Woolas loses his appeal

PayDirt

He never had any to begin with.

Norman Dee

If there is to be another election in Oldham, then the Conservatives should give the lib Dems a clear run, it would be counter effective if the staunchly anti Tory Oldham see a Lib Dem candidate "comtaminated" by the conservatives

Ivan D

I've had a copy of the Spectator reserved for me at the newsagents since I left university. This week's has been delayed by the snow, but when it arrives, it will be the last one. I've cancelled the order because I'm just too bored by the excuse for 'journalism' the magazine's current political editor offers. And this latest post was just the nail in the coffin.

Self-evidently this by-election is a test for all three party leaders, and not just Miliband and Clegg. It's a three way marginal. So as well as having his own dog in the fight, Cameron has to worry about both propping up the Liberals, and at the same time, appeasing the right of the party who don't want to see us try and hand a seat to the Lib Dems. Yet Forsyth affects that only the two other party leaders have anything at stake. It just not good enough, and so off I go.

Doubtless you're selling enough copies that one reader here or there won't matter, but I can't tell you how happy I'm going to be that I am no longer contributing even fractionally to Forsyth's salary. Not least because the shameless propaganda he pumps out for Cameron's faction means he should be on the Number 10 payroll.

SonofThatcherand proudofit!

When will this grubby and pathetic little man desist?

David Lindsay

Phil Woolas is one of the dwindling handful of MPs against whom there could ever have been any such ruling by the Liberal Tories and the 1968 sectarian Leftists who between them have carved up the upper echelons of the judiciary.

But this impending by-election creates quite an opportunity for a candidate, from within or beyond the Labour Party, who will give a voice to those whose priorities include the Welfare State, workers’ rights, trade unionism, the co-operative movement, consumer protection, strong communities, conservation rather than environmentalism, fair taxation, full employment, public ownership, proper local government, a powerful Parliament, and a base of real property for every household to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State, while having a no less absolute commitment to any or all of the monarchy, the organic Constitution, national sovereignty, civil liberties, the Union, the Commonwealth, the countryside, grammar schools, traditional moral and social values, controlled importation and immigration, and a realistic foreign policy.

A voice to those who are aware of, who understand, who value and who draw on the Radical Liberal, Tory populist, trade union, co-operative, Christian Socialist, Social Catholic and Distributist, and other roots of the Labour Movement, rejecting cultural Marxism no less comprehensively than they reject economic Marxism, and vice versa. A voice to those who, with Herbert Morrison, have never seen any conflict “between Labour and what are known as the middle classes”, and who, with Aneurin Bevan, denounce class war, calling instead for “a platform broad enough for all to stand upon” and for the making of “war upon a system, not upon a class”.

An opportunity to give a national platform and profile to a candidate who is part of the alliance of the traditional Right and the traditional Left against the neoconservative war agenda and its assaults on liberty at home, including against any new Cold War with either or both of Russia and China. Who is part of the socially and culturally conservative, strongly patriotic tendencies within the British Left’s traditional electoral base. Who recognises that we cannot deliver the welfare provisions and the other public services that our people have rightly come to expect unless we know how many people there are in this country, unless we control immigration properly, and unless we insist that everyone use spoken and written English to the necessary level.

A candidate who refuses to allow climate change to be used as an excuse to destroy or prevent secure employment, to drive down wages or working conditions, to arrest economic development around the world, to forbid the working classes and non-white people from having children, to inflate the fuel prices that always hit the poor hardest, or to restrict either travel opportunities or a full diet to the rich. And who could therefore co-operate as closely as possible with the forces of provincial, rural, protectionist, church-based, conservative, mind-our-own-business Toryism, forces set free by electoral reform from tendencies variously metropolitan, urban, capitalist, secular, libertarian and make-the-world-anew.

So, where is that candidate?

GeoffH

David Lindsay: "So, where is that candidate?"

Somehow, I don't think it'll be you. Too many words for an election flyer.

ajs

Mr Lindsay:
You are the candidate, of course.
When will you open your fighting fund?
Do let us know.

strapworld

Well, obviously it is certainly not verbal diarrhoea personified,David Lindsey!!!

David Lindsay

ajs, I'm not local, and I'm not well. But this is a real opportunity, so if you are those things, then do get in touch - davidaslindsay@hotmail.com

strapworld would be happier on popbitch, of course. How has someone like that ever even heard of the Spectator? Does he think that it is something else? If so, then what?

mairT

David, some common sense unlike the offering from Strapworld. You would make an excellent candidate. I hope your health improves.

PayDirt

And I'm not sure if a David Lindsay has any either. His appeal for an Oldham-East candidate is mired in as unplain gobbledygook language as one might imagine in a mixed up nightmare of Dracula meets Alice. If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.

tankus

power to the people !

wrinkled weasel

A few people may be a bit happier tonight. Perhaps, "happier" is not the word, perhaps schadenfreude is the word. Two former Labour MPs, one a minister, have lost their court cases; Phil Woolas and David Chaytor. Both abused their position as elected representatives. They were members of our ruling elite, and as such owed us a duty of integrity, which they failed to deliver. They are not the only ones.

But frankly, I don't worry too much about how Chaytor and Woolas are feeling tonight.
Does anyone know who Lloyd Turner was? Some people might think that the doings of our political classes do not impact upon others. Well, they do. Lloyd Turner was the Editor of the Daily Star and was responsible for blowing the whistle on Jeffrey Archer. The Daily Star, under Turner's editorship claimed that Archer was seeing a prostitute and also that they had had sex. Archer sued for and, inexplicably won, due in some part to the outrageous directions of the trial judge. The damages amounted to £500,000 and as a result of the loss, Turner was sacked as editor. At the time, nobody knew his life was going to be cut short, but he worked for two other newspapers, both of which folded. The loss of the case was shattering to Lloyd Turner and his wife, Jill:

Lloyd's career never really recovered after he and his newspaper lost their libel case 14 years ago and he was sacked," she says quietly. "Archer bounded out of the High Court, seemingly vindicated. And my husband, who knew all about Archer's lies, his inventions and his womanising, was left a broken man, with his reputation in tatters.

As we now know, the fictional life of Jeffrey Archer unravelled shortly after and he was finally imprisoned for perjury and made to pay back the damages to the Daily Star, and others, such as Private Eye, with full costs. Archer bounced back; Matthew Parris likened him to Mr Toad of Toad Hall, a sort of charming, lovable skalliwag.

Lloyed Turner was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel by 1996 and was planning to return to Fleet Street, this time, with the Daily Mail when on Thursday, September 12th, 1996, he died of a heart attack, in the arms of his wife.
When the news broke of Archer's prison sentence in July 2001, Jill Turner told a reporter who asked what she would say to Archer if she met him:

I know exactly what Lloyd would say to him if he had the chance: `Gotcha, Archer. Gotcha at last.

Gotcha Woolas. Gotcha Chaytor, Gotcha at last. But I would like to ask them, how many broken careers and shattered lives have you left in your wake?

dorothy wilson

Unlike David Lindsay, I will make my points very brief:

The verdict on Wollas? Good!

Healey escorting him? That reveals the true nature of today's Labour Party.

Naomi Muse

So Woolas has lost his appeal. When will the prosecution begin?

Nick

That's 5 Labour MPs off to court and possibly gaol.
And 7 Labour Lords suspended.
And now Woolas.
Proof that Labour is corrupt and should be made an unlawful institution.

salieri

James, according to the BBC this WAS the attempt at judicial review, and there never was an "appeal". It also reports that PW admitted it was the end of the road.

Chuck Unsworth

@ David Lindsay

"the Liberal Tories and the 1968 sectarian Leftists who between them have carved up the upper echelons of the judiciary"

Any evidence to support this remarkable assertion?

AF

W.Weasel,
Thankyou for that explaination,
it's good for these timely reminders of the consequences of these cheating bastards.
These are not victimless crimes.
we all suffer from them, but some far more than others.
Thankyou once again.

Andy Leeds

What the two cases clearly show is just how morally bankrupt and rotten to the very core the Labour Party actually is. Their behaviour has been despicable. The sooner the Labour Party is completely destroyed the better.

Ali C

Almost as cheering as a hot toddy. Tis a pity he wasn't banned for being a flippant idiot, cavalier with immigration and an apologist for previous rubbish government, which is the real crime.

Noa

Wrinkled Weasel- Thank you, a superb, insightful post!

" Matthew Parris likened him to Mr Toad of Toad Hall, a sort of charming, lovable skalliwag..."

I'm no fan of Parris, smug shallow and sententious, the clunking man's idea of a liberal conservative; that is not a conservative.

"Jill Turner told a reporter who asked what she would say to Archer if she met him:

I know exactly what Lloyd would say to him if he had the chance: `Gotcha, Archer. Gotcha at last.

Gotcha Woolas. Gotcha Chaytor, Gotcha at last. But I would like to ask them, how many broken careers and shattered lives have you left in your wake?..."

To whch one would only add:

Gotcha Tony, gotcha Gordon, gotcha Jacquie, gotcha Alistair and gotcha all you smug, lying, patronising corrupt bastards who we haven't caught up with-yet.

Fergus Pickering

Labour will win the seat with some apparatchik though, won't they?

AF

Andy Leeds,
sadly it seems that corruption follows the power,I remember when Tony Blier on coming to power lambasted the Tories for their sleaze and corruption,I knew he would suffer the same fate,I truly hope that this coalition keeps that side of politics at bay.We deserve better.

fred

When an established politician of the modern post democratic period gets smashed it is tiome for those who value England and democracy to rejoice.
If Woolas deserves it so do 640 others and the sooner the better. England deserves better than these British liars.

Ali C

Sadly I expect the constituency will vote for a horses arse if it has a red rosette on