Parlez~me~'n~Tory

Rightly wry, satirically right

Pardon me for saying so but I smell a rat.

Not your average Westminster rat that can oft be found amongst the rubble of the Palace of Westminster but an altogether dirtier and larger rat, and it’s coming to a briefing near you very soon.

Now that we have moved on from the botched coup whereby it has since been disclosed that Harriet Harman was the Cabinet Minister who failed to come out in support of the Snow Plot we see the rise in electioneering hitting new heights.

So what’s the latest on when we will be offered the chance to vote out this weak and ineffectual Government? Well, if you’ve been listening this week you will know that it is May 6th without a shadow of a doubt.

Well, hang on, let’s just take a moment to ponder that shall we? What proof do we have?

Thus far we have only two dodgy claims that May 6th will be #GE10.

The first whereby Chris Bryant ‘claims’ to know the date and uttered it quite clearly in front of a diplomatic think-tank.

Why would he? Not for any other reason than because he knew it would be reported with gusto. [I smell that rat feeding hard and fast on Mandelson prime cuts of propaganda]

The seed had been sewn and so the media were on the look out for a second faux pas. Guess what? They didn’t have to wait long when today Andy Burnham attempted to ‘accidentally’ suggest the date would be May. Again, why?

This all smacks of a smokescreen to me to put the Opposition on the back foot to take the foot off the gas pedal and one that I may be on my own supporting but hey ho, that’s what it’s like sometimes. You have to go with your gut feeling. Much the same as I did with the TV debates that I still feel will fail to materialise.

What other factors could prevent Gordon Brown from calling May 6th as #GE10?

Firstly May 6th is Tony Blair’s birthday and that alone is enough to deter #GoBro

Here are a few other issues that took place on May 6th that may make Gordon think twice with the hand of history on our shoulders:

1527 – Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, die fighting the forces of Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant’Angelo.

1536 – King Henry VIII orders English language Bibles be placed in every church.

1542 – Francis Xavier reaches Old Goa, the capital of Portuguese India at the time.

1682 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.

1757 – Battle of Prague – A Prussian army fights an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years’ War.

1816 – The American Bible Society is founded in New York City.

1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.

1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1857 – The British East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British and is considered to be the First Martyr in the War of India’s Independence.

1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Mille expedition sets sail from Genoa to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

1861 – American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.

1861 – American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.

1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by Confederate troops.

1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.

1882 – Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are stabbed and killed during the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin.

1882 – The United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1910 – George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.

1935 – New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration.

1935 – The first flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk.

1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.

1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1941 – At California’s March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show.

1941 – The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.

1945 – World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).

1945 – World War II: The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.

1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

1960 – More than 20 million viewers watch the first televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.

1962 – St. Martín de Porres is canonized by Pope John XXIII.

1966 – Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England.

1967 – B52 Bombers dropped tons of explosives on North Vietnamese bunkers and troop positions

1972 – Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin İnan are executed in Ankara for attempting to overthrow the Constitutional order.

1976 – An earthquake strikes Friuli, causing 989 deaths and the destruction of entire villages.

1981 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.

1983 – The Hitler diaries are revealed as a hoax after examination by experts.

1984 – 103 Korean Martyrs are canonized by Pope John Paul II in Seoul

1988 – An airplane flying from Namsos to Brønnøysund in Norway crashes into the side of the Torghatten mountain, killing all 36 passengers and crew.

1989 – Cedar Point opens Magnum XL-200, the first roller coaster to break the 200 ft height barrier, therefore spawning what is considered to be the coaster wars.

1994 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiate at the opening of the Channel Tunnel.

1994 – Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones files suit against President Bill Clinton, alleging that he had sexually harassed her in 1991.

1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.

1997 – The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most significant change in the bank’s 300-year history.

1998 – Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter and did not walk a batter in his 5th career start.

1999 – First elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly held.

2001 – During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.

2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated by an animal rights activist.

2008 – Chaiten Volcano erupts in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.

Think long and hard Gordon, there’s some pretty gory scenes up there for May 6th; care to add to them?

Living in Frome, Somerset it upsets me that not only do we have a Liberal Democrat as our MP (David Heath) but the so called ‘FREE Press’, isn’t.

Several times I have had letters rebuffed by the local press and the latest was just a few days ago. I also sent the letter to the Daily Telegraph hoping that they would have the decency to print it, alas, they did not.

[...it has been suggested by Phil Woodford [a fellow Twitterer and an all round good egg] that perhaps I should have signed it Lt Col (rtd) to secure publication…considering putting it on my next one!]

As a consequence I have decided to print it below:

Dear Sir,

Last week the final barrier to the full ratification of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty was overcome and on the First day of December it will be entered into law in all 27 member countries.

Despite all three main political parties promising the nation a referendum at the 2005 election we have not been given the opportunity to vote on this renamed constitution.

In 2007, following a local referendum in this highly marginal seat of Somerton and Frome over 90% of people who exercised the right to vote gave a clear ‘NO’ to the constitution. In essence, more people voted in favour of a referendum than for David Heath to be our representative, which in turn forced our MP to vote with the Conservatives in Parliament in support of a plebiscite.

Now that the Treaty has been ratified (albeit by consequential means), I wonder if he still believes we should have a referendum on it, or whether his vote was simply gesture politics and he has since retreated to the default Liberal Democrat position of just having an “in or out” referendum – which they hope will result in a win for the euro-fanatics?

If we are to see a repatriation of powers to our democratically elected Parliament rather than being dictated to from Brussels, we must have a strong government that is willing to fight for our country, as David Cameron made clear last week he would do should he win the General Election.

Ultimately, the question begs, will David Heath resign again in order to support our country?

Yours faithfully

Will we see the real Nick Griffin tonight on BBC Question Time?

This morning the PM announced that he was officially agreeing to a series of televised debates in the run up to the General Election.

That’s great, if that’s what he is actually saying but if he isn’t then just what is he getting out of this?

BBC’s Nick Robinson has already stated that the reason the PM is up for this is that the Labour Party is so strapped for cash that this is seen as a no publicity is bad publicity move.

This morning over on LabourLost.org I blogged about the possible breach of the DPA within the open letter and the way in which it appears to be missing something at the end.

Whilst the full text can be viewed here, my point in this blog post are the following paragraphs and I shall attempt to elaborate

It is right that we set the issues before the British people. Others can work out the details but what’s important for the country is that there is a wide ranging series of television and radio debates with party leaders that are also able to devote attention to the central issues that matter to families: the economy, public services, how we strengthen our communities, and how we work with the rest of the world.

It is right that there will be a strong focus on the leaders’ debates and it is right that in a Cabinet system of government that ministers and opposition ministers also debate the issues in a series of debates on television and radio too.

I relish the opportunity of making our case directly to the people of this country.

The first line worries me in relation to my LabourLost blog post with the truncated sentence (mentioned above) [It is right that we set the issues before the British people].

When Brown uses the word ‘before’ are we to take this as meaning ‘in front of’ or ‘prior to’? If ‘prior to’ then why ask for questions to be submitted? If ‘in front of’ then why not complete the very last sentence of the page which currently leads to suspicion that any submitted suggestion would be subject to editing. Currently this final sentence reads as: [The Labour Party and its elected representatives may use the data you have supplied] there is no punctuation or further wording at this point.

The next set of carefully chosen words are [a wide ranging series of television and radio debates with party leaders] no matter how you read that you’re wrong.

This statement in no way, shape or form implies or infers that the PM has any intention himself of participating in a televised debate with other mainstream Party leaders present at the same time.

The following words [It is right that there will be a strong focus on the leaders’ debates] lead people to automatically conclude that the PM is referring to the 3 debates that have been touted, when in fact this wording could be taken to mean one debate per leader to a specific audience.

Finally, the wording that to me sums up that the PM will not participate with either David Cameron or Nick Clegg is [I relish the opportunity of making our case directly to the people of this country], as previously mentioned this seems to backup my view that the PM is angling towards 1 leader 1 debate to a specific audience. Whilst initially it may seem that the PM is opening up to the public and other leaders he is not.

If the PM truly intended to debate with other leaders present this final sentence would read something akin to [I relish the opportunity of making the Labour Party's case directly to the people of this country and in front of the leaders of the opposition Parties.]

How I wish to be proved wrong but after the previous debates over how long a manifesto promise should stand I have a problem with believing anything that comes out of Downing St.