Way to up your book sales, Tom Harris

I felt that low political stuff, especially when it involved a certain amount of teasing, was not appropriate for such a sombre weekend of remembrance.

It's Monday morning now, though, so I am quite happy to poke a wee bit of fun at Tom Harris, the Labour MP for Glasgow South. I reckon he'll be relatively untroubled by my comments, and I kind of owe him after he upset my baby last year.

Tom announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party on Saturday after the decision by the Party's Scottish Executive Committee to allow MPs to stand as well as MSPs. Labour's leader in Scotland will now be a proper leader, not just the head of the Group in Holyrood. This is a very radical step for Labour, but to those of us who understand devolution, it's kind of natural.

I always get quite worried when I agree with Mr Harris. It has happened occasionally, but it's safe to say that he and I are pretty far apart on the liberal/authoritarian scale. And Tom hates Liberal Democrats with a passion unrivalled in its intensity. He is, however, a showman. He and Salmond thrashing out the issues would be hilarious - but ultimately destructive and depressing for politics.

For all I criticise the SNP, to accuse them of not being patriotic, or not caring about Scotland, isn't fair - and I really can't stand bringing that sort of language into the political arena. However, Tom's going the same way as Jim Murphy did as Secretary of State:

“Above all, we need a leader who will always put Scotland ahead of their own party. On that count, Alex Salmond is lacking, because he puts his ambitions for independence above the interests of Scots"

I can't see an SNP led by Salmond and a Labour Party led by Harris ever co-operating on anything, or discussing anything in other than soundbite fashion. You just get double the amount of bluff and bluster if you try and out-Salmond Salmond.

I can't see Scottish Labour and the Unions for one second backing ultra Blairite Harris. How many photos of Tony Blair appeared on Labour leaflets in Scotland?  The fact that there were more on our literature tells its own story. I will be very surprised if he wins.

However, he may get a bit of a consolation prize in more sales for his upcoming book, "Why I was right and everyone else was wrong".  This book is published on 22 September by Tory blogfather Iain Dale's publishing outfit, Biteback.  Since I pre-ordered it on 4 September, the price has gone up by £1.50, from £7.49 to £8.99 today.  I suspect it'll be a very good, funny, read.

Of course, book deals don't appear overnight and when I teased him about his leadership being a way to promote his book on Twitter the other night, he replied that:
In my defence, the book deal was agreed when it looked like Labour might win at Holyrood!
Of course and any extra sales resulting from his leadership bid will, of course, be a happy coincidence.

Another interesting thing is that there's a possibility that if Tom does win, he may not be in Holyrood until 2020. Saturday's statement said that:


Tom reconfirmed his intention to stand for Holyrood at the 2016 elections and to step down from Westminster as soon as practicable thereafter. 


What on earth would be the point of voting for Tom in the 2015 Westsminster elections, knowing that he'd stand down in a year if he were elected to Holyrood? And what if he didn't win in 2016? If Tom gets his wish, Labour's leader in Scotland could spend 9 years outside Holyrood until the 2020 election.  Actually, if he didn't win, it would probably mean that Labour had done so badly that he'd have been the victim of a post election internal bloodbath, but it's still worth pointing out.


Now that Tom's book is all printed, I wonder if there's anything in it that he might regret, now he's about to woo his party faithful. I'm looking forward to reading it to find out. 


I was quite amused to see, by the way, that also recommended on the Amazon page for Tom's book was a Frijid Pink album. This isn't a euphemism for Scottish Labour, but an American psychedelic rock band whose bassist is called Tom Harris. 


Update: Iain Dale told me on Twitter that  it's "Nothing to do with me, Gov, Amazon set their own price". I reserve the right to be amused by the happy coincidence, though. 

Should obstetricians be trained in forceps deliveries to avoid Caesarian Sections?

Childbirth has been a feature of this week twice for me. Not personally, obviously, but there are a couple of things I wanted to share with you.

Firstly, I was taken by this report on the BBC today that apparently doctors need more training in forceps deliveries to avoid caesarians. Apparently there's not enough time for training due to the pesky Eurocrats, but it would be so much better if doctors could just yank babies out rather than put the mother through surgery. Frankly, if that was the choice available, I'd prefer taking the pain and the risk of the op rather than giving my baby a very sore head and possibly some injuries to welcome them to the world, but what do I know?

I know that there are times when heavy medical intervention in the childbirth process is necessary and it saves lives. However, I wonder if it wouldn't be better if there were more time given to learning traditional skills, like turning babies manually, or learning newer techniques like optimal foetal positioning. That sort of ante natal preparation, combined with a supportive environment to go through labour in, can avoid complications during birth.

On Monday, the Divine Helen Duffett popped up on Iain Dale's LBC show. Not, this time, representing Liberal Democrat Voice, but to talk of her experience of giving birth to her two youngest children at home. I don't like giving credit to Nadine Dorries, but in the spirit of being fair to everyone that I try to espouse on this blog, I have to say that she talked a lot of sense in encouraging this and saying that women should have the right to choose themselves whether they want a home birth.

There aren't very many men on this planet who can talk comfortably about childbirth, but I have to say Iain did well. I generally define doing well in those circumstances as not asking any really crass questions or pretending that you have a clue what it is like. Having said that, I'd have loved to have seen his face when Helen was describing the purchase of large plastic sheet from B & Q, which she later lent to a friend. A little bit of raised eyebrow did creep into his voice at that point, but he pulled it back.

Anyway, I found another aspect of what Helen was saying very interesting. She talked about how her first baby had had a fairly dramatic entrance into the world because he got stuck. The same situation occurred with her third baby, but the midwife attending to her at home suggested a simple manoeuvre (which probably wasn't that simple to perform in the circumstances, I grant you) which got the little one safely into the world without trauma. Helen pointed out that along with her being able to choose the birth she wanted, she'd also saved the NHS £4000 - an argument she thought would appeal to Mr Dale.

My own experience of giving birth (don't worry, I'm not going to get gory) went through 3 hospital shifts. At the start, I had to hide for an hour and a half from a doctor who was a bit over eager to get things moving. That was not a nice experience. Things improved with a midwife who had the time and knowledge to support me through the hard bits, a female doctor who saw something a little abnormal but didn't panic and a lovely companion who anticipated almost all of my needs and responded immediately to my barked out commands when he didn't.

It's easy for me to see how the actions of the health professionals actually led to me having the intervention free birth I wanted. There were a couple of critical points when they could have made some different choices. That would have led to an avoidable and ultimately unnecessary medicalisation of a process which was proceeding perfectly well on its own. I was very lucky to have that kind of care and I want to see that available to other women.

If we're going to be giving doctors more training in birth, then I think it has to encompass methods which encourage and promote a more natural approach. By all means teach them the skills that they need to use in an emergency to save a mother's or baby's life, but that's by no means the whole story of what they need to know.

Do you want to work for Iain Dale?

I actually wrote this this afternoon and scheduled it for later - before I realised that Iain was talking about universal benefits on his LBC Show and I decided to phone in and take part in the discussion, talking about how my husband and I don't need Winter Fuel Allowance and shouldn't get it, and why raising children benefits all of society therefore it's in the State's interests to share some of the costs involved, cos kids sure don't come cheap.

The one they call the egregious Tory Tosser is looking for an Executive Assistant, as his Twitter feed announced to the world this afternoon. The job ad itself made me laugh - it is well put together and pulls no punches about what is expected of the successful applicant:

This role would be ideal for a recent graduate who is looking to make a career in politics or the media and has great organisational skills. You will serve as Iain’s eyes and ears, arranging meetings, providing Iain with relevant information in a wide range of areas, making travel and accommodation arrangements, acting as a gatekeeper, researching issues ahead of media appearances, drafting articles, ensuring Iain is well briefed ahead of all meetings and, from time to time, mind-reading!


And then you have to be "confident and able to accept criticism"


However, you do get the chance to get your retaliation for any future criticism in first as part of the application process involves submitting a "250-500 word critique of Iain’s political blog". 


Because I like to see the good in everyone, I assume that he's trying to find someone with a robust enough character to work well with him, but also to tell him when he's talking bollocks.


Nowhere in the ad does it say you have to be a Tory. I can think of loads of Liberal Democrats who have all the skills for this role and would bring an appropriate amount of irreverence and humour to it. 


If you don't fancy that job, there's another, as an online writer for Total Politics. I have to be honest and say that since I took out my subscription to the rag in February this year, I have thoroughly enjoyed every single issue. It does have everything the political junkie wants, in a range of formats, from interviews to masterclasses to gossipy snippets. However Anna looked through a couple of issues and said there were too many men in suits in it. Can you change that? 

When Helen Duffett met Iain Dale

Why would a woman from Scotland spend a Monday evening listening to a local London radio station? And why would she consider making it a regular date? Every Monday at 8, LBC has a bloggers' panel. Last night it was chaired by the one Jennie refers to as the Egregious Tory Tosser who was sitting in for the regular presenter who was sick.

I hesitate to say anything nice about the King of the Tory Blogosphere, but he's unlikely to read this, nor is anyone who knows him and is likely to tell him, so I'm fairly safe, but actually, he's really good at this radio presenting lark. He's assured without being a prat about it, interesting, witty and very engaging. I was so interested that I actually kept listening until the end of the show at ten, when the subjects under discussion were the Greencoat Boy incident (of which more later) and Martin Amis' comment that only depressing books win prizes. It was quite funny to hear Iain suddenly remember that he'd chucked Martin Amis out of Politicos for smoking. I mean, who would smoke in a book shop? Nothing there could catch fire, could it?

The panel comprised Tory Bear, Alex Hilton and my reason for listening, my mate Helen Duffett. Not only did she have to engage in sparky debate for an hour, she also had me stalking her via Twitter. She mentioned the word elephant within the first 5 minutes, so I challenged her to get the first word I associate with elephants, Millennium in as well. And she did it, in the dying moments of the show.

The subects under discussion ranged from spending cuts, to William Hague's surprisingly friendly toned comments about Europe, to the election of the deputy speakers in the Commons.

I rather liked Helen's first major contribution to the debate (after a plug for the Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards) in which she said that that it was people that mattered, not pounds. That sort of commitment to protect the vulnerable is what the Lib Dems bring to this coalition.

Another great moment for her came when an idiot phoned in saying that Child Benefit should be scrapped because it only encouraged people to have children. Helen stepped in and said that she had 4 children, and she certainly didn't do it for the money. Iain Dale very cheekily asked her why she'd had 4 children, like it was any of his or anybody else's business and she replied, quick as a flash, "to pay your pension, Iain." I relayed this exchange via Twitter, Iain Dale saw it and read it out on air.

He read out another tweet of mine on air a bit later, too, when discussing the Greencoat Boy. Now, I think that what happened to LGBT Labour, when they were effectively refused service on Saturday night, was absolutely appalling. The company who owns the pub does seem to have been falling over itself since then to make it up to them, to their credit, but it should never, ever have happened. On this issue, I am completely on LGBT Labour's side. However, I am still pretty darned livid at the way in which Labour tweeters through buckets of bile at David Laws last week when understanding would have been more appropriate. If it had been a Labour minister who had had the same circumstances, I would have backed him or her up. So, I tweeted that I wondered whether the LGBT Labour people would have more sympathy for David Laws having suffered such homophobia themselves. Iain put that to the chair of LGBT Labour, with the addition that I was making a political point - but certainly no more point scoring than Labour have been engaging in on this issue. I wasn't impressed with his answer, which said so little that I can't actually remember what it was.

All in all, this show was a good way to spend a Monday evening. I reckon Iain should get his own regular radio slot and it's always lovely to hear Helen. Whenever she's on the radio she always comes out with something pertinent in a memorable and original way.

I've been on the radio talking about Danny Alexander!

See that Twitter, it gets you into all sorts of trouble.

I noticed just at the end of the F1 Forum on the Red Button that Iain Dale was on LBC talking about David Laws. I can listen to that through the infernal wickedness of Sky Plus so I turned over. He said that he wanted to talk about whether the appointment of Danny Alexander would get the confidence of business.

I decided to phone in and put the points that I'd made in my posting earlier today, namely that although nobody could have anticipated need to replace David Laws, but Danny was obvious choice because:

a) he's a key ally of Nick Clegg
b) he's impressed key Tories during the coalition negotiations
c) he was pivotal in drawing up the final coalition agreement
d) he has experience of managing change within the Lib Dems
e) he drew up manifesto so has experience across all policy areas.

Iain then asked me what personal qualities I thought Danny had. I couldn't just say "he's really nice" so I went with excellent communication skills, ability to listen as well as talk and the ability to ensure that the Government stayed on course to cut the deficit while keeping people together and focused. What I should have added is his decisiveness and analytical skills which I have seen in action when he reviewed the workings of the Scottish Party a few years ago. He was thorough in his gathering of evidence and clear in his recommendations which were pretty much spot on.

I've had some good feedback on Twitter about how I did, which is encouraging. I was quite nervous and possibly spoke too fast - but Iain did say that it was a good call, which he didn't say to Tom Harris later, so maybe I should take heart from that:-).

Some things are more important than Iain Dale and his lists

As I said yesterday, I'm really happy to have risen 23 places in the Total Politics Blog Poll and am so grateful to everyone who voted for me.

However, that result is not the most exciting thing that has happened to me in the last 48 hours.

There are indeed much more important things than Mr Dale, or his lists, not that you'd think it from a brief look at the blogosphere.

Imagine my excitement, while recovering from the exhilaration of seeing the Brawn boys (and it was Rubens who got top slot, yay!) reclaim their rightful place at the top of the leaderboard in the first free practice session of the European Grand Prix, at getting a Follow Friday on Twitter from this lot!

Look at this:



(The provision of this image is possible only after Stephen responded to my plaintive cries for help on Twitter this morning. I almost had to send him a DM asking him where Paint was, but thankfully I found it on my desktop:-))

For those of you not familiar with the custom, it's tradition on Fridays in the Twitterverse to recommend people whose tweets you enjoy reading. I had a feeling that a Twitter friend of mine with contacts "on the inside" might have had something to do with it, but they are denying all knowledge.

Anyway, whatever I did to deserve it, it did cheer me up incredibly. So thanks.

And as if that wasn't enough, Stephen phoned at the back of five to ask if he could come to visit. A few minutes later, he appeared with this



and these which I thought were going to be disgusting, cos I hate haggis, but if you read the ingredients, there isn't any in them. They are, in fact absolutely delicious.

and this



He stayed for food and wine and as usual he royally entertained my daughter. Anna adores him because they seem to be completely on the same quirky wavelength. A few months ago, he came over and I went to bed cos I was feeling so ill. When I reappeared 3 hours later, they had invented a Kingdom, drawn out a map and made up its laws. Not bad for an afternoon's work. Last night, I again got quite tired so I was lying on the couch listening to them act out Build A Bear's Got Talent (with Stephen doing the voices for all 3 judges), and then Stephen telling this shaggy dog story that seemed to go on for ever. At one point I had to intervene, hissing that this "better have a happy ending" when a bunny was fatally injured. However, Anna, who adores animals and hates the thought of anything bad ever happening to them, was laughing all the way to the really bad punchline.

So, thank you, Sugar Daddy, for a lovely evening. Remarkably, there's still a little bit of chocolate left, so I'll savour that during free practice this morning.

Lib Dem Success in Top 50 Scottish Blog Poll

Iain Dale is a great big tease. There. I've said it. Last night he posted a tweet saying that the Total Politics blog results would be up "soon, morning". So those of us who were on Twitter, while we pretended that we didn't actually care, went into a bit of a spin wondering whether the list would go up last night or this morning.

What he actually meant was both. At around 9pm last night, the list appeared without any fanfare on the Total Politics site. For a bunch of people who didn't care, the congratulations were very soon flying around Twitterverse.

I was completely amazed and stunned to get to number 7 from 30 last year, so I'm really grateful to everybody who voted for me. It's a rise of 23 places from last year and it appears that I'm either the top or second woman, depending on the gender of the rapidly rising Libertarian blog, Underdogs Bite Upwards. One of the depressing features of the list is that out of 50, there are only 6 women that I can see - correct me if I'm wrong, please, but it's not brilliant. I know that I would have been trounced by Subrosa if she hadn't taken herself out of the running. And if I have anything to do with it, the Scottish Blogosphere's most talented guest poster, Wendy Fraser, will have a blog of her very own to enter next year.

Congratulations must go to Tom Harris, who, unsurprisingly, comes in at number one. His blog is my guilty pleasure. Anyone who can ignite such strong emotions through the written word, even if they are often shock, anger and horror must have something going for them. He also never ever misses the chance to take the piss out of the Lib Dems. In fact, his fellow Labour MP Eric Joyce will probably not be invited back after his serious breach of protocol in this guest post earlier this week - he actually wrote the words Lib Dem without any sort of snidey comment attached to them. Despite all of that, he can also be very funny, self deprecating, down to earth, and entertaining and I do find myself reading and enjoying what he writes much more often than I'd ever admit.

It was also great to see a huge rise of 22 places for Marathon Man Malc who, by the way, you can sponsor here and to see Yousuf's excellent blog acknowledged. Nationalism and its nemesis in the form of Jeff and Scottish Unionist are up there too, along with the ever fabulous Doctorvee,whose transition to top flight journalism can't be far away and the always relevant and fascinating Will.

The Lib Dems also see remarkable success with Stephen, Andrew, Katy , Bernard, Iain, Fraser and Willie Rennie MP giving us a significant rise in our representation on the list. We are the second Party to the SNP with some very promising young bloggers, ably mentored by Blogfather Stephen ready to challenge for next year.

I'm looking forward to getting to know some of the new additions to the list in the months to come. Thank you so much again to everyone who voted for me. I really do appreciate it and I hope that I continue to do whatever it is that you like. If I don't, tell me!

Peter Mandelson advising Bernie Ecclestone?

You're a Prime Minister in trouble trying to dodge the slings and arrows of outrageous Blairites. Your cabinet is disappearing faster than rats off a sinking ship. If this goes on much longer, you will have to appoint the Downing Street gardener as DEFRA secretary. What do you do? You sell your soul to the one person whose dark arts can smooth the troubled waters for the price of a fancy title and an enhanced job as Minister for Everything (or words to that effect). Even if you have to put up with the alleged fearsome strop, it's worth it to have your reputation saved.

You would think that getting the status and power to really kick ass within the Government would be enough of a challenge for the Guacamole One, but no, in his spare time, according to the Jewish Chronicle and Iain Dale, he's been helping Bernie Ecclestone get his foot out of his mouth after his faux pas at the weekend where he suggested that Hitler and Saddam were nothing if not efficient.

If that is the case, then Mandelson must be a bit of a glutton for punishment - you would think he had enough on his plate trying to sort the Government out and keep the mercurial PM on track without seeking out other lost causes to back.

I'm not so sure, though. The substance of Bernie's apology is not that great. He seems to think that democracy can't deliver strong change because people are unwilling to say what they really think. My interpretation of his apology is that he gets why his words were unacceptable to the general public, but I'm not convinced that he actually sees why they were wrong.

His comments to the Jewish Chronicle about having close Jewish friends smacks of the "I'm not racist but......." type thing.

My hunch is that Mandelson and Ecclestone might well have spoken privately, and Mandelson might have said words to the effect of "you prat, you're going to have to grovel to get out of this" but I suspect if Mandelson had been involved in the wording of the apology it would have ended after the words I'm sorry and not gone into some self justifying rant that did nothing more than re-insert the foot to the mouth. The Prince of Darkness is not so sloppy.

Iain Dale is trying to make out some sort of scandal associating the Labour Party with Ecclestone's comments, but that is I think just the usual mischief making on his part.

LibDig This!

Stephen puts Iain Dale in his place

Almost as exciting as Shumi being on Top Gear was the selection of local businesswoman April Pond as Liberal Democrat candidate for the Norwich North by-election.

It was clear from the start that April would be a fantastic MP given her strong record of campaigning in the area, helping small businesses and to working to save the local hospital, however it's always an added bonus if the opposition is wound up.

Tory blogger Iain Dale had a bit of a go at April on his site within hours of her being selected. I've tried to link to the exact story but for some reason Blogger is playing up so I can't, but you'll find it in the general direction of here.

Dale was swiftly put in his place by the indomitable Stephen who exposed its hypocrisy given the actions of Tory candidates in Scotland.

Dale should be ashamed at himself for using some really nasty sexist language in his piece and owes April a huge apology for effectively calling her a whore.

Nice work, Mr Glenn!

UPDATE 22 June: I commented to the effect of the above, and also pointing out that there's a fair chunk of Norwich North in the soon to be constituency of Broadlands, on Iain Dale's blog last night:

"I can almost get you wanting to make trouble, even if you don't have a case, given that as I understand it the sson to be formed Broadlands constituency and the Norwich North one share some territory.

However, to do so using such misogynistic, sexist terminology is appalling and if you do nothing else, you should withdraw that and apologise to April."

And look at the firestorm that followed from Iain:

"Get over yourself. There's nothing worse in politics than holier than thou, sanctimonious LibDems on the rampage. What else would you call it then?".

The comments, I would suggest, of a man who has seriously screwed up and he knows it.

In the end of the day, this is about Iain Dale calling a female political opponent a whore. Not a term, I suggest, that he would use about a man. I still think he owes April an apology for that. I backed him up when the odious Derek Draper called him racist but he has well overstepped the mark here.

LibDig This!

Draper and McBride the exception rather than the rule

I've now been involved in active politics for over quarter of a century. I've worked with and observed many politicians from all parties whether they be local councillors, backbench parliamentarians or ministers. I've also met activists from all parties who actually get these people elected and try to keep them out of trouble once they're there. And do you know what? I've found that most of the above are decent human beings who want to make people's lives better. There are huge disagreements of philosophy and policy, but most people in my experience are in this game for the right reasons.

Of course I've come across people who don't live up to that ideal in my time, but they are very much in the minority.

That's why it's so depressing to read about the antics of Derek Draper and Damian McBride and their pathetic plan to pollute the blogosphere with innuendo and smear. Their e-mails are full of childish glee at the jape they are planning to pull off. They come across at best as silly boys, at worst as cruel and calculating.

I can't think of one single good thing that the advent of Derek Draper onto the political blogging scene has brought about to be honest. I have no problem having Iain Dale or Guido on my blogroll, because most of the time they write about stuff that either makes you laugh or is worth debating but I wouldn't waste the space for Draper or Labourlist. Guido and Dale engage with fellow bloggers and treat them with respect, most of the time, anyway.

I was way too kind to Draper earlier this year, but the way he behaves, it's like he thinks that people in other parties are actually beneath him. It's almost as though he thinks there's something defective about people who don't agree with his line or his perception of a situaton.

That has always been one of the most annoying things about certain people in the Labour Party, way back to my first experience of them in my student days. Discussion and debate about different ways of doing things was simply not either welcomed or in some cases tolerated. Members of other parties were looked on with a mixture of disdain and pity. If you didn't sign up to the Labour Wimmin's ideas of what feminism was about then you were an apologist for male domination.

Let's not let the Tories entirely off the hook, though. According to Paddy Ashdown's new autobiograpy, serialised in yesterday's Sunday Times, similar dark forces were at work in the Conservative Government prior to the 1992 election.

There are certainly similarities there - a dying Government, running out of steam and ideas, fighting for its political life, facing economic turmoil.

I actually don't think for a minute that Gordon Brown either knew about or was actively involved in this operation. Guido goes on about this Sunday lunch Derek Draper attended at Chequers with McBride. Gordon Brown has made his mistakes both as Chancellor and Prime Minister, but I have enough faith in him as a person that he would have put a stop to this nonsense had he been aware of the extent to which it involved pulling apart people's personal lives.

I don't doubt that there has been some action in Labour circles to try to use blogs to get their point of view out there. Scottish cyberspace has been enlivened, for the better, by entertaining blogs such as A Leaky Chanter whose wicked wit does exactly what it says on the tin - "takes the wind oot of the pipes" of the SNP Government. I don't know if the Chanter has anything official to do with Labour, but it does a good job of deflating the Nats in a humorous way. It may be that if Brown was aware of a Red Rag project, that he thought it was a similar idea.

I hope that now that McBride has gone, and Draper's credibility is basically non existent, that we don't go on and on about this forever. There are many more important thigns which should be dominating the mind of the Government - like making sure people have jobs and homes.


LibDig This!

Iain Dale's Top 20 Blogs on Twitter

That nice Mr Dale, the Tory one, not my tribute one has asked his followers on Twitter to direct message him with their nominations for their favourite political blog.

There's one slight problem, though, that I don't think he anticipated. On Twitter, you can only direct message someone if you are both following each other. Of his 2027followers, he is only following 124. So, unless he starts following a lot more people, his selectorate will be limited to a few of the great and the good and not so many Lib Dems. Although Stephen has a vote - so use it wisely and remember you were hankering after my Thai green curry earlier.....:0).

LibDig This!

Will Iain Dale and Derek Draper please just grow up

I would never in a million years trust a Tory to defend any of our basic liberties, but I don't think Iain Dale is a racist.

Nor would I, to be honest, trust a member of the Labour Party to respect individuality and the right to freedom of expression but I don't think Derek Draper is the spawn of the devil.

The pair of them have been fighting all week about Iain's defence of Carol Thatcher's unfortunate turn of phrase.

Now, I wouldn't have used that terminology, nor do I like it. Others may take a different view. It would be good to debate these issues in a civilised fashion.

Instead we have an unsavoury and unseemly collection of hissy fits beteween Dale and Draper which seems to be polluting the entire internet. It seems to me that Draper is doing his best to stoke the fire and Dale is only too willing to be wound up.

It's gone from blogs to the media to Twitter.

Please can it just stop.

The internet is big enough for both of you. It's not some jungle where one of you has to be the King. Some of us actually like reading both of you when you are not trying to score points off each other. Can you not just draw a line under all of this and move on.

LibDig This!

Congratulations to Iain Dale

Love and congratulations to Iain Dale, author of my tribute blog, and his new wife Catherine. IT's always nice to have some good news to brighten the Winter gloom.

Iain announced on Facebook earlier today that he and Catherine were married in Barbados last Monday.

They kept that one well hidden from the rest of us - as indeed did Bob and I when we got married over 20 years ago.

Let's hope that they have a wonderful life together.
LibDig This!