Lib Dems repeat call for free-to-view Premiership games as new football season begins

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On the opening day of the new Premiership football season, Calum Miller, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bicester and Woodstock, has called for some games to be shown on free-to-viws television channels.

In a letter to Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary he says:

"I am calling on you to have discussions with the Premier League to tear down the paywall and give football back to the country."

The Lib Dem manifesto at the general election included a pledge that at least 10 Premier League games would be screened free of charge.

According to the Mirror, an agreement with the television stations and football authorities sees one La Liga game shown free each week. So it is possible for such arrangements to be put in place.

I support this benignly populist measure, but what I really want to see is the new government overturn Nadine Dorries's decision on who Chelsea's new owners should be.

And maybe call a judge-led inquiry.

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Armenia is facing its most precarious moment in three decades. The loss of Karabakh, a region with a centuries-old history of Armenian habitation and heritage, will reverberate for generations, says Thomas de Waal.

The two unitary authorities forged out of the wreckage of the bankrupt Northamptonshire County Council are run by many of the  Conservative politicians who did the wrecking, Now, reports Sarah Ward, those unitaries are in dispute about where the debts should land.

"Anyone working in journalism has received letters from people claiming to have evidence of a vast conspiracy against them, often handwritten in tiny scrawls over many pages. They are terribly sad, and they go straight into the bin. HarperCollins, receiving such a missive, instead decided to write the author a large cheque." Robert Hutton dissects The Plot by Nadine Dorries.

Thomas Pluck says goodbye to Shane MacGowan: "Shane also sang a duet with Sinéad O’Connor, a couple years after her protest of the Catholic church child sex abuse scandal made her persona non grata in the media. ... Shane was low in '95 as well, so it makes me smile that he worked with her when she was hated, and she lifted him up after he’d been kicked out of his band."

The Duke of Wellington reviews Napoleon.

"There are still a lot of strong feelings associated with crop circles. There are some people who believe none of them are hoaxes and all are caused by some supernatural, alien means. Other people are resolute that every single one of them across the world, with the majority popping up in Wiltshire, are human creations. And then, there are some people who have been researching the crop circle phenomena themselves for years, and they believe not all circles can be attributed to high jinks in the countryside." Weird Wiltshire looks at the crop circle action in the county this year.

After 78 days' suffering the relief is incredible: Nadine Dorries has resigned as an MP

Nadine Dorries has resigned as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, more than 11 weeks after she announced that she was to do so 'with immediate effect'.

Her resignation letter attacks Rishi Sunak viciously:

Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened. What exactly has been done or have you achieved?

You hold the office of Prime Minister unelected, without a single vote, not even from your own MPs.

You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?

But it's not Sunak who promised her a peerage and then failed to deliver. It was Boris Johnson. 

So now all roads lead to Flitwick.

Later. The Daily Mail has the full text of her resignation letter, which can fairly be described as barking mad.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The other animals would lay their disputes before the kangaroos

Liberator 418 is out. You can download a pdf of the magazine free of charge from its website.

Which means it's time to spend another week in the company of Rutland's most notorious peer. 

Lord Bonkers' ordeal in the gorilla costume came about because I had to miss an issue of Liberator because I was caring for my mum. She was amused when I told her where I had parked the old boy.

Tuesday

Alarmed by tales of children identifying as cats, I telephone the headmistress of the village school and Matron at my own Home for Well-Behaved Orphans. Both assure me that there is nothing in the story: in short, it’s Perfect Rot. 

I turn instead to my editorial for this week’s High Leicestershire Radical and decide to give beans to those calling the Commons Privileges Committee a ‘kangaroo court’. 

I make two points. The first is that respect for Parliament lies at the heart of our democracy. 

The second is that when, a couple of years ago, I had the misfortune to be confined in a zoo for some weeks – you may recall I wore a gorilla costume throughout my ordeal – I was impressed by the way the other animals would lay their disputes before the kangaroos. Somehow their antipodean informality (“She’ll be right, mate”) and mastery of courtroom procedure allowed these engaging marsupials to arrive at resolutions that both parties found fair. 

If I were Nadine Dorries (which I admit is unlikely) I should not relish facing the class action that the kangaroos of Queensland are bringing over certain of her dietary preferences in that programme where everyone is stranded  in the jungle.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

A by-election in Somerton and Frome: puzzlement in Mid Bedfordshire

David Warburton, the MP for Somerton and Frome, has announced that he is to resign from the Commons.

He lost the Conservative whip over a year ago because of allegations of drug use and sexual harassment. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had already found that he received a £150,000 loan from a Russian businessman without declaring it.

In his resignation letter Warburton admits cocaine use - after drinking 'tons of incredibly potent' Japanese whisky - but denies the harassment allegations and paints himself as the victim in the whole affair.

Somerton and Frome was a Liberal Democrat seat, represented by David Heath, between 1997 and 2010, and the party has an impressive prospective candidate already in place in the shape of Sarah Dyke.

It will take lots of work to win here, but the swing needed is significantly less than the ones we have recorded in our three by-election gains in this parliament.

Meanwhile in Mid Bedfordshire, the Lib Dems are selecting their candidate this evening.

But Nadine Dorries may be cooling on the idea of resigning. She has said she won't do so until she finds out why she's not been given a peerage.

This reveals a sense of entitlement that undermines the 'woman of the people' image she promotes. And I can probably help her solve the ministry.

If Boris Johnson promises you something and that promise is not fulfilled, it is usually not necessary to look beyond Boris Johnson to find out why.

The Lib Dems are odds-on favourites to win Mid Bedfordshire

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Betfair has the Liberal Democrats as odds-on favourites to win the Mid-Bedfordshire by-election.

Converting their decimal odds into old money, the betting looks like this:

• Lib Dems          1/2
• Conservatives   9/4
• Labour            20/1

These odds may be influenced by Nadine Dorries's kind decision to give the Lib Dems extra time to campaign.

The Lib Dems will be lying in wait for Boris Johnson if he tries the chicken run to Henley

Boris Johnson's majority in Uxbridge and South Ruislip is only 7,210, and given the steady fall in Conservative support across most of London, Labour fancy their chances of taking the seat at the next election.

So the idea that Johnson may look for a safer seat is back on the agenda. And one possibility is Henley, the first seat he represented before resigned to be London's elected mayor and whose current Tory MP has said he will stand down at the election.

Hence this report in the Observer:

On the off-chance that Johnson decides to head for safer ground on his old turf, local activists are already preparing for an anti-Johnson campaign. Leaflets are being designed and the launch of a "beat Boris" fundraising campaign is set to be unveiled by the local Liberal Democrats, who are the main challengers in the seat. ...

Enthusiastic local Lib Dem activists have dubbed their campaign, which is being aided by the central party, "Operation Yellowhammer". They believe that despite the 14,000 majority, the big Lib Dem increase at the last election – combined with Johnson’s increasingly divisive reputation – could make him vulnerable to an appeal to "kick Johnson out of parliament once and for all". 

South Oxfordshire council is already one of the party’s targets in May’s local elections, where it is fighting to take overall control.

An unnamed and inevitable "party source" says:

"If Boris Johnson thinks doing a chicken run to Henley will help save his skin, he’s got another thing coming,"

The expression the source wants is "got another think coming". Either the Observer journalist's shorthand has got rusty or this source has revealed themselves as the agent of a foreign power. 

No doubt they are committed to an admittedly long-term strategy of overthrowing the British state from within by seizing control of the Liberal Democrats.

Anyway, my money is on Nadine Dorries laying down her life to create a vacancy for a Conservative candidate in Mid Bedfordshire and Johnson sliding in there instead.

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Caron's Musings finds the Liberal Democrats in a pickle over porn: "The truly bizarre thing is that the amendment that was selected is, incredibly, even worse than the main motion. It imposes a bulky bureaucracy that will have very little effect and, does not prioritise education. Why are we thinking that we can just leave it to machines and technology to sort out our warped and unhealthy attitude to sex?"

A new report from the Adam Smith Institute explains why the government's Help to Buy scheme will stoke a housing bubble by boosting demand without doing anything for supply and risk taxpayer money in the process.

Zelo Street reports that Nadine Dorries has been offered a six figure sum to write a trilogy of autobiographical novels.

"He is much concerned that the secret world has become 'the spiritual home' of the British political establishment, an upper clergy that is 'pernicious' and 'widely spread'. Philippe Sands interviews John Le Carré for the FT Magazine.

Archaeologists from the University of Maryland and Morgan State University have uncovered evidence that the first free black community in the US was established as early as 1790 by former slaves who had bought their freedom. Read more on Can You Dig It?

Londonist remembers the day Peter Pan was tarred and feathered.

My seventh Whipped column for Ad Lib

Whipped: From the desk of the Junior Whip

The Chief Whip has been in the papers. Not because of a scandal, but because of his friendship with the drummer from Keane. In the feature Richard Hughes spoke of their shared opposition to the death penalty and described the Chief Whip “an easygoing, funny guy”. (I bought two copies to check this quote.)

I’m not sure this appearance was a good idea. There’s nothing wrong with being associated with Keane – ever since Tony Blair politicians have had to pretend they like rock and I am sure the Chief Whip really does. But the more timid backbenchers will have been surprised to discover he is opposed to the death penalty.

And then there was Nick Clegg’s visit to the Chief Whip’s constituency. I had the Leader’s office on the phone asking about the giant wicker man he had seen there. I assured them it was a traditional way of welcoming distinguished visitors to the islands. I hope that was right.

Back here at Westminster, the Conservative Party has been busy going mad. They allowed Nadine Dorries to take the whip again and she rewarded them by immediately calling for a pact with UKIP.

Then 114 of their MPs voted for an amendment to the Queen’s speech. And now they are getting exercised about gay marriage – I have a sneaking feeling the less intellectual Tory backbenchers fear the new law will oblige them to marry each other.

The truth is that there are two parties in the coalition and one of them is united and disciplined and fit for government. And that party is not the Conservative Party.

I doubt that anyone could lead it now because its MPs have become such a rabble. As I heard one Tory backbencher bellowing down a corridor the other day: “It’s time Cameron showed some leadership and gave in to all our demands!”

Ad Lib: From the desk of the Junior Whip

My copy of the first issue of Ad Lib - the pocket glossy monthly intended to replace the weekly Liberal Democrat News - arrived today.

As is apparently obligatory in Lib Dem publications, it carries a mildly satirical article by me, though what appeared in the magazine (reproduced below) is not exactly what I sent in.

Whipped: From the desk of the Junior Whip

The Chief Whip is not going to be pleased. He got very excited when he heard about Nadine Dorries being on I’m a celebrity… and insisted that I get a couple of our MPs on to it too. Something about having them out of the country before next week’s votes. But there was nothing doing. Apparently after Lembit they vowed never to have another Lib Dem. Not even when I offered to pay for the wallaby testicles.

***
I am currently working as an intern here in the Lib Dem Whips Office. It is probably best that you don’t know my name. Call me the Junior Whip.

I quite fancy being an MP myself in a year or two. I have my eye on a seat where the sitting MP retires at the next election.

This chair I am leaning back on is normally occupied by Alastair Carmichael, the Chief Whip. So is the desk I have my feet on.  Fortunately he is at home in his constituency at the moment and I am minding the shop.

On the shelf behind me is his bottle of  Auld Johnston, that most celebrated of Highland malts, which is marked, damn him. The Chief is a Scot, likes his whisky and trusts no one. Probably wise in his job.

Alongside the whisky is a boxed set of Francis Urquhart DVDs (I tell him they are black comedies: he insists they are an instruction manual), and the Black Book.

The Black Book? Passed down from chief whip to chief whip, it has the dirt on every Liberal and Liberal Democrat MP for more than a century.

It is the most entertaining thing I have ever read. And you know that Lib Dem MP who is retiring? He doesn’t know it yet, but I do.

Want to know more? Come back and see me again next month.

The Junior Whip spoke to Jonathan Calder

I'm a civilised person get me out of here

While I have been out this evening I gather that the Conservative member for Mid Bedfordshire has been eating ostrich anus on national television.

I don't like Nadine Dorries. I don't like I'm a Celebrity... And she is a fool for going on the show.

But I shall not be voting got her to eat any more anuses. Because I don't like the bullying inherent in the campaign to have her undertake every Bushtucker Trial.

And I have reached an age where I have sympathy for the words of the psychologist Professor Paul Gilbert, as reported in this morning's Independent:

"Reality shows are designed to hold your interest in people when they lose, and see them despair. The focus is on the emotional meltdown of losers. 

"We need to be studying in detail the effect of this kind of competitive culture in the media on the young people who are growing up on it. 

"Supposing all the young people watching The Apprentice thought this was the way people did business, with all the back-stabbing and attacking each other. Would you really want to live in a world where everyone did that?

"So much is going on that is making people angry. I think people feel a bit hopeless."

I will make one exception. If AntnDec ever fall on hard times and are obliged to go into the jungle themselves, I shall happily pay to vote for them to eat ostrich anus all evening.

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Writing in the Guardian, Clare Allan draws an important moral from the Savile affair: "The various inquiries into how he was able to continue his behaviour unchecked are likely to take some time. We don't need to wait for an inquiry, however, to tell us the most immediate and obvious truth: it is crucial to listen to people whose word it is easy to dismiss."

On the Wired Danger room site Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan examine the Kremlin's increasing surveillance of the internet.

The writer of Feeding My Intolerant Child feels the NHS has let her down. So she wrote to her MP. Trouble is, her MP is currently in Australia appearing in a reality television show.

Five Chinese Crackers unpicks an article by James Delingpole to demonstrate a number of common logical fallacies.

"The Normans called the guerrilla movement that resisted them after 1066 the ‘silvatici’ — the men of the woods. The English, it is said, called them the same thing in their own language: green men ... How would you show your loathing of them without attracting a penalty? Perhaps you would carve the face of a green man inside the church: perhaps you would bring the spirit of the silvatici into the temple of the enemy." Writing on Aeon Paul Kingsnorth, fancifully but intriguingly, suggests that the Green Men you find carved in Medieval churches were a symbol of Saxon resistance to the Norman yoke.

Spitalfields Life presents some vintage photographs celebrating the high days and holidays of old London.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: My new friends, the Conservatives

So what are our Conservative friends like? It has been what the young people call “a steep learning curve” for me as, until recently, I generally saw Tories from the saddle as we hunted them across the fields of Leicestershire and Rutland. I recall a good run a county councillor gave us until he went to earth near Billesdon Coplow...

Anyway, in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, I here offer pen portraits of a few of my new colleagues.

My older readers will recall that popular programme from the early days of the moving television, “Have a Go with Eric Pickles”. With his catchphrases “Are yer courting?” and “Give him the money, Barney”, Pickles soon became a household name. He disappeared from our screens amid persistent rumours that he had eaten one of the Dagenham Girl Pipers, but later resurfaced as MP for Brentwood and is now Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

George Osborne, a scion of the biscuit dynasty, made his first worker redundant at the age of 10. His parents must have been so proud.

A little bird told me that, had the Conservatives won an overall majority, then Nadine Dorries would have been prevailed upon to accept my Outer Space portfolio. I take it as a tribute to Nick Clegg’s skill as a negotiator that he was able to win the post for a Liberal Democrat.

Iain Duncan Smith is known as “the quiet man”. I am told that he intends to revolutionise the Social Security system in Britain, but am unable to hear a word he says.

In 1977, at the age of 8, William Hague brought the Conservative Conference to its feet with his peroration: “I hate Socialism and, besides, you lot will soon be dead anyway”. Thirty-three years later, now aged 87, he is Foreign Secretary. Isn’t it strange how things turn out?

“Do you know Theresa May?” a civil servant asked during one of my first visits to my new department. “No,” I replied, “but I am grateful for the tip.”

Earlier this week

Autumn has come to Rutland
At the first hint of an asteroid

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Writing on Liberal Democrat Voice, Andrew Stunell argues that we need to take ownership of the concept of the "Big Society": "during the coalition negotiations, it quickly became apparent from talking to Oliver Letwin that what they call the Big Society was a very close match to the “Community Politics” ideas Liberals have been promoting since the ‘70s. Power should flow upwards from the grassroots, and not downwards from Whitehall."

Ewan's liberal musings reproduces a speech on drug policy that he gave to a fringe meeting at this year's Liberal Democrat Conference in Liverpool.

Nadine Dorries's recent comments on Twitter and the people who use it are dissected by DickMandrake.

"I hope that the party does moves towards a one member, one vote system in future elections and abolishes the archaic electoral college. I had five votes in the election, both as a member of the party, but also as a member of various affiliates, this really is ridiculous and change is long-overdue," says Labour blogger Blogging4Merton.

Neuroskeptic pours cold water on yesterday's reports that a genetic cause of ADHD has been discovered.

Next month a three-day event at The Roundhouse will celebrate the work of Frank Zappa, reports Londonist.

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I have to write my first post-election for Liberal Democrat News tonight. While I do, here are some links for you to enjoy.

Nick Clegg and took his place on the government front bench today for the first time. The Financial Times' Westminster Blog suggests he is already proving a handful for his Civil Service minders: "Just imagine the scene when José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain called on Monday to congratulate Vicepresidente Nick Clegg. There was the eager private secretary, listening in on the conversation, poised with pen and paper to note down important matters of state. But there was no point. He couldn’t understand a word. Clegg was chatting away in Spanish."

Disgruntled Radical reproduces his speech from the special conference in Birmingham last Sunday.

John Bercow survived Nadine Dorries's attempt at a coup today. Stephen's Linlithgow Journal has the tale of the last speaker to be voted out by MPs. His name was Charles Manners-Sutton, it took place in 1835 and he was a relation of the Duke of Rutland. Lord Bonkers is still chuckling over that one.

David Higgerson, in his Outside the Bubble blog for the Liverpool Daily Post, takes Liam "It's the way I tell 'em" Byrne to task for his joke about public spending.

Heather Brooke has written an article exposing the limitation of CCTV as a way of fighting crime.

And Londonist looks at what the West End theatres had to offer in 1967.

John Bercow set to defeat the parliamentary mujahideen

Writing on the Guardian website (and in tomorrow's paper), Patrick Wintour predicts that John Bercow will be re-elected as speaker of the Commons tomorrow "despite the opposition of a small group of Conservative diehards led by Nadine Dorries who are trying to depose him".

Wintour says that Bercow has the support of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the acting Labour leader Harriet Harman, and that he will "play a key role in trying to adapt parliament to the reality that the Liberal Democrats have joined the government, so leaving parliament with

only one large formal opposition party".

He adds:

One source said that if 20 or 30 MPs did vote against Bercow, more than most people predict, the outcome "will be cathartic, forcing a small parliamentary mujahideen to recognise finally that Bercow is legitimate figure".

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The outstanding Liberal Democrat result on Thursday was Ian Swales' capture of Redcar with a 21 per cent swing. Chris and Glynis Abbot explain how it was done.

Dib Lemming empties a pungent and well-merited bucketful right over the head of Nadine Dorries.

Have the financial markets been in chaos or sent into freefall by a hung parliament, as some newspapers claim? No, says Stumbling and Mumbling.

Norfolk Blogger detects sanctimonious duplicity and doublespeak in the Green Party in Norwich South.

The newcomer Angus Reid won the battle of the opinion pollsters, finds Singing My Song.

The Vagabond Trail visited Clun this week to attend the Green Man Festival - an ancient Shropshire tradition that dates all the way back to 1997. (The photograph above is borrowed from that blog.)

Why Guido Fawkes was acting as Nadine Dorries's bagman?

Back in September I asked why Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes), the self-styled scourge of all politicians, was acting as a bagman for a Tory backbencher.

This afternoon Paul Waugh offered a possible explanation:

Some of Mr McBride's money will end up in the pocket of his nemesis, one G Fawkes. As part of the £2,500 costs, it seems that Paul Staines (the man behind the beard) charged Ms Dorries' lawyer Donal Blaney £75/hour for serving the legal letter on the former Number 10 man.

Why is Guido Fawkes acting as Nadine Dorries's bagman?

Because he is just another Tory, is probably the short answer.

Shouldn't a dangerous libertarian, when faced with a clash between Damian McNasty and Mad Nad, just hug himself with glee and enjoy the fun? That is not the approach of Paul Staines - aka Guido Fawkes.

This morning, as he tells us on his blog, Staines served papers on Damian McBride on behalf of Nadine Dorries. Not so much watching the contest as climbing into the ring on join in on the side of one of the boxers.

But then, during the last London Mayoral election, Staines used his blog to endorse Boris Johnson. So we should not be too surprised.

What will happen at the next general election? Will Staines come out in support of David Cameron?

I think we should be told.

Britblog Roundup 223: The one you can claim on expenses

There is no doubt over the topic of the week, but as I am beginning to suffer from indignation fatigue I am leaving MPs' expenses until last.

Good things

First a sad, beautifully written posting from fretmarks:

The bird loves the boy because he is entirely full of joyous, manifest amazement at the bird. The boy just loves the bird because he is a bird. And the birdoole does that chops-fluffed-little-flirting twitch of the head, and the boy does it back. And soon the bird and the boy are both swaying sideways backwards and forwards dancing at each other, although the boy has to shift his grip on the plastic sea lions to cover both ears with his palms, because the bird is so delighted he’s screeching at the top of his lungs.

And:

I tell him that I like his sea lions very much.
He frowns as if he’s assuming upon himself the responsibility of my being one of the elect, and says, ‘lots of people think they are…’ he pauses contemptuously ‘…seals’.
But of course they are sea lions! I say.
Yes, he says.
We glory in the importance of accurate classification.

Day to Day Life of a Very Lazy Gardener considers another good thing: boutique wines from Hungary.

Elsewhere Rod Duncan looks at book launches, Nee Naw at Percy Pigs, and Conservengland celebrates Frankimass.

Diamond Geezer dares to hope that the Euston Arch my be rebuilt one day.

And if you think double entendres are a good thing then you will love Little Frigging in the Wold (Fnarr! Fnarr! Warf! Warf! K-Woo! K-Woo!)


Bad things

Jennie Rigg gets cross about all sorts of wrongs.

More specifically, The (Daily) Maybe reports doubts about the Libertas list for the Euro elections and Penny Red looks at the BNP's attitudes towards women. Brian Barder thinks a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty would be a bad idea.

Ros Scott exposed some housing problems in the House of Lords.

Cruella-Blog takes aim at sexism in the word of work ("We're not victims of biology - we're victims of misogyny.") and, on the f word, Amy Clare replies to "a particularly infuriating article in the Daily Mail about women without children".

Lavengro in Spain looks at attitudes towards homosexuality and finds Britain a not particularly liberal place, with British Muslims less tolerant than their coreligionists in France and Germany.

While 853 takes on something really bad: National Express train services.


Fight of the Week

Craig Murray slams Charles Crawford.

Charles Crawford slams Craig Murray.


Expenses

Having done my best to put it off, here goes.

Pajamas Media offers a view of the scandal from across the Atlantic and Two Doctors add their own analysis from Scotland.

Writing on Liberal Conspiracy, Alan Thomas wants an immediate general election. Paul Evans (also on Liberal Conspiracy) and Amused Cynicism look at ways out of this crisis, and Charles Crawford examines the impact of information technology on the political system.

Amused Cynicism has some proposals too.

Quaequam Blog! thinks one MP has been unfairly treated, while Mr Eugenides thinks that Nadine Dorries has been the author of her own misfortunes.

Peter Black is transfixed by the saga of Peter Hain's aga.


Next week

Next week's Roundup will be in the care of Suz Blog.

Please send your nominations, as ever, to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com.