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