Breedon on the Hill from the sky

Blogging about the Church Langton Chappie, I mentioned St Mary and St Hardulph at Breedon on the Hill elsewhere in Leicestershire.

This video shows that church, and in particular its remarkable situation.

St Mary and St Hardulph is on a hill - in fact Breedon on the Hill means 'Hill Hill on the Hill' - above the village and above the surrounding countryside. You get good views of planes taking off from and landing at East Midlands Airport.

And, as you will see, that hill is still being quarried away.

If you google videos of Breedon, the first that comes up is of Andrew Bridgen in the churchyard explaining how globalists are poisoning his precious bodily fluids, but I thought I would spare you that.

Penny Mordaunt, Andrew Bridgen and the decline of the cuckoo

From the Leicester Mercury:

Andrew Bridgen has been labelled the “first cuckoo of spring” after claiming the BBC has repeatedly spread Covid-19 misinformation. The North West Leicestershire MP was also met with heckles of "shame" in the House of Commons before he was rebuked by its leader Penny Mordaunt.

Mr Bridgen, who now sits as MP for actor Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, spoke out after the BBC launched its new BBC Verify service this week, with the Leicestershire MP insisting the corporation had been behind much misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

Mordaunt is right about Bridgen: he is cuckoo. But she is behind the times when it comes to the way we regard the bird.

Fifty years ago the distinctive call of the cuckoo was a commonplace sound of the English countryside in spring and summer. When I was a boy you reckoned on hearing one every time you went for a walk.

Then people did write to the newspapers to claim they had heard the first cuckoo of spring: now they are likely to write if they hear the bird at all.

And our impression that the bird has become much rarer is correct. A page on the British Trust for Ornithology site says:

Since the early 1980s Cuckoo numbers have dropped by 65 per cent. The reason for this decline is not known, but it has been suggested that declines in its hosts or climate-induced shifts in the timing of breeding of its hosts could have reduced the number of nests that are available for cuckoos to parasitise, resulting in cuckoo declines. 

The main hosts in the UK are the dunnock, meadow pipit, pied wagtail and reed warbler. 

A passing dunnock replies: To be honest, I'm quite relaxed about this decline.

Andrew Bridgen vs Lee Anderson - it's the fight you wish both sides could lose

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Yesterday I tweeted the Independent's account of the Westminster altercation between Andrew Bridgen and Lee Anderson. In it, one wtiness described Anderson as "aggressive and out of control".

In the interests of balance, here (via GB News) is a very different view from Nana Akua:

The altercation was in fact initiated by Andrew Bridgen, who came over to our table opening the conversation with what I thought was a warm welcome.

He stood beside me, leant over and put his arm around my side in a welcoming gesture. However, it was anything but that, it was in fact a rouse for an abusive tirade directed at Lee Anderson.

Andrew was clearly very angry and accused Lee of expelling him from the party.

Lee was caught off guard as we all were as Andrew continued to badger him aggressively but with a smile on his face.

Despite Lee stating clearly that he was not aware that Andrew had been expelled and that this was the first he had heard of it, Andrew persisted.

... I don’t have the exact transcript or wording of the conversation, but it was an offensive, aggressive and deeply unpleasant tirade directed at Mr. Anderson. Andrew was spoiling for a fight.

I hope they have their fight and that they both lose.

Andrew Bridgen suspended by Conservative Party

Andrew Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire, has been suspended by the Conservative Party for spreading misinformation about Covid vaccination.

Bridgen, who is currently serving a five-day suspension from parliament for breaking rules on registering financial interests, will lose the party whip while an investigation takes place.

The suspension follows a tweet that Bridgen sent this morning calling the Covid vaccination programme "the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust".

Simon Hart, the Tory chief whip, told BBC News that Bridgen's comments had "crossed a line" and caused great offence:

"As a nation we should be very proud of what has been achieved through the vaccine programme.

"The vaccine is the best defence against Covid that we have. Misinformation about the vaccine causes harm and costs lives."

The consultant cardiologist is believed to work at another hospital, so you wouldn't know him.

Andrew Bridgen publishes anti-Johnson MPs' briefing in blog post

A briefing aimed at Conservative MPs opposed to Boris Johnson continuing as leader has been published by The Pavlovic Today.

In a blog post there Andrew Bridgen, Tory MP for North West Leicestershire, writes:

The disapproval ratings of Boris Johnson are on the trajectory of Jeremy Corbyn’s. Those who are still supporting Prime Minister Johnson are starting to sound like the hardcore Corbynites who, for all their love of their leader, could not see the negative feeling towards him outside their echo chambers. 

But when he goes on to discuss who should succeed Johnson he loses interest in the mood of the nation and is interested only in the mood of Conservative members. And that mood, he says, means their next leader must be a Brexit true believer.

I suppose that as our political parties become smaller their members become less representative of their voters as a whole. There are clear signs of buyer's remorse when it comes to support for Brexit among the wider electorate.

Anyway, here is the briefing, which Bridgen posted in full. You can download it as a pdf from The Pavlovic Today.

Andrew Bridgen: "The MP for North West Bullshitshire"

I wasn't allowed to call Andrew Bridgen the MP for North West Bullshitshire in the paper. But I can here...https://t.co/vZ88VB5qR6 pic.twitter.com/d99t26WIP4

— Matt Chorley (@MattChorley) November 17, 2018

Matt Chorley's article is behind The Times paywall, but I can add further evidence to support his case out here in the open.

In July 2016, during the Conservative leadership election, Andrew Bridgen appeared on the East Midlands segment of the BBC's Sunday Politics.

He was there to support Andrea Leadsom's candidacy - this was before she gave her first major interview and torpedoed her own campaign.

As I blogged at the time:

When the interviewer Marie Ashby put him to him that, according to the Sunday Times, some East Midlands Tory MPs were threatening to leave the party if Leadsom won the contest Bridgen replied:

"If Theresa May ends up leading the party I think you'll have as many people falling off the other side of the party."

Theresa May, of course, won the leadership by dint of being the only candidate left standing. And not a single Conservative MP left the party.

The MP for North West Bullshitshire had struck again.

Keith Vaz vs Andrew Bridgen: The battle continues

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One of the more entertaining aspects of Leicestershire politics is the mutual antipathy between Keith Vaz (Labour MP for Leicester East) and Andrew Bridgen (Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire).

The latest manoeuver in the battle is reported by the Sun:

Counter-fraud cops last night confirmed they were looking into allegations against shamed Labour MP Keith Vaz. 

The National Crime Agency said it was taking questions over his unexplained £4million wealth “very seriously”. 

They made the revelation to Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, who has demanded a probe into how Mr Vaz has amassed such a large property empire on an average annual earnings of just £90,000.

In a separate report the Sun suggests that Mr Vaz was rather busy during the period when the parliamentary investigation into his was suspended because of his poor health.

Round 94 of Andrew Bridgen vs Keith Vaz

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It is no secret that Andrew Bridgen (Conservative MP for Leicestershire North West) and Keith Vaz (Labour MP for Leicester East) do not get on, much as it was no secret that relations were a little strained between the Montagues and Capulets.

The latest round in their long bout can be found in a Mail Online article from last week.

Pow!

Andrew Bridgen wants the National Crime Agency to use new powers created to crackdown on crime gangs to investigate the Labour MP. 

Mr Bridgen claimed in a letter that Mr Vaz owns eight homes in the UK, more property in India and sends his children to fee-paying schools on his MP salary of £74,962. 

Mr Vaz received an extra £15,025 a year during his time as chairman of the home affairs committee until he resigned in September 2016 amid a rent boy scandal. 

Mr Bridgen said in the letter this income did not justify the expenditure and called for an 'Unexplained Wealth Order investigation'.

Zap!

Mr Vaz referred MailOnline to Carter Ruck. A spokesman said: "Mr Vaz considers Mr Bridgen's cowardly actions in peddling malicious, highly defamatory and utterly false allegations in this way to be wholly reprehensible, albeit unsurprising given Mr Bridgen's track record. 

"Mr Vaz will be considering appropriate legal action against Mr Bridgen and also ask the NCA or other relevant authorities to investigate Mr Bridgen for wasting public resources by pressuring them into investigating his vexatious and malicious 'complaints''."

Andrew Bridgen, Edward Heath and Wiltshire police

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North West Leicestershire's Andrew Bridgen is the ultimate rent-a-quote backbench Conservative MP, ready with an ill-informed right-wing opinion on any topic at the drop of a hat.

Only last week he was in the Daily Mail complaining about a National Trust exhibition at Kingston Lacy:

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said of the Kingston Lacy exhibition: "This is totally inappropriate. It’s not what people visit the National Trust for. If I want moral guidance I go to church – not the National Trust."

Perhaps Bridgen should have spent more time in church, because today his excruciating performance at a family court hearing has been all over the papers.

My readers are, of course, much too sophisticated to be interested in such matters - I recommend Fleet Street Fox in the Mirror for the best account.

Even before that story broke, however, I was considering a post about Bridgen because of the extraordinary context in which his name cropped up on Sunday.

A Sunday Times report headed "Fresh doubt over Heath sex inquiry" contained this passage:

The Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who has seen an early draft of Wiltshire police’s report on Heath, described its findings as "credible and disturbing". 

The MP for North West Leicestershire said: "I have never known any other police investigation that has got as much media attention and where such efforts have been made to discredit it before publication. 

"I have the utmost confidence in his [Veale’s] integrity and the professionalism of his team, and I would urge people to reserve judgment until they have read the report."

It is right that accusations against of sexual abuse Edward Heath should be investigated. But if it is true that this investigation has failed to contact Sir Timothy Kitson, who knew Heath for 35 years and was his parliamentary private secretary during his time at No 10 from 1970-74, it is hard not to be sceptical about it.

Above all, you wonder who decided to give Andrew Bridgen a copy of the the report, particularly as it seems that this report will remain confidential.

I hope the journalists reporting the publication of a redacted version of the report on 5 October will ask that question.

Pew! Andrew Bridgen and the potato factory

#STENCH MORE OF THE SAME TODAY!

— Measham (@MeashamCATS) July 23, 2016

Residents of the Leicestershire village of Measham are complaining about a foul smell that has plagued the village for years.

One of them, Peter Yates, is quoted by the Leicester Mercury:

"Here we are again, another warm spell when one likes to enjoy the outdoors and have the house windows open. 

"But here in Measham, for yet another year, we can't." 

He added: "Despite all the rhetoric and assurances from the offenders, A B Produce, with their annual fobbing off to both the local council and Environment Agency, the stench is actually worse than ever, to the point of being nauseating."

The A B Produce plant, which residents blame for the smell, is run by a company founded by Measham's MP Andrew Bridgen.

At one time, judging by this BBC report, Mr Bridgen derived a substantial income from the company that runs the factory. Today he just declares a shareholding in the House of Commons Register of Members' Financial Interests.

You can read about past litigation over the Measham Stink, and the company's insistence that it is about to resolve the problem, in the Mercury report.

Leicestershire Tory MP forecasts 20 defections if Theresa May becomes leader

Let's be honest: the East Midlands regional section is not always the most interesting part of Sunday Politics.

But it was certainly worth watching yesterday.

Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, was defending Andrea Leadsom and her bid to lead the party.

When the interviewer Marie Ashby put him to him that, according to the Sunday Times, some East Midlands Tory MPs were threatening to leave the party if Leadsom won the contest Bridgen replied:

"If Theresa May ends up leading the party I think you'll have as many people falling off the other side of the party."

You can see the exchange from 42:36 if you watch it on iPlayer.

Remember that the Sunday Times claimed as many as 20 Tory MPs were prepared to leave the party if Leadsom won.