The unbearable lightness of Isabel Oakeshott‏

If May calls early election we hacks wont be able to trust any future denials from No10 about anything. They insisted it wasn't happening.

— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) April 18, 2017

Sensational move by May, showing sensational leadership.

— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) April 18, 2017

If you are ever tempted to take Isabel Oakeshott‏ seriously, just look at the timestamps on the two tweets above.

Thanks to @imincorrigible for pointing this out.

In my book this counts as a greater crime than getting Vicky Pryce banged up or telling viewers that the Liberal Democrats were going to lose the Richmond Park by-election because they had delivered too many leaflets.

David Cameron and the pig

This evening Twitter is alight with news that the new biography of David Cameron by Lord Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott alleges that, when a student, the prime minister did something unsavoury with a pig's head.

It's interesting how the people on my timeline who normally moan about the 'Daily Fail' are happy to believe it tonight.

Anyway, I posted the photograph above when I first heard news of the planned biography. Somewhat prophetic, it turns out.

I posted it because Oakeshott's previous book had been a collaboration with Vicky Price. And look how that ended up.

I also wonder whether Ashcroft, who fell out with Cameron after he was not offered the major job he felt he had been promised, is an admirer of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

There is a famous story about LBJ. This version of it comes from a Democratic Underground board:

Legend has it that LBJ, in one of his early congressional campaigns, told one of his aides to spread the story that Johnson's opponent fucked pigs. The aide responded "Christ, Lyndon, we can't call the guy a pigfucker. It isn't true." To which LBJ supposedly replied "Of course it ain't true, but I want to make the son-of-a-bitch deny it."

Isabel Oakeshott to leave the Sunday Times

.@IsabelOakeshott has tonight left the Sunday Times to work with me on the Cameron biography. Really looking forward to it......
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) February 15, 2014

A tweet from Lord Ashcroft this evening reminds me of a picture I posted last month...

David Cameron meets Isabel Oakeshott

Liberal England in 2013 - part 1

If Lord Bonkers can look back on 2013 so can I. This is the first of four posts looking back at how this blog saw 2013.

January

The year began with Jeremy Browne telling us that being in government had been "a growing-up process for the Lib Dems". And in a post that was later picked up by Wired, I discussed how changing your vocabulary can convert your opponents.

I was still recollecting the previous summer's visit to Shropshire. The magnificent Wistanstow Village Hall turned out to be a palace built on chamber pots, while the photo above shows a memorial to three children who died in a hotel fire in Church Stretton in 1968.

Amid the month's blizzards, I asked why so many schools now close when it snows.

After discovering the songs of Nick Drake's mother, I commissioned a post on the politics of railway preservation from Joseph Boughey after seeing him on a television documentary. I was not too surprised that he turned out to be a former Young Liberal.

February

To the dismay of my sterner critics, railways proved to be a theme of this month too. I wrote of the plans for HS2:

If politics goes in cycles then this is pretty much where I came in. We are once again living in an age where the man in Whitehall knows best and environmental concerns are seen as the enthusiasms of an eccentric fringe.

I discovered a wonderful video of a pair of steam locomotives bursting out of Wing Tunnel in Rutland and found that the author of a book that was read to us at Boxmoor County Primary School - Peril on the Iron Road - was the father of the novelist Deborah Moggach.

Back in the political world, I suggested that Tim Mongomerie's appointment as comment editor of The Time was good news for Tim Mongomerie but bad news for David Cameron. And the photo above shows a Conservative press officer in the Eastleigh by-election reacting to a bon mot from the his candidate Maria Hutchings.

March

The month began with news that a Rutland aristocrat was employing a disgraced former Tory MP who had caned rent boys. Don't worry: it wasn't Lord Bonkers. And her involvement with poor Vicky Pryce saw Isabel Oakeshott win Email of the Week.

Controversy over secret courts found Tom McNally in Wonderland, while I faced up to the depredations of Cyril Smith - a subject which other Lib Dem bloggers avoided (probably because they are too young to remember him).

I spent most of the year failing to review Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes? by David Boyle, but I discovered that an article of mine for the Journal of Liberal History - Searching for Paddy Logan - is now freely available.

Reader: [Shifts feet nervously.]

Liberal England: What is it?

Reader: Don't get me wrong: I love this feature. The thought of three more parts to come fills we with an almost erotic pleasure. But couldn't we have another photograph?

Liberal England. Oh, all right them. Here is Roger Helmer of UKIP and the East Midlands hard at work in the European parliament...

Six of the Best 330

"Whatever we think about Leveson, the libel reform bill has nothing to do with it: it’s a separate argument ... The NUJ and left media reformers should not be cheering on Labour opportunism from the sidelines but telling Putnam and his cronies where to stick it. End of story." Gauche has no time for Lord Putnam and his allies, who are putting the badly needed reform of our libel laws at risk.

Pride's Purge says the email exchanges between Vicky Pryce and the Sunday Times reveal a breathtakingly cold-hearted, manipulative woman who would do anything to get her own way. And he's not talking about Vicky Pryce.

Andrew Hickey wonders why Sebastian Faulks thinks he can step into the shoes of the greatest writer of English prose who ever lived.

"It's beautifully shot up on the Stiperstones, and around Much Wenlock. There are some marvellous trademark Powell and Pressburger set pieces - the full immersion baptism in the river, and the slow procession of the traction engine to the village show are as good as anything you will see in any of their other pictures." Out in the Shires watches Gone to Earth.

The 1950s' child star Jon Whiteley is now curator of the Ashmolean Museum, reports the Oxford Mail.

The Silly Point asks if Joe Root is bound for greatness.

Isabel Oakeshott wins Email of the Week

Here is Isabel Oakeshott of the Sunday Times writing to Vicky Pryce on 8 March 2011:

In theory, it's likely there is a minor risk of you being prosecuted, but we think in practise (sic) it is highly unlikely, especially if we handle it right.

Nice one, Is!

Those Vicky Pryce jury questions in full

Love and Garbage has the first draft of the Vicky Pryce trial jury's questions:

1. Can we rely on the readings of chicken entrails by the juror who sacrificed a chicken on the third day of deliberations? 

2. If we believe that the accused had an identical twin who is wholly evil and may have committed the crime can we use this in reaching our decision? 

3. Is the episode of The Tweenies featuring Max dressed as Jimmy Savile something we can take into account in reaching our decision?

Read all 12 on Love and Garbage.