Big Sticks and Small Carrots

Tim has received some answers from Tom Watson.

According to the Sunday Mercury, Tom Watson’s wife earns up to £20,000 a year and we now know she earns that working as his PA.

Is that more than average for such a job? Well, the last time I read about how much an MPs PA earns, it was in amongst this lot. The investigation into Derek Conway’s expenses included an interview with his wife. She told the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that “her role as his PA had been to deal with correspondence and keep his diary. She also arranged meetings, and visits to Parliament by groups, etc. from the constituency, of which, because of the constituency’s proximity to London, there was a considerable number”.

Conway’s wife is apparently paid £3,271 a month to do this job; that works out at £39,252 per year. According to the Telegraph, this “almost £40,000 a year” is “significantly more than the Parliamentary average for such a role”.

So then, what do they mean by “significantly”? If it means twice as much as average, perhaps £20,000 would be a sensible sum. But twice as much is surely more than “significantly more”; they’d have said Conway’s wife gets “double” the average or something. Or would they?

To be fair, I don’t really know whether these two jobs are comparable. And I don’t know whether Mrs Conway delivers good value for the money she earns.

I do know that the £40,000 a year Conway’s wife gets was not part of the equation when “Guido” attempted to make his bizarre comparison. In fact, Staines is spinning like Alistair Campbell on a Waltzer. He knows better than most Conservative MPs how badly the Conway affair hurt the Tories and even attempted some damage limitation himself. Now, with nothing but innuendo and implication, he’s trying turn that hit around by suggesting that Labour MPs are worse.

This does at least have the advantage of exposing the claim that “Guido Fawkes” treats all politicians equally for what it is. I’d spell it out but I’m trying to give up blog swearing* at the moment.

* Not that I don’t recognise that there’s an art to it. Perhaps the outstanding practitioners have made me realise that it wasn’t ever going to be my field.

Dan Hardie: Fine Words, Shabby Deeds

Do you like reading fine words? Here is the Prime Minister on the subject of Iraqi ex-employees of the British Government, speaking in the House of Commons on October 9th, 2007: ‘I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of our civilian and locally employed staff in Iraq, many of whom have worked in extremely difficult circumstances, exposing themselves and their families to danger. I am pleased therefore to announce today a new policy which more fully recognises the contribution made by our local Iraqi staff, who work for our armed forces and civilian missions in what we know are uniquely difficult circumstances.’

Fine words. What about deeds?

A small number of Iraqis - fewer than a dozen, according to people close to the operation who are in contact with me- were removed from Iraq in the early autumn of 2007. Since the Prime Minister’s admirable declaration of October, how many Iraqi ex-employees have been evacuated from Iraq? According to all the Iraqis that I am in contact with: none.

Read the rest.

All the evidence suggests that the government will not do the right thing if left to their own devices. Public pressure may well make a difference. Please consider acting on Dan’s recommendations. For some Iraqis, it could literally be the difference between life and death.

Democracy has never been cheaper.

Democracy has never been sillier.

Democracy has never been subverted by arms dealers.

Let’s hear it for our values, people.

Bloggerheads: The half-time match report (with Nick and Elroy)

Top stuff.

Now, read it or be bullied mercilessly!

(For the avoidance of doubt, the actual bullies in this story are easy to spot. Tim Ireland most certainly is not one of them. Oh, just read the post. It’s well worth it.)

Jailhouselawyer has started a new blog (via) and his first post, Iain Daily’s Rules of Engagement, is very good.

Paul Staines (”Guido”) is a bandwidth thief. He’s a leech.

Tim Ireland wrote about this and it is clear that Staines has leeched bandwith from at least one other person. He did this yet again in a post in December 2007 after he had been specifically asked not to. Paul Staines, champion of free speech that he is, responded to Tim’s post by resorting to threats of legal action through his solicitor. He knows as well as Alisher Usmanov that money counts for a great deal when it comes to this type of action. Staines has access to money.

Tim Ireland would like you to consider supporting free speech once again. Access to money and a willingness to brandish legal threats should not give someone the power to silence bloggers as and when it takes their fancy.

Paul Staines (”Guido”) is a bandwidth thief. He’s a leech.

Back from that London after a thoroughly enjoyable trip.

º<[] :o)

Tim has all the details of the anti-Christmas carol service outside parliament. If you want to hear some merry bloggers singing badly, click through. As you might be able to tell, we had a lot of fun while proving the point.

Beforehand, I met Tim and Justin for the first time and has a great time being a small town boy in the big city. Thanks guys!
(Clearly, this public statement provides further proof - as if it were needed - that Iain Dale was right to call me one of Tim’s “sockpuppets” and part of a vast left-wing conspiracy…)

It was also great to meet Davide, Mat and D-Notice at the carol service and also John who brought his sax.

Bah humbug, one and all!

Man flu! Bah! Sniff, cough, splutter…

Fortunately, this decision by the Metropolitan Police doesn’t really need much in the way of comment. You just need to sit and think about it for a moment.

If you wanted to support Christmas by organising a counter-demonstration against our demonstration, would you need permission for that?

Do you need permission to hold an ANTI-Christmas carol service in Parliament Square? Is that, the exact opposite of a Christmas carol service (no permission required), a demonstration? We’ll find out soon.

I’ll be down in that London for the first time in a very long time so I’ll be there. Be prepared to be underwhelmed. I’m much less clever when I’m unplugged from the interwebs and don’t have five minutes to consider every sentence.

It’ll be fun though.

Yesterday, Justin posted an excellent article for Liberal Conspiracy on the whole issue of honest debate on blogs

There’s been an interesting development in the comment thread. At  around 1.30 am this morning, someone posted a comment using an ID from a brand new Blogger account. That brand new blog contains very thinly veiled nasty personal attacks on Nadine Dorries. They are, in fact, exactly the sort of attacks which are described in the standard defence employed by certain bloggers - “I refuse to answer your legitimate question and to justify that refusal, I’m going to spin it to look like it’s part of a personal attack”. The brand new blog contained unjustified attacks of just the sort which are often falsly claimed.

When Justin deleted the first comment, the brand new blogger complained about Liberal Conspiracy “sinking to the depths of Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale etc”.

Which is funny given that the brand new blog contains just the sort of unsubstantiated tabloid gossip, crude jokes and other assorted cheap shots pioneered by Guido.

There is a very obvious difference between deleting links to nasty gratuitous personal attacks and deleting legitimate comments because they are politically embarrassing. We can argue about what is and isn’t legitimate but here a couple of my own rules of thumb:

1. Questions about the behaviour of a member of parliament acting an their capacity as a member of parliament - normally OK.
2. Links to nasty personal attacks of a potentially libellous nature - normally not OK.

I don’t think that’s overly controversial (especially for a project like LC) but it apparently is to the brand new blogger.

Of course, a link to that nasty personal attack against that MP in that context would have been very useful to those attempting to spin away legitimate criticisms with false accusations of “vitriolic” personal attacks. A cynic might draw conclusions from that.

A cynic might also suggest that someone is deliberately attempting to divert attention from the legitimate discussion and turn the thread into a fatuous debate about Liberal Conspiracy’s own comment policy.

But we’ll never know what their motivation was. The brand new blogger chose to remain anonymous so it could have been anyone at all.

Anyway, Sunny has deleted the brand new blogger’s comments and rightly so. Liberal Conspiracy has a clear comment policy.

If anyone wants to sensibly continue the discussion into the difference between nasty personal attacks and legitimate comment, feel free.