David Cameron has taken the sensible line and apologised for the tennis lawn greed of his taxpayer funded toffs.
Sadly, the Tory blogs are not on message, and are concentrating on explaining why it is OK for Tory MPs to do precisely the same things that it is wicked for Labour MPs to do. Particularly risible is their rallying around the obnoxious Michael Gove.
Gove is important to them because he is what passes for an intellectual in the modern Tory Party. He has written books. They are very slim books indeed, despite a large and well-spaced font, but nonetheless they are books. Gove is the Tories’ answer to the BNP, the respectable face of Islamophobia. His books are extended essays in well-turned prejudice.
Gove claims an expertise in Islamic radicalism despite the fact he does not know any Islamic radicals. He writes of conditions inside communities in Britain he has never met in towns he has never visited. He has never sat in a radical Madrassa in Pakistan or on a hillside in Afghanistan, but tells us what he has been told goes on there. He is a thin-faced recycler of the bigotry of others, a dupe for any apostate looking for new position, an engine to make racism respectable. Gove is a smooth-faced fascist.
Gove has “flipped” his second home. He has changed the designation of his second home between London and his constituency, and thus charged the taxpayer to furnish both. The Telegraph has exposed this.
The Tory blogs are outraged at the exposure of their idol. Iain Dale squeaks:
Fraser Nelson has the full story on Michael Gove. He is totally in the clear and if the Telegraph are suggesting otherwise then they had better have very good lawyers.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6214838&postID=1503082829110971606
I am suggesting otherwise, Iain and Michael. I don’t have a lawyer. I look forward to hearing from yours.
Tory bloggers would have us believe that Gove was “different” to the New Labour sleazebags because he was moving for genuine family reasons. Frazer Nelson has written this piece in the Spectator to explain that Gove told him the genuine reasons for his move, but unfortunately it got cut out of his piece at the time:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3604396/gove-the-full-story.thtml
This is the exculpation on which Tory apologists are seizing to say Gove was in the clear. We have this from Dizzy Speaks:
“it may be difficult to prove that a fiddle was the intent of the switch. Especially if, like Gove, you’re on the record talking about it yonks ago because you really did move”.
Well, except he’s not on the record. It wasn’t published. We have the word of crazed ultra neo-con, and favourite Murdoch commentator, Frazer Nelson. I would take the word of Ronnie Biggs before I took the word of Frazer Nelson. On anything.
But let us look at this. Gove had an existing London residence as second home and claimed to have it furnished by the taxpayer. His family was in the constituency home in Surrey Heath. He then moved his family from Surrey Heath to his London home, and then claimed for furnishing his Surrey Heath home as his family home.
WHY?
If the family furniture came from Surrey Heath to London, why could the taxpayer purchased London furniture not just go in the other direction?
AND
If the move really was for family reasons, why should the taxpayer pick up the tab for family reasons?
AND
The news that the commute from Surrey Heath to London is too difficult, will come as news to over 10,000 of his constituents who do it every day, a great many of whom have jobs more stressed and less flexible than Gove.
It will also come as a shock to the million people working in London whose daily commute is harder than that.
I am glad that the Tory scandals have also been revealed by the Telegraph. But my main hope is that eyes on the internet will have been opened. Tory blogs have been enjoying great popularity as their party is opposing a rubbish government.
What the Gove affair demonstrates beyond doubt is that, should the Tories get in power, those trendy Tory blogs will be even more lickspittle yes-men, purveyors of excuses for the inexcusable, servile followers of uncaring leaders, than NuLab blogs are now.
Quite right – he’s not the worst example, from what I’ve seen so far Labour still top the troughing charts, but he’s still taking the piss, parliament must be dissolved.
At the next general election we should all vote for whichever independent candidate has the best chance of kicking out the mainstream parties. We might end up with a few unsavoury MPs (haven’t we anyway) but it will force the political revolution we need.
Time we voted for independants, and let the Labour, Cons, parties beg at some point in the furture, when they can be shown to be trusted.
Hello Craig,
I agree with you and the above posters. ALL of the main British political parties are corrupt beyond measure and need to be swept out of the stable!
Blair, Brown and their cronies have ruined Britain, turning it into a police state; finishing what Thatcher began.
Where is this government’s legitimacy if Brown is an UNelected prime minister?
I’d be interested to know what you think of this article here: http://uk.yahoo.com/blog/talking_politics/article/20687/
about Britain needing a constitution. The picture of the US flag next to it is a dead giveaway, imo.
I am a Tory blogger. I happen to believe that all MP’s are equally troughing and that at the very least, every single one of them should be made to return the money that they shouldn’t in all conscience have claimed in the first place.
If the Tories get into power, I shall be watching more closely than ever that they stick by their promises. We have fought this government tooth and nail over it’s oppressive policies. The last thing we want are a Stasi Tory Party!
Craig,
Indeed. As I have pointed out over on Guido Fawkes, etc, these people seem to believe the Tories are the answer. Likewise, these blogs were not even on the radar a year ago, now they are busily claiming, now the government is in largely self-inflicted disarray, that it was their work that is reponsible. Particularly risible is this “mad Gordon” meme that GF and his acolytes are convinced is gaining traction. These people are at best deluded, at worst mendacious, and when they see the government in difficulties at the same time as they sit there tapping their keyboard, they are somehow convinced there is a correlation.
As the party in power, sure, the government will take the bulk of the flak, but these Tory bloggers who are somehow proposing their lot as knights in shining armour to rescue us from sleaze. Oh dear. We had 19 years of it, of dodgy arms deals, children outside of wedlock, brown envelopes, the lot.
These Tories would be better arguing for their famed prudence with the public finances to be extended forthwith to this mess, with swingeing cuts in this ‘unacceptable waste of public money’ and so on.
The ideal solution would be a randomly selected, regularly rotated committee of citizens, giving their time voluntarily, who would pick the furniture from The Kays Catalogue, choose the Hi-Fi systems from Argos, and deliver the food from Iceland to these high-on-the-hog jerks.
You forgot to pick up on the dinner-table chat about the removal of Artex ceilings constituing ‘an aesthetic issue’ but being recalibrated as ‘dealing with dilapidation’. Oh, yes, what could be more dilapidated than a remnant of proletarian design in your swish townhouse.
Actually, Guido has done a 180 on this from the tone adopted BEFORE the leaks and decided to ditch the Tories to the Rescue refrain for now. There’s simply too much muck to go around.
Bad taste artex – 20,000 of taxpayer money to right an aesthetic wrong.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1179990/MPs-EXPENSES-Kitty-Ussher-claimed-20-000-bad-taste-Artex-ceilings.html
“This is the exculpation on which Tory apologists are seizing to say Dale was in the clear.”
Dale too, eh?
Gove, you meant, I suppose?
Do please eschew the spurious term ‘Islamophobia’. Those of us who make justified – though perhaps sometimes mistaken – criticisms of Islam as a religion and of British Muslims’ attitudes and politics aren’t scared of either, even though this lily-livered government is.
Gove is MI5 for sure.
Gove is MI5 for sure.
It just goes to show you can’t be too careful.
I have a theory that genuinely idealistic people rarely go into politics. They’re more likely to be found working away quietly somewhere, without publicity, fame, power, or money.
If they occasionally do stand for election, and win, one of two things happens:
They get sucked into the system, start making deals, ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’, hoping (initially) that the end justifies the means.
OR, they leave.
Grinning @ Shelley Gittins …
It’s probably a nihilist point but with the current parliament, I’m coming to the view Bron Waugh expressed that anyone wishing to go into politics and to control what people do is by definition unfit to do so.
Tories defending benefit fraud. Wonderful.
Clearly it isn’t the crime you commit, it’s who you are and who you know that matters.
Here’s a topical quote from Michael Gove, penned in 2002 –
“For the Conservatives to return to power, the party must be seen to have learnt from its mistakes, rejected the arrogance, cynicism and pocketlining of the Major era …”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/michael_gove/article800359.ece
I’d wager that he won’t be confronted with these remarks when he next appears in the media.
It’s the rich and the destitute that can afford to take liberties; the poor are only left with their integrity, and they guard this jealously.
I can still clearly remember Mr. Gove getting his backside kicked by the audience on the BBC’s Question time whilst he was trying hard to defend the Iraqi invasion; every word that came out of his mouth was ridiculed by the crowd. This episode had such an impact that every time I hear or see him on the media my mind takes me back to this event. I must admit that the Question time show can be hard to stomach normally with its planted questions and hand picked and selected audience but this was a gem.
Loving the out of context quote selection. What I actually wrote was:
“The whole “flipping” thing on an MPs main/second residence looks to be one that, unless someone did it with odd and convenient economic circumstances, for example Margaret Moran, then it may be difficult to prove that a fiddle was the intent of the switch. Especially if, like Gove, you’re on the record talking about it yonks ago because you really did move.
Note: Flipping or non-flipping aside, it doesn’t excuse splashing out excessive amounts to do your place up of course.”
That last note is important and can see why you would choose to leave it out Craig. After all, it sits with exactly the opinion you’ve given about spending on furniture etc and kind of makes you panty-wetting arm flailing argument piss poor.
Kind regards
Phil
I should add that what is in fact breathtaking is how you managed to lift half a sentence out of its full context in order to fit an argument which, had you lift the note in, I myself made anyway.
That’s pretty speshul in a spazzy sort of retard way.
hugs and kisses
x
Really, really unfair on Frazer Nelson, Craig. He is a principled man. His politics differ from yours, obviously but you’re being strident and unfair. If Frazer says Goce told him the reason, he did.
Always suspicious when a media frenzy occurs around what is essentially petty fraud involving thousands rather than the orchestrated fraud involving trillions of public money which is going on behind the scenes.
Political scandals always happen for a reason, and in light of the fact that we have such a normally compliant media who rarely ask any pertinent questions, I would wonder why this is occurring now? After all this has been going on forever.
For those still unaware, our elected politicians are not the real policy makers and decision makers and are really just frontmen (or women).
It is banking, oil, ‘defence’ and other corporate interests which call the shots in this country, the same as the US and elsewhere.
“the obnoxious Michael Gove.
Gove is important to them because he is what passes for an intellectual in the modern Tory Party.”
Ha ha ha 🙂
It’s even worth coming here just for the insults 🙂
I refer you to Dizzy, who does at least have a valid argument against your rather putrid attempt.
Craig, you’re clearly blinded by your hatred of what Gove stands for.
You should have noticed that many of the most prominent Tory bloggers have been calling for the heads of the worst Tory offenders – in contrast to Labour bloggers’ attitude to Labour offenders.
If Gove is an “intellectual” then i’m Albert Einstein…
He’s just another bought and paid for spook stringer…
Vile,pompous,self-righteous and now,it seems,another fiddler.
“but unfortunately it got cut out of his piece at the time:” – Another case of “Cock-up, not conspiracy.” – obviously.
Quite remarkable really how nothing, ever, involving the powers that be, involves a conspiracy either to defraud or murder.
Gove is emblematic of just how rotten Britain is. I get the feeling he was the inspiration for “Mommy…Bitty” sketches
A Real socialist – for what it’s worth, he was a University Professor, oil amongst water kind of guy :), saw the writing on the wall. He told me the leadership of NeoLabour was rubbish and not socialist at all, saying the only reason they were ‘popular’, was because the Tories were so bad. Deja vu, c/o “Cock-ups, not conspiracy” – of course.
The country will once again vote for the opposition is just the opposite cheek of the same arse.
“Rot Britannia
Britannia rots away…,”
You really have made a fool of yourself. Have you actually read what I have written. That I can’t defend Alan Duncan’s gardening expenses. And that I have called for James Gray to have the whip withdrawn.
Don’t let the truth get in the way of another attempt to have a go at me, eh?!
Loving my typos, still the post at my site is a bit better.
Craig, you have written complete rubbish, of course, but I enjoyed and welcome your blog (it is the first time that I have read it) because it is the only left-leaning blog that I have found that has a bit of spleen in it. Other socialist blogs are pure vanilla – very worthy.