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Thanks to Tim and Clive we now have an online and searchable version of the 2005 Labour Party Campaign return.

Want to know how much Alastair Campbell got paid for two months’ work? Or how much a Party Political Broadcast would set you back? Then get over there – all kinds of interesting nuggets to be discovered.

Tim Ireland’s unearths New Labour’s:

Fast forward 5 years, to the run up to the 2005 General Election, and things weren’t looking quite so rosy. More than £30 million had been siphoned out of the company by the Phoenix Four in a situation that the Financial Times described as “capitalism at its ugliest… a spineless government taken for a ride by entrepreneurs who succeeded only in enriching themselves.”

Meanwhile New Labour, in panic and desperation made public pronouncements of support for the MG Rover employees, going so far as to slip the company a £6.5m pre-election bung.

However, it seems that their concern for the thousands of soon-to-be-jobless MG Rover workers was less than superficial.

The following would appear to suggest that New Labour paid Experian Intact to cleanse election canvassing data of any MG Rover employees.

You have to admire the dark misanthropy behind it. That the idea even occured to some New Labour myrmidon, that the idea was approved and then acted on. That New Labour didn’t want to hear about the hardship of the MG Rover employees to the point it was worth spending money making them disappear. Why aren’t these people ruling the world?

Update: Of course, as had been pointed out, this might just mean that New Labour were trying to ensure all the details were correct. Now it comes to it, I do seem to remember a spate of stories about puppies and champagne being delivered to MG Rover employees from New Labour head office.

So now we have the final proof. New Labour is the greatest political party in history. Not content with three historic election victories, bringing democracy to the Middle East and the elevation of a priapic blind man to one of the great offices of state, New Labour can create worlds of their own imagining from the raw firmament.

Last night’s Dispatches showed that the party is adept at creating what Sky News’ Political Editor, Adam Boulton, called “false reality”. It’ll come as no surprise to most I imagine, but New Labour, while not being the only ones at it, seem to have raised it to a sinisterly well-oiled art form.

Dispatches’ undercover reporter filled seats at sparsely attended press conferences to make up the numbers for the TV cameras. She posed as an ordinary joe with other Labour Party workers at press events and poster launches including the unveiling of the notorious (ie, untrue) WARNING poster about “£35bn” of Tory “cuts”.

Propaganda techniques used by US pharmaceutical companies and political parties were imported. Letters were written by the press office bigging up New Labour or attacking the opposition parties and then sent to local activists who were asked to get them into the local press. Several identical letters appeared in local newspapers across the country. One letter appeared in one newspaper twice. In Leeds letters were printed in a newspaper from a woman who doesn’t exist. All because New Labour deemed that readers “trusted” the letters page – the views of “real people” – in a newspaper more than any other part. Trust was just another commodity to be exploited and abused.

Fake demos were organised to follow the leaders of the opposition parties to disrupt walkabouts and rallies. At the Tory’s spring conference in Brighton New Labour activists organised what was meant to look like a “spontaneous” protest by members of the public outside the conference. The “homemade” banners made no mention of Labour affiliations. Standing front and centre in the crowd was the then New Labour candidate, and now MP, for Hove, Celia Barlow. Some readers will remember my own encounter with Barlow during the campaign and her fuzzy grasp of certain facts. It would seem she has much in common with Tory story-teller, Anne Milton. I’m sure the local party regarded it all as a bit of lark, but why not have the balls to use New Labour banners? Because some Nixonian dirty trick coupled with a rag week stunt was more sexy?

Throughout the New Labour campaign, the national media was bypassed almost completely with only the TV cameras and local press invited to events. After Blair was ambushed by ITV’s Nick Robinson at the “£35bn cuts” launch, New Labour were careful not to let it happen again and at the next event, once the cameras had got the pictures for the nightly news, party workers were coralled in front of reporters to prevent them getting to Blair. He shook hands with “endorsers” – people billed as “ordinary voters and cross section of the local community” but in reality carefully chosen (black, Jewish, pensioners, families) to present the right image. These endorsers were endlessly recycled at different events.

Adam Boulton spoke of a “synthetic event” and a “sterile environment” for Blair. The Spectator’s Peter Oborne talked of a “pseudo-event for television” and said “the Prime Minister was placed in a bubble and hidden from the electorate”. Nick Robinson wondered if Blair had met a single real member of the electorate during the campaign, isolated as he was, from a potential Sharon Storer. I remember one woman refusing to shake Blair’s hand because he was a “murderer”. I bet there was a top-level meeting to stop that happening again. We all remember his sweaty combat in the bearpit of Question Time but that was part of his widely-publicised “masochism strategy” to win over voters who might feel sorry for him. When I was younger we called similar tactics when talking to girls as trying to get a “sympathy shag”.

I wonder if Blair or Brown realised they were meeting “voters” they’d met at other events, some of which were party workers. Did they know they were making small talk with people who had been handpicked because they were telegenic or fitted an ethnic demographic? Would they care? Boulton was generous and described Blair as “above it”. But he was only one level removed, with Alastair Campbell and Alan Milburn “high-fiving” (as the Dispatches undercover reporter witnessed) in the press office.

So where is the culture of respect? It’s clear (again) that New Labour hold the electorate in contempt. They are a variable that the Prime Minister should be insulated from at all cost, too frightened or unable to have a real conversation with them. Respect is a virtue expected from disaffected youth and the disenfranchised poor, not for the lofty likes of the Prime Minister and his handlers. The New Labour campaign created a “false reality”. False letters were place in newpapers. False demonstrations were held. Party workers were falsely portrayed as real voters. These were falsehoods. New Labour lied to the electorate in order to try and win their votes.

By now, you’re probably thinking “oh boo hoo, politicians lie, get over it”. But why should we? A shrug of the shoulders and a turn of the page to the story about drunken soap stars is what’s expected of us. Why should we settle for that? Blair is an elected official. A public servant. He seems forget that between elections and we seem to be increasingly willing to let him.

It’s not just about election campaigns either. Charles Clarke’s been caught out this week for creating his universe as he goes along when talking about boiler-suiting offenders. In short, he completely fabricated a pilot programme of youths wearing uniforms doing community service which is to be rolled out across the country. They weren’t youths. They weren’t wearing uniforms. The programme isn’t being rolled out across the country.

He’s the Home Secretary for Christ’s sake, not some bored factory worker on a Friday afternoon for who “fuck it, that’ll do” is a viable option. Reality – and therefore the truth – is subjective and under the likes of Clarke getting more so all the time. British politics is so thick with alternate realities it’s starting to resemble a Philip K. Dick brainfuck. At this rate, the only way you’ll be able to tell if New Labour are being on the level is by doing the I-Ching.

It goes to the heart of everything. When they next say X thousand children have been lifted out of poverty, you’ll have to tour the country and count them all yourself to be sure. More police on the streets? Not until every single one of them has knocked on my door and said, “hello, hello, hello, what’s all this then”, will I believe it. Your family better off? Only if you see Gordon Brown going door-to-door personally delivering bricks of gold.

This “culture of respect” horseshit we’ve been told to shovel down could end up as being as big an albatross around New Labour’s collective neck as “Back to Basics” was for the Tories in the 1990’s. It’s already getting difficult to supress the giggles. In 1993, John Major announced:

It is time to get back to basics: to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family, and not shuffling it off on the state.

Notice the “R” word. No sooner had he uttered these words than the Tory party were revealed as a bunch of blaggers, shaggers and carpetbaggers.

New Labour says it wants to restore respect when its upper echelons are manifestly incapable of showing such a quality themselves. The electorate are cattle to be coralled, controlled and kept at arms length.

Quite clearly we’re expected to believe the public is something to be feared. By Blair, in case they ask him a tricky question whose answer isn’t on his idiot board. By us, because they are a darkly amorphous mass harbouring blank-eyed killers prepared to shank us for shits ‘n’ giggles.

Intelligent robots wouldn’t have to connect us all to a computer-generated fantasy in order to suck our energy – the real world is fantastic enough under New Labour (and I don’t mean in a good way). If it turns out that Tony Blair is really a hologram or was grown in a laboratory vat fifteen years ago by the Bilderberg Group, most of us will say, “I bloody knew it”, before returning to our soaps, incessant rutting and drinking like vikings.

(Also published at The Sharpener)

Nothing very interesting happening in the real world, so I’ve been hanging out with the spread firms and betting exchanges. Following the money is likely to be more accurate than believing some bloke working for a state broadcaster standing outside the polling station with a clipboard.

The differences between the spreads and the exit polls are interesting. Not much different in the Labour majority. But the Lib Dems seem to be trading about 10 seats above their 53 predicted by the BBC. They are currently buying on IG around 65; Cantor around 68. Both predict 250-ish for Labour and 205 for the Tories. A spinnable night for them all, then. But as you were for the third term.

UPDATE: Spreads again. There’s plenty of action on the seats front, but the vote shares have hardly shifted all night. The spreads: Labour 34-36; Conservative 33-35; Liberal Democrats 22-26. Some of our foreign readers may be wondering how that translates into a sizeable governing majority for one party. Some of our domestic visitors, too, I can tell you.

UPDATE @ 02:40: The scores on the doors so far:

LAB 224
CON 39
LD 23

UPDATE 2.55 a.m.: After being down in the mid 40s about an hour ago, Cantor are now saying the Labour majority will be 68-70, in line with BBC predictions.

(Posted by Election Night guest pundit Jarndyce.)

Labour Majority: 66

Tories: 209 seats
Lib Dems: 53

Wow. Now that is exciting. Can Blair stay having had that kind of kicking?

Sound off in the comments – any predictions? Give a spread if you like.

I still think it’ll be 85-95 majority for Labour.

But, if the exit poll holds it means the opinion polls have overestimated the Labour vote again. It also says that Labour will lose the popular vote.

There are rumours doing the rounds (via BBC) that Blair’s agent is being “cagey” about the turnout in Sedgefield. Blimey.

UPDATE: Liam Fox (of all people) on the BBC made a good point – in 1992 the exit polls said a win for Kinnock.

The knifes and brickbats were out pretty sharpish for Brian Sedgemore yesterday once he’d announced his defection to the Liberal Democrats.

Now, I don’t have a lot of time for the optimally-timed political defection. If you’re defecting on so-called honourable points of principle, why add insult to injury? It just cheapens what you’re trying to do. Sedgemore took the opportunity to additionally shaft the party that had been his home for decades.

But it was the nature of the attacks from New Labour, its apologists and some journalists that interested me most.

Michael White in the Guardian described Sedgemore as “one of politics’ loners” and said “neither mateyness nor ingratiation were his style and he lacked the reliable brilliance which might have compensated.”

Oliver Kamm, rabbit punching him on the way out, said “Sedgemore is, in short, a man of neither ability nor attainment who held a safe Labour seat for 22 years”.

Blair dismissed him to the voters as “someone they have never heard of”. John Prescott apparently said, “Whoever heard of Brian before?”

Sedgemore’s constituents in “his safe Labour seat” had certainly heard of him. Maybe it was safe for a reason. I got an email from William who said:

Actually he was my MP for six years… and a very good constituency MP, if a bit eccentric sometimes.

But to Tony and John backbenchers are a bunch of people no-one’s heard of.

As many of the 97 intake are unlikely to become as well known as Brian Sedgemore was, do you think they might be a little pissed off at their role being so completely dismissed?

He was a responsive constituency MP who did that part of the job well.

So there you go – 22 years of looking after constituents. Granted, he didn’t reach the glamorous, heady heights of bombing women and children or privatising public services, but somebody remembers this man of “of neither ability nor attainment” with a degree of fondness and hasn’t dismissed 22 years of service with a “who?”.

Now, it might be considered churlish and ungrateful – not to mention self-indulgent – to dissect what Mark Lawson had to say about political blogs in Saturday’s Guardian considering I got a big fat link and a nice buzz out of it. But I figured I’m allowed a right of reply and, that said, a link in the Guardian doesn’t confer an explosion in traffic that one might expect. Plus it’s unlikely Lawson’s going to be back this way again now he’s met his deadline.

Despite what others have said, with a number very sweetly rallying to my defence (you know who you are, thank you), I don’t think I came out of the piece too badly. And at least I avoided the epithet “pooterish” which I thought might be heading my way when I read the headline. The culture of blogging on the other hand took a (half-hearted) kicking.

The sad thing is, I’m otherwise a huge fan of Lawson and his writing. I hope this isn’t how he produces his other stuff. Knowing the facts behind this story, you have to wonder.

It’s obvious that Lawson found the Election Roundup Blog I contribute to (hence the “spittle-flecked hellholes” reference), burrowed down just one level of links (to the contributors’ own sites), and I was fortunate to have the crack about Paxman near the top of my site which made good copy.

Pretty much all else that needs to be said about the article has already been said, here, here, here, here and here.

Nosemonkey, on the article, said:

Perhaps it’s time for those of us bloggers who are actually professional writers in the real world to start up some kind of club to try and avoid being patronised by “proper” journalists… (Note to the traditional media – blogs are often first drafts, written in a rush and have not had the benefit of a sub-editor, proofreader or editor. They also may not always be representative of the blogger’s usual standard of writing.)

I’d go further and say that there are also a bunch of bloggers out there – both left and right – that aren’t professional writers – or at least journalists in the sense Lawson understands it – who put many a mainstream media figure to shame with their insight and skill with words.

This will sound like arse-kissing but there isn’t a single person on my favourites list (down on the right of this page) who I don’t think is a great writer and, in an ideal world, would be doing the likes of Lawson’s job.

He gets paid to do what us bloggers do for little more than a delight in the use of language and ideas, an exchange of those ideas with kindred and not-so-kindred spirits, and another few hits on the visitor counter.

He’s done us a disservice with his article. By “us” I (genuinely) mean the right-wing bloggers he blind-sided and the blogs of my favour who I regard superior to mine and whose owners missed out on a rosey glow last Saturday when Lawson plumped for Chicken Yoghurt after only two clicks.

UPDATE: “Everyone knows that opinions are like arseholes – they get red and inflamed when subjected to stimulation.” More at Blood & Treasure.

To borrow a joke from Spike Milligan: As the zoo keeper said when the trussed-up gorilla arrived – it was bound to come.

It’s been said during the election campaign that the war in Iraq and the legality thereof has been the dog that wouldn’t bark. Or, if you’ll permit me, the cluster bomb that didn’t explode.

But yesterday the Attorney General’s advice on the legality, or otherwise, of the war was finally, inevitably leaked. Or at least I think it was leaked to the Mail on Sunday. The Government said of the story in the Mail: “There’s nothing new to this story“.

According to the leaked documents, the Attorney General had six caveats in his original advice:

· It was the UN’s job, not that of individual states, to decide if Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions;

· The use of UN resolution 1441 to justify war might be deficient because it did not include the phrase “all necessary” to enforce it;

· A second UN resolution was needed in 2003 to make the looming war legal;

· Earlier UN resolutions against Saddam could not easily be revived to justify the invasion;

· The UN weapons inspectors were still doing their work and had found no banned weapons;

· The US position on legality did not apply to Britain because Congress had voted President George Bush special war-making powers.

Which, if true, gives lie to the statements from Jack Straw that the Attorney General’s advice was “unequivocal“.

In an attempt to further muddy the waters, Straw turned up on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. It was a performance of cynical, mendacious obfuscation even for him. To the credit of John Humphrys, the interviewer, Straw didn’t get away with it this time.

Humphrys: It was the view of the Attorney General in that document on the 7th of March that it was the United Nations, – not Mr Blair, not the United Kingdom Government that should rule on resolution breaches – that was the view that he expressed.

Straw: I am not confirming the contents of what is alleged to have been…

H: Well, it makes this a very difficult conversation because you can put up any number of smokescreens, can’t you?

S: With great respect, I am not confirming what is alleged to have been in a leaked document. Everybody knows…

H: Are you denying it? Are you denying what’s in this document? I’m sorry, I’m not going to let you get away with that because if you are not denying it I and the listeners to this programme are entitled to assume it’s accurate, aren’t they?

S: No, they’re not entitled to assume it’s accurate either.

Straw can’t deny the veracity of the document leaked to the Mail for risk of being caught in a lie. But, according to him, in the absence of a denial, neither are we entitled to think that the document is accurate. It’s a familiar New Labour trick – just because Tony Blair won’t confirm that his youngest son has had the MMR vaccine, don’t think you’re entitled to believe he hasn’t had it. I think we can be pretty sure that the leak to the Mail is accurate.

It was a pretty inept performance from Straw or a very good one from Humphrys, I’m not quite sure. At one point Straw even told Humphrys to “keep his hair on”, to which Humphrys replied, “It’s a serious issue and I’m trying to be serious about it”. A chastised Straw agreed: “It’s very, very serious issue, alright?”.

In his last question to Straw, Humphrys raised something that came out of Tony Blair’s interview with Jeremy Paxman last week which Guido Fawkes picked up on:

Humphrys: Tony Blair said last week, “I don’t believe we had any option but to disclose the name of Dr David Kelly”. That is what he said last week to Jeremy Paxman. On the 22nd of July 2003 he said, “I did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly”. Can you reconcile those two statements?

Straw: Yes I can, because in one case he uses the first person singular and in the other case he uses first person…

H: Ah. Oh, right. So when he says “I” he doesn’t speak for the Government then, there is no collective Government responsibility is there?

There you have it: Jack Straw thinks you’re a jerk. It’s got to be one of the most weaselly, cowardly answers to a question since Bill Clinton said, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. If the Government are going to face more of these questions this week, they’d do well to send Straw back to his constituency. (Listen to the Straw interview here. RealPlayer required.)

But this is how they get away with it. By hair-splitting and weasel words are the deaths of thousands wiped from the slate. It seems to be the Labour line to take that by obfuscating, over-complicating and playing fast and loose with the facts of the matter – in order that the public, craving its football and its tits, will find all this boring – it will all go away.

Blair, still misrepresenting the French position over a second UN resolution, said this morning:

At the time, unable to get the second resolution, unable to get any resolution with an ultimatum that was going to force Saddam to comply, I took the view it was better to remove him.

But wasn’t Saddam already complying? Weren’t weapons inspectors inside Iraq at the time, destroying those few missiles left? Blair gave further clues to explain his actions in an interview in the Independent last week:

What I object to is people trying to frame the decision in terms of my integrity rather than in terms of the fact that I was faced with the situation where there were 250,000 troops down there. Saddam wasn’t fully co-operating with the UN inspectors, he remained in breach of the UN resolutions and yet I couldn’t get a second UN resolution with an ultimatum.

That’s 250,000 troops on a timetable with a scorching desert summer on the way. Notice the “fully” in “Saddam wasn’t fully co-operating” – that’s called nuancing. Weapons inspectors were in the country but Saddam wasn’t fully co-operating. Blair couldn’t get a second UN resolution with an ultimatum (again, read: Bloody Chirac).

And yet again, we have it rammed down out throats that the world is a better place without Saddam. YES WE KNOW. We’re told in that smug manner that if it was down to us Saddam would still be in power.

“I took the view it was better to remove him,” says Blair. What did he mean then, when he said this on March 2 2003?

If military action proves necessary, it will be to uphold the authority of the UN and to ensure Saddam is disarmed of his weapons of mass destruction, not to overthrow him. It is why, detestable as I find his regime, he could stay in power if he disarms peacefully.

It all boils down to this. Before he had his arm twisted by successive US administrations, Blair couldn’t give a toss about Iraq or its people. Or Straw, or Hoon and the rest of the happy wanderers. This is from a column by Mark Thomas in the New Statesman, December 2002:

The first early day motion (these are political statements which MPs can sign up to and support) condemning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons was issued on 24 March 1988. Did Straw support it? No. Neither did he support the first early day motion to mention Halabja by name, issued four days later on 28 March 1988. Nor did he put his name to the condemnations on the first, sixth and tenth anniversaries of the attack in March 1989, 1994 or 1998. Strangely, neither did Blair, Prescott, Blunkett, Cook or Hoon add their names to any of these condemnations of Iraq’s most notorious attack. Maybe they just all forgot their pens on those days.

“Perhaps they all decided to speak out against Iraq in the adjournment debate of 1988?” I hear you ask. No, not one of them.

Even when Straw was hardman Home Secretary, he certainly wasn’t much exercised by human rights abuses in Iraq, as Thomas explains:

The comedian and writer Jeremy Hardy was sent a copy of a Home Office letter refusing asylum to an Iraqi refugee in January 2001.

Although the individual seeking asylum had been detained and tortured, the Home Office letter read as follows: “The Secretary of State [then jack Straw] has at his disposal a wide range of information on Iraq which he has used to consider your claims. He is aware that Iraq, and in particular the Iraqi security forces, would only convict and sentence a person in the courts with the provision of proper jurisdiction. He is satisfied, however, that if there are any charges outstanding against you and if they were to be proceeded with on your return, you could expect to receive a fair trial under an independent and properly constituted judiciary”

None of them gave what was going on inside Iraq a second thought until it was politically expedient to do so. You’ll forgive me if I forego lessons in morality from such people. Blair wanted disarmament, yes, who didn’t? But he said Saddam could stay if he disarmed. So much for the moral case for war.

It’s not just the death and the suffering I can’t get past. It’s the (lesser) reason of the utter, bare-teethed contempt in which the public – not just those of us who were against the war – are held by these people. The ever-shifting reasons for war. The square-jawed “I believe it was right” homilies but the moral cowardice in being unwilling to stand up for those convictions by giving a straight answer or being open with the facts.

By now you’re maybe thinking, let it go, there’s more important things to worry about. But even if you’ve got what it takes to put the piles of bodies to the back of your mind, Iraq as an issue lies at the stinking heart of what remains of the British body politic. I’ve had more than one person laugh at me in the last few weeks because I was disappointed that a candidate canvassing for my vote on my doorstep had not been – shall we say – clear on the facts on a number of issues. “All politicians lie,” they said, “why are you surprised?” That all politicians lie is the perceived wisdom, but to fail to, to cease to , rail against that? Where does that leave us? We’ve seen politics with impunity at its rawest in the last couple of years – what does it say about us if we just switch the channel to check the lottery results?

Hold your nose and vote Labour, I’m told. But if I can’t make my feelings felt at the ballot box – a thin retribution, I’ll grant you – then where? Think of the good done – the minimum wages, the new deals and other sops to middle class consciences, they plead. But who answers for the dead and the maimed? No political party mentioned the human cost of the war today. Dead wogs butter no parsnips it would seem. But think of the new Iraq, I’m implored.

If New Labour is so proud of toppling Saddam’s regime, why isn’t it on their top 50 achievements? If we’re the good guys and the war was conducted for honourable reasons, why can’t we pay the Iraqi people the respect of counting their dead? Aren’t our leaders supposed to hold to higher moral standards than Saddam Hussein? Isn’t that why they said they had the right to do this – that Saddam’s regime was the dragon that needed to be slayed?

Why do such brave men hide behind “precedent”, and nuancing, and “I believe it was the right thing to do”. Release the legal advice. Honour the dead.

But they’re caught in the trap. Saddam Hussein may have killed less people than Stalin but that doesn’t make him the better man.

Vote Labour.

If, like me, you spent the weekend in the park with a big bottle of cider, then the Election Blog Roundups for Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be just what you need. Also, they’re just the ticket if you need to knock out a quick piece about blogging for a newspaper with half an hour to go before deadline. More about that later.

The mighty Tim Worstall’s latest weekly blog roundup is also out.

The today’s super-concentrated burst of election nourishment is up at the 2005 UK General Election Blog.

It seems a number of people are getting hot under the collar about the fact that, as they are fielding the requisite number of candidates, the BNP qualify for their own election broadcast.

Now it seems to me the BBC and the other networks could circumvent this anxiety with some clever scheduling:

“…that was an election broadcast on behalf of the British National Party. And now on BBC1, Schindler’s List.”

Problem solved.

PS. If you’re a member of the BNP and I’ve offended you, have a present by way of recompense.

I once wanted to know what the average rainfall in Mogadishu is. So I screamed at my four year-old daughter 18 times to tell me, until we were both crying. And you know something, after all that she still couldn’t tell me what the answer was. The slippery little get.

Let’s face it, “The Paxman Interviews” are pretty redundant exercises. The only thing that seems to have come out of them so far is that our leaders don’t have total recall or every scrap of information on the tip of the tongue.

It was always going to be unlikely that Paxman would get any real gravy out of any of them. As if Blair was going to suddenly put his face in his hands and wail: “You’re right! All those women and children and for what? A lie!” Instead, particularly from Blair, we got all the well-rehearsed lines on Iraq, Brown, etc, that he now can probably murmur backwards in his sleep.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the Independent’s Steve Richards getting the same slick platitudes as he wearily rakes over the same old coals once more. Iraq? “The only thing I would ask people to do is understand that it was a very difficult decision.” Brown? “It is important that the two of us work together and closely.” Everything present and correct.

At least with Blair, Paxman spared us the histrionics and tried softly, softly instead. Didn’t get him anywhere though and he (and we) wasted everybody’s time thinking he might.

My partner got a letter in the post from Charles Clarke yesterday. I felt a bit left out. Do you think he might be making a play for her?

Personally? The bastard. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charliiiiiiiiiie, please don’t take her just because you can. With the silver-tongued stuff dispensed with he puts on the frighteners:

Does he thinks she’ll leap into his manly arms so he can protect her? But wait, it gets worse, Charles and my other half clearly have a history. In the next two paragraphs, he’s begging her to come back to him:

The romance isn’t dead, there’s so much more to be done. He wants to get down while raising his standard.

Charles is clearly desperate and distraught because in the next paragraph he repeats himself: Tories, bastards. Lib dems, can’t win. I’ll spare his blushes. But next he’s warning the Mrs off the Lib Dems again – I think he suspects she’s had a dalliance with them as well.

This Lib Dems are a bad bunch by the sounds of them. If she shacks up with them, my better half is going to end up running with a dangerous crew. She better watch out, “Ian Huntley and other killers” might stab her with their votes.

He signs off with his endearingly clumsy signature. Maybe he was hot and nervous like you are when you craft a letter to someone you really like.

Bless him. It’s obvious the crayon he used was too thin for his sausage fingers.

The enclosed leaflet is a no less desperate affair. It outlines “five important facts you should bear in mind” before voting Lib Dem.

1. The Lib Dems would allow 16 year olds to buy alcohol.
I don’t know about you, but I doubt there’s 16 year old alive right now who hasn’t bought alcohol. If not, they clearly aren’t the street-savvy metrosexual bunch I’ve read about in the colour supplements. Certainly, Euan Blair had no trouble getting hold of grog to celebrate the end of his GCSEs under a Labour government.

2. The Lib Dems would give the vote to jailed killers, rapists and paedophiles.
Can you kill someone with a vote? Or rape them with one? Do paedophiles hang around in parks waiting to subject children to the horror of the vote? This is clearly a pitch to the prison-as-punishment-not-rehabilitation dollar. That’s a big dollar.

3. The Lib Dems would end all jail sentences for drug possession.
Notice that’s users not dealers. Some drug users need help. Labour clearly believe prison is the best place for them. Oh sorry, am I misrepresenting a tad? It’s a shoddy tactic isn’t it?

4. The Lib Dems would hike up income tax for hard working families.
God forbid that someone should try to reform a regressive tax system. And this from a so-called social democratic party. Whose best mate, Rupert Murdoch, by the way, doesn’t pay a penny in tax in the UK.

5. A vote for the Lib Dems helps the Tories win.
Fuck off. Aren’t you as sick of saying that as I am of hearing it?

That’s a whole leaflet giving five reasons why we should not vote Lib Dem, but not one as to why we should vote New Labour.

On the back of the leaflet is a tick box saying “I will be voting Labour in the election on Thursday 5 May” and a freepost address to return the tick to. If I wrap the thing around a brick and send it back do they have to pay the extra postage?

UPDATE: Tone’s been making sexy chit chat with a priddy lady as well. (Cheers John)

Don’t forget kids, this exemplar is one Starbucks too many from being Prime Minister.

Mark Choueke: How did you and your cabinet colleagues react to Peter Law’s decision to quit the party after 35 years service to Blaenau Gwent as a Labour politician?

John Prescott: It didn’t even register with us. The voters just have one choice, vote Labour otherwise they’ll end up with a Tory government. It’s unfortunate that some of our decisions upset some people.

MC: But this isn’t about upsetting Peter Law, it’s about upsetting the many thousands of Labour voters in Blaenau Gwent who helped you form a strong government ­ they feel alienated.

JP: Why are you asking me about this, I don’t care, it’s a Welsh situation, I’m a national politician.

MC: Are you too big to care about the Labour voters in Blaenau Gwent? Do you think there may be something in your party’s methods of working that require a rethink when a politician chooses to stand against you after 35 years service to Labour?

JP (walking away): Where do they get these amateurs from? You’re an amateur mate, go get on your bus, go home.

MC: Are you too big for the regional press now John?

JP: Bugger off – get on your bus you amateur.

MC (Following Deputy Prime Minister): Is my interview over John? Because if that’s all you’ve got to say, that’s what will go in the paper.

JP (turns aggressively back to reporter): Ooohh, I’m scared, go ahead, put it in your paper.

Labour candidate for Monmouth Huw Edwards: I could answer this question for you Mark…

MC: I hoped to hear what the deputy prime minister had to say about it.

JP (now ignoring reporter): I’ve never seen a school in such a lovely setting.

MC: Is that my interview over?

The election blogging roundup for Wednesday is up. Get over there for your news in pill form.

As ever, if you have any juice you’d like included – from the left, right, up or down – email generalelection@gmail.com.

Forgot to mention this yesterday: The Election Blogging Roundup for Tuesday by yours truly is up.

If you’ve got anything you’d like included in today’s roundup email us at generalelection@gmail.com. Ta.

The Guardian: War pitches Straw into survival battle

‘Jack Straw!” chorus children in sing-song voices on the steep streets of Bank Top. One boy bounces a football. Another waves a frighteningly realistic toy handgun. Special Branch twitch. People pop out of their terraced homes. Flat cap in hand, the foreign secretary strides from doorstep to corner shop, greeting many voters by name and asking after their fathers.

Flat cap? Did he bring his whippet as well? I get back to Lancashire quite a bit – my family’s still there – and I don’t think I’ve seen anybody in a flat cap up there since about 1975. Maybe he’s doing a celebrity endorsement or something in an attempt to bring them back.

He’s great though Jack Straw, isn’t he? A comedy stalwart. Of course he’s a desperately cynical politician and complicit in the deaths of thousands, but he cuts such a prattish figure it’s not difficult to feel a twinge of sympathy for him.

His willingness to do anything to get the vote out is quite endearing, whether it be to ditch the spectacles and get a new haircut, describe himself as a “football enthusiast” or be photographed in his barefeet and turban on a visit to Gujarat (the Gujariti Muslims are a vital element of his core support back home, apparently). You just want to go, “aw, bless!”

Imagine what he might do should the fear really kick in.

“I have thought this through very carefully. I know that some people disagree with my view. They are perfectly entitled to their view. I am entitled to talk about it. All I want is an honest debate.“

I’ve mentioned it before but the photo above is of the Tory poster that was placed opposite the Hindu temple in Portslade in Hove. The poster’s just recently been pasted over with something else.

“I would like to say to Mr Howard that I am like his grandfather, a Jew who is a refugee in his country. But unlike Mr Howard who actually has got white skin, I have got dark skin and dark hair. And every time that Mr Howard talks about foreigners who are invading this country … life for me and people like me … – by the way I am naturalised British therefore I had to swear allegiance to this country and to the Queen – he is making life impossible for us because he is pandering to the xenophobic views of the readers of the Daily Mail or the hunting lobby or the shire county places where hardly any foreigners actually live.”

What you can’t see in the photo is that on the same side of the road where the photographer is standing, there’s also a convenience store owned by an Asian family. Every time they looked up from behind the cashdesk the poster was clearly visible.

Now, I’ve had it put to me by two or three people (not least by Nicholas Boles, the Tory candidate himself) that concerns over the immigration issue are shared by immigrants already settled here who feel their acceptance by the community is being threatened. To paraphrase the response I sent to an email I received off-site from someone who’d passed through here…

I don’t doubt they’re right – I’ve seen interviews with immigrants extolling limits on immigration. My reaction to the poster though was that particularly first generation immigrants are going to look at that poster and maybe think of the dark days of the 70s and an ascendant National Front. I’m a white male in my 30s and have never been shouted at in the street and told to go back to where I came from but there might be a few people attending the temple (or running the convenience store) who have.

There are clearly problems with the asylum system – witness the Bourgass debacle. But I refuse to believe that ugly juxtapositions like we’ve seen in Portslade go anywhere towards promoting “an honest debate”.

(Thanks to Rob for the photo)

There’s been something of a drop-off in campaigning in Hove. No more knocks on the door or leaflets through the letterbox. Both the Tories and Labour have seen a collapse in their poster numbers with only the Lib Dems boosting their tally with three posters. The Tories posters featuring candidate Nicholas Boles seem to have vanished like the early spring daffs. And the “rivers of blood” one has gone from opposite the Hindu temple.

Boles himself has made something of a berk of himself over a proposed housing development in Hove which his team have attempted to rubbish with the most hilarious pieces of photo doctoring I’ve seen in a while. It seems Nicholas is giving people different opinions about the development. Naughty, naughty. (Thanks to Hove Labour for the heads up – nothing if not balanced, me.)

BB at Hove Labour also pointed me in the direction of Political Betting’s odds on the Hove election – not a lot in it, as I think you’ll agree:

Despite some people’s attempts to keep the fires stoked, I wonder if the emotional blackmail/threats/insults/carrots argument about protest voting against New Labour has just about run out of steam on both sides.

Polly Toynbee tried it again last week on the Guardian’s election blog (thanks John for the link). The guys behind Backing Blair, in an accomodation not shown by the other side, have even gone as far as to adjust their core message.

I fear though, even with two weeks of campaigning still to run, that it’s game over. The polls are now starting to show us what the maths has been showing for weeks. Barring an outbreak of bird flu among its voters New Labour is going to be returned with a handsome majority if not another landslide. A desperate Howard might also yet take the nuclear option and give us a “rivers of blood” speech (he came very close last night) which will almost certainly lock down many floating and would-be protest voters for New Labour ensuring an even larger majority. He might yet succeed where the likes of Hain, Aaronovitch, Toynbee, et al, have so far failed – in galvanising pissed off Labour voters.

At this rate the only fun to be had on election night will be to see if any freak polls take down Howard, Davis or Letwin and if any of the semi-interesting independent candidates have any joy.

In his thoughtful treatise on tactical voting in the Guardian today. George Monbiot had me right up until the point where he said vote Respect.

George Galloway’s calls this week for Tariq Aziz to be released was just the latest reason not to vote for him and his party.

Did anybody manage to get to the end of Jeremy Paxman’s interview of Charles Kennedy last night? I confess I turned it off after about 15 minutes tempted, as I was, to stick my boot through the whole worthless spectacle.

There’s just one thing I can’t work out: was Paxman’s demeanour towards Kennedy a display of genuine unbridled, teeth-gritted, venomous contempt or a disingenuous camp pantomime? The sighing, the knitted brow and the pointing made me think he was about to rise from his chair and land one on his interviewee.

Either way, the interview was practically useless as a means of extracting information useful to the electorate and more an exercise in trying to make Kennedy look like a dickhead. It’ll be interesting to see if Paxman looks at Blair through the same narrowed eyes, as if he’s just seen someone vomiting in the street, when he interviews the PM tomorrow evening. I think we can expect Michael Howard to get the same treatment on Friday evening but Paxman’s has notorious form for pulling his punches when interviewing Blair.

Until recently there was no-one to beat the Newsnight hardman. His asking Michael Howard the same question 14 times a few years back is still a pearl in British television history. But he’s starting to veer worryingly close to caricature.

Ben Summerskill in the Guardian ponders this as well.

UPDATE: Eddie at Left Out Liberal has a detailed dissection of Kennedy’s evisceration.

The Nick Barlow provides the latest election blogging roundup.

I’m doing today’s, so if you have anything you’d like included email it to generalelection@gmail.com before 6pm.

Most people will already have seen this but the god-like Chris Lightfoot has put together the Political Survey 2005. The survey takes your political views and plots them on an axis which allows you to see where you sit politically in comparison with the rest of the population.

My results are here.