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"Two Labour MPs took part in a champagne drinking contest on an official Commons junket to Paris, which led to one of them being violently ill. Left-winger Bill Etherington drank so much that a doctor was called. It was feared the MP might die after he defeated fellow Labour MP Geraldine Smith in the expenses-fuelled […]
Gordon Brown got into trouble for using the BNP's 'British Jobs For British Workers' slogan. The Sun reveals that the BNP was also first in launching an 'Operation Fightback';
The Labour MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, is her party's so-called "Twitter Tsar" and is the subject of a web-based campaign to unseat her, KerryOut, organised by Tory Bear and others. She is facing a strong challenge in the seat from Conservative candidate Adeela Shafi, and she now appears to be reinforcing her electoral […]
Matthew Parris in today's Times: "You know that funny thing the Prime Minister does with jaw and tongue while talking: dropping the jaw between words, as though tongue were being plunged into nether gums? I’d never observed the habit in any other human being until doing my homework for this week’s Great Lives programme on […]
A classic Boris soundbite from an interview for the Wall Street Journal. PS We hope you didn’t miss Boris’ New Year message.
Our final ‘picks’ of the year. Over the last 48 hours we have picked our Backbenchers, Frontbenchers, Moments and Speeches of 2008 and Ones to Watch in 2009. Jonathan Isaby’s pick: I am making my award not for one particular gaffe, but rather am presenting it to 2008’s gaffemaker-in-chief, Nick Clegg, who has managed to […]
We thought you might like these images of Edward Leigh MP at the Christmas Day swim at The Serpentine. Respect!
There was much excitement over the summer about the reading list which Conservative MP Keith Simpson circulated from which he hoped colleagues would select their holiday reading. So you may be interested to see the below, his Christmas reading list for Conservative MPs. He emphasises that it is merely a "list of suggestions and there […]
Marking a year of Kevin Rudd our sister party in Australia have launched an online RuddShop and it has won some positive coverage. The memorabilia that the shop promotes pokes fun at the Australian Labour PM’s various faults and weaknesses. If we had an online ‘Brown Shop’ what would it sell?
Over at Atlantic.com Dana Milbank has compiled "A Berlitz guide to Washington English". Here are a few of her ‘translations’… I have great respect for the senior senator. I am about to drill my elderly colleague a new one. We have full confidence in his integrity.We will cut him loose by nightfall. I don’t pay […]
"Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." With that quotation from George Orwell, the Centre for Policy Studies introduces its 2008 guide to ‘Newspeak’ and "the language of bureaucracy [that] has long provided a convenient disguise for government action, or inaction." Here are a few of the terms from […]
Earlier this week Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell spoke to a Tory gathering and suggested that there might be one or more parallels between Gordon Brown and Mr Bean… "I have been doing some research on Mr Bean. And there are rather more parallels than you night expect. First of all, his only friend is […]
Thanks to Chris Rowland (top), Chad Noble (middle) and Alan Collins (bottom) for the following three:
After his valiant efforts on Friday’s jokes post, reader John Leonard has penned a poetic tribute to Brown’s Cabinet: A dithering big ‘feartie’ called Brown, Had a face that was always a frown, His hands were all shaky, His vision was flaky, In short, a political clown. The Home Sec’s name was Smiff, She had […]