine), then they (and the rest of us) may be skewered.

Leftish imbroglios and nuances are not my strong suit - but closing down debate by running squealing to an iSP using Britain’s nonsensical Libel Laws is the best way to make yourself look ridiculous.

The actors in this case: Jenna Delich is an activist with a bee in her bonnet for the campaign for an Academic Boycott of Israel, and the UCU is one of the main Unions for staff in Higher Education.

No, it has nothing to do with the dead rising from the grave and eating brains convening a parliament. Rather, I presume that it is supposed to be a damning indictment of Cameron and the Conservative Party:

This zombie politics offers rich pickings to a clever opposition. While the party in power gets on with the [...]