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GUARDIAN

William and Harry by Nicky Philipps

National Portrait Gallery, London from today for six months.

Warrant out for horse sex accused

Joseph Squires, 66, of Overpark Avenue, is charged with buggery of a donkey between February and April 1999 and buggery with a horse in March 2004.

Mind you, have you seen the size of its ... oh, never mind.

Readers are reminded that pictures do not necessarily correspond with adjoining stories.

GOFOURTH

So who's for and who's against?

Further to Pat and Geoff's 'stitch n bitch' evening at Starbucks last night, who's sticking up for Gordon Brown and who's stabbing their Leader in the back thereby damaging the chances of Labour winning the forthcoming general election? 

Fucking idiots.

What the fuck are they playing at?!

Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon have written to Labour MPs saying the party was "deeply divided" and the issue must be sorted out "once and for all".   Well done, dickheads.

Moira Stuart returns to the BBC

The BBC today confirmed that Moira Stuart is to read the news on the Chris Evans BBC Radio 2 breakfast show  :-) 

Unfortunately I won't be listening to the Chris Evans BBC Radio 2 breakfast show as I think he's a twat  :-(

The Tories are frustrating, but Labour is unelectable

The election should be a walkover. At their best, the Tories have the radical policies, and to a certain extent the team, to rescue Britain from its current Labour-inflicted quandary. Yet the party remains tentative, fearful of its own shadow.

Iraqi police, Najaf

Liberal Democrat Leader calls for tuition fees to be scrapped

Liberal Democrats to keep pledge to scrap tuition fees

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said the party will keep its pledge to scrap tuition fees despite earlier saying they might not be able to afford it.

Mr Clegg has previously expressed doubts over the feasibility of the party’s commitment; suggesting that abolishing "tuition fees would cost billions of pounds every year" and so "we need to be certain we can afford it before we make any promises". He was later forced to reverse his decision to remove the manifesto commitment owing to strong public dissent from senior figures, including the former leader Charles Kennedy.

Under the plans, which would not see tuition fees finally scrapped until the Parliament after next, fees would first be scrapped for final-year students, in the financial year 2010-11, at the cost of £511m. The overall cost of the policy over six years would be £7.5bn.

Vince Cable conceded that free tuition would be made possible through a reduction in numbers entering higher education.

Speaking to Jon Sopel on BBC’s Politics Show he said: "The issue about how you afford it, in a very tough environment for public spending, is it's a question of how many people actually go to university, so the question is whether you deal with it through fees or by restricting numbers and the latter has to be the way forward I'm afraid."

Lord Mandelson wants to swap spinning for sowing

The Business Secretary said he longs to leave London and cultivate an old English garden where he can also look after chickens which would supply him with fresh eggs.

click here for Telegraph article

Peter Tatchell quits as Oxford East's Green candidate due to 'brain injuries from Mugabe and Moscow bashings'

The Greens currently have no MPs, although they are hoping their leader, Caroline Lucas, an MEP and their candidate in Brighton Pavilion, will become their first at the next election.



 click here for full Guardian article

Israeli organ donors to get transplant priority

Israel is to become the first country to give donor card carriers a legal right to priority treatment if they should require an organ transplant.

click here for full BBC article

MoD gets £1bn for equipment but will lose aircraft and thousands of jobs

Steve Bell | the Guardian

Tory lead cut to nine points in Guardian/ICM poll

After 12 months of unbroken Conservative dominance in the polls, the figures – showing the Tories on 40%, down two, Labour on 31%, up two, and the Liberal Democrats on 18% – are likely to intensify calls for Brown to go to the country on 25 March next year, rather than the 6 May polling day that most at Westminster have been expecting.

click here for full Guardian article

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni 'cancels London visit over prosecution fears'

"The opposition chairwoman is proud of all her decisions regarding Operation Cast Lead," her office was quoted as saying. "The operation achieved its objectives to protect the citizens of Israel and to reinstate Israel's deterrence capability."

click here for the full Telegraph article

Berlusconi attacked in Milan

BBC News video :-)

Former Tory peer calls Jewish climate campaigner 'Hitler Youth'

Viscount Monckton, 57, who was an economic adviser to the Thatcher government but joined UKIP earlier this week, has persistently called into question the science behind man-made climate change.

full Telegraph article here

'Labour treats us like oddballs’ says Archbishop of Canterbury

Dr Rowan 'Dingbat' Williams told The Daily Telegraph: “The trouble with a lot of Government initiatives about faith is that they assume it is a problem, it’s an eccentricity, it’s practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities.

Telegraph

Squeaker Bercow's trouble and strife

She looks like a lap-dancer and it is now plain she has behaved much like one. Oh well. At least one can now report that in her Young Conservative days she was known as 'Sally the Alley'.
Quentin Letts

Mail Online

Sally Bercow reveals past full of binge-drinking and one-night stands

John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, has been criticised by MPs after his wife gave an extraordinary interview to launch herself as a Labour politician. Sally Bercow, 40, described her battle with drink and fondness for one-night stands in her twenties, and criticised David Cameron as a “merchant of spin”. MPs reacted with astonishment, pointing out that Mrs Bercow lives in Speaker’s House at taxpayers’ expense and questioning whether this compromised the Speaker’s independence. Mr Bercow was a Tory MP before becoming Speaker, but was elected with support of Labour MPs.

In the interview published today [3rd December 2009], Mrs Bercow said that she wanted to get rid of “skeletons” from her past before standing as a Labour councillor in Pimlico, central London, in a bid to become an MP at the next election. She said: “I was a big binge drinker in my twenties. I started drinking at Oxford, being a party girl, and it got out of control. I got a grip for a while, but in the mid-Nineties I was working in advertising and I would drink wine at lunch then go out and drink a bottle in the evening, most evenings really. I had no stop button.” Asked whether this was as excessive as she had implied, she added: “Well, OK. It was sometimes more like two bottles, except I promised John I wouldn’t say that. Have I mucked it up already?”

She became teetotal in 2000 after realising that she had put herself in danger. “I was an argumentative, stroppy drunk, picking arguments with my bosses over stupid things. Plus I’d lose my judgment and put myself in danger. I’d fall asleep on the Tube and end up in Epping or Heathrow. And I’d get into unlicensed minicabs in the early hours. All the things we’d tell our daughters not to do.”

Mrs Bercow also confessed to casual sexual encounters because of alcohol. “They weren’t romantic. They were more like flings. I wasn’t looking for love. But it’s true that I would end up sometimes at a bar and someone would send a drink over, and I’d think, ‘Why not?’ and we’d go home together. I liked the excitement of not knowing how a night was going to end. It was all very ladette — work hard, play hard. I want to run for Parliament as a Labour candidate so this has all got to come out and I’d rather tell it myself,” she told the London Evening Standard.

Mrs Bercow has been criticised recently for the way that she presented her qualifications on her CV, but she denied any intention to mislead. She also rebuffed criticism of her spending on a redecoration of Speaker’s House that she said was necessary because the dark red upset her autistic son, Oliver, 5, one of their three children. She suggested that David Cameron was a fake. “He favours the interests of the few over the mainstream majority. I do think the Tory party is for the privileged few and what it stands for isn’t in the interests of most ordinary people.” She also said that Mr Cameron could send his children to private school because there was no “real commitment” to state education.

Mr Cameron did not support Mr Bercow’s candidacy but a spokesman refused to be drawn on the issue and said that the party was supportive of the office of Speaker. Mrs Bercow may not send her children to grammar schools in her husband’s Buckinghamshire constituency because she opposes selection. She revealed that after dating Mr Bercow for six months “he dumped me for being too argumentative. But you have to remember that he was a right-wing headbanger at the time. He’s much more rounded and moderate now, and he’s rethought a lot.” Asked how it might work if she was an MP while her husband was Speaker, she said: “He’d be so tough on me though. I’d never get a question when he was in the chair. I’d have to wait till the deputy speaker was in.”

Nadine Dorries, a Tory MP who opposed Mr Bercow’s selection as Speaker, said: “We desperately need to restore authority and respect to Parliament. What this interview has done is remove any painstaking progress Parliament has made and reduced the Speaker and his office to that of a laughing stock. How can we ask the people to trust us, when the man who holds us to account has such poor judgment that he allowed his wife to give such an appalling, self-obsessed interview?” [Bit fucking rich - Ed].

The Times Online, 3rd December 2009

Toll bridge bought for over £1m

The Swinford toll bridge was built across the River Thames at Eynsham in 1767 and is governed by its own Act of Parliament.

BBC News  article

Mandelson declares war on Murdoch

In his strongest attacks on News Corp since the Sun abandoned its support for Labour hours after Gordon Brown's party conference speech, the business secretary accused the company of imperilling the traditions of British broadcasting.















The Guardian

Mandelson wanted EU foreign secretary post

BBC News

He told Radio 4's Today programme that he was committed to the government but "in other circumstances I would have liked to have done that job".

President Obama to set out Afghan troop strategy

oh! that would be helpful, dear.
BBC News

Climate change denier Nick Griffin to represent EU at Copenhagen

BNP leader, Nick Griffin, has graciously taken time out from rehearsals of his first panto, Mother GooseStep, to furnish the United Nations with the facts behind the myth that is climate change.

link to The Observer

Tory Zac Goldsmith admits he is a non-dom

Goldsmith is an ally of David Cameron and was commissioned by the Conservative leader to draw up a blueprint for environmental and “quality of life” policies. He suggested a swathe of green taxes, including hikes in levies on 4x4 vehicles and aviation, and rebates on stamp duty for green homes.
Times Online

Robin van Persie faces five months out

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie will be sidelined for up to five months after being told he needs an operation on his injured ankle ligaments.  Van Persie, 26, who suffered the injury while playing for the Netherlands on 14 November, was initially expected to be out for about six weeks.  However, scans have revealed the injury is worse than originally feared.

BBC SPORT

Tories advance on key Labour strongholds

The YouGov survey of voters in 32 northern marginal seats currently held by Labour shows the Conservatives lead Labour by 42 per cent to 36 per cent, enough for all to fall into Tory hands. In the same seats at the 2005 election, the Tories polled 34 per cent with Labour on 44 per cent.

the Daily Telegraph

Lord Pearson (who?) elected leader of UKIP (what?)

He said the party would still be "majoring on leaving Europe" - but he also pledged to campaign on a range of other issues including Swiss-style direct democracy.

BBC

Vatican 'snubbed Ireland church abuse inquiry'

The inquiry into sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland has disclosed that the Vatican ignored formal requests for information.
link to the BBC article

Where the European Union spends its money

link to the Daily Telegraph article

Irish Catholic Church apologises for abuse by priests

"Whatever the historical and societal reasons for this, the government... apologises, without reservation or equivocation, for failures by the agencies of the state in dealing with this issue," a government statement said.
BBC

Brighton's culture bid is dropped

"If we were a culturally impoverished city seeking to establish a name for ourselves, or even one with a reasonable offer but no profile, chasing the award might make more sense," said a spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council. 

B B C

Ministers urged to take action against bank charges

Charges are expected to be increased as Britain’s high street banks try to recoup some of the losses from the credit crisis. Banks can earn billions of pounds of income from the fees.

T E L E G R A P H

BBC: We won't charge for online news

The BBC has today said it has "no intention" of charging for online news, in a declaration that is unlikely to please James Murdoch and his father Rupert as they prepare to start charging for News Corporation content on the internet.
G U A R D I A N

planetpmctv

P M C A U D I O V I S U A L

Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan

The Defence Secretary has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan.
T E L E G R A P H

Liverpool could be counting the cost of this early exit for years

It is impossible to calculate precisely the financial cost to Liverpool of their dire failure to qualify for the Champions League knockout stage but it is safe to assess it as several million pounds the club could have seriously done without losing.
G U A R D I A N

Vatican tries to woo back the art world

Pope Benedict has invited international artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, film directors and even a solitary Italian prima ballerina to meet him under the soaring vaulted ceiling of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in the Vatican on Saturday to begin a new dialogue between the Catholic Church and the arts.
B B C

Police passes files on four Parliamentarians to the CPS

Scotland Yard believes it has uncovered enough evidence to bring criminal charges against four MPs and peers for allegedly abusing their expenses.
G U A R D I A N

the best of bryan ferry | cd | dvd | released 23rd November 2009

the definitive collection of his solo singles along with their videos and two previously unreleased tracks.

MPs' expenses: David Curry quits as standards chief over new Telegraph disclosures

T E L E G R A P H

Belgian PM 'named as EU president'

B B C

Charlotte Vere selected as Conservative candidate for Brighton Pavilion

Charlotte Vere has been selected as the new Conservative candidate for Brighton Pavilion at the next general election, writes Andy Chiles on the Argus website.  Big White Wall chief executive Mrs Vere was selected ... from six finalists in an “open primary” staged by the Brighton Pavilion Conservative Association.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN AS SHE MAKES THIRTY-SEVEN WORDS SOUND LIKE A SPEECH - WAIT A MINUTE - WASN'T SHE IN THE SOUND OF MUSIC?

Each of the contenders faced 20 minutes of questioning from the 80 association members and members of the public who had gathered at The Grand hotel, in King’s Road, Brighton, before a series of elimination votes were held.  Barrister Anna Firth was knocked out first, followed by senior Conservative organiser Scott Digby.  Local candidate Andrew Wealls and tv producer Douglas Chirnside were both eliminated simultaneously in the third round of voting.  Charity worker Mr Wealls’ departure drew gasps from the audience.  Two votes had to be held to separate Charlotte Vere and insurance broker Mary Weale after the first produced a dead heat.  The vote counts were not revealed to the public, only the results.

Mrs Vere, who has been closely involved with the campaigns of environmentally-minded millionaire Tory Zac Goldsmith [ker-ching!] appeared to emerge victorious by a slender margin.  The mother-of-two, from south-west London [what, you mean she doesn't even live in Brighton?!], said: “It has been a huge experience over the last two weeks. You should know I wasn’t on the first shortlist, I was a reserve.  We have a huge fight ahead of us but it’s a fight I believe we can win. I will put up an excellent fight and I absolutely intend to win” . 

She will now contest the general election, expected in May, in what is anticipated to be one of the closest constituencies in the country.  It is held by retiring MP David Lepper by a 5,000 vote majority which his Labour successor Nancy Platts will hope to maintain.  It has also been made the Green Party’s top target after a series of strong local and European election performances and their national leader Caroline Lucas [haha!] has been brought in to contest the seat.

During the open primary each of the candidates answered questions about their reasons for entering politics, their views of Brighton and Hove, their role models and a series of public queries involving the economy, the gay community, green beliefs [beliefs?!], Afghanistan, Europe, tax, immigration, crime and cleanliness [what?!]. Several people left during the three and a half hour selection process [i'm not fucking surprised!].

Following the selection BPCA chairwoman Carol Ramsden said: “Charlotte is going to be absolutely brilliant. The fact it went right to the wire shows how strong a field there was. We’re ready for the fight now. It will be starting tomorrow and as far as we are concerned, bring it on.”

CHARLOTTE ON THE LEFT - GIVE 'EM ENOUGH SCARF . . .

There were mixed reactions among the audience.   Jason Bull [any relation to David?], who attended as a member of the public, said: “I didn’t vote for her on the first round but I think she was the strongest candidate. I originally voted for one of the three gay candidates (Scott Digby, Andrew Wealls and Douglas Chirnside) because I’m gay and I would’ve liked to have seen one of them selected.”   Resident Derek Burns said: “I thought the whole process was a bit long winded, they could have narrowed it down to less candidates and a shorter time each. It was extremely difficult to choose. Everyone around me said they didn’t know who to vote for. I think Charlotte Vere has got a very tough fight on her hands with the Greens now.”

Conservative Brighton and Hove City Councillor Geoffrey Theobald said: “We’ve got a good candidate and we’re going to win” [article ends].

The Brighton and Hove Conservatives' website tells us ... Charlotte is a successful social entrepreneur and businesswoman. As CEO of Big White Wall, she led a team which developed therapy for depression using the internet. Big White Wall won the 2009 Guardian Award for Innovation in Community Engagement. Charlotte is a key campaigner for Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate in Richmond Park, and she has a passion for the environment. She is married with two children.

CLICK HERE FOR THE BIG WHITE WALL WEBSITE

It's ok, you won't be charged - yet.  However, if you're depressed and want a wall to write on then it'll cost you seventy quid.  This is because raising funds by advertising might be upsetting for you if you're depressed so they use the more considerate approach of ripping the piss out of you first.  Fucking tories, they can't just be nice for nice's sake, can they?

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

A R G U S
a somewhat surprisingly eloquent editorial from brighton's local rag.

Ireland wants replay against France

B B C

Heavy drinkers less likely to get heart attack, research says

G U A R D I A N
FTW?!

France 1 - 1 Ireland

isn't it ironic that a man must cheat in order to maintain the pride of his nation and to gain the respect of his fellow countrymen?

Lord Ashcroft's British Caribbean Bank funds Turks and Caicos leader's lavish lifestyle

I N D E P E N D E N T

More than half of voters would be unhappy if Labour wins next general election, poll finds

T E L E G R A P H

Tory candidate Elizabeth Truss avoids deselection

T E L E G R A P H

Vidic shows Drogba how to stay upright

Question Time

Fascism in Football

Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi to be freed

Stonewall

It all started 20 years ago when a group of activists met in the kitchen of Ian McKellen. They were moved by a shared revulsion at section 28 of the Local Government Act, passed in the dying years of the Thatcher era. It banned councils from brainwashing children into being gay - as if that were something town halls could or would do - and enshrined bigotry in the law of the land by prohibiting the presentation of homosexuality as "a pretended family relationship".

Sir Ian, as he was not yet, saw such bullying was possible only as long as gay life was lived in the closet, so he announced his own orientation and spoke out. That took courage, for open homosexuality was still regarded as incompatible with being in the public spotlight. But one man's bravery could not stop the law, and so the kitchen cabinet - including Michael Cashman, Lisa Power and many others - created a campaigning outfit.

Dubbed Stonewall - to signal doggedness, and to commemorate the New York riots in which gay protestors had fought back against police brutality two decades before - it called for full legal rights, which still seemed a loony-left pipe dream. But with gays in the military, civil partnerships and an equalised age of consent - not to mention repeal of section 28 - it is no pipe dream today.

Stonewall has led the way with each reform - pressing ministers, and taking test cases to court. In cricketing terms "Stonewall" has become a misnomer, given the staggering run rate achieved by this small lobby group.

the guardian, 26th May 2009