How in the name of God’s holy trousers did such a delicate little flower such as Alan Duncan ever become an MP, and how does he survive the daily cut and thrust of parliamentary life? He must be constantly swooning with the vapours…

Barbara Tucker used a loudhailer to accuse Duncan of being a “murderer, terrorist, child murderer, bomber, disgusting, horrible and totally corrupt” as he left parliament one evening in February.

The MP was left “visibly shocked” as Tucker crossed the road to loudly call him a “war criminal” as he waited for a taxi.

I await any future pronouncements on freedom of speech from Mr Duncan with relish. Oh, hang on…

It is nothing to do with freedom of speech or the right to protest.

How’s that then? Or to put it another way: Yes, you bloody oiks, shut your traps and get on with paying Mr Duncan’s expenses. Know your place.

You can’t really blame him, I suppose. Nobody likes being reminded in their complicity in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children, do they? It would make me cross. People are always reminding me of the time I answered the door to a man in wheelchair while my knob was out and it does get a little trying after a while.

Then, without a trace of self-awareness, Duncan said the peace demonstration outside Parliament…

…has become a vulgar and pointless display which is utterly demeaning for the Westminster parliament.

Which means he obviously hasn’t watched Prime Minister’s Questions on the telly or, worse, listened to it on the radio where it sounds like a student rag week lark after too much cider.

Just how does Ms Tucker’s outburst differ from the abuse Duncan and all his chums heap on the Prime Minister each week? You know, the roaring and the braying, the ‘YEEEEAAHHH!’s and the ‘MMMMMEEEEERRRRRRR!’s and the ‘HEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW!’s whenever Brown tries to get in a word in edgeways.

I think Ms Tucker’s mistake was her reasonably articulate use of the English language. Mr Duncan must have been ‘visibly shocked’ by her level of debate. If only she’s used ‘parliamentary language’. If only she’d made gibbon noises at him.

Someone’s planning another assault on our civil liberties but where is the doughty David Davis For Freedom?

The A-Z of right-wing online commenting.

One of the planks of Boris Johnson’s manifiesto when he ran for London Mayor was that, if successful, he would be ‘giving the taxpayer value for money’.

So it’s completely consistent with that ethos that he’s spending 40 chuffing grand turning all the logos on the Greater London Assembly’s website blue.

I’d suggest that he get out there and get a second quote. When I’m avoiding work I like to rebrand Chicken Yoghurt. It takes a couple of hours if I’m really spinning it out.

I worry that Boris went to the meeting with his web designers and said ‘look here chaps, I know nothing about computers, so I’ll leave it to you, ok?’. The webmonkeys would have left the meeting high-fiving and making kerching! noises. There hasn’t been a quote for a job of work in human history that hasn’t been garnished in the face of a client who’s been far too honest as to their ignorance.

Now, I appreciate that the GLA website is a little larger than mine but the trick with templates and centrally-held graphics is that you make one change and it cascades through the rest of the website. Easy.

Forty grand? Boris, I’ll do it for five.

You’d be forgiven for think so after this news:

A planned inquiry into claims against former London deputy mayor Ray Lewis has been dropped by Boris Johnson.

And after Boris had been so staunch in his defence of Lewis only days ago. Isn’t he interested in clearing his friend’s name? You can imagine the collective screeching from the right-wing press and bloggers if this had been Ken Livingstone.

Demands for inquiries into anything from the Tories will sound a bit two-faced from now one, won’t they? A government in waiting? This kicking stuff into the long grass to avoid embarrassment heralds a Tory party ready to hit the ground running on day one with every cynical, shitty, contemptuous crypto-Blairite trick at its disposal. They’ve cracked it by the looks of it. All hail our new Tory overlords.

We’re told we want choice in everything from health care to schools provision. When do we get a real choice in our politics?

(Via Boris Watch)

Boris Johnson’s administration in London is being billed as a test bench and launch pad for a Tory government. How’s that working out? Take deputy mayor Ray Lewis’ rapidly unravelling cover story…

However, despite these claims, City Hall now admit that they did not place Ray Lewis under any vetting process themselves.

They also admit that the ‘enhanced’ checks, which are routinely carried out on people working with young people, were not undertaken by City Hall before offering Lewis the job.

You know, we’ve had 11 years of political expediency trumping process and competence. You would have hoped that someone in the Tory high command was taking notes and filing them in a big folder marked ‘Dickheadism to be avoided’.

Taking into account the almost odds on certainty of a Tory landslide at the next general election and the utter amateurism/contempt/chicanery* displayed in Lewis’ appointment, it looks like we could all be in trouble.

* Choose your favourite

Back when Boris Johnson was elected London Mayor, those of us expressing our dismay were accused by other left-wing bloggers of chucking our toys out of the pram.

So, I was wondering how it was all going for those non-toy chucking and content left-wingers in the light of what’s happened in the infancy of Johnson’s mayoralty. Any of you going to help me pick up my toys or maybe chuck a few of your own?

‘We need a proper national debate on these important matters… If you were serious about debating these important issues, you should have put up a candidate or at the very least allowed your ministers to debate publicly with me,’ wrote David Davis when challenging the Prime Minister to front up on the matter of civil liberties.

So how’s the Davis debate going? Here’s Shan Oakes, the Green Party’s candidate for Haltemprice and Howden:

I had previously been emailed by the Youth Assembly organiser to ask if I would attend an Assembly meeting to discuss the issues with David Davis. I had replied saying I would be delighted. I have attended several Assembly meetings - which are usually held in Beverley where I live. I had also requested David Davis to include us in meetings to debate the issues to which he had agreed.

We turned up at the school and were kept out. First we were refused entrance to the site, then, after great debate with the Head, we were allowed into a side room with the promise that we could meet the young people after the Tory meeting. Chris Abbott, the head teacher, was very helpful, but had little control over arrangements for the ‘private hire’ of a room in the school premises. We were horrified at the high degree of police presence and the fact that our promised discussion with the young people had been hijacked and turned into a one party PR event for the Tories with no opportunity for legitimate debate.

I tried to tackle the Dave Duo on this when they came out of the building (a friendly journalist had lent me a mike), but they had clearly been made aware of my intention and dived into their car (whilst a policeman held me back) as if they were in some sort of danger. Obviously even they realise they have a lot to hide. So much for civil liberties!

‘If you were serious about debating these important issues… yada yada yada.’ Smile for the camera, David(s).

And to think Davis used to be in the SAS. I’m beginning to think he broke his nose slipping on the soap in the shower. Or falling while running towards a TV camera.

His nickname in the Service was apparently ‘Double Tap‘. Probably something to do with how he opens his Terry’s Chocolate Oranges rather than some balls-out execution technique.

(via Liberal Conspiracy)

But rather than attempt to increase the take-up he has instead decided to scrap the scheme altogether. This means by the mayor’s own figures, that around 75,000 of the poorest Londoners will now have to pay double for their bus and tram fares.

read the rest

Apparently, if I’m reading David Davis correctly, you can derogate from Magna Carta for up to 21 days quite happily. Twenty-eight days is a seemingly tolerable ‘necessary evil’ even though it’s never been used properly. Twenty-nine days and upwards is a resigning issue.

Nope, I’m still none the wiser.

How’s that whole Tory mayor thing working out for you?

This by election is ‘about a fortnight‘.

(Via Unity)

So, then, this David Davis vs Kelvin MacKenzie/Miss Great Britain/John Smeaton/A.N. Other Tangential Diluter thing…

One has abhorrent views on homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty and spoke in favour of, and voted for, 28 days internment. One lives in Rupert Murdoch’s colon and has views too repellent and numerous to relate here. One is famous for punching a burning man. One is Miss Great Britain. One is running on a completely unrelated issue from 42 days internment.

Any way for them all to lose?

Whatever else comes out of David Davis’s by-election, you have to admit he’s managed to achieve that which has eluded men and women for thousands of years: in a mere five days he’s come to symbolise all things for everybody.

Everyone with a cause seems to find an affirmation (not to mention an opportunity) in Davis’s actions. He should get in quick and start a religion. With these powers of persuasion and commanding of attention he could be running the planet by the end of the month.

(In other news, Darth Vader has announced he does not see the need to detain rebel suspects for longer than 28 days. Vanity or mid-life crisis? X-Wingers agonise over whether to support the Lord of the Sith… blah… blah…)

I have to say I’m a bit non-plussed with David Davis’s resignation. Sure, it’s brilliant to finally see an MP give up his career on a point of principle and a very fine principle at that.

But the thought strikes me that he would very likely have been the Home Secretary within two years. In the intervening time he could have pushed his cause hard in the shadow cabinet and the wider party, and then dismantled all of New Labour’s half-cocked authoritarianism once he was in the big chair.

Now? Well, who knows? He’ll have to hope that some of his principles rub off on his successor(s). Can he now expect a big job in a Tory government?

And if Labour don’t field a candidate he risks looking a bit of a berk. In that event, would he get the debate he’s calling for? Or the all-important media coverage needed to broadcast that debate? You’d have to doubt it.

Update 13/6: A good spot by Matt T:

Did Davis support the 28 day extension?

…

Yes he did, and worse, he argued for it on the same grounds that Labour now argue for 42 days. This makes his whole position ludicrous in my view. I have no idea why 42 days destroys the Magna Carta, but 28 didn’t. It’s a stunt. The idea that David Davis wil protect your civil liberties is a fantasy. One might argue that’s he changed his mind, but to me the issue is this - we can talk about and once every 4/5 years have a 1/40m say about it, but he had a 1/600 odd say and chose an extension - worse he argued in favour of it.

Update updated: And then I read something like thing from gone-native New Labour megaphone Michael White, and I swing the other way:

Most politicians dislike the sort of behaviour Davis has displayed. It may please those voters who want their MP to stand up and be counted, but such unpredictability unsettles the trade.

The trade? I look at court gossips White or the BBC’s Nick Robinson and I wonder if they even remember why MPs are elected in the first place. They seem to think that Parliament exists solely as entertainment for the complacent time-rich middle-classes.

Update update updated: There’s more:

He has called for the return of the death penalty, backed section 28, and wants to scrap the Human Rights Act. What exactly is liberal about that? Magna Carta is all very well, but justice in this country depends on more modern protections, which do not all have his support.

No doubt the new mayor of London will employ every ounce of the patented Boris bluster when George Bush visits town this month.

As Beau Bo D’Or points out, he’s going to need it:

It’s admirable honesty from Johnson and he should be saluted for it. The thing is, it much harder to say things to people’s faces. Will Boris stand by his all-to-accurate precis of London’s guest?

(Don’t forget Operation Manticore.)

Mmmmmm. Is there a daintier dish than jerked right-wing knee? The Bishop of Stafford writes an article about climate change and rather unwisely uses Joseph Fritzl as an example of human selfishness. Watch the right-wingers hitch up their skirts and squeal like the housekeeper in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

It could be argued what the Bishop said took the argument to the acceptable limits of taste. So. without further ado, let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

Here’s Andrew Ian Dodge getting high and mighty. Is it only a year since Andrew was calling supporters of the EU ‘federasts’? You know I rather think it is.

Here’s poor widdle Wonko, he of measured and tasteful Labour = Nazis logo fame, parading his bruised sensibilities exhorting us to join his letter writing campaign of complaint.

Here’s the never knowingly out-outraged Iain Dale, past master of the mass murder and Dachau jokes, getting uppity.

Here’s Devil’s Kitchen momentarily setting aside his not-at-all-disproportionate ’socialists are evil/Nazis/cunts’ schtick to direct his Anglo-Saxon bludgeon at the Bishop. Poor Devil, whatever happened to ‘it is always fun being offensive to deeply unpleasant, vicious people’? It’s only fun if you’re not on the receiving end, that’s what.

The fact is they all think beyond-the-pale insults are fun for all the family until they’re turned on their own apparently delicate and so very easily bruised sensibilities. What’s the matter, lads? Cat got your swastika, death camp and federast/pederast jokes? Tell us another one about how us lefties are just like those blokes who murdered the Jews. Go on.

(Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy)

Other people get invited to swanky parties or offered freebies. Me? I get sent a copy of the speech Michael Gove is giving at the Reform Mathematics Seminar today.

Why am I being sent this and what happens if I break the embargo?

When we do it, it’s a social menace. When they do it, it’s fund raising.

Welcome to the Conservative Future.

Yes, yes, well done, Tories. Well done, well done. The thing is, I can beat my seven year-old daughter at chess with ease but to jump around the room in victory looks, well, a bit graceless. You know what I mean?

Any Tory who thinks they are winning rather than Labour losing needs to stop jumping around and take a bit of breather. The fact that so many people were so readily willing to switch their votes shows once again the molecule-thick divide between the political parties in this country.

This isn’t some massive ideological swing behind the ideas of the Tory party. It’s the political equivalent of the electorate switching to a new washing powder. The new brand isn’t much different from the old one, it’s just that All New Cameron smells a little fresher and produces a bit more froth.

Anti-abortion campaigners of Nadine Dorries‘ kind should look elsewhere this morning if they’re after a little magnanimity in the face of their defeat. Their campaign to lower the 24 week limit on abortion was based on little more than tawdry emotional blackmail, smears and downright demonstrable lies.

I joked all along that Dorries’ plan of attack was so cack-handed, transparently dishonest and easily disassembled that I thought she was a plant for the other side. She probably did more to rally pro-abortion sentiment than any other figure. Her final humiliation was her being called all but a liar on the floor of the House of Commons last night*.

You have to wonder, now that the abortion issue is out of the way for a while, just how much further influence Nadine Dorries and her Islam-hating Christian fundamentalist friends will have in wider politics. Having seen them up close we’re now innoculated. We’re now immune.

The next time Dorries pops up on any issue, people will Google her name and be met with chapter and verse of how she operates when it comes to matters of substance. A cooler, much more honest and less shrill head might have got closer to her aim. I hope that’s just one of the aftertastes of the sour grapes she’s no doubt chewing this morning.

For me, one of the most galling parts of this whole debate has been the fact that the anti-abortion argument as put by the likes of Dorries was, almost entirely, beneath her opponents. Anti-scientific, untruthful and ever-shifting, these were arguments that we shouldn’t have had to deal with. And yet there we were.

I get enough whining petulance from people who can’t see reason when I tell my daughters to turn off Doctor Who and send them to bed of an evening. To see it during a debate on such an important matter as women’s access to abortion was, frankly, demeaning.

(Much of the blogging during all this has been fantastic. Go and hunt through the blogs of Tim Ireland, Ministry of Truth, Liberal Conspiracy, Bookdrunk…)

* Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said: “She has asserted many things as fact which are not this evening.”

What charming bedfellows…

I wonder how much access Andrea Williams and her not-so fragrant views on Islam will have once today’s abortion vote is out of the way…

(Via Unity. Tim Ireland has YouTube links to the Dispatches documentary the above clip was taken from and more…)

And so it came to pass. A city of grown men and women elected their leader for a laugh. That, in a big way makes them far worse than the deluded souls who voted for George Bush all those years ago.

And like a zombie virus, how do we stop this contagion spreading to the rest of the country? London must be sealed off. Cauterized. Let us thank God that the supply of novelty, racist lightweights is short or we’d all be up to our neck in them, trapped in our homes as they lurch about outside craving our flesh.

If there is a way for these comedy voters to suffer for their levity without those who didn’t vote for Johnson* suffering too, now is the time to start looking for it. They chose their mayor for a laugh.

It’s hard to see the silver lining in these moments. There is a small one. All the hassle and slog of putting on what is almost certain to be a shitty Olympics now transfers to Johnson. May he live in interesting times.

Let’s hope the legion of special advisers who are going to be doing all the heavy lifting of his administration are something really bloody special. The omens ain’t good.

*Let’s have no more of this ‘Boris’ shit. London’s about to find out just how cuddly he is.

If this abject waste of water and carbon wins today I, and many like me, will never ever stop taking the piss.

(Video via Mike)