A US correspondent writes to ask just how badly Labour did in the council elections on Thursday. For tactical reasons (ha ha ha) I have been forbidden until now to share with PooterGeekers just how terribly the election campaign has been going. Now that I can, the thesaurus on my desk is not helping. I'll […]

Yesterday I received two books of raffle tickets from the Eastern Region Labour Party. I am supposed to sell them in aid of our campaigns. The first prize is a trip for two to the European Parliament. The joke is old, but perfect.

Judith draws our attention to a very smart piece from the New York Times [free registration, your home is at risk if you default on a loan secured on it, rhubarb rhubarb] about the absurdities of contemporary political life in Washington.

Muammar Gaddafi vsited the EU today and showed that he is as coherent now as he ever was. Here’s a sample: “…the aging Arab radical showed flashes of his firebrand style in a 45-minute harangue to a joint news conference, at which questions were barred, under the watchful eye of four of his women bodyguards […]

Yvonne Ridley, journalist and former Taliban captive, is standing in the European elections for the “anti-war” RESPECT Coalition, the organisation currently caring for George Galloway, former Labour MP. The strange history of this woman is in itself worth pointing up, but today I just wanted to draw your attention to her use of language: “I […]

A tip if you’re about to become a Labour supporter: don’t, whatever you do, give the party your email address. Every time Tony Blair gives a speech important enough to have been trailed on the Today Programme two days beforehand he feels the need to send you an over-sized bleeding Word attachment so you can […]

“‘Labour Party’? Dictatorship Party more like!” I am standing in the street with a couple of other local party members and the local Labour MEP. We are armed with highly explosive balloons. The person ranting at me is about 22, has a whispy blond goatee, multiple piercings and a grating, sneering, estuarine voice. He is […]

There are only a couple of months to go now before the crucial election for the hotly contested Cambridge Market seat, and scarcely a day goes by without I and my fellow Labour candidates—running mates, if you will—addressing the media. Perhaps we should have stuck to our original plan to keep a low profile. In […]

Just back from interrogation by the Labour Party Thought Police—sorry: being interviewed as candidate for the (I was reassured) unwinnable council seat of “Cambridge Market” [big gif]. “Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence?” “No.” “Are you in arrears with your Council Tax?” “No.” “Have there ever been or are there any County […]

Two more signs that Kerry is winning: Today I read an article [subscription only, you oiks] in The Economist defending him against the increasingly desperate Republican accusations that he is a weathervane, always saying one thing or voting one way, before “flipping” around to an opposite position. Then I noticed that Bloomberg has him raising […]

Now not only has the British National Party got its own Jewish candidate, so has the French Front National. Madame Arrouas does point out in her defence that some of Le Pen’s best friends are Jewish. I remember when Britain’s (now defunct) National Front used to have a couple of black stooges who would speak […]

Not having a television, I missed the full horror of events on Budget day. (In The Times on Thursday, Anatole Kaletsky explained in rather more detail than I did why Gordon Brown has completely outflanked the Tories. [Since it’s the London Times there’s no free access for you dirty foreigners, but then you probably don’t […]

The British National Party’s leaders have managed to disguise their true intentions so successfully that they could have given themselves a new problem to solve.

It’s Budget day in the UK. Gordon Brown has produced a boring budget with one absolutely brilliant strategic move: he promised to reduce the number of civil servants by 40 000 and move 20 000 of the remainder out of London to the provinces. As an employee of the Medical Research Council there’s every chance I might […]

As I always write: Nick Cohen is Left wing; I frequently disagree with him; his journalism is often superb. In today’s Observer he defends human rights against the “War on Terrorism” crowd, attacks poor little rich boy terrorists and worries about the dangers of anti-Muslim racism. Nothing has been sillier in the past few years […]

I see Amber’s unbelievable Texan miscarriage of justice story and I raise with a British one. WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit? An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the […]

Gene is a hawkish Lefty and a frequent poster of pro-Israeli comment at pro-war Labour/Marxist ‘Blog “Harry’s Place”. Yesterday he defended US Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry there over the issue of “defense”.

Oh no. Now there’s a Labour MP at it.

The demise of the delightful Ann Winterton will warm the cockles of my father’s heart.