Where's the beef at the Barnet Tory Bugle

Those regular readers of this blog will have read previous posts on the sad demise of the once great local paper, the Edgware & Mill Hill Times and it's stablemates. This fine group of papers has morphed from a great and independent paper, into a mouthpiece for the Barnet Conservative regime running the Town hall. It looks to me as if there is a hotline from the Barnet Tories to the editor, with a seemingly endless stream of "helpful" stories. Rather oddly, stories which may damage them don't seem to surface, or if they do the disappear just as rapidly. Take for example the news that the Tories want to privatise Hendon Cemetary. Does this see the light of day? Well it does if you read VickiM or the Barnet Council Watch blog. Given that it's stuffed full of my nearest & dearest, I feel rather strongly about it. We all remember the Westminster Cemetary scandal. Strangely, no sign of this story on the Bugle's News website.

What do we have? Well there is the story of how Damian McBride could be slung out of the Finchley Labour party for starting rumours about Tories. Clearly this story is highly damaging to Labour and rightly so. There is one tiny problem. I thought journalists were meant to do a bit of digging for their story. I thought they were meant to get a little bit of balance. It seems that these days at the Times, they can't be bothered beyond a quick call to Andrew Dismore. The thing is that if they had bothered to look, they've got a McBride scandal on their doorstep. McBride was sacked as an advisor for thinking of starting a website full of slurs & nasty rumours. Have any of the journalists at the Times looked at what is going on locally? David Miller runs the Barnet council watch website. He is a Conservative, his mother is a Conservative peer. David and his mother have been subject to a coordinated campaign of smears, innuendo & lies, purely because he is in dispute with a faction of the local party.

It is clear to anyone who could be bothered to investigate, what is going on & who is behind the scheme. At it's very mildest, this cyberbullying & intimidation takes the form of planted questions at Council meetings which portray Mr Miller as an obsessive and a waster of public money. This practice has been deemed to have breached Mr Miller's rights, but has there been a public apology to Mr Miller?

I'm all for the McBride's of this world getting booted out of their local parties. The Tories have a great opportunity locally to show Labour how it's done. I'm sure that if the Edgware Times could be bothered to ring Mr Miller, he'd give them all the ammunition they need for a great scoop.

Is David Camerons embarrassing sexual problem only a spot of bother for Gordon?

What were they thinking about? How stupid could someone be? I am starting to think Gordon Brown may be a lucky PM after all. You might think that this is a completely stupid thing to say, in light of the McBride shenanigans, but think it through. The election won't be held for a year, by which time all of this will be forgotten. Had McBride and Draper not been exposed now, before there was a real trail back to Gordon, then he'd be in deep doo-doo. Even worse, had this pair of buffoons been running the campaign. You can just see the conversation going something like this.

GB: The Tories have jumped 5% points with their latest policy to cut the Tax on Diesel, what shall we do?

McBride: We'll spoof a picture of George Osborne snogging a Yak and post it on an anonymous blog.

Draper: Genius, Pure genius Damian.

Nothing could be clearer to me, Brown has got lucky. As I contemplated the issue, I thought to myself "What possible embarrassing sexual condition would actually put off voters in 2009?" I went through the vaguely believable possibilities. All the stress he's been under with his son, I'd guess that he'd get forgiven most things. I really don't think people care. It is fairly easy to find a blog with the details but I'm just not that interested, so I haven't even bothered looking. I doubt you are either. Unless he announced that he could only make love to his wife if she was wearing a Gordon Brown mask, I doubt it would even raise a titter. If that was the revelation and it was posted on an anonymous blog, who would care? A few juvenile lefties may snigger, but if any anonymous blogs changed the voting intentions of one person, I'd be amazed.

What these buffoons can't seem to grasp is that all of the effort they've spent making up this rubbish, they could have been doing something useful. I guess that in their case though, that would be drafting a letter of resignation and looking for a job where they could do less damage. I'd urge numpties up and down the land, looking to unleash rivers of foundationless bile at their political opponents via anonymous blogs to look long and hard at what has happened to this little scheme. You may not be as lucky as Brown and you may get exposed at a really bad time.

Whilst the Tory chattering class may think Brown is drinking in last chance saloon now, and can't get away with a cock up such as this again, I'm ot so sure. He has the chance to get a few competent advisors. Is it any wonder he's lurched from crisis to crisis with this mob? I actually wonder if they've been set up by a Labour insider who recogised their consumate lack of intelligence.

As it is the McBride & Draper, the undynamic comedy duo have given David Cameron a big boost and probably ensured Nadine Dorries will get a front bench job to boot this week. I do wonder if a part of David Cameron is secretly wishing the scheme had actually got off the ground. If this time next year, Brown is heading back to No 10, maybe Guido et all will be wishing they sat on their "victorious" scoop. I can't imagine any way Brown could find himself a worse pair of advisors.

Damian McBride - stupidity personified

So as a Labour supporting blogger, what do I have to say about Damian McBride?

This one is easy. I think it's disgusting. I see the internet as a powerful tool for truth, honesty and justice. If I get things wrong, which I do sometimes, I apologise. If I hear salacious rumours, I ignore them. It is quite clear from my blog who I am, what I do and where you can find me. In short, I've put my reputation on the line in what I write. The visitor stats for the blog tell me that I do it pretty well.

If I say something about someone, I post a link so that people can see why I've said what I said, if it is relevent. I make it quite clear that I have a political allegiance and that it sometimes colours my views. What you see is what you get. I've slagged off Labour politicians here as well as praising Tories who do a good job. I despise hypocrites and liars in all shapes, colours and sizes.

I think it's pretty easy to see what is a genuine blog and what isn't. Gordon Brown will have a price to pay for Mr McBride's stupidity and rightly so. I'd suggest that anyone else tempted to start rumours on "invisible man" blogs take note. Lets hope that all of the parties learn to use & not abuse the medium of blogging.