Whilst Labour polling hits rock bottom, there is the most amusing, and dare I say pathetic, story in this morning's Mirror titled "Let me sell you a Tory" which detailed a number of the senior frontbench figures entries in the Register of Members' Interests. The Register is not a new one in anyway, but if you read the Mirror you'd think it was. The bottom line of the article? Look at these Tories, they makes lots of money, isn't that all iffy?The "not first blogging MP" Tom Watson is quoted saying "It's a fulltime job being a backbench MP so how they do all this as well as performing their front-bench roles is beyond imagination." No Tom, it's not beyond imagination at all and you know. An After-dinner speech is a speech errr... after-dinner. Everyone has to eat and standing up afterwards for 20 minutes or so rambling for a fee is common practice. I imagine Tom's problem is that if he doesn't do it no one else should. Well that's bollocks.
Apparently David Cameron receiving an oil painting portrait of himself is considered news and shows something, I'm not sure what, that is wrong, or bad, or oh I don't know. The whole thing is little more than a manufactured story out of a register that's been public for ages anyway. The piece is made all the more amusing by the fact it doesn't mention the Labour deputy leadership candidates who have failed to enter over £20,000 in campaign donations on the Register. Go figure!
N.B. This writer realises that he has made mischief with the Register himself. Things that are omitted are stories though compared to things entered.
5 comments:
This line is particularly weak for Labour, because underlying it is the fact that punters would prefer to pay to hear members of the opposition speak than the government. I'd have thought that would be a source of embarassment for the government.
Bit of astro-turfing there by the Mirror.
Pity they did not ask a certain G. Brown if he was aware of where the funding for the last ZaNuLabor election came from?
I am still awaiting a reply from the Electoral Commission on that point.
"a manufactured story out of a [document] that's been public for ages anyway".
Actually, Dizzy, the most recent Register may have been ordered to be printed on 28 March, but it was only published yesterday.
But cheers for pointing out that journalists sometimes manufacture stories out of old documents. I can't imagine anyone in the blogosphere doing that.
there is nothing in this story that hasn't been viewable on They Work For You for months.
The Tories are at it more than anyone. Though Blunkett and Abbott (the latter skillfully worded) are doing their best to redress the balance.
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