Monthly Archives: June 2019

As Nazanin ends 15-day hunger strike over imprisonment, Johnson tries to shift the blame

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Boris Johnson really is a blight on the United Kingdom and an embarrassment internationally.

The Tory leadership candidate – who may become prime minister on July 22 – has tried to wriggle out from his responsibility for worsening the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been imprisoned in Iran on a false charge of spying since 2016.

He actually had the nerve to say that those criticising him are trying to excuse the Iranian authorities who wrongly locked her up!

For clarity (and this is according to Sky News): “As foreign secretary, he incorrectly stated that she was “teaching people journalism” in Iran despite relatives insisting she was visiting family. Mr Johnson’s comments were seized on by the Tehran regime and used against the charity worker, who remains in prison.”

Iranian officials cited his words as evidence that she had engaged in “propaganda against the regime”.

Mr Johnson told Sky News: “I feel sorry for her, for her daughter, for her husband Richard and I’ve said this many, many times. I feel a deep sense of anguish for what she has been going through.

“When it comes to responsibility for what she is suffering I think that is incredibly important that we in the UK do not unwittingly give aid and succour to the people who are really responsible – which is not the Foreign Office, not the former foreign secretary, and no one in London is responsible for incarcerating Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

“The people who are responsible are the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and anything you do to exculpate them is, I think, a great shame.”

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard have both just ended a simultaneous 15-day hunger strike in protest against her imprisonment. Mr Ratcliffe hit back at the Tory leadership candidate, according to The Observer:

“Of course it’s not all [Johnson’s] fault,” said Mr Ratcliffe. “Clearly we are camped here [outside the Iranian embassy] because the Iranian authorities are imprisoning Nazanin, but he should take responsibility for his mistakes because they have consequences.

“Not just the gaffe – the failure to apologise afterwards clearly made things worse.

“I think it’s bad for a candidate not to take responsibility for their mistakes because the most important thing for a prime minister is to take responsibility for their country.”

With the election in which he hopes to become Tory leader yet to take place, one hopes the Conservative Party’s membership pays attention to this stain on the character of this candidate.

One fears they may ignore it. If so, will it be another clear indication that Tories are racists?

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Tory Goldsmith heckled at Glastonbury as he tries to ‘greenwash’ austerity policies

“Tory policy kills”: Zac Goldsmith (seated) could do nothing about protestors at his Glastonbury event.

Hear, hear.

Goldsmith was the Tory whose campaign to become London Mayor was reprimanded for Islamophobia.

It seems he went to Glastonbury intending to ‘greenwash’ Tory austerity policies, but festival-goers weren’t having any of it.

And how many disabled people have died because of Tory policies? You won’t get a straight answer from the DWP about that.

Conservative Party MP Zac Goldsmith has been heckled at a speaker’s event at Glastonbury Festival, with audience members reacting to his answers with cries of “blah blah blah, f***ing bulls**t”.

Goldsmith, who represents Richmond Park and North Kingston, was appearing at the festival’s Speakers Forum to talk about austerity and the environment, in a session moderated by BBC journalist Justin Rowlatt.

According to Somerset Live, the event quickly spiralled out of control when protestors carrying a banner reading “Tory policy kills” entered the tent. Goldsmith was subsequently booed throughout the session, despite Rowlatt’s attempts to intervene.

Protestors additionally shouted, “How many disabled people have died?” while expressing their disdain at the MP’s answers to questions.

Source: Glastonbury: Zac Goldsmith heckled and booed at Speakers Forum event | The Independent

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Death threats against Williamson over Labour anti-Semitism controversy

Chris Williamson: He has been subjected to death threats because of accusations against him that are not true.

We can hope that the death threats against Chris Williamson were merely the idle chattering of a few keyboard warriors – but that is cold comfort for the victim.

And how do his accusers feel, knowing that their lies have put a colleague in fear for his life?

For clarity, I am referring to Tom Watson, Holly Lynch, Stella Creasy, Anna Turley, Rosie Duffield, Louise Ellman, Ruth Smeeth, Jenny Chapman, Roberta Blackman-Woods, Stephen Dought, Karin Smyth, Baroness Thornton, Lord McNicol, Baroness Morgan of Huyton, Lord Turnberg, Gloria de Piero, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Yvette Cooper, Baroness Massey of Darwen, Baroness Kingsmill, Lord Soley, Madeleine Moon, Kate Green, Ruth Cadbury, Owen Smith, Seema Malhotra, Liz Kendall, Chris Matheson, Margaret Hodge, Stephen Kinnock, Jeff Smith, Chris Bryant, Wes Streeting, Julie Elliott, Lord Levy, Lord Knight of Weymouth, Lord Harris of Haringey, Ali McGovern, James Frith, Lucy Powell, Bridget Phillipson, Pat McFadden, Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall, Lord Triesman, Lord Dubs, Ian Murray, Darren Jones, Alex Sobel, Karen Buck, Neil Coyle, Lord Mandelson, Anna McMorrin, Chi Onwurah, Baroness Taylor of Bolton, Lord Willie Bach, Susan Elan Jones, Ged Killen, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, Lord Livermore, Kevin Barron, Dan Jarvis, Jess Phillips, Martin Whitfield, Rachel Reeves, Peter Kyle, Baroness Armstrong of Hilltop, Lord Young of Norwood Green, Ellie Reeves, Baroness Maggie Jones, Rushanara Ali, Debbie Abrahams, Daniel Zeichner, Lilian Greenwood, Graham Jones, Toby Perkins, Lord George Robertson, Baroness Mary Goudie, Barry Sheerman, Tonia Antoniazzi, Ian Lucas, Lord George Foulkes, Lord Wood of Anfield, Cat McKinnell, Ben Bradshaw, Lord Haskell, Lisa Nandy, Gareth Thomas, Lord Brooke, Sharon Hodgson, and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, along with the 68 unnamed Labour staffers who signed a letter of their own that was full of false accusations, as explained here.

It would be charitable to think they might have some remorse but I expect they sleep like babies.

Meanwhile, Mr Williamson has to face a heavily-biased Labour disciplinary system all over again, knowing that the charges available to its users mean he could be expelled or retained according to how the particular panel of a particular day is composed, or how its members feel at the time.

If he wants justice, he’ll have to take this matter to the law courts.

“There were death threats, which I like to think were not from Derby and there was a guy who vandalised the office.

“When you get death threats you start looking over your shoulder a little bit. I think our staff were a little concerned as well. There were letters and e-mails also but I don’t think they were from Derby.

“I went off the radar for a short while because I was incredibly hurt and upset. The Labour Party has been my life and it did have quite a big effect on me emotionally.

Source: Chris Williamson: I’ve had death threats over hurtful anti-Semitism row – Derbyshire Live

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Former suspended council officer is new Brecon and Radnorshire Brexit Party contender

Desmond Parkinson: The new ‘rainbow man’ of Mid Wales politics.

Well, this is embarrassing – for This Writer and for the Brexit Party.

Nigel Farage’s company-posing-as-a-political party has been threatening to stand a candidate in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election – but when it did, so few people noticed that I got the wrong end of the stick and wrote a story about something involving him that happened 13 years ago, by mistake.

The genuinely amusing aspect of this is that nobody noticed. I only discovered the mistake when my source contacted me at around 2.30am to tell me they thought I’d got the timeline muddled up.

(I must, of course, take this opportunity to sincerely apologise for the mix-up, which was due to me being sent background information about the gentleman in question by my source, without any links to the announcement.)

So the story is that the Brexit Party’s candidate for Brecon and Radnorshire is a “rainbow” man who has flitted between hard right-wing parties after quitting a council job from which he had been suspended.

Desmond Parkinson is a former police chief superintendent and former national assistant secretary of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales. While in these roles, it seems he did score some notable achievements – it is said that he was responsible for the creation of the Sex Offenders Register and also championed a successful campaign to ban handguns following the Dunblane tragedy in 1996.

And he was said to have fought to overturn the double jeopardy law, thereby enabling the convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence. One wonders what he thinks of Marc Wadsworth, the anti-racism activist who campaigned for justice for the Lawrence family but was subsequently and falsely accused of anti-Semitism by the Labour Party.

He was employed by Telford and Wrekin Council as a senior licensing officer in 2004 but was suspended from that position in 2006. Neither the council nor Mr Parkinson himself would comment on the reasons for his suspension, according to the Shropshire Star.

He resigned as a council officer the following year, it seems, and I have been able to find no further information about that matter.

He next appeared six years later when – in 2012 – he stood as Conservative candidate to be the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner, losing to Independent Bill Longmore.

Then – in 2016 – he sought election as the UKIP candidate to be Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Commissioner, losing to Plaid Cymru’s Dafydd Llewelyn. It seems he also campaigned as a UKIP candidate for election to the Welsh Assembly at the same time.

The following year, he switched parties to become a Conservative candidate for a Welshpool Town Council seat in 2017.

Now he has switched loyalties again – to the Brexit Party.

Can you really trust someone who changes his allegiance with the wind? Someone who was suspended from a position of responsibility with a local authority for reasons unknown, and quit before it was possible for the public to find out what those reasons were?

According to the BBC, Mr Parkinson said the by-election was a “matter of integrity” and people had been “let down” by the Conservatives.

Fine words. A man who forged expenses claims (Chris Davies – who was re-selected as Tory candidate against all reason) being criticised by one who left his licensing job under a cloud – and both have been members of the Conservative Party, which tends to indicate that that organisation will let anybody in!

And what does it say about the Brexit Party when it takes in Tory cast-offs?

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DWP spaffs £200k up the wall trying to deprive just seven people of Universal Credit

“It’s only money”: That seems to be the Tory government’s attitude, when Tories are spending it. They wouldn’t dream of letting the rest of us have any, though. Contradiction?

That’s right – while you were watching right-wing buffoons arguing in the Tory leadership campaign, or watching right-wing buffoons trying to split the Labour Party, right-wingers were spending a lot of your money, attacking the poor.

Universal Credit pays around £3,000 per year, so the Tory-directed Department for Work and Pensions spent nearly 10 times as much money preventing seven people from getting UC than it would if it had simply paid them.

And the ruling is that they still have to be paid! In fact, one of the rulings was that the DWP wasn’t making its repayments large enough.

Worse still, the Department is appealing against all the decisions that have cost us so much money so far, no doubt on the orders of Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.

So she’s spending even more of our cash!

And the Conservatives call themselves the party of financial responsibility. The party of delusion, more like.

Tory ministers blew almost £200,000 of taxpayer cash fighting seven single mums and disabled people over Universal Credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) racked up the huge bill defending three High Court battles that defeated its cruel policies.

In June 2018, top judges found the DWP acted “unlawfully” by denying top-up payments to two disabled men.

In May 2019 judges backed a claim by those same men, plus a third claimant, that said repayments were too small.

And in January 2019 four single mums won a challenge against a “nonsensical” glitch in UC that left them short of cash.

We can reveal the June case cost £91,529 in legal fees, the January case cost £52,446 and the May case cost £39,871 – a total of £183,846.

Yet Tory ministers are appealing all three cases – which means the bill is set to spiral further.

Source: DWP blows £200k fighting 7 single mums and disabled people over Universal Credit – Mirror Online

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Labour has covered itself in disgrace with the Chris Williamson controversy

Chris Williamson: It seems he’s doing the Labour version of the Hokey-Cokey. You put your left leg in, you take your left leg out…

The re-suspension of Chris Williamson amid renewed – and malicious, in This Writer’s opinion – screams of “anti-Semite” is a scar on the face of the Labour Party.

The Labour MPs, peers and party employees who have vilified Mr Williamson – without any real evidence, let’s remember – all deserve to be subjected to the same disciplinary procedure, with the threat of being thrown out. Every single one of them. They have done more to bring the party into disrepute than he ever did.

Here are the names of the MPs and peers involved: Tom Watson, Holly Lynch, Stella Creasy, Anna Turley, Rosie Duffield, Louise Ellman, Ruth Smeeth, Jenny Chapman, Roberta Blackman-Woods, Stephen Dought, Karin Smyth, Baroness Thornton, Lord McNicol, Baroness Morgan of Huyton, Lord Turnberg, Gloria de Piero, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Yvette Cooper, Baroness Massey of Darwen, Baroness Kingsmill, Lord Soley, Madeleine Moon, Kate Green, Ruth Cadbury, Owen Smith, Seema Malhotra, Liz Kendall, Chris Matheson, Margaret Hodge, Stephen Kinnock, Jeff Smith, Chris Bryant, Wes Streeting, Julie Elliott, Lord Levy, Lord Knight of Weymouth, Lord Harris of Haringey, Ali McGovern, James Frith, Lucy Powell, Bridget Phillipson, Pat McFadden, Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall, Lord Triesman, Lord Dubs, Ian Murray, Darren Jones, Alex Sobel, Karen Buck, Neil Coyle, Lord Mandelson, Anna McMorrin, Chi Onwurah, Baroness Taylor of Bolton, Lord Willie Bach, Susan Elan Jones, Ged Killen, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, Lord Livermore, Kevin Barron, Dan Jarvis, Jess Phillips, Martin Whitfield, Rachel Reeves, Peter Kyle, Baroness Armstrong of Hilltop, Lord Young of Norwood Green, Ellie Reeves, Baroness Maggie Jones, Rushanara Ali, Debbie Abrahams, Daniel Zeichner, Lilian Greenwood, Graham Jones, Toby Perkins, Lord George Robertson, Baroness Mary Goudie, Barry Sheerman, Tonia Antoniazzi, Ian Lucas, Lord George Foulkes, Lord Wood of Anfield, Cat McKinnell, Ben Bradshaw, Lord Haskell, Lisa Nandy, Gareth Thomas, Lord Brooke, Sharon Hodgson, and Lord Kennedy of Southwark.

Of course, context is everything. If any of them can demonstrate that they were misled and did not understand that they were supporting false accusations, I would certainly advocate leniency. But they all deserve to have their cards marked for this particular abomination.

The letter they signed provides absolutely no evidence in support of their demand.

The most relevant line – ironically – is “It is clear to us that the Labour Party’s disciplinary process remains mired by the appearance of political interference.” Of course, their letter is the most blatant example of political interference there could be. They didn’t like the result of the party’s investigation so they’re trying to change it.

That is how the public sees this and the public has responded with disgust at Mr Watson and his co-plotters.

On the basis of that letter, one may be forgiven for thinking that these Labour MPs and peers are attacking Mr Williamson because they don’t like him. That is the limit of the information in their letter.

Fortunately, The New Statesman‘s Patrick Maguire has provided a letter from 68 anti-Semitic – yes, anti-Semitic – Labour Party staffers, providing details of their accusations against Mr Williamson.

These details include claims that Mr Williamson:

“Shared a platform with Tony Greenstein, suspended from Labour for using terms such as ‘Zio’ and describing a Jewish member of the Labour Party as a ‘Nazi Bitch’.”

I have bad news for these Labour staff – who should know better: Tony Greenstein is himself a Jewish man. He was suspended from Labour for standing up and saying that, as a Jew, he did not accept the way certain prominent members of the party – not all of them Jewish – were making claims of anti-Semitism that did not stand up to scrutiny. You might not like the language he has used but the vilification of this man by these people is clear hatred against a Jew, as a Jew. That is anti-Semitism and everybody who signed this letter is therefore an anti-Semite.

They also complained that Mr Williamson:

“Attended events in solidarity with individuals suspended from the Labour Party for antisemitism.”

How kind of these Labour officers to confirm what many of us have known for years – that those accused of anti-Semitism are automatically assumed to be guilty by the party machine. There’s no justice in Labour’s disciplinary procedures while these people are around!

They said he

“campaigned for the reinstatement of Marc Wadsworth, who attacked Ruth Smeeth MP at the launch of the Chakrabarti Inquiry and accused her of ‘working hand in hand with the press’.”

Mr Wadsworth was well within his rights to accuse Ms Smeeth, as is well-documented. She instantly accused him of anti-Semitism, despite the fact that he did not even know she was Jewish at the time. Labour’s disciplinary procedure led to his unfair expulsion – a decision that created a wave of disgust at the party’s biased system.

You can read this article for more information. It includes Mr Williamson’s tweet in support of Mr Wadsworth, pointing out that he is an anti-racism campaigner who was instrumental in the campaign for justice after the death of Stephen Lawrence.

They said he

“reasserted his support for Pete Willsman, after a recording surfaced of an antisemitic rant about Rabbis and that antisemitism in the Party was manufactured by Israel, an antisemitic conspiracy theory.”

How many times do we have to repeat that criticism of Israel is not anti-SemiticThere is a wealth of evidence to show that the Israeli government habitually interferes in Labour Party affairs – read this article for a taste of it.

They said

“just hours after 11 Jewish people were murdered in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Chris Williamson tweeted a conspiracy theory article from the website Skwawkbox, accusing the Board of Deputies of British Jews of using antisemitic language.”

Here‘s the Skwawkbox piece. As you can see, it was reporting on claims in the Jewish Chronicle that Marie van der Zyl, chair of the self-elected Board of Deputies, had used an anti-Semitic stereotype in a speech.

And you know what Mr Williamson’s comment was? It’s in my article here: “Wow, well blow me down with a feather.” That’s an expression of surprise or shock – not of anti-Semitism. Maybe he was being sarcastic but, in context, that should be no reason for vilification either.

I don’t have personal knowledge of the claims regarding a petition in support of Gilad Atzmon or endorsement of Scott Nelson. I have heard that he was asked to support a petition against calls to boycott a concert by Mr Atzmon, who is a musician by trade. For some reason, at the time of writing, I am unable to access that petition on the Change.org site, so I cannot tell whether there is any mention of his political views. If not, it’s possible Mr Williamson was not aware of any accusations of anti-Semitism against that person. In Mr Nelson’s case, my understanding is that this is a person who accepted he had made anti-Semitic comments in the past and apologised for them – and Mr Williamson was calling for people to accept the apology and move on.

So, on the face of it, the evidence against Mr Williamson is spectacularly weak.

There was no anti-Semitism in the speech that prompted his suspension in the first place. See my article here for the facts about that.

The manufactured anger over that speech seemed to be part of a co-ordinated campaign against Mr Williamson; he was also attacked for trying to host a screening of the film Witch-Hunt, that covers the false claims of anti-Semitism against Jackie Walker (and others). Not mentioned by opponents of Ms Walker is the fact that she is herself Jewish. Like Mr Greenstein, she stands up – as a Jew – to denounce the misappropriation of anti-Semitism accusations. Those who accused her, in turn, of anti-Semitism were in fact guilty of the offence themselves.

But they always seem to get away with it, don’t they?

Mr Williamson has tweeted his own impatience with the inconsistency in Labour’s disciplinary process:

As a resident of Brecon and Radnorshire, where Labour is about to field a candidate in a by-election, I am deeply concerned about the misbehaviour of party members and officers who should know better.

It will undoubtedly reflect on the campaign and people may decide not to support Labour because of it.

And then who will be to blame?

It won’t be anyone who has been falsely accused of anti-Semitism but I can’t see Tom Watson biting the bullet. Can you?

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Wading in ‘crottes’: Do Conservative supporters approve of Boris Johnson’s opinion of the French?

Boris Johnson: Open mouth, insert… crottes.

Here’s another challenge for Tories who support Boris Johnson – it has been revealed that he called the French “turds”, in comments that the BBC censored for reasons known only to its Tory-supporting news editors.

I would certainly like to know what the Conservative candidate in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election – expenses forger Chris Davies – thinks of such behaviour by his potential new leader.

To all other voters in the B&R constituency, I’d like to ask: Wouldn’t you?

It certainly seems the election of Mr Johnson as Tory leader – and prime minister – would make an advantageous Brexit deal less likely, rather than more so… and certainly unlikely to happen by October 31 as Mr Johnson insists.

But the BBC’s decision to cut the fact that Mr Johnson said it is also highly suspicious.

It indicates that Auntie is subject to political interference. At a time when the Corporation’s impartiality is under investigation by Ofcom, that could be extremely harmful to both the BBC and the Conservative Party.

I shall certainly expect to see this mentioned in any report that Ofcom produces.

Boris Johnson branded the French “turds” in remarks that the United Kingdom government successfully persuaded the BBC to remove from a documentary about his work at the Foreign Office.

The former Foreign Secretary was filmed making the comments in relation to the French government’s Brexit position, according to a leaked government memo seen by the Daily Mail.

However, the Foreign Office successfully argued that Johnson’s comments, if aired, would do “significant damage” to Anglo-French relations and harm Brexit negotiations.

In a memo seen by the Mail, officials note that “we negotiated the removal of one potentially awkward moment where the former foreign secretary calls the French ‘turds’ so as not to distract from the rest of the programme.”

Source: Boris Johnson called French ‘turds’ in comments censored by the BBC – Business Insider

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Craig Murray explains why every Labour member with a neoliberal Blairite MP needs to have them de-selected

Time to go: Keep your coat on, Tom Watson – you’ve had your day.

At a time when so-called ‘centrist’ Labour MPs – and party apparatchiks – are using the basest of false accusations to remove left-winger Chris Williamson from what they consider to be their party, Craig Murray’s words could not be more important.

We have tolerated these vipers in our midst for far too long and they have hindered the Corbyn project at every opportunity.

Principle among them, of course, is Tom Watson, who promised before his election as the party’s deputy leader that he would support any Labour leader to the hilt – until he realised that the new leader would be Jeremy Corbyn.

We’ve had four years of backstabbing and betrayal from this political pipsqueak – who has benefited hugely from right-wing media cheerleading that he did not deserve.

He doesn’t represent the Labour Party. He’s the spokesman for a tiny minority of members who happen to have found their way into Parliamentary seats via political patronage, the Blairite system of ‘parachuting’ yes-people into safe seats and other undemocratic methods.

I think a right-wing Labour MP who got their seat with the genuine support of their constituency members is an extreme rarity and the re-selection process that has been triggered this month is an opportunity not only to prove this, but also to get rid of them, once and for all.

You don’t have to be an Austrian Archduke to stand at the moment when your own small actions can have profound, indeed historical ramifications.

Corbyn supporters are at that moment of historic decision right now – and mostly do not realise it.

Jeremy Corbyn represents the only realistic chance the people of England and Wales have been given in decades, to escape from the neo-liberal economics that have impoverished vast swathes of the population. But he leads a parliamentary party which is almost entirely comprised of hardline neo-liberal adherents.

The majority of the parliamentary Labour party are the people who brought in academy schools, high student tuition fees, PFI, who introduced more privatisation into the health service than the Tories have, and who brought you the Iraq and Afghan Wars. They abstained on the Tory austerity benefit cuts and on May’s “hostile environment” immigration legislation. They support Trident nuclear missiles. Many hanker after bombing Syria, and most are members of Labour Friends of Israel.

They have spent the last four years in undermining Corbyn at every turn and attempting to return Labour to the right wing political Establishment agenda.

It is ESSENTIAL that every Labour Party member reading this blog acts NOW to try to get rid of those dreadful Blairite MPs.

Source: A Moment in History – Craig Murray

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Disgraced Tory seeking re-election as MP has dodgy hunting history

Department of kicking-them-when-they’re-down: The Hunt Saboteurs Association has commented on the upcoming Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, saying that disgraced Tory Chris Davies is a former hunt master who implicated himself in the flouting of the hunting ban when it was imposed by Labour in 2004.

Mr Davies was master of the Banwen miners’ hunt in the Swansea Valley from 1993-99, before moving on to the Golden Valley Hunt on the Welsh borders in 2000.

In 2004 he told the BBC that members of his hunt would break the then-new hunt ban, imposed by the New Labour government – and it was clear that he did not intend to lift a finger to remind them of their legal obligations.

“They are upstanding members of the community who are being turned into criminals. It’s absolutely ludicrous,” he told the BBC at the time.

“These people have probably never even had a parking fine in their lives.”

In 2015 he supported Tory plans for a statutory instrument to weaken the provisions of the Hunting Act, relaxing the law to allow foxes to be hunted by packs of dogs in England and Wales to protect livestock, game birds and wild birds, while “having regard to the terrain” and provided it is “carried out as efficiently as possible”. It was ripe for abuse and David Cameron withdrew it when he realised he could not get enough support in a free vote.

Hunt Saboteurs Association spokesperson Lee Moon said: “It’s hard to think of a less useful member of society than an ex-hunt master, corrupt Tory MP. We hate to kick a man while he’s down but we’ll make an exception in this case.

“Davies is clearly a man who can’t be trusted.

“Whilst master of the Golden Valley Hunt he implicated himself in flouting the Hunting ban and now as a public servant he has deliberately falsified accounts to rip off the public purse.

“It’s testament to the low moral standards of the Conservative Party that they’ve re-selected him for the upcoming by-election and we wanted the Brecon and Radnorshire electorate to know the type of man they’re potentially voting for.”

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By-election talk is all about tactics. What happened to policies?

Labour’s Tom Davies: He’s got the policies; the Lib Dems and Tories just have hot air.

Here in the centre of UK politics – Brecon and Radnorshire to the rest of you – all the talk is about the forthcoming by-election that we have just learned with be held on August 1.

But all the talk, it seems, is about tactical voting. Nobody wants to talk about policies!

Even Labour’s Tom Davies was induced to comment on the tactics of the constituency when he was quoted in the local rag (and my former employer) The Brecon and Radnor Express this week.

Commenting on the Liberal Democrat habit of positioning themselves as the only effective challengers to the Conservatives, and of demanding that Labour supporters lend their votes to them in order to defeat the Tories, he said: “I think they are reliant on our voters.

“But voting for the Lib Dems simply to try and keep the Tories from getting the seat doesn’t work. It has been proven not to have worked at the last two elections and in 2010 people voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out and they made a pact and went into coalition with each other.”

This is true. Labour has been gaining ground steadily – across the constituency – since the great Lib Dem betrayal of 2010, and those who continued to vote tactically for the Liberal Democrats in 2015 and 2017 – only to see them lose to the Tory – are still stung by the experiences.

And the pain may be all the greater because Labour has policies that the majority of British people – let alone those in Brecon and Radnorshire – support.

Polling by the Tory-owned company YouGov in January this year has shown majority support for a large number of headline Labour policies – along with an admission that widespread support in foreign countries for the same plans means these are not far-left whimsy but mainstream political thinking.

A vote for Labour, therefore, would be a vote to:

  • Ensure that at least 60 per cent of the UK’s heat and electricity will come from low-carbon or renewable sources by 2030 (polling suggests this was supported by 79 per cent of the electorate);
  • Cap rents at the rate of inflation (74 per cent);
  • Increase income tax for the top five per cent of earners (68 per cent);
  • Require businesses to reserve a proportion of seats on their boards for workers (63 per cent);
  • Re-nationalise the railways (60 per cent);
  • Re-nationalise utility companies like the energy and water firms (57 per cent);
  • Provide free university tuition for all students (55 per cent);
  • Prevent the UK from participating in military interventions in other countries (52 per cent).

Those are pretty good policies!

Meanwhile, the Tories and Liberal Democrats are squabbling over who defaced their office frontages with yellow “B*ll*cks to Brexit” and “B*ll*cks to Boris” stickers. The Tory office also had an image of male genitalia painted onto the door and an EU flag hung from the handle.

Peter Weavers, chair of the constituency’s Conservative Association, tweeted: “@LibDems in Brecon and Radnorshire launch by election campaign by vandalising Conservative Association office in Brecon with ‘B******s to Brexit’ stickers – and genitalia drawings! Is that the level of intellect that deserves a vote? The people of B & R deserve respect.”

He was later forced to climb down, saying he did not mean to suggest the Liberal Democrat Party was directly involved.

Clearly, the Tories and Lib Dems are going to be a comedy gift – but if you want serious politics, it’s got to be Labour.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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