Dale is right

It is definitely my day for agreeing with Tory writers

Many MPs will be very displeased by the contents of the leak of some of Sir Christopher Kelly's proposals. However, the public are in no mood to listen to what they will see as self-interested bleatings. I think, therefore, they probably have little alternative but to go along with them. That doesn't make them 100 per cent right, though

Via Iain Dale

BNP success follows a weak Labour government

I think that Iain Dale has maybe got it spot on about the BNP.

In fact it is not Iain but his interview with Ken Livingstone in which the former mayor gives his views

Do you expose them for what they are or ignore them? I’ve always been in favour of exposing them and taking them on. The far right do well when a Labour government is failing. It’s basically working class voters who would be inclined to be our supporters become disillusioned. They don’t want to vote Tory. If Brown gets a fourth term it will grow as a problem, unless Brown’s policies become more popular with the working class. There is a lot of anger out there. If Cameron wins, it will be just like when Thatcher got in. The BNP will rapidly fade away. It’s a problem for incumbent Labour governments. It’s never going to be a problem for a Tory one. But the BNP are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. We’ve got to do everything possible to stop them, but it was like this in the Callaghan government when the National Front rose to prominence. The BNP will continue eating into the Labour vote until the government realizes it needs to do something for working class people.

Another Downfall Video

This time Iain Dale is told that he has not won the Orwell prize

Smeargate rumbles on

So Smeargate continues as Tom Watson issues a statement through his lawyers announcing that he is considering action against the Mail on Sunday over Iain Dale's article.

This from Messrs Carter-Ruck

We have today been instructed by government minister Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich, in connection with allegations concerning him and the emails exchanged between Damian McBride and Derek Draper relating to a proposed website entitled 'Red Rag'. We have today written to the editors of the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail to complain about the publication of the false allegation that our client had knowledge of, and participated in, Mr McBride's actions. We have made it clear that our client has confirmed to us that he was not copied in on any of the emails exchanged between Mr McBride and Mr Draper, nor was he aware of them or their content until their existence was first drawn to the attention of Downing Street by national newspapers, on Friday April 10. He still has not seen them. We have further made it clear that our client had no involvement in or knowledge of the 'Red Rag' website."

Blogging wars and the end of Derek Draper

The Telegraph's front page story ths morning is going to cause a great deal of controversy across the political blogosphere this Easter weekend.

The paper reports that

Downing Street is at the centre of a fresh security scare after it emerged that private emails written by one of Gordon Brown’s senior officials had ended up in the hands of Guido Fawkes.

The paper adds that

The emails, which made a number of unfounded, innuendo-laden suggestions about the private lives of David Cameron, George Osborne and other Conservative MPs

The man in question believes the story to be somewhat of a plant and a continuation of his rtecent battle with Derek Draper and Damian McBride and refutes that he tried to sell the story to the Sunday papers.

Damian McBride is desperately trying to throw a smokescreen up tonight with a planted frontpage story in the Telegraph which downplays what he has been up to. Andrew Porter, the Telegraph’s lobby correspondent, is Damian McBride’s regular drinking companion and tame mouthpiece, so it is no surprise whatsoever to Guido that the Telegraph is being used by Downing Street for damage limitation./blockquote>

Meanwhile Iain Dale also involved in a blogging spat with Mr Draper

This week, Derek Draper's Twitter Feed and any mention of him have been removed from the front page of Labour List. I wonder if that is in preparation for him being dropped altogether.
I await the details of the Sunday papers, but I would be very surprised if either Damian McBride or Derek Draper still had the same job titles on Monday.

Good spot from Iain Dale

Does the BBC know something that we don't

Ht-Iain Dale

Am I Dreaming Part 2-Dale supports Clegg

Having declared that at 15 he joined the Lib Dems,Iain Dale writes in this morning's Telegraph that

Finally, a party is willing to embrace the merits of smaller government. Astonishingly, a party leader has had the guts to say the unsayable: public spending is too high and should be cut.

Is Dale moving allegiance's?

Well no but

Clegg's announcement that the Liberal Democrats will stand on a radical tax-cutting platform has left the other two parties gasping

and

the Lib Dems are in danger of being in touch with the overwhelming majority of the British people, who are now feeling overtaxed, over-regulated and over-governed. Clegg has tapped into the Zeitgeist and may reap the electoral rewards.

Dale stops blogging for two days

I have been away for the weekend and have just caught up with the big news in the political blogophere that Iain Dale has taken some time off to get hitched in a civil ceremony to his partner of 13 years John Simmons.

Congratulations to both of them and thank goodness for Labour policy on civil partnerships.

Even his nemisis Chris Paul is happy for them,although he finds it hard to believe that he won't be blogging

Congratulations Iain, that's brilliant news. And getting partnered as well! Well done on the latter and good luck in keeping away from the blog. A sweep is being run. Which is lucky I believe.

And as at 11.25 on Monday morning,still not a word on his blog

A new brush

Courtesy of Iain Dale

Dale's blueprint for government

Is Iain Dale jumping the gun somewhat.

We are still two years away from an election and yet in today's Telegraph he is writing a blue print for what the Tories should do when thet get to power

He reveals

Former party chairman Francis Maude has been given the role of ensuring that all shadow ministers have a fully costed programme for government and a structured plan of how it would be implemented from Day One.

But I would agree with his statement that

David Cameron believes that Tony Blair wasted his first term. His analysis is that Blair was so obsessed with winning and his media operation that he had no proper plans for real change.

It is something that Tony Blair has admitted on a number of occassions,perhaps Gordon would have been in a different situation now if Labour had hit the ground running from day 1.

Not so neutral Total Politics

An interesting revelation in the New Statesman by Kevin McGuire.

Iain Dale's much flaunted new politics mag is to be bankrolled by none other than Lord Ashcroft.

Your correspondent discovered Dale squatting in Ashcroft's 7 Cowley Street basement lair when I paid an uninvited call to the Westminster block. Dale insisted the company was his, with Ashcroft a wealthy investor who'll play no editorial role. Yet I suspect the involvement of the moneybags right-winger, whose tax status remains an international mystery, will hinder Dale's attempt to present Total Ashcroft as "politically neutral

Bob Piper asks the question

Are there any other Tory bloggers getting a 'subsidy' from Ashcroft? (No, not you, newmania... he wouldn't be that daft)... for instance is that other 'independent free spirit Paul Staines also in receipt of Ashcroft gold? As MaGuire says... just exactly how big a hole does this blow in the claim that Total Ashcroft will be politically neutral?

Iain Dale talking to media Guardian replies

Ashcroft's cash would not influence the magazine's content.

A deal with the Tory peer had yet been signed, and any agreement would be purely a "commercial arrangement and Ashcroft's involvement would be a "huge compliment", said Dale.