Labour dirty tricksters are suspected of circulating an anonymous letter purporting to come from a Tory MP

Last June ConHome reproduced this anonymous letter being circulated among Conservative MPs, purporting to come from a colleague complaining about the power of Team Cameron.

Its authenticity was in doubt, and another similar unsigned letter sent to Conservative MPs this morning - on House of Commons notepaper - makes me all the more convinced that a Labour dirty tricks operation is at work, with the latest letter containing class warrior attacks which simply don't ring true as coming from the pen of a Conservative.

A first letter circulated this morning states:

"Dear Colleague,

Things cannot go on like this.  The attached memo explains why.

You may wish to join us by writing to Sir Michael Spicer, as Chairman of the 1922, to request an immediate poll."

 There then follows an unsigned memo, headed "Letter to Colleagues", which begins:

"We wrote to you all last year.  Since then our group has met a few times.  Things have got worse, and are now critical."

It goes on to make the same complaints as the letter last year about Team Cameron:

Disgraced Labour MPs seek to use 1689 Bill of Rights to avoid prosecution over expense claims

This is according to the Telegraph:

"MPs who are being investigated for expenses fraud are trying to argue a case that they are protected by the 300-year-old Bill of Rights that gives MPs Parliamentary privilege. Lawyers for the MPs are looking at whether the 1689 act could protect them from prosecution.

"If the Commons rule book, which has for years governed the expenses claims of MPs, is found to be covered by privilege then it could severely hamper attempts by prosecutors to bring MPs to court. MPs rely on privilege to remain immune from prosecution when they raise contentious matters in the Commons.

"Elliot Morley, the former Labour minister, and David Chaytor, a Labour backbencher, are being investigated by Scotland Yard for claiming expenses for mortgages that no longer existed. Jim Devine, another Labour backbencher, is also being investigated by detectives. He is alleged to have claimed £2,157 for rewiring his taxpayer-funded London flat using a receipt bearing an invalid VAT number and incorrect details of a firm.

"The three MPs are using the Labour Party’s lawyers, Steel & Shamash, although they are footing the bill themselves. The firm has confirmed that it has instructed QCs to look at whether Mr Morley, Mr Chaytor and Mr Devine are protected by Parliamentary privilege."

The trio have already been forced to announce their retirements from the Commons at the general election, but it would surely be a travesty of justice if they were able to hide behind the Bill of Rights to escape prosecution in this way.

The paper also reports that of the 400 MPs been asked to pay back money by Sir Thomas Legg, about a quarter are currently appealing against the demand. 

Jonathan Isaby

The return of Alastair Campbell shows Brown embracing the man who has overeen numerous political smears

When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, one of the many early promises he made was to end the culture of spin and partisanship in Downing Street. He told the Commons not long after he became Prime Minister that:

"All the people of this country have a shared interest in building trust in our democracy, and it is my hope that, by working together for change in a spirit that takes us beyond parties and beyond partisanship, we can agree a new British constitutional settlement that entrusts more power to Parliament and the British people."

And Harriet Harman had emphasised the point on Newsnight several weeks earlier when she explained that was looking forward to a Gordon Brown regime which would have "no spin, no briefing, no secrets, and respect for Parliament".

So the return in recent weeks of Alastair Campbell to the political fray to advise Gordon Brown - as reported by the FT's Jim Pickard and The Independent's Andy McSmith for example - is a demonstration that such promises have been well and truly ditched.

And whilst Campbell has been credited with coming up with the odd witty one-liner for the Prime Minister of late and taken his fight against the Conservatives to the blogosphere, it is perhaps at this juncture worth remembering what he got up to when he was at Downing Street working for Tony Blair.

As Peter Oborne recalled earlier this year, Campbell - along with Mandelson - "invented the modern art of the political smear" and was behind the kind of "dripping of poison" about those challenging his master for which Damian McBride was forced to sacrifice his job earlier this year.

Here are just a few of the people who felt the wrong end of the attack operation overseen by Campbell, who are worth keeping in mind when considering that Gordon Brown is now re-engaging him for his political advice:

• David Kelly, the government scientist who later committed suicide;
• Mo Mowlam and Clare Short, whose mental states were reportedly questioned;
• Pam Warren, the Paddington rail crash survivor whose political affiliations were sought after she criticised the Government;
• Rose Addis, the 94-year old hospital patient who endured false accusations of racism after her case became embroiled in political controversy.

Jonathan Isaby

Labour Chief Whip chooses punked up Nick 'Ziggy' Clegg for his Christmas card

The FT's Jim Pickard got there first and now The Sun reports:

"Labour Chief Whip Nick Brown was accused of a festive smear last night over a snap of Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg in fancy dress on his Christmas card. The photo shows Mr Clegg aged 22 dressed as Ziggy Stardust - complete with a spiky red wig and face paint. Underneath, the card mockingly says: "I want to be Prime Minister."

But Mr Clegg said: "Both myself and Nick Brown have good reason to be embarrassed. I posed for pictures in ridiculous fancy dress 20 years ago - and he is an MP for the Labour Party."

Brown's class war hypocrisy

"By using "Eton" as a term of abuse, Mr Brown has abandoned any pretence of forging national unity. So desperate is he to stay in office, the Prime Minister thinks it's smart to demonise Opposition leaders who were privately educated. Were he not such a miserable hypocrite, he would follow up by dumping from the Cabinet Mr Darling (Loretto), Jack Straw (Brentwood), Ed Balls (Nottingham High), Shaun Woodward (Bristol Grammar), Harriet Harman (St Paul's) and Tessa Jowell (St Margaret's), all of whom went to fee-paying schools. Or is there something peculiarly offensive to Mr Brown about Eton?" - Jeff Randall in The Telegraph

"I ain't Eton"

After yesterday's terrible front pages for Brown, The Economist has passed its verdict on Brown's attempt at class war:

"Britain has much experience of class politics, and none of it has been good. Class politics makes for bad economics: the state swells, public money gets wasted and entrepreneurs grow nervous. And it makes for a sad country, too: divisions deepen, suspicion flourishes and the social contract frays. When the time comes to judge the parties’ electoral strategies, voters should remember that."

George Osborne's words from Wednesday are also relevant to Labour's increasingly fast lurch to the left:

"The message to aspiring families from these tax changes is pretty clear... 

-     If you want to get on in life;
-     If you want to own your own home;
-     If you want to save for a pension;
-     or leave something to your children;

...then the Labour Party is not for you anymore.

All that work they did to drag their Party onto the centre ground of British politics, all the efforts they made to persuade the country that they were for enterprise and aspiration.

All that is gone."

Harriet Harman grotesquely distorts Tory support for marriage as "rewarding philanderers"

Today's Sunday Times reveals that Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman's latest attack on the Conservatives will be to grotesquely distort the party's backing of marriage as rewarding "philanderers on their second or third marriages with tax breaks, while stigmatising former wives left to bring up the children."

The piece states:

In an early salvo in the run-up to the general election, the deputy Labour leader will argue that the Tories, who plan to reward married couples with tax breaks, will make single people and divorced women feel as though there is something wrong with them. She will also accuse Cameron of implying that people whose personal relationships fail are responsible for the breakdown of society and for wrecking children’s lives.

Harman will use a wide-ranging speech on family policy to say Cameron is stigmatising people who are not married, including single women, while rewarding men who leave wives and marry again. “[The policy] would give tax relief to the man on his third marriage but deny it to his first and second wives bringing up his children,” she will say.

She will be giving the speech later this week to the IPPR.

Jonathan Isaby

Brown urged to apologise for saying Spain is member of G20

At PMQs earlier, Mr Cameron asked the Prime Minister to admit that Britain was the last nation in the G20 to still be in recession. Mr Brown replied that Spain was in the G20 and was also in recession. Unfortunately for Mr Brown, Spain isn't in the G20.

The Shadow Chief Secretary of the Treasury Philip Hammond has now written to the Prime Minister urging him to apologise:

“Today when faced with a simple and direct question, you chose to mislead the House of Commons by stating that Spain is in the G20. This is simply not true.  While Spain has attended recent G20 meetings, it is not a member of the Group.  Indeed, you explicitly admitted in a press conference last year that: ‘Spain is not a member of the G20’ (16 October 2008). On Monday, David Cameron took the opportunity on the floor of the House to correct a factual inaccuracy from the previous Question Time.  I trust that you too will take the earliest opportunity on the floor of the House to apologise and amend the record.  I would also be grateful if you could confirm that, contrary to your assertions today, the United Kingdom will be the last country in the G20 to exit recession.” 

5.30pm: Guido's video comment on Brown's latest porky pie:

Welcome to LeftWatch

Although LeftWatch will look at the SNP, Greens, Liberal Democrats and other left-leaning movements we are most interested in the Labour Party.

I suggest the following trends within Labour should be our focus...

This is evident in, for example, the retirement of nearly all the leading Blairite MPs, Harriet Harman's equality agenda and Gordon Brown's embrace of the impractical, job-destroying Tobin tax.

Labour's reckless spending is their last throw of the dice.  The spending buys them some extra votes, they hope, but certainly adds to the awful inheritance for the Conservatives if it doesn't.  Peter Oborne has written a great article on this phenomenon.

Not unrelated to the previous category but please help us compile examples of wasteful Labour.  Grant Shapps MP exposed Labour's £30,000 champagne bill this morning.  The bubbly was, of course, all bought at your expense.  And there there are the big examples of massive waste.

I recently wrote about the increasing nastiness of Labour's campaigning.  The McBride emails.  The smearing of Michael Kaminski by David Miliband.  Harriet Harman's attempts to bracket the Tories and the BNP.  ConHome regular Mark Fulford is working on a list of Labour's biggest lies.

There is also the huge issue of the appointees that Labour will leave behind in the quangocracy and appointment-land more generally.  Dennis Sewell has written a brilliant cover piece for The Spectator on this subject.  Even if Labour lose the next election, much of the British state will still be stuffed with left-leaning appointees, like Katherine Rake.

Are these the best categories?

This site is an experiment. Jonathan Isaby and I don't have the time to run another blog so this will only work if you feed us content.

Email me if you can help.